Åre!

Sunday the 14th to Thursday the 18th of March I was skiing in Åre with 40 other exchange students! Kelly and I got there at 3 pm and everyone else had already arrived so we jumped into the pool and sauna world to meet them. I hadn't met a lot of the exchange students because the ones from the southern hemisphere had just arrived in January. In the evenings we had the whole hostel to our selves so we took over the lounge and watched movies and got the sauna going. Rod and I were in the sauna one night and a group of others ran in and dumped buckets of water on us-not funny!! **********During the day we went skiing! We got group lessons and private lessons and free time to go where ever on the slopes! There was several trip parks, I just tried the half pipe because everything else was too scary! We went to the top a couple times but it was usually covered in cloud which is really hard to ski through when you can't see 2 meters in front of you! I helped my friend Morgane ski down an easy slope which took us almost an hour because she was really scared to go down even a 5 degree slope. She had almost a total melt down half way back to the lodge but we eventually got there! ************You could ski right into town! We went down there propped up our skis outside a store and wondered around the place in our ski boots! We also did a little off-pist skiing through the trees, one of which rather painfully hit my shin.But all in all, it was the best time I've had skiing in my life!!! ************One evening we went to visit a spectacular frozen waterfall and snow house and church. It was really cool and I bought myself a big rabbit fur lined hat there. *************We went home Thursday after noon after one last morning skiing!

Sports break

March 6th to the 14th was a break from school to encourage us to do sports! On the Friday night, I went to a party and there was karaoke! A friend of mine made me go up on stage and sing Bad by Micheal Jackson! It was kind of embarrassing but I had fun making a fool of myself because I didn't know the lyrics! I didn't win the competition though! ********On this break I had planned to do lots of cross country skiing and ice skating but the weather was warming up so the snow wasn't very good for skiing and the ice on the lake was too thin to skate on so instead I went swimming and saw the movie Alice in Wonderland with my friends. The week was nice and relaxing and on the Sunday Kelly and I packed up our skis and left on the 5 hour trip to Åre, Sweden's most famous ski resort, to spend the week skiing with other exchange students!

Järvsöbacken

On Sunday February 28th, Kelly and I went skiing at järvöbacken, a mountain an hour out of town. It was so fun, the two of us skiing all day! Kelly took me tree skiing where we went off the run and skied around trees! It was a lot of fun, but I wasn't very good at it, luckily there was a lot of snow! I fell once and in the snow and got completely covered except for an arm and a ski sticking out! That was a tough one to dig myself out of! Then I came up to two kids lying in the snow across my trail and made a belly flop to stop running over them! That was a rather painful position that I couldn't get out of because I was lying on my skis! Eventually the kids helped me up after shouting at them in English as politely as I could! Besides that, tree skiing was a lot of fun! ********* I spent the night at Kelly's house because she lives closer to Järsvö than I do. We watched the musical Chicago then fell straight to sleep. It wasn't until the next morning on the way to school that I found out that I miss the biggest hockey game in the Olympics! Canada against the US! But we won so that's all I needed to know!!

Cooking class

On February 17th, the cooking class that I had been attending ended for the year. It was a lot of fun, we'd make a meal then eat it for dinner! We cleaned the kitchen one day, hosed down the whole floor! We made coleslaw another day and I knew how to make coleslaw already so I whipped some up on my own and the teacher really liked it. the teacher, Margaret, liked me but she wasn't very helpful, she was kind of absentminded and her English was hard to understand, but she tried so hard! We had a test and she gave me top marks and made an example because I didn't study since the notes were in Swedish but I still got I good mark! Yes, I know how to cook!

Skiing on the Swedish Alps!

