Studenten!

Hej allihopa!

Yesterday was Studenten (graduation) and this whole past week there has been activities leading up to the big day, so I will give you a full update since the last blog post and I hope to leave nothing out since I have been so busy!

I’ll begin with last weekend, as I think I mentioned before, it was a long weekend (I’m not really sure why) but we got last Thursday and Friday off! On Thursday my host family had the kayak premier of the season. It was fantastic weather which resulted in my first sunburn of the season too! We went to Ottsjö with some neighbours and friends, paddled around the lake a bit in the morning, stopped on a beach and made lunch over a fire then paddled the rest of the lake in the afternoon. I forgot how much work it was and my arms definitely were killing me for a few days after, but it was so fun and the view was spectacular as you will soon see!

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Up next my host family took me back to Trondheim in Norway last Friday. We left around half past 8 in the morning, and arrived around lunch! I’m not too sure why we went, but it was a fun little overnight trip, with a lot of fika-ing, a trip to the spa, a beautfiul dinner out, some sight seeing and some shopping. I just love love love being in that country so it was all totally cool with me. The best part of the trip was the giant buffet breakfast at our hotel, literally never seen a hotel brekafast like this, where they literally have anything and everything you could ever want, cutting fresh fruit, making waffles right in front of you. It was SO good, I may or may not have had 4 courses hahahaha! I don’t really have much else to say about that trip other than its scary to think the next time I will be back in Trondheim will be in a month and twenty days catching my flight home to Canada!

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We came home Saturday evening around 9 and I just took it easy for the rest of the night. On Sunday morning Moa came out to my house for a visit, the weather forecast didn’t look too promising so I had no idea what we were going to do, but it ended up being SO hot, so I took her on a trail hike to Albin’s house. There is a really nice trail from my place to his, and I enjoy going on it with the dog or for a run, and then I can visit him at the same time, so I figured why not take Moa. We chilled at Albin’s for a little while then kept hiking with him (this is usually what I do on some evenings). We then walked all the way back home and Moa got so sunburnt I felt really bad for her. Then there was not much time for me to get ready for the first studtenten fest of the week. This was a party organized by some graduating students at a local restuarant and the theme was to dress as something that began as the first letter of your first name. Do you know how hard it is to dress as something that begins with J?! I ended up being a Jaguar because my host dad had pants for it and I had a shirt so it worked out good, and then on the way we picked up Albin who was dressed as an agent. After the dinner we ended up going to an apartment dance party followed by everyone hanging out in a park, all in all a great start to a great week!

On Monday we went to our very last english lesson, for me this was super sad because english was my favourite lesson, not because it’s my native language but it was like the only class that ALL of my friends were in together! Then on Monday night we had a 50’s themed party at the school, with a really good dinner, ice cream cake for dessert and then a 50’s dance. I forgot to bring my camera here but one of the teacher’s took pictures, I hope I can find them somewhere because it was a lot of fun!

On Tuesday night one of my classmates Felix decided we should have one final class barbecue together before we took studenten! Again awesome weather so I thought it would be fine without a jacket and just a tshirt but I was wrong the temperature dropped a lot at night so I ended up going home early because I was freezing. But yeah we sat outside and grilled hotdogs and played soccer and everyone signed my flag. A fun night to say goodbye to amazing people who have helped make this year so much fun! I will miss each and every one of you!

Wednesday was my first day that I had nothing really to do, went and wrote my last Swedish test and then just prepared for Studenten which was yesterday! I also took a quick trip into the city to fix my white dress so it wouldn’t be see through haha! Then I also helped my host mom prepare some of the food for my party that night, nothing too exciting but it was my first night at home in soo long and it felt really nice because I had been so exhausted!

THE BIG DAY: STUDENTEN 2014

Before I fully realised it I awoke at 5:30 am bright eyed and bushy tailed (not really, but I can pretend) after a not so good sleep (2 hours tops, I was a little stressed) and began to prepare for the big day! I met all of my classmates at the kommunparken at 8:00 for a champagne breakfast, followed by breakfast and a mingle at the school at 9:00 with our teachers. Just before 10:00 we headed up to the Arena where the ceremony would take place. The cermony included two of my extremely talented classmates singing, some award giving and then every student is presented with a rose around their neck, their name is called as well as where they come from. It honestly felt so good to hear my name and then “Canada” followed briefly after. I really don’t think I was deserving enough to take studenten because I definitely didn’t work as hard as anyone else for it, but still the opportunity was amazing. I remember in the autumn when I started school and my friends told me about studenten and I thought it was really lame and a waste of money and I didn’t want to do it, but they pushed me to and I am so glad and thankful for that, it was one of the best days of my life! In Sweden everyone specially orders their own white hat that you can design yourself, it is an old old tradition to have these hats and I thought they would look so ugly, but when everyone is wearing them they are really cool! The girls all have white dresses, and the boys a suit. After we finished the ceremony, the students went back inside the school and the parents, friends and family gathered outside where we would be greeted after we “ran out”. This was so much fun to see everyone so excited as we ran out of school for the very last time, and then to be cheered on by everyone who has helped you get to where you are today. The tradition is that your family holds up a big sign that says your name, your class, the date of your graduation and includes a picture from when you were a baby. And then you are given roses, stuffed animals, champagne, all sorts of things around your neck from your friends and family. After this I took some pictures with my friends and then saw that my host dad would be driving me home in his old volvo from the 1960’s super cool! Once home I had about 20 minutes to catch my breath a little before all of the guests started to arrive for my party, all of my host families, some rotarians, friends, neighbours all came and I was truly overwhelmed. People who I had never met just one year ago, who care so much for me now. I was absolutely speechless, and I received so many nice gifts, that I am so very thankful for! My party included a buffet, a bbq, followed by coffee and cake and some picture taking with Moa! I think it wrapped up around 4 ish and then I went over to Julia’s party for a little while. Then I had to come back home, change out of my dress and get ready to go to Östersund for the evening to party! Everyone and I mean everyone from my school doesn’t matter which grade took the train around 7:30 into the city, it was crazy like a party train with like more than one hundred students partying on it! Once in the city we went and chilled in a park for a while, walked around a bit, waiting for the huge one to start at the city hall. They block off the whole street infront of the city hall so the students can party there! Apparently Östersund is the only place in Sweden that does this so it was super cool. Over 2000 students I heard were there to party which I totally believe, it was insane and then there is also a live concert at the same time! I don’t even know how to begin explaining it other than it was probably the best night of my entire life! I am so mad because I forgot my camera at home but I got some not so good photos on my phone. I “slept” at my host mom’s goddaughter’s house Linnea but I didn’t really sleep like maybe one or two hours or something even though I was completely dead tired, but I knew I had to be up to catch the train home at 07:30. I was home one hour later, showered, tried to sleep another hour or so before I caught the bus into Järpen as today is Sweden’s national day. I am staying with my first host family this weekend as my current host family is out of town, and they were performing a horse knights/amasons show today so I went to that. It was really fun and cool to see even though I could barely keep my eyes open. We came back to their house around 5 and then they went out for dinner but there was no way I could go, I like died on their sofa and just woke up about an hour or so ago.

