days > 240 -- growing

piece of advice for future exchange students #28:

invest in things that matter.

i've realized that when i leave, i probably won't remember parties. or clothing. i will not remember the various touristy souvenirs that i've bought or the sandwiches that we ate on the train.
i will remember people. i will remember families and friends and long conversations in hotel rooms during the rotary trips. i will remember crazy group selfies and running to catch our trains and getting lost in a city with friends.

and so i've decided to put my time into those things.

what i did in the 10ish days before I was SUPPOSED to post this:

• Italy adventuring!!! it lasted for 6 days. and they were way too short.
• we spent a boatload of time on the train. good thing we're in Switzerland and are used to hours of train time in Europe. also it's a good thing that train travel is my favorite way to travel. 
• by the way-- I have no idea what the USA does or how we survive without trains. what are we supposed to do? drive? 
• Venice: rode vaporettos along the Grand Canal, rode an elevator up the clock tower and saw Venice from above, ate the best gelato ever, got ridiculously lost every time we tried to go anywhere, bought masks, had pizza, took pictures, bonded over shopping and mangling of the german language.
• Rome: got lost again, wandered through streets and ate panini sandwiches, tried not to get mobbed by other tourists, successfully found but did not successfully visit the catacombs, saw the vatican, was overwhelmed by the beauty of the Petersdom and the Sistine Chapel, celebrated Sarah's birthday, ate burgers, got closer to both old and new friends, learned the basic minimum amount of Italian required to get by, avoided a protest, simply enjoyed what used to be the cultural center of the world.
• came to a new appreciation of Swiss trains, safety, food in general but specifically bread, and cleanliness. Italy is a lovely place to see. Switzerland is a lovely place to live. :)
• tada, highlights. there is so much that i could write about, but i'll keep most of my stories to myself for now. this is an update, which means it should be relatively short :P

ciao for now,

hannah

i am in love

note: the following post was written about a month ago in the train, but i didn't actually get around to posting it until just now. 

it's very short and also unedited, so just consider it a snapshot of my feelings at the moment.

I'm in the Gotthard Tunnel on a very long train ride, and I'm riding alone so I have plenty to write in my journal and plenty of time to do it. it's the nice thing about trains, the ability to always write and to lose yourself in writing. it's different from a plane or a bus or a car or really anything else. 

and i just realized something-- I am in love with the trains. 

I am in love with German and Italian and French. I am in love with chocolate and cheese and traveling and multilingual greetings and watches and history and snow. I am in love with strong mountains, fields that never end, villages nestled deep in valleys and streams bluer than the sky in summer. 

it's just wonderful, beautiful, and I realize that what I am really in love with is Switzerland. 

I am in love with this country.
and a part of my heart will always be here,
because Switzerland has changed me. 

and I don't want my old life back.

being an asian-american on exchange: frustration, barriers, and defining me

As a US-American on exchange, I've had the opportunity to challenge a lot of common beliefs about my home country. I don't have a Southern accent, I'm not a cheerleader, I'm (relatively) intelligent. Most importantly, I'm Asian. As in Not White.

This has been really great in a lot of ways. Since Europeans know a lot about American culture but very little about Asian culture, it makes me feel foreign and interesting to explain Chinese New Year or to describe lion dancing. It's an extra bonus to be able to pretend I don't speak English, just so that the street vendors will go away and stop bothering me.

At the same time, though, I've gotten the most racist and ignorant questions and assumptions ever. Most of them make me laugh. Some of them make me sad. A few make me angry.

It was funny at the beginning to see people double-take at the news that I'm an American, and funnier still if they ended up complimenting my English. It was funny to explain that I don't speak fluent Chinese, neither do my parents, and yes, I am indeed an American citizen. It was funny to get questions about whether I was adopted or whether I'd be allowed to marry someone who wasn't Chinese.

But to be honest? Right now, I'm sick of it.

I'm sorry to put that out there, but it's true. I am sick of people constantly assuming I am from Japan or China or Korea (by the way, people, there ARE other Asian countries). I am sick of people insisting I tell them where I'm REALLY from. I'm sick of people who ask me if I want to go "back" to China, who ask me if I can see out of my eyes or if I can read Japanese and Korean and Thai or how I can tell Asians apart.

