on travelling and disappearing acts

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26mar

for my next trick, on the count of go, i shall disappear before your very eyes and shall not reappear until six months have come and gone! aaaaand..... go!

so i'm hiding in switzerland. it's amazing. trick actually worked!

we had a layover in amsterdam for about two hours. i wrote some postcards home because now i am a flag-wearing, map-toting tourist. when we landed in zurich, giant snowflakes were falling. winter just follows me wherever i go. it reminded me of home a bit – the four seasons in canada*: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction. i guess that since i knew switzerland had hardly any snow this winter, i brought some with me, because canada won't miss it.

now i am in moosleerau, one of switzerland's many villages. in each village reside about two or three hundred people, and just down the road and just over that hill are more villages. they are charming and quaint little places, comfortable and homey and swiss. moosleerau is in a valley, but the mountains here are small. some of the trees are strange to me, but most of the countryside is quite similar to canada. sometimes i forget i am in europe for that reason, but then i see a doorknob or a toilet or the windows on the side of a house and it nudges me back into the dream. soon we'll be travelling a bit and i'll have lots more to say.

*joke courtesy of meine schwester.

27mar

we went to aarau today. bought an adapter for my electronic gadgets and a dictionary. the language seems impossible – swiss-german is like a whole different language than german, although essentially the structure is the same. babe told me just to learn german because you can't learn swiss from a book, so i had almost given up until today. we wandered into a bookstore downtown aarau and i spotted an english/german/swiss-german dictionary. now i feel that the culture shock will actually wear off (eventually).

speaking of culture shock, oh my god. it's a bit overwhelming, everything changing at once. the time, the language, the food, even mealtimes. all of my surroundings are strange. it's exciting and terrifying at once. and i always want to sleep. i read that if you don't sleep on the plane, the jet lag lasts one day for every time zone you cross. so that makes nine days for me. nevertheless, i am having a hoot! until next time.

28mar

baby went to aarau again today for paperwork, and he's bringing me chocolate. ya baby.