Mar. 23 – The Big Melt

I swear, the average temperature shot up from 3 degrees to 18 degrees over a period of 3 days and we lost 2 feet of snow. Everything’s green now, except for a few stubborn patches of snow on the opposite hill. I am so desperately trying to squeeze in some more snowboarding. There’s still plenty of snow in the Alps.

Another bad thing about this melt is that, for those of you who didn’t know, St. Gallen is in a valley and I live on the very last street at the top of one of the hillsides. It’s less than 10 minutes down some stairs to get into the downtown area, but there’s farms in my backyard lol. So, sometimes it smells…well…like a farm…i.e. like crap. But, I really like where I live and I think I’m even beginning to get used to the smell hahaha! There’s no denying that it’s really beautiful here.

There’s a soccer field next to my flat and, get this, after the snow melted, there were 4 oranges in random spots in the field! I don’t know if they’ve been there the whole winter, but anyhow, I found it very amusing. I also discovered a tennis court in my backyard. I suck at tennis though, and I don’t like all the grunting that tennis players do.

Now, there’s street musicians in the town and sidewalk cafés wherever you go. All of a sudden it seems like there’s more people living in the city. Or maybe it’s that there’s more living being done by the people who’ve always been here, now that spring has arrived. I love that there are dogs everywhere – you can go shopping with your dog, even if it doesn’t fit into a purse! The stamps taste different here. They’re not as icky.

My diet has changed a lot. I’ve never eaten so much dairy or bread before! But, it’s a good thing, because I’ve always been calcium-deficient and the bread is healthy here; it's not white bread. All the dairy food is SO good here! Chocolate, cheese, milk, hot chocolate, and I especially like having yogourt & muesli for breakfast. There’s hardly any low-fat/no fat bullshit stuff, but there aren’t many artificial ingredients either. My flatmate told me about how her dad has issues with milk, because he grew up in a rural area and his parents used to give it to him still warm from the cow. Lol!

Konstanz, Germany - A painted building...Imagine how many touch-ups they have to do b/c of damage from the weather!

Konstanz, Germany - One of the street musicans/buskers. The puppet played the violin with the music...It was so amazing to see the way that it moved

Konstanz, Germany - One of the old city gates

Konstanz, Germany - One of many intricate stained glass windows in the Munster (cathedral).

Konstanz, Germany - Row of houses, oh-so-cute!

Bodensee (Lake Constance) again, with the dock. Again, from the German side of the lake. It's shared with Switzerland and Austria, too.

Bodensee (Lake Constance), when I went to Konstanz, Germany. The water is SO blue, not like Lake Ontario haha

Sunset from my kitchen. Honestly, it would have been even prettier than if I had just taken the picture 15 minutes earlier!

Mar. 20 – To Germany!

Today I went to Konstanz, Germany with Karston, my flatmate. It was a fun day! The city was sooo cute! We took a total of 5 trains to get there and back, and only once did a conductor come through to check tickets. Good thing, because otherwise, we would have felt that we shouldn’t have even bothered to buy tickets. Well, I found out that there’s an 80 CHF fine if you’re caught on a train without a ticket and you can only do it a few times before it becomes a criminal offence. Hey, you always have to weigh the pros and cons ;)

Anyways, Konstanz isn’t that different from St. Gallen, since they’re so close geographically. They didn’t even do any border checks in either direction. Konstanz did have much more of a bigger-city feel and less quaintness. There was also a very nice cathedral, which had such pretty stained-glass windows (see picture). Things are generally cheaper than in Switzerland.

For the first time since I got to Europe, I got to go out for a real meal! We went to this restaurant where we could eat in the courtyard, surrounded by an old building with vines growing over it on one side and a new building of glass and steel on the other side. Nice juxtaposition. Originally, we were both craving coffee and cake, but we were too early. It was about 2:30pm, and coffee and cake here is the equivalent of afternoon tea in England, so they weren’t going to get the cakes for another hour or so. Anyways, we had a late lunch instead. It was so nice to eat something that I didn’t have to spend time cooking. I had a linguine-like pasta with a saffron cream sauce and arugula. Mmmm. It was so good, except for the fact that I got saffron on my cream corduroy jacket, which I think is pretty permanent.

There were a lot of street musicians and all of them were playing different instruments and had different styles. There was even a boy playing a trombone-like instrument and he only looked about 11 or 12!

The shopping was pretty good. I finally bought a pair of black suede casual shoes, which I have been looking for ever since I got here. I even let the saleslady sucker me into buying a protector spray, which black shoes don’t really need, right?! Oh well, I can use it for other stuff. There was also a big mall with a Zara and an H&M right next to each other! By the time I got there, though, I lost my shopping mood – which is a good thing, because I didn’t need to be buying anymore stuff. The stores inside of the mall were aesthetically nice, but the mall itself – with low ceilings and no windows – was really not. Plus, it was so confining to be inside a mall after shopping outdoors in the town centre that we didn’t stay long. I think I really prefer street shopping as opposed to mall shopping.

Later in the day, about 6pm, we went back to the same restaurant for coffee and cake, and found out that they didn’t have any more cake left. Agh! So we just had coffee. Oh, and here I learned that I really, really, really have to watch what I drink before getting on a train. I had to go to the washroom SO badly that I almost got off the train in the middle of nowhere, just 2 stops away from our destination, which would have meant that I would’ve had to wait another hour to go just 2 stops (about 5 minutes). Knowing all this, I had to go so urgently that I was still going to get off the train and I was only stopped by the fact that the train started to leave the station as I got up. I had to use a lot of mental power to hold it until our stop, because then I was only 1 stop away. It seemed that, at that point, it was more worth it to risk peeing my pants than having to wait an hour for the next train when I was just one stop away. Once we got there, I literally ran to the closest washroom. I swear, I just barely made it.

