Thinking back

I created a music playlist on Spotify called “San Francisco Road” and listen to it all the time. All my friends I met there come to my mind, our adventures, our little road trips to the Headlands or to the beach and of course when listening to these songs, I remember how my host sister and I blasted folk songs on our way to school and sang along as if we were alone to afterwards in school be annoyingly hoarse. These songs make me close my eyes and remember the three most rewarding, interesting and joyful weeks of my life. I profited in so many ways, not just in language but also socially. I find it really interesting to meet new people, especially from a different country and culture, so if I need a stay in San Francisco I know more than enough people who I could ask.

Honestly I like Zurich a little better as a city to live in, but that’s probably because I’m used to it. But what makes me actually sad and what keeps me wanting go back to San Francisco is not the city itself but the friends I have there. Although three weeks is a short time I met so many new lovely people. Of course I miss having no sciences and have music classes all day, but that’s sadly just not realistic.
I’m super excited to welcome our American brothers and sisters in Zurich and can’t wait to see my host sister again. But I’m even more looking forward to go back and visit them, to see all the friends and teachers that obviously won’t come to Switzerland.

At this point I really want to thank from the bottom of my heart the KEN for making such an exchange program possible and of course all the schools, teachers, host parents and siblings in San Francisco for making our stay in your beautiful city such an incredible experience! (SB)

Rückblick

Es sind bereits drei Wochen vergangen seit wir das sonnige Kalifornien schweren Herzens verlassen mussten. Während meine Erlebnisse langsam zu Erinnerungen verblassen, denke ich oft an diese wunderbaren Tage in San Francisco zurück. Nebst dem, dass ich unglaublich tolle Menschen kennenlernen durfte, habe ich unzählige neue Erfahrungen sammeln dürfen. So habe ich zufällig eine Gruppe Delfine beobachtet, während ich die Golden Gate Bridge überquerte oder ich wagte mich aufs Wasser mit einem alten hölzernen Segelboot, welches auf den Wellen heftig hin- und herschaukelte, sodass ich das Gefühl hatte jeden Moment runter zu purzeln.

Ich könnte hier noch über mehrere Seiten hinweg von all diesen wunderbaren Momenten schreiben, doch was ich eigentlich sagen wollte ist, dass so ein Austausch eine richtig tolle Chance ist seinen Horizont zu erweitern. Mag sein, dass ich nur wenige Wochen in Amerika verbrachte, dennoch finde ich, dass jeder der die Möglichkeit hat sie ergreifen sollte, sofern man offen ist eine andere Kultur zu erkunden und auch etwas Mut und Lust hat Neues zu erleben.

Ich muss zwar zugeben, dass sich nach so kurzen drei Wochen mein Englisch nicht signifikant verändert hat, aber trotzdem fiel es mir von Tag zu Tag leichter in einer fremden Sprache zu kommunizieren, es wirkte auf einmal natürlicher und sogar mit meiner deutschsprechenden Zimmergenossin sprach ich von Zeit zu Zeit mehr Englisch, wodurch sich vermutlich auch mein Wortschatz verbessert haben sollte.

Ein weiterer toller Aspekt des Programmes war, dass jeder von unserer Klasse seine Zeit anders verbrachte, die einen genossen die Natur, während andere durch die Stadt bummelten. Auf diese Weise hatte jeder jedem etwas zu berichten bei den wöchentlichen Treffen, dies hat unsere Klasse aus meiner Sicht ein ganzes bisschen zusammengeschweisst, was schön ist, da man neue Facetten an Menschen zu entdecken beginnt mit welchen man schon bald drei Jahre in einer Klasse ist (besser spät als nie).

Doch nun gilt es sich wieder an die Schule zu gewöhnen (ist schwieriger als man denkt) und bis im Juni zu auszuharren, denn dann kommen unsere Gastgeschwister in die Schweiz und ich bin mir sicher, dass auch sie eine tolle Zeit haben werden, schliesslich hat unser kleines Fleckchen Land auch ganz schön viel zu bieten!! (NB)

City diversity

San Francisco is a very diverse city with a lot of embedded cultures. There are hundreds of different restaurants all from different cultures. We tried a lot of them and most of the restaurants are the same in one aspect; Very good food but terrible service. That’s what I experienced at least. The city itself is also grouped in different areas like the Castro, Chinatown, japan town and more. When you enter those districts everything changes.

For example in Chinatown all the shops are labeled in Chinese and 99% of the people living there are real Chinese people and some of them can’t even talk English. The stores also offer a lot of goods which you cannot find in other stores around the city, typical Chinese goods. Chinatown is also the most characteristic districtin in San Francisco since for example the Italian district looks the same as the rest besides the Italy flag on all the street lanterns.

Also there is a huge contrast between the area where people live and where they work. Downtown looks just like every other big city in the US, alot of skyscrapers and a ton of people, on the other hand the area where people live is very unique. There is no such thing as every house needs to fit in the neighbour hood like in switzerland. Every house is unique, it has it's own form and color and there are no modern buildings. All of the houses are very cute and made with love, not like those new "modern" buildings that basically are just a cube of cement with no color. (DA)

Rain...

