Last Day

Last day of school until the 11th of January. We had a short little concert by the music program followed by some awards, then we went back to our classrooms and had a fika. A fika is any kind of meal besides breakfast, lunch or dinner. It usually involves coffee and biscuits. In this case we had julmust and desserts.

Avatar tonight, 7:30, Cinema 3.

... And Then Some More Things Happened

The last post was about things that happened in the beginning of the month so I could catch up on the shameful drought of recent posting. This one will be about what has happened since then. Well, it's been mostly uneventful, with occasional eventfulness cropping up every now and again. Here are some of them.

I have started to take French again, I had originally decided to take both French and Russian at the beginning of the school year, but decided that three languages would be too much. I think I was right because Russian is HARD. Now that I have more of the language understood, I think I can take French too. That's the nice thing about the language class structure here. It's much more... open I guess is the best way to describe it. The only language classes that are actually structured into the schedule are English and S.F.I., (Svenska För Invandrar/Swedish For Immigrants).

I lost my wallet. Not that newsworthy but it was pretty stressful until I found it in what might have been the most obvious place ever.

I helped do a presentation on business which involved diversity and doing the actual presentation in English, which was relativly easy for me. I am always surprised by how good Swedes are at English. I try not to dwell on it though because when I do my self esteem plummets.

Perhaps the most noticable change has been Jul (Christmas). Many of our Christmas traditions are the same like Christmas trees and mistletoe and Christmas presents and those red flowers I can't remember the name of. In Sweden, Christmas is celebrated on the 24th and you get presents in the evening.

We have started drinking Glögg and Julmust. Julmust is a drink that is not entirely unlike Coke, yet neither is it the same thing. It is also the main reason why no one buys Coke during December. We also have pepparkakor, it's like gingerbread but thinner and more addicting. Then there are Julbords. It's like a smörgåsbord but specifically for Christmas. I went to one last Tuesday. Usually Julbords have raw herring, which seems to be something Swedes break out during the holidays. There was also raw salmon, smoked eel (which was raw), liver ground into little patties (probably raw), bacon (uncooked) and ham (not raw). I tried everything but ended up eating a lot of ham.

As for today, there was too much snow this morning and the buses couldn't run so I got to sleep in this morning until the afternoon. I'm looking forward to Scrubs, which will of course have Swedish subtitles and if the weather allows, I'm going to go to Ystad and hang out with my Costa Rican friend Gabe. I also rented "The Life of Brian" from the city library so I'll have to watch that at some point.

I'm not looking forward to writing a page long analysis about "Trainspotting" for my Filmkunskap class. I really liked the movie (which incidentally has nothing to do with either trains or spotting them and is actually about a bunch of Scottish heroin addicts), but I can't analys(ize?) to save my life. Or spell apparently.

Last, but certainly not least: One of my close friends and fellow exchange student Marguerite Truckey was sent home to Colorado on Monday. She was ridiculous, and that was probably my favorite thing about her. I already miss her ability to make people laugh. I miss her genorisity and her fearlessness. I miss her crazy dances.

...

Some Things That Happened To Me

In Rotary we change host families at least once during the year. I think it's so we can get a broader perspective of the culture or something. Most people get two or three, although I'm already on my second and I'm switching again in Feburary.

I changed host families on December 1st to a family who lives in the nearby village of Glemmingebro (Gleh-min-geh-broo), or just Glemminge. It takes about 20 minutes to get to school in Ystad.

The town is known for about three things. The first is a massive rock in the middle of a field with a crack in it. It's called Klövasten, or Cleaved Stone. The second is Olof Viktors cafe, which was voted the best cafe in Sweden in 2007. I should mention that neither of these things are actually located in Glemminge itself and are just close enough to the village for them to be associated with each other. This is perhaps due to the third notible thing about Glemmingebro, and that is it's size. Or lack thereof. I think there about 370 residents. Like the rock and the cafe, most of them live in the surrounding area.

A traditional Swedish Christmas celebration is Sankta Lucia. It is usually celebrated on the 13th of December. Lunds Rotary Club decided to flaunt tradition and do a Luciafest on the 3rd. I went by train and met the others at the Grand Hotel in the middle of the city, or thereabouts.

We were a group of about 10 or so exchange students. We sat about in the lobby, meeting Rotarians and taking advantage of the free candy until Dagmar, a Rotarian, rounded us up and brought us upstairs into a large dining room where we met still more Rotarians. Dinner was turkey and potatoes. It was followed by a cake like substance that I can only describe as "cake". And "good".

Then after we had finished, a procession of singers in white dresses came in and sang some Swedisn Christmas songs. At the front was "Lucia", who had a crown of candles. At one point, the candles almost fell and there was a mad scramble to get it back on her head without burning her hair off. To their credit, the rest of the singers did a very good job of pretending like nothing was wrong.

Being Lucia is actually hazardous to your health. Not only do you have to support a candlebra with your head (getting wax dripped on you all the while), but the candles burn all the good breathing air which has caused many a Lucia to faint mid-song.

After Luciafest we wandered around Lund for a bit. While we were walking I noticed an interesting piece of honest advertising. It was a poster for perfume or something, across which was written "Utan halvnakna kvinnor skulle vi inte sälja ett skit", or "Without half-naked women, we wouldn't sell anything". Someone had written "Men hon är vacker/But she is pretty" underneath.
I am inclined to agree.

