I apologize for my absence the past few weeks, but nothing blog-worthy has occurred in my crazy life here.
I have been sick quite a bit in the last little while, which is new for me because I have never really been one to get sick. I was home from school for a few days - and I have to admit, as nice as it was not having to wake up at 5:30 for school, by 11:30, I was bored and sick and couldn't wait until I was feeling better again to get back to school.
In between my rounds of sickness, I helped out a Rotary event with my host dad and youngest host sister, Céline. I wrote a long blog post about how much I love having a sister and how close we have started to become after only knowing each other for 3 months...and then my computer died and it was deleted. So long story short: I love my brothers more than they'll ever know and I miss them daily, but I also love the new feeling of having sister and although we have a language barrier sometimes, we still manage to get out point across to the other person. She loves to tackle me from behind, imitate my screams at loud noises and pokes my back constantly - just like any other sister would do. <3
The Rotary event that we helped out at was a miniature Ancaster Fair-type weekend. It was our job to make the food that we were selling - smoked salmon on bread. Anyone that knows me knows that I can't even walk through the seafood aisle at the grocery store without wincing & squirming - and lucky for me, neither can Céline. So there we were with a high box of smoked salmon to our right and a big dilemma in front of us. We both looked at each other and started laughing. The only fair way to solve this problem was to go back to first grade and rock-paper-sissors it out. And guess who lost - me - and guess who stood there laughing - not me. Regardless, the job had to be done. Although I squirmed and winced and held back a few tears & screams (all which added to Céline's fit of hysteria), we made the food and everyone came out alive - although at the beginning I was trying to translate what I wanted to be said in my obituary.
The next day was Halloween - my favourite holiday. I started off the day a little crushed that it just wouldn't be the same but by dinner time there was no reason to be sad anymore. I had seen a few little kids roaming the streets, dressed in full costume, and trick-or-treating the way we do at home. It was refreshing to see until the doorbell rang at the apartment. My host family and I were sitting around the dinner table eating when it happened. They decided it would be good for me to answer the door so that I wouldn't miss out on Halloween entirely. I reluctantly got up and opened the door where there were 2 little boys dressed as Batman and Spiderman. They started singing me a song in German, and then proceeded to talk to me in Swiss German. Im not sure I've ever been more awkward in my life. I handed them lots and lots of candy - as a way of apologizing for being so awkward -, told them to have a good evening, shut the door fast and ran back to the dinner table where my host family was dying of laughter. Thank goodness I had somewhere to go and wouldn't be subjected to that again...
A girl in my class had invited our entire class over for a Halloween party and sleepover. I met up with one of the girls in my class at the nearest train station and we took the train to Solothurn where we met up with some more classmates. On our way to Noëmi's house, two girls in my class mummified themselves with toilet paper and I couldn't help but laugh. It was the little bit of comfort of "home" that I needed. We didn't sleep very much, but we had a good time. My class was also very diligent in making sure that there were either English or German subtitles playing when we watched movies - which was very much appreciated.
Last week I toured a Sauerkraut factory with my Rotary club. It was interesting to see how it is made, but man, my clothes still have the smell weaved into the fabric. I've never been a big fan of Sauerkraut but my host family was convinced it was because I'd never had "real" Sauerkraut. After trying it, I can still say, I am not a fan of Sauerkraut...
Then came the Country Fair, but I'll save that for another post because I have so many pictures!
Grüsse von die Schweiz,
Madi <3
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