33 days!

Hiya!!

Christmas is creeping up on us! The christmas markets have started in Bristol and Bath last week. I really want to go to both of them, I live in the middle:)

I haven't been to the one in Bath yet, but I'm going with the Hanham girls soon. People told me each booth has got a different country as its theme - which sounds interesting:). The one in Bristol is labeled as a 'German Christmas Market'. It reminds me a lot of the Chrischtchindlimert in Zürich:). They're selling Marmite dog cookies, which I NEED to buy!

the German market in Bristol

;)

My school is doing a Christmas play. It's going to be a comedy about Christ's birth, which sounds interesting:P. I'm probably going to miss it though, I'm hopefully going to the Harry Potter studio tour onn the 14th of December. All the weekends are sold out already, hence we have to skip school:P.

I'm spending Christmas here, which is going to be quite different than it would be at home. My host mum told me a bit about it. She was also rather shocked, when I told her about the 6th of December, Samichlaustag, and that you don't just not receive any presents if you've been naughty, but an old man is going to take you with him in his sack :P. 

I went to visit my former host mum yesterday and she invited me to spend the holidays with them as well. So, I might go over there some time. I'm going to a holiday with some girls from Hanham before Christmas in town, which will be nice.

There are so many adverts for the London Winter Wonderland everywhere, but it does look magical, so we might actually go:). There's so much going on for Christmas all around, it's hard to keep up..

Mcfly finally announced to release some tour dates soon - on the the 8th of December. I'm going with one of my friends from SBL and her mates.. They're getting me a ticket - which is lovely. We don't know when exactly.. but it's probably going to be in spring time.

A friend of mine from Switzerland told me Bruno Mars is going to be in London at the O2 arena. I checked with two girls from school, and he's attending the Capital FM Jingle Bell Ball. We might go:D. There are going to be quite a lot of other artists though. One Direction included, so there's going to be a ton of excited fangirls.. which would be fun I guess. I wouldn't mind seeing them. They are British after all;).

A few days ago, we didn't have a teacher for our French lesson, so we watched comedy videos on youtube:) I love British comedians.. we watched lots of Michael Mcintyre videos. And this:

I had to change my country setting on iTunes to UK, so I could order Mcfly's new single, and the British iTunes store is unbelievably brilliant! It's so much better!! I can even buy TV programmes now, which are SO GOOD! I fell in love with 'Celebrity Juice', which you might not like as much.. it's a bit explicit:P Keith Lemon is a genius. I'm not going to put it on my blog, but check it out, if you'd like:) except for my parents.. don't!!;) mmpf
Oh, and Ed Sheeran's CD has three more songs in the British version of the iTunes store, so I had to buy it again:P

A girl who I've met at SBL, a partner school of Hanham, has been lending me loads of dvds of British classic and 'chick flicks', which are all great. She's soon helping me to catch up on 'The Inbetweeners'.
I started tennis lessons now. With the same girl, on Saturday mornings. I'm absolute rubbish, but I love it anyway:) We were told it was going to start at 9.30, so we all got up early, but when we got there, they told us the session for our age group starts at 11.30, but we stayed and played longer:). I really needed some extra practice.. My trainer said I have potential - he might just be nice:) - because I apparently hit the ball in the middle of my bat mostly, which is a 'good sign', even if it doesn't go far from there - or actually too far. I already hurt my hip and the kickboxing on Monday didn't help its recovery either. I'm on pain killers now:P. I do want to go again this Saturday though.
The friend I went with just moved to Bristol from Salisbury. Her accent is a lot more posh than Bristolian - I love it. She used to go to an all-girls school. We soon want to go to a rugby game and I'd love to go to a horse race with her. That's what they used to do in Salisbury all the time apparently - with strange hats and everything:D.

We had our target grade talks last week (what we want to achieve in the exams in January/June and how to get there..). All the exchange students got an E as their estimated target, which is bloody rubbish! My estimated grade is an E and my target is a D, but I actually have a B.. 

I also noticed that they don't have grades from A to F, only from A to E, and then there's U. I asked a friend and she said there's grades A to E and if someone's even worse, there's U for 'ungraded'. So the results aren't worth receiving a grade, which is... strange:P.
We're also working on our first grades now. I had to write a 750-word essay in literature in an 'uneducated Dublin accent'. It was quite easy, my bad English is quite good:). The other essay is stressing me out: 1100 words in a VERY educated English..
I finally ordered my NUS extra card . If you are still a student you can get one and get discounts all over the place. I got the ISIC included, which gets you discounts all over the world - in over 120 countries Switzerland included. The NUS extra card cost me 12 quid and will be delivered to my school next week. I payed 2.99 extra for the worldwide part and then 1 pound for Children in Need. So I spent 16 pounds all in all. There's also one for people who are doing an apprenticeship:).

The students at Hanham got colour co-ordinated last week. We had to do several tests about our character - I'm green. There's four different colours: orange - can't remember, sorry / blue - for the sky/ green - for nature / gold - for metal. The colours are to tell us the most appropriate learning method and our teachers are going to receive them and have to customise their teaching methods... my colour also tells me I'm going to be a scientist. I don't know how it works, but apparently that's what my future holds;). We also had our pictures taken - professionally! We never did that back in Switzerland. There were actual photographers and those weird white walls that hold the light and stuff..I think they went overboard a bit though.. I could use mine for my funeral one day:

The weather has been absolute crap. Last week was VERY rainy and on Thursday it was so windy! My umbrella broke:( I do need Wellies - now. Friday was sunny and beautiful.. But you never know what it's going to be like in the morning.
Because of all the rain, big parts of the county were flooded - Warmley, Willsbridge and Hanham were partly as well.

I still don't think my English has improved at all, except I learned some psychology words for my essays. My friend - she's british:) - told me she thinks I got more fluent though - I don't have to think about what I'm going to say as hard anymore. Hope that's true:).

Have a nice weekend

xxx


P.S.: Forgot to write down - we also had our first Envision meeting last Friday, and from now on we're going to meet up once a week. Seems quite good so far:)