On friday I dyed my hair black on accident and then I met up with a boy name Theodore so that we could practice language. He’s thinking of going to an American boarding school next year and he wants to be able to speak English better. I want to be able to understand more Swedish so that I know when people are talking about me.
Anyway, we went to McIncredible and talked for like two hours, and I taught him the ways of America, including how to make small talk with strangers and the importance of a firm handshake. He taught me some Swedish verbs that will come in handy when I want to get sassy.
After he left for his sport I headed to T-Central to meet Sam (A rotary student from FL) and Brooke (from Australia) and we went to Sam’s house to wait for her host dad to get him. Sam has a cute little dog in her house, and it fulfilled my dog-petting quota of the month. Sometimes I brush up against strangers dogs when I’m on the sidewalk because I just really need to touch a dog. I’m such a child.
Sam’s host brother Victor went with us to see the performance and we all won bags of tortilla chips and got lots of licorice. The girl who got voted off should not have been, and all the boys who stayed on were pretty terrible comparatively. i’m still upset about this.
The guy who won Eurovision last year preformed and Brooke and Sam were super excited about it, and now I have his Eurovision song on my ipod because it really grows on you after you hear it a few times and I can’t stop singing it.
So basically I got left with this blue hair dye and my pen pal said that I should use it and everyone else I asked said it would be cool. Everyone is a liar liar pants on fire. I looked absolutely mental with blue hair, and I was super distraught, so I decided to try and dye it back. I got this dark brown hair dye and did it in the school locker room, and it turned out black-ish green? I haven’t washed it since, but I hope it turns out brown after a few rinses. The box didn’t say what color it would turn into if you had blue hair, so I guess I should have expected this. I just want dark brown hair, guys. When I get my allowance from rotary I’ll figure out how to do that. Sighs upon sighs. Don’t trust other people when it comes to hair, kids. Life lessons here.
I was feeling homesick these last few days, but now I’ve gotten over it. There’s really no time like the present, amiright? I’m going to Idol on Friday as well as meeting up with Theodore so that we can practice svenska/english. Nothing new has been happening at school, so I won’t bother to update the last few days. Sorry! There should probably be some stuff tomorrow, what with Dorren and all.
I think I last posted on Sunday? I feel like crap right now, but Saga and her little friends are watching a loud movie in the next room and I only have a curtain for a wall, so I don’t think I’m going to be able to go to bed for a while. Better to be productive then. I wish the bass on the speakers was a little less and that the movie wasn’t so funny so that they’d stop squealing.
Monday:
I had a spider in my room. Somewhere. Hidden. I still haven’t found it, but on Monday I slept on the couch and the electricity doesn’t work in certain outlets in that room, so my alarm didn’t go off. I was a half hour late to school, but it didn’t matter because the teachers messed up the scheduling for the computer lab and we didn’t do anything for half the class since we were waiting for the labs to open up again.
I went to science and we discussed pot. There were a lot of graphs, and I learned that smoking weed will lower you IQ if you do it heavily for more than ten years. The people who do these studies must be very patience. Bless their hearts for their tenacious curiosity.
I went to choir and we sang Swedish Christmas carols, and I think Sankta Lucia was my favorite one.
Tuesday:
In music class I wrote a blues song. I finished it on Thursday, but I’m too tired to post it right now, so I’ll do that tomorrow. I think it’ll go over a lot better than the last one. It’s poetic in a cliched sort of way.
SFF was a joke. Again.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO MY RELIGION CLASS, BUT I GUESS WE HAD A SUB AND I THOUGHT THAT OUR CLASS HAD DISAPPEARED, SO I WENT HOME, PLEASE STOP YELLING AT ME FOR BEING SO STUPID.
Wednesday:
We had English class, in which I read a sad story about a girl who got bullied from the perspective of her tormentors. Humanistics was cancelled because they wanted us to go home and study as we all own laptops and don’t need to be at school to write papers.
I went out for fika with my rotary friends and I accidentally showed up two hours early because I’m bad at 24 hour time. I went for coffee myself and drew some pictures. Then they all came and we went to Cafe Six. It was really cozy and hot. There were two glasses that were stuck together, and when I tried to pull them apart I broke one. KATE SMASH. There was glass all over my hand and pants and the table, so we moved and I was really embarrassed.
Thursday:
I don’t remember. Thursday must have been cancelled due to scheduling errors. There was a photography class. I took pictures of the glass jars and walnuts that I’ve been collecting. I have a problem. I realise this.
Friday:
In SFF our teacher spent over half the class on a boring lecture about how Swedish was important. I know it’s important. Please teach it. Ugh. I’m still ahead of my class in the book, but I can’t go much further because the book doesn’t off any explanation for the things it teaches. So. There’s that.
