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 Michael Natelli
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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
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Bio
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| 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." |
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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." |
| January 20 Journal - "We
dressed up in traditional clothes, which consisted of a long white robe, and
held candles while singing songs in Swedish in front of the whole school. It
was mortifying." |
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April 27 Journal - "The main
attraction was the big landfill, which was accompanied by several smaller
compost heaps that were steaming, literally, and giving off a
not-so-pleasant smell." |
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July 18 Journal - "Exchange is really
something special, you make instant unbreakable bonds with so many people,
and the hardest part is saying goodbye." |
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July 27 Journal - "This year has been a
big learning experience. I have learned so much about the world around me
and about other cultures, but most of all I’ve learned so much about
myself." |
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Michael's Bio
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 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
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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
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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,
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August 21 Journal
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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
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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.
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January 20 Journal
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Ok I figure it's about time to update everyone on what I've been
doing so far, so here we go. I suppose I'll just take it chronologically with
everything that I can remember since my last journal.
So, starting from where I left off in November... That
next weekend my friend Miranda from Canada who lives about 2 hours away came
to Uppsala for the weekend and we hung out with Iliyas from France and also
my Swedish friend Anton. (I do actually have Swedish friends, I guess I just
don't write about them much...) We had a lot of fun and enjoyed the snow. I
almost forgot about the snow actually, it seems like it was so long ago...
We got about a foot of snow, maybe even more, it was amazing! So we had a
lot of fun playing in the snow during the weekend.
The snow was so much fun while it lasted. During the week
we went to Sunnerstabacken, a hill (or kind of like a basin) right near my
house and åkte pulka (I'm not really sure what that's called in
English, I suppose going on a sled). It was a lot of fun; I went with Anton,
Gen from Australia and Amanda, my host sister. We had two "sleds;" one round
one and one that could hold two people so we took turns going down the hill.
I went again the next day with Gen and Iliyas and we had just as much fun as
before. We threw snowballs at each other, wrestled in snow and buried Iliyas
in the snow.
Unfortunately the magic of the snow was short lived
because it melted that Thursday, well not entirely, but pretty much most of
it, and it was all just slippery slush that was really annoying to walk on.
So I had another boring week at school, nothing notable happened, the fun
started again on the weekend. Rotary organized a weekend in Stockholm for us
with all the exchange students in the three districts in our area (so we all
already know each other because we went to language camp together). It was
fun, we went to the Vasa Museum (even though I've already been there with my
host mom) and to Skansen which is like this big park/zoo/cultural fair in
the middle of Stockholm. We stayed in a hostel on Saturday night which was
surprisingly nice and actually really cool. On Saturday night we had our
oldies from the Southern Hemisphere talk about how their years had been and
it was just so sad because they would be going home in less than a month, so
they were all crying; it was very emotional for all of us. So on Sunday we
went home which was sad because it the last time that we would see some of
our oldies. On the train ride back to Uppsala we had to sit on the floor
because some insensitive Swedish people's luggage needed seats more than we
did. That's why they invented luggage racks on the trains, people!!
The next weekend Miranda came again with Emmanuel from
France, who both live in the same town (Eskilstuna) and we hung out during
the weekend which was a lot of fun. We had the whole Uppsala crew (Anna,
Gen, Iliyas and I) plus our two friends from E-tuna (our nickname for their
town) together which was really cool, we hung out for like the whole
weekend.
The next week there was nothing too notable that occurred
except on Wednesday where I watched Iliyas play innebandy (indoor
bandy, which is a sport kind of like hockey but on foot; it is usually
played on ice, but innebandy is inside and on foot) which was really funny
because it was students against teachers, and all the students were dressed
in Lucia clothes (more on that a little later). I also had my final exam in
Physics A on Thursday which was really stressful; I studied really hard for
it, which was a lot of work because I had to try to learn in like one week
what the rest of the class had learned in a year (Physics A stretches over
year one and into half of year 2, which I think is really stupid...). I
didn't have to take it but I wanted to at least give it a shot. I failed; I
got 7 points and you needed at least 12 to pass, but that's ok, I didn't
really expect to pass anyway.
