Latvia, Moose Hunting, and One Year Older!

These past two weeks have been very eventful for me. I have done so many things that I never would have imagined doing. I think it will be both easier for me, and possibly more exciting for you, if I use pictures with captions to describe my last few weeks instead of writing a really long essay-like description.

Two weeks ago, I went to Rīga, Latvia with 13 other Rotarians from either my club or clubs that are in neighboring towns. That was a very fun trip.

The purpose of our trip to Latvia was to go to an elderly care center and give away numerous lifts to help the staff that work there. This elderly care center has had some very tough times since it is located in a small town in the country, and cannot be properly funded. Thankfully, over the years, Rotary has stepped in and helped them get back on their feet. This was the final project that Rotary has done at this particular location. For me, going to the elderly care center let me see firsthand how Rotary has helped the people who live in tough conditions like this. Rotary really is an amazing organization.

This was only half of the reason that we went to Latvia. The other reason was that we were giving away two Paul Harris Fellowship Awards. These honorees are individuals who meet high professional and personal standards set forth by Paul Harris. These are very important honors, so it was very exciting to witness this award being given away.

We stayed in a hotel while we were in Latvia, and this was the view from my hotel room window. (That is an opera house to the right.)

The town of Rīga looked very different in many places. Some parts were more modern European looking....

Others had more modern architecture.

Other parts were very old. These particular buildings were built in the 1500's or 1600's.

 Others had more of a Russian influence.

Lastly, some parts were old and run down.

This was the freedom statue. To Latvians, this is a very important monument. It represents that Latvia is a free, independent country. It wasn't until 1991 that Latvia officially freed themselves of Soviet Control. Everyday, there are guards surrounding the statue, due to its importance. There are also red and white flowers resting at the base of the statue. (Another symbol of Latvian pride since the Latvian flag is dark red and white.)

While we were in Rīga, we also went to a huge market where you can shop....

A very wide variety of fresh fish. You could also choose to buy a live fish, which they would take from a small tank, then put in a bag for you to take.

Just about every type of vegetable you can think of...

Nuts. Literally, thousands of nuts.

Many different types of fruit too.

There were many more types of food that you could shop, but I didn't take pictures of everything. Any type of food you can think of, they probably had there. Including chicken hearts or bones. Literally, you could buy everything there.

Another interesting thing I did was go moose hunting. This was the first hunting experience, and it was very interesting to be a part of. Basically, this is what happened:

There were eight shooters (located at the numbers on the map), and eight other people that were driven to the other side of the woods, about 2-3 km away. We were given a compass, map, and were told, “Walk to your shooter”. We had to walk through all different types of terrain by ourselves, hoping that we would find our shooter. I walked througt a very wide variety of terrain, as seen in the pictures below.

This is what I walked through, beginning to end. It was very beautiful scenery throughout, especially at the end.

Thankfully, I was only about 30 meters off, so I found my hunter without going too far!  After lunch, we went to a different part of the forest, and went on a different path. This time, while walking, I heard two shots, and then got a phone call to meet up with the other walkers. The hunt was over now because a moose had been shot. We then ran, literally, to where we thought the shots had come from. We quickly found the moose, and it was a very big one.

They guessed it was between 170 and 180 kilograms.

I pet a moose!

They then tied ropes around the moose and we all dragged the moose about half of a kilometer out of the woods to where someone parked a truck.

It was very exciting, and definitely a new experience for me. Now each hunter will receive about 30 kg of moose meet, which is plenty!

Another interesting thing that I have begun, is playing tennis on Tuesday nights!

I never figured that I would do this in Sweden, but I taught my host mom how to solve a Rubik's cube. I taught her in Swedish too :)

It was also my birthday yesterday, so my host family made me a beautiful, and delicious cake. In the morning, my family also came into by room singing happy birthday in Swedish, waking me up. Apparently it is tradition that they wake you up singing on your birthday. They also had candles in the cake, which I blew out after they finished singing. Then I opened the gifts that they had for me, and following that, we had "breakfast" in my bed. The "breakfast" being cake! It was very exciting and awesome!

As you see in this picure, the cake was amazing. The first (bottom) layer was cake. On top of that, was strawberry jam. After that, was another layer of cake. After that layer, was a layer of smashed bananas mixed with vanilla sauce. Then another cake. On top of that, is whipped cream mixed with small pieces of chocolate. Over the entire thing, was pink marzipan. On top of that was a rose and petals that my host dad made. It was finished off with a little bit of powered sugar and my host sister wanted to add the little animals on it too! It was very delicious and I'm actually sitting here eating a piece as I'm typing this. YUM!

