Bluebird's Nest

The tweenager has been is Swiss school for a while now and a few people have been asking how she is enjoying it and what it’s like for her. Additionally, I wanted her to give us a snapshot of her trip to the Jura for a week with school as this is such a unique experience for her.

Please feel free to ask your own questions in the comments below and she will happily be sure to respond toute de suite!

How long have you been going to school in Switzerland now?

I have been going to school since August 22. So about a month.

How are you liking it?

School is much different in Canada then in Switzerland, I really like school here and I think it’s better than school in Canada.

What subjects do you have?

I take music, math, science, history, religious history, drawing, sewing, German, PE…

What is your favourite and why?

My favourite subject is History, because I love stories about Greek and Egyptian mythology.

What subject do you like the least?

PE, out teacher insists we run lap after lap around the track, right now we are doing 1200 meters, 1,2 km. of non-stop running.

Have you made many friends?

Yes, in Switzerland everyone wanted to accept me into their group (especially when they heard I was Canadian).

How is school different here than in Canada?

Wow, the most striking difference between schools is class changes; in Canada all the classes are in a wing or pod of a building, FAAS (Fine Arts and Applied Skills) are in the north pod and all French immersion classes in the east pod. In Switzerland we move around a lot, PE is about a half an hour away in a stadium in the suburbs, art and music in the high school and more music, academics, and sewing are in the 4^th floor Elementary school.

Tell us about a typical day at Swiss school.

So the day starts with me not wanting to get out of bed then I get dressed, eat breakfast, and leave for school. We walk there and, take Tuesday for example, walk to the high school for music in first block then after that I go with my friends back to the normal building then we go to PE on the other side of town and then my mom comes and gets me for lunch. We go home and eat lunch for two hours, back to school for a while and home again. Usually pretty busy!

You just went on a trip to the Jura with your school. Tell us about that.

The Jura is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Imagine cows walking past your bedroom window every morning and fields stretching away and away. Here you are the one enclosed and horses and cows are grazing and having adventures totally free to go anywhere they want.

What did you like the most?

My favourite part of camp was the course d’orientation that means orientation race. We teamed up in groups of three and we got sent to different posts in about a 5km radius, it’s a race to see who can go to the 9 posts first.

Tell us about a typical day.

7:30am the teacher comes and wakes us up then puts on some good music

8:00am we eat breakfast

8:30am we brush our teeth and finish getting ready

9:00am we play ball assis

11:00am-1:00pm we leave for a walk (depending on the time we either eat a picnic of have lunch at the chalet)

4:00pm we get back

4:30pm we play more ball assis or ping pong

7:00pm we eat dinner

8:30pm we play pin pong or foose ball

9:30pm we go to bed

11:30pm we go to sleep

What was the food like?

Some times the food was really good (like paella) and some times really bad (like thai soup). It was really cool that any one who wanted to could cook.

What is the boom and what was it like?

The boom is a dance at the end of the camp where all the guys ask girls to dance and try to impress them with break dancing; it is as fun as it sounds. The boom was super fun and I even got to slow dance with my crush… They played lots of good songs in English and in French.

Tell us about the slow dancing. And don’t leave anything out.

It doesn’t matter who asks, guy or girl, you always have to say yes. My two best friends are both really pretty and lots of guys like them so they didn’t even get a chance to sit down. When you’re dancing with somebody it is okay that if at any point in the dance it gets awkward you can stop and walk away from them. In general you only slow dance for approx. 30 seconds per guy (unless later on he asks you again).

Was there any drama at camp?

Not really (besides everyone figuring out who I have a crush on).

Was there anything that happened that was not amazing?

Mmmmm… boys beating each other up but I think that’s part of the experience.

How do you think the camp changed you?

Well I think I’m a lot more fit and can walk greater distances.

Did you miss me? Even a little?

Let’s say that.

I’m in Valbella in the Swiss German speaking part of Switzerland. I’m going to blog tomorrow about our out trip but today I wanted to talk about two things. Swiss weddings and the Swiss languages.

First up, the weddings. I consider myself a bit of an expert at Swiss wedding since I’ve had one here. But for those of you who aren’t familiar with them, I’ll give you a little insight as we just attended another one for my hubby’s best friends last weekend at the Beau Rivage Palace in Ouchy. It was uber cool.

A few things to note about weddings in Switzerland. There are 4 events (unlike the standard 2 in Canada). You have your civil wedding which is the wedding where usually only your family and your temoines (maid of honor and best man – these are the only two people you have working for you) are invited to at the city hall. This is the actual bonified, we have our paper and we are married wedding. It consists of a suit for the man and a simple white dress for the woman.

