Life Lessons and German Lessons

Another week down in Switzerland. I have officially been here for four weeks today. It's weird because it sometimes feels like I have been here for a lot longer but then again, it doesn't really feel like a month has passed since I have been home. I have realized that I think I have already learned so much from being here. First of all, one of the most important things I've learned is that the first 2 or 3 weeks really are the hardest part. How many times did I call home crying to my mom or to Cody? (Not to say that I don't still do this every now and then, I mean come on, you probably know me better than that.) But now I definitely feel like I have more of a place here. I do not feel completely lost all the time, I am now pretty confident in the transportation system and the pointing and making random noises to communicate to people who only speak German. Another thing I have learned is that I went to a really challenging university. I say this because I was so surprised at my first German lesson and the amount of homework we received. The homework consisted of a single worksheet of about 10 or 15 multiple choice questions. I mean, really??? Apparently this is just how the classes are here, Heidi said that hers is the same way. I just hope that it is going to be challenging enough for me to learn the language. I came in to the 5th class, but I'm sure that I will catch up in no time because they seem to go at a very slow pace.

Speaking of not knowing any Deutsch, this weekend I went to a cow show in Maur. Yes, that's right...a COW SHOW. As in Miss America but for cows. I thought that Stayton was a fairly typical country town, but you should see Maur. The farmers here are very serious about the competition for the prettiest cow. In the picture here, the cows that are lined up are some of the contestants for this competition. Which one would you have voted for?

Because of this cow show, I had to work on a Saturday. Christian and Jana were in charge of serving food to all the people who showed up. However, my job was kind of pointless here since the kids just ran off with their friends and played with each other. So I basically just wandered around looking at cows for 4 or 5 hours. It is really unfortunate that I don't speak German yet because I would love to be able to speak to a lot of the people here. Especially when I am in a group of Jana and Christian's friends who I think are pretty cool, the ones who have spoken to me in English anyway, but I am always completely lost in the conversation. And no one bothers to translate for me, which is understandable because that would just be annoying for everyone. But I definitely find it hard to build personal relationships with people who I would really like to.

For instance, as I was eating my lunch by myself in the little tent at the cow show when this guy, about my age and wearing his cow gear (big green rubbery pants and a sweatshirt and cap) sat down next to me and started talking to some other people across from him. After awhile, he turned to me and said something in German. I had no idea of course what he said and I pretended not to hear him (yes, I know, it was mean but it's frustrating having to say that I don't speak Deutsch, especially in Maur where people usually don't know English). I waited a few more minutes then got up to leave in case he tried speaking to me again. I then walked around the place a to a completely different spot outside of the tent to watch the cows. After a few minutes there, I turned around to see the guy standing next to me again! He said something else in German and this time I had no choice but to just smile apologetically and say "I don't speak Deutsch...English?" He said something else in German and walked away. Apparently he didn't speak English which I was kind of sad about. I could have had a friend to talk to but the whole language barrier prevented this.

Above and below are a few pictures of Lucerne. This is a pretty touristy city about an hour train ride from Zurich. It was also very pretty. I decided to visit Lucerne since I had Friday off and was feeling like getting out of town. The city had lots of little shops and I walked around this area for awhile. There was a lake right in the middle, just like Zurich and there were huge mountains on one side of the city and gorgeous hills on the other side. I took a few pictures of the mountains but they did not turn out so well since they were farther away and it was a pretty dark and cloudy day. I also went to Lucerne because I heard about a Picasso gallery there. I decided to check this out and actually found the place all on my own! I was pretty proud of myself. The art gallery was really cool, tons of Picasso's stuff. There were also a few Monet paintings and some of my favorite paintings there were by Pierre Auguste Renoir. I only had about 45 minutes to look around since I came pretty late and they were closing soon. But I was glad that I went, it was very peaceful walking around by myself, but also a little lonely.

This weekend, Heidi and I decided to venture out to experience the Zurich night life by ourselves. We were a little unsure because we had no idea where to go or what to do. We went to a couple of different bars but they were not too exciting. We eventually wound up at this fun little piano bar where the pianist was American and was playing all English songs. Most of the music was either Billy Joel, Elton John, a few songs from Dirty Dancing, and some other oldies. Here we ran into a couple of people from Boston. We knew that the man and woman were American because we heard them order at the bar. We started talking to the woman and learned that they were just in Zurich for the night and were headed down to Milan to meet their family for vacation. They were very nice and after having a drink with them, they went back to their hotel and we wished them luck on their journey south. We then started talking to a couple of guys from Zurich. After awhile we went to another smaller and much smokier bar with them. This was fun, too but the bar had horrible ventilation and the smoke was stinging my eyes so that I could hardly keep them open. Heidi and I decided we were hungry and wanted left with one of the guys to find a kebab place. At this point, I really missed good old Taco Bell. For just a little kebab it was almost 9 francs and this was the cheapest thing on the menu. After eating, we realized that it was almost 5:30 in the morning! We were amazed at how late it had gotten without us realizing it. Last weekend we also stayed out in a town called Zug until 4:30 am and I couldn't believe that we had done it again! I thought I was too old for this! We caught the train back to Heidi's city where we had to spend another hour sleeping in the women's bathroom since the next bus to her stop didn't come until 7:15 am! We were exhausted and freezing so the bathroom was the best place for us to wait.