We were stuck at that train station with 1/2 an hour before our train arrived, so we went to a café where I finally got to have cake – a yummy cherry custard tart, but nothing to drink.

Mar. 19 – Chef Amy!

I think that somewhere hidden inside of me is a good cook. Well, I've never cooked before, except on rare occasions (less than once a year). But, I've been forced to here and it's not so bad. So far, I’ve made:
1) spaghetti with olive oil, asparagus, walnuts and freshly grated parmesan
2) tuna fish melts: tuna, red onion, parsley, celery, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, & garlic on St. Gallen dark bread (really good!), topped with tomato and freshly grated Emmanteller cheese, pop in 200 degree oven for 3-4 min.
3) vegetable stoup: lentils, parsley, onion, celery, potato, carrot, zucchini, Chinese cabbage, broccoli, corn, & fusilli pasta...served with St. Galler Dunkelbrot (dark bread) with evoo (extra virgin olive oil) & balsamic vinegar to dip. I had strawberries from the farmer’s market and chocolate sauce for dessert! Mmmm. And I have enough leftovers to last a few more meals haha.

Tomorrow, I’m going to Konstanz, Germany. In less than the time that it would take me to drive to Pacific Mall in rush hour, I can go to Germany! It’s only an hour away on the train. There’s a Zara and an H&M next to each other in the big mall there! There’s also going to be some kind of celebration at the harbour because the ships are doing their first sailing of the season.

Mar. 18 – Ohhhh Sooooo Guilt-Ridden

Today it was at least 15 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Weather like this tends to make people want to shop and buy things, for some reason. It took me forever to get out of my house because I misplaced my keys. I should have taken that as a sign to just stay home and save my money, but nope. I ended up finding them on the windowsill in the kitchen, because that’s where I put them when I was rushing to get that picture of the sunset that I’m going to put online tomorrow. I went shopping and I bought 2 pairs of shoes, a t-shirt, and sunglasses. A pair of white flats with rainbow stitching, a pair of black pointy-toed stiletto pumps with metal heels, a thin white tee in the new long cut with a sequined butterfly (goes so well with my new turquoise blazer!), and a pair of toned-down Jackie-O oval sunglasses (so glam!). I didn’t even end up getting a pair of black casual shoes, which was the whole point of the excursion. This means I’ll have to go shopping again this weekend. I am so over-budget!!! But everything that I bought is really cute! And I’ll make up for it in the next week. Ha ha.

At all the shoe stores here, they display the shoes according to size. So, instead of having just one of each shoe on display and then asking for it and hoping that they have it in your size, you only look at the displays that are your size and you know that they do. I like this because it saves me from disappointment. I guess it’s a lot easier for the salespeople too, but it makes the stores look messier and takes up more room. Also, when you try things on here, there’s never an attendant for the change rooms. When you’re done trying whatever it is on, you’re expected to put it back where you found it if you don’t want it. Basically, there’s not much service. I asked this salesgirl if they had any more black cardigans a few days ago and she said no, but I went back today and they had piles of them! Maybe it’s just her. Hmph.

Katherine, Karston, me, & Martina out for drinks.

My flat is on the right side, on the 2nd floor (which they call the 1st floor here).

The majestic tree heheh

Mar. 17

Martina is going home to Bern today and then she’s leaving for New York on Sunday to participate in the mock UN conference. Karston is leaving next weekend to go back to Hamburg, so he won’t see Martina when she gets back. Katherine left this morning to go back to Hamburg as well. She’s been here since Sunday. So, last night we all went out for drinks. I tried this elderberry iced tea, which was good. There’s something here called panasch (I don’t know how to spell it), which is ½ beer and ½ lemonade or lemon pop. I didn’t try it, but maybe that’s how I’ll have to drink all my beer lol. I hope that I’m not alone at my flat for too long, but then our introductory week starts on the 29th anyways.

One really cool thing that I saw was an elevator for cars in this parking garage!

Mar. 16

Goo is getting prepared to come visit me! He’s gotten his passport pictures taken and things like that. I’m so glad. When I talked to him last night, he said that he was sick with a fever or flu or something. I wanted so much to be there to take care of him because he’s never sick and now that he is, I’m not there! I hope he gets better soon.

Like I said previously, the weather here is beyond perfect. I’m wearing my spring jacket already. There’s never anything more than a gentle breeze. The skies are bright blue and there’s no brown line of smog at the horizon, which I absolutely HATE. I can’t think of anywhere as pretty if it has that line of smog (i.e. all large American cities and, infrequently, Toronto). When it’s clear here, you can see the Santis mountain (3000m elevation) in the distance. The birds are different here and I think that they sound nicer than the birds that we have. They chirp all day and it’s really nice. There’s especially one that’s become my favourite, although I don’t know what it looks like.

Yesterday, I went on a shopping spree. I didn’t mean to, but it just happened. I bought a turquoise blazer. What I really wanted was like a black velvet blazer and a baby-turquoise or green or yellow short trench coat, but what I bought is a combination of the two and still nice. I also bought a raspberry cardigan and a black cardigan because I need the black one at least and because they were on sale: 2 for 1! I bought my mommy an orange sorbet-coloured cardigan. Then, I bought a dusty pink suede belt with a jeweled buckle to match the purse that I was going to buy at my next stop. This purse that I bought is now officially my most-loved thing in my entire wardrobe. It was one of those things where I had to have it as soon as I saw it. It’s a trapezoid-shaped, pink satin clutch with a metal clasp. It’s embroidered with leaves and flowers in peach and fuchsia, and there’s beading to accent certain parts. I love it. It’s me, in purse form. I think I’ll take a picture of it just so that I can show you guys.

