Polen/Ungern

Today was a rather rainy day with some thunderstorms, so I got a really good start on my packing and I figured why not write another post.  As I finished in the last post, after Berlin we drove to Krakow which is the second largest city in Poland! It took a full day of driving on June 28th, and when we finally arrived in Poland we checked into our hotel, and then went to a traditional Jewish dinner in the Jewish part of the city. To be quite honest I have no idea what they were feeding us, some type of meat stew or porridge? It was really strange and it wasn’t my favourite, but hey exchange is all about trying new things including food! Following the dinner, we were greeted to live Polish music, by an extreeeemely talented girl playing the clarinet, a man on the cello and a man playing the accordion. Seriously, hands down best live music I have ever heard.

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Live Polish Music

Jewish District of Krakow, Poland

Jewish Dinner

After the dinner some of my guy friends and I went and walked around Krakow for a bit and then met two Polish lawyers who spoke good English so they showed us around and then we just chilled in a park before taking a taxi back to the hotel. The next day it was super hot! I think the thermostat hit +35 before the humidity, it was rather disgusting. We started the day with a 2 hour walking/guided tour through Krakow, where we got to see most of the town as well as the famous castle. We were free for lunch so Sabrina, Emmy and I went and sat outside and ate in the heat. The best part about Poland, is since they are just kind of getting their feet back on the ground as well as several other Eastern European countries we visited, everything and I mean absolutely EVERYTHING there is really cheap! I ordered a huge lunch, and it cost less than $10 Canadian.

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After lunch we met the group again and drove 1.5 hours on the bus out to the former Auschwitz Concentration Camp. I hope that you all know what a concentration camp is so I am not going to go into much detail here, because honestly just thinking about this brings up a whole lot of emotions. Basically we had a guided tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and saw where millions of people were stripped of their identity, and were starved, or worked until their death, or were killed by lethal injections. It was horrifying to see, but I also think it is something everyone should see at least once in their life. To see the shoes, clothes, suitcases, toothbrushes, everything of people who went through this torture was extremely upsetting. I will leave it there. After being at Auschwitz we drove about twenty minutes to another part of the Auschwitz camp called Birkenau. We weren’t here for long because it was getting quite late, but here we were actually able to see the trains that brought the people here, it put it into much more of a real life perspective. Once we finished here it literally poured rain, like I have not seen a downpour so hard in my life, and we had to run a solid 1.5 km to the bus. There was no escaping the rain, you were going to be soaked either way. And then we had a lovely 1.5 hour bus ride back to our hotel with soaking wet, freezing exchange students.. can you imagine how lovely our bus smelt?

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“Work Makes You Free”

Auschwitz

Birkenau

After the super rain storm

We left Poland on the morning of June 30th headed towards Hungary! My final thoughts on Poland, was that it was a much better place to visit than I could have ever imagined. It’s historic, old and absolutely beautiful! And although they may be considered “poor” compared to other European countries, you can not really see it at all when walking the streets. I  hope I can go back someday 🙂 We stopped in the mountainside of Slovakia for lunch, but we also headed back to Slovakia a few days after, you can read that some other time ;). We ate dinner at the hotel as soon as we arrived, and then we had the whole night to do as we wish. Like 30 of us exchange students tried to figure out the metro and then ended up going to the middle of Budapest which is the capital of Hungary! There was a fifa match that night, I don’t remember who was playing so a lot of people were out watching that, we just walked around the city and since the metro closed really early we all took taxi’s back to the hotel. Hungary is also a super cheap country, so a 20-25 minute cab ride cost about $3 Canadian. The next morning was CANADA DAY! This is the first time I have spent Canada Day outside of Canada, and let me tell you it is really exciting! We had a city tour in the morning, and saw so many things that I can’t even remember it all, we went to the highest point in the city, a castle, saw the parliament, and the heroe’s square. All of us Canadians were dressed up and being all patriotic, and it was so cool to have so many people come and wish us a happy Canada Day and to also meet other Canadians in the city! In the afternoon we had free time, so McKenzie, Bronte, Abigail, Hannah, Mai, Emmy and I began by having an outdoor lunch in the beautiful warm sunshine. After we went to a famous market in the city, I don’t even know how to explain it, it is two floors and is huuuge! Literally everything is sold there, but I think the most popular is Hungarian Salami which is really good! After this we went to the largest shopping mall in Budapest. Literally the coolest thing happened here. I will try my best to explain it to you without you getting super confused. Okay so there is a Brazilian exchange student who lived in Sweden named Gabriel, he was on our trip with us and he has an identical twin brother who also was an exchange student this year, but in Hungary. He didn’t live in Budapest but came into the city so that he could visit his twin brother while we were there (super adorable right?!) While in the shopping mall Bronte and I swore we saw Gabriel walk right past us but didn’t stop to say hi or anything which is really weird and not like Gabbe at all. So we chased after him since we knew he had a twin, and once we caught him we were like “GABBE!?” and he turned around and it was Gabriel’s twin brother killing some time in the mall before going to meet his brother! It was so weird, and cool at the same time. So Bronte and I were able to trick some of the other exchange students into believing it was Gabriel when really it was his twin brother Angelo. He followed us back to our hotel since he didn’t really know where to go, but not after us girls had a mandatory Starbucks stop! We ate dinner again at the hotel, and then we had a really cool boat cruise in the evening through the city with the setting sun. After this, a small group of us walked around the city and took some photos before sitting in front of a big screen in a park and catching part of a soccer match. Final thoughts, Budapest was probably one of my favourite, if my not my favourite stop of the whole trip, probably tied with Austria. It is such a beautiful city, and I had a fantastic time there!

