an open letter to the newbies

dear newbies:

congratulations on being the luckiest kids in the world. you are about to have what will probably be the most memorable year of your life so far.

do not underestimate the importance of spontaneity and simply enjoying your life here. but, in the event that you WOULD like advice, here are some things to remember...

us as newbies!

1. don't stress.

but seriously, don't. one, it isn't worth your time, and two, sometimes it's better to just enjoy the moment. the year will be over before you know it. prioritize, yes, and figure out what you're looking for in your exchange year, yes. but take a couple minutes every so often to breathe and laugh and realize the complete beauty and total ridiculousness of you being in another country.

i regret not figuring out that sometimes, i should just take life as it happened to me. (chill out, by the way, Past Hannah. you're stressing out too much to be healthy.) and that sometimes, your exchange will hold lovely surprises. the key isn't to prepare wildly, the key is to welcome them in and stop complaining.

which is another point...

2. if you have an issue, figure it out. make yourself heard.

you will be on your own for a lot of this year, and you will be required to deal with your own problems sometimes. if you can't, you need to communicate that you can't... clearly. your host parents are wonderful, but there are times when you just need to raise your voice and let them know that there IS a blocked bathtub turning the downstairs washroom into a swimming pool, and can they please help you with it NOW?

farewell weekend for OUR oldies

other times you will be required to take control of your own issues and solve them. if you are not already, you will probably become good at a) reading maps in foreign languages or b) navigating the transit system better than the locals do or c) getting lost in large cities and enjoying it. possibly all three!

but there are other times when the problem just can't be fixed. which means that,

3. sometimes, you need to shut up and deal with it.

this doesn't mean staying silent in the face of evil. this just means that sometimes, you will get so caught up in what's wrong with your exchange that you don't realize the obvious: you're on exchange, and that's wonderful! be grateful, duh.

also, the food is delicious. i don't care what you think of it now. it's delicious. and you WILL miss it when you get back to your home country, so make the most of your opportunities now. this applies to other things, not just food: language, culture, travel... stop complaining and work on enjoying life.

newbies and oldies-- exchange is a family

 4. invest in things that last.

make friendships. get to know people who come from different states and countries and continents. because you know what? you didn't come on exchange to be comfortable. anyone can stay home and be comfortable. you came to grow, and that takes guts.

so don't undermine that by staying inside your comfort zone.

 i have met some of the most brilliant and talented and fun people on exchange, and it blows my mind to think that i call them friends. so go. enjoy the world. there is life outside your front door, i promise.

5. ignore this.

well, don't ignore it completely. but do realize that this is a very limited amount of advice coming from a still-more-limited source, and that every exchange is different. my counsel might be completely wrong for your exchange, and that's fine.

know yourself, and question yourself, and feel free to disregard things that aren't right for you. but mostly, remember that you're ON EXCHANGE, you're adventuring, you're free...

and honestly, isn't that the most wonderful feeling in the world?

spring's lovely links

hey, look what i found in the deep dark archives of my blog!
i completely forgot that i have these...

thoughtcatalog's How You Know You've Found Where You Belong is a great piece. it's also written by a studyabroad-er, although he's in England and i'm in Switzerland.
another good article is this one about the friends you make while studying abroad. gotta love those exchangers from around the world.

my experiences in paris were, thankfully, all good (except for a brief episode of getting lost one day, haha) but this made me laugh so i'm going to share it anyway. travel writing at its best, folks.

one of my newbies has a blog and you should check it out. he's an aussie, his name is vincent and he takes amazing photos. look i'm in this post!

one of my fellow oldies (evan), meanwhile, posted something about happiness a while back. you should also look at that, because he is a talented writer and a pretty awesome person. (also he can play guitar, which is worth a bazillion points in my book.)

i will end with cailler's chocolate study from last year. look at all the awesomeness in this post, you guys.
(it's in german, though. so hit the translate button or something.)

