Day 39

Hello People of the World,

Happy May Monday! Today I was sitting during my free period thinking what I needed to put in my blog.  Then I started to think of the title of this site. I don't really know why I called it "A Day with May" if I usually talk about my whole week rather than just one day. If it was just one day, it's probably be really boring and short. I think when I started this I was more focused on sharing my story, and could really care less about the title. I just liked it because it rhymed. Anyway I just wanted to address that; I'm going to stop worrying about the name of the site now. Let's talk about what I've been up to.

The Search for Guitar Strings:

So recently my family lent me a classic guitar of a friend since I was sad that I had to leave my guitar back in California in order to give me more space for luggage. The guitar is in good shape, but it just needed some new strings. I remembered about a guitar shop I saw during my first days here. So one day after school I went with a friend to go find the store. We looked around for almost two hours, but never found it. It's okay though because we weren't really looking that hard. We would get distracted by all the cute little shops that we saw.

I really liked this weird looking foutain

Pretty houses with the church in the background

LOOK AT HOW BEAUTIFUL THIS CHURCH WAS

Last Day of Language School:

So last Wednesday was the last day of Language School.*tear tear* It was a really great day though. First in the morning session, we had to take a test in the morning which was sort of a drag. Then we still had like two hours to kill before the morning session was over. So we played games like: Pictionary, Concentration, and Charades. The teacher made us play the games in German since we were technically still in language school. At the beginning of the year our teacher promised us a "party" on the last day of school. His definition of party was to make Swiss cuisine together. Our language school happened to be taught at the same place they teach people how to cook, so we had access to a kitchen. We made a dish that is very popular here called Birchermüesli. It is like a yogurt mixed with milk and oatmeal and a variety of fruit. We also attempted to make Raclette which is a Swiss dish where you melt cheese and pour it over cooked potatoes. The only thing was I think our teacher forgot the thing that would melt the cheese, so instead we just ate potatoes with slices of cheese. After our meal, we took group photos, and we received our "diplomas". Basically they just said that we passed the class along with the result of our final test score. 

Swiss Cheese(left) and Birchermüesli(right)

It's a struggle to get everyone to look at the camera 

My class and I with our diplomas

Yay everyone is looking at the camera

So during dinner, a friend of mine suggested we go to Zürich when the class ended. I didn't really have any plans for the day, so I agreed. Zürich is such a beautiful city. I absolutely love it. We only stayed for a short time because the class ended later than it usually did because of all the goodbyes that needed to be said. I also had to be home by seven for dinner so we stayed in Zürich for about two hours. We almost missed our train that would get us home in time since we got so distracted by the beauty of Zürich, but after running in the train station we made it. Honestly making a train or bus you thought you were going to miss is the best feeling of accomplishment.

A statue in a park in Zürich

The Zürich train station

The Eschenberg Tower:

On Saturday I went out with my family to go see the Eschenberg tower that was in the woods of Winterthur. The German word for woods is Wald which sounds a lot like the German word for whale which is Wal. So when my family suggested we go to the woods, I thought they were suggesting to go to the whale. I was very confused since we were in Switzerland and there's no ocean, so no whales I didn't really mention this was why I was confused. They just saw by the look on my face I was confused.They then explained that were were going to the woods to go see the watch tower and have a little bonfire. The walk into the woods was hard because it was all uphill. Coming from the valley of California, I'm really not used to walking up and down hills all the time. Eventually we made it to the watch tower. It was really tall. I believe it was 30 meters which would be about 98 feet. In order to reach the top you would have to walk up 162 stairs(I counted). The view was amazing as you could imagine. It gave an overview of the city of Winterthur.

THE AMAZING VIEW TOTALLY WORTH THOSE 162 STAIRS

bad panorama of the view ft. my sister

The view down (honestly was so scared of dropping my phone)

The view from the bottom

Metal Swiss Flag

'Look, Simba. Everything the light touches is our kingdom. 

My sister and I at the top of the tower

The bonfire was really fun. I learned how to make an actual fire like how you would learn in like Boy Scouts. We roasted a type of Swiss sausage known as "Cervelat". It's honestly like the best thing ever. It was also my first time roasting sausages over a fire. We also roasted bread over fire which I didn;t really think was a thing until I saw it with my own eyes.

The Fire 

Cervelat

Me being very confused after being told you can roast bread

Roasting bread on the fire

 Upcoming Events:

This week is my first full week at the "Kantonsschule" which is basically normal school. Everything is taught in German besides English and Spanish. If you're wondering what classes I'm taking, I'm taking  are:German, English, Spanish, Biology, Chemistry, Physics,  Geography, History,Math P.E., and Art. My favourite subject right now is math because no matter where you go in the world, numbers never change. Of course, English is a close second.

