This past weekend I was in Stockholm, Sweden's capital.
It was probly one of the best trips I have taken, even if it was only for 4 days.
We left thursday after I was done with school. Drove to the Goteborg airport to catch the plane to Stockholm, it was only about an hour flight.
Once in Stockholm we were met by Eva and Mats friend Bapi (the one that visited earlier and who bought me my current phone) he took us out to a really nice italian bistro. I must say the pizza in Sweden is quite different than the pizza in the US.. its really thin crust and there isnt a lot of greaseyness and cheese on the pizza. So, its pretty healthy here. After a quick dinner we went to meet Anton and Linus (the guy who we would be staying with) at the Central Station.
I think Stockholm is a lot like New York, but with older arciture buildings. Stockholm has the same transportation system as NY.. subways, trains, and buses. But stockholm doesn't have as many people in one city which is a good thing or else all the narrow streets would be incredibly crowded. This city is mostly all on water. So it is a bunch of islands connected by bridges and such.
The place where we were staying was on the outside of stockholm so we had to take the train into town each day. It was actually a good way to see more of stockholm.
The first day we went to the castle. This is not the castle where the current royal family lives, but the castle in which the royal appartments are. The royal swedish family consisits of King Carl Gustav XVI, Queen Sylvia, their three children, Crown Princess Victoria (who is getting married in the spring and who will be next in line with her husband who is not royalty, first time in history for that.) Prince Carl Philip, and Princess Madeleine.
In the castle we went on a guided tour, thankfully in english. So we visited the royal treasure room, we were not allowed to take pictures because some of the treasures are still used today for very very very special occasions. We visited some of the appartments, which was where old royal families had lived. there was a lot of swedish histroy that i have learned on this trip. I will not go into too much detail, because it could get a bit boring. But i thought it was very intresting. Now i know about swedish history and i wasn't even in history class!!
We also went to gamla Stan, which is Old Town, we had a cozy lunch, getting inside from the chilly and rainy weather was quite nice.
Mostly we just walked around on friday, just seeing the city and such. There is this building that is kind of like the empire state building, so we got to see Stockholm in every direction. That was one of my favorite parts.
On saturday we had an early tour at the Statshuset, the City Hall. which is famous for the nobel peace prize and the famous balls that are held annually. This tour was in swedish but i got some of the info in english so that was good. We went into the blue room, which isnt really blue, they call it that because the artictet was planning on having that room be blue but instead he realized how beautiful the bricks on the walls and the swedish marble on the floors was, he didnt change it. so there is hardly any blue in that room. this is where you can find the famous staircase that you may see in pictures for the nobel prize dinners. i can now say i was there :). this is where obama will have dinner right before he gets the peace prize award. He will recieve the award in Öslo Norway. We also went into the Gold Room, which is a huge room full of walls painted with small gold sheets. it was a beautiful room and i actually found a little pice of home on the walls, there was an american flag, of course i took a picture, because it is such a famous room!
what is amazing to me is that people actually work in thís building! i would love to work in such an important building with such great and important history!
after seeing this we went and saw the changing of the gaurds. Linus actually used to be one of the guards so he was telling us what the soldiers were doing and why, it was like our own personal tour guide! They had a band playing and there were lots of people and soldiers shouting orders for the changing of the gaurds.
From my friends at school everyone told me that i should stop and the muffins fabrikin while i am in stockholm, so we eventually found the muffin shop, and it was soooo worth it! i had a banana nut muffin and it was soo good! they were huge muffins so we had to use knivies to cut the pieces off. (keep in mind they were huge to swedes, not americans, but still they were pretty big and delicious)
We walked around some more, did some shopping in some of the huge gallerias (shopping malls) then we went and got some dinner. we were in the part of town where most of the working individuals were, so there were many pubs and restaurants. due to me being somewhat irish, mats and eva insisted that we got to the irish pub to have dinner. so we were there for awhile and then we stated talking to the other family sitting next to us. it was a german college student, she was currently studying at stockholm's university with her boyfriend, she was mostly studying biology and sciences. so i got to talking to her and i found that at stockholm univ the classes are in english, and you can get a good education, there is no cost for school either, and it is near the central of stockholm. Its an option that im thinking about, i'm not sure if i could go four years without my loved ones back home.