Eventually we headed to the train station. I thought I was going to be late because the next train to Malmö was leaving in four minutes so Minh and I ran to every of the six platforms before realizing it was the first one. Minh tried to run across the tracks to save time but he got yelled at by a conductor. In the end, our efforts were for nothing because another train came soon after that and I ended up sitting in the station for a half hour.

I finally came back at around 12:30 a.m. and had to wake up about five hours later for school. Huzzah.

Stockholm

Last weekend I traveled up to Swedens capital and largest city, Stockholm along with lots of other exchange students. On Friday night I took the bus to Lund, and from there I got on the night train to Stockholm Central. I was in a liggvagn, which is a sleeper car, in which I slept badly. At around six in the morning we arrived at the station. We weren't meeting the guides and hosts until around 10:00 a.m., so I spent the following three or so hours on a Burger King breakfast and reading my book.

Finally, everyone met up and we headed out into the city. We started off walking arouind and saw a lot of things: the Parliament building, the Prime Minister's office, a famous church where the Swedish royalty get married, the palace and Stor Torget (the big square) which ironically was quite small. After that, we were given about three hours of free time. I wandered around Gamla Stan (the Old Town) for a while. One of my friends bought a shirt that said: "Vodka, bringing people together".

After that we had a traditional Swedish meal, meatballs with mashed potatoes and gravy. On our way to the restaurant, we observed an anti-nazi ralley complete with chanting people with signs and police. When I left the restaurant after lunch, I could hear whistles blowing. As we continued up the street, a police car crashed into and knocked over one of those stub like structures that are supposed to discourage cars from driving into pedestrian only areas.

Having eaten, we went bovling (bowling)near the youth/travelers hostel where we would be staying. We stayed for about an hour which gave me time to do badly at two games. I did get one strike though. Then they gave us more free time before dinner, so we all split up and went our seperate ways. Me and a few others walked around and nearly succeeded in getting lost.

Dinner was spectacular. We ate at a fancy Italian restaurant. I had some of the greatest pork I've ever had. After dinner we lounged about and did some activities. One was a quiz about Sweden with questions about famous Swedish olympians, inventors and political parties. Then some of the exchange students who have been here the longest (from Austrailia and New Zealand, they come up and leave in January) and Swedish returning exchange students gave advice about being living in a foriegn country and exchange in general.

After that we were free until the next day, so me and some others stuck around in the foyer playing cards. We all played B.S., Much to our amazement, the Swedes didn't know what that was so we had to teach them. Then we played Texas Hold'Em betting with car-shaped candies called "Bilar". We did that until either they were all eaten or too disgusting to eat. What followed was an epic game of Egyptian Rat Screw, which went on for ages. I even earned a nickname from it. At one point, a drunk guy wandered in and we all sat in hushed silence and watched him stumble around until the manager helped him into the elevator.

During our card games, we were joined by a guy who was staying at the hostel as well. He sat down and introduced himself as Shan. He was interested in what we were doing in Sweden and our exchanges and explained that he was traveling the world with three of his friends before he went to college. It was really interesting to meet him and hear his stories.

The next day after breakfast we headed out to Skansen Djurpark (Zoo). There were lots of interesting animals to see, many of them native to Sweden. I saw seals, otters, bison, moose, wolves and some owls. There was a guy there taking photographs of the owls who started giving us a nice explanation about the species of owls and their habits right until a well meaning simile about the accuracy of owls' eyesight turned into a full-blown rant about the U.S. military operations in Afganistan. There was also an interesting glass blowing demonstation.

After lunch and goodbyes, Chad, Tony, Josh, Claire and I went back to Claires house in Stockholm and sat about for awhile. Chad, Josh and Tony were going to be staying for a few days before leaving for Helsinki on Tuesday and my return ticket wasn't until around midnight and I had some time to kill. We went out again shortly after and met up with other exchange students with badly scheduled tickets who were hanging around in the train station for a few hours.

It was a great evening, we were at a coffee house for a while (where I bought a chocolate ball for 25 crowns or a little over four dollars) and then ventured out into Gamla Stan again before returning to Claires house and watching "Crash". I didn't get to finish the movie because I had a train to catch, and an hour later, I was on the night train back to Lund. From there, the bus to Ystad. And from there, my long awaited bed. Where I stayed until about two in the afternoon.

Yrkedag

There was no class for the whole day today because we had a Yrkedag (Career Day). They had a schedule with different people representing different professions every 40 minutes. The first one I saw was an ekonom. I would guess that's an economist or something similar. He talked about different aspects of being an economist and the various things you can work with like international stuff, taxes, etc. It was kind of hard to follow but I caught the gist of it.

The next one I saw was a pilot. She showed us how a typical work week would go. For example, start in Copenhagen, go to Frankfurt, go back to Copenhagen, then fly to Helsinki and stay the night there. She talked about her responsibilities: checking the plane to make sure it's not leaking oil or anything as well as pre-flight preparations.

After lunch I went to the presentation for the "fastighetsmäcklare"'s, or real estate agents. They talked about what kind of education and personal characteristics you need to do their job. They also gave out pens and chocolate, so they were my favorite. Then we went back to a friends house and played Empire: Total War. I was the Prussians and I did really badly.