Anyway, I'm having a FANTASTIC time in Sweden!

Kristi

Jag har flyttat.

I cannot believe that I have now been in Sweden long enough to have changed families. It seems like just the other day that I was stepping off the plane and wondering what I had just gotten myself into. I wondered how I would manage to live in a country where I didn’t yet understand the language. I also found myself wondering how my new life would be with my “new family”, whom I hadn’t actually met besides a few emails back and forth. I can honestly say that this decision that I made “just on a whim” was the best decision I have made. It has opened me to a world of new opportunities that lead to numerous new experiences. I am extremely grateful for everything that has been given to me, as well as all that I have been able to experience through those around me. Little by little, week by week, my life is changing. How it is changing, I am not so sure. I am excited to see what the rest of this year will bring. At the same time, I know that if my journey had to end now, I would be more than satisfied with all that I have done here.

It is hard to believe that about one year ago, I was rushing to finish my application, and at the same time, beginning to get nervous about my first interview in Northfield.  It seems like that was such a long time ago. I really feel like I have adjusted very well into my new life as a Swede. Every day that I am here, I am beginning to feel more and more Swedish. The other morning, while I was bicycling to school, I realized how surreal my time here has been. I have had the opportunity to do so much. I have definitely learned always to say ‘yes’ too.  Next week, I will be traveling to Riga, Latvia for three days with a few members of my Rotary club and a few members of Rotary clubs in the surrounding towns.

I have experienced so many things that I could not experience had I not chosen to become an exchange student. I wish all people could experience what I have so far. It is incredible that I am actually here, living a Swedish life!

Getting on to my life now….

My move took place on the first of October, and since then I have adjusted well to my new family. My new family consists of my host parents, Ann and Ronnie. I also have two host sisters, but the oldest, Felicia, is currently living in Northfield as an exchange student. My other host sister is Filippa, is only six years old, and she is adorable. She only speaks Swedish, so that is definitely good for forcing me to speak more Swedish. She has a lot of fun helping teach me Swedish too, so that is very good. She also has fun learning a few words in English.

My new family lives just 200 meters from the lake in Karlskoga and about the same distance to the center of town. For me, that is very nice since I can just walk or bike just about everywhere I need to go. I ride my bike to school every morning, and it takes me about 10 minutes to get there.

Recently, it has begun to really feel like fall. The temperature has dropped below zero (Celsius) during the night, and occasionally in the mornings too. The other day, it was -2 degrees when I biked to school. Time for mittens and a scarf! Soon time to break out the winter hat too!

It has also begun to be quite dark here too. By 6:30 PM, it is dark. When I say dark, I mean dark too. It is very different than what I am used to, and right now, it is only the beginning. It will only get darker from here. I have been told that it will be dark when I go to school and dark when I come home from school during part of the winter.

For the next month, I will be quite busy. That will definitely be good for me since it is beginning to be a little depressing with the dark and cold. Since I cannot guarantee that I will post again in the near future, this is what I will be up to.

Today: I had my very first test in school. Yes, I have been in school for two months now, and we are just having our first test. It was a math, so that was definitely good for me. This wasn’t any regular test though. It was a three hour long test that was over three chapters. Long chapters too. They learned most of the information last year too. Overall, I think I answered between half and three quarters of the questions on the test. After talking with my classmates after, I think I did pretty well by answering that many. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how it went…

Tomorrow: I will go to Linköpping Universitet with my class for a Popular Science day. Basically, it will be a day filled with lectures about current science topics as well as lunch and a few fikas thrown in. It is 2.5 hours away, so that means that we will leave school at 6:15 AM. It sounds as if it will be a fun day since we will have plenty of time to just relax and be with our class.

Wednesday thru Friday: I will be traveling to Riga, Latvia with a few Rotary members from my club, and a few from Rotary clubs in the neighboring towns. Most people are traveling separate, but I will be traveling with Nils, my Rotary counselor while I was living with the Frisks. We all plan to meet in Riga on Wednesday evening. To get there, I will leave my house in Karlskoga around 4:45 AM, and then go to Karlstad, about 45 minutes away, where we will catch the train to Oslo, Norway. From the Oslo airport, we will fly to Latvia. Upon our arrival in Riga, we will have a few hours to kill before we plan to meet up with the others. On Thursday, we will visit a senior citizen center, where 10 Rotary clubs have been working on a project. We also have a Rotary dinner, where an award will be given to a member of the Rotary Club of Riga. Late Friday morning, we will fly out of Riga, which means that we will be back in Karlskoga sometime in the evening.

