Week 19! - Adventures in Switzerland and France!

Hello! Thank you all for being patient with this crazy weird upload schedule. It’ll be fixed soon, so I’m sorry that week 19 was last week, and this week is week 20, but you’ll get two blogs this week! As I said before, the reason it’s messed up is because I was on vacation and my Mom was visiting so I just wanted to spend time with her. Anyways, let’s get on to Week 19!

This week started on Monday. This was our first day back to school after our trip. Even though my Mom was still visiting, we decided I should at least go to school for 3 days and for 2 of the days we’d do a day trip somewhere. Monday was good! It was a little weird speaking German again. Even though it was only about a week of just speaking English, I’d forgotten a lot so when my first class started, I had a really hard time following. But it’s fine because I was back to normal by the end of my first class. My second class was English. English was good (as always). Then after English was German, and then lunch, and then math. Overall the day went by pretty fast and it was very chill. When I got home from school around 3:30 my Mom and I didn’t have any plans. But we decided it would be fun to go into the city for a little bit. However, it was raining very hard so we took the tram. When we got to the city, we didn’t really have anything specific we needed, so we decided to just walk around and look. As we walked around we realized we could look for shorts for me. I have this thing with shorts where I can never find the right pair. I’m very specific, and even though what I’m asking for is that hard, I can never find a pair I like. Shorts are always too short for girls my age. It’s ridiculous and they’re uncomfortable. But I also don’t like the length of Bermuda shorts or basketball shorts. They’re too long and not flattering on me. They also can’t have any sparkles, glitter, or embroidering, they have to be a dark jean color, and there can’t be any rips in them. And of course I want them at a good price. If you know of any place where I could find shorts like that, please let me know haha. Anyways, we looked at shorts for a long time, but of course didn’t find anything. We also got some German candy for my Mom so she could try it and some for Owen as a birthday present. I showed my Mom all my favorite shops and we just walked around. Eventually, we came to one store with a lot of pens. I’m a big pen lover and love testing pens, buying pens, etc. But there’s this one pen that I’ve been so hesitant to buy because if its price. The thing about this pen is that everyone, literally everyone, uses this pen in school. I’m not exaggerating. It’s the LAMY fountain ink pen. When I showed my Mom, she encouraged me to just get it. I haven’t really bought a souvenir yet and this would be a great thing to have when I go back to America. So I got it! And I’m so happy I did! It makes taking notes 10x more fun. Getting this pen was definitely the highlight of my day, and a major highlight of the week. If you can’t tell, I’m very excited about this pen. 

This is a photo of me in the city. You see that beautiful building behind me? That's a McDonalds! 

The next day, on Tuesday, my Mom and I decided to do a day trip to Basel, Switzerland. So we went to the train station, got our tickets, and we were on our way. She’s done a day trip with her sister Denise, my brother, and now me! She was joking that now all that’s left is my Dad! We had a lot of fun in Basel. We went to a cool fountain, ate lunch at a cool café, and walked around to see all the sights. I’d been to Basel before too, but that was for Fasnachts. It was dark, cold, and everything was different for this huge event. So it was very cool to see Basel when it’s “normal” in the summer tourist season. It was also very nice weather. A little too warm in the sun, but in the shade just perfect. So we basically spent most of the time just walking around looking at everything, and laughing. It’s kind of crazy how much my Mom and I laugh when we’re together. It probably annoys other people, but it makes spending time together a lot of fun. Eventually, we started running out of things to do, so we decided to walk back over to the train station to see when the next train was. Somehow we planned it perfectly because there was a train leaving in 10 minutes that was direct to Freiburg! So we got back to Freiburg, and got ready for bed. 

This is the cool fountain we went to.

I don't know if this is art, or for a store, but it looks cool! 

Exploring the streets of Basel!

So European and cute!

On Wednesday, I went to school. Wednesday is my second favorite day of the week so I was excited. Wednesday went pretty normal, and fast which is good. On Wednesdays I have math, NWT, and religion. My religion teacher is super awesome and she always puts me in a good mood. Then after school my Mom and I spent a lot of time trying to decide what to do. We decided to take a short walk/ hike to a winery at the top of a hill right next to our apartment. It’s a short walk but it gets you up high and you can see a lot of Freiburg. It’s very pretty. My Mom got some wine, and I got a fun non-alcoholic drink with mango in it because I love mango. We sipped our drinks and just talked and of course laughed for a long time. Eventually it was getting darker and later so we took the long way back to our apartment. When we got back, we planned our plan for the next day, and went to bed. 

