Musik :D

Hallå! I figured it's been long enough since my last post... I should probably reveal some recent events.

Since my last post, I have experienced my first round of 18 holes (in golf), gone to my first Swedish party/ies, had my bike stolen, started practicing with a fotboll team, and started school! Everything is really starting to get exciting.

School has been the biggest thing on my mind.  I am going to Karolinska skolan, which is known for its arts program.  The first day of school, I was truly overwhelmed by the other students at the school.  In the US, when people tried to have their own style, they usually ended up looking oddly similar to everybody else striving for individuality.  At Karo, people seriously succeed in achieving individuality.  However, I've really come to love that aspect.  Everybody is so accepting of absolutely everything.  I think I lucked out, being in the third year.  Everyone in my class (ES3A) is completely comfortable with who they are, and so they're really easy to talk to and get to know.  The kids are full out willing to translate everything for me and help me out with any schedule questions.  There's always someone I can talk to.  It's just neat how nice and relaxed the students are.
The classes I'm taking are Swedish, English, Religion (learning about different religions around the world), and my "specialty" course is Musik.  I considered specializing in art, but I think the music class offers more opportunities for someone who's only here a short time.  My electives are Spanish 6, lovely, and a cooking class I take at Gabe's school.  Next semester, that block period will be art, taken at another school.  It's interesting because the school system in Örebro is so connected.  Students can truly take whatever class they want.  If it's not at their school, they can take it at a different school.  The schedules are created to allow opportunities like that; it's really more similar to a college-type schedule, rather than a high school-type set up.

My music class is what I'm most excited for.  It's about a four hour long period, all specialty classes are, and during the class time, you can take Music Theory, Audio engineering education, and Arranging and Composing.  I'm going to start out taking all three, and if it gets to be too much, I'll just drop one or two, simple as that.  Also, my school doesn't have a cello or cello teacher, but they can hook me up with the local music school: finding a cello teacher to give me private lessons, and hopefully playing in the city's orchestra.  Lastly, I have the opportunity to sing in the school's choir, which meets Friday mornings before school.  This year, the choir is going to take about 40 students to LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND to perform a Luciadagen  celebration.  (Saint Lucia Day)  So I know that this year is going to be so great :]

This weekend I made a new friend! Linn received a scholarship from her school to come to Örebro to practice with the best woman's club team in the city, KIF.  I also practiced with the team, thanks to my Rotary counselor.  Being the loners on the team, I asked Linn about why she was there and what she was doing this weekend and such.  She lives in Lycksele, which is about a 10 hour train ride north from Örebro.  She was just staying in a hotel here by herself.  So Saturday night, we went and saw Toy Story 3, an adorable movie, and took a fika :] For spending so little time together, I thought we became pretty good friends.  Today, we met up for a fika again, feasting on the first mint chocolate chip ice cream I've seen so far, and then met up later to watch the A team girls for KIF play.  At 7.30 Linn had to get on her train back home.  Hopefully we'll get to see each other again someday. haha. It was a cool experience- being able to really meet someone from a different part of Sweden.  It was odd knowing more about Örebro than she did.

Friday night I got to see Elin again :D We met up at her friend Krystina's house.  I got to meet a lot of people that night. :] It was just fun to hang out.










That's about it for now.... Adios:]

Fashion Days?

God kväll mina vänner! (Good evening my friends ;) ) 

Just to catch up on my recent events, two days ago, Anita and I met Ernie and his employee at a place called Montanas Restaurang, or as Gabe's host dad calls it "The Dirty Table Cloth", for lunch.  I've been anxious to try some Swedish pizza, so Anita suggested I get a pizza and she'd get one for herself.  (Okay, I think to myself, individual serving sizes.)  I order a Hawaii and we sit down. When the food is brought out, I find a large pizza-looking thing in front of me with the most peculiar purple/pink slivers of ham topped with out-of-the-can pineapple.  I had one slice of the thing and was content.  Anita suggested that we "forget" my boxed leftovers.. I guess every meal can't be as divine as I've experienced.  

Afterwards, Anita took me to an Indian store I've been anxious to see.  If you've ever been to It's A Beautiful Day in Westport, KC, this store was nothing like the place.  Sadly, Indiska was another fashion store that simply sold clothes made in India.  However I found some delightful clothing in the 1/2 off section.  Thus the beginning of my European clothing transformation.  