Sunday would be the day we would head home, it was also the day that there was great weather, go figure. So we went to the central station to wait for bapi to pick us up. while waiting we were by the place where the royal family has their special 'platform' or place to travel. you know this because it was a part of the building that looked different than the rest and it of course had a crown on top of the door, therefore one can note it was for royalty. as you can guess, i just had to get a picture. :) once bapi met us at the station, he said we had some time before the plane would leave lets go to the Drotningholm Palace, which is where the royal family actually lives. It used to be just a summer house, but the current king wanted his children to grow up somewhat in the countryside, next to the lake and forest. With this description, you can just imagine what this place looked like. and on such a sunny perfect fall day, the trees were all different colors in the park and the lake was just beautiful. the palace has a huge garden behind it with the lake off to one side and on the other the park, which is all open to the public. I wish i were royalty and could live in this amazing palace! But, pictures are about as close as i am going to get.
This was our last stop before going to the airport and going back to sweet home varberg. I have to admit this trip turned out to be a lot better than what i thought it would be. i learned so much about the swedish history and stockholm.
i hope to take my parents and the mccormicks here when they come in the spring (everyone says its even more beautiful in the spring). I hope we can!
If there is any chance you are coming to sweden i highly recommend going to stockholm! it is a great city and it explains a lot about swedens history. but make sure to do your research beforehand! there is so much to see and so little time. so plan out the trip ahead of time!
this week in school i think will go by quite fast, its already tuesday! Not too much is going on, im meeting friends for fika and riding Chess. on friday Mr. McCormick will be coming to varberg for a short visit. i cant wait! i look forward to seeing someone from home :)
saturday and sunday is the rotary district conference in alingsås, we will be representing our countries and showing the local clubs a little bit about our cultures.
then i will be staying in borås with my canadian friend amanda, till tuesday. then who knows!
it will be nice to have a week off, but then again i have been so busy the past couple of weeks it just another break for me!!
more blogging next week! :)
Monday, October 19, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Finally its Fall!!
Boot season is finally upon the inhabitants of Varberg!! The leaves are changing colors and I have to start wearing gloves when I ride my bike to school.
What I have been up to this past week:
I was in Boras for rotary. All of the other exchange students were there and it was pretty much like the first week that we had for the language course. (same place same people) We had a text in swedish.. mostly over grammar, which everyone failed, except the german exchange student, she is pretty much fluent in swedish. I'm jelous!
We also worked on our presentations for the District Conference which will be not this coming weekend, but the one after. I think it will be a great performance. The americans (there are 6 of us) are doing a line dance to alan jackson's song Good Time. It will be funny to watch i'm sure.
on friday we went and played curling. i have never seen curling played before in my life, so it was quite strange to see. It was fun nonetheless. I think its kindof a dangerous sport actually, you have a slipper type thing on one foot so its easier to slide and you have to like run on the ice with your broom to go sweep. but it was a lot of fun, we were all yelling SOUPA SOUPA SOUPA.. which means sweep sweep sweep! in swedish. After curling we went to a basketball game. It was intresting to see a sport we would have in the US but in a different language. Most of it was the same tho. there was an announcer, a DJ jamming on music between plays, and they had cheerleaders, but think cheerleaders in really skimpy clothing lots of make up and doing flips in the air.. thats swedish cheerleader (at least the ones that i saw)
Once the weekend was over I went to Amanda' house (my lovely canadian friend) and her host family was getting ready for thanksgiving.. and i said isn't that in november?? Nope, i was wrong, being the American that I am thought that everyone has the same holidays as us! nope nope nope. Canada celebrates their thanksgiving in october, but its not weird for them because that is how it has always been. I guess you learn something new everyday!! :)
I went to the environmental club meeting on monday, it went ok. They are using my idea to have a recycled art contest and it will be next week i believe, so thats pretty exciting! :) we will see how it goes, more updates on that later.
