Public Transport

I spend so much time of public transport and even more time running to catch it!

I know it may seem like a weird thing to blog about but the amount of time I spend on Stockholm’s public transport is sort of insane! I take a bus to school every day, if I want to go into the city I catch a bus then either the commuter train called the pendeltåg or the underground called the tunnelbana, and if I want to get to my contact families house I take a bus then two trains which takes around one hour!



Snowy train station

Using the public transport gives me an idea of how big this city really is. When it takes you over an hour to get where you are going and you have to change trains once or twice, and catch one or two buses you start to notice that you are in a big city! Sometimes it feels a bit surreal to be sitting on trains watching Stockholm flash by. I am still not that used to seeing a wonderful and beautiful old city outside of the train window. It also feels a bit strange to say to someone ‘I’ll just jump on the next train and I’ll be there!’ Trains are still such a novelty for me, so hopping on and off trains is such a fun, new and exciting thing for me to do that I could do it all day!

A rare empty train!

Stockholm’s public transport is almost always busy. It is amazing if you see an empty train or hop on an empty bus! One thing that I think will always amaze me about Sweden is that if you are on a busy train or bus and you have an empty seat next to you almost always no one will sit next to you. Some people go out of their way to stop someone sitting next to them by sitting on the edge seat and putting their bag on the other! You can hop on a bus with almost half of its seats free and have to stand! Madness!

In New Zealand we say thank you to the bus driver when we get off the bus. Do not do this in Sweden! It is not the done thing and I feel so rude getting off the bus and not saying thanks to the driver.  I have caught myself out quite a few times almost saying it!

I have no idea how I would be able to live in this city without all of its transport or if I lost my bus/train card. I don’t know what I would do!

 

 

 

Learning Swedish

Learning Swedish has proven to be just as hard as I thought it would be to learn! It is a language of many new sounds, many new rules and of course a few new letters (å, ä, ö).

Swedish may use the same alphabet, with three extra letters, as English but the way you say things is oh so very different. I got told the other day that Americans and New Zealanders and pretty much all other English speakers that we speak at the back of our mouth and swedes speak at the front. With this information I also got told that if I make a fish face with my hands pushing my checks forward my Swedish will sound perfect, even though I will look like a right silly person when I do it! 

Swedish has so many different groups of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs it is crazy! My school book is full of all of these different groups and words translated into English! The rules are pretty strait forward unlike English! I have only come across one rule that doesn’t make sense and has no reasoning behind it. I then think of English and I wonder how anyone has learnt it as a second language with all its unexplained rule! I have been able to get my head around most of the rules for Swedish nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, it is just remembering then when I speak and when I write which is the really hard part!

It is a great feeling when you understand something. But when you understand something in another language it is a whole new great feeling! At the moment I can understand quite a lot of Swedish but I have to concentrate and keep focused in class. I could swear this is the hardest I have ever worked at school in my whole life, trying to learn Swedish! Yesterday I was in my relgion class and they were having a large debate over something and nothing was written down and everyone was talking very fast, so I had no idea what was going on! Someone came up to me after class and (in English) asked me if I got any of the class because apparently it was quite interesting! I had to answer with, um well no… I am slowing getting the hang of understanding! But it helps if everyone speaks slowly!

Speaking is not coming on quite as well as understanding. When I do try to speak I am very nervous that I will say something and nobody will understand me because I am saying it all wrong! Also the things I can say are rather silly and not really conversation starters! One of the things I can say is ‘I play football’ (‘Jag spelar fotboll’ in Swedish). Not exactly the world’s most exciting sentence but it’s a start and you have to start from somewhere! I think the more confident I get with the language I will be happier speaking and more people will understand me! I also think speaking comes with time, I just want that time to hurry up and get here!

At my school I am in a course to help me learn Swedish. In this course there are different levels and you move up when you are good enough and/or pass a test! I have just been moved up a group! The reason for me moving up is because in C Group (the group I will now be in) it is more about talking in Swedish rather than learning all the rules and grammar, and talking in Swedish is what I need!!

To help me learn Swedish I have started listening and following along in the book, to Harry Potter! I have read the book so many times that I know the story well and can understand a fair bit of what is going on but it is till mighty confusing. I got about 11 pages in and had to stop and go to bed because I was so sleepy after concentrating on what was going on. It was also about 9 at night.  