Yesterday, once again Anita and I met Ernie and his employee at another- higher quality- restaurant.  I'm not sure the name of it, but it was a buffet in the middle of the "best maintained garden in Sweden." Yes, it truly did receive an award for that, which makes sense because I thoroughly appreciated the beauty of it all.

With a view of the garden, here is Anita, Ernie, and Ernie's employee/co worker Kalle (whose real name is Karl, which I thought was humorous..).

And here Ernie is messing with the camera. However I did think that the table decoration in front of my face was cool- curly grass...

Anita decided to take of the advantage of the marvelous weather by walking home, while I chose to bike to Ernie's work and around town after being dropped off back home.  It was the first time I really biked around the city on my own, so that was a thrilling aspect, and yes, I did get lost trying to find Ernie's work, but all the more fun, right?  Ernie is a photographer and started his own photography studio/company (Spectrovision!), and he has Karl and one other guy working for him.  After taking a tour of the quaint studio, Ernie decided to take photos of me.  He dolled me up with his little make-up kit, and the shoot began! I don't think I've ever had quite as much fun being photographed as I did then.  Just so you have a proper idea, here's Ernie:

Haha. But shoot, he knows his digital photography.  He could edit photos more than I thought possible.  For example, he showed me a picture of a girl whose eye's were particularly... misaligned. The next photo showed a flawless girl with perfectly aligned eyes. The pictures he took of me were taken after biking through sprinkling rain and sweating for half an hour, and I was even kind of delighted by the result. It was fun :]

Later on, Gabe and I made plans to go to the women's soccer game, being held at the stadium two minutes from my house... Unfortunately the sky decided to vomit out all the rain it could muster, so we chose to stay home for a bit.  We talked about my newly formed opinion of September 11, 2001.  I'm not going to get too into it because, let's face it, there's nothing that can be done now and whatever I find/believe by myself isn't going to matter to any of you.  Ernie is, probably safe to say, obsessed with the event, and he's got me convinced that it truly was all a conspiracy.  But I don't have any other information to give, I'm just commenting... Anywho, the rain slowed down a bit and Gabe and I went biking around close to where I live.  Eating ice cream from a gas station, attempting to visit Svampen (the big mushroom water tower here... it was closed), and riding out in the rain turned out to be quite a time. Overall.. Fun day. :]

Today I woke up in time to eat breakfast, take a shower, and meet Gabe for pizza at 1.  Round two for Swedish pizza.. you could say.  We ended up walking around shopping for two hours before even finding a pizza place, but it was worth it.  While at a store called Carlings, we started talking with a girl, working there, who had traveled abroad in Canada when she was in high school.  She was the most enthusiastic Swede I think I'm ever going to meet.  Minna-Linn was here name, and she said that Swedes are just naturally shy, and when we go to school, we should expect to have a tough time making friends at first.  It has to be us that get them to talk back.  She had a lot of interesting insights, and was also so enthusiastic to hang out with us, meaning Facebook names were definitely exchanged.  

When Gabe and I finally found a pizza place, it turned out to be not as tasty as I'd hoped.   (Final opinion of Swedish pizza: no bueno.)  After eating dinner with Gabe's family, we built up the motivation to run the 5k path close to their house.  Andreas (Gabe's host dad), Gabe, and I ran probably the fastest 5k of my life. Not really, but I'll just say I felt great after running that.  My intentions are to prove Rotary wrong: I will not gain weight while I'm here. How's that for motivation!

(We passed a guy performing with a banjo on the way home; he was really good! Other than that, I know nothing about him, haha.)

All in all, another good day.  I hope the weather continues with the sunshine.  :] 

For now, Vi ses! (See you later :])

Alice in Wonderland.// 8-8-10

Hej :] If you haven't seen the new Alice in Wonderland, I highly suggest you do.  It felt easy, in an odd way, to relate to Alice and her [creative] adventure.  She needed to get away from her high society life, and I decided I needed a break from Kansas. A lot of people say the movie is trippy. I disagree.. I thought it more enthrallingly entertaining.. I'm inspired.

