new family - same school

Hey:). Ok, so... I'm staying with a different family now. Surprised? Me too:P. I'm fine.

I don't really know what to tell you though..: There were some family problems, which I don't want to get into. My host parents contacted my organisation and asked them to place me somewhere else, without me knowing. On Tuesday my (ex) host dad sat down with me and explained the situation. He also said, that it had nothing to do with me... just so you know;). My parents (the real, biological ones) received an email confirming it as well.  He told me I was going to move on Thursday night.. So I had two evenings to pack up everything. That part was quite horrible! Nothing fit in my suitcases anymore and I had to fill up two black bin bags with all my belongings... shouldn't have bought all those books and boots. In a way, it was quite sad to leave them, but I'm very chuffed with my new home actually. When I said goodbye to them on Thursday, I was a bit upset and they told me I should come visit some time. I did have quite a good time while staying with them, most of the time at least. Sometimes I didn't at all. But my host mum showed me a lot of different British music and TV programmes and told me about the many different parts of the country and their social statuses. My host dad showed me a different type of music than she did :P and told me a lot about England's history. So I am grateful I got to stay with them.
My area rep picked me up and drove me to my new family. They live about three roads above my area rep, with whom I stayed at the beginning of my exchange year (first few Blog posts), so I already know the area a bit. It's also even closer to school, only takes about 5-10 minutes by bus. I really miss my old bus drivers though, because now I have to get on a different number. 

When I arrived here, my new host mum and my host brother welcomed me and we had tea together (not actual tea, some people here call dinner tea). It was amazing! She cooked it herself!! I didn't have a meal like that for a while. We had meat with gravy, beans, potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. It was incredible:). 

Today, my host mum showed me how to get to training (it's called Hit Fit, I think I haven't told you) from the house. It's easy to walk. My new home isn't really far away from my old host family, I'd say about a 40-minute walk. There's only one village to go through. 

Afterwards, we went to Keynsham to do some shopping, also by foot. It's such a beautiful area! We went along the street, but to our right was a huge field with flowers and other trees, and then there was the river, Avon. We could have walked along the river, but it was too muddy. There is an enormous red chocolate factory on the way too, Cadbury chocolate. She also showed me the train station, from which I can go to Bristol, Bath or London Paddington :D. I really enjoyed shopping in Keynsham. It reminds me of Kingswood, but it's even nicer. It's a bit smaller and quite old-fashioned and has a lot of charity shops as well. Bought some stuff and had my first real pasty :).

My host brother is really lovely as well. He's twenty. He's at an Ed Sheeran concert right now, which makes me really jealous. He loves playing the guitar and is really good at it!

Tomorrow I'm going to go into town with a friend again. Next week, I've got school until Wednesday, and then the holidays start on Thursday. We've got 11 days off, in which I hopefully get to travel around a bit more..

I'm sorry I haven't taken any pictures, but I'm going out with my amazing camera soon (finally got the charger) to take some pictures for you.

I hope all of you are well and enjoying autumn,

xxx Alexandra

(Oh, and by the way: I finished the Mcfly book... it's absolutely incredible! Loved it!! I'm probably going to read it again. It's actually quite hard to find good books around here, I haven't seen any book shops at all. ASDA has got a book section, but it's filled with autobiographies of people I've never heard of before and don't really want to in the future. I thought about getting J.K. Rowling's new book 'The Casual Vacancy'... or I might get some Harry Potter books in English again (it's less expensive to buy them again than to have my parents send them to me). I know it doesn't make sense, but Harry Potter somehow remind me of home and my family :P)  

Mcfly!! (and envision)

Totally forgot to tell you! Mcfly released a book:D Check it out if you'd like.
I didn't have a chance to pick it up yet, but I need to as soon as possible!! A friend from French and I want to go to their concert, but in Switzerland they're not famous at all, so I have to catch up quickly. But they're really, really lovely:). They've been around for about nine years, so there are plenty of songs I need to track down.

I love the music here in general. I'm a big fan of Gary Barlow now and hence of Take That.. And I also really want to go see Ed Sheeran live, but it's already mostly sold out this year.. and he's spending far too much time in Australia! I saw that there's a Beatles store in London, so I really want to see that too:).
All Time Low is coming here soon as well, so I really want to go see them.

I also forgot to tell you about envision. We had another assembly on Friday and there were some women advertising envision. It's some kind of programme that tries to get the schools to help improve their area. I signed some form and they're going to send me some Emails soon. I need some more things to do, so, why not. It also looks good on your CV (for university application) but I don't need/have one:P.

