I'm thankful for You

Boy has it been one heck of a week!

I'll give you the boring 'itinerary' first.

When I last updated the blog I was one my way to Göteborg. The next day I took the ACT test. Why am I taking this test while in Sweden? Well I think that the key to these tests is taking them multiple times. So this was my second time taking the ACT and I will have one more opportunity in the fall. Really I'm just trying to maximize my score. Honestly the test wasn't too bad. Dare I say that I think it went well? I probably just jinxed myself.
After the test I of course met Misha for lunch at The Foxx. This was the cafe that Misha and I relaxed at after we took the PSAT several months ago. Here you can read about our first encounter at The Foxx. It was just as magical and delicious as the last time. There is just something about the people and atmosphere there that is so comforting and relaxing.

From Saturday until Tuesday I hung out with Misha and her host family in Partille, right outside of Göteborg. It was so much fun to hang out with and catch up with one of my best friends. We watched movies, stayed up late talking, slept in, sat in the sun, baked, read, and just loved each others company. Meeting Misha is one of the greatest things about this exchange. Also, Misha has a great fashion sense and we went shopping and she picked out a bunch of new clothes for me that I'm really excited to wear.

On Wednesday morning the real adventure began! We got up early, loaded the car and then we were off! . The first day of the trip brought on some adventure. We drove Göteborg to Helsingborg, ferry Helsingborg to Helsingör, drove Helsingör to Rödby, ferry Rödby to Puttgarden, and then the plan was to drive to Hamburg. Notice how i said plan...we didn't make it to Hamburg. We heard a funny noise from the car and Lars (Misha's host dad) said that the power steering was gone and that the battery wasn't recharging. Uh oh. We pulled off to this little town and the mechanic there looked at it but said that he couldn't fix it. So we were sent to the Volvo shop in Oldenburg. There they said that they could fix it, but not until the next day. So we left the car and found ourselves a little hotel. We bought some bread and jam and butter and ham and cheese and milk at the local grocery store for dinner. The next day the car wouldn't be done until the afternoon so we wandered around this tiny little town and made the best of it! Misha Vegard and I (Vegard is Misha's host brother) ended up sitting by a pond and reading children's stories from Misha's kindle. Have you ever heard the story of the Light Princess? Neither had we. The consensus was that it was long and lacked a moral. It took me over an hour to read that story out loud. But the way it was written and the words that were used really captivated me.
Finally once the car was fixed we drove to Hamburg. But not before stopping to wander around the city of
Lubeck for a while.We grabbed lunch at the Ikea in town. How Swedish can we be?
In Hamburg we stayed with Wiebke's family. For those of you who don't know, Wiebke was my family (in Zionsville) 's exchange student in 2010-11. It was so great to see her again! Her family was incredibly kind in hosting us! (Wiebke you're probably reading this so thank your family once again from all of us!)

The next day we embarked on one of our longer legs. We drove all the way to Brussels. Lars's other son, Even, is currently living and working in Brussels so visiting him was one of the main goals of the trip. We arrived in the sprawling city late in the evening. While walking to his apartment we ran into Mormon missionaries. They were both from Utah and after I said I was from Indiana one of the guys said that he is going to Notre Dame to study architecture. Small world? The chances of meeting someone who will attend my dream school while in Brussels? crazy!
Anyway from 8-12 that evening Even and his girlfriend showed us around the city. Brussels is officially one of my favorite cities. Misha and I both compared it to Washington DC. People just seem important in this city. Everyone if focused and driven. I love the all the cultures that come together in this city, I love and mix of the old and the new. It was an entrancing town.

The next morning we were up early to head to The Netherlands. We stopped in the village of Gouda (She's the Man reference). I had never been in this country and it was amazing. Most know that this country is mainly under sea level, so there was water everywhere even so that instead of fences to keep animals in, there were little canals to separate the pastures. There were also the stereotypical windmills and of courses lots and lots of bikes. In Gouda we made ourselves a little picnic with local cheese, bread and butter. We sat by the water, Misha fed the ducks and it was one of the moments of the trip that stands out most vividly in my mind. The goal was to visit a tulip festival next. But we arrived just after it closed, so instead we found a tulip farm and walked around. It was amazing. My words will not be able to do it justice. It was a rainbow of rows and rows of vivid and luscious tulips.
From such a high we hit a bit of a low. Misha got a bit of a stomach bug, probably mild food poisoning from something. The poor girl was not feeling good. And we had just eaten a lot of cheese and well...you get the picture.
We headed towards Germany and stayed the night in the small town of Papenburg just across the border.

