Livin’ the Swede Life

Dippin’ Dots have rained over Linköping and covered the land. Not really of course but that is how it looks exactly, I could not think of a better example if I tried. Just think of it, land covered in icing then sprinkled with Dippin’ Dots. Some places just looking like regular snow now but it was fun while it lasted. Whenever I tried to explain this to a Swedish person they had no idea what I was talking about. It is quite cold now, about 24F, still not as cold as some places in the US but compared to Sacramento it’s cold. I have become pretty adapted to it now and can go out with just two pairs of tights, a shirt, and a jacket. (and of course, always mittens and normally a scarf) I am finally really liking Sweden, ya ya I know it took only seven months but at least it came. I am starting to make more friends and do a lot of more things. I really hope it keeps going in this direction.

As you read in my last post I have moved families and things are starting to go more smoothly. I still feel like it’s not my house (and I never really felt that way in my last house either) but I am starting to get the hang of things, so that’s good.  I also ride the bus every time I need to go into town now so that is an adjustment. For example, I went to this persons house the other night and it should of taken ten minutes but by bus it takes me one hour! This is because I have to go all the way into town just to go all the way back out in a different direction. I think I will be pretty bus savvy by the time I get home. This house is a complete opposite of my last house so I think that’s good. That’s why Rotary makes us move houses anyway. I am exciting to find out who my next family will be but I haven’t herd anything yet.

So, Rotary says this exchange should better you and show you who you are, you will learn  and become independent. Well I’m not sure if I understand myself any better than I already did but I have taken one thing out of this exchange so far. I appreciate  the US much more now than I ever did. I remember after I went to Italy I said I was just going to leave the US when I could because I hated it and there are far better countries. Not that coming here makes me like everything happening in the states but I sure admire many more things. I feel hurt when I meet with people and they say they don’t ever want to come to the US, I mean not everyone has to, but there are so many things to see and admire in the US even if you don’t like the politics.  I do admit I also find things less appealing but I still am excited to come home. I keep wondering how it will feel to be back in my home country after a year! I can’t believe it have been seven months already!!

I hope everything is going wonderful with everyone and let me know of any fun details!

new hair =)

love, brontë

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everyday life, rotary

I am happy and sad about moving. It’s nice because you get a new perspective but it’s really bad because I just got used to this family. I really like my family now, they are nice and welcoming. And I also have the perk of being five minutes by bike to town. My new house however is a 30 minute bus ride away from town! Yay=/ The house I’m going to is where the current Mexican exchange student lives. I will have to live with him for one week until his new family is ready for him. This shall be interesting… We go to school together (meaning we are in the same class) so I will now see him all morning, day, and night. But the good thing is he can show me how to get to school from his house. =D haha Ok, well I just finished packing up everything and I have so much stuff!! I have no idea where this all came from. I mean ya I got a few packages and went shopping a little but who knew it could add up to all of that! I have nooooooo idea how I am supposed to get this all home! And face it, I will buy a bunch more things before I leave. O goodness. I should probably start sending stuff home now. Well I am going to go now and finish cleaning the room. Ohh by the way I put up a bunch of pictures of things in December so check them out. =))

love, brontë

it will only get bigger. =/

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everyday life, moving

On such a winter’s day; like today, it is nice to curl up with a cup of hot coco and listen to some Christmas music. Although I am not doing that now it does sound like a good idea! I’m already listening to the music now all I need is a cup of hot coco. How is winter coming along in every-body’s part of the world? Today it dropped down to 32 degrees and now it is snowing. I like the snow but it is definitely a double edged sword. It is so exquisite and it brings the whole city to life with such a wonderful charm but, it is obnoxious how much time it takes to just get on all your clothes just to walk outside and then you freeze anywhere you go. I mean it would be ok if you went in a car everywhere but since I have to walk everywhere when there is snow it’s not much fun. It kinda makes me dislike the snow a little less everyday. It’s funny to me because when I first came here I wasn’t too thrilled about having to ride a bike everywhere (and still feel that same way sometimes) but now that I have to start walking everywhere I am truly sad to not have the bike. Now that I am five months in (ahh can you believe it!) I am starting to miss a lot more things. I miss all of these random things I never really even had an interest in before, such as surfing! Hmmm..I don’t know why, I believe the phrase, “You don’t miss things until they’re gone” (or unavalible) is true. The food I miss the most is actually colby jack cheese. I didn’t ever think I would miss cheese but they don’t have anything close to cheddar and do you know how many things cheese is on? Well a lot. I love being here but it really does make me appreciate my home and I don’t think I will ever leave California (well besides work, and lots and lots of traveling).