days > 180 -- seeking

piece of advice for future exchange students #22:

sometimes if you really want something,

all you have to do is ask.

yes, i know i haven't posted in a while.
but unfortunately exchange means that you sort of have a life beyond blog posting... ;)

one thing i've learned here is how to be way more upfront about what i want and how i want to do it. swiss people (well, at least the ones currently in my life) tend to have LOTS of rules and LOTS of ideas and LOTS of opinions on the way you should do things. which, seeing as i'm used to more laid-back Americans, means that all too often i don't know exactly what i want and so i get slightly run over.

guess what?
i don't really like getting run over.

so i've learned to decide what i want quickly and to communicate it right away, which is something i never really had to do in the USA. if i have an opinion here and i want to be heard, i have to MAKE myself heard. and while that sounds sort of rude, it's just what i have to do to keep myself as a person.

things i've done in the past 10ish days (well, 20 days ago... it's been a while, sorry)

• went to a chamber music concert with some artists from Prague. we sat in the FRONT ROW and it was amazing... also, the cello player's instrument was older than the United States of America. I know that's not super impressive in Europe, but for some reason I couldn't get over the fact that this cello, older than the Declaration of Independence, was being played in a concert hall right in front of me. Oh, Europe. :)
• Charivari (a pre-carnival show) with my friend Faith! they spoke REALLY strong Basel dialect, which was super difficult to understand, but the show was good anyway. they played flutes and horns and drums and sang songs and acted out skits and it was fun.
• I saw my first host mum again! we went to a "Nacht der Musicals" because my first host family bought me tickets for Christmas... they know me well ;)
• snow day with my class in Gymnasium Muttenz. The whole school reserved a train and went to the ski resort and spent the day skiing/snowboarding/hiking/walking/snowshoeing/sledding. (I went sledding.) why do American high schools not do this.
• met our newbies in Basel-- Vinny, Demi, and Barbara. it feels like such a short time since we were newbies, and now all of a sudden we're oldies with language skills and travel experience and I FEEL SO OLD NOW WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY EXCHANGE. :)

days > 160 -- continuing

piece of advice for future exchange students #20:

sometimes your life will change.

a lot.

deal with it.

as you read in the last update, I recently changed host families. for various different reasons, it hasn't been a very easy switch... add that to the fact that school started two days after i moved and the fact that semester is ending AND the fact that i need to pay for trips and book my flight back and coordinate with my other host families, and you get one extremely stressed-out Hannah.

so the past couple days have been a lot of "Hannah pull yourself together and get on with your life" and part of that includes getting on with my overdue blogging. 

::sigh::

here goes...

things i've done in the past 10ish days:

• finished my first two weeks with my new host family!
• successfully lived vegetarian
• (okay, i guess i should explain that last part.) for those of you who know me, you probably know that i like eating meat. and that i am not really a vegetarian type of person. BUT my new host mom is vegetarian and so I haven't eaten chicken or steak or ribs or any sort of meat besides lunch meat in the past one and a half weeks. yes, i know that's not super long. but it surprised me (in a good way).
• celebrated one of my friend's (Faith's) birthdays. All of us went to her house and had a sleepover. It was fun.
• said goodbye to the oldies. i miss them already. :(
• didn't do any traveling for a first time in a while... this was really really weird for me, actually. Normally I spend at least one day a week traveling through Switzerland, but my new host mom isn't super happy about that so I guess I'll be keeping my travel to a minimum here. :/
• met up with some exchange students and explored Basel. so that was fun.
• went to a Rotary meeting and met some more people. Every time I go, everyone continues to praise my German and say I'm so talented... while this might not exactly be true, it's nice for my self esteem haha.
• got our newbies!! ahhhh! we are now all oldie exchangers. 
• watched Frozen with my little sister (from my first family).
• actually, that was probably the best part of my entire 10 days.
• also, i hung out with my old family. who i miss. a lot. <3

byeeeeee!

hannah