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3/28/07 from Alyssa in Switzerland

Hoi sämme

ich hend mich wolle enschiide, einige Saetze ouf schwiitzerdüetsch zu schriibe, weil es mir Freud macht. Aber jetzt hend ich keine ahnig, was ich wohl schriibe solle. Na ja.

I should also point out I don't write swiss german very well. It's mostly high german actually...

Anyway, the drama club (with ME!) Put on endgame by samuel beckett. I no longer get to go to drama and play with gary and stefan and timo and zoe. afterwards, there was an apero and we got to hang out with Gary and Stefan because we all wound up missing our trains. And it snowed as we were walking to the train station. There's even a tape (minus the last 10 minutes or so ;_;), so you'll all get to see. Stefan told me I absolutely have to keep doing theater. Then, they were amazed as I did as much of the play as a one man show as our short train ride allowed. The sadness. My high german will never be as good as it is right now. From now on, it's swiss german all the way, which means no one will be able to understand me. WOOHOO!

I just want to report that today, the score in the game of Alyssa vs. the public transportation system of Switzerland is offically 1 to.... 8 (or so) BUT I HAVE SIEGED! I AM ViCTORiOUS!

Yes. I feel I must set the scene. This morning, as I went to school, I forgot basically everything that I needed to remember. Flute. Keys to get back into the house once I realized I had forgotten the flute. Most importantly, I had forgotten my wallet.

Now normally, forgetting my wallet here isn't such a big deal. Have to borrow lunch money from a firend, but it really isn't a problem, except that today it was. My english teacher decided to take us to go see Animal Farm at the theater. Therein lies the problem. I would be going home after 8pm, which means that the driver checks the tickets. My ticket is in my wallet. Ha, the plot thickens.

So school on tuesdays is over at 5pm. I walked to the trainstation as normal, mentally preparing for what I had to do. the 5.19 train to Dietikon, arrival: 5.30, then the S17 from Dietikon to Berikon Widen, then the bus to Widen Dorf, arrival: 5.51....then the fun part starts. I knew that to get to the play on time, I'd have to take the 6.04 bus back to the trainstation. That of course, leaves about a 14 minute window to get home, get my wallet, find my keys, find away out of Juana Lydia talking to me, and get back to the bus stop....had my bus been on time. It was however, due to the normal dinnertime rush, 2 minutes late. The plot thinkens.

So I get on the bus, press the button to stop, adopt a sprinter stance, and despite my schoolbag, manage to make it home at 5.56, just one minute after I planned to. Sweet. I "borrowed" my host sister's keys, raced upstairs, grabbed my wallet, managed to have an unusually short exchange with Juana Lydia, and made it out of the house at 5.58.

I then managed to run all the way back to the bus stop, making it there at 6.02. 2 whole minutes before I needed to be there. The bus was once again 1 minute late. I made it to Baden at 6.42, tried to buy a Shinkengipfeli, but they were out, and got to the theater, dinner in hand, at 5.55, just 10 minutes after I should have been there.

ALYSSA WiNS AT LiFE!!!!...today.

Pictures from Endspiel (scroll down a little, and there is a link with pictures of a girl and boy in pjs and sleeping hats), please ignore the really weird closeups of my head. I think I was in front of the photographer during my "story" bit... ^.^;; ( I like the pic of us with the doggies....) Other than that, there is not really all that much to say. Been really busy lately. Political issues are at a sad and boring level here (unless you all really want to hear about the European union trying to "force" new tax laws in Switzerland, whose tax system apparently non-swiss can not understand...). Skiing is over. I went for the last time on sunday. I also took a really insanely cool fall and I am amazed it didn't break my legs. (not really that amazing, I exagerate mom!) Until next time, when I hope to explain the Tiki tablets that I bought about a month ago but have not actually tried out. <3-lich Grüss dahai' Alyssa