I just want to be treated like a real person.
Is that too much to ask?

And it bothers me, that I cannot simply float into Europe and fit in. That whenever I walk into a room, people immediately know that I am not originally Swiss, or German, or Italian, or French. That I have to try doubly hard to adapt and to fit in. That simply by right of birth, I have more cultural barriers to climb than most of the other American exchangers do.

But at the same time, I'm realizing how much I am defined by my heritage. My heritage, both Chinese and American.


The way I look tells people that I am Chinese. The way I speak tells people that I am American.
And I wish that people could see that it's not mutually exclusive. It is not that my family is Chinese and I am American, it is not that my language is English and my heritage Chinese, it is not that I am a twinkie or an egg or anything divided by color or race or country.

it is that I am Asian AND American, and I am still a person.

It is simply that I am who I am. 
Hannah.
and I wish that people could see that.

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. :)

on the third day of christmas

on the third day of christmas

my exchange gave to me

three families

two traditions

and a new look at bloomability

so this post isn't exactly correct because technically i've only got one family so far now... but i'm thinking in advance, okay?

one unique thing about rotary youth exchange is that the students change families every 4 (ish) months. there are multiple reasons for this rule, but it does mean two very important things: a) your families are temporary and b) you have about 3 (depending on the situation) different families throughout the year.

when i first came here, i honestly thought i would never get used to this. i am living in the house, eating the food, sharing the lives of people who i met less than 5 months ago... and what's more, this arrangement was made before i even met them.

and i know not all host family-kid relationships are good, so i suppose i got lucky. but honestly, my host family feels like a-- well, a family. i ask my parents for advice and i watch movies with my little sister and just basically i am no longer a guest. and as strange as it is, i am now living in a family that i met in august... and it is natural. it is normal. it is my life.

and i wouldn't change it.

my blog rule-- and why i am now breaking it

gondola ride up the matterhorn

when i first started this blog, i decided to avoid talking about two things:
politics and religion.

the reasons were simple. while politics and religion do interest me (i'm one of those weird people who like to know how other governments and belief systems work) these seem to be the most "offending" things that are presented nowadays. i figured that i'd keep the potentially offensive things to myself, in the interest of keeping my blog relatable.
you see, my blog was originally started to a) update people on my life so they don't have to ask my poor family at home all the time and b) describe the Rotary exchange process personally, to an extent that it'd be helpful to future exchangers and c) generally be a place for me to describe my life and the thoughts and changes i'm experiencing.

politics and religion didn't come into that because they didn't affect my exchange.

but the thing is...
politics and belief systems are a HUGE part of a country. they reflect so much about the culture and people and the values and interests and ideals of that culture. coming here, i've been asking myself a lot of questions about why, exactly, US-Americans do the things they do. i've learned that sometimes we're right, and a lot of times we aren't.

and consequently, they have indeed affected my exchange.
and forgoing all mention of them on my blog caused me to leave out significant parts of who i am and the things that i'm realizing here.

this does NOT MEAN that i am going to suddenly go all "crazy-political-American" on you, not at all. (in fact, going on exchange has caused me to question a ton of my beliefs, in a very good way.)
i still do think that insult throwing and misinformed arguing over politics and belief systems is completely and utterly pointless. not to mention that it makes a lot of enemies very fast.

however, as a representative and ambassador of my country, i am going to share some things on my blog that have caused me to rethink how Americans live. and that includes whatever small political or religious culture shifts i think are worth noting.

i am not encouraging comment wars. i am not changing my blog.

i am simply representing myself and what my exchange is teaching me, and realizing that it has caused me to think about a lot of different things.

and i hope it causes you to think too.

days < 110 -- comparing

advice for future exchangers #16:

you only really recognize your own culture

when you've been dropped headfirst into a different one.

So with the recent holidays and so, I'm realizing just how American and Chinese American and culturally different I am. They aren't bad culture differences... it's just that I never really thought of myself as being distinctly AMERICAN. I don't know if that makes sense or not.

Oh well.