Okay, I'm done babbling now, see you soon
xxx Alex

drizzle

Hey. Drizzle. The weather here has been crazy. It's been getting so cold lately.. It's freezing but the people here are still wearing hot pants and tights (well, the girls do). It's been ... raining a lot. They call it drizzle here. The water doesn't just fall from the sky and falls to the ground, it just comes from everywhere. You're surrounded by water, but you would look like a chav walking around with an umbrella, so you get soaked. (I've been trying to use British words more often; hopefully they'll stick in my mind.)
At least the sky looks fab all the time:)
(I annoy everyone by stopping every 5 seconds to make photos of the weather..)

I'm getting used to being ill all the time. I've started taking Anadin on a daily basis. Oh, and I bought myself some UGG boots :D for only 55 quid.. just need to know the right people;).

I've recently went to the pub with my host parents. There was this band playing - Atomic Rays - and my host parents know them and they were being recorded for BBC1. I really liked them, they've got some amazing covers! The nightlife in England is quite rough apparently. I saw some things... but I've also been told some shocking things. My host mum told me a lot about violence and drinking around here.. There are big parts of this country that seem to be quite violent... 

My host mum made Apple Crumble this week, which was very nice. You eat it with evaporated milk, which is some kind of sweet milk in a can. Still need to get used to using canned milk.. strange!

I'm sorry, I keep on telling you about the telly here, but there's a really amazing drama about the Great Train Robbery of 1963. It's called Mrs. Biggs:

Here's a trailer. It's better than it looks though

Last Saturday, I had to go to a meeting with my organisation and the other exchange students. There's only four of us in Bristol. We met up with the organisation people in town and went over the rules again. A few weeks ago my area rep told me about a weekend trip to London, which we could attend and she said I could think about it some more and there was going to be more information when we met up next time. Well, last Saturday they told us it was sold out already, so we didn't even have a chance to go. My organisation has been quite disappointing so far. There was supposed to be a preparation camp in late August this year at the University of Birmingham. I was quite excited about it, but then they cancelled the whole thing. They just haven't been very reliable. Well, anyway: after the meetup, we went to Castle Park (only the exchange students). It's really beautiful, and the weather was absolutely perfect!!

 Last week, I started helping two of my classmates with their French. I (and most of you) know I'm not qualified at all, but it's actually more than enough around here:P. And it's quite fun to do actually. I can see, why it's so hard for British people though. French makes so much more sense in German than in English ... if that makes sense. The sentence structure are much more similar to the German one, in my opinion. Sometimes, it gets all jumbled up in my head - English, French and German (and Swiss German). Some of my British friends still laugh at me, because sometimes I say some really weird (at least weird to them) words, like: 'Uui' or 'Ah Mann' :P. It seems like my English hasn't improved at all yet. Especially my accent hasn't turned more British yet. I've met a girl here (the one I'd like to go to London with) and she's got the most amazing accent ever. She told me she grew up in Bristol, so she's got a Bristolian dialect, but I think she speaks different than the rest. She's got the best swear words, like 'bloody hell!'. Always reminds me of Ron in Harry Potter :D. She also always says 'innit?', which sounds so cool! I've tried to do it like her as well, but it doesn't sound as good:(. People here say 'Cheers' instead of 'Thank You'.. starting to do that now as well.
I joined the gym this week. It's SUCH a long process! I went once and they gave me an appointment. Then I went to that appointment and filled out all the forms. Then they gave me a date for an instruction (well, the first half) and tomorrow (Sunday), I'll have my second instruction. It's a bit pointless, but the gym is really cool. I got some kind of key and you can plug it into the machines and it helps suggests you exercises and the amount of weight you should use and how many reps.. really nice. I would of loved to go to training with someone from school... but none of them do any kind of sports.. so I had to go to the gym. Oh, and I'm still doing that kickboxing on Monday and sometimes on Wednesday. I think I'm the only girl (and the youngest person) in the club.. but it's still fun. I get to train with the main trainer all the time. I've noticed today, that I've actually got blue marks all over my shins:D. And on both sides of my hips as well - one because of training and the other one because I fell down the stairs:P. My host family was quite shocked, but it's normal for me..
The school is doing a lot of trips this year. There's one to New York City in spring of next year, but I won't go. And there's one with my French class to Paris, and I'd love to go, but I'm not sure if I will yet. They've also been talking about going to Africa, but I think that's next year :(.
I really want to do my scuba diving certificate here. My friend (the same girl again..) said, she wants to do it too and it's so much less expensive than in Switzerland. She thinks it's about 400.- pounds. All of my friends from school never have got any spare money. It's a bit depressing really. We wanted to go to the cinema this weekend to see 'The Perks Of Being A Wallflower', but she didn't have enough money. Most of them say, we're going to go out and travel after christmas, because than they'd have some more money again, but I doubt it:P...

