They say that as you get older you turn into your parents... it's true. This week I have mostly been making mince pies - to sell! And by making I mean completely making, ie the mincemeat too, it's been fun! Messy, but fun. The oven is finally mincemeat-free, it took a loooooong time and a lot of scrubbing to clean but I got there in the end. So yeah, I'm feeling pretty Christmassy now! Currently listening to Christmas songs and about to head off to finish buying presents.

Had a good morning at school which makes a change for a Friday! The students all worked really well and one of them said 'Thank you very much' at the end and that it had been a really good activity, so that was nice! Looking forward to Christmas lessons next week, trying to work out if it's feasible to make enough Christmas biscuits for all my students...probably a bit ambitious to attempt but I might do it anyway! I have new biscuit cutters that I need to try out anyway.

Last weekend I went to Strasbourg to the Christmas market and it was lovely! It's a very pretty city, lots of old buildings and little streets etc. And the market was very festive as indeed Christmas markets are.

Right, time to make more Christmas cards... it's a creative week this week!

And now the snow is settling, yay!!

It's snowing, woohoo! It's not settling but hey, it's still snow :) and this morning the hills were white over, it was very pretty.
Today has been a good Monday, two of my lessons were cancelled so I finished at 9.25am! Had a lovely weekend too, lots of fun things. On Saturday I played in a squash tournament which was a lot of fun, even though I lost every match!! Oh well, it's the taking part that counts... In the evening we all went to this log cabin in the middle of nowhere for a fondue (naturally) and that was really cool. There was a big open fire and afterwards we had cake and played card games so it was generally a good evening.
Yesterday I went to the Christmas market in Basel so am feeling rather festive now :) I ate lots of yummy food and had some gluhwein and got my souvenir mug so all in all it was a good trip.

Only four teaching weeks left 'til Christmas, hooray! It's really weird, even though it's almost December it's still not cold! It's very confusing, I can still go out in just a jacket, I think it will be a biiiiiig shock when the freezing temperatures finally hit.

I went to Zurich again this weekend, and did pretty much the same thing as the week before, just wandered around and enjoyed the pretty Christmas decorations. I also had my first mulled wine of the season, it was good! I'm starting to feel vaguely Christmasy but it's nice that they don't go Christmas crazy far too early here like back home. They've put the decorations up in Delemont but the lights haven't been switched on yet. I'm very excited by the array of Christmas biscuit cutters in the supermarket and now just have to make the difficult decision of which to buy! You can actually make the whole nativity, how cool!

I think I'm starting to get addicted to fondue, had one last week and this weekend I'll be having another... It's all part of the Swiss experience though I guess. It's funny, I actually had to turn down an invite to a fondue cos I'd already planned to go to another!

Okay so I know I've been completely rubbish with the blogging lately, apologies for that.

So... where to begin! I've been here for about two and a half months now, it's going crazily quickly. Winter is beginning to set in, pretty much all the leaves have disappeared now and there is snow on the tops of the hills around here. The autumn colours were absolutely beautiful, I went for a couple of walks through the forest and it was so so pretty. The last few days have been very dreary and rainy though, it feels like I'm back in Manchester

I've just realised that I don't seem to be able to write a post without talking about the weather! I guess I am a true English girl... I've been drinking tons of tea lately too, really living out the stereotype. Thanks to Anna I have a new supply of authentic teabags which should last me until Christmas :)

So what else have I been doing... hmm, I seem to have been very busy, despite only having 12 hours of lessons a week! I 'm having to do more lesson prep now as at the start I could do pretty much the same lesson with each class but now that the exams are drawing nearer I'm having to prepare more individual activies for each group. I'm still giving my two private lessons a week too and spent several hours in the last few days proofreading a 50+ page thesis on economics for a friend of a teacher! So I'm now slightly more clued up on sovereign bonds and can tell you a bit about various economic crises.

I've done a bit more sightseeing too, went to Lucerne the other week which was very very pretty (see pic above). A typical Swiss city; on a lake, surrounded by mountains etc. We wanted to go up one of the mountains but public transport was against us that day and alas it didn't happen. Last week I spent an afternoon in Basel and discovered much more of it than I'd seen before. We went up a church tower which has to have THE narrowest spiral staircase in the world. It was a great view from the top though so it was well worth it.

