It's all going so fast!

As I get nearer and nearer to my return date, things happen more and more quickly. I've been so busy in the past couple of weeks that I literally haven't had the time to post anything. Even now I should be sleeping instead of posting because I'm leaving in five hours for a weekend adventure and I haven't started sleeping yet! (Obviously, unless this is really a lucid dream. I guess I'll have to check the blog later and see if this post really exists.) But I thought that if I don't take a bit of time now to catch you (and me) up on what I've been doing, I'll never have the chance to do it before I get back to the US. Seriously, my schedule is completely full until I get back.

So here are my last two weeks, narrated with short descriptions and very few photos. On Thursday the 10th, I visited CERN with a group of exchange students. I am very interested in science in general and also the research they are doing at CERN in particular, so it has been one of my dreams to visit CERN and I knew I had to go sometime this year. I did actually go there in the fall with my first host family but we hadn't planned it so we only saw the exhibit they had up but didn't get the tour. This time I organized for us to have the tour and everything, and it was really neat. Also, I think we went into France at one point, which would be the first time I have ever been to France! I've heard of a project that KU was helping with at CERN and I think it would be awesome to connect with this when I get to KU and possibly come back to be behind the scenes.

Part of the group in the shuttle that took us to the different sites: Brazil, Australia, California, India, Nevada, Arkansas, Louisiana.

The following weekend I went to spend Saturday with my third host family. It was my third host sister's 9th birthday on Sunday and they had invited over some family members for a surprise birthday dinner. I helped make the cakes, but unfortunately I had to leave before the dinner because I had planned on going to my school's jazz band concert, since some of my friends were playing in it. So I went to the concert and some of the songs were pretty good, but the jazz band is still a work in progress. At least it lasted longer than the school orchestra, which only survived long enough to accompany the choir when they sang Vivaldi's Gloria towards the beginning of the year.

That Sunday I had free so I took the afternoon to go to some of the museums in Fribourg. I thought it would be ridiculous to live in this town all year and never visit the museums. The ones I ended up going to were the Museum of Art and History, which has a lot of art from the canton of Fribourg, and that was pretty neat. And the second one was for Jean Tinguely, who made sculptures that move and make sound and light when you press a button. Those were a lot of fun. Unfortunately it was raining and chilly, which I find a bit strange for June weather.

The statue's hand with the statue's shadow.

Then last week I asked for permission not to come to school on Tuesday and Wednesday and went on some adventures with my friend Katie. On Tuesday we went to Domodossola, a little town in Italy that our Swiss train passes can get us to without our having to pay. Apparently when the weather is nice it is a cute little town, but it was raining and there was nothing to do, so we took a panoramic train to Locarno to pass the time. The train ride was nice, but when we arrived in Locarno we realized that we would have to take the same train back to get back to our side of the country in time for Katie to take her last bus home from Sion. So we did. Then that evening in Fribourg some other exchange students were meeting to watch a World Cup game. I joined them for a while but then I had to take my last bus home.

A view from the panoramic train: somewhere in Italy.

On Wednesday Katie and I went to St. Gallen, which is all the way on the East side of the country. My main goal was to visit a really cool historical library that Carly Putnam had made me aware of. Again, it was raining, but it was a really beautiful library and I managed to sneak in a photo when the lady wasn't looking. St. Gallen was a nice town. It was too bad to only spend one day there but it takes about three hours to get there from Fribourg, which is why I hadn't gone more often before.

Sometimes there are reasons to be thankful for the rain!

Interior of the Stiftsbibliothek.

On Friday I went to Bern for Elisa's goodbye party. She was going home to Mexico the next week. The original plan was to go to the roof of the train station. (I've never been there, but it's supposed to be cool.) But of course it was still raining, so we ended up going to this building outside of town where there were some of her Swiss friends as well. At one point the people in the next lot over were shooting off fireworks. I'm not sure why. I'm guessing it had something to do with the general giddiness associated with the World Cup.

Then last Saturday I had a rehearsal for my piano recital. Grace from Australia was looking for something to do and came to Fribourg and met me after my rehearsal, and we ended up at an ice cream place, enjoying ice cream, free wi-fi, and a World Cup game. I believe Australia was playing in this game because Grace was really into it. That evening I went to Katelyn's dance recital and her first host parents, one of whom is in Rotary, took me there so I wouldn't have to take the train. She had a solo at the end, and it was amazing! I think it's pretty cool that she was able to continue with dance this year, like I was able to continue with music.

Last Sunday I went to Interlaken with Katie and Grace because Katie's host dad and a friend from school were playing in a music festival of some sort. We didn't actually stay for very long because we spent so much time trying to find Katie's friend and then after we finally did we had missed the parade. So we decided we'd rather spend our afternoon in a heated train than out in the wet, cold city of Interlaken. We ended up going all the way to Basel, then coming back down through Bern, where we all switched trains. Katie and went to Lausanne, where she switched to get to Sion, and I stayed in Lausanne because I had to wait a while for my next bus from home from Fribourg. I decided to take the metro because I never had before, so I took it towards the lake, and when I arrived there was this whole World Cup setup with a projector and giant screen, food stands, free noisemakers, and even stands for the fans to sit in. I unfortunately didn't get to stay for the game because I had to go back and take my bus, but I did get some free noisemakers!

