update #25 - spring break

days count: 270 days left: 58

Friday last week we had minimum day, but since we had a track meet at McFarland we didn't get home before like 8 PM. The meet was pretty big and the track we ran on was so nice.
During the actual break, we mostly stayed home or went on a little road trip to Palmdale.

There's a big field with poppies and we took pictures. It was a lot of fun. After that we just kept going, we went to Santa Clarita or somewhere like that, we don't know for sure. 

The rest of the week we went to Bakersfield or did stuff at home, then on Friday we went to Santa Monica and Venice beach, which was a big wish of mine since a long time, and it was freaking awesome. 

It was a lot of fun and there's so much to see, there's a lot of art and weird people, especially at Venice. 
On Santa Monica pier there's a little fair, which seemed pretty cool. We went there during the day, but I bet its even better at night. We saw the Western end of route 66, which is the longest highway in the United states. It is about 2448 Miles long, which is 3939.6 km.

In downtown Santa Monica there's a lot of little stores, cafe's and all that. There's a really cool thrift store and a German bakery or something. 

My bff Lucy & I 

We also took the dog with us, we planned on going to the beach and swim. We thought that we could take fish into the ocean with us but as we found out we weren't allowed to, which really sucked. So Lucy and I just went by ourselves, and it was really cold, like about 16 degrees celcius.

It was my absolute favorite trip so far and I highly recommend going there. I'm so glad that I got that chance. It was something special to do and its unique. There's a Freakshow and artists and a lot of different cultural things and foods. 
Tomorrow we have the last day off until Summer break, which means I have 7 weeks of school left and one week of Summer break here. Pretty excited for this last part.
I hope you guys are having a Happy Easter.

update #24 - fish

days count: 260, days to go: 69

The past week has been crazy stressful. I have a lot of quizzes and many track meets have been going on, tomorrow we have another one. 
We found a little puppy. He was running on the street in the morning, like a week ago probably. My host mum picked him up. He was starving, you could see all his bones and it was crazy. I don't have to mention that I hate that there's people that treat their dogs like crap. It honestly makes me so upset.
Okay, whatever, we named him fish. He's a mix of a Pit bull and Lab, and he's hella cute.
We're all so in love with him and he's doing way better than a week ago. He loves riding in the car with us, playing with other pups and sleeping. 

However, as I already mentioned, track is getting busy, but it seems like we're making progress. 

On the last meet on wednesday, Nadja and I qualified for a big meet tomorrow at a college in Bakersfield. So, I think the practice finally shows off.

honestly the worst picture ever

All exchangers got their homebound flight informations, and not that it's like bad here or anything, but we're honestly all ready to go home. Not in a bad way though, we just miss our friends and family and like the cultural things. I even miss Swiss schools haha, never expected that to happen. We're like at the point where the year is about to be over and where we're like totally fine with it. Obviousely I'll really really miss my friends and my family here though. I think the whole situation will change multiple times, the day when I'm gonna leave, I will want  to stay I'm pretty sure. Whatever, there's still a lot of time. Tomorrow is a minimum day, but the track athletes have a meet, so it will get kinda late.
And then we have a week of spring break.

update #23 promposal/rush

days count: 253, days to go: 76

Last wednesday we were supposed to have a track meet at Independence High School in Bakersfield. Right after the meet started, it began to rain really hard. It got cancelled and we went home.
The rest of the week was pretty normal, we went to my host brother's baseball games etc.

On Saturday we had another meet at Taft Union. I met another exchange student from Switzerland there, he lives in Taft and came to cheer. The meet went pretty well, THS had decent results.
After we got home, my host siblings cousin came to visit. He lives in northern Oregon and came here with his grandma. We went to my host brothers baseball game and got some food. After he game was over we went to pizza.
On sunday, we went to a place called rush (I already mentioned in one of the december updates I think) and just had fun there, even though my host sister and I were sore.