Saturday: I will be going with Olof and a group of his friends into the woods for moose hunting. Yes, that’s right, I’m going moose hunting!

29-30 October: I will be traveling to Västerås, where I will attend the Rotary District conference (not just youth exchange, as there are only 7 or so in our district). On Saturday, we will have a day filled with various activities. On Sunday, there will be more activities for Rotary members, but the exchange students don’t have to go to this, which means we just get to hang out and do what we wish until we go home.

October 31 – November 4: We have no school due to the fact that it will be our fall break!

11^th – 12^th November: My host mom, Ann, and I will go to Stockholm where we will watch the Aqua Rapid Diving Competition. Our neighbor is on the junior national team, so we will watch her. We will also watch Anna Lindberg, who also lives and trains in Karlskoga. She is on Sweden’s national diving team and even won gold at the European Championships on 3 meter this year! It will be a fun filled weekend with lots of diving and a little shopping thrown in too!

26^th – 27^th November: I will be going to Stockholm again, but this time it is with Rotary. Nearly all of the exchange students in Sweden will get together in Stockholm, where we will do various different activities together. 

Anyway…this is what I’ll be up to in the coming month!

Hej då!

Kristi

Mat (Food)

I thought that I should dedicate one of my posts to the food eaten here in Sweden. Before I do that, I will give you a quick update on what I’ve been up to since my last post, which was quite a while ago!

I must say that Stockholm is a beautiful city. I had an amazing time while I was there three weekends ago. While I was there, I got the opportunity to see Gamla Stan (old town) where we were able to see one of the king’s castles, a famous church, the building where the Nobel Prize is given, the beautiful streets, alleys, architecture, and archipelago of Stockholm. We also went to the National Museum, where we were able to see what Sweden was like in the 1500’s to today through art, history, and a little imagination.

Crazy wood door at the National Museum from a castle in 1629

Two weekends ago, I got the opportunity to go to a summer house in Sunne with another exchange student with another exchange program. Her name is Elizabeth Rasmussen. Yes, exact same last name. How ironic! She too is from the US, but she comes from California. She is only here for 6 months, so she leaves in January. Anyway, we were there Friday thru Sunday (yes, I skipped school on Friday to go!). While we were there we picked many lingonberries, went swimming in the lake a few times, went to town to look at the local shops, and overall had a wonderful time. While we were on our way back home, we stopped at where... IKEA. I have to say, even though IKEA in Sweden looks exactly the same as it does in the US, the Swedish one is way cooler just because all the signs are in Swedish.

Last weekend was very fun too. On Friday night, my second host family invited my current host family over for dinner. I actually move there on the first of October, which is very crazy to think about. It doesn’t seem like I have been here long enough to be moving families soon. Anyway, we had a very nice dinner, and ended up chatting for over three hours! Their daughter is only six years old, and really shy. She did draw me a picture of a Swedish flag though. I really look forward to having a little sister who enjoys coloring and watching kid movies. (Kids movies are dubbed in Sweden, so they are in Swedish, not English with Swedish subtitles). The next morning, my family and I went to a baptism. That was very interesting. This baptism was similar, yet different to ones in the US. Similar to the US, there is a ceremony in a church where the priest says a few words, pours water on the baby’s head, the parents light the candles, and we sang a few songs. Unlike in the US, this service was in the middle of the day on a Saturday, not in the middle of a Sunday church service like I’m used to. A baptism in Sweden is also when the baby is officially given its name. Until the baptism, the baby’s name is not “official”. After the service, we all went to another part of the church were we ate traditional sandwich cake. It was very interesting tasting. I will just leave it at that. We also had regular cake with coffee/tea, so that was good. In the evening, I went to Louise’s (fourth family) house for the night again. We actually went over to her friend’s house for a taco fiesta! We made tacos with all the possible fixings, and the 7 of us had a very fun night. Imagine a bunch of very excited and energetic girls all talking Swedish at the same time. Now, imagine trying to follow all of it. Yeah, that was a challenge. I ended up going through the night understanding most that was said though! So that is definitely progress.

Now for the food……

Even though the breakfast and dinner I eat here will likely differ with each family, I thought I would give you an idea of what I have eaten since I have been here…

Breakfast:

·         Every morning, we eat an extremely similar breakfast. The only thing that never, ever changes is the type of tea that we drink. Every morning, we drink Twining’s English Breakfast Tea. Why this particular type…because a few years back, my host parents decided to have a taste test for various different types of English Breakfast Tea, and Twining’s was the winner. Ever since that day, they (now me too) have had the same tea every morning.