On Thursday the plan was to take a bus into Strasbourg, France. It’s actually very close to Freiburg. Only about an hour. If you look at Freiburg on a map, you’ll see that it very close to both Switzerland and France. Very convenient for fun international day trips! This time Rahel and Renate came with us! So it was a fun girls day trip! When we got off the bus and walked around for a while, the first thing we did was go to the big church that Strasbourg is famous for. We went inside and looked around. It really was very beautiful. But if you ever go to Strasbourg, you should be aware of the tourists. There were SO MANY tourists! It was actually insane! Then we walked around some more and looked around. And it was about then we decided to go to a French Bakery. I really wanted to try a french croissant. So we found a bakery, and all got what we wanted. I got a chocolate croissant, Rahel got a similar thing, but it was a little different, and my Mom got a pigs ear (the pastry not an actual pig ear). Renate didn’t get anything, she just ate a sandwich she’d packed. After we ate our yummy treats, we decided to take the short walk to “Petite France”. This is a really cool part of Strasbourg that is just cute old buildings and classic European architecture. My Mom especially loved this part. The only thing that could’ve made it better would be if there weren’t so many tourists. But overall it was a great trip. After we waked around some more we found our way back to the bus station just in time for the rain to start. Even though it started raining it didn’t really matter because we were about to get on a bus! So we headed back to Freiburg and I had a few minutes to grab something to eat, and then ride my bike to dance school! I wanted to go to dance school because on that particular day there was a make-up class for a class I missed while I was on vacation. That way I was all caught up. Dance school was of course lots of fun, and after it was over I biked back home and hung out with my Mom for a bit before I had to go to bed.

Cute streets!

The river was really brown when we were there because there was just a big storm before we came.

This photo would have been a lot better if the river didn't look like the river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The next day, on Friday, it was very average. I had school, which was normal. I don’t really like the classes I have on Friday, but it wasn’t that bad. Then after school, I came home, ate lunch, and my Mom and I rode our bikes into the city. There were a few things we wanted to get, for example some gifts for my Mom to bring back, and I needed some paper. So we went around and got what we needed. Then we found some Wifi and used it to find a bakery nearby. I didn’t even know this place existed, but I used to pass it everyday when I took the tram to school. At any rate it was very good, and we ate a yummy slice of Black Forest Cherry Cake. After that, we didn’t really have anything else to do, so we headed back to the apartment. 

This was our yummy cake.

On Saturday, it was sadly my Mom’s last day in Freiburg. Because we’re in Germany, and it was her last day we woke up relatively early and decided to go get a soft pretzel for breakfast. After we ate, we went back to the apartment for a bit and then went to the big Vauban Flea Market. Vauban is the area of Freiburg I live in, and they have big flea market twice a year. It’s right next to our apartment, so we figured we’d go look at it. It was mostly kids clothes, but there were also a lot of books and toys. And one cool thing about the flea market is that everyone who sets up a stand has to bring a cake, and they sell the cake for very cheap. But it’s really yummy homemade cake! So definitely a win win. After we’d looked around for a bit, my Mom and I got going for our main activity of the day. We took 2 trams and one bus to the Freiburg Gondola. Then we waited on line and took the gondola to the top! It was a pretty long gondola ride, 20 minutes to be exact. The people we rode up with were kind of weird, so my Mom and I just stayed quiet but then we laughed about it when we got to the top. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t that good, and there wasn’t much of a view but it was okay because we’ve taken a lot of gondola rides in our lives and it’s ok if every one isn’t perfect. When we were at the top we took a short little hike to a viewing tower. The viewing tower was funny because there wasn’t really anything to view with all the clouds, but it was still cool to be over the clouds. Then we took the long way back and found some cool chairs to sit in. Our plan was to do a bigger hike, but because of the weather, we decided against that. So instead we decided to go to the restaurant that was at the top and see if it was any good. The restaurant was actually really good. We were worried that it would be expensive and cheap quality, but the prices weren’t that bad, and the quality was amazing. We got a bowl of potato leek soup, and “Flammkuchen” (It’s kind of like pizza but without tomato sauce) with leeks and cheese. Both of them were AMAZING. I mean, really really good. I ate until I was full, and then kept eating. It was that good. Then we were ready to head back down the mountain, but it was closed for thunderstorms, so we had to wait. But eventually we made it back down, and I got back in Freiburg just in time for dance class. Now that I was all caught up from my class on Thursday, it was easy to follow and it was a lot of fun. When I got back after dance, it was time for pizza! Next to our apartment there is a pizza oven, and sometimes the pizza over gets started and then we can all make our own pizzas. It’s really cool and delicious. After pizza, my Mom and I hung out and talked for a little longer, and then we said goodbye. It was sad to say goodbye, but I know time will fly between now and when she’ll be picking me up at Denver Airport. Then we went to bed and she left very early in the morning on Sunday. Overall it was a really great time and I had so much fun with my Mom. 

Our short hike.

The view wasn't really a view because of the clouds but it was still pretty.

Me making my pizza.

This is what pizza night looks like. The pizza over is towards the left side of the photo. 

On Sunday I really didn’t do much. When I woke up, Renate, Noah and I went to go take care of the sheeps and the goats at Timo’s preschool. Rahel joined up with us a little later too. Then when we were done, I came back and wrote blogs the entire day to try and catch up a bit after missing 3 weeks in a row. I also got organized after a crazy 3 weeks. I didn’t really have time to get unpacked from my trips until then. I also did some homework and relaxed. Overall a productive day. 

I hope you all enjoy this weeks blog! Thanks for reading and I hope you had a great week! Talk to you soon!