I have set the dead line with my family that there will be no more English in the house after Christmas. I plan to sick to this very much!  

    

 

Hey! Who turned out the lights?!

The other day I walked out of school at 5.00pm after my English class. The last time I did this, about two weeks ago, it was light outside. This time it was pitch black.

Today it got dark at 4.00pm.

The sun started going down at about 2.30pm.

I don’t even think the sun got all the way up before it packed it in and started going down. Lazy sun!!

It is so strange coming out of school when it is dark outside and then going to football practice. I get home and think it is about 11.00pm when it is really only about 7.00pm.

The feeling of pure tiredness that comes with the dark comes so much earlier and I feel so tried all the time. It is also so much harder to get yourself up and going when it is dark outside at this time. It takes so much more will power not to just curl up in bed at 4.30pm and go to bed, like I did today! (Opps!)

Soon it will only be light from about 10am till about 2pm or an even shorter amount of time! Most of the time I will be in school for the light hours!

I have been told that the snow helps make it lighter but for the month of November there is little to no snow and dark days and the weather is always raining and the temperature is always dropping! Got to love November!! All I can say is that I am with the swedes when they say bring on the snow!!  

 

Horses and Graveyards

Today I tried something very new. I went horse riding with my host family and a family friend. I have never really been interested in going horse riding, but when they asked if I would like to go and try it out, I said yes! So we took the drive to a place about an hour and a half away from Stockholm to ride a special type of horse from Iceland called Icelandic Horses. These horses are smaller than normal horses and are meant to be easier to ride for beginners like me! This however was not the case with me. I had, what I thought was a lovely horse, to ride for the trip. So I jumped on my horse in a rather uncoordinated fashion, and the horse started walking! Coming from a person how has never ever been horse riding before and did not know how to control the horse, this was rather scary. The family friend that came with us new how to ride horses and taught me how to stop and start my horse and make it go where I wanted it to go, the only problem was that her horse and mine were not the best of friends so my horse tried to kick hers with her back legs. This freaked the living day lights out of me! I was in no mood to fall off this horse or any other horse for that matter! We carried on walking and headed to the forest. This is when my horse went crazy. We had to go through a puddle of water. My horse didn’t like this puddle of water. She liked the trees next to the puddle of water. She went for the trees taking me with her right into the trees in a crazy run and she wouldn’t listen to me to not. I freaked. It really scared me that it wouldn’t listen to me and that it kept trying to go off on its own. In the end my host brother John switched horses with me. His horse was nice and just plodded along which was a nice change and I could relax. John, who had ridden before, found it a bit easier to control my horse but she still wasn’t happy! Overall it was good to try horse riding but whether I do it again is still very much up in the air!

 

 

My crazy horse!



 

 

Aron's (my host brother) horse.

On the first weekend of November in Sweden there is a tradition that you will go to a graveyard a light a candle for the love ones you have lost. Whether it is on the person’s grave or in a spot to remember all you can light your candle and remember. On Saturday night my host family and I went to Stockholm’s biggest graveyard and lit our candles. I put one down for Grandma and Granda. It was such a lovely way to remember. The whole graveyard glowed with candle light and every so often you would see a lantern being let into the air. It is such a simple thing to do. I loved the fact that it made a place that would be a scary place to be in pitch black darkness into a place of such simple beauty.

 

The four candles my host family and I lit. the one at the front is mine for Grandma and Granda.

 

 

The candles in the graveyard from the hop of a hill.

 

 

Candles in a tree.

 

 

A place to leave candles if your loved ones are not in this graveyard covered in candles.

 

      

 

The Snow and Me

Really thought I had a few more snow free weeks up my sleeve. I was wrong. Very wrong.

 

So on Thursday the 25th of October 2012, I, Annie Rea, saw here first ever Swedish snow. Much to my host families amusement I went jumping up and down to every window in the house looking out saying “It’s snowing, omg it’s snowing!” funnily enough Swedish snow looks the same as New Zealand snow. It’s still white and it still falls from the sky!

My host brother, Aron, can running into my room going “it’s snowing Annie, it’s snowing!!!!!” and then laughed at me as I was looking out all the windows!

