Sunday's Roman Ruins excursion

The Roman Ruins were awesome! So cool to see (or play on :) ) something so incredible OLD! These girls were precious and were playing house with their babies. Can you imagine your playground as being ROMAN RUINS!?! Whoa!!!
Haha, I have a mad infatation with gnomes . . .
"A shortcut to MUSHROOMS!!!"

There was a building over the best part of the ruins in order to prserve it more. All those little squares were heating tiles underneath the flooring.
Flooring with intricate tile work.

Lol, delightful "Millie" and I had a blast embarrassing Lacey. If I was bold enough I would have waved at the bus driver, but people were already staring as it was, hehe . . .

Ha! I forget now what Lacy called these, but it is basically streams of manure and the farmers plant the seeds into these streams. :-P

Lacey's mess to be packed. She'll be traveling eastern Europe for 2 months!!!
Millie and me! :-)
Lacey and me at the Reganbowen bar for her and Megan's going away party
Silly Steph! Hehe, the fantastic Chinese Restaurant in ZURICH!!! Yum!
Mwahaha . . . I can't take them out ANYWHERE!?!
Hehe . . . their cashew chicken and that duck dish are amazing!!! My chopsticks were most definitely deformed. ;-) I gave up and converted to the fork five minutes afterwards. *sigh*

Bratkugeli and Johannes Berren are so delightful! How I shall miss thee!

Wednesday Starbucks aupair meetings in Zurich!
Fascinating wee news article. :-D
http://news.yahoo.com/s//afp/20080908/sc_afp/switzerlandarchaeologyclimatewarming

Ack! I am sick . . . Ich bin Krank . . . :-'( I have a sore throat, but other than that all is well. :-) Yesterday was the last class for A1!!! How sad. Now I can move onto A2 when I return from my trip the 18th of October. Guess where I shall be!?! "I's say's i's g'winne tuh Adlanna, an' g'winne I is!(Mammy-Gone With The Wind)" (Edit note: this section has been removed for the time being and will be added again soon. ;-) )

I loved taking the intensive A1 course in Wetzikon and hopefully will be able to continue taking classes there as it fits into the schedule so much better. The last few days of our class we learned a bit of Schwyzerdeutsch (Swiss German) and it was soooo confusing. We listened on the CD of all the different dialects throughout the German region of Switzerland and it was insane! Haha, although I guess it is like low country southern (we'uns and y'uns) vs. that horrid yankee accent! haha! Following are some delightful examples of Swiss German our teacher taught.

"Ich gehe ihn." This is high German (hochdeutsch) and I guess means, "I go to him." In Swiss German our teacher said this would look something like this, "Ich gang en grad go hole." wow . . . Or like, I go to buy something (Ich gehe einkaufen), would become, ich gang go poschte . . . yeah . . . So, no wonder my ear is not attuned to Hochdeutsch yet. I think I need to live in Germany for awhile.

One morning on my way to class, I hopped onto my bus as usual and as I was making my way to a seat, heard the faint music of a glorious song I was raised listening too. Thouroughly made my morning. T'was the song "Cotton Fields" and I thought of my old man back home. ;-D Good o'le Creedence Clearwater Revival! Surprised me immensely to hear a Swiss listening to that song, though. :-)

When I was a little bitty baby my mama would rock me in the cradle, In them old cotton fields back home; It was down in Louisiana, just about a mile from Texarkana, in them old cotton fields back home. Oh, when them cotton bolls get rotten you cant pick very much cotton, in them old cotton fields back home . . .

I am having mixed emotions about the aupair meetings now. It is so wierd to come and not know anyone as everyone is new! I miss all the old aupairs, but I know I will enjoy wonderful times in the future with these new girls and it is just the ever routating cycle that has to be endured. Very rarely do I buy anything at Starbucks, since it costs so much. I think I've only bought two drinks the whole time I've been attending these meetings. How bad is that? However, soon I shall the able to buy the yummy hot peppermint mochas! ahhh! One good thing about winter . . . peppermint mochas.

Last week, while taking down the laundry from the line, a neighbor came into the laundry area to wash his clothes. Come to discover, he spoke English with an aussie accent and we chatted for a bit while I folded laundry, but may I ask . . . um, what is hormonal yoga!?! O-O

I do believe I shall scurry away now and go through some stuff to take home and work on some more laundry. :-) Au reviou!

