|
| |
 Michael Natelli
|
 |
2008-09 Outbound to Sweden
Hometown:
Plantation, Florida
School: Sagemont
Upper School, Weston, Florida
Sponsor:
Davie/Cooper City Rotary Club, District 6990, Florida
Host: Uppsala
Linné Rotary Club, District 2350, Sweden
|
|
Bio
|
| July 29 Journal -
"Yesterday I had to finish packing everything I own into two suitcases and
try to force them closed while somehow managing to keep them under 50
pounds." |
|
August 17 Journal - "I gave a
speech to my Rotary club in Swedish, which was terrifying, but they all
liked it and said that my Swedish was amazing considering I had only been
there for four days." |
| August 21 Journal -
"Dinner was nice and during the meal, vi pratade bara svenska (we
spoke only Swedish), which really boosted my confidence level and made me
more confident." |
| November 16 Journal - "I
have eaten something called Surströmming. It has a smell that could kill
animals and small children; it's so bad that you never open it inside the
house, always outside." |
| |
Michael's Bio
|
 Hello
Everyone,
My name is Michael Natelli, I'm 16 years old and I've
lived in Plantation, Florida all my life. I am the vice president of my
sophomore class at the Sagemont Upper School in Weston, which I have
attended for 11 years. I like photography, movies, and hanging out with
friends and I'm the photo/design editor of my school's yearbook. I also have
a part-time job at a Japanese restaurant and I'm really excited to find out
which country I will be assigned to.
As the photo/design editor of the yearbook, I am
responsible for overseeing all pictures in the yearbook and managing design.
Well, that's my official job; in actuality I take almost every single
picture that ends up in the yearbook, newspaper, school website, misc.
publications and anything else that requires pictures. I'm kind of the
"photography slave," but I love every second of it, even though photography
is not my career aspiration. I cover everything from sports (GO LIONS!) to
drama, clubs to the art department to publicity shots for the school; so I
am the unofficial school photographer.
I kind of a linguist; I have a bunch of books of many
different languages, and I love to learn different phrases in different
languages. I take Spanish in school and I've been teaching myself Japanese
for almost 2 years. I've also started to pick up a little Korean from the
(non Rotary) exchange students at my school. I'm extremely multicultural and
I love food from all around the world. (obviously, I work at a Japanese
restaurant, and nothing's better than free sushi!)
Well it seems that I've started rambling so in conclusion,
I would like to thank Rotary for making this possible, and I look forward to
meeting new people and making new friends on the greatest adventure of my
life. |
July 29 Journal
|
|
Hej alla!
The day of my departure has been rapidly approaching and
I'm beginning to feel extremely apprehensive and nervous, but at the same
time excited. Tomorrow I will have to leave the place I have called home for
the past 16 years and depart to a foreign country to which I have never
been.
It always seemed that I would never leave, or that my
departure date was so far away that it would never come, and I always pushed
it to the back of my mind. Yesterday I had to finish packing everything I
own into two suitcases and try to force them closed while somehow managing
to keep them under 50 pounds. There's a funny story behind this: I don't
have a scale in my house, so I had to drive my suitcases to Publix and weigh
them on their scale while all the other shoppers give me strange looks.
Doing this at 10:30 at night probably didn't help either…
Tomorrow I will have to say goodbye to my family and part
with them for a year. It will be a very sad occasion for both them and me,
and it will be very hard to walk away knowing that I won't see them again
for a year; the impact is finally setting in. But it's all good because the
excitement of the year to come overpowers any feelings of sadness, and I
can't wait to leave! I know the feeling that Joanie and Katie are talking
about!
I would just like to thank Rotary for this amazing
opportunity and also to thank Al for putting up with my craziness and not
giving up on me.
Well the journey begins tomorrow and the next time I
write, it will be from Sweden!!
