Midsummer

Tomorrow i leave for Malmö!!!! ahh im so excited..

then i will be spending 3 weeks in Europe!!!!!!!!!!! the countries we go to are....

Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Austria and Belgium.

I will get home on the 18th of July

I had a really nice past few days.. me and Alex went to Megans in Örebro.. her host family have a super nice house.. complete with indoor swimming pool and a single lane 10 pin bowling alley in the basement! so that was fun and her host family were super lovely..

On friday it was Midsummer's Eve, so that is when the celebrations are done... at midday we all went to a part of Örebro and watched some traditional midsummer celebrations.. there were lots of people dressed in old style clothes and they danced around the maypole... then after, everybody else (including myself) also danced around the maypole.. it was lots of fun, and they had lots of silly songs and dances..

then that afternoon, we drove about an hour away to megan's host families summer house... that was also really nice.. it is on the lake..

we went to their friends house for dinner, where we had a traditional swedish smorgasbord... complete with herring :S

we also picked flowers and made midsummer crown things.. that was really cool, and there are soo many different kind of wildflowers in sweden.

on the saturday me, megan and alex just relaxed a lot infront of the tv and in the sun... and me and megan also cut alex's hair :)

then that night we went to the friends house again for a bbq.

On sunday we relaxed again, and went for a ride in their speed boat, we went across the lake to a different town and ate ice cream.. and then we spent the afternoon laying in the sun and briefly swimming in the lake..

i went home that night... my train left at 8pm and it was meant to take around 2 hours.... however.. there was electricity problems with the train tracks.. so we had to stay still for a few hours.. and we couldnt go on the tracks.. we didnt get into stockholm central until well after midnight... and by then, there were no more trains running.. and i still had to get home to knivsta.. so i was a bit worried and reallly tired.. i managed to get on the last bus that was running that night to uppsala, and convinced the driver to stop in knivsta for me.. which luckily he did :) i got home just after 2 and was very happy to crawl into bed!

the last 2 days i have just spent packing my things...

and now i will say goodbye for a few weeks!!

cos im off to europe!!!!! woohoo!

So the last few days i have spent trying to get things organised for my europe trip.. its getting really close now! less than a week!! ahhhhh so excited :)
On Tuesday Megan and Phil (exchange students) came to Uppsala, we walked around a lot and looked at the church and the castle, spent several hours at a chinese restaraunt with a buffet ;), and then ate numerous strawberries and cherries in the park.. it was a nice day.
In a few hours I am going to Örebro, which is where Megan lives... I am giong to stay there till Sunday.. Another exchange student called Alex is also coming to stay..
we will be spending midsummer there aswell, which is this weekend.. it should be a nice couple of days.
then i should get back sunday, and then have monday and tuesday to pack....... and then.............. Wednesday i leave to go to Malmö ( a town in the very south of Sweden) to be ready for the Thursday morning when we leave for Europe !

Royal Wedding

So on Saturday i went to Stockholm, to try and be part of the royal wedding..
There were soo many people in Stockholm, and the whole city was decorated in Swedish flags and other banners and decorations.. There were people handing out, paper swedish flags, candy, little cups of fruit, cardboard crowns and even Phone cards with 100kr of credit on it.. (i like freebies!)
Most of the day i spent with Megan (exchange student from U.S), Sofi (from Mexico) and Sofi's host parents. We just walked around and looked at different displays and things like that in the morning, then went and had lunch at a mexican restaraunt.. we watched the wedding on a big screen in like a park type area in stockholm.... (with hundreds of other people).. even though, i wasnt seeing it all happen in the flesh... it was still really cool.. to be within a few kilometres of it.. and to be watching it live... it was really nice and everyone was so into it.
after the wedding.. Victoria and Daniel went around town in a horse carraige, so people could get the chance to see them.. we set up in a spot.. we were like less than 10 metres from the road.. so we were realy close.. but we couldnt see anything cos of all the heads squished in front of us! it was kind of annoying.. we seen the tops of all the horse rider peoples who were riding ahead of teh carraige.. so we seen all these bopping heads.... but the carraige they were in was quite small so we coudnt actually see them... but ah well.. we were close.. :)
then that evening.. we met up with lots of other exchange students.

This is Megan, me and Sofi infront of some old styled boat they had in stockholm.. they were people all dressed up old fashioned and stuff aswell.. it was cool.

Today it is the longest day in Sweden... at the moment it is 11.19pm.. and it is still light outside... of course the sun is setting.. but it is still plenty light enough to see perfectly fine.. im not sure what time the sun will rise.. .but it normally is light at like 3.30 am... it makes sleeping kinda difficult sometimes.. but luckily it is summer holidays so i dont have to wake up early for school anyway!

