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?

How To Be Awkward: a guide

I just really don’t know how to make friends? Like I don’t want to appear clingy? But I also don’t want to appear standoffish? And so today when we were walking to lunch, I was waiting for Farida and then she was waiting for someone else at one point, and I just kept walking and then I got in the lunch line before them, and I didn’t know where to sit, so I ended up sitting with kids I don’t usually talk to, which I suppose is fine, but it felt weird and then when we were on the bus they were all talking to each other and I didn’t know if I was a part of their conversation, so I just stayed quiet and ugghhh. I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT ENTAILS. okay? I’m really into run on sentences if you hadn’t noticed.

Gucci has a cone on her head right now because she got in a cat fight and her leg got ripped open. She’s very sad and very noise and likes it when you scratch where the cone sits and I don’t know if I could handle Sneakers having a cone on his head because I feel bad enough for Gucci and I don’t even care that much about her in the first place.

That sounded cold. I care, but she’s not mine. I guess I have compassion for her. There. Compassion.

Cecil Baldwin saw one of his attackers on the subway so he took a few pictures of him, found a student who witnessed the crime, and they’re going to go to the police station together to make a report. HOORAY FOR JUSTICE! In other news, religion is interesting, but I can’t understand anything, only look at pictures. Astrid translated the pages about Ethics for me, so maybe I’ll learn something yet.

Question: when the college website says that I need to take at least five classes my senior year, do they mean that I need to pass five classes my senior year? I’m very stressed out about this.

I’ll have the music video ready for you guys next thursday. Wish me luck! (say: Lycka Till!)

Sorry I’m behind on updates again!

I’m on the fifth row of Abby’s baby’s blanket, and I think I might actually be able to finish this thing! My new goal is to do five rows a day. I want to have it done before Christmas so that if she has her baby early, she’ll have the blanket in time.

That wasn’t about Sweden, but I’m very proud of myself for learning how to crochet, so I wrote it down to show off. Moving on.

I’ll show you the pictures first for a nice little change up.

Lunch time! I’m totally missing circle tables!

Not my lunch, but this is what was served. It’s gyro meat and rice. Apparently the Swedish school invented this meal because it takes the two cheapest foods and puts them together.

If you look closely you can see a chimney sweep up on this roof. Chim Chimeny Chim Chimeny Chim Chim Cheree

These swings went a million feet in the air and you could see everything and it was totally worth the hour wait

Twirl a whirl a whirl with Aida and Jenny

WAFFLE WITH ICE CREAM!

This is like a more hardcore version of the twirl-a-whirl. It made me understand why dad hates rides now.

this advert on the bus looks like danisnotonfire and I think about it a lot.

 

 

Okay, so yesterday I went to Grona Lund (it’s not spelled right because the O is supposed to be a Swedish one, but I’d rather type this than go hunting for the actual O.) and it was a grand time. The rides were scarier than the ones at six flags (believe it or not) and there was this fun house that made me feel like I was tripping on some bad drugs or something. All of the kids in front of Jonatan and I were screaming and crying, and if I were four years old I think I might have passed out from fear as well.

I don’t know how much I’m supposed to say on the subject of the theme park, because it was really fun and fantastic and I it was probably the most fun I’ve had all month, but that’s because I spent all day with a bunch of really amazing people and rode a bunch of cool rides and ate sweet food. There isn’t really one instance that I can write about that happened yesterday without going in to the conversations that I had with everyone, and I feel like that would be weird to talk about. So I won’t. Rest assured that I am in fact making friends.

OH! Forgot to mention! Jonatan and Farida are Musical junkies besides just being regular music junkies! I don’t know how I’ve been so fortunate to meet these two! They were very impressed by my Les Mis Revolutionary Rose pin and when I was talking about this cool tattoo I saw (I’ll post it below) I said something about how it would look better on me if I were a boy because boobs, and I sang “If I Were a Boy” (you know, the beyonce song?) and Farida sang it at the same time and I was like DAMN. I think that was what I missed most about my friends back home; bursting into song when we were reminded of one, and LOOK. TITTA! I hope they like me as much as I like them 😀

Everyone needs to watch My Mad Fat Diary. Farida got me hooked and it’s the best thing ever.

Awkward moment of the week:

The other night Astrid and I were hanging out and she got a text and told me her friend was here and that they were going to go swimming. So I was like, “Oh, can I join you?” because their pool is heated and I thought it would be better to go swimming than go to bed at nine pm.

