Lucia och Jul

Lucia: Lucia is a tradition where santa lucia the saint of light or something comes and spreads light to Sweden since it is really dark this time of year. So on December 13th Lots of people go to church and then you sit in the dark, church bells ring and you hear some very beautiful music. Then Lucia appears walking down the aisle wearing a white robe, red sash, and candles in her hair, with the choir behind her. Its very beautiful. The songs are so wonderful and the whole presentation is so eerie, but really cool. I got to take part in Lucia with my rotary club, so one lunch i dressed up as lucia candles and all, with 6 girls singing behind me. It was really cool and everyone was telling me it was jette fint! very nice. I went to 3 different lucia torgs and they were all magnificent. Me as Lucia

December has been busy.

Jul!! Christmas is celebrated very different here. First off its all celebrated on christmas eve. So i woke up and 'tomten' (santa) came, he left clues around the house leading to the presents, so that was different, but fun. so then we opened gifts. Then we ate breakfast. we had julgröt, which is rice porridge or something. Its very good. They hide an almond in it and if you find the almond you will marry next year. I got the almond, so i guess i am getting married soon :). Then we chilled and Fikad! SO many good cakes and so much chocolate and good glögg and everything, so good, i probably gained like 5 pounds from eating so much. Then after fika we watched Kalle Anka! Kalle Anka is the swedish name for donald duck and hes more popular than mickey mouse! But thats a tradition for like 50 years here and you watch it and sing along and it was so fun!! i am going to start watching it every christmas eve at 3.00! Then when that was done we did the gift exchange. You buy 2 gifts and put them in a lottery and write a poem about them. so that was cool, i would have liked it better if i knew what the poems meant, but it was still fun. I got some tomten and a fly swatter, yeah it is random hehehe. Then we just hung out and then ate Jul bord! so good, really good food, like ham and potatoes and sill (not so good) salads and so much more! it was really good. yeah that was basically christmas. It was strange though waking up on christmas though and it just being another day. Santa comes here usually, after kalle anka and he knocks on the door and asks if there is any good children at home? Then yeah thats santa, not he comes in the chimney, so it was different. God Jul!

Jul

Jul Bord
Gifts
Kalle Anka
Fika
Breakfast

Första advent

Last weekend was the first of advent, and for most of us thats no big deal at all, but here its a BIG thing (kind of). We decorated the house. Its strange, swedes are not like religious, but you can see a manorah in every window, and every house house a advent reef and like stars in the window. its weird to me because they mix the religions when they dont practice a religion. weird. also strange to me that its ok to have like Santa clauses at school and manorahs and things like that. then we went and fikad at mormor morfars house. we drank glögg! its like a hot spiced wine thing, you take little sips of it and put raisins and almonds in it, its pretty good. we eat like sooo much gingerbread its going to start coming out of my ears! and of course we also drink julmust! its like coke but with some different spices or something, its really good, its weird to them that we dont have like a typical christmas drink, well i guess egg nog, but yeah. then for breakfast we had Christmas porridge, yeah it was ok. and at dinner we had the whole family over and were eating, and then they would all break out and start singing Christmas carols. it was so funny, i would just sit there and smile. then after every song you skål (cheers) it was so different. that was basically last weekend, i am starting to notice some cultural things now, which is really fun! on thanksgiving i made a feast. Juliana and Phil came over and we all helped cook the meal. it turned out really good. like for our first time and none of us being able to cook, it was good! my family really like the sweet potatoes and marshmallows, that was good. then rugved and hannah came over and celebrated thanksgiving. it was really nice and i felt like i had a new family :) i was proud of myself, even though i couldn't find any sort of pumpkin to make a pumpkin pie :( its been snowing alot here and has been really cold, like one day i walked to school and it was -19 out side! i froze to death, i was seriously considering rolling in a ball on the side of the road and dying hahaha. not really, but it was cold. but i have been sledding and thats always fun. oh i get to be Lucia for something on st. Lucia day!! im really excited for that! i move families on the 28th :( i get to live with my counsler at his house (where i went hunting) for 2 weeks, so that should be fun, but i dont want to leave my family now! but now i get to see more culture and stuff. yep there you go.

november.