• Zermatt was amazing! I went with a bunch (read: basically all) of the other exchange students from Switzerland, both newbies (August inbounds) and oldies (January inbounds). And it was wonderful. And the other Swiss Rotary exchange students here are basically some of the awesomest people in the entire world.
• Aaaand we saw the Matterhorn. Which was lovely.
• And Advent began! My family has Advent calendars and gifts every Sunday for me and my little sister and decorations and stars and everything. So our house is beautiful now. :)))
• I went to Zurich with one of my friends and we explored the Christmas markets. Of which there are many. And they are all very pretty. Actually, Switzerland Christmases in general are just very pretty.
• Basel has a Christmas market too. I went there as well. Because I like Christmas markets.
• And I gave a presentation to my class about my life at home. My class teacher was especially interested in homeschooling and asked me a LOT of questions about how it worked, what it was like, if I had tests, what American high school was normally like, etc. So that was interesting... :P
• Bern Bundeshaus lights!!!! I posted a video link to them in my november/october lovely links, if you'd like to see them... they are gorgeous. My goodness.

there was more that happened, i'm sure, but I am too tired to write it down. 

guete nacht!

days > 100 -- belonging

piece of advice for future exchange students #16:

exchange is not for the faint of heart. if you want to feel incapable,

alone, and generally awkward 24/7 for three months straight, go on exchange.

but you know what?

it gets better.

Something has changed in the past couple weeks. I'm not sure whether it was my 100 days or if it was the fact that I've been learning Swiss German (sort of) or if it was just a sudden, random shift. But somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like an exchange student.

That doesn't sound quite right.

What I mean is that I stopped feeling like an outsider. I no longer feel like I'm awkwardly on the edge of conversations. I no longer feel like my classmates and friends have to constantly cater to me and my less-than-perfect language skills. I no longer feel like a visitor.

I feel like a part of the class now. 

And maybe that's not quite right, because I know that my communication skills are handicapped and my grades are about average. But somehow that doesn't matter anymore. I'm not sure why. But I don't feel like "the exchange student". I feel like Hannah.

Hannah, who lives in Switzerland and goes to school and learns German.

Hannah, who is finally beginning to belong.

things that have happened in the past 10-ish days:

• I took school tests. A lot of tests. They were interesting, because I haven't successfully understood a complete test yet... and so lots of times I end up looking at the words I know and guessing at what I think I am supposed to write. It doesn't test my knowledge of the subject as much as it tests my ability to understand what the test says.
• Oh, and I got a 2 on my French test! This is approximately the equivalent of a D... BUT I'm really happy about it because a) the rest of my class averaged about a 3.5, because it was a hard test and b) my class has had 6 years of French already and I had absolutely none before I came here and c) I wasn't allowed to have my phone during class to translate the words in German or in French, so I was conjugating verbs and finishing sentences without a clear idea of what they meant. Hooray for intuitive language skills! :)
• thought: I never thought I'd be so happy about a D. Hmm. The things that change on exchange...
• I received a package from my family! And it had American... THINGS in it! :) I love Switzerland, don't get me wrong, but I do miss the USA a lot. A lot. :/

the end because I am too tired to write anything more.

hannah

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.

days > 90 -- living

advice for future exchange students #15:

if you make it to the third month, congratulations.

you are exchanging.

I have this theory that life for exchange students gets more dramatic at the third month mark. While I haven't had that much drama as of yet (which makes me rather worried, because I feel like something should be coming), I've observed enough of my friends to conclude that around three months in, something changes.

I talked with some of my Austauschschuler friends about this, and what we came up with was that after three months, you are no longer a guest. You are on exchange-- you have lived in the same house for almost 100 days, you (should) be able to speak the language to communicate, and you are no longer new to school or classes or your village. 

And so you are transitioning.