She hemmed and hawed before saying ok, and in my head I was like “She doesn’t want me to go swimming with her, and so I shouldn’t because now it’s going to be weird.” but I had already asked and she had given me a reluctant yes, so it would have been weirder if I didn’t. So, I put on my swimsuit, stepped on another slug, and jumped in the pool. I swam back and forth width wise and Astrid and her friend sat in the corner farthest away from me talking quietly in Swedish. Ten minutes in I was getting really cold and wanted to leave to end the awkwardness, but I knew it would look weird if I got out, so I stayed in for another ten minutes and ohmygod.

I read this quote that said you should put yourself in as many awkward situations as you can so that when one catches you by surprise, you don’t act weird or make a fool of yourself and you’re just comfortable in general, but it’s hard, man. Okay? Everything I do is cringy, so I should be used to it already, but I’m not.

Last thing I’m going to say: I’ve spent almost six hours filling out scholarships so far, and I haven’t even gotten to the ones where you have to write long essays. College applications are a walk in the park compared to this.

This is that tattoo I was talking about. Isn’t it cool? I’ve never seen blue like that! Too bad I’m not a sailor who’s gotten her leg ripped off by a kraken or something so that it would represent something. Not that tattoos need to have literal meanings, but if he was a peg leg, that would make him even cooler.

Summer in the City

Today was my first day of SFF. I got into class and there were almost thirty kids in there (I thought there were only going to be three, so imagine my surprise) and the room capacity was probably twelve, so we kept all of the window and doors open. The teacher spoke completely in Swedish which sucked. I mean, she spoke slowly and enunciated, but I still could only understand every five words, so I didn’t know what was going on. Then she wrote something Swedish on the board and I understood 4 of the fifteen words and everyone was pulling out their notebooks, so I did too.

I raised my hand and was all, “I’ve only been here two weeks. I don’t know what’s going on, can you please explain this to me?” and then she was all “Just try your best.” and I was like “I don’t know what the board says well enough to try my best. Are we writing essays? What does it say?” and then she was all “Just write an introduction about yourself instead of doing what the board says.”

So, I still don’t know what all of the other kids wrote, but I wrote a paragraph about myself and Wisconsin and I drew a picture of a cow in a blizzard that made her and the girls sitting next to me laugh. I turned in my essay and started talking to this Italian boy with an Italian name that I can’t pronounce or spell. He seemed pretty cool though. After the teacher scanned all of our essays, she gave the non-international section kids (me and a few other students) some reading material that was completely in Swedish and then told me and the Italian boy that we should go to beginners Swedish. No kidding. He wrote two sentences and I wrote six. Everyone else had a whole page front and back. She gave me the email address of the beginner SFF teacher and I’m supposed to email her to find out when and where her classes are. ??? Okay, then.

Then I went to lunch (which was rice and some suspicious looking chicken.) didn’t eat anything, and hung out with Jonatan and Aida until Farida got out of her class so that we could go see THE CITY.

It was pretty cool. We hung out for five or six hours, walking around and looking at things. They’re all super awesome and amazingly like all of the things that I like and all have tumblogs (besides Aida) and we fangirled over tv series and movies that we’ve seen, and Jonatan loaned me Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children in English and they showed me around Gamla Stan and now I know how to get there by walking from my school and I want to spend lots of time there!!! (everything is so cute, you don’t understand. I feel like I’m in a coffee shop AU)

Pictures from yesterday’s science class:

FOR SCIENCE!

I am not a murderer, I am a SCIENTIST.

Pictures from today’s outing:

We passed this bridge that was covered in locks. Lovers write their names on here, hook them on and throw the key into the river. Apparently sometimes people come with wire cutters to chop theirs off when their relationships fail.

Jonatan, Farida, Aida, and I in a cafe underneath a concert hall

The acoustics in this library are so amazing! When you whisper, it echos! It took all my self control not to start singing!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Golly, I’m tired. School starts at 9:50 usually though, so that’s a blessing I guess.

I made Mexican Wedding Cakes, but idk if people are eating them. I’m okay with that. I’ll eat them all. No problem. Farida wanted to know what MWC are, so I’m bringing some to school tomorrow.

Swedish people don’t have personal boundaries. I thought that because it’s a sin to make eye contact on the train that we all had a four foot bubble around us as well, the way it is in America, but no. My bubble has been invaded too many times today. All of the teachers were standing like six inches away from me and ever time I shifted away they would shift closer and ohmYGOD KNOCK IT OFF!!!!

I had English 7 first hour and we did one of those games where you take the role of a person who is stranded with a bunch of other people and for some reason you need to kill one of the others and you need to make an argument as for why you shouldn’t die and why someone else should. Our class killed the vicar, but we were only one vote away from killing the politician. My job as the psychologist got zero votes because I’m amazing.

