Weeks Eight, Nine, and Ten

Monday, April 28, 2008

Weeks Eight, Nine, and Ten

Well as you can see, I’ve been slacking on my weekly blog updates, but we’ve been keeping quite busy. Aussi, je n’ai pas beaucoup d’envie d’aller sur l’ordinateur pour longtemps (I don’t like being on the computer for long periods of time) So I will try to give you a more summarized version of these past three weeks in the beautiful Switzerland.

It was back to school, after the last time I wrote, how sad. I decided to do the French for Foreigners class again, and so I had to write the entrance exam because it was the beginning of the final trimester of the year. I was hoping to be placed in the same class as Kate and Iana, so other Canadian friends I met here, but was placed again in the third level. Mais c’est pas grave because I really like the people in my class and my teachers are also really good.
I decided to take a facultative class with one of the other Canadians – ITALIAN! The class runs for 2 hours every Friday afternoon. It is so cool, and a lot like French. I was able to understand when I could hear and read a conversation, but making sentences of my own would be a totally different task! I think I will try to just stick with French and English for now. The sad past though, is that I will only be able to go to 2 classes. The first Friday I went, the second, the teacher (who is quite pregnant) had a sore back, the third Friday I went, and this coming Friday is a holiday. But I definitely enjoyed it.

The Saturday of the end of week eight (April 12th) Willi, Lorenz, Jana, Timon, and I got up at 5:45 and took the train to Zermatt where we skied all day! It was a great day for skiing – the snow was still great and there were not tonne of people because it was a “changeover” day. I saw the Matterhorn (the famous mountain on the Toblerone package), although through slightly thick fog/clouds. It was so cool. We took the train back home, at the end of the day, which took about 3 hours, so by the end of the day, everyone was very tired, but it was a great day!

The next day, Jana and I went to the morning service in St. Blaise. It was the confirmation service where young teenagers can show that they have decided for themselves that they are Christians.
After lunch, Willi, Verena, Timon, and I went to Avenches (which was where I was stranded with the other Canadians for a little while after the trip to Bern). As it turns out, Avenches was the ancient Roman military capital of modern day Europe just a little under 2000 years ago. We saw ruins of the amphitheatre and theatre and took a tour through the small museum. It was really interesting and had a lot of ancient artefacts that they are still continuing to find today, and that is why it is so difficult to get a permit to build anything in Avenches.

On Saturday the next weekend, we went to Zurich. It was so beautiful and a lot like a mini Paris (minus the Eiffel Tower and Arch of Triumph) but a lot cleaner and friendlier, I found. There were a lot of high end stores, beautiful old churches and houses, and it was right next to the Lake of Zurich and straddling a river, with a beautiful view of the Alps. I highly recommend visiting this city, if you ever get the chance.
On our way to Zurich, we stopped for lunch and a chat with family friends of the Kausches. Being in the German speaking part of Switzerland, they didn’t speak French, but we did out best to communicate in English, a mix of German, French, and English, or by using the Kausches as translators. It was fun and they were really nice people. For lunch, we ate the national Swiss sausage (soon to become extinct, due to a sickness in the pigs or cows in Brazil, where they get the outer layer of the sausage) wrapped in bacon and a pastry.
On the way home from Zurich, we stopped at Jana’s grandparents’ house (the parents of Willi) for dinner. They also didn’t speak French, but I said a few words in German (like danke and nie danke) and they said a few words in English and it all worked out nicely.

On Sunday, Willi, Jana, Timon and I went to the “football” (soccer) game in Neuchatel vs. Sion. It was fun to see real European soccer, which was pretty good. The fans of each team got really into the game and cheering with massive flags, and signs painted on their bellies and drums… everything. The game finished with a score of 1-1, even after overtime.

The next weekend (April 25th and 26th) we had beautiful weather! On Saturday we went for a nice bike ride (Jana, Maren, and I) through a few villages to St. Blaise, where we walked and talked and sat by the side of the lake. People were playing soccer, sun tanning, eating ice cream, walking dogs - it was a perfect day. It funny how for the past few weeks, during the week its always cold and rainy, but for the weekends, the sun comes out and warms everything up. I guess its better like this so I will do my homework but still get to enjoy everything outdoors when on the weekend. On our way back, we saw Aurélie, from the youth group, and she took us to her house were we saw her horse, parrot, 2 dogs, one puppy, and cat.
On Sunday, Verena and I biked to Le Landeron for the morning service. When we got home, we had crêpes with ham and cheese and mushrooms for lunch, and crêpes with chocolate, jam, and sugar for dessert. I ate way too much and didn’t really need to eat anything else for the rest of the day. In the afternoon we went to Geneva to pick up Lorenz from his sailing regatta, where he placed 6th out of 30 some odd. While they packed up the boats and loaded them onto a trailer, we got to sit in the sun and eat apple wedges and enjoy the beautiful view. We went to Lorenz’s apartment in Lausanne and ate bread and cheese and ham there.

Well I suppose that’s the highlights for the past 3 weeks. I will write about my last week and a half later. Its coming to an end too fast.

Week Seven

Monday, April 07, 2008

Week seven has come and gone. Inconceivable.

I have so much to write. Especially about PARIS, France! But first, I will tell a little bit about Monday and Tuesday. They were quiet days. A couple friends came over to work on school work and Tuesday night, I went out with some other Canadians. OK, there.

And now for the trip to Paris! We left early on Wednesday morning and got the train in a small village in France near the boarder of Switzerland. We (the Kausche family – Lorenz + a friend of Verena’s + her daughter + me = 8 people) travelled first class for 3 hours to Paris. When we got there, we made our way to the youth hostile where we stayed the 3 nights. One of the of the first things we noticed here was that it was not permitted for people over 25 to stay there. But it was not a problem, I think, having 3 people over 25. I don’t think they said anything.

