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!
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The past week...
Well, the past week has been one of the biggest for me since I came to Sweden. The last thing I wrote was about Tuesday last week and well that is before stuff started happening.
Wednesday, I went to school and the big thing I did in school was film for Romeo and Juliet, we filmed most of the movie that one day and so I was doing that most of the day. After that I went to hang out with Caitlin for a little bit. It ended up that we hung out all day and made dinner together in the proccess. It was a proud day for us, we did it all ourselves! While I was out with Caitlin Eva called me and told me that Gunn, the president of my rotary club expressed intrest in hosting me in her home. About two hours later she called me back and told me that I would be moving on Sunday! I was pretty excited to hear this, the Ernestams are great people but I really wanted to experience a few host families while I am here, not just one or two. Eva had already told Ingela and Andreas and we talked about it a little bit, I think we all agreed it would be a good thing. They want me experience a lot while I am here as well. Wednesday was a good day.
Thursday, I had an open house at school and so I had to stick around after school to go and do that. I am part of the basketball program and so that I had a practice. We were showing what we do and so the school had different sports practicing in the gym throughout the whole night. We had a half an hour slot to practice and show what we are made of! It was a lot of fun! Before the practice though, I met up with a girl for coffee. She contacted me after seeing me in the paper and we met up. I talked to her for a few hours and it was a lot of fun, she is going to be an exchange student in either Washington, Oregon, or Maine next year. So I had a lot of fun talking with her, she is interested in where I come from and she is really nice! Her name is Pauline, I am sure we will meet again before the year is up.
Friday is when it all started, big day. Friday morning, I woke up and I knew it was going to be a big day. I went to school and did all the normal school stuff, I was supposed to film more and we were supposed to edit the Romeo and Juliet in class, but that didn't happen. I ended up waiting around school for a few extra hours and then I also had to give up my camera for the weekend so another kid in my class could edit it! After school I went home for just a half an hour to pack a little bit and then Ingela and I rode our bikes into town to meet the rest of the family for dinner. It was kind of supposed to be a last night together thing, it didn't turn out to be our last night together though. It was nice and we went to a chinese food place, none of us ate chinese but it was still really delicious. I had something I had never had before, it was a piece of meat, mashed potatoes, and vegetables, all on a mini cuttingboard and baked together, totally delicious. Ingela, Andreas and I then went to Skrika, a concert that Caitlin was singing and playing her chello in. It was in the Örebro Konserthuset, concert house, and so that was really cool, I had been there once before on culture night but this was better. Caitlin's school and one other school put it on together, I am sorry Lakeview but this was really impressive. I really enjoyedthe whole thing and it was almost three hours long. I got home close to ten thirty and started packing. I really needed to pack because knew I would not have much time to pack when I got home on Sunday. I packed, and got distracted, and packed, and got distracted, I got to sleep around 1:30am.
Saturday, I got up at 2:2oam and went on my way, I took a shower and rode my bike to Caitlins house. We met up before going to the bus stop together, Anita didn't think it would be a good idea for Caitlin to walk around by herself at 3am. We had to get bus tickets that left at 3:50am, if we didn't do that then we would have had to pay for a really expensive train ticket or we would have shown up to late. We both thought it would be kind of fun. We were on the bus and neither of us could sleep really, it was weird. We arrived at the station in Stockholm at 6:20. We decided to go to where we would meet everyone else because that place was more happening. We layed down on a bench and tried to sleep for about an hour before we got woken up by a security guard saying "We don't lay here in Sweden", he said it in Swedish but it still sounded awkward. We met up with some other kids that also got there early at about 7 and hung out in McDonalds for a few hours. We then moved to a new spot and waited for everyone else to come. I didn't totally know what to expect from this weekend but it turned out that there were 36 of us. There were two other districts, neither one that I had met before at a Rotary gathering but I did know a few of them from other trips. It's always a little intimidating to see so many new faces but everyone is friendly and by the end of one weekend you are all good friends! After everyone one had gathered we walked to gamlastan, the old city in Stockholm. Gamlastan is the place with all the tourist shops. We had some freetime at a christmas market and then we walked to the ocean and got on a ferry. We went across to another island in Stockholm and then walked some more to another place for lunch! We had the choice of chicken or beef, haha, and it was really good food. Some asian quizene, after that we walked to an ice scating rink and went ice scating! It was a lot of fun, ice scating is always a croud pleaser. After that we had a few hour of free time before we had to be at the hostel. Like good foreign exchange students should do in Sweden we went for a fika! Fiona, a french girl who is on exchange in Stockholm, took us to a very nice place and most of the 36 of us ended up there. We then made our way to the hostel and got our rooms and keys. We then went to dinner together and played some games with the rotary people and then all of us Newbies got some advice from the Oldies. It was a good day and I had a lot of fun, we hung out together after dinner and kind of just played some stupid games and did some fun stuff. All in all, great day together with Rotary, thank you Rotary :D.