The temporary eating hall at Interlaken.

The nest of World Cup fans I found at Ouchy.

Last Tuesday I had my last piano recital here. It was all Chopin because 2010 is Chopin's 200th birthday. It was very nice, even though there were only seven of us that played. At the end was another of those good-bye moments where I wasn't sure whether I would see those people again. It turns out I did see one of the other piano students in the bus this morning, though. On Wednesday, Katelyn, Jessica and I had to give our presentations to our host Rotary club. It was a lunch meeting, and we got to eat the gourmet restaurant food with them. I think the best meals I have eaten this year have been with Rotary. If it's up to me to pay I usually just get some bread or yogurt or apples or salami or something from the grocery store and call it a meal. I didn't prepare a speech; I just had some photos from Kansas and from this year to share and then I made up the speech as I went. This worked surprisingly well since it was in French and I was barely nervous at all.

Today was the last day of normal classes at school and I think everyone in my class has now signed my Swiss flag. It's slowly filling up (at the least the red part is) and I think it will be a nice memory to have of my friends here. After school I went to a restaurant and watched the Portugal vs. Brazil game with a couple of friends from school. After the game I went to Bern for Matthew's viola recital. Matthew is American but he has been in Switzerland for a while and played / substitutes for the Bern Symphony Orchestra. I know him because he also substituted for my orchestra for our second concert. This recital was for his Master's Thesis and it was really nice to go hear some classical music. I feel like I've been cut off from concerts this year because I no longer have the Kansas City Symphony to usher at so if I wanted to attend concerts I would have to pay for tickets, plus most of them take place too late at night for me to get back to Fribourg in time for my last bus home. There is no professional symphony orchestra in Fribourg, unfortunately. Anyway, it was a nice recital and afterwards I walked down some stairs to the Aare River, walked along the river for a bit and then crossed a small bridge and walked up a steep street to get back to the train station. The weather is finally nice and it seems to have (at least temporarily) stopped raining.

So that's all I've been up to for the past two weeks. I hope you can understand why it was impossible for me to post. And tomorrow I"m going to Oberammergau to see the famous passion play. I figured I needed to get caught up before I had that to write about as well, so there you are. Next week is even busier than the last two so wish me luck! This last month or so is going to go by in a whirlwind and before I know it I'll be back in Kansas City. It's exciting to be coming back soon but at the same time I don't want to leave. The funny thing about being an exchange student somewhere for a year is that at the beginning you don't know anyone and you have to build up a life for yourself in the new country. Then by the end of the year you have friends, you have a new language (or two), you have habits and customs that you've gotten used to, and then just when you are starting to feel completely at home, you have to go back where you came from, tear up the roots you carefully spent all year planting, and return to a world that will be mostly the same except that you will be different.

A Few Coincidental and Planned-at-the-Last-Minute Meetings

A couple of weekends ago I was so busy that I had absolutely no time to blog. But I had a lot of fun adventures that I'd like to share with you.On Friday night, I went to Fribourg with the intention of taking the train to Luzern, but I arrived an hour before the train I was planning to take because there aren't many buses from where I live. While I was looking at the train schedule, a friend of mine that plays the flute in my orchestra here came up and said she had some Americans with her that I should meet. So I met the Americans - they were all from Alabama, and they studied law and were doing an exchange in Switzerland. My orchestra friend, Delia, also studies law and is going to Alabama this summer with the same program - that's how she knew these students. At the time, there was the Fête de Pérolles in Fribourg.So I hung out with Delia and the Alabamans for an hour before going back to the station. It was funny to see them react to the high food prices because that was also my reaction at first, though I would say I have gotten used to everything being so expensive. The Fête de Pérolles happened to be where I met my next host family. Their parents were hosting one of the Alabamans, and they agreed to take him into Fribourg because the parents didn't want to go out. I started talking to them in French and mentioned that I would need a host family for about a week in July before going home and they immediately said that I could stay with them. Since I met them I've gone to visit them a couple of times and we get along really well. So that was a really nice set of coincidences for me.

La Fête de Pérolles

Speaking of coincidences, as I went back to the train station to catch my train, I ran into these lovely people (plus Elisa, not pictured) who were going to a jazz concert in Fribourg. I ended up hanging out with them instead of going to Luzern. We walked back through the Fête de Pérolles then took a hiking path along the Sarine River, past the dam, and into the old town where the concert was. Unfortunately the concert was really full and there was no room left so we went and sat by the river instead. 

Molly, Quinn and  Joelle being spies behind the umbrella.