I'm going to Stockholm for the first time this weekend. Looking forward to it!

Köpenhamn Igen

I went to Copenhagen again yesterday. We met the Rotary people at the train station and then went across the bridge on the train. After we changed our money from Swedish to Danish crowns, we went to the Strøget. That's the main commercial street in Copenhagen.

There were a lot of shops to see, one of the biggest was H&M. It was just this huge building that went on and on and on. It was like 5 city blocks of one shop. Another interesting one was a tobacconists shop. They had about 500 pipes. Then there was a puzzle and game shop. They had board games, juggling balls, rubik's cubes, dice and books on magic tricks. There was a magician there too. He could shuffle a deck of cards with one hand.

After exploring and eating lunch, we went to the National Museum. There had a tour guide who could speak really good English and he took us around some of the major exhibits of Danish pre-history.



We started in the Stone Age and he showed us flint tools and how people hunted. There was an aurok (prehistoric super cow) that showed evidence of being wounded with both a flint arrow head and a flint spear. There was also some amber jewelry and skulls with holes drilled in the tops. He told us how they used to work for ages and ages on a really nice axe and then throw it in a lake as a sacrifice. That was also the beginning of agriculture in Denmark.

Next was the bronze age, Denmark didn't have any bronze so they had to trade it from further south. There were some really interesting daggers and shields from that time. In that exhibit there was an elk which they used to hunt. He showed us a grave that had two people in it. They had ochre on their bodies which had some kind of spiritual significance. He also told us how they could tell how old a grave was by carbon dating and tree trunk rings.

Finally we came to the Iron age. That was when the Vikings came into power in Denmark. He told us how they never wore horned helmets. Ever. There was a huge cauldron which was apparently used to collect the blood of dying war prisoners so that their last spasms could be used as a way of predicting how the battle would go. Interestingly, it was from Bulgaria, which means that the ancient Danes would have had to gone a long way to get it. Some of the last things he showed us where some golden drinking horns, a ship, and the runic writing system.

That was the last thing on the agenda, so after we were done with that, we just wandered around until it was time to leave.

Rainy Day

Today was supremely wet in every sense of the word. When I got back from Malmö I was soaked. Tomorrow some other exchange students and I are going to Copenhagen to look around and stuff. I'm looking forward to it, but I have to wake up early to catch the train. Blehhh...

This week went by fast for me. In psykologi we're learning about memory. She recited a bunch of numbers in sequence and we had to repeat them back to her. One girl got all 16 with only one mistake. Then she had us remember animals, and then a page with pictures, and finally we had to remember which profession was associated with which emotion (hairdresser = happy, policeman = worried, etc.).

We're studying Buddhism in Religion class, and end of the year accounting in Business. Russian is going well, and I'm having fun with it too. Some of my friends also did German and one of them is German so I've been picking up a little of that too.

I went to my first idrott class ever on Tuesday. It was the first time they were in the gym. The other times they were swimming or orienteering somewhere else I didn't know about. He had us do boxing drills for most of the time.

Yesterday I went out Christmas shopping for my family. I just hope that it won't be too expensive to send.

Pictures of Fall

I went around and took pictures today. Ystad has changed since summer. They say that winter has already started and that it will last for five months. It's already starting to get darker. I took a lot of photos, but here are some of the best:

Lebanese food. They have really good gyros.





I think this is one of the oldest churches in Skåne.



Means "The Power and the Holiness". It was outside the church, I think it was an exhibit.



Out in the courtyard of the house.



The rest of the pictures are on my photostream.

Halloween

Here in Sweden, Halloween isn't as big a deal as back home. There really isn't trick or treat and dressing up. It's more like Fathers Day where it's recognized and maybe you send a card or something.

Now that Christmas is coming up, my host family has been showing me some Swedish traditions. They have a drink, similar to Coke, called Julmust. It's just a little bit different. They also have this drink called Glögg. It's brewed, kind of like tea, but it has lots of different spices in it.

Lov

"Lov" means "vacation". I have one week of free time until school starts again this coming Monday.

Today was a good day. I accomplished nothing besides eating, reading and sleeping. I feel as if my mind is slowly atrophying into mush. Aaaaaaaaaaahh...

The book I am reading is the aforementioned "The Girl Who Played With Fire" which I picked up in the Pocket Shop at Malmö Central Station for 100 crowns. It's really good so far.

Things I'm looking forward to: Reading my book some more, Friday (Seeing some friends), Saturday (Halloween Dinner), Sleep (my eyes are tired) and another day of relaxation (tomorrow).

Lediga Vecka

This week was pretty non-descript. I had a business economy test today and was relieved to actually understand most of it. I also had a Swedish test. It's like the equivalent of English class at home, more like literature. I could only answer about half the questions. On the ones I did answer, I had to resort to English for some of the words. Still, it's great that I could understand some of the test.

My Russian skills are steadily improving. My friends and I have been greeting each other in Russian. Here's a typical conversation that we might have:

здравствуйте товарищ!

(Good day Comrade!)

здравствуйте комиссар!

(Good day Commissar!)

K родина!

(For the Motherland!)

фашистский свиньи!

(Fascist Pigs!)

Vill du äta lunch nu? Jag är lite hungrig.

