Bugs don't have ears

Prepare yourself for a very silly and somewhat stupid post. Maybe you'll find my discovery as interesting as I did ;-)

The windows here are quite different than at home. At home, we have a screen and the window typically just slides up and down. Here, there are no screens, and depending on how you move the handle, the window can be tilted open or opened like a door.

I think they're called Tilt-and-turn windows. At least, that's what popped up when I googled them :-)

In the picture above, you can see how the handle is turned. If it is turned sideways, you can open it like a door. If the handle is turned upside-down, it tilts open from the top. And, if the handle is turned downwards, the window is closed and locked. I really like them, I think because they feel more open and spacious. My window in my room is actually a door/window. If I have the handle turned sideways, it opens like a door and I can actually walk outside (See a picture of it here).

Another interesting thing is that the blinds are outside the window. They are metal (or something like that...I'm not an expert!) and there is a rod inside that I can turn to open/close the blinds and crank to raise them. Pretty cool!

The only downside, is that bugs can freely come into my room as they please. And, when it gets dark, the bugs all love to come into my room (or Dorina's room) when I/we have the lights on. We get everything--moths, spiders, flies, mosquitoes, and other unidentifiable bugs. Sometimes we squash them with a shoe or trap them with a glass and paper and set them free outside. Or sometimes we get the vacuum and just attack them.

The first time Dorina and I got the vacuum to kill a giant moth, I asked her "won't the moth fly away as soon as we turn the vacuum on?" She laughed and said "They don't have ears!" I actually stopped to think about this. I'd never thought about it before. Apparently they don't. Or they're really not surprised by the sudden, loud noise of the vacuum cleaner. So now, whenever we have a bug or three in our rooms, we get the vacuum. You could say we're professional bug-killers now.

A rollercoaster of a week

The first week of school is officially over! It feels like it's been more than a week since last Monday, but probably just because the week was so crazy and there was so much information every day. The school is not like American schools where there is one giant building housing all the classrooms and students, but instead three different buildings around the city that belong to the school, as well as two more buildings for the daycare. Each building is referred to by the street name, so mine is called "Trollstrasse."

Another difference from our American schools, is that each grade has a teacher (Klassenlehrer), who is their main teacher. They do, however, have other teachers for other subjects. This Klassenlehrer stays their teacher for a number of years--so you better hope you like him/her! Each Klassenlehrer has his/her own classroom, but the teachers who only teach one or two specific subjects (Fachlehrer) do not have their own classroom and move to different rooms, basically wherever one is free. It's generally consistent where they teach, but during the first week, all the details are still being ironed out. So, at times it can be confusing about who is supposed to be where--for both the teachers and the students!

The daily schedule is also quite different. While school starts every day at 7:45, and the various lessons are all the same length, the lessons being taught are different each day of the week (I guess like block scheduling, but still different than that), and the day does not always end at the same time. I'm still trying to figure out when the school day is over for the students, because some classes get out earlier in the day, while other students have another class to go to. I guess the best way to explain that, is that it is more like college, where some people are done with their classes earlier in the day than others. Lunch is also only served on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and is not obligatory for all students to attend. They can go home and eat if they are not signed up for lunch at school! I'm not used to so much freedom given to the students, but I think it's a great thing--as long as they can handle it!

As an intern, I wear many hats for my job. I help out with lunch, I supervise the school cleaning (the students do the cleaning!), I work after school for Homework Help, I make sure the Teacher's Lounge is clean and tidy all the time, and really whatever other little odd jobs people ask me to do. On top off all this, I work with some teachers during certain lessons as an assistant--the main reason why I'm here! So, as you can imagine, there was quite a lot going on this week and quite a lot to learn!

I am assisting in both English and German classes and have so far done mostly Small Group work or observing, but that won't necessarily be all the time. I also am leading an elective English Conversation class, for those that need or want some extra English speaking practice and I'm leading an elective Keyboarding class--which, I must laugh a little about, because the Swiss German keyboard differs from the German keyboard, which differs from the American English keyboard! Luckily, I'm there mostly to supervise and make sure they work or answer questions if they have any, and the students are just working on individual laptops.

The beginning of the week was very crazy and honestly, a bit overwhelming and stressful. At times it felt unmanageable to remember everything I need to do, and I'm still learning to remember it all, but now that the first week is over, it's all feeling a bit more manageable. I'm also very lucky that there is another intern at the Trollstrasse who worked at the school for the last 7 weeks of last year, so he knows quite well what is going on and how to do everything!

I'm sure I'll think back in a few weeks to how stressed and overwhelmed I felt and wonder why I felt so confused at times. And I'll try to get some pictures of the building to show you in another post :-)

Zürich!

