Thursday, November 25, 2010

Fall Vacanes 2010-Belgium Voyage

 

Here's a video from my trip to Belgium. I'll post the story soon, promise! :)

Monday, November 22, 2010

Fall Weekend in Bern Video

Part 8: Rotary Weekend in Bern

October 16-17:
The first weekend of Fall Vacanes the Swiss Rotex hosted a weekend in Bern for all the exchange students. Zion and I decided to go to Bern early and walk around for a bit, because neither of us had ever been past the train station. Unfortunately, it was raining pretty hard, so rather than trudge thru the downpour, we stopped to get coffee. We found this really cute little café (quick vocab lesson, "café" means coffee in French), and sat and talked until it was just drizzling outside. Then we braved the weather and walked around the outdoor market set up in the middle of the city. While we were browsing, we found these little Edelweiss hats, and so of course Zion and I had to get matching ones. :) Around noon we met up with the other exchange students at the train station, and headed out to visit a cookie factory. The best part about this factory was that there were free samples of every cookie there. So Zion and I embarked on a "no cookie left behind" feeding frenzy. The cookies were delicious, but by the end we were beginning to question wether eating our way thru six plus aisles of chocolatey goodness was such a great idea. After all that sugar, we heaved our way back to the train, and then walked for a good 30 min to this camping chalet thing that was out in the country a little outside of Bern. Once we got there, we played some games, and got to know each other. (Because there are only 11 out of the 100-something exchange students in the French speaking area, I didn't know very many of them.) Later in the evening, we did this activity where we had to act out a movie; without talking. My group choose the Wizard of OZ which in theory shouldn't been very difficult, however, only Zion and I had seen the movie. But we made it work, and after the skipping down the road, nobody had any trouble guessing the title. Everybody had brought desserts representing their home country, so we had a super tasty smorgasbord of treats (not that we needed anything after all those cookies) to end the evening. The next day, because it was still raining, rather than go hiking, we went bowling. Pretty American, but hey, it was fun. :) Then it was back to Sorens. Next post has a video from the weekend




Part 7: Marche de Automne

October 15:
The Friday before Fall Vacanes the entire school, yes all 2,000 high school students, went on a hike in the mountains. Yes, I think the school administrators are a tad insane. But, it ended up being really neat, and a great way to get to know my class better. My English teacher was the chaperon for our class, and I helped her teach my class some chants, and attempted to instill a bit of American high school spirit in them. (My English teacher is Canadian, but she grew up in the US.) At the beginning of the day it was really foggy, but once we got up into the mountains, and above the fog, it was bright and sunny. The view was absolutely breathtaking! Because of all the fog below, it felt like you were flying up in the clouds. When we stopped for lunch, my class taught me this card game, that at first I was a total failure at, but after a couple games I finally understood the instructions, and surprise, surprise, it started making sense! :) On the way down the mountain my class taught me the French words to "In the Jungle" (the whem-a-wap wasn't too hard ;) ), and I taught them the English words. All in all it was an awesome day, and a great way to kick off the two weeks of fall vacation! :) Here are some pics from the hike:


My class

Marina, Lou, Claudia

Claudia and I

Lou and I

Marina and I


My crazy English teacher

Insane fog










Just in case you were wondering how to get back to the US of As

Yes, I fell in a hole lol

Headed Down

Class 1-07!!



Sunday, November 21, 2010

Part 6: Swiss Thanksgiving- otherwise know as Bénichon

October 10:
With Thanksgiving fast approaching, and all the little gobblers going into hiding, I thought I'd tell you a bit about my Swiss version of Thanksgiving experience. Yes, this did happen over a month ago, but I'm slow, and hey now it fits the season. :)

In Switzerland of course they don't celebrate American Thanksgiving , but they do have a holiday that is quite similar. (Mainly in the way that you do nothing but eat all day. :) ) From Mid-September to Mid-October they celebrate Bénichon, which is a holiday that signalizes the end of the harvest, and gives everyone a reason to get together and eat "tout le jour" (all day). Unlike American Thanksgiving, there isn't a set date, more each family or village decides when they will celebrate. My Swiss family had Bénichon on October 10. We all went over to my host mom's parents' house, and basically ate the farmyard (minus the horses :) ). First we had these little cakes with Moutard de Bénichon (special mustard that's very sweet, and kind of has a carmel like texture, that is made just for the Bénichon). They were amazing of course. Then we all went into the dining room to begin what everyone warned me would be the never ending meal. And it pretty much was. We had ham, sausage, lamb, potatoes- mashed and whole, green beans, beet salad (very popular here), these special candied nuts, and more. It made me think of eating at Grandma Bailey's or really any Bailey family get-together. It was all quite delicious, but my favorite part was definitely dessert. I believe I've mentioned before just how much I adore the double cream with meringue, and for dessert I think I had the best version yet. Get ready for some over the top usage of adjectives. :) The puffy little clouds of meringue were covered with thick double cream, drizzled with a thin ribbon of carmel, and then sprinkled with raspberries and blackberries. Needless to say I was in heaven. They also had a bunch of other special baked treats, that were all amazing as well. I definitely wasn't hungry for a while! To try and work all that deliciousness off; in between courses Simon and I played some soccer. So maybe that helped even out the 20 lbs I'm sure I gained that day. :)

Later that evening I went with Sophie and Julien to the little village party with the other "jeuness" (youth) from my village. We danced and had a great time; then it was back to school the next day!

