As you can see from the postmark, I’m in Switzerland. I’ve been here two weeks. I miss Mama and Papa terribly, but there are wonderful people here too, and my aunt is so nice to me. I think she is trying to be father and mother both to me so that I will not be homesick. Of course Brigitte already knows three or four boys and will probably not miss home once.

Switzerland is not so very different from home in some ways. Of course the land is very different, not nearly so flat as the Pomeranian plain where we live. To think of Switzerland anything like flat is totally comical!

But the people are similar. The language is the same, although it sounds a lot different. And the people behave much the same too. The main differences come when you travel to small villages and encounter country folk. When I was here before with Papa and Mama we stayed in a small village and rented a cottage. It was such a wonderful time. Papa made a fire and Mama cooked potatoes and we pretended to be peasant farmers. Papa went up on the hill behind the village with one of the farmers and helped him milk his cows. Can you imagine, in the summer here they let their cows roam so much that the farmers have to go out every morning to find their cows before they can milk them! I don’t know why they don’t keep them in a barn like we do.

Back to now.

Of course my aunt and Brigitte want to do nothing but socialize—and not with the village folk. One of the reasons I was excited to come here is because my uncle, who is dead now, had a wonderful library with some volumes we don’t have at home. He spent time in England and I want to improve my English and read lots of English books. But my aunt is not interested in such things, and if I have to go shopping for fabric again, or see the dressmaker for a fitting, or go to another party or tea, I think I will just scream. I hope these first two weeks don’t bode for how it will be the whole time! One comes to Switzerland for the Alps and the water and the villages. But I’ve seen more drawing rooms than snow!

It being winter here, at least I know I am not missing the wild-flowers on the mountains. When spring comes, I can tell you I will get out of the house and up onto the blooming hillsides!