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!!!

up in the clouds, we'll be higher than ever

heyooooo, lady gaga was fantastic! I don't know why our tickets were considered bad, because I was on the floor about 50 foot away from gaga herself! does it get much better than that? The other people were stuck in their seats or loge boxes, but I got to rock it out in a massive mosh pit, which made me ecstatic :) She is amazing live, and her costumes and dances were so impressive! I swear, that night is going down in history because I was just so frickin happy!! (So happy that I was willing to shell out 45 francs for a shirt...)

Grace and I ready to go!

Fame, doin' in for the fame, cause we wanna live the life of the rich and famous


On another note... today I went to the bank to convert my leftover british pounds back into swiss francs and this is what happened:

Me-Bonjour! Je veux convertir cet argent pour les francs suisses
Bank Lady- Ok, no problem. That will come out to 45 francs
Me- D'accord, merci
Bank Lady- How would you like the money?
Me- Avec 20's, s'il vous plait.
Bank Lady- Alright here you go! Have a nice day!
Me- Merci, bonne journée

WHY DID SHE SPEAK TO ME IN ENGLISH!??!???? This has happened to me on numerous accounts. I don't say a word of english, yet they continue to blabber away. Apparently my french just sucks... score!

and one last thing, today I was on the bus and this man was having a very loud conversation with himself in a mixture of german and french and then he saluted me and said "high hitler!" What the heck do you say to that?

I miss seeing this everyday :(










But then again, mountains might be better :)

3 Months

Wowza, tomorrow is my 3 month mark in Switzerland, which is so bizarre! It's already flying by so fast, christmas is becoming a predominant subject in conversation, and we've already picked names for secret santa! Sadly the name I got is a cousin who I haven't even met yet... so that will make buying a present a little challenging.
I honestly don't have much to report, nothing too interesting has been going on, just school. On friday my bus broke down on the way to school, so I was about 5 minutes late to economics which ticked off my teacher because he's a stickler for rules. So I did my best to explain what happened, but he was still mad and told me that I would have to do a report. Every morning 1 or 2 students have to read an article about economics to the class, which is easy for them, but sadly my pronunciation sucks so it makes it a bit challenging. Well anyways, when he told me that I would have to do a report I didn't exactly understand what he said but didn't feel like asking so i was just like "oui, ok pas un problèm" which meant that I agreed to do the article. So monday morning I get to class and he asks for my article and I just give him a blank stare... so then he explains what I have to do, but since I didn't do the first one, I had to do 2! So I got to class this morning and had to read my article to the class, which was extremely humiliating and just so horrible. I know it made no sense at all, because I was butchering the words horribly. I honestly don't think anybody understood a word I said... and the teacher just gave me the saddest most pathetic look once I finished and then said something about how I'll be better by the end of the year. but he was nice and didn't make me read the second one out loud. But fortunately my class was nice and didn't laugh in my face, even though I'm sure they wanted to. so yeah, that's my story of the week!
Yesterday I got a massive package from my marvelous cousin Chrissy, which was unexpected but greatly appreciated! Maxime destroyed the Reese's, so those are all gone... hahah but I still have my peanut butter, twizzlers, gum, easy mac and chocolate chips! I even made some snowcaps (a cookie my mom bakes) last night, because I wanted to put the chocolate chips to good use! I think I might have mentioned this already, but chocolate chips here are extremely hard to find, and they taste like crap which is shocking because switzerland is basically the chocolate capital of the world. and they're not even chips, they're cubes. it's stupid. So using real chocolate chips was fantastic! She also sent over a bunch of tabloids, which made me so happy! I'm so out of touch with the celebrity world! well actually, I'm so out of touch with just the world entirely... but at least now I know what's happening in hollywood! So basically the point of that little rant is that if you want to win over my heart, send me a care package!
Tomorrow is finally friday, which means I finish school at 12:15. I'm celebrating my friend's birthday tomorrow night in Fribourg but other than that I don't have much planned for the weekend. I'm just anxiously waiting for monday, which means GAGA!!!
oh, and side note, this week's glee episode made me so frickin happy! I have creepily been stalking Darren Criss for about a year and a half ever since he premiered in A Very Potter Musical on youtube. and now my little boy is all grown up and starring on tv! So proud :)
and one last thing... ONLY 1 MORE WEEK UNTIL THE EPIC FINALE!!!!

:D

Wanna know something super duper cool and exciting? My host dad just bought tickets for me and Grace to go to Lady Gaga on November 15th!! I've been freaking out for about an hour straight!! As the wise John Grady once said "I found Lady Gaga to be extremely interactive with your soul." Sounds like a good time, right? So yeah, I've got me some Gaga on the 15th, and then to top it all off my most favorite cousin Ellen is journeying over from the land of the frenchies on the 18th to watch the epic first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with me! Gaga+Ellen+HP= THE BEST WEEK EVERRRR!!!