Vielleicht ist heute grad der schönste Tag im Leben

Exchange students.

They are a lot in Switzerland.

In this little country of trains everywhere, and amazing transportation, it is easy to hang out with them. Plus, mostly all the exchange students have GA's, which the our separate rotary clubs sponser us with. They usually cost up to 2,000 franks. With a GA, you can travel all around Switzerland, boats, trains, busses.. for free. In my school, we have 7 or 8 exchange students. I find it hard to separate myself from them. Before I came here, I was strict with myself, because I didnt want to spend too much time with them (whenever you are with them, you speak english). But, it is really hard. I have 1 more exchange student from Mexico in my class. We usually try to speak German to eachother though. So to end this, it is very easy to hang out with them, the swiss can be distant and have a lot on their plates with their life and things going on. Ugggggghhhhhh random random post. yay.

I found a wonderful song that relates to me and my lifestyle of thinking (does that makes sense?) and its in German... weeeeeee

Es zählt nur Jetzt es zählt nur Hier es zählt nur was hier grad passiert,
ich lass mich gehen, mich inspirieren,
so als gäbe es keinen Morgen ich genieß es einfach hier,
es ist alles möglich ich kann nix verliern,
vielleicht ist heute grad der schönste Tag im Leben
und das will ich nicht verpassen,
vielleicht ist jetzt gerad der Augenblick und auch
wenn ich kein Zeichen krieg, brauch ich nicht mehr warten,

the only thing that counts is now and here, the only thing that counts is what's happening here right now
i let myself go, let inspire me,
as if there's no tomorrow, i just enjoy now and here,
everything is possible, i can't lose anything,
maybe exactly today is the best day of my life
and i dont wanna miss that
maybe exactly this is the moment and even
if i don't get a sign, i don't have to wait anymore,

It doesn't translate well. But. Its happy.

Last weekend, I went to Zermatt, yes, with all the 90 Rotary exchange students in Switzerland. It was magnificent. We got to explore the town of Zermatt, where they speak a really funky swiss german dialect that no one understands! hardly any swiss people can either. From little Mellingen to Zermatt, it was possibly 4 hour train ride. We got there, unloaded our stuff, found our roomates (alphabeltical order) and adjusted in our room. Afterwards, we set off to the town and played a coolio rotex game to intergrate with the local swiss Zermatt peeps. We had to go to a random restuarant, have them make us an spiegeleier, which is basically an egg sunny side up. We had to find a wedding photo, get 10 words in the Zermatt dialect, and find out the most expensive hotels in Zermatt, and the cheapest. It was quite an adventure. We did fortunately find a spiegeleier!! Here is a photo of my group and I holding it..(below text). In the same night, we went to a museum, ate cheese fondue (always), drank wine with rotary, danced at a club with all the exchange students,

me. maria. doug. ted. max. we got the egg. look!!

So... moving on to sad news. My dear best friend Magi, who comes from Seattle (she was once an exchange student here, 2 years back, and was an au pair), left for home on Thanksgiving day! I will truly miss that exquisite human bean. Any of you Oly people that read this , she will come visit you. If you are good enough to keep up with my blog, you deserve to meet Magi. I cannot go off how SUPER (swiss word, people say that all the time here) she is... I love you chap! Had to add some alice slang in there.

magi takes me exploring. we are best at this. wanderwegs adventures in switzerland, bike riding in seattle. cant wait to see you again. Oly people-- YOU must meet this girl.

Familie.

a cute note welcoming me to the family.

So, I changed families. I might be inlove with them. I came home yesterday from a long day of school, and my dad told me he bought me some thai food. They simply know how to make me feel good. I wake up, and I can eat whatever I want, bring whatever I want to school, and come home and everyone asks me how my day was. I know everything is good and swell in the beginning, but I feel like this is genuine. This will surely last. They help me with my German, only speak German to me, and I love just hanging out with them. If you are reading this you might guess that things were quite opposite beforehand. But, lets just say, I learnt a lot. So much. Wow, and I have been here for 3 months. I can't even believe it.

