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.
No comments:
Post a Comment