Last blog post...

Hey everyone!

Well, this is strange. Today I'm going to write my last blog post from Switzerland. And probably my last blog post in general, at least on this blog, at this time in my life (since I will go back to normal Minnesotan life, and I'm not going to chronicle that.)

So much has gone on in the past week, it's been kind of crazy.

Last Sunday I went to Zürich in the evening. By the time I got to my host aunt's house (around 21h30, after taking the train, a tram, a bus, and walking 10 minutes) I was rather soaked since it had been raining hard the whole time. I went to bed pretty soon after getting there.

Monday morning I woke up and went into the main part of the city to meet Sakshi at the train station around 11h30. It took us a while to find each other because the station is so huge, but eventually we did. Since she had a bag of clothes that we didn't want to lug around we went back to my host aunt's house to drop it off. Then when we were done we went back to the Banhofstrasse, which is the street where all of the big shops are. In India it is apparently really important to bring back gifts for everyone you know when you leave the country, and Sakshi still had to buy some for a couple of friends. They wanted bikinis from H&M because, as Sakshi told me, bikinis are hard to find in India. We spent the afternoon walking around and shopping for her friends, visiting the Grossmünster cathedral and St. Peter's church, and going to the grocery store to buy lunch for the next day, before going back in time to eat supper with my host aunt and uncle at their house.

Tuesday it was raining off and on the whole day. In the morning we decided to sleep in, I think we got up around 10h30 or 11h00. After showering we ate the lunches we had bought the day before. Then we took the bus and multiple trams to the Kunsthaus art museum, where we spent the afternoon. We saw a special exhibit by Katharina Fritsch with a lot of modern sculptures and screenprints, and then visited the permanent collection. When we were done there it wasn't late enough to eat dinner, so we went to the train station to buy my ticket to come home the next day and walked around the Banhofstrasse looking for some place that sold sunglasses cases, which I needed. Afterward we took the tram in the direction of my host aunt's house, but stopped on the way to eat at an Italian restaurant. Then when we were done we went home.

Wednesday we left Zürich in the morning, taking the train around 10h30 so that Sakshi would get to Fribourg in time to catch her bus at noon. When I got home it was around 13h00, and for the rest of the afternoon I just hung out.

Thursday morning I got up early to go to Fribourg at 9h00. I looked around for a Swiss flag to put on my wall in the US. Then at 10h00 I met up with Alicia and Claudine at the train station. We went in the car to Morat, which is way at the northern part of the canton. There we went to this place called Papiliorama (that means "butterflyrama" in English.. but yeah, it works better in French.) There were three large domed greenhouses which we went in- one with nocturnal animals (it was cool, but hard to see them in the dark), one with tropical butterflies, and one with other tropical animals. Also my favorite part was the Swiss butterfly gardens, which was a large area with native plants and butterflies enclosed under a net. It was pretty cool. Around 13h00 we left, and we hadn't eaten lunch yet, so we stopped at a shopping center on the way home to eat at a Migros restaurant. After that, Alicia and Claudine drove me home and we had to say goodbye ("au revoir", not "adieu", because I plan on coming back!) It is not easy saying goodbye to all of the incredible people I've met here.

That night at 21h00 I went over to my friend Bérénice's house. We had planned to sleep in a tent when I came over, but it was pretty cold and windy out. We decided to layer on the blankets and clothing and try it anyway (luckily they had two very nice down sleeping bags.) After setting up the inside of the tent and bringing all our things out, we settled down to sleep. Around two in the morning I woke up because I had to go to the bathroom, and Bérénice woke up also because we heard horses making noise nearby. I went to the bathroom while Bérénice went to check out the noise- turns out it was her horses who had gotten out of their enclosure so she had to put them in the stables. After this we went back to bed (it was chilly outside but surprisingly comfortable in the tent.)

Friday we slept in until around 9h30, I think. After we woke up we went inside to eat a nice breakfast of bread, nutella, and coffee. I took a shower, we watched a part of a movie with Bérénice's little brothers, and then I helped Bérénice make lunch. After eating we went outside to pick cherries, which are especially good this year. Since it was too far to reach, Bérénice went to get her horse and picked cherries sitting on her back. It was pretty efficient. Later we watched a movie, and then her boyfriend drove me home (they were on the way to eat supper at a friend's house.) Another au revoir.. that sort of sucked.

Saturday I slept in and bummed around the house in the morning and early afternoon. Around 16h30 I went for a super difficult bike ride with my host dad and brother in which we rode for forty minutes to my host uncle's house (who wasn't there when we arrived.. but we went into the pastures and ate cherries off the trees anyway) and then around an hour and a half back (there were more hills for the return.) It is really pretty biking here, but super difficult. What the Swiss consider "foothills" are pretty extreme. I was exhausted when we got back and in the evening my legs hurt so much I could barely walk! It is pretty cool though that we actually biked on one of the roads that the Tour de France will be passing on next weekend.. On July 19th it is passing through Romont, where I just spent a year of school. Well anyway, after we got home we ate dinner around 19h00. At 20h00 I called my parents to talk for a bit, then called back half an hour later to talk to Emily who happened to be at the house for ten minutes. I can't wait to see them all!

Sunday was another day of intense fitness. Around 11h45 we took the car to a walking area and forest in the Gruyère. We followed a walking path called Le Sentier des Pauvres (trail of the poor) which leads past a monastery. The trail was made around 1300 with the construction of the monastery as a path to haul the stones needed to build it. After the construction was finished the trail remained, and once per week a monk would lead the poor from a chapel at the beginning of the trail to the monastery where they would be fed. Or at least, that's how the story goes! We first walked for about 30 minutes and then found a picnic area where we ate the lunch we had brought with. After this break we walked for maybe an hour or an hour and a half more, passing the monastery. We got eventually (After walking mostly uphill) to la buvette (a little cafe with a terrace) which is at the bottom of the winter ski station. It was open, since it was the weekend, for people hiking through. We stopped to use the toilets and drink some coffee. When we were done we started heading back to where the car was, but somewhere on the way we lost the trail (which at this point wasn't too clearly marked.) We ended up walking though some fields and then down a road, and after maybe another hour we got to the car. We headed home, stopping on the way at a cafe to get some ice cream.

When we got home I showered and got ready to go out again. I took the bus at 17h00 to Romont to meet up with my friends Margaux, Célia, and Marjorie. We took the train to Fribourg, where we went to see the movie Ice Age 3 in the theatre. It was pretty funny. Afterward we took the train back. At the station I had to say goodbye to Margaux and Marjorie, and that was really sad. Célia took the same bus as me but I had to say goodbye to her when I got off.

Today I got up around 10h00. Tonight I am going to a party organized by my friend Marianna where there will be some of my exchange friends (as well as her Swiss friends that I don't know.) We are sleeping over there.

Tomorrow I'll come home in the morning or afternoon after saying goodbye to my exchange friends, including Sakshi. That's not going to be easy. During the day I'll finish packing my suitcases, cleaning my room, and getting everything ready to go.

Wednesday I'm leaving around one in the afternoon. I have to take the 18h00 train from Fribourg to Zürich (the only direct ones leave from Fribourg, not Romont) but Béatrice is the only one who can drive me since Bernard won't be there the afternoon. She is going to visit her parents in the nursing home that afternoon, which is close to Fribourg, so I am going with and then afterward she will drop me off at the train station with my bags. At 19h30 I have to meet an AFS volunteer at the station in Zürich, who will bring us by van to the hotel where we are spending the night next to the airport.

The day after, my flight leaves at 9h50. I get to Minneapolis in the evening after a long day of flights and layovers. I am so excited to come home! Sad to leave Switzerland too of course, but mostly I'm feeling good about the change.

Before I go, I'd like to say THANK YOU for keeping up with my blog throughout this year, and being interested in all of the things I've been doing. It has been an amazing year for me and I've learned so many things. Hopefully you've been able to learn some of them too through my blog.

Hold on

Hello all!

I'm aware that I'm due to write one last Sunday blog post before I come home, however today has been insanely busy. So I am going to write tomorrow (since I have nothing going on until evening.)

Sorry for the hold up!

Soixante-quatre

Alright, let's see..

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I had school. And it was ridiculously boring. We didn't do ANYTHING.. seriously on Monday, six out of the seven hours we watched movies. Same thing Wednesday. It was pointless.

Wednesday night we had our souper de classe (class supper) at this cabin in the forest that is not that far from my school. We got there around 20h30 and ate roasted sausages and meat around maybe 21h30. After that we just hung out. There was dancing and music in the cabin, a huge campfire outside, and lots and lots of beer.. some people got pretty drunk (it's still sort of weird for me, but less so) but not everyone, and there are people that didn't drink at all. Around two in the morning Andréanne, Florianne, Daniel (these are kids in my class), and I tried to go get some sleep. Luckily Florianne had brought a tent, though it was pretty uncomfortable sleeping on the ground (I hadn't brought a sleeping bag, which was probably stupid.) We ended up talking for maybe an hour, then we tried to sleep some. I think I slept maybe an hour.

So, then it was Thursday morning. A little before five in the morning I got up. There were still people up who had partied the whole night, most of them sitting around the campfire. Others had gone and tried to get some sleep. At five we had to start cleaning up the cabin and picnic area, which took us maybe an hour.