Sunday, we woke up at 8 and took some showers. We then went downstairs and ate breakfast, it was a nice hostel. It was a kind of hostel where there were only 4 beds in each room and a TV. It was really nice, I stayed with Greame and Corbin, two Canadian kids, and Tom, an Australian that lives in Göteborg. After breakfast We all got together and packed our stuff into a little tiny car. We then walked to the train station and took a train and then to a bus station and took a bus. Then we walked, we did all this to get to Skansen, an open air museum in Stockholm. We went to the christmas market there and just kind of chilled for a few hours. While we were there we ate an interesting grease pancake thing, I liked it but I think it was bad for my health. We then walked back to the central station and Gunnar, our Rotary guardian left us to get home. We said our sad goodbyes and went on our way. Caitlin and I didn't make bus reservations before hand and we just expected to buy bus tickets like we always did, no big deal. It was actually a really big deal because for some reason everyone was in Stockholm that day, I think it was a big shopping weekend and Stockholm is the biggest city so we had a hard time getting out. It was either pay a bunch of money and get home really super late, or pay about the same as it would cost anyway and go to Västerås for a night. We have lots of exchange student friends in Västerås so we did that. We stayed with Giovanna and Greame and Alexa stayed there too. We sauna'd and were supposed to play videogames but never got around to it.
Monday, the unfortunate thing about doing this was that we had to catch a bus at 6am the on Monday morning, so we ran to the station at 5:30 and then waited on our bus for an hour before having to change trains at 7 to go to Örebro, I was totally asleep at this point and this journey sucked. I slept on the train for a few hours and we got into Örebro at 15 after 8, I was already too late to go andsee the showing of my Romeo and Juliet video so I just went to sleep on Caitlins couch for about 2 hours before we went to lunch with a Rotarian and his son. We had a nice lunch and made some good connections with some good people. I then went to school for about an hour and a half and watched some more Shakespeare plays that my friends and other 2nd graders had made. After school I met up with Caitlin again and we went to Andreas' parent's house to make candles! Caitlin had to leave right after she came to go to a Mary Kay training thing but I stayed and had dinner with them and Andreas, Ingela and Hanna were there as well! This was our last night together as me being a part of their family. It was fun and a good way to spend the last night with them. I went home and finished packing the last of my things, I have probably 3 times as much stuff now as I had before, it was crazy how much stuff I have. Finally the Ernestams took me home to my new host family.......
Will be continued Tomorrow!
Wednesday, I went to school and the big thing I did in school was film for Romeo and Juliet, we filmed most of the movie that one day and so I was doing that most of the day. After that I went to hang out with Caitlin for a little bit. It ended up that we hung out all day and made dinner together in the proccess. It was a proud day for us, we did it all ourselves! While I was out with Caitlin Eva called me and told me that Gunn, the president of my rotary club expressed intrest in hosting me in her home. About two hours later she called me back and told me that I would be moving on Sunday! I was pretty excited to hear this, the Ernestams are great people but I really wanted to experience a few host families while I am here, not just one or two. Eva had already told Ingela and Andreas and we talked about it a little bit, I think we all agreed it would be a good thing. They want me experience a lot while I am here as well. Wednesday was a good day.
Thursday, I had an open house at school and so I had to stick around after school to go and do that. I am part of the basketball program and so that I had a practice. We were showing what we do and so the school had different sports practicing in the gym throughout the whole night. We had a half an hour slot to practice and show what we are made of! It was a lot of fun! Before the practice though, I met up with a girl for coffee. She contacted me after seeing me in the paper and we met up. I talked to her for a few hours and it was a lot of fun, she is going to be an exchange student in either Washington, Oregon, or Maine next year. So I had a lot of fun talking with her, she is interested in where I come from and she is really nice! Her name is Pauline, I am sure we will meet again before the year is up.
Friday is when it all started, big day. Friday morning, I woke up and I knew it was going to be a big day. I went to school and did all the normal school stuff, I was supposed to film more and we were supposed to edit the Romeo and Juliet in class, but that didn't happen. I ended up waiting around school for a few extra hours and then I also had to give up my camera for the weekend so another kid in my class could edit it! After school I went home for just a half an hour to pack a little bit and then Ingela and I rode our bikes into town to meet the rest of the family for dinner. It was kind of supposed to be a last night together thing, it didn't turn out to be our last night together though. It was nice and we went to a chinese food place, none of us ate chinese but it was still really delicious. I had something I had never had before, it was a piece of meat, mashed potatoes, and vegetables, all on a mini cuttingboard and baked together, totally delicious. Ingela, Andreas and I then went to Skrika, a concert that Caitlin was singing and playing her chello in. It was in the Örebro Konserthuset, concert house, and so that was really cool, I had been there once before on culture night but this was better. Caitlin's school and one other school put it on together, I am sorry Lakeview but this was really impressive. I really enjoyedthe whole thing and it was almost three hours long. I got home close to ten thirty and started packing. I really needed to pack because knew I would not have much time to pack when I got home on Sunday. I packed, and got distracted, and packed, and got distracted, I got to sleep around 1:30am.
