The Pink Bicycle

A pink bicycle follows me

Hiding around the corner

Two days it met me on my trek home

Today I went a different route

Thinking I outsmarted it

Atop the sidewalk was the pink bicycle 

Following me

A pink bicycle 

(Yes I wrote this poem, it is also a true story)

German

Dieses Jahr lerne ich Deutsch. Deutsch ist sehr schwierig, aber ich kann besser als August sprechen und verstehen. Für mich, lesen und schreiben in Deutsch ist schwierigen. Ich habe zwei "Regenbogen Feen" Bücher gelesen. Jetzt lese ich "Harry Potter und di Kramer des Schreckens". Die Bücher helfen mich mit lesen. Mein Grammatik ist auch sehr schleckt, ich weiss der, die, und das nicht. Ich habe ein mehr Deutschkurs für helfen mit alle meine Deutschproblem. Und Jetzt in English.

It is always good for me to practice my German, I am sure I had a thousand mistakes but that was an paraphrase of this post. Learning German has been very hard for me, yet now I am able to understand what people are saying most, well some, of the time. I have not yet conquered Swiss German, but plan to by the end of the year. In school I can follow along in most of my classes, it requires a lot of concentration and coffee, but I am definitely learning (at least a quarter of) the material. I had to drop out of philosophy this week because I have never had any introduction to the topic, and it is very hard to understand even in English. Physics is also a very difficult subject for me. To improve my German I have started reading books in German. So far I have read two "Rainbow Fairy" books and just started the second "Harry Potter". Grammar is my weak link in German, I tend to not know when to use what, and why. In my defense sometimes German doesn't have a why and just decides to make things more difficult and confusing for no apparent reason. To help me out more with my German I am taking another German course, this time I will receive an international diploma to prove that I can speak, red, and write at level B1 profficancy german. Thanks to everyone who has helped me with my german: my host family, classmates, parents, Janet Gesme, teachers, and everyone else ( I feel like that was an Oscar speech). If you ever meet an exchange student please speak slowly and have patience with them because learning a new language in a matter of months is one of the hardest things to do.

Food!

It might not be the best part of exchange, but it is certainly the most delicious! More About the food in the last couple of weeks! Coming to you in four parts.

Part I: Cheese attack
Most people know the classic stereo type of swiss food (also known as cheese and chocolate). I am here to tell you the main food groups of Swiss people. Bread, vegetables, cheese, chocolate, potatoes, and you have your 5 food groups. Last week we had a traditional Swiss winter meal, Rachelett (as you should know by know this is probably spelled wrong). It is a wheel of cheese cut in half and placed under a hot rod. The top of the cheese start melting and than you scrape the top onto a plate and enjoy, see picture below. Tomorrow night we are having Fondue for the first time. I am very excited.

Part II: Oma's Desserts
Every Thursday I go to Oma's house for lunch, she feeds more than Mrs. Claus feeds Santa! It is so cool to have grandparents live one minute away instead of 8 hours away. Oma always cooks amazing food, but I am astonished at the fact that every time I come over she has a new dessert made from hand, completely different from any of the other weeks. I am secretly convinced she has a whole room in the house full of recipes. I will list what she has cooked so far. An apple pie (less sweet than what we have in America, just as tasty), homemade apple sauce (but dessert like) with a whip cream(ish) topping, apple cakes (fried apples that taste like cake on the outside and doughnuts on the inside, a different type of apple sauce. I am realizing now that I think Oma really likes apples...

Part III: Editors Choice Awards (soooooouuuuuuppppp)
One of my favorite things about Fall is the warm foods that warm your soul on cold and rainy days. This week I had two soups that were amazing. The first was a thick pumpkin soup that my Host mother made. It tasted wonderful. The second was a potato ginger soup I bought for lunch at the store. It was the relaxed attitude of potatoes with a slap in the face once the ginger hit you. We also cooked these cookies last week, I am not sure how to describe them so look at the picture!

Part II*II: Cooking
My friend from Syria and I cooked two days last week. On Monday we fabricated classic Baked Mac 'n Cheese. It was amazing and reminded me of getting home from climbing on a winter day to find that Mom had made one of my favorite meals. Afterwards we also baked cupcakes. They were vanilla orange cupcakes with chocolate chips inside and a chocolate glaze atop. On Friday I went to Torin's small apartment and cooked Syrian food with her. We baked rice, a lentil soup, and okra in tomato sause. To eat you would take a spoonful of rice and put a piece of okra on it. Delicious!

