Hej då Sverige

The time has come again where I have my life packed up into a bag and I am on my way to catch a plane. The time has come again where I have said my goodbyes and I have cried my heart out more than once. The time has come again to leave home.

But this time it is all so much harder.

I am packing my new life up into the same suitcase and going off to catch a plane to a place I know and my old life. I have said my goodbyes to people I don’t know when I will see again, if I will ever see them again. I have cried more tears than ever before. I have said goodbye to the city that took me in and let me make it my home even though it was only for a year.

So as I say goodbye to Sweden after 10 amazing, life changing, crazy, up and down months I know that this place will always be my second home. That I have my second family here and always a place to stay. And as much as goodbyes are hard, a new adventure has to start and that one starts back in New Zealand.

To everyone who I have met on this crazy year, thank you for making my year unforgettable and the best year of my life. You have all been such an important part of my year and without you all this year would not have been anything as it has been, amazing! I will miss you all and I hope to see you all again one day.  

So Sweden this is goodbye for now but not forever, as I will be back before too long but for now I wish you all the luck in the world Sweden and I will miss you with all my heart.  

The Summer House

It is quite common in Sweden for each Swedish family to have their own summer house. Summer houses our out of the city and in the country side or by the sea on an island in an archipelago that lines the coast of Sweden. My family has their summer in Stockholm’s archipelago on an island called Arbodaö.

Their summer house is a very Swedish house in the fact that is paint copper red, which is the traditional colour for houses in Sweden to be painted. The summer house is also very old. It doesn’t have a bathroom inside but lucky it does have electricity! But the best thing about the house is that it is right by the sea! Although the sea is so cold that you can hardly swim in it for more than five minutes, the view is amazing!

The summer house

Over a time called Midsummer we went to the summer house. Midsummer is a national holiday and is also the longest day of the year and is celebrated by eating a big lunch with the family and dancing! We spent the day chilling around the summer house, gardening and such, then had a really nice family lunch with Swedish food like meatballs and sill!

Going to the summer house is really nice a part from the fact that I am so bad when it comes to getting in and out of the boat to get there! But spending time with my host family is worth trying to get in and out of the silly little boat!    

Finland!

 
So back in New Zealand I had to go to extra maths classes after school to be able to pass year 11 maths. There I met a friend, in which we ended up talking more than studying the maths itself. Once the exam was over I never did maths again and I didn’t stay in touch with my friend. About six months went by and in that time I applied for an AFS exchange. It also happened that my maths friend, Edene, had also done the same thing. We met at the first ever AFS meeting we had and thought each other looked familiar and as we went round the circle introducing ourselves, we both clicked, maths.


This time around we stayed in contact with each other, by seeing each other at monthly AFS meetings, AFS camps and fundraising for our trips away. Plus there was also the fact that we were going to neighbouring countries, Sweden and Finland. We have also stayed in contact over our year away and we had planned that we would visit each other. Due to Edene having host family complications it all got a bit difficult for Edene to visit me in Sweden but I went off and took a trip to Finland!



On Monday the 10^th I woke up at 5.30am and got taken to the airport bus, bus stop by my host dad. I got on the bus that took me to the airport, checked in, found the only Starbucks in Stockholm and jumped on my plane to Helsinki, Finland!



I was met at the airport by Edene and then we talked nonstop all the way into Helsinki city! I chucked my bag in one of the lockers at the train station and we met up with some of Edene’s friends. The friends we meet up with were exchange students, other AFSers, and the thing with other exchange students is that you are friends right away. It is almost like an unwritten exchange student rule, met another exchange student you are friends. It just seems to work that way. So that day we walked around Helsinki and saw these two magnificent churches, one even had real gold on it! After that we went to a really good pizza and pasta place to have lunch, then we went a walked around the beautiful Helsinki before catching the train to Edene’s house.



One of the Churches in Helsinki

The next day we woke up to rain. No one really likes waking up to rain but what makes it even worse is when the plan is to go to the beach that day and when it is raining going to the beach is not the nicest thing in the world. So we flagged the beach and went to the movies instead. Now when it comes to Edene and I picking a movie, we went for a movie we knew nothing about but we liked the actor in it! It ended up being a really weird film. As it was still raining we meet up with some of Edene’s friends and sat in a cosy coffee shop, talking about our year and everything to do with it!