On monday we had an "equal day" and we spent most of the morning talking about the different ethnicities and how there is a lot of harassment and discrimination that goes on between people in school and outside of school. So we watched a video about it too, the video was funny, in a good way. It had things and words in the movie that would never be spoken of in my school back home. so that was different for me. But i think there is a lot of discrimination between the albanians and swedes. I'm not going into depth on that subject, because i'm not compeletly sure about it.
This week I will be ordering my graduation hat. Here it is a reallyyy big deal. I don't really understand why but these hats cost maybe over a hundred dollars, but i plan on just getting a standard one which is around 50 or 60 usd. Still, its quite expensive for just a hat that you will wear one time. I think it has more to do with the memories that the hat will signify.The hats look like sailor hats and are white and navy. Students can pretty much put as much wording and pictures and whatever else they want on the hats, it just costs extra!
Yesterday i went with my history class down to the fortress. We are studying about archives and how to find sources without the internet. It was all in swedish so i didnt get much from the presentation but we went and looked at some of the archives and one that we found turned out that the guy used to be my teacher's (Beo) neighbor! it was really weird, but its a small town so i suppose it is to be expected.
and last night I had my next host sister Hanna S. over and we made enchaladas and salad again. With the vanilj heartar (spelling?) they are vanilla hearts and delicious, they are my favorite pastry so far! so we made dinner and had a really cozy time. :)
I found out that next thursday will be the try outs for the musical Hair. I don't think i will try out. Because it sounds like you have to be really really good and I'm just ok not really good. But who knows i may change my mind.
for those of you wondering about eva and her horse situation, she did find one, the horse is about 10 hours away in northern sweden. she is a beautiful quarter paint mare. brown and white! she just needs to pass the vet check then she will be on her way here! eva is very very excited :)
tomorrow night i leave for stockholm with my host family. i can't wait! everyone tells me how lovely stockholm is and now im finally able to go see it! we are taking the plane so it wont be too long of a flight, i think just an hour. we will be visiting the city hall (where the nobel peace prize is presented) and the famous castle, maybe a couple museums, shopping of course, and im not sure what else yet. i will be back on sunday so more blogging when i get back!!!
hope all is well back home! i encourage you to send e mails, even if i dont reply right away i will eventually!!
What I have been up to this past week:
I was in Boras for rotary. All of the other exchange students were there and it was pretty much like the first week that we had for the language course. (same place same people) We had a text in swedish.. mostly over grammar, which everyone failed, except the german exchange student, she is pretty much fluent in swedish. I'm jelous!
We also worked on our presentations for the District Conference which will be not this coming weekend, but the one after. I think it will be a great performance. The americans (there are 6 of us) are doing a line dance to alan jackson's song Good Time. It will be funny to watch i'm sure.
on friday we went and played curling. i have never seen curling played before in my life, so it was quite strange to see. It was fun nonetheless. I think its kindof a dangerous sport actually, you have a slipper type thing on one foot so its easier to slide and you have to like run on the ice with your broom to go sweep. but it was a lot of fun, we were all yelling SOUPA SOUPA SOUPA.. which means sweep sweep sweep! in swedish. After curling we went to a basketball game. It was intresting to see a sport we would have in the US but in a different language. Most of it was the same tho. there was an announcer, a DJ jamming on music between plays, and they had cheerleaders, but think cheerleaders in really skimpy clothing lots of make up and doing flips in the air.. thats swedish cheerleader (at least the ones that i saw)
Once the weekend was over I went to Amanda' house (my lovely canadian friend) and her host family was getting ready for thanksgiving.. and i said isn't that in november?? Nope, i was wrong, being the American that I am thought that everyone has the same holidays as us! nope nope nope. Canada celebrates their thanksgiving in october, but its not weird for them because that is how it has always been. I guess you learn something new everyday!! :)
I went to the environmental club meeting on monday, it went ok. They are using my idea to have a recycled art contest and it will be next week i believe, so thats pretty exciting! :) we will see how it goes, more updates on that later.