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Ceremony

Ida, Tove and I

My amazing host parents!

Henning!

Ida, Henning and I!

Emma!

Albin, and look its actually a real smile!

Julia!

Tove!

Sofia, I and Tove!

Evelina!

Sofia!

Markus!

Party selfies!

I will wrap this up here for now, I am free from school now and time is flying WAY TOO FAST! Right now I don’t ever want to leave Sweden, but I will be back super soon I hope! I don’t know what I will do this coming week, just chill a bit, and then I am off to Stockholm on Friday to see One Direction with Moa! I also have decided in this past week to take another year off.. It wasn’t an easy decision but I still don’t realllly know what I want to do or where I want to go or be, I mean ultimately I would love to move back to Sweden, so we’ll see. For now I put university on hold for another year, after all I still am only 17! It will be nice to work a bit and save some money and then maybe I can return to Sweden for a visit and some skiing after Christmas or something!

I hope you enjoyed, but I am completely exhausted beyone belief, so I am off to bed!

xo Jessie!

Slutet av maj, snart juni!

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.

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last night living in Järpen 😦

new apartment!

view from my front windows!

my host dad is actually the sweetest..

DREAM WALK IN CLOSET

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!

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I know a Canadian flag when I see one, especially in Norway!

a little spray paint art

love this city so much!

summertime = tons of boats!

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.

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the sunset though >>

Sundsvall and the sea!

Old Church in the city

main square

harbour front

beach on the island!

Jessie goes to Ikea for the first time 2014

I love Swedish meatballs

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

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.

ahhhh heaven

Me, Alma, and my first Host Mom Maria!

trying hard to be cool hahaha

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

Spring in the valley, winter on the top!

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

Åre Ski Camp

Hello!

This past week, my Rotary club here in Åre has hosted a ski camp that every exchange student in Sweden was invited to attend. There were 34 exchange students in total coming from literally every corner of the world. Canada, US, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, South Korea, Japan, Italy, India, France, New Zealand and Australia were all represented at the camp. It was actually really neat because I haven’t met a lot of these exchange students before as we all live in different areas of Sweden.

Anyways, I will begin with an update of before the camp began. One of my exchange friends Sabrina (from Chicago, living in the Swedish Lappland) came here two Wednesday’s ago to spend a few days with me before the camp began on Sunday. I have only met her before at our language class but we talk on a daily basis, and well that is just the magic of exchange students. She arrived around midnight on Wednesday night, then on Thursday I brought her to my school where we met Moa and had a fika, and then ate lunch. Thursday afternoon we took the bus to Åre so I could show her around, and she could snap some pictures. One of her assignments for school while she was on this trip was to take some self portraits, so I got to be the volunteer. We then went to the pool and sauna world at Holiday Club for some relaxation followed by a dinner out at a popular restaurant called “Broken”. Let’s just say this dinner was extremely interesting, I have not laughed so hard in my life as an extremely intoxicated 50 year old man from Stockholm willingly paid for our dinner because he knew we were “poor” exchange students, good times.

(Scroll over the pictures in the collage to see the caption if one, and click them to enlarge them.)

On Friday I brought Sabrina to my English class because my English teacher thought it would be a fantastic idea. This was the most boring English lesson I have ever been to as the teacher pointed out every little error the class made on the previous assignment. Simple stuff such as one wife, two wives (not two wifes). Oh well, she got to meet some of my friends atleast anyways. Friday night we had plans to go night skiing with Albin, but none of us had checked the website to make sure it was open (it was closed) so we ended up just hanging out in Åre for a few hours and got a few runs in by taking a train part way up the mountain and then skiing in the pitch black, yolo.

the clouds in the sky at night, thought it looked cool

Sabrina!

three amigos

finally got a smile from the swede!

train rides are fun

On Saturday we decided to get an actual skiing day in. The weather started off pretty good in the morning, clear and sun, then after lunch we met Albin and it turned to a wind storm followed by a blizzard. To the point where only one sit lift was open, it was fine for me because it still gave us access to about 7 slopes. Saturday was a FULL day of skiing, but it was fun and thumbs up to Albin for being a trooper and putting up with us for two days in a row!

