Omg better art !!!

Today I did homework & learned how to make paper cranes & cleaned my room & helped my grandma get groceries. :)

One of my crazy talented friends drew my eyeball picture that I took yesterday! It looks sooo cool.

So I was wondering what I could do with my paper cranes... I got inspired by some pictures I saw online and made this cute little thing in my window. :)

Omg art !!!

Today I did absolutely nothing all morning and it was wonderful. Then after lunch I took a shower, cleaned my room and did some laundry, and then got inspired to make some art. 

It's a watermelon! I realized I have pink eyeliner & mascara and two shades of green eyeliner & mascara! Then I edited it so it was red (if I ever find red eyeliner, I will buy it & do this again :p)

So that was fun:)

Then I decided to doodle some stuff but none of it really came out good except this octopus kind of. 

So yay for art! I'm so glad we have another week of spring break. I don't think anyone's ready for school stress yet. 

Oh! And there was a giant thunderstorm this evening and I'm falling asleep now listening to rain against my window. It makes me so happy. :)

Spain Day 6!

This morning we got up late and hopped on the bus to drive two hours back to Málaga to get on the plane. The plane was delayed a little so we hung out in the airport for a while before flying home. 

We arrived & got our bags & ate dinner at the airport & everything worked out perfectly. Then we came home and I Skyped with my mom. :) 

I just finished unpacking and now I'm super tired! I'm looking forward to another week of vacation. Good night!

Spain Day 5!

This morning Lara and I went shopping (for souvenirs and gifts and because everything is cheaper here) and met Oma & Opa for lunch with Dominic. I'm the only one in our group that knows more than two words in Spanish (besides my aunt, but she wasn't around) so I had the privilege of ordering our food... Which was neat. It's an awesome feeling of accomplishment when you successfully communicate with someone in another language. Also, I had pineapple juice because it sounded awesome. It was most awesome. 

Then Lara & I went and got ice cream. Mine was snickers flavored! :)

We walked back up to the hotel and changed into our swim stuff to hang out by the pool. And that's all we did all afternoon. :)

We had dinner at the hotel, and then went to a little outcrop to watch the sunset. Lara and I took some really neat pictures. 

We leave tomorrow! I want to stay... This has been such a fun vacation, I really hope to come back to Spain again someday!

Spain Day 4!

Today we got up early & walked five minutes down the hill to the Alhambra, which is basically the ruins and restored gardens of the old palace. (Where Queen Isabella lived!) The gardens were absolutely stunning, 

and the palaces were so ridiculously detailed I couldn't properly appreciate it after a while because it was just too much. 

(That's a ceiling^)

Basically, imagine this ^ times a million and you're about there. 

Then after lunch we hopped on a bus and drove to the other side of the city, then walked down through a zillion tiny streets into the middle of Granada. It was pretty fun, and we learned (among other things) about houses that are labeled as "Carmens". In order for a house to be able to carry the title of Carmen, it has to fulfill some requirements. Some of those include having a garden (with both useful plants-like herbs or lettuce-and decorative plants-like daisies or roses) and having an inner courtyard. I thought it was pretty cute. 

After the tour we convinced my aunt & uncle that we needed ice cream. I have never had such a giant cone in my life. It was beautiful. Snickers & stracciatella ice cream=heaven.

Something neat:

I took a picture of the view from the Alhambra across Granada to the other side, and then later today I took another picture of the view from the other side of the city across to the Alhambra. The red is where the other picture was taken!

Spain Day 3!

Today we got up early and spent two hours on the bus driving to Córdoba. Literally all we could see in every direction the whole time we were driving were olive trees. Miles and miles and miles of olives... Did you know most of the fancy Italian olive oil is actually produced from olives from Spain? How random..

Anyways, in Córdoba we stopped right by an old Roman bridge, which we got to walk across later.

Then we visited the mosque-cathedral of Córdoba, which is basically an absolutely ginormous mosque with a cathedral right in the middle.

The history behind it is a bit complicated... It was first a Catholic Church which was then torn down and replaced with a mosque, which was then gradually expanded until Córdoba was under Catholic rule again, when a cathedral was (in my opinion rather randomly) built smack in the middle of the mosque. It is literally too big for words. 

This is the cathedral in the middle- facing forward

And backward! (Black is all mahogany wood from South America, and there are two giant organs on either side built into the walls that didn't fit into the picture)

After visiting the mosque we wandered through the city, which was a mishmash of tiny streets and crooked, winding, bright alleys. It's almost like Rome:)

We drove two hours back to Granada, ate dinner, and are going to bed soon. I can't wait for tomorrow, we're visiting the Alhambra!

Spain Day 2!

Today we got up early and walked down a hill behind our hotel to wander through the actual city of Granada. 

We visited the Cathedral where Queen Isabella of Spain's body is, 

and a cool statue showing Christopher Columbus asking Queen Isabella for permission to go to India, which was neat.:) (oops, you can't even see the statue in the picture? My bad.)

Then we did some shopping, because everything in cheaper here than in Switzerland. Everything is cheaper anywhere else than in Switzerland (kind of). 

We came back to the hotel & went swimming & laid in the sun until dinner (it's so nice & warm here!), where we walked to a place close by where there was amazing cheesy pizza & paellas (rice with tomatoes and lots of other veggies-apparently a Spanish specialty). 

Tomorrow we have to get up early to get on the bus for two hours.. *horrified gasp*

Spain Day 1!

Today we almost missed our train to the airport.. It was a tad stressful. But woot we ended up making it, and then flew two hours to Spain:) I love airplanes & flying. So that was fun. 

We got off the plane and got on a bus to go wander around the city of Málaga, which is right next to the beach. It was nice & warm & reminded me of Florida somehow. Then we got back on the bus & drove two hours to Granada to our hotel. It is so gorgeous here, I'm so excited for the best week! 

