This is the Most Poorly Written Post I’ve Ever Made

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.

In which I get progressively more lost

?

it’s a watertower?

oh, is it really that easy? Just hang a left?

That dark place on the hill that I went to used to be a fort or something? In 1654 I think it said. Now it’s a cafe and there’s the remains of a cannon road on the other side of it. I accidentally deleted the video clip of me explaining all of that.

I don’t know.

So basically I got left with this blue hair dye and my pen pal said that I should use it and everyone else I asked said it would be cool. Everyone is a liar liar pants on fire. I looked absolutely mental with blue hair, and I was super distraught, so I decided to try and dye it back. I got this dark brown hair dye and did it in the school locker room, and it turned out black-ish green? I haven’t washed it since, but I hope it turns out brown after a few rinses. The box didn’t say what color it would turn into if you had blue hair, so I guess I should have expected this. I just want dark brown hair, guys. When I get my allowance from rotary I’ll figure out how to do that. Sighs upon sighs. Don’t trust other people when it comes to hair, kids. Life lessons here.

 

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!!!!

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.

Titling these is super hard, you have no idea

Philosophy = I don’t know what happened, but I saw Cecil Baldwin’s full arm tattoo and was super disappointed. Jonatan said it might me a Satanic worshiper thing though, so I guess I can always pretend it’s something scary and cool. I don’t know, it was like a pitchfork in a circle?

Svenska 3= We read poetry about death and then I translated one of the poems and had to write a super detailed and disgusted essay on something that happens in my daily life. Mine was a really surreal piece about waiting for the train in the rain. I didn’t read it aloud because I was embarrassed by how freaky it was.

Lunch = penne noodles and hamburger?

Natural Science = nap time because I couldn’t remember my password for the school computers

Music Class = I still suck at music, but Rickard was just as hopeless, so I don’t feel too terrible. They wanted me to stay after school and teach him how to harmonize though and I had a thing, so I recorded me singing the song with the piano so that he can figure it out on his own this weekend. I really hope he pushes the due date up to next thursday. We are soooo not ready.

Break = I went home and had a meltdown because the internet wasn’t working and I couldn’t figure out where to go to meet my rotary contact and I ended up getting there a half hour late and ughhhh.

Dorren = That’s with a swedish ‘O’, to be clear. I hung out with a girl named Hanna (Hannah?) and a guy named Oscar (Oskar?), and Hanna and I watched Oscar edit photos for an hour, and we talked and ate sandwiches and drank tea and it was a grand time. Then Christal picked me up and we went for vegetarian food and IT WAS THE BEST, OMG! I’m so tired of meat, this was a blessing! Then I forgot my phone charger so I went back and hung out with Hanna  and Oscar some more and then we all went to the train station and here I am. What a day. I want to go back to Dorren because those kids were really cool and I like them a lot and they listen to good music and the photo editing was really interesting and yay!

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.

The Bird Thing

Okay, here’s the story:

I heard some squeaking outside and I thought it was a cat asking to be let in, so I opened the door and I saw Prada with a bird in his mouth. He looked at me and I closed the door quickly then locked it.

That’s where the story should end, but I’m an idiot.

I thought twice, and opened the door, shooed the cat away and picked up the bird with a towel. I brought it into my room and set it on the floor, still wrapped in the towel and then remembered that I know nothing about birds and that I was going to school in a few hours and couldn’t do anything with this jerk. I thought maybe his neck was snapped or his wings were broke, because every other animal that I’ve rescued from cats is a few minutes from death. I hoped maybe this was the same, but NO. This jerk flies in to my window the second my back is turned! He proceeds to lose an eyeball (ohmygod it was so gross) and ram himself into the window over and over.

I took the towel he had been wrapped in and tried to catch him so that I could put him back outside, because honestly, at that point I didn’t care if he got eaten. Birds are as dumb as they look. He was snapping and my fingers and making demon noises, so I sat back for a second to let him calm down, and asked for advice on facebook. Everyone said: “let him out.” Thanks guys. Advice of the century.

THEN as if things couldn’t get worse, all of the cats started to gather around my porch door and under the window, so this idiot bird starts flying around before settling under my bed. I brought the cats inside, opened my porch door and shook the bed to scare him out from underneath. The freak ran into the window two more times before figuring out that the door was open and flying into a tree.

He forgot his eye on the window sill.

Did you know birds bleed purple blood? It dries brown, but it comes out purple. It’s easier to clean up when it’s dry.

I thought today was going to be exciting, not terrifying.