On monday we had an "equal day" and we spent most of the morning talking about the different ethnicities and how there is a lot of harassment and discrimination that goes on between people in school and outside of school. So we watched a video about it too, the video was funny, in a good way. It had things and words in the movie that would never be spoken of in my school back home. so that was different for me. But i think there is a lot of discrimination between the albanians and swedes. I'm not going into depth on that subject, because i'm not compeletly sure about it.
This week I will be ordering my graduation hat. Here it is a reallyyy big deal. I don't really understand why but these hats cost maybe over a hundred dollars, but i plan on just getting a standard one which is around 50 or 60 usd. Still, its quite expensive for just a hat that you will wear one time. I think it has more to do with the memories that the hat will signify.The hats look like sailor hats and are white and navy. Students can pretty much put as much wording and pictures and whatever else they want on the hats, it just costs extra!
Yesterday i went with my history class down to the fortress. We are studying about archives and how to find sources without the internet. It was all in swedish so i didnt get much from the presentation but we went and looked at some of the archives and one that we found turned out that the guy used to be my teacher's (Beo) neighbor! it was really weird, but its a small town so i suppose it is to be expected.
and last night I had my next host sister Hanna S. over and we made enchaladas and salad again. With the vanilj heartar (spelling?) they are vanilla hearts and delicious, they are my favorite pastry so far! so we made dinner and had a really cozy time. :)
I found out that next thursday will be the try outs for the musical Hair. I don't think i will try out. Because it sounds like you have to be really really good and I'm just ok not really good. But who knows i may change my mind.
for those of you wondering about eva and her horse situation, she did find one, the horse is about 10 hours away in northern sweden. she is a beautiful quarter paint mare. brown and white! she just needs to pass the vet check then she will be on her way here! eva is very very excited :)
tomorrow night i leave for stockholm with my host family. i can't wait! everyone tells me how lovely stockholm is and now im finally able to go see it! we are taking the plane so it wont be too long of a flight, i think just an hour. we will be visiting the city hall (where the nobel peace prize is presented) and the famous castle, maybe a couple museums, shopping of course, and im not sure what else yet. i will be back on sunday so more blogging when i get back!!!
hope all is well back home! i encourage you to send e mails, even if i dont reply right away i will eventually!!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Så mycket att göra så lite tid!!!!
So much to do, So little time. Isn't that the truth!!
Let me start out by saying, I'm sorry the last post was quite random and not very well organized or thought out. It was after we got back from Germany and I was in a hurry to get it done!! I will try to take some more time and thought into wiritng my blogs from now on!! :)
Monday I made dinner for my host family. I was so incredibly worried that i would either burn the house down or make some disgusting dish. But, it turned out to be delicious!! Camilla came over also, it was great to have her join us. For Dinner I made chicken enchalidas with salad and for dessert, brownies, swedish style. it turned out to be a great meal!! Uhoh, now ill be cooking once a week!!! I guess i need to start somewhere. My next feat is to try and make a loaf of bread. Thanks to Hanna S. I have become inspired to make my own, because her's was so good!
If you are wondering what the weather here is like.. it't typical fall weather for Sweden. Lots of rain and cold. Due to the fact that we are on the coast it is windy pretty much all the time. If the sun is out its not too cold but it has begun to get pretty darn cold. I think I need some better sweaters, because I didn't realize how cold it would get! The suprising thing tho, it almost never snows here. On the odd chance that it would snow, it will not last too long. So what do I have to look forward to??.. Rain Wind and Cold... goodie!
Enough about the weather, now about school!!!
Everyone has their off days, and yes I do have many. But, I try not to show it. Having friends in school and outside of school helps me so much I can't even begin to say how thankful I am. There are many days where I just wish I knew Swedish. Its so hard learning a new language. Especially one that I have never heard before I came here. So it can be very frustrating when someone is speaking swedish, I can understand some of what he or she is saying but I don't know how to put the words together to say anything back. The only thing that matters is that I keep trying, I need to stop being lazy and start speaking Swedish!!!
