update: changes, purpose, and other semi-boring things

hey guys!

i've planned a lot of changes to this blog in the past month, and today, they are finally beginning to come to fruition! hooray!

the main change today is the blog name... the banner above this post now reads "oh the bloomabilities" instead of "hannah goes adventuring". this was actually the original name of the blog (read why here) and now that i'm home from exchange, it's going to stay that way.

the blog itself will continue, just in a different form. as a rotary exchange student, we learn that there are three stages of exchange: outbound (leaving from your home country), inbound (being in your host country), and rebound (returning to your home country after your year abroad). so with that in mind, i'll still continue writing.... just in a slightly different capacity, as a return exchanger instead of as a current one.

"hannah goes adventuring" will also continue, but as my personal/normal blog -- and therefore using a different web address, focus, and timeline. hopefully that'll be up in the next month, so keep an eye out!

in the next month or so, i'll be entering school, applying for college, and doing all that senior-year-drama stuff, so i WILL be busy. but i mean hey, at least it's all in a language i speak and understand! ;) i will also be a part of rotary, and i'll attempt to keep updating with the process. once an exchange student, always an exchange student.

that's it for now!
♥♥♥,
hannah

in which hannah learns a bit of french, meets a tiger (and a canadian), and eats too much chocolate

So this post is pretty overdue, seeing as I did all of this about two weeks ago.. but hey, it's still an update, right? I'll try to put a ton of posts after this and maybe it'll look like I posted it semi-on-time.

 Anyway.
On Saturday, my host family told me that they wanted to take me to see the tiger in the next village over. I was a little surprised considering this is Switzerland and not India, and I wasn't expecting to see a tiger my first month of exchange. But, it sounded interesting and I've never seen a village tiger before, so I said yes.
We drove for about 10 or 15 minutes and then walked for a while. (I'm beginning to realize that most outings begin with a walk, whether you're in Luzern or in Magden or in Rheinfelden or in Basel.)
After turning down a dirt road we arrived at a small farm. It did not exactly appear to be the type of place that exotic animals reside in... but sure enough after [more] walking and a good look around, we located the tigers. Shortly after that, I and my host family and our fellow village people filed into a very large dingy barn and the show began.

 We sat really close to the cage... almost too close for comfort, considering that it was a very old-looking cage... but the animals that filed in did not look wild and ferocious. They reminded me of very old overweight cats, which was unexpectedly funny.
Apparently the tigers are the hardest to train because they are sneaky and not very obedient. In the trainer's words, sie sind listig, which means something like clever/sly in English...
The lions are also hard to train because they are very lazy. (And fat. The lions are really fat. They don't really look like Simba at all, they look more like the weiner dog who used to live next door to me. And they walk like he did too.) They are more interested in the food than in the trick-performing part.

Leopards are the most teachable wild felines. They are small, and quick, and smart, and for the most part clever at learning tricks. They were also the only animals with sufficient grace to live up to my ideal of the jungle creatures :)
Okay, nature lesson over. After the animals were done performing, the man came out and answered a lot of questions that I didn't really understand because they were in Swiss German.
In fact, a lot of time here is spent listening to questions I can't really understand because they're in Swiss German. I think this is a recurring theme in my life.

And that was it for the lions and tigers and leopards... oh my!

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

After this, I met up with Faith (who you already know) and Ryan (who's a Canadian exchange student) in Basel. Ryan is from Fribourg and he speaks fluent French. It makes me jealous just to write about it... but he taught Faith and me some very basic things in Franzoesisch, which makes me happy. I can now say "I love you", "my name is Hannah", and "I come from the United States." Unfortunately I think I have an unbelievably horrible French accent... :/ but oh well.

We bought chocolate bars and ate probably too much chocolate* and laughed and discussed exchange and four-leaf-clovers and Swiss German and trams and a lot of things that I can't really remember anymore but it really doesn't matter because we were in Basel. on a summer day. in the park.

it was a good day.

*I don't think I've ever eaten so much chocolate in one month. you have no idea.

days > 10 -- adjusting

advice for future exchange students #8:
 DO learn the language before you come. Lots of American (USA) people say on Facebook that they didn’t practice anything and they learned the language in the first month. Yeah. Either they’re delusional, they’re lying, or they went to Australia.*

Sorry I've been MIA for the past couple days. I meant to post every 10 days, I really did, but unfortunately I didn't take into account that I would be busy with so many things. The first 10 days have been undeniably a part of the honeymoon stage.** I've been to more places than I can count and my days are sort of blurring together, which is why I only just now realized that I should be updating. So here I am (right now I should be eating breakfast, but instead I am writing on my blog. this must be quick.)

