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.

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.