The real high point of the week was the Luciatåg in
school on Friday. Every 13th of December is Lucia in Sweden which celebrates
Sankta Lucia (Saint Lucia) from Italy (still have no idea why they have a
holiday to honor an Italian saint in Sweden...). It was a concert in school
where we dressed up in traditional clothes, which consisted of a long white
robe and held candles while singing about seven songs in Swedish in front of
the whole school. It was mortifying, but I think I did pretty well; we had
been practicing for about a month. I still didn't know all the words to all
of the songs; it's really hard to memorize songs in your non-native
language, but I was able to cheat a little and hide the lyrics to a few
songs in my candle, because it had like a plate around it on the bottom to
catch the wax. I also forgot to mention that I saw one Lucia performance
before this in Domkyrkan (the enormous church in the middle of Uppsala) on
Thursday. On Saturday I went to yet another Lucia performance in the concert
hall, which was really nice, but I have to say that after that I was
thoroughly Lucia'ed out.
The next day Iliyas and I went by train to Upplands Väsby
to have lunch with the other exchange students from our district at our
District chairperson's house (our version of Al) which was huge and out a
little in the countryside. She is so unbelievably nice and we love her so
much. We had lunch and talked a little about upcoming events later in the
year, like going to the Ice Hotel and skiing in Åre and she showed us her
scrapbook from when she went on exchange to America.
The next week was relatively uneventful until Thursday
where a bunch of the clubs and societies put on a performance called Kul
i Jul, which means like Fun in Christmas, it was pretty funny even
though it was a little hard to understand at some points. The next day there
was another assembly for avslutningen which is like the end of the
term and the start of the jullov, or Christmas holiday. That was
pretty boring as it was just a bunch of teachers and administrators talking
about boring stuff... The real fun started after that where my class had
planned to play Lasertag, which was really cool. We played two rounds and I
did really horribly on the first round, but actually quite well on the
second round.
The next day (Saturday) we left for Gotland (big island
off the coast of Sweden) again where we would spend Christmas. It was mostly
uneventful there, which I kind of expected, until Christmas, which is
celebrated on the 24th here. After dinner we had a visit from tomten
(Santa Claus) who came into the house and gave us some presents, it was a
shame that my host aunt missed him; she was out buying the newspaper when he
came, it was strange though because they had a similar body type... After
tomten left, we all opened the rest of our presents which was really nice, I
feel so attached to my host family, I don't want to leave them. We came home
from Gotland on the next Sunday.
The next week was really cool, I did a lot of stuff. On
Monday, Emmanuel came from Eskilstuna again to hang out. On Tuesday, Anna,
Gen, Emmanuel and I went ice skating on a lake outside of Uppsala with Gen's
host family, which was unbelievably fun. When you skate on a lake, you use
long skates, which are about one foot in length, which I think makes it
easier to skate with. We spent a couple of hours on the ice and then went
back home.
The next day Anna, Gen and I went to Eskilstuna because we
were going to celebrate New Years at Miranda's house. We took a really crazy
route to get there involving two busses and a train, but it was a lot of
fun. We spent the night at Miranda's and made pizza and cake and also built
a fire outside, which kept us warm because it was freezing. We went home the
next day.
On Saturday Anna and Gen had a combined goodbye party
because they would be leaving in less than a week. It was fun and not as sad
as I expected it to be.
The next day we went ice skating again with my host family
on a lake right near my house. We skated for about 3 Swedish miles, or about
30 kilometers, it was tiring but really cool, and the long ice skates make
it easier because it's less work.
Next week on Tuesday we went ice skating again with Iliyas
which was really cool, and I really am loving all this ice skating and I'm
going to miss it so much when spring comes, I'm not sure if there are any
indoor rinks nearby...
