Extreme Sledding

My day today started about about 5:30am. Okay, 5:45. Maybe 5:50. We all know how much I hate getting out of bed. I am just not a morning person. I never will be.

So, why did I get up at 5:45? (Okay, okay, 5:50.) I was lucky enough to spend the majority of today in the middle of some Swiss Alps. Today was the Skitag (ski day) for the Oberstufe (6-9 grades), and we were all meeting up at 6:45 to leave for the ski resort. The mountain we were to spend the day on is located in Lenzerheide, in the canton of Graubünden, which was about 2-ish hours by bus (coach bus, not city bus) from Winterthur.

As we got closer to our destination, we began to see mountains zig-zagging the skyline and mountains surrounding us as we drove. Well, they were mountains to my American eyes. According to my Swiss friend, what I was calling a mountain was just a really big hill. If it has trees up to the top, it's just a hill. My mountainless Michigan brain can't really comprehend how that isn't a mountain, too ;-)

We snaked up the mountain and piled out of the buses and inside to rent sleds, if needed. Many students brought skis or a snowboard and some brought their own sleds. I was assigned to the sledding part to keep an eye on the students, and of course, participate in the fun as well. (I did not ski or snowboard, because I have never tried either before and am not too keen on learning it in front of all the students :-P) If you've got an American brain, particularly a mountainless Michigan brain, then you might think "oh boy, sledding for five hours sounds not so fun." But you are wrong. Sledding American-style for five hours would be not so fun, but sledding Swiss-style for so long is an adventure.

First, the sleds. This is what I grew up with:

Ahh, classic!

But this is what the Swiss use:

You sit on the sled with your legs stretched out on the sides and steer by digging the heels of your feet into the snow (and leaning/pulling on the rope attached to the front helps a little bit too).

In the US, this is similar to what my sledding area looked like:

5 hours of this would be boring

But in Switzerland, the sledding looks like this:

minus the dog...

If you're thinking "that looks like a track" then you would be right. It's a special track for sledding that goes down the mountain. So, we had to take a cable car up to one part of the mountain, where we then followed the track down on our sleds (or skis/snowboard if that's the sport you chose, although the skiers/snowboarders were on a different track.)

to see this better, go here: http://www.ep-reisen.de/sites/default/files/lenzerheide_ostseite.jpg

On this map, you can see the Gondelbahn, which are the cable cars. The yellow-green-dotted track (in the middle) is the sledding track, with a couple of sharp lefts and sharp rights and a few very steep parts. It was very fun and I was only crashed into by another sledder once (no injuries for either of us).

After lunch, I took the next cable car (labeled "Rothornbahn 2. Sektion) to the peak of the Rothorn mountain, and wow, what a view. I felt like I'd jumped into the middle of a painting. It was one of the most beautiful and coolest (no pun intended) things ever. In the far distance, I could even see mountains that were over the border into Austria. Don't worry, I took the cable car back down--there's no way I would ever think about sledding down from the peak of that mountain, although many people were skiing down from there.

Anyway, talk about stunning. Absolutely breathtaking views in every possible direction. Since this trip was a trip of sport, I did not bring my camera along, for fear of breaking it! As soon as we got there--actually, as soon as I started seeing the mountains (ahem, hills)--I wished I'd had it with me. Next time, though, I promise. Whenever I forget my camera, 3x5 by John Mayer always pops into my head. Always. So, if you ever make it to Switzerland, dear reader, then I will gladly show you the fantastic mountain views and take you sledding down a mountain or two.

Swiss German

Swiss German. Schweizer Deutsch. Schwyzerdütsch. Schwiizerdüütsch. Schwizertitsch. I am sure there are also other variations of this word that I do not know. This is also my main argument for why Swiss German is not its own language, but rather a dialect of German--there are no spelling rules! For example, in church, the songs are in either English, Standard German, or Swiss German (and all of the speaking stuff is in Swiss German...). In the songs that are Swiss German, I notice a variety of ways to spell the same words. While Swiss German varies among the different parts of German-speaking Switzerland, the spelling varies even among the Züridüütsch speakers (Zürich Swiss German speakers). I also notice that in school during Quellenstunde (a sort of Chapel) when a teacher uses a PowerPoint and puts something in Swiss German, the spelling varies among the teachers. Some of them love the double vowels (ii, üü, ää--these vowel pairs do not appear in Standard German) and some don't. It just depends. Although the pronunciation is still the same, the spelling is different. For an example, see above. :-)

Are you following this? Are you confused? It's really okay if you are, because I can relate. I'm surrounded by it! While I've certainly improved on understanding Swiss German (I mean really, there's nowhere to go but up when you start out with an understanding of zero...), I still have a ways to go. There are times where I understand everything that is said and there are times where I understand almost nothing. Yes, that also has to do with which part of German-speaking Switzerland a person comes from, but it also depends on how fast they are speaking and how strong of an accent they have. It also depends on the topic, although that can be true for Standard German as well. Generally, I understand nearly everything said to me/around me in Standard German. So, you can imagine my frustration with Swiss German, right?