This week started off with a rough track practice on monday, but when I got home my friend was standing in the door with a really cute proposal on a poster. 
I am honestly so excited for prom, it might be the highlight of every exchange student's year haha.

update #22 - just a bunch of stuff

days count: 245

Last week was pretty normal. Just going to school, track practices and a track meet on Wednesday. I started doing long jump as an event in track, so now I'm running the varsity 100 and 200m sprints, as well as long jump. I also got my prom dress and the invitations today at school. On Friday I went to see Beauty and the Beast in the movie theatre. The movie was awesome.
After that, we went to Starbucks and met some friends and hang out with them.
We were outside and the dog got sprayed by a skunk. It was a really weird situation & it smelled really bad, but it was funny. On saturday we basically didn't do a lot, we just studied and stuff. I'm taking my first final exam for my last semester this thursday. We're pretty busy in all the classes, we have a bug project (which is disgusting tbh), we're learning much new music in choir for the last concert in spring, taking benchmarks etc and we'll probably participate in LipSync with the aerobics P.E. class I'm taking. 
Saturday evening, we watched a scary movie with the same guys as we hung out the day before. 
On Sunday morning, my host dad and my two host siblings went shooting and they took me as well. It was honestly amazing. Like, it's not something I would be passionate about, we just shot like gun shells and bottles etc but I will definitely do it again, it was sososooossos much fun.  I honestly can't believe that my journey will be over in about 84 days, time literally flies. And I'm really sorry, the updates are really boring haha.

update #21 Mr Warrior

days count: 235

Today was the last day of my third quarter in THS. We got some informations about senior year (I wish I could be a senior omg) and just stuff like that. In the beginning of the week we had a few track practices, but not today and yesterday because of something I'll talk about later. Track is so much fun and the people are really nice. Personally I think it is way more fun than cross country, but its only because I'm not that into long distance.

Today we had an assembly called Mr Warrior. It's like a competition between 26 senior boys, the winner is Mr Warrior. There's certain categories every competing guy has to pass. Every guy has an escort, who has to be a senior. They have a couple dances, most of them just with the other guys, then there's one with their escort and one with their mum, and it is adorable.
The winner got free prom tickets and stuff.
Yeah, just a really short update I guess…

update #20 - vegas/ first track meet/ knott's berry farm

days count: 230

I don't really know where I stopped, but  whatever. I don't even know how to blog, so I have no idea what I am doing here but who cares (…) I'll just tell what I remember.
There is some personal that I just don't want to talk about, so if some things don't make sense I apologize. Okay, I'll just start.

I went on the EF Las Vegas / Grand Canyon trip with many other Exchangers. (No clue if this word even exists..) We got picked up by a bus and after a couple hours we were in our hotel, which was on a road next to the strip. We basically just had to go through the MGM hotel, or more like the actual casino and we were there. The hotel we stayed at had a hot tub and a pool. I shared a room with Vendela and Nadja (both of them attend my high school) and four other girls from other places in Cali, and one of the IEC's that went on the trip with us. The evening we got there, we went straight on the strip. It was the second time we've been there for Vendela and me and the first time for Nadja, so it was still pretty exciting. Las Vegas is, besides Paris, which is actually also in Vegas lol, my favorite city ever. You can never see everything because there's so much going on and things always change.
Okay, back to business,we spent our whole evening there, our curfew was ten.

Sunday morning, we went to an outlet mall, after we got home, Vendela, Nadja and I went to the planet hollywood mall on the strip. On monday, we got up earlier and took the bus to Arizona. The Grand Canyon is just an insane place to see. It's incredibly beautiful.

As you can see, it was pretty chilly

My girls & I,
no clue what's wrong with my legs though

So, we just spent some time there. 

We got back to Vegas at about 5, we went to the strip and then to the Hard Rock Café where we all had dinner together. After dinner, the bus picked us up and we went to the famous Las Vegas sign, we had a little photo session there. I still don't have the pictures, I'll post them when I get them. 

Can we just take a second to talk
about how beautiful Arizona is?

Tuesday morning, we took off to go back to California.
Okay, I don't really want to talk about it, I'll just keep it short and say that I don't live at my old host family's house anymore. I won't say anything more about that.

