nothing interesting to tell you, apart from that an advocate has got nothing to do with an avocado - erkenntnis des tages (don't know how to say that in english) in health and social care. 

because english people write so many christmas cards (with a happy christmas printed in it and signed, not more) you can return them in the shop to recycle (i think that is funny):

first school day is already over, yippie!! i had quite a good day. in photography, we started doing some research for a personal project we'll be working on until february. in english, i could stand mr. h.'s jokes again without freaking out - i'm glad. in health and social, we started a new unit about cultural diversity, i think that will be interesting... in maths, we went on preparing for the exam - it's approaching fast now - but i already feel quite ready. 

when i came home, i had birthday post waiting for me, what a good start into 'firabig :D'...

sweet 16 in england: not really exciting, but nice :) in the morning, i woke up quite early and i had some nice messages (even people who sang for me) waiting on my mobile :) i got up, had breakfast, my host parents said happy birthday... then i opened my presents and skyped with family, it was really sweet:

at first, i wanted to go to town in the afternoon to coffee nero's or so, but my host mum didn't really know when we would be having dinner so i just stayed at home and ellen came by to say happy birthday and we took some funny photos... 

ghosts 

for dinner we had beef stew with potatoes and dumpling, and after dinner, my host parents told me to close my eyes - the light went off, and in front of me there stood a chocolate birthday cake with candles! (the cake was bought, but still very good)...

tomorrow, i have to go to school again - at least i had a nice last day of the holidays, even though i missed being with family and friends a bit. thank you all for your good wishes!!

i spent my last saturday of the holidays quite nicely, in the morning i chilled out at home, in the afternoon ellen came to my place, then we met up with the others because our local rep sue organised a 'social event': ice skating!! there's an ice rink in t-wells in the park next to the station. even though we could only skate for 40 minutes because a ticket is only valid for one session (a session starts every full hour and we didn't want to wait for the next one) we had a lot of fun, and actually my feet already started hurting after half an hour anyway :P

small, but good ice rink :)

i had to go to school again in the morning for another maths revision session... i know i should appreciate that my teacher did this, but i still think it's weird that they do it here, i don't think in switzerland any teacher would do something like that in the holidays - and i am happy about it :D 

after school (i was there from 10 o'clock in the morning 'til 1pm) i went home, then to town with ellen. we bought some reduced postcards and with the stickers we designed a tin new:

:D

christmas holidays in england... different from holidays at home - i miss switzerland, my family, my friends! today i got up at about nine o'clock, then i watched pippi langstrumpf (in english pippi longstocking) on youtube, because it's so sweet and i was a little bored... 

then i took coco the dog for a walk in the park, it was so weird, i put on a scarf and a hat, but when i got outside, i realised that it is actually 12°C and that it wasn't really necessary to dress so warmly... 

swiss litter :D

spriiing

a blue house - seldom in england :P

in the evening, i'm having dinner at my friend svenja's place, we want to do some maths homework together - i'll be so relieved when this maths test is over!

morning sun

after a horrible night (i couldn't sleep again) i got up quite early because i had to go to school this morning, maths revision session for the big exam which i'll write on the 14th of january... it was very cold in the whole school building and after 3 hours of revision and freezing i was very happy we could go home... in the afternoon i went to town to pick up developed pictures i took with the pinhole camera i got for christmas:

pinhole camera (i had to stick it together like a bastelbogen)

my film

some of my outcomes

happy new year!!!

i spent my evening of the 31. in london with my friends (we were 8 in total) to watch the fireworks. it was quite an adventure!! we arrived in london at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and had dinner in an italian restaurant. after that, we went to trafalgar square, we thought we could see the fireworks from there, but after standing around there for an hour (until 9) we found out that the fireworks are mainly situated around london eye at the river, so we had to get to another place. the city organised viewing areas; on a plan we got it said some viewing areas already close at 9 because of the crowds. so we had to hurry up, and when we arrived at the viewing area around the houses of parliament, everything was closed already - but we had another chance, we went to the riverside down to waterloo bridge, where we managed to get quite a good place to watch. we were stuck between loads of people and had to wait for about 2 hours until it was 12 o'clock. then, the big moment: fireworks!!! 

it was really good - it was only ten minutes, though, i expected it to be longer... but it was nice!! after the fireworks, everyone wanted to get out of the viewing areas - it took us almost an hour for a route you can normally do in 10-15 minutes :D it really would not have been something for claustrophobic people... then, we wanted to get home - asap - but it was a bit more complicated than we thought. the plan was that a minibus-cab would pick us up (one of my friend's host father is a taxi driver, he could arrange a cab to pick us up) because there were no trains. the cab driver called dave wanted to pick us up at about 2 o'clock at waterloo bridge (where loads of people stood before for the fireworks), but the roads weren't free at two yet... we asked some police men and they said the streets would be free again at abou 4!! we obviously didn't want to wait for such a long time, so dave told us to take the tube to get a bit out of the centre, were the roads wouldn't be closed anymore, but there was a 2 hours queue to get into the tube station... no option! but finally, dave could get closer to the place we were at about 3 o'clock, and we just had to walk for ten minutes until we finally met him. because of the traffic, it still took us a little while until we were at home, i arrived at home at quarter to five... then, i couldn't really sleep because i was too tired - now i look like a zombie. it was an experience, fireworks in london, i won't forget about it so soon, but i never want to do it again :D

guess who is going to bed early today :P