I did still end up going to Luzern on Saturday afternoon. I visited the city with my friends Paula and Sini, who are exchange students from Germany and Finland. We spoke German the whole time, which was nice. Paula speaks quickly sometimes and I didn't always understand her but I think she has the same problem understanding my English when I talk too fast. 

Paula, Sini and I

It was Paula's first time to Luzern so she wanted to go see the sites. We walked along the wall and Sini wanted to climb up all of the towers, so we were pretty tired by the end and naturally had to go eat ice cream.

Luzern seen from one of the towers.

Sini and Paula going down the tower stairs.

The taste of summer.

Spring colors were everywhere.

It was nice weather until the very end when it began to rain. Then we took our trains home. I had to wait around in Fribourg because Katie was going to come spend the night so I was going to meet her at the station. I walked around the city and decided to take a short bike ride around the area by the stadium. 

After that, I walked back past the cathedral towards the train station. It was the Nuit des Musées (Museum Night) so there were lots of people out going to the museums and wearing funny yellow hats. As I made my way toward the station I ran into my Alabaman friends again, who were eating a fondue dinner at an outisde table. It turned out that Katie's train was going to be late, so I stayed and talked with the Alabamans and Delia plus another Swiss law student that showed up. I used to be so excited to eat fondue but now I have eaten so much of it that I can definitely wait until next winter. Then Katie eventually arrived and we hung out with the Swiss and Alabaman law students for a bit before peeling off and taking the bus back to my host family's house.

The next day, Sunday, was a Fribourg adventure with Katie. We went into town in the afternoon after sleeping in and got ice cream at that awesome ice cream place. Then we saw Date Night in the movie theater. It's the first movie I had seen since the Michael Jackson movie that I saw with Jessica and the Rotary counsellor. Interestingly, the foreign title of the movie was "Crazy Night," because I guess that makes more sense to non-English speakers. The movie was dubbed into French. It was weird to see Tina Fey's mouth moving and to hear a different voice coming out. I think dubbing is a terrible idea. Everything (books, movies, etc) is better off in its original language, whether that be English, German, French, Russian, or Chinese. You get the point. 

After the movie we headed over to Marly, a neighboring village, to see Katelyn's dance recital. I tried to take pictures but flash wasn't allowed, so this is all I've got:

After the show, we went to Katelyn's house and met her host family and ate dinner with them. Then we watched The Hangover (in English) and I really enjoyed it. Sadly, I had to miss the very end because I needed to catch my last bus home.

Papiliorama, Plus a Fribourgeois Afternoon

Yesterday I went to a Rotary event in Kerzers at the Papiliorama, one of those greenhouses filled with a butterfly garden. The event turned out to be a volunteer experience, and my counselor had forgotten to tell the president of my host club that he had suggested that we come, so everyone was a bit surprised by they said I was welcome to stay and help out. The event was for disabled and very sick children to come to this place with their families and enjoy the butterflies, food, and activities for a night. I ended up cutting out paper butterflies for the kids to color on and I ended up talking to the kids about their drawings as they sat at the table. It was really nice to be around kids because I haven't had any contact with kids at all this year. The youngest host sibling I have had so far is 15! Although that will change with my 3rd host family, which I will blog about a bit later.

So I actually got there an hour early because my Rotary counselor also hadn't specified a time, and I went and took pictures of the plants and butterflies while I was waiting for the others to arrive.

Then today we had the final debriefing meeting with the people in charge of the Rotary exchange for my host district. For once we had a Rotary event in Fribourg, so I only had to take the bus in the morning! And to make things even better, some Rivella representatives were giving out free bottles of Rivella green at the train station. Rivella is a Swiss soft drink made with 35% milk whey. It's actually pretty good. It was a bit strange the first time I tasted it but now I like it.

Paula and I in front of the train station with our Rivellas.

After the Rotary meeting, during which we talked about our year and about what could be improved with the program, we all hung out in Fribourg.

A view of the Cathédrale St.-Nicholas and the Sarine River

We ate lunch in Fribourg, visited the flea market, went down to a very small beach by the river, got ice cream from the best ice cream store in town, and played basketball. Not everybody was there for all of this. A few kids had to leave Firbourg right after the meeting, which was sad. A lot of people took their trains home before basketball so by then there were only four of us. The beach was very small and strewn with bits of broken glass as well as more sinister things, and as it was pretty much as far as one could get from an expensive beach resort, we christened it the M-Budget Beach after the cheapest generic brand that Migros carries. Of course I have nothing against M-Budget itself. The products are very nice. I chew M-Budget gum, talk on an M-Budget phone, write with M-Budget pencils, etc. It just made us laugh to imagine the entire beach somehow covered with the green M-Budget logo like the rest of the M-Budget products.

Flea Market

The flea market was nice, too. I have gotten used to everything being really expensive here so I was astounded that it was even possible to pay such low prices, even for used goods. I ended up getting a Swiss patch and a pin for my Rotary jacket, plus all three of the Philip Pullman His Dark Materials books in German for four francs each, which is about a quarter of the price that you would pay for a new book. Yay for flea markets!