(Want to go eat lunch? I'm a little hungry.)

Okej.

(Ok.)

The downside is that nine times out of ten the school food is disgusting to such a severe degree so as to be inedible. There are upsides though; the juice is incredible. There is also this stuff that they have sitting out called "Knäckebröd". It's kind of like drywall, but it tastes better. They usually put butter on it. It's grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat.

The only other thing to report is that this coming week is our "ledig vecka", or off-week. No classes or anything so I can sleep in some more.

Tivoli

Yesterday on Saturday, I went to Denmark with some friends to visit an amusement park in Copenhagen called Tivoli. We met each other at Malmö Central, the train station, and waited for Marguerite's host family to pick us up. We waited for a bit and I changed my Swedish crowns to Danish crowns at a nearby Forex.

While I was looking around, I saw that the sequel to one of my favorite books had come out in English. It's called "Flickan Som Lekte Med Elden", which means "The Girl Who Played With Fire". It's a really good series (trilogy actually), and I heard recently that the English version of the third and final book has just come out in the U.S. Here in Sweden, they are really proud of it because it's by a Swedish author, Stieg Larsson. They've been adapting the books into movies and I saw the movie version of the first book last weekend.

When her host family came, we all got in the car and drove across the bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark, the Öresund bridge. Along the way, you could see wind towers that were set up in the sea. This was the second time I had crossed the bridge, the first time being when I my host family took me home from Copenhagen airport.

This is the main entrance to Tivoli. They only open for a few weeks at a time, usually during holidays. The next time will be at Christmas.

We just walked around and rode roller coasters for a few hours. It was really fun. This is all of us together.

This was in line for the last ride we went on. Caienna is showing me a dance.

After Tivoli and dinner, we went home and spent the night at Marguerites host family's house.

Tomorrow Is Friday!

Today will be my last soccer practice of the season, I think I will look into doing inomhus fotboll, (indoor soccer).

In my Swedish class, we visited the library. I was surprised by the number of English books that they have there. Also, they have Finnish, German, Romanian, Italian, French, Spanish, Russian, Serb-Croat, Norwegian, Danish and Persian books. I going to get some Astrix and Bamse comics to read for improving my Swedish.

In other news, det är jätte kallt ute. It's pretty cold out right now. It actually snowed a little bit today, but it didn't stay for long. In this part of Sweden, it usually doesn't snow. There is wind though, ohhhh yes indeed. I'm not sure if it's because we're so close to the sea, but sometimes it's hard to walk if you're walking upwind.

Can't wait for tomorrow.

Princess Cake

Undoubtably the crowning achievement of the Swedish civilization up to this point, Princess Cake is the coolest thing since sliced bread.

Here is some:

This is what usually happens to it.

Snapshots

These are my russian textbooks. The white one is for grammar. I have Russian three times a week.

Package from home! Lots of warm clothes in here. Plus Abuelita Hot Chocolate. Score.
This page has some of my Cyrillic alphabet practice. The biggest one that you can see is upside down and reads "Boris".
This phone was graciously given to me by my host club. It's pretty cool.

6/10/2009

In Sweden, the dates go day, month, then year. I'm not sure if that's a Swedish thing or a European thing but it makes more sense when you think about it.

Over the weekend I went to Lund again. This time it was for Höstfest, which was sponsored by C.I.S.V., which stands for Children's International Summer Villages. As far as I can tell, there was no connection to Sjölunden, the language village that I went to over the past few summers.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was disappointed. It was a lot smaller than I had first thought. The first thing they had us do was this weird game where a few people had questions on their backs and we had to go around and answer them. This soon broke down into random guessing because all the questions were in Swedish.

Then we had dinner. It was traditional Swedish food: potato salad, sandwiches, that kind of thing. It was good though. We amused ourselves by wearing fake mustaches that we had bought in Malmö earlier. Mine was kind of a grandpa/professor looking one.

They finished off with this singer who may have also been a comedian for all I would have been able to tell who did a few songs before the end.

For the rest of the night, we just kind of hung out. Some other exchange students made tacos with groceries we bought earlier, but I fell asleep before then.

The next day we all went down to a coffee shop for breakfast and then caught the train to go our respective ways.

Fredag, Den Andra Oktober

Day starts with Svenska. Not the "learn to speak Swedish" one, but the "Swedish literature" class that everyone has to take. We are split into groups, and each group is researching a different a time period in literature. Our group is the most recent type of writing, Modernism. Today our group was looking at a film by Ingmar Bergman called Den Sjunde Inseglet.

Then I had math, which is very simple right now. It's like y=mx+b, so I'm going to see if I can get bumped up to the next level. After that was S.F.I. (Swedish for Immigrants). There are no immigrants in the class, just exchange students. That was an hour long. Then Företags Ekonomi (Business Economics). I think we're going over doing the bookkeeping for salaries right now.

Höstfest on Saturday.

Bowling In Malmö

Yesterday I went to Malmö with some other exchange students. It was a "Rotaract" event. I'm not really sure what it is, but we had fun. I think we got there at about 7 p.m. and came back at 10 or 11.

We all met in O'Leary's to go bowling. I did pretty horribly, mostly gutter balls. Then we ate dinner at the food court nearby and sat around.

That was about it, but it was a great evening with the other exchange students that I really can't describe.