Then we started to put our costumes on. It is the school tradition for the 4th year students, who finish school earlier than everyone else, to go to school the morning after their last day in costumes and bother the students and teachers. Also we had to go one last time to class so that our class teacher could give us our grade report. So the disguise this year was doctors and injured people.. most people dressed up as doctors but I opted to be a burn victim by wrapping my entire face in gauze with a cap and sunglasses (the effect was pretty cool.) When we were all ready we walked to school. You have to remember that no one had gotten more than two hours of sleep so it was pretty crazy.

It took us around an hour to walk to school, but luckily it was mostly a descent. We passed a lot of people who looked at us really strangely on the way. When we got to school there was no one there yet, so we started getting ready, because the tradition is to run around and squirt water on people. The guy in the cafeteria gave us a bunch of free croissants, which was really nice since no one had eaten much, and whoever organized the souper de classe hadn't thought to buy breakfast. We had maybe forty minutes between the time the first professors and students arrived and school started in which we ran around and tried to be obnoxious as possible. At my school, only the teachers are allowed to enter the building before 8h00, so the students had nowhere to go to hide from us. When they finally all went inside, my grade all went in as a group and ran around the halls shouting and banging on doors (really, when I think about it, I can't believe this is even allowed.. Swiss school is so strict!) Then finally we went to class to get our grades. Twenty minutes later we left school, and I had to say goodbye to nearly all my school friends- I'm only planning on seeing two of them before I leave.

We took the bus home and got here around 9h00 or 10h00, I don't remember anymore. I closed the shutters and curtains and went immediately to sleep until 15h00. Then I woke up to eat some lunch, and I skyped with my friend Mikayla. Afterward I didn't do much, and went to bed around 21h00 that night.

Friday I woke up early at 6h30. I showered and made a picnic lunch for myself because I was going on a trip to the Moléson (it's a mountain nearby.) There is a group of around forty orphans from Poland who are visiting the area for ten days, and some of the adults in my village volunteered to help out with their outings. If I understood correctly, some rich Polish guy who lives in my village and made his fortune in Switzerland sponsored the vacation because the orphans come from his hometown. Anyway, my neighbor is one of the volunteers, and she told my host mom (who in turn told me) that if I wanted to go on any of the trips with them I was welcome to. So I decided to go on Friday.

In the morning we went to the cheese factory that I have already been to twice. So that was kind of boring! But around lunchtime we took the funicular from Moléson-sur-Gruyères at 1111m altitude (it's a village that you can drive to) up to the intermediary station at 1520m, where there is a restaurant and picnic area. After there is a télépherique that does up to the summit but we didn't take it, but it was cloudy up there anyway. We ate lunch at the picnic area, and then once we had finished we walked along one of the paths for maybe half an hour. Afterward we took the funicular back down.. the volunteers and I would have liked to walk back down but the kids were too tired (a few of them were maybe only seven, the others were mostly between seven and thirteen.) When we got back to the village, the kids went on these motorless go-karts, where the ski lift took them to the top of the course and then they had to come back down (it's hard to explain, click here to look at the Moléson website about it.) When they were done everyone was tired so they headed back to the chalet where they were staying. Two of the volunteers who are from my village drove me home and I got there around 17h00. The rest of the evening I didn't really do much.

Yesterday I went in the morning to Romont to get my haircut. However since I didn't make an appointment I had to wait two hours, so I walked around the town and sat in the church for a while. After that I found a nice shady patch of grass, and luckily I had brought a book with. For lunch I came home, and in the afternoon I went through a lot of my belongings to see what I could get rid of. I also started packing the box of things that I will send in the mail.

Today I am going with my host family to Begnins, which is on Lac Léman. We are doing to eat lunch there because apparently they have really good perch filets or something. It sounds good. After that we are going to the Lac de Joux which is north of there to take a walk around the lake. After we get home I have to leave at 18h00 because I am going to Zürich! It's going to be a busy next few days.

Soixante-trois

Hello everyone! I am quite tired at the moment and not really motivated to write on my blog (I'm going to go take a nap afterward!) so maybe this is going to be shorter than normal. I feel like since I'm coming home so soon anyway and will see most of you soon after, it's less important to keep you all informed about my life here, so that's why lately I've maybe been less descriptive and everything in my posts.. I hope this doesn't bother you too much!

Well, this will be my third-to-last blog post, if I continue to write on Sunday afternoons as I generally do. Can you even believe that? I'm coming home so soon.. (eighteen days! Not that I'm counting or anything, haha.) I have lots of mixed feelings about coming home, but the positive ones definitely outweigh the negative ones. It's almost a problem how exciting it is that July 16th is approaching. Every few hours I will think about how soon it is and get really jittery and a little nervous. In a lot of ways, I'm feeling now the same way I was feeling 11 months ago, when I had approximately eighteen days left before leaving Minneapolis: nostalgic, excited, sad, happy, nervous, etc. I guess in a lot of ways I've come full circle.

This last week in school was really boring.. I had my last tests of the year, in history (I got a 5) and math (5.3.) I also got my chemistry test back (4.4) and the grade for my history presentation (6!) The teachers had to enter all their grades in the computer by Wednesday, which means for the last five days of school they can't give us tests or grades. We started watching movies in English and German, and next week we'll watch in French, math, geography, and probably chemistry and/or biology too. So basically it's really boring and pointless going to school (except to see my friends of course!) A couple of the teachers are still trying to teach us but we are like zombies when they start saying anything intelligent, and no one has any motivation to try (even the teachers seem lazy.) At least there are only three days left this week and then we're free!

This weekend was pretty cool. There was the annual braderie in Romont, which is like a little festival that everyone goes to, with booths selling items and food, maybe some music, and a carousel for the little kids. Mostly it's an event for the locals to get together and to see everyone they know from the area who maybe they wouldn't otherwise see.

Friday night I went with Bernard, Béatrice, and Andréanne to eat dinner there. We also walked around and saw a lot of kids in our class and talked to them, but unfortunately it was rainy so it wasn't that lively.. everyone was telling me that normally the crowds were shoulder to shoulder, but this year there were way less people. I think we left around 20h00 or 21h00.

Saturday I had a pretty busy day. I woke up around 9h00. For lunch I ate at the house. Then afterward I went in the car to the braderie at 13h30 to meet up with Margaux, who was getting off her shift making crêpes to raise money for the camp she goes to (or something like that.) We walked around and saw a lot more people we knew.. since it was during the day and not raining there were a lot more people and little kids. She had a really nice idea of taking pictures of me with all the monuments of Romont, so we did a tour of the town.. she's going to make me a CD with those pictures, the ones she took when we went to Lac Noir in February, and some she had taken of our class and friends at school. After this I ate a chocolate crêpe and she ate some ice cream. It started raining really hard around 16h00 so we had to take shelter under an awning. At 16h30 the rain let up a bit and I went to the station to take a train to Fribourg, and Margaux walked home. I went to Sakshi's house afterward.

At her house her house parents were home so we took an apéro together, and then ate dinner and dessert. We ended up spending from like 19h00 to 22h00 eating and talking with her host parents (who are really nice) just about how our years went, amongst other things. I speak French better than the last time I went there so I was able to answer their questions about my experience here, my culture, and my life in the US a lot better. After we finished eating and talking Sakshi and I went to watch TV and talk.. I think we stayed up until around midnight or 1h00.

This morning we woke up around 10h00 and ate a brunch (bread, cheese, ham, jam, nutella, orange juice, coffee, etc.) at around 11h00. At 13h30 I took the bus to Fribourg, and it took me forever to get home because there are hardly any buses on Sundays and I had to wait around a long time (so I drank two coffees and read a book.) I got here around 16h00, and now I am just hanging out. I don't usually like Sundays because it means there is school the next day, but I am ready to get this week over with and start enjoying my summer vacation!

Soixante-deux..

Hello again!

Let's see.. I just had a normal week of school. It seemed really long though, because it was my first five-day week in a while since I've had so much vacation time.

Monday I had my presentation about Antonio Vivaldi, which I was surprisingly not too nervous for. I think it's probable that living 10 months in a place where every time I open my mouth I risk making a fool of myself has helped do away with any fear I might have of talking in front of people. And now I feel very empowered, because I feel that if doing a presentation in French is such a breeze, then now whenever I have to do one in English it will seem doubly easy! So all in all, though it sort of sucked preparing my presentation and everything I am glad I did it. It was a good experience. I had to talk about three facets of Vivaldi so I chose la création de ses oeuvres majeures (the creation of his major works), son influence dans la musique (his influence in music), and la redécouverte de sa musique et "la renaissance Vivaldi" (the rediscovery of his music and the "Vivaldi renaissance.) All in all it went well! Other than that Monday was super uneventful.

Tuesday I had two tests, one in chemistry and one in IT. The chemistry one I think I did okay on.. at least, I answered all the questions, so that already counts for something. We'll get that back this week I think. The IT test was on Excel and it was not that hard except too long so most of us didn't have enough time to finish.. but it doesn't really matter. I also got my biology test back, and I got 4.8! I was happy and surprised about that. We had gym in the afternoon and we continued (yes, still) our unihockey/soccer/volleyball tournament.

Wednesday was normal.. we're still working on the same project in art class (Tintin and Titeuf.) Next week is the last time we'll have to finish so I had to work on it for a really long time this weekend.

Thursday was super uneventful and I don't even recall what happened. Oh yeah, I had three hours of study (the first because the others had a French test, the second because they had German class, the third because everyone had study.) I studied for the geography test the next day.

Friday like I said, I had a geography test. I feel I did so-so on it. I also had two hours of study in the afternoon so I did all my math homework. It's my last Friday two-hour study of the year! (Next week I have a Chemistry lab, and the week after we'll be done with school.) Friday night when I came home I worked on my art project for two or three hours.

