Insomnia Strikes as Excitement Sets In

Well it's starting to push 1AM here, but I am as wide awake as I think I have been my entire exchange. There are several reasons for that, but the most important reason is that my big brother is currently flying over the ocean in an American Airlines Jumbo Jet on his way to the good ol' land of the Swiss! I think I am more excited about him getting here than he is, which I'm sure is already off the charts because I mean, who wouldn't want to come to Switzerland....?

He arrives in Zürich at 8AM which means that I have to leave my house around 6AM to pick him up from the airport, and if my math skills are right, that means that if I go to sleep right now I will have about 4 hours of sleep...and it looks like that won't be happening anytime soon...

Jake will be studying in St.Gallen which is on the "other side of the country" from where I live, but with the train it is only about a 3 hour journey...nicht schlecht (and for you non-german speakers that means "not bad"). Although he will be living his own life in St.Gallen and he'll be busy "studying" (also known as skiing), I hope that we will still find a way to involve each other in our adventures. My current host parents and my previous host parents are dying to meet him and show him "the real Swiss life", so I am excited for him to have the experience that I have been blessed enough to call my life for the past (almost, yikes!) six months.

So that would be the main reason that I am still wide awake right now. But an exciting one nonetheless!

These would be my "excited faces at 1AM".
Such a stunner, I know.
Don't worry about the gnomes on the tree branches in the background, it's no big deal. 

So while I sit here and find ways to keep myself occupied, I might as well fill you all in on my day (I would stop reading now if you don't want to be bored to death). It started out like any other Wednesday. I woke up at 6AM like usual, got ready for school and walked on the cold, icy streets to the Bahnhof (train station). I waited for my train and sat in a crowded car on the way to school. Once at school, I sat through 2 hours of Math and twiddled my fingers until the bell rang. Then it was time to go outside in the freezing cold weather (I swear I'm not Canadian) and take our class photo. For some really strange reason, we decided to take our jackets off for the photo and then there I was with only a t-shirt and jeans in the snow - SOLID. We took what felt like a million shots and when it was over, we ran to the Sport building - not because we were excited for Sport class, mainly because it was warmer than standing outside in the cold. Then we had Sport class where we played Basketball and I even felt like Michael Jordan a few times...impressive, I know. After Sport, I took the bus into the city, looked at my bank statement that was finally in the positives after a month of having only 80 Rappens in it - gotta love the 1st of every month when Rotary makes that deposit...I seriously live for it, no joke. Then it was time to head to the Bahnhof and board my train to Bern for my weekly German course. We didn't really do much in German today other than be assigned 26347234r2423469923482323426347 million exercises to do over our break - ohh, are you jealous that I have 2 weeks of holidays starting Saturday, because I would be...? Then I trekked back home to Niederbipp, chatted for a little bit with my host parents, ate a little bit of food, showered, got changed and headed off to the Theater with my host mom!

The program and my ticket

The play was all in Swiss German, so although I didn't understand every word, I was able to understand the main concepts and follow the story line. Long story short, it was about a man who wanted to leave his wife, so he sent her to Beauty Farm for the weekend while he packed up the house and headed off to Mallorca. In the midst of doing all of that a hooker, his bet friend, the Italian mafia, his half-naked neighbour, a very gay mover, and his Mother-in-Law all showed up at the house in one way or another. To say the least, he had his dates wrong for both his flight and the Beauty Farm excursion as he was a week too early. In the end, everything worked out and he disappeared off to Mallorca without his wife, who turned out to know about his plan the whole time and she herself was headed to Mallorca as well to rid herself of him too. It was definitely a crazy play, but was filled with comedy and stupidity - stupid comedy, I guess you could say.

My host mom Michèle and I 

The raffle tickets

The cast at the final bows

To top everything off, I won a huge basket full of food from the raffle draw and I don't think my host mom will have to go shopping this week...