February the 19 to 21, Tomas, my Rotary counselor and his family, took Kelly, my Australian friend and I to their winter cabin in the mountains, to go skiing! Tomas, his wife Annet and their two boys; Kristofer(9) and Magnus(8) go skiing a lot because there are 2 skiing mountains close to their cabin. So the boys are really good at skiing! Kelly has been skiing in Australia since she was 7 so she's really good too and was giving me pointers on how to ski better! ********The mountains are a lot more rounded than the Rockies but it's still really good skiing-a lot better skiing than the prairies! That weekend was cold, -17 so there weren't many people out, no line ups at the lifts! I followed Kristofer and Kelly down a black run called the ravine and almost made it all the way down, but near the bottom I had a spectacular face plant! *********In the evenings we had a nice hot sauna and watched TV. One of the nights we had a smoked moose meat delicacy. It was very nice, tender and lean but the meat was a lot more raw in texture than what I'm used to. Sunday, it was to cold to ski so instead I taught everyone what s'mores were! The boys caught on to them pretty quick, Kelly didn't like them for some reason and I ended up just eating the chocolate! After lunch, we drove the 4 hours back into town. It was a fantastic weekend! *********Sorry I don't have pictures, I lost my camera. :(

Brandan's visit

 

The first week in February, Brandan and some other exchange kids went on a skiing trip in France. I wanted to go to but there was no adult supervision so my district chairperson didn't give me permission to go too. Brandan, a friend of mine from Florida, flew into Stockholm on his way back from France and instead of going straight home to Lund (the south of Sweden), he came up to Hudiksvall to visit me for the weekend. We had gotten a lot of snow so the trains were delayed and I picked him up at the train station at 2 am Thursday night. ********* Friday, I missed school and we went up to Sundsvall (an hour north) to visit Morgane for lunch. It was nice to hangout with exchange students because there aren't many of us who live in this area of Sweden. ********* Saturday morning, we made french toast because we hadn't eaten it since we got to Sweden! I showed Brandan around and town and then we met up with Anna for Fika. In the afternoon, we made chocolate chip cookies because that's another thing we miss from home. In the Evening, we watched some movies with some of Johanna's friends and ate the cookies. *********Sunday, I taught him how to cross country ski because he's never done it before! He went home that evening, a 9 hour train ride all the way down to Lund! I'm going to go visit him one day, being an exchange student is great!!

Shrove Tuesday

Febuary 16th was Shrove Tuesday and it was also my name day. Shove Tuesday (Fettisdag) is celebrated in Sweden by everyone eating semla which is a pastry with the top cut off then filled with cream and the top back on and sprinkling it with icing sugar. There's a little bit of marzipan in the middle of the cream and everyone loves them. some people eat them in a bowl with warm milk pored over it, but must just eat them and kids always get cream all over their face! For name days, people don't do much unless you're a little kid, you might get some little presents and goodies or on the King's name day everyone puts up their flags. So on my name day I got semla! I also went to my friend, Maja's house for supper. We got around to talking about skiing and it turns out that the dad's downhill ski boots fit me perfectly! So I got to borrow then to go skiing with the next weekend!!

 

January 29th is Håkan's birthday. He is my first host Dad and he and his family came over to my house for supper. We made sushi and it was really good, even raw fish isn't bad! I gave him a box of Purdy's chocolates and he was very pleased and surprised because he wasn't expecting anything! I gave the whole Bjur family a painting I had made of us. It was supposed to be a moving-into-a-new-family present but I didn't finish it until near the end of January and I moved out at the beginning of January. They still loved it!!  

Blåspopperna band weekend

Friday January 22 to the 24th, I went to a band weekend with my Blåspopperna orchestra. There was about 30 of us staying in Forsa's music school which is 25 minutes outside of Hudiksvall. It was fun to be at a band camp again, playing music all day, goofing off with the other musicians and there was a sauna in the gym's showers (I love Swedish schools!!) We practiced marching and playing and it was a bit of a mess. We need to practice a lot more before May first when we play in a parade! This is a picture of Jessica (clarinet), me, Sarah (trumpet) and Narmin (violin). We had a lot of fun playing music all weekend!!

jazz concert

 

Tuesday January 19th, I played in a jazz concert with my class at school. We had been at school until 9pm the day before, practicing and setting up. We played three concerts that day and it was a lot of fun. I was the only wind instrument because everyone else in my class plays electric instruments or sings. I had a solo in Watermelon Man, and the melody in The Man With The Cucumber. We also played It Don't Mean a Thing, The Lady is a Tramp, Honeysuckle Rose and others. Everyone was impressed with our concert and liked the trumpet parts because it was unique! It was a lot of fun but now my jazz class at school is finished for the year. But I'm still playing jazz outside of school with a group called Let's Play!

