Well I just figured it out, it's been exactly 159 days or 22 weeks and 5 days since I left my home in Lakeview. and now figuring that out I feel so independant. I feel like I am at a big point in my year and in my life. I'm sixteen and I live far far away from where I was born, from where all my family is, but it doesn't bother me. I know that I can handle myself out here in the real world, it's not like I am totally on my own, I have a great family behind me here and a lot of other poeple that care about me. I just feel like there is a lot to this whole experience and I am enjoying it all.
Sorry it has been so long since I have written but I have been very busy since the holidays have been around, enjoying all of it!
Thursday, December 16th Karrofesten!! Thursday was a fun day, a really fun day because it was Karrofesten! I went to one Karroest before and I had a really fun time, it is a dance put on by the Karrolinska school, Caitlin goes there. Anyone can go to the party and so I bought a ticket and decided to go, hardly anyone from my school, Virginska, goes to these Karrofest dances but I am onl here for a year and so want to have as much fun as posible. It was a pretty normal day, I went to school like normal and had a few classes. I think I am getting the Swedish a lot more now because when I sit in class I actually understand some stuff, definately not everything but a lot more then the first month and half. I have a picture of two kids armwrestling, it was a long break between classes and we were messing around in "The Ocean", I love my school. After school I went to meet Pauline for a fika before going home to get stuff for the dance! We ended up meeting Caitlin as well, she just got done with school and came to meet Pauline because I don't think they had met before that. I met up with some of my friends at karro when I bought my ticket. I went home to get some stuff before the dance and I met up with Tommy and ate little before leaving quickly. I met up with some friends before the dance to get ready. All of the Karrofest dances have different themes and for this one it was YouTube so I dressed up as the Angry Ginger Kid I did this just buy writing some of his quotes on a white shirt :D. Now that night was one of the weirdest nights of my life, I didn't get into the dance because I couldn't speak Swedish, one of the guards kicked me out of the line and took my ticket. I was going in with my friends when he grabbed me and asked me something and I didn't understand so I asked if he could say it in English and he just said no and kicked me out of the line. I then couldn't get in because I didn't have a ticket, it was stupid but that's how it worked out so oh well, at the time though I was really mad. It was still a good night, I had a good time anyways but I wish I would have been able to go in. I went to sleep at Eva's house, my counselor, because she lives really close to where the dance was at. Weirdest day ever.
Friday, I went to practice in the morning just like every Friday, and it was a lot of fun. We played a bunch of games to figure out who was the best Santa, the games were all shooting drills and stuff and I didn't win. Herman I bet on him winning, so I told him he owed me some of the candy prize, I didn't get anything. At school they had Julbord which is a spread of the classic Christmas food, "Julbord" is literally translated as "Christmas table". I enjoyed the good food and went home to sleep right after school because I was really tired from the day before. I woke up and hung out with Tommy a little bit, we went to the store and recycled some stuff, it was a good night of just chillin. And eating good food, mmm I love the good food.
Saturday I kind of had a lazy morning, just enjoying sleep and everything, it's always like that on Saturday. I got in contact with one of my friends from my class, he lives in Adolfsberg also and we decided to meet up one of these days so that's what we did. I met up with him at the ICA, a grocery store, and we went sauna-ing. His name is Jesper Forss and he is half Finish. Therefore we had a Finish style sauna, really hot and a hitting branch thing. I don't know how to explain it, he just said that there was a special stick that you hit each other with and I was scared for a minute till I saw it. It was just some birch, I think birch, tree branches lashed together and like frozen for packaging, it actually came from Finland. Jesper told me that normally you just go out to the forrest and make one yourself but since we live in a city and it's not Finland you can buy them as well. So we sauna'd and hit each other with the branches and jumped in the cold snow naked, twice. It was a very productive sauna visit, we then went to his house to meet his family and eat dinner. They were very, very nice people and I am really glad to have met them, I will go back again soon. I met his whole family and ate with them, that was really cool. We then watched a movie and hung out, he does gymnastics and so we see each other in the gym alot and he goes to my class. He's a good friend.
