Strange-smelling adventure?

Today I got up and did some studying, then ate lunch and went with my grandma to visit my great-grandmothers grave. I never knew her, but today was All Souls Day, so a lot of people were at the cemetery putting flowers and such on the graves. 

I am currently a Catholic, but I think it's dumb to believe or trust in something when you don't know what other options or viewpoints or arguments there are, so I'm very interested in learning about other religions. Well it just so happens that this week the inter-religion group (or something like that) is doing a "religion week", where every day a different religion opens their church or temple or mosque doors and anyone can come and be informed about that religion. I think that is the coolest thing ever. So today the Hindu temple that's only a 10 minute walk away from my grandmas house was doing a presentation, so we went. It was super cool. Completely different from anything I've ever seen. The only bad thing was whatever they were burning gave me a massive headache. But other than that it was fascinating. (And I did ask if it was ok to take pictures, don't worry)

Afterwards I went over to my Aunts house for her to give me a mini French lesson. Then I came home, ate dinner, and Skyped with my family. I miss you guys!

Friday! Week 7!

Today we didn't have choir, so a bunch of the girls and I went to subway for lunch. Guess how much a 15 cm (the smaller size instead of 30 cm) sandwich cost me? 9.90 CHF (franks). Ridiculous. I know where I'm not going for lunch again... But afterwards we all got ice cream, so that was fun. 

After school I went home to change and grab my stuff, and then I went back into Zurich with Lara to get on a train for three hours to Genève. Genève is a city in the west of Switzerland (the French-speaking part) where Lara's godmother (Sandra) lives. On the way there we played a half-hour-long game of uno with two 20-something military guys who spoke only a bit of german. It was really fun:)

When we arrived in Genève Sandra was waiting for us, and then we went a few tram stations away from the main station to her apartment. She has the coolest city apartment (aka it's tiny and adorable) on the top fifth floor of the building (No elevator = super fit). The whole place (and by "place" I mean four little rooms) is completely hipster and eclectic with furniture from all over Asia and Europe and orange walls. It has a teeny balcony with an adorable view. I am completely in love with it. *cue crazy fangirling*

I got permission to take some pictures, but it's already dark here (11:45 pm) so I'll post some tomorrow in better light.

Lara's godmother (what does that make her to me? Is there even a term for someone's cousin's godmother? I don't think so...) is super nice and fun. We talked and drank tea until 11:30 at night and she is totally cool with whatever we want to do the next few days. I'm super excited to see the city and get to know Sandra better! And no school for two weeks!

Homeworkkkkkk

Today I went to church with my grandparents, spent 2 hours learning French grammar with my aunt, and most of the rest of the day doing homework and studying. Hip hip hurray.

Also tonight the moon was really really big and I tried to take a picture. I failed.

First day of school!

Well I survived my first day! (Yay!) 

I had to get up at 6:15 am to catch the train at 7:15 with my cousin and her friends. We got to the school around 7:30, when I promptly got completely confused and had to go to the office to ask where my first class was... So that was fun. 

Something that I noticed right away was that not a single soul talked or whispered or giggled when the teacher was talking (at least at the beginning of the day), and that the teacher was strict. Well, not exactly "strict", but he meant business. 

I technically had German first, but we introduced ourselves and figured out who say where and what was expected of us and so on. Then we went to Geography, which sounds super interesting. It's not really just naming countries from what I can tell, it's more learning about different countries and things like that but we'll see. Then we went to French. That was a wild ride. I understood about two words because I have 1 year of French whereas the rest of my classmates have 4 and the teacher talked a million miles per hour (or at least seemed to). After class I talked to her and she said she'd give me a different book so I can still learn stuff this year-yay! Then we had Physics. I feel like Physics is going to be one of my favorite classes, just because already on the first day we watched a really fascinating short video on comets. Plus the teacher seemed really easygoing. Then we had a lunch break-an entire hour. It was so nice to be able to walk down to the supermarket, buy food, and sit and eat and talk instead of just eating and running to the next class. After lunch, we had Spanish, which I think will also be awesome, because everyone is starting with zero Spanish experience, so I fit right in.  The teacher was very humorous. Lastly, we had "Geschichte" (which literally translated means "stories", so I was confused what it even was) which is History. It was ok. 

After school I had voice lessons. Of course I forgot the name of the teacher once I walked into the music building so I couldn't find her room for a while. Then I finally figured out where I was supposed to be. She said hello to me and then had me sing bent over, with my mouth nearly closed, and not breathing in before singing for the entire half hour.

After that, I wandered down to the tram station and hopped on a tram going back home. Or so I thought. See, to get back home the quickest and most logical way, I would take a tram and then a train. However, I took the tram on the other side of the street, meaning it went in the opposite direction. I was blissfully unaware until about 3 stops later when my stop wasn't showing up on the board. Thankfully, all roads/trams/buses lead to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station in Zurich), so I just took a slightly more roundabout way home. 

Altogether, I think it was a pretty fantastic first day, and I'm super excited for the rest of the year!

What is this magic?!

I have a spider bite on my ankle that has caused it to swell. I am not happy with this new development. At all. However, I Googled what a brown recluse bite looks like, and they are huge. So at least I know that it is probably not life-threatening. Just kidding.

Today we got crepes that we ordered a while ago as a fundraiser for the French club. I got a cinnamon crepe for lunch and it was the most delicious thing ever. Seriously.

It was definitely a most exciting day... Oooohhhh! We actually had homework!!! Math homework! I had to do three whole problems at home... I almost couldn't handle the workload.

Bye!

The School System Is A Joke

So, today I went back to school after a 3-day weekend... *woop woop*
1st period: French. I love the language and the teacher, but one of the kids asked what the word "deafen" meant. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Deafen
2nd period: Choir! Nothing to say. I love to sing.
3rd period: 21st Century Literacies. We had a lady come in to tell us about how difficult sophomore year is going to be. They tell us that every year, that "the next year of school is going to be soooo tough!"
4th period: English. We wrote an essay. It was fun.:)
5th period: Math. I played on my friend's phone the. Entire. Time. I just did the math homework that he assigned in about 15 minutes. Easy.
6th period: Biology. This class is fun. We have a good teacher. And we learned stuff. Woot.
7th period: P.E. Easy, but fun.

#sorrynotsorry
Rant time is over now.
Bye!