Yesterday I was so grateful to be able to go to my first Swedish pro fotboll game (aka soccer :]).  Gabe and his family invited me. The game was Örebro SK vs. Malmö FF, a huge game because Örebro is third in the country and Malmö is second.  Sadly, we lost three nil.  But it was an experience.  Apparently a record was broken as 10,875 people attended the game.  This guy was a statue outside the stadium; I thought it was picture worthy:

 Gabe, Hanna, and me at the game. haha :]

Today I went running on the much-spoken-of nature trails.  There is a 3km path and a 10km path I believe, and after missing the signs for the 3km path, I found myself running for an eternity on the 10km path.  I think I'll try to get better directions next time..  Tonight I had my first taste of the vegetarian dish Falafel.  It reminded me of an extremely distorted and odd tasting Chipotle burrito, but that could just be because of the foil.

We also made a rhubarb pie, with ingredients fresh from Ernie's garden.  (Ernie, or rather Arne, is my host mother's sambo. A sambo is most similar to 'significant other' in English- a significant other that you live with.) The pie was absolutely delectable, as is most all of the food I've had since I've been in Sweden.

(Mr. and Mrs. Rippel, I think you would have been proud of the pie :].. It made me think of you!)

I think that's all I've got for now.. God natt :]

August 6, 2010

Hello! This is my first blogging experience, so I'm rather excited.  I'll start with my first impressions of Sweden as written in my little black moleskin notebook..

"I arrived yesterday, approximately 2 in the afternoon.  We (the other Swedish youth exchange kids) flew in from Frankfort through the clouds, and the first thing I saw was so many trees!  I distinctly remember first seeing this tiny dotted-outline road winding through the forest.  Sweden is just a beautiful country, simply put.  The air is fresh- so much more crisp than Kansas.  Driving on the high way is much more enjoyable, but of course, that could just be because everything is new to me, or different.  The woods, which surround everything, remind me of those in the Twilight series... pathetic reference, but that's just what I think of every time I see them.  I'm excited to go running or biking on the paths through the woods.  

**** (a couple days later..)

Unfortunately, it has rained nearly everyday since I've arrived, but there has been enough sunshine to allow us to go biking through the city.  I love it- biking. I think it is much better than being in a car all the time- as is the case in America.  However it is slightly frightening on occasion.  I am still figuring out which streets I should ride on the pavement and which streets I should ride on the sidewalk.  And I've been thinking, increasingly so, that most everything here is accomplished smarter (or maybe just more efficiently?) than in the US.  Maybe I'm just used to Americans having less common sense than people here.  For example, the streets are arranged so one HAS to be a careful driving, or else risk the chance of nailing one of the many bikers or pedestrians.  Also, rather than having countless intersections and obnoxious red lights, there are just round abouts- you simply yield to the passing car.  Or if there are stop lights, there is a warning yellow for red AND green.  When you're biking, as is commonly done everywhere around the city, it's nice to know when the light is about to turn green so you can prepare to begin riding again.  Maybe I'm being overly-winded on the topic.  But it's interesting.  I think it's nice having not having some kind of sign every ten feet." 

Alright, now moving on to more entertaining events, I have pictures! I have the joy of riding by Örebro´s famous castle everyday to get to school, so here's a cute picture Anita took of me in front of it. (I just realized I haven't said anything about my family.  But I think I will include that in another post.)

So far, my host family and I have gone to the movie theatre (We saw Knight and Day, which was very entertaining, and no, it wasn't in Swedish; it was in English with Swedish subtitles.), we have played more golf than I had ever expected, visited Karlslund (pronounced Karshloond), Wadköping, several beautiful summer houses, and today I had the joy of going to Gustavsvik- Scandinavia's largest water park.  Karlslund is a countryside destination consisting of a beautiful manor, several gardens, and large horse stable.  

It is common for wedding receptions to be held here.  Very pretty.

Wadköping is an area where several building built in old Örebro have been relocated.  It's a place where you can "experience" the old days- with a blacksmith shop and also galleries with old and new artwork.

Here is a not so cute picture of me outside of Gustavsvik.  I went with Gabriel- the other boy exchanging in Örebro from the US.  I'll just say this place is awesome.  There were a couple rides here that would never be allowed in the US, aka they would be too dangerous, thus the extreme thrill.  :]

Sorry about the length of this post, but now I have caught up the events of my first week in Sweden.  

Hej då :-D