100th post on my Blog!!!

Well I just figured it out, it's been exactly 159 days or 22 weeks and 5 days since I left my home in Lakeview. and now figuring that out I feel so independant. I feel like I am at a big point in my year and in my life. I'm sixteen and I live far far away from where I was born, from where all my family is, but it doesn't bother me. I know that I can handle myself out here in the real world, it's not like I am totally on my own, I have a great family behind me here and a lot of other poeple that care about me. I just feel like there is a lot to this whole experience and I am enjoying it all.

Sorry it has been so long since I have written but I have been very busy since the holidays have been around, enjoying all of it!

Thursday, December 16th Karrofesten!! Thursday was a fun day, a really fun day because it was Karrofesten! I went to one Karroest before and I had a really fun time, it is a dance put on by the Karrolinska school, Caitlin goes there. Anyone can go to the party and so I bought a ticket and decided to go, hardly anyone from my school, Virginska, goes to these Karrofest dances but I am onl here for a year and so want to have as much fun as posible. It was a pretty normal day, I went to school like normal and had a few classes. I think I am getting the Swedish a lot more now because when I sit in class I actually understand some stuff, definately not everything but a lot more then the first month and half. I have a picture of two kids armwrestling, it was a long break between classes and we were messing around in "The Ocean", I love my school. After school I went to meet Pauline for a fika before going home to get stuff for the dance! We ended up meeting Caitlin as well, she just got done with school and came to meet Pauline because I don't think they had met before that. I met up with some of my friends at karro when I bought my ticket. I went home to get some stuff before the dance and I met up with Tommy and ate little before leaving quickly. I met up with some friends before the dance to get ready. All of the Karrofest dances have different themes and for this one it was YouTube so I dressed up as the Angry Ginger Kid I did this just buy writing some of his quotes on a white shirt :D. Now that night was one of the weirdest nights of my life, I didn't get into the dance because I couldn't speak Swedish, one of the guards kicked me out of the line and took my ticket. I was going in with my friends when he grabbed me and asked me something and I didn't understand so I asked if he could say it in English and he just said no and kicked me out of the line. I then couldn't get in because I didn't have a ticket, it was stupid but that's how it worked out so oh well, at the time though I was really mad. It was still a good night, I had a good time anyways but I wish I would have been able to go in. I went to sleep at Eva's house, my counselor, because she lives really close to where the dance was at. Weirdest day ever.

Friday, I went to practice in the morning just like every Friday, and it was a lot of fun. We played a bunch of games to figure out who was the best Santa, the games were all shooting drills and stuff and I didn't win. Herman I bet on him winning, so I told him he owed me some of the candy prize, I didn't get anything. At school they had Julbord which is a spread of the classic Christmas food, "Julbord" is literally translated as "Christmas table". I enjoyed the good food and went home to sleep right after school because I was really tired from the day before. I woke up and hung out with Tommy a little bit, we went to the store and recycled some stuff, it was a good night of just chillin. And eating good food, mmm I love the good food.

Saturday I kind of had a lazy morning, just enjoying sleep and everything, it's always like that on Saturday. I got in contact with one of my friends from my class, he lives in Adolfsberg also and we decided to meet up one of these days so that's what we did. I met up with him at the ICA, a grocery store, and we went sauna-ing. His name is Jesper Forss and he is half Finish. Therefore we had a Finish style sauna, really hot and a hitting branch thing. I don't know how to explain it, he just said that there was a special stick that you hit each other with and I was scared for a minute till I saw it. It was just some birch, I think birch, tree branches lashed together and like frozen for packaging, it actually came from Finland. Jesper told me that normally you just go out to the forrest and make one yourself but since we live in a city and it's not Finland you can buy them as well. So we sauna'd and hit each other with the branches and jumped in the cold snow naked, twice. It was a very productive sauna visit, we then went to his house to meet his family and eat dinner. They were very, very nice people and I am really glad to have met them, I will go back again soon. I met his whole family and ate with them, that was really cool. We then watched a movie and hung out, he does gymnastics and so we see each other in the gym alot and he goes to my class. He's a good friend.