There are 4 national languages in Switzerland: Swiss German, French, Italian, and Romansch. I’m gradually learning a teeny-tiny bit about how they all meld together. You can say “Hi” in Swiss German, “Gruezi,” or French, “Allo”. Most people say “Thanks” in French, but kind of slurred, so that it sounds like “Mare-ssy” instead of the way “Merci” sounds in France. Finally, people say “Bye” in High German, “Auf Wiedersehen,” which is actually “See you again,” or “Tschuss” or in Italian, “Ciao”. Oh and to say “Bye” on the phone, people who speak Swiss German say “Aden,” which is their version of the French, “Adieu”. And somewhere, amongst all this, is little me, trying to learn High German because it’s near-impossible to learn Swiss German unless you grew up with it.

Mar. 14 - Settling in to the Quiet-Town Life

Mar. 14 –

I haven’t written anything lately, because I’ve just been enjoying everyday life in St. Gallen. Going for walks, shopping in the old town, reading, having tea, grocery shopping, and cooking. It’s all so simple and pleasing. The weather has just been gorgeous – warm and bluebird skies.

Yesterday, it was so nice outside that Martina and I just went for a walk and took some pics of her favourite tree. I must admit, it is a real nice tree. I have to go back and visit it every once in a while so that I can tell her if it blossoms or not in the springtime.

At night I met up with Till to go to this bar, which I guess we wouldn’t really consider a bar because it was really nicely decorated in this Arabic theme and nicely lit and everything. There was the most gorgeous fountain I have ever seen in the entranceway. It was 2 tiers and each one was scalloped. At each “scallop,” they had placed different coloured roses and the pools of water had rose petals scattered in them. The fountain dripped slowly and it was just so beautiful. I had a fresh cinnamon tea, meaning that they used real cinnamon to make the tea instead of a cinnamon-flavoured tea bag. It was interesting and strong, but not bad and not good. Good experience though. It was served in this leathery-feeling cup with a metal straw contraption. My tea completely suited the mood of the bar.

Martina says that she can tell that I’m from North America because I buy the big jars of yogourt instead of the individual little ones hahah. We did some shopping today. She’s going to New York on Sunday to participate in the mock United Nations forum, so we spent most of the day looking for a suit.

I found out that there’s no such thing as taking home a “doggie bag” what you can’t finish at dinner. Good thing I found out before I actually tried to. Also, it’s rude to not say “gesundheit” when someone sneezes. I’m ok with that. Sometimes I don’t say “Bless you,” because it just sounds odd to me and there are too many religious strings attached. On the other hand, sometimes I say it just to be polite, but I don’t think that people should consider it impolite if someone doesn’t say “Bless you.” “Gesundheit,” on the other hand, actually means “health,” so to say that to someone after they sneeze is to wish them good health, which makes much more sense to me. It’s customary to reply with, “Danke, ihnen auch,” which is, “Thanks, you too.”

Another difference is that the prices here include all tax and tip. It’s customary to round up to the nearest franc, which I do. But, I’m still getting used to this, because I feel like a horrible person after leaving “no tip” and I always feel the need to rush out of the café ASAP and without being seen by my waiter/waitress.

Oh, and about the hot pink cargo pants: I’m keeping them, because I went to H&M and exchanged them for one size bigger. Somehow, that seems like a commitment, so I guess they’re staying with me.

Mar. 12 – Canada Has Come To Visit

Just yesterday, it was très warm and everything was melting. Don’t mine the très – I’ve been reading the ultra-trashy Bergdorf Blondes book. It’s annoying, yet entertaining at the same time. Anyways, you have to be really careful when you’re walking down the stairs. Most of the stairways have trees on either side and they grow over the stairs as well. When the snow on the boughs gets really heavy as it melts, a huge chunk of it will just fall through and land with a loud thud on the pavement, if it doesn’t hit a pedestrian first. It happened just 3 steps in front of me as I was walking yesterday. I think being hit by something like that could very well knock you down. Now I’m really careful and I always look above and ahead of me to make sure there’s no clumps of snow waiting to take out the people below them.

Now, it’s a full-fledged Canadian winter storm outside my window. Last night and today were the first times that it has been windy here ever since I arrived. You know, that type of wind where it gusts around the house and howls to let you know that it’s there. Now, add snow. My poor flatmate is probably walking back from the grocery store right now.

Tonight, I will have spaghetti in olive oil with asparagus and walnuts. And, on the side, fresh bread to be dipped in olive oil. I really have to get rid of all that asparagus. I’ve been having it for 3 days in a row now. Blegh.

Mar. 11

A lot of stuff here is organic. I wonder if my stomach will stage some sort of revolt when I go back to North America.

I’ve been keeping track of my expenses and I have a budget as well, but I just can’t seem to stick to it! I keep telling myself that I’ll make up for it the week after. So far, I’m behind by 130 CHF, which isn’t bad. I did see a pair of shoes that I wanted today though, from Bata. Black suede street shoes…with Velcro! Booya! lol I’ll probably go back for them. I love how the tax is included. Oh and I’ve now figured out that they don’t ever charge anything that requires pennies, since all prices already include tax. There’s no rounding up or down to the nearest five “cents”.

Mar. 10 – Tired.

Physically, I’m tired from carrying 50 pounds of groceries up 3 sets of stairs. Damn! I have to get a picture of these stairs for you guys. I keep forgetting.

Mentally, I’m tired of this. Already. I’ve only been here 2 weeks but it seems like so much longer. I’m tired of taking care of myself. I’m tired of not being able to communicate. Even grocery shopping is tiring because reading the labels is tiring and making decisions is tiring. I totally dragged myself to go grocery shopping today. There’s so much mental guesswork involved in everything. I’m tired of cooking. It’s not like I really even cook, I just prepare food that’s easy to prepare. So far, I’ve made very little from scratch. It’s not that I don’t like cooking, either. I’m just tired of it for now.

