Suiza!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (¡qué sorpresa!)

Having fun in the snow

Amazing bakery 

Heidi statue

On the way to Maienfeld

At the Habsburg castle in Rapperswil

Rapperswil

Zurich

I have a lot of catching up to do, because this past week has been VERY exciting!!!!  I should start by explaining what has been going on with my host family, because let's just say that the honeymoon period has ENDED.  In the past week, I have come to realize that this semester, more so than in France, the host family/student relationship, at least with my particular family, is very much a businesslike relationship. So I don't feel as much a part of the family as I did with Angelita.  Part of what I dislike about my host family has to do a lot with cultural differences (but some definitely have to do with the fact that my family adheres to these rules more strictly than others).  In my pre-arrival packet, Celia talked a lot about the fundamental differences between Spanish and American families, among them being at home for lunch and dinner, not having friends over, announcing when you're leaving the house and come back to the house, and wearing shoes at home.  As for the last of these, for those of you who know me well, you'll remember that I NEVER wear shoes.  My grandma never lets me live down the fact that, when we were going to visit a newborn Tim in the hospital, I refused to put shoes on, saying that, "my mommy doesn't make me wear shoes!".  Well there you have it.  I didn't even wear shoes in the Burrow this summer, and those floors were probably the most disgusting floors I have ever walked on.  And I always forget to wear shoes around the apartment, which I think may annoy my host mom.

I have been feeling, for weeks, like I'm living in an oppressive household.  Not that I mean to sound dramatic, but it DOES sort of feel that way.  When Tim and I were growing up, our parents never really set strict rules for us, because we were pretty much good kids, so to have all of these new household rules, especially after having gotten used to living on my own as a college student and doing whatever I feel like, makes me feel like I'm reverting to a life of intense rules that I never had.  

Then, last week, something more concrete happened to upset me.  I needed to update my blog (and those of you who read it will understand how long it took me to type it!  and how much of my computer's battery I used to do so!!!!).  I went into the front bedroom (my host brother's room, but he doesn't live at home), which is where the modem is (and, hence, the best internet connection), and where there is a plug.  Because the entryway, which is where I usually do my internet, does not have a plug, and my batter was running low, I went into the front bedroom.  My host mom and host sister came in and my host mom, Ines, led it off by saying that, "I don't want you coming in here when Oscar is here this weekend." Well, duh.  And then my host sister, Noelia, said, "well, you're the only student who has EVER come in here.  You're not supposed to be in here.  You have your own room, so you should really be paying for two rooms if you're going to be in here."  Um, okay.  I apologized profusely, explaining for the millionth time that the internet doesn't reach my room and that I just needed to plug in my computer for a little bit.  Noelia was still not pleased.  I was really upset after they left the room.  I've been using the plug in that room every once in awhile since I got here, and they've never said anything.  I was not trying to infringe on their private space, but I'm not a mind reader- how was I supposed to know?  So then, right after that, we had a really awkward dinner, and I also had to ask Ines if Lauren could stay with us (because she's coming this weekend!!!!!!!! And I have an extra bed in my room, so I thought I would try).  I phrased it very diplomatically, saying that I had been talking to my friend and didn't know what the protocol was about having friends stay.  She just said, "no, she can't stay."  That's it.  I was really pissed by this point, but I just said, "oh, okay, I just wanted to check.  I didn't know what the rules were."  So that is the night that I decided that the honeymoon period was over.  The problem is, your host family can really make or break your experience, so it was upsetting to realize that this situation is less than ideal.

Over the four weeks I have been here, I have started to become really annoyed by Noelia too.  She is 26 and still lives at home (which is very common in Spain), but she is 26 going on 16.  She is incredibly immature and really can't do anything for herself, and even the sound of her voice sounds childish.  One particular fight I remember her having with Ines was the fact that she wanted to get a GPS.  The thing is, you DON'T need a GPS in Salamanca- it's teeny tiny!  And she was whining, telling her mom how much she needed one.  Meanwhile, Noelia doesn't really have a job.  She did recently get a job in Zamora, which is about an hour away, but she still lives at home and is around the house all the time.  So she's basically never going to grow up, because she doesn't do anything to increase her independence (even though she would tell you that she's very independent).  So the moral of all of these stories is that I'm very glad that I'll be traveling essentially every weekend for the rest of the time I'm here.  And luckily, I can limit how much I'm home.