A Day In Lund

Yesterday, on Friday, I joined some other exchange students to hang out in Lund and watch Inglorious Basterds. We got off at the train station and were immediately set upon by scientologists in matching red tee-shirts trying to get us to take a stress test. We tried to make them leave us alone in the nicest way possible, which failed, so we ended up just ignoring them and walking away quickly.

We had originally planned to watch the movie at around six, but two of our group were taking too long so we decided to go to a later showing. Then we split into two groups. One group went to a cafe in search of ciabattas and the other went off to find a kebab shop. I was part of the kebab group. After we ate, we went and rejoined the others at the end of a very, very long coffee shop, where we had hilarious conversations about school fundraisers, the color of Caienna's hair and ironic patronuses. Eventually we were asked to leave. The waitress said it was because the shop was closing but that was a blatant lie because we were the only ones she told to go. I suspect we were being too loud and foreign.

At some point we visited a cathedral. It was very beautiful, and the people there knew it because they had a little tourist booth set up in the corner with brochures and everything. There was a lady playing an organ while we were in there and the acoustics were pretty amazing.

Later, we got a call from our waylaid friends who told us they had arrived so we went back to the train station to pick them up, where we found them taking stress tests from scientologists. We waited patiently and then disappointed them again (the scientologists, not our friends). What followed was just wandering around Lund and talking and stuff. We found a little place in the park where we stayed until the movie started. By the time it was about to begin, only half the people wanted to go so it was only three including me who actually saw the movie.

It was a decent movie I suppose, Inglorious Basterds was about this team of guerrillas who roamed France during World War II killing and scalping Nazis. It's not based on historical fact, it's just straight out of Quentin Tarantino's imagination. The movie was funny, but it was also brutal. Especially the scalping.

We left right after the movie ended, it was already late. Unfortunately, our train didn't show up so we had to take and overpriced taxi. At least he had the decency to drive too fast.

One Of My Many Wednsdays

Today started well with my Psykologi class being canceled, so I got to start much later. Standard day, I'm still not sure how my gym class is working, I haven't been to a single one yet because every time I go to the gym there's no one there and apparently everyone in my class is taking it today instead of yesterday unlike my schedule seems to indicate. Whatever. It's not like I am a huge fan of gym or anything.

In Filmkunskap (kunskap means "knowledge"), we watched a western called "The Wild Bunch". Afterwords we studied the various themes in the movie and read some reviews. The teacher asked us to explain the American frontier so Chad got up and did a full fledged lecture on the whiteboard and a potato-shaped continental U.S. with territory lines, cities and everything.

No comment.

Then I headed off home to get ready for soccer practice. It was pretty dark when we finished.

Kanoting

I got back yesterday from a weekend of canoeing with other exchange students. We started in Stockamöllan, which is right in the middle of Skåne province and went about 42 kilometers down the Rönne river. I woke up early and took the train to Höör, which is a couple of hours away. As we went, we were joined by more and more exchange students, until we were all assembled at Höör station and collected by Rotarians who took us to the starting point of our journey.

We paddled for a long time and had to ford twice on the first day, but it was still a lot of fun. The river passes by a lot of farmland so we saw plenty of cows. We all stopped at a campsite and stayed there for the evening. That night we stayed in a large tent together. It would be a gross understatement to say it was chilly. I was later told it got down to about 2 degrees Celsius. I got up earlier than usual because the alternative was to not move around and be cold.

We had an excellent breakfast of bacon and eggs and yogurt. I watched as people amused themselves by continuing an axe-throwing competition that they started the night before, then we were off again with new partners (two to a boat). We paddled for what seemed like ages upon ages upon more ages with a side of ages with ages on top. We actually missed our original stopping point so we had to go an extra 7 kilometers which didn't help. The truly sad part was that when I hauled my exhausted body into the car for the way back it only took like a half hour to get back to the train station.

Ugh...

... at least I enjoyed those hours. What a great weekend.

The Day To Day

So, for a while now I've been waiting for something interesting to happen in my life to report on that would be interesting. But then I realized that my life is not that interesting. Then I felt bad, until I realized that it didn't matter. From now on this blog will be more about my daily life, and all the little things that have more value than I first anticipated.

Yesterday our economics teacher told us that all of our business classes for thursday and friday would be canceled, so my thursday schedule went from starting at 8 in the morning to 1:30. Woo!

That meant that I could stay up and sleep in, which I did. Now I can just hang out until my class starts and then leave again at 3. I have soccer practice later today. All the practices have been moved up half and hour so we can practice in daylight.

School Life

So I've just started my second week of school, and I have a better idea of how things work. There are many differences between American schools and Swedish ones. The schedules are much less rigid, you might have one class in the morning, then a half hour break, then maybe another class for an hour and a half then lunch. Tomorrow on Tuesday I have about a two and a half hour break before my gym class. Last week I came home and took a nap.

The teachers are much more laid back. The common opinion is that you are responsible for your own education so they aren't really concerned if you show up late or just wander our during the class to go to the bathroom or whatever.

The school is pretty much open campus. Today me and some friends went to a pizzeria for lunch because they didn't want to eat the free school lunch because it was fläsk-pankakor, or pork pancakes.

