Hey Guys! In the last couple of weeks I have been really busy! I'll try to tell you most of it. First off, here are two videos.
This is from the Santa Lucia concert at the Globe I went to last weekend. It was really cool becuase it's a very Swedish tradition. I can't really explain what Santa Lucia is, becuase I barely know, but the concert was pretty interesting to see.
This video is at Skansen. Skansen is an outdoor attraction I guess you could say that has some history stuff about sweden, a glass blowing shop, a bakery, and serveral Scandinavian animals. I went there once earlier in the end of summer, and this time I went with AFS. In December they have a christmas market where you can buy food, gifts, some clothing, and a lot of handmade stuff. It was really cool. This video I recorded, is of the Swedish tradition of dancing around the christmas tree. It was really fun actually, and each song had it's own dance moves.
Sorry this is short! I will try to actually write in the next couple of days, but if I don't have time, I promise to write a bunch after Christmas and tell you how I spent my "Jullov" (christmas break). It's really great- I don't have school for the next two weeks and 6 days. In Duluth we normally get out for like a week and a half, so it's nice to have double that for break!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
I guess I wasn't done.
This is what i have to deal with everyday! Good thing she's cute!
Some buildings by Odenplan. & The nice Pruis taxi.
The cats taking up half my bed in my room in Sandhamn.
One of the beaches in Sandhamn.
A church and a traditional Swedish Christmas tree.
A boat.
I feel like I hardly post pictures so I decided to upload a couple more now that I have time. Sorry I didn't just put this in the blog from two minutes ago.
språk! (language)
I had another urge to blog so here all that happened in the last day and a half.
Yesterday AFS had an event for the exchange students that are going on exchange next summer, so us fellow exchange students got the chance to tell them what to expect and give them advice. There were a lot of them that are going to the US. I hope I did good job encouraging them! After that four of the Italians and the girl from France and I went to go eat, and we ended up at Mcdonalds. We just mainly talked about life, and they convinced me I should learn Italian, so they are going to teach me. I really do enjoy learning languages. Right now I can obviously speak English, a pretty good amount of spanish, and I'll (hopefully) be fluent in Swedish soon. So why not learn more? At school they offer Spanish which I'm already taking, German, and French. So tomorrow I am going to enroll myself into German and French. Then when I return home I can spend my time studying the languages and hopefully be fluent in them by the time I'm twenty.
That's about all that went on since the last post. So here are the pictures I promised!First is my pumpkin pies for thanksgiving! The second is of the Baltic sea in November. 3rd is a piece of ice I found. The next two are of the baltic sea last weekend. Then is the main part of our house in Sandhamn. To the right is the other house with a room and a small kitchen and living room and bathroom, for guests mainly. Sorry these pictures don't look fantastic right now, but when I was uploading them the settings got a little messed up so they don't look as clear here.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Thanksgiving and Christmas smorgasbord.
So much has seemed to have happened since my last post, so I will try to remember most of what happened lately.
Yesterday I had the best day, I didn't have school so I got to sleep in! It was great! I woke up around 10, and I really wanted cereal and I opened the fridge to find not one drop of milk left, I was disapointed so I decided to go and see if Magnus had milk in his appartment I could "borrow", after all he did take half of my pumpkin pie (more on this later)! But unfortunately he didn't have milk either. So I went back upstairs and searched through the fridge and found a liter of milk! To bad it was the kind I don't like but I dealt with it. After spending forever on a hunt for milk, I got ready and left, and took the subway to meet Mia and Emelie, my Liason and her daughter. They are truely the best people ever, I don't know what I would do without them. They are always so nice and helpful, and always are understanding. This last year Emelie was an exchange student in Tennesse, and in the 80's Mia was an exchange student in North Branch, MN. So she's even been to Duluth. We met and had fika, and just discussed some issues I've been having and came up with some really good solutions. After that I went home for a while, and then around four Magnus, Jonas, and I went christmas shopping. I got almost everything I needed to get, so it went really good. Then we went back to Magnus' appartment and wrapped presents. I am so amazed at how good Magnus and Arvid did remodeling it and decorating it. After all that we had dinner, and that was basically my whole day.
