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.