3/15/07 from Christine's Blog the zoo and the inbound meeting

 

hello everyone!!
a lot has happened since i last updated... mo was here, and we went to the zoo. and this is me with the penguins. lol. there were also bears and wolves and such... typical zoo.. but it was a lot of fun!!! i didn't actually buy this hat.. but i was tempted. i also went to a party with my friend from china, jin. it was pretty fun.. but i was the only american and the majority of the guests were speaking english. at least i learned something from it.. chinese food (REAL chinese food) is AMAZING!!!! hmm.. what else? oh.. this is me being the oscar lady (??) lol. and then of course there's the inbound meeting, from which i just got home. basically, it was me hanging around with nolan and sam the whole time.. we were very bored at times.. therefore, i have pictures of us playing ping pong, nolan and i imitating each other (nolan stares off into space a lot, and i rarely know the music he's talking about), and of all of us riding on a fifty cent alligator for kids. *hangs head* it was fun.

sam also had a staring contest with the alligator.

the concentration!!!

then i hung out a lot on the way home with this boy from pennsylvania whose name starts with a D...(?) and this girl whose name is SJ (i think) and who also comes from america. anyway, D guy comes from state college. and he knows nazareth!!! oh. and then we were just sitting around and this little kid comes up and pulls sj's hair!! for no reason! and i managed to get a picture!!! lol. all in all, the weekend was pretty fun. it was just REALLY cold, and REALLY windy, and that's why i was very happy to get back to berlin, where the sun is shining and it's warm, like 17 degrees C!!! this is me being a happy exchange student in sunny berlin and being happy because nolan and i might go to a strokes concert!!!

but i'm also a bit sad because bob dylan is playing in berlin, and we're gonna be on the eurotour. but bob dylan vs. prague??? i can't say i'm that upset. lots of love and best wishes from germany!!!

love, chrissy

p.s. t-minus 39 days until the eurotrip....!!!

 

3/15/07 from Julia's blog

posted by julia

3/9/07 from Alyssa in Switzerland

Normal Insanity

So I have been temporarilly rendered insane by a sudden love of "airport literature" especially that of Micheal Crichton, so forgive whatever crazyness seems to spout from that. (Read so far: Jurassic Park, Prey, Timeline, State of Fear)

I woke up at 7am today in order to call Leighanne up, because we haven't talked in forever. It was really intresting to talk with her, as she is the only one who really makes an effort to talk to me here, or well, does so on a regular basis. I don't know how the others are finding their communications with their friends from America. I mean, I just try to have as little internet chatting going on as possible, because then I start to get intrested in the life I left at home and not the fantastic one I am leading here, as frustrating as it can be at times. But anyway, going on exchange is a great way to find out which of your friends are really truely addicted to talking to you...

So I'll back track two weeks to Drama Week, and no, there was not a whole lot of drama going on. The Drama class at school is putting on Endgame, which I have mentioned before. The week before "Sport Vacation" is devoted entirely to drama, the rest of the kdis have regular school, but the drama class has drama all day, everyday, from 8am to 5pm. It was probably my best week here yet. Someone told me that they were happy we had a drama week because they got to know me better. Before, this person said, people would just look at me and think "An american...oh" and go on their merry way, but after a week together, they actually get to see that I am fun and cool and don't really overly fit into their perception of america. (Which of course, I do, in someways, but not in others.) Anywhoo, Zoe stole my camera, so I have about a million pictures of people taken 6 inches away from their faces.

Other than that, I spent the last week (aka first week of vacation) in the mountains, where there is no snow. I was supposed to go skiing with my host sister's boyfriend's class, but we had to cancell a second time, as this time there was even less snow. I find that unfortunate, as I was forced to kill 9 days, in the middle of the mountains, where all there is to do is sleep, read, or hike. I wound up hiking 8 miles one day. I miss skiing weather, and I hope it snows at least once more so I can get back to hurtling uncontrolled down a mountain, while still being outstripped by small children. Nothing beats being laughed at by 4 year old skiing savants. ;-)
We also went on a day trip to Lugano (aka capital of the italian switzerland) and Italy. We had pasta, which unfortunately for us, was just a heated up frozen meal. but italy was pretty, despite the lake being dirty than Luganosee.

This week I am once again at home. Yesterday I went to Zurich to buy a cool hat, well not in order to buy it, but I wound up with a hat. And Yarn. And A new Micheal Chrichton book (Prey, which is shaping up well after the less creature based State of Fear). And Stitch n' Bitch: The Happy Hooker (a crochet book, for those of you who don't know...) So I hope to spend the rest of today trying to keep my crochet looser (cause I seem to crochet like someone with nervous tension...), reading, and planning my trip to Genf (aka Geneva) Thursday.