A Day in Zurich

On Thursday there was no school for a Catholic holiday of some sort, so I was going to go to Interlaken with Katie, but she ended up having to go to some first communion with her host family and I ended up going to Zurich and exploring. The weather was supposed to be nice, and apparently in Fribourg it was, but in Zurich it rained all day! Luckily, I had not forgotten my umbrella.

Here we have the classic photo of the Zurich Bahnhof, so that's where I was. Sorry if this is going to disappoint you tourist types, but I have already been to Zurich and taken photos of the churches and the river and such, so if you want to see those you'll have to go elsewhere.

My first goal in Zurich was to make a pilgrimage to the flagship store of Freitag, a company that makes messenger bags and other products out of used materials. They are ecologically friendly, well-designed, very popular among the Swiss, and, unfortunately, a bit expensive. I am thinking about getting one before I leave, but I'll probably go back later when I'm sure I'll have the money. So I eventually found the place. This is what it looks like:

The umbrella you see at the top is a person up on the observation deck, which I also climbed up to. The view wasn't terribly exciting. It's in a rather industrial part of the city.

Freitag wallets - a nice burst of color on a rainy day.

After that adventure, I went back to the train station and from there walked through the old town. On one of the streets I encountered a Steinway showroom, so of course I went inside and played one of the pianos. I was the only one there besides the owner. It was really nice to get the chance to play on such a high-quality instrument after all the electric keyboards I've had to content myself with throughout the year. Not to say that I haven't played on any nice instruments at all, because I do during my lessons. There is also a grand piano at my school but it's often not available because there is something else going on in the auditorium.

Shiny, shiny, shiny!

More shiny.

Afterwards, I realized that I was hungry from all of that walking around and sat down on this (dry) bench to eat my sandwiches. I would have preferred to sit by the river, but none of those benches were covered, so I people-watched instead. The person writing on a clipboard in the middle of the bench was accosting people for Green Cross, and he came up and gave me his spiel in Zürideutsch, which I didn't understand very well. But I waited until the end of the spiel to tell him in high German that I had only understood half of what he said. He was going to repeat the spiel in high German, but then he thought to ask whether I was 18 yet (the age of majority which would legally allow you to make donations) and I replied, as I usually do if I don't want to be pressed into making a donation, that I would turn 18 next year but that I would have left Switzerland by then. Then I threw away my sandwich wrappers and continued my adventure.

A little bit of shopping and walking around later, I got back on the train to Fribourg in order to catch the last non-night-bus home. During the voyage, I sat across from an American couple from Washington State who were visiting Switzerland for a month. Apparently the husband had done an exchange when he was younger and they had both been to Switzerland several times before. It was weird to speak English.

Upon my return home, I was hungry so I looked in the refrigerator but there were no fruit yogurts left. My host family, and almost every Swiss person I know, is enamored with mocha yogurt, which I have been repulsed by ever since I tried my first one back in August. Since then I have periodically tried it again but every time I just can't eat the whole thing. Strangely enough, I went for it again and this time it wasn't terrible! Mocha yogurt will never replace, hazelnut, forest berries, or strawberry / coconut, but I didn't mind it. Perhaps my taste has changed. Or maybe I was just really hungry.

Sorry about the flash. It was starting to get dark so I didn't have much natural light to work with.

Lieder ohne Worte

I just spent a good part of my Sunday morning trying to get this to work and I finally appear to have encountered success with the Yahoo! media player. This is the piece that I played in my piano recital not too long ago. I recorded it in the "auditorium" at my school with iPod Voice Notes. So the sound quality is pretty terrible, but if you ignore the noise that happens when there is a particularly loud note, it's not too bad. After a while I also figured out that I had to lower the piano bench all the way down when recording because otherwise it squeaked whenever I moved. So, without further ado, my best attempts at recording music without the use of music-recording equipment!

Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words Op.53 No. 3

Just for fun, here's an unrelated photo for you to enjoy, one of my first attempts at editing with Picnik. This was taken on the day I was in Geneva and then came back to Fribourg with three of my exchange-student buddies. It was raining, so the tour of Fribourg wasn't terribly successful. But I did get this nice picture of Jean Tinguely's Jo Siffert fountain. Translated, my caption says "Fribourg is my city, even in the rain!"

By the way, I just went back and changed the audio player from the other post where I tried embedding a piano recording. The original one had stopped working for some reason, and it had never worked in Internet Explorer, so feel free to go back and have another listen.

Château de Chillon and Montreux

Last Wednesday we had no classes in the afternoon for some reason related to the TM / MA, the big project that all non-exchange-student third-years have to do. Being an exchange student, I have always been able to enjoy the time that everyone else spent working on this project in the form of free time. So this Wednesday afternoon I met Katie at Montreux and we headed over to the Château de Chillon. I'll spare you the suspense and show you the photo. It was pretty cool because I remembered that this was one of the sites on the list of world sites from my 9th-grade geography class. And here I am, just a few hours away on the train. We decided not to go inside because it cost money. Also the weather was cooperating for the first time in a couple of weeks and had decided not to rain, so we had to enjoy the sun while it lasted.