So sorry its been a while since the last update, but nothing really exciting happened. everything is normal and getting colder and wetter. I'm starting to make some friends and i can understand a majority of whats being said now (i think). The weather here is cold, it snowed one day like alot so we all went a played in it! it was the first time rugved and juliana has really seen snow so it was exciting for them. Julianas feet were so cold she like refused to continue walking and she thought she was going to die, she reminded me of those babies at the beach that run on the hot sand but when its to hot they just stop and cry until there parents come to the rescue. she was just standing outside not wanting to be there and i couldnt stop laughing! we built snowmen and had a snowball fight, i ate a bunch of snow and we went sledding. it was funny i crashed into a bush everytime. i swear swedens making me clumsy. when phil went down on the sled i hid behind a bush and threw snow on him as he passed, so then we did it to rugved who ended up crashing and then lying on the ground for like 5 minutes, then we did it to juliana who crashed even before she reached us, so as she was rolling by we threw snow on her. I threw a snowball at her and she said, "what are you doing to my head?!" she didnt understand, but it was so fun. I'm trying to stay positive for the snow and winter even though its not my favorite season. what else have i been up to? going to school and trying to make friends, im not so great at that, but i'm trying. I've been talking to my host dad alot about culture and things like that and its really interesting and i feel like i can understand the deeper culture alot better now, he has a way of explaining things so simple but they make so much sense. i really like talking to him, hes quite interesting. the sun rises at like 8 and now its getting pretty dark at like 3.30. its absolutly crazy, and everyone feels tired all the time, not so good but different. I really need to try harder and talk more i have to really speak more swedish, i really want to i just need to remember to speak swedish. thats my goal, only speak swedish with the swedes, thats how its supposed to be. I dont really know what else, its all so normal now, im making thanksgiving for my family and exchange kids so that should be fun, and after that starts the xmas season! im really excited for that because thats when the most culture is going to come out! happy thanksgiving to you!

Roasted Spleens!

I went to my friends Alicia and Philips cover band concert party thing this weekend and it was alot of fun! i went with juliana and Phil and we were the only young people there besides the band. so we were dancing with old people. it was so much fun, and the band was soo amazingly good! i got to dance with my host dad! he is THE funniest dancer in the entire world, i dont think i have ever laughed so hard! it was so much fun. really really good music, juliana was like i want to get a picture with them because someday they will be famous!

The Band 'Roasted Spleens' and the exchange kids!

Hunting and Other stuff

A couple of weekends ago i got to go hunting! I was actually very excited to do it, i knew i wasn't going to kill anything so i really didnt have a problem with it. plus i am here to experience and see other people lives and people hunt so i had to give it a try and not preach my beliefs on them. ok so i got picked up at like 7.30 and we were in the forest at 8. It was -2 degres that morning, so it was very very cold. So i have never been hunting before so i didnt know what to expect, so let me explain how hunting works (here). so there is a group of people who are in the forest and with the guns waiting for an animal to come, but then there is also another group of people that walk with the dogs, so they let the dogs go in the forest and the dogs sniff and find tracks or animals, then they start barking and the goal of the dogs is to keep the animals in one spot without touching them so its easier to shot i guess. i was in the sitting group at first. so we walked in the forest and different people were stationed at different places. i was on some rocks in the shade. and then you sit perfectly still and listen to hear like the dogs barking and looking for moose and other animals, we sat for like 2 hours and it was really really cold! my feet felt like they were in ice almost frozen buckets of water but i will stop complaining. so then after 2 hours we went back to the meeting spot and fikaed, then we went out agian. this time was better, the sun was coming out so it was warmer and i actually saw some animals. we heard a dog bark then we saw some deer, but one was running and like didnt notice us so it came super close, froze stared me in the eye and ran away, it was beautiful! and we saw a baby deer too. then we went back and ate lunch, then i went with the dogs. we walked and walked and walked back and forth following a dog. it was pretty funny. but i saw a MOOSE!! it was so cool, the main hunter guy was like "freeze, look an elk" i was excited! but we walked for like a good 5 miles i would say. and we saw a wild boar that one of the other hunters shot, then we walked some more and then we saw a baby deer that someone else shot. then i saw it actually get like gutted! it was so nasty, but i kind of like disecting and stuff so it was actually pretty cool! i think i will save you the pics here, i have them on facebook. then we went back and were done hunting for the day. so i hung out at the house and helped make dinner for all the other hunters. oh we were hunting on a farm, so after 2 cows got loose and we had to go like heard them, and it was the funniest thing i have ever seen! they drove a volvo on to the field and were chasing around this cow in a car, so funny! but after that we had dinner and then i went home. it was a really fun day, and i might go again sometime with juliana hopefully though.