Sunday, I woke up and went to Eva's house to help her get ready for a party she was having. Her kids were there and I hung out and helped get ready for the party, it was actually a lot of fun. Unfortunately I had another party to go to that day as well! I was at Eva's party for a little bit and I thought it would be fun to go meet some more of my host family, it was Tommy's niece's birthday. Her name is Beatrice, she goes by Bea, and she was turning fifteen. It was a lot of fun, I met a bunch of my new extended host family! I think it is really funny that when I am around everybody want's all the kids to speak English, I just find it so funny. Most kids are really good at English just shy and my new host family is no exception, they can all speak English they are just a little shy to do it, which is fine with me! I need the Swedish so it is cool to speak Swedish even though I am not so good at it, as long as we can talk :D. We did the whole birthday thing with a fika and all, I love birthdays, we also sang happy birthday! After that we went to watch an annual soccer tournament that happens where my host cousin lives, in Odensbacken. It turns out that a friend of mine from my class lives in Odensbacken and was playing in that very same soccer tournement! It's a surprisingly small world, no matter where you go you see people in interesting places :D. It was a good day all in all and it definately helped in building my confidence with Swedish!!

Monday, again a good day. There was another dance on the Tuesday, the difference between this one and the last is that this was Gymnasiumfest and my whole class was going. Also this one was being held at the Ritz, club and so everybody thought it was cool and wanted to go. Anyway, the theme was black and white and so after school me and a bunch of guys from my class went walking around and shopping for the dance, the girls came to give us some good advice. It was a good school day and really the last school day until Christmas break, so during the day it was great as well :D. When I came home I remembered that it was also Christmas candy making day, that made me happy. We made 4 different kinds of Christmas candy, little chocolate cups with orange cream stuff inside them, this stuff called knäck, stuff called kola, and finally French nougat. It was a lot of making these different kinds of candy, I had never had knäck or kola before but they were both really good and it was nice to have a little different spin on Christmas candy. Nicklas, Gunn's oldest son came over and we hung out and he helped with the candy making thing a little. It was a good day as well and I enjoyed eating a few of the freshly made candies.

Tuesday, the day of the second dance. It all started with a volleyball tournament in my school, which I was late to because I couldn't figure out where to go, haha. Some people told me one place, I went there first and it was the other team from my class so then I went to the other place that I thought it was at and it wasn't there either. Luckily I eventually found the right place and met up with my team right as they were beating another team in their second game. We were dressed up as superhero's and our team name was Sven. We were all dressed up the same, normal clothes and capes, except Jesper Foss, he was dressed up as a Muslim. Sometime in between the second and third game, right when I showed up we decided to lose our shirts, and pants. So all of us guys were out there in sports shorts and capes, it was good, we beat another team and made it into the quarterfinals. Unfortunately we lostin the quarterfinals and it was over. After that we went home before meeting up again to go to the dance. That was probably the longest four or so hours of my life, just waiting to go to the party. I met up with a couple kids from my class before the party and got ready with them. I luckily got in to the dance this time and it was mostly becuase I spoke English. It's interesting how living in a different place sometimes helps you and sometimes hurts you :D. It was a lot of fun in the party and I was really happy I got to see the inside of the Ritz, it's a cool club. I went to Caitlin for a little bit before going home, and that night was the longest walk of my life. It's rough sometimes, riding the bus, I wanted to stay till the end of the Ritz party and because that was so late there were no busses going back to my house at that time so I ended up walking with my bike home. I thought I had lost the key and I was freaking out about it a big part of the night but I found it later, it was a long walk home, with a little bit of bike riding when I found my key. Basically it was a great night but I was out in the cold walking home for a little over an hour, that wasn't fun! A good day filled with friends and dancing haha!!!

Wednesday, the last day of school for three weeks, yes this is the life. It started really late, 11:30 to be exact and all we did was play some question games and go to the Saint Nikoli church. At the Saint Nikoli Kyrkan, kyrkan means church, we listened to a lot of music from our school. They sang songs, and we talked about the really meaning of Christmas and stuff it was pretty cool, definately a good idea for the last day of school. After that we all went to a restaurant and ate a goodbye meal. We went to Jensens Böfhus which is a Danish based restaurant but has locations all over Sweden as well and ate cheap steak. It was the rarest cooked steak I have ever eaten and it tasted delicious, luckily I am still alive too! Really good food. After the meal four of us went bowling together, bowling is always fun but this time it was really good because it wasn't simply bowling. It was a bowling slash skittles party. A friend of mine from my class had a bag of skittle from France and I had some that my dad had sent me. We ate skittle and bowled together before saying goodbye to each other before the break. I found out then that my friends are pretty decent bowlers, I got a 136 which is pretty good for me and I got third out of the four of us. I like going to the sports program because everybody is pretty athletic, keeps things with a friendly competetiveness. After that I went to the Nikoli church again with Eva for a little Christmas concert put on by a few people in my Rotary club. Gunn went too with a friend of hers from another town close by. Before the concert I met Eva's husband's mother and we talked in Swedish for a good 15 to 20 minutes, that felt good. The concert was absolutely great, it was just a choir but a very good choir. After the concert I went with Gunn and her friend for a nice dinner where I talked almost all Swedish, I really do think my Swedish is going well sometimes. Great day, no more school!

