Swift

This day was really nice. Firstly because I made a nice dinner for me and my host dad and also because my favourite artist fully released his brand new album called "Swift" :D
The pianist is called Bill Laurance and he also plays in Snarky Puppy which is my favourite music group! And the best thing is that I am going to see him live when I am back in Switzerland! I am so excited for that and looking forward to that concert :)

You can listen to his new album here

Making it sharper!

This day I had a lot of time to complete all my homework and do other cool stuff like playing a lot of piano, watching some YouTube clips and especially making a next part for my photography project. This time I chose to make my idea with a lumberjack and a pencil. But it took me a long time to get to a final setup because new ideas came into my head all the time. First I thought of just putting the pencil on the wooden desk. But then I thought "Where does a pencil usually sits? And I came up with a notepad. Then for background decoration I placed it near my lamp and made some random but correct Pythagoras equations on the paper. I also had to put my man a little higher than the pen so I thought my laptop was quite a good add-on to the scene. And that's what I came up with:

Cinnamon squares!

Oh yes, I did it again: the marvellous baking! And this time I tried something completely new. I found this recipe somewhere to make cinnamon squares with sunflower seeds. First I thought that it would give a weird taste with the cinnamon but it ended up being quite nice :D

Sooo windy!

I did not set any alarm clock at all to wake up this morning, but then at eleven thirty the dog barked and woke me up. I tried to fall asleep again but the wind was blowing so extremely hard! I could not believe it. And then, a bit later in the afternoon I wanted to call my friend at home and he was always complaining that I should stop whistling. I didn't, it was the wind!
For dinner I had some of the dessert that my host mum made yesterday because their friends came over. It was lemon merengue pie and I never had it before. It was really lovely and I am sure that I will try making it at home too :D

Bowling with all the other students!!

For the last day before Easter holiday Emma, our Coordinator, planned a special thing! All the exchange students of Cambridgeshire went bowling together in St Ives :D
It was around 20 people and it was so nice seeing them all again... And I won the bowling!! Bummmm!!!

The scores... I WON!! :D

Our coordinator Emma :)

Nearly holiday!

This day was not particularly interesting since I did not really do anything special. But tomorrow will already be my last school day before the two weeks of easter holiday :D
And there are going to some very interesting posts in the second week because I am going on a discovery tour to Edinburgh with my friends and a lot of new people.. I am sure that we do cool things and that I have a lot of pictures to show to you ;)

Cleaning the glasses

In the afternoon my hostparents left me at home because they went out for dinner in their favourite restaurant. So I had to cook for myself which was nice too :) I made some pasta with my favourite sauce..
But after that I thought I will do a next part of my photography project on Miniature World with a guy cleaning the glasses of my hostmother :D

English transport systems...

I have had lots of trouble today. First of all I had my piano lesson which I was really excited about and it was as good as always, but firstly I had to get there what I usually do with a taxi since I live at my new place. There are just no buses running from my village anywhere near where I have my piano lesson. But today I had to take a taxi that came from Huntingdon which therefore costed me a lot of money. It is so not possible to travel around in English villages if you don't drive or have someone to drive you. After my piano lesson I usually take a taxi as well to get home because the latest bus driving back would be at five in the afternoon way too early... But today my taxi just didn't arrive at all! I was so pissed and didn't know what to do since I did not even have any phone signal there. So I went back to my piano teacher's home and he offered me to use his phone. But then his wife came in and she was so extremely kind to drive me home! I just couldn't believe that and it made my day :D

All that photography!

This afternoon I had to leave the dinner table early since I really had to finish my photography on tomorrow! Our teacher Mr Smith will take it in and mark the first bit so we should progress as much as possible.
My room was such a mess! All full of paper and printer stuff and double-sided tape rests etc...
In school they also have the year 11's exams what means that I can't really play the piano in the north hall anymore which is a little annoying. But it is soon going to be over and I can play piano there again :D

What a lovely spring day!

You need to know that I really like cold and frosty weather as well, but only if there is a lot of snow. Otherwise the species "Marin" prefers living in a warmer environment. And today that was the case! It was so sunny and quite warm for the beginning of spring in England because usually at that time of the year it is still quite cold. So I was sitting outside and enjoying the sun shining on my belly while I was reading in my book and drinking a smoothie. That's how life should be don't you think?

Cooking!