I don't think I have big plans for the weekend, yet. I believe on Sunday I will be going with my brother to a horse jumping competition which should be fun. Next week I will be going with my class for a study week where we will be studying German and English literature, so that should be fun as well. Then after that is a two week vacation. The first week I will probably hang out with some friends. The second week I know that I will be joining my family on a trip by buggy through some parts of Switzerland which I'm looking forward too.

Well I better get going to bed now. Hope you all have a great Monday and enjoy the rest of your week.

Until next time,

Tschüss

-May 

One Month

Hello People of the World,

I was busy on Monday, so I didn't have time to post. I then realised that it has almost been a whole month that I've been abroad, so I decided to post on the month anniversary of my arrival date. Now I can officially say that I have been in the beautiful country of Switzerland for one whole month. It seems like just yesterday I was looking out the plane window, seeing Switzerland below, and the one thing I wanted more than anything was to land and meet my host family. On my way home from orientation camp on Sunday, the train passed by the Zurich airport and the memories of my arrival just flooded back. So much has happened in such little time, I can't even imagine what the future holds. 

That was a nice sedimental moment. Anyways I've been fairly busy since the last time I wrote on here, so let me fill you in on what I've been up to.

Side note: I know my last post I promised I would take more photos. Which I actually kept my word to, but something went wrong with my CF card and the pictures I took no longer load on my camera or to my computer, which I'm really sad about because I took cute pictures that I was so excited to share. However a friend of mine also took pictures and was nice enough to give me some photos. Other photos were taken with my Iphone and will continue to be taken on there till I figure out how to fix the card.

School:

So I'm starting to understand German a little better. Speaking the language is the harder part. I still learn German at language school. This upcoming week will the last week. Then after that I will be on my own in normal school full time. It's bittersweet because I will miss all the people at my language school, but I'm excited to spend more time with my classmates and get to know them better. 

Friends from language school.
6 countries in this picture:USA, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Czechs Republic, China, and Thailand 

Schoggi Land:

So last week, I went with my language class to the Maestrani Chocolate Factory also known as Schoggi Land. It was so heavenly. When it comes to chocolate, Switzerland wins. They gave us so many samples, by the end of the tour I was so full. They wouldn't allow photos in the factory because the chocolate making process is a "secret".  Either way I wouldn't really have photos because my of the CF card that is acting up. The factory was really cool though. Throughout the whole tour it just smelled like chocolate which was the best thing ever. Afterwards, we went to the gift shop which just sold every chocolate the company had to offer. Even though I wish I could buy the whole store, I just bought a couple things to send to my brother for his birthday coming up. I'll probably return later in the year because the chocolate is sold cheaper than it is in normal stores.

Schoggi Land with my language school classmates

AFS Orientation:

Last weekend, I went to an AFS Orientation which was really fun. I think there were about thirty kids who attended. They were from all over the world, which was really cool. We played a bunch of games, and stayed up really late getting to know each other. I think I got like seven or eight hours the entire weekend, so when I came home I looked dead. It was just a great experience to be with everyone and all the different cultures. I can't wait for the next AFS event.

Group photo from the camp 

Taco Tuesday:

On Tuesday, I decided that I wanted to make dinner for my family, and I thought tacos would be a good choice. Grocery shopping was slightly easier than my first time grocery shopping. I think the butcher who spoke English made it a lot easier to buy the meat. I was really scared that the tacos were going to come out terrible because I rarely cooked at home. I always baked more than cooked. Anyways, I made the tacos, and the whole time I was just worrying that they would taste bad or would be undercooked and I'd just give my whole family food poisoning. Making tortillas was the hardest because the stores here don't sell the special flour and no one has tortilla makers. My "tortilla maker" was two cutting boards that I wrapped in wax paper, and I just pressed the tortillas with all my force. In the end, the tacos came out a lot better than I thought they would. My family ate them and by the end of dinner all the tacos were gone, so they must've liked them.

I didn't poison anyone and I didn't burn the house down, so I think it was a job well done.

Upcoming Events:

Well next week will be my final week of language school. After that I will be going to regular school for the whole week. I'm starting to understand German a lot more than I did a month ago. I'm trying my best to speak more German around the house. In two weeks I will be going with my class from regular school on a study week where we go to a camp and study German and English. Then after the study week, we have two weeks off for fall holiday. 

It's been a great month here, and can't wait to see what else is in store for the next 10 months. Anyways I'm off to go bake some cookies. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Until next time,

Tschüss, (for non German speakers this means goodbye)

May

Day 20

Hello People of the World,

I wrote a lot of this post on Monday. I even had my intro all written out. Only now it wouldn't have worked because it's new day and all. I was quite busy yesterday, so I didn't have time to finish it or publish it. I guess I could have posted yesterday, but it probably would have been really short and I wouldn't have been able to fully cover my week. Better post late than never though right? I'll try to post on Mondays as many times as I can. If I don't post on Mondays don't worry I'll post when I can. You'll just have to bear with me. Anyways, you know the deal, let's talk about my week.

Language School: 

Okay there isn't really much to update about this. It's school. Nothing too too exciting. Just learning a lot of vocabulary and grammar. The school is in the same city that I live in, so it's pretty easy to get to. Then sometime last week our teacher decided to take a little sightseeing tour of Winterthur. I've gotten lost enough in the city, so now I know the basics of where everything is. We visited the theatre, the park, the city hall and a couple other places in the city.

This is the Stadthaus also known as the city hall

*Sorry for the lack of pictures. I'm so caught up in being here that I totally forget to take pictures. I'm more of a live in the moment person, so my last thought is to take pictures. Then afterwards I remember I run a blog and blogs are nice with pictures in them. I promise I'll take more photos for upcoming posts*

First Days of School:

So if you have read my previous blogs, you would know that last week I had my first day of school! I went to school on Thursday and Friday. I'm not going to lie I was very nervous. I had to get up really early because my class started at 7:45 and I had to go by bus so I had to be out of the house by 7. Now my morning started off with a very frantic May trying to make sure I have everything for school. While getting ready, I accidentally stabbed myself in the eye with a mascara brush which resulted in my eyes watering. I was already "crying" and the school hadn't even started yet.  I finally made it to the bus on time.  Thankfully, my first class was English. This was a perfect time to introduce myself to people, and I actually understood what the teacher was teaching. After English, I greeted by Biology, Physics then Chemistry. This trio is about every teenage kid's nightmare. Imagine having all three of these classes all after one another. Now imagine them being taught in a language you don't know too well. Now that's scary. I'll try my best to understand what's going on same way I did in America. My last class was PE where I played soccer fussball. It was sort of fun, just really really hot. Afterwards I was just like

The second day of school I was a bit more at ease. My class is only like 15 people, and they are all girls and super friendly, so it was easy to make friends. Here, the class stays together for each subject, so you can just follow your class around and you won't get lost. That is the upside to Swiss schools when you are the new kid. Classes wise they were a bit harder to understand. My first class was Spanish, so I did understand that, but every other subject that day was taught in German, so I didn't understand much. Mostly I'd only to be able to pick up simple words from the lesson. School right now is sort of watching a foreign film. You can see the emotion on people's faces, but don't really know what they are saying. I told my host family about this analogy, and my host father just said that soon enough I'll "be in the movie as well."

Listening to conversations right now is pretty funny. I would say right now my German is pretty basic so I know like numbers, colors, simple verbs, ect.  So this is how a German conversation sounds to me at the moment
".......two......house......run..............go.......food........"
It's very funny, but my comprehension is slowly getting better. I still need to work on my speaking a bit more though. But overall, school is great. The people are really nice and very welcoming. I received a couple messages after school from some classmates checking on how I am and offering help if I needed it. 

Quartierfest:

So on Saturday, in my neighbourhood they held a party called "Quartierfest". It's basically an annual block party. It was really fun. I saw pretty much everyone from the neighbourhood. The food was great. I had a cervelat which is a type of Swiss sausage. It was great. I helped serve at the buffet for a while with some of the kids my age from around the neighbourhood. There was a girl there It went pretty well I'd say. There was a karaoke machine. Of course some friends and I decided to have some fun with it and we sang "Eye of the Tiger". Then we watched more people sing. Some songs I recognised others were Swiss German songs. Overall, it was just a fun night.

Performing at karaoke night like 

Going to Immigration Services:

The reason I couldn't really post yesterday is because I had to go to Zürich to get the final things done for my residence permit here. The process was a lot quicker then I thought it would take. I just had to take a photo, give my fingerprints and give my signature. My picture came out awful, but WHO CARES I'M FINALLY GETTING MY RESIDENCE PERMIT. WOOO!!

Upcoming Events:

So currently I'm doing some homework for language school while listening to some music. On Thursday and Friday I go back to regular school again. I'm excited because the people there are pretty cool. After school on Friday I am heading to an AFS orientation which should be fun because that means I get to meet more people. Then I return on Sunday. On Monday, I'm going on field trip to a chocolate factory with my language class. That should be fun! I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures, so I can post all about it next Monday!

Anyways I should probably get back to focusing on my homework. Hope you all enjoy the rest of your day and the rest of your week! Until next Monday! Hopefully!

Enjoy this picture I drew last week during my down time:-)

Tschüss,

-May