Michael |
August 17 Journal
|
|
Well I've been here for over two weeks, so I guess its about time
to write my first journal from Sweden. It's hard to sum it all up; so many
things have happened, so I have to try my best to summarize. Here we go…
Let's start with the flight. My flight left at 9:25, which
meant, according to Bokoff Kaplan, that I should've been at the airport at
around 6:30, but in reality we arrived a lot later… The lady at the check in
counter was kind enough to overlook the fact that one of my bags was exactly
51.00 pounds and went a whole step further by giving my parents passes that
would allow them past security to say goodbye to me. So after a tough
goodbye I stepped on to the plane and I realized that my adventure had
finally begun. The flight was relatively uneventful and I landed in Detroit
earlier than expected and found myself in the middle of a huge terminal with
no idea of where to go. So I put on my blazer and my "Rotary smile" and
approached a lady at a ticket counter and then found out where my next gate
was. Upon reaching my gate, I met two other girls going to Sweden from
California and South Carolina and so we sat talking and eventually our group
grew larger until there were about 8 of us all heading for Sweden. After the
five hour layover, we boarded the plane to Amsterdam and in about another
seven and a half hours, we were there. We formed a little exchange student
"clump" near the gate of our next flight to Stockholm/Arlanda and waited to
board and then about two and half hours later we landed in Sweden. We went
to the baggage claim and after finally getting all of our luggage, we headed
to the exit to find our host families, or to other connecting flights. I was
met by my host parents and my Rotary counselor and we went to their car to
drive about an hour to their home.
By this time, I had been awake for many, many hours
without any sleep; we had all been talking during the whole flight from
Detroit so by the time I had arrived in Stockholm, I hadn't slept in over 24
hours. So by the time I arrived home, I was about ready to pass out, but my
host parents said that I should try to stay awake for the rest of the day so
I would wake up the next day on Swedish time. So about after an hour they
told me that they were going to IKEA to pick out a desk for my room and
asked me if I wanted to come, and despite barely being able to stay awake, I
decided to go. On the way there I was thinking, "Wow, I've just arrived in
Sweden, and what's the first thing that I do? Go to IKEA!" How wonderfully
stereotypical. (For those of you who don't know, IKEA is a Swedish furniture
store.) I was surprised to find that mostly everything was the same as in
the American stores, even the food at the restaurant was mostly the same. So
after purchasing the desk and dragging it to the car we headed home and I
fought the desire to fall asleep.
Moving ahead, over the next couple of days I traveled into
the city center, which is completely closed off to traffic and only
pedestrians and bikes are allowed. Everybody rides bikes here and most
people are reluctant to take their cars. I've experienced the unique aspect
of Swedish culture; fika, which is kind of like a coffee or tea break
where one gathers with friends and drinks coffee and eats kanelbullar
(cinnamon rolls) while just talking and relaxing. This can be done several
times a day and many people do so. I've been to a cultural festival with a
lot of people selling crafts and various preserves while dressed in
traditional clothing with folk music playing in the background. I've been to
Stockholm twice already, once to pick up my host sister from the train
station and again for just general sightseeing. The most notable sights were
Gamla Stan (the old town) and the Vasa museum which contains a perfectly
preserved (at least for now) ship that sank over 333 years ago in Stockholm
harbor. I've even managed to open a bank account even after they insisted on
a letter from the Swedish Rotary proving that I wasn't lying and that I
really was here on exchange.
I gave a speech to my Rotary club about myself in Swedish,
which was terrifying, but they all liked it and said that my Swedish was
amazing considering I had only been there for four days. (I did have a
little help from my host dad. Ok, maybe a lot of help…) I've baked bread and
eaten pancakes for dinner and drank tap water. That caused some initial
culture shock, because I always drank bottled water at home, but here it
tastes just like bottled water and now I'm hooked. My host family also has
this magical contraption that carbonates the water and they also have a
magic coffee machine that can make a cup of coffee in about ten seconds from
actually coffee beans (not instant).