My tourism class will definately be helping with this. We are planning to go on a bus tour, showing elderly people the town of varberg. My area of intrest is the Kallbadhuset (the famous Bathhouse-was not my choice, but its an intresting topic). So we each had to do research on different topics and now we get to present them to the old people. Did I mention it's all in Swedish?? Let's just say that the technology today and the use of online translators are lifesavers. So now I have my text written of what I need to say, the only problem is... how do I say it? Looks like my friends will finally come in handy ;)
I think I am pretty lucky though, despite the fact that I don't know swedish, at least I don't really have to take any tests in school. Ok well the only classes the I would have to take a test in would be International Relations and French. But I like those classes so that is not too hard. I keep wondering how I will do next year in college, a year long break, then the hard work comes.. oy dö :( . Everything will work out though (thinking positively!)
Have I been homesick yet? Yes I will admit I have. But its not the kind where I sit at home and wallow in my sadness. It comes and comes every once in awhile. When we were in Germany I was a little homesick because it was a road trip, and usually I only go on roadtrips with my family and the McCormicks and its mostly to Colorado. Also, in the mornings it was different, waking up I would have one of my brothers jump on the bed to wake me up if we were staying in a hotel somewhere, we would turn the tv on wait for everyone to wake up and just go to breakfast in the hotel in our Pjs... so it was different to just wake up get ready and go meet everyone for breakfast because they were already there (early risers). Not that any of this is bad, its just different and I was a little homesick. I think the hardest time for me this year will be christmas but that is to be expected. it is usually a big holiday for most people and families get together and its just a great and cozy time. But i think with the help of my friends and extended family my homesickness will not be too bad at all. :)
This week I will be in Borås again for a rotary get together, we will be getting ready for the district conference. So i will be gone wednesday through saturday.
Yesterday I went to my second Rotary meeting, be proud dad!!! :) My friend Beata who went to Australia last year was doing her speech for the club. So now I have some ideas for when I do my speech but that is a reallyyy long time a way so im not going to worry about it just yet. But i will need to start worrying about my speech about the US.. not sure when i will be giving that speech yet but i think it will be soon, i talked to the president lady and she said we would be in touch. but who knows how long that could be.
The other day i recieved an e mail from my cousin Molly and attached was a picture of her two boys, she just told me what they were up to, the weather back home, and how the family was doing, and just little random things like that. I was so suprised to get this e mail! But it just brightned my day to know that im not forgotten back home!! I love hearing about how everyone is doing. I don't really get homesick from it, its just nice to hear how everyone is doing and how life is back home. So i encourage you reader to e mail me and i love getting pictures also!!!
Due to the fact that I will be gone this week and also next week, with only 3 days in school i will have my work laid out for me. So as you could predict i will not have much time to blog of what i have been up to. But after my trip to stockholm (next thursday through sunday) you will get to hear allllll about my trip! I can't wait to go!! it should be fun!! :) everyone has told me how lovely stockholm is so i look forward to it!!!
ta ta for now!!!!
hej dö!!! :)
Let me start out by saying, I'm sorry the last post was quite random and not very well organized or thought out. It was after we got back from Germany and I was in a hurry to get it done!! I will try to take some more time and thought into wiritng my blogs from now on!! :)
Monday I made dinner for my host family. I was so incredibly worried that i would either burn the house down or make some disgusting dish. But, it turned out to be delicious!! Camilla came over also, it was great to have her join us. For Dinner I made chicken enchalidas with salad and for dessert, brownies, swedish style. it turned out to be a great meal!! Uhoh, now ill be cooking once a week!!! I guess i need to start somewhere. My next feat is to try and make a loaf of bread. Thanks to Hanna S. I have become inspired to make my own, because her's was so good!
If you are wondering what the weather here is like.. it't typical fall weather for Sweden. Lots of rain and cold. Due to the fact that we are on the coast it is windy pretty much all the time. If the sun is out its not too cold but it has begun to get pretty darn cold. I think I need some better sweaters, because I didn't realize how cold it would get! The suprising thing tho, it almost never snows here. On the odd chance that it would snow, it will not last too long. So what do I have to look forward to??.. Rain Wind and Cold... goodie!
