First Day of Vacation!!

Trick or Treaters in Sweden!

Typical Swedish meal prepared by my host Grandmother!! Mmmmmm

Fläder, drink made from flowers, like lemonade kinda, really really good.

Close game.

Well today started off for me at about 12:30pm when Eva called me and invited me to her daughter Theresia's birthday! I needed th extra sleep and I decided to take the opportunity of a sleepy Saturday. When I woke up the only plans I had were too go to Hanna's basketball game that she had today. I woke up and had some breakfast, then just kinda lounged around the house and watched some TV until about two when we had lunch. Andreas made lunch, it was ramen noodles and soy sauce and, a salad, haha, doesn't sound so amazing but it was pretty good. After lunch Hanna left for her game and I again just kinda chilled out and watched TV. I took a shower and then rode to the idrottshuset where Hanna had her game. It was a good game and her team played really good. Unfortunately they lost control at then end and lost by just a few points but it was a good game none the less. Andreas' parents were there and after the game they invited us to dinner at their house. We had a traditional Swedish meal of cabbage wrapped meatballs, basically, and potatoes and vegetables and lingonberries. They told me the meal was classic Swedish. While we were eating a few trick or treaters came to the door and I was pretty impressed with their costumes. The family told me that Halloween isn't big here at all and it's just been in the past few years that they started celebrating it. Here in Sweden they only get a few trick or treaters, maybe 10 each year. They told me it totally came from the US and that their big celebration is next week on all saints day whre they go to the cemetary and light candles on the graves. I'll experience that whole thing next week and tell you about it. Anyway it was a good day and I ate some good Swedish food and spoke a little Swedish with my host Grandparents!!!

P.S. I want to tell you about the crazy thing that has happened here in Örebro over the political election. There are 130,000 people living here in Örebro and there are 7 different parties to vote for. The election came down to 1 vote. One of the parties won by a single vote. This is real, they even said it on the news and now they will most likely have another voting session because two votes for Örebro were taken somewhere else and were supposed to be shipped here to be counted but they got lost on the way. I can't believe that in over 100,000 votes it came down to a difference of 1 votes' to me, that is totally amazing. They said this is the first time it's ever happened in Sweden.

Last day of school before fall break!

This is me in college

From left to right: Russia, Iraq, Colombia, Pakistan, Sweden, Peru, USA, Sweden

First KitKat I've seen here bur I guess they're common

Somebody at the book fair who was selling chocolate

They had a stage where they were interviewing authors

This means cold. Most are blue but some are green, intersting...

hot

Mely, she is a really nice women in my Rotary club that has done a lot for me!

The stand!

Well the last day of school before being off for nine days was, for me, one class! Oh yes, one class. I didn't have basketball because my coach wasn't there today and I had to go do a little volunteer work so I didn't go to leadership, I didn't need to go to leadership anyway though because all we were doing was handing in a paper that I've already handed in. That cut my day down to Swedish. I had one Swedish class that went a little long, I was in the class for about an hour and a half and I pretty much just talked Swedish with another student the whole time. I enjoy Swedish and I am going to have a lot of fun with it when I get back to Oregon. I started at 12:00 and ended about 1:30, ahhhhh this is the life. After school I went to the castle to "work" at a stand selling books in order to raise money for Pakistan. I just talked to people and took money, that went from 2-4 and it was pretty good. I was outside but on the inside of the castle they were having a book fair and so I went to check that out too. It was a pretty big thing, lots of authors and a few really famous ones from Sweden, I like doing stuff like that. After I was done with that I went home because it was freezing cold, I planned on working out but I decided to just go home because I was really cold. It was warm this morning and so I didn't dress properly. I went home and dropped my stuff off. Then I went to a pizzeria thats close to my house to get a pizza because Ingela and Andreas had to work late. Andreas told me I had to fend for myself for dinner so I got a pizza, haha. I had kebab pizza becaus kebab pizza is the best. I am really going to miss kebab pizza when I go back to the US because it is so good and I don't ever remember seeing it in the US. I ate my pizza and then just chilled and watched movies for the next few hours, I was feeling lazy. Life was good today!