And that my friends is how the Swiss celebrate Thanksgiving! :)

 

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Laura's really amazing Switzerland movie





Ok here is a video Laura made about her exchange, and it has some stuff from our sleepover, and it's really cool, and I'm just not nearly as talented as her at the whole video thing, so I thought I would post it here, if you want to check it out. :)



Part 5: American Sleepover

October 9:
Today Zion, Laura, and I got together for an American style sleepover, and to tour some more of Switzerland. We all met at Laura's house, and kind of like the Luzern trip, we just took the first train going somewhere we hadn't been; and that is how we ended up bound for Brig. It was a bit further than we thought, so we spent most of our time on the train, but it was a really pretty ride. Little insider tip if you're ever traveling to Switerland- trains are probably the best way to see the country, because the best part of Switzerland is definetly it's georgeous natural beauty. Anyway, we got to Brig a little after five, and most of the town was already closed for the day. That is something I've noticed here, most normal places of business are closed by 5:00, even in the bigger cities like Zurich. It's pretty crazy. So yes, back to Brig- it's this adorable little town nestled in the Alps. We walked around for a bit, went to look for a grocery store to buy some snacks for our sleepover; and of course the only store we could find was closed, but we thought (being the Wal-Mart-ized American's that we are) that there must be something open after 5. So we saw these two guys next to the store and tried to ask them if they knew of another store we could try. Our conversation went something like this (P.S. Brig is in the German speaking part):

Laura: Do you know where a Coop is?
Guy #1: Coobe? (Making a square with his hands) a coobe? (meaning cube)
Laura: Nooo. I mean Coop. Like a grocery store.
Guy #1: (blank look)
Me: It sells food? A coop?
Guy #2: Laughing at his friend while smoking. Typical of Swiss teenagers. Lol.
Laura: You know? Like where we can buy food?
Guy #1: Ah. You want to find eat!
Laura, Zion and I in unison: Yes! You know where the store is?
Guy #1: (pointing towards the Migros right next to us) Migros!
Laura: It's closed.
Guy #1: (Blank look)
Zion: Closed, Fermer, Fermer, Closed? Not open?
Guy #1: Ah. Coop! No. No Coop. In the station (train station).
Laura, Zion and I: (Laughing) haha. Okay. Thank you.

Yup, gotta love language differences lol. So, obviously we didn't ever find a grocery store in Brig. :) But we found one back in Laura's town. When we got back to Laura's house we made popcorn (sent from the states), and had pizza, and tons of other junk food, from our collective care packages. It was really fun to just hang out and talk about all the crazy stuff that happens on exchange. Here are some pics from the evening:
Trains, Trains, and More Trains...

Yes, Zion carries a can opener around with her

Zion and I in Brig

Laura and I in Brig

Brig! P.S. this is the street with the closed, fermer, etc. Migros 

Yum!

Making snacks


My first popcorn since leaving the states-soooo good!

Swiss/American Junk food :)







Part 4: Sleepover in Charmey

October 2:
One of my friends from school Lisa invited me to spend the night at her house and go to youth group and church with her. She lives in Charmey, which is this really cute little ski town about 20min away from Sorens. Well, I was going to meet her Saturday afternoon in Bulle and then her mom was going to take us to her house. So I'm riding in the car with Francine, Simon, and Sophie on our way to Bulle, and all of a sudden here come all these cows with fancy headdress things made out of flowers and people in traditional costumes coming down the middle of the road, and I'm thinking "what on earth is going on?" Well, apparently every fall there is what's called the "Des Alps" where traditionally all the cows come down from the alps to the lower pastures for winter, and to mark the occasion they make a big parade out of it. It was pretty neat to see these cows, I must say. :) Here are some pics I took from the car:

Traditional dress from Gruyere Region
Crazy Cow Headdress


Well anyway after all that cow crazyness was over, Francine went to re-start the car, and nothing happened. Yup, so Sophie, Simon, me, and some random stranger who stopped to help, pushed the car to this gas station that was right there. And I'm thinking uh-ooo this is not good, I have to meet Lisa in about 15 min, and the car's not going to take me there, and I don't have a cell phone number for her; so I just started walking, hoping they would still be at the train station by the time I got there (which would probably be in about 30 min.).  But, miracle of miracles, they happened to drive by the road I was walking and were able to just pick me up there, so yeah pretty amazing. :) Then we went to her house, which has a magnificent view of the mountains, and the weather was absolutely perfect, so we took a little hike around, and yeah I'll just let the pictures do the talking....
View from Lisa's front yard

Parasailor

Lisa and I

Trail we were hiking 
Window box in village of Charmey

Village of Charmey

After we walked around, we went to youth group at her church. We watched a movie and had a little Bible study, and everyone was really nice, it was lots of fun. Made me miss my youth group back at Trinity, and all the crazy fun times we had. And then the next day we went to church, which I partially understood, and then back to school the next day.



