Austauschwoche -- Xchange Week

1 whole week in a whole new different family, whole new different school. In short, whole new different environment. That's y people call it 'EXCHANGE'.

Last week was AFS exchange week. Left on Sunday for Bülach, which is 20 minutes from zürich by train. THe time I met my 2 host siblings, Julian and Paula, we really hit it off! My whole week with my new host family is Bülach was FANTASTIC! My new-1 week-hostfamily consisted of Albert(father), Brigitte(mother), Maja (20, dai ka jie), Julian (18, hot bro), n Paula (17, mega sweet gal!) My hostparents are watch/clock repairers. Not the normal Omega or Rolex kinda watch or clocks. They restore real antique clocks and watches which can cost up to FR40,000 for just 1 ordinary looking wooden clock. Julian, who is doing his last year in the watch/clock school in Solothurn has to build a clock as his 'matur arbeit' which is something like SPM project. Cool ya?! I had a chance to look at his work and my god, it really requires skill, art, dedication, patience and concentration. Everything has to be precise,etc,etc. My god! Anw, his clock is really one cool hand-made clock!

Sch was pretty boring. Most of the people in my class were 15, 16year olds. Not to mention they were kind the quiet bunch too. Yeah, we did chat and stuff, I personally I find them very nice too. But sometimes I just dislike small talks. It's just so cheap. For my 1st day of sch, I skipped the classes after lunch to go to an auction house in Lucern with my hostparents. It was interesting. It makes 1 wonder how can people pay so much money for just 1 wooden clock! Or even better, so much money for a picture which consists of a few coloured streaks?! I can also do that, the difference is no 1 is willing to pay for it =P

Went to Zürich with Paula for salsa lessons. Interesting. The Latinos memang Latinos lah. They can freakin' dance so well. Coincidently, met other 2 exchange students from HOng Kong and Indonesia, Sharmin & Virginia too!

I DIDN'T REALISE HOW TERRIBLE MY MALAY WAS TILL THURSDAY.

I couldn't complete a normal Malay sentence WITHOUT any mistakes or pausing to think. DAMN. For your reference, read on to see how it went on:

THURSDAY- 3RD NOVEMBER 2005- 22.30 - ZÜRICH HAUPTBAHNHOF (mainstation)
Meidy(M) : The Indonesian exchange student
Chong'en (C) : The Malaysian exchange student who USED to speak MALAY till now.

C : Hi! Which country are you from?

M : Halo! Indonesia! Oh, kamu?

C : Malaysia!

M : OH!!! Kamu boleh cakap Bahasa Melayu ke?

C : Ya!!!

M : Apa khabar?(smiling widely coz finally some1 who can speak Malay with her)

C : Khabar baik! Und du?

M : Huh? Oohhh!!! ya, ya, sangat bagus!

C : Ya! Aku juga! Kamu.....(pause)....... ada Gute Gastfamilie und Schule? Scheisse! (started cursing coz the words just didn't come to my mind)

M : Sangat bagus! Saya sangat suka sini. Orang di sini juga memang baik!

C : YA!!! Aku denke auch! (swearing again)Damn! ahhh...(Long pause again. the words just didnt seem to come!) Scheisse, aku tak boleh cakap BM lagi, memang teruk sangat! Tak ingat langsung!

M : *laughing*

C : Wirklich! Shaumal? Kann nicht gar nicht gut auf Malayisch sprechen! Haih! Also, schönen Abend! ( It's true! See? I cant speak good Malay at all now. Well, have a nice evening!)

M : YA! Kamu juga! Selamat tinggal!

C : CHao!! (breath a sense of relief)

MY GOD. & just for your info, the conversation was not that short and I typed in more Malay words now. The actual scene was worse, was longer and was more terrible, in the sense that I was really tongue-tied for Malay vocab. I sounded as if I was some cacated German or Swiss trying to speak Malay. I'm not exagerating. I swear to God I was much terrible than what I typed above.Cant imagine how will it be like when i go home.

Anw, Saturday nite outing was an interesting outing. REal interesting. We went to this Latino disco in zürich, had a great time(interesting for me though, where at 1 point I had to run and hide in the toilet for 20 minutes due to some reason or rather someone......wont go into details...) & of course missed the last night bus home.

Missing the last night bus = taking the 1st train home.

Paula and I stayed the whole night, whole morning in the disco. I was dead tired by 5am. Our 1st train was at 6.37 and we finally reached home at 7.10am. I was almost dead. Dead tired from all the dancing, all the music etc.

Anw, packed and left for Reinach on Sunday.Back to my original hostfamily.It was also great meeting my host family too.Will definitely miss my week-hostfamily in Bülach.Will miss their jokes and laughter.Will miss the humourous chats with Paula and Julian.

Mami's brother from Malaysia and his Malaysian wife came for dinner! WOO! IT was Malaysian-connection time.=P

Anw, will update this place as soon as I get my sleep and time to use the comp. Have been pretty tired these few days. Blame it on the atumn weather where it's pure dark by 5.30pm. Blame it on the cold. Blame anything and anyone but me.