There wasn’t any food left for breakfast because my host dad is away and he does all the shopping. I felt like I was at Cana’s house when her mom is away. Lentils.
Monica (district 6250 to Finland) came today so we walked around Gamla Stan and it was really great. We put on the Murika tattoos and she took a picture, but I can’t upload it here until she shares it with me. Surry. I really miss her and all of my Wisconsin rotary friends. I hope I can see her again later this year.
Then the Stockholmers and I went to the Natural history Museum. Funny pictures to be uploaded later. My camera is dead, so I need to wait for the others to upload stuff.
We went to fika until nine and now here I am. I need to sleep, my head is pounding. I’ll have to tell these girls to be quiet. TYST, yo! Kate is getting a migraine!
So. Friday I went out to dinner with Tanner, Narain, Samantha, Alysa, Andrew, Sophia, Emily, and another girl from Australia. We were going to go to this place called Vapiano, but we got lost for a while and by the time we got there, there was a fifty minute wait and we decided not to go in. We wandered around until seven or so because this other group that we were going to meet kept on saying that they were coming (but they didn’t) and so we went to a pizzeria in Gamla Stan and that was cool.
Afterwards, none of us really wanted to go home so we went to Espresso house and talked and played BS until midnight. So cool. I can’t even tell you how cool. I’d give you some obscure analogy, like a polar bear eating ice cream on December 21st, but it was cooler than even that. 2kool4skool.
sidenote: Tanner touched Alysa’s glass eye and it was super freaky and I might have cried a little.
Sunset near Gamla Stan
Samantha and Alysa
Sophia and Tanner
Okay, Saturday we went to IKEA to play hide and go seek. I lost my IKEA virginity in Stockholm, Sweden of all places. AMAZING!! The building was a circle and super maze-like and I’m really glad I didn’t have to be a seeker. I hid in this fake bedroom and people kept walking in, so I played Super Jewel Quest on my phone so that I didn’t have to look at them awkwardly. I was one of the last people to be found cause I’m boss at hiding.
We only played one round because there was another group that we were supposed to meet, but they were late and lost and it was all a big mess, much like the night before. (My group was Miranda, Samantha, Tanner, Narain, Daniel, and a few other Australians that I don’t remember the names of.
Afterwards we went to Coop and tried to find the elusive American Isle, but couldn’t. I made Daniel try Risifrutti, and he didn’t like it so I got to eat two XL Risifrutti containers in a row. yeahyeahyeah get on my level.
I wish it was possible to buy an IKEA room. They were all so stylish and trendy.
I bet that Aaron Tveit sleeps on one of these.
Eating IKEA food
I K E A
Today I went on a picnic on djurgarden and it was super chill. I met a boy from Brasil named Breno and a girl from Canada named Emily.
These days are hard to describe since the thing that made them awesome was the people. I can’t describe our conversations or why certain things were funny at the time. I hope my pictures suffice for lack of words.
Note: we left our picnic because some really giant swans got close to us and stood up and shook their wings and junk. nonononooooo. I don’t want to get attacked by a swan, thank you very much.
I’m eating this while I write this. SUPER good! Jonatan gave me this recipe the other day. I don’t know what it is in imperial measurements, but it should be easy enough to convert.
.5 dl flour
.5 dl sugar
1 egg
2 tbs butter
pinch of salt
3 tbs cocoa powder
Stir, taste, microwave for approx 1 min 20 sec (longer you go, the drier the inside gets) Enjoy!
I can’t remember where I left off. I think it was Tuesday.
Tuesday:
My group and I preformed that song that I talked about a few weeks ago. I don’t know if I’m going to share it or not yet, because I haven’t listened all the way through the recording. So far, it’s a no. If I do, there’ll be a little surprise for you at the end of this post.
Mikaela (I have no idea how to spell anyone’s name, so bear with me.) and her group was super flipping amazing and I don’t know what her song was about, but she’s a really good singer and I’m very jealous. That is all.
We talked about Islam in religion class and since I didn’t understand much, I skyped with Ollie when I got home, and she attempted to clear it up. I think I’ll have to read the wikipedia page though, because the whole Mohammed becoming a prophet and then getting in fights with rich people still kind of confuses me.
Wednesday:
I finished my Aspects of Africa paper (officially. I might have said that I did earlier, but I was lying if I did.)
In Humanistics, I found out that I have to do a field study on Norse Mythology???? I was told to go to some museum in Uppsala, so I guess I’ll be doing that at some point. Everyone else is doing theirs on Rome, so I get an indefinite extension to complete mine. Cool Beans.