The teacher came around and he asked me what I wanted to get out of the class as I’m overqualified to be there. I said I wanted to pass because I needed to graduate school and go to college. He didn’t like that answer. I don’t really know what he wanted me to say. That’s what I want to get out of all of my classes.

Next we had lunch even though it was only eleven in the morning and I took one look at the school lunch and went straight to the water. It’s a good thing it was so early in the day because I wasn’t even hungry yet. I sat with Farida and Aida outside the lunchroom and eventually we went to the ICA down the road and bought juice boxes and granola bars. I didn’t get anything because I left my wallet at home and wasn’t hungry.

We went to Humanities and the teacher tried to explain to me what we were doing in the class for our projects, but I didn’t really get it. We sat and talked all hour and didn’t do anything that I’m aware of. The teacher told me I wasn’t going to Rome with the rest of my class. Frowny face. Ah well. Jonatan asked me if I wanted him and Farida and Aida to show me around the city after school on Friday. (school ends at 11 in the morning so it’s not that big of a deal to do stuff afterwards.) I asked my host parents and they said I could go. So yay! Maybe I’ll make some friends and learn the layout of Stockholm!

I went home and finished my third book in three days and fell asleep. Tomorrow I start Jane Eyre. I read Ender’s Game, Divergent, and Insurgent in the last three days. On the fifth day I’ll reread Looking for Alaska and on the sixth maybe I’ll read The Alchemist and on the seventh I’ll do Airborn. I have a lot of free time that I don’t know what to do with yet, so I read to use it up. My swedish homework is mostly reading assignments, but every time I try to to translate it I end up with one page finished after three hours and I don’t really want to do that anymore because it’s hard and boring and I don’t think it’s going to really get me anywhere in class because I can’t understand what they’re saying when they teach us, so what’s the point of doing the extra handouts??

Tonight we had spaghetti, but the sauce was pureed mushrooms with bits of chicken throughout, so I just had plain noodles. Life. I’m so interesting. Please stop reading my blog. It’s a waste of time.

this is me waiting hanging out in the library yesterday when none of my teachers showed up.

Swedish fashion

Fashoon bb

the view from my Humanities classroom window. there aren’t screens on windows here. Apparently, sometimes people jump.

Stress

This morning started off with my mum texting me telling me that I can’t fake swear on the internet. Usually, I’d be all “yeah, k whateves.” and take it down, but instead I replied none too nicely ranting about how stressed out I am. I probably did that because I’m stressed out. I know I shouldn’t be, but I am, so I am. I still am. Not so much as this morning though because today was really funny.

I woke up early to shower so that I could be at the school early to talk to the counselor and when I got there she was in a meeting with another student and then was too busy to talk to me for the next thirty minutes. So I read. Then we discussed my classes and she put me in SFF and a music class (with Mikayla (sp?) and Nick Baker) and she told me that I should go to the Rome class since I don’t like the Human one. Awesome. I’m totally going to Rome!

By the time I was done talking to her, my SFF class was about to start and so I had to run up seven flights of stairs to get to it on time. When I got there, there were three other kids sitting outside the locked door of the SFF classroom. Awesome. We sat there for fifteen minutes and talked. There was a girl from Finland, a boy from Egypt and another boy from Eritrea. Then the teacher came up and told us in Swedish that class was cancelled because she had a funeral to go to and that we should hang out in the library until our next class. So I read.

The next class was Religion and I was kind of excited because I like learning about other people’s religions and I thought maybe I would learn something even though the class is taught is Swedish. Nick Baker and this awesome girl named Farida Tanttu sat with me and we talked for forty-five minutes before someone kid came into the room and told us that our teacher was sick and that we could go to lunch or whatever. Religion is a split lunch class, so I have 40ish minutes of religion and then lunch and then another 50 minutes. I walked with Nick and Farida to lunch, and we saw what they were serving and all decided to go home instead. There’s a reason lunch is free. I’m going to make a lunch sucks and a lunch rocks tag so that we can all keep track of how often the miracle of a good school lunch occurs.

So basically, I didn’t have to go to school today.

I got home a half hour ago, finished the last ten pages in my book (that’s two books in two day! I’m on a roll! Can’t stop this, oh no can’t stop this!) and now it’s 12:30 and I’m kind of hungry but they only have frozen bread and cereal here and I feel like I’m at Cana’s house. I think I’m going to go get some lunch and then make some cookies or something so that the Skarins can taste the joys of fat. kk peace out