🙂

home is where the heart is

it’s not just a hobby, it’s a passion, a way of life

On Sunday the camp began! My host dad drove Sabrina and I to the hotel in Hålland in the morning, but not after getting stuck in the driveway first because might I mention that winter has finally returned to Jämtland! It has been snowing here all week and it feels great! We required a tow, but it was all good. We were greeted by mostly all of the other exchange students who arrived quite early on the night trains. Sunday was just a get to know you kind of day, including some pin trading and sauna-ing. Sunday night, me and 4 other girls went and did some sliding in the dark, always a fun time.

Monday was our first actual day on the slopes, we got lessons from 10-12, I was in the advanced group, and I can’t say I learned a whole lot but it was still fun testing out the new powder. After lunch we were free to do whatever we wanted. So I took Sabrina and 5 Australian beginners to the Max fast food restaurant you can ski right up to. Might have been a mistake as the slopes were obviously to hard for the beginners, but they insisted so it took a lot longer than it usually takes me but everyone made it there un-injured and it was fun to be the teacher and tour guide for once. Might I mention that I skied my first black slope successfully on Monday. If you don’t know, black is the highest level known as expert or extreme, so I was a pretty happy girl!

On Tuesday we also had lessons in the morning, where we got some awesome off piste action in (off piste = not on the slopes, rather in the forest). Then on Tuesday afternoon we again had free time. Sabrina, Taine (Australia), and Natalie (Australia) did some exploring and I took them all around the whole mountain, it was extremely fun!

Wednesday we had no lessons at all, just free skiing for the whole day! It was so nice, although the weather was not very nice. I went to the high zone (top) with about 5 other exchange students and with the wind-chill factor it felt like -35, something I should be used to because I am Canadian, but it came as a bit of a shock! After lunch on Wednesday I had plans to meet up with Albin until he texted me informing me had crashed into a tree stump and landed on his arm and was on his way to the hospital. Unfortunately he has broken his arm in 4-5 places, will require surgery and is most likely out for the rest of the season. It was a little sad getting that news, because it was fun to ski with him and I basically learnt how to ski from him! Krya på dig, Albin!

Thursday was the last day on the slopes as everyone would be leaving that evening, and everyone was extremely tired so we just took it easy, and had some fun! We didn’t ski so much, but took some fun pictures and hung out in the lodge where it was warm.

Another event of mention, was the Rotary dinner on Wednesday night. Some of the members from my club came to our hotel to have dinner with us, and we got to give presentations on our countries. There was only me and other girl from Canada (Vancouver) but she knew a really good song we could sing, and lets just say we basically owned the stage. It was also really fun to get dressed up and wear our blazers, as well as of course some picture taking because we are exchange students after all.

After some emotional goodbyes on Thursday night (do they ever get any easier?) I came home with just enough time to drop my stuff and change out of my ski clothes before my first host dad Mikael picked me up to bring me to Östersund where we would meet Maria, Moa and Alma to go see Kajsa’s senior year musical production of “Fame”. The show itself was really good, however it was in Swedish so I was constantly trying to translate everything for two hours which was extremely difficult as I was already sleep deprived from the ski week. But it was still a lot of fun, I didn’t get home until after midnight, and slept right through my first class on Friday. I managed to make it to my English class where the teacher told us we would be writing an essay in class, and I almost died from exhaustion, but whatever, it’s not like I’m getting grades or anything.

Yesterday my next host mom Suzan picked me up in the morning to go skiing again as the weather was perfect. We got some good runs in before deciding to head to the top for some wicked off piste. All was good until we decided to go through this slope on the back side of one of the mountains which was clearly marked closed. I didn’t understand why it said that, it looked to be in good condition, until we got to this cliff/ridge that was completely black ice covered, NO snow what so ever. So being the clumsy Jessie I am, I slid all the way down the ice on my face with my skis digging into my legs. Some good bruises came from that I must say, but the view at the top was so good I just couldn’t resist.

Today my current host dad (also Micael) brought me and my 4 year old host brother Leo to Sweden’s largest water fall called Tännforsen. I have been there in the summer, but not in the winter, so it was like a totally different experience. They also construct an igloo there in the winter which was so pretty, some people sleep there and you can also get married in it too! The view was astounding, the nature here gets me every single time.

Anyways, that has been quite a busy and eventful week and a half, but I have made so many memories and met so many wonderful people that I will never forget! It is back to school tomorrow for the next week, and then on next Sunday I am off to Kiruna (the very north of Sweden, in the Swedish Lappland/Arctic Circle) for another week with exchange students, I am looking forward to it even if it means 20 hours on a night train by myself! Could be an adventure 🙂

xx

Jessie

Sportlov!

Hallå!

This past week we have had our “sportlov” or spring break as known to all of you English speaking people. But I guess I can give a little update of before the break too. So last week I got sick for the very first time throughout my exchange year. No surprise though, I most definitely seen it coming as everyone at school was sick, and my host family was also sick. Not like the flu or anything, but a really bad cold. The worst for me was a sore throat, so at the beginning of the week last week I was only attending a few classes and trying to catch up on rest. All good now though, feeling much better and re-energized!

Last Wednesday I hit the slopes with the sweetest Finnish girl ever, as she moved back home to Finland on Friday. Although we just got to know one another, I am thankful I got to meet her and we spent some good days in the slopes. We had a really nice lunch, and saying goodbye to her on Friday was a lot harder than I imagined. I am sure I will see you in Helsinki someday Marianna!

