Life goings ons

I always seem to have a point to these things so I thought I would write one that is just about what has been going on in my life in an everyday sort of way! Thats right i am changing it up a bit.

First up it is bloody cold in Sweden! I don’t think I have ever been this cold in my whole life. The fact is that this morning when I woke up it was -16°C outside and my first thought was, ‘make sure you wear two pairs of pants today.’ I did wear two pairs of pants and was still feeling the chill. The coldest it has been for me not including the whole wind chill factor of it all, has been -23°C. That was cold and I was and still am quite happy it as not windy that day! I would like to thank my thermals for being with me at this time. They are my best friends! I have also fallen in love with big fluffy warm socks. They are nice. And now I have just been told by my host mum that more cold weather is promised for the next week! Looking forward to that one. One of the strange things that happens when it is as cold as it has been is that your hair freezes. I have been told by a huge amount of people that when this happen you DO NOT touch your hair as it will snap very easily and you can say goodbye to your hair!

The Swedish has begun! I told my host mum and the rest of my host family that I think it is time for the English to stop and the Swedish to begin. And so it has! My host family talks Swedish to me and I try my very hardest to reply in Swedish although it is mostly a mix of English and Swedish. I have started to feel more confident in speaking the Swedish I know. It has come to the point in which I don’t really care if I am saying it wrong as long as I am trying and giving it a shot then it will be ok! I am able to understand most of what people are saying if they are not talking to fast or in full on Swedish slang. It helps with class when I can understand what the hell the teacher is going on about. Half the time what I understand is totally irrelevant to what we are doing in class but at least I am getting somewhere. It is even better when a friend understands what you are saying in Swedish. Although I may not get it right every time I am at least trying and at least they can get the main idea of what I am waffling on about.  

I had an AFS mid-stay camp the other weekend. It was two things. First it was a laugh and great time to catch up with people and have a good time talking about everything and anything that was going on in our lives in Sweden and secondly it made us all realise that we are half way through our exchanges years. I don’t think this hit us on the camp as we were not talking about it but when I got home it hit me and it was quite a shock. These last five months have gone past in a whirlwind of new, exciting and different. They have made me grow up and change and have made me open my eyes to new things. I feel these next five months will go by rather quickly as well. But I think that although it will be a crazy roundabout ride full of exciting things like going to England with school, seeing different parts of Sweden and graduating from Swedish high school it will be an even better five months than the ones just passed. It will go quickly but it is so full of everything fun and exciting that it is ok.

I have started a whole bunch of new classes at school. These are both changeling and interesting at the same time. The classes I take are music, English, criminology, philosophy, geography, pe, drama and a couple of learning Swedish classes. I also don’t have school on Fridays anymore. So in other words I have a timetable everyone has always dreamed of! School Monday though to Thursday and then a three day weekend. What is not to like?! Out of all my new classes I think drama is probably the hardest. It is Swedish drama and well I have to speak Swedish in it. And I have very little on the spot Swedish that is useful for everyday play use so it is an interesting class! But the kids in the class are really nice to me, and spoke English when I had no idea what the hell was going on and when I said something in Swedish they said well done. I had also never seen anyone in the class ever before! There are also only 12 of us in the class. It will be really good for my Swedish though. Criminology is probably the most interesting of all my new classes and is a class that I found really easier to understand. I think it was partly because my teacher is also an English teacher and understands about learning Swedish and spoke a bit slower so I could understand easier. PE at school is quite a funny class. What we do changes quite often and lately we have been doing gymnastics. When you walk into the sports hall and see a bunch of 18 year old boys running around with ribbons you know it is going to be a great class. I was very right! We were told to get into groups and make up a performance using different gymnastic techniques. So there were a lot of ribbons and pompoms around and surprising held mostly by the guys in the class. Next week we are on to boxing!

The planning and sorting of graduation has already started here. Graduation is a huge thing here. There are so many parties and gatherings and things leading up to the day it seems crazy! Each class at school has their own class party and invites everyone else in the year as well so it ends up that there are really seven all of year three parties rather than seven class parties. Then you have family gatherings as well with the family and other people who can’t be there on the actual day. Then there is the school ball which is three days before graduation and held at school. And then there is of course the day itself. Girls wear white dresses and their white graduation caps. Boys wear a suit and their caps. And you start the day with a champagne breakfast, go to school to get talked to by your coach, run out of school (you must run) and find your parents and family holding up and sign with a baby picture of you that you have not seen. Then you get changed and go on the back of a truck with a lot of beer and go around downtown Stockholm. Once that is done you go home and celebrate with family and friends before going out again with friends to celebrate! It sounds like so much fun and I can’t wait and I can kinda understand why the planning starts now. A lot goes on on that day alone!