It wasn’t much snow but it was still there in the morning. Sadly it was not enough to make a snowman or even have a snowball fight. But I am sure that soon enough I will have enough snow to make snowmen until the cows come home! The snow has now turned to ice and slush in most places but in the forest behind my house it is untouched making it look like Christmas with snow covered pine trees. I like it!

 

 

SNOW!

 

 

Going to school this morning was something quite new. It was the first time that my trusty Kathmandu jacket failed me for warmth. The wind was bitterly cold and cut right though the jacket! But it was only a short walk down the now icy and slippy hill to the bus stop, getting warmer as I went down my hill! Once I got to school I was very happy that school is all in one building! Made me happy knowing I didn’t have to go out in the cold to get to my next class.

I am kind of looking forward to having more snow and I have been assured by many of people that it is just around the corner! Looking forward to it!!  

 

Life in Sweden

It is a weird feeling to forget that you are actually in Sweden. I have done it only a few times. Once when I was walking down to the bus stop to go to school, it just felt so normal and right that I didn’t think “I am in Sweden” like I seem to think most of the time! Even though I have never taken the bus to school before I came to Sweden yet it felt normal. Over the past few years I have been getting used to a new normal living in Christchurch and it has become normal this new normal and now it is time for another new normal. And maybe catching the bus to school and it feeling normal is just my brain saying that it is ok with this new normal. I think that when things start to feel normal like this it is the first step feeling right at home here.

Home here is very nice. Although the house is big (it fits seven of us and a dog easily) it has a cozy, comfy feeling to it. It also has an amazing view as I live on top of a hill! I like having this amazing view of the lake I live next to and the city I live very close to but sometimes the hill can be a nightmare. When you are late for the bus and you have to run down this hill it can be torture! I have never really liked running down hills (it is better than up though) as you always end up running full pelt down the hill and then not being able to stop running easily.  And then going up after a long day of running for busses ad going to school is not so nice! I have been thinking that I might just have to use a sled in the winter to get down this silly hill. But the view from the hop of this hill is almost worth all the running up and down it! Although my room in this house is starting to feel like my place in this house, I sometimes expect to wake up to find myself in a room back in New Zealand. I brought something’s from my room at home with me to make this feel homey and it was one of the best things I brought with me! And the picture that my sister gave me of me and her, it is just the best thing to have! I have learnt that house here are very warm! There is a heater in every single room in this house. I am so used to have a freezing cold room all the time in the winter that having a heater by my bed and my rooming being nice and warm at all times is taking a bit of getting used to. I have to dress up warm when I leave the house but as soon as I enter it I have to take off my many layers!

 

 View from the kitchen window of my house of a very foggy morning! Walking to the bus stop was odd that morning! Could not see much at All!

 View from the kitchen window of my house on a nice day! Where it starting raining about 10 mins after i had taken this! Swedish weather! I will never understand it!!

 

