Wow.

Wow! It's been a really long time since I last posted. I guess I'm just getting used to living here or something and forget that I have to share my adventures with my loyal readers. I hope my sporadic posting habits aren't throwing you guys off.

What I have been doing a lot of recently is skiing. One of the coolest things about Switzerland is that there are so many different ski areas within a morning's train ride from where I live. There is even one that's only twenty minutes away by car, although it is pretty small. This first picture is from the second time I went skiing here. I met two other exchange students and we went to a ski area called Crans-Montana. It was Katelyn's first time on skis (she's from Arkansas), and Katie and I tried to teach her. Katie was really the one teaching, actually. I just tried to give helpful suggestions, because I'm not actually that great at skiing. My host uncle gave me his old skis and boots (we have the same shoe size!) and I was thrilled to discover that the color of the boots matches my coat.

This second picture was taken at Grimentz, which is where I went last week for the winter sport days with my school. Skiing isn't the only option for winter sports: I could have also done self defense, dance, hiking, or any number of other choices. But I was lucky and my host Rotary club agreed to pay for me to go to one of the ski camps. All the students that choose to ski are split up between four different ski areas. My group went to Grimentz. It was an interesting combination of lots of people I didn't know and one person I did: Katelyn, another exchange student at my school. Needless to say, we probably spoke more English in those three days than we should have.

I also got a chance to speak German with some other people from my school, though, which was nice. Most of the people I know at school are French-speakers, but all the other girls on this trip were in the German section. It was a good opportunity to make some friends on the other side of the school and I found it really enjoyable to meet everybody over the course of the three days. Since Katelyn and I were the least experienced skiers (which stands to reason, since most Swiss start learning how to ski around the age of three or so), we were carefully watched over and instructed. It was nice to get some tips and instruction from people my own age. And I think that I received this instruction in all three of my languages at some point. It was a really neat experience to ski in the Swiss Alps with Swiss friends.

Oh, and we ate fondue for lunch on the last day. Jealous?