Okay, so Wednesday I went back to school, and after school I had my first track meet at Ridgecrust College. It was pretty fun and I'm just going to be honest, I like track way more than Cross Country. But I'm actually not a big runner, so I just suck but that's okay.

Saturday, one of my friends celebrated her birthday, which is today, in a place called Knott's berry farm, which is kind of like six flags. We couldn't do many rides because we were in line for each one for at least one hour, so we did like 6 rides on one day.
Sunday I didn't do a lot, just studying and my host sister and I cooked pasta.

I don't know why the post is so short, even though I had a lot going on, but yeah.. Can't believe I only have 3 months to go. And sorry, I have no idea why parts of the post are orange and I hate myself for it, because every single post takes me about an hour but I can't even fix this. Sorry

update #19 -high school sports

days count: 208

I know the last update was just yesterday, but I figured that I have a lot of time right now, so I'll just make a post about the sports at my high school.
So basically, the school year starts off in fall or more like August, but we call it fall sports. Every high school is different, but in Kern County we have Volleyball for girls, Tennis for girls, Cross Country for girls and boys and obviously American Football during fall, which is until mid of November. There's also cheerleading but that's only during Football and Basketball season and it doesn't really count as a sport. 
During winter, my high school offers Basketball and Soccer (=European Football) for boys and girls, and for the boys there's Wrestling. 
This week the spring season is starting off, my school offers Base-/Softball, Track and Field and Swimming for boys and girls and it is Tennis season for boys. 

To get into a team, you have to go through 'Try-outs', which is especially for team sports, I didn't have try-outs for XC or track. Depending on what grade you're in, you get into a Frosh/Soph (Freshmen & Sophomore), Junior Varsity (=JV, Junior) or a Varsity (Senior) team. If you're a Freshmen or Sophomore (that's 9th and 10th grade), you get into a Frosh/Soph team or above (which means if you're really good in the sport you're trying out for, they'll put you into JV or Varsity). Most people that are Freshmen or Sophomores get to do the sport they're trying out for. If you're in 11th grade (which means you're a junior) you have to make the JV team, you cannot get into a level that's meant for underclassmen, so you have to do good at the try-outs, otherwise you won't be able to practice that sport or compete other high schools. The seniors have to make the Varsity team in the sport they're trying out for, which is really hard. Everyone can make the Varsity team, if a Freshmen is really good at American Football, he gets into the Varsity team, so there's less spots left for upper classmen. In a Frosh/Soph team they're always looking for more people to try out, so basically everyone gets in. 

In every sport, the high school offers 'meets' or 'games', so you compete other high schools. For example: You're playing JV Basketball, so you get checked out of school earlier on a wednesday because the school bus that takes the whole team (Frosh/Soph, JV and Varsity) to another high school in a different city (which is mostly Bakersfield for us) and that takes about an hour. So most of the time you either leave 6th period or you don't even go to 6th period and go to the bus during lunch time. If you are late, the team waits for you & people get mad (especially the driver and the coach, yep happened to me.) As soon you get to the school where the game is, the Frosh/Soph team plays the Frosh/Soph team of the school. The JV & Varsity team watches and cheers. 
In Cross country and track its different because its not a team sport, so there's a bunch of schools on one spot and you just run against like 30-200 other people. And it is really hard to watch XC because the athletes run between 2 and 3 miles on a course, not on a field. Track is the same, but you run laps around a football field, so you can watch it.
At the meets or games or whatever, they sell shirts and stuff. After the last team or athlete competed at the event, they sometimes hand out medals or trophies. Then everyone gets back into the bus (that's often late at night) and the whole team goes to a fast food restaurant (for example In n' out burgers, Panda Express, Jack in the box,..) or some people go to Walmart and get fruits and stuff to eat in the bus. You're actually not supposed to eat or drink in the bus though. The bus seats are not comfortable, Freshmen and Sophomore have to share their seats if there's not enough free spots (which sucks because then you can't even sleep). 

