School Days

Alright. So it's actually only been 6 days since I last updated my blog, but that's almost a week, so I am calling this post Week 3.

Monday was a momentous occasion for me, my first day of school in Sweden. I am going to one of the oldest schools in Scandinavia and a very famous royal is rumored to have attended school there. My school has about 1200 students which is several hundred less than my school in Colorado, but the building is huge! There are at least 4 stories in the building and many wings, so needles to say, getting around the school on my first day was a little tricky. On my first day, I met 3 girls in my class who showed me around the school, helped me get my locker, computer (still waiting on that), and lunch tag. These girls were the first people I met in my class and they really helped me transition into my new school in a new country and in a new language. Monday night, my host family had one of their friends over for dinner, who I had met previously when we were in Darlana County. We took my host family's motor boat into the city to drop the friend at their hotel, and seeing the city by boat was breath-taking and beautiful!

Swedish schools are organized very differently than American schools although there is variation from school to school, I'm sure. In my school, a person selects the program they want to study ( Science, Culture & Language, Social Science, and IB) ( I think those are all the programs my school offers, not entirely sure...)  then you are placed in a class of about 30 people. A student has all of their core curriculum classes with the same 30 students, but for elective subjects there is more variation. I am taking 7 subjects this year. My subjects are: Svenska (Swedish), Engelska (English), Film & TV Kunskap (Film & TV History), Kultur och Idéhistoria (Humanities), Samhällskunskap (Civics), Filosofi (Philosophy), and Religion. My class has a homeroom teacher who is also our Religion teacher, I have the same teacher for both of my history courses, and besides that I have a different teacher in every subject. My classes are an hour and a half and I have each subject twice a week. Something else that's different about Swedish school is that my schedule is completely different every day. For example I have English in the morning on one day and then in the afternoon on a different day. Another thing that's different in Sweden is that school lunch is completely free, and if a teacher will be gone, they don't hire a substitute, and instead class is canceled. 

Tuesday, my second day of school, was really great because it was just an orientation day so we didn't have any actual classes. My class gave some 1st year students a tour of the school, we had lunch and I was home by 12:50. Something else that is exciting about my school is that I am in the 3rd year. Swedish high school is called gymnasium and instead of 4 years, it is 3 years. I get to graduate with my class at school and participate in all of the really exciting traditions and activies that go along with graduation from Swedish gymnasium, I am so excited. When Ulrika got home from work, we rode our bikes to the bus stop and took the bus into the city center. We went to an free outdoor dance class for a dance called the Lindy Hop, which I think is kind of like swing dancing, but I'm not an expert. Even though I am a beginning dancer and I don't understand that much Swedish, I had so much fun laughing and learning the dance with Ulrika, and that was definitely the most fun I have ever had dancing. 

Wednesday, I only had one class, Philosophy and our homework was to look in the mirror and find an answer to the question " Who are you?". After school, I met a girl named Sara who was an exchange student from Sweden to Colorado last year, and we had ice cream together. I ordered my ice cream in Swedish all by myself and the cashier understood me! That was one of the best language accomplishments, I've had so far. 

Thursday, my first class was at 11:30 so it was really nice to sleep in. I don't understand any of my classes even the slightest bit. When I do recognize a word that a teacher says, I usually can't recognize the other words they've said, so I can never really piece together what we're learning. My classmates and teachers have helped me understand the assignments, but so far school has been really, really difficult. I know that as I learn more Swedish, I will be more and more able to understand my classes, I just wish I was already at that point in my Swedish abilities. I cooked my host family grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner. I had really been missing grilled cheese so it was great to have that again, and I have never made tomato soup from scratch before, but that turned out really well! I have finally found a good way to convert my recipes to metric measurements so that has made cooking a lot easier. 