School starts in a few days and I'll be going to language
camp during the second week so that should be a lot of fun. Well this
journal is starting to get very long, so I think I'll have to end it for
now, so until next time,
|
August 21 Journal
|
|
Today was a very interesting day as it was my first day of
school. I awoke at the horrid hour of 6:45 or qvart i sju and then got ready for
school. After a breakfast of yogurt and cereal (mixed together, because that's
how they eat it here) I left the house at 7:30 or halv åtta and headed for the
bus stop which was about a five minute walk away. I waited for the bus for a
while and paid for my fare with a text message (it's 5 kronor cheaper that way)
and then got on the bus. At the next stop, Anna (from Australia) got on; this
was no coincidence, it was carefully planned, and a few stops later, Iliyas
(from France) got on and then we rode into town where we got off and walked in
the rain for about ten minutes to school. As soon as we arrived Anna started
saying hi to everyone and we felt all sad because we didn't know anyone yet...
but then I saw a bunch of people that I knew and I started saying hej and then I
felt better about myself. ^_^
We all gathered in the Aulan (like an auditorium)
and then they gave a speech about what a great year it will be (of which I
did not understand a single word) and then we headed to our respective
classes. So we all met in a room and they said some words about the upcoming
year and thankfully one of my friends, Viktor, translated for me and then we
got calendars (planners/agendas) and then we left to go to our next class
(even though it was for a while). That's one thing very different about
Swedish schools; there is a lot of free time in between classes. Then one of
my teachers (Stina) pulled me aside and was nice enough to take me to the
office to get my meal card, bus card and locker key. The meal card is to
ensure that non-students or former students or homeless people don't try to
come and get a free meal and you scan it every time you go in, which is
kinda cool. The bus card is for anybody that lives more than 6 kilometers
away from school so they can ride the city bus for free (the city buses here
are sooooooo nice and they're really big and green) twice a day (once to
school and once back) or if you want you can ride the bike to school and
then use the bus card to go into town later... And finally, the locker key;
well it's not that exciting but the lockers here actually have keys instead
of combination locks so that's cool, and the locks say "FINLAND" on them,
which I thought was rather funny.
After this I found my classmates hanging out in the hall
so I stayed with them until my next class: English. It was actually a lot of
fun because the teacher was American and spoke 100% English during the whole
class; not a single word of Swedish. We practiced some tongue twisters, then
we practiced saying Shakespeare-era insults at each other (Thou are an
onion-eyed serpent's egg!) and then we did a group exercise that involved
telling a story, with each group member adding on from the last. Our group's
story mysteriously paralleled the plot of the movie Speed, but that wasn't
my fault, the guy who started the story made it about a bus with a bomb that
explodes if the bus goes under 50...
After English we went to Chemistry and everyone warned me
that the teacher was really mean and nasty, but when I met her, she seemed
very nice, but maybe that's just because I'm an exchange student... Haha I
actually like that she spoke very clearly and I could understand a little
bit, but when she started using bigger words she lost me.
After this we had lunch which consisted of some kind of
soup with bread and this nasty "pancakes" that were neither American nor
Swedish style; they were square and mushy and rather disgusting... but
everything else was good.
After lunch we had a "Language block", so I decided to go
check out Spanish 2 to see if it was too easy. They only offer Spanish 2 or
4 for my schedule, and I have already taken Spanish 2 back home, but I
figured it might be nice to take a class where I actually know what's going
on... There were only about 5 others in the classroom, but the teacher
seemed nice enough and she could speak Swedish, English and Spanish, so it
wasn't too hard to communicate with her. But after about 10 minutes she said
we were done even though we hadn't learned anything, so we left and she gave
us textbooks to take.
So I met up again with my friends and we had some time to
fika, so we ate kanelbullar and drank coffee while we talked
about stuff. People always keep asking me why I chose Sweden, and now every
time someone asks me, I try to come up with a really crazy answer, like "I
LOVE Abba" or something funny like that. It's a good way to break the ice
anyway. ...dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen....
Moving along, we had physics, which was absolutely
impossible to understand, and also absolutely impossible to stay awake
during. So I basically stared at the floor and fell asleep with my eyes
open.. Then finally the class was over and we headed to what I thought was
Swedish class, but turned out to be Biology.
