Why, hello again.

Sorry for the four-month delay, it's definitely been a while. We have a long blog post ahead of us.

First of all, I'd like to apologize to everyone for not writing for so long, I honestly thought no one read my blog, because there were no comments, so I figured I'd just stop. However, when I went home, I got many requests to start up again. Luckily, I'm a journaler, so I don't just have to rely on just my memory to tell about the happenings of these past four months, their up and downs' and how I'm doing. From now on I'll try my best to write at least once a week.

October:

Well as I said in an earlier post, I had my fall break in the first two weeks of October (rather than in November, which I think makes so much sense. I know we have our break in November because of Thanksgiving, but it's really nice to have your school-less time spread out.)

In the first couple of days, I did some of the normal touristy thing in Luzern, that I hadn't had a chance to do before then, (including buying myself a swiss watch and going to Zürich to visit my cousin, Maria)

The famous Luzern Lion sculpture, if anyone comes to visit me,
this is one thing you will definitely see. The sculpture is six meters high
and ten meters long.

This is kind of difficult to explain. A long time ago, when glaciers
ruled the lands, stones, well boulders, would carve giant holes in the
ground like this one. There are many  in a certain area in Luzern,
so someone built a museum around them, which is now called
Gletschergarten (glacier garden.)

Lea and Esther

Lea and I

Rolf, Esther, Lea and I also went to Germany during the first week. There's a lake called the Bodensee (Lake Constance in English), which borders Austria, Germany and Switzerland. We crossed the lake on a ferry and drove about 20 minutes to Meersburg, Germany, where we walked around and stayed the night. Southern Germany isn't all that different than Switzerland, besides the language and the usage of Euros. We ate lunch in a restaurant on the shore, visited a wine museum and then decided to find our hotel. As Rolf took a little nap, Esther, Lea and I went to a therapeutic swimming pool. One thing I absolutely love about Europe, especially Switzerland, is that you can walk just about EVERYWHERE. Anyways, this place was amazing, the big pool was inside and outside and you had this magnificent view of the lake and the city. Afterwards, we met Rolf for dinner and eventually went to bed. At breakfast the next day, there were two men (a younger and an older) sitting at a table a couple away from ours, I walked past them a couple times and realized they weren't just speaking American English- they were speaking MY American English. Sure enough, when I finally got a good look at them I saw two red and white Wisconsin Badgers caps. Ha! What do you know! Later on, we went to Ravensburg, home of the widely known toy company: Ravensburger. There's a Ravensburger museum, which we visited, but to be honest, was not that interesting.

Bodensee (Lake Constance) outlined in red 

Meersburg- Esther

Meersburg

Meersburg- Random German people, I have no idea why
Rolf took this picture.

Meersburg

Meersburg

Meersburg- Rolf, Lea and I

Meersburg

Bodensee

Meersburg- Our hotel

Meersburg

Meersburg

Meersburg

Meersburg- Wine Museum

Meersburg- After swimming

Meersburg- Dinner

Ravensburg- Esther, Lea and I

Ravensburg- Ravensburger Museum

Ravensburg- Ravensburger Museum

Waiting for the ferry to take us back to Swiss Land.

Waiting for the ferry to take us back to Swiss Land.

A couple days later, Esther, Lea and I went on a "ladies trip" to Italy. ITALY! Now THIS is what I'd been waiting for. After three hours on the road (that's right THREE, the distance from Madison to Chicago .. Imagine Italy being only three hours away..) Well at some point during these three hours, I realized I had forgotten my passports. Both of them... Uh-oh... I remember we were already too far to turn back, so we were going to wing it and hope that the controllers at the border wouldn't check. Going from country to country in Europe is more like going from one state to another in the US, rather than going to/ from Mexico or Canada--- it's just really not a big deal. We got lucky and weren't checked as we crossed into Lo Stivale (The Boot), the motherland of pizza, pasta and everything good, Italia, Italy.We drove about 20 more minutes until we reached the Italian city of Como on Lake Como.