Then either the same day or some days later, there is the big party day. This starts with a wedding usually in a church. But not any ordinary church. We’re talking a church that is a few hundreds of years old and is usually amongst vineyards tucked away in a cobblestone village.

Then we would go for photos and meet up with everyone a few hours later, the Swiss (and the French (as I’ve been to 3 French weddings (I think I’ve actually been to more weddings in Europe than I have in Canada now))) have something that is called “the aperitif”. This is where you and all the people who came to the wedding, go elsewhere to some other location and have drinks and wonderful little dainty appetizers. You mingle and chat for a couple of hours and then you move onto the reception (as we like to call it in Canada. Dinner is what they call it here).

But wait, not everyone goes to the reception. Some people aren’t invited (which for me seems strange but from talking with some people, it’s normal). Anyway, at the wedding we were at on the weekend, there was a SECOND aperitif, with more food and drinks. Talk about fancy. This was located at the same place as the reception.

The reception works much the same way as a Canadian reception where you can either do a sit down dinner or buffet. We did a buffet style but our friends did a sit down. But the biggest difference is that we plow through our meals and speeches and cake whereas the Swiss take their time. And I mean take their time. Dinner starts around 8:00pm. No kidding. And then it ends around 12am. Our friend’s dinner had a little salad, then a speech. Followed by a wonderful risotto/shrimp dish and then another speech. Then the mail course (divine by the way) and then some animations they call them. This is little movies or games that the couple play. Then desert and some more games, then the cutting of the cake and whewf! It’s time for dancing. You’re good and liquored by then since the booze is non-stop and all free usually so dancing is not out of the question.

Dancing lasts until around 4am. Let me say that again. Dancing lasts until around 4am. At our wedding, I think it was 5. It’s literally insane. I’m surprised I’m not asleep under a table at that point. Although I did see one of the guests at last weekends wedding, running through the sprinklers at the end of the night. (Nice Yann!)

The whole night was spectacular. You really couldn’t have asked for more. Oh and in two more weekends from now, we get to do it all over again for another friends wedding although from what I understand, it’s not going to be quite so posh. Heaven help me.

I think I googled Swiss weddings when I was trying to figure out what are the traditions of them were for my wedding, and I couldn’t find much to report so I hope this helps all those out there looking for some advice on what exactly happens during such an event.

Thanks Jule and Steph for such and amazing time. I think I can safely say, everyone had a GREAT time (except for maybe a certain vegetarian)!

Now onto the Swiss languages. There are four official Swiss languages here. French, German, Italian and Romanch. English is not an official language although a lot of people speak it here fluently. French is obvious as there is a French speaking part of Switzerland. I always get confused with German and Swiss German. What the hell is the difference?? But from what I’ve been told, Swiss German is only a spoken language like gangsta speak I can only assume. I kid. So some people speak both German and Swiss German but it’s not interchangeable.

There is a beautiful little spot in the south of Switzerland really close to Italy that speaks Italian. It’s wonderful. So that makes sense too. And then there’s Romanch which is a fading dialect that only a handful of people speak.

Ok, so get this. Switzerland is the size of Vancouver Island. Say what?!? You’ve got four official languages wrapped within 25 and 2 half provinces (huh? I just asked my hubby how many provinces there were and that is what he told me so go figure.) with several different accents in a country that takes 4 hours to drive across. I JUST drove across Canada and there is no way I can even compare that. Crazy insane.

So back to my train of thought. For the past 2+ weeks I’ve been here, I’ve been rocking French. Ok, so maybe I’m exaggerating a bit but I’m getting better and people don’t laugh as much at me as they used to.

We drive 1.5 hours and now we’re in the German speaking part. I can’t even say please and thank you or hello anymore. WTF? Seriously? This seems a little ridiculous and now I’m getting even more frustrated as I can’t read a menu, a road sign (speaking of road sign I had a little laugh today as I saw a sign that said “ausfarht”. No really? Ass fart? Gotta love German.) the toilette, etc… you get the idea. I’ve gone from 80% capable to 0 in about 1.5 hours. I can’t even speak French in this German speaking part of Switzerland. I find myself saying “merci” and then “thank you” and finally wrapping up with “danka”. Shit. I’m all discombobulated. People pass me on the path while we’re high up in the mountains and I can’t even say hello so I just look at them and smile. Ugh.

My tweenager even asked today if there was another language she could learn in school if she wanted to. Might as well since Canada is the second biggest country in all of the world and we only have two official languages that only about 5% of the population can speak both of the fluently.

I say, rock it while you’re here girl.