So this weekend, I did just that, and Molly and I headed for Switzerland.  Switzerland?  Again?, you may be asking yourself.  And my answer to you is YES!!!! I was able to travel to my favorite country AGAIN!!! My dad joked with me that they should offer me citizenship with all of the times that I've been in the country (let's see, I've probably been in the Basel train station about a half-dozen times, in the Zurich airport twice, in Luzern, Interlaken and Mount Pilatus the first semester, and Zurich this weekend).   And, unsurprisingly, it completely exceeded my expectations!!!  I had been building up our trip to the land of fairy tales since we booked it a few weeks ago, and I knew Molly would love it.  After all, it's incredibly clean, environmentally conscious, and everyone is incredibly friendly (well, everyone I've come into contact with, at least).  But I think it's safe to say that I've converted her!!!!!!!

As usual, our trip began with a bus ride to Madrid.  We were dummies, and decided to save a few euros by taking the normal bus instead of the express bus.  NEVER AGAIN.  It took 3 1/2 hours, instead of 2 1/2, and we were both so tired of being in that bus that we were close to tears.  After a 32-euro cab ride to Barajas Airport (we decided there wasn't enough time for us to navigate the Madrid metro system to get ourselves to the airport), we checked in and caught our flight to beautiful Zurich.  Slightly more than two hours after setting foot on our plane, we were in beautiful Switzerland (although a 60 CHF- roughly $50- cab ride sort of dampened our spirits).  We stayed at a hostel that ended up being sort of on the outskirts of the city, and it was actually the same company of hostel that I stayed in in Luzern.  It is a simple hostel, but has all of the amenities (among them breakfast, which is included in the room rate, which comes in handy, given that meals are so expensive in Switzerland).  Not soon after we arrived at the hostel, it started to SNOW, so obviously, I was overjoyed and just had to go frolic in the snow for a few minutes.  Hi, I'm Kristen, and I turn into a five year-old when I see snow.

On Friday morning, we used the tram passes we picked up at the hostel to take the tram downtown.  We stopped by the tourism office and bought tickets for a tour that we had found in one of our guidebooks, a trip to Heidiland.  Heidiland as in the inspiration for Johana Spyri's novel.  So, um, this tour was pretty much made for us.  We were delighted that there were still tickets left on the day of, only to find, once we got to the bus, that there were only four other people on the tour.  Meaning that only four other people were equally uncool.  Or cool (in my opinion!).  There were two Indians and two other Americans, a woman from D.C. and a guy from Boston, so we all bonded.  Also on the bus was our tour guide, Peter, pretty much the funniest person EVER.  In very heavily accented English, he explained the geographical layout of Zurich and its environs: the Gold Coast, for the ridiculously rich people, the Silver Coast for the just plain rich people, the Copper Coast for the poor people, and the Diamond Coast, for the Chicky Mickey people (the nouveau riche, if you will).  Apparently, even Roger Federer, with his hundreds of millions of dollars, has a house on the Diamond Coast so he doesn't have to pay as much money in taxes.  Speaking of tennis players, as we were driving through what are apparently the slums of town, he said, to Molly and I, "Now, you two young ladies, be very careful of Boris Becker.  Because he has a house in Zurich and is reported to have fathered a child in one of these warehouses."  Well thank you Peter, I always knew Boris Becker was a bad seed.  

After driving for an hour or so, we reached Rapperswil, the City of Roses and home to one of the many Habsburg castles.  During a tour of said castle, Peter used Molly and I as examples of the imperial daughters who would be sold off in strategically-planned marriages.  From the top of the hill where the castle was perched, we could see all of the snow-covered roofs with smoke rising out of chimneys, and Lake Zurich in the background.  It literally looked like a village out of a fairytale, and I realized that we had picked the right place to come that weekend (and clearly, God was smiling down on us when he gave us so much snow!).  We had lunch at a little place that he recommended, because he promised that their cheese pie was very good.  It was actually just okay- definitely not the best thing I've ever tried.  After lunch, it was back to the bus for us, and we traveled through valleys and alongside the Alps to reach Maienfeld, the little town that was the inspiration for Heidi.  We couldn't actually go up to "Heidi's house" because of the snow (so, to our disappointment, we couldn't see Peter the goat), but we did get to stop by the Heidi fountain.  Since I was wearing boots, I trudged right on up the hill, but Molly, who was slightly behind me, was told (by Peter) that "you're not very smart" for trying to trudge up that way.  Molly was amused (later on, he told her that she was "a bad lady", but I can't remember what this was in reference to).

