Here is my politically neutral post for you all!
Once upon a time, there was a student at Northeastern University named Brenda who was part of the co-op program. One semester she decided to take full advantage of this program and work on site at a hospital in Heidelberg, Germany.
There she got to meet many awesome people and make friendships that would last her a life time. One of her best friends while in Germany was a woman named Dagmar. After Dagmar and Brenda had both gotten married to their respective husbands, they both had their first child within a month of each other. Dagmar's daughter, Saskia, was born in March, while Brenda's, Kaitlin, was born in April. As the two girls got older the mothers thought they would be good pen pals. The two girls wrote to each other regularly with their mothers translating the letters to and from German for their daughters. One day, the two friends were finally able to see each other again when Brenda and her family traveled to Europe. The two families vacationed together in London, and an idea was hatched in each of the families heads. This idea came to fruition when Saskia came to live with Brenda and her family a few years later and study at the same school as Kaitlin. Ever since, Kaitlin and Saskia have been very good friends, so much so that for Kaitlin's 18th birthday, her parents gave her a trip to Germany to spend a week with Saskia and her family.
Another friend of Brenda's was a man named Gerold. The two of them didn't keep in touch as regularly as Dagmar and Brenda did. However, when Brenda was gifted a trip to Germany by her family for the Christmas of 2011, she thought to get in contact with Gerold and try to meet up with him and his family while she was in the area. Gerold had met a wonderful woman named Yolanda and the two of them and their children lived in Baden, Switzerland together.
When Kaitlin, Brenda's daughter, decided to study abroad in the French alps in the spring semester of 2013, Brenda thought to contact Gerold and his family to see if they would have Kaitlin over for a weekend.
Okay, this is starting to bug me, so it must be getting to you. Surprise! My full name is Kaitlin! And Brenda is my mom too. Typically, the Kaitlin thing is more surprising to people, so I thought I would just drop that in there for good measure. So yeah, for Easter weekend I took a train (well 3) to Baden to stay with the Möhrs for the weekend, and it was one of the best weekends I've had here in Europe. On the Friday, we went to Basel which is right on the boarder with both France and Germany. We did this cool scavenger hunt/walking tour of Basel using this program called Foxtrail. It was really cool and took us to parts of the city we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. Saturday, the daughter of the family, Leana and I walked around Baden and I helped her with her homework. Yes this is worth mentioning, because I haven't gotten to be the big sister that helps with homework in forever (possibly ever, sorry Maggie) and it was so wonderful and refreshing. Sunday was Easter, and we went to Yolanda's sister's for Brunch. We did what I called an Egg fight. Explanation: so you know how for Easter you hard boil eggs and color them. In my house that's usually the last step. They're a sort of decoration for the few days around Easter and then they're thrown away. In Switzerland they eat them on Easter, but not before having some fun with them.
You hit eggs against other people at the table and whomever's egg doesn't crack after the encounter wins and moves on to the next person. This keeps going until there is one egg left and they are crowned the winner. Then you dig in and have some tasty eggs for Easter. We also hid chocolate eggs (and chocolate bunnies) around the house (it was snowing) which is something I haven't done for years (mostly because my most recent Easters have been in college). After brunch, we walked around Zurich and stopped at a very fancy cafe, Cafe Felix, where I got to have hot chocolate legally for the first time since lent finished.
(http://www.cafefelix.ch)
Sunday night we Skyped with my family. My whole family. My grandmother, uncles, aunt, cousins, parents, sister and exchange student. It was a lot for me to take in, I can only imagine what it was like for the Möhrs! Monday I trained it back to Grenoble. It was a fabulous weekend, and I'm excited for Leana who is going to stay with my aunt Denise's family this coming fall and study at the same school as my cousin. Hopefully the Möhrs will be able to come visit us all in the US!
Other than that, my week has been pretty relaxed. This Friday, however, my study abroad program is bringing us to the south of France to go to Nice. I'm wicked excited and the weather better be spectacular, because I'm ready for it to be spring now! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter, and if you don't celebrate Easter, I hope you at least got to eat some of the candy of the season!
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