To be honest, I think sports in general are way harder here than in Switzerland (or I just practiced the wrong sport there, who knows). You practice every single day during the week except the gamedays and on the weekends you have meets too. So the only day you get off is either saturday or sunday.
You cannot skip practice just because you don't feel like going or you're having a cold. Practices are really hard. You get to your limit every single day. Team spirit is also really important, people push each other, even if they're from another school. 
On game days, you wear your jersey's/cheer uniform/whatever or at least your school colors. 
The meets in Bakersfield are always hard, because it is about 32 degrees when we're running and you basically die.

At the end of a season, there's a banquet. They'll hand out trophies f.e. biggest progress etc, everyone brings something to eat and they put everything on a table and you just eat together and the coaches say something about every single athlete. You get a diploma and all that stuff.

You do not have to play any sports at the school. There's benefits if you do, but if you don't feel like you don't need to. The benefits are mostly like that you get a bigger locker to put your stuff in, you miss school sometimes and you don't need to make stuff up, you meet a lot of people and make good friends. (The closest friends I have are the ones I met in cross country) and you obviously are fitter and you feel better. Especially if you're an exchange students the last two points are really important, because you're new at the school and its nice to have people to hang out with and you'll also gain some weight.

If you decide to not do any sports after school, you can put a P.E. (=Physical Education) class into your schedule. That's like a sports class in Switzerland, but its a serious work out and you practice every day. My P.E. class is aerobics and sometimes it is really hard, because we work with weights and stuff.
I just realized that I've been typing this little text since about an hour, lol. 

Today was the last day of pre-season (which is like conditioning, so they just make the practices really hard so you'll be in shape) of track and it was the first practice I went to, the other ones got cancelled because of the weather. Track and Field is 'Leichtathletik', so you do sprints, jumps, you throw stuff or you run long distances. 
Today we did two warm up labs, that's 800 meters. Than we stretched, then we ran another 800 meters. Than we did jumping jacks and all that stuff for like 20 minutes, it was pretty rough and I thought it was the actual work out. Then we started the real practice. We ran 2 times a 100 meter sprint, then we ran 2 times a 400 meter sprint, then two 200 meter sprints, then 2 more 400 meter sprints and then again 2 x 200m and 2 x 100 meters. Between every sprint we had a break of 2 minutes. After the sprints we stretched again. For me, the practice was pretty hard, some of us felt sick and blacked out, one girl threw up. I'm really excited for the season though, because the meets are fun. 

update #18 - spirit week & sadie hawkins

days count: 207

This week we had spirit week at my high school. You basically dress up every day, like animal style on monday, tuesday was tie dye tuesday, wednesday it was crazy hair day, thursday was twin day and friday was color day.

Tie-dye tuesday
 w/ my favorite Dane

The spirit week was actually because of the battle of the sexes, which was yesterday. Its an assembly, which means we have an assembly day schedule, so every period in very subject is shorter. They are about 47 minutes each, which is pretty short. After 6th period, everyone went to the gym where the actual assembly was. All the girls were on side of the gym and the boys on the other one. The gym was divided into 2 by a wall in the middle of it. It was amazing, every single girl wore pink, all the boys wore blue and the transponders wore white. Everyone had face paint on with their colors. 

The battle of the sexes is basically just a huge event in our school where girls compete against the boys in different games. At the beginning its dancing, each gender has a dance group. Then they cheer, the boys started off.
They did a bunch of stunts and I personally think that the boys did way better than the girls. 
The girl's show was still really impressive though.
After the cheers, we had a pep rally, that's where it's like about screaming louder than the other group. 
Then we did like bottle flip and some games with music.
It was a lot of fun & the girls won.
               
After the assembly was over, I went home with my host mum, she watched the assembly because my host brother was one of the boy's cheerleaders. 
              

My host cousin & siblings & some friends picked me up & we went to get food. 
After that we went to the senior-night varsity basketball game of my high school vs. Bakersfield Ridgeview High.

              

It was our last game of the year and it was also the first one I ever went to. We lost the game. ¨


On Saturday night we had Sadie Hawkins.