Exchange is all about firsts, so on last Friday I got to try night skiing for the first time! I met Albin in Åre around 6 and we skied straight through until 8. I had no Idea what to expect, and since they hadn’t prepared the slopes to the best they possibly could it was quite difficult. But I only fell once, and it was really fun! The lighting was super cool, as some of the slopes have bright white lights, which makes it brighter than skiing in daylight, and then there is one slope that is flood-lit with blue lights and that is so pretty! After skiing we hungout in Åre for an hour or so until the bus came to take us home. If you ask me this was the perfect way to start the sport vacation, and I really hope to go out night skiing again before the season ends!

On Saturday I went over to Kajsa’s house to make the popular sweet treat for this time of the year, Semla! I don’t even know how to begin to explain what it is other than the most delicious thing ever. First you begin by making Cardamom buns, and then you scoop the bread out from the middle and traditionally fill it with an almond paste (we got creative and made a raspberry filling too) then you top it off with whipped cream and some icing sugar. They have a “Semla (or Semlor = plural)” day in Sweden which was this past Tuesday known as Fettisdag, so we were just in time to make them! They tasted so good, and I can’t wait to try and make them back in Canada to share with my friends and family! 🙂

On Sunday, my Australian friend Daniel who is living in Östersund came to go skiing with me! In Sweden the spring breaks are divided depending on where you live in the country, so some of my friends living in the very south of Sweden had their vacation at the beginning of February. Us living in the middle/north part of Sweden are the last ones to get vacation, during the first week of March. Although I got a little impatient waiting for the break, I am so glad we had ours when we did because we seriously got the best weather ever, and the sun is finally back so that is also super great!

Daniel and I skied around the whole mountain practically on Sunday, and for the first time ever I went to the high-zone (very top) and skied all the way down! For those of you who don’t know, the mountain is just under 5000 feet high! It was a great accomplishment and I am so happy I know I can do it now, because honestly the best skiing in the world is up there! I also skied a little with Daniel on Monday, but he was mostly with his friends from school. That was cool with me as we met for a late lunch, and I had the opportunity to snap a lot of pictures as the weather was fantastic (even better than Sunday)!

(Scroll over the pictures in the collage to see the caption if one, and click them to enlarge them.)

Not the top of the mountain obviously, but I thought it looked nice 🙂

Good weather on Sunday!

First time in the high-zone!

Fantastic weather on Monday!

On Tuesday, I was supposed to go skiing with Moa, but she wasn’t feeling strong enough to go out. I didn’t find out that she wouldn’t be able to join me until I was already on my way to the bus with all of my gear so I decided I would go anyways, and just ski for a few hours until lunch and then come home for the afternoon. After skiing alone for an hour or so, I randomly found Albin and his sister Alice at one of the lifts and they invited me to join them. We went up into the high-zone again and to the very top where we did some really awesome off piste skiing. The weather was so good again, and I was extremely angry at myself for forgetting my camera that day, oh well. We ended up skiing until 2:30 in the afternoon when we came home on the bus. I am really glad I was able to meet up with them and didn’t have to spend the whole time going alone! Thanks again Albin and Alice 🙂

On Wednesday I decided to take a little break from skiing and go to Östersund for the day to do some shopping. I really needed new jeans and shoes, so of course I got those, and then a new jacket and a new shirt. This made for a happy Jessie! I met Moa and my first host mom Maria in the afternoon and then Maria was kind enough to drive me home. No more shopping for a little while now is what I keep telling myself, lets see how long I can go.

Thursday was Moa’s 17th birthday! Now we are the same age, but not for long! 🙂 So we HAD to go skiing, and again great weather, we were skiing in +11! So crazy, who would have ever thought. Although, this warm weather is really taking a toll on the slopes. All of the lawns here are green grass, and the snow is becoming really thin on the slopes. There are some bare patches, and usually around lunch time the snow turns to slush. Deep, deep slush. On some days throughout the week we were plowing our skis through a meter of slush, makes for a good leg workout to say the least. Anyways, Moa and I decided to go skiing early because we knew we would get the best conditions then. I treated her to lunch at the very top of the mountain, and then we went on some crazy fun off-piste adventures where I didn’t see a huge jump in front of me and before I realized I was about 2 meters in the air screaming because I knew I couldn’t land it, but some how, miraculously, I landed it, injury free too! So that was super exciting! The snow conditions are so good at the top we didn’t want to come down. We finished skiing around 2 and then caught some of the FIS Women’s World Alpine cup that was hosted in Åre this past week. All I can say is wow, they are crazy fast, and really, really good skiers.

(Scroll over the pictures in the collage to see the caption if one, and click them to enlarge them.)

Back country/off-piste makes for some crazy fun adventures

On top of the world!

Mot Åreskutans topp!

You can see all the way to Norway 🙂

My crazy host sister, the birthday girl!

On Friday I was seriously contemplating going out skiing again, but I am really glad I didn’t as it poured rain. Yup, that’s right, RAIN. But the snow came Friday night, I will take any little bit of snow and cold weather I can get right now. I sense the true inner Canadian coming out in me. I must be having cold winter withdrawls or something. So instead I went to my Rotary lunch meeting, and then wandered through some of the shops in Åre. I finally found the Åre hoodie I want to buy, it was hard because I am fussy! I then went home in the afternoon, got some much needed laundry done and a good clean of my bedroom!