Tonight’s blog is written from a raw place in my heart. Tonight my wee babe went for her first ever sleepover to my in-law’s place. We’re doing this as a trial for her (and me) to see how it goes and get her used to sleeping at their house as we have two upcoming weddings that we are attending and if you know anything about Swiss weddings, they go until around 4 am. No kidding.

So today has been heavy day. All day long I’ve known that around 6pm, I need to part ways with my wee babe and hand her over to her very capable grandparents. I’ve been dreading it. Not because I’m worried about them but because I’m worried about her and how much I know it’s me who can sooth her when everyone else can’t. And trust me, there are times every night that she gets fussy and it’s only me who can calm her down. So what’s she going to do? Explode? I guess in my head, I’ve maybe built it up to be something like that.

So we drop her off. Hugs, snuggles, cuddles, one last breast feed, one last smile, one last giggle. And as we leave she makes a little whine and I make a little whine, knowing that I’m not going to see her until tomorrow and knowing that she doesn’t know that or know what’s in store for her.

I miss her immediately. I don’t know why I’m feeling this way as I’ve already done this once before when my tweenager was a baby but I guess I forget about how I’ve already passed these feelings 11 years ago.

We head home (the 3 of us) and we have dinner. All through dinner I’m thinking about her. But I don’t say anything to my family as I don’t want to seem ridiculous and lame to them. Immediately following dinner I ask my hubby to call his parents and see how she is. Something inside of me is saying don’t listen in case she’s crying. I just don’t think I can take it. And wouldn’t you know it, she is crying.

I think maybe the hardest part was the fact that everything that was said about how she was feeling was said in French, so I’m constantly asking my hubby, what did they say? What’s going on? Did she eat the carrots? Did she drink her bottle? Are her pajama’s on? And the lag in translation was killing me. It seriously was all too much for me and I broke down. Come on. Let’s be honest here. We all knew it was going to happen anyway from the beginning of this story.

We take a break and call them back in a bit. And she’s still crying. At this point I’m wondering if maybe it was too early for her (and me). Should we go over there and pick her up? What am I feeling about that? A failure? What’s going to happen on Saturday night when I NEED them to look after her? Am I just being a pussy and over reacting? Maybe I just need a good cry.

And then she stops. Ok, she stopped enough for the tweenager to break into “Baby Beluga” and wouldn’t you know it, she’s looking for the voice that’s coming from the computer. (By the way, we’re skyping so we can see her but we haven’t turned on our camera so we don’t scar her by seeing us.) She was still a bit whiny and so I decided to add my voice to Baby Beluga but when I started singing it, more tears came. Then the hubby started crying so that got me going even more (I might be crying while I write this).  Then the part in the song where they say “Is your momma home…” I can’t even get through it without crying. The look in her eyes is priceless. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them so huge since I’ve known here. Like the cat in Shrek. Come pick me up, their beckoning to me.

So she was still a bit whiny and standing up usually solves this for her. Sit down = she cries. Stand up = she stops. Go figure, it’s pretty annoying. So I make a joke to papinou (grandpa) why don’t you stand up, dance and sing to the little angel. I feel like we’ve told them all the little quirks that make her happy so what’s one more thing. Hold her like this so her fingers are free so she can put them in her mouth, stand up, sing to her, dance, flap your arms in the air, do some jumping jacks, etc… you get the idea.

Papinou get’s up and throws on a dance CD. Where’d her get that from? And on top of it, it has graphics for the TV too so the wee babe is transfixed. He puts down the computer so we can see him holding her, dancing. It’s freaking AWESOME! The tears are gone, and now I’m smiling from ear to ear. No more tears from anyone – my face actually hurt from the smiling and laughing. We’re laughing and the wee babe is dancing with papinou to some crazy disco song. Oh man. Then the tweenager grabs the flip mino and get’s almost all of it on video. I need to get papinou to sign the release forms first before I can post this on YouTube though. Stand by.

The song is over and we decide to leave on a good note. Papinou is moved to tears which gets the hubby crying again which sends me into another blubblerfest. Enough said.

Was I ready? I think so. Just on the edge of it. I might have been pushed a little bit due to a wedding or two but I think it was the right time for her. I’ve always prided myself on the fact that the tweenager has been able to sleepover at anybody’s house. Anybody. And I attribute that to the fact that she slept over at people’s houses from a very young age. Very young. So shouldn’t I be trying the same thing with the wee babe then if I want the same results? I think so. It’s just so damn hard. She’s so little and I HATE to see her cry even for a minute. It breaks my heart when I know that I can make it stop if she’s just with me. But whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger right? I’m sure she’s not going to die over there tonight so she can only be stronger.

Bon nuit ma beaute. Fait de beaux reve. Jusqu’a matin. I can’t wait to see you in the morning.