Unreal

If I were to sum up how my life is right now with one word, I would say unreal. It's still unreal to me that I'm sitting in Sweden typing this. It's unreal that I've been here for over 9 months, and it's definitely unreal that I have only about a month left. Some days it feel like I'm just ready to go home and hug my cats again and see my family, and then the next day I can't even imagine leaving this place, that has become my home. I love Sweden so much, and it will always have a place in heart. It's a beautiful country that has taught me so much, and this experience has helped me learn so much about myself. I don't want it to end.

Since my last post, I went to Finland! It was definitely an experience, it was all the AFS Stockholm kids that went. In Finland we mainly just hung out in Helsinki and did a lot of walking around and a lot of shopping. The first day or two it was super rainy and cold and wet, but the last couple of days it seemed to brighten up and everyone was a lot more happy. We went to an island called Suomenlinna or in Swedish Sveaborg. I don't really remember the importance of the island, but it's very historical, and where I "layed on a dead guy". That was probably one of the highlights of the whole trip if you asked me. The dead guy was called Augustin Ehrensvärd, who was very important to the island and wanted to be buried on it because it meant so much to him. I'll post a picture! Also while we where there we saw some churches, and went took a tram all around town. The last day, we had to meet at the Central railway station at 5 in the morning, and take a train to Åbo and then take a twelve hour boat ride back to Stockholm. On the boat we played hide and seek and played "Godis Bingo" and sang some lovely karaoke!
In April was my 17th birthday, which was over spring break. My brother, the first Saturday of spring break got back from Spain, and was sick, so I got sick, so him and I spent the first couple of days of spring break being sick and lazy, and we probably watched over 20 movies. My dad stayed in town to work but the rest of the family was at Sandhamn. So on Thursday, my birthday, we went out there to meet them. On the boat ride out there I had a hamburger, and it turned out that it had red chilli in it so I got a rash, and all that fun stuff (I found out I'm super allergic just a couple of months ago). But other than that I had a very nice birthday. The rest of the weekend in Sandhamn I spent finding all of the houses in the movie Himlen är Oskyldigt Bla, or in English Behind blue skies. The movie is about the drug dealing at the hotel in Sandhamn in the 1970s and one of the biggest Swedish scandals. After that week I got even more sick, so a week later I went to the doctor, and it turned out I had bronchitis. It's crazy how many times I have been sick since I've been here.
The last couple of days I've been going out a lot and walking around the city and visiting museums. It has been so beautiful here the last couple of days. I have only three days of school left and then summer time and then it's back to the US for me. It's crazy how many emotions I've gone through while I've been here. It seems like everything that could possibly happen, has happened. But I am thankful for every second here, and I wouldn't change a thing. I can only do so much, and try my best, so I'm trying to make the most out of every day I have left. I seriously don't know what I am going to do without my brother Magnus when I get back. He's not only my brother, but my best friend. I can talk to him about anything, and he's helped me get through so much. I love him a lot, and I really wish I could take him home with me.
Speaking of taking someone home, On July 28th, our exchange student is coming! His name is Simon, and he is from Germany, I've talked to him a couple of times and he seems very nice, and I can't wait to have another brother. I'm really looking forward to him coming, and having someone to annoy me and hang out with me just like any other brother would.

I'm going to add the link to my facebook albums, so if you aren't my friend on facebook you and still look at my pictures!

here's the album from Finland: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150251361756774.362638.605781773&l=53c63fa62d


and here is the album from Sandhamn: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150238042796774.359466.605781773&l=3e8e0982d1

I hope the links work!

pictures!

Sunset out my window

The harbor

In the neighborhood

Apple Dumplings

Cieling at a church

My cat, Tossan

My other cat, Molly

Mountains in Norway

Norwegian Forest Cat in Norway.

Here are a few pictures of the last couple of months. Also, I just posted an actual blog post a couple minutes ago, so you may want to read that too under this.

bara tre månader kvar.

So first, I apologize for being one of the worst bloggers ever, but a lot has been going on, and I've spent the almost two months living life, and trying to enjoy every second of it. After I had surgery, I turned into a very unhappy person for awhile. I was pretty upset, my scar hurt, and there was nothing more that I wanted to than go home. I forgot how lucky I was and let the surgery get the best of me. Now things are really great and I'm extremely happy, and things are going really well for me. So what has happened in the last almost two months since I've last posted? A lot!

So a couple weeks after surgery, I went to the mountains with my family for a ski vacation. Because I had surgery, I couldn't ski or snowboard, so I just sat and relaxed. One day we went to Norway and I found out I understand Norwegian, which is pretty cool. Norway was basically like Sweden, but it felt wierd. After that I don't really remember what else has happened. Two weeks ago we hosted two girls that are exchange students in Finland. One is from Belguim and the other is from Czech, and somehow, amazingly she knows my friend that is there right now. Tomorrow I am leaving to go to Finland for five days with AFS, and I'll be staying with the girl from Czech. I'm pretty excited, but I've heard some bad things about Finland, so we'll see how it goes. A week and a half ago, my host parents daughter came home from the US, so I now have a sister which is a big change from what I was use to, but it's going pretty good.
Yesterday I got my travel notifications for going home, and it was pretty upsetting knowing I have only three months left (bara tre månader kvar in swedish). I will be leaving this beautiful country and flying to Minneapolis July 3rd, and going home to Duluth the following day. After a stop at Ikea to buy swedish stuff of course. ;)
I was thinking the other day about more differences between here in the US, and I thought of a couple that I thought I would mention.

