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!

Weee. Reisen.

Hallo all.

I traveled around Switzerland last week with two exchange students named Sam (comes from Canada) and Analu (she comes from Mexico), both of them go to Kantonsschule Wettingen with me and we had a free week due to our classmates having a project week that we could not participate in. It was very swell and amazing because it was all free with our GA's. On tuesday we went to Lugano, which is the Italian part of Switzerland. It is about a 3 hour train ride from Baden. On wednesday we went to Geneve, which is the french part of Switzerland (3 hours as well). On Thursday we went to Lucern, which is in the German part of Switzerland (about 1 hr away). And Friday was just a Zurich day (25 min). I met up with my other friend Edwardo and his swiss friend Mary, and we went to a American Apparel Sale in Zurich, there was tons of cool stuff on clearance, but it was still pretty expensive. On Friday evening I went out with my next host sister named Vanessa, and spoke a lot of German. People have been telling me I speak well for being here for only 1 month and they are impressed with me. Yayyyyy......! Knowing that made me overly delighted. 

As for the clothes here,lets just say I am happy I brought enough clothes because everything is ridiculously expensive and the quality does not match the price. I am a little disappointed with the shops here, besides H&M. Some stuff can be really tacky in other stores. Haha this is such a lame blog post, sorry. 

Let me show you some pictures ..

Lugano.

Cathedral in Geneve

we went to this random Museum, and it was all old stones and bones, artifacts of old Geneve. Pretty random.

Very foggy Lucern. It was a lovely city. 

alright, for some other news. I have 2 more weeks left of holiday and Sam's family invited me to go with her to Italy on Tuesday for 5 days and then to Engelberg for 5 days for hiking and just to chill in the Alps. I am very much excited. 

And.. 

you

cant 

forget

the

leaves

here are

beautiful. 

i love fall.