Die erste Schulwoche

As of 16:40 Switzerland time yesterday, or 11:40 am at home, I have officically gone to school in a foregin country for one week. Ta da! Now I can come home... Not. But I am definatley missing the comforting sounds of my mother language. The gutteral sounds of German are brutily abusing my ears 24.7. Sitting in a classroom surrounded by a teacher and 20 other students, which even that is pretty weird after my three to ten student classes at Olney, who are all speaking another language so fluently and so fast. I was so petrified until I taught myself to ease into it. Everyone is very nice to me, most likely cause they feel bad for me, but oh well, that is better than nothing. I have decided to just focus on the language and not my other classes for the first months or so. I have a school-provided tutor on Thursdays after school and my dads cousin, Paolo, is also tutoring me in his house in Horv. My parents were traveling all week so I saw them for the first time yesterday and I didnt realize until then how much German I have picked up in just one week. Hopefully this language barrier wont be so painful to get around.




Another thing I have noticed here, which I find quite funny, is the American influence EVERYWHERE. I could not count the number of shirts with New York City, Los Angelos, New Orleans, etc. etc. I have seen here. In the middle of Switzerland, I see billboards with Ryan Renolds face, restraunts and cafes named California and in my English class when the teacher asked us where we would like to go on vacation if we could go anywhere in the world... The majority of my class said the USA. Its the weirdest thing...

Here are some pictures of the things we did that I mentioned in the last post:

I love the toilet buttons so much! 

Swiss chocolate

Mustard and Mayo in tubes, so weird...

Everyone has tiny ridges.. Or maybe Americans just have giant ones. Wow. Explains a lot.

View from the Rigi

Cow poop on the sidewalk of a popular tourist destination. You would never see that in the US.

<3

Market Stands

Swiss Cheese

MEAT

Homemade swiss raviolis and pastas

Olives and peppers

EVERYTHING IN TUBES.. WHAT?!

So on Wednesday we left Karin's and went to the mountains. We went to the Alps with some friends from Madison who also happen to be in Switzerland right now. In their 20s my dad and my uncle Peter worked at an alpine cheese.. you can't say factory, gives the wrong impression... Well a alpine cheese operation. Peter would milk the 27 cows, by hand I think, and dad would make the cheese in a copper pot over a fire. They made between three and five wheels a day. Friends of my dad's still work this way in the summers and we stayed with them for two days. One of the most incredible experiences I have ever had.