This afternoon my hostfamily were able to experience my cooking again. But it was not cake! Today I made a quiche and a salad. The quiche was with gorgonzola and pears! Now you all think Bäääh! But no, it certanely (from my point of view) really delicious! And I also made a salad with walnuts, salmon and cherry tomatoes. Mmh :D
The rest of the day I slept, watched a bit of the rugby finale and talked to my friend in Switzerland :) nice :)

Where's mi hat?

Yes you heard it correctly. I spent quite a long time this afternoon looking for my precious crappy hat that nobody likes except me (it's warm and that's what counts!).
But in the end a friend of mine found it and gave it to me. God I was so pleased!
Ah and also there was this solar apocalypse, ehrm eclipse not apocalypse :P But it was quite cloudy so you did not see it that well but I also took quite a funny picture through a puddle:

The great walnut poisoning and visiting my neighbours

Yes, I can sometimes be stupid as well. Not actually stupid but just reckless with those "lovely" walnuts I ate yesterday... So this morning everything was still completely fine but in the afternoon my tummy started hurting a lot and I was shortly before going to the reception and asking them to take me home. But I thought, let's wait until lunch. And eating something helped! After that I was able to enjoy the interesting psychology lesson with no disturbing belly.
Another thing why I did not want to go home was because I promised my neighbours that I am going to visit them after school. So I took my old bus again where I saw all my friends there and afterwards I had a great time talking to my neighbours and showing them some of the pictures I have taken for photography :)

10000 Pageviews and way too many nuts

Amazed how quick things can progress and how many of you amazing readers inspect my blog every day I reached ten thousand page views today! I am so happy to share my experience in the UK with you and you like to read it :D And I also want to welcome the many new readers from the past weeks to my blog ;)
I also have exciting news for this special event. If I will get back from my England exchange I will continue this blog about my weekly activities in Switzerland, I will post pictures, talk about what is happening and also share my music with you!
I am also really happy because my favourite band Snarky Puppy and the Metropole Orchestra posted their first song of a brand new album called "Sylva" Take a peek here and enjoy the show!

But unfortunately I got some walnuts I need for my ongoing photography project and since I really like walnuts I ate way too much of them today. I hope my tummy will not punish me too much tomorrow :/
But thank you guys so much for reading and see you tomorrow ;D

The unplanned call

Today in the afternoon, just after playing the piano for a bit I sat down at my table to check my emails on my computer. And in the exact same moment I got a Skype call... But from whom: my grandpa August :D
I was so not prepared for that because usually we email each others a day or two before if we want to call but there he was saying hi. The thing was that my grandmother was watching a crime story on tv downstairs and since my gramps doesn't like those kind of series at all he thought "let's check if Marin's online!"

Chocolate Robbery!

Today in the afternoon someone stole all my chocolate! Terrible, but I was able to take a picture of the thief...

No actually I just did my third final piece for my Miniature world piece and it is with a little man robbing my chocolate! How dare he!

Sleeping long!

When did I wake up today you certainly wonder yourself, well it was before lunchtime around eleven o'clock but I am completely ok that I did have more sleep than usual :)
The rest of the day I didn't do any schoolwork but some english grammar since I did all of it in the last days :D I had time to call my parents, my friend in Switzerland and play the piano for a long time...
Around six pm I made dinner, pasta with a lovely basil and nuts sauce, lovely c:

Cod and chips :D

Unfortunately this morning I had quite a bad belly and that was why I did not go to London as I planned. Sorry, no extremely cool pictures today :/
But that ended up being quite nice as well since I did all the homework I had on next week and had time to play the piano quite a lot! I also skyped with my best friend in Switzerland and went to Huntingdon in the evening with my host dad to get some very delicious fish and chips for dinner. Mmh soo good! We also took a selfie ;)

My weekly swimming

As usual I went to the gym today around lunch time. At the beginning, when you enter the pool there is most of the time not such many people. But after a while it gets quite crowded and since the swimming pool is not that big you start lapping each others all the time. For example today there were four people in my line and I think that explains it all.. Gonna go to sleep a little earlier today because I will go on a trip tomorrow ;)

Cup o'tea

I spent nearly my whole afternoon today setting up the scene and preparing the props for my next photography piece. My host mum kindly borrowed me her nice tea cup and the tea pot matching it. I arranged all the props on my cupboard with my shirt underneath it because it has quite a nice pattern and colour.
I set up the scene in my bedroom because I could get away most of the external light to control it all myself with a remote flashgun.
Then I grabbed a spoon from downstairs and put the little man with his wheelbarrow on top of it. This took a couple attempts but it looked quite cool in the end. One thing just simply blew my mind: if you compare the size of the sugar cube to the wheelbarrow it is way bigger and the weight a lot higher, but the small and thin wheel of the wheelbarrow was actually able to hold this enormous weight for nearly half an hour without any support!!

