Chai!!

In general, I am very anti-Starbucks. Who wants overpriced coffee when the little cafes and coffee shops are so much better? But for once, Starbucks came through for me today--with CHAI. I hadn't had chai since I've been here, but that one cup in Lausanne today was...heavenly. Yes, they did rip me off and charge 6fr. for a small, but it was worth it. A starbucks chai once a month isn't exactly a fair replacement for a Kataluma chai once a week, but it is a step closer than no chai at all.

Life is Good

When life really started to get going here in the land of chocolate and cheese and cowbells, my happy little bubble mended its holes and is now floating along again as if it never smacked into the wall of reality (if you don't get it, start with the very first post of my blog and read the whole thing!). Everything here seems so perfect its unreal. AKA, life is good. Life is way good (and yes, I know that that is way bad grammar...). Really, the only things that would make it significantly better would be better food in the cafeteria, snow, more heat in my dorm room (its freezing in here!!) and no homework...and maybe a few more things to DO in town. I'm not asking for much anymore, am I?
Love,
Sarah

Praying to the Snow Goddess

Its been really cold and rainy for the past three days. It is almost miserable, and it sort of feels like funeral weather. If only it'd get colder, I'd be celebrating. Its been hovering between 3 and 8 degrees and if it'd just get to zero, the precipitation would be frozen and crystalline and I would be celebrating like crazy.
Snow is my happiness. Snow means skiing. Snow means that the world is calm and peaceful, and everything is beautiful and right. Snow just makes me happy, and puts me in one of those super mellow moods, where everything is perfect and nothing can bring me down. Snow is bliss. I'm just waiting for the day when I can stand outside and stare up into a street lamp and watch the snow fall down, feel the flakes as they melt on my cheeks and lips, and catch them on my tongue, and blink as they get stuck in my eyelashes. I miss being able to appreciate the silence of snow, so complete that you can actually hear snowflakes hit the ground. I miss the way people look, when they've just come in from a snowstorm, with their cheeks burning red from the cold and snowflakes stuck in their hair. I miss the way the world glimmers and shines up at you, dazzling and bright and blinding. I'm just waiting for the day when I can bundle up in my parka and mittens and fuzzy hat and throw snowballs at my friends until we're all exhausted and frozen and I have snow down the back of my neck, and then get to treat myself to a nice cup of hot chocolate.
I can't wait until I can see my skis on a regular basis, instead of having to trust that my babies are ok in the ski shed. I can't wait until my ski boots aren't just taking up space in my closet. And, strange as it sounds, I miss the feeling of freezing my toes off in my ski boots, and then taking them off at the end of the day and putting on warm, dry socks. I can't wait until I can feel that rush that only ripping down the mountain can give me. I miss the feeling of flying, gliding, soaring, ripping down perfect corduroy with total control and incredible speed, and edge angles high enough that my knees brush the snow. I miss moguls and glades and all my favorite powder stashes in Union Meadows and Upper Enchanted and Spaulding and Seventeen Glades. I can't wait for that slight jolt of nerves right before plunging off a big cornice into a steep chute, and then looking back up at what I just came down. I can't wait until I can hike for my turns, because they are so much better and more satisfying when you work for them. Honestly, I can't wait until I can join ski team because I miss getting better, and I hate knowing my skiing has gotten a lot worse over the past two years (although the new skis really did help!) I just plain can't wait for ski season and snow.
Maybe, just maybe, it will get cold enough tonight, and tomorrow everything will be clear and sunny and lightly dusted with snow, just enough that you can hear it crunch under your feet as you walk, and see your tracks behind you. Strange, isn't it, that just a couple degrees can make the difference between miserable weather and perfect weather?
The first day it snows here, I will be the happiest girl in the world.
Love,
Sarah

August 26th to September 25th

It finally happened. One day short of one month. Who had the closest bet?
(again, if you have any clue what i'm talking about, email me.)

Moving On

"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep... that have taken hold." -Frodo, LOTR3 (movie)

How do you say no to something that just a few months ago you would have been begging for? What do you do when you discover it isn't all you ever wanted? How do you change the past, and say all those things you wanted to say, just so you wouldn't regret not saying them today? What if those things needed to be said before, and now they can't be? And when you discover that now you can't have what you could have had if you had said/done something differently, how do you forgive yourself? When something makes you happier than you ever thought possible and you let go of it, how do you snatch it back? How long can you search for it's replacement, when the original lies shattered at your feet? When do you give up and try to glue the original back together, although you know it is pointless? Would it make you feel better to try, or only make it's destruction hurt more? How can life seem so perfect one day, and the next day so complicated? Why does a change of scenery help so much?