·         Along with our tea, we will often drink a small glass of juice. Almost always, it is either orange or red orange juice. Occasionally, we will have cloudy apple juice too.

Now, for the food…

For breakfast, we always eat small open faced “sandwiches”. With each sandwich, we have a variety of choices of what we want it made of. First of all, we will generally have two or three different types of bread to choose from. One is always dark, very health bread. The other one is usually dark bread with some type of seeds/nuts in the bread. Occasionally, we will have some lighter/white bread which we can toast. The first step to making our sandwich after we have chosen the bread we want, is adding the butter. Now, I have learned that Swedes really enjoy their butter. No matter what you put on top of the sandwich, you must have butter. Not just a little butter either. It needs to be thick, almost thick enough that you can’t quite see the bread underneath. Along with our bread and butter, we have many different options. We can have…

·         Cheese. Lots and lots of cheese. There are probably a hundred different types of cheese that can be found in the grocery store, but they are split into different categories. Breakfast cheese is one of them. There are many different types of breakfast cheese, and honestly, I can’t tell the difference between most of them. They are all really tasty though. Cheese will go on most sandwiches too.

·         Marmalade, aka jam. This too, comes in many different varieties. Currently, we only have apricot and orange. We just ran out of the svarta vinbär (black current). I think that one was my favorite. That may be just because it was homemade, but it was very, very good.

·         Kaviar. Ew. Basically, this is a fish paste that consists of smoked fish eggs mixed with other spices and fish parts. I tried it once even though I was told I would not like it. (They were correct…I thought it was quite bad.) The only reason Swedes like it is because they grew up with it.

·         Banana. Recently, we have had bananas to put on our sandwiches too. I think that banana and cheese sandwiches are my new favorite now that we don’t have any black currant marmalade.

·         Occasionally, we will also slice a tomato to put on our sandwiches too.

Toastable Bread

Darker Bread

Ost (Cheese)

Lunch:

During the week, I eat lunch at school. Like I mentioned before, school lunch is free. You can take as much or as little as you want too. Since this is now my fifth week in school, I have learned what our weekly lunch usually is…

·         Monday is korv (sausage) day. It may be rice with a sausage/gravy sauce that you put on top, or it might be small sausages with potatoes and spinach sauce, or it may even be a Swedish hot dog (this means that you smother the top of the hot dog with mashed potatoes).

·         Tuesday is a random day.  It will be anything from pasta to “meatballs” with potatoes and gravy. I put the meatballs in quotations because they are really more like meat patties/logs. They taste the exact same as Swedish meatballs, except they are just bigger, and not in the traditional ball shape. I think it’s that was just because it is easier for the cooks at our school.

·         Wednesday is fish day. So far, every time we have had fish in school, we have had white fish (mostly cod). To go with our cod, we (of course) have a sauce to go with it. We also have the option of putting lingonberry jam on our fish too. With our fish, we will almost always have boiled potatoes.

·         Thursday is soup day. With our soup, we also have soft bread (similar to pita bread) with cheese to accompany our soup. My first Thursday lunch, was not a good one. We had spinach soup (It was very green, thick, and jiggled on your spoon). So far, this has been the only school lunch that I have not enjoyed.

·         Friday is also a random day. My favorite “random day” meal has without a doubt been the pankakor med lingonsylt (Swedish pancakes with lingonberry jam) day.

Some days, like fish day and pancake day, the school cooks will replace the ketchup dispensers with lingonsylt dispensers. It looks like a ketchup dispenser, but lingonberry jam comes out instead. How awesome.

To go with our meal every day, we have a choice of water or milk. I always drink milk since we never do at home. (No, we do not drink milk with 10-16% milk fat like some people thought. It actually comes in 0.5, 1.5, and 3.0% milk fat, so very similar to the US). We also have the option of eating knäckebröd med smör (hard bread with butter). The hard bread is about the size of a graham cracker, so I was very surprised to find out that when people took the little individual butters, they put all of it on their bread. (I would maybe use one quarter to one half of it). When this much butter is used, you literally cannot see the bread underneath! Even though I have been in Sweden for six weeks, it still shocks me to see how much butter is consumed each and every day.

Dinner:

Dinner here is extremely delicious. Nearly everything is homemade. My host mom, Lena, is a fantastic cook too. Whatever she decides to make, no matter how strange it sounds/looks to me, tastes wonderful. It is not like the US, where someone will prepare dinner from scratch 5 or 6 times a week, and just put something in the oven on the remaining nights. Literally, every single day here, we have food made from scratch.