• When at a stop light and the light is red, it changes to yellow and then back to green. And the stop lights are the same for pedestrian crossing.
• The insides of almost all Swedish houses, are very tidy, cute and have a modern feel. There is definately something special about how Swedes decorate that is really cute.
• If your crossing a street, and it's not a corner with a real light, there is a certain exchange between you and the driver of the car, and almost always the car will stop for you.
  
• "Typ" is a Swedish word that means like, and in in english one might say "It's going good" and in swedish that would be " Det går bra" and then you can add "typ" to the end. It's a typical Swedish teenager thing to do.
• You don't tip in restruants

I'll try to think of more!

It's bed time for me! It's really late here, but I decided I need to update everyone! I'll post pictures soon!

Surgery!

Hello friends, loved ones, and whoever else may be reading this. Sorry it's been awhile. Normally I wouldn't have a very good excuse for my laziness but this time I have a pretty good reason. I'll start by saying the last couple weeks have been nothing less than interesting. After my last blog post, I got overwhelmed with homework. English homework. I have never had this hard of English homework before and I had never really had to work in my English classes before now. I was put in "Engelska C" English C, which is the hardest English class in the Swedish gymnasium. The only people in my class are the ones that actually want to be there, so that part is nice, but it's actually really hard. I'll spare you the details.
I spent the first couple of days of February getting sick again. Not fun. On Thursday the 3rd, my stomach pains got really bad to the point where it heart to take a breath because it made my stomach move, so we left at 11 at night to take my to the hospital. The doctors at the hospital then decided that it as my appendix and I was going to have surgery. So at 3 something Friday morning they wheeled me into surgery, but there was only one doctor on call and he got called into emergency surgery so I had to wait, and I didn't have my surgery until about 9 or so. After that it is kind of blurry, I remember it hurting and them giving me morphine. I was in the hospital til Sunday and then they finally let me go home. So since then I have been resting a lot and trying to regain my strength. Going through surgery without my mom there caused me great homesickness, but I am doing a lot better now. It was such a crazy thing to have to go through 6,000 miles away from home. But now I can joke that I will always have permanent memories of Sweden, my scar.
Other than that, not THAT much has been happening. Surgery is definately the "highlight" of the last couple of weeks. I'll blog more soon, but right now I'm tired.

Video

Here's another video I made of the last couple of months.

It's already Janruary!

My family Christmas picture.

Now that it is Janruary it's almost as if I have hit another huge milestone. I have been in Sweden for almost five months. It will be five months on the 19th. I love this country so much, and it is truely my home. I have less than six months left here, and I am planning on making the best of them. My main focus is going to be on Swedish now, it has been a challenge with the Swedish so far, and everytime I have everyone switch to just Swedish with me, it seems to drift away after awhile. I never imagined learning another language could be this big of a challenge, and get this hard. I am still trying to let loose, and speak Swedish no matter how bad I sound, but that is much harder than it sounds. I have changed so much since I've been here so far, and I can't really describe how. I learn something about myself everyday, and I see myself over coming challenges I didn't think I could. This has been an amazing experience so far, and I am extremely lucky to have gotten this opportunity. However, I am a little bummed that now I have to say that I'm going home this year. It's gone by so fast so far, and I am really sad it's already half over. But at the same time this has felt like the longest five months in my entire life, it feels like I've been here for five years instead of five months. I am happy to go home in July and see all my family and friends again, but I don't even want to think about leaving this family here that I love, and that I've grown so much with. I truely have to most incredible family here. Some people will never understand the bond that a exchange student has with their host family. When you live with another family for an entire year, they become so much of your life without you even realizing it. My host Mom and host Dad, aren't just my host parents anymore, they are my parents, and my host brothers are my brothers. Speaking of my brothers, Magnus and Jonas, are such a huge part of my heart, Magnus is the sweetest guy ever, and Jonas, even though he can really annoy me, he's still really cute. When I hear other exchange students that have to switch host families, it pains me even thinking about what if I had to leave my family. They are my life now.

On another subject, nu vi ska prata om jul ( We should talk about christmas). Christmas in Sweden happens on December 24th. I got woken up by Jonas at 8 to open out stalkings, then I fell back asleep and Ulf and Jonas went skiing. I woke up again at 10:30 or so, and then around noon we went over to Ulfs sisters for Christmas lunch, which was a bunch of fish and eel and stuff, and yummy meatballs! At three o'clock, my family, and just about everyone else in Sweden, sits in front of thier tv and watches the Donald Duck Christmas show thing. Everyone talks about this for months, and every year it is the exact same show. It was actually reall cute. They changed it all into Swedish except for a couple times it would still be in English. After that we went home, and opened gifts and that was about the whole day. That night I skyped with all my real Dads side of the family at the yearly Christmas Eve thing.
On Chirstmas day, we left for five days in Sandhamn. We didn't do very much there, just relax, and play games and what not. After we came back to town, the next day we left for Gränna ( I think that's how you spell it) to go visit my parents friends and stay with them for New Years like they do every year. For New Years Eve dinner, we had Thanksgiving. Not really, but it sure felt like it. We had turkey, mashed potoatoes, gravy, sweet pototoes, veggies, and stuffing. It was really yummy. Then when the New Year began, We lit of some fireworks, and one ended up going straight instead of up and ended up expolding infront of someones window, oops!

I know I am really bad at posting pictures, but tomorrow, or monday I will be uploading a picture video. So you can look for that pretty soon.