So basically life is becoming normal and everyday routines are kicking in. i wake up in the morning (not feeling like P diddy) then go to school blah blah blah ( wow already two ke$ha references). hm, im starting to make some friends i guess, but its difficult because they study alot and i dont really have to, so it makes it hard. i go to swedish for beginners classes mondays and tuesdays and they really help. i speak as much swedish as my brain will allow me, sometimes my brain just decides that it doesnt understand any swedish, and the next day i know alot. its all in the process of learning i guess. actually i wish i could speak more, but i have a very limited vocabulary so that makes things difficult, but i am actually understanding somethings. like if a group of people are talking i can understand what they are talking about and some ideas, but it gets hard when someone talks directly at me because i dont understand everyword they say and its not enough words to actually piece together what they are asking, so sometimes i just smile, nod and huh?! i made some kanelbullar for kanelbullar dag. that was typical sweden i guess. kanelbullar is translated to cinnamon balls, they are basically cinnamon rolls without the glaze and some sugar instead, like i have said before, they are my crack, so good, im really excited for christmas and all the baked goods i will eat then. YUM! other than that i hang out with juliana ( brazilian exchange) a lot. she really is very funny and makes me laugh all the time, its so fun with her around. the leaves are changing colors and falling off the trees so i find myself running through the leaves alot and wanting to jump into piles of them (no pineneedles to worry about here :)) and it has been raining so that means huge puddles to jump in and splash my swedish schoolmates with! im trying to make the best of this crazy swedish weather. my host mom told me last night that , "if you have bad memory, sweden is the place for you" because the winters are really depressing and the swedes tend to forget how bad they are until they are back. yeah life is life now, nothing to exciting i guess. oh i tried fencing! it was actually pretty fun, i think im going to try again sometime and have an awesome sword fight. i am also going "elk" (moose) hunting next saturday. im actually pretty excited, not to kill the moose, but to see them and experience hunting, going to be crazy i guess, but something i wont forget. oh i also went boating in the arcapelago. its this huge chain of islands around where i live, like thousands of islands, it was freezing cold and the person i went with kept on saying, "i have never heard this before, this has never happened before" it scared me and i thought with my luck with boats that we were going to break down or something, but we survived and it was all good :) having a lot of fun!

Pictures

the exchangers!
Lake where we BBQ! BEAUTIFUL!
Really old Viking carving
Fencing! my sisters in the green dress :)

Face Painting!
A palace
The bridge where i jumped and my friend viktor
Stockholm
My first swedish meetballs






























i have more pics on my facebook, so you can see more there!
the pic of the pier is mormor and morfars house,
the rest are just things so swedish they crack me up!