To accompany dinner most nights, we will eat some type of salad. Sometimes it is just a pile of lettuce that you eat plain, but other times there will be a homemade (of course!) vinaigrette. Sometimes we add tomato or cucumber to our salad too. Once, my host mom forgot to prepare the salad, so what did she do?? She took a tomato, cut it in half, and we each ate half of a tomato (plain) for our salad. Tomatoes are extremely popular here, and it is not strange if someone just picks up a tomato and starts eating it as if it were an apple.

For the main part of the dinner, we have had many, many, many, many, different things. I don’t think that we have repeated exactly what we ate for dinner more than two or three times since I have been here. (and I will have been here 8 weeks on Friday).

Here are some examples of what we will eat for dinner:

Toast that we put tomato and shrimp (in a creamy sauce) on top.

Eggplant with tomato slices and cheese sauce on top.

Grilled sirloin steak with mushrooms we picked in the forest.

Lasagna. (They put carrots in their lasagna too)

Lamb chops with artichokes (boiled artichokes that we ate with butter, salt, and pepper).

Salmon baked in a white sauce with pasta on the side.

Risotto with shrimp.

Pizza (once) that we cooked in the pizza oven. (Actual pizza oven that you need to start a fire in a few hours before you make the pizza) Everything, even the sauce was homemade!

Chicken with rice and a red beet salad.

Sushi. Yes, I ate sushi tonight for dinner. We had four differett types: salmon, shrimp, avacado, and sushi rolls. They were all very good.

Various other things that I can’t think of at the moment…

After dinner, for ‘dessert’ we will often eat cheese. This cheese is specifically for after dinner. It is usually a softer cheese. Occasionally we will eat it with knäckebröd, but not always.

On Saturday, we will generally eat godis, which is basically candy that you pick from bins in the grocery store. There are probably 50 different types of candy you can choose from. It is tradition that Saturday is godis day. (Godis på lordags)

Language-

On a side note, I know many of you are wondering about my Swedish. I am happy to say that my Swedish is coming along quite nicely now. (You can probably tell because my English is slowly getting worse.) When someone points to something, says the word in Swedish, then asks me what it is in English, I sometimes have a hard time remembering what we would call it, for example, a dresser that you put clothes in.

On the other hand, in my Swedish class, one of our assignments was to write a letter to the editor (though not actually sent...). I wrote the entire thing in Swedish, and only had to use a dictionary to look up the word 'wasted'. I think something clicked the other day, as now I can understand nearly...60-70% of what is being said. Some conversations, I understand everything, others, if I don't pay attention in the beginning, I don't understand anything. My Swedish speaking is not that good yet, but it is slowly getting better.

Random story, I never remember dreams (maybe 2 or 3 a year) but on Monday night I had a dream that was in half English, half Swedish! YAY! It was really random and about finding things in drawers, but oh well, it was partly in Swedish!

Hej då, Kristi

One Month

I must admit...I am a horrible blogger. I don't think that's such a bad thing when you're an exchange student though. It just means that I have been too busy having fun and enjoying my time in Sweden.  It’s hard to believe that as of yesterday, I have been in Sweden for exactly one month. Wow.  In the past few weeks since my last update, I have been kept very busy here in Sweden. I began by moving into my house and getting used to living here.

This is my house:

And this is my room:

We also have a pool:

But I have only been swimming in it once, and it was not for very long. Why? Because it is not heated, so it is very cold. It was 16 degrees Celsius (about 60 Fahrenheit) when I swam in it. Burr…

I have also been to a week-long language camp. Having 51 exchange students from all over the world made it a very fun and exciting week. There were a lot of Americans, but there were also people from Japan, Brazil, France, Italy, Austria, Taiwan, Canada, and Colombia. I think I'm missing a few countries though. Anyway, we had a fantastic time getting to know each other, trading pins, and doing some pretty crazy things. For the language learning part of the camp, I didn't actually learn anything since my host family has been very helpful in helping me learn Swedish as quickly as possible. Due to that, I already knew everything that they tried to teach us. We didn't have language lessons everyday though. A few other things we did include: Learning a African Afro dance that we performed for some local Rotary members, playing soccer with/against another exchange group called Erasmus (they only came for the day and they are with a university exchange program in Europe), and attempting to cook sausages on a "one time use grill" that is really just an aluminum tin with charcoal in it. Overall, it was a very fun camp experience. I left this camp feeling like a real exchange student now.