Yesterday I had planned to go skiing, until I woke up in the morning and it was storming. Wet and heavy snow along with crazy winds. I checked the weather and lifts and only 20 out of 43 lifts were open, and of course it was all of the small lifts in the children’s parks. So it was no point in me going at all. Instead I went to Holiday Club with my new host dad Micael and his son Leo who is 4. The host mom Sunee works there, aka I can now go whenever I want. For the first time, I went to the sauna world. Let’s just say OMG it is so nice! There are a total of 8 or 9 (?) saunas, the warmest one being +85 C and the coldest one being -18 C (ice sauna, literally). We spent a few hours there swimming and such, and I also went swimming in an outdoor pool while it was snowing for the first time in my life. I guess there really is firsts for everything. Saturday night I let my creativeness flow and made a Hallon Kladdkaka (raspberry chocolate sticky cake) from scratch. It turned out a lot better than I had anticipated, also bonus points go to me since the recipe was in Swedish too! After this we watched the Melodifestivalen finale, this is a song competition for Sweden to see which Swedish song will continue on to the Eurovision Song Contest (previous winners include ABBA!) Of course the one I was hoping for didn’t win, but it was my second choice that did, so I was pretty happy!

Today I forced myself to go out skiing! It was the last day of vacation, and there was no way I was going to sit inside and do nothing. So off I went at 10 this morning. The slopes were in so-so condition, they would be a lot better if it weren’t so warm! +7 C and raining while I was out today, I never thought I would experience such warm weather in March. I just took it easy today though, that’s the best part of being by yourself. You can go at your own pace, and to the places you want to go to. Although it is really nice to have company. Tonight I am catching up on some reading for my 8:30 English class tomorrow morning. Back to school it is, atleast for a few days. My friend Sabrina (from Chicago, living in the Swedish Lappland) is coming on Wednesday and then we will go to the Rotary Ski Camp here which begins on Sunday! Approximately 35 other exchange students will be travelling here for the ski camp, some are experienced skiers, some are beginners. It begins next Sunday and runs until the Thursday after, I am really looking forward to it!

xx

Jessie

Snart Mars!

Hej Allihopa!

In one week it will be March (Wow, that happened fast) and it is now into the best part of the ski season. Literally, I have not done anything of high importance at all in February other than go out skiing. But that is totally cool, and I am really happy with that! So far this season I have been a out a total of 17 times and the weather and snow conditions keep on improving along with my skiing abilities so that is also awesome! I am now able to ski all of the red slopes, (For those of you who don’t know green = very easy, blue = easy, red = intermediate, black = expert). My goal for the end of the season is to at least try the black slopes, even just once.

Two weeks or so ago, my Swedish for Immigrants class as well as the individual studies class from my school spent a day skiing in the village of Duved which is about 9 km west of Åre. It was a really nice day and that was the first time I had only skied red slopes the whole time, needless to say my legs and knees were paying for it greatly the next day. It was all fun though, especially since many of the immigrants come from Africa and the Middle East and have never skied before or let alone even seen snow. So it was nice to be able to teach some of them a few things.

Last Wednesday Albin invited me to go skiing with him. Hesitantly I agreed, because the last time I went with him I almost nearly died. I had no idea that Oliver, Henrik, and Emil would also be skiing so I was really nervous because they are all so good, and then there is me. I am not at all as fast as them so they always had to wait for me, but then again this was the hardest ski I have yet to do. We skied for 4 hours non-stop, no breaks or anything and covered literally the whole mountain. It was a lot of fun though, until they gave me the wrong directions and I took a little detour. All good, and I am glad Albin invited me, it was great to see so much improvement, and I hope I can ski some more with him. 🙂

This past week one of my friends Tanner from the US who is living south of Stockholm has had his winter vacation. Up here we get our vacation in 2 weeks, but anyways, Tanners host family has friends who own a cottage in Duved. So last Sunday, I went to Duved to ski with them. I thought when Tanner told me he had never skied before that he was lying, but he was actually correct. So I spent a lot of time with him on the children’s slopes, trying to teach him the basic technique (although I am a horrible teacher). Tanner’s host dad Johan then took me skiing to another resort called Tegefjäll where they have just built a brand new lift this season. It was awesome skiing there, although it was like snowing/raining so hard that my goggles were at least 5cm thick of ice and I couldn’t see anything.

On this past Tuesday Daniel (who is from Australia, now living in Östersund) came and met me in Järpen and then we went out to Tanner’s host families cottage for dinner and to spend the night. Tanner seriously has the sweetest host family ever, the mom Christina, the dad Johan, and one son Markus. Their other son Lucas is on exchange in Canada right now. They made delicious tacos for dinner, and then some Italian mousse thing with berries for dessert! It was Daniels first time in Åre too so it was awesome for me to finally be able to show off this amazing little ski resort I am living in! On Wednesday I had no classes, so I was able to follow Tanner and Daniel skiing in Åre! We left Tanner at Rödkullen where he could ski the easier slopes, and since Daniel has been skiing a lot in Australia/New Zealand I was able to take him skiing all over Åre. I am becoming really proud of my navigation skills and I almost know the whole way around the mountain! This time was also the first time I had done some serious off piste skiing (off the slopes, into the forest). All I can say is I am not really a fan, the snow is of course much softer, but it is so hard to look out for all of the trees and to find your way without getting lost. Either way, still a great experience. I have also been doing some Skiing with my next host mom Suzan, one day with another exchange student Marianna from Finland, and a few times alone too!

Here are some pictures from skiing throughout February:

Daniel, Tanner and I!

Looking down from World Cup Liften

Daniel, Tanner and I in front of Åre Bageri

Marianna from Finland!

