Number 17:

Bonjour, mes amies! Guess who just got back from France!!!!!! 

Yup. That would be me:) 

In case you didn't read my last few posts (it's okay, you can read them now) I went to France for four days with my class from school. I don't completely understand it, and I don't want to tell you anything that's not completely true, but it was for something called "Projektwoche" [prah-yekt-vock-ah]. In English this would directly translate into "Project Week," and basically what it is is a chance to get to know all of the other students in your class. I guess I should mention that in Switzerland you have the same 20 or so kids in your class from grade 10 until you graduate... so it's pretty important that you get along! 

Anyways, the class teacher (like homeroom teacher kind of) chooses where you go and what you do, and most people go for day trips hiking, or maybe stay in a house together somewhere and look at museams and stuff... but my class canoed down La Loue  in France, around the town Ornans. It was mega-wunderschön (really super duper beautiful!) We camped, ate a lot of bread, canoed pretty much down water falls, and spent most of our energy trying to get every one else as wet as physically possible. Luckily we had wet suits on because everyone spent A LOT of time in the water after getting flipped over (usually by the teacher :P) 

 My class getting ready to go- please note that the guys all have bigger bags than the girls!

 Our path

We arrived in France on Monday at about lunch time, set up our tents, and canoed 11km, then on Tuesday we canoed 16km and then looked around the town, Wednesday we canoed 20km and played werewolf until no one could keep their eyes open anymore, and Thursday we canoed 14km before packing up our things and heading home. It was a longgggg trip, but so much fun!! And it was such a great opportunity to really get to know all of the kids in my class :)

This is a game where you squirt whipped cream on your finger, and then fling it into your mouth from various distances and directions...... I kind of rocked at it. 

This afternoon I'm going to go to Brig to visit one of my favourite Australians in the whole wide world, and then tomorrow I have to pack to go to Greece!


I'm sure when I come home I'll have oodles of pictures and stories to share :) 


Bis später, 
Tschüss! <3

Number 16:

So not a lot has happened since the last time I "blogged" but I thought I should just give you a quick update now because I wont be able to go on a computer again for a while. 


I MADE IT THROUGH MY FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!! 
This is actually a miracle considering how much time I had to spend in class. My school is beautiful though (I'll take pictures some time), and my class and teachers are almost all really nice:) 
On Friday I was at school for more than 10 hours but you know what..? It went by relatively fast. This could have something to do with the fact that the last two hours were spent in PE where we went to the swimming pool and played beach volleyball... I have a feeling it wont always be this much fun. 


Then yesterday (on Saturday) we had another inbound meeting, but this time it was in Freiburg! In case you don't know, Freiburg is in the French part of Switzerland, and unlike in Bern where people speak about 17 different languages, people generally just speak French. I've got to tell you that those years of French class finally came in handy! Thank you Mme Johnson!!! 


All of my fave Bern kids met at the Banhof, and we took the train together to Freiburg which was only like 30 minutes. The meeting lasted like 2 hours and then they fed us (weiner schnitzel mit pommes frites of course!) and then all of us crazy exchange students explored the city!

Guess what I'm doing tomorrow!!!!!!!!! IM GOING TO FRANCE!! My class is going to spend one week canoeing down a river. We'll canoe all day, then camp at night. It should be really fun!! I'll make sure to take lots of pictures :) 


On Thursday night I'll come home, and then Sunday I leave for Greece! Oh my goodness I am the luckiest girl alive :D :D :D 


I have four weeks total of no school starting now. WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Number 15:

Schönen Dienstag! 


I don't have a lot of time right now, but I thought I should give you a quick update as to what I've been up to these past few days:)


Donnerstag: 
On Thursday I went to my school for the first time and found out my schedule for school. I'm majoring in Physics and Maths and I go to school about 40 hours per week (for comparison, at PHSS I went 25) 
BUT on the bright side I have viele [many] holidays :) After this week of school I have project week where I'm going river rafting in France with my class, then THREE WEEKS of holidays!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!! :D If I'm lucky I might even get to go to Greece for a week... but that's not for sure. 