My collection of winnings

And then after the play, I came home to a lovely Skype chat with an old friend! :)

So now that I've fully updated you all on my life/day, I think I am going to try to catch some zzzzzzzz's. I'll be sure to tell you all about my day with my brother tomorrow!

Until next time, 

No...I don't need any help.

Switzerland + Alps + Sleighs + Friends = I'm never coming home

Sundays can often be boring here in Switzerland because everything is closed, but this past Sunday "boring" was not in my vocabulary. I ventured off into the Berner Oberland with my host brother, Benji, his girlfriend, Nicole, and a friend of Benji's from when he was on exchange in Taiwan, Chabbie - who made a short stop in Switzerland on her way to Lithuania. Benji wanted to give Chabbie as real of a Swiss experience as he could while she was here, and so came about Sunday. 

Benji, Nicole & Chabbie picked me up at a train station that was half way between Zürich and where I live, so it was convenient for all! It was about an hour drive to where we wanted to go and we talked the whole time - in English because Chabbie doesn't speak German - and there were never any awkward pauses because the conversation just seemed to flow. Even though it was the first time I had met Nicole, I felt like I had known her for ages. She was an exchange student in New Zealand 2 years ago, so her English is also very good. 

When we finally got to our destination, we put on all of our snow clothes, Benji paid for parking and we walked up to the ticket booth to find out that they experiencing technical difficulties with the gondola and it was shut down for the day. Luckily for us, there was another ski resort about 20 minutes up the road, so we got back in the car and continued to drive until we got to Hasliberg - this time Benji checked if the gondola was working before he paid for parking, just to be safe. 

We bought our tickets and boarded the gondola and headed to the top! When we got to the top, we walked around a little bit, enjoyed the breathtaking landscape, and played in the snow a little bit. Before long, we were all hungry, so we stopped into the Chalet and ate before we continued on in our adventure!

Just part of the Panorama

Breathtaking...

Benji and Nicole playing in the snow

Lunch was very interesting for those that were sitting around us. Between the 4 of us, we managed to speak 4 languages at the table - English, High German, Swiss German (which despite was people say, is a language in itself) and Chinese. The people around us couldn't quite figure out what was going on, but I'm sure they enjoyed it anyways. 

After lunch, we went into the kiosk and rented our sleighs for the day! We rented 2 sleighs - one for Benji & Nicole, and one for me & Chabbie - or so the plan was... The ski hill that we were at has specific runs just for the sleighs so there is no need to worry about crazy skiers - just crazy people who don't know how to drive the sleigh (so me...). The run that we did was about 7km long and took us about an hour and a half to complete.

Sleigh, sled or toboggan?

Me, Chabbie, Benji & Nicole

After being briefed by Benji and Nicole about how to steer the sleigh, Chabbie and I set down the hill. It wasn't long before we were passed by the others and I couldn't steer that thing to save my life...and that is why this happened...

We went right off the run and into the snow bank and then down the side of the hill...

Sorry Chabbie...

After our small malfunction, we decided to change up the combination. I went with Nicole and Chabbie went with Benji. Nicole drove most of the way because I didn't want to kill either of us, and we went faster when she drove.

Some of the very snowy landscape

Chabbie & Benji

Nicole & I

We took a few breaks here and there to enjoy the scenery and play in the snow a little bit. 

What cha doing there Nicole?!

And some of us took this a little bit too seriously...

Thanks Nicole.

It was so much fun and I can't wait to do it again in a couple of weeks with the exchange students at our ROTEX Weekend!

From behind as we sped down the hill

I found the Winter Wonderland I had been looking for!

I took a short video of us going down the hill as well! 

When we were finished, we returned the sleighs to the hill and then drove back home. We took the scenic route home though so that we could show Chabbie as much of Switzerland as possible. We had a lazy evening and long dinner and then we sat around and talked before everyone headed to bed!

Don't worry, we had Superman to carry our sleighs for us.

Ps. I'm never coming home! Sorry Mom...

Love from Switzerland,

madi <3