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