Thursday was my big shopping day, I had a lot of things to do and a lot of things to buy. I went in to town fairly early because I wanted to get a good jump on the day. I went into town at 10am and was out of town at 6pm, I think, it was a lot of shopping. I saw a lot of friends and fika'd twice. It was a good day and I enjoyed it quite a bit, most importantly I got Christmas presents. I got back at home and Gunn and I ate dinner before everyone else came home because we were hungry, haha love my host mom. The rest of the Family came back and we watched the big day before Christmas Eve bingo lotto show. It was awesome, Gunn always buys tckes to this thing, one for everybody in the house and we play bingo lotto, it is a lot of fun and although no one in this family won anything, people we know won stuff, one of Nicklas' friends won a prize that was worth like 10,000 krowns, pretty good I would say. So that was a lot of fun and it felt like a nice relax time right before the big day! I had fun chillin with my family but I talked a bunch with my family in the US too, good day. I think it was that day that I woke up at 5am the next day to talk on the Radio with Lakeview!

Finally, it came to the 24th, the big day in Sweden, the big big day. We woke up and ate a good breakfast together, I love food and Christmas food is the best, I had no Idea how much of it I was going to eat in the next two days. After breakfast I got a ride to the Saint Nikoli church again to go to the Christmas morning service, there were so many people there. I met up with Eva, Severin, and Theresia and they said that there was normally a third the amount of people there, so I guess that's pretty good :D. I then went home with the Sape's and then to their farmor, Karl's mother, who lived just down the street. I met all of Karl's brothers and their children and did Christmas the Swedish way. We sang songs, songs about santa and a lot of other Christmas things and some not Christmas things. I enjoyed it, I got to experience something witha different family. I then got picked up from there by Nicklas and taken home for Christmas, Family style :D. Nicklas came and Emil with his girlfriend Mathilda, so the whole family was there, we ate an awesome Christmas dinner with the Christmas ham and everything. We opened presents and then just chilled for a few hours. Somewhere in there Caitlin texted me and she came over to hang out as well. It was a really great Christmas and I ate two really good meals, and got some really cool things from my host family, it's not all about stuff but I am really surprised and thankfull for what they got me :D. It was a great day and I was happy I got it a whole day sooner! In Seden they do it all on the 24th even though their Christmas holiday is three days, th 24th, 25th, and 26th they do all the fun stuff on the 24th.

Saturday, Christmas day, I had another two Christmas dinners. 2010 is going down as the year of 4 Christmas dinners in Sweden. I wokeup and hung out with everybody for a few hours when I remembered that Gunn's sister was coming over with her family and they were going to do a little Christmas with them. We ate a Christmas turkey this time and it was awesome, Gunn asked me if it was the same as home and I said no because it could never be the same as home :D no comparisons made what-so-ever, it was really good though, that's all I will say. I had to split from dinner a little early to go eat another dinner with my old host family, the Ernestams, it was really nice seeing them all again. I enjoyed visiting with them and I at my 4th and final Christmas dinner, it was really good food. I enjoyed spending time with my old family and it wasn't just Andreas, Ingela and Hanna it was the whole family so that was really nice. I then went home for a quick minute before getting on a bus to go into town and pick up Kendra, she was getting in at 9 and I luckily got on the perfect bus to pick her up, I was going to be there right on time, then she called me and told me she was at a different train station. There are two stations in Örebro and Kendra came to the small scetchy one, luckily though it is only about a 15 minute walk from the other one. I got to her a little late but it was good to see her and I think she was happy to see me. We walked around a little and met up with Caitlin before coming home and skyping with our families. Good Christmas day.