Happy Valentine's day everyone!!

See, Wilhelm Tell IS really the national hero, there's a big staute and EVERYTHING!!

 

posted by Zippy the Little Electric Airplane at 12:35 AM | 1 comments  

2/27/07 from Aishah in Brazil

As Broadway has taught us, there are 525,600 minutes in one year. These minutes seem to race by, but the memories are not only unforgettable but full of love, adventure, experience, with triumphs, and sometime defeats, but in the end all culminate into leading us in the direction of our futures.

Someone very wise once told me to give a hug, a smile, and to tell someone that I love them each day of my life and to make sure I always enjoyed every second I was living. Being an exchange student I often think that the hours, the days, the weeks, and months fly by even more rapidly. When you realize you are in a constant state of learning and a new awakening is just around the corner, time seems to slip by in the blink of an eye.

When I realized I hadn´t written in two months I also realized that I had reached my 7th month of exchange. The past two months have been packed full of experiences. I celebrated my birthday on January 6th in Reciefe with my friend Ashleigh Cook who is also on exchange. Then, a few weeks later my amazing first host parents Charles  Ana Lucia through a party for me at their house which was really fun full of my family and friends.

I moved back to their house in February because my second host family spent two weeks in the United States. We also recieved two more American girls in our city as new English teachers and I have enjoyed getting to know them both and hearing about their experiences.

I decided to discontinue my capoeira lessons because I realized how much I missed music in my life. So this month I enrolled in the Federal University´s Chorus which has really been a great experience. I have an awesome director who reminds me so much of Mr. K back home and I am enjoying studying and singing in Italian, Portuguese, and German.

I also returned back to University at Instiute Camillo Filho. I decided to spend half of my classes in the second semester and half in the first, because I enjoyed Sociology so much I returned to it and am studying it again.

I also went to my first Formatura this month which is graduation at the university. I have to say I´ve never seen a larger party in my life. The theme was Phantom of the Opera and the graduates entered the stage on a runway fashioned area with glitter falling from the air as a samaba group performed. It was really neat and also special because it was my cousin and my 4th host brothers graduation.

Another big event which happened just two weeks ago was Carnaval. The closest we have to this is Mardi Gras but in reality nothing compares to Carnaval Brasilian style. We spent four days at our beach in Louis Correia where pretty much my entire city was. The party began at 8pm on the block each night and lasted until a little after 1am and then all of us went to the show that they had in the arena. If you can imagine 1000 very animated, crazy, dancing and happy people running down a street this is just a little glimpse of what carnaval was like. It is definitely a unique experience and I loved every second of it. At the beach I stayed with my Aunt, cousin, and our maids and I threw a surprise party for my exchange student friend Anabelle from Mexico. It was really nice because she had no idea and she turned 18 so it was a big day for her.

In other good news my host parents surprised me and are taking me to Brasilia, Brasil (the capital of Brasil) tomorrow to spend one week getting to know the area and meeting with some judges for my father´s work. So needless to say I am very excited about this adventure.

I hope everyone had a wonderful valentines day...we dont celebrate that until June 12th here. I hope all of you are doing well and enjoying your year as well. I love you all and look forward to hearing from you.

Love always,

Aishah B.H. McNeil

Ps. Dont forget to let the special women in your life know that you appreciate them on March 8, 2007 which is Internatinal Women´s Day.