Good Bye Jarryd!

 

Saturday January 16th, at 6am, Jarryd and all the other Australian Rotary exchange students in Sweden, went home. So I spent the night in Arlanda, Stockholm's airport to say good bye to them. Friday evening, I got on the train with Jarryd and Rachael, the girl who lived in Sunsvall. we got to Arlanda at 10pm and there was not much to do but the time passed fairly quickly by talking, goofing around and disturbing anyone else in the airport who might have been trying to get some sleep! Early in the morning, we met up with more exchange students who were either leaving or saying good bye. Right before checking through, Jarryd needed some help closing his suitcase. I helped him part with some of his stuff by filling a plastic bag of 4 kilos of stuff. That made some room, but it was still over weight! After 8 hours of hanging around in the airport it was time to say good bye which wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be because he and Rachael were both looking forward to getting out of the snow and into a nice hot Australian summer! When they all had gone through security, I met up with my friend Claire, an exchange student from New York who had dropped of her Ausie friends too. We caught a bus to her house where we could get some sleep before noon. When we woke up, we spent the rest of the Saturday walking around Stockholm, looking for a place to donate Jarryd's stuff to and shopping. I caught a train home in the evening and understandably spent most of Sunday sleeping!

birthday

 

I had a Swedish birthday on Friday January 8th. It was still the Christmas break so I didn't have tho get up early to go to school, but my family had a different idea! They woke me up at 8 in the morning by all coming in to my room singing 'Ja må hon leva'! I didn't have time to be grumpy at the sudden awakening because they gave me presents and breakfast in bed! I like this Swedish tradition! Later that day I invited some friends over for a birthday fika, Lennea, Maja and Jarryd. I was showing them some things on my computer when my family skyped me. It was 8 in the morning for them because my brothers wanted to with me a happy birthday before they went to school. they had received my Christmas package and I fetched my birthday package that I had gotten from them a month ago in the mail, so we could open them together! My package had lots of balloons, party hats, candy, glo sticks and whistles that I shared them with my friends and we had a real party fika! Their Christmas package had Swedish candy, chocolate, tea, clothes, model airplane and a tea cozy. Then we had cake, a princess cake which is half white cake, half cream all held together by icing. I had a one and a nine candle but instead of setting it up as 19 Anna switched it around to 91 to make me look old but I'm born in '91 so it works. It was a great birthday and in the evening we went out to a fancy dinner as a family. I'm really enjoying my last year as a teenager!!  

the rest of my Christmas break

The rest of my Christmas break I spent moving into my second host family and being sick. the day after my birthday I was throwing up so much they figured I had the winter's vomiting disease, is what it's called literally translated from Swedish and isn't uncommon here. So I spent the weekend on the couch. On Sunday, I moved in to my new home. I had 3 suitcases, a backpack and a couple plastic bags full of stuff and it was a couple blocks away, I don't know how I'm going to get all this stuff home!! Ingela, my new mom, is a nurse at the hospital that's just down the street. Johan, my new dad is sort of like a handy man and seems to be good at everything. Johanna, my new sister is my age and went to Halifax last year on exchange. The family is vegetarian but Ingela is an excellent cook so I don't miss meat. They are very active and Ingela leads aerobics sessions. I have been able to borrow a pair of Johan's skis and use the cross country track that are in a little wood just across the street from where we live. We have 2 cats and 2 dogs. the dogs are schnowders, Asta is 10 years old and Marta is a new puppy. I'm getting along great with my new family. This is were Stefano the Brazilian boy stayed so I'm just slipping into his place. **********Monday January the 11th was the first day back to school after the Christmas break but I didn't go to school; I was still working on eating solid food so I used that day to settle into my new room. It's the guest bedroom and very nicely designed with 2 big windows and a balcony. I'm going to enjoy living here!!