 

Things that seem strange in America if you grew up in Europe

So I felt like its time to post something like this again. I've been here for almost seven months now and I can relate to all the following things.

24 hour stores:

When I first got here, I was really confused when my host mum took me shopping to a mall on a sunday. Basically every store is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

No cash:

People never use cash to pay anything, except if it's like a little kid. But in America, you actually only use your master card or whatever, no matter what you're buying. Even if it's just a cookie or something.

No metric system:

America doesn't use the metric system like we do, they have ounces, miles, fahrenheit and all that stuff. People told me that they wish they'd use our system. Its really confusing.

Weird food combinations:

People here dip their fries in their milkshakes when we're at in n' out burgers or any fast food restaurant. It's strange to me, I tried it once, but I cannot relate why they do that. That's not the only weird combination though.

Greetings:

Every time I'm in a store, the clerks say "How are you", but its not meant as a question, its the American way to say hi. Your response is basically just "I'm good, how are you?", no matter how you're actually feeling. 

Drinks:

First of all, the drinking age here is 21, which seems weird to me because I'm sixteen and able to buy alcohol in my home country. Its normal to drink a lot of soda (like coke, sprite, dr pepper,…) here and to put tons of ice into the cups. You get free refills everywhere and you never have to pay for water. 

Tipping/Taxes:

You always need to pay people in restaurants that serve you extra. Like, you pay them for doing their job and it doesn't say how much it has to be on the recipe. 
Same thing with taxes, you don't pay the price it says on the sign, at the checkout its always a different price and it freaking confuses me. 

Coins:

Every coin has a different name, for example the 10 cent coin is called dime, but it has a smaller size than a five cent coin which is called nickle. And the dollar bills look basically all the same.

Clothing:

People wear workout clothes even if they're not at the gym, flip flops even though they're not at the beach and they go to stores in their pajamas. It seemed strange to me, but now I'm doing it as well.

Patriotism:

The American flag is literally everywhere. In every single classroom, on almost every house and on many bars. They sing the national anthem before every football game and say the pledge of allegiance every morning in school. Big difference to europe, I feel like we need more patriotism. 

Pets:

I feel like everyone has at least one pet, many people have dogs and cats. What's strange to me, is that they don't walk their dogs. Most of them live in the backyards of people's houses. 


I hope you guys don't get me wrong, those are just some cultural things that I wasn't used to until a few months ago. Europe must also seem really strange to Americans (f.e. paying for going to a public bathroom, no refills,..)

update #17 - super bowl

days count: 202
Its been a while since the last update I guess, like exactly a month. I just needed a break, I went home to Switzerland (you're actually not supposed to go back during your year abroad with EF, I had some private issues). The flight was kind of long, but it was fine.
The past week was hard because I had to get used to the time difference and to school, have to make up a lot of work and just get into it again. Its also way warmer here than back home, its between 15 and 20 degrees Celcius every single day, two weeks ago there was still snow and now we're going to school in t-shirts and some people even wear shorts. So I left all my winter clothes at home.



The weekend we watched the super bowl. That's like the final game of this year's football season in the United States. It was the New England Patriots against Atlanta's Falcons.
We went to some friend's house and watched it there and ate lots of food.

This week we're having spirit week at my high school, which means we have a new topic every day and we all dress the same. Its almost like homecoming week. On saturday there's a dance called Sadie Hawkins.

I asked my best American guy friend to go to Sadies with me. Its a dance where the girl picks a guy and then you wear matching shirts. I think it will be fun. Prom is coming up too, so we're already looking for dresses.
The following week, Selina is gonna come here again because we're having a four day weekend and a few days after there's the Las Vegas/Grand Canyon trip.

update #16 - beginning of the last half

Days count: 171
Last tuesday, school started over. The first day was kinda hard because we had to get up early and since I haven't really worked out for two weeks I felt pretty weak. Anyways, I was really happy though because I got to see all my friends again. But it was also a lot of fun to spend time with my host family during the break. Basically all my teachers set up new rules, some also made a test on the first day (reminds me of my high school in Switzerland), or they announced one. 

