Christmas Market, etc.

Hello all

It's Sunday afternoon and I am quite tired.. My whole host family has sore throats and coughs, including me.

In school last week nothing too special happened, as usual. My class teacher found for me a French grammar book and French vocabulary exercices. She requested them from another teacher at school who teaches French for new students who don't know the language. Before I was working out of a verb workbook or reading kids' books in French in my freetime at school but the new materials are better. On Tuesday we had our last day of swimming in gym, so I am happy about that.

Thursday was Thanksgiving in the US, but the only recognition of it here was a piece in the journal that made fun of the Sarah Palin interview with the turkeys being slaughtered in the background (Switzerland is completely pro-Obama and pro-democrat, and they love making fun of Bush & Co. nearly as much as we do!) Luckily I didn't feel too homesick but I'm not too sure why because I thought I would be. Sometimes it's easy to not be homesick because I'm so busy and wrapped-up in my life here.. But then other times I will have a few days when I can't stop thinking about home. It just depends, I guess.

The last class on Friday I had an interesting biology lab where I dissected a mussel.. It was pretty tame compared to the perch, frog, and two sheeps' eyes dissections I've already done, even though not all of the mussels were dead. ('If your mussel closes up and you can't stick the scalpel in, put it in hot water' was basically what my teacher said, but in French.) I think later in the year we are going to do more dissections, and this was just a sort of introduction. After school Béatrice came to pick us up and we went to Bulle where Andréanne had a dentist appointment and Béatrice and I went grocery shopping in the meantime.

On Saturday, Andréanne, Béatrice, and I got up early to go the Christmas market in Bâle (more commonly known by its German name, Basel- I didn't realize they were the same place until Saturday.) Towards 8 we met up with Andréanne's aunt, grown cousin, and other aunt (I think..) at the parking lot of the Migros in Romont where we boarded this tour bus. I was kind of strange. We were unfortunately the first stop for the bus so we had to make a round of Bulle, Fribourg, and another town, which took a good hour or two. After the bus was full of people we started the trip to Bâle, which lasted until around noon, with a break where the bus-driver stopped to serve everyone coffee and cookies. Bâle is to the north and a bit east of here, right up next to the border of Germany.. and the area is German-speaking.

The market was quite nice, with lots of stands set up selling various things, like scarves, gloves, carved angels, cookies, figures for a manger scene, cheese, christmas ornaments, etc. We looked at all the stalls and then went shopping at the stores nearby, with a dinner and 3 coffee breaks in-between, of course. They really drink quite a lot of coffee here. At 6 we got back on the bus to come home.. In the front of the bus there was this Swiss-German singing group that started singing various songs including some English ones (Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and Let it Shine, which was funny with their accents.) We got home not too late, and then I watched TV with Andréanne and Nicolas until I went to bed.

Today I woke up with a sore throat.. for lunch we had cheese fondue and it was good. And now we're just hanging out.

You know, I've been finding since coming here that time seems inconsistent. I feel like time drags until I view things in retrospect- I've already been here more than three months, and looking back, I feel it passed quickly. The fact that I have only three more weeks of school until Christmas vacation seems impossible too. When I look at how long I have to go of exchange it seems like forever but I think it will be the same as the time that's already past, that it will feel long in the process but after it will feel way shorter.

Next weekend is a 3 day weekend and also the Fête de la St-Nicolas where I think there is a parade of kids in the village at nighttime. I'm not exactly sure what it is but I will fill everyone in afterward. The day is very important here, like an extra Christmas sort of. And then after, 2 weeks of school, and then vacation!