Well, last Sunday I went to a Christmas market with my host mom at Gamla Linköping (old Linköping). It was quite fun, it was just a bunch of little booths selling their crafts and nick-knacks. In the center of the town they had two older people sing Christmas songs and everyone was dancing around the Christmas tree. Which I found out is a very Swedish thing for Christmas, they dance on Christmas Eve (which is the day they celebrate) and then when they take down the Christmas tree. It was fun I got a few things and these amazing slippers. ——>

Christmas is just around the corner and I’m not really sure how I feelabout it yet. I mean I am happy cause I love Christmas and the season is great but I think I will be really sad the day of when I’m not with my family and I am with someone elses. It’s kinda like a taste of being married just without the man. ; ) We shall see what happens.

love, brontë

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everyday life, random

So this last weekend I went to Oslo with my host mom to visit her daughter and to see the city. We left on Friday morning at 5.30am and went to the train station and caught our first of three trains. I actually really like train rides, for some reason I don’t feel like it’s a long ride or anything and you can walk around. We finally got to Oslo at about one in the afternoon and met Johanna, my host sister. Our hotel was attached to the train station so we went and got our room and then headed out to get some food. For lunch we just ate at the “food court” (I say “food court” cause in malls here it’s not really a food court just more like a cafe or two and maybe a Burger King) and then went out to start our sightseeing. Our first stop was the Opera house by the water which is a brand new, amazing building. All of the main walls are glass and you can walk on top of it and look at the water and the city. After that we went over to Karl Johans Gata, which is the most famous street in Oslo and it has all of the shops and common restaurants. At the end of the street is the “castle” (really more of a mansion) where the king and queen used to live. I’m not sure if royalty still lives there today. At this time it was about four I think and we went over to this cool cafe for fika. When we were walking up to it, it looked like it was all outside and I was thinking it is way to cold to sit outside, but when we got up to it you can see all the panes of ceiling to floor glass. It was a really cool place to sit and watch the park. After fikawe went over to Johanna’s apartment, which is a one room with a tiny bathroom and tiny kitchen. While we were there we watched some CNN and had hot wine and pepparkakor (Swedish version of gingerbread cookies and they are way better). That night we went over the the restaurant that Johanna works at. It was a really cute cafe style restaurant with lots of tables together and our table was a coffee table and a couch. I realized after being there for three hours and listening to reggae the whole time that I really like reggae music, it has a nice beat and it is soothing.

Saturday morning we got up and ready and went and had some yummy continental breakfast at the hotel restaurant. I was surprised by how much they had, especially for a Nordic country. They had all kinds of meats, three types of eggs, bacon, sausage, Swedish pancakes, lots of fruit, cereal,  and many kinds of breads. So after a fulfilling breakfast we met Johanna and went over to this mini christmas fair. On our way we saw many older buildings and a large government building that was actually build by Sweden when Norway was poor. There was not much at the fair but it was right by the water so we went and looked at some boats and then I saw the Nobel Peace Center. Saturday was bad weather, it was rainy and quite cold so after we took pictures of the Nobel Center we went over to some museums in a part of Oslo called Bygdøy. The first museum was a Viking museum with three viking boats and some things from inside the boat. Did you know they used the ships as burial grounds for rich people? Could you imagine digging a whole big enough for one of those? And the other crazy thing is they believed in the afterlife so the filled the whole ship with animals, food, boats, wagons, and a lot of other things they might need. The second museum we went to was the Kon Tiki Museum. Kon Tiki was a raft that this guy went across part of the Pacific, South America to the Polynesian islands, with a group of men all from different countries in 1947. The museum also had the raft Ra II which went across the Atlantic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra_II#The_Boats_Ra_and_Ra_II (for more information.) Both of the boats were pretty cool and it’s pretty amazing to think how far they went. After we were done in the museum we went back to the hotel and hung out until we went to dinner. We ended up eating at some random Mongolian restaurant which was pretty good but they drowned my food in sauce. After dinner we went to the movies and saw “Burn After Reading” which is pretty good, it was entertaining but in my opinion a renter.