Going to school with three American girls means that as the odd one out (being a kiwi and all) means that I get and my country get ripped the shit out of quite a bit. It is most of the time the funniest thing ever as I do sound quite different from the Americans so people pick up on my weird sayings or my strange vowel sounds in words quite often. But one thing that all of this has taught me was how much I love the kiwi way and the way we speak. We are so relaxed and you can tell in the way we speak most of the time! It is no wonder the world doesn’t take us seriously half the time! Haha! I have grown to love many of New Zealand’s ways much more than I ever did before. As it is always said you have to go away from what you got to realise what it is that you have! And although I don’t always want to live in New Zealand it will most certainly always be my home!

 One big thing I have noticed here in Sweden is that there is a rather large amount of people who smoke cigarettes. You cannot get away from the smell or the huge amount of cigarette butts lying around all over the show. I have gotten used to it now but when I first got here and for a few months after I could not get over it. I had thought it was bad in NZ and was very surprised.

So that is what has been happening.

I have also killed the two plants that were alive in my room when I got here. Oops.. 

Winter Activities

Over the Christmas and New Year break I went skiing with my host family! This was the first time I had been skiing in many years. I had been snowboarding a few times but I soon found out that skiing is the way to go! I was never any good at snowboarding. I think I spent more falling over than actually snowboarding when I tried. So for this week I thought I would go for skiing! Good choice Annie!! I really enjoyed learning to skiing! It is a lot harder than I first thought and takes it out of you. But all in all skiing is great fun! My host dad taught me how to ski on the first day we were up there. I was so proud of myself I didn’t fall over once that day! On the second day I went along with my host brother. He taught me a few more things and I crashed into him, cause myself to fall over with my skis in his face! I sort of more gave him a giant bear hug rather than crash into him, yet I still fell over. Still not too sure how this all ended up coming about! This was the only time I did fall over though the whole time away! Rather proud of myself for that!



About to go down the mountain!

Although we spent all day skiing, the day doesn’t last long up in the mountains. There are about six hour’s max of daylight. It got dark at three, so although it was the middle of the afternoon we could no longer ski. Because of this we spent a lot of time playing board games and card games! When the games came out it was each for their own. Or as my host brothers liked to yell out NO MERCY! And there was no mercy for anyone. Monopoly is a killer in my family! It is all about getting your three of one colour and then buys a hotel and makes everyone else go bankrupt! It was a game not to be reckoned with. But so much fun! I got taught a few new card games as well. One rule that was put in place during these games was that if you swore in either English or Swedish you had to get down and do five pushups! I have to say that everyone in the house did at least five! We got very into our board games!

On the third day we went a bear park! This was amazing! I saw so many animals that I had never seen before, like polar bears and snow leopards. Walking around seeing all of the animals was so amazing. I have only ever seen pictures of them and to see these animals in real life, growling and jumping and playing with others was so wonderful. I was looking at the snow leopards though a class window and taking some pictures without fence when one of the snow leopards jumped up on to the window! It was like he was trying to give me a hug! Well that is what I like to think anyway, he might have been thinking something more on the lines of `yum yum food for me! `  

 

On the last full day on the mountain I tried out cross country skiing. This was something very different and something entirely new for me to try. I have never done anything like it. You feel so silly doing it as well. When you are cross country skiing you have to glide along the snow a bit like you are dancing. And you feel quite silly doing this! But once you have got the hang of it feels fine and is quite a lot of fun! A lot of work though. Talk about a whole body work out! I am really happy I have got to try this. It is one of the things I now get to tick off my bucket list! Such an amazing thing to get to do!

Where we were staying in the mountains was a lovely cute house that belonged to a family friend who was with us also. The house was so lovely and so very Swedish in every way it could be! On this also had an outside pool heated by a long burning fire. Going in this pool was one of the different experiences I have had since I have been here. It was -12° C outside and I had to run from the house to the pool in my togs! Getting out was by far the hardest part though! My body didn’t really know how to react to the sudden cold and dropped in temperate very quickly. And once dry with warm clothes on it still took a while to get warm. But it was all worth it for the experience  

Sweden is also amazingly pretty. The scenery around were I was skiing was just stunning and made me fall in love with Sweden even more. And although it was bloody cold and still is bloody cold I have fallen in love with the crisp, fresh feeling the air here has, especially in the mountains. Taking a deep breath in the morning in the mountains was such a lovely feeling, such a fresh feeling.

I go skiing with AFS in two weeks’ time and I am really looking forward to skiing some more as I really enjoyed it. Also I get to see another part of Sweden which is exciting as well!     