Italy- Como circled in red

We spent a couple hours simply going about the city, in store and a big outdoor market. This market wasn't like the one I'm used to at home. You could find just about anything there and almost everything was made in China. However, I did manage to find a beautiful scarf for Skye made in Italy. After a while, we got hungry, so the hunt for the perfect Italian restaurant began. And it took a while... but eventually we got settled in at a nice, little place with some incredible pizza menus. I can't remember exactly what I ordered, but I do remember it was the best pizza I'd ever had... well besides Biggie's pizzas at her bakery in Blue Mounds: The Naked Elm.. But that goes without saying. Anyways, back in Italy, this had been the first pizza I'd eaten in 11 months (for those of you who don't know, because of the eczema I get when I eat gluten or dairy, I don't eat either of them,) but I was determined to eat an Italian pizza, no matter what the costs. After our spectacular lunch, we walked to the lake, where we saw many-a-person eating ice cream. So we went in search of this ice cream shop. Well my friends, it was not too difficult, as they are everywhere, and soon we were looking at the multitudes of ice cream flavors as Lea and Esther decided what they want. Lea chose a small chocolate, and Esther a small coffee.. Well they messed it up and put one scoop chocolate and one scoop coffee. If there's a god, this was surely a sign from them, because as anyone who knows me well knows that chocolate and coffee are in a never-ending battle of who's my favorite ice cream flavor. I took the ice cream and didn't complain.. How could I? I was eating fantastic ice cream in the sun... in ITALY!

In some crazy accessories store- Lea

The candy man can...

Real Italian leather shoes!

I just like the "Made in Italy".. Italy!!

Market

Market

Market- They were even greener in real life

Italia <3

So classic.

Beautiful cobblestone roads

My wonderful, delicious Italian pizza... ready..

preparing for the first bite...set.. 

GO!!!!!!!

Mmmmm!! Super!

Lake Como

Italian Gelato

Chocolate ice cream and coffee ice cream, the perfect mixture...
 wow, I am my mother's daughter.

Next we went to the Como Cathedral, which is the Roman Catholic cathedral of Como and is HUGE. I'm not Roman Catholic, but there was a certain feeling as soon as you stepped inside. The cathedral was so beautiful, despite the construction, I was blown away.

Como Cathedral

Como Cathedral- my apologizes about the picture quality,
I only had my phone.

Como Cathedral

Como Cathedral

Later in the day, we went to our hotel, which involved crossing the country borders two more times. Very scary. That night for dinner we went to another Italian restaurant, instead of pizza, this time I ordered fish. I was not expecting what came though. I learned that night that I am no big fan of many sea fish. Or octopus. Or countless other gooey things I couldn't name. I get the shudders even now thinking about it. The next day we went to another, bigger market, where I bought a pair of very nice, leather shoes for myself and a beautiful, wooden pepper grinder for my papa. After hours of walking and shopping, we headed back home.

A foot washer! Ha!

I'm actually not sure where this is..

On the last Sunday of fall break, Esther, Lea and I woke up super early and went to a sort of Swiss festival in town called Stans. It started out in a church, with a church ceremony that was focused around the harvest time/ the time when the cows come down from the alps. I was really tired and feeling a little sick, so I think I dosed off a couple times during that part. Then there was a parade, I don't actually remember this part very good either... Sorry folks.

Alp Horners

Alp Horners

Traditional Swiss outfits

Traditional Swiss outfits

Traditional Swiss outfits

I'm not sure exactly when or where, but at some point during these two weeks, German kinda just clicked. It finally got over that awful beginners bump and started rolling. And rolling. Picking up speed everyday.


On the 17th school started up again. Only 10 weeks until I was going home. 10...9...8...7...6...5...4... 3...2...1... 0. Wow, now looking back the time went so fast, but we still have the rest of October, November and most of December before then.. so where was I... Ahh yes, school. Nothing too exciting to be honest. I could understand more of my classes, which was awesome, but even so I was bored.


One cloudy Sunday, Esther, Lea and I went up on some mountain hiking. Here are just some pictures of that day.

The Rigi 

I forget what this sport is called right now,
but it was really interesting to watch.

This thing cracked me up, because I have absolutely no idea what it is.

a little restaurant 

And this is a drawing I did in art of a pencil case.

So that's about it for October. I decided to do this month by month. 


Thank you for reading, come again soon!


Coming up next: November- the transformation from fall to winter, 
the death of a loved one and a very swiss Thanksgiving.

HAPPY BELATED HALLOWEEN!