I was very surprised by the language choices. At St. Johns, we have French and Spanish, but at Österport Gymnasiet there's:

Danish, German, Russian, Italian, Latin, French and Spanish.

Here's how language classes work: The teachers have about nine hours a week each that they are in Språkvärlden (Language World), which is a big library/classroom for all the classes. It's up to you how much time you want to spend there, because like the rest of Swedish education, the responsibility to learn is in the hands of the students, not the teachers. I really like this situation because it's so flexible and it allows me to work at my own pace, whether it be faster or slower than everyone else.

Right now I am taking Russian, and I might take some French at some point. So far, I've only been to one class, and I am starting to learn the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet (Русский Алфавйт). It's pretty interesting as well as challenging. There are 33 letters, and you have to learn the print version and the handwritten version of each one, and each has and upper case and a lower case.

Here is my name in Cyrillic: Филип Осцар Едвин Витевин, or Фил short.

Ven

Yesterday I went on my second Rotary Exchange student trip to the island of Ven. We took the ferry there, you could look over and see Sweden one side of the ferry and see Denmark on the other. It was pretty cool. When we arrived, we all rented bikes. Some people got tandems, but I stuck with a regular one.

We rode around the island for a couple hours and stopped to have a fika and lunch. Fika is a meal/snack which is usually composed of coffee and biscuits and cakes, but you can have anything you want, whenever you want. I forgot my lunch box and as of now it is still missing, demonstrating my almost supernatural ability to lose things, especially myself.

After we had explored for a while, we stopped at the Tycho Brahe museum. Tycho Brahe was a Swedish astronomer who was hired by the Danish king to study the stars. He set up his observatory on Ven. There was a lot to see and do there, including some games from the era like quoits and tug-of-war. When we were in the museum, a spontaneous choir practice broke out and we all stayed to listen.

We also got to meet the other exchange students from our district who have already been here for a while. There were two, one from Australia and one from South Africa. They started at a different time because they are in the Southern Hemisphere.

It was a great experience, and I can't wait for our next event which is canooing in Stockmöllan on the Rönne river sometime in September.

First Day Of School

This last friday was my first day of school. To be honest, it wasn't too exciting. Here are some highlights.

I discover that my school has an elevator.

I meet some people.

I eat some very good open faced sandwiches.

I am asked what I think of Swedish girls.

I meet some more people.

I receive a bus card, which allows me to travel on public transportation for free.

My Exciting Weekend

This Saturday I did something I've never done before. They call it Papegoja Skjutning (Parrot Shooting), it's an archery competition. As far as I know, they do it every year. We lounged around for most of the afternoon, had a picnic lunch and met some people. I went to go shoot once, but I mostly just watched other people.

Albin, a friend of Axel's, stayed over for most of the weekend while his parents were in the Czech Republic. After the Papegoja Skjutning, we went and rented a Wallander movie, then we watched Scary Movie 2. Wallander is a mystery series that is set in Ystad. It's really cool to see all the familiar sights of the town on TV.

On Sunday, I spent most of my time paintballing with Chad's host brother, some of his friends and, of course, Chad himself. It was my first time and I had a lot of fun, although I still have some bruises.

School Schedule

This morning my host parents and I went to meet the school counselor at Österpost Gymnasiet where I will be going to school starting the 28th of August. We talked for about an hour or so, some in Swedish, some in English, depending on what I understood. She started with a short interview for the school paper, and then we started looking at school programs. Classes in Sweden are organized by program, like a major in college.

There are lots of different programs, divided into two basic types. One type is designed for people who will start working when they graduate and includes such programs as car maintainance and food preparation. The other is for people who are planning on going to college. I decided to opt for the college-bound programs.

The biggest program is Social Science (Sämhallsvetenskap), which is divided into many different catagories like Culture, Language, Music, Crime Scene Investigation, Business/Economics and a few others. I liked Language and Economics, but they said I could take a language in any program, so I will probably be doing Economics. I was surprised at all the language choices that Österport offers. There's Italian, French, Spanish, German, Polish, Russian and Latin. I have chosen to study French and Russian. I also have to take a Swedish For Emigrants class, along with all the other exchange students.

In addition to all that, there is a weekly two hour period where all students from different programs can pick a class just for personal interest. I'm going to learn to play guitar.

School is exactly one week away now and I'm a little nervous, but I won't be the only one. There are a lot of exchange students in my new school from all over the world.

Malmö Festivalen

Yesterday, I went to Malmö, where a huge festival has been going on all week. Today, Friday is the seventh and final day. I had planned for a group of exchange students to arrive at around the same time at the station, but our train was delayed, so it was just me and Chad. We got off at Malmö station at about six o' clock and entered the huge bannered archway that read Malmö Festivalen.

We went around at looked at the stalls and bought an expensive bag of candy, then kept walking. We made sure we arrived at the square before seven, when the Sounds were going to play. The Sounds were great, and it was really cool to see them all in person. They played for a little more than an hour, and then Chad and I went around some more. There was alot of interesting street food. Crépes, Hungarian food, Polish food, Spanish food, Thai food, and candy stalls. There was also a stand selling weird pointy hats. Some of them had goggles and bells attached to them.

We ran out of things to do at around ten, so we got on the next train back to Ystad.

Phillip Becomes More Aware Of His Surroundings

Some observations on Sweden and Swedes:

They are very big fans of hair gel and those halfway between jeans and short things.