Friday I had my first English class and that was wonderful. I had English with my first Swedish friend,Louise, and the entire class was taught in English from start to finish, so I finally understood school, even if it was only for and hour and a half. I am getting to know more people in my class which is nice, but I can only remember the names of maybe 10 of the students out of 30. Swedish names are really hard to remember! Friday has always been my favorite day of the week, and being in Sweden has only reinforced that. The Swedes have a wonderful tradition called Fredagsmys. Fredagsmys is basically watching a movie, eating snacks, and spending time together as a family and it is one of my favorite things about Sweden. I also made chocolate milk for the first time since I've been in Sweden, and I made it with cocoa powder, sugar, and milk, delightful.This time, we watched a movie called The Crown Jewels which was good, albeit terribly confusing. I had a great time watching this movie, and I think I understood bits and pieces of the film too. Unfortunately, I was so tired that I fell asleep during the last part of the movie, so I didn't get to see the ending, although Ulrika explained what happened. 

Saturday was a busy day. I spent the morning packing and getting ready to go camping with my host family about 4 hours away from Uppsala. We finally got going, and after a very long car ride and lunch at McDonald's we finally arrived around 4:30 pm. During the car ride we watched a movie about Emil. Emil is a famous character from a book series by Astrid Lindgren ( the author of Pippi Longstocking). The movie was really good, although I really didn't understand very much. Saturday night, we attended a birthday party for 3 people and played many Swedish games. We ate delicious food and there was a lot of dancing. I was exhausted by the end of the night. We camped for the night in a tent, which was really fun, I haven't been camping in a long time. 

On Sunday, I woke up after 9:00 am which I thought was impressive, considering how bright the light is in Sweden in the early morning. We had breakfast with the rest of the party guests and sang many Swedish songs before packing up and hitting the road. We went swimming and played volleyball with some friends of my host family before we finally started the 4 hour car trip home. In the car, we watched The Muppets (2011) in English with Swedish subtitles and I had such a great time watching a movie I love with Axel and Anna. We got home around 6:30 pm and I prepared for school the next day before falling asleep after a busy, busy weekend. 

This week in Sweden was filled with many funny moments, good food, laughter, and adventures and I can't wait for even more to come!

Let me know if you have any questions about Sweden, I'd be happy to answer them! 

Hellos & Goodbyes

It's been more than a week since I last updated my blog, I have been very busy here in Sweden, and I finally have a little time to do an update. 

On my ninth day in  Sweden, I packed my bag for my host family's weekend trip to Töreboda and I watched the Broncos first game in the preseason with Simon. The place my host family and I went for the weekend is about a 4 hour drive away, so we spent Friday night driving in a car packed with a lot of instruments and people. The drive was very beautiful and the 4 hours in the car did not feel that long to me. Simon and I went to a Panda Express type restaurant called Chop Chop for dinner and that was delicious! I love Swedish fast food. 

The next day, my host family and I went to an amusement park in Sweden called Skara Sommerland, which was about an hour away from Töreboda. The amusement park was amazing. We spent the morning in the water park going down all the slides and having so much fun. For lunch, we went to the Tex-Mex buffet at the park, the food was good, but it did not taste like Tex-Mex at all. In the afternoon, it was a bit cooler so we rode the other rides in the amusement park. We left the park around 16:00, but not before getting huge amounts of soft-serve ice cream with toppings. That evening, we went to the birthday party for a family friend of my host family. The party was held in a barn and we ate a lot of Swedish food including raw herring in mustard and onion, which was surprisingly really good! 

Sunday was a very simple day. We cleaned up the cottage and packed and loaded the car up to return from our weekend trip. For most of the drive home, it was pouring rain, which was beautiful. I have never seen so much rain in my life. During the rain, the car almost ran out of gas, but luckily we found a gas station very quickly. I had a falafel roll for lunch, and it might be the largest food item I've ever ordered off a menu. I had no idea it would be so large, but thankfully Ulrika split it with me, the falafel was wonderful! When we finally got home, Axel made this really good potato dish for dinner and I watched a Patriots pre season game with Simon. 

