looking back: country fair

so this past weekend we had the country fair.

it was awesome. I remember it being good when I was an outbound, but it is so much better being an inbound... telling people about your country, spending time with the other exchange students, and realizing just how much culture shift you've experienced in the past three months.

Still and all, there is a level of excitement that comes with being an outbound. You're about to make a huge decision--where you spend the next full year of your LIFE--and you want to learn as much as humanly possible. It's exciting and new and a little bit stressful for those of us who have no idea what to do.

You see, at the beginning I knew where I wanted to go. I knew where I SHOULD go. For the past 10 years, I had dreamed of traveling the world. Specifically, Europe. Specifically, France. It was an area that was not up for discussion... I was going to France. Period.
But then I went to country fair, and I decided to reconsider.

And reconsidering turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life.

You'll hear more about how I ended up in a country I never would have considered sometime later. But for right now, let's address my original topic: country fair.

In a nutshell, country fair is a way for new exchange students to figure out which country they want to choose.

This means that most of your time as a inbound is spent convincing the new students that your home country is the best possible place to go. And most of your time as a new Outbound Candidate is spent confused and trying to figure out which country really is the best possible place to go.

I remember being really confused at the country fair. In fact, a lot of us were confused. But we had months to make this decision, and it wasn't something that needed to be rushed.

And so if anything, what I learned from the first country fair was that not everything was as clear as I thought it would be, that there were amazing things in every country, and that maybe it was okay to go somewhere I never would have considered. I hope that's what the new exchange students learn too.

Because sometimes things are unclear.
And sometimes, that is okay.

september's lovely links

these photos of Zurich in black and white, part of the Zurich Film Festival this year, are stunning... but more than that, I love them because I've been there. I recognize that statue and this church and that bridge and even that carousel (yes. I did go to Zurich and ride a little-kids-carousel. don't judge. :) )

also, seeing as I've just visited Liechtenstein, I found this comic really funny.

top ten places for chocolate: notice that Switzerland is first on the list. I actually have a friend who went to the Cailler factory last week... so. jealous...

31 Signs You're a Third Culture Kid, from Buzzfeed. I'd actually never heard of the term TCK, but apparently it's becoming a thing now?

apparently we have a winner for world's most traveled man. wow.

Jeff Goins has written one of the best articles on reasons to travel young that I've ever found. It doesn't just apply to traveling, though--it is, in the end, an all-encompassing "shape up, youngster" type of article. In a very good way.
(and here's a short response to it that recently showed up on Huffington Post.)

put this on the list of "cool-things-to-learn-later": The Pig Latins of 11 Other Languages.

wait! another really good article!! And it's about life lessons! must put in lovely links...

Finally, I find this article hilariously and ridiculously funny. It doesn't actually have that much to do with Switzerland, or with exchange, but it was in Paris and it's the experience of an expat and I love it so whatever, here it is.

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.

a day in the basler munster

(note: this is the first of a series of posts I'm writing about Switzerland and the places I've been. Solely for the purpose of having fun (and to exercise my travel writing skills) I'm going to write about it in second person. Which means you, the reader, are semi-virtually coming with me. bring good shoes.)

So your host family has just told you they're taking you to Basel! You're super excited, because you've seen Basel before but you haven't gotten the chance to really explore. You bring walking shoes and a bag, and of course your giant touristy-looking camera, because Switzerland is beautiful. You don't want to miss a thing.

The day begins with a car ride and a short walk through the streets. (Actually people in Europe are big on walking, so most days begin with a short walk through the streets.) You want very badly to take a picture of everything you see, but you also don't want to look like the Japanese tourists roaming Basel on the weekends or the American tourists taking selfies in front of every Swiss flag on the street.
Finally you pull out your camera and attempt to discreetly take a few shots. Unfortunately, this is nearly impossible because of your giant touristy-looking camera (see second paragraph of this post). By this point you've given up on looking local, because a) you're asian and b) you can't speak Swiss German anyway. You take all the pictures you want.

In front of you is a very old building called the Basler Munster, and you walk in.

The sudden darkness startles you, so you blink rapidly before you can see anything -- and when you can see, what a sight meets your eyes! Stained glass windows arch over your head, and the ceilings are several stories high. Your steps are loud in the silence. It's one of those places where everyone talks in whispers, afraid to disturb the echoes of history.
Your host dad asks you if you'd like to go to the top of the Munster, and of course you say yes. You neglect to ask him how high the Munster is, but that's okay because many people have gone up there and you figure that if they made it, you should be fine.

(Note to self: next time, do inquire about the height of the Munster. Never assume things.)
Anyway, the friendly lady at the desk in front directs you to a set of steps and a heavy door. You and your host family walk through and are confronted with a very small, very dark, very steep set of stairs.
For the first time, you realize just how amazing the invention of the elevator truly was. 
These stairs are steeper than they are wide, slippery, and there's practically no light in the stairwell.

Just stairs...
and stairs...
and more stairs...

Seriously, if the bellringer had to climb so many stairs just to ring a bell every hour, no wonder the Hunchback of Notre Dame ended up talking to gargoyles. At least, I think that's how the story goes.

But it's all worth it in the end, because after about 100 steps you reach the first tower landing and see out. Over the sea of churches and rooftops and markets, you can see forever. The mountains reach into the distance (well, this is Switzerland, so pretty much everywhere you go the mountains reach into the distance. But that's not the point here.)
On the other side of the tower, the Rhine flows towards Germany.
You snap a billion pictures... and then realize that there are more steps.