Also went to Interlaken a few weeks ago, during the holidays. I wasn't that impressed with the actual town as it was a bit too touristy for my liking but the scenery was absolutely stunning. We went to Thun first and then drove along the edge of the lake to Interlaken and it was really breathtaking.

That's it for now, I will try and blog more consistently I promise!

And the sun just keeps on shining :) We did have a little bit of rain yesterday, it confused me greatly. But today thankfully the sun reappeared and it was boiling! I don't know how hot it was during the day but I when I was walking back from the train station tonight it was 21 degrees at half 10!

So today has been another fun adventuring day, went to the mighty country of Liechtenstein! Mostly just so I can say I've been there. We went to the "capital" which is basically a village consisting of two main streets and a couple of museums. Oh and and lots of gift shops selling Swiss souvenirs. It was a strange place, but quite pretty and the surrounding scenery was pretty stunning. Sadly I forgot to take my passport to get it stamped :( We had lunch in a restaurant and received the worst customer service ever! I told the waitress twice that I wanted pizza cos she didn't hear me the first time, and then she brought everyone else their food and forgot mine! When we told her I had ordered pizza she said, "Really?" and sounded surprised, oh dear. So then everyone else had finished eating by the time mine arrived! I was hoping for a reduction on the bill but no such luck.

I had a fun train journey back too, got to go on a double decker train, yay!! I love double decker trains, I really don't know why they don't have them in the UK... it's very sad that they don't.

Today has been a fuuuuun day :) One of those fun, random, adventuring days. I went to Lausanne with one of the other language assistants, and it is a beautiful city. It's right by Lake Geneva so after wandering around for a bit we went down to the lake and decided to get a boat to France!! Just cos we could. We went over to Thonon-les-Bains, grabbed an ice-cream, then got on a bus to Evian!! It was so exciting, and an absolutely beautiful place. There was a very exciting moment when we both realised we had evian bottles with us too, haha. The views over the lake were amazing, and the mountains in the background were pretty stunning. We spent about an hour there and then got on a boat back, and on the way we witnessed an amazing sunset, it was just so picturesque - mountains, water, pretty sky... It has been really hot and sunny today too, which just added to the greatness of the day. Can't believe it's practically October and it's still T-shirt weather!

Last Friday we went down to Neuchatel for 'la fete des vendanges' which is basically a weekend-long party! It was lots of fun, tons of people, cool music, dancing in the street etc. Stayed overnight at a friend's and then on Saturday walked around the town and by the lake - it's also a very pretty, picturesque town.

Only two more teaching days then it's holidays, woo!! I've been covering some lessons at a different school this week - it's been fun so far, basically I just have to supervise while they work then go round correcting stuff. I've gained another student for private lessons too so am giving my first lesson to her on Friday.

I'm looking forward to the holidays, hoping to do lots more travelling and sightseeing :)

Salut tout le monde!

In true English fashion I'm going to begin by talking about the weather... it seems to have settled into this weird pattern of being really foggy and dull in the morning then clearing around lunchtime and being really sunny in the afternoon. It was really warm this afternoon, we went for a lovely walk along part of the 'Planetenweg' which is a path with models of the planets spaced out proportionately along it. It was so quiet and peaceful and there was really beautiful scenery.

On Monday I gave my first private lesson to two of my students and it went really well :) I really enjoyed it, it was great having students who actually want to learn and who I don't have to keep telling to shut up! School has been going well too this week, I'm starting to get to know the students and remember their names now which I think helps. On Monday I took some British food in for them to try, to which there were mixed reactions! The Cadbury's chocolate generally went down well (apart from one guy who said it tasted "floury"?!) but they didn't go for the marmite so much!

Well today was an easy day at school - my two classes were doing a mock listening exam so all I had to do was press play on the CD and let them get on with it :) It was a really really hard test though, I felt very sorry for them as there was one question that I wasn't even sure of the answer so how they managed to do it I don't know! I've acquired a new nickname at school; one of the students has decided to call me Mary Poppins as it sounds quite like my name!