I have finally got my head around school. It has taken sometime but now it has become somewhere I know and understand (ish). Not having to make lunch everyday has now become routine and I no longer get up in the morning and start to make my school lunch. And I must say that a fully cooked meal for lunch beats a sandwich and a couple of apples any day. (On a side note my family has an apple tree, so for all those wondering if I am still eating all the apples, I am set and happy as can be on that front!) School seems to offer everything when it comes to lunch. On day it will be pancakes (best day ever!) the next it will be fish, then it could be pasta. And always fresh salad and fruit on offer. It is really quite nice and all free!! I mostly take subjects in learning Swedish but I also take music, in which we are making up a musical which is pretty cool if you ask me, I then take English, in which we are writing essays and learning this about creative writing that would have been super helpful two years ago! I am also starting three hour PE class next Wednesday, which covers everything and I am also taking religion, which I have never taken before in my life so I am looking forward to seeing what it is all about (even though I won’t understand much to start with!) next year I am going to be dropping all Swedish learning classes and only take classes with Swedish people! I will either join the social science program or the natural science program. So far with school I have been out for a day hiking around a lake where I fell in a big heap of mud! I have been to a museum for the day and I have had a party at school! I know a party at school seems pretty weird but trust me it felt weirder to be at school till about 11 o’clock. It was so much fun though. The ‘party’ was for all the music students over all three years. Everyone who is a music student is part of this group called “bobby” and this was a “bobby” party. We had dinner, did music quizzes and they tried to teach myself and the other three exchange students Swedish in song form! My team, The Space Butterflies, won the music quizzes which was so good! We won Pez for this! I was/am very happy for this!!! In a weeks’ time the school is holding their annual school dance competition where the school dances! It is an all-day thing and I am really looking forward to it as it sounds like heaps of fun to watch, and maybe make a fool of myself and join in! My school is all in one building. Even the gym is attached! It is the best thing when it is raining. No more fighting to stay under the covers when moving from class to class for Annie now! My school is also very open with windows everywhere and so much natural light! It makes the school have a nice feeling to it! My school also always has art hanging everywhere in the main halls which is really cool to look at! One thing that I can’t get used to is calling all my teachers by their first name. I feel so very rude when I do this and disrespectful towards them. Also the fact that you can answer back to them to make sure your point is made. There is also the fact of them treating you more like a friend than a student. It is very hard to get used to. One of the best things about school here is that some days I don’t start school till 12 o’clock, while on other days I’ll finish at 11.30am! It is great! I think I love Fridays the most as I don’t start till 9am and finish at 11.30am! Such a good day! Mind you there are a few days that I start at 9am and don’t quit until 5pm which are not as nice. I like school here and I am really looking forward to the rest of the time here as there are many exciting things that are coming up!!

My School, with noone in it! Also those stairs are the hardest thing to walk up and down. Not a nice size stair case!  

Apple tree!!!

I have joined a football team here. Although I have not played football in many years and it shows when I am training with people who have played all their lives, it is heaps of fun and I met heaps more Swedish people! I have also notice that football is the same all around the world! The rules are the same and it easy to get the hang of what to do even when it is in a different language. The team I play in seems to me to be a very serious team, with training twice a week, all equipment in good condition and the whole team wearing their kit to practice. But I am really enjoying starting to play again even though my skills are, well, shit (but getting a little better!) plus hopefully doing this bit of exercise twice a week will help me not put on any more weight!!

I thought that living in a family where there is seven of us would be a mad house with people busy and doing things all the time but it is not like that much at all. There are a few days where we are all a little busy but it sure is not all the time. In my host family I have three host brothers (one who is 19, and two who are 14), a host sister who is 16 and a host mum and dad. I also have a host dog, who is just as silly as billy back home which is nice! My host brothers are really into gaming, which I know nothing about so when the conversation turns to gaming I have no clue what is going on! But I have learnt that if I hear my host brother, Aron, talking to himself (his room is next to mine) it is ok and he is not going crazy!! My host dad travels a lot for work and I don’t see him that often. I get on really well with my host mum though which I am really happy about. We always eat dinner together as a family and if we are not home then some is always left for us to warm up. I like eating together. It gives us all a chance to talk about our days and it is nice to have family time!

So far in the almost two months I have been here I have talked so much about New Zealand and become very patriotic about New Zealand. I have also proved to myself and to my mum, who said I know nothing about NZ, that I know a heap more about it than I thought. I have helped people with homework on New Zealand, done presentations on NZ and in a weeks’ time going to do a presentation in Swedish about New Zealand or Nya Zeeland in svenska! I have also begun to look for New Zealand on every map I see. So far the AFS map itself didn’t even have NZ on it which I thought was quite unfair! But other than that most maps have had it which I am happy about!

There is so much wildlife here, even in the city! I have seen many squirrels, much to my friend’s enjoyment when I first saw one, she thought I was very funny as I went “OMG THERE IS A SQUIRREL!!!!!” and pretty much just flipped out! I have also seen a wild deer just chilling by my bus stop one night, it gave me such a fight that I just sort of stood there frozen looking at it! That is one of the good things about living in a sort of forest! I have also seen a few sheep on my first day here in Sweden! The other two kiwi girls that are here and me were like “oh they have sheep here too!” it made us happy!

Overall life here in Sweden is going pretty damn well! So far, so good!

I have settled into a routine that I am happy with and it feels like I am living a normal life in a place that I don’t speak the language and rely on a lot of guesswork! All part of the fun!

But I am happy as a cow that is for sure!   

