witness of a communist demonstration

Yesterday I went to Basel with a nonrotary exchange student from eugene oregon who lives in the next town over here...we were in a store, then come out and one of the main streets is absolutely full with people. Dressed in black, with masks on, shouting things in what I believe was Russian, and were carrying huge signs. Well it turns out it was a communist demonstation...anti democracy. We had no idea it was going to be happening, but there were a load of people there from news companies and stuff. I would guess there were approximately 2000 people marching through the streets of Basel...from all around the world, or just Europe perhaps, no idea. But they had signs in Gerrman, french, spanish, english, russian, turkish, and some asian languages. Lots of shouting in foreign languages too. Eryn and I decided to be as non american as possible at the moment. There was no violence, but still a little creepy. Really kinda surreal actually...Ive never seen anything like that...and these people were carrying huge picutures and flags with Stalin, Lenin, Ho Chi Mihn, Castro, Karl Marx, and Engels on them...and more that I forget or didnt recognize. They also had MANY signs with the USSR flags symbol, the hammer crossed with the sickle (yes I just looked that word up becasue I never knew what those things are called) and the star. you can see that on the top picture. so that was an interesting experience. and boooohoooooooooooooooooo i am saaaaddddd......my exchange is just about half over......cry.....

now thats a crepe

is that not the most amyzing crepe youve ever seen? if you click and make the pic bigger, you can even see a heart made of cocoa on the side of the plate. it was a nutella crepe. and i ate it all mmmmmm. i decided to post it cause its pretty and i didnt like the last picture...only the blazer part....

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so thers a goofy picture of me with my oh so totally decked out blazer. and a euro scarf. so addicted to those thigns but i only have 2. - and sorry mom, i think a blog and picture about me separating my garbage would be a little weird. but yes, i do...plastic, paper, compost, everything.

swiss people

My lovely mother wanted to know special interesting cultural tidbits about switzerland and the swiss people and this is what I wrote her, word for word....

no prob....and about the swiss. hmmm well seeing as everywhere we were was mostly other people (mostly germans on vacationg, or french or italian or american or english or every kind of person in the swiss alps...) i didnt really pick up anyhting special about the swiss. i can tell you what i know: they have a very high literacy rate, very very high standard of living, many are rich, switzerland is expensive (ex: kebab (popular turkish food) is usually around 3 or 4 € in germany...in switzerland its around 10 francs, as low as 8 or as much as 15, thats for 10 swiss francs, is 6.66€. its pricy...i got a capucinno and it was 6,50 francs. wow thats like 4 euro.)....emmm.....they dress really cute, the stylish ones anyway, everywhere in switzland are bikes that you can borrow for free, they are extremely talented at put the train system anywhere they can possibly imagine...the tops of mountains, through mountains, etc...smart enginieering, there are also a lot of famous doctors that come from there, they speak cool...the german anyway, swiss german, is AWESOME sounding, they also have a lot of types of cheeses like the french, they, like all europeans (despite not being part of the euro union) are very open about nakedness, they have 4 national languages, hmmm i think thats all i can think of at the moment....i am just waiting for you to write me back and tell me to blog this! too bad i already did, or am going to just to make you happy....love kari

Die Schwyzer Alpen

the weather was amazing like i said... we couldnt have asked for better. the resort was incredible with the 15 lifts they had and miles and miles of trails. there was one run called the traumpiste (dream run), that was 12km long...i think i took it about 6 times. That is about 10-15 minutes of straight snowboarding or skiing depending on how fast i went and how many times i stopped to stare at the alps.It really was incredible. The snow was perfect, only a little icy in some spots, but there was powder all over the place. I managed to make at least one painfull fall everyday, except the day i had the ski blades. Usually involved going on jumps and launching up and landing in some painful position then sliding 30 feet down the hill. haha that always makes for good fun. We stayed in a hutte which is like a condo sort of thing, where you cook and clean and everything. there were 4 families, and then my friends and i who were invited from the son of a family there. more is always better, and cheaper too! but i have to go now, i ran out of time. enjoy the pics.

6 days in the swiss alps...can i say wow

Last Monday I went to Switzerland for 4 straight days of snwoboarding after being invited from friends from school. It was a m a z i n g. We were staying in the little village of Lavin, in Engadin (a region). only 4 of us snowboarded all day for the 4 days we had to snowboard...i was one of them muhuha and man was i tired. but it was so worth it. actually the last day i rented snow blades because ive been wanted to try them out for a long time and they were SOOOO FUN!!!!!!! second run i went off some little jumps and i could even slightly parallel ski. the weather was downright beautiful couldnt have asked for anything more. It was incredible and the snow was perfect.... i will continue tomorrow....on my last day of winter break....