How's everyone at home doing? I've heard of a shooting (I mean with guns not with models) in Wettingen..what the hell?! It only ever gets interesting when I'm not around!

Stay safe xxx Alex

random

Heey. Sorry, I've really been slacking..
Like I said, the weather's been killing me! I've been ill for about a week, so it's not been very interesting. I've been spending my evenings in front of the telly with some tea, watching One Direction on Alan Carr The Chatty Man and the X Factor.. at least I've become more British;). I really wanted to avoid watching the X Factor but now I actually really like it.. it's SO MUCH better than DSDS... I really enjoy watching it :D. There are a lot of very interesting British programmes. They're very different than the ones at home and sometimes a bit strange, but I like them a lot. There are lots of amazing comedians here as well. Oh, and they record Deal or No Deal in Bristol.. I'd love to go once.. they sometimes have celebrities on, like McFly :D.
Oh, by the way, the British butter I was telling you about earlier is called Clover.
I also tried Flakes, LOVE THEM :P well, you know.. it's chocolate-y :D. They're very crumbly..

Oh, and I also had my first proper fish and chips with vinegar:

and my second one:D

I think the bus drivers here are also quite chuffed that I finally got a bus pass. The first day after I got it, the bus driver cheered when I showed it to him :P I go on the same bus every morning, so we've seen each other quite often..

In my opinion the people here generally are all really nice although the Bristol accent is known to be impolite.. it's really lovely to be called 'sweetheart' or 'my love' all the time.. lifts my mood:). 

The teachers in school are very different than what I'm used to from Switzerland. They seem like they genuinely care about the future of their students... I know, cheesy. Every second Friday we have an assembly the whole morning and talk about university. How to afford it and how to stand out from the rest.. It's really motivating in a way.

I've already received a lot of grades.. from all the homework we had to hand in, tests and essays we have to write almost after every class. I mostly receive between 70-80%, which is A or B.. not too bad, I guess. I had two A* in Maths but also only 40% in a Psychology homework (the one I had, when I didn't know we had to hand it in and left most of it blank :P oh well). I really like the school and the different classes but I think in some of my classes the teachers focus too much on the marks. While we work on a topic in Psychology for example, they always tell us what we have to know for an A-C mark, and what information is enough for a D-E. That gets kind of annoying because they act like we're only there to get good marks, not to learn anything.. the topics would be very interesting and helpful for life otherwise. Different models of short-term and long-term memory and attachment theories..

I started walking my host family's dog this week. There's a place about ten minutes from my house: cock ridge :P don't know why it's called like that.. most people hear call it the cock..

Today I went to the cinema with a  friend from school at the Longwell Green Vue cinema... We went to see Ice Age 4 at half past ten in the morning.. she had to work in the afternoon (a lot of people from school have got a part time job). It's such an amazing cinema !! And there are lots of restaurants and fast food places and fitness centers and a lasertag (like in How I Met Your Mother :P Barney) I haven't been yet.. but I definitely will!

really strange machines... you can print out the tickets yourself... and they talk to you, which is nice;)

inside the cinema:D 

There was a Ben&Jerry's bar, two sweets shops and a gaming area!

I talked to a girl from school about Harry Potter for a while and we're absolutely going to London to the Harry Potter museum!!:D I'm really excited about that:)) I'm going to tell you more about it once I've been there, but I already know it's amazing and it closes in March of 2013, so go as soon as possible! We also want to do one of those tours through London and its outskirts, where they drive you to all of the filming locations :P. It's only about 45 mins from here to London, which is amazing:). I want to travel to Whales in the very near future too..

Have a nice Sunday:)

Alex xxx

Catching up:)

Heej, I'm back!
So, I've been here for two and a half weeks now.
I recently tried mini pork pies with Branston pickle (veery British) and I actually really like it. Branston pickle is vegetarian relish...

tastes better than it looks like

And I also (finally!) tried Marmite! It's not bad, but you really just have to take VERY little. I put it on my sandwich one day but luckily my host mother saw me do it and stopped me. She told me you usually take two toast slices and put some butter on both of them and then, only on one of the slices, you put on some Marmite.. just for a bit of flavour. It's some kind of by-product when you brew beer. For me it tastes a bit like Bouillon...