Le piano

Since I completed all the psychology work for this week and some individual research (as we should do ;) I went playing the piano in the last lesson we had. It was just really cool because in the beginning I was learning the new piece called "Thing of Gold" that I selected for my piano lesson. It is from my favourite band (Snarky Puppy, New York Jazz Academy). If you don't know them and you probably won't, you should really look them up or just click here ;)
But after like half an hour my friend Sarah came and we played together. It was so much fun and I really enjoyed playing with someone else again :D

Bake a cake day!

This day was just amazing! I had not that much work to do anymore so I finally had time again to play the piano in school :D
But I also had some nice plans for after-school, in fact to bake a cake! I did not do that for a couple weeks and I thought is time again. The cake I made is again from the secret recipe of my grandpa and it is just amazing :) I also put some dark (Swiss!) chocolate on top of it to make it even greater.. and exceptionally, since she does not really like chocolate, my host mum took a slice as well and since she really liked it she took another one...
In the evening I also had my third piano lesson with Mr Batty. I enormously enjoy those lessons since I think that I learn nice new stuff but he also motivates me a lot :D

And it went quite well!

Yes, I was a bit worried yesterday about my psychology exam today but it actually ended up not too bad! I think the studying was really worth it :)
So now I have big plans for photography, because that is the next big thing that I need to work on.. But I was a bit in trouble today, because I was looking for sugarcubes. Now you all thing "why the hell is he lookin' for sugar cubes?!?" and the answer is "photography". Yes, for my next miniature world shot I need sugarcubes but somehow it is really hard to get them in this country. I went to four different food stores in our town today and NOONE had any lovely sugarcubes :/
Well I will try again tomorrow... 

Did not have that for a long time!

Well, not the psychology studying that occupied me the whole day but the lovely Risotto I had for dinner today. It was amazing! I did not have it for 7 months and really enjoyed it :D
But unfortunately I did not do anything else than studying the whole day. Not even had any time to talk to my parents or my friends.. well some time you just need to live with it ;)

Psychologetti

After studying psychology for kind of the whole day (well I did sleep until ten thirty) I made pasta for me and my host parents. They really liked it and said that I can also make that more frequently if I want to... But psychology... we have this test on Monday and it is so much to study! So many different names and studies... Well I still have tomorrow to get it all in :)

Walking Paint

This day was especially nice, firstly because of the amazing photography lesson in the morning where I started off with preparing a setup for a shot with a man walking through paint for my final project. Then, in the afternoon I had some homemade fish and chips for dinner. It was just lovely :D

It is so much warmer!

It is insane how things can change so quickly. Just a while ago it was freezing cold outside, but now you can already walk around without any hat and scarf in the afternoon :D
Also my room is a lot warmer now, this afternoon it even got up to 20.5 *C!! Amazing! I did not have it that warm in my room since I left Switzerland :)
It is also very internesting with my new family because every day we talk a lot after dinner about politics or other things that are just in the news. Really interesting :D

Was not a lot to fix...

After finishing all my schoolwork and practising the piano for next Tuesday, I got the amazing news that the internet wire was fixed. I could not believe it and I still can't: They were so fast, how did they do that??

Well so I had time again to call my parents and my friend in Switzerland :)

I am really sorry that this post has a delay, but our neighbour hired a man with a digger and this man took down the internetwire. So we did not have any internet at all and I don't really know when it will be back... But I have also taken some nice pictures of the new house, living room and the kitchen :)

Moving hostfamily

A small step for humanity, but a big step for me... This day I changed my family. It was quite a hard job to get all my stuff from the one place to the other and I am sure that I need to leave some things here when I will leave this beautiful place.
The new house is very nice and warm. My two hostparents are very lovely people and they like cooking nice food. It is also very clean ;)
My room is a bit bigger now compared to the one I had before and now I am able to put my piano up and even leave it there :D I took three shots of the room and I will take some more of the house in the next days. Now I need some sleep, soo tired!

Another day with my family :)

Today was already the last of the three days I was able to spend with Claudia and Ursi.. So we did really enjoy it. First of all we went to a vintage market that was placed in old factory buildings and in an old brewery. They sold really nice stuff and we couldn't get away without buying anything. So I got some new shirts and of course a bowtie  :P :D

After that we already had to split up and go separate ways :/ well well you can't have an exchange and your family all the time around you, that's two things that don't work together ;)