Sunday, we woke up really late and were trying to go to the city for a long time before I talked to Tommy a little bit and found out that we were going bowling! We went bowling at 5 with my whole family and it was awesome, I scored a 110 and a 120 but most importantly I beat Kendra both times. Oh yes, for those of you who don't know who Kendra is, sheis the other exchange student in Sweden from Oregon, there are only two of us and she lives in Göteborg. After that we went into the city and looked at the castle, had a little bit to eat and met up with Caitlin again. I saw a few of my friends and they were going to practice with their band so we figured why not go check it out too! We ended up at this house that is just for musicians, you can rent out a spot and practice there whenever you want, it was really cool. We hung out for a while and I really enjoyed seeing a bunch of my friends in their bands, I had no idea they were in bands. It was a good day.

Monday, we went into town earlyish, I don't know what we did, we were in town a lot and we never went to svampen. We did see the rest of the town, we were all over the castle and shopping. Anyway, there was a free hockey game on Monday night and so we went there really early, we got there at ten till six and the game didn't start until seven. We sat in seats thinking the game was all free and after we had gotten kicked out of our spots three or four times, we being Kendra, Caitlin and I, we figured out that it was only free on the sides where you had to stand up. By then the sides were really packed but we still went and we eventually worked our way in enough so we could see. We watched the whole game from there and enjoyed it! Unfortunately Örebro didn't play so well and we lost 2-5 I think. After the game we for some reason decided to bake a cake. I don't know where the idea came from but we all figured it was a good idea. We went to the store and bought stuff and then went to my house and baked the cake, it was great. The cake was frosted with Nutella and chocolate frosting and we almost put another kind of frosting on it but decided that would be to much. After we made the cake Caitlin went home and me and Kendra ate a bunch of it, it was a delicious. Monday was a fun day!


Tuesday we went to this place called Boda Borg, I don't know how to describe it but it was totally different the anything I had been to before ever. I got the run down as we went out there, it was an old apartment building that they were going to tear down when someone decided to put a puzzle into it. It was basically a big giant game that was all about solving puzzles. The puzzles were huge, a few different rooms with a bunch of different themes. At the end of each puzzle, if you made it all the way to the end, there were stamps that you could stamp your card with. I don't know how to explain totally and I don't know if I have done a good job explaining it at all but it was really really fun. It isn't in Örebro it is about an hour away, my host mom took everybody there, I guess it is a tradition with their family to go somtime between Christmas and New years, my host cousins came too! After that Kendra, my host cousin Beatrice, and I went with Caitlin to a Mary Kay thing. I don't know how we got dragged into it but we were all there for three hours. Long story short I put on make-up. First time I have ever put on make-up in my life, maybe the last but at any rate it was an experience. After that Bea, Kendra and I came back to my house and ate tacos with my family, not normal tacos, really, really good tacos. So good, so so good. My host brother and his girlfriend Mathilda came over and I decided I wanted to get a haircut, luckily Mathilda cuts hair really good. She gave me a really good haircut and that was awesome, I can see now and look good. I have a faux hawk with a back now, it's a really good haircut.

Wednesday, we woke up pretty late again and went into town on a mission, we wanted to see a movie. Since it took us so long to get up and out by the time we got into town, ate and got to the movie theater there was only one movie to see really without waiting an hour that we didn't have and that movie was Megamind! Megamind is a kids movie, but it was in 3-D so we figured why not, why not. It was in fact in Swedish but surprisingly enough still pretty funny, I definately don't understand everything but some of the jokes in Swedish are pretty weird, the translation is always pretty funny. We then went back to my house and hung out with my family a little while we waited for the train to come. It was a good visit with Kendra and I felt like we didn't do so much but we actually did quite a bit more then I was thinking. I will probably see her again in a few months. Tommy gave us a ride to the bus stop and I decided to stay and wait with her like the nice friend I am. I got home and ate another really good dinner and then went to sleep a little early, it was time to finally get some good sleep, me and Kendra always stayed up late and watched movies and stuff :D. So it was again a little boring of a day but good and it was a good visit with Kendra.

Thursday, I woke up at a little after noon, ate breakfast and chilled with Tommy. Then I cleaned my room pretty good, and hung out at home writing this for the rest of the day. I have a hard time writing these for some reason, it takes a while. I can type fast but I am always getting distracted with random thoughts in my mind and thanks to the internet I can indulge all the thoghts I have by looking them up and studying them. Things I looked up randomly online include, where OSU has sister college that I can maybe go to when I am in college, a swedish artist named Petter and Facebook. I am really enjoying break and I can't believe that tomorrow is the last day of 2010, I can't believe it. Thanks for reading, I will try and be more consistant with my bloggings!!