New Year's

 

On December 30th, my friend Morgane (from France who is living in Sunsvall) came over to my house to visit for a few days. That night I was making dinner; chicken soup made from the bone from the chicken I roasted for dinner the previous night. Morgane had never cooked before in her life so I showed her how to peel potatoes and carrots and she was very proud of her contribution. Everyone liked the soup. My Swedish family had never used bones to make soup before so it was something new for them and wonderfully familiar for me. ********* During Morgane's visit we took it easy most of the time; sleeping in, playing PS3, listening to music, playing cards and watching movies. But when it snowed a foot over night, Håkan got us all to help shovel snow. Morgane was quite taken aback because she'd never had to shovel snow before. It was a big job but we all worked together and got it done! ********** For New Year's Eve, we had a lot of people come over to our house for supper. After supper, us kids went to Jarryd's house to meet up with more people and have ping pong tournaments. For midnight, we all went back to my house to watch the fireworks that Håkan had set up in the backyard! They were really cool and very loud! Everyone shouted; Gott Nytt År! and drank non-alcoholic champagne. It was an international New Year's with me from Canada, Jarryd from Australia, Morgane from France, two guys both named Daniel who are from New Zealand and were staying at Jarryd's house for the week to go skiing, and everyone else there who are Swedish! It was snowing and we had a snowball fight(which I won, of course!) and when we were all fully soaked, we went back inside. Not long after midnight, people went home so we didn't stay up much longer. But it was still a great night! Happy New Year Everybody!!!  

Shopping in Sunsvall

On December 27th, Anna, some of her friends and I went to Sunsvall to go shopping for the day. It's the city an hour north of Hudiksvall and has the largest shopping mall nearby. I wasn't too keen on shopping the whole day so I meet my friend Rachael at the mall. She is from Australia and was living in the city. We wondered around, catching up with news and goofing off. The only thing I ended up buying was a sweater dress right before we left to have supper but it was still great fun! Rachael had to go home but I went with Anna and the others, to an American restaurant for supper. This was the first time I could get a pepperoni pizza since I got to Sweden, But half way through it, I slowed down eating long enough to realise that it wasn't quite right; the pepperoni was a bit bitter and there was hardly any cheese on it! It wasn't as good as I remembered it to be but I ate it all anyway. We took the train back home at 9pm and all in all, it was a very good day!

Christmas day

 

Christmas day in Sweden isn't anything special besides a holiday because they have all their Christmas celebrations on Christmas Eve. So it was a very relaxing day to sleep in and not have anything planned until the evening when Anna and I and some friends went to a party in town. I got to wear my new earrings, necklace and perfume. It was a really big event for 18 year-olds and older so there was a lot of people there! It was fun and when I got home a 3 am, I skyped Victoria BC around their supper time and could talk to a bunch of relatives who had gathered there for Christmas. It was really cool to talk to everyone!!

Skiing

Skiing was one of the reasons why I wanted to come to Sweden in the first place and finally in the middle of December we got snow, more than enough snow to ski on. I've never seen so much snow all at once! We got over half a meter of snow in a week and a half! During the days around Christmas, I went skiing a lot. The temperature was about -10 so it was perfect. I borrowed Håkan's shoes and Marita's skis when they weren't using them. Anna and Håkan usually went with me to the nicely groomed tracks that are just north of the town. 

 

Christmas!