Saturday morning I didn't do much. In the afternoon at 14h00 I left to go to Fribourg. I got there around 15h00 and then went to buy some things. Around 16h00 I went to the vieille ville, down by the river, to meet up with some AFS friends (Sakshi, Fernando, Carlo, Marianna, Sara, and two volunteers is all.) This was for the "Bye bye party" that AFS had planned. We made a fire in a fire ring on the edge of the river, and grilled sausages, as well as eating various salads, cakes, cookies, chips, etc. Around 19h00 it started to rain so we headed to the center of town. We split up- I stayed with Sakshi and Fernando and we went to get a coffee and talk. Around 21h30 I went home. I didn't get to bed until maybe 01h00.

Today I woke up around 08h00. I showered, ate breakfast, and then worked on my art project for another two or three hours (Just two hours of art class this Wednesday and I'll be finished.) This afternoon I am going to Fribourg because there is a music festival. At 16h30 my history student teacher is playing a show and so Andréanne, a bunch of my friends in my class, and I are going to see it. (His Myspace music page is here, but I should warn you that he's a better teacher than singer.. in my opinion..)

I am starting to think about lots of things.. packing (and how much crap I have to get rid of or send in a box), getting to the airport, how to fill up all my spare time with things so I don't waste any of it. I have something planned for all the last weekends (of which there are only three.. it's so surreal!) Also, my last full week in Switzerland (I leave the following Thursday) I am going to Zürich with Sakshi for three nights/two and a half days. It should be fun!

This next week I expect to be long and pretty boring.. Tuesday I have two tests, and those are the last for the end of the year. After that we will probably not do anything in school.. so if my next blog post is not very detailed, sorry in advance!

Soixante-et-un

Last Wednesday was a fairly uneventful day at school. Afterward I took the train to Fribourg and met Claudine at the train station at 17h00. She drove me to their apartment where Alicia was also. They gave me an awesome birthday of a t-shirt and an Astérix and Obélix comic book (another popular series in French-speaking countries which I haven't read yet.) I did some homework, and then around 19h00 we went to a Mongolian restaurant. I can't wait until I am back home and can eat Asian foods whenever I want, but for now it was a treat (I think I've only eaten Asian food of any sort once here before that, and it was really gross.) After eating they drove me home and I got there at ten.

Thursday I had school off, and my host parents also didn't have work. Together with Béatrice, Andréanne, and Bernard, I went to the zoo in Zürich. We left at 8h00 and I fell asleep in the car. A little more than halfway there we stopped at a rest stop.. they are really nice in Switzerland. However you have to pay twenty centimes for the toilet (this is good though, usually at the train station it is one or two francs.) We sat down to drink a coffee before continuing on our way. It took us three hours to get to the zoo, but that is counting our rest break, crossing the traffic in the center of Zürich, and finding our way there. We stayed at the zoo until around 15h00 or 16h00 I think, eating lunch at noon at the cafeteria. The zoo was cool, and I really liked it because I hadn't been to one for a long while before that. Also at the zoo they have a GIGANTIC greenhouse (11'000 square meters) and the inside has animals and plants from the Masoala rainforest in Madagascar. That was pretty cool.

After we left the zoo, we took the car to the lakefront of Zürich. On the way we picked up Béatrice's sister Rosemarie who was getting off of work at SwissLife (the insurance company where she works.) We parked and then got out to walk, and Rosemarie showed us around. We went to the Fraumünster to see the stained glass windows there made by Marc Chagall. We also drank a coffee at a nice cafe on the river right across from the Grossmünster cathedral. Afterward we walked around the sort of hip neighborhood there, where there are a lot of shops and young people. We stopped to eat dinner at a restaurant where we sat on a terrace over a little square, and it was really nice. After dinner we walked down the Banhofstrasse to look at all the really expensive stores. Since Béatrice, Bernard, and Andréanne still had to drive two hours to go home, we went back to the car and said goodbye. I stayed with Rosemarie but we didn't go to her house right away, instead we did a driving tour of Zürich. We drove south down the western side of the lake through the various villages (now suburbs) that have now become part of greater Zürich. At Horgen we crossed the lake on the ferry and drove back north on the eastern side. After this I was really tired so we went home to their house in Leimbach, one of the neighborhoods of Zürich. They have a really nice townhouse with lots of extra space since all of their kids have moved out, and they said that since it is really not a problem (there is an extra bedroom and bathroom in the basement) I can come back to stay if I like. I went to bed around 22h00 because I was completely exhausted after my long day!

Friday morning I woke up around 7h30. Rosemarie and her husband had already gone to work. I showered, ate breakfast, and got all of my things together. I then took the bus and the tram into the city. In the morning I did some shopping, buying a t-shirt, a tank top, and a pair of jeans. For lunch I ate a sandwich. Then in the afternoon I went to the Museum für Gestaltung (museum of design.) I stayed there to look at the collection for about an hour (it wasn't very big.) I liked a lot of the items they had on display but the whole thing had a sort of pretentious atmosphere (okay, I was really tired too, so maybe I just wasn't up for it.) After the museum I went to a cafe near the train station and drank a coffee while filling out some postcards I had bought in the morning. At 17h00, after navigating around the giant web underground the Zürich train station (it is crazy, there is a fitness center and a grocery store down there), I took the train home. I had to change in Berne and then take the bus from Romont as usual. When I got home it was 19h00, and I didn't really do much for the rest of the night.

Yesterday I woke up at 8h30. At 10h15 we left the house to go to my host brother's gymnastics competition in Romont. It was also a competition for dance so on one side of the gym they did dance and on one side gymnastics while the others prepared, and there was always something to watch. In the morning was the dance and anneaux (rings.. however it's a type only done in Switzerland- click here to see a youtube video of my host brother's group's routine.) Then for lunch we ate sausages with bread from the vendor outside, and drank a coffee. In the afternoon we saw the floor routine and the parallel bars, and Andréanne and I went home before the vault, and got there around 15h00. At 16h00 I left and went on a bike ride until dinnertime at 18h30, and then in the evening I just relaxed.

This morning I slept in until 11h00. We ate lunch on the balcony off of the kitchen. Since then I've been doing my homework because tomorrow I have my Antonio Vivaldi presentation.. and otherwise just enjoying my Sunday afternoon.

Soixante

Hello everyone!

I have been really really busy for the last couple days, and that's why I didn't have the type to write a blog update until now.

But, from the beginning..

Last Monday (June 1st) I had school off. There was an AFS thing organized where we went to Gruyère, ate a fondue, and visited a cheese factory (the one I had already seen.) Basically it was nothing new, but it was a good chance to hang out with some exchange friends from the region and to meet some new ones.

Tuesday was my birthday, which I passed super well. I woke up pretty early to go to my friend Bérénice's house, getting there around 08h30. The first thing we did was go get her two horses from where they were grazing in their field and put them in their stalls. Swiss farms are really cool because the barn and the house are attached.. (see here and here, they generally look like this around here, and there are tons of farms like these.) Bérénice's house was built in 1750, and when her parents moved there they updated it but tried to keep everything as original as possible. It's weird to think that their house was built before the US was even a country. Anyway, after we went to get the horses we went inside, went on the computer for a bit, and then watched a movie. It was called "Bienvenue en Suisse" (Welcome to Switzerland) and it was a comedy about some French woman and a Swiss guy that lives in France who come to get the Swiss guy's great-grandmother's inheritance when she dies. It was pretty stupid but funny too.

After we watched the movie we ate lunch, which Bérénice made, with her two little brothers (9 and 10) who came home from school. She and her sister (19) had made me a birthday cake the night before and so we ate that with ice cream. In the afternoon we went horse riding for a bit. I don't really like horse riding much unless the horse is super nice, but it was okay because hers was. After I had finished we put her horse back, then went to get the neighbor's horse which has just recently been broken, and I watched Bérénice ride.. she is super comfortable with horses and knows exactly what to do, and so it was cool to watch. She even rides without a saddle and somehow is able to hop up on an unsaddled horse all alone! After riding we hung out some more.. she showed me her two cats and like six rabbits. Then before supper her mom drove me home.

The next three days were normal days of school, and we really didn't do much that I remember. Thursday we had gym class, and we played ultimate frisbee and unihockey. Friday I had a chemistry lab where we did multiple experiments with alcohol.. in one of them we had to use it to extract the chlorophyll from some leaves and then separate the extraction using paper chromatography.

Friday night I skyped with my mom and got my bags packed for the next morning when I had to go to AFS camp.

Saturday I got up really early to go to the camp. I wasn't really motivated to go, but it turned out to be so much fun in the end. There was a different group of AFS counselors this time, and unlike the last time where they set a bedtime and made us do stupid activities we didn't want to do, they were really nice towards us didn't treat us like little kids. Also, I think this time the group of students seemed closer and I had such a fun time talking to everyone. I took the bus and then the train to Fribourg, where I met up with a bunch of my exchange friends (Sakshi, Fernando from Paraguay, Aleksi from Finland, Marianna from Latvia, Sergio from Venezeula, Sara from Bolivia, Carlo from Mexico.) We went to Bern where we changed trains, and then took one to Bienne, which is north of here. From there we met up with all the other exchange students from French-speaking Switzerland who arrived here last summer (about 20 in all who are still here.) We all took a bus together at 10h20 to this random bus stop in the Jura mountains where some AFS counselors met us. Together we had to walk for fifteen minutes uphill to a chalet that AFS had rented.