They are even tinier than before, about as high as your shin and half as wide as your foot. They are also made of stone and probably older than the Declaration of Independence.
But you are on an adventure and so you carry on.

After approximately 125 more steps, you are at the top of the tower.


You've made it.
(finally.)

There is nothing compared to the view of Basel from the top of the Basler Munster, and you could probably live here except for the fact that it'd take you an hour to climb those stairs every day. You lean out the arches and take pictures and try to see your village and take more pictures and pose with gargoyles and take more pictures.
And then it's back down the stairs again, with nothing but photos and sore legs and the memory of standing in sunshine above the rooftops.

the end.
hannah

august's lovely links

here is a site that has new travel photos from all over the world. plus they upload. all. the. time. If you want to travel all over the world, I vote you look at this page.
this article from The Atlantic tells how the author traveled to switzerland to study french. a little old to be an august ll, but i'll let that pass since a) it's a beautiful essay and b) it's Switzerland. and no one writes about switzerland.
somewhat random link: top ten coolest trains in the world.
somewhat random inspiring post: embrace the unknown.
Adventurous Kate writes about her short stay in Switzerland.
a photographer takes pictures of Switzerland out of train windows... I'm not sure whether this is really cool or really mediocre. But I do think that it's an interesting idea, and I like the idea of capturing something imperfect and getting a new perspective.
gorgeous travel photos of the month: http://www.canvas-of-light.com/ and http://furtherbound.com/. This makes me yearn to travel the world with only a backpack and a camera. That's what post-exchange is for, right?

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.

arrival

"The plane swooped over jagged snow-covered mountains and landed without crashing in Zurich, Switzerland. A foreign country."

--Bloomability, Sharon Creech*

*this book is good. I recommend it.

in fact i recommend it so much that i named my blog after it.

you'll be seeing many quotes from it in the future, trust me. ;)

saying goodbye

i promised myself i wouldn't cry.

and i didn't. i didn't cry at the end of school. i didn't cry at my goodbye party. i didn't cry when all my bags were packed, or when we left the house, or during the car ride.

except then i said goodbye to my family, and that promise basically flew out the window.

it was hard to say goodbye to my grandparents and my aunt and my parents and my sisters and my little brother. still, they know that i will only be gone for a year.

but how do you explain exchange to a two-year-old?

my littlest sister doesn't know that i'm leaving for a year. she can't comprehend that i will be in another country. she doesn't understand that when i leave, i will be living on the other side of the world.

and so i look at her and tell her the things i know to be true.
"hannah is going
 far away,
and you will not see her
for a long, long time.
but you know what?
hannah loves you,
and she's coming back."

"i'm coming back."

august's lovely links -- pre-exchange favorite posts

this "lovely links" is a bit different because I'm going to post my favorite pre-exchange links from this blog. in case you're just beginning to read my blog and you don't want to read through everything, I'll also explain some of it throughout this post.

also, Sound of Music isn't from Switzerland, it's from Austria. But I couldn't resist using some of the lyrics anyway.

let's start at the very beginning:
I first applied for the Rotary Long Term exchange program in the fall of 2012, and I was accepted as an alternate (a replacement, if you will, for the primary candidate). I went to the first Rotary week in January, and they still didn't know whether I would be able to go. about a week before the Rotary Youth Exchange weekend in February, I received an email saying that they found a slot for me and that I was accepted into the program. I screamed my head off.
That week was crazy. We talked to people and learned about countries and went through culture training and finally received our country selections on Saturday. I started my blog back in May, after the district conference. This post describes the process a little more clearly, and the following one is what happened between the February weekend and the May conference. :)

a very good place to start:
My feelings were basically all over the place. the exchange seemed surreal and the preparation was rather overwhelming. in addition, I knew I'd miss everything at home --- exchange wasn't an escape for me. but I knew that this was something I really, really wanted. and so the months went by.

when you read you begin with:
German is a difficult language. if you have an extra half hour, you should look up "the awful German language" by Mark Twain... the language isn't actually that bad, but the essay is funny.

Also during the summer, I answered a lot of questions. a lot.
a LOT.

when you exchange you begin with:
as the day came closer, it began to sink in that I actually was going. I had the whole summer to think through why I wanted to do this seemingly crazy and potentially overwhelming thing, which helped. I also realized that I'd be saying goodbye to a lot of things (that seems really obvious, now that I think about it.)

favorite post so far, though, goes to stamps. it's a short description/story I wrote on the fly, and I'm surprised that I ended up liking it so much. hopefully you will too?

may's lovely links

random things I've been reading that are somewhat travel related:

this link, "3 Reasons to Travel While You're Young", helps reassure me that traveling right now is a good idea (or at least not totally crazy). It's so true, whether you're in high school or not.

And another perspective, How to Have the Normal Knocked out of You (I just love the title of this post.)

This blogger writes about how she was robbed in Vietnam -- and how it was one of the best things to happen to her. Although I still have no desire to get robbed?

just for kicks... A Wimp's Guide to Taking a Cold Shower made me laugh. 

On Top of the World is a series of pictures one girl took at the top of various famous cities. Worth two minutes of your time :)

These lovely photos are basically just stylistic photographs from around the world. It really doesn't have anything to do with my blog, but I thought they were pretty so I included them anyway.

and finally, I know I'll have to learn to adjust to a different culture... but this post (on "assumptions about cultural adaptation") definitely provides food for thought.