Enough about the weather, now about school!!!
Everyone has their off days, and yes I do have many. But, I try not to show it. Having friends in school and outside of school helps me so much I can't even begin to say how thankful I am. There are many days where I just wish I knew Swedish. Its so hard learning a new language. Especially one that I have never heard before I came here. So it can be very frustrating when someone is speaking swedish, I can understand some of what he or she is saying but I don't know how to put the words together to say anything back. The only thing that matters is that I keep trying, I need to stop being lazy and start speaking Swedish!!!
My tourism class will definately be helping with this. We are planning to go on a bus tour, showing elderly people the town of varberg. My area of intrest is the Kallbadhuset (the famous Bathhouse-was not my choice, but its an intresting topic). So we each had to do research on different topics and now we get to present them to the old people. Did I mention it's all in Swedish?? Let's just say that the technology today and the use of online translators are lifesavers. So now I have my text written of what I need to say, the only problem is... how do I say it? Looks like my friends will finally come in handy ;)
I think I am pretty lucky though, despite the fact that I don't know swedish, at least I don't really have to take any tests in school. Ok well the only classes the I would have to take a test in would be International Relations and French. But I like those classes so that is not too hard. I keep wondering how I will do next year in college, a year long break, then the hard work comes.. oy dö :( . Everything will work out though (thinking positively!)
Have I been homesick yet? Yes I will admit I have. But its not the kind where I sit at home and wallow in my sadness. It comes and comes every once in awhile. When we were in Germany I was a little homesick because it was a road trip, and usually I only go on roadtrips with my family and the McCormicks and its mostly to Colorado. Also, in the mornings it was different, waking up I would have one of my brothers jump on the bed to wake me up if we were staying in a hotel somewhere, we would turn the tv on wait for everyone to wake up and just go to breakfast in the hotel in our Pjs... so it was different to just wake up get ready and go meet everyone for breakfast because they were already there (early risers). Not that any of this is bad, its just different and I was a little homesick. I think the hardest time for me this year will be christmas but that is to be expected. it is usually a big holiday for most people and families get together and its just a great and cozy time. But i think with the help of my friends and extended family my homesickness will not be too bad at all. :)
This week I will be in Borås again for a rotary get together, we will be getting ready for the district conference. So i will be gone wednesday through saturday.
Yesterday I went to my second Rotary meeting, be proud dad!!! :) My friend Beata who went to Australia last year was doing her speech for the club. So now I have some ideas for when I do my speech but that is a reallyyy long time a way so im not going to worry about it just yet. But i will need to start worrying about my speech about the US.. not sure when i will be giving that speech yet but i think it will be soon, i talked to the president lady and she said we would be in touch. but who knows how long that could be.
The other day i recieved an e mail from my cousin Molly and attached was a picture of her two boys, she just told me what they were up to, the weather back home, and how the family was doing, and just little random things like that. I was so suprised to get this e mail! But it just brightned my day to know that im not forgotten back home!! I love hearing about how everyone is doing. I don't really get homesick from it, its just nice to hear how everyone is doing and how life is back home. So i encourage you reader to e mail me and i love getting pictures also!!!
Due to the fact that I will be gone this week and also next week, with only 3 days in school i will have my work laid out for me. So as you could predict i will not have much time to blog of what i have been up to. But after my trip to stockholm (next thursday through sunday) you will get to hear allllll about my trip! I can't wait to go!! it should be fun!! :) everyone has told me how lovely stockholm is so i look forward to it!!!
ta ta for now!!!!
hej dö!!! :)
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Recent Stuff, and my trip to Germany!!
This last week or so has been full of going to fikas, meeting friends, planning the next trips im taking while here, riding Sharika (check mate in swedish... not sure of the spelling of it), and going to Germany.
