Uppsala Adventure

ugh I wanted to go out and do things today but I’ve got a fever and my head hurts and I really think it’d just be better if I just stayed home and watched Hallmark Christmas romances.

I complain a lot

This feeling of being unreasonably cold comes and goes, so I’m p sure that means my immune system is doing something about it. It’s probably also got something to do with how messed up my sleep schedule is. Last night I emailed my dad at four in the morning asking how the wind works and if we could use solar wind to time travel. Go to bed Kate. How does the wind even work though? He only sent me a sarcastic picture of a souped up Delorean and that really doesn’t tell me how air pressure works. That’s a great movie btw. Kate Recommends you watch Back to the Future Series. 

Ok, on to the important stuff because I’m sure none of you care about the stuff above.

Yesterday I went to Uppsala with Aakanksha and her host mom and host brother. We went to this really big church where Gustav Vasa is buried (You’d better click that link. he was boss) and then we met up with Aakanksha’s host cousin and her host cousin’s boyfriend at a cafe. The cafe was absolutely gorg and super fancy and I wish Espresso House was that cool.

Afterwards we went to the castle to look at a peace museum (it was about Dag Hammarskjöld) and then we went to the Uppsala universitetsbibliotek where there were a bunch of historical books and documents and maps and the Silver Bible made me drool. The boyfriend was studying art history and so he explained the history of the materials to us and I just wanted to die because we were so lucky to have guide.

If you haven’t noticed I’m really into asking questions and knowing the hows and whys of stuff. Knowing things makes me feel good.

We went to a few more museums that talked about the abuse of Orangutans and the deforestation in Borneo and how we should never ever buy anything made with palm oil to boycott those kinds of practices. It was a really nice day and I love Aakanksha’s host mom.

MY MITTENS ARE BACK FROM THE WASH AND WOW IT’S SO NICE TO HAVE WARM HANDS AGAIN

my beautiful friends back home sent me this super cute care package and it was full of poptarts and mac n cheese and hot chocolate. Also many bottles of bubbles. Those will come in handy.

this is the outside of that big church in Uppsala

Aakanksha and her host brother

It was raining and none of us had umbrellas

more church

swedish graffiti makes me laugh so much

I bought a replica of this for the exchange students to sign instead of a Swedish flag

the silver bibllllllle

haha oops. This photo is irony at its highest though.

Aakanksha about to be shot by a cannon

everything was so pretty it hurt

aren’t we cute?

this was in the care package along with a million stickers. I love it.

 

 

I’m so boring

I feel like I should give you guys day to day updates, but life is pretty boring. Not for me of course, but for you guys to read about this junk, I feel like it’s getting boring.

Today:

I got on the train, made eye contact with the person sitting across from me and they got up and moved. People here scare easy.

My first two teachers were missing so I went record shopping with Farida and Nick Baker. It was nice. We were out for like three hours and then we got lunch and went back to school for our last few classes.

I finished rereading Looking for Alaska in science class. Still didn’t cry. I must be lacking in some hormone that triggers that emotion.

We started the song. Everything went okay I guess. I’ll videotape it later. I’m no longer the weakest link in my group! We got this new guy (I think his name is Rickard? He’s cute I guess, but he has really long hair, so it takes away from his general appearance. These facts are for Ollie. It’s important to know. If you were a teenage girl you would understand.) and he can’t play or even read music, so I’m going to sing harmony now so that he can have the easy melody. I don’t think our voices blend well together, but whatever. I’ll make it work.

I got on the train to go home and some guy sat across from me and asked me something in Swedish. I said “I’m sorry?” and he repeated himself in Swedish. I thought that he was asking if he could sit there at first, so I replied “Yes.” He got frustrated and then looked out the window. At the next stop he asked another rider the same question before running off and getting on the train that was going in the opposite direction. I’m pretty sure now that he was asking what way the our train was going. Oops.

“What way is the train going?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Which direction is this train going???”

“Yes.”

I’m the worst 😛

I made the enchilades tonight and they tasted okay. I burnt two of them. It’s a good thing that my host parents don’t eat on thursdays (the day that I will always be cooking.) because then I can always ruin a few of whatever I’m making and no one needs to eat them.

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!

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

First day as the main character of a YA novel

^ that’s part of the train ride. Hooray for public transportation!

I met some of Hanna’s friends (Elsa and Anna) and we had coffee for about 45 minutes before going to school together and 2:30. They’re super cool and even invited me to a party and I felt like maybe I had the ability to make new friends. Then I got to school and the only person who sat next to me at first was this blind girl named Mikeala and she didn’t really talk and I didn’t know what to say because she might not have spoken English so well or understood it well and I didn’t want to be weird and then the the second half of the class came in and they all shook me hand?????? It was really weird because here in Sweden (at least so far as I’ve encountered) when people shake your hand, the hold on for another thirty seconds after while they talk and it’s really awkward and sweaty.

Then this girl named Debbie sat next to me (I was worried I smelled bad, but no. All of these kids have been with each other in almost every class for the last two years so they’re all really good friends and don’t want to talk to the new girl.) and another girl who’s name I didn’t catch and they were super cool and explained everything to me and we talked for forty minutes before looking for our lockers and then I was supposed to catch the train home because first days of school here only last for an hour or two I guess.

I didn’t go home though, I went to the guidance counselor’s office because I’m not signed up for any specific classes and I don’t know what to do. The counselor wasn’t in though, so I’m going to go to school midway through the first class at 8:40 so that I can talk with her and get things straightened out.

So, overall everything’s great (besides that stupid bird thing. God.). I’m glad I brought my converse because that is literally the only shoe the kids wear. The teachers dress the same as the students and we call them by their first names. So Coco and Doug would fit in in the Swedish world. I kind of feel like I’m at a really liberal college. My host parents say that at Hanna’s school there were bins of apples sitting in the hallway and that the kids had to take off their shoes in the entryway. People are only liberal here apparently.

Astrid says my Swedish is getting better. I think it’s because we watch American shows a lot with swedish subtitles.