That view though >>

En riktigt bra dag i Duved!

Hummeln

freshly resurfaced slopes!

Sadeln

Aside from skiing (I’m sure you probably think that is all I do) I have moved host families! Last Saturday I moved from family Sundman/Kjellström to family Olsson! I’m not going to lie, this might just be one of the hardest parts of exchange. I had been with that family since I first arrived in Sweden, and I had grown so close to them. They gave me so many wonderful experiences and I learnt so much from them, there is no way I will ever be able to thank them enough! Maria, Mikael, Moa and Alma; you are always welcome to visit in Canada! With that being said, I only moved a few blocks away, and I am quite happy where I am now. The dad (also name Micael) and the Mom Sunee met on the internet which I think is pretty cool! Sunee has immigrated here from Thailand and they have the cutest Swed-Thai little boy named Leo. Needless to say, I have been trying A LOT of Thai food, and hearing the crazy Thai language everyday is something that will take just a little getting used to. They live about the same distance to school which is really convenient, and the house is yellow and cozy.

Here are some pictures from the move and my new room, however I don’t have any of the outside or the rest of the house yet.

There is nothing else that comes to mind right now to give an update one, but I have been following the Olympics for the past 3 weeks like any true Canadian would! I am so proud to be Canadian, and it is an even better feeling cheering on your country from abroad. I am most definitely looking forward to the gold medal men’s hockey game between Sweden and Canada on Sunday! However if Canada loses, I’m sure I will never hear the end of it haha! To all of you back home, enjoy the massive pile of snow you are receiving right now, I am so incredibly jealous!

Lastly, I will leave you with these two pictures, a sunrise and a sunset captured this month:

xox

Jessie

Januari

Hej hej!

So it has been three weeks exactly since I last updated you. I apologize it has taken so long, I mean its not like I have been crazy busy or travelling a lot, but I just have not felt like sitting down at the computer to write a blog post. But here we go, I will give a quick update on the month of January.

School has begun again, and we are now well on our way into the second term, which means my exchange year in Sweden has also approached the halfway point. The emotions are crazy, I have had a spectacular first half of my year, yet the best is still to come, and I seriously cannot wait! It also means that in two weeks I will have to say hej då to this wonderful host family who has been there supporting me from the beginning. I can’t even begin to imagine how tough it will be, they have given me so much knowledge, and so many experiences and I will never be able to thank them enough. BUT the good news is, I will only be moving a few blocks away so weekend visits and dinners will be happening a lot I hope! 🙂 After all, Moa and Alma are just like my real sisters now!

I can’t say that I have done anything too important in January. We have had some cold weather (around -20, so nothing really compared to NWO) but I still have managed to get out skiing 8 times this month, so that is really exciting! I am improving a lot with each time that I go, and the best few months are still to come, so I am definitely looking forward to going even more now!

Other than skiing a lot, some other events of importance would be going to Östersund a week ago to meet my Australian newbie who arrived on the 19th (?) of January, to a cold snowy Sweden, coming from +45 weather, imagine the shock he got. He is the closest exchange student to me, only one hour away, so I hope we will get to meet quite often. He is keen to ski, so I think I can fix that for him! I was able to introduce him to Swedish fika, and got him hooked on my favourite prinsesstårta!

Last weekend, my host parents also took us to holiday club, for a day of fun at the pool. It was great since I had been out skiing the day before, so some time in the hot tub was perfect. Of course some time in the outdoor pool watching the sun set into the mountains was also fabulous, and some time playing with my favourite little Swedish girl Alma 🙂

This past Thursday, my Rotary club had a fancy dinner to welcome the new members to the club, one of which is my host mother Maria! The dinner was at a new restaurant in Åre called “Huset” (The House). It was so cute, and had really good food, and the best part was that Moa got to come along so I had some company for the night!

Of course at the beginning of the month, Moa and I also took a trip to Trondheim, Norway but I have already told you about that in the previous post! Coming up in February, I still don’t have anything really “planned” as I will be moving, but I hope to ski every weekend. I had intended on skiing today with Albin, but some last minute plan changes in the morning made for a cozy day at home by the fire instead. Tomorrow though, I am forcing myself to go out!

In March is when the fun begins! So much to look forward to, the Ski camp here for all of the Exchange Students, a trip to Kiruna in the north of Sweden (Arctic Circle); with a visit to the Ice Hotel, A trip back to Trondheim in May, hopefully a trip to Umeå, Midsommar, the One Direction concert in Stockholm with Moa, Swedish Graduation, and of course Eurotour.  I can only imagine how much the time is going to fly now, and before I know it I will be on my way home to Canada. So for now, I really need to make the most of it, and expect updates to be a little less frequent.

Anyways, tonight I am off to a café with Moa!

Hej då,

xo Jessie

Nytt år, Nya upplevelser

Gott Nytt År Allihopa! Happy New Years Everyone!

I hope that you have all had an enjoyable start to 2014, I know that I have, and I have been really busy over the rest of the Christmas Break, so I definitely do have quite a lot to update you on.

I guess I can start where I last left off,  on boxing day I went out skiing with Ida, the weather was great, but the best part was that I finally had found my wallet and not one thing was missing or stolen. So needless to say I was quite the happy girl that day 🙂 Here are some photos from skiing that day, they were from my cell phone, so they aren’t really the greatest of quality.

We skiied into the setting sun which was also super nice, that was the third time I had gone out skiing, so I was able to notice some improvements already compared to the first time I had been out.