Tack så mycket,
Gabe

P.S. Will try and post pics tomorrow!

And the days go by....

Fika break in the middle of the play!

These are in the theatre

I have recently been in conact with the other Oregon outbounds through facebook and it is truly amazing how much time has passed. We are all building new relationships and carrying on completely different ways of life and I guess that makes time go faster.

Tuesday, well Tuesday was a normal Tuesday. I am always busy and on Tuesdays and I enjoy that. I went to school a half an hour early to write a short paper on sports injury for my sports health class, I had to do a small presentation with another kid in my class for my first lession. I then had an interesting day because everybody else was doing some "seminar" thing for another class that I am not in so I just kind of hung out and went to Swedish. I enjoy doing that, quite a lot actually, I am all about the social part of school and so days like Tuesday aren't bad at all. After school I went to the gym for a little bit and met a bunch of kids I know. I have two really funny friends from Latvia and one of them was there, he was bragging about how hot his girlfriend was and so I said show me a picture, maybe I should go see what Latvia is like haha. After the gym I was walking to the bus stop when Caitlin called me, she came back from Liverpool, oh yes she was in Liverpool from last Wednesday to Sunday, and I wanted to hear all about it. Therefore I decided to take the bus that was coming the next hour, we talked about her trip and it sounds like she had a good time, I am happy for her, getting to travel and such! I went to get on my bus and it was going to be there in like fifteen minutes so I went to a little shop where it was warm and chilled for a little bit. I am being truthful when I say that the 24 bus is always late, not just sometimes, always and I am out in the cold waiting for it, freezing. I get the great idea to go someplace warm this time, I come out and I am walking casually to the bus stop, I am on the minute that the bus is supposed to come to the station and I see it driving down the road away from me. I had missed my bus, really frustrating, so I went to another bus that will get me close to home because I didn't want to wait another half an hour for the bus. I got on that bus fifteen or so minutes after I had missed my bus, I got home and I was taking the semi-long walk from the other bus station to my house and I see my bus, the 24 coming towards me. So if I didn't explain this well, I misse the first bus and then I got home later then if I would have waited for the bus that came in a half an hour. I came home, ate and chilled with my wonderful new host family :D. Then I got a ride form Gunn to innebandy in Almby, played and had a good time like always, maybe got a little lucky. I then got a ride home from one of the guys because Andreas didn't have his car. It was a good day and I slept really good!

Wednesday was also a great day, woke up at a good 8:50 and then I got a slow move on my day, breakfast, bus, walking to get to basketball practice. I had a good practice and then I went to the Rotary lunch and ate a delicious lunch on top of the great food I was presented with a scarf and a beanie from the ÖSK Hockey team. One of the men in my club, Goran works with the team here and I was really happy to get that, I am so appreciative. I then went to school for a little bit to play in art with my class mates but when I got there two of them were going to the music room to listen to the other half of the class perform their songs! We got there just in time and I got to hear a bunch of my friends playing songs. I was really impressed with them, none of them are really musicians I don't think but they all did a very good j0b! After that I went to work out and I saw Forss in the gym, Forss is kid from my class, we hung out and worked out together. I then went to a new sandwich place with him to get some food, looks good, I didn't buy anything but I will go back, looked tastey. I then went to my bus and went home for a few hours before going to ENRON, enron was a play performed here in Örebro in person in a real theatre. It was amazing, I don't know if I have ever been too a play quite like this and I had a really good time, a really really good time! Gunn took me and Kajsa and I am really glad i got to go, it was really cool, a great play. We then came home and I have been writing in this blog ever since, today was a great day and I am loving my time here!!

Ok well it's been a while, it's hard to blog...

Beat boxer at school for the Sankta Lucia.

One of the other exchange students here in Sweden is from Telluride Colorado, it is about the size of Lakeview so this is a huge coincidence that my math teacher is wearing this shirt!

Diyar, enjoying the morning fika.

School's gift to us!

The play, it was kind of a musical, really, really good. It was in Swedish by the way.

Some of the other people at Pauline's party!

Pauline made me fudge, we talked about it the week before, she is really nice!!

Most of us, one of the kids is taking the picture, he was Santa!

Kajsa's Lucia!

Örebro win!

This game was on TV.

The Lucia train!

The Rotary importants doing well with Lucia!

The first game I watched, not so many people here!