We ate "the 4 o’clock" in le Place de la concord, where we caught our first glance of the Eiffel Tower. One of the funniest things of the trip was when there was one piece of chocolate left and Verena said that we would “save it for a time of stress.” After, we strolled down the street where we saw the Madeleine and other beautiful Parisian architecture. Next, we spent a good 2+ hours in the Louvre. It was incredible! I loved it so much! There were huge, beautiful old paintings, beautiful Greek sculptures, and art from all over the world - some as old as 5000 years, and maybe more. We saw the original Mona Lisa and Vénus de Milo and the crowned jewels of Louis XV, and other very famous things.. The museum was sooo big. It would take years to do it justice! There were also many ancient Egyptian artifacts and pieces of art, including a real mummy. We ate at a small Greek(?) place. It was fun and very filling.

On Thursday, we ate out breakfast of a baguette and coffee/hot chocolate and started the day at Versailles. We took a “Guided Tour” with head sets that gave an explanation of each room. Versailles is so much bigger than I ever imagined and so beautiful! Everything square inch of the place is so furnished with paintings, carvings, sculptures… anything decorative, basically. It seemed funny, though, to me, because I didn’t know anything about the Louis’ (Kings of France) nor their residence in Versailles, but before I went, the only thing I knew about Versailles was the treaty of Versailles during WWI. To my surprise, there was nothing about the Treaty of Versailles nor the ends of either WW. It was still super cool. I learned some things about the Louis’ and Napoleon (who overthrew the monarchy) and a little bit about Marie-Antoinette. We ate our morning snack in the gardens. The gardens we also so big and so beautifully designed with fountains, and a large river, and long, green stretches of grass, and trimmed bushes and statues and sets of old, elegant stairs… the whole works. It was truly beautiful.
After, we took the metro back to down town Paris to le Tour Eiffel. It took a while for it to sink in for me. It was also so amazing. We climbed the stairs to the “second storey” (about 600-700 stairs). It was a beautiful day and we had an amazing view of all of Paris. Willi explained to me that when people built the buildings in Paris, there was a rule that only allowed you to build up to 7 floors plus one for something else… so 8 stories. So all the houses and regular buildings are the same height and all the big attractions of Paris stand out so nicely because they are so much bigger. We could see all the famous churches, the Grand arc, the Arc de triomphe… it was so interesting and “joli”. We demounted, ate a snack of biscuits, and had a bit of a photo shoot.
Next was the Arc de triomphe. Also a lot bigger than I had expected. There was a memorial service going on under the arch, I think a bit like Remembrance Day (which they don’t have in Europe, surprisingly), so that was special to see. The Arch is the beginning (or end, which ever you prefer) of 12 big (I think) streets. I’m looking at a picture of it right now and it is so cool and huge and chique and ancient looking.
For dinner, we ate at McDonald’s. It was Timon’s second time and Verena’s first time. It was quite different from the typical North American McDonald’s in the way that there was a café with elegant looking desserts and also, the whole entrée menu costs the same amount whether you are getting chicken nuggets, a big Mac, or a regular cheese burger. I don’t really know all that well what it’s like in Canada, but I would expect not like this. After dinner, we walked down the streets and looked at the very expensive name brand stores like Louis Vutton, D&G, Chanel, Lacoste, etc. By the time we made our way back to the youth hostile, we were very worn out.

On Friday, we started at Notre Dame. Like everything else, it was so big and so beautiful. There were two things in particular that I found interesting about Notre Dame. 1 was the contrast between the very extravagantly furnished, rich, immense church and the poor, hobbled, unclean beggars surrounding it. The second was that there were prayer candles (I’m not that familiar with the Catholic religion, but I think they were prayer candles) for sale and what looked like office cubicles for talking/confession with a priest, I’m guessing, for a charge. It made me sad to see the church give the impression that “unreligious” people could buy and light a candle and talk with a priest in THE Notre Dame that they would be set for after death.
Anyways, we ate a petit pain au chocolat on looking the church and after, walked to the Panthéon. It was astounding. (I’m starting to run out of adjectives to justly describe the sites.) Everything was beautifully painted, and great big statues made the place come alive. Under ground, the Panthéon is full of tombs of famous French people like Louis Braille, Victor Hugo, and others (most of which I didn’t know, but wish I did) like army commanders, priests, artists, literary greats, etc. So that was really neat. I’ve never seen tombs like that before, in rooms and made of clay.
Next, we went to the Sacré Coeur – another well known, beyond belief catholic church. It was also so beautiful. We got to walk though, actually, during a Mass service. It felt kind of strange walking around and “observing” (if you will) the people. It was really great to hear and see nuns singing (with organ and great acoustics) and leading the congregation in song. The singing was so beautiful. Willi explained to me after, that the Sacré Coeur was build by the government during, or after (I don’t remember) a war with Germany, and wanted to build the church to be able to pray and earn God’s favour so they could win the war. They had to collect money from the people to be able to build it, and did it by saying that by donating X number of dollars, their sins would be forgiven. This also made me sad to see this kind of deception from the church.
After the Sacré Coeur, we walked along a street packed with tourist shops and eventually got to the La Fayette – the biggest department store in France… 7 levels! They had everything from jewellery, to brand name clothing, to baiting suits, to restaurants, to souvenirs… you name it. It was fun to see. Maren bought some flip flops and Timon bought a bathing suit.
For dinner, we ate at a small pizza place near the hostile with Helga and Leah as well. The food was good, but the highlight was the owner – Tony, who hustled around and had a very strong Italian accent and spoke fast, repeating everything at least twice.