If anyone has any clue what I'm talking about, send me an email.

Love,
Sarah

Matters Of The Matterhorn

I just got back from a weekend in Zermatt, which is possibly the most majestic and beautiful place I've ever visited, aside from perhaps Wengen. And they have year round skiing, which makes it complete paradise. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go skiing, but had to silently suffer as all the racers came sauntering through town with their skis and boots over their shoulders. It was the definition of jealousy. I can't wait until it starts snowing and ski season gets going and I can ski four times a week. I'll be in heaven.
Anyway, back to Zermatt. Zermatt is thehome of the Matterhorn, the most famous mountain in Switzerland (just look at the Toblerone box!) Theres this train (the GornergratBahn) that goes up the valley across from the Matterhorn, and has the most spectacular and impressive views. Your depth perception gets all messed up, because the mountains appear really close, but when you look at the lack of detail on the glaciers you realize how far away they are, which makes them seem twice as big. Its crazy. Everyone back home thinks that the Alps are small. But, as a matter of fact, the Matterhorn is 4478m (~14,690 ft), but the base (Zermatt) is only 1620m (~5315 ft), which is only slightly higher than Denver. But Colorado Mountains don't start in Denver, they start at 2700m (~9000ft). Therefore, the Alps are bigger than the Rockies. End of story. Aside from great mountains, Zermatt has good food, and amazing crepes. Crepes make the world go round (ok, not quite, but close enough.) Crepes with chocolate and powdered sugar, crepes with ham and cheese, crepes with lingonberry jam and ice cream (although thats a Scandinavian thing, not Swiss)... Crepes are just amazing. As are Gaufres (waffles) with chocolate and ice cream. They are sweet waffles, not breakfast waffles... and then theres ice cream and chocolate mousse and all matter of other delicious, fattening foods that will come back and kick my metabolism's butt one of these days. Oh well. Live life to its fullest, and forget about its problems, right?

Six Degrees

There's a theory that everyone in the world is connected to every other person in the world by six or fewer degrees of separation. It is sort of mind boggling, and the more people I meet, the more convinced I am that its true.
If you think about it mathematically, it make perfect sense...
There are 6.5 billion people in the world, and lets say that each person has a network of friends/family/acquaintances/teachers/etc that has at least fifty people that the majority of their friends DON'T know. I'm assuming this is fair, considering the majority of my friends have over fifty friends just on Facebook, and that doesn't even begin to count all the people anyone knows. So lets just say 50. So, I have fifty people in my circle. Each of them has fifty people in their circle...Its exponential. Fifty to the sixth power is 8.3 billion people, within six degrees of separation. But almost everyone knows more than fifty people!
So, six degrees...think about it. Play with your brain.

Sarah

Quotes

One of the things I've started doing this year is writing down all those crazy, meaningful, funny, or downright weird things people say during class at the bottom of my notes. It makes reviewing notes more fun (because, you know, I just study my notes SOOO often), but it also makes TAKING notes somewhat practical. So here's a collection of some of the random, funny, (and not so random nor funny) things I've written down in class. Most of them are from math and TOK, because my teacher, Mr. Sharp, says some of the craziest things ever.

"All causes need a martyr." --Mr. Brown (History Teacher)
"That's life....That's death....That's biology!" (Three people in my bio class)
"I never let school ruin my education." --Mr. Sharp (TOK & Math), quoting someone famous.
"Tinned food does not have sex with other tinned food to make more tinned food!" --Mr. Sharp
"I don't want to live my life believing lies."--Mr. Sharp
"Every summer when I go on holiday, I take a new calculus book with me. Its the only way I can guarantee nobody will talk to me on long flights." -Mr. Sharp


My dorm "mother," Mrs. Moore, is hilarious. She is British and has that "prim and proper" finishing school attitude, although she is really, really nice. At our dorm meeting the other night she said something like. "Young ladies should have clean rooms, clean sheets, clean bodies, clean clothes, and clean mouths. Bad words are called bad words because they are BAD for you. If a boy ever says bad words around you, you should ask him not to speak like that in front of you." The way she said it was totally hilarious, because she was so serious about it, and. I'm bringing my camera and a pencil and paper to the next dorm meeting so I can catch the next quote perfectly. I've heard to watch out for her "boys and sex" speech that she gives once a year, because it is one of the funnies things you will ever hear, but you only get to hear it once... I love documenting these things as they happen.

There's nowhere else on Earth I'd rather be (eating)

So now that I've ranted about the beauty of Switzerland and all the amazing things there are to do here, today I will rant about all the amazing things there are to EAT here.