The 27th and 28th I didn’t really do a whole lot of anything, besides hang around at home, watch some movies, skype with friends and family in Canada and just take it easy. Sunday the 29th of December I spent at the farm with Moa, and some friends Ida and Markus. They both hadn’t been riding in a while, so they got to ride, and I just watched because they have been discussing who was the better rider for the past several years apparently, and there wasn’t enough horses, so considering I can go whenever I wish, I chose to be the “photographer” that day haha. On the 30th, I went to Östersund with my host mom Maria for the afternoon as she had an appointment, so I got to spend a few hours just roaming the city and shopping, although it was SO many people in the city that day, the only thing I bought was some earrings because I wasn’t really willing to fight the crowds to shop for clothes which I don’t really need anyways.

I borrowed this pic from Moa’s blog 🙂

one happy rider 🙂

got to borrow Moa’s camera and captured this one 🙂

For New Year’s, I decided that I would get the best Swedish Experience by ringing in the New Year with my host family. My host parents had a small gathering with some of their friends, and we had a barbecue which was a first for me on New Years because it usually is way too cold for anyone in Canada to want to stand outside and barbecue on New Year’s! But this was so nice, and then we had a chocolate raspberry cake for dessert. Moa and I played some cards and she took some pictures for me to help pass the time, and then finally the New Year’s Celebrations came! We had the typical fireworks, but we also lit paper lanterns to send up into the sky. This was a first for me and after almost lighting my hand on fire the first time, I really enjoyed it. I don’t really now how to better describe new years other than it was awesome, and a lot better than last year haha! Maybe someday I will celebrate new years in Sweden again, who knows.

Alma has to be the cutest 🙂

so silly!

fireworks!

ringing in the new year 🙂

On New Years day we all slept really late in the afternoon. It was so nice, and then just took it easy by the fire and watching TV. After a few days of taking it slow, I hit the slopes again this past Saturday January 4th. This time I went with a Rotarian Suzan, and a classmate Julia. We went skiing in Björnen which is a bit east from Åre. After skiing some of the easy runs, and taking a break for fika, we skiied all the way from Björnen into Åre where we had lunch at a really nice hotel called Tott. It definitely wasn’t easy children’s slopes the whole way there and I was skiing on some more advanced slopes, with quite a bit of ice and only managed to fall once which made me feel a lot more confident in my skiing. After lunch we skied all the way back to Björnen where the car was parked, we skied right until they stopped the slopes, so I guess you could say it really was a full say of skiing haha! The day after Sunday, I really wanted to go out skiing again, but no one else could come, so I decided to try going alone for the first time. It is so great to be able to feel yourself improving after each time you go, and skiing alone was cool because you can just take it at your own pace and go to the slopes you want to go to. But at the same time, it is not really fun to have any company especially when you take some breaks. But I spent a solid 4 hours out on the slopes on Sunday, which made for one extremely tired Jessie after skiing for two days in a row.

warming up by the fire with a fika 🙂

I really do live in the best place ever 🙂

Despite being extremely tired and sore, that never stopped me and Moa from taking a day trip to Trondheim, Norway yesterday. For those of you who don’t know, Trondheim is the third largest Norwegian city with a population of just under 200,000. It is located on the Trondheim Fjord and Norwegian sea. We took the train at 8:25 in the morning at arrived in Trondheim around 11:05. We spent the day being tourists, checking out cute Norwegian boys, shopping, eating, sight seeing, and FINALLY after 5 MONTHS I was able to go to STARBUCKS and although one frappuccino costed nearly 12 dollars Canadian, it was honestly the best part of the whole trip, I swear. We caught the train home at 4:50 in the afternoon and were back at home in Järpen around 7:40. It was such a nice day, and always fun to be in Norway because it is so beautiful there, I hope we can do it more often!

FINALLY!!

old church from medieval times

I felt so small standing beside it

being a tourist 🙂

Today I spent the day sleeping in for the last time as school will begin again for us tomorrow, and then doing some laundry, talking to some friends back home, and just relaxing before the freedom ends!

I hope that you all enjoyed your Christmas and New Years, and I wish you all the best in 2014! 🙂

xo, Jessie

Juletid i Sverige

Christmas time! It’s supposed to be the greatest time of the year isn’t it? Well maybe not if you are an exchange student living on the other side of the world, leaving all of the traditions you once knew behind, and learning new traditions, in a new language, with a new family; I don’t think it sounds so appealing to others. Last week I think I hit the “rock bottom” stage of my exchange. It felt (and still kind of feels) like everything was going wrong, and it was just one thing after another, that led me to finally breakdown. I’m not going to go into everything that was problematic on here, but lets just say for one my little sister in Canada got sick with Mono, and another was that I lost some cards from my wallet including the most important, my Canadian Visa Card (now I am currently money-less) and my Swedish I.D. card which says I am allowed to live in the country for this year. I know they don’t seem so bad, but there was lots more, trust me. At the same time it also finally hit me around last Thursday that Christmas was going to be in a few days and for the first time ever I wouldn’t be at home with my family curled up by the fire watching team Canada in the World Junior Hockey Championships (so Canadian, eh?). I was lucky to have some of my Christmas gifts from home arrive in time (shout-out to my girls Brooke, Hannah, Nora, Brianne and Nicole for literally making my Christmas 10,000 times better!!) however the larger gifts from my family still haven’t arrived. Everything just seemed so out of place and wrong, but my lovely mom kept on assuring me that it would all be alright, and it was just a bump in the road and once I got through it everything would be better, so I’m definitely crossing my fingers on that one.