The first day of camp they explained to us the few rules of the camp (no alcohol we brought, no smoking inside) and then we ate lunch. We played some typical "bonding" games for a bit. Afterward we split into small groups of about six, each with one counselor, and took an hour our two to discuss our feelings and reflections about the year. My group had a lot to say and we had a really insightful conversation. When this was done we ate a snack of bread, chocolate, and tea, and then split into different groups to make up a sketch about our AFS year. They also gave us the assignment of writing a letter to our host family throughout the weekend, which they will send a month or two after we've left. After this we ate supper. In the evening we had free time, then acted out our sketches. When this was done we got to party for the rest of the night, and the AFS people put out food and sangria (warning us to be responsible, of course.) Someone had brought a laptop and so they put music on. Amanda, a girl from Wisconsin, and I, taught some others how to play spoons, and then afterward we all danced a bit and just talked. It was really fun, but around midnight I went to bed because I was so tired. Others came up after me but the rowdiest partied until around four, and didn't seem to mind coming into our room, turning all the lights on, and annoying us.. needless to say we didn't sleep so well but it was all good fun.

Sunday morning I woke up around 06h30 and couldn't fall back to sleep even though breakfast was two hours later, so I got up. I washed my hair in the bathroom sink and then did my math homework. After we ate breakfast we split into the original groups again, and spent a good two hours talking about another subject: coming home. It was so good to discuss all of our feelings and fears about this with others who are going through the same thing, and I really think it made me feel a bit more prepared. It's going to be hard adjusting back, and I have a lot of mixed feelings about all of it, but I am ready to try it out. When we were done with the group discussion we ate lunch, then had some free time in the afternoon, and then had to do the cleaning of the chalet.

Around 15h00 it was time to go.. we spent a good while outside the chalet doing an awesome farewell. We had to all get into a line holding hands, then this chain of standing people was rolled into a spiral. The person in the very middle had to get out of the spiral by walking out, and on the way saying goodbye (that is, doing three cheek kisses) to everyone that came after them. Then the next person after them did this too, etc. etc. so that everyone got to say goodbye to everyone else and no one missed doing kisses with anyone. Our cheeks were a little sore afterward.. We had to wait at the bus stop for maybe 45 minutes, and then when the bus came we took that to Bienne. I took the train back to Fribourg with a few of the others, and then from there I took the train to Romont alone. There Nicolas came to get me with the car. When I got home it was 19h30.. We ate dinner, I unpacked my bags, and then, absolutely exhausted, went to bed.

Monday (June 8th) was a boring day of school, and besides the fact that I was more tired that usual, it was pretty average. Our math teacher told us she had received an email that we will have one less week of school than we thought.. before telling us today that she went to double check and the date she thought was the last day of school was actually just the last day teachers can put grades into the system! Apparently she is going to give us chocolate to make up for it. Also Andréanne did a presentation about James Watt and la machine à vapeur.

Today was a very horrid day in the beginning and then was really cool for the afternoon. The first four hours we had French, chemistry, math, and also biology (seriously, Tuesdays are always terrible) in which we had a much dreaded test (but it's the last one! Ever!) In the afternoon we had gym and it passed so fast. We continued the volleyball/unihockey/soccer tournament that we had started two weeks ago.. I was the goalie for soccer and it was hard but fun. After gym class we got to skip IT and economy because we got to go see a play instead. Four of my friends in my grade (including Margaux) were in the first two pieces, where there were only five actors total and which lasted about an hour. The second part was this piece that paralleled the story of Little Red Riding Hood with the Holocaust.. that was acted by seven kids from the younger grades, and it was really weird but cool nonetheless. It was so much fun seeing my friends act, and they did a really good job.

So yeah, this is basically everything that's gone on in my life since last I wrote! Until next time..

In the meantime..

Hey everyone

I just had a very busy weekend at AFS camp and I didn't get to the house until just now (19h30..) I don't have time to post on my blog tonight but I will do so in the next few days. 

Cinquante-neuf

Man, another week has passed.. Time really does fly. I only have a month and a half of life left in Switzerland, and I can hardly believe it. I'm just trying to enjoy the time I have left here (which so far I am, thoroughly) and get the most out of it by planning lots of things to do so that no time is wasted. 

This last week I had to go to school all five days.. horrifying, right? But it passed suprisingly quickly..

Monday my history powerpoint was due. I will have to present that in two weeks. We also had our geography test, which was on the Swiss cantons and their capitals, European countries and capitals, and the countries of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. I had studied and it paid off because I got a perfect score which will raise my geography grade since on the other tests (the non-map tests) I usually only get a three or four. As for the weather, it was really gross and warm out..

Tuesday a cold front came through and it was rainy in the afternoon, which was nice because before, the temperatures had been in the ninties and it was too hot to be comfortable in school. We had a math test which I got 5.3 on. In gym we did another rotation where we split into teams of eight to ten and then had to compete against each other at soccer, unihockey, and volleyball. I was with Bérénice, Andréanne, and Mahélia (another girl in my class) but because there weren't enough students the professors came to be on our team. We won at volleyball and lost at everything else but it was fun, despite the opposing team being really over-aggressive and competitive..

Wednesday we had drawing class. We are now working on enlarging an image from Les aventures de Tintin (they are classic Belgian comics from the thirties and onward) using a square grid.. personally I find this painstaking and I don't think it has much to do with art, because it's just copying, and not creating, but that's okay. We have to put Titeuf, a character from a modern Swiss comic series that has been super popular in France, into the frame. In mine he will be peeking out from behind a door.

Thursday was boring and uninteresting. In biology we went to the computer lab and looked up some pollutants organiques persistants (DDT and other such chemicals that don't break down in nature.) That's about all I even remember.

Friday was also pretty standard. We had our last history course taught by our beloved student teacher, who will, for the rest of the year, sit in the back of the class taking notes as the normal teacher takes over (who is not the best replacement ever..) Actually, though it was technically his last course, he didn't really teach anything because we just watched history presentations (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, and Denis Diderot.)  In English class my teacher asked the boy who sits next to me about what he will be doing next year, because Friday was his last day of school. He is a semi-professional basketball player and will be touring Europe with the junior Swiss national team for a month or two.  After that he asked a bunch of others what they are doing next year, including me, and somehow this morphed into a exercise where my classmates interviewed me for forty minutes and the teacher skipped his entire lesson plan. I can't believe how hard it is to speak in English now.. it's still pretty easy for me to write, but to express myself by talking takes a lot of effort. I'm sure it will get easier quickly when I return but I was pretty astonished.

Yesterday we ate lunch early because Andréanne was going to get her haircut at 12h30. Around 14h00 I went to Fribourg where I met Sakshi. I had wanted to buy some comics to take home with me to the US, so we scoped them out. I ended up buying some from the Lucky Luke series, which I've read because my host family has them, and ordering some to pick up later from a series called Dick Hérisson which Andréanne recommended to me and I've borrowed from the library. Lucky Luke (pronounced "Lukey Luke") is a comedy/action series of cowboys in the American west, and Dick Hérisson is a detective/dark humour/circus freaks series (sorry, it's kind of hard to describe, though that pretty much sums it up) that takes place in France in the 1930s. After finding what I wanted we went to McDonald's because Sakshi wanted ice cream, but I didn't get anything. We sat down and she gave me a birthday present.. chocolate! After that we walked around before going home.

Today my host family and I ate a special birthday lunch for me together, and I got to choose what we ate, which was nice. We had sausages, chicken, and vegetables roasted on the grill. For dessert we had strawberries and meringues with double cream. They had also made a gâteau au vin cuit but everyone was too full to eat that. We went around 14h30 to go walking in this forest/marsh that has walking paths in it, for about an hour, and then when we got home we ate the gâteau.. I don't think I will be eating much supper tonight..!

Tomorrow and Tuesday we don't have school, which is pretty great. I am going to an AFS thing tomorrow and my friend Bérénice's house on Tuesday, but I'll write about that next week.

Cinquante-huit

Hello all. I don't have a lot of time today to write a blog post because I have some homework due tomorrow that I'm still working on, so I am going to skip writing about Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. They were average school days anyway and not much worth describing happened. 

Thursday we didn't have school. I didn't have any plans, so I ended up hanging around the house. I did some homework, cleaned my room well, and otherwise just relaxed. 

Friday afternoon I went with Andréanne and Nicolas to the cinema in Bulle to see "Anges et Démons" (Angels and Demons), the movie based on the Dan Brown book. I don't know how long ago it came out in the US but here it is new as of a couple weeks. I read the book a couple years ago but had more or less forgotten the plot. The movie was okay, not amazing, but worth watching. Sometimes it was hard to understand because half the people talking had Italian accents, and of course it was voiced over in French. But I got the jist of it and enjoyed the movie. Friday night I worked on my history presentation for three hours but didn't finish it.

Saturday was by far the busiest day of the week. I woke up around 09h30, showered, ate breakfast, and then wrote in my journal for the first time in a couple months. At noon we ate lunch (foie, but because Andréanne and I don't like liver, we ate leftover spaghetti instead.) At 13h00 Claudine and Alicia were coming to get me so we could spend the afternoon together. They couldn't find the house though so they stopped at the village bistro and I walked over to meet them. Then, we went in the car to Fribourg. We played minigolf which took maybe an hour and a half.. I got second place. Then we went a cafe called le café du Belvedere in the old part of Fribourg. We sat on the terrace which has an amazing view over la vielle ville (the old city) and the river that goes through the city. After this it was maybe 16h30 so Claudine and Alicia drove me home. Since I only have less than two months left here and the free time is already filling up fast as I make plans with people, we decided to plan two things together. June 10th I am going to go to Fribourg afterschool on the train to celebrate my birthday with them, and July 9th we are going to Ballenberg if the weather is nice. Ballenberg is an open-air museum in alps, in the middle of the country. There are a bunch of original buildings that have been deplaced from all over Switzerland to the park, and you can walk around and look at the original architecture. (Click here to read the wikipedia article about it.)