Well I can say the last two weeks have been pretty fun :D

sunrise from my house

birthday candle things, not sure what they were exactly

speech at the party

my locker has a real lock

my locker is tiny

flower in our house that I decided to take a picture of, Ingela always has flowers and pretty stuff

Hanna with the present from me

food

making glogg with Riley and Caitlin

Ingela was the one diecting the glogg making

group at the castle

Distric Govenors from all over Scandinavia

listening to speeches

above a doorway, on the church in town

first Mountain Dew in Sweden, ahh

I was a goaly at innebandy practice, just to try it, it was really fun!



I see that I have been gone a while, you can tell by all the pictures and I am sorry for my absence it's just that there has been a lot going on for me. I was overwhelemed by the idea of blogging every night. I am back in the blogging way of life and I shall stay here hopefully until I return to the US. Well, lets start from the bottom, shall we? Riley came to town for the district conference being held here in Örebro and he stayed with me. We had some fun while he was here, there were supposed to be more kids staying here with me and Caitlin but they all dropped out so it was just the three of us. We made some memories though and it was a lot of fun still. All the kids in my district had to come for the day though, just for the day to be at the district conference and present ourselves to the whole district. We were there for about five hours listening to speeches and then we got up on stage and said our names, where we were from, where we live now, and what we liked. It was kinda weird to me but oh well, I am not running things, I showed up and did what we were supposed to do and got a free lunch. It was a good day and we got to show all the kids around Örebro and around the old castle, we saw a part of the castle I had never seen before and that was kinda cool because it was like a little museum. Me and Riley went to a birthday party with Eva and Karl Sape and that was pretty fun. We hung out with Caitlin and one of her friends, Elin it was all good and I think Riley enjoyed his time here in Örebro. After that I just had a few normal days that I can't really remember so I didn't do anything important. I went to Stockholm on Wednesday for a surprise going away party for one of the exchange students that has to go home because of a family issue and I went back to Örebro and I got really sick all weekend. Therefore it was a boring weekend. After that I have had this week some more birthdays. On Monday it was Hanna's birthday and that was pretty cool, it was like all the other birthdays and the grandparents came over and had dinner, then some of Hanna's friends came over and we had cake, it was really good. I think that Hanna really liked the present I got her, I being my mom, and that just makes you feel good inside. Tuesday I played innebandy with Andreas and took a good solid nap before that. Wednesday I went to a birthday party for another person with Eva and I had a really fun time. Before the party I hung out with Caitlin a little and bought my first scarf. I bought it on the internet because if you buy one in any store here it's at least 32 US dollars so I bought one online for about 10 with shipping, pretty good. I have to have scarf here, it's to cold to not have one and I ride my bike everywhere so I really extra need one. It is not weird for any guy to wear a scarf here it is actually more normal to have one then to not have one, at least at this time of year. I feel happy because it is a big change from what I am used to and that's what this whole experience is all about, new stuff. My style will probably be a little different by the end of the year and that's ok with me, it's part of this experience. The birthday party with Eva though was a lot of fun and I had an experience tha was totally different and that meant holding big candle type things and marching down a street with a bunch of people towards the birthday woman's house. I felt more like a mob but I guess it's a Swedish thing so she wasn't scared. I knew a bunch of people at the party but it was huge, she was a friend of the Sape's, her name is Anne Montague and I have known her for a while I know her whole family, I met them when I was with the Sape's at a horseriding event. She turned 50 years old and that is a big thing here in Sweden so there were tons of people and really good food! Today I have done pretty much nothing but school and a fika with the Severin and Anders. It has been a good day, I love to fika so that makes it even better and I took a nap for a few hours so that was really rally nice. All in all the past few weeks have been really good and I've told you absolutely everything important that has happened. Once again I am sorry for not writing but sometimes I just need to live life.

Much love,

Gabe

P.S. Glogg. Glogg is an common christmas drink that people make at home. It is alcoholic and has beer, potatoes, and a bunch of spices in it. It is supposed to sit for 6 weeks and during that time it smells good. The Ernestams have made it three or four times before and they are doing it just because it's a tradition! Smells really good though!!!

I'm still here!

I am still in Sweden, nothing has happened to me I am just fine. I stoppe blogging for a little while, I needed a break from it and I have been very busy. I will get back to normal blogging tomorrow, no worries. I will tell you a little about what I have done in my time away from this website but I can't go into intense detail because I don't remember everything that's happened. I just wanted to say this so none of you would worry! Check back tomorrow for a report on what I have been doing!

Much Thanks,
Gabe