The Rhine Falls and weekend pictures

Chickens!!! lol . . . near Lacey's dwelling

I love these clocks!!! I want to own one one day, they do cost a small fortune though . . .
IKEA!!! I want this mug, tis huge!!!!
Pizza flambee! How sophisticated!
Girls night out. ;-)
The FALLS!!! Und reganbowen (rainbow)

Lacey snapped this one and it looks like I am standing in the middle, love it!!!
WOW!!!
Alter des falls, they are 14,ooo -17,000 years old!!!

Where the little Swiss flag is in the middle? Yep, that's where we were standing . . . "it rocked my world" ;-)

Deutsch Learnen!!!

The Rhine Falls the largest waterfall in Europe I believe. Doesn't look all that fascinating from this distance, but we took the ferry out to the middle of the falls and climbed up and it was AMAZING!!!! The water is so clear too . . .
In the middle of the falls

Meinem Deutschkurs und das woche!

German classes this week started off rather well, despite my nerves getting the better of me. I did not feel prepared walking into class on Monday, but everything went smoothly, so left feeling alright. ;-) One day we even lit candles holding them to our mouths to pratice our "p's and q's" literally. At which time I dutifully pulled out the ever famous "My Fair Lady" and recited, "In HARTFORD, HEREFORD, and HAMPSHIRE, HURRICANES HARDLY ever HAPPEN!" Frau Tscherrig actually laughed, hehehe. I do believe Higgins was proud. ;-)

For one of the homework bits we had to write a letter in response to another letter we had read together in class. Following is mine first in German, than in English. :-)

Liebe Carla,
Hallo, wie geht es ihnen? Ich bin super das monat mit meinem ferien von universitat. Danke fur irhem lang brief! Jedoch, ich habe keine zeit zuschreiben langsam brief, aber bald ich schreibe mehr. Tut mir Leid! Ich leibe dein bild, dass du mir geschickt. Deine familie ist ganz schon und ihrem hund Jacques ist uber niedlich. Wie alt ist Jacques und was Art ist eure hund?
Ich auch liebe Tanzen! Ist eure tanzpartner ganz gut tanzer aber mehr wichtig ist er gut ausseherd? ;-)
Ich mochte zuschreiben mehr, aber ich muss gehen arbeitet. :-( Ich schreibe mir bald, aber bis bald, du habst gut wochenende und habst gut zeit mir eure tanzpartner. :-D
Deine Freundin,
. . . This is not correct I know, but I am so pleased. :-D

Dear Carla,
Hello, how are you? I am super this month with my holidays from university. Thank you for your long letter! However, I don't have time to write a long letter, but soon I will write more. Sorry! I love the picture you sent to me. Your family is lovely and your dog is so cute. How old is Jacques and what type of dog is he? I also love dancing! Is your dance partner a good dancer, but more importantly (the teacher chuckled at this part) is he handsome? ;-)
I want to write more, but I must get to work. :-( I shall write soon, but till then, have a good weekend and have a good time with your dance partner. :-D
Your friend . . .

I love German . . . truly tis a gorgeous language!!! However, Italian has to be the sexiest . . .

This weekend nothing much has occured, however it was fun and enjoyably relaxing. Saturday, Lacey and I had intended to tour some Roman ruins near her house however we both slept in rather late and instead went to Media Mart and IKEA in Dietlikon to look at cameras and movies and furniture. ;-) I love IKEA!!! Then we ate Bratwurt and jumped on a few trains and came back to eat the frozen pizza we bought at the Coop and hang out. After a lovely girl's night we walked to the train station and slept fabulously.

Sunday was church and I must say that I am always encouraged for the next week after listening to the readings and the sermons. Never is one sermon the same as another and somehow each time I actually make it to church, I am amazed at how relevant what the Pastor says is towards my own previous week. After church we walked to Stadelhofen Bahnhof while I talked to a fellow homeschooler who was visiting his friend who is a new aupair. After the others joined us the witty remarks flew about between the two guys and twas vastly amusing. Apparently do not try a mocking Hitler sallute in relation to Monty Python while on a SBB train . . . even if you are British, and apparently one's language deterorates upon learning a new language . . . I wonder. We were laughing so hard over so any silly things and then as a lady stepped off the escalator with her dog (we were talking in a circle) the dog, who was attached to a leash runs around us trying to eat pigeons. Lol, we were carrying on so, everyone was watching with their straight faces.

After looking at 115CHF shoes we walked to an Italian resterant and had fabulous food, then parted ways and now I must study, get ready for tomorrow, call the family, and curl up with a good book!!! The weeks are starting to get colder, which in and of itself would be fine, however soon I shall need warmer clothing, which I do not possess at the moment, and apparently the sun disapears entirely here for months . . . :-'( I've been told to visit tanning beds in order to prevent "no sun depression". *rolls eyes*