School started on Thursday which was not very fun, but I
guess all good things must eventually come to an end... It was just a
regular boring day at school until the afternoon where Iliyas and I met Anna
and gave her emotional support because she had to say goodbye to her
classmates. We then went home after that
The next day was a day of great sadness because it was the
day that Anna and Gen were going home to Australia. My host dad gave Iliyas
and I a ride to the airport so we could say goodbye to them. It was really
sad and there was a lot of crying. After they left we went home and just
spent the rest of the day together and didn't go to school.
The next week was just same old boringness until Thursday
which was my birthday. My class sang Happy Birthday in Swedish to me when I
came in (all 4 verses of "Ja, må han leva!") and they all signed a picture
of me and hung it on my locker (which is like a tradition at my school for
birthdays). It was really nice of them and made me really happy.
So that pretty much sums up everything I've done thus far.
I'm going to change host families in about two weeks which is a little sad
but will be ok because I know the family really well (Iliyas and I are
trading families) and our newbie from Australia is coming in less than a
week so we're going to try our hardest to make him feel at home.
Until next time,
Hej då!
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--------------------------------- SNOW!
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And more snow |
At Skansen with
a Dala Häst |
The Uppsala crew |
At Max, so much better than McDonalds! |
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April 27 Journal
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It’s been quite an amount of time since I’ve written my last
journal; I’ve been busy with a lot of different things, but now I’m sitting down
and finally writing it. The theme of this journal must definitely be winter and
winter sports. I just checked the website to see where I left off and Whoa! I
have a lot to say now.
Birthday:
I forgot to mention something about my birthday, probably
the most important part of course: my present! My host family surprised me
in the morning, burst into my room with a cake and singing “Ja må han
leva!” at some horrible hour of the early morning. The most exciting
part however was my present; they bought skiing lessons for me at the local
ski slope, which is only a 4 minute walk from my house. They wouldn’t be
starting for a couple of weeks, so I’ll discuss more about that later.
Vattenfall and Hovgården:
This isn’t the most interesting topic in the world, and
probably not the most pleasantly scented, but I figure that I should say
something about it anyway. On the 27th of January, shortly after my last
journal left off, I went on a field trip with my class to two places called
Vattenfall and Hovgården. Vattenfall was the first place that we visited,
and it is located a little bit outside of the city center near Boländerna,
where all the big box stores and IKEA are. It is this big collection of
buildings with a huge smokestack in the middle that billowed out white steam
into the fresh winter air. Vattenfall is the name of the main energy company
in Uppsala, and they produce energy (duh!) and something called fjärrvärme,
which translates as ”district heating,” which I’ve never heard of. I’m not
sure if it just doesn’t exist in the US, or just that we never need to have
heating in Florida. Anyway, they burn the city’s garbage here in this big
scary-looking furnace (that had a little window where you could peer in)
which is converted to energy and the leftover heat is used to heat up water
to skin scalding temperatures which is them pumped out to homes and
businesses in Uppsala. They use the hot water to heat the houses (in the
heating elements on the wall) and also for just general hot water. It’s
almost unlimited, you never have to worry about the hot water heater running
out of hot water here! So we learned a lot about garbage collection, energy
production and heating in the city so it was an educational visit that was
at least interesting. I didn’t think it smelled nearly as bad there as I
thought it would, little did I know that the smell was yet to come.
We took a bus to somewhere outside of the city, a place
called Hovgården. It is basically just a large outside dump/landfill/compost
heap/heavy items dump that had a horrible odor. Unfortunately the
temperature was just a little above freezing (unusually warm) so it was all
”muddy” (although I don’t think it was really mud…) and soggy on the ground.
Here they take care of the garbage that can’t be burnt, such as large metal
items like cars or refrigerators and take them apart and do various things
with them. The main attraction, however, was the big landfill, which was
accompanied by several smaller compost heaps that were steaming, literally
and giving off a not-so-pleasant smell. We learned a little about what they
do here, but nobody was interested, they just wanted to get out of the cold
and the smell, so after about an hour of learning about how much garbage
smells we finally caught a bus back into the city. That pretty much details
that day. Oh, I also forgot that I got locked out of the house that day and
my phone was completely drained of battery so I had to wait for my host
sister to come home and let me in.