Sunday, I woke up and went to Eva's house to help her get ready for a party she was having. Her kids were there and I hung out and helped get ready for the party, it was actually a lot of fun. Unfortunately I had another party to go to that day as well! I was at Eva's party for a little bit and I thought it would be fun to go meet some more of my host family, it was Tommy's niece's birthday. Her name is Beatrice, she goes by Bea, and she was turning fifteen. It was a lot of fun, I met a bunch of my new extended host family! I think it is really funny that when I am around everybody want's all the kids to speak English, I just find it so funny. Most kids are really good at English just shy and my new host family is no exception, they can all speak English they are just a little shy to do it, which is fine with me! I need the Swedish so it is cool to speak Swedish even though I am not so good at it, as long as we can talk :D. We did the whole birthday thing with a fika and all, I love birthdays, we also sang happy birthday! After that we went to watch an annual soccer tournament that happens where my host cousin lives, in Odensbacken. It turns out that a friend of mine from my class lives in Odensbacken and was playing in that very same soccer tournement! It's a surprisingly small world, no matter where you go you see people in interesting places :D. It was a good day all in all and it definately helped in building my confidence with Swedish!!
Monday, again a good day. There was another dance on the Tuesday, the difference between this one and the last is that this was Gymnasiumfest and my whole class was going. Also this one was being held at the Ritz, club and so everybody thought it was cool and wanted to go. Anyway, the theme was black and white and so after school me and a bunch of guys from my class went walking around and shopping for the dance, the girls came to give us some good advice. It was a good school day and really the last school day until Christmas break, so during the day it was great as well :D. When I came home I remembered that it was also Christmas candy making day, that made me happy. We made 4 different kinds of Christmas candy, little chocolate cups with orange cream stuff inside them, this stuff called knäck, stuff called kola, and finally French nougat. It was a lot of making these different kinds of candy, I had never had knäck or kola before but they were both really good and it was nice to have a little different spin on Christmas candy. Nicklas, Gunn's oldest son came over and we hung out and he helped with the candy making thing a little. It was a good day as well and I enjoyed eating a few of the freshly made candies.
Tuesday, the day of the second dance. It all started with a volleyball tournament in my school, which I was late to because I couldn't figure out where to go, haha. Some people told me one place, I went there first and it was the other team from my class so then I went to the other place that I thought it was at and it wasn't there either. Luckily I eventually found the right place and met up with my team right as they were beating another team in their second game. We were dressed up as superhero's and our team name was Sven. We were all dressed up the same, normal clothes and capes, except Jesper Foss, he was dressed up as a Muslim. Sometime in between the second and third game, right when I showed up we decided to lose our shirts, and pants. So all of us guys were out there in sports shorts and capes, it was good, we beat another team and made it into the quarterfinals. Unfortunately we lostin the quarterfinals and it was over. After that we went home before meeting up again to go to the dance. That was probably the longest four or so hours of my life, just waiting to go to the party. I met up with a couple kids from my class before the party and got ready with them. I luckily got in to the dance this time and it was mostly becuase I spoke English. It's interesting how living in a different place sometimes helps you and sometimes hurts you :D. It was a lot of fun in the party and I was really happy I got to see the inside of the Ritz, it's a cool club. I went to Caitlin for a little bit before going home, and that night was the longest walk of my life. It's rough sometimes, riding the bus, I wanted to stay till the end of the Ritz party and because that was so late there were no busses going back to my house at that time so I ended up walking with my bike home. I thought I had lost the key and I was freaking out about it a big part of the night but I found it later, it was a long walk home, with a little bit of bike riding when I found my key. Basically it was a great night but I was out in the cold walking home for a little over an hour, that wasn't fun! A good day filled with friends and dancing haha!!!
Wednesday, the last day of school for three weeks, yes this is the life. It started really late, 11:30 to be exact and all we did was play some question games and go to the Saint Nikoli church. At the Saint Nikoli Kyrkan, kyrkan means church, we listened to a lot of music from our school. They sang songs, and we talked about the really meaning of Christmas and stuff it was pretty cool, definately a good idea for the last day of school. After that we all went to a restaurant and ate a goodbye meal. We went to Jensens Böfhus which is a Danish based restaurant but has locations all over Sweden as well and ate cheap steak. It was the rarest cooked steak I have ever eaten and it tasted delicious, luckily I am still alive too! Really good food. After the meal four of us went bowling together, bowling is always fun but this time it was really good because it wasn't simply bowling. It was a bowling slash skittles party. A friend of mine from my class had a bag of skittle from France and I had some that my dad had sent me. We ate skittle and bowled together before saying goodbye to each other before the break. I found out then that my friends are pretty decent bowlers, I got a 136 which is pretty good for me and I got third out of the four of us. I like going to the sports program because everybody is pretty athletic, keeps things with a friendly competetiveness. After that I went to the Nikoli church again with Eva for a little Christmas concert put on by a few people in my Rotary club. Gunn went too with a friend of hers from another town close by. Before the concert I met Eva's husband's mother and we talked in Swedish for a good 15 to 20 minutes, that felt good. The concert was absolutely great, it was just a choir but a very good choir. After the concert I went with Gunn and her friend for a nice dinner where I talked almost all Swedish, I really do think my Swedish is going well sometimes. Great day, no more school!