Walking to the train station

Every morning when going to or from school I walk to the train station. At first thought all the walking was exhausting compared to my 10 minute drive in the USA but I have grown to appreciate it. I will tell you about the little things I have come to notice on the way. I do not notice the big thins, but the little, because for me they are more important. By the way this is all from memory, not trying to tell you everything, only what has caught my attention. First off the walk is about 15 minutes for a slow walker like me. There is one large hill right in front of my house and than the rest is mostly flat. Before I descend the hill I stop to enjoy a small koi pond in front of one of the houses, the fish are always there swimming around. For me it is a miniature version of my grandfathers koi pond. As I continue I notice the exotic colors of various small berries hanging resting on bushes, my favorite are the bright purple ones, I am not sure why. In front of me are the Jura mountains, children in comparison to the alps behind me, yet still full of life. This time of year the tips of the Juras coated with frosty trees while the bottom is home a fall palate. On cloudless days, so almost never, the alps stand behind me. They are flabbergasting, so much so that somedays it is more phathomable to believe that someone painted them on a large canvas than in their actual existence. At the bottom of the hill I am met with a road. As I turn right I can see the black pronto pizza car parked in front of one of the houses. I read the words 'pronto pizza', painted in red, every day and for some reason it stuck in my mind. Next comes a playground. Vacant in the early hours of the morning, blossoming with children by the afternoon.  Parallel to the playground is a field with two goals for soccer. The goals have no nets, they are mearly metal poles marking the difference between a win and a loss for games played by future sport stars. There are no lines on the field and the grass is partially dead. It is a stadium in the mind of children, a laughing stock for teenagers, and a saving grace for tired parents wishing for a moment of rest. I try to see all of these things in they eyes of people around me. I wonder if the others notice the same things. As I walk along further I laugh a little at the dog pop bag station that features the classic evolution picture, as seen in science textbooks, with the addition of a person picking up dog poop at the end. It always manages to make me laugh. There are apartments on one side of the street and houses on the other. Near my next turn is a row of businesses, some empty, others not, but only one catches my eye. This is the 'pool-4-you' building. I know no one in Grenchen that owns a pool, however I am positive that I would go here if I ever needed a custom pool. I wonder how it manages to stay in business. As I cross the street I turn away from a Turkish market towards a building with bright yellow letters and many windows, I believe it reads 'britling' or something of that sort. The letters themselves always suited my fancy better than the actual word. I turn right and cross the street once more in front of an underpass that leads to the city. Here I climb a slight hill, as I walk the sun appears as do the train tracks and many electrical wires. Some days the sun is blood red, others yellow, other not there shrowded by clouds. My favorite days are the blood red days, it is like the sun in 'The Lion King' rising over the Savanah desert to the tune of 'The Circle of Life'. But instead it is me, in Switzerland, about to board a train and go to a town and school that last year at this time I didn't know existed. To talk to people that three months ago had not been written into my life story. I am sure I will remember this sun when I am back in the USA. I may not remember the koi, pronto pizza, or the bright yellow letters, but for me the sun is the symbol of another day in a life that came upon me by chance. It reminds me that if not for a very strange series of events I would not be here to day, and that I am very lucky that my life has played out the way it has.

Corsica Hikes

Time for some much needed updates. We had many adventures and many relaxing days in Corsica, France. One of my favorite parts was the hikes we took.

Hike 1:
We took a 2 hour windy drive up the mountains of Corsica today. I have never before been carsick, but almost every time we went driving in Corsica my stomach plunged. This was due to a combination of: narrow roads, windy roads, roads on cliffs, hilly roads, manual cars, fast speed limits, and large cars. I learned to play music and look out the front windshield. This experience has mad me much more empathetic towards people prone to carsickness. When we reached our destination the view was indescribable. Mountains hid behind layers of clouds and fog. The mountains were tan rocks mostly covered in trees. Not quite like the scenery at home, almost matching that of Chile, almost in a tropical way, very hard to describe. Sadly enough I did not bring my phone that day so I have no pictures. We hiked for what I guess would be 3 miles in. There were two main 'pacs' the older kids practically jogged in the front, while the younger dragged in the back. The adults were strewn in between. As you could imagine this created quite the time difference between the leaders and finishers. The first part of the hike was mostly flat but near the end we reached a 20 minute section where we practically had to climb up the rocky hill. At the top you could see the whole stretch we had hikes and even down to the sea! This is where we had lunch, and than hiked the 3 miles back. Near the end we raced the rain trying to make it to the cars dry. Sadly my host mom twisted her ankle and hurt her foot on the way down. Never fun on a vacation!!! On the drive home we stopped at a restaurant and had... french crêpes (pronounced crehp not kur-ape). It was a good end to our hike.

