...knock knock?

Hi. Remember me? That one girl, who used to post some things about her life in Switzerland?
I'm back :]

As some of you know, I was away in the US for an epic, month long trip, auditioning for a bunch of different college ballet programs and visiting some other colleges. It was a pretty incredible experience; I literally traveled from New York to California. I experienced everything from 0*F in Des Moines, to 65*F in Menlo Park. I went to four new states, and saw the Midwest for the first time. I had a really amazing time.

I've been back in Switzerland for two weeks now, and am dying under a Matterhorn sized pile of schoolwork, and the impending doom of exams. Spring is finally beginning to creep into the mountains, though! It snowed a couple days ago, but today it was a beautiful 10*C. I was ready to go picnicking or swimming, but I noticed there were still copious amounts of ice around the fountain across the street from our house, and decided to wait another few weeks.

We're planning to go to Paris over Easter, and I am *so* incredibly excited. My French teacher--whose French, not Swiss--has been teaching us about Parisian culture all year, and I've been dying to go (not to mention that I am completely and utterly in love with the movie Amelie, which may or may not have had some influence on my desire to see Paris). We'll only be there for about four days, but I know it's going to be amazinggggg.

Here's some photos from the past six weeks...

Sunset in the middle of Iowa

Iowa is proud to be the location of the World's Largest Truck stop.

Somewhere in Colorado/Utah (on Amtrack)

Utah/Colorado

Utah/Colorado

On the train from Des Moines to Salt Lake City (27 hours!)

The Botanical Gardens in Des Moines (it was 0*F outside, but felt like summer inside)

Salt Lake Union Pacific Depot

Amtrack station in Grand Junction, Colorado... after nearly 20 hours on a train, with 8 more to go!

More posts soon folks, I promise!

the joys of applying to college from a different continent

I knew that applying to be college would be stressful. I knew that auditioning for all the college dance programs would be stressful. But I didn't anticipate having to coordinate and complete it all from 6,000 miles away.

The applying to college part wasn't too bad... once I arranged for letters of recommendations (BIG thank you to Ms. Dudley :D ) and transcripts sent from both California and Switzerland, and once I realized that I would have several extra hours on all the deadlines because of the time difference, and once I stopped panicking about express mailing applications from across the world (and my mom stopped panicking about the price of express mailing applications across the world), it turned out hardly more stressful than your average college application process.

Auditions are another story. First of all, it just seems to be a pattern with ballet that there are always conflicting auditions. Luckily (luckily??) I'm only auditioning for 6 programs, so you'd think it wouldn't be too difficult to arrange. Had I still been living in California, though, it would have been plausible to fly out to Indiana or Utah or New York or wherever on Thursday or Friday, audition that weekend, and get back in time for school on Monday morning, but it doesn't work like that since our move. So we've had to figure out how I can make it to the most auditions while missing the least school... not an easy task... especially since my last audition is conveniently on my first day of ski week, so I can't even use my vacation to audition. So I'm taking three weeks (!!) off of school to fly all over the United States visiting colleges and auditioning. I'm really excited, but I'm also sooo nervous. But that's another story.

I'm also really excited because I'll get to spend my ski week in California. While I loved my winter break in California, it was disappointing because there were still so many people I wanted to see! So I'm really looking forward to catching up with more of you.

On an entirely separate note, we got about 6 inches of snow yesterday! Apparently that was a really big deal, and it hasn't happened in recent years. Up until now, we've only had light snow, a couple inches. But this was incredible... I love it! (I'm ready for some warm temperatures, though. Why isn't it possible for it to snow when it's, say, 80*F out?)

the faceoff

After having some time to get adjusted to Switzerland, I feel like I can give a comparison with a lot less bias. Of course, I'm not really comparing the two--they are soo different. Mostly, I'm just making a list of who does it better, Switz or Cali.

Chocolate:
Hands down, Switzerland. Sorry, California, you can't even compete. Okay, See's is decent. Ghiradelli is a force to be reckoned with. But have you ever tried Swiss chocolate?? Even the Hershey's status brands here are incredible. Hershey's just kinda tastes like plastic.

In-n-Out: Until Switzerland imports them, California wins. No competition.
(btw: I know In-n-Out is a burger joint, and I'm vegetarian, but animal style fries are pretty much the best thing ever)

Coffee: There's no real winner here. If you want to enjoy a nice cup of joe that will last you a good half hour, then go to California. If you want an espresso that will wake you up faster than you can say "espresso," go to Switzerland. For everyday purposes, I like Swiss coffee better... high school does that to you. But Switzerland fails on the chain coffee store front. They don't have Peet's, and while they do have Starbucks, it's about 10USD for a frickin' tall latte.

Peanut butter: do I have to say this again?

Shopping: Again, this is a draw. Switzerland has some pretty amazing fashion. There are kids at my school who won't wear the same outfit twice. Anything strange and edgy is in fashion (including my dad's 40 year old sweater that I wear all the time... I get lots of compliments on it). On the other hand, it is so expensive. Geneva is one of the most expensive cities in the world, so I guess that's no surprise, but it is pretty bummer that there is so much great clothing, but it's so expensive. California may not be caught up with Switzerland fashion wise, but at least it's cheaper!

Trains: Okay, before I left for Switz, everyone raved to me about how incredibly amazing the Swiss train system is. It turns out it is pretty amazing, except for the stretch between Geneva and Lausanne. Luckily for me, I live smack in between Geneva and Lausanne. Thanks to the "amazing" train system, I've missed my first period class way too many times due to late or no-show trains. However, when I got back to California, I was reminded of how inadequate Caltrain is. I can't really give my opinion of BART or Amtrack, since I take them so rarely, but Caltrain is almost never on time, the trains are dirty, the schedule is patchy, and they've got way fewer stops than they should. So Switzerland does win, but I won't give it its trophy until it fixes the stretch between Geneva and Lausanne.

Enough for tonight. I hope you enjoyed your barrage of blog posts that finally came. My new year's resolution is to update more frequently. I'm not promising anything, but I'll try.

Christmas in California

The first thing we did when we got to California was go to In-n-Out. Typical. But I definitely think we deserved it... our trip back was stressful once again, thanks to AirCanada. Why they make everyone go through Canadian customs, pick up their luggage, go through American customs, re-check their luggage, and re-go through security any time you have a layover in a Canadian airport, I do not know! But you'd think they'd give at least three hours to go through all of that, right? Haha. No. On our flight over in August, we had 55min. On our flight on the 23rd, they oh-so-generously gave us 1h25min. But, of course, both times our flight was 45min late. Needless to say, we missed our connecting flight in August. The only way we managed to make our flight from Calgary to San Francisco this time was because they held the plane for us and the three others who were running across the airport like mad people.
So In-n-Out was well deserved.

We spent the next few days at my grandparents' house in Petaluma, and had a really fun holiday with my extended family. I then spent a couple days visiting friends before heading off on a blissful mediation retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains.
We spent the last few days of our time in California frantically trying to see everyone before we left. While it was a really fun trip, it was also really busy, and not exactly the much needed relaxation, if you know what I mean.
Now, though, we're back in Switz (with my brother!), and have a few days before school starts to relax... and write those ten AP Euro essays that I've been procrastinating (I'm serious, though. We have to write ten).

Happy New Year, everyone! 2009 was a pretty incredible year for us, and we're hoping the same for you, as well as in 2010.