P.S.

By the way, everyone, I'm back in Australia. ^^

Iceland

So after the cheese factory place (see previous post) I visited Iceland. Really, no joke. It wasn't pretty cool, it was awesome. Some talented person/people (probably the latter) had created a seriously cool world of ice carvings and other random props, like toy gorillas. They even had a massive ice castle that you could climb up onto and everything. I have never seen anything like it, except maybe in Edward Scissorhands. On the down side, it was really really cold and my toes really hurt even for an hour after we had got back into the car. Literally, I checked. Like I said before, we are really missing out on some cool stuff in Australia! That said, I'm really looking forward to coming back in two and a half weeks!! See you then!

Gruyeres

The day after we got back from Paris we went to Gruyeres, the little village in the canton (state) of Fribourg that specialises in making cheese. At the start, after we paid, we got these strange black things that kind of looked like tv remote controls. Once you set the language, you type in the number of the station you're up to, starting at one, and then hold it to your ear like a complete dork and listen to the comentary. A cow called Cherry explains what cows do (eat grass, pretty much) and how it goes from there and eventually ends up as yummy cheese! It was so corny I couldn't stop laughing and I think a few randoms thought I was a bit strange in the head. But that's okay, because they'll probably never ever see me again, and if they did they won't recognise me. That would be kind of creepy. We got to taste cheese that was 6 months, 8 months and 10 months old. I prefer the 6 month cheese because it's milder and not as dry as the other two. It was actually pretty cool. And I bought a couple of chocolate Swiss Army Knives in the gift shop afterwards. ^^

Paris

Thursday, we drove to Paris, which took about 8 hours until we got to Gwen's grandparents house. They are really really sweet. ^^ Friday morning after breakfast I went with Gwen's family into the heart of Paris to do all sorts of touristy things starting with (of course) the Eiffel Tower. It was so cold that my fingers and toes felt like they were going to drop off, but it was great anyway. I climbed (that's right, climbed) about a billion flights of stairs up to the second level of the Tower. The top was closed due to frost, but I got as high as I could. But then, afterwards, in the gift shop, I was buying a bunch of souvenirs and... yeah. I had left my wallet in Switzerland. I was in Paris, the shopping capital of the world (or so the sign said on the way in) AND I LEFT MY WALLET IN SWITZERLAND!!!! But Gwen's parents lended me some money so I bought the souvenirs anyway. And then I visited the entrance of the castle of Henry IV, because we didn't have time to do the tour. We are really missing out in Australia without any super cool castles and stuff. Next was the Arc de Triomphe, which was really really big and really really cool. Once again, missing out in Australia. I took the metro/underground/subway thing that I'm pretty sure we don't have in Australia and got scared that someone was going to stab me and steal my bag, because apparently that's happened before. But, obviously, that didn't happen. I got to take a photo of the Notre Dame Cathedral from a distance and then we went shopping. It was surprisingly reasonably priced, and I bought a pair of jeans and 6 pairs of earrings. (2x 3 packs, the cheap kind you find in that shop that starts with 'e' that I can't remember) EQUIP! I just remembered. And then back to the grandparents house and the next day we left. It was great. 10am - 4pm is definitely not enough time to see Paris. If you plan on doing it, designate about three or four days. It's a pretty cool place.

And now, I am going to watch the French version of Ocean's 11 ^^

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Matt Damon is so cool. Just saying.

Escargo

Christmas dinner was... snails. It was actually pretty nice, not slimy or rubberry or any other textures I was expecting. Just like normal meat. And it was cooked in a garlic sauce and tasted kind of salty, but not overpoweringly salty. I liked it. Anyway, today I'm going to go 'bobbing.' I'm not exactly sure what that is, but apparently it's loads of fun. And there may or may not be a snow war today... ^^

Hi Hannah. I went to judo last night. Apparently I'm a natural, so be afraid. Be very afraid.

HOLIDAYS!!!

I GET TO SLEEP IN EVERY DAY NOW INSTEAD OF WAKING UP AT 6:00 IN THE MORNING!!!!!!!! YAAAAYYYY!!

I have two weeks of holidays for the Christmas/New Year period. It's pretty exciting!
I'm going to Paris for New Years. Dad, you should probably put some more money on my card. Like, $500. I CAN'T WAIT!

This Just In

Apparently it gets colder.

Watch Museum

On Saturday I hopped on a train to La Chaux du Fonds and visited a museum. I expected it to be boring but it was actually super cool. Switzerland is apparently the country of the pocket watch, so they have a pretty big museum. And it was 'museum day' that day, so it was totally free. There was this one pocket watch I saw that was absolutely beautiful: The back of it and the face was made of glass, so you could see all the parts inside, which were all made of yellow gold. And it had rubies in amongst all the gold parts, which looked amazing. (I think the rubies was used to do the same thing we use quartz for today) And then we went shopping for a bit until we all realised that none of the other ones really like shopping, and then we bought hot chocolates and went home. It was pretty fun ^^

Wednesday

On Wednesday, we were running low on food so we just popped over to France to do some grocery shopping. Apparently, it's no big deal. Gwen couldn't understand why I was almost literally exploding with excitement. We also went to the dentist while we were there and visited a few book stores. I have to go now because we're going to France again now for the Christmas markets... Have fun staying in one country!

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The Christmas markets were pretty cool. There were a lot of stalls selling the kind of useless trinkets that you get in all markets, but with a Christmas theme. One stall had these super cool lollies of Santa and the Reindeers and other Christmassy things, it was so cool. And we ate these strange things that were kind of like donuts and covered in sugar and they were yummy. ^^