Everything is very expensive.

Blonde haired people...everywhere.

Ketchup on pasta.

Public nudity is acceptable, especially at the beach.

People are, in general, withdrawn and won't talk to you. Especially girls.

People put a lot more thought in how they look. Even old people and young children are more fashionable than me.

I have only seen one obese person.

Volvos and Saabs.

Osthalvor: an instrument used to effeciently slice large hunks of cheese into managable pieces.

Focus on what you are doing and what you have done over how are you feeling. Every day my host family asks "What have you done today?".

Yogurt on cereal. It's pretty good too.

Handball is popular, at least in my town. They take it very seriously. Sometimes people who are fans of opposing teams will not talk to each other. Even if they are neighbors, or were good friends, or are married to one another. It's even more intense than politics.

Public transportation. You want to go somewhere? Hop on a train or bus.

Blå och gul. In English: Blue and yellow, the national colors of Sweden. The police cars are blue and yellow too. Many buildings have Swedish flags outside.

Raw\Pickled fish. Enough said.

My Tuesday

It was a slow day today. I actually took a nap to pass the time. Most of the day was spent trying to organize our trip to the Malmö music festival that me and a bunch of exchange students are going to. They seem to be content to let me figuire out the details and I had nothing else to do, so now I need to look at a Swedish train schedule, which are very, very, very confusing. Good luck to me...

The only other mentionable thing that happened was the Rotary meeting. We all went to Marsvinsholm, one of the many castles in Skåne, and one of the two outside of Ystad. It's an old castle, from the 16th century, I think. In modern times it has been a home for some of Swedens modern art. There were smaller sculptures in the castle itself, but most of the building was off-limits. The real show was outside on the castle grounds. I forgot my camera, but I will be going back to take some pictures. There were some truly fantastic pieces of art. After we all explored the grounds, we all ate a picnic dinner.

For tomorrow, I only have fotboll practice with people my age to look forward to. Then the next day is when we go the the festival!

Photos!

I have been rediscovering the wonders of the Internet, with Facebook, Flickr, iGoogle and of course blogs. If you are not satisfied with just descriptions of my life, check out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/captainphil
I added about five pages of pictures today, along with titles and descriptions.

As far as the words go, I will try and post at least once a week now, but I hope to get two or three in if I can. For today, not a lot of news. It was colder than usual and a little rainy.

I practiced with Axels team for an hour or so, but from now on I will be playing with people closer to my age. After practice I went and ran 2.5 kilometers at the running paths in Ystad. I had to break in the new shoes I bought because I forgot to pack my old pair from home. Now I wish I had had a bigger suitcase...

I was shocked by Swedish shoe prices. The discount Nikes I picked up were 400 kronor ($55.00). The nice running shoes were about two and three times that much!

Vimmerby

I spent the past week in Vimmerby, three trains and a bus away from Ystad. I left with Chad, the only other Rotary Exchange student in Ystad. On the next train there were more exchange students and by the time we arrived our whole district was assembled plus Marina, who was at Calvin College with me.

We were there for the whole week at Vimmerby Folkhögskola along with exchange students from other districts all over southern and central Sweden. There were about thirty of us there
total, and together we learned about the Swedish language, Swedish Culture, which involved holidays, a brief history and an overview of the politics and government. When we weren't in the classroom we were in the gym. We played Swedish sports and games such as innebandy (floorball, similar to hockey), spökeboll (dodgeball, literally means "ghost ball"), fotboll (soccer), and kubb: a game like bowling but you throw sticks instead of roll a ball.

I ate a lot of potatoes, once I had potatoe salad with meatballs and even more potatoes. The food was very good, but I avoided the pickled herring and the caviar-in-a-tube. One of our lunches was with the Vimmerby Rotary club. They had rice, bread, potatoes and pasta and chicken for us to eat. They also served non-alcoholic beer.

Vimmerby is the town where Astrid Lindgren, author of Pippi Longstocking and other childrens stories was born. There is a theme park built around the playground that she used to go to. There were shops selling Pippi-dolls and Pippi-clothes and Pippi-wigs as well as candy and other toys. They had a couple of stages where scenes from her books were acted out. There was an area with lots of children-sized houses that made me feel like a giant, play grounds, some of those painted scenes that you can poke your own head into and animals. I also tried to walk on stilts and failed miserably.

Certainly the best part of the experience was meeting all the other exchange students. There were people from Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Austria, France, Japan and all over the United States. Our district is almost totally American, with the exception of a German and French exchange student. On the last night a large group of us stayed up until about 4:30 to 5:00 in the morning together. Although we have large district with a lot of activities planned, we may not see any of those people again until the ski trip in the winter, Euro-trip in the summer or maybe not at all.

On the last day we recieved one last lesson and ate lunch together. I said good bye to the same people about three times because we weren't sure when we were leaving. We began our long journey back, with the group growing smaller each time. Finally it was just Chad and I back on the way to Ystad. When we arrived, I was the only one home so I was invited for pizza at the Hugosons (Chad's host family). I got kebab pizza, it was interesting. I was picked up on the way back home by my host family and finally got to bed.

A great week with great people, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and got a better idea of my host country and it's people. Although, I think the most important thing I learned was all the experiences of the other exchange students that gave my exchange perspective.

