Welcome to Borex, the happiest place on earth

Is that the name of a movie?  Oh no, it's just my life right now.

Every time I step outside, and when I'm inside, for that matter, I just can't even believe where I am and what I'm doing right now.  I feel so incredibly privileged to be able to spend a semester abroad, let alone in Switzerland, let alone with the kindest, most welcoming, and most fun family in Europe, that I sometimes can't even believe it.  But that's how I feel about my host family. They have welcomed me in so kindly to their home and gone way beyond what I would have expected.  They are a couple with three grown sons and three little grandsons, two of whom I've met and the other I met on skype.  They are Sicilian/Italian/Swiss and married/dating Polish so when everyone is over it is a jumble of languages and noise and it always amazes me that somehow we manage to communicate.  Their sons speak English (as well as a few other languages, such is life here), but during the week I can only talk to my host parents in French.  It was a big victory when this week I had a full conversation with my host papa in French for an hour.  My french is still terrible, but he is a gracious teacher and I'm an eager learner.  And luckily they speak with their hands so that helps quite a bit.  I even picked up on French sarcasm! 

But my best French faux-pas so far: I probably have learned 600 times in French class that there are two expressions, "J'ai fini" and "Je suis fini" and one means "I'm finished" and the other means "I'm dead."  So I finished my meal, I knew I had a 50/50 chance at using the right expression, handed my plate to my host mama and happily told her, "J'ai fini"..."I'm dead."  She corrected me and we laughed about it and I'll most definitely make the same mistake again.  Speaking of food, it's incredible.  There will be many more posts to come dedicated to the subject to give it the honor it's due.

On the lucky sunny days, the town is adorable.  And I mean how could it not be when this is the town commune?

this picture was blurry but i like it so i blurred the edges as a disguise...but now the secret is out

a little farm

a little farm house

a little farm house window 

a bigger farm house


extras for extra cold winters?


French Alps

     more French Alps

There's so much sky here that you can see the stars even when it's raining.  

   

Comments

  1. @wernig_joleneFebruary 15, 2014 at 2:45 PM

    Sounds like your trip is off to a great start:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownFebruary 19, 2014 at 12:04 AM

    I can almost smell the earthy Swiss air through these photos... you must have a pretty sweet camera :) It sounds amazing, I already love your family. Tell them to visit the States! Miss you tons. Bek

    ReplyDelete

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