 

Thoughts On Things

Writing in English is surprisingly soothing after try to focus your mind in swedish all day. Words come easily from the mind to the hands to type without having to think and look up and get confused. Although I enjoy learning Swedish it is so very hard to get my head around. If I can’t remember what a word means in English it is gone within seconds of learning that word. Learning Swedish means watching peoples every move to get what they mean or what they are telling you to do. I know that Swedish will come in time and that if I put in the effort now I will benefit in the long run, but this is becoming increasingly harder when you feel that others around you are picking it up and you still seem to be stuck at this confused stage of learning the language. So English comes as a relaxing tool. To just type in English has never been so relaxing. It is as though my mind switches into a state of pure ease and the headache that lingers around when I am trying to think in Swedish goes into nothingness. Swedish has not necessarily been harder than I first thought I think there is just more to it that I first anticipated. Many rules that you just have to guess if you use it with that word. Some things there are no rules to it you just do that with this word, but if you add a t at the end it changes completely! But these things come with learning a new language! But there are the times when you understand something and you just want to dance. The moment when your mind just goes hang on I know what that means, you can answer that! At the moment just understanding one small conversation in Swedish means that I have accomplished something in my day, that I can keep on going on in this endless sea of Swedishness!

 

There is something about living in a big city that is exciting and scary all at the same time. Stockholm is not the biggest city you can find but it sure amounts to more than Christchurch does. I have this thought in my mind that big cities have trains. Stockholm has trains. Underground trains too. Trains make a city feel bigger. Trains make you feel like you have been on a journey, even if it is only a 20 min train ride. I have always dreamed of living in a city that is full of people and life and general busyness. A big city. Being here feels right. I feel as though this big city is soft and welcoming with its history and different coloured buildings, with its many little alley ways to lose yourself in, it’s smell of the sea mixed with the smell of hotdogs from the many carts dotted around the city, and with its many bridges and it’s busy hum of all the people. There is so much to explore and get lost can mean finding yet another new and enchanting place in this city. Finding yourself sitting down on a concrete wall with your legs hanging down just above the water in the middle of a city is something this city aloe can offer. I am looking forward to seeing this city in the middle of winter. The picture in my head is of the buildings covered in snow with many lights on around giving the city a glow in it’s almost constant winter darkness. I image a fairy tale like setting and I am forever hoping that it will look much like this image I have painted in my mind.   

 Sometimes when I say I am from New Zealand I get a blank look until they click and realise they do know where that is and then go on to say “you’re so far from home!” others will know right away where it is and say “lord of the rings!, sheep! or Auckland!” Well at least they know it’s not part of Australia! But one thing I have realised quite quickly is that although New Zealand is known for many things it is a very small country. My English teacher was talking to me about his trip to New Zealand (Auckland) and he said that it was “lovely but if you blinked you missed everything.” He was very surprised to hear that Auckland was the biggest city in New Zealand! I have always know New Zealand is small, I mean we are always being left off maps, even the AFS one, but looking at it from an outsiders point of view makes me believe that it is not only Auckland city you miss if you blink, you could end up missing the whole thing! I love New Zealand though. It is so relaxed and so easy to just chill there!

 

Sweden so far has been full of surprises, so here is to more of them!

 Stockholm on a sunny day! Taken while sitting on a concrete wall after getting a bit lost with some other AFS seen down below in the other picture, which was taken on a bridge by a lovely passer by!

School Time!

School here is new and exciting but also confusing and scary. 

There are so many differences. For one you call your teacher by their first name. No more miss, mrs and mr. It is a hard thing to get used to and I feel as though I am being very disrespectful to them. I mean today I had a conversation with the principal on the train to the city! Would I have done that at home? No!!

School lunch. Having a full blown meal at school that is cooked for you and free is so very odd! I can’t get used to not making my lunch in a hurried rush in the morning and have gone, more than once, to go make lunch in the morning before school! Even the other day when m host sister and I were baking I thought to myself “oh that would be a good thing to take to school for lunch!” Also I have had pancakes for lunch more than once over the past two weeks! Best lunch EVER!!!

Class is probably one of the most confusing things yet! I am in a class called sprint which means that I am doing Swedish almost 24/7! It is great as I am picking up a fair bit already but it is also really hard to keep your mind in the zone of Swedish!!! I am also taking a class called Music Project. I don’t really play any sort of instrument but I really enjoy the class, so we’ll see how that one goes! And of course I am taking English! It is more of a way to meet some Swedish people but I bet I’ll learn things about English I don’t even know!!