On Wednesday it was raining yet again but that did not change our plans of going to Helsinki’s Sea fortress. Edene and I got the boat out to the sea fortress all geared up in stylish wet weather gear! The sea fortress in such a cool place. People actually live there as well which would make for a cool place to live. The sea fortress has many old buildings and has an amazing view of both Helsinki and the Baltic Sea. We walked around the sea fortress for a while but with the rain and the sky threating thunder storms we decided we had seen enough and went back to the boat along with many other soaked though people. Of course when we got back to Helsinki the rain had stopped. We again met up with some of Edene’s friends to go and see a free concert in a park. For this I was very thankful it had stopped raining!  The concert was all in Finnish so I got nothing and then the rain started again so Edene and I gave up and went home.

Edene and I at the sea fortress

On Thursday we had decided that we would have a day just around home until it was time to go to Edene’s AFS meeting. It also happened to be the only sunny day I had in Finland! So we sat outside and tried to tan our pale winter skin while listening to New Zealand radio and finding the accents so funny and wondered how we are going to get used to them again when we get home! We then made pikelets, from a kiwi recipe. That night we went off to Edene’s monthly AFS meeting. This was the last meeting of the year as AFS Finland leaves the week before I do. There were a lot of goodbyes and it made going home very real for everyone in the room.

Friday, my last day in Finland. It was raining again. was that really a surprise?! Again we went into Helsinki for the day. We again also met up with Edene’s friends who were great to hang out with! We walked around the city for one last time and sat in yet more coffee shops, with endless conversation! And before I knew it, it was time for me to catch my bus to the airport to fly home.

I think any goodbyes are hard even if you will see the person in a few weeks. But say goodbye to Edene was hard because it was the first goodbye I said in my year. Now with a week to go the goodbyes are just waiting for me with every person I meet.

Kayaking

Stockholm city is made up of many islands and these islands carry on out to make up Stockholm’s archipelago. The archipelago is where lots of people who live in Stockholm city have their summer house. It is also a wonderful place to go kayaking around and last Sunday that is exactly what I did with my host dad and host sister.

Early on Sunday morning I was woken quite suddenly by a huge roll of thunder and all I thought was that this is not a good way to start off a day out kayaking. But the thunder and lighting and buckets of rain all went away so we set out to go kayaking at 8 in the morning!

When we got on the water it was lovely and sunny, shorts and t-shirt weather, so we set off to go visit a few islands and have a generally nice sunny day. As we got to the first island we all heard a distant roll of thunder. It was distant so it didn’t really bother us and it was still warm and sunny so all was well and we walked around this island which was really nice and cute apart from the dead birds there. As we were getting back into our kayaks is when I fell out of mine. I was so close to being in when the kayak flipped me out! It was all fine, I was a bit wet but that is ok! Late on I was told that there were eels in the place where I fell out, which was positive!

After getting the water out of my kayak and I was back in it without re-tipping out, we set of to the next island to stop and have lunch. It was while having our lunch that the thunder started coming closer and the sky was becoming very dramatic. But we were like it is fine, so we went for a walk around this island which again was nice apart from the dead birds!

By the time we got back in our kayaks the thunder was really close and we could see lightening so we cut our trip short and headed back to the car. About half way back to the car it started bucketing down with rain and the thunder was right on top of us. So we paddled back and we paddled back fast!

As soon as we got to shore we got out of our kayaks and carried then, full of stuff, up to the car. When we were carrying the first kayak up there was a huge bolt of lightning right above us followed about 30 seconds after by a big loud roll of thunder. We all jumped and I am surprised I did not drop the kayak it was so loud.

As we walked down to get the next kayak it started hailing along with the thunder and lighting and we almost ran the kayak back to the car! We unloaded the kayaks as the hail got bigger and bigger in size until we had to hide under a tree to get away from it as it hurt too much to be out in it. We got the kayaks up on the car, tided them down and went and got into dry clothes, then hoped in the car and drove home!

I must say that I do prefer kayaking in the sunshine, I can now tick kayaking in a thunder and lightning storm off the bucket list!           

Studenten!!

Studenten or Graduation is one of the biggest traditions in Sweden for a High School student! The whole year leads up to it, and the early you start celebrating it the better!! But the real day is the one everyone is looking forward to! On this day you start the day with a Champagne breakfast with your class, followed by going to school for a talk with your mentor, then lunch with the whole school after which a whole school assembly, then you go and wave to your friends and family before running out of school to meet a giant baby picture of yourself held by your family, then you run back inside to change and then jump on to a truck with your class and start spraying beer all over each other and drive around the city after which you go home a have a shower to get rid of the beer smell before going off to graduation parties, after that it is off to club with your friends to dance the night away! And all off this is done in a white dress for girls and a suit and tie for boys and a white hat, which looks like a sailor’s hat, for both girls and boys!

 

So here is how my day went….!

