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.