My friend that interviewed me, hella ya!

Severin and friend's cozy Christmas corner for drinking coffee, apparently lighting is everything.

That's Anders showing off the high quality coffee!

I don't really know what animal this is supposed to be but it is huge ad very cool and something about Christmas!

Well I can start with Tuesday I guess because that is wher I left off! Tuesday, what happened on Tuesday? Yes, I remember now, I went and toured an architecure firm! Caitlin has a man in her Rotary club that works there and is the boss and so we got to tour it. It is called White and they do mostly apartment buildings and big office type buildings so it was pretty cool to see that. I was at one point in my life really interested in being an architect so I am glad that I got to see that. After that, and that took a few hours to tour and look at so much stuff, I went to Karrolinska with Caitlin to eat lunch. I know a lot of people that go to Karro, somehow, and that was pretty cool because I got to see a little more of the school and I got to see a bunch of friends. After lunch and coffee at Karro I went back to Virginska for a few hours, I actually really enjoy going to school. Right when I walked in the door a friend of mine came up and asked if he could interview me for the radio, it was an assignment and he was going to ask kids from other countries how they celebrate Christmas. I told him a little about what we do in the US and he said that it will air this coming Tuesday on the real radio, that's pretty cool :D. After that I went to the gym for a little while and then home for about five minutes while I got my innebandy club and dropped some stuff off. I then went to play innebandy with Andreas and I was lucky because I was about half an hour late but they had been locked out and then two or three minutes after I showed up we got in! I am a lucky kid sometimes. After the innebandy all the other guys went to watch a soccer game but I promised some friends that I would come to their hockey game. I went to my first ever hockey game but I only watched two of the three periods but it was really interesting, hockey is a tough game. The hockey players have my respect from now on, there is a lot to that game.

Wednesday was all about the hockey. I woke up, went to basketball practice and then to my Rotary club meeting, that was pretty cool because we had a Sankta Lucia performance that was pretty entertaining. First there was a song performed by my new host mommy, Gunn, and a bunch of the other Rotarians, they did it quite well and I was very impressed with it all. Then the real Sankta Lucia girls came out and did a performance too, they sang many songs and did very well. I don't really understand the Sankta Lucia thing, I have heard a lot of different stories about it but nobody really knows for sure, I do know that she is Italian and not Swedish so I don't totally understand why they do it but I think they are one of the only countries who has this tradition. At any rate it was entertaining and I am happy to experience it because it is much different then what we do in the US of A. After that I back to my school to go to art, unfortunately art was already over because the Rotary meeting ran a little bit long. I did however meet up with my classmates and we went to buy tickets to the Gymnasium fest which is a school dance party that is happening on Tuesday the 21st of this month, it will be a lot of fun. I also bought a ticket to a concert for Håkan Hellström that will be happening in March. It was a semi expensive but definately worth it day, I've got some good friends that are going to both and so both will be a lot of fun guarenteed! After that I went home and waited for Nicholas to come and then we went to the hockey game. This was not a messing around hockey game, this was a pro game, serious stuff. It was a lot of fun, I have never really been to a hockey game except the day before and so this was pretty fun to go to. Nicholas friend came as well and he was a nice guy, there were over 3,000 people in the stadium I think so it was a pretty good game. Örebro won something like 5-2 so it was a great day and I was happy I finally went to a game where Örebro won significantly!

Thursday! I think the Thursday school day was pretty normal as in nothing extraordinary happened. I didn't take pictures of anything so there must not have been anything too amazing. After school I went home to see my little host sister, Kajsa, go and perform with her class in a little play! Woohoo, it was pretty cool actually, they were all in the same school, maybe in the same class, I am not totally sure. They were raising money for a class trip or something that they will do in a few years! It was really good, they did the whole Sankta Lucia thing and I was quite entertained! I had a good day!

Friday was a busy day! I woke up and was at basketball practice at 8am, I had practice and then hung around with some of the other players, Fredrik and Herman. I walked to school with those guys and we ate lunch. After that it was just a normal Friday, the sam as it always goes for me. Class and friends and school and stuff. After school I rode the bus home and waited for Nicholas to come and pick me up! That was then another adventure, we drove Gunn's volkswagen beetle to Kumla, Kumla is a town of 20,000 about 20 kilometers outside of Örebro, with five people in it, five guys. After that trip, which wasn't bad or anything just a little cramped, I went to a pizza place with Nicholas, his friend, and Nicholas' little brother. We ate kebab pizza, a lot of kebab pizza and then we went on our way to play innebandy! It was a fun little adventure playing with a totally full stomach of kebab! I had a lot of fun and then I went back to Örebro with Tommy, Tommy drove out there just to give me a ride, nice guy. I went home and dropped my stuff off and then went back into town to hang out with some friends from school for a few hours! Great day!