This past week has been the prep week at the school, which means that we all have been quite busy! The first day of school is on Monday and that means there was a lot to be done (and probably still is). After such a long and busy week, Dorina and I decided to go to Zürich for the day on Saturday! I was pretty excited since my only time in Zürich before today was at the airport, which is not actually IN Zürich (the canton, yes, but the city, no), so it doesn't really count ;-)

When we got to Zürich, we walked down Bahnhofstrasse, which was named the most expensive street for retail property in Europe, and the third most expensive worldwide! There were some pretty big names on that street, but there were also some more inexpensive shops, like H&M. Shops like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Rolex, Cartier and others definitely make up for the more wallet-friendly shops though! We didn't go in many stores, but did some window shopping (which I learned is "Schaufensterbummel" in German). I didn't take any pictures of this because there were so many people and I was so busy looking at everything. Bahnhofstrasse reminded me so much of Vienna, especially living right off Mariahilferstrasse (although Mariahilferstrasse is not so expensive--the comparable street in Vienna to this street would be Graben). I felt so much Heimweh for Vienna, being back in a big city with so much to see. (Heimweh=homesickness, but I feel like Heimweh just fits better. That's Denglish for you.) So far, I love Winterthur, but I do miss living in the heart of everything.

After walking down Bahnhofstrasse and wandering through a Flea Market (with so many cute antique things!!), we stopped and sat by the lake (Zürichersee) and listened to an American performer while we ate lunch. We had some fresh bread and cheese, followed by a piece of cake for each of us. Yum :-)

This is the Zürichersee (Lake Zürich)

Me in front of the lake. Not where we ate lunch, but the lake nonetheless :-)

We then walked through the Altstadt (the old part of the city) before deciding to go up into a tower of a church to look out over the city. The stairs up to the top were very very narrow and steep, which was slightly terrifying. We started going up about 15minutes before the church tower closed, so a lot of people were going down, which meant squeezing by and clinging to the rope railing for some kind of stability. One woman joked that it would be rather awful if one was pregnant going up or down these stairs, just because of how crowded it was. But, once we got to the top, it was very worth it. I love looking out over European cities because they are not the perfect grids like our cities tend to be. The roads are curved and hilly, making the buildings look haphazardly placed. Don't get me wrong, our grid cities are great for navigation, but I think the curvy, not-so-planned cities are more aesthetically pleasing.

I love the color of the water!

Dorina and I at the top

Dorina and I asked this man to take a picture of us (see picture directly above). He was taking pictures with a large, fancy camera, so we both thought it would end up being a great picture. It's not bad, but he told us to turn our heads to face towards the sun otherwise it would be too dark, which was a good idea, but then we ended up looking slightly awkward. Or at least I did. Oops! :-)

Afterwards, we wandered through the Altstadt again

Steep hills, cobbled roads. Yep, I'm in Europe :-)

After all this, naturally we were exhausted so we headed back to the train station to go home. Tomorrow I plan to just relax and enjoy my Sunday because Monday is the start of school, and I have a feeling things will be quite busy with all of that ;-) Stay tuned for details about school!

My Backyard

I've been here now for about three-ish days. I'm not sure whether to count my 17-hour sleep as a day or not...it's not like I saw much of Switzerland in that time! After my 17 hours of sleep, I wandered around the neighborhood a little bit. I didn't go too far, for fear of getting lost, but I did take some pictures to hopefully show best how truly beautiful this place is. I'm lucky I get to call this my home!

First some pictures of the house:

My bed and GIANT window

My shelves and desk (no chair yet)

The kitchen

Dining room table

Living room

Patio table

Love the view!

Upper-level backyard (behind patio). There is a lower level backyard too, but I didn't really take any pictures of it.

The front of the house!

And now for a couple of pictures from my wandering:

Some cool looking houses

This is what I get to see every day! :-)

I just love it.

Yesterday, Dorina (the other intern), and I explored downtown Winterthur. We walked around mostly but also stopped in a couple of shops. I meant to take pictures but didn't. Maybe next time--I do have a whole year! We spoke entirely in German, which was an odd feeling when I thought about it, because it's been so long since that happened, but it was great! I felt so rusty when I got here since I hadn't practiced my German much over the summer, but I seem to have fallen back into it rather quickly and nicely :-)

Today, Dorina and I went to church together. It was quite a large church but I enjoyed it. Everyone spoke Swiss German (which, if you haven't heard, is quite different than standard German), but luckily for me, there was a headset with an English translation! If there wasn't a headset, I probably would have understood less than 10%. Maybe once I listened I'd catch more, but it really is quite different than standard German. Some of the songs were in Swiss German, though, and I could understand them better when written, but spoken is always harder. I saw after the service that they also offer a translation in standard German, which maybe I'll try next week, if we go back to the same church :-)