Last Saturday afternoon, the six of us went to Sandhamn, where it was just absolutely beautiful. Everything was covered in more than a foot of snow and it was just breath taking. I took lots of pictures that I promise I will upload soon. After shoveling the snow and eating lunch and everything, we went to the church for advent, where I fell asleep, then we went to the restraunt where the julsmorgasbord was (Christmas Sandwhich table). Traditionally you are suppose to eat 5 plates of food, but me being picky I just ate the meatballs and cheese and crackers and deserts. There was a table just for fish with fish prepared several different ways, and another table with more "seafood" I guess you could say, and a table for cold meats like lamb and cow, and a table for hot meats, and a cheese table with 15 different kinds of cheese and tons of different bread and crackers. Some of the "delicacies" include eel, cow tongue, pig feet, reindeer heart, cow liver, reindeer liver, and that's just the beginning. I wasn't as brave as I normally am with trying things but I tried the moose sausage that was okay. It was definately a very Swedish experience, and I was very sad I didn't bring my camera with me. After we had been there for 3 hours eating, we walked the mile and a half back to the summer house, there are no cars on the island. On the way Arvid, Magnus, Jonas, and I got into a snowball fight that was really fun. Then we all went to bed. Sunday night after returning to the city, we had kangaroo for diner! I seriously could have died this weekend with all this strange food. I tried the Kangaroo and it was okay, but I couldn't eat anymore than one bite of the fuzzy cute little animal.
Last weekend, on the 26th of November, my host family and I decided to throw a thanksgiving dinner party! Thanksgiving is nonexistent in Sweden, as is canned pumpkin. I searched EVERYWHERE for canned pumpkin for pumpkin pies, and right as I was about to give in and attempt to make it all my hand, Ulf saved the day and found libby canned pumkin at the turkey shop! He also found reeses! :D Also in Sweden, premade piue crusts are nonexistant as well, so I had the lovely experience of making that by hand also. It was super hard, so I think I will stick to buying the already made ones for now on. But in the end my pumpkin pies turned out fantastic, and no one had had then but us americans. For the dinner party, we invited the two other Americans in Stockholm and there host families over for for thanksgiving, so Arvid and Magnus, Reed, his host parents and his host sister, and Clara, her host mom and host sister, came over. It was a lot of fun. Food wise we ended up having, Turkey of course, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, cranberries, brussel sprouts (appartently corn wasn't good enough), corn muffins, and I forget what else. During dinner, all of our host parents decideed that we need to sing a thanksgiving song! However, there isn't one, but no one believed that! Apparently we weren't very convincing. After dinner we had my prized possesions- my pies, and everyone really liked them, I was even impressed. Then us "kids" went and played itoy, which was fun besides I lost at every challenge. Then everyone left at 11.
Other than that stuff happening, I have been having some issues with some stuff that I shouldn't really mention here, but I know it will all get straightened out soon. I really really really love it here and I really couldn't have chose a better country to go to. Last Monday I switched to speaking only swedish all the time and that is really hard to do, when it is so much easier to speak english, but I am trying really hard, and I can feel my swedish improving. Starting in Janraury I am planning on starting to blog partly in Swedish, I'm not sure exactly how that's going to work yet, but we'll see. I super promise I will post pictures soon, and after christmas I am planning on making another photo video. I am also planning on doing a video blog soon, to do something different. We'll see. Also sorry about any spelling errors and mistakes, this computer is in Swedish and I'm typing in English so it thinks every word is wrong.
But for now, hej då.
Yesterday I had the best day, I didn't have school so I got to sleep in! It was great! I woke up around 10, and I really wanted cereal and I opened the fridge to find not one drop of milk left, I was disapointed so I decided to go and see if Magnus had milk in his appartment I could "borrow", after all he did take half of my pumpkin pie (more on this later)! But unfortunately he didn't have milk either. So I went back upstairs and searched through the fridge and found a liter of milk! To bad it was the kind I don't like but I dealt with it. After spending forever on a hunt for milk, I got ready and left, and took the subway to meet Mia and Emelie, my Liason and her daughter. They are truely the best people ever, I don't know what I would do without them. They are always so nice and helpful, and always are understanding. This last year Emelie was an exchange student in Tennesse, and in the 80's Mia was an exchange student in North Branch, MN. So she's even been to Duluth. We met and had fika, and just discussed some issues I've been having and came up with some really good solutions. After that I went home for a while, and then around four Magnus, Jonas, and I went christmas shopping. I got almost everything I needed to get, so it went really good. Then we went back to Magnus' appartment and wrapped presents. I am so amazed at how good Magnus and Arvid did remodeling it and decorating it. After all that we had dinner, and that was basically my whole day.