And this brings us to Sunday. We intended on going to church but after driving around aimlessly in the town we just couldn't find it and had to admit defeat. So we began driving to Hamburg instead. We got there around noon. We went on a bus tour of the city and of course ate the yummy currywurst. After this it was mid afternoon and we felt content. Originally the plan was to spend the night with Wiebke again and head back to Sweden on Monday. But we decided that it was just as well to just head back then. So we hit the road.

I arrived home in Helsingborg at 10 last night. I was so pleased with the trip and so excited to tell others about it.

You may wonder if we were bored out of our minds in the car. And I can honestly say that I was not bored a single time! Majority of the time was spent listening to audio books. Something that I had not done since I was little but it was such a good idea! You don't have to think to hard and you can look around at the scenery but it is still engaging. We listened to The Great Gatsby and The Da Vinci Code (although we did not finish the latter) otherwise I slept on and off and we just talked and shared laughs in the car. The driving was not bad at all.

Some of you may have read Misha's blog. (If not here it is) Misha is a writer and you may notice a difference in her my writings. She calls my blog a boring itinerary. And I agree. She challenges me to record more of my thoughts. What was I thinking? How was I feeling? I can't say that I'm very good at it but I've started literally asking myself these questions in my journal every night. What I've discovered is that my feelings are often of gratitude. I write, I'm thankful for the opportunity to go on this trip, the great company, the good laughs and conversation, Misha's honestly, my parents support, and a whole bunch of other things. Sometimes I have so many thoughts in my head that I don't think that I can ever translate them into words. What I'm realizing is that this gratitude should probably be expressed more. And that's what I'm challenging myself to do.
It want this blog to be interactive. Not only do I want you to know what I've seen and done, but also how I'm thinking and reacting and feeling.
I have two months left in Sweden and I'm going to make them the best two months ever!

There is no way that I could ever express the wholeness of this trip, that would be impossible. But I hope that I have at least given you a glimpse of what I've spent the past week doing. I've posted the pictures I have but I'm sure that there will be more later.

Our total drive

Church in Oldenburg. Oldest brick church in Northern Europe 

The tiny little ferry in The Netherlands that literally took 3 minutes. 

 Misha and Vegard

Some EU flags in Brussels

Misha and I in Gouda

Tulips upon tulips upon tulips

Rathaus in Hamburg (town hall) did I mention that I practiced my German? I've never formally learned any German but I would love to learn and I always ordered in German and apoke as much as I could. Misha also taught me how to count to 10 in Japanese. The only problem came in The Netherlands, it aways the only country where I didn't speak a word of the local language.

Currywurst!

Thanks everyone

Finally, a break

 I have been slacking on my blog duties again I know. But it's finally Friday afternoon and I can catch you all up on what has been happening. 

Honestly what has been taking up most of my time lately has been school. In Chemistry we've done a 3 part series of labs and it was finally time for the lab report. I don't want to bore you with details, but it ended up being 16 pages. Needless to say it took a ton of time. 

Just a side comment, there is a new show here called Welcome to Sweden. Starring Greg Poehler (brother of Amy Poehler from Parks and Recreation) Anyway the show is reality based and the last episode even featured WIll Ferrel. Anyway this Sweden produced show will air on NBC! I think it starts this summer and EVERYONE should watch it. FIlmed in Sweden and really really funny. 

Oh goodness last Saturday i did the Högeskoleprov. The equivalent of ACT or SAT, but worse. First of all we started at 8. There were 5 session, 40 questions each, 55 minutes each. Breaks included, we were done at 4.15. It was torture. But the cool thing is that after each session you get 5 minutes to copy your answers (all multiple choice) from the test paper to another paper. And then at 5pm that night they release the answers! And at 6pm the questions! So I graded myself. The tricky thing is that scoring flucuates every year. Scores are from a 2.0 scale. For example, I got 64 out of 80 on the math section. One year that might be a 1.8 and the next year a 1.7. But I graded all the sections (2 math, 2 Swedish) (and there is one seciton that doesn't count, before the test we don't know which section won't count and it's pretty much to test questions for next year) So according to my unofficial calculations I got 1.55. We'll get the officiall results in a month but I think that's pretty good. But let me tell you that after I was more mentally exhauated then I think I have ever been. (Might I just mention that on the Swedish vocabulary section I got about 7 out of 20)

The weather in Helsingborg had been really tricky. Some days (like this afternoon) are summer like and amazing and other times (like this morning) it's rainy and cold. 

On Tuesday we had the hunger games at school. The student council organized it and there was one tribute from each class that competed in little games. Unfortunately our tribute went down in the first round. 

So that's pretty much it. We are now out for Easter Break which is super exciting!

Right now I'm on the bus to Göteborg to meet up with Misha! I'm taking the ACT tomorrow and then on Wednesday we are embarking on a journey. First stop, Hamburg!

I'll update you all soon!