The room was really interesting, probably to a downright
distracting point, because the side of the room where I was sitting had
about 6 fish tanks of various sizes all filled with different types of fish
and tons upon tons of algae. Two of the tanks were really small and had only
algae in them, I think this was so some type of study. The teacher passed
out some information about a field experiment that we are going to conduct
in a small town outside of Uppsala. We are going to spend one night there
and conduct various experiments on the water and aquatic life there and
since I'm not getting any grades and I can barely understand them, I'm just
tagging along and getting closer to my classmates. This was the final class
of the day, so after that I left and I was able to find my way home on the
bus all by myself! And I also got to use my fancy new bus card, which was
fun because you have to wave it in front of the machine and then hit a
button, but mine wouldn't register, so I had to stand there for a while
waving my card around like an idiot while people stared. Well it actually
wasn't that bad... I got it after like three tries, so maybe I'm
exaggerating...
So I arrived home and then remembered that I was having
dinner at one of my Rotary contact person's house so I got ready and then
she came to pick me up. Her son was leaving on exchange for Ireland this
Saturday so she wanted me to meet him before I left. Dinner was nice and
during the meal, vi pratade bara svenska (we spoke only Swedish),
which really boosted my confidence level and made me more confident. For
some reason it was easier to understand them than just about any other
Swedish person I have met... maybe it was because we used a lot of "Swenglish,"
so I guess we didn't truly speak only Swedish.
So tomorrow is my second day of school, and it will
probably be a little better than today because I won't be so tired, and
hopefully I can try to understand a little more. And maybe I will actually
try speaking Swedish with my friends, because I have to say, with some
guilt, that it is way too easy to just let them speak English because they
are so willing to practice speaking it. I'll have to insist: bara svenska!
bara svenska! ingen engelska! After school tomorrow, my host family is
taking me up a little north and we are going to see my host aunt perform in
a play, and then we will go sailing if the weather permits, so I am greatly
looking forward to this, so until next time,
Hej då! |
November 16 Journal
|
|
Ok, so it's been quite a while since my last journal entry, so
let's try to sum up what I've done in the past two months. It's winter now, so
some of these events happened back in fall, it's not necessarily in
chronological order, it's kind of just a random mix of absolutely everything!
Before I tell about all the fun things I've been doing,
I'll first talk about some of the little ideas that I've written down to
make sure I mentioned them here, they are just a couple of random thoughts.
In my spare time (the little amount that I do have of it) I've been teaching
myself to play the piano when nobody's home; it's become a little hobby of
mine. I also want to mention that Swedish people love to get naked, whether
it's at school, at the gym, at home, or at the "Tea Society," there is never
an excuse needed to get naked; it must just be a Swedish thing that I
haven't fully grasped yet…
Language/Språk
Way back in September we had our Language camp which was
held in Eskilstuna, the former murder capital of Sweden, and got to meet all
the other exchange students in our area. It was very late compared to the
other districts in Sweden, but it was still a lot of fun even if I didn't
learn that much. It was because it was so late that I didn't learn very much
because I had already learned all the basics from just being here. We still
had an unbelievable amount of fun there.
I have to say that I am actually extremely surprised at
how well I can speak Swedish now, at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging.
I can pretty much understand about 70% of what goes on in school (which is
better than the >2% when I first started). I have a lot of Swedish friends
and they speak Swedish to me. I speak Swedish almost completely with my host
family and rarely have to use English. I am able to order food and shop for
things without any help. It seems that actually this week I improved a ton,
I'm not sure why, but this week was just amazing! (in terms of language)
School
I really like school here because it is so different from
American school. My schedule is crazy and I have so many breaks and some
weeks I never have to go in before 10:00. Mondays, for example usually run
from 10:15 until 12:35 and that's it, and every other Thursday school starts
at 1:20! At first it was really hard to understand, but now I'm actually
getting much better and I'm able to follow along for the most part.
Mushrooms!
Now this may sound a little strange, but I've gone
mushroom picking several times with my family in different places; mushroom
picking is like a national pastime here. We will just drive out to some
forest somewhere and just go right in and start searching for mushrooms.
There is a law here called "Allemansrätten" which means "Every Man's Right"
which allows you to just go wherever you please and not have to worry about
who owns the property. You are allowed to pick mushrooms and berries and
even camp the night anywhere, as long as you do not disturb the nature or
leave any trace. This "law" is what allows activities such as mushroom and
berry picking to be performed. It's pretty cool actually, everyone is laid
back and they don't put up fences around everything.