School's OK as well. I dropped World Development on Monday, now I'm left with four subjects: Maths, French, English Literature, Psychology. Which is fine. Maths and French are still very, very easy here. My French teacher has a horrible accent though (not saying mine is better, but it is:P...). Psychology and English Literature are both quite complex. I don't think I'm struggling because of the language, they'd be equally as hard in German. But their both very interesting, so I'll have to manage. One of my problems was, that I didn't know, that they grade the homework here! So I'm going to be frustrated the next few days.. Oh well.

There's a lot of tutoring/mentoring going on at Hanham. You get put in a group and have a special teacher you can talk to if you've got any kind of problems. That's mentoring. You go in with a partner you can choose. I went with Scott from my Maths class ... I think it's a nice thing to do, but you can't really take it seriously... it's more like: You alright? Good. Here, sign that. 

I can't explain what tutoring is, because I haven't gone yet :P. Would of had it today during lunch but I thought because I already had mentoring on Monday, I wouldn't have to attend... But they're two completely different things.. apparently.

I have my cell phone all figured out now. I first bought a pay as you go SIM card.. but that would be way too expensive in the long run. Now I have a SIM only contract for 12 pounds a month (with VirginMobile) and I get unlimited web, unlimited texts and 150 mins of phoning. Because I'm only 16 I had to ask my host mum to use her bank account.. but it worked out fine. I think it was also a problem because you needed a bank account in the UK...
I also got my bus pass today, finally!! It was flippin' expensive, but it's worth it. I need it every day for school and I can go into town with it. It cost me 430 quid for a student pass.. which I can use for a whole year.

When I went into town (that's what everybody here calls it...Bristol) to get my bus pass, I stayed longer and walked around for a bit. I got to a place called Cabot Circus , which is fab!!! All the shops and quite different fashion over here is overwhelming though..

Last weekend I first went to St. George, which is right next to Hanham, to pick up a friend from school and then we went to Kingswood together. It's a really nice place to shop. There are so many different charity shops there, all with really nice clothing, shoes, jewelry and also furniture... and a lot more.

On Monday I had my first training. I'm not sure what it was... a mixture of kickboxing and sparring I suppose. I really enjoyed it!!

I hope everything is well at home (the weather here is killing me!) and I'll write you soon
Alex xx

new family - new school

Heii
Haven't written to you in a while. On Wednesday, I moved in with my 'real' host family. My host parents are really lovely and have got two boys, 15 and 21, and a daughter, which doesn't live here anymore. I live in Warmley now. I also started school on Thursday. As of now, I've only had two hours of World Development on Thursday and three hours of Maths and two hours of Psychology on Friday. World Development has been really interesting so far but IF I'm going to drop one subject, it probably would be this one. Maths has been really easy so far and Psychology has been more difficult than I expected. There are quite a few words I have problems with - but it's fascinating.
I usually have school from twenty to nine in the morning to quarter past three in the afternoon daily. But on one day I have a free afternoon. Maybe I'm going to drop one subject, because they're all on A Level now, which can get quite hard. I thought I had to wear a uniform - like most of the students at the school - but I don't. I got put into Sixth Form, which is quite similiar to the tenth school year in Switzerland. Students do it, if they've finished High School but don't want to or can't go to college or start an apprenticeship. At least that's how I understand it.
I also notice that I've got difficulties with the comma rules in school. The English teachers I've had in Switzerland so far all said, that the comma rules are too difficult and that we wouldn't get graded on them. But now I have no idea how to put the commas in my school work!!
I've also noticed that I don't have to worry about grammar, because no one else does either:P.

I'll have to go to bed now, got school tomorrow.
Have a nice week
Alex xx

Bristol

Hey guys
I promise this post will be a lot shorter than the one from yesterday. Oh, yesterday I forgot to tell you something: When I missed the first bus (because I didn't wave) I went to LIDL to waste some time. I didn't even know LIDL exists in the UK. That's what I found:):

la vache qui rit!!!!

(sounds catchier than 'Laughing Cow Cheese' in my opinion...)

 picture just for evidence

Today:
For breakfast I finally tried British crumpets (there are different types of crumpets apparently) and I really liked them with that butter..:). At eleven o'clock I took the bus to Bristol (the right one) with another STS student. He's from Norway. We got ourselves application forms for the bus. They offer Student Photocards and other tickets at http://www.firstgroup.com .
Afterwards we also got some SIM cards that have better deals for use within the UK. I haven't taken any pictures of Bristol today, because we only were in the city centre around the bus station. There are A LOT of cool shops and malls. I'm sure I'll go see the Avon some other time and will take some picures.
I just heard the other student in the house scream, because she found a huge spider in her room. Wendy told us there are always lots of spiders around this time of the year - when it turns to autumn.

Write to you soon xx