I actually don't really have something to tell…

We got our mid term progress report cards (Zügnis?) yesterday. All my grades are above average, but I'm not that happy with it.

It was raining the whole week, but that's actually good, because California is really dry and has water problems. 

Soon there's going to be battle of the sexes, sadies (like a dance event where the girl asks the boy) and evening of the arts. And spring sports season will start as well, I don't know what I will do yet, I'm thinking about swimming or track and field. 

I don't really know what else to write, this is like the shortest update ever ^^

my host family's kitty

sunrise

If you're interested in spending a year abroad with EF, sign up and visit an information meeting in a city near you now, there are only a few free spots left. http://www.efswiss.ch/de/

update #15 - Christmas break/ New year's eve

Days count:166
Happy new year guys!

So lets continue this update right after where I quit my last one.

I had 2 weeks of christmas break now. 

The day after I went to Bakersfield with my International Exchange coordinator, I went to Bakersfield again with some of my friends. We went to in-n-out burgers, then we went bowling and after that we watched Rogue one at the iMax movie theater. We got home at like 2 AM, because it was a 50 minutes drive from Bakersfield to where I live.

Another day, went to my IEC's house and we baked christmas cookies and stuff with all the exchange students in town.

The day after, the Danish exchangd student & I went to a friend's house and we baked brownie's and ordered pizza.
My first American christmas was great. It was snowing that day (yes, there is snow in California) which made me happy, even though I don't like snow. 

We ate cinnamon bead and got lots of presents. Our christmas was on the 24th because my host dad worked the 25th. I got a traditional American stocking from Santa. the next day, we went to my host mum's parents and got more presents and played games and stuff.

Last sunday, my friend Selina, who I know from home and who spends her exchange year in Sacramento came to visit us here. Her trains got delayed a few hours and it took her about nine hours to get here with the trains and busses. We picked her up at the bus station late at night. 

The next day, a friend came over and she took us to a few places in town, we got Starbucks and sandwiches, and stuff to make necklaces and tie-dye shirts. After that, another friend picked Selina and me up and we went to Mc Donald's. 

We spend the evening watching a scary movie and watching a friend playing Outlast on the xbox. 

The morning after, we decided to go to rush in Bakersfield, which is like a place with a lot of trampolines and cool stuff. 

It was awesome, and I realized how much I miss gymnastics, I'll start soon.

The following day, my host mum took her, two of my host siblings and me shopping, but we didn't really like buy stuff.

The last day she was here, we didn't really do anything, we just watched Netflix and talked. 

She left back to Sacramento yesterday, and as well the other Swiss exchange student that lived here went home, but she went to Switzerland, so I'm basically the only Swiss here now. 

Yesterday was new year's eve and we went to some family friends house. I don't feel good since a few days, I have a cold, so I didn't go out with my friends or anything. I just talked to people there and we watched the countdown on the TV and yeah… After that, some people took their clothes off and jumped into the snow. I went to bed early because I felt ill. 

School starts on Tuesday, tomorrow I'll hang out with one of my best friends here.

I hope 2017 will be successful for all of you, god bless you & may all your dreams and wishes come true.

I am so sorry, I have no idea what happened to the layout of this post, I typed it twice and I tried literally everything I could but I can't fix it. I hope you can still read it..

update #14 - Hunington Beach/mid term Finals week/ Swiss Traditions

Days count: 154
It's been a while since the last update, so there's a lot to tell about. By the way, yesterday was half-time of my time here.
So, we went to Hunington beach, which is near Los Angeles, because my host mum had a cross fit competition there. We got out of school earlier, it took us like 4 hours to get there, but we stopped in Valencia to have lunch. Basically we just drove around and had dinner somewhere in Long beach I guess, after that I took care of some friends kids. The next day, we went to Hunington and cheered for my host mum at her competition. For dinner we went to Hooters. 
The next day, we headed out home, but we stopped at a mall and we went to visit my host mum's sister.