See those two ducks in the water to the right of the castle? They decided to come join us on the beach (from which the photo was taken). Also, there was a little boy that came with his mother and his beach toys to play there too. Granted, it was a very small beach with very little sand and very many little rocks that were painful to walk on with bare feet, but imagine living near this castle as a kid and then just coming to play with your bucket and shovel next to this view!

The ducks. I was surprised that they came so close but Katie pointed out that people probably fed them, which is probably true because this is a tourist site. I'd like to take this opportunity to discourage you readers from ever feeding wildlife wherever you go, whether it's a tourist site or in the woods or wherever you might encounter them. It's a terrible idea, and far from being good for the animals, it builds up their dependence on humans and can be very unhealthy for them.

So we spent a couple of hours on this little beach enjoying the lovely weather and then Katie had to leave because she needed to get back in time to take the last bus home at 7-something. I, however, still had a couple of hours before I needed to leave, so I went back to Montreux and walked around there for a while. It's a beautiful city. I got the impression that it was very aesthetically conscious. There are flowers everywhere, and I ran into all kinds of aesthetically pleasing objects, some of which I photographed. I have developed an appreciation for murals / graffiti this year. There have been some really cool ones I've run into in different cities. Here's one that appears to bill Montreux as more than just a Swiss city: "Montreux, Europe." At least that's my interpretation. And Montreux totally deserves this distinction, as far as I'm concerned. Not that I have seen any non-Swiss European cities, except for the ones in Liechtenstein, which weren't terribly interesting and not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as Montreux.

A couple of green things I found while walking around : a beautiful garden and a surprise waterfall! There's a sidewalk that goes just over this waterfall, so I heard running water and then all of a sudden, this was underneath where I was standing. Pretty cool. 

Des choux: I wonder if they can fly? With a special shout-out to Xuan.

And the waterfall. Too bad I don't have one of those fancy cameras where you can lengthen the exposure to give the water that effect.

Things like this are why I have the city-exploring philosophy that I have come up with this year:

1. Wait for awesome weather.

2. Using your general subscription train ticket paid for by Rotary, hop on a train to go to a city you've never been to before.

3. Upon arrival, look for the sign in the train stations that points you toward the "city."

4. Take a totally random walking path, directed towards whatever catches your attention.

5. If you feel like you're getting into a boring residential area, turn around, or...

6. If you are tired, find a bus / tram stop and get on the next bus / tram. Get off if you feel yourself getting more lost or if you see something cool out of the window that you want to go check out.

7. If you can't find anything interesting, make it a point to find the city's H&M and go try on clothes until you have to catch the train back. Note: This also works if the weather turns nasty. Another great alternative to H&M is a bookstore like Payot or Stauffacher.

7. Always, always, always, remember how to find your way back to the train station.

8. Don't forget your camera.

9. This can also be fun with a friend or two. Or you can go ahead and bring all the Rotary exchange students along. Also a valid way to spend time alone.

Now you guys can see what I'm going to miss when I have to come home at the end of the year. Not to mention all of these awesome Swiss people I've met...

And as a parting image, this is why I love Montreux in the spring:

Liechtensteini Cacti

The Great European Chocolate Exchange

I don't get mail frequently, and when I do it's always really exciting. Except for when it's a bill from the doctor's office. But that only happened a couple of times, and then I shipped those bills off to Germany so the insurance people could take care of them. Anyway, today was three times as exciting as most days when I get mail because I got three things in the mail! Here they are:

A letter from my grandpa, a postcard from Florida, and a BOX from BELGIUM! When I saw the box, I was confused at first because I wasn't expecting any boxes. But then I looked at the stamp and it was from Belgium and I immediately remembered about the chocolate exchange. Before I get into this, I'd like to mention that the postcard from Florida isn't from anyone I actually know, it's part of a cool internet project that involves sending postcards to random people in the world and getting postcards from other random people in the world. Strangely enough, this random person signed the card as "Mimi B.," which is a version of my mother's name, although I highly doubt my mother secretly send me this card because I am positive she is not in Tampa right now. So this postcard thing is called Postcrossing and if you like postcards or other countries, you should check it out. The only costs are the postcards and stamps you send out.

Back to the chocolate exchange. Laura and I are both outbounds from the same Kansas Rotary District; she went to Belgium this year and I went to Switzerland. As most of you know, Belgium and Switzerland are the two European countries most renowned for their superb chocolate. In fact, there is even a chocolate factory in Fribourg called Villars that manufactures chocolate of the Villars brand. One day I found out that Laura's Belgian town also houses a chocolate factory and I proposed to her that we send each other samples of the chocolate made in our respective factories so we could compare between the two. And so the Great European Chocolate Exchange was born. I sent her some Villars chocolate in the mail a while ago, and then today I received her package of Belgian chocolate. This is what I saw when I first opened the box:

Apparently these are the two kinds of chocolate manufactured in Laura's town. The Kinder brand is apparently owned by Ferrero, the same company that created the Raffaello chocolate pictured below. So it's not exactly Belgian chocolate, but it was made in Belgium so it sort of is.