Mar. 9 – From City Girl to … ?

First off, Thanks to everyone who's reading and leaving comments! I LOVE reading your comments! Miss u all!

Peep Show

There’s a new dude living in one of the rooms across the road from me. He doesn’t use the curtains in his room properly! Or, maybe he doesn’t have any yet. Geez, it’s like the guy in Friends, except he isn’t fat.

The Continuing Issue of the Hot Pink Cargo Pants

I saw a chick wearing hot pink snowboard pants and they looked so good that she’s inspired me to change my mind and keep them. At least, for now, that is.

From City Girl to …?

I’m still having a hard time letting go of the reservations that I have from growing up in Toronto and from my mom, basically. In addition to all the ideas that my mom has put into my head, I’m on heightened alert because I’m in an unfamiliar place. When I first got here, I asked my flatmate whether it was safe to walk around alone at night and she practically laughed at my question. I know, Switzerland is a safe country and everyone here says that St. Gallen is especially safe. To them, it’s just an innocent and quiet little town. Our equivalent would be Port Perry or something.

Anyways, I have yet to go out by myself at night. Most of the walkways are stairs that cut through residential areas. They’re usually quiet and you might not run into anyone at all on your way up or down. To me, I still think of these as alleyways, and I’m used to the idea that alleyways aren’t safe and should be avoided. But the stairways are the equivalent of our sidewalks, really. Still, I know that I would be a little nervous walking home up the stairs in the dark, on my own.

Also, I always lock the door to my room when I go out, regardless of whether my roommates are home or not. It’s just that I have so many important things in my room that I can’t risk losing (cash, credit cards, ID cards, plane tickets, etc.). When I do go out to town, I always wear my money belt. This is because I have to legally carry my passport on me at all times, at least until I get my Swiss ID card, and I don’t want to go through the inconvenience of losing it by misplacing my handbag or something.

It’s the same thing with snowboards. When I was traveling on the train with my snowboard, I had to put it in this little cargo area near the door. Every time we stopped at a station, I was always watching when people got on and off. It just seemed so easy for anyone to pick up a snowboard on their way off the train. No one seems to lock up their skis or snowboards at resorts either, but I still do. Well, I did, until my lock broke.

Basically, what I’m saying is that I can’t seem to relax and let my guard down. It’s all permanently built in to my head now. But then again, do I really want to let it down? I absolutely can’t be too trusting, especially when I go backpacking in the summer. Wouldn’t it be worse if I did let down my guard and something bad happened?

One thing’s for sure though: I haven’t been so relaxed and stress-free for a long, long, long time. It must be all this mountain-fresh air hahah. For example, today I stayed in all day and I read my first John Grisham novel, which I didn’t really like. Had some chocolate, some tea, some cheese and crackers. But I sat in my room and read all day with nothing to worry about except that I need to go grocery shopping because I’m all out of food (i.e. chocolate hahah).

Flumserberg ski resort from the top of the mountain

My room key at Hotel Tannenboden. How cute is that?! I didn't even know people still used these keys.

Pretty pink sunset...Can't remember the name of this mountain range...It borders Lake Walensee

View from top of a run at Flumserberg. You can click on the pictures to make them huge!

Here I'm in the cable car on the way down from Flumserberg. That's the town of Unterterzen and Lake Walensee. I wish it wasn't cloudy!

At top of main peak at Flumserberg ski resort, 2020m elevation. This pic makes me feel like a pro photographer hahah

Mar. 8 – Too Many Possible Titles and I Can’t Choose One

I am so sore!!! I’m warning you all right now; this is going to be a long entry, but it’s filled with lots of good stuff. I just got back from a 2-day snowboarding trip by myself. I’ve hardly ever been anywhere by myself besides the rare errand or the one time I went downtown before I left Toronto, but yes, I went on a trip by myself.

Monday – Day one of snowboarding at Flumserberg (www.flumserberg.ch). It was cloudy and I couldn’t see much. You wouldn’t think this is a big deal since we have cloudy days all the time in Toronto, but when the clouds cleared in an hour or so, I discovered that I was surrounded by huge mountains that I didn’t even know were there. At this point, I’m asking you to look at the pictures. I swore a lot because I couldn’t believe how gorgeous the view was at times. Seriously though, when I look at the pictures it doesn’t give me the same feeling as when I was there. I wish someone would make a 360-degree camera!

First surprise of the day: On a huge mountain, in Switzerland, snowboarding, and I was BORED on my first run. I couldn’t believe it. No confidence issues or nothing, which I usually have. My first run I went top to bottom without stopping and without any problems. Of all things, I did not expect to be bored. Ok, so now I’m giving warning that the rest of this paragraph has a lot of snowboarding jargon and such, so skip it if you want. In Canada, runs are ranked from easiest to most difficult: green circle, blue square, black diamond, double-black diamond. In Europe, they are ranked: blue, red, black. Europeans say that our black diamonds are more like their reds. I went down half a huge mountain on a red run and the rest on a blue run and I was bored?! I wasn’t yet ready to go over to the other mountain which was all reds and blacks, so I decided to work on my form for a while. One of the reasons why I love snowboarding is that it’s never perfect. You’ll always have something to work on and fine-tune, especially since you have those months in between winter where you forget some of what you learned over the last season. Ever since I started volunteering to teach snowboarding and the training instructor (Jessie) made everyone start over from scratch, I’ve had problems evening out my toeside and heelside turns. My toeside turn is always more aggressive and more tight, and my heelside just takes longer to come around. This totally screwed up my rhythm and I couldn’t progress properly. Finally, I figured it out, while meandering down the slopes: I never led my heelside turn with my upper body, but I relied completely on my legs to do it. Ta-da! Biggest snowboarding accomplishment of many seasons (besides re-learning it from scratch)! I kept working on leading with my upper body, leaning into the turns, weight on front foot, keeping a wide stance, flexion and shifting my weight over my line. My form has never been so close to perfect before!