Saturday I woke up nice and not early at about noon, ate some breakfast/lunch and just acted lazy. I spent two hours what could have taken a half an hour, that's a good feeling! After that Gunn gave me a ride into town to actually buy my Håkan Hellström ticket, before I just reserved a ticket. I am lucky that Gunn gave me a ride because I actually walked in right as the people working at the place walked out to take the open flag down. I was lucky that they were nie enough to sell me the ticket anyway and then I didn't know what to do so I went to visit Eva! I visited Eva and just said hej and talked for a little bit. I then went to the bus stop to catch a ride home! I went home and got ready for Saturday night, I was going back to Kumla. Pauline, is a girl that contacted me a few weeks ago, she will go to the US next year and so we have gotten together a few times for fika! She was having a birthday party because she just turned 17 and she decided to make it a dress up. I went as a jock, that's easy and Americanish so that's how I went. She lives in Kumla so I needed to catch a bus ride out there. I rode my first bus out to Kumla and that was cool, I ended up at a bus stop in the city and I was all alone and had no idea where to go, luckily I knew help was on the way. I called Pauline on my way out there and she arranged for a few of her friends to give me a ride, really nice of them. We hung out, played games, had a birthday party like you are supposed to, there were only six of us so it was kind of a nice small little party! I could only come home on the bus at 9:30 or 12:30 and Gunn said it was ok if I took the 12:30 so thats what I did, the bus ride took forever. I think I got home around 1:30, I don't know why cause it only took about 20 minutes to get out there. The whole time I was scared I was going to miss my stop because they don't show which one is coming up on the out of town busses. It was a good day of chilling and stuf :D.

Sunday I again slept in for a while, because I can and because it is nice to do so! I then hung out at home like I should be doing on a nice Sunday afternoon and at 2:30 I went to get on a bus and meet Eva. Eva invited me to go to a Christmas play with her. I of course excepted that because I love to do everything and it turned out to be a really good play. It was the real Christmas story in a chuch. We were invited by a long time friend of Eva and we had fika and did the whole Swedish socializing thing, it was great. Eva then brought me home and I ate some more. I am a hungry kid, a really hungry kid these days, I don't know what's up with that. I then talked to my family in the US for a while and went to sleep, it was a good day!

Monday, I woke up and went to school bright and early, Mondays are a hard day, always. I met everybody in the morning and I watched some presentations in my sports health class, I will be doing a little presentation tomorrow! We then had datornkunscap and then math. After math we went to watch Lucia in the gym, I guess all schools do a Lucia thing on today, today is the Lucia day by the way December 13th, and that was pretty good. I then went home and took a nap and went back into town to meet Severin and hang out for a few hours, I was going to go to watch Caitlin do Sankta Lucia but it cost 80 krowns and I am tight on cash right now so I decided not to. I instead watched a real big official one on TV with Theresia. I then came home and have been writing in this blog ever since! It's been a good day, we got fika from school this morning too, I forgot to mentiont that, it was a Christmas fika with Christmas rolls and stuff! Good times, good day!

Sunday and Monday :D Pepparkakshus

Beauty.

Oh yes, we did this!

The magic happening!

One mini snow plow giving another mini snow plow a jump :D made my day

This is an example in my math book, I just thought it was funny because I don't think that there would be any refference to alcohol at all in any American school book.

Kajsa wth the pieced together pepparkakshus, we had to put some of the broken pieces together with melted sugar.

Fire effects ;D

how far I was actually.

The host in the white jacket.