Monday was the day that I finally went to the Swedish Migration office to get my residence card. The office is only open Mon-Wed from 12-3, so we decided to get there when it opened at 12 and hope that the wait wouldn't be too bad. Well despite arriving when the office opened, Simon, Anna, and I waited for more than an hour before my number was finally called. When I walked up to the desk, they took my picture, Simon told them my Swedish address, and they did my fingerprints, all of that took about 3 minutes. It was very frustrating to wait for so long for something that was very quick. We went to MAX for lunch and then we picked Hannes up and drove him about 20 km outside of the city for his surprise going away party. He was so surprised! Later that night, I skyped my best friend and my parents for the first time since I've been here so it was really nice to see their faces and hear their voices. I met my second host family and picked apples from the trees in their front yard. In typical Swedish fashion, we had fika and a great conversation about Swedish history and vikings. 

Tuesday was a very busy day. I baked an Apple Betty as a goodbye present to Hannes who was leaving on his exchange in the U.S. that day. Hannes had to leave for the airport hotel at 6:00 pm, and he came home from his goodbye party around 2:30 pm and then he began to pack his suitcase for an entire year. I was amazed that he managed to pack for a whole year in such a short amount of time. We said goodbye to Hannes at the airport hotel, although we were also going to say goodbye to him at the airport in the morning. 

Wednesday was also a busy day and it started very early. I woke up early to go with my host family to the airport to say goodbye to Hannes. After we said our goodbyes and watched him walk through security, we drove down to the outskirts of Stockholm to pick up my host family's motor boat that had been in a repair shop down there. Later in the day, Anna and I took the bus into the city and she walked with me to my school where I met my rotary counselor. He arranged a meeting with the head of my program and together we created my school schedule. I am in the social sciences program at my school and my schedule as of now has 7 classes. Engelska (English) Svenska (Swedish), Religion, Filosofi (Philosphy), Film & TV Kunskap (FIlm & TV History),Samhällskunskap (Civics) and Kultur och Idéhistoria (Humanities). After my meeting, I met a Swedish girl named Louise for fika and that was great because she goes to my school, so I'll know someone when I start school next week. I rode the bus home by myself and didn't get lost so that was great! 

Thursday, Simon and I rode our bikes to the gym and I worked out for an hour. I decided to buy a gym membership and I'm looking forward to using that because the gym is on the way home from school, so I can easily go to the gym after school. I cooked my host family crepes, hash browns, and bacon for dinner, but the hash browns were really difficult to make. The food turned out well, but it took a very long time to prepare and cook everything for dinner. 

Friday, I said goodbye to my host family, went to the gym and then I had lunch with my 2nd host mom Karin and the two other exchange students in Uppsala. There are three other Rotary exchange students in Uppsala this year, but one hasn't arrived yet. I had lunch with Sierra ( from Utah) and Annalise ( from Washington state). Annalise and Sierra are in the same program, year, and class at the same school, but I am going to a different school. After lunch, the three of us went to language camp together in a village outside of Norrtälje. There were 13 of us exchange students there. There were 8 Americans, 1 Canadian, 2 girls from India, a girl from Japan and a girl from South Korea. We studied Swedish when we arrived and watched a really good Swedish mini series called Murders in Sandhamn. 

Saturday was the first full day of language camp and the lessons were tiring. We learned many words and phrases that I had learned before I came to Sweden, so the course was quite boring at times. There were so many flies at language camp that by the end of the weekend, all we had to say about language camp was that there were more flies than guys. We had two Rotarians from Stockholm teaching us Swedish and they were very informative and helpful. I learned some new vocabulary this weekend as well as how to tell time in Swedish, which I know will be useful. Despite all the flies, language camp was a good experience and it was nice to finally meet the other exchange students living in this Rotary district (2350). 

Sunday, the last day of language camp was filled with learning and laughter (and of course flies) and it was overall a nice day. We left language camp around 3:00 in the afternoon and drove home. This was one of the busiest weeks I've ever had and I'm sure I'll have a lot more adventures ahead. 

Arriving in Sweden

Around this time last week, I arrived at the Stockholm-Arlanda airport and met my host family. My host parents are named Bengt-Ove and Ulrika and they have four children. Simon is 18, Hannes is 16, Anna is 11, and Axel is 9. My host family has been so welcoming and friendly to me since I've arrived in Sweden and I can't believe I have already been in Sweden for a week! I have been so busy every day, that I couldn't find time to update my blog until just now.