It's hard to think of a way to compare this to English, because we don't have that strong of differences. I mean, yes, British English and Australian English are different than American English (and we don't have a Standard English, just so you know. They are all correct variations of English.) Maybe it's kind of like Scottish English (not to be confused with Scottish Gaelic), where a lot of native English speakers find it difficult to understand. Many Germans and Austrians find Swiss German difficult or impossible to understand at first. Some say that this makes it its own language--the fact that other native speakers cannot understand it right away--but I disagree. In order for a language to be its own language it needs to have a correct spelling.

Okay, sorry. My linguistic nerd side is showing. I could probably write a whole paper about this.

My point in writing this is that although I am doing pretty well with my German and have very few problems understanding things when someone speaks to me in Standard German, Swiss German is another story. It's like learning another language. Kind of. I mean, almost right away, I noticed similarities to Standard German and I noticed patterns in pronunciation that were different than Standard German, and noticing them led to understanding the words. But language learning is frustrating. It's hard. Learning your native language took probably about two-ish years before you started producing sentences, and even then you made a lot of mistakes. Everyone probably even thought it was cute. But when you're learning a new language (second, third, etc.), taking nearly two years to just listen and babble sounds is not so normal, and you expect/want that understanding and fluency to happen sooner. Unfortunately, our brains don't work that way (yes, those "Learn a language fluently in 10 days!" are hoaxes.), and we forget just how much time it takes to understand. Sometimes I think Swiss German is more frustrating because I know that it's "just" a dialect of German and, in my head, I should be able to understand it by now (after nearly six months of being here). But six months, in the language learning process, is not very long. Six months actually, in the scheme of life, is not that long. And it's pretty good that I'm understanding as much as I am right now. I've said from the beginning that I'll probably understand it well at the end of my year here. I'm not planning on speaking it at all, because that would sound weird as a non-native, but I did promise some students that I would say (read: attempt to say) "Chuchichästli" (There are probably other ways to write this as well) on my last day here. It means "kitchen cabinet", which is "Küchenschrank" in Standard German. It's probably the most famous Swiss German word that most non-Swiss Germans cannot pronounce properly.

Oh, Swiss German. Someday we'll be friends ;-)

Learning to be a foreigner

Each time that I've come to Europe, I've tried really hard to blend in. I don't want it to be obvious that I'm American by how I look, how I sound, or what I do. I don't want to look like a tourist and I don't want to stick out as a foreigner.

This is not because I want people to think I'm European, and not exactly that I don't want people to realize that I come from the US. Although I'm not a stereotypically proud American, it's not that I am ashamed of being American either.

I have, however, realized a few things.

1. I don't want to stick out because I don't like sticking out. I don't like sticking out in the US and I don't like sticking out in Europe. I just like to blend in. I've never really wanted to be the center of attention. I realize this may sound weird as someone who studied to be a teacher, but somehow, teaching is the exception--and a big one. I hate when the students talk over me.
2. I have unrealistically high expectations for my German. While I have said that I am much more confident in my German and I feel good about it most of the time (today was not one of those days. English kept creeping into my German sentences, and not in an oops-there-was-an-English-word-in-there way, but a blending-of-the-English-and-German-words-I-was-looking-for way, which makes for nonexistent words and strange looks. Not cool, brain. Not cool.) Anyway, I don't know why, but I've always strived to be accent-free in my German. So far, I have not been successful. I've gotten compliments on my accent, but I know it's not perfect, and I've got about 100 students around me all the time who are more than willing to tell me about my German imperfections. Sometimes it stings. Sometimes it's a little verletztend. But it shouldn't be. I've never expected someone learning English to have a perfect accent or to speak 100% perfectly all the time. In fact, most people I know like accents to some extent. Now, I don't particularly think the American accent is very pretty, but I try to remind myself that Germans often don't think theirs are either--although I like their accents. And having a pretty good German accent is better than having a really bad American accent while speaking German.

Sometimes students are brutally honest. Sometimes I am too hard on myself. Sometimes I need to remember that I will never be perfect, but that is really okay and I'm doing okay.

Thank you, God, for a new day tomorrow.