One Week Later

Dear Lord am I bad at this.

Okay, so on Monday? Monday. Let’s say it was Monday. I left at noon to catch an SJ train to Hannah’s house. The ride was an hour or so long, and then I got off at Nykoping or however it’s spelled. I had to find the bus station from there. After a few attempts at asking for directions (which is really difficult when people use words you aren’t expecting. Mostly I just followed where they pointed.) I walked a kilometer to where I was supposed to be. LUCKILY I had 40 minutes to do it, which I clearly needed. UNLUCKILY it was raining the whole time. It has been raining ever since.

So, I got to Hannah’s house and she’s going this little dog named Willy, and he’s super cute and he total fulfilled my dog petting needs. We decided to go out that night, and when I say night, I mean afternoon except for it gets dark at 4pm, so I mean night. She took me to an old burned down castle and then we went to a coffee house so that we could dry off, as water was literally pooling on my shoulders.

I feel like I’m using a lot of comas, but I can’t help myself.

Anyway, we went back home and then we watched A Haunting in Connecticut and Insidious before going to bed.

TUESDAY:

We went back into the town (the bus ride is like 25 minutes, but there’s nothing to do where she lives as far as I’m aware) and we met up with some Australian girls. We ate at Mekka, which is this Exchange Student Mecca, and then we walked around for a while looking for a Halloween costume for Hannah. We stumbled into a few stores that we shouldn’t have, and if you want to hear about it ask me on Skype or in school, because it’s too inappropriate to post here.

yes, hello Future Kate. I’m sorry I didn’t write down this particular adventure. I’m sure you haven’t entirely forgotten the details though. Best Wishes, Past Kate. 

That night I got Hannah hooked on American Horror Story, and now her life is all downhill from this point.

Wednesday:

We went to the castle again so that I could take pictures and then we went to the highest point in Nykoping and sat up there for an hour or so before going into a cafe and waiting for my bus to come. It was a very sad a tiring day. Hannah is lovely and her parents are lovely and her dog is lovely and I wanted to stay for another week because it was all so quaint. Like Fond du Lac on steroids.

The way home was tricky tricky tricky. I had like 3 buses and a train to locate, which really shouldn’t be so difficult, but I’m paranoid. I thought that I had missed my stop a million times, and it got dark so fast that I couldn’t be sure where we were.

THURSDAY:

I went to Farida’s house and had a Swedish dag with her, Jenny, and Josephine. I think I can steal some of the photos from facebook, but they haven’t been posted yet. We shall wait with baited breath.

We went to a pizza place (see photos) and then we watched a movie called Ego and then we played a board game about Africa and diamonds and I think our English teacher would love it. ALSO we (actually it was more Farida and Josephine, I just watched) made choklad bullar (chocolate balls) and they were out of this world, I love chocolate so much. My skin should be way worse than it is.

Friday:

I felt really ill. probably because I’ve been eating so poorly of late. Blame the chocolate and greasy pizza. I stayed in bed all day and slept. Then I woke up and we had fish sticks and I went back to bed because I was dying. I couldn’t really sleep because I’d already slept 18 hours so I watched Man Of Steel and I highly recommend it. I should update that list of mine.

This is me being excited about trains

My train!!

basically I’m going to hogwarts

You’ve got some dirt on your nose. Did you know?

ALL ABOARD

This reminded me of Alaska Young

Me being scared that I’m on the wrong bus

Inside a church

theres so much gold

ring a ling

a wonderfully gloomy day

these clouds are so dramatic

Hannaahhahahaha

dramatic

such drama

high school musical?

Farida with a calzone that size of a puppy

how

how am I supposed to eat this?

This is Getting a Little Out of Hand

I’m soooo bad at updating.

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.

Here’s the video. I decided it was alright.

Everyone-ish is in Rome

Yesterday I had one class and there were only 2 other people in it (Debbie and Paula). We talked about Africa since the library was closed and we couldn’t check out books or go on computers. Then, Debbie pulled out her laptop and we watched a show called “Outsiders” which documented three elderly Finnish sisters who married 20 year old men in Africa because they wanted to have a “love adventure” and the men wanted to leave their country so that they could be richer. It was pretty freaky.