Today in school, is prosibily my schleticisty (worst haha... schellt is bad in german) of the week. This time last week I accidenttly fell asleep in Physics. It is my first period, and it lasts for 2 hours. Yes, I know, not the good exchange student thing to do, but it was one of those days. Today is good, quite lovely indeed. The sun is a shinin and I feel fineeeeeeeeeeee.

One day on the bus ride home, I sat by my friend who goes to choir with me on Mondays. I let him listen to my ipod and we sang the beatles. He has dred locks. all the swiss people looked specitically at us.. because we were singing and dancing. dont you love awkward bus rides. swiss people make it even more awkward.

this is a really, off the topic post.

My familie even has a lil hamster. I am trying to make it like me. Each time I walk past it, i stick my finger in its cage so it can sniff it and then i walk away. I dont want to scare it too bad..

Ok. off to choir . Last period of the day. wweeeeheeee!

they put a rose in my room.

Bus Fahren.

So I ride the bus as well. I take the train & the bus to school. Bus ride from Mellingen to Baden, 15 minutes. Train ride, 2 minutes. Today I was on the bus listening to Elliot Smith, when all the sudden I feel someone tapping me on the shoulder. I look, take out my ear phones and say 'wie bitte' and its a old lady! she starts rambling off in German on how she doesnt like sitting backwards, that it feels awkward, and if she could sit by me. My reaction : Yes of course! I was about to put back in my headphones (I swear I am turning into an awkward anti social swiss person), and she starts rambling off to me again. She asks me where I am going, and I say school. I tell her I am an exchange student and I speak High German and then we had this long coversation about how no swiss people talk to eachother on the bus, and everyone keeps to themselves because it is apart of the culture. She is from France, so she told me that it is normal to speak to your neighbor on the train or bus there. But what made me happy was..

I could understand almost everything she was saying.
on top of her heavy french accent.

This is huge for me. I came here only knowing 2 or 3 words of German. I couldn't even count. Now, I can understand. I felt like a little kid, all giddy afterwards walking off the bus. She told me to promise her to speak to my neighbors on the bus or the train. I promised, and we went our separate ways.

Post Bitte

Here is my new host families address, I change this weekend.

Letters, Christmas cards, CDS with any type of music, or christmas music (def. before christmas), drawings, pictures of us, Soy egg nog... hmmm :)

It is..
Joelle Friend
c/o Familie Nüssli
Trottackerstrasse 8
CH- 5507 Mellingen AG
Switzerland

Thanks and LOVE YOU ALL.

Kürbis Suppe.

I really like pumpkin soup.

Yesterday was Marivis birthday party. She comes from Mexico City and she plays the guitar beautifully (i think). I walked to the bus station around 10:30, but missed my bus by 2 minutes. I swear my calf muscles are going to be huge, climbing and walking up all these steep hills. So, I walked back and sat around a while, in the warm house. I took the next hour bus, and made it. Then sat on the train and went to Dallikon. I listened to my ipod, and spaced out. I do that a lot on the train, spacing out. And watch Switzerland pass by me while staring out the window. Train rides are so peaceful, and the swiss are so very quiet :)

While I got there, I was greeted by a huge hug from Marivi. Gah I love that girl, not only because of that but whenever I am with her we speak only in German. She helps me a lot and is patient with me. So, I got there, and said a lot of Hoyyyy! . Ich bin Joelle. Ich komme aus Amerika. Ich bin 17 jahre alt, ja, ich bin ein Austauschstudentin auch. Und viele viele andere things.

So, I had so much pumpkin soup!!! and kuchen!! (cakes). andddddd bread of course. I was there for 4 hours. Speaking to people I just met, and speaking only German. It made me happy.

When the time came, I had to leave. Marivi walked me to the bus, and we listened to Jack Johnson along the way.. while we fought the cold weather. So, we talked about life, and how fast time flies. We started laughing hysterically for no reason because of our broken German.