 

It all started with a 5.30am waking up call! I was staying at my friends Kyra’s house and we had stayed up making graduation presents for our friends so the 5.30am alarm was not the nicest sound in the world. We got up and started getting ready for the big day ahead. Put on the white dresses, put on our faces, tried to make our hair look alright under our hats, put on the heels and we were on our way to our champagne breakfast with our class!

At the champagne breakfast we all sat outside eating a spot of breakfast and drinking our fair share of champagne! We also started with signing the inside of each other’s hats. Hats were going from person to person and you always hat to ask whose hat you had in your hand! At one point two guys ended up with almost everyone’s hats to sign!

When it was time to go to school we all headed out together yelling chants and signing songs so that everyone knew we were coming and that we were graduating! It made for a hilarious walk to school! When we got to school we met our mentor and she told us the days plans in between our chants and songs!

We then had a song lunch which involved more chants, songs and hat signing! It also involved the teachers laughing at us a lot! At lunch us four exchange were told by the principle that he would be calling us all up on stage during the assembly!

After lunch we all picked up our chairs and went into the gym for a whole school assembly! But this wasn’t any old assembly, no this was also the Golden Pig Awards. The Golden Pig Awards was voted by the teachers and presented by the teachers and had so many different categories and everyone got behind the person or people that were in their class by yelling their name and if they won the person in the class won then the whole class would stand up and clap and shout! It was great fun! After the awards were finished the principle came up and talked about the future, how we had all done well and Tapas. Then it was time to be called up on stage! Now this was a point where we as exchange students failed in Swedish! He said for the exchanges students to come up on stage in Swedish and we just all sat there unsure if we had to go up or not now. Ended up that we were meant to go up then as the principle had to say it in English for us to understand! We got up on stage and the principle said how great it had been having us all at school, how we have added cultureness to the school and taught people English! He then gave us letter saying that we had been at school! After this everyone was given their grades and a certificate!

We then went up to the school balcony to wave to our friends and family and to try and find our baby picture! When I found mine I could not help but laugh! It was of a six year old me with no front teeth and looking very happy about it! My host family made sure that I would also be able to take my picture home with me as well! After standing on the balcony for a while waving and shouting some more we went down stairs and got ready to run out of school!

Running out of school was so much fun! If you are thinking that we don’t actually run out of school then you are wrong! We run and we run as fast as we can! We waited at the doors being held back by two teachers saying “get ready, get ready!” and then we hear the principle say our class and we RUN! The next step is to try and find my family again. Once I found them and my baby picture they gave me a soft toy cow to put round my neck and some roses to also put round my neck and some of my favourite Swedish sweets to also put around my neck! This happens for everyone who is running out. When they meet their family they get soft toys, flowers, all sorts of different things to put around their neck! After all of this I had to run back inside to get changed out of my white dress and into old clothes that I did not want to take home because it was beer truck time!

The beer truck is exactly what it sounds to be, a truck with a lot of beer! But this beer is not for the drinking. Oh no this beer is for shaking up and spraying over each other as the truck drives into the city with load music blaring and everyone on the back going crazy! Going on the beer truck has to be one of the most crazy, exciting, mental, best things I have done in this year. I mean how often to you get to ride around Stockholm city on the back of truck getting covered in beer? I mean how often do you do any of those things?! When the ride came to an end the driver opened the back doors of the truck to be greeted by a swell of beer and beer cans! For most of the ride I was up to my ankles in beer! The next step after getting off the truck was to get home and take a much needed shower! When I got home my clothes went in the bin and I washed my hair about 5 times over! The smell was really that bad!

After my long shower of trying to get out the smell, my family and I went to my host sister’s boyfriend’s graduation party, which I had to leave early to go out with my friends that night! So back in my white dress and hat I meet my friends and we danced the night away till 2am!

Overall this was the craziest day of my exchange but one of the very best! I could not have come up with a better way to finish school in Sweden! 

   Me with little me after running out of school!

Last Month

In a month today I will set foot in New Zealand for the first time in 10 and a half months.

There is this huge part of me which can’t wait to get on this plane home and be back in the place where I know how things work, where I know the language and where I feel at ease. But there is this equally huge part of me that never wants to get on that plane home and stay in this place where I have learnt how things work, where I have learnt the language and where I now feel at ease.

As much as I don’t want to go, I have to and I have this last month in which to make it the best last month knowing that I am going to come back more than once in my life! This last month will be full of spending time with the friends I have made for life, my amazing host family, with the beautiful Sweden and of course a bit of Finland!

It is strange feeling this divided about going home. I never expected this when I left New Zealand and only as I got to know Sweden did I realise that being divided is what was always going to happen!

With a full up last month, time is going to fly by so very fast but no matter I will always be left with two homes as far away from each other as possible!