We went to McIncredible after the documentary and talked and then I went home and slept for a million years.

BTW, you all need to be watching the new Fox series, Sleepy Hollow. It’s like Supernatural, Once Upon a Time, and CSI all mixed together.

Today I had a field trip to some sort of Astronomy museum. My science teacher was really excited about it, so she convinced my Svenska 3 teacher to skip teaching class so that we could spend more time there. The science teacher ended up coming a half hour late with an excuse given in rapid Swedish. The museum was alright. I saw a fake fetus in a jar and a three legged pigeon in a jar and a two-headed snake. I was going to take pictures, but I forgot the memory card in the computer, so I’M SORRY.

Then I took Mickayla back to school and we went to music class. Marcus Markus Marckus was there and he said that we get three more days to rehearse, THANK GOD.

I went to Dorren’s oppen hus, and it was nice. There was a really confusing skit done in Swedish that consisted of a man in a dress, a girl in a playboy bunny costume, and an angry girl who screamed “I’M BLACK AND PROUD,” even though I’m pretty sure she was middle eastern. I accidentally stumbled into an oriental dance class, and they made me dance and the only thing I could do was the figure eight thing with my hips and the sexy walk. I’m hopeless at shimming and booty shaking, so it was really embarrassing. Anyway. Let’s not dwell on that. I hung out with Hanna and Rhoda and it was nice and I really like them and I’ll be joining the Dorren choir as well as the photography class and so that should take up some of my time. HOORAY!

I really like Gamla stan, so I’m glad I’ll be getting to spend more time in it.

OH, I almost forgot to tell you this story! My friend Paula told me about how she has this 32 year old boyfriend, and the way that they met was she was on the subway and she smiled at him because he was hot and he smiled back and when she got off, he followed her and was like, “I’m sorry, this is weird, but I really want to talk to you. Can I have your number?” and so she gave it to him and later they went to a cafe and ever since then, they’ve been dating for over a year. Literally love at first sight. Crazy stuff.

I scowl at attractive men because how dare they be so attractive? Makes my eyes hurt. All the boys here are so stylish, I know I’m going to be disappointed when I get back to Wisconsin where everyone is colorblind and wears basketball shorts and doesn’t brush their hair.

Okay. yeah. Today was good. I had a cinnamon bun for lunch and it made the rest of my day sweet.

Dr. Livingston, I Presume?

Today our english teacher asked us if we had any news about Africa. Va? Really? No one answered him because that’s such and obtuse question, and he got all upset that “none of us had done any research”. He went on to tell us about how some Swedish missionary just died ‘over there’ and if we knew who he was. I don’t think Swedish missionaries are exactly “news about Africa,” but okay? None of us did and then he asked us if we knew about Dr. Livingston. No one was talking, so he told us about how this dudebro got lost in the wilderness (still not sure where exactly, but I guess that’s not important to the story.) and when someone found him, they said something famous… what could those words be? hmmmmm I wonder…? No one was raising their hand so I did, and the teacher was like “THANK GOD” and I was like, um, these kids didn’t know who Livingston was, and they speak English as a second language? Why would they know those magical words?

Anyway, we went to the library to “Research Africa” and I read some short African horror stories about kids getting tricked into terrorist plots and some boy getting tangled up in and exsanguinating to death in some barbed wire. I think I’ll probably write about Rwanda or something. It’s not due until October, and it’s only a two page long paper, so I’m not too worried.

I took a nap on a bench. Probably drooled a little, but I was face down and my hood was up, so it’s all good. We had a two hour wait before going on a surprise field trip during E-Block to the King Christina exhibit, so I made the most of it and got some rest. The exhibit was alright, and probably pretty informative if you spoke Swedish and could understand the tour guide. I felt like any minute I was going to time travel back to the 1650s and that would be my YA character power, but no. So because that didn’t happen, I guess my favorite part was when we got to wander off on our own and I found the dress up section. There will be pictures, but I’m to tired to upload anything right now. Check back later.

Alright. So that was my day. I made pancakes for dinner and it was only Hugo and I eating tonight, so we ate all the bacon and got two giant pancakes each and it was heaven.