When I got home it was around 17h30.. My host parents told me that we were going to an impromtu barbecue at Tata and José's house, with Andréanne and Nicolas's cousins. When we got there we had to wait for some of the others to get there for like an hour, so we played volleyball in the yard. Around 19h30 or 20h00 when everyone had arrived, we roasted cervelas (a popular type of sausage eaten almost exclusively in Switzerland) over the fire, which we ate on a picnic table outside. There were also various salads, bread, and roasted lamb. After eating we played volleyball some more, just until it was too dark, at which point we ate dessert (ice cream and une tarte au vin cuit.. a sort of pie with a base of vin cuit, which is a syrup of concentrated pear and apple juice. It sounds weird but it's really good.) Around 23h00 we went home, and I washed my feet (we'd been running around barefoot) before going to bed.

Today I woke up at 09h30. I started working on my homework after getting ready for the day. For lunch we ate fondue chinoise outside, in the back of the house where there is a patio with a big awning over it. It was about 85°F out but in the shade it was nice. After lunch I kept doing homework. I've finally finished my powerpoint but now I have to study for geography because we have a test tomorrow.

Though we have a normal five days of school this week, next weekend we have another four day weekend (Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.) I am looking forward to that!

Cinquante-sept

Monday we got our history tests back. I was astonished and delighted to find that I had gotten 4.5, and the class average was four. It is cool getting good grades in a second language, I have to say. Other than that, nothing really interesting happened. My classmates had a two hour French test so I worked on grammar and reading.

Tuesday we started an ecology unit in biology class which is way more interesting than what we were doing before. In gym class we did a three class rotation. First we played soccer, then we did more high jumping, then we played basketball.

Wednesday we had art class, but in addition to working on our projects we had to help put up the annual art exposition. For our grade the teacher showed four things we had worked on: the alien painting, drawing of bottles, painting of a "symbolic message in a bottle", and normal/color drawings of leaves and insects. I had three things in, which were my alien, my message in a bottle, and my colored insect drawing. Andréanne had her drawings for each of the categories (she is really good at art.) The rest of the day we just had normal classes. After school I went to get the photos I had developed. It was super expensive, so I won't be taking any more before I leave. The quality wasn't that great because I think there may have been a problem with the film (or possibly with my camera's light meter) so I won't bother putting them up (I would have to scan them which would take ages.) I will just show them to everyone when I get back if you remind me about it!

Thursday we had to present short sketches in French class. I had one line: "J'oserai jamais aller lui parler." ("I would never dare to go talk to him".. I will remember that forever.) The morning classes were fine but in the afternoon we had biology and then double economy classes and it was ridiculously boring and long.

Friday I woke up with a slight sore throat and stuffy nose. In history class we went to the computer lab to work on our history projects about someone from the 18th century. I think I mentioned this before but it was a long, long time ago.. I am researching Antonio Vivaldi. We have to make a powerpoint presentation, which is due in a week. Then after that we will have to do a presentation for ten or fifteen minutes (yikes..) I have to present in about a month so I have time to prepare and everything. After history class we had German, math, and English. The math teacher gave us a lot of homework, so I went to a study hall during English class (I don't know if I talked about this before, but once in a while I go to study instead of English if I have a lot of homework to do, because for me English classes are really boring.) In the afternoon I had a chemistry lab but it was pretty boring.. it was about how much of different types of salts water could dissolve at different temperatures. After school I went to get my haircut and I had a nice time talking to the stylist. She had immigrated from Portugal (a long time ago now) so she asked me lots of questions about how I was adjusting, how the language was going, and so forth. It was nice. Then afterward I took the bus home. That evening Andréanne went to Fribourg with some of her friends to see a movie, and Béatrice went with the neighbor to see a movie. I could have gone with but I was feeling really tired so I ended up staying home.

Saturday I woke up around 07h30 and my sore throat/cough was way worse. I could hardly keep my eyes open. I ended up going back to bed and sleeping between 10h00 and 12h15. Then we ate lunch. After lunch, we went to my school to see the art exhibit with Bernard and Béatrice. When we got home I ended up sleeping some more from 15h00 to 18h30 or so. I can't even explain how tired my body was, it was pretty crazy. After eating dinner I felt somewhat better, at least I could keep my eyes open. In the evening Andréanne and I watched a French movie called Les Choristes (please wikipedia it.) I liked it a lot and it was a good movie though I didn't understand 100% of the film because there were no subtitles (nowadays I generally watch in French with French subtitles which makes it easier to follow, but this time there were none at all.)

Today I woke up around 08h00. I showered, ate breakfast (bread with butter and quince jelly), started writing this post, and read a book. Around 11h00 I went back to bed (I feel I should "listen to my body." I almost said that to my host family before realizing that it would probably not translate well.. but it doesn't matter, they understand that sick people should sleep!) At 14h00, after eating lunch, we headed to an arboretum in the canton Vaud. It was about one hour away in the car. The arboretum had an area of about 300 acres and took up most of a valley off of Lake Léman.. for Switzerland, at least in the part I live in, 300 acres without houses is huge. We first went to drink a coffee, then when we were looking at the map trying to decide on a route to take, a volunteer guide from the association asked us if we'd like to go on the guided tour. We decided to do that. It was about two hours long, but he stopped and talked really often. He was really knowledgeable and even knew the names of pretty much all the trees in English. Actually, the route we took went through "la forêt USA" which was a reconstruction (I don't think that's the right word, but you probably know what I mean) of the forests in the Pacific northwest. After the walk we looped around to see the rose bush section, though most of them weren't in bloom yet. At this point it was about 16h30 so we headed back to the visitor's center, bought an ice cream for the road, and headed home. I fell asleep in the car.

This week that is coming up, I only have school Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursday is "Le pont de l'Ascension", which is the day catholics celebrate the ascension of Jesus to heaven, and in Switzerland and some other European countries it's a public holiday. Then Friday we also don't have school. I don't have any real plans yet but I will probably do something fun.

Cinquante-six

Monday I had my test on twenty French authors from the 16th century up to the 20th century. It was pretty easy, actually, because I had studied for it. The questions were like "name three works by Victor Hugo", "identify the author that wrote these three passages", "identify the portraits of these authors", etc. Nothing on the test was a surprise so everyone had the chance to do well if they took the time to study. In geography we started a meteorology/climatology unit, that we will be spacing out through the rest of the year (probably a smart move on the teacher's part, because though he finds it fascinating, the rest of us would die of boredom if we did the whole unit straight through.) In history we watched the first part of a movie called "Le Roi danse" (The King is Dancing) because we had just finished a unit, and taken a test, on the 17th century (and lots more) in history. The movie was about King Louis XIV and a musician named Jean-Baptiste Lully.. Molière was in it too. It was weird from what I could tell, but also hard to understand what they were saying, so I only sort of followed the story. In math class we got back our math tests. I ended up getting 5.7, yessss. I am happy with that.

Tuesday we got our French tests, from Monday, back. I ended up getting 5.6, so I can't complain. In the afternoon we had gym, and it wasn't great. There were three classes (my whole grade) so we did a rotation.. first we practiced soccer then played a game for a while. After they taught us to do the high jump.. though of course it wasn't really high jump since the bar was pretty low (I mean it seemed high for us, trying for the first time, but it wouldn't for a jumper.) Then we had to do endurance running, which was no fun. In IT, Sylvain and I had to present a power point we'd made. The point is learning to use the software really well, so they gave us an easy topic: cities. We chose Minneapolis (his idea, not mine.) Anyway presenting was fine, for some reason I wasn't a bit nervous, though I still didn't talk fantastically.

Wednesday we kept working on our nature houses in art class. I moved on from my rough draft to the real (bigger-scaled) thing. It is hard getting the perspective right but I like the challenge. In math we are still working on functions and it's still really easy. In economy we are talking about the concentration of enterprises (vertical and horizontal, all that good stuff.)

Thursday was pretty boring in the morning. In the afternoon we had gym.. it was.. interesting. What we had to do was an orientation course, which apparently they do once per year. We loaded into a bus with two younger classes, and they drove us to the forest (like five minutes away.) I should specify that going to a "forest" doesn't mean the same thing in Switzerland that is does in Minnesota. Because this country is small, and very populated, you can't find the vast stretches of empty, undeveloped land that you can find in Minnesota. So a "forest" has lots of brush and trees and all, but it's more like a reserve of sorts, and not even that big. I bet we could have walked around the perimeter of it in an hour or two.. so yeah, not so big. There are lots of footpaths, usually some utility roads and some picnic areas and cabins for people to use. Even though it was the middle of the day there were some people there.. women walking their dogs or with a stroller, older couples hiking about, etc.