Thursday was my big shopping day, I had a lot of things to do and a lot of things to buy. I went in to town fairly early because I wanted to get a good jump on the day. I went into town at 10am and was out of town at 6pm, I think, it was a lot of shopping. I saw a lot of friends and fika'd twice. It was a good day and I enjoyed it quite a bit, most importantly I got Christmas presents. I got back at home and Gunn and I ate dinner before everyone else came home because we were hungry, haha love my host mom. The rest of the Family came back and we watched the big day before Christmas Eve bingo lotto show. It was awesome, Gunn always buys tckes to this thing, one for everybody in the house and we play bingo lotto, it is a lot of fun and although no one in this family won anything, people we know won stuff, one of Nicklas' friends won a prize that was worth like 10,000 krowns, pretty good I would say. So that was a lot of fun and it felt like a nice relax time right before the big day! I had fun chillin with my family but I talked a bunch with my family in the US too, good day. I think it was that day that I woke up at 5am the next day to talk on the Radio with Lakeview!
Finally, it came to the 24th, the big day in Sweden, the big big day. We woke up and ate a good breakfast together, I love food and Christmas food is the best, I had no Idea how much of it I was going to eat in the next two days. After breakfast I got a ride to the Saint Nikoli church again to go to the Christmas morning service, there were so many people there. I met up with Eva, Severin, and Theresia and they said that there was normally a third the amount of people there, so I guess that's pretty good :D. I then went home with the Sape's and then to their farmor, Karl's mother, who lived just down the street. I met all of Karl's brothers and their children and did Christmas the Swedish way. We sang songs, songs about santa and a lot of other Christmas things and some not Christmas things. I enjoyed it, I got to experience something witha different family. I then got picked up from there by Nicklas and taken home for Christmas, Family style :D. Nicklas came and Emil with his girlfriend Mathilda, so the whole family was there, we ate an awesome Christmas dinner with the Christmas ham and everything. We opened presents and then just chilled for a few hours. Somewhere in there Caitlin texted me and she came over to hang out as well. It was a really great Christmas and I ate two really good meals, and got some really cool things from my host family, it's not all about stuff but I am really surprised and thankfull for what they got me :D. It was a great day and I was happy I got it a whole day sooner! In Seden they do it all on the 24th even though their Christmas holiday is three days, th 24th, 25th, and 26th they do all the fun stuff on the 24th.
Saturday, Christmas day, I had another two Christmas dinners. 2010 is going down as the year of 4 Christmas dinners in Sweden. I wokeup and hung out with everybody for a few hours when I remembered that Gunn's sister was coming over with her family and they were going to do a little Christmas with them. We ate a Christmas turkey this time and it was awesome, Gunn asked me if it was the same as home and I said no because it could never be the same as home :D no comparisons made what-so-ever, it was really good though, that's all I will say. I had to split from dinner a little early to go eat another dinner with my old host family, the Ernestams, it was really nice seeing them all again. I enjoyed visiting with them and I at my 4th and final Christmas dinner, it was really good food. I enjoyed spending time with my old family and it wasn't just Andreas, Ingela and Hanna it was the whole family so that was really nice. I then went home for a quick minute before getting on a bus to go into town and pick up Kendra, she was getting in at 9 and I luckily got on the perfect bus to pick her up, I was going to be there right on time, then she called me and told me she was at a different train station. There are two stations in Örebro and Kendra came to the small scetchy one, luckily though it is only about a 15 minute walk from the other one. I got to her a little late but it was good to see her and I think she was happy to see me. We walked around a little and met up with Caitlin before coming home and skyping with our families. Good Christmas day.