It seems like time is going by so fast!! Already im planning for things next year, its so weird to think that it is already october! So throughout the next year i will be going to paris, cyprus, england (maybe still working out the details), northern sweden, coppenhagen (where the president was this past friday!..its in denmark for those of you who do not kno), and the end of the year euro tour with rotary. this is my year of travel and relaxation but next year is college and time to buckle down, then find a job, then just travel travel travel (this is hoping :)
What i have been up to... going to fika A BUNCH, seriously im introducing that to the US. :) i had my senior pics taken by lovely olivia and they turned out to be amazing! thank you again love! :). For those of you wishing to see them, e mail me or check my facebook.
I have tried the authentic swedish fish, and no i am not refering to the candy. the disgusting storstruming (spelling??) its like anchovies only bigger, the smell is worse, and yeah.. gross. I tried it tho! but not without bread and potatos of course.
I have made the chocolate balls, they were delicious and full of sugar! im also intoducing them to the US.
I have begun to start my college application process, so wish me luck everyone! its so stressful because i hope im doing it right!!! thanks again heidi and mom for helping out with scholarships and such. I think searching for the scholarships is the hardest part!
With school we had an english presentation and a religion presentation due. for english we are working on different kinds of english and how the different versions of english came about, i love english class! its funny to hear all the different accents. i love it.
For my religion class we are studying about the jewish religion so in our groups we had different bible versus and we had to act them out.
So one thing I have begun to realize is that sometimes I just have to go with the flow and not worry about working out the details.
Not knowing what people are talking about all the time, and not always getting a good translation, I have to learn how to trust people and go with a gut feeling of it.
For example, my trip to Germany, I went with my host family to look for a horse. (Eva's horse Teardrop has been having problems with her feet so they have been looking for a horse for awhile now) I wasn't really sure where we would be staying, where exactly we were going in germany, or what kind of horses/how many we would be looking at.
We went with mats and eva's friends Donal and Aneka (they are horsey people also), leaving at 5 in the morning and driving two hours in sweden to get to the ferry, that ferry took us to denmark, then we had to drive another 2 hours to get to the next ferry, that ferry 50 min, then in germany, drove for I don't even know how long, because all I could do was sleep.
My thoughts about Germany, lots of big people (hey hey kinda like America!!) the arciture was just lovely, lots of brick houses and cute little farms, it was really pretty countryside, a bit like sweden you could say. The food was not my favorite. German Schnitzels are only to be eaten once a year (just in my opinion) potatos and friedness on meat...yumm yum. They were not that bad actually, you just feel like you gained 5 kilos after eating it!! So once we were in this little town far in the country of Germany, we met the "horse finder" guy. It turns out he only had two places for us to go to look at horses, and the first place the horses were not at all what we were looking for. (eva wants a quater or paint horse, western of course) But as we were driving to these different places it took about an hour or 2 to get there, we really had no idea where we were going, well i didn't, this man just pointed in a direction and the driver went there. So basically i saw germany from the inside of a car. It does sound quite uneventful but it really was not that bad. I can say that I was in Germany even if we didn't end up getting a horse from there. On the bright side we did go to a bigger town than the ones we had been at, called Lubeck. it was a town full of life, but not till the night! In sweden most shops are closed on the weekends and in the afternoons around 6 or so. but in this town the shops are open on the weekends, but they are open from 6 to 11 or 12 at night! so you can just imagine all the people that were out and about. the appartments in the town were so nice! i love the articiture, white windows and old structured buildings, very antique but modern.
To get back to my main point, even though I didn't know exactly where we were going or what was going on because everyone was speaking in either swedish or german or bits and pieces of english, but I think thats how one should look at a way of life, even if you don't know exactly whats going on, go with it. (but not without thinking about common sense) Its an important lesson that I'm learning, to not be so worried about how things are going to go, because sometimes we even if we want things to go our way, usually that doesn't happen too often. So you have to go with the flow and let things happen the way its supposed to.