On Sunday it was just Britt-Marie and I and we went over to Holmenkollen which is the ski jump from the 1992 Olympics, I think. The thirty minute subway ride up there was really nice because the majority of it was outside and it was a beautiful day. When we got to our stop we started to follow the visitor’s center signs and these signs did not lead in a good path. Because we were at higher elevation there was lots of snow and ice and most of the walk was on steep hills. Well I didn’t know it would be icy or snowy so I had on my converse. Converse and ice don’t mix for those of you thinking of trying it. We finally got to the visitor center and get to the point where you can see the jump, or in our case the bottom slope and arena because they tore the jump down to build a new one. That was disappointing because my cousin Michael who gave me the idea to see this got to see the top of it and so I am quite jealous. But the good thing that came out of going up there anyway was we got to see a beautiful view of Oslo and the bay. (Does anyone know if it is be considered a bay or something else??) When we were done looking we made our way down the hills which was funny because when I went down the steepest one I just held onto the rail and slid down. = )  For lunch we ate at Johanna’s restaurant again and then went and caught our train home.

All in all I would say Oslo is a very nice city and I would love to go back and see the fjords one day. I hear all of Norway is very pretty so maybe one day I can check that out too.

love, brontë

(p.s. check out all the new pics)

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mini vacation, weekend

love, brontë

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everday life, no sun

This past week was pretty busy compared to all the other weeks here. On Tuesday night I went to the hospital with about ten other rotary people and we watched a presentation my host dad made about his

willy wonka 3D glasses =)

work. The second part of the presentation was really cool because we got to see all of the images in 3D. It was amazing to see him slide this bar and all of a sudden it went from a face to some bones and deeper down to blood vessels. Their hospital is the only facility with the technology to show the 3D imaging. After the presentation we ate sandwiches and then saw the radiology department. It was funny because while we were there this guy was getting scanned by one of the machines. I bet he wasn’t that thrilled to have ten-ish people staring at him while in a little paper gown. But if he’s there I’m sure that’s the least of his worries.

Thursday I went to a Rotarian’s (Per-Arne) house for dinner. I walked to his flat which was nice because I had never been on the street he lived on and there were a lot of nice shops and restaurants. I saw two stores that carry snowboard gear so that was cool. His flat was very nice and rather large compared to most I have seen. They live right across from Kattedralskolan my school’s rival. We had a lovely dinner and afterwards we talked for a couple of hours.

Friday was fun; for the most part. School was nice and short and after school I stayed a while and hung out with some of my class. A couple of the girls played foosball with me and I really really suck at it. They should get an air-hockey table, then I would be good. =) But that night I went to my Rotary counselor’s house for a dinner party. For me it wasn’t that fun because it was long and all in Swedish. The evening started with us coming in the house and taking off our shoes like always, except no one told me I was supposed bring shoes to wear inside. So, I was the only one with socks on, not so nice. Then we came in the living room and I had no idea other people would be joining us, I thought it was going to be a simple dinner with the five of us. Nope I was completely wrong, it was a full on dinner party that started with reindeer meat cheese cups. After that we moved into the dining area and were assigned our seat. Well being a layed back Californian I didn’t know you are supposed to stand behind your chair until everyone is ready to sit. Apparently this is an international rule. But, I’ve never ever seen that practiced in a family in the U.S. (Do you do that at dinner parties?????) The first dish was avocados with shrimp and salmon cream salad. Because the appetizer was this avacado dish I was the only one at the table without a plate. (I hate avocados, and I’m not too fond of shrimp cream salad either. Oh and I did try it so mom and dad you can’t say oh I bet you didn’t even taste it!) I guess I wasn’t too embarrassed about that it was just kinda awkward. Then we had lamb and scalloped potatoes which was actually pretty good, followed by some ice cream for dessert. After dessert we moved into the sitting room again and they talked for a couple of more hours. For those of you who say I don’t know how to be quiet come to Sweden and you will see I can be quiet!! That night we were at their house for five hours and I can guarantee I talked a total of about 25 minutes! Ya that’s right 25 minutes. Besides when I go to bed I don’t think I’ve ever been that quiet. I don’t know how non-talkative people do it! My mouth was tingling because I wasn’t ever moving it. Crazy! I don’t like being that quiet. That was an interesting night I definitely felt out of my element!!! But, all in all it was a good experience because now I know I can go to a formal dinner and do well but it was really hard and stressful to say the least.