New Exchange Student:
As mentioned in my last post, our beloved Australians went
home in January. We now have a new Australian guy that’s living in our town
and we’re working to make him feel welcome. His name is Anthony and he goes
to my school, just in a different class.
New Host Family:
At the end of the month, on a Sunday, I switched host
families with Iliyas (from France). It was sad because I had become very
attached to my first host family and really felt like I was a part of their
family. It turned out to be not nearly as tough as I thought it would be,
and I already knew the family very well because I had been there so many
times. They are really nice and I feel welcome and accepted. My host
parent’s names are Ewa and Jan Svensk and they have 3 children: one, Linnea
is on exchange in Spain (I met her before she left), the other, Erik is 16
and lives at home, and Tina has her own apartment.
Ski Lessons:
As I had mentioned, I received skiing lessons from my
first host family back on my birthday, and they were 2 nights a week for 3
weeks. I went with my friend Iliyas because his host parents also bought the
same lessons for him so it was really cool. We were a small group of 5
people, so we got a lot of individual attention. We also met a girl from our
school there; she was in our group so that was cool to make a new friend.
The first lesson was hard; we were on a very small hill,
but the mini lift was broken so we had to climb our way up each time on our
own so it was very annoying. I had a hard time stopping, also, so I was
beginning to think that I would never get the hang of it… But as we took
more lessons I got better, and we eventually moved on to the bigger slopes.
There were 3 slopes at Sunnerstabacken: 1 really little one and two bigger
ones: they were not that tall, and also not long at all, but rather steep.
It was good practice, and we went almost every night in between the lessons
to get even more practice. It was just so much fun! All this practicing did
have a reason, however, which I will explain shortly.
Järvsö:
At the end of the second week of my skiing lessons, my
school had a Friluftsdag or ”Free Air Day,” which is basically just a
day where everyone in the second year does winter sports. Skiing was one of
the options so I jumped at the opportunity to get better. We went to a town
called Järvsö to the north, it’s near Hudiksvall, so it’s actually in about
the center of Sweden (in terms of North-South). It was about a 3 hour bus
ride away and when we got there I was so excited. The slopes were really
big, much bigger and longer than any that I had seen before, so I was both
nervous and excited. The day went really well, I hung out with some
different people from my class and got closer to them, which is good because
Swedish people can be difficult to get close to sometimes. I even tried 2
black slopes, and I surprisingly didn’t fall or die! So I was very pleased,
and I knew that I was ready for the big skiing trip that was to come.
Åre:
During sportlov, or sport vacation, in February, my
host family was going to visit their daughter in Spain and my first host
family was going skiing in Åre, Scandinavia’s biggest ski resort. They have
an apartment right next to one of the major lifts, seriously like 3 minutes
walking, so it was so convenient and great. We drove about 7 hours to get
there and it was night when we did, so Iliyas and I spent the first night
just exploring the little town. The next day was when the real fun would
start. Iliyas’ host sister Amanda (my former host sister) also brought a
friend so the four of us went up to the top together and started a day of
excellent skiing. We split up after a while so it was just Iliyas and I.
Luckily we didn’t get lost in the giant resort; there were so many slopes
and lifts that all led to different places. The next days were the same,
just excellent skiing all day. We were really luckily on the first two days
because it was really sunny and beautiful, despite being very cold; on the
third day it was not really sunny, but about -17 degrees Celsius out, so it
was very cold, but all the movement from skiing really does keep you warm.
Later in the week we met a girl that Iliyas had met at
Sunnerstabacken before and her friend, so it was really cool to have some
friends to go skiing with. We skied for a total of 6 days, and it was just
great, we had such a great time, and I am so glad that I was able to have
this experience. Tack så mycket Familjen Nielsen och Rotary! (Thank you so
much Nielsen family and Rotary!)