This is all i have time to write for now, more next weekend!! :)
I will leave on wednesday for boras again, this time its a rotary thing, we are getting ready for the big conference that is in two weeks.
more blogging soon!!! <3
It seems like time is going by so fast!! Already im planning for things next year, its so weird to think that it is already october! So throughout the next year i will be going to paris, cyprus, england (maybe still working out the details), northern sweden, coppenhagen (where the president was this past friday!..its in denmark for those of you who do not kno), and the end of the year euro tour with rotary. this is my year of travel and relaxation but next year is college and time to buckle down, then find a job, then just travel travel travel (this is hoping :)
What i have been up to... going to fika A BUNCH, seriously im introducing that to the US. :) i had my senior pics taken by lovely olivia and they turned out to be amazing! thank you again love! :). For those of you wishing to see them, e mail me or check my facebook.
I have tried the authentic swedish fish, and no i am not refering to the candy. the disgusting storstruming (spelling??) its like anchovies only bigger, the smell is worse, and yeah.. gross. I tried it tho! but not without bread and potatos of course.
I have made the chocolate balls, they were delicious and full of sugar! im also intoducing them to the US.
I have begun to start my college application process, so wish me luck everyone! its so stressful because i hope im doing it right!!! thanks again heidi and mom for helping out with scholarships and such. I think searching for the scholarships is the hardest part!
With school we had an english presentation and a religion presentation due. for english we are working on different kinds of english and how the different versions of english came about, i love english class! its funny to hear all the different accents. i love it.
For my religion class we are studying about the jewish religion so in our groups we had different bible versus and we had to act them out.
So one thing I have begun to realize is that sometimes I just have to go with the flow and not worry about working out the details.
Not knowing what people are talking about all the time, and not always getting a good translation, I have to learn how to trust people and go with a gut feeling of it.
For example, my trip to Germany, I went with my host family to look for a horse. (Eva's horse Teardrop has been having problems with her feet so they have been looking for a horse for awhile now) I wasn't really sure where we would be staying, where exactly we were going in germany, or what kind of horses/how many we would be looking at.
We went with mats and eva's friends Donal and Aneka (they are horsey people also), leaving at 5 in the morning and driving two hours in sweden to get to the ferry, that ferry took us to denmark, then we had to drive another 2 hours to get to the next ferry, that ferry 50 min, then in germany, drove for I don't even know how long, because all I could do was sleep.
My thoughts about Germany, lots of big people (hey hey kinda like America!!) the arciture was just lovely, lots of brick houses and cute little farms, it was really pretty countryside, a bit like sweden you could say. The food was not my favorite. German Schnitzels are only to be eaten once a year (just in my opinion) potatos and friedness on meat...yumm yum. They were not that bad actually, you just feel like you gained 5 kilos after eating it!! So once we were in this little town far in the country of Germany, we met the "horse finder" guy. It turns out he only had two places for us to go to look at horses, and the first place the horses were not at all what we were looking for. (eva wants a quater or paint horse, western of course) But as we were driving to these different places it took about an hour or 2 to get there, we really had no idea where we were going, well i didn't, this man just pointed in a direction and the driver went there. So basically i saw germany from the inside of a car. It does sound quite uneventful but it really was not that bad. I can say that I was in Germany even if we didn't end up getting a horse from there. On the bright side we did go to a bigger town than the ones we had been at, called Lubeck. it was a town full of life, but not till the night! In sweden most shops are closed on the weekends and in the afternoons around 6 or so. but in this town the shops are open on the weekends, but they are open from 6 to 11 or 12 at night! so you can just imagine all the people that were out and about. the appartments in the town were so nice! i love the articiture, white windows and old structured buildings, very antique but modern.
To get back to my main point, even though I didn't know exactly where we were going or what was going on because everyone was speaking in either swedish or german or bits and pieces of english, but I think thats how one should look at a way of life, even if you don't know exactly whats going on, go with it. (but not without thinking about common sense) Its an important lesson that I'm learning, to not be so worried about how things are going to go, because sometimes we even if we want things to go our way, usually that doesn't happen too often. So you have to go with the flow and let things happen the way its supposed to.
This is all i have time to write for now, more next weekend!! :)
I will leave on wednesday for boras again, this time its a rotary thing, we are getting ready for the big conference that is in two weeks.
more blogging soon!!! <3
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