At the beginning we had to jog/walk to a cabin on the opposite side of the forest from where we started (it was kind of a long oval shape.) When we got there we split into groups of two (I was with Andréanne) and they gave each pair a map of the forest and all the paths and landmarks. On the map there were red circles marked, and some of them the teachers had highlighted. We had to go to the highlighted ones to find some markers. On the markers were written some letters and numbers- our job was to take the third letter, second number (or something like that. They change it every year.) The first area we went to we searched for maybe twenty minutes or a half an hour for the marker in the woods around the path (usually they are around the base of a tree) but we couldn't find it anywhere so we eventually gave up. We walked to where the second marker was but we weren't sure if we were in the right place so Andréanne went to go see if this cabin marked on the map was a little ways away- if so we would know we were in the right place. In the meantime I noticed the marker chained around the base of a tree right next to where we had been standing, so then I waited maybe five minutes for her to get back. We marked the number and letter down and then went on to find our third marker.

We decided to cut through the woods which seemed like a good idea until we were up to an area too thick with trees and brush to pass through, and which point we looked at the map legend that the color that part was on the map corresponded to "impassible area." Riiight.. oops. We should have read first. Eventually we found our way out to a path, heading in the right direction but still sort of far from the next marker. At this point I asked Andréanne how much time we had left, and when she checked her watch, we were horrified to see that we were supposed to be back at the bus... ten minutes prior! We figured out quickly on the map that we weren't that far away from the meeting point (thank god) so after four or five minutes of hard running we made it back. It was embarrassing being late to the bus full of younger students since they had had to wait for us to be able to go back to school, but thankfully there was another pair that came back just after us, so we weren't the very very last. After that the bus drove us back to school.. we were all gross and sweaty so we took the fastest showers ever in order to make it in time for the bus home.

About an hour or two after getting back from school, Béatrice drove Andréanne and I to Romont. I dropped off two rolls of film (all the pictures I've taken since coming here, so not a lot really) at the small photo shop. You know how I know I'm not in the US? They won't be ready until Wednesday, six days from when I dropped them off.. And I thought "next-day" photos were the slow option, but apparently that's only in a country where "hour photo" is standard. After the photos we went to the library where I got two new BDs of a series that Andréanne told me was good. So far (I'm about a third through the first one) she's right. Then after the library we went to the Migros to get something to drink because Andréanne had a watercolor class at seven but it was too early to already go. After, Béatrice and I went home where we ate a late dinner.

Friday was thankfully less stressful that Thursday. We kept watching "Le Roi danse" in history and did some more weather stuff in geography. In the afternoon I had two hours of study so I was able to get all my homework for the weekend done, and that's about it for the day.

Yesterday I went to Fribourg in the afternoon because Andréanne and Béatrice were going in the car, and I had wanted to go soon anyway. I had to buy a pair of pants because my favorite pair of jeans has a hole in it so that I can no longer wear them outside the house anymore, and on another pair I wear a lot the fabric is wearing really thin, and that could happen anytime now. I also bought some socks, and that's it.

Today we went to José and Tata's house for lunch. We ate on a picnic table outside and it was really nice. They had this spit where they made roasted chicken and it was delicious.. For dessert we had ice cream and strawberries. It's definitely starting to feel like summer is coming in Switzerland.

Cinquante-cinq

Âllo tout le monde. I just had a very average, normal Swiss week. School continues, and will for nine more weeks, and in the meantime things are just rolling along at a very steady pace.

Last Monday we talked about demographics in geography. I really like that class and the teacher's courses, though the teacher himself is kind of annoying. In math we worked on linear functions.. my classmates saw them for the first time last year but I first saw them three years ago. Sometimes I learn something new about them or there is different terminology but all in all doing linear functions feels a bit like learning the primary colors. Again. Needless to say, unless they start introducing some new material, I will ace the chapter test. In French I had to present Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the man who wrote The Little Prince and Night Flight, among other books. We have been doing a project for ages in French where each student had to pick a book and make a webpage on the author, then present it. (If you are really bored, go here to see mine.) Tomorrow we have a test on everyone's authors and I have a feeling I will do badly, so I am studying.. but not stressing about it. Anyway the presentation went fine, it was a pretty informal thing, but I was still nervous. My knowledge of the French language seems to disappear as soon as everyone's listening to me... funny how that is. Luckily I feel really comfortable with my class and they are understanding when it comes to any mistakes I might make in French (the know how it is from having to do German and English presentations) so things could have gone worse. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday it was gray and rainy for basically the three days without pause. I happen to love the rain (and the fields needed it) so I found it nice.

Tuesday my host sister was sick so she didn't come to school. It is lonely without her around, since normally we walk together to and from the bus and between classes (when and if we switch.) On Tuesdays we eat lunch at school because we have gym in the afternoon.. I ate chicken with pasta and carrots. I wish school food was as good in the US (I actually look forward to eating cafeteria food here, who would have thought?) In gym we played volleyball and afterward we had to do this sort of soccer obstacle course. I was terrible at it.

Wednesday Andréanne was still sick in the morning. In art we worked on this project that we had started before the break where we have to design a house that is in touch with nature (and it doesn't have to be- preferably it's not- actually possible to make.) It's based on the buildings and drawings of Friedensreich Hundertwasser, an Austrian (please Google and/or Wikipedia him!) My house is probably too "unimaginative" for my teacher's tastes (she didn't say anything to me, but commented on some other students' drawings suggesting they are too plausible), because I designed something that could probably be built. I guess I just prefer to design the possible, since the point is to make a building that gets people in touch with nature (and how can a building which can only exist in the imagination and on paper achieve that goal?) Anyway my building is a house on stilts that straddles a stream, with walkways over it and a big empty space in the middle where the trees grow up over the roof. I am having a very fun time designing it. For the afternoon Andréanne returned to school.. we didn't do anything interesting though.

Thursday I did a lot of studying, both in school and after school, for two tests the next day. We also got our mid-term grades back and I am happy with mine. For French, History, Economy, German, and English I don't have grades (the first three because they are way hard, German because the only things I understand in that language are "ja" and "nein", and English because it's way too easy.) The grades are given exclusively on tests so even though I participate in many classes I just don't have a grade. But for the other classes I do, here are the results in case you'd like to know: Math- 5, IT- 4.5, Geography- 4, Biology- 4.5, Chemistry- 5, Art- 6, Phy Ed- 5. With the biology, math, chemistry, and art I am proud of myself because I am doing better than like more than half the class.

Friday we had two tests in school. The first one was a history test. I studied quite a lot for it but the questions were really really hard. I ended up answering them all but not with high-quality responses (J'ai écrit un peu n'importe quoi, mais ce n'est pas grave..!) but that's okay. At least I finished the thing. And now I know the order of English monarchs from James I through Oliver Cromwell up to Mary and William's War, so I certainly can't complain... The second test of the day was a math test. I understood the material fine but unfortunately we had finished up on it before the break, so it had been almost a month since we'd worked on vectors and I'd already forgotten anything (sometimes I wonder what the point of cramming so much into my head just to forget it as soon as we've finished up the unit..) Anyway I had revisited the material and so I think I did fine, maybe even quite well, on that test. Friday afternoon I had a chemistry lab where we had did experiments to see the reactions between sulfur and iron (you get a little black stony thing and a room that smells like Yellowstone), what happens when you burn magnesium (it gets crazy bright and you can't look at it because it will damage your eyes), and what happens when you burn copper (it glows orange and makes a green flame.) Besides the sulfur/iron I had done this in previous chemistry labs but it was still fun. At the end I made sure to thank my lab partner profusely for doing all the work (well I did all the cool experiments while she killed her hand writing up the lab report for an hour and a half. But the other lab groups had the same set up- one person writing, one person doing the experiments- so it wasn't completely terrible that I hardly helped.) After school I went to the train station to buy a new bus pass for a month because my other one expires on Monday. Afterward I went home and relaxed around the house.

Yesterday I woke up around 08h30, showered, ate breakfast, surfed the web, did some homework, etc. My host mom and host sister had gone to Fribourg in the morning but there was nothing I needed to do there so I stayed home. Then they came home and we all ate lunch together. At two in the afternoon I skyped with my mom and dad for the first time in a month or maybe a bit longer.. we talked about school for next year (because I've had to sign up for classes through my mom, who met with my school counselor), Swine Flu, and lots of other things. Then I did a bunch more homework. Around nine I skyped with my sister Emily for the first time in a month or so.

Today I got up at eight to do homework (this weekend has been crazy..) For lunch we went to Tata and José's house to eat raclette because it was José's birthday. They won half a wheel of raclette cheese playing Sunday bingo in addition to the WHOLE wheel they had won a couple months ago. So I guess they need people to help them eat all that cheese. After eating we went outside to see the rabbits, chickens, and dog they have. Andréanne and Nicolas went home after that because they wanted to do homework, but Béatrice, Bernard, and I went to a music festival. Every first weekend in May the various band ensembles from all of the various villages in my district (a district is a step down from a canton.. mine is about 10% the size of Hennepin county) hold a festival over three days. Fifteen villages rotate hosting it (it's a huge huge responsibility), my village did it around three years ago. On the Sunday around three is when there is the parade, and people from all corners of the district show up. We went to the village where it was, which is at 200m higher altitude than us. The parade was awesome.. I took pictures but they are on film so I will have to get them developed before I can share them with you. The highlights were definitely the paysans.. farming people wearing their traditional costumes. The whole thing started out with some cattle farmers bringing a decorated (flowers and bells on their heads) herd of cows down the road. The dairy goats came later after some bands had passed.. and still later a herd of very stressed and confused-looking wooly sheep. Not to be confused with the sheep were the "barbus".. that is, bearded men!! They all walked past together in their traditional dress.. the requirement is to have a big bushy paysan beard. Highlight of my life! Also there were lots of really well-done floats, marching bands, and little kids from the village school in various costumes. After the parade we went home right away.. Since then I have been working on even more homework. For once I am looking forward to Monday, because, oddly enough, I have a feeling I will do less work than I did this weekend.