Last Saturday afternoon, the six of us went to Sandhamn, where it was just absolutely beautiful. Everything was covered in more than a foot of snow and it was just breath taking. I took lots of pictures that I promise I will upload soon. After shoveling the snow and eating lunch and everything, we went to the church for advent, where I fell asleep, then we went to the restraunt where the julsmorgasbord was (Christmas Sandwhich table). Traditionally you are suppose to eat 5 plates of food, but me being picky I just ate the meatballs and cheese and crackers and deserts. There was a table just for fish with fish prepared several different ways, and another table with more "seafood" I guess you could say, and a table for cold meats like lamb and cow, and a table for hot meats, and a cheese table with 15 different kinds of cheese and tons of different bread and crackers. Some of the "delicacies" include eel, cow tongue, pig feet, reindeer heart, cow liver, reindeer liver, and that's just the beginning. I wasn't as brave as I normally am with trying things but I tried the moose sausage that was okay. It was definately a very Swedish experience, and I was very sad I didn't bring my camera with me. After we had been there for 3 hours eating, we walked the mile and a half back to the summer house, there are no cars on the island. On the way Arvid, Magnus, Jonas, and I got into a snowball fight that was really fun. Then we all went to bed. Sunday night after returning to the city, we had kangaroo for diner! I seriously could have died this weekend with all this strange food. I tried the Kangaroo and it was okay, but I couldn't eat anymore than one bite of the fuzzy cute little animal.
Last weekend, on the 26th of November, my host family and I decided to throw a thanksgiving dinner party! Thanksgiving is nonexistent in Sweden, as is canned pumpkin. I searched EVERYWHERE for canned pumpkin for pumpkin pies, and right as I was about to give in and attempt to make it all my hand, Ulf saved the day and found libby canned pumkin at the turkey shop! He also found reeses! :D Also in Sweden, premade piue crusts are nonexistant as well, so I had the lovely experience of making that by hand also. It was super hard, so I think I will stick to buying the already made ones for now on. But in the end my pumpkin pies turned out fantastic, and no one had had then but us americans. For the dinner party, we invited the two other Americans in Stockholm and there host families over for for thanksgiving, so Arvid and Magnus, Reed, his host parents and his host sister, and Clara, her host mom and host sister, came over. It was a lot of fun. Food wise we ended up having, Turkey of course, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, cranberries, brussel sprouts (appartently corn wasn't good enough), corn muffins, and I forget what else. During dinner, all of our host parents decideed that we need to sing a thanksgiving song! However, there isn't one, but no one believed that! Apparently we weren't very convincing. After dinner we had my prized possesions- my pies, and everyone really liked them, I was even impressed. Then us "kids" went and played itoy, which was fun besides I lost at every challenge. Then everyone left at 11.
Other than that stuff happening, I have been having some issues with some stuff that I shouldn't really mention here, but I know it will all get straightened out soon. I really really really love it here and I really couldn't have chose a better country to go to. Last Monday I switched to speaking only swedish all the time and that is really hard to do, when it is so much easier to speak english, but I am trying really hard, and I can feel my swedish improving. Starting in Janraury I am planning on starting to blog partly in Swedish, I'm not sure exactly how that's going to work yet, but we'll see. I super promise I will post pictures soon, and after christmas I am planning on making another photo video. I am also planning on doing a video blog soon, to do something different. We'll see. Also sorry about any spelling errors and mistakes, this computer is in Swedish and I'm typing in English so it thinks every word is wrong.
But for now, hej då.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
detta är min hem.
