Shopping & pics & Oreos

Today I went shopping in Zurich! I actually even found a pair of jeans that fit me! Woo🎉

I also met a friend and we wandered around Zürich and I played photographer. It was super fun, especially because afterwards we went to the English bookstore and found double triple Oreos. Which are freaking amazing. 

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 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*

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. 

Oma's birthday!

Today was my Oma's birthday! She received two visitors, seven phone calls, and a lot of cards. Grandma is popular. :)

She wants to buy a MacBook, and I get to be her advisor/teacher in the art of computering. I thought since we had already looked at the computers on the Apple site and she had picked one, we would just go in, buy the laptop, and go back home. I was wrong. We spent a good hour talking to the poor assistent and then she decided she still needed to think about it. Oh well. 

Hello NSA

Today I went to the grocery store and the cheese store with my Opa. It saddens me how slowly he walks. He hates going outside and literally spends all day on the couch watching television. It follows logically that he's not in exactly the best shape. So what takes me five minutes to walk took us 25 minutes today. Including breaks. At least he isn't in a wheelchair yet.

I spent the rest of the day helping my grandma around the house & doing homework. Then my grandma and I went into Zurich to see the new movie "Citizen Four". It's about the whole Edward Snowden NSA spying scandal in 2013. The scary thing is how many people and how much data it encompasses. It's mind-blowingly, incomprehensible and almost flat-out unbelievable that the whole thing, all those secrets, are not some science fiction story, but real life.  I would definitely recommend seeing it.  Woo politics.

Gift money & movie:)

Today i went into Zurich with Lara and Cecilia and went shopping with the money my grandma gave me for Christmas. Thanks, Grammy! <3

I think I found one of my favorite sweatshirts ever:

And in the evening we went over to uncle Ralph and Aunt Claudia's and watched a movie:) Time is flying by... Only 5 months until I come home? What?

Rainbows and happiness

Fun fact of the day: There's a Taco Bell app, basically like the Pizza Hut one... Order from your phone and get it delivered to your house. Humans can be so relentlessly inventive when it comes to ways to be lazy. 

It was all rainy and gray today so I window-shoppedish for a few minutes because I missed my train. I really liked this shirt but I didn't get it :p It looks weird with jeans but I think it'd be cute with a skirt. 

It's seriously Monday again

I'm about 97% sure that yesterday was Wednesday. According to my phone it is not. *blank face*

School was nice today, and I bought new makeup *cheers*

Also, the sunset was gorgeous. :)

Presents(!!!)

I dorm like to get out the wrapping paper and tape and scissors and markers and paper and cards and bows and such to wrap presents with until I have all the presents I want to wrap. Which means I wrapped all my Christmas presents today! It's really strange picking out presents for people that I usually don't, and not giving things to my brother and parents. Meh. I have way fewer presents to give this year. Only my grandparents and cousins and aunt and uncle. 

Only two more days until Christmas! Yippee! This was the sunset when I was walking home with my grandma after grocery shopping. 😱 So gorgeous. 

New York day 5 and back to Switzerland

So I am beyond confused how long it has been since the last blog post and if this constitutes as one day or two or what i have no clue.

Anyway, the last day in New York was just as awesome as the rest. The only thing was that my dad was sick, so he missed out on seeing stuff. Anyways, the last day Lara and I did a little bit of shopping. Yay girly stuff... And then Gage and mom and I walked around and visited Grand Central Station and the city library.

That evening aunt Claudia and uncle Ralph and Dominic and Lara and I went to the airport and got on the plane back to Switzerland. The flight was through the night, which was nice, but also not nice, because I only slept about 4 hours. However, there was an adorable little boy in the seat next to me who looked like a younger version of Gage and who fell asleep on my arm during the flight. He was adorable.

We arrived around 10 am Swiss time, ate lunch, then I went home and unpacked and cleaned up. Lara and I went for a walk later in the day before dinner and hung out in a park.

At the moment it is pretty late but I can't sleep so I decided to blog. My dad and mom and Gage should arrive right around this time, so goodnight!

Saturday explorations in Genève/Geneva

Today we got up late, ate breakfast, and then went to a flea market a block away from where we are staying.

I got a ring for one of my friends, and some stuff to make a necklace for someone's Christmas present. There were also a bunch of old cameras that were super awesome, but Lara texted her dad and he said he already had one, so we can take some pictures with it sometime:)

We went shopping on the main street in Genève, and then took a water taxi thing to the other side of the lake, where we went to a cute little cafe. 

After that, we wandered back to the apartment. We found an old car decorated all cool on the way...

We then went home, ate delicious pizza, watched a movie called "The Bling Ring" (with Emma Watson!) and went to bed.

Also, to clear up any confusion, Genève is the same thing as Geneva, just spelled differently. Just so you know. 