I have also begun school here in Sweden. I have found many, many differences between American high school and Swedish gymnasiet. First of all, after grade nine, each student chooses which “line” he or she wants to go to. Each line is specifically designed to point you in the right direction in the future. For example, a student may choose to enter the hair dresser track if that’s what they want to do in the future. You can also choose tracks such as linguistics, social science, restaurant, nursing, mechanics, and many others I have not listed. I am in the naturvetenskap (nature science) program. That means that I take classes such as Math, Physics, World Religion, Chemistry, History, Swedish, Biology, Idrotts (gym) and Spanish. (My classmates take English instead of Spanish). In my class, there are 22 students. Since we are all in the same line, we all have every single class together. Since they began the naturvetenskap line, they have all been together. They have also had the same teachers every year.

Every day, we have a different schedule. For example, on Monday, I begin school at 8:00 where I have Swedish, Math, Biology, and History. I end the day at 3:30. Tomorrow, I begin at 9:25 and have Math, Physics, Religion, and Biology again. I will end my day at 2:10. I have two mornings where I begin at 8:00, two where I begin at 9:25, and one that I begin at 9:40. Each class is at different times too. I may have math in the morning one day, then the afternoon the next. I have also learned that each class is different lengths. They range from 40 minutes to 90 minutes. We also have different amounts of time for lunch every day. Today we had over an hour for lunch, but tomorrow we only have 25 minutes. To get to the cafeteria, we also have to walk outside and across the street to go to a different building.

Here are some other differences I have found:

·         There are no bells to end class. You just walk out when it’s time to leave

·         Students call the teachers by their first names, not last

·         School lunch is free (and good)

·         If a teacher is absent, there is no substitute teacher. Class is just canceled. (I get to experience this first hand on Thursday since my Spanish teacher can’t come. Yay!)

·         Snow days do not exist.

·         About 95% of all students either walk, ride a bike, or take a public bus to school every day

·         Bathrooms are not marked. You just need to know/remember where they are. Bathrooms are also unisex, and individual

·         It is completely normal to wear the same outfit two, even three days in a row.

·         Nothing is blocked on school computer

·         In chemistry labs, we wear lab coats and glasses.

Despite all these differences, I am having a fantastic time with my new classmates.

Last Saturday, I got the pleasure to go to the Nobel Museum here in town. Back in the day, Alfred Nobel created the city of Karlskoga, Sweden. Even though he only lived in Sweden for three years, his house in Karlskoga is where he considers his home. While he was living in Karlskoga, he wrote his will, which stated that he wanted his estate of 31 million Swedish Kronor to go to the creation of 5 Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace. There is also an Economic prize that is in honor of Alfred Nobel that is given at the same time.  On December 10^th of every year, the Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm (the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo though). After they receive their awards, many of the winners will travel to Karlskoga to see that town that Alfred Nobel himself created. Many people will also go to the house in which he lived (the museum).  While I was there, the tour guide was Alfred Nobel “himself”. It was a local resident that looks almost identical to Alfred Nobel when he dresses up, puts on some makeup, and has his beard. It was very exciting to be in a place of such importance in our history.   

This past weekend, I also got to spend some quality time with my fourth host family. I spent the night at their house on Saturday, where I got to sleep in my future room. While I was there, I spent a lot of time getting to know Louise and Victoria, my future host sisters. We ordered two pizzas, one Hawaiian and one pizza with sauce, cheese, banana slices, pineapple, chicken, and curry sauce on it. I don’t remember the name of it but it was very delicious. We also watched two movies, ate some godis (Swedish candy), and then decided to walk to the soccer field nearby and play soccer in the middle of the night. In the morning, we ate breakfast, and then baked a cake as a surprise for one of Louise’s friends. Swedish cake is very different from American cake since it is split into three layers. One layer, we filled with jam and whipped cream (which you have to whip yourself). The other layer we filled with chocolate. We then surrounded the entire cake with whipped cream and decorated it. After surprising her friend, we made lunch, and then I went home for a while before going back into town to play soccer.

On Sunday, Louise and Victoria invited me go play soccer. A new team was just being created, so I was warmly welcomed. Even though I was the only one who had never played soccer before, it was still a lot of fun. I now have soccer practice every Thursday night. That will be very fun and exciting for me.

This weekend I am going to Stockholm, so that should be very exciting as well.

Hej då!

Kristi



Gräsö, Kayaking, Hiking, and Karlskoga

Nine days ago, I finally arrived in Sweden. I had been waiting for this day to arrive since October 16^th, the day our Rotary application was due to Vicki Dilley in Northfield. After countless hours of having interviews, waiting to hear where we would be going, and many hours of orientation and preparation, I can finally say real fun has begun. Even though I have been here for nine days now, this is the first time that I really had time to sit down and write this…

I think I will try to go day by day with the first week and say what I did (This could be a long blog since I did A LOT over the first few days).