Saturday was our last day. We started at a local market that was about 4 or 5 blocks long. It was so funny. It was so packed full of people and the vendors were yelling what they were selling and their great prices and people we buying, bartering, pushing, trading, testing, weighing, … it was so busy, just what one would imagine of a Parisian Saturday morning market. We spent the late morning/early afternoon in the Centre Pompidou – the biggest museum of modern art in Europe, and I expect, in the world, but I don’t know for sure. It was so cool and very interesting, extremely different from the Louvre. Some things were funny, some were strange, some were depressing, and most I didn’t understand in the least, so I was glad when there were explanations of the techniques and complexity and meaning of the pieces of art.
After the Pompidou, we found a mall and did some shopping. Maren and Lorenz (who wasn’t even there) were the only successful ones. After, we went back to the hostile and got our bags and headed off to the train station. It took us a little while to actually find the train, because the station is so big! We had a nice ride home and it was a great week seven!

Week Six

Week Six
Sunday, March 30, 2008

OK. Another excellent week has passed already. I am thoroughly enjoying these Easter holidays. We got this passed week of and all next week too! It’s awesome!

Last Sunday night I had my first dream in French (finally). Actually, it started with my mom (Canadian mom) speaking to me in German! And after, I dreamt that I was on a provincial or national basketball team and we were playing the French team. In my dream, they all spoke French. So in one night, I went from dreaming in one language to three! And I am continuing to dream in either just French or French and English. I hope when I get home I can still have dreams in French, its sort of fun.

On both Monday and Friday, we spent the day at the local ski hill. Both days were so beautiful and great days for skiing. On Monday, we ate our lunch in a tunnel (right). It wasn’t quite as sheltered from the wind as we had though, but it was fun. Also on Monday, Jana and I were going up the T-bar lift and were so close the top when our bar broke. It was hilarious, we went flying down the hill backwards, and they had to stop the lift and we ended up meeting the rest of the Kausches at the bottom of the hill. On Friday, a similar thing happened when my ski caught an edge going up the lift and I fell off the bar, and in turn, so did Jana. We were only half way on the hill, so the lift didn’t stop and poor Verena, Maren and Timon had to wait at the top of the hill for us to go all the way up again.

Tuesday and Thursday were “repose” days, where we took it easy and did things around the house. I like these days, because we play their new Top 40 Swiss Hits CD. Timon entertains us by singing along and dancing. It’s so funny. They’ve tried to teach me how to sing in Swiss German, but I can seem to manage. I can only remember “Grüezi wohl Frau Stirnimaa” which means “Hello Mr. Stirnimaa” and then the rest of the song is only, “tell me, how are you and how is your husband?” I’ve noticed that in these Top 40 Swiss Hits, they think of one sentence per song and repeat it until they think “ca suffit.” On Tuesday afternoon, I got to go grocery shopping with the ladies. I found that here there are many more bread, yogurt, chocolate, and biscuit choices than in the grocery stores in Canada, and of course, Nutella, but maybe that is not a surprise to anyone.

On Wednesday, Willi left for Italy to pick up Lorenz and a couple other people who have been down south for the past few days for sailing competitions. Lorenz ended up being 90 some odd out of 150, which is not bad because it was an international competition with very strong competitors, I think. The rest of us went to Bern for the day. We climbed the bell tower of the big cathedral, visited the beloved bears of Bern (they have bears in the middle of the city because they have bears on their flag), and did some shopping. It was a very enjoyable day.

On Thursday, I was on Skype (an internet service that allows you to talk and watch people all over the world) first with my grandparents and then with my family. The Kausche trio (Jana, Maren, and Timon) gave them a little concert, Timon on the cello, Maren on the violin, and Jana on the piano. It was very cute. They played a classical piece and a polka.

Yesterday, Maren, Timon and I went on a bike ride west of Cressier, through a few villages and along the side of the lake. We finished the tour of the neighbourhood today by biking east of Cressier (this time with Jana).

This morning, we went to the morning service in St. Blaise. It was great to go to church again. It was different from what I’m used to at Bethany, but I also liked the way they did things.

A few nights during the week, we watched a few movies (in French, of course). They were all pretty good, and I was able to understand a lot. We watched Vitus, which is about a child prodigy pianist, (originally in Swiss-German), and the Girl with the Pearl Earring, about the famous painting, La jeune fille a la perle. I really enjoyed Vitus, and the Girl with the Pearl Earring was just something we watched because my art teacher lent it to me for les vacances.

Well I guess that pretty much sums up week six.

Week Five

Week Five
Tuesday, March 25, 2008

I feel like so much has happened this week, and I don’t know where to start. I guess, in the words of Maria (from the Sound of Music) I can start at the very beginning (of the week) – a very good place to start.

Last Sunday evening, Willi, Verena, Lorenz and I went to a classical concert in Bienne. Three friends of the family were in the orchestra, and one of the pieces was written by an 18-year-old, and so that is why we went. It was a very enjoyable concert, but for some strange reason, after every song, the organist and the director would bow about 15 times, literally. The would take a few bows, then walk off like it was the end of the concert, then come back on and take some more bows, and repeat this maybe 3 times each song. And then for the last song they walked off and on again probably 5 times! All this time the audience had to applaud. I don’t know if that’s normal here, but I wasn’t very impressed with it. But the music was very good. Everyone played perfectly, from what I could tell.

Monday was a pretty regular day. I had French in the morning and art after lunch. In the evening, the “responsables” – the leaders – of Jana’s youth group all came over for a Bible study. They let me join in, and I was glad to participate, even though I didn’t quite follow everything. Apparently Tuesday was a normal day too, because I didn’t write about it in my journal.

