Ok, I like coffee, I like tea, I like the boys and the boys like me. I’ve been drinking too many hot beverages than is probably good for me. Chai Lattes are my new obsession. I’ve probably said it, but you can’t order drinks at Espresso House the way you can at Starbucks. It’s taken me up until a few weeks ago to figure out what my drink at Espresso House was going to be, but I’ve totally got it figured out now. I don’t think I’ll ever order anything else from any coffee shop except for chai lattes for the rest of my life.
Yesterday I hung out with Emily and got my insurance stuff all printed off from her school’s printer with the help of Hamish and Grace. They’re darling. I’ll have to update the cast page soon. Then we went to Dox to meet up with Sam and Andrew and Avishkar and we looked for a white dress so that Sam can be Carrie for a costume party her school is putting on. We didn’t find anything, but I got to pet a dog that was tied up next to a tyme machine, so the day was pretty good.
Today I went to school and now I’m going to tjejgruppen to hang out with my friend Hannah from the photography class I go to on thursdays. She’s pretty kickin.
The sun came out today. It’s been years since I’ve seen the sun. I put on my spring coat and stood in the sunny patches while I waited for the train. I know this doesn’t sound very important, but I think today may have been the best day I’ve had in several weeks because of it. I like all my friends and stuff, but THE SUN YOU GUYS!!!!!! I couldn’t think about anything else today.
Alright alright alright. Let’s get on to the stuff that people other than me care about.
This post comes to you in 5 parts!
1. I’m good. Like really, really good.
I don’t know where I’ve been. I think part of the reason I’ve been so down the last few months is because I don’t have an over-arching goal or concern (Musicals, Horse Training, Work, etc.) Since I don’t have something big to worry about constantly, I’ve been worrying about everything in equal measure. Every little thing’s been bothering me and because I don’t tangible goals to validate my existence, I was using people to validate my existence (omg, Kate, that’s so unhealthy! That’s not what people are for! Psh. You’re telling me.) I’m such a pretentious pseudo-intellectual saying that, but I think it’s important to know these things if you’re considering being an exchange student, because if you don’t get a life-consuming hobby, your hobby will become sleeping and fretting and that’s no way to be. So. Tips from Kate. Get a life.
2. I’m 18 now
I went to Emily’s house the weekend I turned 18 and we watched fight club and ate American pancakes and made cupcakes and pet her bunny and it was magical. We had a pretty sick dance party and Emily and I became best friends on snapchat to reflect our irl best friendship.
I accidentally deleted the dance party video. This is a summary of what you would have seen.
breakfast!
bunny in a lil bunny hat
omg we ate so much pizza that night
watchin the olympics
Sam and Emily
Emily is a cupcake MASTER
totes adorbs
makin cupcakes
McKenzie made us miss the bus so we had to walk a half hour in the rain
I’m really excited to go back home now because I CAN VOTE IN ELECTIONS NOW OH YEAH, MAKING A DIFFERENCE ONE VOTE AT A TIME!!!!
After the sleepover we went to Cafe 60 to celebrate Avishkar’s birthday. Then next morning my host family woke me up by busting into my room singing the Swedish birthday song with the traditional Swedish birthday cake and I couldn’t have been happier it was super kind of them to do that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wowowowow
3. Breno
Breno was one of our Oldies from Brazil. He went home on Feb 10th. He’s the best person ever and we all miss him a lot.
Breno and McKenzie
Andrew got Breno to sign his chest
4. Valentine’s Day ❤
I made everyone Valentines, but when I got to the cafe I realized that I’d forgotten them. So I went home (A half hour ride.) and then when I was heading back to the cafe, I realized I’d forgotten one, so I had to go back again (a fifteen minute ride.) So in total, I travelled and hour and fifteen minutes for these valentines and I ended up only being able to give them to three people :((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( I have a problem, I am very aware. A normal person would have said oh well, but these valentines were hilarious because I’m hilarious, and I needed them to be appreciated. I love my friends so much. They’re perf.
5. This Last Weekend
Hannah came up from Nykoping, but I didn’t hang out with her and everyone for very long on Saturday because Valentine’s Day was a lot of social interaction and I needed a break.
Sunday I almost stayed in bed all day too, but they annoyed me into coming out. We got sushi and I ate a spoonful of wasabi. It was all good until we started walking to T-Cen to pick up Hamish. Suddenly I was having a heart attack and I was going to throw up all at the same time. More tips from Kate: Don’t eat a spoonful of wasabi just to prove you’re hardcore. I had to go get some yogurt or something and in the meantime Emily and Hamish showed up. A bunch of them wanted to go look at the kungstragarden subway station, so I sat with Emily and waited for them to come back to T-Cen because she had had a heart attack earlier that day too.
My exchange family!
T-Cen
Kungstragarden
Kungstragarden
Kungstragarden
TOURISTS!
Then we sat on the docks until it started raining, after which we went to Cafe Dox to take cover.
And that was what you missed these last few days. I stole all of these photos from McKenzie’s blog because I’m too lazy to take my own these days.
Hamish, Andrew, and Emily. I think I joined a gang. I’m not sure. I don’t know if I like it.
Andrew
We took this escalator up to a library and then when the library closed we tried to leave, but there was only this escalator and it only went up, so we had to use the handicap elevator???? I feel like this architect could have just planned it so much better
group hug! awww
Pablo and Jorge DJ-ing like bosses
yoooooo Pabloooooooo
Martin is an amazing dancer omg
Oh Narain
Aakanksha!