My arrival in Switzerland

I’m here! I’ve made it and am finally in Switzerland. Wednesday, August 8 was the big leaving day, but I’m only just getting internet to post this. Prepare yourself for a lengthy entry. It was crazy, as it always is, getting ready to leave. I always have the best intentions to have everything ready early, preferably the night before, but it never works out that way. Oops. There are always too many goodbyes and too many things I have to do before I leave. A year is a long time to be gone for; there are a lot of little loose ends to tie up before leaving. Anyway, so on Wednesday, I got up early and packed a bit more and then got my nails done with my mom (it was my thank-you to her for helping me so much, especially with moving from Grand Rapids to Waterford). After that, I visited my great-grandma in the hospital (she’s okay, don’t worry!), which I was really glad to be able to do, because I love visiting with my grandma, hospital or not. Then, I went home and frantically finished packing, which actually only took me another hour. I managed to fit everything in two suitcases and my carry-on bag. It felt like a lot when I looked at the finished bags, but I have to remind myself—I’m here for a year! A year with four seasons to pack for. A year with no trips home to grab something I forgot, although there will never be something I didn’t forget, no matter how many last walk-throughs of my room or the house I do—that’s always the way it is. And then I was off.

I drove to the airport with Mom and Edward. We stopped at the Bob Evans right by the airport and ate lunch together. I ordered the last Grilled Cheese I will probably have for a long time. Most people over here have no idea what you’re talking about when you say that you really like to eat Grilled Cheese (although I really don’t eat it that often anymore). I wonder if they’re picturing a chunk of cheese being grilled. That would be a weird food option. So, I made to the airport with about two hours before takeoff. Apparently they recommend three hours, but I also saw somewhere two hours, and at least for this time, two hours was plenty of time. We checked my bags, and after a family prayer and tearful hugs, I went through security. Security was a breeze, although I nearly fudged up the new x-ray scan machine thing. I moved too early so they had to redo mine. Luckily that just looked stupid and not suspicious. After that, I made my way to my gate. I stopped at a shop to buy chocolate-covered dried cherries (think Raisinets, but with cherries) as a present for my host family, since in my hustle and bustle I had completely forgotten to get something for them. I thought the chocolate covered cherries would be nice because they’re not only delicious, but also something very Michigan for them. They’ve been to Michigan before, seeing as I met them for the first time in Michigan, but I thought something especially Michigan would be appropriate. I made it to my gate with about 30-45 minutes before boarding and sent my last text messages and called a couple of people. For those that don’t already know, I’m getting a new phone number next year when I get back to the States, so my old one will be no longer. If you have my number, don’t delete it yet, since you never know what will happen, but in a year I will be getting a new one.

Boarding the plane was a little late, but not enough to be irritating. I got on the plane and found my seat. My seat partner arrived shortly after I did, and luckily was not my usual seat partner. I, for some reason, have tended to get stuck next to a very tall man whose legs cannot help but stray onto my side because they are just so long. Being stuck on a plane for 8 hours is not fun, and having less space than you’re supposed to is worse. This time, however, I was seated next to a very nice woman who was also traveling to Switzerland (we were all headed for Amsterdam, so this was not obvious). She was married to a Swiss man and was going back to visit his family with her family (they were already there, I don’t know/remember why). We chatted briefly but she mostly slept for the whole plane ride. I was pretty tired, as I’d only gotten about five hours of sleep the night before and haven’t been sleeping well for the past week or two, but I did not sleep on the plane. I just couldn’t fall asleep—typical. Luckily we had personal video screens in the seat-backs, so I watched The Hunger Games, which I hadn’t seen since it was in theaters. I had a glass of wine (free for the whole ride! but I only had one), which I had hoped would induce sleep. No luck. I listened to Mumford and Sons (a favorite) and the Civil Wars (love them) and managed a 20-minute nap. For an 8-hour plane ride, that really stinks. I tried, but sleep just wasn’t there. So, then I watched The Dilemma, which stars Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Winona Ryder, Jennifer Connelly, and Channing Tatum. It was a pretty funny movie. When that was over, there was less than an hour until arrival in Amsterdam, so I opted to listen to the Civil Wars again. At this point, I was pretty bored and tired of sitting on a plane.