2/25/07 from Christine in Germany

 

hello everyone!

this week has pretty much been an amazing one so far. last tuesday, since we had winter vacation last week, i went with my new host family to a little town called Weimar, which is basically a graceland of sorts where lots of famous and talented poets, composers, and authors lived. but we're talking the big names, like Goethe, Schilling, Bach, Hans Christian Anderson. etc. so yeah.. here's goethe, schilling, and me!! lol. so we walked around this little square and ate Thüringer Bratwurst. I also learned why the people there and in the area around there are called Thüringer. because the ancient peoples who lived there worshipped the god Thor, or, auf deutsch, Thur. dunno how it got from Thur to Thür... but that's the story, anyway. so. At one point or another we go into the Goethe Haus.. the house where Goethe and his wife lived in Weimar. (This is my lastest blush catastrophe.) so fairly close to the house, there is a little stable area where an old carriage stood. the carriage that goethe and his wife used to make small journeys. and my host mother wanted to take a picture. but somehow the angle wasn't good, and she said to me, hey, just jump over the guard fence, just real quick so i can take a picture. (heh.) so as soon as my feet touch the ground on the other side of the fence, a very large BEEEP sounds and scares the living daylight out of me. so, being the graceful person that i am, i panic, and my feet get caught in the rope that makes up part of the guard rail. so there i am, in the house of a master poet, artist, scientist, and god knows what else this man did, lying on the floor where his horses used to stand, knees and elbows in pain and blushing like an idiot. sigh.. why is it always me? lol. so anyway, that was a lot of fun. oh. and then we had dinner which consisted of Rotkohl, Kloße, and Sauerbraten.. and i can't wait until i can show you all these recipes.. they're amazing. and then benny and i took a picture with the kloße oma. (the things on her tray are Kloße. that's basically potato thats been shredded into mush, had all of the moisture squeezed out of it, with nutmeg and flour, and with a little crouton in the middle, cooked in water. kloße + gravy= YUM. )

ok. so that was one adventure.

then i took some pictures in the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis Kirche, which is a church in berlin which was hit by a bomb in the second world war. the destroyed building still stands, but this blue stained glass building is the more modern part of the church, built after the war, where services are held and all of that. very pretty.

and then on tuesday, karin, lina and i went to an ice hockey game. the berliner eisbären!!! it was really cool, they won 6-3. we got to learn all of the chants and everything in german.. it was reeeally fun. i have to admit, i miss ice hockey just the teensiest bit. i guess you get used to it when your whole family practically lives in an ice rink. so yeah. it was exciting. and i bought a scarf so that i could wave it around during the chanting like the other fans! i mean.. it was no flyers game. but it was pretty close.

and now, the highlight of my week. yesterday. yesterday, karin and i went to a decemberists concert in berlin. needless to say, i was completely psyched and excited to see them. we got there about an hour and a half before it started and were therefore in the SECOND ROW!!! it was so cool, and it turned out to be a really awesome show, opened by lavender diamond. at one point at the end of the show, colin told john moen, the drummer, to take a beer back to the lighting guys in the back of the room because they were doing such a good job. this ended up in john jumping into the crowd and being passed to the back of the room. only in the middle of the room there was a steel girter (sp.?) hanging from the ceiling. john grabbed onto the girter and was hanging from it like a sloth, afraid to let go. he was really funny. all in all, it was an amazing night. they didn't play the mariners revenge, but a bunch of guys in the crowd really wanted them to and started screaming at the top of their lungs (and in their heavy german accents) "find him, find him, tie him to a pole and break his fingers to splinters, drag him to a hole until he wakes up naked clawing at the ceiling of his grave" (lyrics from the song.) ((all of their songs aren't that morbid. and i think they were tired of playing it. after all, it was two albums ago...)) it was hilarious. there were two encores, and in the second encore, colin had chris funk and john moen go down into the audience and clear a space, and told the whole story of st. valentine (since it was valentine's day.) they pulled people out of the audience to help act it out, and it was so completely cool and typical colin (who bases all of his music on folk tales, legends, historical events, etc.) so yeah. my week has been pretty sweet. : ) and bob dylan is playing here on the third of march, but i would imagine it's already sold out. sigh. and the eurotrip is in two months!!! aahh! i can't wait!

lots of love from germany

christine

 

2/18/07 from Claudia in Spain

2/10/07 from Alexandra in Italy

Hmmm.

 

Hello everyone!
So much for the idea that having a blog would help me keep you guys up to date more. Oh well. Things haven't been especially exciting around here anyway (I've been sick for ages, I think I might have mono but my host family was convinced that since I don't have a high fever I can't be sick... don't worry, my counselor is taking me to the doctor this week.), and I'm not getting along especially well with my new host family-- I'm moving as soon as possible though. Meaning as soon as Rotary gets around to finding new families for myself as well as for 3 other exchange students who are not having the best times... so that might not be for awhile. But no more complaining! I'm so lucky to have a counselor who is amazing and actually listens to what I say-- others aren't so lucky.