Here in Sweden I also have another family, as well as my host family, and they are my contact family. My contact family are my friends’ family. I made this friend back in New Zealand when she was on her exchange. On the first weekend after school went back I met up with them all. This was the first time I had seen my friend since I left New Zealand and it was great to catch up and see her. As well as catching up with her, they took me out ice skating on a lake! This was again something I really wanted to try but I was a bit nervous that I might fall in the lake. It became clear to me that I wouldn’t fall in when I got there as the ice was very thick and there were a lot of people skating on the ice! Skating was a lot of fun in itself. It is not like skating I have ever done before back home on the ice skating rink. This was a lot different. You had to make sure you take long glides on each foot and push yourself forward with your legs. It took a wee while to get the hang of it and it was an amazing thing to try! I am ticking off all the things on my bucket list! I ended up skating for around 10kms I think and I have quite the sore legs after!

 

Such an amazing view!

Christmas and the New Year

For a little kiwi girl who is used to spending Christmas in the sunshine, having a white Christmas was quite something! And although I have spent my whole life having Christmas in the sun wishing I could have a white Christmas, a proper Christmas, it felt very strange to be tucked up in a warm house with snow falling outside.

Sweden has so many great traditions over Christmas. They celebrate the advent leading up to Christmas. Advent starts on the first of December and goes on till the 24^th of December, when Christmas is celebrated in Sweden. Candles were lit every Sunday for the four Sundays leading up to the 24^th. Each candle was numbered from 1 to 4 and lit in the order from 1 to 4.

In Sweden there are two types of drink that are only drunk over the Christmas period. One is a Swedish fizzy drink called Julmust. This is black like coca cola but tastes very different. It takes a few tries to get used to but all in all in quite a tasty drink. But one thing I can’t describe is the taste of Julmust. It is like trying to describe L&P! Almost impossible! The second drink is called Glögg. It is a typically a Scandinavian drink that is drunk over Christmas and New Year’s. Glögg in mulled wine although there is many alcohol free versions of it as well. It is drunk warm and in small amounts. You also put raisins, cranberries and/or macadamia nuts. It is also a very sweet drink but all in all very tasty!!

My host family held a Glögg party on the 1^st of December, which is a thing common to do to drink Glögg and celebrate the first advent. It was a fun party and when I first tried Glögg. At the party there were lots of other things that are special to Christmas. These things include pepperkaker (Swedish gingerbread), blue cheese to eat with the pepperkaker, ischoklad (chocolates in little cases), knäck (a Christmas toffee) and lussekatter (saffron buns). All of these things were made by my host sister, Emma, and I the two nights before the party. We ended up doing over 24 hours of baking in those two days!

In Sweden Christmas dinner is called a Julbord. My family took me to have a traditional Julbord on a boat. The amount of food that a traditional Julbord has in amazing! The tradition is that you go back for more food 7 times or more! There are so many things I see how you could do that, but how you fit that all in is beyond me!! It starts off with cold fish dishes. I made it my goal to try as many dishes as I could! The fish was amazing. Some were not as nice as they tasted like cinnamon which wasn’t my cup of tea, but others were great! The second type of dishes was more fish! This was fish like salmon and prawns. These were all yum! And then we go to the third round of dishes. And we are back for more fish!! This time it is warm fish!! Sweden has a type of Christmas fish that taste of, well, nothing at all. It is a white fish that just melts away in your mouth but has no taste what so ever. It was a very strange thing to eat! We then move over to meats and salads and breads. There is a type of bread that tastes exactly like hot cross buns without the raisins in it! The meats were ham, little sausages and meatballs. There were others but I can’t remember what they were. But then it is dessert time! Ice cream with toffee on top, pepperkaker, fruit, knäck and ischoklad! Also by this time I was stuffed and couldn’t eat anymore! The Julbord was a whole evening activity! And all very tasty!

Stockholm has so many lovely and amazing Christmas markets dotted all around the city. The two main ones are at a place called Skansen, which is Stockholm’s zoo. The other is in Gamla Stan, also known as old town. Christmas markets sell Christmas decorations, Christmas food and sweets and gifts. They are so lovely and cute to walk around and bring a lovely feeling of Christmas spirit!

On the 24^th we celebrated Christmas. It was my host family as well as my host mums two sisters. We had a much smaller version of Julbord and I made pav for dessert! After dinner we open presents. It felt odd to be doing all the Christmas things on the 24^th but when I think about it, it was the 25^th in New Zealand at that time anyway!

During the build up to Christmas I felt quite homesick. This was the first time I have felt really homesick since I have been here. I think a Christmas away from is always going to be a strange thing. Feeling homesick is just part of having a different type of Christmas and didn’t make me enjoy Christmas with my host family and Sweden any less!

New Year was a smaller celebration in my family. We had some family friends over and had a lovely dinner and stay up until midnight talking. At about 5 to midnight we got our champagne and sat ourselves at the windows to watch the huge amount of fireworks that went off at midnight! It was a nice relaxed way to enter the New Year!

And now it is 2013. I have one of the busiest years of my life ahead of me and I cannot wait to get started! I have so many adventures and places to see and new people to meet! Starting with going skiing with my host family for a week!

Bring on 2013!!