Saturday, I got up at 2:2oam and went on my way, I took a shower and rode my bike to Caitlins house. We met up before going to the bus stop together, Anita didn't think it would be a good idea for Caitlin to walk around by herself at 3am. We had to get bus tickets that left at 3:50am, if we didn't do that then we would have had to pay for a really expensive train ticket or we would have shown up to late. We both thought it would be kind of fun. We were on the bus and neither of us could sleep really, it was weird. We arrived at the station in Stockholm at 6:20. We decided to go to where we would meet everyone else because that place was more happening. We layed down on a bench and tried to sleep for about an hour before we got woken up by a security guard saying "We don't lay here in Sweden", he said it in Swedish but it still sounded awkward. We met up with some other kids that also got there early at about 7 and hung out in McDonalds for a few hours. We then moved to a new spot and waited for everyone else to come. I didn't totally know what to expect from this weekend but it turned out that there were 36 of us. There were two other districts, neither one that I had met before at a Rotary gathering but I did know a few of them from other trips. It's always a little intimidating to see so many new faces but everyone is friendly and by the end of one weekend you are all good friends! After everyone one had gathered we walked to gamlastan, the old city in Stockholm. Gamlastan is the place with all the tourist shops. We had some freetime at a christmas market and then we walked to the ocean and got on a ferry. We went across to another island in Stockholm and then walked some more to another place for lunch! We had the choice of chicken or beef, haha, and it was really good food. Some asian quizene, after that we walked to an ice scating rink and went ice scating! It was a lot of fun, ice scating is always a croud pleaser. After that we had a few hour of free time before we had to be at the hostel. Like good foreign exchange students should do in Sweden we went for a fika! Fiona, a french girl who is on exchange in Stockholm, took us to a very nice place and most of the 36 of us ended up there. We then made our way to the hostel and got our rooms and keys. We then went to dinner together and played some games with the rotary people and then all of us Newbies got some advice from the Oldies. It was a good day and I had a lot of fun, we hung out together after dinner and kind of just played some stupid games and did some fun stuff. All in all, great day together with Rotary, thank you Rotary :D.
Sunday, we woke up at 8 and took some showers. We then went downstairs and ate breakfast, it was a nice hostel. It was a kind of hostel where there were only 4 beds in each room and a TV. It was really nice, I stayed with Greame and Corbin, two Canadian kids, and Tom, an Australian that lives in Göteborg. After breakfast We all got together and packed our stuff into a little tiny car. We then walked to the train station and took a train and then to a bus station and took a bus. Then we walked, we did all this to get to Skansen, an open air museum in Stockholm. We went to the christmas market there and just kind of chilled for a few hours. While we were there we ate an interesting grease pancake thing, I liked it but I think it was bad for my health. We then walked back to the central station and Gunnar, our Rotary guardian left us to get home. We said our sad goodbyes and went on our way. Caitlin and I didn't make bus reservations before hand and we just expected to buy bus tickets like we always did, no big deal. It was actually a really big deal because for some reason everyone was in Stockholm that day, I think it was a big shopping weekend and Stockholm is the biggest city so we had a hard time getting out. It was either pay a bunch of money and get home really super late, or pay about the same as it would cost anyway and go to Västerås for a night. We have lots of exchange student friends in Västerås so we did that. We stayed with Giovanna and Greame and Alexa stayed there too. We sauna'd and were supposed to play videogames but never got around to it.
Monday, the unfortunate thing about doing this was that we had to catch a bus at 6am the on Monday morning, so we ran to the station at 5:30 and then waited on our bus for an hour before having to change trains at 7 to go to Örebro, I was totally asleep at this point and this journey sucked. I slept on the train for a few hours and we got into Örebro at 15 after 8, I was already too late to go andsee the showing of my Romeo and Juliet video so I just went to sleep on Caitlins couch for about 2 hours before we went to lunch with a Rotarian and his son. We had a nice lunch and made some good connections with some good people. I then went to school for about an hour and a half and watched some more Shakespeare plays that my friends and other 2nd graders had made. After school I met up with Caitlin again and we went to Andreas' parent's house to make candles! Caitlin had to leave right after she came to go to a Mary Kay training thing but I stayed and had dinner with them and Andreas, Ingela and Hanna were there as well! This was our last night together as me being a part of their family. It was fun and a good way to spend the last night with them. I went home and finished packing the last of my things, I have probably 3 times as much stuff now as I had before, it was crazy how much stuff I have. Finally the Ernestams took me home to my new host family.......
Will be continued Tomorrow!
Monday, November 29, 2010
Förlåt! Sorry!
Well I was stuck in Stockholm yesterday so I wasn't able to write in my blog! I have just moved into my new host family and so I don't have time to blog tonight. I will try and write tomorrow! Sorry again!
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