Surstömming
I have had the experience of eating something called
Surströmming since I've been here. It is very Swedish, as most other people
wouldn't dare to eat or even go near it. Surströmming is basically fermented
herring that comes in these bloated looking cans that expand from all the
gasses that build up during the fermentation process. It has a smell that
could kill animals and small children; it's so bad that you never open it
inside the house, always outside.
Höst Lov: Fall Vacation
There is much to say about höst lovet på Gotland (the
vacation on Gotland). I had a fun time, but the week was a weird combination
of feelings. Let's start from the beginning...
We left on Saturday afternoon and drove for about 2 hours
south east to a town who's name has escaped me and then boarded the ferry.
After about three hours we arrived on Gotland and it was around 11:30 at
night. Since we had taken two cars but had only brought one on the ferry, we
had to take two trips so Katarina (host mom), Per (host dad) and Amanda
(host sister) drove to the house which is about 7 kilometers away from Visby
(the main city in Gotland) and we stayed with mormor (Katarina's mother aka
host grandma) and explored the city for a little while. There was not much
to see at night but it was still pretty cool. After about 25 minutes Per
came back and took us to their house. They had just finished building the
house and had also just finished putting all the finishing touches on it
recently, so it was beautiful and all brand-new feeling. Little did we know
that a flaw in the house's design would be it's ultimate downfall... Amanda,
Anna (from Australia) , Iliyas (from France) and I all slept in one room,
which was pretty cool because it had like a little loft in it which housed
other beds so we were all comfortable.
Unfortunately the weather wasn't very nice so we didn't
get to explore around the island as much as we would have liked to. During
the whole time we mostly spent our time indoors, and the two times that we
did make it into Visby (the biggest city), it was either really cool and
very very windy or cold and raining. The weather was not very nice. It also
didn't help when we found out that it was snowing in Ekilstuna on Thursday
night and then it started snowing in Uppsala (where I live) on Friday.
On Saturday morning we woke up at 6:00 and then got ready
to head back home. We did get one nice surprise; there was heavy frost
outside so the grass was all frozen and white and there was frost on the
car. It was about -5C out which was pretty cool, but it didn't feel all that
cold. After the 3 hour ferry ride (on the floor in a corridor because all
the tables and seats were taken) we got back to mainland Sweden and then
headed home.
I was delighted to see that there was still some "snow"
left. I use the term lightly because it used to be snow, but snow it's just
a thin little layer of slush. But it's still snow, and I was excited!!
Stockholm
I've been to Stockholm several times since I've been here,
but the most notable was probably when I went with my class. For our Swedish
class we all went to see Hamlet at this really old theater in Stockholm, it
was really cool. I had a very hard time understanding what was going on, but
I knew the general story line so it was ok for me, it was just very hard to
understand the "Shakespearian" Swedish. The play was a modern adaptation and
I thought it was very well done.
I've also done all the touristy things in Stockholm, like
going into Gamla Stan (the old town) and seeing the castle and the Vasa
Museum.
Snow!!
It's snowed twice here; once when we were on vacation (as
previously mentioned) and again today, actually. I was so excited because my
host sister woke me up and told me that it was snowing and I didn't believe
her, I just thought she was trying to wake me up. But sure enough, I looked
out the window and it was snowing a little bit, not too much, but it was
still snow! It melted as soon as it hit the ground because it was about 2
degrees out. It's already snowing a lot in the northern parts of Sweden (I'm
in the center-ish area).
District Conference
We also had a conference here with our district (2350) in
Uppsala so all the other exchange students came here. We had to perform
something for all the Rotarians that represented out country, so all decided
to sing songs that represented our various countries (USA, Australia,
France, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand and Argentina). So Michael (from
Michigan) and I, "the two American Michaels," sang "The 50 States That
Rhyme." After the conference we all hung out around Uppsala and we showed
everybody else around.
Halloween Party
Last night we had a (late) Halloween party with the other
exchange students in our district. Despite that fact that Halloween was two
weeks ago, we all got dressed up and had a party at Anna's (from Australia)
house here in Uppsala. We ate a lot of candy and danced and had really fun
time.
|
|