You are transitioning into living your new life.

things that have happened in the past 10 days:

• first skype with my family!!! For those of you who didn't know, there is something called the 90-day-rule that my district set up for the outbounds. It basically states that we cannot skype or call home (with the exception of a short call home to tell them that we've arrived) for the first 90 days of our exchange. But... my 90 days are over, and so I skyped home! :) :) :) words do not express how excited I was.
• I finally got to meet up with one of my friends from Zurich, Sarah. We skyped several times before I left (she is from Kentucky and I am from Oregon) but since she's in a different area and district I haven't gotten to see her very often. It was good to see her and talk and compare lives :)
• I got an account at the Rheinfelden library. This means that I can check out German books whenever I want for free. Since the library was a huge part of my life at home, it's nice to have an account here.
• met with my counsellor at Gymnasium Muttenz. We spoke completely in German, which was actually pretty cool for me... while I've had conversations with my host family and my colleagues at school, it's a different experience to explain yourself and ask "business" questions in German.
• On Wednesday, my whole class had something called a Berufstag (at least, I think that's what it's called). All of the first-year FMS students were required to take a huge long test to see what their strengths and weaknesses and job preferences would be. Then on one day, all of us go and visit places and hear presentations based on what those job preferences are. Each of the different jobs require you to go to a specific type of school where they train you for the specific job you pick. So for example, I went to a pedagogy presentation (which was really boring), an architecture presentation (which was interesting) and a presentation about journalism/translation/communications (which was really awesome.)
• I've also decided to go to university here.
• Just kidding. 
• Except really... there are some very good schools in Switzerland, so we'll see how my German goes and then maybe college in other countries would be a possibility!

the end.

hannah

days > 80 -- becoming

advice for future exchange students #14:

work on the same things as your peers in your host country.

if they take tests, try to take tests. if they take notes in class, try to take notes 

(even when you have no idea what's going on.)

in other words: try to adapt. try to live the same life 

that you would if you were a teen who'd grown up in your host country. 

it helps.

The days are going by so fast. I can't believe it's been almost three months since my arrival in Switzerland. One of the oldies [translation: exchange-student speak for the students who came half a year before you. If you're from the Northern Hemisphere, like me, these are some of the inbounds from South America and all the inbounds from New Zealand and Australia who came in January] mentioned that our newbies were coming in about three months. That's crazy. I just got here, like, yesterday...

things that have happened in the past 10-ish days:

• One of the best things that happened to me this week was getting mistaken for a Swiss student. We had a substitute teacher and she didn't know I was an exchange student (e.g. I don't speak German) until I pulled out my phone to translate something... and I spoke with her in German several times before that!!
• I've found that in the past month or so, I feel like my German hasn't improved. In the first six weeks it was getting better every day, by leaps and bounds, and by the middle of the second month I was conversationally okay. But now I feel like I'm staying at the same level, or at least not getting better quite so quickly.
• That said, people are often surprised that I've only been speaking for 2 months, so hopefully I am continuing to learn. My host mom says that it's a fairly normal stage and that I am in fact better than I was before, so that's good. I think?
• took the PSAT last week Saturday. Guess who dropped her calculator on the way into the testing room and effectively broke the display?
• Other than that, the test was fine and I met Odile, an awesome girl who lives here (but speaks perfect English anyway because she's both American and Swiss.) So that was a highlight :)
• I've also been working on my Swiss German. My understanding of it gets better every day, but I don't have enough knowledge or vocabulary to completely switch over. This means that now I speak an odd mixture of Swiss German and High German, and it's a miracle that anyone can understand what I'm saying.
• Rotary!!! In the past couple weeks, I think we as exchange students have gotten a lot closer. It's funny because all of us are so different, but exchange seems to pull people together (whether they like it at the beginning or not). I'm really, really happy to have exchange friends who can understand what I'm going through (and put up with me when I'm being ridiculously stupid.)

that's all I'm going to write for now. bis später!

hannah

days > 50 -- exploring

advice for future exchange students #11:

enjoy the fact that you're in another country. 

and go discover new things!

the rest of the world is not that hard to access.

the GA (General Abonnement, which means that you basically get all transportation free) is the best thing anyone could ever ask for. It is more precious than gold. :P

Lately I've gotten the chance to just explore, on my own or with friends, and I am loving it. Switzerland is very safe, very scenic, and very easy to explore by train and bus... which means that basically it's heaven for exchange students. I love that I can just get up and be on the other side of the country in 3 hours.

