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".