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Budapest!

CANADA DAY!

probably one of my favourite pictures ❤

Heroes Square

We travel not to escape life, rather so life does not escape us

The Hungarian Parliament is absolutely gorgeous

Up next I will tell you about Slovakia, Austria and Slovenia!

xo Jessie

Danmark/Tyskland

I am going to try and break up the posts from my 3 week Europe tour, just so it doesn’t get too overwhelming for me as the writer and you as the audience!

I will start by sharing Denmark and Germany with you! So three weeks (I think?) ago on June 24th I left Northern Sweden, bound for the very south of the country. My host dad drove me to the train station here in Undersåker, where I took the train to Östersund, then a bus to the airport, a flight to Stockholm, a two hour stop over, another flight down to Malmö, and then another bus to a city nearby called Lund. In Lund I was met by a fellow Canadian exchange student Jinell who generously let me stay at her house for two nights. We had to take a small commuter train to her house, and we didn’t arrive until after midnight. The first thing I noticed about Southern Sweden is that it is FLAT as a pancake, coming from the mountains this was super weird, and also second thing IT GETS DARK THERE! I hadn’t slept in darkness at all in like 4 months, so this was fantastic!

The next day I was up fairly early to catch a train to Copenhagen, Denmark. For those who don’t know Malmö is very close to Copenhagen, it was only about 45-50 minutes on the train. The cool thing is there is a bridge the connects Sweden and Denmark, and believe it or not, part of the bridge is a tunnel under the ocean to allow big ships to still be able to pass and since the bridge is very close to the Copenhagen airport they could not build it any closer or it would be dangerous for the airplanes. I met my mom’s cousin Dorte and her daughter Mille at the Copenhagen Central Station around 10:30 and we started the day. I have never met any of my mom’s family living in Denmark so this was super cool that we were able to arrange for it to happen. We began by walking a bit in the city of Copenhagen, with the first stop at Amalienborg the Royal Palace, then lunch (I had a typical Danish Sandwich on Danish Rye Bread, aren’t you proud mom?) We then walked along the main shopping street named Strøget for a while. Dorte had to leave early to go to work, so she brought Mille and I to a boat tour and then left us. The boat tour was actually really cool and took around one hour, we saw a lot of things this way! The tour went through all of the canals of the city. Here we also saw the famous “Nyhavn” or New Harbour as it is translated to in English. After this Mille and I went and climbed the Round Tower which gave a fantastic view of the city! Up next we went to the Rosenborg Castle which is not the main castle of the royal family, but like a secondary castle and this is also where all of the crown jewels are kept under the ground. Lastly we went to Tivoli, however we just walked around instead of going on the rides, because the rides were very similar to the ones at the Swedish Gröna Lund which I went to just a few weeks ago. I took the train back to Sweden around 7 pm and Mille took a train to her home in Denmark. I’m so grateful I got to meet both Mille and Dorte and for all they did for me that day, they could both be tour guides!