Sunday, we woke up really late and were trying to go to the city for a long time before I talked to Tommy a little bit and found out that we were going bowling! We went bowling at 5 with my whole family and it was awesome, I scored a 110 and a 120 but most importantly I beat Kendra both times. Oh yes, for those of you who don't know who Kendra is, sheis the other exchange student in Sweden from Oregon, there are only two of us and she lives in Göteborg. After that we went into the city and looked at the castle, had a little bit to eat and met up with Caitlin again. I saw a few of my friends and they were going to practice with their band so we figured why not go check it out too! We ended up at this house that is just for musicians, you can rent out a spot and practice there whenever you want, it was really cool. We hung out for a while and I really enjoyed seeing a bunch of my friends in their bands, I had no idea they were in bands. It was a good day.
Monday, we went into town earlyish, I don't know what we did, we were in town a lot and we never went to svampen. We did see the rest of the town, we were all over the castle and shopping. Anyway, there was a free hockey game on Monday night and so we went there really early, we got there at ten till six and the game didn't start until seven. We sat in seats thinking the game was all free and after we had gotten kicked out of our spots three or four times, we being Kendra, Caitlin and I, we figured out that it was only free on the sides where you had to stand up. By then the sides were really packed but we still went and we eventually worked our way in enough so we could see. We watched the whole game from there and enjoyed it! Unfortunately Örebro didn't play so well and we lost 2-5 I think. After the game we for some reason decided to bake a cake. I don't know where the idea came from but we all figured it was a good idea. We went to the store and bought stuff and then went to my house and baked the cake, it was great. The cake was frosted with Nutella and chocolate frosting and we almost put another kind of frosting on it but decided that would be to much. After we made the cake Caitlin went home and me and Kendra ate a bunch of it, it was a delicious. Monday was a fun day!
Tuesday we went to this place called Boda Borg, I don't know how to describe it but it was totally different the anything I had been to before ever. I got the run down as we went out there, it was an old apartment building that they were going to tear down when someone decided to put a puzzle into it. It was basically a big giant game that was all about solving puzzles. The puzzles were huge, a few different rooms with a bunch of different themes. At the end of each puzzle, if you made it all the way to the end, there were stamps that you could stamp your card with. I don't know how to explain totally and I don't know if I have done a good job explaining it at all but it was really really fun. It isn't in Örebro it is about an hour away, my host mom took everybody there, I guess it is a tradition with their family to go somtime between Christmas and New years, my host cousins came too! After that Kendra, my host cousin Beatrice, and I went with Caitlin to a Mary Kay thing. I don't know how we got dragged into it but we were all there for three hours. Long story short I put on make-up. First time I have ever put on make-up in my life, maybe the last but at any rate it was an experience. After that Bea, Kendra and I came back to my house and ate tacos with my family, not normal tacos, really, really good tacos. So good, so so good. My host brother and his girlfriend Mathilda came over and I decided I wanted to get a haircut, luckily Mathilda cuts hair really good. She gave me a really good haircut and that was awesome, I can see now and look good. I have a faux hawk with a back now, it's a really good haircut.
Wednesday, we woke up pretty late again and went into town on a mission, we wanted to see a movie. Since it took us so long to get up and out by the time we got into town, ate and got to the movie theater there was only one movie to see really without waiting an hour that we didn't have and that movie was Megamind! Megamind is a kids movie, but it was in 3-D so we figured why not, why not. It was in fact in Swedish but surprisingly enough still pretty funny, I definately don't understand everything but some of the jokes in Swedish are pretty weird, the translation is always pretty funny. We then went back to my house and hung out with my family a little while we waited for the train to come. It was a good visit with Kendra and I felt like we didn't do so much but we actually did quite a bit more then I was thinking. I will probably see her again in a few months. Tommy gave us a ride to the bus stop and I decided to stay and wait with her like the nice friend I am. I got home and ate another really good dinner and then went to sleep a little early, it was time to finally get some good sleep, me and Kendra always stayed up late and watched movies and stuff :D. So it was again a little boring of a day but good and it was a good visit with Kendra.
Thursday, I woke up at a little after noon, ate breakfast and chilled with Tommy. Then I cleaned my room pretty good, and hung out at home writing this for the rest of the day. I have a hard time writing these for some reason, it takes a while. I can type fast but I am always getting distracted with random thoughts in my mind and thanks to the internet I can indulge all the thoghts I have by looking them up and studying them. Things I looked up randomly online include, where OSU has sister college that I can maybe go to when I am in college, a swedish artist named Petter and Facebook. I am really enjoying break and I can't believe that tomorrow is the last day of 2010, I can't believe it. Thanks for reading, I will try and be more consistant with my bloggings!!
Tack så mycket,
Gabe
P.S. Will try and post pics tomorrow!
