Fall Break

This past week was my fall break. Most schools in Sweden have an entire week off during this time of year so as to give everyone involved with the schools to have a short vacation once the school year really gets rolling. Let me just say, there are many things that I think the US can learn from Sweden and this is definitely one of them. This was a busy week so there is a lot to write about! Halloween happened to be on the Tuesday of this break so the weekend before was quite busy. Saturday was a busy day for me because it was my last day with the Siöland family. As exchange students, we normally have between one and three host families throughout our year. I get to stay with two families: my first family, the Siölands, and now the Vilhelmssons. I will be staying with this family through Christmas, and then I will be going back to the Siölands for the rest of the year. This allows exchange students to get to experience even more culture and see how other families in their country live. Because it was my last full day, we decided to celebrate with a small family Halloween dinner. In the morning, Sofia, Amanda and I all carved pumpkins and then Sofia and I set about to decorating the house with our newly bought Halloween decorations. We lined the kitchen with spider webs and scattered sparkling spiders through various nooks and crannies in the house. I’d say that between the two of us, we made a delightfully spooky environment for the upcoming holiday. After decorating we had time to kill before I would be able to make my pumpkin pie for dessert because the chicken had to stay in the oven for at least six hours. In those following hours, we did several things including flying a princess kite above their yard and discovering that you can in fact tie an iPhone to the string and take a video from above. The quality is below average but what can you expect from a phone tied to a string being pushed and pulled around 50 feet in the air? Next we decided to make something that didn’t involve an oven. I had the brilliant idea to make no-bake peanut butter cookies because Sofia had never tried them. Actually, I bet that very few people in Sweden have tried them because of their chronic lack of peanut butter. I actually brought two containers of Jif with me from Alaska just in case it was true from what I had read online about their lack of the delicious spread. After making the cookies, I decided it was time to make the pie crusts. About two hours later, we were all seated around the specially decorated dining table enjoying a delicious meal together. After dinner, I finished making the pumpkin pie (from scratch, pumpkin and all) and finally went to bed. That Sunday was arguably even more jam packed because I had what is called the Yddingeloppet. It’s a race ran in a nearby town. I had been signed up for weeks to run the 6 Kilometer and I was actually excited! At home I run cross country and I was sad to miss that season so in a way, this kind of made up for it. Instead of racing about a hundred other high school girls, I would be running against hundreds of people from all over Sweden, all of which had very different levels of expertise and training when it came to running. This was the first race I had run since last spring and I had a blast! Overall I came out of the fray with 84th place out of over 500, and a time of 31:48. This was with minimal training so I really hope to get a sub 30 in the next 6K I run, hopefully in the spring. After the race, my host dad took me to lunch with his colleagues and we enjoyed delicious gourmet pizza. Then we went home and I had to pack. I neglected to pack until three hours before we were supposed to leave so I was a little rushed. Then the time came for me to say goodbye to my first host family and go move into my second host family. It was bittersweet, but I was excited for the new experiences. The next day was Monday and I had already been planning to visit one of my exchange student friends in the nearby town of Lund. We spent the day eating and walking through the city center while she pointed out historical buildings and all the best cafes in town. After a day of shopping and catching up, we went to her house to sleep. The next morning, we met up with all of the other exchange students in our district, about 5, and enjoyed a delicious breakfast at the Grande Hotel in Lund. We had been invited to the Rotary club there to introduce ourselves and see how other clubs work. I particularly enjoyed this meeting because the Lund Rotary Club is an international club so its meetings are all conducted in English, and we got endless breakfast food. After eating a few too many waffles, all of the exchange students left the hotel to explore more of the town we were in. We had a blast going from campus building to building while taking an excessive amount of pictures. After walking back and forth through the historic city, we were about ready to drop. After hugging goodbye to everyone, I hopped on the bus back to Svedala. Following our hectic day in Lund, on Wednesday, we decided to have a slightly more laid back day and all met up in Malmö at the mall Emporia where we proceeded to eat waffle cone ice cream and lazily peruse through overpriced outlet shops. At the end of the day we all said goodbye again and I took the train back home. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were spent relaxing and catching up on late school work which was desperately needed. Sunday, I was excited to spend the day with my YEO Ralf and his wife. They had invited me a few weeks prior to go and see The Fiddler on The Roof at the Malmö Opera house. They picked me up at 1 and we drove to the theatre where dinner would be provided. We started eating an extremely fancy meal at 2 and although it didn’t seem like much food, I was stuffed by the end of the three course meal. After eating we watched the stunning performance all in Swedish. I’ve watched one other Swedish musical while I’ve been here and this one was about 80% easier to understand. Mostly because I had seen the movie for Fiddler on The Roof about a hundred times, but I’d also like to credit a small portion of my understanding to my improved Swedish. It’s going slow but at least it’s going! During the applause, I noticed a lack of cheering for the cast and only clapping. I am definitely not used to this so I started cheering and to my surprise, once I started, many other people started cheering along with me, making the audience seem that much more alive. After getting a final picture in front of the opera house, Rolf drove me home. What a wonderful way to end a wonderful week!