Here's a closer view of the loot.

Of course I had to try out the chocolate. That's the whole point, right? I have to let all of you readers out there know whether Belgian or Swiss chocolate is better. This is, after all, a competition, if not a "battle," as Laura literally referred to it in the note she wrote me. Speaking of notes, Laura's friend Tara also left me a note inside the package. She's Canadian. I have never met her. It was a nice note, though.

And here's my review. I tried the Italian one first because I was afraid of opening the Kinder package. Once it's open, I have to work hard to make it last a reasonable amount of time. The Italian chocolates have an almond in the middle surrounded by chocolate and are covered on the outside with shredded coconut. I must say, I was a little biased because coconut, in my opinion, is just about the best thing you can combine with chocolate. So these were like little Almond Joys, except the coconut was on the outside instead of the inside. And these were so much better. Like a thousand times better. I would use this equation to describe them: Raffaello = 1000 x Almond Joy. Meaning it would take you 1000 Almond Joys to equal the greatness of one Raffaello. Approximately.

Then for the Kinder ones: a chocolate outside filled with a milk and nuts sort of mixture. Also very good, but I'm sure that you can buy these in Switzerland because there are about 50 different kinds of Kinder chocolates. I am convinced, however, that these Kinder Schoko-Bons are special because they are Belgian, which is obvious, since the writing on the package is in French and Dutch instead of in German, French and Italian.

I think this is a battle that ends at a stalemate. Villars chocolate is amazing, of course, and I like to be loyal to my town, but the Belgian chocolate was good too. I do think it's cool that Villars manufactures their own brand, but they are both so good that they both have to be winners in my book. The conclusion: Belgian and Swiss chocolate are both better than American chocolate, which is why I'm going to try to take as much back with me as I can to share with all of you (and of course a little bit for myself). Unless, of course, you'd like to come visit me here in the next two months before I leave for Germany to try out Swiss chocolate in the correct geographical context. Somehow I think it is unlikely that you will. Plus Rotary probably wouldn't allow it. So be sure to come by and see me between my return to the States (July 29) and when I leave for KU (sometime in the middle-ish of August). While supplies last.

Country No. 5

Yesterday, I went to Liechtenstein. It is officially the fifth country I have ever been to, following the United States (obviously), Canada, the Dominican Republic, and Switzerland. The weather for this outing was cold and rainy. I was a little disappointed because I thought Liechtenstein would be all cool and old-looking, but then all the houses were really new and boring-looking, almost the cookie-cutter style that we Americans are so familiar with. I did not take any pictures of these houses to share with you, but be assured that you are not missing anything.

There were a couple of highlights of the day that I did, however, photograph, the first being the train that we took from Sargans to Buchs. The seats were so colorful and it made me so happy!

Quinn and Jessica in Switzerland's coolest train. Quinn is from Arkansas and Jessica is from Australia.

The second highlight of the day was the castle. This is apparently the residence of the prince of Liechtenstein. We hiked all the way up there and then ate our bread, cheese, salami, spicy mustard, chocolate, etc. on some benches just below the castle.

Here's most of the group before the hike up the Schlossweg.

A view of the castle from afar. I especially like these particular trees.

And Liechtenstein is so small that between all the bus rides and walking around that we did, I ended up seeing the same places several times during the day. So now I have seen pretty much all there is to see of Liechtenstein and will probably not return in the near future. That is, unless the prince invites us back over for tea or something.

I'll give Wordless Wednesday a try.

I'm looking forward to the flight home.

But only because I will be wearing my Rotary blazer in the airports and will get some perplexed looks from a lot of people and amused smiles from others. Walking around somewhere with this garment on tends to attract a lot of attention and it's kind of funny. Katie and I had some experience with this phenomenon in Lausanne. Some random tourist-y guy took our picture as we walked past him in the train station. And while we were waiting for the train we got some funny looks from people. There was also a guitar-bearing, dreadlocks-sporting dude that approached us, but we ran away.

The front.

The back.

If not for the promise of future blazer / airport fun, I'd probably hang around in Switzerland a bit longer. Really, I can't decide whether I'm happy or sad to be leaving in three months. I'm excited to see everyone and to start a new adventure as a member of the "Jayhawk family," as it is called in so many promotional letters and e-mails. But I'm really going to miss Switzerland. I've made some amazing friends here, and it really does feel like home. Last weekend after my orchestra concert, I was riding the train back to Fribourg and had my first realization that since the orchestra season was over, I had just played music with those people for the last time and might not see them again before I leave.