Martin wearing Andrew’s glasses
wow my lense is dirty
we woke up at 7 in the morning to walk Aakanksha to the bus stop
THIS IS THE BEST SCHOOL LUNCH I’VE EVER HAD!!!! ILY ST. ERIK’S GYMNASIUM! First time I’ve had curry too!
This is my ID. I’m lookin fresh to death, but my name isn’t Aaron??????? Or is there something my parents aren’t telling me?
Okay so I hung out with the losers (I say losers lovingly. That probably sounded mean if you don’t know me.) in the first picture all night and it was great and Muna from Kungsholmen came along which was super cool of her and I hope she didn’t hate us.
The next day I went to the train station to meet Andrew so that we could go to Södertälje together and he was late. Andrew, if you’re reading this, I haven’t forgiven you yet. He told me to meet him at 12:30, and he came at 1:13.
Moving on.
We walked around Södertälje a bit before meeting up with Breno and then later Narain, and then even later Hannah, Alejandra, and Jorge. We sat in this super amazing McDonalds for a long while before the DJ event started. (Jorge and Pablo take DJ-ing lessons and their club put on a charity event for kids with cancer. We all signed up to work it, but in the end only the 18-year-olds were allowed to work. Martin gave me his Crew shirt though, so it was all good on my end.) We got there and Pablo did some mixing and then we all stood around and talked/danced*.
That night we went home around midnight and because it was a sleepover we talked until 3. I then layed in the bed Hannah generously offered me (btw, if you’re reading this Hannah, you need to stop being so nice because it makes my stomach hurt and I feel awful taking things from you.) staring at the wall wondering how sleep happens. A little after four I think I fell asleep. The alarm went off at seven and that was the start of the day. Who needs eight hours of sleep? Certainly not me!**
We walked Aakanksha to the bus station and then went home. Narain called and he and Pablo met us outside the house, where from we walked to ICA to get some doughnuts for Hannah. Pablo is really generous and bought everyone doughnuts*** and wow, what a cutie. He stuffed a chocolate bar in my pocket and I ended up really needing it when I got to the train station to go back home because I hadn’t eaten anything all day. ily Pablo!! ❤
Idk what else to say? I hung out with Narain and Hannah all day because Pablo had to go to his host mom’s birthday. I love Hannah and Narain so much and it’s not like I can tell you our conversations? I seem to run into this problem a lot. We just sat around and made bad jokes for a few hours . <I hope that works for you.
Then I headed home. The bus and train ride home seemed to last years and I really appreciated riding to Södertälje with Andrew and being able to take the bus to Trossa to Hannah’s house with everyone because company makes the time go by so much faster and easier.
FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!
I got up at seven (ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh seven) to go to school and I had a really hard time finding my first class. My room was A4107F, but the doors went G, D, C. No F. So I went to the room where F should have been (it didn’t have any number on it) and I asked the teacher and she was like “Go away, I need to start my lesson. I don’t know who you are, I can’t help you.” in Swedish and I was like “UM?!” and I’m desperately trying to explain my situation in bad Swedish and this other teacher guy comes up and he’s like “Who are you?” and he’s speaking English now, so I was able to explain myself completely and he still wanted to kick me out until I showed him my schedule. I think they made a few phone calls wherein Jonas explained who I was. It was all very stressful.
The kids in my class are super cool and super nice and I’ll take pictures of the school and classrooms soon.
In all, it was the best day of school ever and I can’t wait to go back.
*When I refer to all of us dancing, I’m excluding myself. Social situations with that kind of pressure give me a lot of anxiety and I know I may seem like a super cool person on the outside, but I’m almost always uncomfortable with everything and it takes a lot of effort for me to even talk to people I’m unsure around, much less dance in a dimly lit room with them. If I ever dance around you it’ll be impromptu and probably after several nights without sleep when I’ve lost all sense of boundary.
**That’s a lie. Today think I fell asleep in every single class. My eyes kept closing and when I tried to keep them open they were so heavy it hurt. I want to go to bed right now, but I need to make this post before I forget everything! 😦 I’ll do the ESA thing when I get home from school, Dad. I’m dying right now.
***I told him “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” because I can’t let people be nice to me and also three hours of sleep makes you want to lay down and die, not eat doughnuts.
Yesterday I learned that I’ve been pronouncing niche wrong my entire live. It rhymes with quiche, and not itch. wow.
Since I was like 13, I knew that I never wanted to live in the Southern Hemisphere because I wouldn’t recognize any of the constellations and that would really bother me, and I asked Oliver yesterday if it bothered him that all of the constellations were weird and he said he never even thought about it, and he didn’t even have a favorite constellation and I just… ALSO apparently the moon is upside down for people in the south?????? please send help.
I never really thought it was weird until they pointed it out to me, but Narain was talking about how he paid 60 kr for a locker and I was like “that’s too much” and the way I think about money is by how much food you can buy with it? You can buy a 6 piece chicken nugget meal here or 10 burgers, or 3 marabou bars, or 4 giant muffins and I could go on, but I just couldn’t help thinking of how much food he could have eaten if he had just carried his suitcase around with him, and then they laughed at me and I don’t know how other people think about money or calculate how much is too much. Back in America I would think about how many books I could buy, but prices here are off, so I need to go by food.
Ok, I like coffee, I like tea, I like the boys and the boys like me. I’ve been drinking too many hot beverages than is probably good for me. Chai Lattes are my new obsession. I’ve probably said it, but you can’t order drinks at Espresso House the way you can at Starbucks. It’s taken me up until a few weeks ago to figure out what my drink at Espresso House was going to be, but I’ve totally got it figured out now. I don’t think I’ll ever order anything else from any coffee shop except for chai lattes for the rest of my life.
we're never getting off this planet 