Language Camp

Last week i went to a language camp in Eskilstuna for like 5 days with all the other exchange students in two districts.
so sunday we took a bus to the camp which is like 1.5 hours bus ride from nyköping. it was horrible, i seriously felt so sick the entire way, not fun at all. then we went to the meeting spot and met up with the other exchangers. it was so cool there were people who actually knew where tahoe is! there is two boys from the west coast, chico, and oregon, so it was nice to talk to them. there were 9 americans, 2 brazillians, 1 french, italian, indian, german, japaneese, and 2 canadians and an oldie from new zealand. it was really cool to see different cultures and meeet people from all over the world. so at the meeting spot, we had a fika then met our host parents for the week. i stayed at the top of a huge building in the town and it had an amazing view! it was pretty cool, but the family really didnt talk to us too much so i spent alot of my time in the room. then monday we went to our first swedish lesson. it was really good to learn some swedish, but it was all like , hej jag heter lily och jag kommer från usa, jag tycker om...., like basic sayings like that, as the week went on we learnt alot more, and now i have tons of vocab words i should study and i have worksheets to do to, so thats good. that was basically how the school day went everyday, and we went to rotary lunches everyday and had to introduce ourselves. monday after school we had this bbq thing at this lake, it was very pretty and we played the longest game of kubb ever! then we chilled and got attacked by mosquitos! that sucked. oh i saw an old viking drawing on a rock thing, it was pretty awesome! then tuesday after school we had a fika with some oldies and it was fun hearing about euro tour and stuff like that they are so nice. wednesday we went bowling, i suck at bowling but we already knew that, it was fun, thursday we went to a zoo and then to a swiming pool. we were only at the zoo for an hour so we didnt get to see too much, but i really like the animals, we saw some tigers and i got attacked by a monkey kind of, then some of the other exchangers went out, but i felt so sick all week, i had the worst cold and headache ever so i didnt go, nor did i get an invitation :(. i feel really bad that i didnt get to know the other exchagers better, but i felt so sick and anti -social all week. i felt homesick for nyköping, and it wasnt the best week for me either, it was hard for me to open up feeling so crummy all the time. i think the other exchangers probably thought i was a jerk or something, but i didnt mean to come off that way and now i regret not talking so much, but i did talk to some people and they are all so nice! its so dumb that i had a cold all week, i still do actually and im like positive im allergic to eskilstuna so i dont think i can ever go back there. everytime i walked outside my nose just hurt so bad!! anyway enough of me complaining. then on friday i got to come home!! i was so happy, but it was sad to leave the other exchage kids, i felt like i got to know them alot better on friday, so it was hard to say goodbye. :( then i came home and moved into oscars old room! then i had to say good bye to Filip because he is going to spain on foreign exchange and he left saturday morning, so that was sad. but all in all it was a nice week to meet people and make conections and try to learn swedish, im actually speaking more at home and they are talking more to me in swedish and i actually understand some things now, so thats really good!!! im glad to be back home in nyköping though!
so that was language camp!
i still miss you all, and keep me updated on whats going on in your lives too!! i want to know how everyone is. love you!!

School!

So johan decided we should call it "social networking"(SN) rather than ehh school.
so oh monday my very first day of swedish SN, i went at 10 and basically meet my class and take role. In swedish SN, you have a class that basically all have the same schedule, except some kids have extra classes or are taking a different language, and the same kids are in all your classes. it was really awkward walking into school the first day because i knew nobody so i just sat there and watched some people stare at me, eventually they came up and talked to me, but it was very awkward lol. then after sn i came home and oscar was having a fika with his class so i met some of them and they seem very nice.
then the next day at sn, we went to oxelösund to do some team building things. like we all tied a rope around our wastes, then cliped it to another rope that went around trees and under things just basically a huge knot and we had to follow it to the other side. at one point you have to belly crawl through the mud! that part wasn't very fun, but its ok i bonded with my classmates. then after those kind of activities i went kayaking on the baltic! it was really cool, but pretty boring because i didnt know where to go or what to do, but still an experience. we were done with everything 2 hours early so some of the foreign exchangers who just got back to sweden talked to me and gave me some advice, even taught me how to play burken-can. that was interesting and i failed so hard, but it started to rain so we didnt get to finish oh well. it was actually a pretty fun day at sn.
on wednesday we went back to oxelösund to SSAB to look at how steel is made, i think, i couldn't understand anything so i just sat in the back trying not to fall asleep. it was so freakin boring! then we went to look at like a sewer place, but it was all natural so we were outside looking at nasty bodies of water who are supposed to filter themselves and end up in the sea, yeah not really sure but thats what i got out of some people trying to explain it to me in simple english. it was ok but we had to walk 2 kilometers there and 2 back and on the way back it started to POUR rain and i got sooooo soaked! not really fun. thats the wierd thing in sweden, the rain comes from no where then disappears again! i dont get it. yeah so i came home super wet and that kind of sucked. then it was oscars last day so we hung out and bonded, but it was really sad when his family were saying goodbye. it brought back so many memories and i got pretty homesick, but i know hes having an amazing time in france and so i was really happy/excited for him!
thursday i actually went to a real day of sn. i didnt understand jack shit, but i went. i had math like 10th grade math, english dont know why but i did, physics i think and PE. it was ok day at school, met some friends and now i know what to expect with school. then i had a fika with Filip so that was pretty cool, fikas are awesome basically, there tea parties and all the rage here in sweden! i had fun.
friday was a very short day for me so not to interesting, went to a rotary meeting didnt understand, then came home and got invited to a fika with my classmates. that was fun, a little awkward but fun :) so that was my first week of sn!
saturday i had a kräftskiva, no joke you eat crawdads. so gross i almost vomited. some families came over and they had little kids who would just destroy the crawdads and rip them apart, eh nasty! i am getting a little sick just thinking about it, but it was ok, the little kids were pointing and whispering about me in swedish so i felt a little awkward, but it was ok.

