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..
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