The sunset in Sandhamn.
My host mom and brother on the beach.
Gamla Stan.
In two days, I will have been in this beautiful city for three months. It's still completely unreal. I love Stockholm more that I could ever imagine, and I feel that is my real home. I have never been surrounded by such true beauty before, and having only eight months left here just simply won't be enough time. Everything seems to be falling into place, my Swedish is improving, I am starting to make myself only speak Swedish and I'm having everyone talk to me in Swedish unless they are explaining a word or something. & My host family, couldn't be more fantastic, I care about them so much, and can't even bear the fact that I have only eight more months to be with them. I'm sure your thinking, that eight months is a long time, which sure, it is but it's not long enough. I do miss home very much though, and I miss my cats, and family and friends, but it's not that hard anymore. Of course whenever I Skype with my Mom I make sure I can see my cats to make sure they're still alive and fat. But there is so much I don't miss, like American high school, since I've been here my eyes have been opened to see how extremely strict high school in the US is, I already know I will have problems with that when I get back, but it's completely opposite here. I really am starting to enjoy school a little bit more when I can actually understand what's going on, however school lunches here, not so much. I liked them at first for the first week at school, but now we have the same thing every week, and I don't like most of it. We do have Salad and bread every day also which isn't so bad, but I would prefer to bring my lunch if that was an option. No one brings their lunch to school.
This weekend we had a dinner party again, in fact we will be having a dinner party the next two weekends also. The one this last Saturday we had a traditional Swedish meal for the 10Th of November, even though we didn't have the dinner party on the 10Th of November. We had a goose, with blood soup and goose liver. So turns out that wasn't my favorite meal. I didn't like the goose, I was brave enough to try the liver and it was nasty nasty, and the blood soup was actually somehow good, it tasted like gingerbread. I would've had more than just a spoonful but I mentally couldn't have anymore and get over the fact that I just consumed blood.
A couple more differences I have been told or noticed is that when you pay the bills, you just mail the money or send an email to one place even if the bill is for electricity or water or whatever it is for. Also everyone in all of Sweden gets payed on the 25Th of every month, it's always been that day. Also checks and checkbooks almost don't exist in Sweden, no one at all use them anymore, and they are way to old fashioned. I can't think of anymore right now.
So today, I got sick again, I am sick of being sick! I have a very bad sore throat and my nose has been stuffy all day. It really sucks. Tomorrow I may stay home but then I would miss going to see Harry Potter on opening night! Even though I don't really care about Harry Potter, we've reserved these tickets quite awhile ago, so I would feel bad for not going.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Time for an update!
So, How to start? I am sitting in school right now, but we don't have a class, so I'm not sure how long/short this will be.
I have just been informed that I need to update this, so here it goes.
Today I was laughed at for telling my friend to go ask a boy out, I had completely forgot about the Swedish dating "way" when I said that. Here you don't just go and ask someone out, you become really good friends, hang out, then basically agree to be in a relationship, but that doesn't mean you have to spend every freaking second together, it is much more casual than in the U.S. Personally I think it is better her. Aside from that, I feel like my Swedish is improving, I can hold very basic conversations in Swedish now, and I am understanding things without realizing it. For example, someone will be talking in Swedish and in my brain it's almost like they are speaking English, becuase I just automatically understand, and respond to what they said without even realizing if what they said was in Swedish.
Last week we had fall break, it was so nice to not wake up everymorning to an alarm. I spent the first couple of my days of break catching up on much missed sleep, and just lounging around and watching some tv and what not. Ulf left Monday morning without my knowledge to go to Maine to see Klara (their daughter) becuase there had been some issues where she might have to come home, but fortunately she was able to stay, and Ulf returned home on Sunday. On Wednesday, Anna, Jonas, the cats, and I drove to the boat place, and took a boat to the summer house in Sandhamn, it was so beautiful there, I didn't want to leave, I spent my days their playing dutch blitz with Jonas, taking tons of pictures, and watching the sunset on the beach. It was so crazy, the first day we got there the sunset at 3:45, the next day 3:30, and the next day about 3:20! It was super crazy watching the sunset in the middle of the afternoon! Arvid and Magnus came up Saturday afternoon, and we played games, and talked a lot, and Sasturday afternoon we went and cleaned the boat and got it ready for winter. Sunday afternoon Jonas, Arvid, Magnus, and I went on a photography outing (Well me and Magnus did) and Jonas and Arvid came along and messed around. It was really fun, aside from me stepping in the grass and not seeing a puddle and getting my feet all wet. It was so pretty though, becuase there was this huge rock area where half frozen puddles that would lay in low spots on the rocks, I have pictures of that, but they are at home, so I will put those on tonight. I also have to update my facebook photo of the day albums, becuase with being sick for a week, and being so busy, I have not been able to keep up with that lately.