Once in Amsterdam, I had to check in again. My instructions that printed with my boarding ticket in Detroit said that I needed to get my bags to go through customs and recheck them in Amsterdam, but according to the ticket counter lady, I did not need to recheck my bags. That was great because I really didn’t want to pick up and carry around two more bags. I mean, they both had wheels, but I just didn’t want to. I went through the passport control, where all they asked was, “Where are you headed?” to which I replied, “Zürich.” and they waved me through. Easy peasy. I tried to call my Mom but the payphone wouldn’t let me dial the phone card number I had. I don’t know why. I asked the operator for help and he told me to do what the card said (dial the access number and go from there), but the access number was not allowed, for some reason, so I abandoned the pay phone and found my gate with about thirty minutes before boarding time. The airport had free internet for an hour, so I used my iPod touch to send my mom a text through Google Voice to say that I had made it to Amsterdam and my gate. Thank God for modern technology! And then I waited. And waited. And waited. The plane was supposed to board at 9:05am, local time, and take off at 9:35am. We didn’t board until 10:00 or so. The network was down, or something like that, so they couldn’t get the flight plan up. I don’t really know what any of this means, but they said no flight plan=no flight. So we waited and waited and waited. Once we finally boarded, we were told it would be another fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes, they told us the plane needed fuel (seriously guys? who is supposed to be on top of these things??) and it would be another fifteen minutes. At this point I was tired and cranky and just wanted to be in Switzerland! We finally took off and I managed to sleep for most of this flight, although it was not more than an hour and a half. Once to Switzerland, I made my way to baggage claim and walked through the “nothing to declare” side of customs, where I was waved through by an official-looking man and found myself in the arrival waiting area. I guess there weren’t any questions for me, aside from “where are you going?”, which is honestly fine by me.

After a couple of minutes, I found Lukas, the man picking me up from the airport, and he drove me to the elementary school of SalZH, where I met up with Vreni, my host mom. I was introduced to a few people and chatted a bit with some, but was mostly in a tired daze so it’s all a bit of a blur. Eventually we transported my things from Lukas’ van to Vreni’s car and she drove me to the house. She showed me around and we brought my things to my room. I called my mom to let her know I had made it and to pass the word around that I am here safe and sound, since I didn’t yet have the password to the internet. After that, I talked with Vreni a bit, she gave me some more information, and I headed downstairs, to my room, to unpack. I unpacked my all of my bags (yes, Mom, all of them!), which felt great to be all settled in. Vreni told me she was heading back to the school and told me I could sleep as much as I wanted to. I didn’t really think I would end up sleeping for that long, but I thanked her and she left and I headed back downstairs. I showered and crawled into bed, planning to watch a movie or two to relax before napping. I made it about three minutes into Inception and decided I needed to nap. So I went to sleep. And I slept and slept and slept and slept. I woke up every five hours or so and checked the time on my computer (I changed the time zone, so it was accurate), but would then go back to sleep almost immediately. Believe it or not, but I slept from 4pm to 9am, which totals 17 hours. I don’t think I’ve slept that long ever before, aside from maybe when I’ve been sick, but I am not sick at all! Just exhausted, apparently. Boy, do I feel great now! I think I am officially used to this time zone, although after nearly a full day of sleeping, how can you tell? Here’s hoping to no more jet lag. I am a bit hungry though (naturally), so I am going to get something to eat, then get ready for the day and maybe explore outside a bit with my camera.

Notes about this blog

Hello there! Thanks for wanting to share this adventure with me! I will be using this space to update on my adventures in Switzerland, to share funny/silly/embarrassing/interesting/etc stories that happen, and to share thoughts or feelings on, about, and from Switzerland. That’s the plan anyway—we’ll see where this all takes me! The title “Concise Thoughts” is both a motivator and a little joke. While some entries will be lengthy, I’d like this to be more on the “brief, but comprehensive” side, so as not to overwhelm myself or anyone else. We’ve both got to stay interested in this, right? The joke part is from talking to a friend’s father when at the goodbye dinner they invited me over for, and we were talking about the latest trend of the twenty-somethings of today keeping blogs to keep a blog, often without a specific goal, which is fine for that purpose, and those blogs can be great and insightful at times, but that’s not really my goal for this blog. I want to keep you up-to-date with my life in Switzerland but I want to make sense and don’t want to be wordy. Here’s hoping that I do just that ;-)

Also, while I certainly don’t expect care packages, a lot of people often say they will send one. I know that being on the sending-end of care packages can sometimes be difficult if you have the intent of sending one but you don’t know what to include! I’ve decided to keep a small list of things I miss from home or wish I had here with me in Switzerland for if you need some ideas, located on the right side of this blog. Feel free to use them or feel free to ignore them! :-)

Thanks for following,

Jessica