On to exciting news: I got a hair cut! I got bangs! Look! Guest apperance by exchange student Hillary. No, I can't smile in pictures. It's the fake model pose or funny faces.

while I'm posting pictures, I might as well put some of my room up...

It's nice. I like it. Too bad I stole it from one of the boys, causing slight feelings of resentment. Not my fault...

I went to the theatre last night... I forget what it was called but it was by Goldoni, famous Italian playwright. And I think it was in Ventian dialect... meaning I understood a whoooole lot. It was long. But it was still fun since I hadn't been to a show in ages. Little Shop of Horrors is coming here soon... in Italian... I think I need to go see that strictly to laugh at the translations of the lyrics

In case I didn't tell you guys... I'm going to Spain (Granada, Sevilla, and Cordoba to be specific) with my class the first week of March. I'm super super excited. And tomorrow I'm going to Venice with Rotary. It's our monthly meeting thing. Even though I've already been there I'm sure I'll take many more pictures. We're going there for carnival. Later on in the month we have four days of from school for Milan carnival... and next week we have autogessione (probably spelled that wrong. I still haven't gotten the hang of when to write double consenents) which is when the students take over the school. It's happening for three days. Basically, you don't have to go to school and if you do go you sit around and do nothing or go to assemblies run by the students that protest how horrible the students think the school is. Or something like that. I'm excited.

Sorry this was borring and short, but I don't have too much time on the computer these days... its in the boys' room and they have "homework" (aka msn) to do all the time.

Love and miss you!

Alexandra

PS- longer and more interesting post later. I promise.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

02/09/07  from Christine in Germany

 

Hey everyone! New Post! and good news! Germany is, as of last night, the world champion of handball. (yes, like we play in gym.) the whole family came over to celebrate benni's 19th birthday and to watch the game. and i have pictures!!! so first of all let me introduce my new host family.. i'm only with them for two more weeks, but hey. they're like family already. so there's Antje and Benny, my host mom and host brother. they're really cool.

Antje is a chemistry and biology teacher at the gymnasium in Werder. i.e. she helps me out understanding chemistry, which I didn't even understand in English.
Benni was in Argentina last year and speaks spanish like woah. he also speaks english really well. and this next one is Antje and her mother, who is also pretty cool.


aand this one is me, benni, and my host grandpa, i.e. antje's dad. we were playing a game which involved improving our english/german skills. they of course played it to speak english, i played it to speak german. it was reversible like that. one time benni won, and one time i won. hooray for exchange students!

this one is all of us playing the game, from left to right: host grammy, host aunt, host cousins, benni, and me. five of the six people here live at 55 höhen weg, where i live now. (all except host grammy. lol)

anyway, we sat around and watched the handball game and cheered with our little deutschland scarves as germany beat poland pretty badly. and then we ate dinner. at dinner i got to dress up pretty funny, because they whipped out an american flag apron, because my host dad likes to barbecue in summer, and a past exchange student from america had given it to him as a gift. he wore it first and then everyone decided that i should be the one to wear it, since it is, after all, my flag. and what do you know, the day before, karin had given me a pair of american flag flip flops from old navy that she'd brought with her as gifts for people. so i was totally pimped out in red white and blue, which meant i looked kind of funny. (cant get this picture to flip. it's basically being dumb.

all in all, it was a pretty awesome night. and to top it all off, i wanted to watch the superbowl on tv, even though it started at 11:40. well. i waited up until 11.40 and then they announced that kickoff didnt start until 12.20. which i would still have been up for, except for that my host family went to bed. benni was going to stay up and watch it with me, but then he heard that it didnt start until 20 after and he had to get up early the next day, so we decided to tape it and watch it later. so i still dont know how it turned out. don't tell me! *i can't hear you! lalalalalalaala!

lol.

happy superbowl everyone.

love

chrissy

02/7/07 from Jenn in Costa Rica

Silvester!!!