I also realized that even as much as I sometimes miss the convenience of being able to drive a car, I am going to miss public transportation a lot upon my return. There's something really neat about being able to travel across the country at pretty much anytime of day and then just watch the scenery go by without having to worry about driving. You can also meet some very interesting people in the bus or the train. Once I and another Rotary exchange student met a Buddhist monk from Cambodia in the train who tried to explain Buddhism to us in broken German and English. And taking the train or the bus with friends is a lot of fun as well. Unfortunately the States are on such a large scale that it would be virtually impossible to construct a transportation infrastructure as widespread and at such a high quality level as the Swiss one. Of course public transportation does exist in the States, and there are some great metro systems in some cities, but it's just not the same.

In fact, I'm a bit afraid for everyone on the road when I come back. I may have to spend a weekend in the parking lot and side streets to regain my skills. I haven't been behind the wheel in exactly 9 months. (Today is the 9-month anniversary of my arrival.) So watch out, Kansas drivers!

La Fête des Mères

Happy Mother's Day, everyone! Especially those of you who are mothers, with a special shout-out to mine in particular.

These roses were on the table and I photographed them this morning before I left for my choral adventure in La Chaux-de-Fonds. My real mother is overseas and my host mother was away for my host cousin's confirmation today, so it was sort of a motherless day for me, but nevertheless a good one.

To make a long story short, as the cliché goes, I played in an orchestra concert yesterday afternoon in Murten (a benefit concert for Terre des Hommes), then took the train back to Fribourg, took a bus to Marly, arrived a bit late for the pre-concert choir warm-up, then sang Fauré's "Cantique de Jean Racine," followed by the Requiem.

Today we all took a charter bus from our school to La Chaux-de-Fonds for the Écolades, a cultural sort of festival for students in French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland. The concert hall there doesn't look like much but apparently the acoustics are so good that multiple CDs are recorded there. We spent the time before our concert watching another choir sing, going to an artsy sort of museum, and generally walking around in the dismal rain. The concert went extremely well. Maybe it was the acoustics, maybe we were better prepared after having already sung a concert the day before, or maybe it was just a little bit of choral magic, but the sound was terrific. I realized that it's very physically demanding to be in the choir in a concert like this. Normally I would be playing in the orchestra but I sang this time around. It is a challenge to keep a high level of concentration and not move around too much. At the end of the day, I had sore feet and a sore throat.

Musically-inclined people are a nice bunch of folks. This café was on the 14th floor of a building. We took the elevator up and the stairs down. It was a bit dizzying. Below: my iced tea from above!

Episode VI: Return of the Blog

Oh, hey. You still there? Well, I'm back to the blogosphere, at least for a short time, to give you another update. This post is dedicated to my mother, who keeps gently reminding me to post again. (Happy early Mother's Day, by the way!) I'm not going to bother with photos because my camera is in the other room and I'm too lazy to go get it right now. Maybe next time, which based on current patterns will be around the beginning of June.

So this pre-weekend (Thursday onwards) did not start off well. Thursday would have been a totally exciting day because it was the day of the Fribourg-Fribourg leg of the Tour de Romandie, which is the Swiss Tour de France. I did go see the start of the race after lunch and took some pictures, which you might get to see later. I guess these cyclists are some of the same who ride in the Tour de France, but I wouldn't really know. The biggest effect this event had was that it forced all of the bus stops to move to temporary bus stops about a block away from the normal route. This was only slightly annoying because I didn't have to use any of the displaced bus stops. Unfortunately, I began to feel worse and worse as the day wore on and ended up with a nasty stomach flu sort of thing at night, which I should have expected since some of my host family had been sick earlier in the week.

The next day I obviously didn't go to school but I did make it to the orchestra rehearsal in the evening (the Vorhauptprobe, which I guess would translate as the dress-dress-rehearsal). I think musicians are really special people. They just tend to be nicer, smarter, and, in the case of Swiss people, who are normally pretty closed-off, more outgoing than everyone else. This was proven when I was asked about twenty different times how I was feeling and if I was better. Out of all musicians, I would have to say organists are the smartest and most creative, based on the sample population of organists that I know. I think it has to do with the playing-with-both-hands-and-both-feet thing. But that's a whole 'nother post.

Thanks to a few well-placed doses of Coca Cola, I was pretty much healed by Friday evening, which left my weekend plans intact. These involved a Rotex version of Geneva, complete with UN tour, random walking around, Calvin's church, a park full of political party tents, food, and giant chess games, the flower clock, and the jet d'eau. Most of this I had experienced by myself or with my first host family already, but it was fun to go with about 40 inbounds and Rotexlers to see it all again. Unfortunately, it was raining.

A few of my exchange student friends came back with me to Fribourg that night and we ate dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant, which I was a little surprised to find. I don't know the restaurants of Fribourg very well, because I usually eat at home or nourish myself straight from the shelves of Migros and Coop (and occasionally Denner). Then we picked up some ingredients from the undersized, overpriced grocery store in the train station because all the other grocery stores had closed at 4pm, and went back to my host family's place and made cookies. This was a great idea, except that we were so tired from walking around Geneva all day that we were about ready to fall asleep and had trouble staying up even to wait for the cookies to finish cooking. It was a bit pathetic. So the cookies were finally eaten in the pre-noon hours.