Last night I went back to the squash club and am feeling much less dead than after last time :) There were fewer press-ups which I think helped! Someone gave me some one on one coaching and by the end of the night there was definite improvement.

Yesterday I took the train for the first time in Switzerland, it was very exciting! I just went for a little trip to Porrentruy which is a nearby town where the other language assistants are all working. There was amazing scenery on the way and the town is very quaint (see above photo). I saw the school where there others teach, it's amazing! So much nicer than where I am! I met one of the English teachers there and he invited me to go over see them sometime, not sure if he meant to teach or just to meet the teachers but either way that'll be cool.

Had a very nice weekend, it was great to be well enough to actually do stuff! Saturday night the other assistants came round to our flat for dinner and a lovely evening was had. On Sunday we went to a little town called Laufen. It was beautiful weather, very hot and sunny. We had a wander around and a picnic and also went to a cafe for a drink and ice-cream where we were served by a grumpy lady who didn't like us cos we didn't speak Swiss German! She was really friendly to the couple sitting at the next table but really rude to us, grr. Sunday evening I went to church which was cool, everyone was very friendly and I knew all the songs cos they were translated from English!

Very funny moment in class today that I felt I should share...

So the students were doing an activity in pairs where they had to do a fake interview with a famous British person; one person asked questions and the other answered pretending to be the famous person. This was during an interview with the Queen:

Interviewer: What do you like to buy with your money?
Queen: Jewellry, CDs...
I: What kind of music do you like?
Q: punk, metal...
I: You don't like Mozart?
Q: No I don't like Mozart.
I: But when you go to balls you have to dance to Mozart?
Q: Yes but I take my iPod with me so I can listen to metal.

Haha, comedy genius!

Apologies for the lack of blogging, I haven't really had anything to say! I've been a bit ill the last few days so just spent most of my time in the flat reading or watching DVDs, boring I know, but feeling better now so can do stuff again!

School is going well, I've seen all of my classes at least once now - there are 14 different groups in total! That's a lot of names to remember... that part is going less well. I've mostly been doing introduction lessons, which has basically involved repeating facts about myself lots and lots and lots of times. I think my favourite question asked by a student was 'What's your favourite word?' cos it meant I got to bring the word 'bamboozled' into the lesson!

This evening Christina and I went along to a French class to try it out but it turns out it's way below our level. We had to do a test assessment and I scored 100%!! Hooray! I was very proud, I think I can call myself a native speaker now. The woman there told us about another class that might be more suitable so we're going to try that out to see if we're not too good for that one too.

Our flat now finally has a fully functioning living room :) the lovely yellow sofa was delivered last week and we also have a table to put the TV on and a little coffee table etc. We went on a couple of shopping trips and got stuff like a kettle and toaster too so we're fully equipped.

Just got back from playing squash tonight, at a proper club! It was fun but very tiring and pretty challenging too as I've never done any coaching or training before. To begin with we did some drills and I was absolutely rubbish! But I definitely saw improvement over the evening and by the time we came to play matches I was doing okay. Think I'm going to go every week so hopefully be the end of the year I'll be a pro!

Today was my first proper day in school, well I saw proper day, I only had two lessons! They were both fine, I basically just introduced myself and got the students to introduce themselves. I can't believe how sporty they all are, I don't think there was a single student who doesn't play at least one sport. I think I offended two boys by saying I preferred Man City over Man United, oh well! Tomorrow I start school at 7.50am!!!! I thought 8.15am in Belgium was bad enough...I'm not going to be awake enough to have conversations at that time in the morning!!

Today I bought a train pass so I now get half fare on all trains before 7pm and free travel after 7pm :) (and not it's not because I look like a teenager...) So I'm all ready to travel now! We have a two week holiday at the start of October (!!) so I'm planning to do lotsa travelling then.