 

hey everyone!!! i know that i'm about a month late, but i thougt i'd let you all know how new years was... so... it was awesome!! ashleigh and her friend sherri from iowa came over and christoph invited a bunch of friends.. martin, max, patrick, und tamo. and then we ate raclett, which is a swiss food something like fondue.. you take a slice of cheese and you put it into a little tray, and then you stick the tray in a litle hot oven that sits on the table. then you smoosh up potatoes , ham, corn, pineapple, pickles, and whatever else comes to mind on your tray. and then when the cheese is nice and golden and melty, you pour it over the moosh. and then you eat it all. and it's good. and then we all ran around and set off fireworks in the back yard, and christoph broke out these ridiculous hats and masks, which i swore not to wear, and then ended up wearing anyway. take, for example, this picture of me and martin... he looks much better in the glasses-stache deal. but for foto's sake... anyway, so then we went to this big new year's party in a place called the Löwe Saal (lion's den?) and danced the night away. it was cool. but we had issues getting there, so at exactly twelve o'clock on the dot we were running around berlin like, 'christoph!!! you said you knew how to get there!!!' but it was fun anyway. anywayy... i have a bunch of pictures from the musical, which we just finished off today with a showing for the school.. the musical was called saft laden, which technically translated means 'juice shop', but what it means is not really just juice shop. for example.. when you go to a restaurant and you gotta wait an hour to get in and then the server forgets your order and then the food is bad and then she screws up the price and then you're sick afterwards, you would say that the restaurant is a saft laden. or if there's a certain office where nothing gets done, or where you as the customer note that they have NO idea what they're doing, then you would call that particular establishment a saft laden. just so that it's clear. anyway. so we had lots of fun putting on the show and making-up the boys.. because the one teacher was really psycho about make up, but when she tried to put eyeliner on the boys, she managed to get a good centimeter between the actual eyes and the eyeliner. so we erased it later and re did it. as an example, here's willy.

but the best one was the one red headed kid.. i dunno his name.. but he looks like a porcelain doll, or pinnochio or something.. i just thought it was so cute.. lol. oh and the guy on the right was homelesss. so that's how he got out of the whole rouge and lipstick deal. that bugger.

and.. lets see. karin came to see the show and i asked her to take a couple of pictures, which she did, and which i will show you right now.

so this first one is of the first scene, in which we were homeless people, i.e. down and outs, i.e. hooverites.. am i seeing a trend in my acting career here? is this a bad omen? anyway, that's me eminating teenage angst on the steps, though all you can really see is my shoes, my glove, and my really super red lips. : ) i look so depressed.. so this is us singing cabaret, but with different words (german words...) and yeah.. basically we stay in this little chorus line/half circle for the better part of the show... : (

 

 

oh. and this is me falling off of a giant see saw on potsdamer platz. it was pretty exciting... and also random.

 

 

 

and that's.. pretty much everything that's going on in my life right now. except for that i'm in werder for three weeks (well.. two now. one week down). and the third week that i'm here is vacation. so that's nice. anyway... werder... just to explain its name... 'werden' means 'to become', which means that 'werder' means 'one who is becoming', which in my loose translation, means 'it's getting there.' werder was part of East Germany, so... it still looks a bit DDR-esque. (though it's not as ghetto as falkensee, where karin lives... lol.) but yeah... basically a light post every quarter mile, and.. well.. who needs paved roads anyway? so that's fairly different from frohnau, where i normally live, which was under french occupation and is therefore fairly nice. america occupied the southwest part of berlin, and there are still a lot of americanized things to see, places where the soldiers went to hang out and live, etc. oh.. and i just found out that benni (my quasi- three weeks- host brother) has pretty much the best music collection ever.. i'm sitting here jamming out to brown eyed girl and various other van morrison treasures.. lol. oh! and i set a date for coming home. i will officially be back in the country on June 30th at 11:45 am. just in time for the fourth of july (and whatever picnics and or parties may come my way with the summer holiday feeling) so.. yeah. basically, life is good. and it's SNOWING!!! and .... it's SNOOOWWWING!! yay! and mo's coming to visit in LESS THAN A MONTH!! how awesome is that?

i love you all and miss you!

love

chrissy