The language immersion has actually been much easier than I thought it would be, hooray! I would definitely recommend learning the language before your exchange, because I do think it's harder for the exchangers who haven't... people in Switzerland do speak English, for those of you who are wondering. That said, I think it's rather annoying to keep asking people to speak English, and learning German is part of what I came here to do, so why not just work hard at it in the beginning when you have time?

anyway, things that have happened in the past 10 (ish) days:

• a few days after I got here, we went to Rheinfelden and walked across the bridge to Germany! It still boggles my mind to think that I am so close to so many other countries... Switzerland is much smaller than the USA.
• I started my Deutschkurs (German course) shortly after my arrival in der Schweiz. So far it's been fairly good, although the lessons are pretty easy. A lot of it is review of what we were supposed to learn in Rosetta Stone, but it's helpful to get in some practice I suppose. It's also nice to spend time with the other exchange students in my area.
• After my first day of German class, I asked my host mom to speak mainly in German to me. After the first 10 days, my YEO told my host parents to only speak German to me. So far it's been a little confusing, but really good as far as language immersion goes :)
• I went to an FCB (Fussball Club Basel) game the first week of my stay. It was SO HOT in the stadium, but the game was exciting. We were sitting less than 20 rows away from the players, which was also pretty amazing... my host family and I all wore FCB shirts and hats, and the people in the stands were going crazy.
• Went to Augusta Raurica and saw old old OLD Roman ruins. We also went to a restaurant in Augusta Raurica and had pizza. It was delicious.
• I met some of my host sister Alessandra's (she's my age, but spending her exchange year in Australia right now) friends. They're super nice, and they'll go to my school so I may see them more often.
• I now have a class list. Unfortunately it's in German, so I only sometimes remember which classes I have. Hopefully I'll remember enough to get to my classes on time.
• We went to the Basler Munster last Saturday and explored the rest of Basel as well. Pictures to come soon, I just haven't uploaded them to my computer yet :)

And that concludes my rather rambling, hard-to-follow post. Bis bald!

notes:

*I do think that Australia is an awesome exchange destination, and I would love to go if it were offered in my district. It's only that I don't think you learn another language there if you're from the USA. Just to clarify :)

**if you're wondering what that is, I mentioned it earlier in this post.

update -- and pictures!

I woke up this morning to the sound of bells.

Outside my bedroom window I can see to the other side of my village. It's a small village, about the size of my entire neighborhood back home... of course, that would make sense considering that Switzerland is about 1/6th the area of Oregon. In fact, everything in Switzerland appears to be smaller than back home. The cars are smaller, the streets are smaller, and even the chairs and tables appear to be shorter. Which makes me very happy, because sitting at my desk here I can comfortably extend my feet to the floor. At least size-wise, I fit in here perfectly.

Of course, there are other ways that I feel distinctly different. I happen to be Asian, which isn't a big deal in the middle of hipster downtown Portlanders where there are much stranger things to be stared at. And I don't identify myself as a different race by default... I am Hannah, I am a girl, I am American.
But here I have seen absolutely no one who looks like me. I'm not sure how much I stand out, but I know for a fact that I do not look Swiss.

The language barrier is interesting. Most of my peers take English in school, and my host mom speaks fluent English. This is nice when I am trying to get my point across but not so nice when I'm trying to practice my language skills :P However, everyone has been super nice about helping me practice my German, and there's plenty of language immersion everywhere :)

In addition, the German that I've learned so far is High German, Hochdeutsch, while the German that's spoken here is Swiss German, Schweizerdeutsch/Schwyzerdüütsch. Swiss German is a very strong "dialect" of German that doesn't really exist in written form. Some people say that when you go to Switzerland you learn two languages--Swiss German and High German--and it's so true.

Where was I? Oh yes, my village. Every hour the church bells ring, and during dinner today we heard alphorns. Yes, real alphorns. Told you Magden was small :) but still, it's ridiculously adorable. There are flowers everywhere, the houses have little peaked tile roofs, all the windows have colored shutters (and window boxes with flowers in them). Sheep are grazing in the field behind the backyard, and I've even seen horses walking down the main street! The entire town is like a picture from a storybook.

Proof? Look at the pictures. I took these... unedited... in half an hour... walking around my village. There are more, but I figured I might overwhelm you so I've kept it to a minimum. I seriously can't stop taking pictures here-- there are so many things to see and love and be interested in! I'm obviously still in the "honeymoon" stage of my exchange :P
But honestly, Switzerland is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my entire life. There's so much history--Magden is 1200 years old, and Switzerland is full of lovely old castles and churches and fountains and bridges. It makes the Declaration of Independence seem practically new!

Also, today I started German language school, or Deutschschule. There are eight other exchange students in my class, all of us at varying levels of German. At the end of four weeks we take a test, and if all goes well I will start "real school" in Gymnasium Muttenz the week afterward.

Now the alphorns are finished and the bells are ringing again--22:00--so I'd better go to sleep. Gute Nacht, Schweiz.