Day 1 – Friday July 29^th

I arrived to the Stockholm –Arlanda airport at 7:15 AM with Peter, Jon, and Marisa (fellow exchange students going to Sweden). I slept for maybe an hour or two during my 15 hours of travel, which means this first day felt like it took forever. After meeting my new family, the Frisks, at the airport our first order of business was to go grocery shopping in Uppsala since we would be heading to the summer home in Gräsö. Of course, I had to begin my adventure with unexpected delays. We arrived at the grocery store in Uppsala at 8:30 AM only to find that it didn’t open until 10 AM. To pass time, we decided to drive around Uppsala so I could have a short sightseeing tour of the town. After some quick sightseeing, we decided to have our first Swedish Fika (basically you drink coffee and eat some type of pastry/ sweet tasting bread product). This too, was somewhat difficult to do since almost no shop in the town was open. Apparently 9 AM was too early in the morning to open a coffee shop. After looking around, we did find one that was open. I really think the coffee helped me wake up, which was good. After our fika, we went grocery shopping and then drove to Öregrund (right outside Gräsö but on the mainland) where we had lunch. After this, we drove our car to the ferry so that we could go make our way to the island of Gräsö. It was only a 5 minute ferry ride to the island, but the ferry only leaves every half hour. When we arrived at the summer home, we unpacked our things and had a lovely rest of the day. Lena (mother), Nikolina (sister), and I then decided to go for a swim in the Baltic Sea. We began by hiking in the forest so we could go to a small cove where there was a secluded sandy beach. Little did I know, the water in the sea was extremely cold. (About 17.5 degrees Celsius or 64 degrees Fahrenheit) That too, woke me up for a while. On our walk back to the summer home, we picked a small bucket full of wild raspberries and blueberries which we had with dinner. Dinner was fabulous too. We had small pieces of chicken wrapped in bacon, yum! After this, we began to watch a movie (although I don’t even remember what it was since I was so tired), then it was 9 PM and I went to bed.

Day 2- Saturday

Saturday was a very active day, as we went kayaking in the archipelago just south of Gräsö (northern archipelago of Stockholm). In the morning, we had to decide if we would go or not due to the wind. I looked at the sea and thought ‘there is hardly any wind...how can they be saying it is too windy?’ I, of course, was thinking of Minnesota and Round Lake wind. We decided to go anyway, despite the wind.  Nikolina and I shared a kayak, while Olof and Lena shared one. We began kayaking mid-morning and went all through the afternoon. Again, little did I know how just a little wind can make it much more difficult to kayak in. We did stop at a small uninhabited island to eat lunch and play a short card game while Olof (father) took a short nap. After this, we kayaked around many more islands before heading back to the island we got them from. Our entire trip, we kayaked about 20 km. After we finished kayaking, we stopped for some glass( ice cream) at a little convenience store. The rest of the day consisted of a fabulous salmon dinner and another movie (which I actually stayed awake for).

Day 3- Sunday

On Sunday, we got to sleep in before leaving Gräsö and making a day trip to Singö (another island just south of Gräsö), where I would meet my third host family, the Herbrings, at their summer home. The Herbring family consists of five people; Lena (mother), father(name?), and three children, Carl(in my class), Oskar, and Emma. Oskar and Emma are older and living away from home, although they were both at the summer home. After having lunch, we walked to a spot where the boats were. Carl and I each took a kayak and went to where we would meet up with everyone and go swimming. The kayak ride took about 15 minutes, and then we met up with everyone else. After swimming/ throwing the water Frisbee around in the water for quite a while, we made our way back in the kayaks, then back to their summer home, where we ate a delicious blueberry pie. By this time, it was nearly time to leave. When we got back to Gräsö, we had dinner then went for a short ride in the rowboat. We then watched another movie and went to bed. (Can you begin to see a trend?)

Day 4- Monday

On Monday morning, Nikolina left with her friend Erik to go to Gothenburg, where Nikolina would meet up with her former host family (she was an exchange student to New Zealand). After breakfast, Olof, Lena, and I went for a walk in the forest. Again, little did I know, going for a walk meant speed walking for two and a half hours. Halfway through our “walk” we stopped for a drink of water and an apple for a snack. We walked for about 15 km total before returning home. After our return, Lena and I went for another swim in the Baltic. After sitting in the sun to warm up for a bit, we had lunch then went for another boat ride, though this time we used the trolling motor. We relaxed in the boat while Olof tried to catch a fish (he was unsuccessful). Apparently it is quite difficult to catch a fish where we were, but he tried anyway. Quite a few years ago Lena caught I huge 20 kg fish though. After this, we ate dinner, watched another movie, then went to bed.

