XXVI. Last day of the year

   As promised, I will talk a little about Christmas and a few of the biggest differences between here and my home.

Me and my host family in front of our Christmas tree, which is lit with real candles.

   Normally on Christmas I wake up relatively early so that we can open presents as soon as

XXV. 'Twas the night before Christmas

   I'm sorry that I am not keeping my blog posts to a good schedule, but as I'm sure all of you are busy with the holidays, you can imagine that I have been busy as well.

   Since I am not very much in the mood for writing at the moment, and there would be way too much to write anyway, and I took lots of pictures recently, I will indulge you with photos instead. Enjoy!

I went to a Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) in Murten, and the following pictures were taken there.

XXIV. Through the storms

   Let me just say that in the past week (or two) we got battered with snow. You know how in a stereotypical winter, it snows in December, and the snow actually stays on the ground? That's how it is here, and I love it.

That is the snow on my balcony railing (the railing is only about a couple inches thick) after the first major snowfall.

XXIII. How to celebrate St. Nicholas' Day

   In the past week the weather has been crazy. We have been getting snow almost everyday with small intermissions of sun or rain. So, we don't exactly have a foot of snow on the ground right now because it has time to melt a tiny bit before it snows again the next day, but we still have several inches (or I guess I should say "centimeters" since I'm in Europe now). Actually, speaking of measurements, I just realized today in art class that a normal ruler does not exist here. Of course it should be like a "no, duh" fact, but I just never thought about it before. The closest rulers to a foot are either 20 cm or 50 cm long.

   Anyway, December is really busy what with the holidays coming up and all. My host parents are working a lot. My host brother has lots of concerts, I have a couple concerts, and we both have lots of