Saturday was better. During the day I just hung out but then at six I went to Berta’s house for dinner and to hang out. Her house happens to be two streets down from my counselor’s house. We had some pasta and then watched “Good Luck Chuck” and part of “Madagascar.” Berta’s host family has such cute dogs! I’m not sure what exactly they are but they are some kind of hunting pointer dogs and they are so fun! That night I rode my bike home at about midnight.

Finally we have today. Again I just hung out during the day. Well part of the day since I didn’t get out of bed until eleven. But at six I went to this gym with a random lady that knows Per-Arne. We went to a class that is kinda like aerobics with running and some other things. It was really fun and hard. I’m glad I did it. After the class we went to her daughter’s house for fika. We stayed there a couple of hours and talked, and I ate a couple of pieces of bread with jam for dinner. = )

So this was my week, how was yours?

love, brontë

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everyday life

So tonight I went over to Alfredo’s house to have some Mexican food. To get to his house I have to take the number 1 bus. I walked to the bus stop and got there a little earlier than the bus time I looked up on the internet and I saw a bunch of the number 1 buses going by. So, I figured ok it’s just a few minutes early I will just take the next one. Well Alfredo told me a story about how one time he took the bus but for some reason it didn’t go to his stop so instead he had to walk two kilometers home. Well as I was sitting on this bus I was thinking maybe I should ask what if it doesn’t go to his stop? But then I told myself to stop freaking out and just wait and see. That wasn’t a good idea because all of a sudden we were at this stop and the bus driver just shuts off the bus! To say the least I was freaked out and when I tried to ask for help he didn’t know any English so he just drew a crappy map for me and I had to figure it out. Eventually I met Alfredo and we got to his house. Sweden why don’t you like me going places!?!?! I think Sweden either thinks it’s funny or wants me to have something to talk about. Well, dinner was good I am still very full from it.

The weather has been very foggy for the last two days and that’s no good because it makes it even colder than it already is. It is also completely dark by 4 o’clock. You know how when you like seven you mom starts telling you, “No going out at night unless you are with an adult!” And then your like thirteen and your doing things more on your own and it’s, “No going out at night unless your with a lot of friends!” Then you can drive and it’s, “You shouldn’t be driving at night it’s dangerous!” Well it’s kinda sucky when it’s night at four! My head freaks out and I think people are going to kidnap me, but then I say, “Brontë your in Sweden it’s ok to be out walking by yourself right now.” haha I’ve gotten pretty good though, as long as it’s before nine I’m fine but after nine I start to get nervous. It’s gonna be weird going back to California because I will think, “oh it’s fine to go out nothing will happen.” But then I will have to say, “oh ya I’m in California not Sweden.”

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everday life, random thoughts, transportation

Stockholm!

So in Sweden all of the weeks have a number. First week of January obviously being week 1. Week 44 was this last week and we had no school the whole week. No holiday, it was just break, I guess so you don’t work to hard and so you can study for tests.

I didn’t do anything until Tuesday. At 8.30 Johanna (host sister) and I took the bus to Stockholm. We went shopping until about three and then went home to get ready for Anders’ (host dad) award ceremony. Anders is a radiologist but he does research with this machine that can take 3D images of the body and they can look at everything in the body, even down to the blood vessels. It’s really cool because now they can do surgeries on the picture instead of the person or they can find out really easily why someone died.  Here are some of Anders’ pictures. Anders won the Lennart Nilsson Award, and for those of you who don’t know Lennart Nilsson was the one who took pictures of babies before they were born. If you haven’t seen his pictures I suggest you look them up because they are pretty amazing. The ceremony was long because it was a lot of other prizes as well and like a mini graduation. After the ceremony there was a reception with really bad food. But, the plus side was I got to meet a lot of people, including Lennart Nilsson and I talked with him for a while. At about 9 o’clock we left the hall we went into the middle of Stockholm to get real dinner. It was really hard to read the menu but luckily they had one in English and as I was reading the dishes I was scared for what I would get because nothing was sounding good. But I finally got to one called potato pancakes (very Swedish) and fried pork. I figured ok this could be good, and I was thinking fried pork would be some kind of pork chop or something. When the food comes out I look at my plate and it is about two packages of bacon sitting on top of potato pancakes. After eating more than half I thought I was going to be sooooo sick. Don’t ever eat that much bacon it is not a good idea! The next afternoon we went home and I just hung out and went shopping with Johanna and Brit-Marie for the rest of the day. We went into this home store and it made me sad to see all the Christmas stuff in the stores.