Today when I woke up I heard a familiar, calming sound that I've never heard since my arrival in San Francisco. It was the rain against my windows. At first I didn't really think about it because I was still tired and to me it is nothing special. But when I later talked to Branson students, many of them were super excited and totally overdressed for this light rain, I recalled that they were in a drought. Some wore raincoats, high boots and carried an umbrella, which sounds more like heavy storm equipment to me. It was funny to see how unusual rain was to them and how they reacted to it. 

Today might've just been the first precursor to the feared and wished for rain season that is expected for late November. Wished for because water means life and feared becasue after this very long drought the ground is very weak, which could result in much destruction through mud slides. Also if too much rain comes we will see a next Atlantis. (LH)

Differencies

In the last few blogs I listed some of the positive aspects of living here in California. But of course there are a lot of things I miss about Switzerland, one of them being the public transport system. You really need a car to get anywhere, leading to a more extreme air pollution. There are buses and boats but they follow a very inconvenient schedule, are always late and to even get to a station you need a car. Our host siblings can already drive, but they have homework to do or don’t want to do the exact same things you might have planned. Even though the food here is great, there are things I miss like fresh salad, our milk (here it’s so watery) and of course rivella J. 

Honestly I don’t like the hot weather here, I’d much rather have Swiss fall weather. Yes I know you might be wondering how can someone possibly like rainy cold weather better than high summer California weather. I guess it’s in my genetics and the origin of this DNA part is pretty easy to follow if you know my dad. 

But I think what I miss most besides the public transport system is the safety we have even in a city like Zurich. I can walk around the city at 3’o’clock in the morning and don’t have to worry about getting attacked or anything. I was scared walking through San Francisco at 2’o’clock in the afternoon. While searching for a guitar shop I was witness of a drug deal, got insulted twice and thus was out of this neighborhood as fast as possible.

Now usually when I talk to students here, after five minutes of introduction the conversation’s about us being able to buy alcohol and go clubbing. Now I don’t want to say that I miss the alcohol, because I can thankfully survive 3 weeks without a beer but the parties and clubs are still very different here and to be honest a little more fun in Switzerland. Even though the teenagers can drive here it still seems like they’re more controlled by their parents and teachers. For example there was a school party for Halloween and the party was from 8 till 10 (that’s when our parties usually start), there was water to drink and the teachers stood next to the dance floor to see if there are boys and girls dancing together, which was to my astonishment prohibited. It was still very amusing and of course there’s no need for alcohol for a party to be fun, but I’m still excited to show our American host siblings what it means to party when they come to Zurich. (SB)

Music

If you know me, you know how addicted I am to music, whether it be listening, performing, learning about its history, analyzing or composing it, I’m all into it. So when I got the chance to choose whatever lesson I wanted, I took it and went all out on music. 

I quickly realized that the Branson students are behind on science but far ahead on music skills. Not only are they better on their instruments than the average student in KEN, but also their knowledge about theory, so chord progressions, scales, intervals and so forth is better than ours. Also I feel like, although we learn more about the history of classical music, they concentrate much more on modern styles like Hip-Hop or Rock. 

I’m in a “History of Hip-Hop” class and they really interpret songs and music videos, look at technical changes in time, try to understand the idea of sampling and other things that we only briefly cross in our music lessons. I don’t want to state that the music education in Switzerland is bad, but here so many students can play an instrument really good and play in a band or ensemble. Of course I as a musician would like to have more friends who can play an instrument in Switzerland which is quite rare sadly. Also what I think is missing in Zurich are street musicians. Walking through a city and hearing some background music gives it so much more character and atmosphere. I always love seeing artists performing when visiting other cities. (SB)

The view

Yesterday was a truly amazing day! The day already started with a highlight when we went to one of San Francisco’s best pastries, where me and Michelle P. treated ourselves with a croissant and a pain du chocolat plus some extraordinary blue bottle coffee. Afterwards we met our class and went all together to the famous prison island and Al Capone’s old residence. The audio guides we were given told us everything about the place packed in a kind of story, which was narrated by former prisoners or their correctional officers. That fact made the whole tour very interesting,

When we returned from Alcatraz in the early afternoon, we (me, Michelle P. and Giorgio) said goodbye to our teachers and went to a coffee shop on Jackson Square and I enjoyed my first flat white (a special and very delicious cappuccino).  The rest of the day we were wandering around in the city and let San Francisco’s vibe sink in. As slowly our feet started hurting and our knees aching we all went to mine and Michelle’s host family where we had delightful pasta.

After this perfectly fine dinner our host father took us up to twin peaks. A place located above the city, which gives you the perfect view over the whole region. The lights of the city were sparkling while the water was calm and smooth, shining in a matt black, because of the moon, which was nearly full. It was freezing; every one of us was shaking. But we stood there and felt like we were on top of the world, while we were looking down on the city and totally feeling this magical moment. (NB)