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

• Appenzell: a place where all the houses look like gingerbread houses because they are ridiculously adorable. Also where people make cheese. I counted 5 times as many cows as people on the tram ride there.
• St. Gallen: a place where the buildings are really tall and the churches are beautiful. I discovered the most lovely church in St Gallen... actually, scratch that, all the churches are lovely here. But especially in St. Gallen.
• Zurich: a place where everyone is rich.
• Also, we went to the Basel flea market! the flea markets in Portland are really small and not that great, but the Basel flea market was fun to explore :) I bought a pair of leather shoes that look new for 10 francs, and normally the same shoes run 200 francs or more... 
• I went to the cinema (again) and watched a movie in German with my host mom and one of her friends. It was fun, and this time I actually understood most of what was happening. It's funny, to think of how much better my language skills are now than they were before.
• School's out, schöni ferie zäme :)

days > 40 -- attempting

advice for future exchange students #10:
when your school friends speak a dialect, try to learn it. just try.
you've got nothing to lose besides your pride
and really, if you're on exchange chances are you'll become immune to embarassment sometime.

so with school and everything I basically forgot that I have a blog.
whoops.

Something that I've learned here: just try things. Try them. Especially since I'm an exchange student and I'm no good at most things, I can step outside my comfort zone and attempt lots of things because I already look stupid am foreign, and thus it doesn't matter. I've attempted volleyball, tabletennis, and handsprings, with somewhat varying levels of failure... I've talked to a dozen people a day in very bad Swiss German... I've tried various different foods and multiple juice/mineralwater/soda-ish drinks... and so far I haven't died.
It's a good lesson for me. Sometimes pride doesn't get you anywhere. And sometimes nothing is better than attempting a new thing, even if you look like a complete idiot. ;)

things that have happened in the past 10ish days:

• I successfully asked for directions in German, received them in German, and was able to follow them. It basically made my entire week.
• went to Zurich! It was nice. and expensive. and pretty. and expensive. and we walked a lot. plus, did I mention that it's expensive?
• School is good. The second day of my arrival, I had a Physics test in German. So... that was interesting...
• I also took a math test in German last week. I've never been so excited about a A-/B+ (the grades are a bit different here, but I think that's the American equivalent) in my entire life. 
• Rotary weekends in Switzerland = awesome. I think all the most amazing people in other countries somehow picked Switzerland as their destination? Which means that I get to meet all of them :) hooray!
• I seem to have come back with a slight Aussie (edit: after a little bit of thought, I've concluded it's actually New Zealander) accent that I can't get rid of. This makes things interesting.
• The Swiss Rotex find it really funny when I speak Swiss German. So do my schoolmates. I'm not exactly sure if this is a good or a bad thing.
• I have conquered the chocolate chip cookie. After finding that Switzerland does not in fact have vanilla extract, brown sugar, or chocolate chips, I substituted multiple things, did conversions, weighed everything in my host family's kitchen, and finally ended up with fairly good cookies.
• popped over to Germany to buy an ice cream. That wasn't really necessary, I just enjoy saying that I popped over to Germany. It makes me feel like a world traveler :)

bis nachste mal,

hannah

days > 30 -- learning

advice for future exchange students #9:

be fluent in the language already.

okay, well, maybe that won't work. 

but do work on the language as much as possible.

trust me, it's a good idea.

things that have happened in the past 10 days:

• I ended Deutsch Kurs. We had a very long test at the end of the four weeks, but thankfully it wasn't that hard and I passed as the second best of my class, which was a nice surprise.
• I started school. Yaaayyyyyyyyyyyy! (oh yeah. there'll be a post about that later. hopefully. i think. we'll see. maybe if I have time.)
• I went to my little sister's school. Her classmates were adorable and helpful and very willing to talk to me. I probably learned more that day than I did in a week of German course. Note to self: children are amazing for learning a language.
• I went to Pilatus, which is a really tall mountain in Luzern. It's absolutely gorgeous. I also roamed the streets of Luzern with my host family, which was pretty cool.
• Swimming in the Rhine. end of story.
• I heard my first yodeling! This was interesting.
• My hosting Rotary club met with a Rotary club from Germany on the weekend, so I came too. It involved food, boats, walking, and a lot of people commenting on how good my German is. This naturally made me very happy. Unfortunately, many of them concluded that I was fluent and proceeded to speak German to me all the time. I felt really guilty every time I couldn't understand what they were saying...
• I realized that my English is getting worse. Occasionally I'll find myself speaking English in German grammar, or spelling things wrong, or not remembering a perfectly average word. This confuses me.
• I realized that I have lost a good bit of my Spanish and Chinese. This also confuses me.