So, I’m sure most of you skipped that part, but I just have to put in because it’s a really big accomplishment for myself and I’m still really happy about it. It’s one of the reasons why this was a good day. One reason why it was a bad day: I don’t care if no one else in the whole resort locks up their board, I will still lock mine up. So, I lock up my board before going to the washroom. I come back out, put in the combination, and it won’t work. Stand there like an idiot, because no one else locks up their board and because I can’t get my own lock to work and because now this means that my board is stuck to the rack and so I can’t go snowboarding. Need cable cutters. Try to explain to person working the gondola. Person does not speak English. Use hand motions, etc. Does not work. Ask next person who steps off of gondola. This person speaks English, but no German. He tries hand motions, which I have already tried. Useless. Person working gondola gives me a screwdriver. Um, no, can’t do much with that. Finally, find someone to translate and get lock cut. Throw out stupid lock in garbage! Oh, and it’s all very funny to person working gondola and person he got to help me cut it.

Other reasons why it was a bad day: 1) Not feeling well because I woke up at 6am and my body physically rejects waking up early. 2) See a sign for the hotel AT THE RESORT advertising 32 CHF per night including breakfast. I already have a non-refundable reservation for 63 CHF at the hotel that is as far from the lift as possible without going into the next town. 3) Walked halfway downhill to my hotel before I realize that I forgot to return the locker key and they have my rail card hostage. Walked back uphill, dying because it’s steep and I’m carrying so much crap. 4) Went into wrong hotel. This is not my fault. They advertise the hotels as one, when they’re really two different hotels.

However, it ended up being a good day overall because of my snowboarding achievements and one other very important accomplishment. I passed the ultimate test of independence: I ate dinner at a restaurant by myself. No reading material, just me and dinner. I didn’t think I would ever be able to do this and it was hard. I was contemplating starving in my room instead of eating alone, but then I eventually psyched myself up enough to do it and it wasn’t so bad. I even did it again at breakfast! Ha-ha! I am fabulous. Still, I’d prefer to eat with someone else because I just think it’s more enjoyable that way. Also, my room ended up being SO adorably cute and Swiss that I was able to forgive the extra cost – just look at the key that they use (picture)!

Tuesday – Day two of snowboarding. This day was fairly uneventful, save for some weird coincidences. It was snowing, which is always good until skiers turn it into a mountain of moguls. I managed to get in a few powder turns in the morning! It was so foggy that sometimes I couldn’t even see 20m ahead of me and there was zero contrast, so I decided to stick to the familiar instead of venturing to the more challenging slopes as I had planned. On one ride in the gondola, I had a conversation with a guy from London and a guy from Zurich, which was cool. One coincidence was that, in my first 4 gondola rides, I ended up taking the exact same 2 cabins twice each. There are well over 100 cabins on this gondola. The second coincidence was that, on my last train to get home, I sat across from the exact same person as I did on my first train on the way there. Let me put some perspective into this. To get from Flumserberg resort back to my place at St. Gallen, I have to take 2 cable cars and 3 trains, so it’s not like this guy was at the resort too. There are tons and tons of trains in Switzerland. Most lines run every hour or half hour. I almost laughed when he sat down across from me.

Tuesday night – Aftermath. Before I left, my flatmate insisted that I take and wear her sunscreen. Good thing, because I am deathly afraid of getting goggle tan. I think that if I had a goggle tan, I wouldn’t be able to leave my house for months until it faded. Thanks to the sunscreen, no goggle tan, but I did get wind burn as I discovered when I used my minty-fresh face cleanser in the shower. Gotta love that burning sensation.

***gift alert!!!*** I have discovered that the hot chocolate here is SUBLIME. If you want powdered hot chocolate as your gift from Switzerland, let me know or else you’ll get something crappy and useless like a cow-shaped salt shaker. Or, you can ask for solid chocolate bars or something else instead. Seriously, if you don’t tell me, I will buy you a salt shaker.

Mar. 5 - Hollywood in Europe

Allow me to fill you in on the boring errands that I did today. Got my snowboard tuned. It was a million times heavier on the way up the stairs than on the way down. While I was waiting for it to be ready, I bought an entire line of Nivea face products at the new Coop department store in town. Also bought some rosti, which is like the hash brown that they serve at Denny’s. I looove that stuff.

Spent most of the day at home talking to my flatmates, which was nice. Then we all went to see Million Dollar Baby at the cinema, plus Till and Martina’s friend Olivia. I was expecting a Rocky-like movie, where girl follows dream and wins at end. Not even close. Anyways, I won’t spoil the movie, but I like it a lot and I can see why it won Oscars. Disgusting incidents to be expected in boxing movie that I didn’t watch because they’d be burned into my memory forever: two. Almost cried: once.

Now for my cultural observations haha. The movie theatre had just one screen, which isn’t really a big deal. However, I did have TONS of leg room, probably because everyone is a lot taller here lol. Plus, you can reserve your seats ahead of time, as long as you come early enough to pick up your tickets. But the biggie is that they usually stop the movie in the middle for an intermission-like break. I prefer it without the break, but it wasn’t really a big deal, we just chatted about the movie so far. I could see how it would really annoy some people. Also, I was entertained at how people in the theatre laughed at parts that I don’t think people in North America would laugh at. Well, partly this could be explained by the fact that many of them were reading subtitles. I think the other part is explained by differences in senses of humour. There was this one part that I thought was the funniest part of the movie because it reminded me of the dorky kid in Dodgeball, but hardly anyone else was laughing. Oh well.

I’m going snowboarding on Monday!

Me & Till...or, grammatically correct: Till and I. hahah Damn I never realized how much taller he was until I saw this picture lol

Inside of the cathedral. Really, it's much prettier than this picture shows it to be.