Thursday, November 4, 2010

Part 3: Spontaneous train rides with exchange students

September 27:
Today for some reason unbeknownst to me, we didn't have school (teacher conference?), yeah I was quite broken up about it. :) Sooo of course a bunch of the exchange students from the Fribourg Canton decided to go somewhere; we weren't really sure where we wanted to go, so we just all met at the train station in Fribourg. Now, unfortunately for me they all wanted to meet at 8:00am, and since I live in a tiny village that has like six buses a day, I got to wake-up way before the sun, and leave at 6:30 in the morning with my host brother (he attends the University in Fribourg). However, on the bright-side I had plenty of time to down a couple of much needed cups of coffee before all the other exchange students arrived. :) When everyone arrived, we checked out the schedule, and the next train to depart was headed for Bern, so we hopped on, and decided to pick a destination once we got there. We ended up taking the train bound for Luzern. Once we got there we had a great time walking around, and seeing the sights. After lunch we got back on a train headed for Interlocken, and it ended up being a train that wound thru the mountains. It was probably the most beauitful train ride I've taken to date, I literally felt like I had stepped into a painting. We walked around Interlocken for a bit, and then it was back to Sorens. Here is a little slide show from the trip....    

Part 2: "Football" and Expo in Lausanne

September 26:
Today I went to a "football" game with my family, which of course was nothing like a Sooners game. Speaking of which: BOOMER SOONER! Just felt the need to say er type that, makes me feel closer to home. :) Anyway, I have to say I am definitely more of an American football than a soccer fan. Although, considering where I'm from, I'm pretty sure I've been indoctrinated since birth. :) But, it was lots of fun, and after, we all went for a pizza, or 5 as it turned out. Here, apparently, when you go for pizza everyone gets their own, (like normal sized, would feed a family of four) and I got the local speciality, which had Gruyere cheese, bacon, and ham. It was quite a tasty end to the day. :)

September 27:
 On Sunday I went with Sophie and some friends to Lausanne. There was this huge "expo" type thing going on, and we walked around sampling the food and looking at all the crazy stuff they had for sale. It was lots of fun, a great end to a great week. :) Here are some pics:

This was made out of fruits, veggies, and flowers- made me think of the rose bowl trip :)

M*A*S*H*-esque helicopter 
Grounds where the expo was


Yes I'm still alive over here :) Part 1 Becoming Sorensoise

Helllllloooooo!

As the title states, yes I am in fact still alive over here, and have yet to fall off an Alp or anything like that; I just happen to fail miserably at blog updates lol. Sooo since it's been quite some time since I last updated, I'm going to just do a series of posts by event, in (hopefully) sequential order. :) I've had a really awesome, super busy month and a half (where did the time go??), and a lot has happened, so I'll just get started.....

September 25, 2010:
Well it's official, I'm now Sorensoise (and no, that's not a type of cat :) ). On Friday night I went with Julien and Sophie to the meeting of the "Jeunesse de Sorens" (Youth of Sorens). When we got there I  just followed them into the room, but they were like "no you can't come in here right now, you have to wait in the other room with the other new kids," and I'm thinking "ok, sure, no idea what exactly I'm supposed to do, but whatever" :) So I'm standing there waiting, no clue what's going on (quite normal for me), and some other girls come up to me and start talking really fast in French about having to sing a song to join. Fortunately they were really nice and instead of giving me a solo (maybe they just valued there hearing ;) ), I just had to sing a duet. We practiced for a bit, and then they called us in. I was the last to enter, and when I came in my host sibs, and some other people I've met started cheering "Becky!" and clapping, and my next host brother was yelling "Bekamaze!!" So yeah that made me feel pretty special. :) After that I had to introduce myself (and of course I ended up going first) in French, but everyone was really nice and patient with my terrible French, so it was all good. Then came the song.... And while I don't think I'll be nominated for a Grammy anytime soon, it wasn't too bad, and now I know a new 80s French pop song lol. After that we had our "initiation" which consisted of trying to take a bite out of an apple that was swinging from a string while kneeling. You would be proud of me America, I represented you well, I was the only one to bite the apple lol. After, we had to eat a spoonful of "hot sauce"; HA. More like super mild picante lol. My host brother was like "yeah, I didn't think this was going to be spicy enough for you." Then I got my t-shirt, and now I'm all offical. :)

P.S. Sorry I don't have any pics..... :(