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!

For lack of a better title: March 31st

Today was just one of those days. You know? When you wake up with a sour taste in your mouth. I'm blaming the time change (we sprung forward an hour this weekend). It was not a bad day. Just a day where I felt like I was in a zombie, sleep like trance all day. It's all a bit of a blur, which isn't encouraging considering that I had a lab test.

Highlight of last week was Waffle Day: A national holiday, officially in the calenders. It was gloriously yummy. Sweden, being the secular country that it is, forgets that after Fat Tuesday we should technically be fasting until Easter, but hey, I'm so not complaining!


Last Thursday was our big physics final. We had reviewed a lot in class and gone over previous assignments and I thought that I had a pretty could grip on it. I still needed to study, but I didn't crack open the books until l0pm the night before (before you judge me too hard, I study better at night). I turned in around 12.30 and arrived at a day full of testing. Session 1 10.15-11.45 went really well. Felt pretty easy. Session 2, 2.15-3, was grueling. Mainly because of the ridiculous amount of time it took and also because it was pretty hard.

On Friday I ate a yummy Greek dinner alone. Jan and Yvonne had a giant dinner party and Anton and Gustav went to the pizzeria with friends. My great Friday night adventure was riding my bike to Elinore's. She lives pretty close and it was such a nice, mild night. We made smoothies and watched White House Down. The scary part was riding my bike home again but don't worry guys, I made it. I had a flashlight hanging around my neck as a light source.

On Saturday I went on a run and finished reading the Swedish version of The Fault in Our Stars. I was home alone at night so naturally I ate junk food, worked on some homework, and watched TLC. #turnup I watched some of The Breakfast Club before falling asleep. But eventually I did fall asleep.

On Sunday I spent a majority of the day sitting outside in the sun and reading, I needed long pants and a sweatshirt but the weather was beautiful.

And today was Monday.

I'm realizing more and more everyday that I'm coming home soon. And I feel like it's a bit wrong to say that I'm looking forward to coming home, but I am.

"Well at least you stopped wearing leggings"

Last Sunday my good friend Ellie and I went to Malmö. We volunteered together to make bead bracelets that are sold to raise money for childhood cancer research. We were there for an hour, I made 6 total while Ellie, an experienced braceleter, cranked out 9 bracelets.

The rest of the afternoon we wandered around and shopped and got Starbucks!

On Wednesday I had a super weird schedule. Swedish early in the morning and then Elna and I went to Espresso House and enjoyed some Chai Lattes. Then I had some physics. Next I had time to go to the gym and the library for several hours before I had to go back to school for my parent teacher conference. (But parents don't have to come). It was super creepy to be in the school when it was late and all the doors were locked. Anyway I had my meeting and no worries guys, I'm doing fine in school. 

On Thursday i finally got the chance to visit Brandorama. It's where my classmates go every week for 3 hours to learn how to become firefighters. The place is super cool. There are containers and tanks and railroad tracks and lots of classrooms too. We just had a psychology lesson. 

On Friday I slept over at Elna's. First after school her, Malin, and I went to buy some supplies for the evenings baking. We met up with Sofia on the train. Once we got to Elna's house we made white chocolate covered popcorn, and mud pie, and tacos. Yummy! Also Elna curled my hair!

We watched Oceans Thirteen and then Let's Dance. Malin and Sofia left that night and I was the only one who slept over. 

On Sunday morning we ate breakfast in from of the movie Stardust. Then her dad drove me home. 

I spent the day with some homework. Today I did the same. I also watched the movie Frozen for the first time today.  

Overall it was a very productive weekend. 

What's in the attic?

Yesterday at school my friends showed me the attic. My school has this attic that was at one point used as classrooms but they can't anymore because it's a fire hazard because there is only one exit. I had heard about the attic but I thought that there was just storage stuff up there. Well yesterday we had an English test that didn't take us the whole 80 minutes so we had some time to spare. Lina asked if I had ever been up to the museum. Museum? I was instantly intrigued. We asked our teacher Bert to unlock it for us. Up the stairs into the strangest place ever. I took a bunch of pictures to prove it to you. (Forgive the bad quality due to everything being encased in glass, but still!)

 There are a lot of books. 

 yes that is a small polar bear.

 yes, that is a peacock.

How crazy is that? I was so baffled as to why a school would need all this. No clue but it was super duper cool. And creepy.

Also Jan came home from his latest business trip yesterday. While he was gone Anita had been here. Last night Jan and Yvonne went to dinner at friends and Gustav was away so it was me, Anton, and Anita. Friday night is Let's Dance night on tv. The Swedish equivalent of Dancing with the Stars. Same setup and everything. Anita and I watched that. I was exhausted so I missed about half of it because I fell asleep. I did wake up in time to see who won.

Today Anita left to go back home. I have had no homework so I have just been chilling.

In other news, this week Sweden decided on its contestant for the Eurovision song contest. For those of you not familiar with it, it's a singing competition. There are a bunch of  semi competitions leading up to the final. The winner is chosen by 50% of the votes coming from panels from different countries in Europe and 50% from voters in Sweden. This year, in my opinion, the best song did not win, and, in my opinion, it will not do well in the competition which is taking place in Copenhagen in May.

Here are some pictures from the grilling on Thursday night.

If the wind will not serve, take to the oars. –Latin Proverb

Too Good to be True

The weather was so beautiful today. But I'm scared that we are going to have some type of winter relapse and that I'll have to go back to wearing thick sweaters. But for now I'm enjoying it.

Today I only had one lesson, from 10:10 to 11:30. After this I went to the library to get some books. Next I went to the gym for a little bit. My next stop was lunch. I grabbed a panini at this place and found a place on some steps in the sun. I sat there and ate my panini and read my new book.
Next was a shop stop at h&m. Followed by this years first ice cream. It was such a good day. And just the fact that I could enjoy so much of it outside is such a bonus.

Now I am home but later tonight we are going on our monthly grill adventure with the other families. Should be fun!

The picture below is of a Fat Tuesday treat called Semlor. They are made up out of bread, whipped cream, and marzipan. Technically they are just supposed to be eaten on Fat Tuesday. But my family has been eating them since Christmas.
It just so happened that on Fat Tuesday we were working on a group assignment at a friends house. One of the guys in the group offered to go and get us all semlor. So these are those.