On Wednesday I wrote a French exam because it was the end of the second trimester for the French for Foreigners class. It was pretty easy - the verb tenses and grammar I knew - but there was a lot of vocabulary I didn’t know because I was in the class for only 2 weeks, and they were words that they had been studying for 2 or 3 months. And as is the norm for me, I spelt many words wrong (especially on the dictée), and so got lots of points deducted. I ended up getting 3 ½ out of 6, but that’s ok because the mistakes I made were either just stupid, or excusable. On Thursday we got out results back. For the course we had 2 teachers. One was quite “mechante,” (mean) but it was she that suggested I take the 4th level of French for Foreigners class, or take classes with Jana. The other teacher laughed when I said I might do the 4th level and said I definitely wasn’t ready. I think I am, but I guess we’ll see after I write the entrance test.

On both Wednesday and Thursday, I went down town after I was done at school. I bought a chocolate bar (as is usual for me everyday) on Wednesday and a small pastry and a small wheel of creamy cheese on Thursday. I quite enjoyed these delicacies as I sat on a bench facing the beautiful Lake of Neuchâtel.

Thursday, after my snack, I did some shopping. It’s quite funny how secure the washrooms are, with heavy duty locks and stalls without large cracks, like in Canada, and doors that even go all the way to the floor. I quite like that. But in contrast, the change rooms over here are hardly rooms at all – just curtained off little cabins into which the sales people freely stroll to “help”. This is one thing about Switzerland that I don’t like! I try to change very fast and be discrete about entering a “change room”.

After dinner on Thursday, I went with Jana and Timon to their orchestra practice. Maren usually goes too, but she was still on her way home from a field trip. It was very cute. The orchestra consists of 1 celloist (?) (Timon), 2 third violinists (2 girls about 10 or 12 years old), 1 second violinist (a boy about 13 years old) a first violinist (the teacher) and a pianist (Jana). They say there are a few more people usually, but because of the Easter holidays they weren’t there.

When we got back home, we watched a funny French comedy called “l’Aile ou la Cuisse” with Louis de Funes and Coluche. It was quite funny, and surprisingly enough, I was able to follow pretty much all of it. The actors spoke pretty fast and used huge hand movements and very accentuated body language.

On Friday morning, we woke up to about 3 centimetres of snow – the first snow I have seen in Switzerland (not in the mountainous regions). They had a white Easter, but not a white Christmas (and hardly a white winter at all). We ate a regular breakfast and after, Maren, Jana and I went on a Good Friday walk, although it wasn’t all that pleasant because it was raining and freezing rain, and the snow was starting to melt. We saw a big chateau – le Chateau de Jeanjaquel. We hung around the house for the morning, ate lunch, and after lunch Jana baked for the upcoming evening. She made a chocolate chip cake in the shape of a fish and mini “gateaux du fromage” (cheese cake to be eaten as part of the main course - not a dessert). We took these to the youth group as our contributions to the “picnique Canadien” (pot luck). Before eating supper, we went on a hike through the town of St-Blaise and through a forest. We stopped periodically to read and talk about parts of the Easter story. It was really cool (and kind of wet). After hanging out a while after a delicious supper, we went home. I was tired, but it was a good day. It was funny on the way home, Maren and I were talking and I answered her twice in English without thinking about it. I said, “nice,” and, “sweet,”. I know how to say these simple things in French, and often do, so I guess this means French is becoming as natural to me as English?

On Saturday we went skiing on the local mountain just 30 minutes away, owned by Didier Cuche (a very good and famous Swiss skier)’s parents. It was sooo awesome! The snow was so deep and powdery. Probably the best day of skiing I have ever had! It was funny, though, because there were no ski lifts, just T-bars, so your legs didn’t really get much of a rest ever.

For dinner, we had racklette! It was so delicious! What it is is large pieces of cheese melted under a hot grill. Then you scrap (“rackle”) it off onto a boiled potato. C’est mag-ni-fique!

On Saturday night, there was a rendezvous with the youth group. We met at the church and started off by playing games. I felt sick, so I went home at 10, but everyone else stayed over and got only ½ - 2 hours of sleep. They sang songs, read parts from the Bible and prayed together. It sounds cool, but I’m glad I went home early. At 4 in the morning, they all got up and left in a bus to Cressier, where they met a bunch of other people at the church at 5:30. They walked 3 kilometres to Le Landeron (another village) and had breakfast and walked back. I set my alarm to get up in time for the walk, but decided at 5:05 I would rather continue sleeping, so I did.

When everyone finally did get up, Maren and Jana were pretty much dead, and everyone else was tired too. We had a quite day. For breakfast, we had the hardboiled eggs that we painted together on Friday, a tresse (a sweet, braided bread) and a traditional Russian food that I don’t know what it was called. It was sort of a mousse or a pudding in the shape of a cone. It was vanilla-y and had little granules of I don’t know what in it – maybe some kind of grain. It was pretty good. You could eat it with a spoon, or spread on bread. Also at each of the kids’ places was a huge basket of chocolate! Unfortunately, most of my basket is already gone. But the Easter chocolate is top notch here… no kidding around like the Easter eggs in Canada. We talking creamy, nutty Swiss chocolate. The rest of the day was pretty laid back. We drove to a bustling little town for a walk about and took a couple pictures. After supper (Jana was on a date), Maren, Timon and I watched the Dukes of Hazard en Français, and I was impressed with myself because I understood most of it.

Something funny I’ve noticed about the Kausches and movie watching is that they keep all the lights on (where as I would usually watch in darkness) and they stop the movie half way through (sometimes at a suspenseful moment) to take a 2-3 minute break. This makes me laugh inside.