I don't know if I mentioned before, but I have been really sick lately, yesterday I went home early becuase I threw up, and a couple of weeks before that, I missed the intire week becuase I had a horrible headache, I felt like falling over when I stood up, and felt like puking. I ended up going to the doctor, and she decided she wanted blood work. Exactly what I wanted to do in Sweden, get my blood drawn, not! But the lady drew 5 viles, instead of back home they would only draw two. So that was not a very enjoyable day. But I ended up having a virus, but thankfully it's gone now.
Later today, I have a presentation in English class, about the US and Minnesota and school and what not, hopefully it will go good.
I think I will go for now, but that is some of the events that happened lately.
I have just been informed that I need to update this, so here it goes.
Today I was laughed at for telling my friend to go ask a boy out, I had completely forgot about the Swedish dating "way" when I said that. Here you don't just go and ask someone out, you become really good friends, hang out, then basically agree to be in a relationship, but that doesn't mean you have to spend every freaking second together, it is much more casual than in the U.S. Personally I think it is better her. Aside from that, I feel like my Swedish is improving, I can hold very basic conversations in Swedish now, and I am understanding things without realizing it. For example, someone will be talking in Swedish and in my brain it's almost like they are speaking English, becuase I just automatically understand, and respond to what they said without even realizing if what they said was in Swedish.
Last week we had fall break, it was so nice to not wake up everymorning to an alarm. I spent the first couple of my days of break catching up on much missed sleep, and just lounging around and watching some tv and what not. Ulf left Monday morning without my knowledge to go to Maine to see Klara (their daughter) becuase there had been some issues where she might have to come home, but fortunately she was able to stay, and Ulf returned home on Sunday. On Wednesday, Anna, Jonas, the cats, and I drove to the boat place, and took a boat to the summer house in Sandhamn, it was so beautiful there, I didn't want to leave, I spent my days their playing dutch blitz with Jonas, taking tons of pictures, and watching the sunset on the beach. It was so crazy, the first day we got there the sunset at 3:45, the next day 3:30, and the next day about 3:20! It was super crazy watching the sunset in the middle of the afternoon! Arvid and Magnus came up Saturday afternoon, and we played games, and talked a lot, and Sasturday afternoon we went and cleaned the boat and got it ready for winter. Sunday afternoon Jonas, Arvid, Magnus, and I went on a photography outing (Well me and Magnus did) and Jonas and Arvid came along and messed around. It was really fun, aside from me stepping in the grass and not seeing a puddle and getting my feet all wet. It was so pretty though, becuase there was this huge rock area where half frozen puddles that would lay in low spots on the rocks, I have pictures of that, but they are at home, so I will put those on tonight. I also have to update my facebook photo of the day albums, becuase with being sick for a week, and being so busy, I have not been able to keep up with that lately.
I don't know if I mentioned before, but I have been really sick lately, yesterday I went home early becuase I threw up, and a couple of weeks before that, I missed the intire week becuase I had a horrible headache, I felt like falling over when I stood up, and felt like puking. I ended up going to the doctor, and she decided she wanted blood work. Exactly what I wanted to do in Sweden, get my blood drawn, not! But the lady drew 5 viles, instead of back home they would only draw two. So that was not a very enjoyable day. But I ended up having a virus, but thankfully it's gone now.
Later today, I have a presentation in English class, about the US and Minnesota and school and what not, hopefully it will go good.
I think I will go for now, but that is some of the events that happened lately.
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