Mar. 4 – Randomness

I’m scared. Yesterday, I tried to turn on my computer and when it got to the screen where I choose which user I am, the screen literally melted. From the top middle of the screen there was white stuff oozing down, mocking me because it moved so slowly and peacefully, like a light spring rain. At first I thought, “This is weird.” And then I thought, “OH CRAP!” as it spread down the rest of the screen and I couldn’t do anything. So, like Carrie in Sex in the City (I’ve been watching a lot hehe), I breathed and rebooted and now everything seems to be ok…

Did I mention that I went shopping again? I think H&M is my comfort zone. I love the cheap thrills from their accessories. As for the hot pink cargo pants, I think I’m returning them as soon as I learn how to say that in German.

I ran into an exchange student, Till, that I met when he was in Toronto the other day and so we’re going for coffee today.

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Ok, so we went for coffee. See picture below. It was fun, at a really European-café-type place, which is actually quite a stupid thing to write considering that I’m in Europe. Sally, it was my first encounter with coloured paper towels! Blue ones hahah. He also took me to the famous cathedral which is sooo gorgeous. That picture below really doesn’t do it justice – I’m going to go back and try to get better ones. It’s a shame though, because they seem to have plastered over most of the outside so that it looks like stucco. There’s only certain areas where the original stone façade is still there, like at the front of the cathedral.

View outside of my bedroom window. That's the main town of St. Gallen.

Another town in the distance while on a hike near my flat.

The view outside of my other kitchen window.

The view outside of my kitchen window.

Mar. 3 – Theory of Relativity

Ok, so I think I’ve been here long enough to put things into perspective for those of you who aren’t here. It’s bloody expensive. I feel like money is just leaking out of all of my pores whenever I go outside. I’m scared that I won’t have enough to do all the things that I want to do. Before we go on, in case you haven’t been keeping up with your readings of my blog (tsk tsk heheh), $1 CDN = 1 CHF, roughly. First of all, there is no such thing as a 1 cent coin. The smallest coin that they have is 5 “cents” and cashiers just round to the nearest 5, although I haven’t really been paying attention to whether they round up and down. The biggest coin that they have is 5 Swiss Francs (CHF). 5 CHF is change. The bank machine does not dispense 20 CHF bills, only 50 CHF, then 100 CHF, and then it goes up in increments of 100 up to 500 CHF and then you have the option of 1000 CHF. Ok, I’m not sure if that’s exact but I’ll try to take note the next time I’m at a bank machine for the anal ones out there. Finding a machine that dispenses a 20 CHF bill is like finding a machine in Toronto that dispenses a $5 bill and we loved those when we didn’t have enough money in the account to withdraw a twenty back in middle/high school, didn’t we? hahah.

I haven’t gone out to eat even once since I’ve arrived here. Entrees at restaurants are all at least 20 CHF, even for Chinese/Thai food! There’s a 24-hour gyros/falafel place semi-nearby and those start around 15 CHF. I hear that even Swiss people who live near borders will drive across the border to Germany or Austria or Italy for a meal because it’s so much cheaper. Grocery shopping is a double whammy because 1) everything here is more expensive in general, and 2) they carry mostly organic foods. So far, I’ve had some organic apples and mushrooms. I couldn’t tell the difference with the mushrooms. The apples were good, mayyyybe a little bit better, but they were definitely more imperfectly shaped. I had one that really, really, really looked like an ass. I should’ve taken a picture.

To Swiss people, this all doesn’t really matter because their minimum wage is like 12 CHF or something. To me, their minimum wage doesn’t matter because I’m not allowed to work unless I want to run the risk of being deported.

I believe Mr. What’s-his-face back (Brandon?) at Schulich calls this culture shock. You wouldn’t believe how much I miss things that I took for granted in Toronto – mostly my favourite brands of things. It takes SO much more effort to buy things for yourself, especially toiletries, when you have to look at all these new and strange brands and compare them all on the spot. I’ve never spent so much time deciding on shampoo. Oh, and keep in mind that I can’t read anything properly either – I’m just making educated guesses.

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All About Food

A First – Yesterday was the first time that I tried a blood orange. Like an orange, but different colour and tastes less orange-y hahah. It’s not as much citrus flavour and more watery.

I’ve had chocolate on hand ever since I’ve arrived here hahah. So far I’ve eaten a big bar of white chocolate with strawberry and vanilla swirls, dark chocolate (78% cocoa, but they manage to keep it smoooooth), and now I’m working on an orange milk chocolate bar and a hazelnut milk chocolate bar. Usually I like to keep a few different ones at the same time so that there’s variety. I think chocolate is the only thing here that is relatively cheaper AND better than the rest of the world. Ok, and maybe their transportation system.

I found and tried on a pair of those Jackie-O sunglasses today and, sadly, it’s just not going to work for me. It must be my nose, dammit!

Mar. 1

It was the most gorgeous weather today – bluebird skies and calm J. I had some stuff to do at home, but I said screw it so that I could go outside and enjoy the weather. My other flatmate, Karston, is something like a TA at the university. He wanted to go out for a walk too, so he took me to these short hiking trails next to our house, which I didn’t even know existed. It was really quiet and peaceful in the forest and it totally reminded me of Canada. Well, it obviously isn’t Canada once you come to a clearing and see all the huge hills in the distance.

We walked around town and Karston helped me get some administrative things done, like setting up a bank account and asking about a snowboarding package at the train station, because no one at the bank spoke English. He showed me his favourite café and I had my first European coffee, which was pretty good. The mixed nut biscotti was awesome. I get along well with both my flatmates and it’s nice to have company. It’s too bad that they’re both leaving before the semester starts in a month or so and then I’ll have to see what my new flatmates are like. I hope I’m not by myself for too long because that really sucks. Well, it might not be so bad because now I’ve settled in, but it was pretty crappy the first few days I was here to be here alone.