Oh! Just wanted to make of record of this being the week when the Kausches started to make fun of me. They imitate my accent and tell me all these things that I say a lot like "okay" and "peut-être" and "je pense". Timon likes the fact that it takes me so long to make a "gr-gr-gr-gr" sound - a little noise made in the back of the throat, I think it's next to impossible for Anglophones to do it. I don't mind that they make fun of me though. I like it. We all laugh, and I'm glad we feel close enough to laugh at and with each other. Jana says they laugh at me because they love me, so I say, continue laughing.

Well I guess that’s officially the end of my fifth week in Switzerland. Thanks for reading.

Week Four

Week Four
Sunday, 16 March 2008

Wow. I really can’t believe it’s been another week! Yesterday I was actually thinking, “Oh shoot, I have to write another massive entry in my blog again.” It really is going far to fast. By now, my stay in Switzerland is 1/3 over. And when I think about what I have left, it’s going to go so fast. I have one more week of school this week (the end of the trimester for the French for Foreigners class… woo hoo!) but not on Friday (because it is Good Friday), then we have 2 weeks of “les vacances de Pâques”, and after that, only 4 more weeks at school.

This week was full of fun things. Monday, I’m guessing was a regular day, because I don’t have a journal entry, and the sad part is, I can’t even remember what we did.

Tuesday was also a pretty regular day.

Wednesday, I went with some other kids from the other French for Foreigners classes to the Musée Olympique in Lausanne, about an hour away by car. There were 14 of us that were driven by one of the gym teachers at Lycée Jean Piaget in the “school bus” – a large van with the lycée’s name and logo on it. The museum was really interesting. There was an exposition of passed Olympic Games with collector’s items, all the torches, ancient artifacts of Greek games, old clothes and other things signed by Olympic athletes. I took lots of pictures, only to find out at the end that we were actually not allowed to take any. Oops. There was also a whole floor about the upcoming Olympics in Bejing this summer. There were lots of crazy Chinese pictures and demonstrations. There was on official count down until the opening of the 2008 Olympics and was accurate to the second. This is the high jump record, to the right. For women, it is the little red arrow, and for men, the bar.

On Thursday, all of the Canadian exchange students in Switzerland went to Bern, the capital, for our “orientation”. Bern is a really neat old city. We saw the parliament buildings (from the outside) and were taken to the “Museum für Kommunikation”. It was really cool. There was information about how we communicate and lie through pictures, television, telephones, faxes, computers, body language… the whole works. After, we all ate lunch together at a nice café. We had, what I think was a traditional German/Swiss-German/Swiss plate of big noodles and beef and vegetables. After lunch, we went to Einstein’s apartment. It was small, but interesting. It had a short biography that we watched (en anglais) and we walked around his apartment and saw pictures and some clothes, pipes, wine etc. of his. After, we had an hour and a half of free time. We walked up the streets and in some of the shops. There was a huge cathedral that we went it. It was so beautiful. It was sort of ironic, though, because there was a gift shop and cameras. I felt like it really took away form the cathedral. It was more of a tourist place than a church.
We all made it back to the train station (some just minutes before the train left) and got onto the train, this time, with out a Swiss guide (who came with us in the morning from Neuchâtel to Bern). What we (9 exchange students who lived near or in Neuchâtel) didn’t know what that the train separated in a town 1/2 way to Neuchâtel. I heard, over the P.A. on the train, that passengers for Neuchâtel had to get off and be on the other part of the train. I told Kate (who is a French emersion student) and she said she didn’t hear it and that we should stay put. We started going backwards, back to Bern, and the others thought we were just changing tracks or something. By the time we figured out to get off the train, we were past Bern in a small town, Avenches. We ended up getting a new train ticket (for free, I think the guy felt sorry for us, dumb Canadians). We had to wait just 10 minutes for another train, but another 40 minutes in another small town. We bought a supper of street rotisserie chicken and chips and chocolate (we were possibly going for the C-H for Switzerland trend). We eventually made it back to Neuchâtel, only 2 hours late, but it was not a big deal. It was a great ride, and the film of everyone freaking out is hilarious.

Friday was a pretty regular day. For the youth event, we went to a concert in Neuchâtel, organized by another youth group. It was so cool. It was 2 guys in their late 30s I would say, who played acoustic guitar and base guitar. The singing was all in French, except for one verse of Amazing Grace in English. The playing and style was so French or Swiss or something. The songs (most were funny stories that happened to the artists) were strung together by stories and other cool things, for example, they made half of the audience (totally full) say, “tsst tsst tsst tsst,” while the other half whistled like song birds. It was a really neat effect, and together we sounded like a rain forest.

Yesterday, the youth group got together again early in the morning (8:00) and we did a “ramassage des papiers” until 12:30. It was hard work, collecting huge bundles of newpapers, chucking them into a truck, and then bringing them to large bins where we had to through them up over the side and into the bin (and a lot of times it took 4 or 5 tries to be successful). It was really fun and a good work out. At “midi”, we got together at the church and ate lunch together. After, we all hung out for a couple hours, enjoying the sun and playing soccer, volleyball and football outside. It was so nice yesterday. We could have worn shorts and t-shirts. I was hot in jeans.
For supper, we had Genuine Swiss Fondue. It was soooo delicious. I ate so much. It was nothing like the fondues I’ve had in Canada. It was the perfect balance of everything good about cheese. For dessert, for a special treat, we had Jello. Go figure.

Today, we are having a quiet day. I have just finished making cinnamon buns that we will have for the 4 hour.

So this has been week four – another awesome week in Switzerland!

Week Three

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Well, I have just finished my third week of twelve, and officially (on Friday), I am already one quarter of the way through the exchange. It going incredibly fast and I think I will only go faster, but at the same time it feels like I have been here forever, and my life in Canada is like a dream, almost, that gets fuzzier every day.

