Well hello

I know, I don't write, it's evil.

I currently have 26 days until my homecomming, which I am quite looking forward to. There comes a certain point where I realise that my future doesn't lie in switzerland: I haven't got a Matura, I can't study here, plans are being made for Sonafe, Praktikum, and class sleepovers without me in them because I won't be here. My host family is looking forward to having their daughter back at home (never mind that it isn't the same daughter they sent away, but try explaining that to them, Rotary in America really really prepared us well, and keeps doing so, whereas here...)

Theater week at the Schiffbauhaus from Schauspielhaus Zürich was amazing. I got to see 7 plays from different schools, some better, some worse. Worst of all being the Orestee, a greek saga that the group decided to put on in the style of ancient greek theater, which entails a lot of standing still and talking. The best being (besides ours, ;) ) Die Kannibalen, which is about a group in a concentration camp that has to decide whether or not to eat one of its fallen members. A hilarious piece. So funny right up until the tiny nazi comes at the end and they all decide to die rather than eat the most disgusting human soup I have ever seen. Then there were the workshops. I was in Basics of Acting, which lead to a lot of being silly, improvisation, and funny walks. Our teacher was really amazing too. She's a director and theater teacher at the ETH in Zurich. The jury also gave away an oscar to Orestee unfortunately, which is a rip if you ask anyone else, mostly because we couldn't even hear the dialogue. The Oscar we all got to vote for went to Comedy Life, a piece about two comedians and exfriends, one of whom decides to help the other commit insurance fraud, only to be turned in by his ex-exfriend and find out that is life is in ruins. It was fantastic.

Then there was the Rowing Championships, where we came in last because during the final sprint, one of my teammate's seat fell out of its track and she couldn't keep rowing. Ah well. It rained, so the whole day was spent slopping around a muddy field. Our Steering Man was hilarious though, and Tabea brought a cake from the bakery where she works, so all was well.

Last Wednesday, my class to a trip to Bern in order to sit in the Congress, which was fairly cool. One of my classmates was even quoted in a newspaper article. Some journalists were there to follow our tour leader when Beat (pronounced Bay-aht) asked about corruption in Switzerland (to which the only answer he got was "It isn't as bad as Italy!" which is only oh so true...) Other than that, I played chess on one of those HUGE ourdoor chess sets they have in cities with Corrine, but I lost famously.

My Geography teacher sort of flipped out yesterday when he heard I don't have a 6 in english (a 6 is perfect, 4 is passing). Apparently, no matter what the teacher thinks, I should have a six just by being born in america, regardless of the fact that my teacher speaks british english. He is without a doubt my coolest teacher, and he's taking us on a field trip next week into the Alps to talk about rocks, which is what he is currently teaching us about. If he weren't so cool (by swiss standards, not american. He's sort of a Mr. Brodt type...) I would never forgive him for such boring lessons.

Which reminds me, on Tuesday, my class went to see A Midsummernight's Dream for english, none of which they understood. Poor kids. 2 and a half hours of hell when they could and by allrights should have been studying biology. I found it amusing. I got to have a Spitzbeub (picture of said cookie), and two new Kinder egg things that are more delicious than the normal ones. Anna, Fabia and I spent the entire Pause trying to figure out how to work the magic trick toy I got, but we never figured it out. Then there was the amusment of waiting at the train station in Lenzburg after walking through literally the whole town to get back from the castle where the play was held in hopes of catching the train, which we missed anyway. I love being at trainstations after 10pm, there's always some weird drunks asking for cigarettes. No mom, I wasn't alone, and I was quite safe I assure you, my english teacher was there, for what it's worth, even though her german (and especially her swiss german) is fairly horrendous. Now for pictures.

One pic of the rowing team, one of the tent Platz at OpenAir Hoch Ybrig, one of Alpermaccaroni (which is macaronni with cheese, cream, applesauce, potatoes, and onion bits), and the Yodel group that sang Ewigi Liebi, which is basically THE swiss song of the century.