Sommarstugan (The Summer House)

This weekend my host family and I went to their summer house while Louise was having a party, which I think was for farewell purposes.

That day, Axel and I went swimming in the sea. He had his wetsuit for surfing on for reasons I do not know. When we got back we played soccer, badminton and fotboll-tennis, which is just tennis without rackets or tennis balls.

For dinner, we ate raw salmon... with mustard and spinich on toast. I ate some of it, but fortunately there were potatoes, meat, corn, salad and barbecue sauce to occupy myself with as well. I, with some help from Axel, consumed a whole bottle of Pommac, which is a traditional Swedish apple-soda.

I slept late the next day and joined Elisabeth, Axel and Hans at the beach near the house and did some sunbathing. Then I went swimming again. It was a little warmer than the day before but the waves weren't so high and the body-surfing was less entertaining. I returned to the summer house and took a another shower. Then, after I was nice and clean, Elisabeth asked me to mow the lawn. That made me feel more like a family member and less like a guest, which is a good thing of course.

We've just gotten back as of me typing this and I'll have to wake up early to leave for Vimmerby tomorrow where the four day language camp (for all the exchange students in our Rotary District to learn some Swedish and get to know each other) is.

'Til then.

Rotary Meeting

Last Tuesday I accompanied Hans and Louise to my first Ystads-Tornväktaren Rotary Klubb meeting. I was introduced to many people who I cannot remember the names of. I also met the President who had a big Rotary medallion-thing around his neck. One of the Rotarians I met had done some work in Michigan.

Then we had dinner, which was cabbage covered meat, potatoes and salad. It was interesting, although I couldn't understand anything said at the table so I kept myself amused by seeing how much of the awful mineral water I could drink.

After dinner we all moved over to another part of the restaurant to watch a presentation, but before that I had to introduce myself. I did so in English, but they said that later in the year I should do it in Swedish. Then we started with the presentation...

It was titled "Vad är våldtäkt?". I asked Hans what it meant.

He replied "Rape."

After that I was glad I couldn't understand anything.

Welcome to Ystad

I arrived here in Sweden yesterday and met my host family for the first time. Elisabeth (host mom), Axel (host brother) & Louise (host sister until she herself leaves for Fresno, CA. in a week or so) picked me up at the airport. I met Hans my host father after he came home from work that day .

Then we drove across a bridge, halfway through there was a sign that said "Sverige". My first Swedish meal was a Big Mac and fries at the nearby MacDonalds. I noticed that the trash bins were organized into different waste types like a recycling center. Also, Swedish chicken nuggets seem to taste better.

Soon after, we arrived at the house. I had seen a photograph before I came but I was still blown away. The Broberg (pronounced Broo-berry) house encompasses the better part of a block corner. The family lives in the main house and rents out the rest of the rooms. My room is upstairs, adjoined to Axel's and I have my own bathroom/shower across the hall.

Axel, Louise and I were responsible for dinner because Hans and Elisabeth had to go out later, so we made spaghetti bolongese with the groceries that we went and got earlier. They were surprised when I told them I usually put parmesian cheese on my spaghetti and that a lot of Americans eat spaghetti with meatballs. Athough they did put ketchup on their pasta. Hmmmmmm...

They wanted me to stay awake until at least 8 pm so I could get used to the time difference. So I played pool and Counter-Strike online with Axel and ate candy until I didn't feel tired. Then I decided to go to bed for my health. I crashed shortly after that and slept for 14 hours.

Flight

I left for Sweden on July 30th, thursday, from Lansing Airport. I drove myself there along with my dad and dog, who threw up on the way as her way of thanking us for including her. My sister and mother couldn't make it because they had left the day previously for England to attend my cousins wedding.

We then landed in Detroit, from where I left for Amsterdam along with another Sweden-bound exchange student. I spent the long journey watching I Love You, Man, Yes Man, and Watchmen.

I then promptly got lost in Amsterdam airport looking for something I didn't need, something I realized after I finally found the Information Desk. Then I annoyed a Dutch stewardess because I didn't have a boarding pass. I slept the hour flight and half hour wait to Copenhagen, was confused by Danish advertising and waited for approximately a very long, long time at baggage claim for my aforementioned über-duffel.

After I recovered that, I pushed my baggage trolley through the hallway marked "Ankomst". Amongt the crowd there was a large sign that said "Welcome Phil".

9 Days

My departure date is only nine days away now it's crunch time to get all my host family gifts, and make I get all the things I need before I go in the mail and have enough pictures to put a decent powerpoint together and all the things that I'm forgetting.

Today my mother and sister packed most of my possessions into my new über-duffel bag to see if they could fit.

They succeeded.

Calvin College

We just got back from our regional conference at Calvin College. Although most of the time was spent in uncomfortable chairs listening to uninteresting people repeat themselves almost constantly, I enjoyed my time there. The best parts were meeting the rebound students from our district and the session with the Swedish inbounds. I think I am finally realizing what I'm going to be doing after all these months of volunteer hours and meetings.

My departure date has been set for July 30th. I can't wait.

First Post Ever

Hello, my name is Phillip Witteveen and this blog will be a record of my student exchange in Sweden over the next year.

I will add to it as soon as anything relevant happens.