On Sunday afternoon we went into Fribourg. The plan had been to walk around and see what there was to see (which, in Fribourg, isn't much), but it was raining, so the tour was stopped a bit short for a trip to an ice cream place, where we cooled off even more from the ever-chillier weather with a frozen treat and then waited until I had to be at the concert place for the sound check. Afterwards was the concert, which I thought went pretty well. A couple of other exchange students who live in Fribourg came too, which was nice. I was a little disappointed that none of the Swiss people I invited (including my host family) ended up coming. Maybe the rain just made them want to stay home.

So with that, I wish you all rain-free and sun-filled spring days that you can enjoy outside, even if you don't have the option of walking around in Fribourg.

Easter Break, Episode II: Attack of the Cough

I started writing this post a while ago and then abandoned it for some reason. Now that I've loaded and edited my photos, it's ready for publication!

The lovely mountains of Valais / Wallis!

As the second half of a two-part Easter Break blog series, this post will be covering the second half of Easter Break. As I noted earlier, this week involved going to the canton of Valais / Wallis, with skiing in mind. And we did go skiing, but not every day. Being Swiss, and therefore always within reasonable proximity to a ski area, Swiss people only go skiing when the weather's really nice for it. Because why go skiing every single day of the week when there are nasty conditions on some of the days? You could always go next week, so there's no reason to go now if the conditions aren't perfect. This is different from the Kansan mindset: we are spending three days in Colorado and will be on the slopes from morning to late afternoon on each of these days because who knows when we'll make it back here again? It might take years! (It did take me years: My first skiing experience was on a MLK weekend ski trip with the Village Church, which I repeated a couple of times, but then I stopped going because the combination of sleep deprivation, costs, and unfinished homework made it too difficult. So after that I went skiing once with my family but we all ended up getting sick, so I only skied for one day on that trip. Since then I haven't skied at all until I ended up in Switzerland. I think I have done more skiing here than all the times I went skiing in America combined.)

Me, Caroline (Swan's friend), and Swan (host brother)

It was the first time I had ever skied on spring snow. Spring snow has a different feeling from winter snow. It's kind of melty and slushy, especially in open areas with no trees and no shade, and when you turn on the skis it pushes the snow a lot more. So by the end of the day a slope that started out flat ends up covered with bumps, an unintentionally created mogul run. Unfortunately I still had a nasty cough at this point, so the enjoyment in skiing was a bit diminished. I was normally fine while actually skiing but once I stopped the cough would catch up with me. I tried everything: I carried a pocketful of Ricola candies with me at all times, plus a water bottle. One day I stayed home from skiing and then went into Sion while my host mom and her dad were visiting her mom / his wife there. I found anti-cough tea at the Coop and then drank it frequently at home. My host aunt gave me some homeopathic thing that was supposed to make the cough disappear and that didn't work either. Did I mention the medicine that I had already been prescribed the week before? Nothing seemed to work, so obviously I had to go to the doctor when I went back. But that's a different story.

The view out of the cute little window in my cute little room.

One of the things that I did a lot during this week was reading. I read John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany in its entirety. I had a lot of free time between the day I spent at home and the day I went to Sion and had to stop walking around because my cough was bothering me, plus all the times I was sitting and waiting around for something to happen, like for a meal to finish cooking or for some host siblings and their friends to show up. It was a very interesting book and I recommend it to all of you readers (double meaning: blog readers / people who like to read things in general and might take a book recommendation). On the penultimate day of the trip, we drove to Grimentz to celebrate my host grandfather's 80th birthday. We ate a multi-course meal in a hotel there. It was very nice. One of the food items was foie gras, which I thought pretty disgusting so I don't see what the big deal is about it. I mean, I guess some gourmet people think it's special but in my book, it involves animal cruelty and it doesn't even taste good and has a weird texture. The rest of the meal was delicious, though, and it was enough to last through dinner as well. We just met for cake around dinner time. But instead of cake cake, we had millefeuille / Cremeschnitten, which is pretty much my favorite dessert here. I don't think I've ever seen it in the States, but it's possible that it exists. If not I will be trying to make it some time when I get back, which could be really difficult and will probably end up not looking at all like the real thing but still tasting pretty good.

So that was my week in Valais. On Friday we drove back in the morning and I went back to the doctor, who said that my cough had gotten worse (surprise, surprise!) and that it was now a bacterial infection and therefore curable by antibiotics. It's a good thing that antibiotics are a miracle drug because I spent the next four days (Saturday through Tuesday) at a camp for the school choir and was singing pretty much nonstop. The antibiotics worked fast enough that I barely had any problems, even though we had rehearsal for some seven hours a day or something. Possibly more. I think it depended on the day. More choir stories to come in a later post.