Thursday at nine I went to the Corren which is the newspaper for our area. My counselor works there as an ad writer. I was there for three hours just checking the place out and I got to meet some people, including the editor in chief. It was fun to see the building because it’s really old but it was added on so it looked really nice. When we were done I went home and hung out…I don’t really remember what I did so it must of not been important.

Friday afternoon my friend Sandra came over and we hung out for a little while watching TV and were on the computer. We all had pizza for dinner and after dinner Alfredo came over to watch “Signs” with us. This was not fun because the movie was all messed up and the sound only worked sometimes. We finally got it to work and then the last ten minutes of the movie it started freaking out and then we had to watch it with no sound and it was all jumpy. A thing called Novemberljus (November Lights) just started and it is where they put up lights in different areas of the city. So at like ten or something we went out to see some of them. Some were really good but others were just boring. On our way we saw some guys dressed up in Halloween costumes so we stopped and talked with them and took a picture. (Dad: These were the random college party guys) = ) I don’t remember what time we were done walking around but Alfredo went home and Sandra and I went home and watched the “Adam’s Family Values.” Today we went to town for a little while and had lunch.

Tomorrow I have to go to a kid in my class’s house to practice for a play in English class. We are doing a skit on “Hamlet.” I am not so happy about it because acting is not on my top 100 of favorite things to do. But whatever it’s what you have to do I guess. So this week was fun I did a lot. I hope everyones week was good as well as Halloween. OH I forgot. So we don’t celebrate Halloween here. It has just started coming to Sweden in the last couple of years and most people don’t really care for it because it has no tradition. Today was All Saints Day though. OH i forgot again. It snowed for the first time on Thursday!! It was so cool! I mean I’ve seen snow tons of times but never where I have lived! Now it is cold all the time and hasn’t been snowing, that’s not so fun! ok I don’t think I forgot anything.

love, brontë

(p.s. lots of new pics!)

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break, everyday life, week off

blazors!

Our district conference was last Saturday at the Konsert & Kongress, which is a concert hall but has lots of meeting areas as well. Our job as the exchange students was to put on a 25 minute show about whatever we wanted. But before the show we all signed in and had some coffee and buns and fruit. After being there for about ten minutes this African drumming group starting playing in the lobby. It was soo cool! They live in Sweden but they very well could of come from Africa. After that we went into the concert hall and watched an opening speech and the “governor” (not really sure if that is the right title) of Östergötland (which is kinda like our counties but i think bigger..maybe..) came out and did a little “skit” of the old times in Östergötland. Then we snuck out to practice for our skit. Once it was time we went backstage and prepared! It started out with all of us coming out and sitting on stage then Adele (the Australian) came out as  this crazy teacher.  We then proceded to act out an extreme version of our first Swedish lesson. After we finished I said, ”we had actually learned something our first week at camp in Vimmerby” and we started singing head, shoulders, knees, and toes in Swedish! [Huvuad, axlar, kna, och tå.] And then finished by introducing ourselves in Swedish. Our next part of the skit was doing the different prejudices of our countries. Japan was crazy picture taking and throwing up peace signs, India was a computer tech helper or just hung up by saying, “thank you come again”, Mexico was someone asking for help and he just rambled Spanish and then threw his sombrero on the ground and did the Mexican hat dance, Brazil was a version of the fruit hat dance (minus fruit lol! it was like a head wrap thing), USA was Jacque and I being huge fatties and being lazy, Bush loving, idiots who love McDonald’s, and Australia was an interpretation of Steve Irwin. It was pretty great if I say so myself. Finishing the show we sang Children of the World and Mikako played the piano amazingly!

Later in the evening we had a huge dinner where all of us exchange students sat up stairs by ourselves. =) It was a really good thing too because we weren’t the best behaved and we didn’t know how to eat the appetizer properly. (It wasn’t very good anyway so it didn’t really matter.) After dinner there was some dancing with a live band but my host parents wanted to go home so we just danced a little. All in all it was really fun! It was fun going on stage and not getting any stage freight like I normally do.

love, brontë

(p.s. I don’t have a lot of pictures yet from this but I should get more soon and put them up.)

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district conference