Bad, bad weather...

This day not so much happened... We wanted to go to Oslo but the weather was just terrible!! But we will go tomorrow...
We played Monopoly and Cards against Humanity nearly all day :PP
But we will visit Oslo tomorrow :)

Tønsberg

First day in Norway. Everyone slept until 10 but I woke up one and a half hours earlier to study for Biology.. nice...
After a nice breakfast Signes parents drove us to the city to go explore it a little bit. It's a very pretty little town next by the sea and we took some nice pictures of the sea, went to drink coffee and chai tea and went to the mall which was nice too :)
Tomorrow we plan to go to Oslo but the weather seems not that nice so we might go on New Years day.

Three countries in one day!

As I told you I went early this morning on the bus to Baden and then I took the train to Zürich. I checked in at the airport and after a very short time I was already sitting in the airplane to Amsterdam. But Amsterdam was (unfortunately) only a transfer stop. I'd love to visit Amsterdam too but my final destination was promising too because I would see all my friends again!

In Amsterdam I accidentally checked out because some stupid woman told me that transfer passengers should go through these one way doors but these doors where there for people to check out. Well great! Then I had to check in again which took some time but I was still in time. I met with Rose who is from Amsterdam at the gate since we were about to take the same flight :)

About half three we met our friends Lennart and Signe and drove to Signes house. It's a very pretty house! Lots of space and nice and cosy! The rest of the evening we just sat around, watched a movie and talked a lot :)

Anti-Icing spray they've put on the airplane wings

The mountain I just live behind! We flew straight past it!!

Amsterdam from above

Family Dinner - Merry Christmas

Apart from having holiday, I had a very busy week! Lots of Christmas and for me it's nice to not have christmas for a year again.
On Saturday the grandparents, cousins, aunt and uncle came to our house, like every year. It was really nice; meeting up with the whole family again, cooking dinner together and just sitting and talking for a whole evening :)
Unfortunately there was no snow but I can live with that. Actually it was for our own good because the other day we walked with some other friends into the forest and made Fondue, the traditional Swiss cheese dish, over a campfire! And nobody wasn't happy that it was not extremely cold and snowy..
But Christmas here is so much different than celebrating it in the UK.. For example most British people already start putting up their Christmas tree before December or even earlier and they start preparing and getting presents months before the actual event. And when I was in England celebrating Christmas with my family there we already went to eat Christmas dinner just in the beginning of December which was a bit unusual for me. Here we just celebrate Christmas on the day. Another thing is the decorations. At my family in the UK the whole house was literally full of decorations and you could not walk anywhere without seeing something shimmering and blinking in various colours. We keep it quite simple here. Just a few candles and the tree decorated with not too much stuff. And the food also differs. Back in England you eat turkey or salmon (well you can get something else but it's quite unusual if you do). We always make something way different every year. I don't know if that is common but I really like the way eat on Christmas. This year for example we made a plate as a starter with lots of fruit, smoked salmon, trout, tomatoes, a bit of salad, sauces, and so on. And after that we had some meat with a mushroom sauce with Spätzle and beans. So quite the opposite of a traditional Christmas dinner.. :)

On Monday I will be going to Norway until the end of the holidays. Which means for one week. I am probably going to post every day so stay tuned ;))

Merry Christmas again and have a nice start of the New Year!!
Marin

Holiday Start with "The Force Awakens" (spoiler-free), a Volley-Night and a new Synth!

Since Christmas is just around the corner we've had our last exams last week and now have holiday. Yesterday we've had a volleyball night where teams that students could form played against each others. And this year I was in one too! We dressed up as the seven dwarfs and one of our team was put into a dress with a crown! It was really a lot of fun even if we did not win at all...

This year the school had bought a new synthesiser for the "better" band room with the advanced equipment. And since I am really the only one using it I got the permission to borrow it over the Christmas holidays and to take it home to examine it, fix a few things and to get to know how to use it properly which is really kind of the school.

But just today I went with my school friends to see the new Star Wars movie and I need to admit that it is just amazing! Recently I have only seen really crappy new movies in the cinema and I hoped that this one would be a bit better because I really liked the old Star Wars movies. And I was not disappointed at all! They have brought a lot of new stuff into the movie like the new droids or protagonists but the filmmakers have also implemented the old characters really well and have not just thrown them in randomly. And of course there are a lot of improvements in the camera techniques and the computer generated imagery aka the whole film just looks an awful lot better than the old ones..
I would really recommend you to see it if you like the old ones (or if you even don't)..

Tomorrow we will have a Christmas party with our family at our place which will be amazing and I am going to tell you more next weekend. But I wish you all a lovely holiday!

Today me and my family, we went Zürich to see a Christmas market called "Heiliger BimBam". It's a very unusual market, not with normal christmas trees and stands but some rather odd stands with things that people crafted themselves, organic chocolate from Zürich or organic bed covers and shirts. Personally I prefer these markets over the casual ones where people just go to take pictures. But at this market you could actually buy stuff that you can use in your everyday life. I bought for example a cool belt, a winter-flavoured organic drinking chocolate and some nice ginger tea :)

After going to the market we also visited another market that was more casual and traditional. But we all were not extremely impressed since we've just been at a great market beforehands. But we ate some nice food! We then went to the pretty cafe Schober which was lovely decorated and where we got nice tea and a Spanish guy played very melancholic melodies on his guitar (with the exception of our with for One Note Samba :)

See you next Saturday!
Marin :)

Winning a photography competition and making bread monsters

This morning we went to visit some good friends of ours to eat breakfast and talk about the holiday we are going to spend together early next year. And we also baked some quite traditional Swiss "Bread Men". But I was a bit fed up with the usual design so I decided to make a bread squid and it turned out really funny with a big blobby nose :P
And it was holding hands with a very funny looking Santa Bread Man..

Just yesterday there was a lovely Christmas market in Baden. Me and my mum went there not only because of the market but also because a lot of my friends played with the Kanti Orchestra in the old church. And they played very well!
I only had little time after to go to the market because later that day some of my new school friends came to my home and we made pizza together :) After that we went to the cinema but the film (Hunger Games) was not very good. Actually it was so bad that when I got home I just had to watch the season finale of Dr Who which was just awesome!

Ah and I also won the photography competition that Stadt Baden has set up to photograph the christmas lights and I won this poetry SMS-Advent calendar. I will receive a text every day and in the end it will be a nice poem. Thank you Baden :)

Oh and it snowed for the first time last week! Really pretty :)

See you next weekend :)