One last thing that I have learned so far: If you are going to stay out all night, stay out until at least 7 am when the buses then start to arrive regularly.

Lions and Tigers and Barry!

Since I have not written anything all weekend, I have quite a few topics to choose from just for you, dear readers. To start, Jaime and Nick had their 7th birthday on Friday! This was a very exciting day for them. In the evening, their aunt, uncle, grandmother and cousins unexpectedly stopped by with some gifts. I was glad that their aunt spoke English because the grandma does not. I think that their aunt is Spanish because she was speaking this language to her daughter. Her daughter, by the way, was probably only about 3 years old and had the curliest hair! It was perfect tight ringlets! I was surprised at how glad I was when I heard them speaking Spanish because I am used to not knowing what people are saying around me when they speak in a foreign language. But I could actually figure out what they were talking about and this made me feel more comfortable.

The next day was the birthday party. Oh my! I have quite a few pictures that you can view on picasaweb. But I wanted to put a few on here for those of you who are not as computer literate as others..... :)

This is the family's little cabin up in the woods by their house. It does not look very nice here but it is actually a pretty neat little cabin. It is very small but there are picnic tables and a fire pit and a huge field for kids to run around. The walk up there took about 20-30 minutes with all the kids but a normal person could have done it a lot faster than this.

One nice thing about this day was that Rachel, another au pair for my host family's friends in Basel, joined us. She is from Salt Lake City and actually lived in Dallas, OR for awhile. She is the same age as me and came to Switzerland about a week after I got here. I enjoyed her company and we plan on doing some traveling together.

The food was delicious at the boys' party. Jana and Christian (in the picture) barbequed ribs that were very good! They also had sausage, of course!, and bread rolls. I tried this darker colored roll, which turned out to be some sort of pretzel but in a dinner roll form. I loved it!

There was also plenty of candy to go around. Chocolate francs and SpongeBob candy. After most of the kids walked back to where their parents could pick them up, I stayed at the little cabin with another family friend and her two kids. On a side note, I actually was originally supposed to look after these two, Kaisja and Noah, as well as the 3 Bergers but right before I got to Switzerland, Jana decided 5 kids was too much for one person. She was definitely right. As I was saying, when I stayed behind with these two kids and Sanja, Mia (the mother of the 2) pulled out a huge bag of marshmallows. The marshmallows here are a little different than in the States. They are flavored and colorful and differenty shaped. (But they are still very good, I actually prefer them to the white ones!) We decided to roast these marshmallows with the little bit of fire we had left going. Apparently roasting marshmallows is a worldwide thing.

I was a little upset when we started eating. I had just gotten my ribs hot off the pit and Barry who is seen here (the huge bear-like dog) decided to grab the ribs right off my plate! I was so sad because there were only a few ribs left, so I got a smaller portion the second time. Grrr!

Barry, who is the grandparents' dog, is the biggest one I have seen in Switzerland! And the friendliest, cuddliest, most lovable one, too! He's very gentle, you don't have to worry about him hurting the little kids. It's hard to tell from the picture how big he actually is but you can see that even 2 year old Isabel, who is probably a quarter of his size, loved him!

This was a surprisingly fun way to spend a relatively nice Saturday in Maur. It was also good to meet some of Jana's friends, mainly because they can speak English and I am just happy to hear my own language!