Swedish:
This brings me to another point: Swedish. I have to say
that by now I consider myself pretty much fluent; I can understand
everything that goes on around and I can express myself. I have to say that
it really is an amazing feeling when you can express yourself in another
language. It took a lot of work, however, and I felt that it took about 6
whole months of being here before approaching fluency and then another month
or so to finally realize it. I’m not saying that I’m a master at Swedish or
anything, but I have to say that I deserve some credit because there are
some people that have been here as long as me that can barely get by; they
just speak English the whole time and have never bothered to learn Swedish.
My secret is: just speak it! If you want to learn a language, then just
speak it, make an effort, it will be rewarded. People are usually very
helpful and are even honored that you are taking the time to learn their
language. Studying before does help, it gives you a good basis (yes, this is
directed at you, future outbounds), but the easiest way to learn the
language is to be immersed in it, and forced to speak it.
I really like reading in Swedish too, I’ve read a few
Swedish books that nobody had probably ever heard of, but now I’m reading
The Kite Runner in Swedish (it’s called Flyga Drake) for my Swedish
class in school. It’s difficult, but I really like it. Enough about Swedish
now.
March:
The month of March just kinda flew by, nothing that
interesting happened, it was mostly just doing homework, working on online
classes and hanging out a little with friends, nothing too interesting to
report here.
Spring has finally started to come, the snow all melted
and it was a little bit warm here (about 10 degrees Celsius), which was nice
until it snowed again and was cold for another week. The weather here is a
bit tricky.
Kiruna and Jukkasjärvi!!
This has to be the highlight of these past few months,
along with skiing in Åre. You have probably never heard of Kiruna and would
be afraid to try to even pronounce Jukkasjärvi. These are two cities, well
actually one city and one small town up in the very north of Sweden, about a
16 hour train ride away from Uppsala. They are not too far from the
Sweden/Norway/Finland border up at the top and they are a good way above the
Arctic Circle. Needless to say, it is still cold there, despite the fact
that the rest of the country was seeing snow, and temperatures in around 15
degrees Celsius. It was a bit of a shock going from T-shirt weather back up
to the Great White North, I was finally accepting that winter was over and
then BAM! back up to the cold!
You may be wondering what there is to see up at the North
Pole (ok, not really at the North Pole, but very very far north). Well the
city of Kiruna has about 17,000 residents, has a thriving mine, whose cracks
are causing the entire city to picked up and moved 1 kilometer away, and a
rich Sami culture (the Sami people are the indigenous people of
Scandinavia). They also have the Esrange Space center, where they launch
rockets and satellites into space. Other than that, it’s most just snow. Oh,
I forgot something, the nearby town of Jukkasjärvi is home to the ICEHOTEL,
which is known around the world for being, well a hotel completely made of
ice and snow. But more on that later.
We traveled up to Kiruna with 2 other Rotary districts,
which new people that we had never met before, so it was really cool to make
some new contacts. The train ride was fun, but sleeping on a train is not so
much fun, I have to say. We stayed in a youth hostel in the center of the
city. On the first day we met up with some girls from the local high school
that go in the Tourism program and they used us as a project and showed us
around the town and organized the rest of the trip’s events. We arrived in
the morning so we spent the rest of the day just seeing the city itself and
some attractions like an old church and the city hall, which was voted to be
Sweden’s prettiest building (on the inside) for that year, although we
didn’t think it was anything amazing, but we all kept our mouths shut… That
night we ate pizza which was the first time I’ve had non-microwave pizza in
8 months, so I devoured it. That night we went to the girls’ school and hung
out, played Singstar and reverse hide and seek (where one person hides and
the whole group has to find them, the last one to find them is then “it”).
We misplaced a Mexican, and it took us a really long time to find him; he
hid really well. Everyone was running around the school calling his name and
also yelling “Taco!” which I thought was offensive, but funny.