:)

hello again..
sorry its been a while..
alot has happened since i last wrote and im struggling to remember what excatly has happened...
so i moved to a different family, i was there for 3 weeks.. and i am now back at my first host family while my second family go to Greece for a few weeks...
Where i have been living, there is Anna who is my host mum and then her daughter Johanna, who is almost 16... Anna works as a pilot captain for SAS airlines..
while Anna is at work, her mother Elvy is quite often at the house helping out and keeping an eye on Johanna and I. The three of them are all so lovely, and made me feel very welcome.. and i look forward to staying there for a longer period of time, later in the year..
okay so now im going to attempt to say a litte about what i've been doing the past 3 weeks.. and it is going to be in no particular order...

One of the days, i went to gröna lund in stockholm with some friends from school... Gröna Lund is the theme park in Stockholm... it was pretty cool, and there were lots of cool rollercoasters and other scary rides! it was a really fun day...
Except there was a thing called Lustiga Huset... which is like a crazy house that you walk through and have to try and get out alive... (think in grease, when danny and sandy are singing your the one that i want, and theyre in that crazy house thing at the carnival)
anywho, i dont like this house... there was a tunnel thing that you had to walk through.. and while you walked through it was rotating... and so your meant to like walk against the movement or some crap...
which i didnt do.... so i took one step.. and fell. which was embarassing... but you know, i could deal with that..
but then i tried to get up.... and couldnt. and kept trying.. but couldnt... i was like starting to rotate around and my bag was rotating.. and i had arms and legs going everywhere.. anywho after a decent minute or so, i finally got dragged off the 'tunnel of hell' by one of my friends..
i was very happy to get out of lustiga huset!

I also went camping for a weekend.. i went to a place called oxelösund and went with other exchagne students... there was 8 of us.. four girls and four guys...
it was a really fun weekend.. we were camping in some forest and were right on the coast of the baltic sea.. and it was really pretty...

Another sunny afternoon, Anna and her mother took me to Sigtuna, which is a town quite close to Knivtsa... it is one of the oldest towns in Sweden..
its quite a small town (although, not parrakie small!), it probably has around 10,000 people or less. it is quite a touristy type town and has lots of litte shops and cafe's..
we spent the afternoon walking the streets and lanes.. and having fika.. and also walking along the water..

I also witnessed a Swedish graduation.. all 3rd year students graduated a few weeks ago.. and they celebrate this a bit different to how we do in Australia.. to begin with, they attend a Champagne Breakfast... which i think is pretty self explanatory.. they all get together.. eat and drink.... then they get they're results.. and get let out of the school..... and outside is friends and family.. waiting for theyre 'student'.. they have a big poster thing on a stick with the students name and a baby photo.. and then when they come out.. everyone gives them flowers, and alcohol, and other things which are all on necklace type things, so they can have it all hanging around their necks.. then.. they the class gets in the back of a big truck... which they have all decorated with banners and big branches of leaves and stuff.... then they drive around the city in these trucks for a few hours... and they have music playing... and are all dancing and screaming.. and drinking.. and just celebrating..
then normally everyone goes home to their houses.. and they have a party.. for like family, and close friends.. where there is lots of eating and drinking.. and they get presents and so on..
i went with the president of rotary, to watch her granddaughters 'graduation'.. we went into uppsala.. and watched her come out of school, then watched her go round on her truck.. and then went back to her home for a few hours.. it was quite interesting to see how they do it in sweden..
oh and they all have hats.. that look like sailor hats.. and they have their name on them and their class.. :)

we also had our school 'avslutning'... which i think is just a fancy word for end of school year/last day.. we didnt have any lessons or anything.. just went to school for a few hours.. and all of the students who do music, sang songs and things like that.. it was quite nice... then our whole class, went to a chinese restaraunt and ate lunch together..
so now when i start school again, in the autumn.. i will be in the second year :)

i spent a day in stockholm.. it was a rotary organised day.. and we went to the three different parliament houses in sweden.. it was kinda cool... we had guided tours through them all, (in swedish), so i didnt really understand much at all.... but they looked really fancy and they were really old buildings so that was cool.. and it was fun to see people..

i also went to stockholm for a day shopping with angie.. that was fun and it was really nice weather :)

hmm ive also done a couple other things in there, but theyre not that interesting and this is already quite lengthy...
but tomorrow....
i am going to stockholm, yet again..
The crown princess Victoria is getting married tomorrow, to a man named Daniel.. and the wedding is in Stockholm... so there is a whole bunch of other exchange students going to stockholm tomorrow aswell... so i guess we will just look at all the people and see, what we can see!

p.s. i leave for my europe trip in 12 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!