Differences between schools:
you must take of your shoes before you enter, and you just leave them sitting out in the open, but nobody steals your shoes.
there are no bells and teacher can let you out whenever they want
you get free good lunches
your schedule changes each day
you travel in classes
i dont understand anything

other things,
it can just get really quite out of no where with a bunch of people, its just how it is i guess, kind of awkward.
its FREEZING!! im scared for the winter :(
its strange to walk into school and not see MY friends
Im finally the foreign exchange kid!!!!!!!! so excited!

I love you and miss you all! wish you could be here to experience it with me!

Life

NOTE SPELL CHECK IS IN SWEDISH HERE, SORRY FOR MY BAD GRAMMER AND SPELLING.

SOOOOO i start school tomorrow! im pretty excited, but not really because it is school, i think i need to call it something different here.

anyway past week i did a lot of cool things, like tom tits.
tom tits is this huge place with a lot of science experiments and things like that. i went with oscar Philip Alicia and Filip. it was fun. we went into this spinning circle thing that makes the centripital forces so strong that you get stuck to the wall and can actually like crawl on them kind of. that made me sick after the second time, but it was something new for me. then i also rode a bike on a high wire! yeah no handed of course, it was pretty scary, but i know there is no way to fall off of it so it was all good. we also did one of those things that bring you up pretty high then drop you, it droped us 6 times in a row. it wasnt very high, but i still had fun on it. oh then we went to a bubble show!! AHHHH BUBBLES!!! the kids there would just scream at all the huge bubbles, it was so funny, but the bubbles were impressive. oh at lunch funny story, there was this creepy baby just staring at oscar while he ate for the longest time. it was so funny, then filip got up and he "accidently" kicked the babies high chair, i was seriously laughing for twenty minutes it was so funny. we also rode this thing thats like a robot arm and it spins you around upside down and things like that, it was quite painful, and not very much fun. yeah we did other things there too and it was a really fun day. on the car ride back oscar and filip taught me a swedish song so we sang it for like the rest of the car ride. its a pretty funny song that filip made up and its going to be a huge hit someday. so yeah that was fresh milk from toms tits! hehehe

on friday we had a little little little going away dinner for oscar. alot of his friends came over and we played some games. there was this one when you had to put on goofy clothes, run a round jump rope take them off and run back. that was very funny to watch. we also played tug of war and irish xmas, it was all good fun i was laughing alot. then we had Tacos and played jenga. so when we were playing jenga the rule is that if you knock it over your face gets painted. so Viktor challenged me to a game. it was a long game and i eventually one, because i am SO good a jenga so i got to paint his face. i thought i was nice to him i didnt do anything bad at all, so i let him paint my face as well. he freaking made my face look like the hulk, spiderman batman and TMNT had a baby and it was my face. it was pretty funny. hes a pretty good artist, but it took up my entire face, and it took a long time to do. it was fun i guess, i laughed alot and it was pretty funny to look at me. i had a good time that night.
then basically all the other days i hung out with some of oscars friends, he has some of the greatest friends! Let me introduce them!