First and foremost, there is chocolate. I've already spent about 20 francs on chocolate. GOOD INVESTMENT. There is dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, chocolate with hazelnut, Toblerone and Toblerone knockoffs, mousse noisette chocolates...almost every kind of amazingly delicious chocolate you could possibly imagine. Its gotten to a point where if I don't be careful, I will gain weight from all the chocolate. Its so easy to eat so much of it! But I love chocolate, and every pound I put on due to chocolate will be completely worth it. There is so much to do here and everything involves walking uphill both directions, so we joke that we burn all the calories from our chocolate anyway. But who gives a D***!! Its CHOCOLATE!
After chocolate, there is chocolate fondue. Its amazingly amazing and easy to make. Step one: Put a bar of milk chocolate in a pot and melt it. Step two: Dip things in it (like cookies, apples, pineapple, bananas, strawberries....). Step three. EAT.
The third most amazing thing there is to eat here is chocolate mousse. I haven't actually had any yet. When my family traveled to France and Switzerland when I was little, my brother and I sampled the Mousse au Chocolat at every restaurant. There is a very subtle difference in texture and flavor from place to place, although it always remains amazing!
Number four is Ice Cream. People from Europe don't find it at all extraordinary that you can buy ice cream everywhere. But those Extreme Chocolat cones are all part of the non-American experience. I don't care if they are CHF 2.50, those things make Switzerland, Switzerland.
Fifth is cheese. My close friends know that I don't eat Swiss cheese unless it is imported Swiss from Switzerland. Well, here if its imported I won't eat it. Simple as that. I'm in the land of cows, cow bells, and fine Gruyere. There is good Swiss cheese on the side bar of our cafeteria at every meal alongside the peanut butter, jelly, butter, Nutella, and sandwich meats. I love it.
Numero six! Along with Chocolate fondue and cheese comes cheese fondue. There's this fun game that you are supposed to play with fondue. You get a big group to get fondue, and then you sit in a circle around the fondue pot, alternating boys and girls. While having a ton of fun, you eat the fondue. If your piece of bread falls off your fork in the fondue pot, then you are supposed to kiss the person on your left. I've never actually played this game before, but it sounds interesting.
Numero sept...Veal. Go ahead and cry for the baby cows, but they are delicious! Lip-smackin' good.
Eighthly, for breakfast everyday I eat cornflakes with strawberry yogurt. People don't eat cornflakes with strawberry yogurt back home. Its just something I started eating here. But it is really delicious. You should try it some time.

And thats it! The eight amazing things you will eat in Switzerland: Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate, Cheese, Cheese, Cow, and Cereal (and Carbs). Those are the Eight Cs of necessity.

Love and have fun eating!
-Sarah

This is me.

So yesterday I ranted about how beautiful Switzerland is. Today I am going to rant about all the things I can DO in Switzerland.
So, school requires that we are involved in at least two after-school physical activities. Many of my friends would say, ugg, sports... but the list is amazing. Here's just a sampling of the best activities I've considered doing: Rock Climbing, Bouldering, ski conditioning, cross training, running club (formerly cross country, but with no meets), track, ultimate frisbee, curling (I know! where else am I going to have an opportunity to curl??), hiking, avalanche awareness, slack line/hiking/ bouldering combo...the list goes on, and thats just for fall activities. As soon as ski season starts there will be weekend trips to Zermatt and Gstaad and all those other amazing places, and I'll get Tuesday and Thursday afternoons off to ski, not to mention free weekends...I'll probably be on the hill three or four days a week. Maybe I'll make the ski team, otherwise there is a possibility of doing patrol or "Ski Ambassador' and I can get my Swiss Ski School Certification! None of these cool things were offered back home. Maybe that's why I was so bored--there were no activities (aside from cross country) that really turned me on.
In addition to all of those, there are these amazing weekend trips.
I spent the past two days riding a bike from Aigle to Lausanne and back, along Lake Geneva. Riding through the vinyards between Vevey and Ouchy, looking down on the perfect crystal-clear blueness of the lake, dotted with sailboats, with green mountains soaring in the oh-so-close background... it was paradise (see picture above). Couple that with the thrill of flying down through the vinyards on a bicycle, on a perfectly clear blue-sky day, not too hot but just warm enough that you start sweating, with the breeze flying in under your helmet...The only activities that have ever made me feel so great are surfing, skiing, and jumping off forty-five foot cliffs. You should try it some time. Maybe its about the thrill and the beauty of my surroundings, but something about it makes me feel alive. Yeah, I've said all this before.
But anyway, next weekend there is a trip to climb Dents Du Midi, but unfortunately I didn't sign up in time and the trip was already full with an uber-long waiting list. Maybe next time... And then the weekend after that my "family" (a group of three teachers and about ten students that become our "family" for the rest of the year) is going to Zermatt, unfortunately not during ski season, but it will still be great... and there will be trips somewhere almost every weekend. Too bad IB is going to limit how much I can do. It's enough to make me consider dropping down to certificates instead of full diploma, but I don't want to be bored in any of my classes. I'm already dying of boredom in HL chem. Sig Figs and unit conversions were easier than pi the first time around, the second time it is torture. TORTURE, I tell you. And we aren't supposed to be getting to Lewis Dot Structures until the spring. I was hoping that we'd be reviewing it within the next few weeks. But I'm not here to rant about how much chemistry sucks, I'm here to rant about all the amazing things I can do in Switzerland. My point being: the opportunities are endless, and everyone should come visit me so I can take you to go do coolio things.
Love,
Sarah