As we left sleepy, snow-covered Maienfeld, Peter was telling us about the organic products that the farmers in the town grow.  He called them "happy products," because they lead happy lives and, if they're animal products, they come from happy animals.  Lovely.  From there, we drove to Liechtenstein, which now brings my principality count to two (Monaco was the first one I visited).  It is literally a one-street principality, but, after showing us said street, Peter told us that he would let the "4 estranged Americans go free like birds."  So we got some souvenirs and then went to a brasserie for some hot chocolate.  Then we started our ride back to Zurich, and, as we drove back into the city, Peter told us, after showing us a club that had come highly recommended (and that we couldn't find again) that, "listen, I know you're all a cultured group.  Ladies, if your man really loves you, he'll buy you a nice, top-of-the-line Swiss sewing machine."  Molly and I were pretty much having a laughing fit on the bus.  

We had asked Peter if he had any recommendations for restaurants where we could get fondue, because we wanted to try to get fondue for Valentine's Day (the next day).  He told us the name of a hotel, but, when we went there, the maître d' told us they were booked for the next day but they had space right then.  So we had fondue, and, taking Peter's advice, ordered what ended up to be kind of an expensive bottle of white wine.  But we finished it all, and he was right, it went very nicely with the fondue!!!  

After Friday's grand adventure, we decided to do some exploring of downtown Zurich on Saturday.  We visited the Swiss Museum, which was actually really interesting and proved to be the perfect activity, because it was snowing pretty heavily at that point in the day.  For the rest of the day, we basically just wandered around, stopping every so often for some sort of hot drink or some kind of chocolate.  Let's just say that we had our fair share of Swiss chocolate on this trip, per Alex's request, of course!  Of particular interest was a visit to Sprüngli, of which there are several in the city (speaking of several, there are also a ridiculous number of Starbucks in Zurich, none of which take American Starbucks gift cards that we were hoping to spend).  They had all sorts of adorable Valentine's Day desserts on display, but, when I went up to the counter to order a particularly cute one, an individual-sized heart-shaped cake with pink frosting and all sorts of flowery decorations, I was told, when I asked, that it had nuts, as did all of the other Valentine's Day desserts.  So I was given the one pastry that didn't have nuts, which was not at all cute.  So I told my mom when I got back that I want to be allergy tested when I get home to see which nuts I actually AM allergic to (other than peanuts), because these pastries had hazelnuts and almonds.  But luckily, my pastry still tasted good.

We made a reservation at an Italian restaurant that we had found that afternoon, because we figured that, for Valentine's Day dinner, a lot of places would be booked.  But when we showed up, we discovered that we were the only non-couple, some of the only people under 25, and the only person not dressed entirely in black (we were both wearing pink and white).  So we felt a little bit out of place.  And then, we both ordered soup and salad, and I'm pretty sure that they took their pretty time making our dinners just to spite us for not ordering entrées.  For dessert, we ordered one tiramisu to share (because the chocolate cake, naturally, had nuts), and they brought us two, so, not wanting to waste, we sucked it up and each had one.  Afterwards, we had strawberry margaritas at a random bar, where we happened to run into our two Australian roommates from the hostel.  We were also asked by an incredibly strange man, who only spoke broken English, if we had Chapstick that we could lend him.  He followed that up by saying, "I don't have AIDS or herpes."  The fact that he said that made me even less inclined to give him my nonexistent Chapstick (and I wasn't about to part with my lip gloss!). The Aussies were planning on finding one particular club and asked if we wanted to come, so we said sure.  The problem was we never found it, so we went back to the hostel, feeling a little bit dejected at having gotten all dressed up in our pink finery for nothing.  

Yesterday morning, we headed home with heavy hearts, both agreeing that we would much rather stay in Zurich for the semester than go back to Salamanca.  The flight was uneventful, and the bus ride only slightly more so.  But Molly's seat mate on the bus was, I'm pretty sure, taking drugs on the bus.  Molly moved to the seat behind me, because there was no one else sitting there and she wanted some space, but I was sitting across the aisle from this guy and he was rolling God-knows what kind of cigarettes and took several strange-looking pills (while his hands shook uncontrollably).  Molly had to move back next to him once more people got on the bus, but luckily he got off very soon after that.  So, at around 7p.m., about 10 hours after starting our journey, we arrived back in Salamanca.  I realized, when we got back, that we had gone an entire 3 days without being poisoned by the smell of cigarette smoke all around us- what a nice feeling!  And I discovered, upon checking my email, that I had received my final Stras grade, and I OFFICIALLY PASSED ALL OF MY CLASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was incredibly relieved, so, at least for now, I don't have to go to summer school!  

If you haven't really been paying attention to this ridiculously long entry, here's one thought you should pay attention to: GO TO SWITZERLAND!!!!! It is the most amazing country in the world!

Sending you all my love,

Kristen