Had a conversation with a lovely old lady today. I was sitting on a bench and she came and sat next to me and started chatting about the weather (see, it's not just us English...it was stupidly hot today though). To be honest I didn't understand half of what she was saying as she had quite an accent but the bits I did understand were very interesting, for example she told me that when she was little they had to ski to school! She also talked lots about the goats on her daughter's farm in France...

Wow I've been here for almost a week already, it's flown by. Aunty Ros and Uncle Jim have gone back now so I'm left to fend for myself!! I think I should survive...

Thursday night we went for dinner at another teacher's house which was a very nice evening indeed. We sat out in the garden, had a lovely meal and generally laughed a lot. It was very Swiss, there was the sound of cow bells jangling in the background and we ate roschti (potato-type dish they eat lots of here).

On Friday we went to Basel which is the nearest big city. It's a lot bigger than I thought actually, and only 30 minutes away on the train so definitely going to be going there lots I feel. We had a little wander around, saw the cathedral, had some lunch by the river etc. Oh and we went on a tram which was very exciting! They certainly like their museums in Basel, they have pretty much every museum you could ever want to go to, and plenty that you'd never want to go to... There are things like the Basel Natural History Museum that you would expect, but then also things like the Swiss Fire Brigade Museum and the Pharmaceutical Museum. Bizarre.

Yesterday we just stayed around Delemont, had a litle walk around, went to the supermarket, went out for pizza etc. I discovered that they do have weetabix, yay!! And they sell Tetley tea bags, amazing. So I got some earl grey :) Uncle Jim also put my wardrobe together for me yesterday so I no longer have to live out of a case, hooray! I also have a desk now too so my room finally looks like a proper room :)

Settling in

I finally got round to taking a few pictures! The top one is the view from my bedroom window and the second one is the view from the kitchen.

Yesterday was the welcome day in Zurich. It was a good day overall but some of the seminars weren't the most interest thing I'd ever heard! We did get some useful hints and tips for teaching though and it was cool to meet all the other assistants. The best bit of the day was when we went for a drink afterwards! We sat in the sun by the lake and it was really lovely :) Zurich is a beautiful place and I'm definitely going to go back there to explore further sometime.

Today I've been doing admin stuff, went to register so I can legally be here for the year and also opened a bank account. Just need to go back tomorrow to sign for it so I very nearly have a Swiss bank account! Oh and I also bought a mobile so if anyone wants my new number just ask. I went to see two of the schools I'll be working in (they're different schools but in the same building) and met some of the teachers there. They all seem very friendly and seem to think I speak good French so that was reassuring!

It's been so hot today! I'm currently sheltering indoors cos I couldn't stand the heat anymore! I shouldn't complain though, it is nice to see the sun.

The adventure begins!

So here I am in Switzerland!! :) and with internet in my flat :) Arrived yesterday after a mammoth almost 22 hour drive...which I managed to sleep through most of. It was so so hot, I think after living in Manchester I'd given up on the summer and forgotten that in other places this season still exists, so I didn't really have the right attire for boiling heat!

Delemont is a lovely place, a decent sized town surrounded by mountains :) My flat is very nice, needs a little more furniture yet but that'll all come together soon. It's in the old part of the town, very picturesque. It overlooks the market place and apparently there is a little market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings so that'll be handy. I've unpacked as much stuff as I can so far but need to wait 'til I get a wardrobe for the rest! I'm sharing with a German girl called Christina who seems very nice.

Today we wandered around the town a bit and caught in a torrential downpour!! We sheltered in the post office for a bit but then braved it and got absolutely soaked! It made Manchester rain look like something not even worthy of being called rain in comparison. So that was fun. We also went to the supermarket which I did enjoy, I like foreign supermarkets. Although I was slightly disappointed to discover that they don't appear to have Weetabix in Switzerland!! That's the only cereal I sort of like, oh well, pain au chocolat for breakfast it is then.

This evening Christina and I went round to one of the teachers' flat for dinner. It was a very nice evening and I was happy to find that I can still converse adequately in French :) I learnt that they say 'Natel' for mobile phone so that's now three different words for mobile I have in my French vocabulary, it's getting harder to keep track of which one to use in which country!