A Million Mandarins & A Suppository Deposit

Dear Blog.
I'm sorry I have not paid you any attention over the last few weeks. But you don't call or remind me that you exist. I forgot about you.
Here's an update...
I de-registered today. I have officially told this country that I plan to leave in less than a month!
This makes me sad. I don't want to leave.
Hooray for return tickets in March!

The lady at the Gemeinde Office (Community Centre? Where they keep track of all their obedient Swiss citizens?) seemed unsure about the whole process. My residency card stated a date that I was required to leave that did not match up with my VISA. When I questioned her about this, her only answer was, We can neither understand or fathom the ways and thoughts of the Foreign Police, or something to this effect.
Yeah right, just admit a typo!

I feel sad. I should be packing. Somehow I've accumulated far far far too much stuff. How did I come here with only 20kg?!
I technically leave Zurich in a week and a half - how did this happen?

I console myself with thoughts of sunshine and white beaches. Are the beaches white? No idea. I realized that many of the luxuries that I enjoy here: Internet, copious amounts of chocolate, TV, my own space, the ability to go for a walk whenever I want in my free time...
I will not have these on this sailing trip. No internet, no constant and available supply of chocolate, no TV, no space??! And definitely no random walks....unless I suddenly learn to walk on water...hmmm....

For 5+ weeks....eek.

However, instead I am swapping these for visits to Trinidad, St Lucia, Grenada, St Vincent & Martinique. (It's ok if you want to google these, I had to!)
So it's a swap I'm prepared to make. I think.
And....I get to visit my ever beautiful friend Katie and her lovely family in the States for a few weeks after the Caribbean trip and before returning to Switzerland! How wonderful is that!?

And in other news, my Swiss family is a bit sick at the moment and I seem to have fallen down as well. I don't know how, I am eating millions of mandarins! Isn't there Vitamin C in them?

This week I learnt about Suppositories. I think they are much more common over here than at home? I've certainly never had to deal with them at home?
I won't tell you the whole story, but let's just say that this week I've had to google Giving Suppositories to Children.
I never thought about this aspect when I decided to be an Au Pair (the things they don't tell you!)
I tried to convince her to take a normal pill. I assured her she was capable of swallowing it. That perhaps she could just try, and if she couldn't, that would be ok, but please please please could she just try.
She couldn't.
She wouldn't.
And so I learnt about Suppositories.
But I later found out she thought I was going to try and make her swallow a Suppository.
The language barrier.
Sometimes it's bigger than you think.