this was a rather random and rambling post. sorry. ich hoffe dass die nachste Mal wird besser sein.

tschuess, ciao, adieu, adios, zai jian, goodbye, and whatever else floats your boat,

hannah

days > 20 -- adapting

advice for future exchange students #9:

at the beginning of your exchange, you will probably have nothing to do. fill that nothing up with food, language practice, traveling, and getting lost in cities. oh, and more food.

things that have happened in the past 10 days:

• After my first 10 days, my host family stopped speaking English to me. Now it's about 90% Deutsch (and 10% of what my host mom calls "emergency English": explanations, clarifications, etc.) Not surprisingly, I've learned a lot of German in the past couple weeks.
• In fact, I've learned more German in the past 20 days than I did Spanish in the first year. And my Spanish class was exceptionally good. I think this has more to do with the constant immersion than it does with my actually being good at the language or learning anything from the German class...
• On the 18th, I had my first Rotary Youth Exchange conference in Switzerland. We had the introduction, some rules, and the D-lecture (which I have basically memorized by now, haha) but it was fun to meet the other exchange students. Plus... PINS.
• I successfully went shopping in a Swiss mall. Granted, I didn't say much except for "hello" and "thank you", but I did teach myself the names of a lot of new trends. No idea how that could possibly come in handy, but hey, it's language practice.
• My Deutsch Kurs "field trip" was a trip to the Basel zoo! It was fun. Pictures to come, but there are quite a few so I have to sift through them (unless you'd care to see several hundred pictures of depressed-looking fish).
• I started dance classes officially last Friday... and I'm constantly amazed at the generosity of the wonderful people around me. 
• It's now my third week of German class. Not exactly sure how I feel about this?
• Watched Ich-Einfach Unverbesserlich 2 (translation: Despicable Me 2) in German in Deutschland as part of my little sister's birthday party. She turned 11!
• I don't understand how anyone, anywhere, could possibly dislike Swiss/German/French bread. Have they no tastebuds???
• Speaking of which, I have now had multiple Swiss foods including Biberli, Leckerli, Luxemburgerli, and Apfeltaschen. They're a bit hard to explain, so I'll save that for another post... but all you need to know right now is that they're delicious. :)

note to self: do not miss the bus

I missed it today by one minute, which is why I'm now sitting at the bus stop writing this. Swiss buses are always -- always -- on time, meaning that they leave one minute or less after they arrive and if you're 30 seconds too late the bus will have cheerfully departed without you on it.
I would like to say that I immediately resolved to be on time for everything and never to miss anything in my schedule ever again. 

I didn't. 

Instead, after 3 minutes of hoping against hope that the bus was late and 2 minutes of inspecting the bus schedule to verify that the next bus was, indeed, 29 minutes later, I sat down and began to complain. Not out loud, mind you. It was in my head -- and what a lot of complaining I did! In 15 minutes I had blamed the bus, my village, the time on my cell phone, the class time change, the day, my shoes, my alarm clock, and the transit system in general. I'm very efficient that way.

And then I realized. 

You see, in Rotary the consistent thing they tell you is that it's your exchange. Yours and nobody else's.
And many times before today, I'd appreciated that the buses came and left on time, that there was always a connection, that I never had to doubt the train system or the consistency of the bus. And so, if I miss the bus, it's my own responsibility, my own fault.  

Mine and nobody else's.  

And as I stepped onto the bus and sat down, I realized just how ridiculously selfish I was being. Everything that I was complaining about was a gift: the class, the teacher, my cell phone, my village, the day, the GA for the transit system, and way more. And all of those were a part of one big undeserved gift -- the fact that I was on exchange. In Switzerland, no less. 

 ...

And so that's what I've been telling myself today. That every day is a discovery, that every hour is a gift, because I am in SWITZERLAND, on my foreign exchange. 

Mine, 

and nobody else's.

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.

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."

days < 0 -- arriving

piece of advice for future exchange students #7:

you are going. you are going because this is an adventure and it is worth it.

stop panicking.

I'm here!
that's it. I'm too tired to write more. :)

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?