Hike 2:
After yet another long drive we arrived at yet another beautiful spot in the mountains. This time I had my phone with means I have pictures! These mountains were more gray than tan, and the hike was next to a river. On the way in we walked next to the river and Florian (my host brother), Noah (another kid on vacation with us), Shelu (Noah's dad, I feel really bad because I don't know how to spell his name)(new edit: shelu is how to pronounce his name however I have been informed that the correct spelling is Gilu because it is french. I apologize for my horrible spelling skills) and I hiked next to, in, and around the river for a while before meeting up with everyone else on the path again. A little while later we once again ventured off but this time only Florian and I continued because the rock was quite steep and probably not very safe upon second thought. We climbed over logs that had fallen over the river and through bushes until we once again met up with everyone else. After this we hiked for probably an hour or so more (getting lost once or twice) until we had a view of a *insert wonderful word here* waterfall. We, not unlike the other hike, enjoyed lunch in our scenic oasis, climbed a bolder for a while, and then meandered back. On the way back to the car Noah, Florian, Philippe (my host father), and I once again went off the beaten path to adventure a little on the way home.

Hike 3:
The third hike began after, guess what, another wide car drive. I am beginning to  love the mechanics behind maneuvering cars around this narrow, curving, roads. I am amazed that more people do not crash given that you drive in the middle of the road until someone comes around the corner, and than practically fall off the edge to pass them. It takes a lot of skill. This time we did not go to the mountains, yet to Bonofacio (also spelled incorrectly). This is an old french city located atop the golden-white cliffs Corsica is famous for. We hiked on a rocky path on top of the cliffs with the perfect view of both the city and sea. We hiked for probably 1.5 hours (I am really bad at keeping track of time, just assume all my guesses have a margin of error of 1 hour) until we reached a broken down, graffitied place (building? plaza? I'm not sure). We once again had lunch with the most spectacular views.

Hike 4:
The last of our hikes was very short, only about a half hour (given my margin of error this hike could have actually taken any where between negative .5 hours to 1.5 hours). We hiked from a beach to a tower. On the way there a black lab followed us. The kids named him Charlie. Once we reached the tower we took family photos for about 10 minutes in which Charlie disappeared. As we walked down we found him waiting for us in the shade. After our hike we spent a while at the beach with Charlie at our sides. I believe he was the official beach dog considering he seemed to tag along with almost anyone at the beach. It was quite funny.

A Shoe Story

Once I started attending school I saw that everyone had either nikes or adidas and I immediately wanted to fit in and have one too.  Little did I know this would be the start of a very long and painful process. After searching countless shoe stores and looking at everyones shoes at school I decided I wanted a pair of adidas superstars. I found them on a website, but before purchasing them wanted to try them on. After a few days I found a store that carried them and went inside to try on the shoes and decide what size I should order online. The store didn't carry a size near mine in the superstars so I tried on a different adidas and figured it would be the same. This determined the size I needed, 39. Another few days past and I went online to order the shoes, I entered my size and it said out of stock. I preceded to do this with other colors and models of similar shoes that would also work and found out that only the very large sizes were in stock. It turns out that adidas does not have this shoe in my size at this time. I finally gave up and went to the shoe store to look for a similar shoe. I found a pair of black nikes in size 39, and went to check them out. Than discovered that the other shoe was in fact a 38, it was a mismatched pair. They searched the store for me and found out the 39 did not have a pair. I decided to buy the 38s because I was sick of trying to find my shoes. When I got home I tried the shoes on with socks and they fit much too snug. Then next day I went back to the store to return the 38s and order the 39s online. The shoes would come when I was in Corsica and I could pick them up at the end of the vacation. They would send me a text when they arrived in the store. The day after i returned home I went to the shoe store and showed the cashier my text. She went to the cobra and looked for my shoes, yet they were not there. After a second look at the text I discovered that they only hold the shoes for 7 days and than put them on the shelf. So I went to the shelf to look for my shoes and did not find my style in any size. I looked around the whole store and finally gave up. As I was walking out the door I glanced at the stack of shoes waiting for attention by the cash register. One box was a nike box... could it be mine? I asked the cashier and they were. After a long and painful search I had a pair of shoes. However all if comes with death. I am sad to say that my long loved pair of Roxy combat boots now has a broken zipper and hole in the sole. I am now saving up for a pair of Timberlands. I feel betrayed by the shoe gods, they have not only made me go on an odyssey to find a pair of shoes closeish to the ones I wanted to purchase, yet also murdered my beloved combat boots. If you would like to donate to the Timberland shoe fund please email me at greenmikay@gmail.com

Photos

For many days on the island we would simpliy visit a beach and play all day, soak up the sun at the pool, or explore some of the many cities. I also went snorkeling quite a few times and once at night with flashlights (very cold). After some of the storms we would find a lawn chair in the pool and have to fish it out. I had a wonderful time on the island and could not be more thankful for my amazing host family, country, and number of French people who understand either German or English. I will let the photos tell the stories I have not written here...