Thanks, Grammy... :)

So today after school I went shopping with Aunt Claudia and Lara for winter boots. I was so confused, because when I put a size 37 (the sizes are different here-I think 37 is about a women's size 6 in the U.S.? I'm not sure) on my right foot it fit perfectly, and when I put a size 38 on my left foot it fit perfectly. But the other way around was too big and too small. I usually wear sneakers, and I like them a little too big so I have lots of toe room-I don't know why-which is why I didn't discover this problem earlier... Solution: Buy a size 39 and put insoles into them. Now they fit! Yay! Apparently my Grandma Susan has this same issue with shoe sizes... It seems I have inherited more than a big head and a stubborn nature from you, Grammy!

Tomorrow I get to do my English presentation, I'm super excited!! I put the finishing touches on my presentation tonight and hopefully it'll be fun and interesting tomorrow! 

Grades

Today we got our test results back for English and math. Our class average for math was 3.4 (on a scale of 1-6, which is how grading is done here), which is pretty bad. No one understood what the math teacher was even talking about during most of the lessons. I had a "bad" grade, but if the grades were based off of class ranking, I would have definitely gotten a way better grade. Basically, 3/4 of the people failed miserably and 1/4 got lucky and passed.

My English test was much better. I got a 5.5. :)

Tomorrow I get to sleep in because our history teacher is doing a "Projekts Woche" (project week) with another grade. And after school Lara and Aunt Claudia and I are going shopping for winter boots. Yippee!

Chocolate

Today I went shopping in Zurich for chocolate and such for my friends back home. It was fun, although having a bunch of chocolate in my room makes me constantly hungry.

I also Skyped with three of my friends:) I miss you so much Kiley, Rose, and Stephanie. And everyone else. Only about two weeks until New York! 

Tomorrow I'm going to church with my grandma and then doing more homework. Yay only one more week until vacation!

Friday! Week 6!

Today I had school... the usual... and after school I went to Lara's. Her friend Leah grows really fast and is really tall so she gives a lot of hand-me-downs to Lara, and if Lara doesn't like them, she gives them to me. So I got some new clothes! Yippee!

Tomorrow I'm going to do homework and go buy chocolate and presents and such to bring to New York in a few weeks to give to my friends and family. :)

Monday...

Happy Monday! Today was the first day I wore one of my crazy pairs of leggings to school here. Yay? People gave me a lot of weird looks, it was pretty hilarious. And also fun. 

After school, instead of doing my homework before dinner and getting it out of the way I decided I'd play just a few minutes of piano. By a few minutes I mean 3 hours. Whoopsie! 

Lara and my aunt and I were walking home yesterday and we thought our shadows looked really cool. So here's a random picture!

Also, this weekend Lara and I went shopping, and I got more crazy leggings (and other stuff)! Woot!

Today I saw this video on Facebook and it made me think about another piece of Montana I'm missing... Enjoy! 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FIJvkw8oeOA

Cousin time!

This Saturday Lara and I went shopping (I needed jeans, mom, I promise)

Ate the most delicious ice cream

And biked to a poetry slam-type event. It was super awesome. 

Sunday we watched movies (until 4 am, whoops!)

Did some math (literally 3 hours)

And went to the pool because the weather cannot decide if it's summer or fall. 

Summertime nothingness!

So last week and this week I basically did nothing, which included decorating my room,

Going to the Alpamare (an epic water park) with my cousin,

(And being amazed that they have Hershey's chocolate right next to the amazing Toblerone chocolate)

going shopping:

The first of August is basically Switzerland's birthday, and this year Switz was 723 years old! We celebrated by eating some bread I don't remember the name of (oops):

Going into Zurich, walking around listening to traditional music, and eating "chäse spatzli" (literally translated-cheese + a type of bird native to Europe) which are little mini dumplings with cheese and onions and parsley. It was pretty delicious:

That evening, we went to Dominic and Lara's house and ate yummy food, watched-and lit off-fireworks, and pretty much just used the day as an excuse to stay up until 2 am doing silly things. 

I got a little bored late one night and did some magic:

I am currently at my cousins house, where I stayed for three days because my aunt and uncle are on a mini vacation and decided to temporarily abandon their children.

During the three days I was here we made mini pizzas-twice:

Made a tiny fire and roasted marshmallows at 2 am (from which I now have mosquito bites on my eyelid and in the middle of my forehead):

Made a chocolate fondue at 3 in the morning with a friend (with silly consequences if you dropped your food in the chocolate)

And generally played a lot of super exciting video games:

It's 5 am now on the last day/night I'll be here... I think it's about time to go to sleep. Goodnight!

Week of moving stuff

So this week:

Mom and Gage left-and arrived!-for home, I went shopping with my cousin,

Skyped with Katie,

Went to the "badi" (swimming pool) with Lara (three times!),

And moved into my new room! There was a lot of furniture and stuff and stuff and stuff to move. Today I started decorating... It's gonna be a while before the walls are more exciting:

Yesterday evening I went to a farm with my grandparents to meet with some of their friends. It was fun, but the best part for me was finding out that we were allowed to eat a bunch of cherries! I looove cherries.

And... I did a bunch of math. (Happy, mom? :p)