Here I am.

Lots of people have been bugging me to update my blog. I didn't realise THAT many people read my blog. I'm sort of flattered. Actually, I find it sort of amusing how low you guys have stooped to procrastinate. I've been procrastinating too much too. And not just with updating. With homework....BAD way to start a school year, especially in a new school.
So yeah, I'm here in Switzerland.
I feel like giving the full details. you can skim if you want :-)
So... my journey begins at DIA. I checked my bags. Went through security. Got on the plane. Got off in Newark. That's where my journey REALLY begins--getting on the plane in Newark (which is a terrible airport, if you ask my opinion, or even if you don't ask it) So here I was, getting on the plane with my backpack and my DI duffel and my hot pink pillow, walking down the aisle of the plane towards my seat. I was looking for my row when I spotted this guy who appeared to be about my age, putting his stuff in the overhead bin above my seat, and then he sat down in the seat next to mine. And then I sat down, and he asked where I was going. "Ummm, Switzerland, duh. This plane is sort of going to Geneva, not Kansas..." Actually, I gave a one word response. "School." "Where?" "Leysin" "me too" and that was how I met Nick. Only seen him twice since I got here.
If you've never flown trans-Atlantic overnight, I pity you. If you fly it frequently, I pity you. It's something everyone should do at least once or twice or more in their lifetimes. It is really extraordinary to watch the sun set and then the sunrise in the same flight, in the span of about 8 hours. And if you can eliminate glare out your windows, the stars over the Atlantic are amazing. Trans-Atlantic flights tend to have better food for breakfast. They also have individual TVs that now have hand-held remotes and even have games, instead of just movies. They also plot your airplanes course, so you know exactly what you are flying over. It just so happened that I was flying over the English Channel and listening to Spirit when the sun came up. Here I am!!
Flying in to Geneva over the Lake reminded me how much I love this country. It is AMAZING!
Anyway, we got in to the airport, and it took me forever to find my ski bag because it didn't come off with everything else, and then one of Nick's bags got lost and he made me stay with him while he filed a report.
Speaking of baggage... I was so worried before I left that I would have way too many bags and wouldn't be able to get them through the airport in Geneva. That was with a ski bag, two rolling duffels, a day pack and a mini duffle. There were some people who showed up with their whole families in tow with at least twice as much stuff as I had. Now I'm here and I feel like I didn't bring anything with me.
Back to how much I love this country... Something about the mountains here just isn't the same about the mountains back home. They come up higher on the horizon, partly because the valleys are deeper, and partly because the mountains are steeper and closer together. They just feel a lot bigger. Yeah, there are no 14ers here, and I'm living at 4,500 feet (1500m) as opposed to 8,000 ft, but I feel like I'm in the mountains more than I do back home. For me, there is a sense of comfort of having mountains wall me in. There is something completely RIGHT about looking out across the valley and seeing snow-capped peaks in August. There is something homely about hearing cowbells when you stick your head out the window in the late evening. There is something truly amazing here that I've never had before, and that is loving where I am. If I had to move somewhere and had to live there for the rest of my life, I would pick Switzerland. Maybe not Leysin, necessarily, but perhaps Wengen. I just got back from a bike trip to Lausanne and we rode through Vevey, which I loved too. I think I'm just in love with the country, the scenery... Vinyards nestled into the hillsides, overlooking Lake Geneva, with snow-capped peaks looming in the background....It makes me feel alive, the way only certain things can. Maybe it is just love that makes me feel alive, whether for a person or place or thing. Oops, that got dangerously close to being borderline TOK. And now I am really, really tired so I think I will get some sleep, sleep in tomorrow morning (no classes, WOOT) and then maybe, with any luck, I won't be tired anymore. But that's just wishful thinking.
For now, that's all I have to say.
Love, Sarah