But enough on that, let’s get to what I have been doing over the Christmas holidays up until this point. On the Friday before school ended some of my friends and I decided that going to school for just one class wasn’t so important so we took a 7 am bus up to Åre to go skiing for the first time this season. I was with Albin, Oliver, Henrik and Andreas all of which are VERY good skiiers. And then there is me.. I mean I am slowly improving I guess haha. I needed to get a photo on my ski pass, so Oliver, Henrik and Andreas went ahead of me, and then I found Albin and we took the lift to the very top of the mountain, and he decided to take me on one of the freaking hardest slopes that was completely ice-covered even though I can’t remember the last time I was out skiing, maybe 5 years or so ago? Albin told me “Oh just go, it will be okay” so I did just that. It was so steep, and I got so much speed and couldn’t stop due to the ice, so the first time I crashed into some tress, pretty painless. The second go, I had the option to crash into the snow groomer, or some rocks, so I opted for the rocks, a little more painful. The third crash was horrible, I crashed into snow cannon where the artificial snow comes from, and my poor arm got slammed right into it. It hurt so freaking much and the whole time Albin just laughed at me!

This is what my arm looked like on the second day after, now it looks even worse, and is basically completely green. SO grosse. So after that little mishap Albin decided we should get off of the main slope that we were on because there were so many people. So we took some transfer slopes to help us get down. They were a little bit better because there was almost no other people, and we were able to just go at the pace we wished, and it was also easier for him to teach me. After going through some tunnels, we ended up at some slopes that hadn’t been opened for the season yet, but Albin assured me “it’s really okay, we can use them anyway” so they hadn’t been groomed or anything, and there were plenty of fallen trees from last weeks storm covering the slopes (one of which Albin crashed into, which made me feel not so bad for the numerous crashes I had already had). We were skiing as the sun came up and it was so beautiful and I managed to snap a few photos.

skiing selfies courtesy of Albin 🙂

The first of many transfer slopes

Albin being a “manly man” haha

During the steepest parts Albin told me to take my skis off and walk down so that there would be no more collisions. Good call on his part and he was sweet enough to carry my skis down for me, because trust me walking down the mountain while wearing ski boots is no easy task at all. From top to bottom it took us about 2 hours, mostly because I sucked, but also because we got completely off the main slope, and stopped a lot, just laying in the snow and relaxing. I was not willing to try again after that, and I could barely move my arm so I just waited in the chalet, while Albin skiied a bit with his friends, then we took the bus home. Friday afternoon my friend Stefan from Australia came on the train here to experience his first ever white Christmas. He will stay with my next host family, so I have the option to go between both houses right now. Saturday we went to the house in town, because I needed to do laundry, and then my friend Ida came over and we made homemade pizza and Swedish Pepparkakor (gingerbread). It was fun, and tasted great, and the house is still standing so that was great. Saturday night the three of us had planned to go to Tant Anna’s Cafe along with Moa and another friend Ellen. Once Ellen came over we realized the Cafe was closed. So we had our own little cafe at home, we played cards, and talked, and had some Swedish Glögg (well not me because I hate that stuff). But you get the point, it was a nice cozy evening to spend inside the house. Ellen drove Stefan and I home out to my second host families house that night because she just recently got her license woo! Sunday I decided to try skiing again, but this time at the Children’s area in Rödkullen. I went with Stefan, Ida, Ellen and Moa. After falling the first time I got on the lift, I am extremely proud to say I only crashed twice after that, and my turns are definitely becoming a lot better, just need some more practice on stopping. I think Rödkullen is where I will stay for a little while until I am a bit better haha. However Albin wants to take me skiing in Ullådalen which is also supposed to be easy, so we will see how that goes. Skiing felt a lot better the second day, so we will just take it one day at a time, I hope to get out at least a few more times over the holidays.

3 Swedes, 1 Canadian, and 1 Australian

Älska Åre

long day of skiing!

On Monday I went into Järpen to spend the day with my first host family. We went and bought a Christmas tree that Moa and I carried home and then decorated. I then made knäck and my host mom Maria made leverpastej. We then spent the night relaxing by the fire, and eating Jul Skinka and Leverpastej. It was so cozy and I really enjoyed it. Christmas in Sweden is celebrated on the 24th, so the next morning was technically Christmas, Alma came at 10:00, we opened one gift each in the morning, ate breakfast and then went out on a sleigh ride with the horses. It was great, not cold at all, and was snowing so it looked and felt a lot like Christmas.

After the sleigh ride we went home and open gifts with my first host family, then my host sisters Moa and Alma went to have Christmas with their father’s family, and I came out to have Christmas with my second host family, where I also discovered that my cat allergies are still existent. My eyes will not stop burning, and I can’t breathe through my nose, sweet. Anyways, we had a huge Julbord for dinner, with SO much food, including Swedish Meatballs, Prinskorv, Jul Skinka (ham), Salmon, Potatos, as well as some weird stuff like smoked moose heart and smoked goose heart, both of which I was unwilling to try. There was also much more food but too much for me to explain haha. I was stuffed, and then after dinner we opened up gifts at this house where I got a beautiful necklace (I don’t have picture yet, but soon perhaps). We finished all of that by 10:30 maybe, and then I went outside to just lay in the snow, and watch the stars, but more so to help with my horrible allergies. Today is Christmas day, the big day in Canada, but in Sweden it’s just a day to relax and keep on eating. I hope to go out skiing by the end of the week permitting I find my wallet so that I have money to pay for the bus.

Christmas with my second host family

julmys

That’s all for now,

Merry Christmas Everyone/God Jul Allihopa!

xo Jessie