WWE, etc.

Monday was the first day back at school after two weeks of vacation. As you can probably imagine, that was a bit of a drag. We changed places, and I think we will keep them for the rest of the year. I now sit in the front row facing the teacher's desk (worst spot ever) next to a boy named Dusan. Bérénice is just across from me, and Andréanne sits behind me. It's not a terrible set up but I miss sitting next to Sylvain because he talked all the time and that was entertaining, haha

Tuesday was uneventful.. we played soccer in gym class and that is about all that is of interest.

Wednesday was sort of a strange day. It was the school sports day which they have every year. Me, Andréanne, and some other friends had signed up for the 15km walk activity, which took place in the afternoon (well there was a morning one too but that was already full when we signed up.) So we were able to sleep in that morning, (which was amazing, and made me wish I could sleep in every Wednesday.) In the afternoon we took the bus to school and had to sign in for the walk. There were probably at least 100 others doing it too. We walked through Romont, then made a big loop through the countryside before coming back. The time limit was 2.5 hours (if you didn't finish in the time limit you'd have to come back on Saturday to do it again) and I think we finished in a bit less than that, keeping a fast walking pace the whole time. Afterward my legs and feet were really sore but it was better the next day. We took the bus home at the normal time.

Thursday was pretty boring for most of the day. We watched a movie in biology about clones that was cool. It was sort of like a more sophisticated French version of Bill Nye the Science Guy I guess. We had gym on Thursday this week but luckily we didn't have to do endurance training (everyone was sore from the day before) and we actually played soccer and then baseball. I have to say, it is really funny playing baseball with school here. Nobody besides the teacher (and even then..) understands all the rules (it was the first time, so he explained a bit, but we played a dumbed down version of the game.) They catch with the hand that doesn't have a glove on it and use a tee to hit the ball. I mean, I have been playing baseball and kickball in school forever, I think baseball is the only sport I ever really played as a kid with Emily, Luke, and my dad (besides croquet..), so I never really thought about it as complicated. But it sort of is, if you aren't used to it. My host sister says that she has watched baseball on TV before and didn't understand it at all. I hope we play again sometime because it was really entertaining.

Friday was an average day in school. We talked about the preference to have boys in India in geography and in history we learned about French society under Louis XIV. After school Béatrice went to pick Tata up from her house, and then we all went together around five to go to the WWE wrestling event. We drove to the stadium in Geneva where the event was being held. Béatrice and Bernard parked the car at the stadium and then took the bus to go out for dinner in Geneva while Andréanne, Tata, and I went to see the wrestling. At the beginning we had to wait outside for maybe a half hour before they opened the doors. There were some food and merchandise stands, much like in the US. It took a while to get through the doors once they opened because they searched in everyone's bags and frisked everyone too. Eventually we got in and found our spots, which were fairly good ones. We had to wait about 40 minutes until the event started so Andréanne and I played hangman.

And then it began! What can I say? It was WWE wrestling, exactly like on TV except with less of the long speeches (you know, the arguments that set up the matches.) Every wrestler had their entrance, there were different kinds of matches (normal, no disqualifications, tag-team, etc.) and all of that. I found it entertaining, though I'm no wrestling fan. In pro wrestling each wrestler has their own story, and in basically each match there is the popular figure and the one everyone wants to lose, so it was easy to know who to boo and who to cheer on. I definitely liked The Undertaker, who had the coolest, scariest entrance, and also Dave Finlay, "The Fighting Irish Bastard", with his midget "son" (it's not really his son, that's just the story) Hornswoggle, the best. It was stupid, but highly entertaining, as it's supposed to be. When the wrestling was over we went to meet Béatrice and Bernard at the car, and then drove home. I think we got home around midnight, and I was exhausted so went straight to bed.

Yesterday I woke up, showered, cleaned my room, finished writing a letter, etc. After eating lunch I went to Romont at three. It was really nice out so I walked around the town and took pictures with my film camera (I've hardly used it since coming here), visited the cathedral, and toured the ramparts (last time I went it was snowy so it was a different experience.) Everything is so green here, the cows and sheep have come out of their barns, and everyone was out walking or gardening so it was just fun to walk around the town. At 17h30 I met Sakshi at the train station because she was coming to spend the night here. We took the bus home fifteen minutes later. After eating super my host sister went to babysit and my host mom and dad went to play cards at the neighbor's house, so Sakshi and I watched movies that she had borrowed from her neighbor and brought over. First we watched "La Cité Interdite" (known as "Curse of the Golden Flower" in English) which was a Chinese movie about the Tang dynasty and this horrible guy who wants to become king and all of the bad things that happen because of that. We watched that one in Chinese with French subtitles (there weren't English ones but we understood the French ones fine) because we agreed that watching movies in the original language is a million times better than dubbed. Afterward we watched the Sex and the City movie.. it was so so stupid but I expected that. When the movie was done it was midnight or so, so we went to bed.

This morning I woke up around 10h30. Sakshi and I ate a small breakfast. Then my host mom and dad went to the annual stockholder's meeting of the village bank of which my host dad is the director, so they weren't around for lunch. Andréanne made chicken, fried potatoes, salad, and steamed spinach and then Sakshi, Nicolas, and I cleaned up afterward. After that Sakshi read my "Stop in the Name of Pants!" book that I got from Aunt Amy because I had to do some IT homework (making vectorial drawings in Powerpoint!) Around three I walked Sakshi to the bus stop and then she left to go back home.

Nothing big is coming up this week, besides two tests on Friday.. more school is all! I am planning the huge excursion of maybe buying a new pair of jeans next weekend (my favorite ones have a large hole in the crotch and are now suitable only for gardening) and that's about the most exciting thing on my schedule.

The Weekend

Alright, so just a post to fill you in on Friday, Saturday, and today since I already posted on Thursday for the other part of the week.

On Friday I woke up at 03h45, which, you know, was pretty early. I showered and ate a quick breakfast, then Béatrice drove Andréanne, Nicolas, and I to the Migros parking lot where a coach bus was waiting to pick us up. We had to pay 82.- each which covered the transportation and the ticket for Europa-Park. At 04h45 the bus left and we made a tour of pretty much the whole canton, stopping at various bigger towns to pick up groups of people. I slept through most of it though. Around eight we got to the German border and the bus stopped but we didn't have to get out and no one actually looked at our IDs, strangely enough. Then around nine we were at the theme park. The theme as you might guess is Europe.. so there were different sections with different countries, and each one had buildings and rides related to that country (for instance in "Switzerland" there is the Matterhorn roller coaster, in "Greece" there is a boat ride called Poseidon, etc.) The shops, buildings, and scenery were actually pretty cool with a large amount of detail and care put into making them. I definitely liked Iceland the best, if only because of the Icelandic Sheep pen..

We went on all of the bigger rides, the favorite of all of us being the newest roller coaster which we rode on three times (click here if you'd like to see one of those slightly nauseating roller coaster ride simulation videos!) Unfortunately the lines for everything were long, even though the weather wasn't great. In the morning it was rainy but luckily waiting in lines and boarding the roller coasters were all under shelter so the only time we actually got wet was walking between them and for the duration of the rides. In the afternoon things cleared up too so that was good. A highlight for me was definitely a house of horrors ride in which everything was in German.. cackling mad scientists, skeletons, ghosts, you name it, it was all incomprehensible. But funny. At four thirty we went back on the tour bus, which took us to some Swiss German town in the north of the canton where the French speakers (there were only five of us and we all lived in the South part of the canton) were picked up by a van. We were driven back to the Migros where Béatrice was waiting with the car, and then we ended up at home around eight. We ate a late dinner and then I watched Desperate Housewives in French with Béatrice and Andréanne until around eleven.

On Saturday, I had plans with Margaux, who was coming to pick me up at one. I don't think I've ever slept much later than eleven since coming to Switzerland (maybe the first bit when I was jet-lagged and overwhelmed by French, but it's been months) so I didn't think to set my alarm clock to wake up. But I probably should have since I woke up at 12h15 and almost died when I looked at the time (I had thought it was around ten.) I jumped out of bed, went into the kitchen to say that I had to quick shower and everyone should all start eating lunch without me, and then ate quickly afterward. At one Margaux, her mom, and her sister came to get me. Remember back at the beginning of the year when I went to the Cailler chocolate factory? Well in February they said we should go there together (it had been like four years since they'd visited) and though I said I'd already been, they suggested we go anyway. Who would argue with that? So we took a tour of the factory (with samples, of course) which lasted about an hour. Afterward, though we hadn't planned it, they suggested we visit the Gruyère cheese making factory which was more or less on the way back. We took a small tour which had an audio guide.. it was Saturday so there wasn't anyone making cheese but we still saw the facilities, the cellars where there is a robot that sprays the cheese wheels with salty water twice a day and flips them over and where they age afterward, videos on how the cheese is made, and the exhibit about the cows and culture of the Gruyère region. It was all very interesting. I learned that 2/3 of all the Gruyère cheese made is eaten in Switzerland, and that 60% of it is produced just in my canton. It takes 400 litres (105 gallons) of milk to make one 35 kilo (77 pound) wheel of cheese. They also gave us cheese samples to taste the difference between Gruyère aged for six, eight, and ten months. After that I went home.