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Amalienborg

View of Copenhagen

Copenhagen Town Hall

At the top of the Round Tower

Tivoli

Rosenborg

Nyhavn

The ever so famous Little Mermaid

Mille and I in one of the main squares

Nyhavn

Nyhavn

Up next, I woke up super early on the morning of Thursday June 26th, full of energy and good spirits! Jinell and I left her house around 6:15 am, and made our way into where all of the exchange students were to meet in Malmö to begin our 17 day Europe Tour! We met some other exchange students on our local commuter train together and then we all got lost trying to find this place but we eventually made it. Let me tell you hauling around a super heavy suitcase on cobblestone streets for over an hour is not fun but I survived. Around 9:00 all 67 exchange students, and 4 chaperones made our way on to the bus headed towards Berlin! First we drove through Denmark and had a little stop, and then we took a ferry from Denmark over to Germany. The ferry took around 2 and a half hours, and we had our lunch on board. The ferry had an amazing view. We were in Germany around 3:30 pm and then continued driving to Berlin, which we reached around dinner time.

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Ther first night in Berlin we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner, weird thing to do when in Germany right? Germany was also playing the US in a world cup soccer match that night and they won, so of course Berlin being the capital went absolutely crazy. Some of my friends and I went to a street parade/party in downtown Berlin, it was definitely wild! Germans know what’s up when it comes to winning soccer matches.

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The next day we went to a museum on the stasi which once controlled Germany, following this we took a city bus tour where we got to go to the remaining East Side Gallery of the Berlin Wall, the TV Tower, Checkpoint Charlie, the German Parliament, and some other cool places in the city. Sabrina, Madie, Hannah, Abigail and I took the metro to Alexanderplatz which is one of the largest if not the largest shopping centres in Berlin. We ate lunch there, and followed with a little shopping. We then took the metro to an outdoor Jewish memorial, this was really touching to visit. Following this we walked to the Brandenburg Gate and took a lot of pictures. Feeling rushed and pressed for time we took the metro back to the hotel where we got ready for our traditional German schnitzel dinner. The rest of the night we just spent chilling in Berlin. Good times enjoyed by all.

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Jewish Memorial

East Side Gallery, Berlin Wall

Checkpoint Charlie

my best friend in the whole world ❤

German Schnitzel

Making my mark on the world

Tv-Tower

TV-Tower

Brandenburg Gate

On the morning of Saturday June 28th we left Berlin and headed towards Poland, but you can read about that in the next post! I promise I will try to post a little more soon, but I am really busy as time is running out faster than I would like to think 😦

All the best,

Jessie

Stockholm/One Direction

I told myself that I would not blog tonight, yet here I am sitting in front of my laptop blogging, that must be dedication or something..

Anyways, I am going to really try to keep this post short, a quick update on everything from Studenten until now!

11 Days ago we took studenten, and you can read all about that in my previous blog post, but the weekend following I just took it super easy. I caught a nasty cold, my host parents were out of town for the weekend, so it was the perfect opportunity to catch up on some rest. A lot of rainy days, movie watching, laying in bed, tea drinking was what was on the agenda.

I stayed at Moa’s house on some of the nights and on one night we stayed out here at my apartment, it was super cozy. Last Monday (one week ago from today) I said goodbye to my friend Sofie who is from Trondheim, Norway but lived in Sweden to study. Her dad came to pick her up and bring her home to Norway as she began working for the summer the day after. Although I felt like we could have spent more time together this year, I am so glad I got to know such a beautiful girl with a humongous heart, she would do anything for anyone, and I know someday we will catch up again in either Norway, Sweden or perhaps even Canada! On Monday night Albin came over here for a few hours, he signed my flag and we just chilled. Super relaxing.

On Tuesday I went to Åre for a few hours, I don’t really know why, mainly because I told myself I wasn’t going to sit inside on a day that actually had nice weather. Tuesday evening I went for a 3 hour walk with Ida. My legs were dead by the time I finally returned home, it was crazy but I enjoyed it. I swear we could be sisters we have so much in common and it always a ton of laughs when I am with her. She also gives the greatest advice. We decided to take a quick dip in the river down in the village, HUGE mistake. If we were lucky the water was maybe around 10 degrees? And I was already sick so that made it worse, but it was still fun!

On Wednesday I headed down into the village to Ida’s new house that her mom just bought two weeks ago. Everything inside this house needs to be painted white first, so we spent a few hours painting. I learned that I have never developed good painting skills over the years, Ida had to fix basically everything I did.. talk about embarrassing. Also I am not sure if I got more paint on the walls or on myself, literally covered from head to toe (stepped completely in the paint tray). It was still a fun afternoon! On Wednesday night my host parents had all of the neighbours over for a big summer barbecue dinner. It was really nice, but hard to follow 10 different conversations in super fast Swedish but I managed. I hung out with Julia for a little while after, we just talked and it was nice to take it easy for one night.

On Thursday I went to school to say goodbye to my Swedish class and my fantastic Swedish teacher Eva (seriously, she is the sweetest, most caring teacher you will ever find)! I had one last lunch at the school, and then went over to Ida’s house to say goodbye to her. I seriously still can’t believe that would be the last time I would ever see her. She went down to the Swedish island called Öland to work for the summer. Ida was my first friend in Sweden, and most definitely one of my closest friends. I can call her in the middle of the night and I know she will always be there to help me. I can’t wait to catch up with her in the future, we both have exciting adventures ahead of us! On Thursday night I went over to Albin’s and then we took a really long hike up a mountain, and he demonstrated his biology knowledge for me. Seriously that boy knows so much stuff, HOW?! From the names of plants, to which ones are poisonous, which types of environments they grow best in.. my mind was blown. The best part about living in Northern Sweden is we get the midnight sun, so you can be out all night in the daylight, sometimes it is fantastic, but not when you are trying to sleep! I had to say goodbye to Albin on Thursday night but just for one month, if all goes as planned we should both be home on my last week and a bit in Sweden, or we better be! I came home rather late Thursday night, and then had to pack to leave for Stockholm at 8:00 on Friday morning!

I went to Moa’s house, and then a friend of her parents picked us up and drove us down to Stockholm. We arrived in Stockholm around 5:00 on Friday night after being caught in brutal rush hour traffic. We were met by Moa’s godfather Roland and his wife Titti, who generously opened their house to us for the weekend. They live in the suburbs of Stockholm so we went out there and then went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, and then to the supermarket to buy snacks and food for breakfast. We then spent the evening watching funny One Direction video’s on youtube. The whole purpose of the trip to Stockholm was becaaaaaaaause we went to the One Direction concert on Saturday night! I will get to that in a moment. We slept in a little on Saturday morning, and then went to Täby Centrum (the biggest shopping center in Sweden) for a few hours, and then headed back to the house to eat lunch, and get ready for the concert! Around 3:30 we headed to the bus station because it would be much easier to take the bus to Friends Arena where the concert was instead of trying to find parking. We then thought we got in the right line for our gate, only to wait 45 minutes and find out we were in the wrong line. After getting in the right line, having our bags checked, etc. we made it into the arena. We had standing tickets on the floor towards the end of the stage, it wasn’t bad but I don’t know if I would buy standing tickets again. It can be difficult to see when you are short, and it’s a lot of people pushing but still we were really close, like maybe 10 metres tops away from One Direction. 5 Seconds of Summer opened, and then came the popular British boy band greeted by a sold-out crowd of 60,000 screaming teenage girls, seriously I have never been in such a loud environment. I lost my voice that night, but it was totally worth it. After buying tshirts and getting on a bus that actually had space we probably got home around midnight. I will never ever forget that night, such a good time!

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We were so dead tired that we slept until noon on Sunday, and then took the train in to Stockholm and went to Tivoli’s Gröna Lund amusement park around 3. This amusement park is probably comparable to Canada’s Wonderland or perhaps bigger. Also when we were waiting in the ticket line some guy came up and sold me an extra ride bracelet for half the price of what they originally cost, score for me! We didn’t do all of the rides partly because we thought they were open until 11 but they were only open until 8 on Sundays and it is like a 20-30 minute wait at every ride, but we did some fun rollercoasters, the one that takes you way up and drops really fast, one that gave a really cool view of stockholm, and some other small fun ones. We ate dinner at a mexican place inside the park, and the whole atmosphere just felt super cozy. They also have many live outdoor concerts here in the summer, so for example tonight ZZ top was playing there.

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After the park closed, Moa and I took the tram into Gamla Stan (old town). I asked her if we could go here and sit in a cute little cafe or something because Gamla Stan is my all time favourite place in Stockholm. We found a cafe that we both agreed on, I had a snickers cake and a handmade lemonade, she had raspberry daim cheesecake and a tea. It was nice to just take it easy and relax and talk. We then walked around and took some pictures as this trip would be my last time in Stockholm before I head home to Canada, super weird to think that! After an hour or so we made our way back to the train to go home. It’s good that I know the trains, subways, and trams in Stockholm and I think I blew Moa away, running to catch them, and knowing the right directions is super important, I think she learnt that from me! 😉

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We wrapped up the trip this morning and headed off to the airport around 8:30, first took the subway to the bus station and then took a flight bus, a lot of running through rush hours passengers with big suitcases and such is always fun and perhaps a little stressful. But Moa told me today she thinks travelling with me is fun, so who knows what trips we will end up on together in the future! Our flight landed in Östersund around 12:40, and then we were home in the afternoon. I am extremely exhausted, so I will spend all day tomorrow sleeping. Then to repack on Wednesday to go down to the summer house on Thursday for midsommar this weekend. In one week I will be flying down to Copenhagen to meet my cousins, and then our eurotour will begin for 3 weeks! After eurotour it will only be 12 days before I am back in Canada, ahh don’t remind me! But I am thinking I will be back in Sweden sometime next March-April, I have already made promises I need to keep so we’ll see what happens!

I will try to get a little post in on Midsommar before my big Europe trip begins!

xx

Jessie

Påsk Lov Del Två / Valborg / Slutet Av Säsongen

Hej!

When I last updated you we were in the middle of our week long “Påsk lov” or Easter Break! Nothing too exciting was up for the rest of the week, a ton of skiing, and a few trips to Östersund, a minimal amount of shopping, meeting up with friends, a lot of fika-ing, and laughs! I also went to my first garage sale of the season with my next host mom Suzan in Åre, this was really cool though because it was in a parking lot and anyone could come and sell their stuff out of the back of their vehicle. Albin also reminded me that in my last blog post I forgot to tell you about what happened while skiing on Good Friday. While I was with Albin and his little brother Axel, we thought we had entered the lift line in a place called Stensdalen, but according to two drunk men from Stockholm we “cut the line” and they began to argue with us, telling us we were being rude young teenagers and blah blah blah when we really did nothing wrong. Albin tried to talk to one of the guys, and he freaked out on Albin and wanted to fight him in the lift line. He started swinging his ski poles and said that he was going to jump on Albin and tackle him. Axel was standing in between them so I grabbed him so he was out of the way, and finally the guy backed off a little after some intervention from someone working the lift. A little scary, and all I could think about was well if he jumps on Albin, there we go back to the beginning of him having a broken arm again. We tried to avoid those men for the rest of the day, but anyways Albin felt it was important that I shared this story on my blog so there you are haha!

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We went back to school last Monday (one week ago from today ) however we only had school until Wednesday. In Sweden they celebrate spring on the 1st of May, it’s an old tradition that I still don’t quite fully understand. This is called Valborg, and when I asked several people why they celebrate it or how they celebrate it, this is the answer I most typically got “We celebrate the 1st of May, Valborg to welcome the spring, it is just something very fun and it is often celebrated with a large bonfire”. So I am not really sure about the history behind it, but feel free to look it up if you want to learn more. Every village has a bonfire that anyone is welcome to go to. Moa and I went to the community bonfire here in Järpen, and the fire is built from peoples brush and stuff from cleaning up their yards once the snow melts. I honestly had no idea what to expect, but the fire was huge, there was probably about 1000 people in attendance, and they also had a choir there to sing songs about spring. The best part was we got Thursday and Friday off of school even though Friday wasn’t a holiday, typical Swedes: “Why go back to school for just one day when you can have an extra long weekend?” Whatever.. I really don’t mind because it was a great weekend! The irony of Valborg was even though we were celebrating spring, it snowed for 3 days afterwards.. When in Sweden haha!

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Min snygging Moa!

Valborg 2014

the sunset on Valborg was fabulous!

Thursday I didn’t really do anything except for catch up on some much needed sleep, I guess you could say I was exhausted because I slept for like 14 hours, no regrets, I’m an exchange student. On Friday I went to Åre with my friend Angelica and another girl Ida from Östersund and got ice cream for Fredagsmys, read about fredagsmys here. We then went back to Angelica’s home in Mörsil for yet another bonfire. I had no clue that we were going to be having a bonfire so I definitely was not dressed for it as it was snowing, but it was still really fun to roast hot dogs and talk with Angelica’s brother and his friends. Thanks again Angelica, that was a fun night! I had really wanted to ski on Thursday and Friday but it was super cold, snowy and windy so like hardly any of the lifts were open and it wouldn’t be worth it.

Saturday was back on the slopes though and it was ski test day! Meaning many different ski suppliers and brands were there and you could test as many different skis as you wanted to see which ones you like the best of course! I found one pair that I absolutely fell in love with, they went super fast, carved really nicely and were amazing in the offpiste powder! Someday, somewhere I will buy those skis haha! Saturday night I met up with Markus for a little visit, it was nice as I hardly see him anymore he is so busy! On Sunday I went with a Rotarian Elisabeth, her son Joel, as well as the Rotary President Annika and her family to a sheep farm in Undersåker. It wasn’t really like Eglis or anything, just two tents with a lot of sheep. In fact two lambs were born 3 minutes before we arrived. And while we were there another sheep gave birth to a dead lamb that the farmer was able to bring back to life, it was actually so amazing! After visiting the sheep farm Elisabeth, Annika and I went to my next host mom Suzan’s home where Julia who is in my class also was, we ate a huge and filling lunch before heading off to the slopes for the very very last day. We parked the car and as soon as I got out guess who I see walking to his car, Albin. He wanted to ski longer but his family was hungry and tired so I told him he could ski with us and then we would drive him home after. The weather was amazing, I never thought I would be skiing in May! We skied right until the very last lift at 4:30 and then waited until there was no one left on the slopes so that we could “close the slopes” for the season. It was really amazing because my first day skiing I went with Albin and I could barely even ski then, and now on my very last day skiing I was also with Albin and thanks to him helping me and teaching me I am able to ski really good now, and as he said the progress is really impressive, makes me feel really good! Yesterday also marked my 50th day in the slopes this season, I guess it really adds up when you are going 3, 4 sometimes even 5-6 times per week. It has been a great 5.5 months of skiing. According to skistar I have skied 129, 898 vertical meters, taken 426 rides on the lifts, and burnt 25, 176 calories in the 2013/2014 ski season! It’s kind of crazy when you really look at those numbers, and it also has resulted in me losing 15 kilograms or about 30 pounds. I feel great! 🙂 A few things I have also learnt while skiing this year, “Don’t fear the mountain – it will sense it” – Albin Lindmark, also when you tell someone who is from here that you can’t ski they won’t believe you until you actually prove it to them, and the third thing is that in the spring the sun is very bright when reflecting off of the snow and it is really, really easy to get sun burnt so you need to be super careful! All in all, I could not have had a better winter in Sweden, I feel like I got the true “Scandinavian” experience as they all ski, all the time, and they love it. And now I have learnt to love it too, I hope it’s not long before I’m back here skiing again, I will really miss it for the time being!

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Elisabeth, Julia, Suzan and I!

The skis I tested that I am going to buy someday, I LOVE THEM!

Albin!

Last time in Gondolen 😦

My next host mom Suzan and I!

paradise, not bad for May 4th!

Two happy, satisfied skiers after a fantastic last day on the slopes 🙂 ❤

Back to school again now, for a whole week again, it hasn’t been like this in forever! I ordered my graduation dress last night and we graduate in one month today! Time is really flying now, about 2 months and 20 days left, don’t remind me it’s quite sad actually. On the 17th of May I will move to my last host family, then I will take a trip to Sundsvall and two trips to Norway in the end of May, I am really looking forward to it!

Until the next time,

xx Jessie

Påsk Lov – Del Ett

Hej!

I will begin this by saying, Glad Påsk, or Happy Easter! In Sweden we get a full week off of school for Easter, so our break began on Friday and we have the whole next week off; which I am super excited for because it is the end of the ski season and the weather is fantastic.

So before the Easter Break began, I gave three presentations! I think my public speaking is improving to say the least haha. The first one I gave two Friday’s ago to my Rotary Club, and I managed to pull most of it off in Swedish and blew everyone away with it. That felt amazing, but it was really sad because it was my final presentation meaning I am going home much sooner than I would like to accept. Also in the past week, I hit the 100 day point.. but now we are at 96 days until I am homeward bound, although I am really trying to “not count the days, rather make the days count”. Following that presentation, I gave one to a class of first grade skiers at my school (1997). Their teacher asked if I could talk about the differences between Canada and Sweden, and about myself, as well as the Rotary Program. I think it went well but they didn’t ask so many questions, which the teacher told me they should. Then the next day I spoke to another English class about my recent trip to Kiruna/The Arctic circle. They were so interested to hear about it, and really enjoyed the pictures and video. That was the easiest presentation and it went awesome!

Aside from that, last weekend Moa and I went and watched the Jon Olsson Invitational big air competition in Åre. In simpler terms, a competition with the worlds best big air ski jumpers. Yeah it was amazing. These people have competed in the Olympics and are quite young too, the youngest being just 16 years old. The jump, 7.5 meteres high, and 25 metres from kicker to landing, it was absolutely epic to say the least. Thousands of spectators filled Sveriges Alpina Nationalarena. Even better, the sun was setting right behind us creating a majestic glow over the mountains. Beside the big air competion, was a doubles race, basically two skiers racing through gates and taking three jumps to see who had the fastest time, also neat to watch. Afterwards Moa and I got really close to the stage as the prizes were being awarded, maybe the best part of the whole night.

(Not all of these pictures are mine, but you can click on them to enlarge them!)

The winner was Oscar Wester of Sweden, runner up Jesper Tjäder of Östersund, Sweden (1 hour away from Åre!) and third place went to Fabian Bösch of Switzerland I believe. Either way, it was one of those events that pictures can’t really do justice, you just had to be there. And I am glad we were, and that we decided to dress warm because the darker and later it got the colder it also got!

Last Wednesday I took a ski by myself, the weather was alright and there were hardly any people on the slopes, good fun as it will be ending real soon! On Thursday my friends at school tried to explain weird Swedish traditions to me. Seriously some are straight up strange, like they celebrate the first of may with a bonfire and two days free from school? Okay, I’ll take it! And people dress up as witches on Easter and go knocking door to door for candy or money, what is this have Swedes got Halloween and Easter confused? And the don’t ever eat Turkey.. not at Christmas or Easter or anything.. So I am really missing mom’s home made holiday meals right about now. Instead they would prefer to have fish, big shocker there; but that’s just not my favourite at all.

On Friday I forced myself to go skiing. Blue skies, no wind, +9.. could it be any better? I skied for maybe half an hour alone before Albin found me in the slopes.. yes that’s right Albin is back skiing! After a broken arm and surgery, just one month ago he is back on the slopes, I don’t think anything can stop him. He was with his little brother Axel and they told me I should follow them for the rest of the day. It was great fun, we went to the top and got some awesome powder shredding in. Even better, every time I ski with Albin I amaze him with how much I have improved since the beginning of the season, because he literally thought there was no hope for me just 4 or 5 months ago. Guess I proved him wrong, but no actually I would not be able to ski the way I can today if it weren’t for him. He was so patient in teaching me, and is actually a really good teacher, so thanks again Albin you rock! 🙂 He also made me learn my way around the mountain so I would never be lost, and pushed me to try things I would never have been willing to try before! Now that the season is coming to an end on May 4th, I am looking back on how great it truly was!

I only took one pic skiing that day, here it is:

Words can’t even describe how my breath is taken away every single time by that view. Simply flawless.

Yesterday I just took it rather easy. Moa texted me asking if I could go over because Alma had been begging her all day for me to come over and play, so how could I say no. I went over and played on Alma’s new trampoline with her, had a delicious lamb Easter dinner with my first host family, followed by some more trampoline jumping with Alma. Alma also told me last night that I am not allowed to go home to Canada or else she will call the police on me, she truly is the sweetest. She cried when I went home last night, and I am only living a 5 minute walk away, how am I ever supposed to leave her and go half way across the world? I can’t even imagine..

Today I went skiing with my first host family also! Maria picked me up at 8:30 this morning, and we headed to Åre where we met Mikael, Alma and Moa. The weather didn’t look too promising this morning, quite a lot of clouds and very grey, but by noon it was blue skies and sunshine. Moa went home early because she was quite tired but the four of us skied until almost 4:00 this afternoon. We skied practically the whole mountain and I got to be the guide, how does that even work.. they have been living here for how long, and I the Canadian exchange student was the guide? Hahah okay.. I also discovered a new fantastic place to ski, which is where I probably will spend most of this week while I am off of school. They just opened this area like 3 weeks ago because it is on the north side of the mountain and they needed to wait for enough natural snow, but finally it is good.. so I am really looking forward to returning there. All in all today was a solid day of skiing, and might I say my face is getting quite sun-burnt, should be lovely in a few days.

Spring in the valley, winter on the top!

She is quite a good skier for only 9 years old!

ahhhh heaven

trying hard to be cool hahaha

Me, Alma, and my first Host Mom Maria!

After skiing today I came home and crashed for two hours, hence why I am up late blogging now. Even though I skied so long today, I still felt the need to go for a run tonight, so now my legs are literally like jelly, but no regrets. Tomorrow Moa, Markus, Ida and I are going horseback riding, then it should be back to the slopes by mid-week. I have no other real plans, other than to meet a friend Angelica at some point in the week too. I really just want to ski, while it is still open for another week and a half or so. I will make another post on the rest of the Easter break later just so it didn’t get too long.

Hope you enjoyed, and Happy Easter!

xx

Jessie

Vintern är Har!

Winter is here! Well maybe.. We have had snow off and on, there is ice on most of the lakes, and the slopes are tentatively set to open at the beginning of December! Might I add, it is also starting to feel a lot like Christmas 🙂

I have been fairly busy since returning to Järpen from my vacation in Norway. As I mentioned in my previous post, I returned home on the Monday school came back, and then I left again on Tuesday to spend a night in Östersund at Kajsa’s apartment as I would be giving three presentations at her gymnasium on Wednesday! I went Tuesday afterschool by the train, and then we went to a Swedish fast food restaurant (Max) for dinner. Since you probably don’t know what Max is, it is like McDonalds.. but Swedish, so that means it must be better, which it is! Wednesday Morning, Kajsa made me north-american pancakes for breakfast and she even had real maple syrup from Canada so that was fantastic! We headed to her school where I would begin my presentations about myself, my exchange, and the differences between Sweden and Canada at 10:30. Then we went to a cute little cafe for lunch called Pause, and returned to her school for me to give my last two presentations in the afternoon. The presentations were so much fun, although I have to admit I was so scared when her English teacher had first asked me to come and visit. All together I probably spoke to at least 75 students that day, they were all so interested, asked many good questions, and hey I may have even recruited a few to the Rotary Youth Exchange Program!

On Saturday last weekend I went to my first Swedish friend Ida’s home in Undersåker, which is half way between Järpen and Åre (about 13 km). She has her own little house which is located right between her mothers home and her fathers home. We spent the day making Kanelbulle (Swedish Cinnamon Rolls)! It was so much fun as I had never made them, only tasted them, and I think ours turned out pretty well!

We then went to her fathers home for dinner, with his new girlfriend, their super cute 3-year old daughter and one of Ida’s brothers. It was a really good dinner, and It was nice to talk with some Swedish people I had never met before. We went back to Ida’s where her friend Ellen and Kajsa would join us. We watched a part of a movie, had some Swedish glögg (a traditional christmas drink) although I was not too fond of it, and then just talked and were be your average ridiculous teenagers. Ellen had just got her drivers license 5 days before and was kind enough to drive me home as I was nearly four hours late from the last bus of the night!

On Sunday, I went long-distance speed skating with Kajsa, her boyfriend Mathias, Kajsa’s oldest sister Helena, and her boyfriend Jeremias. We went in a little place kalled Kall, about 25 kilometres away. I have been normal skating before, and loved it, but let me say, this was no easy task and was a lot harder than it looks. I struggled the whole time, but only managed to face dive into the ice once, so that’s good right? Anyways, the weather was awesome and I was amazed that the ice was so good for so early in to the season.

Needless to say my legs were extremely sore for at least two days after, but it was so much fun, and I would love to try it again sometime!

This past Thursday night I went to Kajsa’s mother’s home for dinner as it was Mathias’s 22nd birthday! It was such a good dinner, lamb, potatos, salad, and all of the vegetables, etc. Kajsa had spent two days making the cake, and I really wish I had a picture to show, because it was amazing! Triple layer chocolate raspberry cake, with a nut-mousse cream on the bottom layer, a raspberry mousse on the middle layer and a bailey’s mousse on the top layer. Sooooo good, and it was like heaven for an exchange student!

Yesterday I decided I was going to go to Östersund by myself for the day. So I took the train at half past ten in the morning, and came home at half past five. I spent the day shopping, although I was proud of myself for not buying too much! Only a new christmas wool sweater (the nordic ones, så snygg), a pair of jeans, fleece pj’s, a new bag, some jewelry and makeup! The city is beginning to be busier and busier on the weekends as the Christmas season fast approaches, but it is so cozy with all of the lights and music. I came home, had dinner and then went to TantAnna’s cafe with Moa, Markus, Ida, and Ellen 🙂 It was fun, as there is not much else to do in Järpen on Saturday nights. I think I have explained the cafe in an earlier post, but last night we spent playing card games, talking, playing pingis (table tennis), and foosball. I got home at nearly 1 am, and I was apparently more than exhausted as I slept in until 11:30 today! Oh well, it is very cold and windy and it has now just started to snow again.. A LOT, so I am spending the day cleaning my room, preparing for the week and I might even get around to writing those postcards I bought in Stockholm over a month ago… haha oops! In a week and a half I will go to Stockholm with my class for 4 days, stay tuned!

xo,

Jessie