It's A Video. For You!!

It's Warm Outside!!

Some pictures from today. Wonderful weather, underbart väder!

Looking out at the sea


The beach going towards Malmö


The beach going towards Ystad


My little apartment/room and the Baltic Sea (Östersjön)


The yard looks out over the sea

Påsklov

Sunday after next is Påsk, or Easter so we have the next week off from school. This weekend I'm moving back to the Grahn family where I will remain for the rest of my time here in Sweden. I'm sitting here watching a movie about Gandhi and his resistance in India. It's quite interesting!

Rain and Wet

Last weekend I went over and met another Australian in Skanör, which is a small town outside of Malmö. Now I've met all of our new exchange students except for one.

I've been sick for most of the week and didn't go to school on Monday. Then on Friday I developed a little conjunctivitis of the eye, or eyes rather. I've gone through two rolls of toilet paper and starting on third. So my week was fairly uneventful. Basically, I played a lot of tetris.

The weather here has taken a turn for the wetter now that spring is starting to come around. It's 6 degrees celsius which is not too cold or warm. I can't wait for summery weather.

Tut's Birthday

Last weekend we went to Denmark to celebrate Anette's aunt Tut's 90th birthday. We left at around noon and after about an hour we were in Köpenhamn (København in Danish, Copenhagen in English). First we had a celebratory lunch along with lots of other Danish relatives and the biggest bottle of champagne I have ever seen. Apparently, the champagne was Churchhill's favorite. The first course was some kind of fish jello that I tried but did not like. Next we had really really good steak and mushroom. Dessert was a choice between creme broule or cheese. I went with the creme broule, but almost everyone else had cheese. I thought that was interesting. It was a plate with maybe five or six different types of cheese and toasted raisin bread and grapes.

After lunch we went back to an apartment for cake and presents. The cake we had was called "lagkage" (layer cake), which is a traditional Danish birthday dessert. We also had tea, coffee and soda. I was very full by the time we went home at around six o' clock.

I noticed a lot of things about Denmark and Danes. They are much more open than Swedes. They often greet each other by kissing each other on the cheeks, whereas a Swede would usually keep you at arm's length with a handshake. According to Kjell, Danish people smoke and drink much more than Swedes and have a shorter life expectancy. They are also higher up than Sweden on the list of the worlds happiest people. Denmark is 3rd and Sweden is 18th on the list for "subjective well-being".

Then the language of course. It is genetically similar to Swedish (and Norwegian), but is pronounced much differently. It's often described as "like someone talking with a hot potato in their mouth", though I prefer the more descriptive (but probably less accurate "having gravel vomited into your ears". They also use different letters: "æ" and "ø"which are the same sounds as the Swedish (and German) "ä" and "ö". Also, Danish has a lot more toned consonants than Swedish. For example: och = og, bok = bog and söt = sød, (and, book, sweet).

Alice i Underlandet

Went and saw Alice in Wonderland yesterday with Chad and some swedish friends of ours. The movie was pretty excellent. And suitably bizarre.

Pictures of Svarte

Some pictures in Svarte a while ago.

Lantern outside my door


My bed


Kjell


Anette


The sea from my room