Christmas tree, swimming, & cookie fail

Today I got up late and helped my grandma decorate her fake mini Christmas tree. Apparently my dad calls it the Charlie Brown tree. It's tiny. It only took about 1/2 hour to decorate. I'm used to a real & much larger tree that takes most of the afternoon to decorate... But it was still fun. My grandma has to have everything just so, therefore it was basically her giving me ornaments and then rearranging them until they looked symmetrical enough. She's adorable. 

After lunch I went swimming in the indoor pool literally across the street from my grandparent's apartment with Lara & Dominic. It was pretty fun:) We basically just hung out & talked.

Then I went over to Dominic and Lara's house and we attempted to make cookies. There's a particular type of cookie (I don't know if it's a swiss specialty or something?) that's called a "Spitzbueb". I honestly don't know how to translate that... Uhh... "Bueb" means "boy" in swiss-german, and "spitz" means "tip" (like the tip of the tower), but together they mean something along the lines of "mischievous boy". I don't know why. It just is that way. They're two cookies with jam in the middle, and usually a face or a heart cut out of the top cookie, so the jam peeks through. With powdered sugar on top. They're so good. However, it took us forever to cut out the cookies, because the dough is impossible to work with. Then we only had a small amount of dough, so we couldn't make very many. (26, to be exact) And lastly, when we put them in the oven, they melted quite a bit... So basically all the careful cutting out we'd done was useless. Oh well. I got to eat some yummy cookies, and we had fun.

Long lunch!

Today I had three hours for lunch because history and study hall got canceled. Yippee! So I went into Zürich with a bunch of other girls in my class to this adorable little underground Italian take-away place. It was so so so good:)

Then when I got home (why is it already dark at 5pm?!) I was greeted by an adorable little package sitting on my desk with the return address of  a certain Kayli. She sent me a late birthday present!! Yay! I got even more skittles:) It made my week. Thank you Kayliiiiii.

Then tonight at about 7pm I decide it would be a good idea to update my phone, because iOS 8.1.1 is available and my phone keeps sending me notifications. I figure it can't take more than a few hours, right? Well apparently I was not right. Right now it says 5 hours remaining. So... I guess I'll go to bed and cross my fingers that when I get up it'll be done? *crosses fingers*  oh wait, now it says 4 hours... I'm so confused. Is this a good sign?

Pizza snail

Today we had a double lunch because "studium stunde" (study hall/class discussion period) got canceled! And apparently on Thursdays there is a market in the little square where we eat sometimes, so we went there. There was a little stand with bread and such, and I got a "pizza schnack" (pizza snail) which is like pizza in a cinnamon roll shape. And a roll with chocolate bits in it. Yummmm!

Today in p.e. We played basketball, which was super fun once again, because no one here can play. So I'm really good in comparison, which would never happen at home.

But one of my friends was astounded that I'd never had these things called Giotto. So she gave me a whole package of them. :) They're little creme-filled, crushed-hazelnut-covered things. Delicious.

We also had school late. Which means I got home at 6 ish. Meh.

Tomorrow's Friday! Yippee! And Halloween! (I'll be talking about Halloween in tomorrow's post-I'm doing something)

Monday half day

Today we had a half day of school encase if the Knabenschiessen. It made my Monday so much better. 

I also forgot to mention yesterday that I was ordered by my mother to buy "rahm-tafeli" (cream-pieces) which are heaven in edible form that only exist at the Knabenschiessen.  They're caramel type things in little pieces like chocolate. Yummmmmm. 

And walking home from Dominic and Lara's house was an adorable little hedgehog! The picture isn't very good (it was dark) but it was the cutest little thing ever!

Also, tomorrow and the next day is a school field trip, and I don't know if I'll be able to post anything, but we shall see. And if not I'll just take lots of pictures and post them when I get home:)

Yay for hiking! (All my stuff that somehow fits into one backpack) 

Knabenschiessen

On Saturday my aunt took me, my grandma, and my cousin Lara to "Tag der öffnen Tür" at a music hall, which means "day of the open door", which is basically a fancy way of saying that you could go listen to the orchestra practice for free because there was a new conductor. The music was very good, but what I found more interesting was the hall that we were in. The whole giant building was decorated in the same fashion:)

On Saturday night Lara and I went to the "Knabenschiessen" (literally translated means boy-shooting) which is a giant fair that comes every year that originally was a shooting contest for young boys. I don't know how old the tradition of the Knabenschiessen is, but I'm guessing it's relatively old. The whole fair thing is a newer part, along with the fact that even though it's still called boy-shooting, girls can participate as well. It was super fun. 

The shooting part didn't go so well, I learned that I'm not good at shooting while lying down... Oops. 

The fair part, however, was awesome. Except for the giant crowd, really really loud music, and cigarette smoke so thick it was illuminated by the light from the rides. I'm making it sound like it was horrible by saying that, but somehow it was still really really fun...? I don't know. 

(In this picture you can see the smoke and dirt better)

We went on lots of rides and ate yummy foods. (Did you know cotton candy is called "Zucker-Watte" here? It means sugar-cotton)

 

Also, we got to go on the biggest operating Ferris wheel in all of Switzerland. It was epic. According to a sign, it had over 15,000 tiny lights all over it.

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. 

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)

Weekend

This Saturday Oma & Opa and mom & Gage & I went on a boat tour of three lakes with one of Opa's old friends. It was fun, but I had to get up early, which ws not fun. 

I was also bored before dinner so I collected some flowers and put them in a vase-

Then on Sunday I slept in (yay!) and then went on a walk/swim with Lara and her friend and her dog. It was lots of fun:) 

Then we had Dominic over for dinner, which was fondue. Yum!

I also got to skype 3 of my good friends, which was wonderful. <3 you guys!

Language class day 5

Today we had class in the morning and a short cooking class in the afternoon. In the language part of the class we had to write two short paragraphs about ourselves and about our hometown. The tricky part was doing it in German... I think my teacher liked mine though, so that's good.

In the cooking class we made a traditional Swiss dish that I don't remember the name of... It was made with potatoes, noodles, ham, carmelized onions, and apples with carmelized sugar. It sounded horrible, but it was surprisingly good.

After class, my three friends and I decided to go to a design museum right next to where the school is. It was called the Museum für Gestaltung. It had a video about the particle accelerator in Germany (i think) and my friends and I got all excited because that's close enough to possibly visit, which would be super cool.

Then after dinner, I went over to my cousin's house, and I met three cats along the way. It was adorable.

Alcoholic beverages?

Today was Dominic's confirmation, and after we went to church, we had lunch with my cousins, cousins-twice-removed (I think), and Dominic's girlfriend. It was fun. And yummy. 

Apparently my mother decided that I was old enough to try a radioactive-looking beverage. It was wacky. I drew my glass some arms and legs and eyes and called it Fred. Fred was yummy.

Tomorrow we leave for Rome! I'm super excited... I don't know what all we are going to do there, but I'm sure it'll be fun.

I miss my friends so much though. :(