Well this week in school I was in the French for dummies class. I started in the first of four levels and it was the French that we learned right at the beginning – simple vocabulary, present tense conjugations, etc., oh, and they were just starting passé composé. So I tried the second level and it was better, but still very primary. So now I am in the third level, and its still easy, and some things I learned a long time ago, and some things not too long ago, but I think it is just right for me. They are coming to the end of the second trimester here, so maybe after the Easter break, I will move up to the last level. It’s a bit frustrating, though, because I’ve been taught French for seven years now and have been in the top half of the class, but its almost as if I know no French at all, and there are people here who came to learn French and are staying for a year (and now are about 2/3 done) and they are just as good as I am. And Jana’s been learning English for only four years, and everyone know how amazingly she spoke when she was in Canada.

I think they are taught a lot more and expected to do a lot more here than the schools in Canada. They are very academic and work very hard. It’s interesting, though, because they know so much information and facts and everything, but they don’t have the same skills that I think we are taught in school. For instance, in gym, they are just learning how to step with the opposite foot when throwing a ball, and follow through and everything else - something we learned in primary school, I think. And in art and music class, they learn so much history and technique and what makes something beautiful and creative and the different time periods and all that nonsense, but when it comes to performing, they play recorders and draw geometric objects and use really watered down paints. I have been able to blend into the art class here, whereas I would not have been able to in Canada. I find it very interesting the differences between school here and in Canada. I think a mix of the two would be ideal.

I am continuing to eat chocolate by the kilograms. I think I’m developing a real sweet tooth. This week, I have managed to eat one extremely fine chocolate bar a day (that’s 100g a day and a total of ½ a kilogram in one week) on top of whatever the Kausches and others offer me (i.e. Chocolate covered biscuits everyday in my lunch and small single servings of chocolate, Nutella for breakfast, you know, the usual.) So I think I may be very “pleasantly plump” (in the words of Becca Hamma) when I get home. Although, with all the exercise I’m getting, it will hopefully even out.

So for my schedule, I have French classes every morning until 11:50, and then I have lunch and am free to go home. Except on Tuesdays and Thursdays when we go to the “Labo Lycée” and talk with a computer in French. Its pretty cool. But that class is only 45 min long and is not obligatory, but I like to go. On Mondays after French, I go with Jana’s class to History. The “prof” (teacher) just talks and the students have to make their own notes (it’s not like our high schools at all). The teacher is funny and talks a lot about how America is dominating and how it’s terrible and such. I think he’s turned it into more of a current events class, than a history class. After history I have lunch and after lunch I go to an art class for 2 periods. Its interesting and fun. On Thursdays, I go with Jana`s class to the gym for gym much the first periods in the morning. Its quite funny because I suppose they don`t and/or didn`t have gAlso on Thursdays, after the Labo Lycée, I have to leave early to catch the train so I can be home in time for Verena to take me to guitar lessons! It’s a private lesson for half an hour and so far I’ve had two lessons and learned two songs – Pink Floyd`s Is There Anybody Out There and The Beatle’s Blackbird. The teacher is really good, and has taught me good techniques for strumming and plucking and playing and tuning and everything. On Fridays, I was going to try going to the science classes (bio, chem, and physics) with Jana, but I think they may be very hard. Anyways, this week I did not go to them because it was a German exchange student’s last day today, so we when to a café in downtown Neuchâtel and did some “faire de shopping” afterwards.

After the Friday afternoon outing with the exchange girl, I ran all the way from the downtown to the high school where I take the “fun d`ambule” (the train that takes you from the bottom of Neuchâtel to the top, where the train station is). I had exactly 7 min till the train left, and I missed the fun d`ambule, so I had to wait something like 4 and a half minutes for the next one. By the time it came, left and arrived at the train station it was time for my train to leave. I sprinted out of the fun d`ambule and up to my train only to see it pulling out of the station. I had to wait (luckily only) half an hour for the next one. For some reason, the 5:06 train goes to a different track than the 4:37 train, and if I hadn’t been looking around, I would have waited at the wrong track and missed the 5:06 train as well.

This Friday at “zee yoüs grüpe” - the youth group – we had guest speakers from YWAM come and talk about their experience in Madagascar. It was cool, not only because they went to YWAM and did a DTS and stuff with them, but because they were Americans. I could finally speak English to someone. They had lots of interesting stories and it was great to hear them.

Saturday, all the kids had their first tennis lessons of the year this morning, and after lunch the first sailing preparation day. In the evening, we went to Jana’s friend, Céline’s house to see the new born baby goats. There were 37 of the ranging from 2 weeks to 2 days old, all cooped up in a small pen. We were allowed to step in and immediately got tramped by what seemed like millions of goats. The nibbled vigorously at our clothes and it felt so odd. By the end of the time, we were more green (from, I expect, their food) than any other colour. Céline also took us on a tour of the rest of the barn, which included 7038 chickens! It was quite the sight. They were all kept together in a separate building and running all the way down were troughs for eating and drinking, and Céline said that it is an endless supply of food because there are so many chickens to feed. Afterward, we went back to her house where she showed us the “fromagerie” where her dad makes goat cheese. It basically included a washing-looking-machine for I don’t know what; 2 refrigerators filled with large bins; and a large counter covered with cylindrical dishes with holes in the sides, where the goat milk becomes goat cheese, from what I could gather. After, we got to try 4 different kinds of goat cheese – all very delicious. Then we bought some more and ate it for dinner that night.

Today, Sunday, we had breakfast and an early lunch and then went to a watch/clock museum about a half an hour away. It was really fascinating to see how the invention has progressed and developed from simple mechanics to engineering I couldn’t begin to understand. It was really cool, as well, to see that clocks that were made 600 years ago are still in working condition. Also at the museum, there was a game that tested your reaction time, which we had a lot of fun with. There are 4 lights that turn on and at random times (but only one at a time) and when the red light goes on, you have to press the button and it times how long it takes you to press it. Apparently, sports men have to be in the range of 0.120 seconds. I think the best we got was 0.189 seconds, but usually more like 0.275, or something like that.

