God Jul! A week later.

alright alright alright alright. So. Christmas. Um. I’ll give you the videos first and then the explanation? How’s that? I know you can’t respond and I’m just talking to myself, but I like for you, the reader, to feel included here and as if I care about your opinion. Which I do. Which is something I would say if I wanted you to think I cared about your opinion and might not. You’ll never know.

December 24, 2013

December 25, 2013

On the 24th we had a p traditional Swedish ish Christmas. Ulf’s sister and her children came over and I met the third cousin who’s been away at college. She told me that there was restoration at the college she was going to, but I refuse to go abroad for college because I want to know that I’m secure in the degree I’m obtaining. Okay, Ollie? She made her college sound really amazing, but I can’t do it because I’m a very uncertain person.

Back to Christmas though. We had lunch and it was lots and lots of fish and cheese and then we had this cool thing for dessert and I didn’t take a picture of it because I’m the worst daughter ever and I’ll send you the recipe so that you can have to, but not right now because everyone is asleep.

Then the cousins left to go have dinner with their father’s family (I felt so bad, they were going to have to eat an entire other meal and I didn’t think I could eat for the next week after that lunch, much less have the same meal twice in one day. Those guys have stomachs of steel and probably give Joey Chestnut a run for his money.) and we all gathered in the living room to watch Kalle Anka, which is basically old disney cartoons with Swedish dubbing over the top. Some of the cartoons were really old (Think 1940s) and some were really recent (there was a clip with the Characters of Frozen at the end) but mostly it was just Disney princess songs that were supposed to make you feel happy inside.

When the show was over, Ulf-I mean tomten- came in and passed out presents. It made me wonder if Swedish kids ever truly believe that there was such a person as Santa because there was evidence right there that there wasn’t and that the presents had been from parents all along.

ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH Karin, Ulf, and I got up at negative two in the morning and walked to church in the cold. I’m still having weird dreams, so I woke up about a half hour before my alarm went off terrified that I was George Blagden and that I was actually a thrall. Spooky stuff, guys. Church was nice, everything was the same as usual except for in Swedish. The lines that we usually say were said (the whole forgive me, father thing in the beginning, the apostles creed, the Our Father prayer, etc) and I was really dumb and returned the speech book thing and I can’t send it home to show you. Super sorry about that.

Then we went home and went back to bed and did nothing all day because that is the tradition. I’m glad it’s tradition because I was tired and still really full from the day before’s meal. So much fish.

And that was Christmas. Cool Beans. Sorry I didn’t get to this earlier. It was a lot of effort. Here’s some pictures.

This guy in the ad on the subway looks like George Blagden when he played Grantaire in Les Mis and it makes me laugh because Grantaire is an alcoholic and this is an ad for non-alcoholic beverages.

I’m the one on the left

Prada!

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas….

So so so so so

I title these the way I title word documents before I save them.

Today I had the final music class rehearsal before the big performance on thursday. Yikes.

Before SFF I was looking super pathetic and sleepy and the Gunilla’s miracle replacement sub felt bad for me and she insisted on giving me money for a coffee. (Yes, mother. I refused her money several times. As you know though, people tend to not give up once they’ve offered to pay for something for you.) The rest of my day went much better after that. When I drink coffee I feel like I’ve got my life together. When I drink tea I feel like my life is falling apart. When I drink hot chocolate I feel like I should take a nap or watch a period romance movie.

Religion was cancelled because the teacher was sick. surprise.

I went to the bank and they refused me because I only had a copy of my passport and not the actual thing.

I went home and got my passport.

I went back to the bank (which is a little over 30 min away, mind you) and got my $$

I bought a pair of ice skates!!!!!!! YEAHHHHH

I went home and read the Book Thief. I highly recommend each of you does the same.

The End.

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?

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.

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!

Playing Hooky

I didn’t have school again today. Thank goodness it’s Labour Day, or else I might have felt bad about it. All three of the teachers that teach the first 3 hours of my school day were missing, so I left at eleven to go to Gamla Stan so that I could go to *My First Rotary Meeting*. I thought that I was going to get lost when I was going to or when I got there, but no. I’m pretty good at reading maps, so I found the meeting place right away and I had an hour before I had to be there. So I wandered around and it was pretty boring and uneventful.

I’m such a good blogger. Anyway.

Went to the meeting, it was nice. Everyone shook my hand and they all held on for far too long while the continued to talk to me. Business as usual. I think the most awkward thing was that I didn’t know what to say to this people except for “nice to meet you!!!1! 🙂 Thanks for having me!! :D” and so there were many awkward pauses and such. Then we had lunch (mine was a salad that was mostly cheese and halves of tomatoes. ?) and I noticed that a lot of the rotary members were female and also not elderly which was strange and refreshing.

The meeting was pretty interesting from what I could understand. The presenter was from Ghana and she was talking about a program funded by Swedish tax dollars that helps lower income countries set up research teams so that they can help themselves with SCIENCE. Hooray for science!

Then I got on the train to go back to school only I didn’t go back to school because I got lost. I got off one stop early because I thought that I could find the way back to school from that stop and I felt like walking some and the train was stuffy but uuUUUGHHHHH. I stumbled into the big city, eyes bleary, disoriented as a newly born calf. I walked around trying to follow signs, and it started pouring out (I had my umbrella, but my jeans still got soaked) and I must have walked for about an hour before I finally found a green line subway station and went home because by that time school was over.

I feel like I should have been more scared than I was? I mean, I was sooo lost and none of the maps I found were comprehensive, but I was more concerned about the rain than the fact that I was walking up and down streets that all looked exactly the same and could only find subway stations that had the wrong color line. idk, man.

So that’s why I didn’t have any school today. I think I’ll get a map of Stockholm tomorrow morning so that I never get lost in the rain again.