At eight in the evening I headed to the village Salle de Gym to listen to the village brass band play their annual concert. It was packed, and the concert went really late since they also gave medals to people who had been in the band for a long time (25 years, 40 years, and 60 YEARS.. the last one was 72 years old! And he was a retired farmer!) They were surprisingly great, I have to say. It was funny because my host mom was pointing people out to me, like "oh that's the wife of the dairy shop owner playing percussion, and there's the dairy shop owner himself playing the euphonium.. over there's the daughter of the band director- she goes to your school." All in all it was very impressive (seriously, they could have been a professional band.. who would have thought?) They played a wide range of music including Rimsky-Kosakov, Riverdance, and the theme from Shrek. Afterward we went home and I went to bed around midnight.

Today my host family went pretty early to the first communion of a niece on Béatrice's side of the family. I stayed home (I don't do church-related things with my family, which they are fine with, and they understand.) I did homework and relaxed, and am just trying to enjoy the last day of my marvelous vacation (which went much too fast!)

Genève

Hello folks,

I figured I would split this week up into two blog posts, since I just got back from Geneva and I'd like to get a post up so that I have less to write on Sunday (when I'll probably need the time to do last minute homework. I don't know.)

On Monday I spent the day organizing my room, packing for the next day, making sure I had everything in order, and taking a nice bike ride. It was 15km which sounds like a lot until you realize that kilometers are not miles. It was really hot out though but I still enjoyed myself.

Tuesday I woke up at 06h30, ate breakfast, showered, and did some last-minute packing. At ten to eight I was out the door. I took the bus to the train station and then caught the 08h44 to Geneva. Sakshi had gotten on in Fribourg (the stop before) and luckily I saw her in the window as the train came in so I knew which car she was in and I didn't have to walk through them all looking. When we got to Geneva a little before ten, the first thing we did was locate my hostel so that I could put my duffel bag into one of their day lockers (the rooms weren't available until two.) The hostel was a five minute walk from the train station in a busy, ethnic area.. the Genevan ghetto I'm told. It seemed pretty tame though compared to cities in the US (this is Switzerland, after all) but I was careful to not walk around alone at night and all. I checked in at reception and they gave me a padlock for their lockers for a deposit, a map of the city, a public transport pass for the duration of my stay, and the key card to my room. We went downstairs to stash my bag, then took a bit of a walk. We headed in the direction of the botanic conservatory but since we didn't know how far it was exactly (it was off the map) we lost heart on the way there. Instead we found a park that contained the (small) Musée d'histoire des sciences de la Ville de Genève (Geneva Museum of Scientific History, I guess, but I don't know the official English name.) It was closed but that didn't matter because they had these cool experiments outside. There were two parabolic sound dishes that were really far away and when I talked into one of them Sakshi could hear me at the other (please Google if you don't understand.) Then there was this chart drawn on the pavement and when I stood along the date axis at the correct date, my shadow fell onto the time axis and told what time it was.

After walking around the park we walked along the lake to the main area of the city with the shops and businesses. By this time we had walked pretty far and were hungry so we stopped to eat at a pizza place. After lunch neither of us felt like going to a museum so instead we walked around a bit more. In the afternoon we headed to the train station and I saw Sakshi off. I went back to the hostel to put my belongings in the dorm, get my sheets and towel from the reception desk, and make my bed. After this I was quite tired from walking (and also I hadn't slept very well the previous night) so I read a book and listened to my iPod. At dinnertime I went out to find something to eat.. at first I went to the Migros to buy a sandwich but it was very picked-over so I ended up buying a kebab from a little place next door. That evening I went to bed around nine because I was so tired and had a big day the next day. I was in a three person female dorm but the other two beds stayed empty the first night so I had the room to myself, which was kind of nice (usually you have to pay extra to not have roommates!) [For day one, refer to pictures 1 through 8 in the slideshow]

On Wednesday I woke up a bit before eight after sleeping very peacefully. The communal bathrooms were busy but not so much that I had to wait for a shower stall. After getting ready and locking up my things in the locker in my room I went to the cafe next to the hostel for breakfast (coffee and un pain au chocolat.) I was a bit ahead of schedule (the UN, where I was headed next, didn't have tours until ten) so I sat at the cafe and read the journal. Then I took the tram over to the UN and walked for about ten minutes to the visitor's entrance. It was 09h40 so I sat around and waited until I could go in. After going through security I went to the visitor's desk and signed up for the 10h30 English tour.. they checked my passport, took a picture with their webcam, asked for ten francs, then gave me a printed out ID badge I had to wear around (hey, a free souvenir!) The tour [pictures 9 through 19, 32, and 33], which lasted about an hour, was really cool and informative. I remember going into the UN in New York, at least in the lobby and bookstore, without taking a tour (do they even have them?) but at the Palais de Nations you can't enter the grounds without tour authorization and an ID badge unless you work at the UN or are there for some other business.

After the tour I headed over to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum which was right across the road. It was just a bit before noon so I ate lunch at the museum restaurant before actually seeing the exhibits (fish, rice, cooked carrots, cucumber salad, pellegrino.. my lunch I mean, not the exhibits.) The museum was okay, and parts of it very interesting.. I guess it was worth going to see but I'm glad I went to the UN at the same time instead of making a special trip over there. I found the part about what the Red Cross does now, for disaster relief, landmine victims, prisoners, etc. the most interesting part. At the end there was a temporary exhibit of photography that I liked a lot, it was called Stigmates and it featured six different photographers from around the world [pictures 20 to 31 are of the museum]

After the Red Cross Museum I went to a clothes store and bought some much-needed lighter clothes since it's been really warm lately. Then I went back to the hostel where I met the girls who would be my roommates that night.. two university students from Hong Kong who are studying business for four months in Glasgow and who were traveling on their break. Their names were Rainy and Grace but I don't know if Rainy is written like that at all (but it's how it sounded.) They were really nice so we spent some time talking. Then I went over to a Japanese grocery store right next to the hostel after that and bought my dinner (sushi- the first in months, it was amazing!, bottled green tea, assorted rice crackers with tiny whole dried fish mixed in, and some chocolate dessert.) At eight I went to the train station to meet up with my friend Colleen (an American AFS student living in Geneva) who had sent me an SMS that morning asking if I wanted to go out. I was surprised to meet not only her, but Fernando, Amanda (another American in Geneva), and her host sister. Fernando was going over to France the next day and spending the night at Amanda's. We went to this cute little cafe where I ordered a beer for the first time (I've had it before, just never bought it myself).. they don't even ID here. Then we just hung out there.. eventually three other friends of Colleen and her host sister met up with us too (with the Swiss there we spoke more French than English.) Around 23h15 we left.. yes, it was pretty late, but Colleen, her host sister, Amanda, and Fernando walked with me through the perilous Genevan Ghetto to the hostel so that was fine.

This morning I woke up at seven for no real reason but after that I couldn't sleep. I got up and took a shower (this time no one in the bathrooms), rousing my roommates a bit in the process (I was really quiet, too..) When I got back they were more or less awake. I packed up my bags, gathered my used sheets and towels, said farewell to my roommates, and headed out. I checked out at the desk but kept the padlock for a while longer, locking my duffel in the day locker again, then went to eat breakfast.. I walked in the direction of the conservatory and botanical gardens (determined to get all the way there this time- turns out Sakshi and I had given up about 9/10 of the way) and found a cafe to eat. It was drizzly but I had a raincoat, fast driying capris, and sandals on. At the conservatory I walked around a bit, but it didn't actually open until 09h30 (I noticed that in tiny letters on the door of the third greenhouse after already walking through the other two.. oops) so I didn't stay long. [Pictures 34 through 37]

At this point it was getting pretty cold so I caught the bus and just took it to the other side of the city and ended up in this cute residential neighborhood where there was a little farmer's market on the street. After walking a bit I took another bus back to the shopping district, at which point it started downpouring.. great. I bought a few Geneva postcards and went to the overpriced (even more so than in the US) Starbucks to fill them out. Then, after warming up, I decided to brave the rain by walking around some more (for whatever reason I just didn't really want to go to a museum.) It was cold and very very wet. Eventually (taking a bus and two trams) I made my way back to the hostel to pick up my duffel bag and get my ten francs back for the padlock. Then, because I realized I might not eat it again until August, I went back to the Japanese grocery and got some more cheap (by Swiss standards), delicious sushi. At 14h10 I had my train (there were later ones too, but I was longing for the comfort of my host home and itching to start writing my blog post) so after eating I headed over to the train station. I bought some stamps using exact change from this yellow postal machine- I swear it took twenty minutes to figure it out- and mailed my postcards. I bought my train ticket. I paid two francs to use the "clean, safe bathroom" (and that is not translated, it was written in English.. go figure, only anglophones are afraid of squat toilets.) And then I took the train, and then the bus, to come back home. I just got done eating dinner, and it was good. It's fun eating in restaurants but it's nice sitting around the host family table and eating a meal too.

GENEVA PICTURES (Go HERE for bigger and better versions)



Tomorrow, Nicolas, Andréanne, and I are going to Germany to go to Europa-Park (it's cool I'll be able to say I've been in Germany but actually it won't really count much, culture-wise. But technically I'll have been there.) We are taking a tour bus that drops you off there (much like I did for the Christmas market in Bâle, except it's farther.) We'll have to leave the house at four thirty in the morning, eeek.. But of course the idea is to sleep in the bus.

But I'll let you know about that once it's happened.