One thing that is great about school here is that it is all in the one building. No more getting wet when you go from class to class when it is raining. No more having to remember what block and where that block is. It is just so great!

The whole school doesn’t ever start class all at the same time nor finish classes. I have said goodbye to waiting for the bell to tell me when to go to the next class or when lunch time is!

People are friendly and will talk to you and help you out if you have no idea of what is going on (in English!)

I like school here. It’s fun, exciting, new and confusing all at the same time.  

Why Hi There Sweden!

It’s been many years in the making but I am finally here in Sweden!

First off I think it is right to say that Mum was right. I didn’t know what it was like to be tried when I was back in New Zealand. But after 40 hours of travel on 4 planes, two buses, one train, one car and a lot of walking and sitting around airports I have a fair idea of what being tried is like.

When I arrived in Sweden we were met by a bunch of AFS volunteers and some other students. We had some more time to just sit around yet another airport while we waited for other students to arrive. Then it was time for the last bit of travel! A bus trip to the place where the arrival camp was going to be. It was a very quiet bus trip as everyone fell strait to sleep as soon as we started moving.

Camp was amazing! The setting was so wonderfully Swedish with its forest all around, red barn like buildings and the sea just a walk away. There were about 60 of us at camp from all over the world all with the same mind set for the year, Get everything we can out of it!

On Saturday we started off the day with some group activities that involved a lot of clapping! We then went on to having different classes about the rules, school and host families, Swedish culture and Swedish language. The day was ended by all the groups making up a small skit about three different things we were given and a Swedish song. Sadly my group didn’t get ABBA!

Sunday was a day of goodbyes. It was time for us all to go our separate ways to our host families all around the country. It also meant that I had a huge amount of excited nerves throughout the bus trip into Stockholm city.

Meeting my host family is probably the most exciting thing that has happened so far! They are all so lovely and nice and have made me feel at home strait away.

It is strange to think that I am finally here but also very exciting to be here!   

The First of the Goodbyes.

It doesn’t feel like you’re going anywhere until you start to say goodbye. But once the goodbyes start time goes quickly and you end up only having a week and a half to go before you say the final goodbyes and get ready to say hello to so many new people. I have never been good at goodbyes and I don’t seem to be getting any better. How are you meant to say goodbye to someone you know you will never see in your life ever again? Goodbye have a nice life. It doesn’t seem quite right.

Goodbyes come with sadness, but many come with happiness and there has never been a happy medium. You maybe sad that someone is going but you are happy that they get to go out into the world and enjoy themselves and you just end up being confused and the goodbye gets harder.

Goodbyes mean leaving people. Leaving your family and your friends. You say goodbye to them only to see them again and have to go back through your goodbyes.

Goodbyes are watching a plane from your bedroom window and realising that that with be you in a few days.

Goodbyes are giving your mum the last hug, the last kiss at the airport while holding back the tears so you both don’t start crying.

Goodbyes mean packing up your life into one suitcase and hoping it will be under 20kgs.

Goodbyes are leaving everything you are used to, everything that is normal to you behind and forgetting it and never looking back.

But most of all goodbyes are hard. They will never get easier but they will always get harder.  

The beginning

My name is Annie and i'm writing this blog about my year living in Sweden! I'm going on an AFS exchange to Traangsund in Stockholm, Sweden!
My host family is made up of six people and a dog! I have a host mum and dad , three host brothers (one older and two younger) and a younger host sister. Each AFS student is given a liason family, which is another famiy which are a support family for me and my host family. My liason family has a daughter who is here in New Zealand on an exchange fro sweden and is a friend of mine!
I have just over 5 weeks before i leave for my year and am looking forward to it a lot!
As soon as I get to Sweden I will have an arrival camp with all the other AFSers from around the world who have chosen to go to Sweden! This is held in Stockholm and I am looking forward to meeting all the people who I am going to be sharing this amazing experience with!
AFS is all about throwing your self out there and seeing where it takes you and i can't wait to go and see where my AFS experience takes me!
Just 5 weeks to go!!