PIX!

Sorry my last blog was such a novel without any exciting pictures to make it more interesting! But now that I've finally gotten some of those sweet pictures (at least they were cool in person I hope they turn out alright!) I promised you:



Umm I have no idea how on earth I am supposed to turn this right-side up, but this is my house the day I left... :( So sad I had to leave it all by it's lonesome with just my parents living in it!

But here I am in Switzerland!!! You're just going to have to take my word for it because there aren't any smokers or scooters in the background to prove it, but I'm really there!

This is my room! Or at least half of it. The other half has a little desk, tv (which I never got at home!! Haha now I can stay up all night watching French soap operas!), and of course my suitcases, but i figured you wouldn't care about that too much. (Not that you do care about seeing my bed...)

This is me all prettied up for the dance that you heard so much about! (Thank you Mom for the MODEST dress!!!) I put in another picture of all my new little friends here... farther down I guess.

I just kinda thought this was exciting... It's like one of those movig walkway things they have in airports, except it's in the shopping center AND it's tilted!! Crazy!!

Umm this is SUPPOSED to be the picture of all of us at the dance, but I guess it didn't work... Maybe it'll just magically start to work later...

That's all for now! I'm getting kinda sick of being a computer bum!

She Lives!

GUESS WHAT?? I'm ALIVE!! After 18 hours of travelling across (ALONE) I'm still living and breathing and in actually pretty good health (despite the living off of trailmix for two days). Anyways here's how it went...

So Wednesday morning comes along, and seemingly for the first time it actually hits me: I'm going to SWITZERLAND! My first thought that morning was probably "What the heck did I get myself into this time??" So after pulling myself together a little bit I got up and got ready for the day, finished packing, and packed everything into the car. And of course Mom had to take my 'first day of school' pictures since I wouldn't be there for my actual first day of school.

We then proceeded to visit my grandma to say goodbye, then to the airport. Dad helped me with the whole checking my bags in thing, walked me to the line going to security (by then Mom had parked the car and joined us), and we said out goodbyes. And (here's the scary part!) then I was on my own! I'm not going to lie, even if I hadn't really admitted to it before, I was SCARED!!! But I made it ok, so it's all good.

My first experience of seeing a real, honest to goodness, 100% European boy was a pretty exciting experience. He was EXTREMELY tall (which is most definitely NOT a bad thing!), had kinda light-ish hair, pink cheeks like a little boy, and was wearing MAN CAPRIS!!! (Woot woot!) But he was also a Brit, so he doesn't really count because I'll be meeting the French ones. Anyways that was in the Chicago airport, so my next step was actually TALKING to one. That happened in the London airport. Once again, he really only half-way counts because he was not only a Brit, but college-age too. But he was really nice, and we talked for a while. The only reason I count this as my 'next step' in being exposed to the European culture (as a teenager at least) was when he was leaving to go to his gate. At first I wasn't quite sure what he was doing. But in the end I did figure it out. It was one of those European kiss things. I'm not quite sure how to spell it, so I won't even try. It was QUITE a shock though!

Of course now that I'm on my third day here I am getting pretty accustomed to everything. (Right...) Now that you've heard what happened on the way here, here's what I've been doing so far:

Yesterday I woke up at 2:00 (or here it would be 14:00). It was because of jetlag, but I still felt like a bum when I finally woke up. I spent most of the day on my own because the Vopicelli's are in Italy until Wednesday to take Bro. Vopicelli's mom to her home there or something like that. But then I got a call from President De Guzman (the branch president in my ward when I lived here before) wondering if I wanted to go to the stake dance that night! (I was saved!!) The international (or English-speaking) branch youth were in charge, so I helped a little there since I we got there early. I got to meet a whole bunch of American kids who were all there because of their parents' jobs, so I didn't get much French experience, but it was still a TON of fun! In that group I only knew one person, Soren (who was about 6'kazillion" I'm not kidding!!). We had a nice dinner, then we danced, then dessert, then went home. It was actually kinda small, but it was better than any dance we go to in Utah (at least it probably would be if I wasn't quite so out of it). I got home about midnight, and had an incredibly hard time falling asleep, but at least after a couple hours of just lying there I finally did.

The next morning (this morning) I got up, ate breakfast, and worked on my internet classes. Pretty exciting... But it's actually just enough to be here!! It's gorgeous, and I love it! Monday we're planning on getting a train pass, so then I'll be able to do a little bit of exloring which I am really excited for!

Love and miss you all!!!

PARTY!!!

Ok, so it wasn't exactly a party with tons of people and all that stuff, but it was still way fun!!! AND it provided lots of fun pictures which are always exciting! The party was just at my house, and at times it was a little weird because there were kind of two seperate groups there. (My friends that I know from taking high school classes, and my friends that are my own age.)
Anyways here are just a few pics...



Left to right: Abby, me, Camari, Ashley, and Kristen. We made a little fort in the playroom thing under the steps and had a little part of our own in there!

This is just a picture of mostly everybody who was there, and I just barely noticed that Lindsey got cut out of the picture!!! Lindsey I am terribly sorry about this, but you know I love you!

These are my two good friends from my soccer team, Ashely and Abby! They are basically incredible friends!

This picture kind of goes with the first one, only it was taken before the others came and joined us in our little hiding place... Once again, I'm still trying to figure out this whole blog thing and I have absolutely no idea how to switch them around, and it's probably a little late to call my sister for help.

So that was the grand going away party of Nellie! Now more people than just the people that I see and talk to over the summer know that I'm not dead or a high school drop out. Anyways thanks all of you who helped out and came to my 'party' it was so much fun and I appreciated it so much! Love you all and see you in four months!!!

Finally, a PLAN!

I hope you enjoy my picture of the most perfect example of man capris I could find. I'm actually not exactly what the picture of the other guy is there for so you can just ignore him. (And just for the record, this was supposed to go at the bottom, but since I am still tyring to figure this thing out it is going at the top.)

Hello everybody! For those of you who do not know yet, I am OFFICIALLY going to Geneva, Switzerland!! I've been talking about maybe going since last year, and just yesterday we finalized the plane ticket for me to leave on August 27th!! (Sorry about all of the exclamation marks, I'm just so EXCITED!) I will be staying until December 16th, and going to a semester of Swiss public schools supplemented with a few online classes (I can hardly understand science as it is, so we figured we'd better do something). We actually have not had any direct contact with the schools there, and I honestly don't even know what day it starts, but we're just going to have faith that it works out. I'll stay with the Vopicelli family (a couple we knew from when my parents were mission presidents there, and are good friends with).

I'm getting a little sick of answering all of the same questions over and over again so...

FAQ's:

Are you going by yourself?

Yep! Wouldn't want any parental supervision while flirting with all those attractive European boys, now would we?

Are you scared/nervous?

Duh!! I'm going across the ocean for four months to a place where they speak a different language and if I get homesick there's no changing my mind!

What do they speak in Switzerland? Swedish?

You know for living in 'little Switzerland' (talking about my home sweet home here in Midway) where 99.99% of everybody has Swiss ancestry, they sure don't know a lot about the place! They speak Swedish in Sweden. Just because two countries start with the same two letters DOES NOT mean that they speak the same language. In Switzerland there are three main languages: German, French, and Italian. Most of the country is German-speaking, but where I'm going I get to speak French.