Monday after our little trip, our mid term finals week started. Monday and Tuesday we had our usual schedules, Wednesday we wrote exams in Aerobics and US History. On Thursday we I had my finals in Biology and Choir (but my teacher quit, she told us on that day, so I'll probably have another fifth period after Christmas break, I don't know yet). On the last day, I had Algebra and English. 
To be honest, I feel like the tests were easy. It's still hard, because you have a 90 minutes test in every subject and this every day twice, you have to study, because if you fail there's no way you can pass that class. 

We baked Grättimänner on Thursday, my host sisters cousine came over and we made some. Actually, the cat ate them, so we only had a few. They really liked them though.

On Sunday, we had Kingsbury Christmas, which is the Christmas party of my host dad's family. They're all firefighters, that's why it is hard to find a date where everyone is off work, that's when they celebrate it. 

We had breakfast at the house where the party was, then we got presents. Everyone got a little box with their name on it and presents from the grand parents in there. I got a lot of nice things, I have no clue how I should get all that home. 

On Monday, the IEC (=International Exchange Coordinator) of this town took some of the Exchange students on a christmas shopping trip to Bakersfield. 

Yesterday night, we made traditional American Sugar cookies. We made the dough by ourselves and then we decorated them. It is not the same as in Switzerland, because they make different kinds of cookies than we do and they decorate them way more. It's kinda like a party, because you invite friends to do it together, then you have dinner with them and stuff. 

      

I am part of the EF High School Exchange Year Ambassador Program in Switzerland. If you are interested, there's still time to sign up for an exchange year in Ireland, England or the US. http://www.efswiss.ch/de/highschool/

update #13 - christmas parade

days count: 137

Okay so this week started off pretty usual, just high school. I've had many test because I had to make up some that I missed when I was absent from school. 
On monday it was 'Cyber monday' which means every online store has everything 50% off, so I bought christmas presents and stuff. On tuesday we had our cross country banquet, which means cross country season for 2016 is definitely over & everyone got their certificate and stuff.
On wednesday we didn't do anything special, but on thursday I went to the junior high choir concert for my mixed choir final, so we had to do our concert critique. The high school choir concert is going to be the following thursday.
Friday we didn't do a lot, but yesterday I hang out with two of my friends. One of them just got her license, so we got starbucks and went to a little store in downtown Tehachapi & got stuff to make necklaces by ourselves. After that we ate pizza & went to the christmas parade, and after that to a house which was really decorated with lights, so the made a light show.
Today we went to a gender reveal party. It was really exciting and there were many good desserts, everything in blue and pink. The reveal was really cute, they had a box which they opened and the color of the balloons that flew out said if it's a girl or a boy. Actually I was dressed pink, but it's gonna be a boy.
I have one more week and then it's finals week, which means I'll probably mess up 'cause I'm not ready for that, lol.

Differences between my home country and the United States

This post is not to judge any culture, anyone or anything. I want to share my experience about how I see this country and what's the difference to where I'm from. Don't take anything personal, this is based on my experience here in general. 

#1 Cars/Public transportation:

The cars here are so much bigger than the cars in Switzerland. When I saw my host family's car here in Fresno at the airport for the first time, I was like OMG ARE YOU SERIOUS? IS THAT YOUR CAR? ITS HUGE! And they were like 'yeah, it's just a normal car'. About 95% of the people here don't use public transportation like trains and busses, they take their cars to get everywhere & tbh I understand. It's difficult & expensive to travel here. Most of the people I know have never been in a train or bus and most of them also not in an airplane. 

#2 Politics:

Okay, as we know a new president got elected & the people in Europe, especially Switzerland are not happy with Trump at all. However, many people here are happy that Trump won, and I get why but I'm not sure if he was the better choice. People in the United States have a different imagination of how the politics here should work. Honestly, I didn't really care when Trump won, because I feel like they're both stupid.