All day I’ve been debating whether or not to go to Davos/Klosters for Thursday and Friday, which means that I have to leave tomorrow evening. It’s really last minute and there are some things that I need to get done before I go. For example, I really need to do laundry and, if I leave tomorrow, I won’t have any clean underwear when I get back. I’m also running out of pj’s, which I didn’t bring enough of. This wouldn’t be a problem if we had a dryer, but we don’t – only a washer. Ergo, I need to go to town and buy a dryer rack, which I did not get around to doing today, thanks to everything closing at 6:30pm. So, this means that tomorrow morning I’ll have to go to town, go grocery shopping for my trip, buy a dryer rack, come back, do laundry, go to school, setup internet, do some research for the trip, come home, make phone calls, and get ready to go. It’s a bit too much to do in one day.

Actually, now I’ve decided not to go to Davos/Klosters for my first trip because I hear the terrain is quite advanced (it’s in the middle of the Alps) and I’d rather not break something on my first trip hahah (fingers crossed). So, I’m going to head to Flumserberg in Heidiland (in the lesser Alps) just for a day trip either Thursday or Friday since its much closer and with less advanced terrain.

Feb. 28 – Teehee

I’m happy today. I haven’t been in such good spirits since I got here. It was nice and sunny today – usually it’s cloudy or snowing. I actually had a good night’s rest (also the first time since I’ve arrived). Also, both of my flatmates are here now, so it’s more lively at home. Today I dressed a little lighter, because every other time when I’ve worn a sweater I’ve been dying on my way back home. But, figures, it was colder today and I could have worn a sweater and been comfortable. Anyways, did some administrative things…went to school, registered at the town hall…etc.

I actually haven’t been feeling THAT short lately. It’s not like everyone is super-tall. But, when I went to use the bank machine today, I almost had to stand on my tippy-toes to see the screen. So, yea, that made me feel short.

After all my errands, I didn’t have much time left, but I wanted to at least go to one of the two (yes, two) H&Ms that they have here. I can’t believe they have 2 in such a small town. They’re not even a 5 minute walk from each other. I think one is women’s & children and the other is women’s & men’s. I don’t care, as long as both have women’s hahah. The old town area is really nice and it’s all pedestrian – no cars. I went to the bookstore and bought a fun read, since I’m so bored at night. I was hoping for magazines, but no luck. Hopefully I’ll be able to find some at a hotel or something. Then I browsed around H&M for a while. It was so nice to shop there without fighting a million people and waiting 15 minutes for a change room. The change rooms didn’t have doors, though, which I was a little thrown off by. I was really looking for accessories, but they didn’t have any at this one. I want those big Jackie-O sunglasses, a long & bright beaded necklace, and anything else that’s really bright and spring-y – like bangles! I think I crave bright colours every February. Maybe I was listening too much to my cravings because I bought these hot pink cargo pants and a bright turquoise top. The top is a really thin and soft material. It’s also a deep v-neck, with some cinching at the deepest part of the v. It’s nice to know that, despite the prices of everything else, H&M is still cheap! Ummm, I still haven’t decided whether I’m keeping the cargo pants, but they make me smile J. Cargo pants are pretty in here for girls – too bad I didn’t bring my grey ones.

It seems that the trend of the moment here is wearing mid-length pointy-toed boots and tucking your jeans into them – kind of a much nicer variation on the gross UGGS trend we have going on in Toronto. It actually looks pretty nice and I would probably do it too if I had bought those slouchy black suede boots back at Aldo.

Oh and I am going to be SO healthy when I come back because of all the damned stairs I have to climb. It’s so steep on the way back to my house from town that the roads go in zigzags up the hills and the pedestrian shortcuts are stairs. The first time, I made it about 3/5 of the way up on the steep stairs before I almost died. I just start walking on the roads for the rest of the way after I feel like my lungs are going to pop. It doesn’t really take that much longer because at that point I’m going so slowly it’s like 10 seconds per stair. It’s really embarrassing when you see other people having no problem. But hey, at least then they know that I’m not from around here hahah. Today, I took an alternate route which is not so steep but still stairs (ok, more like wide steps) and I made it all the way up!

I also went to the tourist office and I will definitely go snowboarding either this week or next week! I want to go midweek and avoid weekend traffic. It’s really cheap! $70 for round-trip on the railway from my town and 2 days of lift tickets! (Exchange rate is 1 to 1.) Woohoo! Even Blue is more expensive than that! To break it down, round-trip on the railway costs around $30 and lift tickets per day are about $60. Well, I do have a discount card, but still. By the way, I think that $58 for a one-day lift ticket at Blue is absolutely retarded. Don’t get suckered. Go to Quebec instead.

Feb. 27 – Happy Anniversary Hunny!

Feb. 25 – Boredom sets in already?!

Well, I went grocery shopping for the first time today. I’m glad that I won’t have to eat instant noodles again because I’m sick of them already. I’m proud of myself hahah. Not only was this the first time I went grocery shopping by myself, but in a country where I don’t speak the language. In fact, I’m so inept at German that I’d rather read the French labels on products. I haven’t yet bought anything that requires real interaction, like stuff from the butcher or even McDonald’s, but I did manage to speak/use hand motions well enough to get change for the grocery cart from an old Swiss lady who was nice.

I talked to Goo and to my parents yesterday. It’s getting kind of lonely here, since Martina won’t be back until Sunday and Karston is M.I.A. Supposedly, he lives here, but I haven’t seen him yet. I’m running out of things to do. I don’t think I’m jet lagged anymore, because I don’t need to nap all the time. I’ve already unpacked and done my grocery shopping. Now I’m just sitting here and it’s so quiet. I wish I had internet! Hopefully, I can get that setup next week.