Freitag: 
Friday was the last day of Deutsch Kurz :(((( We all did presentations in German about where we come from, and then we went to Rosengarten together for the afternoon. 

Samstag: 
On Saturday I went to Domodosolla in Italy to go to the market :)

Italy could not be more different from Switzerland! (and I was only in the northern part!!!) Everyone was so chill, and I felt absolutely relaxed just being there. It probably didn't hurt that all I did was eat (espresso, biscotti, other cookies, pasta, meat, gelato...) 


Then in the evening the Maeders came over for dinner (we had Raclette... very Swiss) and I moved in with them. 


Sonntag: 
Sunday was my first day with my new family in Wimmis. We climbed a mountain... nbd.

The mountain we climbed

 These were put here in WW2 to keep the tanks away. Did you know that there are fortresses in a bunch of the mountains here?! Crazyyyy!

 SO SWISS!! <3

Montag:

My first real day of school was Monday! It barely counted though because I only had two classes and one was English :P

Heute (Dienstag):

Today I had a real live day of school and now boy am I ever tired :( I had info-tech in the morning, followed by a math class that everyone does, then Physics only for people majoring in Physics and Maths (P&M), then lunch, then two classes of Math only for P&M students. AND IT WAS ALL IN GERMAN!!!!!!!! Ugh it was really good and everyone is so nice but my brain hurts so I think it's bed time :)

Schlaft gut!

Number 14:

Guten Abend meine Freunde :) 

It has been another wonderful and exciting week in der Schweiz and guess what.... TOMORROW IS MY MONTH-IVERSARY!! I actually feel like I live here now. I can ask how much something costs (Wie viel kostet das?) or how to get to the train station (Wo ist der Banhof, bitte?), I can understand at least 50% of what people say to me when it's in Hochdeutsch, I can navigate public transit like a pro, and I can ride my bike in a round-about without getting run over... yay! 

Since I last posted on Thursday lots has happened. First on Friday I went to the big Migros (like Superstore but better- if you can imagine that) all by myself for the first time! I spent my entire afternoon in there and bought a ton of fun stuff like shampoo and markers and flash cards and who knows what else. 

Then on the weekend we had Rotex weekend which was just a weekend for the exchange students in the western half of Switzerland put on by ex exchange students. We all brought desserts (I made berry crisp) and met in Bern just before lunch time. Then we put all of our stuff (desserts included!) into lockers and went to a climbing park. I don't know exactly what it's called in English but here's a link: https://www.ropetech.ch/triage/default.asp

There were 7 levels, one being the easiest, and seven the most difficult... So can you guess which one Ana and I accidentally went on? Yep... that'd be 7. First we had to climb like a thousand meters in the air (actually 158)  then we had to do crazy things that required more upper body strength than either of us would usually use in a month like: 

 climbing across an 8 m net only connected at the top

 a rope that we had do go across monkey style (we were actually a lot higher up than you can tell from this picture)

 (it wasnt as easy as it looks!)

 an alternating ladder/ monkey bars thing (they're not together... it actually goes monkey bars, ladder bridge thing, monkey bars again).

and riding a bike!

There were a lot of other things but our arms hurt too much to take pictures ;) Then we went to go get our bags and found a wonderful surprise... Ana's dessert had spilled all over our stuff!! It was fudge that hadn't set, so needless to say it was a gross, sticky mess and we missed the train to Langenthal that everyone got on trying to clean it up. There was another train in like half an hour so we took that one and when we FINALLY got to the Scout Hall that we were all staying in we were super tired and hungry and kind of looked like homeless people with our sleeping bags and backpacks and entire bodies all covered in crusty sugar. Yummm :S 

The rest of the weekend was pretty chill but still a ton of fun. We met lots more exchange students, and I had a grand old time decking out all of the girls in my room with Canada tattoos and "Rotary Club of Port Hardy" stickers!! 

