Andreas' födelsdagen! en bra dag för alla!!

My birthday gifts to Andreas, the card sings!

there were two pieces of fish here, mmmm

It was Andreas birthday and it turned out to be a really good day for me too :D. It started at 6am with a song! After the song we had breakfast, Kajsa had sent Andreas some Vege-mite which is an Australia thing that they eat a lot, its just yeast and it looks like chocolate and comes in a tube. I got to try some of that and it was... interesting, not bad not amazing either but it was different. Then I had to go to Basketball practice for my school, on Fridays it starts at 8am. After a good practice session I came home and cleaned up my room in anticipation of the party that was going to happen in the night! I went back to my school and worked out a little before class. I only had two classes, Svenska and leadership. I got my first homework assignment since I've been here, a one page, front and back, paper on the specific coaching style of a certain coach. I have three weeks to do it, haha. I love my experiences with Swedish school. After school I just hung around for a little bit with a few teachers, I have quite a few young teachers in my program and I just kinda hung out with them and talked. It's really nice to have that kind of a relationship with your teachers, it makes class time a lot more enjoyable. After that I met up with Caitlin and went for FIKA! I hadn't gone for fika in about two weeks and I really missed it, it was nice to go finally after all that time, I will truly miss the fika culture when I get back to the U.S. I met up with Caitlin in order to find Andreas a present, I think I found some pretty good ones. While out shopping I also found some cheap gloves that I can have for winter, that was a really good find because I needed some gloves badly. We split up and I went home to help get ready for the party, it was a surströmming party! Sur means sour and strömming is a type of fish so basically surströmming is rotted fish. I have heard about this stuff and it is totally Swedish. It smells horrible, horrible. I knew that it smelled bad and they let me open the first can, the trick is to open it under a bucket of water so it doesn't spray bad smelling juices all over you, they told me that but I said I didn't want to do it that way. I didn't do it that way, I opened it out of the bucket of water and had fart smelling, rotted fish juice on me, on my shirt, in my hair, it wasn't pretty. I took a shower right away and shampooed my hair, vigorously, and luckily the smell came out. They told me what to do, I just didn't listen, I wasn't mad or anything and I don't regret it haha I got to experience the surströmming up close and personal. It wasn't just the can that smelled bad, it was the fish. I tried the fish too, I had to, I'm in Sweden why not :D. It didn't taste bad at all, the thing was that I could still smell it when it was in my mouth, that part was not enjoyable. I was sitting next to Rebecca, a friend of Andreas' daughter and she told me that I tried it once and that i didn't need to do it again, I think I'll listen to that. I am definately glad I ate it though, it was a fun experience! It was a good little party and I had fun! I experienced Australia and strong smelling Sweden today, it was a great, great day. I think I will remember this day and expect it to be a good one from now on!!

Am I getting sick!?

I literally did nothing today. I went to school and had english and then swedish and then I came home and slept for a few hours. I woke up for dinner and watched a movie. Was going to go visit Caitlin but I just felt exhausted so I didn't. Now I think I am going to go to sleep again for the night. Just a chill day. I am wondering why I am so tired? Could I be getting sick again? I hope not! Anyway, this was just a day, a really boring day.

I'm a presentation now :D

Today I woke up early to go and talk at Lina's, one of my friends's, english class! Waking up early was horrible but going to the class and speaking was really fun! I enjoy talking to people and it was fun to just be there and talk about the U.S. and where I live and everything. I took a book that my Mom made for me that just kind of introduces me and says who I am and where I come from and I think that was really helpful. Still thought a lot of the kids I meet here are really shy. I wouldn't think they would be and not every single one of them is but it is common to be shy here. It took the kids a while to warm up to me and ask me questions, and the whole I speak English and they speak swedish most of the time, that probably didn't help anything either. Still though, public speaking infront of my peers is always good and I can use as much practice at that as I can get! I really hope to be speaking better swedish in a few months, I need to speak Swedish. I realize it's not going to just happen, I have to try to learn, but I think it will get easier after a few months. After doing that, I went to basketball practice with my school, that was fun and I am having to challenge myself more and more to keep up with these players, they're really good. I then went to my Rotary meeting and talked to Melli, a women who has been really involved with me and with helping me do things, and she invited me to go golfing with her husband and son. I went home and slept a little before golfing and I really had a good time when I did go golfing. There are three golfers in my class and I saw two of them at the course, I realized that I want to learn how to golf. Golfing isn't so easy, you can't just start playing 18 holes, I want to get better and to be able to play 18 holes. All in all it was a great day! I am just happy to be here and to be living life!!

Tuesday!

On my way to the football meeting!

Today was again, just another day. I woke up and had to be at school by 9:30, in my P.E. class we are doing a physical fitness (I think Swedish is getting to me, I just tried to spell fitness as phytness) program so thats always fun. After that I had English which basically consisted of me doing the assignment in twenty minutes and then helping the other kids do their assignments also. It's great to know so much about English, I just wish I knew a little more about Swedish. Caitlin visited a Swedish class at my school today, just to see how it was and because she had a long break inbetween her classes. It was fun showing her a little bit of my school that she hadn't seen before. After school I went home and relaxed for about an hour and then Ingela came home and I talked to her and kind of helped with dinner. Right after dinner I rode my bike into town to attend a meeting for the American Football team here in Örebro. It was good to go to the meeting but it lasted two hours and that meant me missing innebandy, too bad, I really like innebandy. All in all a great day of not too much happening :D

Monday, October 4th...

Today was Kanelbullens Day, so I ate three bullar in celebration!! :D

Well, today was not much of a day. Don't take that the wrong way, I am very content with my day today, I just didn't do much. I woke up and went to school, then I went to the gym before leaving school and then the post office before coming home. After I got home I didn't leave, at all, I just chilled and that was actually really nice. Life here is so much different from my life in Lakeview, I never had days that I didn't see a friend. Even if I didn't want to see friends in Lakeview, I always did. No matter if I didn't leave my house people always came over, it is totally great to have that in Lakeview, I love that life but here is just... different. I like the different, I am embracing it and I just hope I don't get too lazy doing nothing!

Karlstan!

So today I went on another little road trip with my host parents. Basically the point of the whole trip was to pick up Hanna from a weekend reunion with kids she went to a camp with this summer. Since we were going so far though already I gues Ingela and Andreas decided we should do something while we were there! Therefore we went to a museum, a museum on the province that Karlstan is contained in. It was pretty cool seeing all the really old things in the museum and I found out a little more about Swedish history. We ate brunch at a little restaurant in the museum and then we picked up Hanna and came home! I slept most the way in the car, that was really nice. I saw some good culture too, all in all a good day where we just chilled. When dinner time came around we ate soup and crepés, an actually semi-common meal, I've eaten it several times since I've been here, delicious.

Bra dag!