For the 4:00, we had Jello – peach and raspberry. It was the Kausche’s first time, and I couldn’t tell if they liked it or not.

After, Jana, Maren and I went to another small village to a church for a “cult soirée” – an evening service organized by the youth group. It was nice. There was a lot of singing (songs that we don’t have in English, and that I’m starting to learn. They sound really Middle Eastern, actually), accompanied by a clarinet, flute, violin, and piano. A few people did a skit about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead while the Youth Leader asked questions about it to the pastor. After the service there were refreshments and then we went home.

I think my French is getting better and better everyday. And its neat having a different schedule every day of the week at school, because I can see my progression from week to week. For example, the first week in art, I didn’t understand much of the lesson and had to ask students to repeat instructions for me, but this week (it’s actually Monday that I’m finishing writing this) I understood most of the lesson and all the instructions. Also, the guitar teacher said that I’m learning French very fast, which was encouraging.

Well I’m hopefully going to figure out, when Jana can help me, how to post photos on this blog, but if you have access to facebook, there are lots of pictures on there already.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my third week. It took 2 and an half pages on Word to write this.

Week Two

Sunday, March 2/08

Ok, so this past week, we had a week long holiday from school (and in 3 weeks, we get another 2 weeks off for Easter!). The Kausches and I went to Grindelwald, about an hour and a half by car, for skiing in the alps. The 3 famous mountains we skied were Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau. It was so amazing there. The mountains are breathtaking and overwhelming. All I could think about the whole time was the line from a song, `Saviour, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save, He is Mighty to save…` I love the mountains, and Verena (Mrs. K) said we might go back for a weekend because we are supposed to be getting half a metre to a metre of snow this week! So far the weather has been really mild – up to 10 degrees.

Back to the vaca, we got there on Saturday. I went in the van with Willi (Mr. K), Jana, and Timon (her younger brother, 10) while Verena, Maren (sister, 15), and Lorenz (brother, 18) took the train, because it would have been too cramped. They skied on Saturday, and we all skied together on Sunday. Lorenz had to go back to university for the week, but the rest of us skied everyday all day (about 9-4 or 10-4) until (and including) Friday. The first few days were really beautiful - not a cloud in the sky. Then it got a little warmer and the snow was really heavy and wet, but we still skied. Then it got overcast and everything got really icy, but we still skied. Then it got really foggy, so foggy that at one point, I couldn’t see the chair right in front of us on the chair lift. But again, we still skied. Then came the `final test` as Willi called it – when it was icy, foggy and snowing. It was quite difficult, especially because the hills are way more challenging than our Canadian hills (the 2nd level here – red – would probably be a double black diamond in Canada). But it was so much fun too, because there weren’t many people on the mountain when it was crummy weather, and we had to be careful and go slowly and stay close together. It was really neat.

On the Tuesday morning, the girls (Verena, Jana, Maren, and I) went to the `Top of Europe`- nearly 3.5 km above sea level, on the top of Mt. Jungfrau. We took a train ride I think 9.5 km from the Kliene Shidegg (where we would usually start skiing) and it took a good 45 minutes. The train went right through the middle of a mountain (I`m not sure which one, but I think it was Jungfrau). It was so cool. There was an amazing view at the top and it was a beautiful day (there are pictures on facebook). There was an ice palace that we walked through, and the remaining parts of a glacier, and the history of people who have climbed the mountain and set up everything. It was really neat.

On Thursday, we rented 4 `sledges` (really just sleds) and went `sledging` for the first ½ of the day. It was a lot of fun, and a lot like what Heidi does in the film (the one with Shirley Temple). You have to sit with your feet out in front of you and steer by gently putting your heals into the snow. One little nick and you really turn fast. It becomes challenging when your start going over bump and trying to steer (or brake) and your feet come slamming down (on a bump). I got flung off the path (which is not very safe to begin with) and down part of the mountain a few times.

The ski passes are really cool here – so high tech (along with pretty much everything else, I think Europe is a lot more advanced than we give them credit for back home… they have so many good ideas over here). Anyways, the ski pass is like a credit card and you keep in zipped inside your coat and just before the chair lift there are things where you lean up against a wall type thing and it senses your pass and a green light comes on and it lets you pass through. It’s sort of hard to explain, but I tried to film it once, and it was just as hard to film.
At the end of a day of skiing, we would ski all the way down the mountain, which took about 45 minutes! It was fun to go from really icy to really wet and heavy and then to no snow at all at the bottom. Then we took a bus a few kilometres to a set of stairs going up a different mountain (with no snow, and very mild) and we would lug ourselves up (ski boot, skis, coats, and all) a very precarious and steep path to our chalet. By then time we got there, we were really out of breath. Then we would all shower and Mrs. and Mr. would go out and get groceries for dinner and breakfast and lunch for the next day. A couple times the kids and I went swimming (which really finished me off, energy wise). After dinner, we usually played a few card games like uno (which is very popular here) and rummy and Dutch blitz, etc.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable week. Even though for a good ½ of it I was gripping onto my ski poles for dear life. Oh, there was one time when we went down Lauberhorn (a very famous run used for international competitions) and there was a sign that said `For Good Skiers Only` and I knew I couldn’t do it, even before I saw the hill (or better described, cliff). Well, they made me try it and a fell almost immediately and by the time I had slid all the way down I had lost both poles and both skis. I twisted my knee a bit too, but it ended up being ok. Needless to say, I did not try that section again.