Aussies <3 Canada too! 

On Sunday we had a lot of time to just get to know everyone. There were about 50 exchange students there from all over the world :)

The wonderful Canadians <3 

Bye bye Langenthal! :)

This week is the end of language camp, so I've been spending a lot of time studying my German. We have a big test tomorrow to see how much we've learned, so I better do well! 

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 Learning to shoot an old school Crossbow in a cow field. 

 Yummy dessert :)

The best thing to come home to after school <3

My next few days are going to be really busy! 

• Tomorrow after language camp I'm going to go see my school for the first time and hopefully meet my classmates, then I'm going to the new Thun soccer arena to check it out. 
• Friday is the last day of language camp and we have to do big presentations
• Saturday I'm going to Italy and then changing host families
• Sunday I'm having my first day with the Maeders :)
• and Monday is my first day of school! 

Wish me luck!

Liebe grüsse<3

Number 13:

Es tut mir lied!!!!!! That means I'm sorry :) Sorry for not posting anything for a whole week! You must be wondering what crazy shenanigans I've been up to!! Well..........

On Saturday a group of exchange students went to Luzern together. First Ana, Jenna, Dulce and I met in Bern and got on the train. Our "tourguide" Kim was waiting for us and she showed us around.

This is all of us in front of the really famous bridge in Luzern.

A few hours later a bunch of people showed up...we definitely weren't expecting such a crowd! This wasn't even everyone! Later on even more people came and we all got to know each other in the park

On Saturday I did the Thunerstadtlauf. There were a bunch of different runs throughout the day, but I did the 5 K through the city. The streets were lined with people and there were marching bands and music everywhere! It was really fun. 

24 minutes!

My cheering section :)

On Monday Ana and Jenna and I met up with one of the other exchange students that we met in Luzern, and he took us to Rosengarten which is a really beautiful look out over the whole city of Bern, with lots of roses. Unfortunately Jenna was the only one who had her camera with her and she has yet to upload the pictures.... get on that Jenna!

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Jenna put the pictures on Facebook! 

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On Tuesday we had Deutsch kurs for the whole day, so we went on a feild trip!

First we went to Ziehglocke which is the big old clock that does a little show every hour. It's very cool but I've gotta tell you..... it's only really exciting the first time :P

After that we walked back up to Rosengarten which is not an easy journey but hey.... we gotta burn all of this bread off somehow! 

After that we went and climbed up more than 300 stairs in a castle, and then we drank out of a fountain... because we're in Switzerland :)

SEHR SEHR GUT!!!!!!!!

Yesterday was a really exciting day! First we had a test at Deutsch school, then as soon as I got home I went for an airplane ride with meine Gasteltern  :)

 We saw a lot of super cool stuff! It was really really beautiful. 

Then last night it was Miriam's going away party :( Ana and Jenna and Sonya were all there and we met a bunch  of Miriam's friends. It's funny because everyone always says that Swiss kids arent very friendly and they wont want to be your friend but I'm finding the opposite! These are some of the nicest, most open people I've ever met!! 

After the party we were trying to get back to the train station so that Ana and Jenna could catch their train.... BUT WE GOT ON THE WRONG BUS!!!!! 

Then we couldnt figure out how to open the door and noone would help us so we ended up staying on for three of four stops, and when we finally got out we were in Gwatt...... which is not Thun :S 

Wilkommen to Gwatt :P 

Well, as of today I have been here for three weeks, and I'm still loving it. They always say, "Three days, three weeks, and three months" will be the toughest times of your exchange.... I've already made it through two of those unscathed so I really don't think I'll have a problem. I really miss everyone at home though! 

Tschuss <3

ps. I'll put more pictures on the pictures tab so keep checking it :)