I’d like to spend some more time walking around town – so far I’ve only seen a few streets – but everything closes at 6:30 on weekdays, 2pm on Saturdays, and doesn’t even open on Sundays. I guess this means that I’m going to just be staying in until at least Monday. Hopefully when Martina gets back I can ask her about going to Davos/Klosters…yay!

My first real meal here hahah…salmon and salad… It’s a different type of salmon than what I’m used to though. It’s not pink and it’s really salty. Atlantic salmon is definitely better. And now I smell like fish.

Damn! I just realized that I forgot the Happy Bunny calendar that Goo bought for me.

Feb 24 – Still Jet Lagged

Today, I accomplished nothing but sleep. I went to bed at 8pm last night and woke up at 7am. Felt great, had some tea and snacks, and then got reallllyyy tired around 10am and so I went to bed. Got woken up by the guy who brought my snowboard at 11am. This was interesting, because he called the house and he spoke no English, so we spent 5 minutes trying unsucessfully to talk to each other until I looked out my window and saw my luggage. I went downstairs to get it and then went back to sleep until 2pm. Woke up, ate more instant noodle and slept from 4 to 7. Ate and called Goo.

Feb. 23 - What seems like ONE VERY LONG first day on exchange

So the night before I had to leave, I had some problems packing…so I finished at 6am…and didn’t fall asleep until 7am b/c every 10 minutes I’d remember something that I’d forgotten and then I’d get up to write it down or just do it…slept an hour…woke up at 8am to get ready…at this point I have “stomach problems” (the day of my flight, perfect) and I’m nauseous from not sleeping…and I still had to go to TD Bank, finish packing, and CIBC…so…it was stressful…so I’m at the airport 3 hours early because they told me so…so that I could wait for 2 hours in utter boredom :D

the first flight to washington was fine…short and sweet…the 2nd flight was 8 hours or something and it was nighttime for almost the whole flight…and the guy sitting next to me farted over 5 times in an hour and a half…I stopped trying to keep track after that…and not just that, but they were real stinkers…like breath-thru-ur-mouth stinkers…by the end of the flight, he had farted so much that I couldn’t even tell if the air I was breathing was a fart or not b/c I guess my nose got used to it! aaaaand the woman sitting behind me…everytime I reclined my chair back so I could sleep…she’d wait a while…and then PUSH IT BACK UP!!! ever so slowly…AHHH BITCH! so eventually I told her to stop and she did for the most part except for twice near landing and by then I had given up

sometime during this flight it turned into the 23rd…all I ate that day was a few bites of pasta when the dinner service came around…and I slept maybe a total of 2-3 hours here and there

oh but the best part was that I got to see the sun rise over all of europe from 35,000 feet in the air J that’s a keeper

now after that flight with stinky and bitchy I’m in copenhagen…and I have 15 minutes to run like hell to catch my flight to zurich…which I did run like hell (don’t wear sweaters when flying cuz its wayyy too hot when u have to run with a backpack and a carryon) but the flight was delayed woohoo…but oh there was this weird old guy on the plane who gave me his business card and told me to call him…jenny, we’re supposed to visit him in macedonia hahaha

ok so now let’s say I’ve gotten to zurich…since I only had 15 minutes to make it to my plane, I’d already figured that my luggage wasn’t going to make it onto this flight, which it didn’t. I went to the customer service counter and the lady there said that they had it in Copenhagen and they were going to send it on the next flight so that it’d arrive around 6pm. Ok, so I’m fine with this until I get to St. Gallen and I call them and the guy says that they have located one piece of luggage but they can’t find my snowboard. Sometimes, when you know that someone isn’t fluent in English, you can’t tell whether they are insulting you or whether they don’t mean it. That was the situation with this guy. At this point, I had only slept 3-4 hours in total over the last two nights and I’d only eaten a few bites of pasta yesterday and some instant noodles today at 6pm. So, after this phone call was my first official breakdown L. I got over it a few hours later when they said they found everything.

I was kinda disappointed at the scenery, I guess cuz it was so foggy u couldn’t really see much anyways…but really cute/kitschy architecture and the transportation system is amazing/anal…if a train is scheduled for, say, 930…it’ll get there at 9:28…unload passengers, load new passengers…and leave at 9:30 or 9:31…and ppl get pissed when they’re more than 5 minutes late! but its all really state-of-the-art and fast, clean, comfortable, all that good stuff

They really do have Smartcars and they really do park them in parallel parking spots facing the curb! There’s also graffiti here, but really, it sucks in comparison hahah. I’ll try to get some pictures and then we can compare. I met a dude from England who plays guitar at the train station – he was really nice and explained how to get to the school. Another cool thing was that while I was talking to him, these two Swiss girls who were doing surveys came over and started talking to us. They were all trying to guess where I was from. First was China, then America, and then they got SO excited when they figured out I was from Canada. One of them had been to Toronto and the other one had gone to Vancouver and they both loved it. I’d just had my first situation involving national pride and I was so glad I wasn’t from anywhere else (i.e. the States).

My place is barely a 5 minute walk to school and I really like it. It’s so European and although I didn’t imagine how it would look like before I got here, if I had imagined it, this is close to what I would have expected. My window looks over most of the town and the opposite hillside. Oh, but it turns out that it’s a flat, not a house. The floors are all wood and old and it creaks everytime you move, but that just adds to the charm. I thought that I’d be pretty scared to be living by myself, especially being alone at night, but I’m not at all. I feel really safe. I met one of my roommates, Martina, and this guy that lives in the flat upstairs of ours, Philip. Martina went home for a week though, so I’m alone till then.

ok I’m passing out as I write this and there’s some leftover instant noodle (only thing I ate today) and I don’t wanna fall into it cuz I’d be too lazy to clean up.