Harry is the best hope we have, trust him.

Last weekend I had my first visitor in Switzerland, my one and only cousin Ellen! She's studying in France for the semester, so last thursday she hopped on a train to romp in the mountains with me in jolly ol Switzerland! She got in late thursday night, so we made some mac and cheese for dinner and stayed up talking until 1 in the morning then went off to bed since i had school in the morning. well... i attempted to go to school, but sometimes I go to the classroom on my schedule and my class just isn't there, which is exactly what happened friday morning. I wandered around for a bit aimlessly searching for them then finally gave up and went home. I only had 3 classes that day, so it wasn't horrible that I missed school. Ellen and I hung out at home in the morning, then we went into town to meet up with a couple of friends to eat lunch. I got so excited to introduce her to people because she was my real cousin, not my host cousin, but actual real live cousin!! We brought Grace back with us and all afternoon we baked! Ellen's family visited her last week in france, and they brought over ingredients for pumpkin bread, so we had a little touch of Cleveland life while in Switzerland :) Afterwards Ellen and I headed up to Zurich to watch the new Harry Potter movie with my friend Aurelia! and it was soooo fricken good!!! We spent the night at Aurelia's then went back to Fribourg Saturday afternoon and just bummed around for a while. Grace came over for dinner (cheese fondue!) then afterwards we went into town to meet up with a few people and just hang out. Sadly Ellen and I had to wake up at 6:30 the next morning so she could catch her train to go back to France, so we were planning on having an early night, but that kinda fell apart... We were taking the last train home, and when we got to my stop the door just wouldn't open. All you have to do is hit the button and it should open, but for some reason the door just felt like being stupid and stayed closed. So I'm standing there punching the button as the train starts to roll away and I begin to freak out. We went to the next set of doors which actually worked and we got off at the stop following mine. But here's the thing, we got off at a stop named Matran, which is in the middle of nowhere. I called Grace in a frenzy and she had absolutely no advice for me, but thankfully she stopped us from walking on the tracks to get home, because that was my only thought. So Ellen and I tried walking on every road we could find, but they all lead to places I didn't recognize, so we eventually called my host mom Sylvie to come pick us up. But she didn't even know where it was either! She finally found us, and driving home I realized how buried that train station is, it is literally at the end of an empty road. But all is well that ends well! We went to bed and got a few hours of sleep before heading back to the station Sunday morning. I absolutely loved having Ellen here for the weekend, but at the same time, it was pretty bizarre. I feel like my life here is just so different and disconnected from my american life, so it was strange to have someone here who truly knows me and knows details of my past. I've done my best to sort of shut off my memory from the US, just because it makes it easier to live here, but with Ellen so much stuff just came rushing back. With people here, everything we have in common is Swiss life. But with ellen, everything we have in common is american life. We have the same family, the same traditions, we drive on the same roads and take the same vacations, so when we were together all conversation had a way of falling into the past, which was kind of hard. Don't get me wrong, I am soooo glad that I got to see her, but at the same time, it made me realize how much has already changed in my short time here and it brought back memories of everything I'm missing at home. It put me into a bit of a funk for the rest of the day, but I sort of expected that to happen, so it wasn't too bad.

Fortunately I have pretty amazing friends in Switzerland who brought me back to my normal self :) On Monday we took off the afternoon and went to Berne for the annual Zibelmärit, which is basically just a massive party throughout the town! It starts at 5 in the morning and goes all day long. I had school in the morning, so I couldn't be there for the start of it (which is apparantly the best time to go) but the afternoon was still really fun! The streets were completely filled with rainbow confetti, and within minutes I was covered too. I spent the entire train ride home picking it out of my hair and clothes, but still managed to spread it throughout the house when I got home. all in all, it was a pretty good time :)


This thursday I celebrated the lamest Thanksgiving of my life... My family is hard core about holidays, and for thanksgiving they make 3 different types of turkeys, loads of mashed potatoes and about 10 different pies for desserts. Seeing as how Thanksgiving isn't even a holiday here, I knew it was going to be a bit of a let down, but we still did our best to have a good time! Sadly I had school all day, but afterwards I went over to Grace's with Andrew and we spent all afternoon cooking with her host mom! We made a pumpkin pie from scratch, which was basically the only thanksgiving type thing we had... but we had a lot of bread and cheese and salad, which is always good too!

Nothing beats a true american thanksgiving, but this was a pretty good second :)

A few random things to share with you:

- Remember how I mentioned that everybody rides razor scooters around town? Well I was at the train stop by house with Ellen and Grace and there was a kid about 14 years old riding one, but he was drunk. So he ended up riding off of the platform and onto the tracks. There wasn't a train coming, so it was pretty hilarious. I hope he learned his lesson not to drink and ride!

- In gym we have to do swimming for the next month, which I think should be banned from all schools. We only have gym for 45 minutes, so we're only in the water for 20 minutes and have to spend the rest of the day with wet hair. Somehow I've managed to fall sick for the past 2 wednesday's... and i have a feeling it will happen again this week too. So I haven't actually been apart of this marvelous swimming experience. Bummer, right?

- I took a psychology test last week, which really boosted my self confidence. oh wait, I think that was sarcasm... I spent about half the time translating the questions only to realize that I know absolutely NOTHING about psychology. So I had to get a bit creative with my answers, which I'm sure the teacher greatly appreciated. I made a vow from the beginning that I'm not going to let myself get stressed about school, and I'm sticking to it! I'm still trying, but at the same time, none of my grades count this year, so I'm not going to spend hours studying and preparing myself for a test that means absolutely nothing to me.

- I was skyping with my dad last week and I told him that I felt guilty about skipping school to go to the confetti party in Berne, and he gave me my new life motto. He said "what will you remember?" A simple question, but it makes so much sense! I had to choose between going to school, or having an awesome afternoon with my friends. I think the answer is obvious, I will defiantly remember the party verses a boring afternoon in school. Now I obviously can't skip school everyday to do something more exciting, but I have to keep in mind that I'm only here for a year and I don't necessarily have the same priorities as swiss students. If an opportunity comes up, I'm going to take it! So next time I have to make a decision I'll just ask myself "What will I remember?"
And lastly, it's finally beginning to snowwww!!!