Philip: he is crazy amazing at the guitar, like AMAZING!! he and Alicia go to this very good music school in stockholm and he is going to study song writing. he is also an amzing singer, its the funniest thing because neither him nor alicia have accents when the sing, its like normal american accents, but when they talk they have accents. he is so funny and soo nice. he is very interesting so our conversations never get dull. he helps me with my swedish in a way that i am not super afraid to make mistakes like i still make them but hes nice about it. he is like so friendly and there needs to be more philips in the world i would say.

Alicia: she is absolutly mind blowing at singing. she can sing so well it gives me the chills sometimes. she and philip have a band. she is also the sweetest person and very welcoming, she always has the biggest smile on her face. she makes me happy just by being around her. shes also very very freindly. there needs to be more alicias in the world too.

Filip: he is very interested in languages he knows some crazy amount of languages. he can play the piano very well he knows all the ABBA songs on the piano its quite funny. its wierd becasue alot of people here are very good at instruments, sometimes i wish i could play something. he is super funny, and he talks about some rondom things for some time. its good because he keeps me laughing. he plays tennis and is going to spain for foreign exchange. hes very smart and always wants to know the right way to say something in english. he helps me with my swedish too, but he gets very technical about it. hes a good guy and so nice. oscar is a lucky guy, he has amazing friends.

PS swedes are very modest so yeah

so those are basically the friends that i have been spending the most time with, there are others, but i dont know them super well yet.

The past week has been quite fun i would say! hmmm i met both sets of grandparents. one day we went to mormor and morfars summer house and it was so beautiful there. they live right on the beach to a lake or some body of water. its such a swedish house it cracked me up. they are so nice though and i went out on morfars boat and went swimming, its like a little row boat, but it was nice to see the land from the water i guess. we also went on a walk to a bridge and it was so beautiful. we went to this really old church like 900 years old that still had the original paintings in it. the paintings were not so good, but the fact that their like 900 years old is crazy to me. thats was a very good day. oh dad since i know you are probably reading this, i became one with the earth here! i sat in the grass looking at the water for a long time, it was wonderful!

Then over the weekend i went to farfar (ingemar) and farmors house in the south of sweden. they live by a lake so i felt like i was back home. it was crazy when i walked into their house it was all decorated in 70's fashion and the hustle was playing on the radio so i felt like i was in a time machine so cool. ok Ingemar is like 80 years old and is so crazy. he goes out in the forrest like everyday and makes maps. he knows everything about the topography and geology of the forrest in sweden. like there would be a random hump in the earth and he would know exactly why it was there things like that. he also runs in orienteering competitons. we picked fresh blueberries and raspberries. they taste so much better right off the bush. its so cool because you can basically pick anything you want in the forrest and there are tons of berry bushes everywhere! it was awesome to pick berries and then go home and eat them. then the next day i competed in an orienteering contest. me and alice stuck together so we wouldnt get lost. like they just let two girls who know nothing about maps out in the woods to try and find markers, it was a dumb idea, but it worked out ok. it was actually pretty simple, but it was so funny watching all these people just pop out of the most random spots. yeah then when we were done ingemar introduced us to this guy who works for the newspaper, so he interveiwed me and i guess im going to be in the paper! yeah it was pretty awesome basically. i am actually quite surprised that orienteering isn't that big in tahoe, its like the perfect place. dad you should look into it and create a course thing at home. so that was my weekend, i learned alot about the forrest.

and basically for the other parts of the week i hung out with oscars friends and we actually road our bike on the longest pier in europe, that was fun, and now i can say it. we saw inception it makes so much more sense now! and we also went to this beach and swam. it was a pretty good week.

Swedish things i have done!
ate herring (gross)
ate blood pudding (kind of ok)
played Kubb (im ok at it)

Similar things
They bake cakes here! well albin made one and it was so good.
they watch movies alot like my friends!
its cool to actually observe how similar teenagers act throughout the world, we are all the same

other things
i'm being taught the drums and bass! im no good but oscars trying
oh they are refering to me as their sister :)
i taught them the liscense plate game... my bad!
i am covered in bug bites the bugs here are mean!
its a water tower behind the house, tommy, albin, julia, oscar, philip and i went up their one night.
they dont say i love you here, like not in swedish, its so weird to me!