Deer, blood sauce, and dinnertime in Switzerland

Well, another day done. Thank goodness.
After a pretty busy day consisting of a lot of arguing with the children, I am quite exhausted. I was allowed to sleep in for a few extra hours this morning but I chose to accompany Jana to one of the few wholesale stores nearby. I'm not really sure why I thought that giving up my much needed extra sleep was less important than going to a grocery store similar to Winco or Costco, but that's what I did. It was kind of different and I want to experience everything I can, so the trip wasn't pointless. As for the differences, even the wholesale store that supposedly sells in bulk here still did not compare to what I, as an American, would consider bulk. Everything here comes in smaller portions, there is not an option to buy bigger most of the time. Probably one reason why Americans are overweight and the rest of the world is not. The store that we went to is not actually open for most of the public, but since Christian is in gastronomy (as in restaurant or food), Jana gets a card that allows her to use the store. I thought it was cool how, when customers reached the register, they just left their carts there for the cashier to ring up for them while they sat down in this bar/coffee shop area where people are offered free coffee and/or pastries for a small price. This place is meant as a place for customers, who would have had to wait in line for awhile, actually be able to sit and enjoy themselves for a few minutes while their hundreds of francs worth of products are rung up. Once you are finished with your coffee, your cart is probably done by this time and you proceed to another register to pay, but no rush. One thing that Jana had in mind to buy when we went to this store was deer meat. It's deer hunting season right now and this store has huge buckets of no less than 10 kilos of deer. That's a lot of deer chunks! Jana also purchased a lot of sausage and other meat as well as some bread rolls and croissants; which, by the way, is usually what we have for dinner almost every night. I actually love this meal choice and am often a little disappointed on nights when dinner is something else for a change. Bread, cheese, butter, and sausage/meat is all I need for me to be happy! But I have been trying everything here (regarding food) no matter how weird or different it looks and I am usually pretty happy that I do. About a week or so ago, Christian had deer in this dark sauce that was so good. When I told him how much I loved the sauce and asked what it was, he explained that it was a mixture of several things, mainly including blood. Ugh. Just call me Miss Cullen. But, really, it was so good!
After this little outing, I had to clean the bathroom and shower downstairs. Jana helped me out and showed me how so that next week I will do it on my own. Yay. The kids came home from school soon after and Jana left for work. Then it was just me and the kids again. Not a great day in this department: Jaime was being difficult as usual when it came to homework, or really anything else for that matter. Sanja and Nick were also feeling a little obnoxious today which never helps me. I think they see how Jaime acts and try to copy his attitude. Which I would love way more if the opposite were happening. Tomorrow will be another long day but TGIF is all I can say.

Swiss Babes

Get ready, folks! Here it is! What you all have been waiting for!

Finally, my blog on life, love, and all the drama in the fabulous town of Maur, Switzerland. I am working through my third week in Maur as an au pair for the Berger family. I thought to start out my blog, I should provide you, dear readers, with a glimpse of the many different personalities that this family entails.

To start with, the "Swiss Babes" include Nick and Jaime, who are (as of this Friday, I think) 7 year old twins. They are fraternal in appearance as well as in personalities and demeanor. By this I mean that Nick is the one I can trust. Not to say that Jaime is a little devil but he generally is just a little bit out of control, pretty much all the time. For example, last Friday I was in charge of getting the kids off to school. The school bus comes around 8 a.m. and I usually have them out there completely ready to go about 5 mins before. For whatever reason, this Friday morning Jaime decides to throw the biggest temper tantrum I've ever seen in my life and runs upstairs into the attic while the bus is waiting outside for him! I tried coaxing him out for about 5 minutes, without any gain since Jaime refuses to listen to me speak English half the tme when he is not throwing a tantrum-let alone when he is screaming his head off at me, then realized how ridiculous it all was . . . time to bring in the big guns. I forced myself to wake up Christian (the father who usually sleeps in because he works late) to practically throw Jaime out the door. Needless to say, no one in this situation was very happy that morning.

As I said earlier, Nick is usually the kid that I can trust to be obedient and honest and do things on his own without me telling him 29 times like I have to do with the other two. Unless it comes to watching t.v. or Harry Potter or eating only sweets (we are very similar). However, he too almost sent me down to drown myself in the lake in the backyard just yesterday. How can a 6 year old push me so far over the edge, you ask? By locking himself in the trunk of a car that has a key to the lock of the trunk that DOES NOT WORK! I have no idea how he managed to get the trunk opened, squeeze himself in there, and actually closed. But I do know that he definitely managed it somehow. After a few minutes of trying to turn the key every which way I could, I soon had all three kids literally freaking out on me. Jaime was crying and running around, so scared for his brother. Nick started crying in the back of the trunk because he realized how stupid a decision that was. And Sanja, who was the most calm child was still almost in tears herself, watching helplessly. After a good 10 or 15 minutes, Nick was finally able to push the cover of the trunk up from the inside and crawl out over the backseat. Of course, at this point we were also 10 minutes late for his appointment that we were headed to in the first place.

Now for the last "Swiss Babe" I will mention today. Sanja is five years old and has an extremely strong personality. Probably so she can keep up with her brothers. She does not like being told no and is quite the little bargainer. If I say "5 more minutes to play Sanja," she will undoubtedly try to swindle at least a few more minutes. However, we also have a lot in common: we both love high heels, we both love jewlery, we both love princesses, and we both love makeup. If there wasn't a 17 year difference, we could probably be best friends! Sanja is also the one who will consistently speak English to me. Where the boys usually don't unless I force them to, Sanja is much better with English, probably just because she practices more.

I could go on and on about the crazy and ridiculous things these children have done but perhaps I will save those for later posts . . . I just wanted to give you a little teaser of what I can expect from this family in the coming months. Also, below is a picture of the house that I live in and a picture from the city of Zurich (about 15 mins from Maur) when I was checking things out there with Heidi a few weekends ago.