Today I went to school, and had art, where I am making a hat out of recycled jeans! Then I had German for an hour and scribbled and looked in the dictionary for a lot of new words and to try to understand. We are working on shakespeare play, which is old German, which is impossible to understand right now.So, I just try my best. I had no Chemistry today, so I went to Anilus house for mittagessen, and chilled. It was raining so hard today, after school was out, I was walking to the bus with my swiss friends, and they brought an umbrella, unlike me, so we shared umbrellas and sang the song under my umbrella. Hmmmm. Tonight I have choir and I will go to that for 2 hours. We are singing christmas carols, including German ones, and English ones. It makes me so happy and merry for christmas. OHHH! and christmas cookies and decorations are here now at Migros, so I had some christmas cookies today and peppermint tea at my counselors moms house who lives in Mellingen. AND, she gave me some winter clothes for here.

How lovely

people are.

Now I am going to work on college stuff. And eat dinner. Than sing.

Goodnight World.

Dunkle!

So, I am starting to become horrible at making blog posts. 

Today is sunday. It is the day when you turn your clocks back and it gets dark at 5 o clock. I kind of like the feeling of it, oddly enough. It is the time of the year when you come home from school and you finish homework in a warm house and start listening to christmas music on your ipod. Now, I will wake up in the morning and walk to the bus in dark, and come home on the evenings and it will be dark. It is getting so cold here. Sense Christmas is coming along, if anyone wants to send me some Christmas music, and some gloves, or anything festive that would be so incredibly suss.

Things I miss

• Oregon Chai Tea Lattes
• Gloves
• Fires my mom makes at home
• Eating whenever I want from a fridge 
• Going to Mirrahs house and eating out of her fridge (I hope you read this Mirrah)
• Understanding what is going on when the teacher speaks, and volunteering in school
  

Random list there, I can't think of anything more right now. And of course, I miss my friends and family but that is only natural. But, I do appreciate everything I have here. My free train pass, with that I go on wonderful trips on the weekends with friends around Switzerland all for free. I love making trips to Migros and Coop, to get food snack stuff. I love how people let their children walk to school alone here, even if they are 2 years old. No one is really fearful. I love eating Nussli & other swiss meals. I love how swiss people actually keep the school so warm, and houses. I love saying Grüezi. 

About my day today: I woke up, and worked on my college essay. I am applying to schools right now, so that is a little stressful. I finally finished reading The Chamber of Secrets, and I watched The US vs. John Lennon on my computer. It was a sunday type of day, just lounging around because it was pretty rainy outside. 

Heres a random picture:

This is my dear Seattle best friend Magi, we found a troll oven. so we climbed into it and chilled.

Es tut mir leid.

I am backkkkkk. Sorry for not posting for a while... hmm, I have been quite busy and stuff. 

So, I went to Italy and Engelberg with Sam and her wonderful host family. It was swell, magnificently swell. I could go off about it for hours, but I will save the pain, and I do not have enough pactience to give you a day by day description. Here are some pictures..

Engelberg, Switzerland. Hiking the mountains

Feeding the pigeons in Saint Marcos Square

We took a gondola ride in Venice..

Cinque Terre, Italy

Porto Fino, Italy

Genova, Italy

Alba, Italy. Beautiful wine vineyards & such there.

I start school on Monday at Kanti Wettingen. Tonight I may either go out with friends or hang out with my next host family and make thai food with them. We will see what happens. 

I went to Zurich yesterday with Brittany and Blake (they are exchange student from Basel) and we were eating Kebabs and we met 3 english speaking people! they were from Canada and US (2 were from chicago). They were so, so nice. It felt good to talk to people who understand you and laugh with you. Here, people dont make fun of you or really have humor like we do in the US so we got to joke around and stuff with them. They told me to start curling! I think I may. I got really inspired. Apparently Blake and Brit thought I could be related to them. We also found an awesome thrift store in Zurich, and that is kind of unlikely here. Brit bought a hat (one of those ear flap hats with fuss balls hanging from the ear flaps) and wore it around Zurich and the 3 english speaking people really liked it, and could relate to her because they have tons of those hats at home (unlike swiss people, dressing all classy, heh). I love swiss people! But, it is fun to be with crazy americans once and awhile. :)

Until laterrrrrrr. I love you all dearly!