I miss you guys alot, but i am having a wonderful time! I love you!

Family

ok so i have nothing better to do right now so i thought it would be a good time to introduce the family.

Johan (papa): Ok hes is so tall, everyone here is i guess. he is like the funniest person i have met here. he just does these little things that are so dorky they crack me up. there is never a time where im not laughing when hes around. he works at Scania its like a truck building company and couldnt be prouder. on our way back from stockholm we stoped there and he showed me around and we went around the roundabout like 3 times to look at the history, so funny. when ever we drive he always points out the trucks and then makes me look the other way when someone elses truck passes. hes a crazy driver. yeah hes a funny guy. the trucks he builds are "probably the best in the world"! oh hes a second or third generation vegetarian. cool guy.

Carina (mama): she is so sweet. she is super nice and very motherly. she really wants her children to do well in life. yeah she made me feel welcome and comfertable right off the bat. shes basically amazing, i dont know how else to describe her.

Oscar: ok so he is also super tall. thats like one of the first things i said to them. he is a piano wizard, freakin amazing at it! like hes insane when it comes to the piano, he plays all these crazy songs like there a piece of cake. he can also play the guitar and drums. a very talented guy. hes pretty funny, he loves to pick on alice, but hes the older brother so its normal. its actually quite funny watching them fight, its fun to know that the way siblings act towards each other are similar all over the world. yeah he can also play like tennis and tons of other sports, he took me to the driving range and man can he hit the ball FAR! yeah i sucked so bad, but it was fun. he really makes me feel welcomed and he lets me follow him around and meet all his friends. hes very smart, yeah basically a good guy very nice.

Alice: she is wow. ok so she is 12 and can draw soooo well. its crazy! she can also fence and came in third in like this huge competition, its very amazing. she can also play the drums and i think she might be able to sing im not sure though. sometimes i feel so lame being here, like i have no talent what so ever and this family is crazy talented. she is very competitve and she has this crazy laugh when we play games, but its just so funny being with her. i like having a younger sister. she also made me feel super welcomed, and has tried to teach me swedish, im still not very good, but i'm trying. yeah shes awesome!

so thats my family! i love it here and i owe it all to them, i feel like i have been here for months and its only been a week, thats how welcomed i feel!

this is the VASA!
skansen :)
stockholm, i love the flag
My town!

