To answer your many questions

Alright, so I’m going to post some of the pictures I took at Dorren and tell you some stories, and then I have to go to bed because my head is killing me and these pills aren’t working fast enough and I am going to puke.

I got the box from my parents and grandparents

The box contained:

• three pairs of winter tights
• so much tea
• Instant mac n cheese!
• POP TARTS
• Nutella
• a letter from my dad
• a letter from not my dad
• fudge
• more fudge
• shampoo and conditioner
• love

THANK YOU FOR SENDING ME ALL OF THIS!! I WAS DYING WHEN I OPENED IT

I was looking for gray’s American store yesterday so that I could buy pop tarts and I was walking along this highway and into some industrial park and there was no store where it was supposed to be, so I walked into this hardware store and asked them if they knew of it, and they said it was the next store over, so I go in there and there’s a little key code thing on the door and I can’t get in without the password. A sign above said “Gray’s American Store Ty: 1” I figured Ty meant tryck, so I pressed one and nothing happened.

I went back to the hardware store and the lady came over to help me out, but she couldn’t figure it out either. Then this guy came in and he’s like “yo, sup?” and he scanned his entry card on the thing and got us both in and led me up the stairs to where the store was. The store door and a little key code thing too, and I was like “How am I supposed to do this?”

And the guy said “This is where you wanted to go, right?”

And I’m like “Yeah, but it’s locked. What am I supposed to do?”

And he repeated what he said before so I nodded and then he smiled and walked away. So.

I pressed what I thought was a door bell and nothing happened so I knocked on the door and no one came and then I pressed one on the keycode thing and nothing happened, so I left.

Only before I could leave the door to get out was locked and I almost crumpled to the ground in disbelief because I thought I was going to be stuck in there forever until I used my powers of observation to find the lock release button and escape that place.

Good times. Good times.

I have pictures. but I’ll upload them in the next post.

I talked to my music teacher today and he was like “I listened to your recording and it’s perfect. I have no comments, You may go home.” And I started laughing because I’m pretty sure he was only saying that because he doesn’t speak English and he didn’t want to try to talk to me in slow swedish.

I watched that new Disney movie, Frozen. Meh. Don’t waste your time. It was alright, but I’d only watch it if I had a fever or something and couldn’t reach the remote to turn off the tv.

I found this feather on the road and I picked it up and painted it to use it as a bookmark. The locket has a picture of Great Grandma Horning and Grandpa Seibel. The book is Jane Eyre.

This is a cork I found at the docks sitting on top of nuts that I’ve found while on outings which are on top of all my loose change in a bottle that used to have this awful fruit smoothie in it.

This was taken shortly before he noticed me

Hanna taking photos of strangers

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.

Hello, Schoolmates

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.

JOSEPHINE! HELLOOOOO!!!!

So Chic

I feel like I live in a Coffee Shop AU. I spend a lot of time writing and drawing and reading alone in coffee shops and I feel like at this point, I’m am definitely the main character of this YA novel. Today I ordered a Caramel Latte, and I definitely suggest y’all try one because they are THE BOMB. Also, all of these coffee shops have little pitchers of lemon water, and lemon water is good for your voice, so I’m probably a professional singer now with all of the free water I’ve drunk. (Keenan, I almost wrote dranken, and then I thought of you.)

The only problem is, whenever I enter a coffeehouse, I think of this post: i keep seeing the words coffee shop au without knowing what they mean. a coffee shop universe? alternate universe where there are coffee shops.friends, i have some good news for you about this universe that we live in.

And then I want to laugh. Living the dream right here.

Today I want to the Carl Milles Garden, and I’ve got some photos to share with you that about sums of the trip. Here they are, along with a video of how my morning went and part of the tour.

This reminds me of the sandman from that Episode of Sleep Hollow last week.

angels

Here’s that video I promised

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.

A Rant and an Update

Ohmygoodness. Every time someone asks what country I’m from, and I say America, they go “Well, there’s more than one America, you know ;)”

No. NO THERE ISN’T. You asked me what country I was from, and I told you the shortened version of the name of my country. The USA is the only country with the name America in it. You didn’t ask me what continent I came from, you asked me for my country. This isn’t about being politically correct, this is about you being annoying.

Someone said that we need to call the USA the USA instead of America because saying America makes it sound like we think we’re better than everyone, and we need to break that stereotype.

Here’s a nifty tip: Be a nice person, and do kind things for people, and then when they ask you where you’re from, and you say “America,” they’ll think, “Gosh, that American was a really nice person. I guess not all of them I giant jerkwads! In fact, I should like to visit there someday, because I enjoyed this person so much and they represent their country so well, that it sounds like a dandy place to go.”

So, yeah. People need to get over themselves.

Moving on. 

Yesterday no one talked to me and that was great. Then I got a migraine and slept for five hours and when it was time for bed I couldn’t fall asleep until two, so I was tired and grumpy all day today.

I’m a full-fledged vegetarian from here on out. It’s been going great so far. It’s just the smell of fried foods that kills me sometimes. Must. Resist.

OH, wait, that was a lie. I went to a Rotary meeting yesterday, and they talked to me. They’re looking into getting me more than one host family, which is nice, because perspective. Also, I waited outside Dorren for 20 minutes, and my rotary contact didn’t show up, and when I called her, she said that she left through a different door and didn’t see me. So, there was that.

Today I had music class and Sandra decided we needed to change the melody. And I was put in charge of that for some reason. And it’s due on Thursday. And I sing with the rhythm of an unevenly loaded washing machine, so I can barely sing the song as it is. Cool.

Then we had SFF and the teacher was gone, so I sat downstairs and got to know the older, more mature kids in the class, and they’re all pretty great.

Then we watched a documentary about Hang Drums in Religion, and for the second half of class the teacher was at a Dr. appointment, so we went to the computer lab and I studied Swedish.

Then we had the Club Fair and I signed up for a book club, a creative writing club, and a film critic club, because I love to participate when things are organized and there are more than 3 members in the club, and I don’t have any secretarial responsibilities.

Then we had a class photo, and I’m pretty sure I blinked in each shot.

Then I went home and my hands were white because it’s FREEZING outside.

The End.

Can you tell I’m still hung up on the America thing? Ugh. It just really gets to me.

I think this might be their excuse for a corndog. Hank would be very disappointed.

I feel like a Swedish peasant when I hang out in Gamla Stan

this is the pretty courtyard

Me waiting

Sonja on the royal steed at that museum I went to a few posts ago