Day 5- Tuesday

This morning, we decided to go for another walk. Although this one would be “much shorter”. This walk only lasted about 10.5 km. We walked with a pace of about 9 min/ km, which means our walk lasted a little longer than 1.5 hours. Upon our return, we had a much needed breakfast before taking the boat out again. This time, we went south of the summer home and found a small uninhabited island (nearly all were uninhabited and those that were, were quite scarce with the number of houses there). We did some exploring on the island, and then took a swim where it was a little warmer, and had some water and cookies. We also laid in the sun for a while, and did some more exploring. We spent a good chuck of our day there, before returning to prepare dinner. I got to have my very first Swedish hamburger. The hamburger meat was not from the typical cow, it was actually made with ground moose meat. It was actually very good. The meat was mixed with other things like an egg and other spices. I was surprised at how tasty it was. We also had an amazing dessert that Lena and I made from more wild blueberries and some wild raspberries. We had another pie that was amazing. (I will need to get the recipe…) After this, we got to see a beautiful sunset over the Baltic. Again, we watched another movie before bed.

Day 6- Wednesday

Wednesday was a travel day. In the late morning, we left the summer home and made our way to Karlskoga. On our way home, we had to pick up Annelise (sister) and her boyfriend in Stockholm, as well as pick up Nikolina in Örebro (about 30 minutes away from Karlskoga). Since we had two cars, the plan was to meet in Stockholm and make our way back home. Since Lena’s phone wouldn’t work, we had to change our plans. Olof picked everyone up while Lena and I did the grocery shopping. We first stopped at a grocery store in Stockholm where we bought meat and cheese (no joke..). The store reminded me of a Sam’s Club or Costco since all the food was in bulk. After shopping here, we continued driving and later stopped at a gas station to fill up the car and get some lunch. We had the Swedish version of fast food. This consisted of two sausages, mashed potatoes, an apple, and a beverage. I thought this was very tasty for it being “fast food”. After our meal, we then continued driving to Örebro where our next grocery stop was. Here, we got the bread, lettuce, potatoes, and other fresh food. We then drove to Karlskoga, where my new home for the next year is. After 5 hours of driving, we finally made it home. We then had steak that we bought at the store, watched another movie, and went to bed.

Day 7- Thursday

On Thursday, Nikolina and Annelise went to a hen (bridesmaids) party, which meant that I got to unpack and familiarize myself with my new home. After this, Olof cut the grass while Lena and I drove to town to have a fika with mormor (Lena’s 92 year old mother). I then got a short tour of the town before we had to go the grocery store again and head home. Olof and Lena’s best friends were coming over to spend the night. Hocka and Marlo (spelling??) live in Stockholm and were on their way back home so they stopped over for the night. They were a lot of fun to be around during the day.

Day 8- Friday

On Friday morning, after breakfast, all the girls (Lena, Marlo, Annelise, Nikolina, and I) went to Dagerfors (town just south of Karlskoga) so that Lena could buy a nice dress. After Lena found the dress she wanted, we made our way back to Karlskoga central, where we looked for some shoes. Although it was unsuccessful, we still bought some bread at a bakery for our afternoon fika. After the fika, our guests left to drive back to Stockholm. After they left, we had a little down time, where I decided to “read” (more like look at) some children’s books. We actually found some very helpful books that were picture books with both the Swedish and English word next to the picture. Although it is a bit silly, this may really help me learn some useful Swedish words as the book is more than 60 pages! In the evening, mormor (grandma) came over for dinner. It was nice to have her here since she doesn’t know any English, so everyone had to speak in Swedish all the time. After dinner, Annelise, Nikolina, and I went for a walk in the forest by their house. I really enjoyed their pace much more since we would often stop when we saw raspberry bushes so we could eat some. Mormor also spent the night and next morning with us, which was quite nice.

Day 9- Saturday (today)

Today was mostly a day of preparation for our party tomorrow. We are having a small welcome party for me so I can meet my other two host families. To prepare, we decided on recipes and I got to help make some biscuits, which was quite fun. Now, I finally had some time to turn on my computer, download pictures, and write this.

All in all, I am having the time of my life and I can’t wait to see what the rest of my year will bring. I hope to keep you informed throughout the year, but I have quickly found out that there is little time to spare with life as an exchange student.

Kristi