Well we can start with Sunday, I took Sunday morning to sleep in. I mean, I need to sleep, I am a, hopefully, growing young man sleep is nice. I woke up at about 12:30 in the afternoon and had some breakfast, Tommy greeted me with a good morning and a chuckle, I think that's because it was afternoon. I chilled out at home, uploaded all those pics and then went into town. I called Caitlin up and she was in town so I figured I would go in early then I had planned before. I knew I was going to go into town because it was O' Helga Natt, (O' Holy Night) and there was going to be a big concert and a lot of people there. I went in and met Caitlin at around four and went to go see Eva and to pick up my monthly allowance! It is a nice time when I get a little money, my cell phone starts working again and I get the possibilities of a few fika's. I met Gunn uptown a right after that, the concert happened right in the town square and I found out on Monday that there were over 30,000 people there and you could definately tell, Caitlin and I couldn't get through anywhere. Gunn was near the stage selling candles for a Rotary project, there were a lot of Rotary people around town selling candles everywhere. I thought that I was going to help but I found out they didn't really need me and they didn't have a jacket for me anyway, haha. After meeting up with Gunn we went back around the croud to a place where we could see the stage. There were a few famous Swedish people there singing and hosting the event, there were TV camera's everywhere and they were all recording, this event is going to be broadcast all over sweden on the big Christmas day which is the 24th. After the concert Caitlin and I met up with Gunn and her son's and her son's girlfriend and sister. I finally met Niklas, he is 26 and a really nice guy. He lived in London for two years so he had a british accent and some good stories. After we had a nice fika at a little café Gunn and I went home. Once we were home we began construction on the pepparkakshus! A pepparkakshus is the same as a ginger bread house but it is made out of pepparkaka which is a little different I think then ginger bread. We simply put the thing up and let it all dry so we could finish decorating it on Monday! Sunday, great, great day.

Monday, also a good day. Starts off early at 6:20 but hey, that's no problem in Lakeview I did that every week day, I love Sweden by the way! I caught the bus as normal and walked to school like normal. School was pretty normal today, one of my class mates just got back fro Abu Dabi (spelling) and so it was kinda fun to talk to him about that. I liked it though, it was a good day. After school I went up town and got my cell phone working again with this new month money. I then met up with Caitlin and went to her house for a little bit before heading home, we ate a little pizza and watched some cool Swedish TV. I went home and it was time, time for the house. The pepparkakshus was ready to be decorated. Kajsa and I were taking it on as our project I think, we, mostly she, made some frosting and decorated that thing like crazy. I think it may have been one of the fun/funniest times here. I enjoyed making the thing because I haven't gotten to in a few years, and it feels better if you have a little sister to do it with, then it wasn't just for my amusement. After dinner I came to write in this and chill out. It's been a good day! All in all a great weekend!

Pictures! Bilder!

I hope you enjoy all of these pictures!!



Horseback riding adventure!
I don't know if you can tell but I am rattled here :D it was a lot of fun and I want to do it again but it was really really cold!!!

More good food!

This is the youth choir!

Good food!

Thanksgiving in a box!

I don't know if I talked about this before but I got this package on Thursday, I think. Mom sent me this and I was so happy to get it because it literally is Thanksgiving in a box. Caitlin and I will be making dinner for our families in the near future, Thanksgiving is all about the food, we can do it on any day! Thanks so much Mom!!!!

My bus, I ride this thing everyday to school now :D

Made this all myself, oh ya.

Someone played a little concert in my school on Friday during the day, it was a student!! So cool.

Somebody put my newspaper article in up in Virginska!

Here is a cake that Andreas parent's got when they bought their car!! Delicous!

Candle making good times!

Making the candles :D

Caitlin came for a quick fika.

These are pictures from the weekend, some of them I took and some of them I got from friends, they are really out of order! It was a fun weekend.

This one is right before we went home, we were waiting for trains and such.

Hangin out at the hostel.

We just saw Santa, like a real Santa, not some guy dressed up like him, just a normal guy who looked exactly like him.

This is a christmas market, there were a lot of good things like this everywhere!

These are all the oldies, giving us advice and stuff :D

Giovanna, "fixing" my hair.

This is when we first showed up in the central station at Stockholm.

Corbin sleeping in the hostel.

View of outside our room.

Fika with almost everyone.

The ice thing that I can't remember the name of now :O

Canadians :D

Santa's pepparkaka workshop!






Caitlin.

When we first showed up at about 6:20am!

This is Skrika, the concert that Caitlin sang in! Really, really good!

I had to give Forss, one of the kids in my group my camera for the weekend so he could edit the film into our video and I got my camera back with these pictures on it. (hahahahahahaha)

This is the political building in Örebro, they do an advent calander in it during the holiday times pretty cool!

Caitlin and I made ourself this great potatoe thing dinner!! It's the little things...

Here are the four of us guys that made Romeo and Juliet! There was a girl too but I don't have a picture of her...