Tuesday, October 25, 2011

I'm Baacccckkk!

Hey everyone! I just got back yesterday from a LOVELY three weeks off school! It was so much fun and I saw so many places. Let me start of with Project Week.

On Project Week, my class was separated into three groups. We spent the whole day practicing songs with our teacher (such as Make You Feel My Love and Obla Di Obla Da), and then spliting off into rooms with our groups to work on individual songs. We could print off any sheet music we wanted, and use any instrument we wanted. At the end of the day, each group preformed a song for the whole class. It was so much fun, and I learned a lot about guitar--and became one of our class' lead guitarists! Although, I had some trouble with the a cappella harmonizing...my group had like perfect pitch!

On Thursday, we left for Basel and preformed on the streets for money. Our class sang songs together, and then we split into groups and took separate street corners. At the end of the night, we ate pizza at a real Itlalain restaurant and stayed at a Youth Hostel. Basel was so pretty! It is situated on the border of France, Switzerland and Germany on the Rhine River.

Basel by night

My friends and I explored the city at night, and had such a fun time staying up all night talking (yep! partly in Deutsch!). That morning, we played some more music, but it started raining so badly we had to hide in Starbucks. There are so many Starbucks' here, that I can never fully get away from Seattle :)


VACATION--

For the first week of vacation, I went with my host Mom to stay with her sister in Chur, the oldest city in Switzerland. We went hiking almost every day, took trams and explored the mountains...it was really beautiful.
This is me hiking in the Alps!





This is me hiking the Santis with my counselor! So so so cold.

















My counselor Rolf also took me to St. Gallen, a large city in the East of Switzerland. We visited a beautiful monestary, and one of the oldest libraries in the WORLD! It has books from before the birth of Christ! The whole building was complelty gorgeous. We also drove past Lichetstein on our way there--a country twice the size of Vashon, with its own Prince!

St. Gallen Catholic Monestary

St. Gallen library


When I got back from my week in Eastern Switzerland, I decided to spend my week home travelling with friends. Some of my favorite places I went to were:


Geneva, home of the United Nations headquarters (my Dad will argue with you about this, he says its New York...the Swiss say Geneva)

This is us inside the original League of Nations Building















Lugano, the capital of the Italian region of Switzerland. It was about 15 degrees warmer there, and more sunny! It is absolutly beautiful! And the Gelato is killer.

Me and Elle infront of the Lake--which you can see Italy from
Elle, Stacy and I in Old Town, we couldnt understand any Italian
Us infront of the fountain and park
















Then I went to Appenzel, the tiniest capital of the tiniest Kanton (like Swiss states), and the last place to let women vote (1990). Also, supposedly (this is according to Rolf, not sure if he is alwazs reliable...haha) everyone in the whole Kanton gathers in the town square to vote--by raising their hands like in a school board meeting! It was really cute, and had some great stinky cheese.

I was freezing there, because it was about the same temperature as Vashon is in December. My friends with me are from Colorado, New York and Ontario, and they all infromed me that it was nothing. Eeek! Im scared I might die in the winter!

Maddy (ON), Elle (CO) and Laura (NY) with me in Appenzel













All in all, it was an amazing break. Although I'm kind of sad to be back in school, it is good to be back to my normal routine :)I love how many breaks you get here! I dont think we ever have two week breaks back home in the states! whoopee! Winter break in 6 weeks!

1 comment: