Hello!
I feel like I haven’t been blogging in forever even though it’s only been like 3 weeks or something? So forgive me for that please, I have been quite busy as you will read shortly!
The last time I blogged was the end of the ski season and even though it wasn’t too long ago it feels like forever, so much has been happening! I moved to my third and final host family last weekend, I also live in a new village called Undersåker which is half way between Åre and Järpen. I have two host parents Suzan and Göran, they have no children so I am like an only child. They are super nice and I really couldn’t be happier. They live in the “country” so it kind of feels a lot like home and I now take the bus to school too. ALSO saving the best part for last, they have built me my own studio apartment which is so extremely nice, I truly am one lucky girl. It’s in a separate building from their actual house, and its decorated really nicely, there is no bathroom or anything but just having my own space is perfect.
(Click on the pictures to make them bigger, scroll over to see the caption if there is one.)
This past week my class (SA3) took a trip to Trondheim, Norway for two days! Although it was an education school trip, it was still really fun and it was one of the last things we will get to do together as a class before studenten, a little sad I know. We went super early on Wednesday morning with the train, and arrived to a super warm and sunny Norwegian coast just before lunch. It was so hot, like +28 and we had to backpack for the whole day, literally.. I backpacked a solid 20 kilometres but it was totally worth it, Norway just simply amazes me every time I go there. We walked around the city, talked about some monuments, the Norwegian society, schools, etc. We also all bought soft ice cream which made the heat a bit more bearable! I went out for dinner with Ida to the popular American restaurant “TGI Friday’s”, it was super good! I also realized just how expensive it is in Norway.. literally $7 Canadian for a soft ice cream cone, and more than $10 for a coke that I ordered at dinner, seriously crazy! Wednesday night included my whole class going out to this bar/restaurant on the harbour for a cozy night of talking and such, always fun. On Thursday we were up bright and early to eat breakfast and then take the bus to the University in Trondheim, followed by lunch on campus and an afternoon of free time in the city which mostly included sitting in this super cute all organic cafe which was also surprisingly good! I think I arrived home around 8 on Thursday night, then Ida came over for a little while, followed by Julia, followed by the guy who came to hook up the wi-fi in my apartment, lots of visitors!
(Click on the pictures to make them bigger, scroll over to see the caption if there is one.)
Return home Thursday night, slept through my first class on Friday, repacked by backpack to leave on the train Sundsvall after school and ran 1 km in 3 mins to catch the bus to school! I was quite impressed with myself! Not much exciting at school on Friday, everyone is trying to finish up the remaining assignments in their courses, but we did have mösspåtgning happen on Friday. Mösspåtagning is basically like a pre-graduation celebration, where everyone brings their graduation hats to the park and you sing the graduation song a few times, do a little chanting and cheering, some champagne spraying and then finish it off by placing the hat on your head. Not really too sure of the purpose, but it was a little fun thing before graduation (studenten) in a week and a half (crept up fast, I know!) After that finished I went back to school, grabbed my bag and caught the train to Sundsvall. Three hours later the train arrived on the Swedish coastal city of Sundsvall where I was greeted by Jenny who exchanged to Whitby, Canada last year. She invited me to come visit her a month or so ago and we finally found a weekend that worked for both of us. She just got her drivers license which is also super cool. So she drove us back to her house which is in the suburbs of the city, where her family greeted us with a lovely barbecued dinner on the back porch. Her mom Ann-Kristin, her dad Lars, sister Johanna and brother Jonas were all super nice and sweet to me which made the stay really enjoyable. After dinner on Friday we went and got some ice-cream, then went to the Northern Mountain of the city where we climbed 112 steps to look over the city and a gorgeous orange glow in the sky. Ah, words or pictures can’t even describe how breath-taking it was. Saturday morning we were up bright and early and another gorgeous day it was, +25 and sunny. We began with a walk through the town, with old buildings built all from stone because the original wooden buildings all burnt down. We then took a fika at Wayne’s Coffee, and then a drive out to an island called Alnö, where we made a stop at one of the many beaches, this one named Bänkåsviken. Seriously so, so beautiful I can’t believe it really. After this we headed back into the city, over to Ikea. That’s right, my first Ikea experience ever, in the country it was founded in, really couldn’t be better. I will begin by saying Ikea is HUGE, make sure you have a fully charged cellphone when you go there, take a map, and follow the arrows on the floor, the chances of you getting lost are 99.9%. But it was really neat to look at all of the furniture and displays, and dreaming big for someday when I have my own house. We ate typical Swedish meatballs at Ikea for dinner, then went over to the big shopping mall where I did a little shopping for summer. We went home for a few hours and made the Swedish chokladbollar dessert, and then went for a little night drive around midnight. Today we slept in a little longer, and just hung around the mall for a few hours before my train went home at 2 this afternoon. I did a lot more shopping today, I have to buy all new clothes since I have lost so much weight, it is actually so annoying. Made it to the train 3 mins before it left (close time or what?) and arrived home to lots of rain around 5:30. It’s mother’s day in Sweden today so we had a really big dinner and dessert with my farmor (father’s mother) and host mom. It was super cozy.
(Click on the pictures to make them bigger, scroll over to see the caption if there is one.)
Back to school tomorrow, we have a three day week this week, and to be honest I really have no clue why, but I am not complaining. Heading back to Norway again on Friday with my host family for two days, should be fun! Studenten (Graduation is next week), off to Stockholm in two weeks with Moa for the One Direction concert, then heading to Mora/Orsa (a little north of Stockholm) with my host family for Midsommar, then down to Malmö/Copenhagen for a few days and then our eurotour starts! Not long now until I will be on my way back to Canada. I have been thinking about it a lot lately, wishing I could just stop time, right here, right now. Everything is so perfect and it is all going to change again much sooner than I would like. But here’s to enjoying my last little bit of time on this wonderful adventure! I will try my best to post after graduation here! It’s a really special event and I can’t wait for you all to see my dress! 🙂
Also sorry if this blog is all over the place and doesn’t really make sense, I’m going on a limited amount of sleep and am off to bed as we speak!
godnatt!
Jessie
Swedish Experiences 