Ok so i've been gone for a week now.
So fars it has been absolulty amazing.
Day 1. basically i arrived and then we walked around Nyköping i unpacked and things like that, nothing really to exciting i guess. oh and fika when i got here, its basically a tea party where you drink coffee and eat pastrys, it was so nice, but i was so tired. i managed to stay up late though and get over my jetlag on the first day!! i was proud of myself.
Day 2. I met hannah today!! she is the exchange student from australia and is so nice. she walked me to the castle and told me that she jumped off of it in the winter! it's going to be fun. we walked to the harbour and its so pretty here, i absolutly love it! we also fika and it was nice to finally have someone i can talk to who actually knows what i'm going through and what to expect and things like that. she is so nice and so talented! everyone here is super active and very talented! i'll give examples later. then i came home and ate, then Filip one of oscars friends came over, along with Albin and Alicia. they are all very nice. they tried to teach me to play the drums, but i was no good at it. it was embarrasing, but all fun. we watched the butterfly effect then talked and stuff. well i guess i didnt really talk because i dont know much swedish, nor can i understand it lol.
Day 3. Bordborg!!! So me oscar Alice (my sister) her friend Emelia, and oscars friends, Victor (albins twin), Alicia, Filip, and Filip went to this place Borgbord. ok its basically this huge building where you go into these different rooms and in each room you have to do a series of tasks like an opsticle course. (sorry for my horrible spelling, but get over it) like in some rooms you have to balance on these things and not touch the ground, or crawl super fast the climb on ropes and laders and things, or fit in tiny spaces. it was crazy and very hard to describe. but it was so much fun! each room is like a puzzle so the entire time i had no idea on what to do but i just followed along and prayed that i wouldnt make my team lose! we had tacos for lunch thats for you molly, and they were pretty good. Ok so Swedes eat SOO fast, and huge quantities! its crazy i can never keep up. but yeah we were there like all day and i had so many bruises the next day and i am still sore from it! amazing! Then after dinner i went to the harbour with my family and had ice cream. it was nice to like walk around it and stuff like that, still very pretty. i love it!
Day 4. Ok we went to STOCKHOLM!!! wow! its amazing! i need a better vocabulary lol. so we walked around, down by the water and past like very nice buildings and things like that, its a beautiful city. we went to this island called Skansen which is like all old cultural sweden, it was nice to see some culture and there was a zoo there. so i saw some reindeer elk bears mink and they even had cats in the zoo. strange i know! but yeah i had swedish meatballs!!! wow swedes are so smart, they were soo good especially with the jam that goes with them. delicious! then we went to the Vasa! the vasa is an old ship that spent 333 years at the bottom of the harbour because it sunk on its first journey before it even left the harbour! the king wanted more cannons, so there was more weight on one side and it wasnt balanced so it just tipped! pretty funny, but it is a huge ship! so beautiful and its amazing how it got so perserved!! that was a very cool thing to see. then we took a ferry to old town stockholm and i saw the palace and the church where the princess got married and riskdag, all very cool things to see. goverment buildings you know. oh the guards here where like spikes on their helmets, its basically awesome! yeah then we went back to the apartment, but oh cool thing, we saw some of the kenyan track team training. there is this huge track competition in stockholm and they were just running on the streets! pretty awesome!
Day 5. we played monopoly and of course i one! we actually finished the game. yeah that took like all day. alice and oscar kept on making me say sjo (7 in english) its very hard to pronounce, so they were teasing me. all good fun i guess. then we went to Albin and Victors house and i met tommy and Uliah. they are nice people, it was fun, but they are jokers. so that was day 6
Day 6. So i woke up to Phil (the australian exchange student) so we went out to the carnival in nyköping. then he took me to the castle and the harbour then he ate lunch. it was fun talking to him about his exchange and he gave me some good advice. he is very funny and i like him alot, he wont be around too much now he keeps on going places which is very good for him because he gets to see alot of things. hes a really cool guy from what i can see and he had some pretty funny stories to tell. then i went to dinner at carinas (host mom) brothers house i think, then we went to the carnival. while there i met up with hannah and juliana (brazilian exchange student). so we talked some more and then oscar invited us to go swimming! so of course i was like hell yeah lets go swimming ( its pouring rain i might add). so we got in our bathing suits and went down to the river! ok so i imagined like nice calm spot where you walk in and swim. NO there is this bridge like 10 feet up above rapids where the boys oscar albin and tommy jump into! they are nuts! so after they did that a couple of time they pressured me to do it too! it was so fun! and they are man made rapids so there are like no rocks, but the river is pretty fast so coming up after is the scary part, but i am really glad i did it. and after i did it hannah, julia and juliana did it too! it was so fun and a nice story to tell my mom hehehe sorry mom. then they came over and we watched this really long boring movie.
yeah so thats my new life! its wonderful and i love it.
Cultural differences!
they eat cereal with yougurt instead of milk
there are no doors on the showers (in my house) and you have to squegee the floor after
spaghetti and ketchup?
they always eat as a family
always take off your shoes!
they love ice cream!
its basically the same though, not too many differences!
yeah next blog i'll introduce my amazing wonderful awesome family!!

Itinerary!

so i am leaving on august 1st at 7:15 in the morning to fly to Seattle where im going to sit for a good 6 hours, then at 4:30 i fly to iceland all night and then from iceland i fly to Arlanda (STOCKHOLM!) where i am to be picked up by my family!! so excited to finally meet them and all the oldies already there. one last week in tahoe :( kind of makes me sad, but soon enough i will be living my dream!