PENTATONIX

Today was a normal Wednesday, which means a half day, and after going home & dropping off my school stuff, I went right back into Zurich to wait in line for 2 hours with 4 other girls from my class to see Pentatonix! (Google them if you don't know who they are, you won't regret it..) We basically sat on the ground the whole time we were waiting, eating and talking. But showing up so early was worth it because we were fourth in line. That meant when the doors opened we were in the fourth row ish (standing-it was in a club so no seats..) and standing/dancing to the radio for another 2 hours, they finally came on stage and performed for another two hours. It was amazing. I'm completely hoarse and my feet hurt so bad... But it was super fun! I sound a bit crazy-but believe me, it was worth it! They are just as good live as on any recording... And they did one song without microphones, where the audience was dead silent. It was so beautiful. I'm so happy that they decided to come to Zurich while I'm here! 

Ten minutes after I got home I went on Instagram and saw that there was a new picture on their official Instagram... That they had taken during the show... And I'm in it! 

You can see so much, I know. But woo! We were so close to the stage. It was soooo awesome! :)

Half a half day

Today a bunch of classes were canceled again, and it was already a half day, so that was neat. I also got to practice my solo for choir-I'm super excited about it:) 

I also helped my grandma again with her computer... I feel like it is going to take longer than I thought before she is comfortable. But it's awesome that she's learning. Did you know she never learned how to drive a car?

School again

Today we went back to school, but it was a really short day because a bunch of classes were canceled. :) It was gorgeously sunny, and I wanted to see how little I could spend on lunch & still be full... I ended up getting a banana, a yogurt, and a fresh roll for the grand total of 2.30. Healthy food is very cheap here, and it's the chips that are expensive. This leads to people generally eating healthier, which is clearly a good thing. I find it interesting that there are wayyyy fewer obese people (or even just chubby people) here... Might have something to do with making better quality food cheaper? *cough cough* America *cough*

Easter Monday

Today we didn't have school again! Yay!

I spent the day playing piano, doing homework, skyping with two friends, taking pictures,

and helping my grandma with the computer. She proclaimed multiple times that checking her email was quite complicated and she has written down all the steps so that she doesn't get confused... First opening Firefox, then typing the web address of her email provider, then typing her password, then going to the inbox of her email. It's pretty adorable. 

Happy Easter!

Today I slept in and then went to aunt Claudia's for a mini Easter egg hunt with Dominic & Lara. We got lots of chocolate:)

After that I went back home & went running with Lara, then came back home and participated in another Easter egg hunt at home. 

Then we went back to Claudia's for dinner with my grandparents. I think it's really neat that I get to celebrate a year of holidays with my mom's side of the family. It's interesting what little things are different. 

After dinner we came home & I helped my grandma set up her new MacBook! It is going to require a lot of patience to help her... She has to read everything on the page before she can click on something. Which is super annoying, because most pages are full of extra ads & options. However, I think the Internet is the hardest thing for her to understand. Just the concept of typing in anything and then getting a bunch of filtered results. 

Shopping & some sort of relations

This morning I went bikini shopping with my aunt and Lara... #immaneedtoworkonthatsummerbody

Afterwards we went to my uncle's uncle's wife's birthday celebration about an hour and a half away by car. We gave up trying to explain to everyone who I was and ended up just saying I was a random exchange student. Whatever. It was fun. After that I ate dinner with Lara and continued my reign as champion of MarioKart. 

Sleepover pt. 2

We all woke up at 9 because one of the girls had to leave... We then proceeded to eat breakfast and go back to bed/watch Germany's Next Top Model. One other girl and I ended up staying almost all day, and we dyed eggs for Easter with the rest of the family. 

Then I came home, ate dinner, Skyped with my mom, and went to bed. :)

Sleepover!

Today we got let out of school early! Four of us then went to a girl names Jessica's house and had a sleepover there:) We had almost all never seen Titanic, so our excuse for the sleepover was to watch that. We made fajitas and ate lots of chocolate. And watched Titanic of course. I personally didn't like it that much. Can't really explain why. *shrugs* Oh well. We went to bed about 2 am? I think?:)

April Fools Day!

Happy day of foolery!

Today I went to the Technorama (sciency hands-on center place idk) after school with some other people from different math classes... I thought it was pretty boring. Which is really sad because I was really really looking forward to going! 

The part that was kind of interesting was the workshop that we did as a class, where we worked with liquid nitrogen and frozen CO2 (dry ice!) and fire and lots of snazzy stuff. But I picked a bad partner who had no sense of wonder apparently. She would perform the experiment, go "neat." And move on. Hello? You just did this sequence of events that led to this thing suddenly erupting into flames??? Does that not make you want to stop and think for two seconds why? It's not like they were tricky experiments. Whoah, look, a glowing piece of steel wool burns like crazy when you put it into a flask with a bunch of oxygen. I wonder why. Duh. So that was a mistake. Oh well. Lab coats and goggles are always fun, I guess.

And I feel like the actual permanent displays were not that interesting. I was impressed at how much stuff there was to look at and fiddle with, but it was also still quite simple. It would definitely help someone trying to learn or understand basic math or science. Multiple visual representations of Pythagoras's Theorem that you can twist and take apart etc etc are definitely useful. Oh well! I went and spent an afternoon somewhat stimulating my brain. Example: what kind of mathematical formulas do they program this magnet-controlled ball with so that it creates beautiful, perfect patterns in the sand and how does that translate to the machine actually moving the magnet around? Sadly this was not explained on the plaque. 

That turned into a rant pretty quickly. Oops. I guess I'm just sick of stupid people.

Tomorrow I'm going to a friend's house for a sleepover because we don't have school Friday or Monday because of Easter! Yippee! :)