Well....

I left it at kind of a hanging point, I hope this brought you all back :D. The Ernestams took me home to my new family the Högbergs! I traded in my bike key and house key for a bus card and a door code. I felt it was time to change and Gunn, my new host mommy, expressed intrest in hosting me. I was very interested of course, it has been four months and that means a third of the year is gone, already, I don't really know where it went it seems like such a short, long time. I got home to the Högbergs and pretty much just went to sleep, we talked a little and I ate a little but it was a long weekend and I felt it was time to get some sleep. Monday was a good day, a lot happened and for me that is always good!

Tuesday started off with a nice thing, a ride to school. You are having a much better day when you ride to school in a car with heated seats than when you pedal to school into the snow, haha. Seriously though I was not in the mood to bike and it worked out nicely that Gunn was headed to work the same time as had to be at school so I got a ride. I live on almost the opposite side of town now and I also live a little farther away from school so when I got to school on Monday I talked to my counselor, Evalena, and she helped me greatly by getting me a bus card. Thank you so much Evalena, you have made my life so much nice in this cold Swedish winter. Lakeview has about the same temperature as Sweden but the major difference is that I am never outside when I am in Lakeview, I go from heated house, to heated car, to heated school. No big deal, I can wear flip-flops in the Lakeview winter if I try hard enough because I don't need to go outside! That made for a really good Tuesday at school, other then that I think it was just a normal school day. I rode the bus home and organized my room a little more, I had a lot of things to pack into a little space. My room is a little smaller in my new home and so it was kind of hard to fit everything but I actually think it's perfect, it doesn't need to be any bigger then it is! Gunn's son and his girlfriend and another friend, that is a girl, came over for dinner and it was nice to meet them and I found out that the two girls go to Virginska, in the haircutting program. We ate some deliciouse lasagna and salad. After I shared my first meal with them as a family we just kind of hung out while the girls cut some hair here in the house, I talked to Gunn's son a little and he seems like a really nice guy, his name is Emil. I then went to innebandy, luckily, again, Gunn gave me a ride! I am still going to play innebandy with Andreas on Tuesday nights because Andreas is a great guy and I really enjoy playing innebandy with him and everyone else. After innebandy I went to Eva Sape's house and hung out with Severin a little before coming home. I believe it was a good first day at my new home!

Wednesday, it was a "study day" and therefore all the gymnasium's in the Örebro lan area got the day off. I guess the other kids were actually studying but I am not to worried about it, my grades, which I don't get, are as good as they could be. I slept, I slept a lot for a long time, about 12 or thirteen hours, I love sleeping! I was at home and alone so I decided it was time to clean my room and put everything away, and so that is what I did. I got everything hidden away in my little room and so now it is absolutely perfect for what I need it for, sleeping in! Caitlin and Jessica, Jessica is an exchange student from Australia who lives in a little town 40 kilometers away, and I showed them my new house. We just kind of hung out a little and they left after an hour or so. I then, with the guidence of Gunn and her friend Catherine, I made myself dinner. On the menu today was a nice peice of hamburger with good spices and potatoes grottis, a salad on the side as well. It was a big success, I basically did it myself and it actually tasted really good. Gunn and Catherine went to see a concert of a swedish singer Rasmus Seebach and so I had a little more chill time. I then hung out with my new host sisters Kajsa and Rjama for a little bit before hitting the hay. I also spent a little time with Thomas, the man of the house!

Thursday, back to school, that sucks. I really enjoy school though actually, the worst part is waking up in the morning. I went to the bus stop and chilled for about five minutes before the bus came. There is a girl in my class that rides the same bus as me and she showed me a little trick, I can get off at a stop closer to the school, it doesn't really seem closer but it is a lot closer. I hadn't really talked to her much before and so that was kind of cool, I will be seeing her a lot now! I really don't know what I did either? That was just yesterday but I don't think I did anything after school at all, interesting. In the evening I went with Gunn to pick up Anna, a French girl who is here singing in the French National Choir. We got one song sang for us and that was pretty cool. Anna is a nice girl who is now living in London working but is still on the French National Choir and is of course French born. We had a delicious dinner prepared by Catherine, Gunn's friend. We went to bed a little late but it was good because we were talking and bonding, I know I am going to get along well with this new family. Thursday was also a great day.

Today, Friday is always a good day I mean it's the end of the week, nothing can be too bad. I started off this morning with a bowl of vanilla filmjölk and some Special K cereal. I then took a shower and ran to catch the bus because it seemed like I was going to be late. I don't live very far away, from out the door I can get there in a little over a minute if I am running. I went to school and it was still pitch black outside when I stepped off the bus at 7:40. This morning all the kids in my class, myself included, put on a little world show and tell for some little kids. A few weeks ago we started a project in Sports Leadership class and that project was basically to just make an activity that helped educate younger children about a certain area of the world. Today we got to actually do it, a bunch of 7.9 year old kids were brought to the gym at my school and they walked around to see Australia, Africa (which was my group), and two other places that I can't remember or maybe never actually knew. The kids did different activities and it was a lot of fun. My group played charades with them on African animals or in swedish "Afrikansk djur", that was fun. Little kids don't speak English so I had to speak Swedish with them, it was a lot of fun. Luckily I was on a team so I didn't have to do all the talking but I did do a little of the talking and it was good for me. I love the Swedish school system doing things that are real and hands on is great and I think keeps going to school a lot more interesting and fun. The rest of the school day was just that, a normal school day. After school I went to meet up with Pauline again, she is the girl that will be going to either Washington, Oregon, or Maine next year, we also met last week. We had a nice fika and just hung out for a little bit. I then got on a bus to go home, I went home for about a half an hour and ate dinner before leaving again to go and watch Anna sing. I went and it was really good, surprisingly good almost, I was just really impressed, not necessarily surprised. I enjoyed it a lot and then I showed Anna how to get home, she is only going to be here for the weekend but still it is a good thing to know. I love making these world connections, Anna is also a very nice girl. We then ate dinner and talked for a few hours. I am fitting in to this family just fine and I can already tell that the time I spend here is going to be a lot of fun and I am going to learn a lot of Swedish. All is well in my world,

Gabe


Will post the, what seems like thousands, of pictures tomorrow!