During E-Block we went to the auditorium and listened to this guy play his hangdrum and sing sufi music. The best part was when they got some kids from the music section to go up on stage and play with him. He called his style sufi-jazz, so there was a kid on the saxophone and another playing a gourd-guitar. I just found out that gourd is spelled with a u. Amazing.
When I went home, I got a really bad headache (which is starting to come back. Something to do with my neck I think?) and so I went to bed right away, woke up for like an hour in the middle of the night and then slept again until my alarm went off. Times is hard.
Today:
Cecil Baldwin came in for about five minutes and then he left abruptly. I’m told he suddenly decided that he had a really bad fever and couldn’t make it through the rest of the class. I wish teachers at Fondy would have acted like that.
In Svenska 3 we read something. I don’t know what it was about, but Scent of a Woman was mentioned. I made a list off all of my favorite tv shows and movies and books and podcasts so that Muna would have something to watch while she waits for SNK to return.
We went to lunch and I had cereal for my 5th meal in a row. Honestly, I’m starting to feel a bit nauseous at this point, but there isn’t much else to eat at my host family’s house and that’s all I can have when they make meat for dinner. I really need to ask for more grapefruits and eggs or something.
In natural science we did an experiment with solubility, wherein we boiled carrots and beets in water and oil. I don’t really know what we were proving, but I participated, and so I got an A for the day. Yay me.
In music class we started out Blues unit, and now I have to sing the blues. I really lucked out with my group because we’ve got Sandra on the piano, Erik on the trumpet, and Hugo on guitar. Hugo and Sandra are really good and Erik is the only one who plays the trumpet in our class, and I feel like trumpets are pretty bluesy.
Tonight, I went to Dorren for my photography class, and it was super fun as always. Today we took still lifes of things that we had in our pockets and one of mine got posted to facebook. They put some sort of instagram filter on it, but it still looks pree coo.
In other news, I really like drawing hands. Hands hands hands. I stare at everyone’s hands until they feel uncomfortable. Ah, the joys of being with strangers. They will never see me again, so I don’t care if I make them uncomfortable.
Okay, so Josefine wanted the link to my blog, and I’m just going to assume that she’s going to share it with other people because that’s how things work. Anyway, catch her up. If you are not Josephine, you can skip this part.
Nick Baker = Jonatan
Cecil Baldwin = The religion teacher
school lunch = whyyyy
Kate = awkward and very pedestrian
Highlights = things that happened that were worth sharing. Not necessarily all good.
I use the words Then, Okay, So, and Whatever a LOT.
Yesterday I went to the highest point in Stockholm with Daniel, Aakansha, Iara, and Sofia. They are all exchange students from Texas, India, Brasil, and Italy respectively.
They met me at T-Central a half hour late and while I was waiting some old black guy smoking a cigarette came up to me and asked me something in (french?) and- nevermind, let me reenact it for you.
dudebro: HON HON HON BONJOUR BAGUETTE EIFFEL TOWER
me: I’m sorry? Do you need directions?
dudebro: oh, i so surry. u speek inlgleesh? i say “i wonder wat a bootifool womahn is doing seeting all by herself?”
me: I’m… uh… waiting. For my boyfriend. Fiance. Guy. He’s big. Real strong. mhm. Gonna be here any second.
dudebro: ah. *sulks into shadows and watches me until I duck into a store*
Yeah, so that was creepy.
Today, I started my humanistics paper (at last! No more procrastinating!) and then I went to a rotary meeting where some guy talked about American politics. From what I could understand he agreed with the Republicans on the whole Government Shutdown thing, and when he talked to me and told me as much after the meeting, I gave him some straight facts and I think I might have changed his opinion on the whole matter.
I thought it was really weird that they were discussing the government shutdown for an hour, because it doesn’t really affect any of them directly as our foreign affairs are separately funded. Strange.
I went to science class and the teacher told me I needed to participate in class discussions if I wanted to pass. Okaaaay then. I’ll raise my hand if that’s what she wants, but I’ll probably say something totally unrelated.
After school I went to Dorren and we sang songs until 8 and it was really fun and I love choir a lot. The only hard thing is trying to match my american/british vowels to their Swedish ones. I don’t think it should take too long to perfect though. Mondays are my new favorite day of the week because of choir.
Here’s some pictures I took during the last two days:
Aakansha
Iara
kitty kitty
kitty kitty kitty kitty
Debbie, Muna, and ??? omg I knew her name. I’m so dumb. Everyone hates me because I’m so bad at this.
we're never getting off this planet 