I arrived in Sweden around 9:00 pm on July 31st. When I arrived at my host family's house, we had tea and a chocolate cake with raspberries that Anna had made for my arrival. I was very tired so I went to bed and slept really well.

On my first full day in Sweden, Simon, Hannes and I rode our bikes to the city center of Uppsala. The bike ride was fun, and Uppsala is a beautiful city. We visited the castle in Uppsala and the famous cathedral. We had lunch at MAX (Swedish McDonald's) and we looked at many shops. We also rode our bikes to my school and it started pouring rain like crazy!

On my second day in Sweden, I went sailing with Hannes, Simon, Ulrika, Ulrika's sister and her children. We sailed on a lake that is about a 10 minute drive from my host family's house. We sailed out to this island in the middle of the lake and went swimming. Swedish lakes are SO COLD! But overall the swimming was a lot of fun, even though it was a bit chilly. When we headed back to the marina, the wind had stopped, so we had to use a paddle to get to a point in the lake where there was wind and we could sail back.

Anna and Axel are helping me learn to read in Swedish, by using children's picture books. Typically, one of my host siblings will read a page and I will tell them the words I don't understand. They'll explain the words to me, and then I will read a page and they will correct my pronunciation. I read a book called Ture, and later Ulrika told me it was a book for toddlers. Even though I can only read picture books, I feel like I am definitely learning Swedish.  

On Saturday, we packed up the Volkswagen and headed to Vika, Bengt-Ove's home town. Vika is about a 2 hour drive north from Uppsala. We stopped for lunch in Hedemora. The village sits right beside the lake, and we stayed in a small cottage right by the water. Staying in the cottage was nice because it was very cozy and we were really close to good swimming! My host family purchased a new floating dock for the lake so we installed that as soon as we got to Vika. 

Saturday night, we had a campfire and a lake party with some friends of my host family. We took a motor boat to the other side of the lake to get to the wood-burning sauna. I spent most of the day alternating between swimming in the lake and sitting in the sauna. Saturday was a really fantastic day and I got to meet a lot of new people, which was overwhelming, but exciting.

Sunday was a very relaxed day. I spent the morning swimming at the lake and trying out the new dock, and then I helped Ulrika cook lunch. On Monday, we drove to Orsa and Rattvik to buy a feeder for Bengt-Ove's family farm in Vika. After we bought the feeder, we had lunch at a fast food restaurant called Daisy's and I ordered this dish that had mashed potatoes, salad, and sausage all rolled up in Swedish flat bread, it was wonderful. We went swimming in Lake Siljan after lunch. Siljan was very interesting because the water is very shallow, we went really far out into the lake and the water was barely at my waist. The lake was suprisingly warm, (by Swedish standards) and I had a lot of fun splashing around in the lake with Anna and Axel. We had dinner with some friends of my host family, and  I made a salad. 

On Tuesday, I spent the day swimming in Lake Vika. In the afternoon, I helped my Bengt-Ove and his brothers install the feeder they had purchased in Orsa the day before. We drove to Falun in the evening to have dinner with the same friends from the lake party on Saturday night. Their house is beautiful and we played a traditional Swedish lawn game called Kubb. After dinner, we went for a walk in a park in Falun and that was beautiful.

Wednesday was a pretty ordinary day. I helped Bengt-Ove and Ulrika clean up the cottage and get everything packed. We had lunch with Bengt-Ove's Mom and she made this potato dish, with potatoes baked into this loaf of bread, I loved that. After lunch, we drove back to Uppsala. 

On Thursday, I tried traditional Swedish pancakes with tomatoes and cheese for lunch. After a delicious lunch, Anna and I took the bus into the city center and went shopping. The H&M here is massive ( 3 floors- with escalators). It was a really delightful afternoon, even though I still don't know my clothing size in European sizing. I went grocery shopping with Anna and bought ingredients for dinner. I cooked my host family my mom's homemade mac n' cheese recipe and they really like it! It was very difficult for me to convert the recipe from English to Metric, but the mac n' cheese turned out really well. 

I've had a very busy first week! That was just a very brief summary of all of my adventures so far. 

Let me know if you all have any questions about what I'm up to in Sweden or what Sweden is like in general. :)