Winter Holidays and Dance

Boy, what a month and a half! I have done so much recently, so I'll now try to talk about all of it the best I can.

Christmas: So every year on on the 18th of December my family hosts a very big Christmas party for friends. There were about 25 people, and we ate a very typical Swiss winter dinner called Raclette. With Raclette you put a small square of cheese in a mini oven that sits in the middle of the table (we had three due to the amount of people) and when it melts you put it over potato slices. You can also put small cubes of ham, pineapple, onion, tomatoes, curry, paprika, or even threads of yarn from your Grandfather's favorite hat (which was not offered on that particular evening) on it to make it more lively. It's really up to the eater what they want. We then sang Christmas carols and just had a very nice and fun time.
As for the actual Christmas, here in Europe they celebrate Christmas Eve more than the actual day, so on the 24th we opened our gifts and had a more quiet and peaceful evening. I got two movie tickets, a scarf and hat, two shirts, chocolate, and some other little nik naks from my family back home. It's always fun to get things from home. It was also snowing the whole week before so it was really nice to have a white Christmas in Switzerland.

Trip to Lugano: Lugano is at the very southern tip of Switzerland, and is basically Italy, but in Switzerland. I was with four others, and after 3 hours of train riding, we were there. It was very nice weather and we just walked around and took lots of pictures. For lunch we ate pizza, which was simply amazing. I know I will be going back for summer though, as that is the best time to go.


New Years: This was a really nice celebration party that I spent with my Swiss friends who live in my little town of Bolligen. There were about 25 kids, and I met some other kids that go to my school. It's funny that even after being here for 5 months(!) I'm still meeting so many other kids and making new friends.

Skiing for a week in the Alps!
So because my host family owns a small house in Adelboden, we do lots of skiing. And for the second week of my break we stayed there. The weather was absolutely perfect, and the snow was very good (except near the end when it was too warm and the snow was too soft). It is so different here though, because you ski really inside of the mountains. All around you are just big, intimidating mountains. It really is something you have to see to understand. My host brother is also a very very good skier and so he is fun to ski with. I've also discovered that I'm not so good, as my Nordic skiing techniques and habits are not perfectly compatible with downhill skiing. It's also hard trying to ski and look at the surrounding area at the same time.

After break school started again.

Then this weekend came, and what a weekend it was! I must first give a little background information. So, about 2 months ago a girl in my school wrote me a Facebook message asking if I can dance, and would join a dance group for a small dance competition. Thinking that this was, in fact, a small dance competition, I said "sure" and didn't think too much about it. Well, it turned out that it was a national dance competition. We practiced about twice a week for a month, and this weekend was the qualifying round. We practiced from 9 in the morning until 6 o'clock when the actual judging began. All of the other six groups did a hip hop routine, but we had three main parts: hip hop, ballet and salsa. In the end, we were 3rd place, but only two teams moved on to the final. Out of 200 points, the first group had 192, the second 187, and we had 186. So it was a bit disappointing to lose, but it really was a great experience. For me, it's things like this that really make an exchange year what it is: getting out and doing things you ABSOLUTELY know wont be fun, and yet in the end it was one of the best decisions you've ever made.

That's about it. Lately it's really been going well for me, and I know that the remaining 6 months are going to absolutely fly.

I also need to say to anyone who has sent me a Christmas letter or an e-mail, please know that I am very thankful. I'm doing my best to try to write back, but with the very small amount of time I have here, it makes it very difficult.

Anyways, I wish you a happy new year!