Swedish Government!

So here you can see on the bottom of the screen on the right-hand side there are little boxes and the picture doesn't show it to well but the boxes have the percentage of votes that each party has gotten. On the bottom left side you can see the three collabarative parties and there total amount of power they have.

The election for all of Sweden recently took place and I watched it on TV with my family the same as I would in the U.S. However the way the voting works and the way the outcome works is nothing at all like the U.S. First of all here in Sweden there are no Major parties like the Democrats and Republicans of The States, there are eight parties all of equal importance. When the citizens vote they vote on a local and national level. Here's the twist. Whatever percentage of votes a certain party gets, thats how much power they have in parliment, or decision making power however you want to say it. So for one party to actually win they have to get 50% of the votes. There are eight parties and I guess back in the day there was one party who consistently won with like 58% but now it's nothing like that. Now, the the parties semi-combine with other parties of like intrests and they are a collaborative force, they work together, but they don't have to work together. It is hard for me to explain and I am not sure if I did it well look at the pictures.

OVERVIEW: Basically whatever percent of votes a certain party gets, that's how much power they have in making decisions for the country as a whole.

So here is Wednesday and Thursday!

Mom sent Andreas and Ingela some "Swedish Fish" that they had never had before and while tasting Andreas said "Hmmm... Tastes Swedish." haha

all the comforts of home :D

Well Wednesday was just a day, normal as could be, I did get a package from my mother in the mail though and that was pretty exciting! Other then that, I went to school, went to my Rotary meeting and had fika with Lina and Caitlin. On Thursday I did the same stuff, went to school, had an english lesson and went to Caitlin's rotary club's meeting and then went back to school, had a Swedish lesson and then worked out in the school gym for about an hour. After that I came home and helped Andreas and Ingela take some wood back to a hardware store and ate some crepes with mushrooms inside, yummy. All in all a normal, good few days. I am leaving for Göteborg tomorrow to visit Kendra, the other foreign exchange student here from Oregon, it will be fun!!

måndag och tisdag!! (Monday and Tuesday)

Well it finally happened, I switched classes, it was great, totally great. I am so happy to be in this new second year class, I'm right here where I should be I think. I still wish I was in the third grade but this class is totally awesome and completely welcoming so I am really happy I ended up with them. On Monday I found out for sure that I was going to be in this grade and at first I was a little sad because I wanted to get in a third year class and graduate, then I realized how good this class is for me. The other first year class was cool too but they were just to scared or whatever and so I'm glad I switched, nothing personal SPB10. After school on Monday I went to visit Caitlin and we watched a movie on her big screen movie projector and that was pretty cool. I am glad to be here still, it's great. Today, on Tuesday I just had another good day and I met some new people and I went to IKEA. So I started of today with a normal haziness of a blurry morning and I went to school. School was really good, I had two classes with my class and then a Swedish class. After school I waited around in the town square for Caitlin to introduce me to her counselor and as I waited I saw a girl from school and we had a good talk. I was then introduced to Bjorn, Caitlins counselor and Bo was also there too. Bo is Caitlin's club president and I have met him before, he's a nice guy and it's always a pleasure. I then stopped by Eva's, my counselor's, house on my way home. I say her and said hi to everyone, everyone being her family, and then she said she was going to IKEA and asked if I wanted to come since I had never been. We went and it was fun, IKEA is a Swedish store and so it was cool to go to one in Sweden. I don't think I had ever been in one anywhere else either, good trip. We had a small fika at the food court thing in the IKEA and Eva bought me a little mouse stuffed animal :D she is a nice lady it was just cool to go. Then innebandy and home, great times. All in all a great few days!!

My weekend in Stockholm!!!!

Ahhh, I am getting the opportunity to travel a lot and if I can I am going to take these conversations up because who knows when I will get these opportunities ever again. I was invited, by Riley, to Stockholm this last weekend! The point of the whole trip was to go to Grönalund, the amusement park in Stockholm, and the only one on the eastern side of Sweden, I think. Caitlin and I both went and so we left early on Friday, 11:36 to be exact. We rode a bus because there wasn't a good time to take the train and for some reason the train costs a little more money so, we rode the bus! It wasn't a bad ride at all, it was supposed to take two hours and fourtyfive minutes but it got in fifteen minutes early so it only took two and a half hours! Yay! I am from Lakeview, almost the official middle of nowhere, so the two and a half our ride didn't even phase me. We got in and it just so happens that right at that very moment Riley and Yusuke walked to the station, we stopped to take a picture and BOOm, there they were. Riley and Yusuke live in Stockholm so we were in good hands to get around. The weekend was full of us running out of these little stamp ticket things that you need to get around and having us being forced to sneak around bus drivers and getting lucky a lot with open subway stations, for some reason they were just open a lot. We walked around a little first off and then we decided to go back to Rileys house where we were staying because we didn't want to carry our stuff around all day. It just so happened that Riley's host sister had five or six friends from Göteborg staying at their house the same weekend. It was interesting to meet the friends and they were a lot of fun too! They all went clubbing in the city and so we decided to not be lame and go at least walk around a little in the city and so we did, Stockholm is great at night, by the way. When we were going to head home we missed the last buss and so we had to figure out another way to get back, the best we could do is get close to his house. We ended up only a half an hour walking distance from his house, a power-walking half an hour, Caitlin cannot normal walk, only power walking/jogging status. We met up on Saturday morning with the other students that were going to Grönalund, there were about 15 of them, I think, there were a lot. It was a mix of Newbies and Oldies and we had a fun time. It poured down the entire time we were in the park and they even closed some of the rides because of it but later on they opened them back up. We exchange students had already spent over 300 krowns to get in so we decided to not buy the 50 krown rain ponchos that we probably should have. We were all completely soaked! We went on all the rides though, literally all the rides. When we got back from the park Riley's host dad, really, really nice and interesting man, had a great meal prepared! We ate crawdads and Swedish meatballs, it was absolutly delicious, we had to crack the crawdads ourselves and that was actually pretty fun. Saturday night we went to chill in town with all the students together and then we ended up having five kids stay at Rileys house, Rugved, Yusuke, Caitlin, Abbi, and me all stayed at his house. It is an amazing feeling when you stay in a house with five other kids your age from all over the world, it's indescribable. We went back into the city on Sunday before me and Caitlin had to take our train home from Stockholm at 7 or 19:00. All in all a great, fun weekend that I am so glad that I got to have. I am deeply appreciative to Rileys host family and I'm thankful that I got invited, it was a great time.