Well, you are probably getting quite board of reading this e-mail, so I will bring it to a close now. Oh, actually I`m just going to copy and paste something I wrote to Becca on facebook here, giving a small description of everyone in the Kausche family.

Jana`s family is very nice. I like them a lot. Willi, the father, is funny and speaks English to me a lot because he says its habit to speak English when he hears someone with an English accent. When he speaks French to me it is really slow. haha. Verena, the mother, is very kind and soooo selfless and accommodating and a very hard worker. The family is a Swiss German speaking family (at home, but French at school/work/everywhere else) and I think she tries the most to speak French whenever I’m in earshot. Even when someone is speaking Swiss German to her, she will reply in French (for my benefit). I don’t get to see much of the older brother, Lorenz (18), because he lives an hour and a half away for university and is home on the weekends only, but he seems nice. He speaks alot in Swiss German, though. Jana, is awesome, obvi 6000. Maren, the younger sister (15) is so nice. She speaks French a lot too, and i like hanging out with her. She’s a lot like Jana, but at the same time a lot unlike her. She’s really fun and expressive, and for any of you who know Jaclyn Nicholson, she is exactly like her. Timon (10) (awesome name, eh?) is so cute and full of energy. I like having a younger brother. He really likes to explain things to me and he likes playing games a lot. Sometimes he reminds me of Kirstin.It’s so funny when they speak in German, because every work sounds so vulgar and mean. haha.
It is kind of funny going between French and English (and kind of Swiss German, but not really for me) all the time. Sometimes I get mixed up and speak the wrong language to the wrong person. And they listen to a lot of English music, so that throws me off too.

So now your really board. But thanks for reading. I hope you could have a glimpse of the awesomeness over here.

Week One

Tuesday, Feburary 19/08

Well, I made it. The first day was very difficult because I was very tired and really not ready for total french emersion. I am discovering how poor my French really is. My first plane took off at 5:30p.m. Canadian time and the Kausches picked me up at the airport at 11h45 (a.m.) the next day. Everything you could name in Canada is soooo different here! Even the keyboard. The z is where the y should be and the y is where the z should be, and all the shift controls are different too.

Let’s start with the towns. All the people cram themselves into clusters called villages. Between villages there is nothing, and everything essential (like a bakery, a pub, and a convenience store) are in the towns. If you need groceries, may have to go to a different town, or the city. To get from town to town, most people use only the train, and cars are used for a backup. Everything is soooo old and beautiful. This house is about 500 years old and inside, everything is built into the walls, like shelves, cupboards, beds, etc. The walls and ceilings are covered with very interesting, seemingly mismatching wall paper. On all the windows everywhere, there are no screens, because there are no bugs or mosquitoes. And because one can reach out the window, there are shudders on all the windows that are actually put to use! The roads of some villages are made of cobble stone and every village I have seen so far has beautiful old fountains every few blocks. Many of them have the head of a lion pouring water out of its mouth half way down the main spout.

The meals are different too. I think they eat more than we are used to... or at least more often during the day. And lots of bread and sweets, but somehow, all of the Swiss people (or at least a lot more than Canadians) are very in shape. Even older people have the body of what we might consider a younger person. I don`t know how they do it. For breakfast we have bread and butter or honey or sugary cereal. For lunch, one has the meal plus many snacks, like an apple, a chocolate bar, and a small loaf of braided sweet bread (un traisse). Most kids have hot meals that they microwave at school. And not just one sort of food for lunch, like soup or something, but they have a potato food, a vegetable, and a meat, like chicken or something. This is funny, to me, because for supper it is always cold meals. We have a basket of bread (sometimes cut in slices or sometimes a baguette cut in hand size cylinders then cut in half long ways, or a mix of the two) a platter of 3 or 4 different cheeses, herb and garlic cream cheese, and cold cuts. Oh, and for breakfast and supper we have tea. And on weekends there is special time set aside at 16h called `le quatre heure` just for dessert and tea.

For school, Jana goes to the new building part of Lycee jean Piaget. At her school, you are in the same class for all 3 years of high school, with the same people you stay in your own class room for the whole day and the teachers come to you. So far, I understand a good portion of the classes, especially English (haha), history, and health. I don`t understand math because we haven’t learned as much as them yet in Canada, and German and french are pretty much out of the question. Law, I kind of get, and I haven’t taken all of the classes yet. Today, the other exchange students and I were put in the equivalent of the ESL class (french for foreigners) and I felt really stupid. But I might take that class for a couple weeks and then take classes with Jana again. I don’t know yet, but I have to decide on Friday.The older half of the high school is very very old and soooo beautiful. If it were a building in Canada, it would definitely a very crazy museum of some sort. It is incredible to know that it is used just as I high school. And I think the students don’t even appreciate how magnifique it is. Both buildings are just a stones throw away from the beautiful lake Neuchâtel. At lunch, we can walk along the stones and sit at eat on benches as we watch the swans and seagulls and sailboats. Its really is unbelievable.

So, to get from the train station in Neuchâtel to the high school, you have to walk down the city, and I mean down the city. It built on a pretty sharp hill, and nobody would want to climb it, so instead, they built a train that carries you up the city. The engineering is very interesting, but you would have to see it to appreciate it. I could explain with a drawing when I get home. The Swiss are very technologically advanced. For example, overheads in school can project 3D objects, like a purse or a hand perfectly. And you can put a regular white sheet of paper on and read what it says! For anyone who is not in school, in Canada we can only project things that are on “overhead paper”, which is clear plastic with the words or pics or whatever printed on it.

Well, its 21h47 (quarter to 10) and I have to get up kind of early tomorrow. But tomorrow I only have one class! Economics. Then Jana has a huge test in math, so I get to explore Neuchâtel by myself.