Autumn

It's officially been fall for about two weeks now and that means only one thing: FALL VACATION! It sounds a bit strange that we have 2 weeks off in the fall but I'll take it with NO problem. I still have this next week of school but it's not exactly a "typical" school week. To explain it lightly, it's a project week where the students visit museums, labs, universities, and learn about professions that they might want to study after the Gymnasium (Switzerland's "high school"). I think this week will go by rather quickly. Tomorrow I am seeing BRITNEY SPEARS in Zürich with some exchange students. I honestly cannot believe I will be seeing her LIVE...TOMORROW. Of course I am not the biggest Brit-fan but I think it'd be awesome to see such a celebrity/musician live here. It's also only 25 minutes away from me too, so why not?!

This has been one crazy weekend. Yesterday I woke up early to go to the shooting range in a neighboring village with my host dad. I've never used a real gun before so I was a tad nervous. But, it wasn't as scary as I initially thought. My host dad loaded the rifle, handed it to me, and I was ready to shoot. I did pretty well my first round because I was just shooting at a typical circle target. The second round I shot at a target in the shape of a pig so it was quite difficult. My host dad told me it's even hard for professionals to hit the pig. At least I shot it once! I felt as if I were a real Swiss person taking part in one of this country's many traditions. Later in the day, my host dad took me on a 3 hour motorcycle tour all the way to Appenzell. We were going so fast I couldn't believe it (it's a BMW, hence why we were going so fast), and the scenery around us was absolutely stunning. I honestly don't think I have ever seen such beauty in my entire life. Sorry, guys. Looks like I'll never be coming home. ;) It was also my younger host brother, Tobi's 14th birthday so, later in the night, we had a lot of family and friends to celebrate. I understood a lot of Swiss German at the dinner table which makes me proud and astounded that I'm picking up the dialect so quickly.
Today was another beautiful day with the host family. I'd like to call it a Host Family Bonding Weekend! Anyways, we took the train to Luzern, one of Switzerland's bigger tourist spots. There we took a boat tour around Vierwaldstättersee and had an amazing lunch on the ship. It was rather foggy but, other than that, we couldn't have asked for a better day to go. I'm happy I made friends who live there so I always have a reason to go back!
During the fall vacation (what I am sure of), my host family and I are doing a big tour of Switzerland. I'm so excited I get to see more of what this place has to offer. And one day we are stopping in Germany to go to Europapark, which is a huge amusement park just like 6 Flags. I'm sure vacation is going to go fast and I'll be headed right back to school.

Thanks for reading and I promise I'll try to update this more often!