I had my second Rotary meeting on Monday and lunch and it is always a bit intimidating. My hosting club doesn’t have any female members so it’s just me and the guys… Everyone is extremely nice and they love to practice their English with me. It is really cool to see people go from having a conversation in Swiss German with someone to having a conversation with me in English. And I can’t wait until that person is me! When the meeting began I was asked to stand up and introduce myself to the club (again), and tell them what I have been up to the last little while. I had to do it in German, obviously, and I was a little bit nervous to do so. I started with “Hello Everyone” in Swiss German and everyone started to chuckle, which calmed me a down a little bit. I then said “My name is Madi, I am from Canada and my German is not very good” and smiled. One of the men interjected and said “No, it’s really good”, but I’m pretty sure he was lying ;). I then continued on and told them about my adventures of the last few weeks. I was surprised at the fluidity of my sentences and I must say, I was a little proud.
After the meeting, I met up with Caroline in Solothurn. I hadn’t seen her in over a week because she was on vacation with her host family in the South of Italy. We walked around the old city for a while and did a little bit of shopping. I keep telling myself I’m poor so that I won’t buy anything, and so far it’s working!
On Tuesday, I was home alone in the morning, but was asked to have lunch ready for noon when my host dad came home. Luckily I didn’t actually have to do the cooking myself because my host mom had made everything the night before. All I had to do was heat things up and have the table ready – easy enough. It was just my host dad and I for lunch, but we managed to carry on a steady conversation. We talked about the military and the differences between the Canadian military and the Swiss military, and he talked about the differences from when he was in the military to the military nowadays.
On Tuesday, I was home alone in the morning, but was asked to have lunch ready for noon when my host dad came home. Luckily I didn’t actually have to do the cooking myself because my host mom had made everything the night before. All I had to do was heat things up and have the table ready – easy enough. It was just my host dad and I for lunch, but we managed to carry on a steady conversation. We talked about the military and the differences between the Canadian military and the Swiss military, and he talked about the differences from when he was in the military to the military nowadays.
After lunch, I went to Zurich where I was meeting up with Emily for the afternoon. We took a train to Winterthur – an area just outside of Zurich – and went shopping for the afternoon. Most of the stores we went into were in full Christmas mode with wrapping paper and cards on the shelves and decorations displayed on multiple tables. It was weird to see because it isn’t even Halloween yet – but because they don’t celebrate that here, it also made sense.
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| Not going to lie, I thought of you Mom |
We ended up running into 2 other exchange students on the street, so we stopped at a small café for a little while. When we were back in Zurich, the other 2 had already left, so Emily and I walked around for a little while downtown and then headed home.
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| Zurich Train Station |
This week I also received 2 Halloween cards from my parents and my dogs – thanks Mom, you’re cute – and a girl in my class at school sent me a post card from her vacation in Barcelona. I love getting mail, but it is always so much better when it is unexpected and so thoughtful!
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| From Mom, Dad, Stella, Riki and Arti |
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| From Andrea in my class |
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