I stayed in Hudiksvall for the Christmas break and had a nice quiet family Christmas. The days leading up to it were full of Christmas baking, buying last minute presents and writing Christmas letters. I didn't get all my cards, letters and packages mailed away until the 23rd! We decorated the whole house with little Santa Clause and angle figures. The Christmas tree, which we decorated on the 23rd, had only little white lights, not coloured ones, there was a star on the top surrounded by Swedish flags and we used colourful steamer decorations. It's the same idea, just decorated differently than I'm used too. And the presents don't go under the tree until Christmas Eve. *********Christmas Eve is the day we celebrate Christmas, the next day is just a holiday, nothing special. That morning is spent finishing the decorations around the house, last minute present wrapping, getting really for the guests and starting all the food for the Christmas smorgasbord. At 3pm, Donald Duck and his Walt Disney friends come on TV to show clips of old movies and wish us all a Merry Christmas. It's tradition for everyone in Sweden to stop what they're doing and watch Donald Duck for an hour then the real Christmas celebrations can begin! **********Soon afterwards, Lena and Kenneth, Anna's aunt and uncle, and Ester, Anna's grandma, came over. Together, we finished the food preparations for the Christmas smorgasbord called the julbord. We ate; Christmas ham, little sausages, meatballs, pickled herring, salmon, a potato casserole dish with anchovies called jonson's temptation, eggs with caviar, headcheese, boiled potatoes, saffron cake with lingonberry sauce, meat pate, bread and cheese. We drank julmust which is like Coke-Cola and for dessert we had a rice pudding with cream and berry sauce. I tried some of everything and it was but completely different form a Christmas turkey dinner. I had gotten Christmas crackers in the mail and we opened them at the table. Everyone wore the paper crowns the shared the jokes and the others thought it was a very funny tradition! ***********After dinner, we had coffee, tea, cookies and cakes around the table. I Skyped home and shared some of my Christmas news with my family. When I tried to explain that during the dinner there are many singing toasts/cheers, the others around the table sang an example about happy little santas. At 8pm, Santa Clause came to the door and I had the hang up Skype and go meet him! Bullet, Lena and Kenneth's dog, went crazy barking at him because he didn't recognise Håkan in the costume. Santa handed out all the presents that were under the tree. When everyone had their presents, we all opened them one at a time. The rest of the evening was spent chatting, eating chocolates and drinking glögg. It was a wonderful Swedish Christmas! 

Mamma Mia Party!

On Saturday December 12th, we had a Mamma Mia party! Jarryd has been dieing to have this party and we've been trying to organise it for the last 3 months but it kept on being postponed until this weekend which was the last weekend before Stefano went back to Brazil and so it was also his goodbye party. We had a lot of fun; dressed up 70's style, watched the movie with subtitles to the songs so we could sing along and dance, then we played twister. It was at Jarryd's house so his host brother Jacob was there with his girlfriend Julia, Anna and I came and Jessica the German girl was there as well as Stefano with his host sister Johanna. It was a great time but at the end it was hard saying goodbye to Stefano who's plane left that Monday.

Lucia: December 13th

Lucia is a beautiful day of singing and lighting candles. Lucia lived in Sicily in about 500 AD and died as a martyr. The story goes, she had her eyes bashed out with rocks then was stabbed so the red sash around her waist represents the blood. How she got to Sweden, I don’t know, but now she is a symbol of bringing light in Sweden’s darkest month in the form of the candles in her crown and in the hands of her accompanying choir. Every town and city has their own Lucia chosen by nomination and vote and it is every little Swedish girl’s dream to be the Lucia, so you can imagine how honoured I felt when the school told me I would be their Lucia! ************Friday December 11th, I was at school at 7:45am getting ready for my fist of 5 ceremonies that day. I wore a long white gown with a red sash around my middle and a crown of 7 candles on my head. My choir also had white gowns but with silver tinsel around their waist and a candle in their hand. They sang many songs, I recited a poem and then led the singing procession out of the auditorium. It was all very lovely except for the hot wax that dripped on to my face and into my hair. It took all day, as each of the ceremonies took an hour, but it was well worth it because it was so exciting being in the center of a Swedish tradition and really feeling a part of it!! Really a once in a life time experience!!