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!!