I can see why people here like Trump more, he has never been into politics, people here think that he is "just a normal person" (who has many towers made out of gold, lol) but Clinton is evil. There is a lot of gossip that doesn't reach Europe. Publissity wants Europe only to know certain things about the candidats and they reached their goals. 

#3 Food:

I'm pretty sure that all you guys think that food in the US is mostly fast food, which means fried, fat, sweet,...

That's actually true, but I know that there are people who cook fresh stuff like vegetables & things like that, where I live it's different. We have a lot of Mexican food and we heat up a lot of things in the microwave or we go out to eat.

Tbh I gained a lot of weight because of that, but the food tasts amazing. And also you get free refill for Soda and free water everywhere, and for me that makes sense. 

#4 Geography skills:

Okay, I don't want to sound mean, but Americans have a lot of trouble with geography. I feel like for most of them it's just the United states and the rest of the world is like a really really small place without civilisation and stuff. I got so many dumb questions & people still think Sweden & Switzerland are the same. "Do you guys have cars?", "Is there WiFi in Sweden" (tbh I'm not sure, not Swedish tho), "Do you have water over there?" 

Once I was looking at an America map & a girl came up to me, putted her finger on the state of Nebraska & asked me if that's Switzerland.

I think you should have your own opinion about that, I think it's pretty sad.

#5 School:

Americans have 12 years of school, Swiss people have 9. Here I'm in 11th grade and at home I gratuated after 9th grade. For me, the school here is much easier than in Switzerland, even English class is not hard. It depends what classes you take, my classes are like medium hard. Everyone picks their classes by themselves, that's what I like here, but you have different people in every period, which makes it harder to make friends. 

#6 Religion:

Many people here go to church every Sunday morning. My host family doesn't, but my host siblings go to youth group sometimes. I have many mormons in my school, where I'm from there are not many religious services.

#7 Shopping:

In my hometown, I took a train & I was in Basel after about 20 minutes, then I went shopping in the streets there. In America, there are basically almost just malls, there are only a few stores downtown. Malls are much easier because they have parking lots & since you have to drive a car to get anywhere, it's much easier in a mall & you have basically all the stores you need in one mall.

It really matters how you look, what clothes you wear and if you wear something more than once a week in school, I think that sucks.

#8 Houses/rooms:

The houses in America are really nice, but it depends where you live. There are not many apartments & if, then in really big cities like Los Angeles or Vegas. The rooms are decorated really cute & most families have their name printed on the walls. They have seasonal decoration & planners on blackboards & stuff like that. It is kinda important how your house looks like. 

The dorms are also really cute, most people have little lights over the windows & the bed matches with the colour of the rest of the room. Americans hang up all their clothes with hangers in their closet. 

Most teens have a TV with netflix in their room, some don't. 

#9 Social media:

Basically all the Americans have a smart phone or a tablet. The adults all keep in touch with other family members that live far away with facebook. There are people who are about 80 that use FB or IG.

The teens have Snapchat & they snapchat everything. Even if it's just *I had chicken for dinner*

I think it's surprising that younger kids who are about 6 have their own tablets, they have netflix oder games on it & some also have Instagram. People do not use Whatsapp, they use iMessage instead, which means 99% of the people here have an iPhone.

Americans watch a lot of TV, they mostly watch Football or Baseball games or shows on Netflix. 

There's wifi almost everywhere, in many cafe's like Starbucks or in trains you have free internet which makes it really easy to get connection if you don't have a deal with at&t or horizon or something.

#10 People:

I think Americans are way more friendly than Europeans. They are way more open and for example when you're at a train station, people come up to you and ask if you need help, they hold the doors, they say 'hi' to each other and stuff. But they forget about you, once they talk to you and on the next day they don't even say hi to you at school. They are more open but it's not like that you are friends with them from then on. In Europe that's kinda different. 

As I already said, I did not want to judge anyone, it's just my point of view and I love both countries and cultures. I recommend a visit to the United States or especially California to everyone, it is really beautiful and totally different to Europe. And I also recommend Europe to the Americans, I promise, you're gonna love it.

BTW: Don't miss my last blog update down here, it's about Thanksgiving.