The next day, we went on a snowmobile safari. Since we
were a big group we had about 12 snowmobiles pulling a bunch of sleds behind
them that we were all sitting in. We rode for over an hour and saw some
reindeer along the way. We found out that every reindeer is owned by a Sami
person, so if you shoot them or hit them with a snowmobile you can get
heavily fined or go to jail, so we had to stop a lot and wait for them to go
away. We finally arrived at a frozen lake (although you could never tell
because there was so much snow everywhere) and the girls started building a
fire. There was a bunch things for us to do, including ice fishing, sledding
or riding the snowmobiles up to a nearby mountain, which I decided to do, it
was much different being on the back of the snowmobile instead of in a sled
behind it. It was a bumpy ride, but it’s similar to riding on a jetski.
After soaking up a really nice view from the top of the mountain we headed
back and ate some hamburgers that they cooked over the fire, which was funny
because the fire itself was in a deep hole of snow over two feet deep. It
was really cold, and we were all freezing from being outside for such a long
time, although it was rather warm for Kiruna, which in the middle of winter
gets temperatures of around -30 Celsius, while now it was only between -10
and -5. We eventually headed back, which took around an hour and then went
swimming (in an indoor pool) before heading to dinner at the girls’ school.
They put on a whole little dinner production, which was nicely done and
followed a performance by Sami songs from two Sami girls in the class.
The next day was the final day, and also the highlight of
the trip. The day started off with a visit to the Esrange Space Center,
where rockets from all over Europe are launched. Virgin Galatic is going to
use it for “Spaceport Sweden” with their commercial space travel service
that is set to start in a few years, along with another spaceport in New
Mexico. It was interesting to see, it was kind of like a mini Kennedy Space
Center, and everything was covered in snow, so there wasn’t all the much to
see, but we need get to go inside one building where a bunch of German
scientists were preparing this telescope that would be launched in the
summer. It was cool because we got to get a lot closer to things than one
does at say, Kennedy Space center. We went inside a launch silo and went
into the control room, which had a really cool big red “FIRE” button that
everyone was tempted to press. It was pretty interesting and the guide was
informative, but everybody was really excited for what was to come after the
space center.
We then took a bus from the space center to the small
village of Jukkasjärvi and ate lunch at “Restaurant.” It was the only
restaurant in Jukkasjärvi, so I suppose it didn’t need a name, the sign just
said “Restaurant.” It was actually the restaurant for the ICEHOTEL and was
located across the street. After a good meal of reindeer meat (first time
eating that in my life) we headed excitedly over to the ICEHOTEL itself. The
whole area was really big, consisting of a shop, a reception area, warm
(non-ice) villas that you can stay in and a building with lockers, showers
and bathrooms for those who were staying in the ice rooms. The hotel was
surprisingly big, much bigger than I had originally thought that it would
be. It consisted of around 70-something rooms; I had thought that it was
only a couple. 20-something of these rooms were custom designed art suites
which all had unique artwork in ice. We started out with a tour, which began
in the Ice Chapel, where a lot of people get married every year, there are
even baptisms, although those are not as popular… everything was amazingly
designed, and the guide was very informative. We then proceeded into the
hotel itself, saw the ice reception area and the main hall, which was
enormous and branched out into six corridors where the ice rooms were. We
also got a look at the “ABSOLUT ICEBAR” (yes they do go a little overkill
with the all capital letters) where you can buy drinks in ice glasses (both
alcoholic and non alcoholic). Then the tour guide set us free to explore the
hotel by ourselves, so that’s exactly what we did; we went into every room
and I took approximately 80,000 pictures (ok, maybe it was only like 400…).
I can’t even put into words what it was like, it was just such an amazing
experience. Everything was made out of ice, it was just so beautiful, and
the ice suites were all amazingly done; the artists were so creative. This
was something that I have been looking forward to doing ever since I found
out that I was coming to Sweden; I had always been hoping to make it here,
even if I had to go by myself, but it was really great that Rotary here was
able to organize something for us, because it was a lot of fun to be with
the other exchange students. Thank you so much Rotary Sweden for organizing
this, and thank you RYE Florida for making it possible!
Now some closing thoughts. I came back from Kiruna and
it’s been about 3 weeks now. Spring has come and it’s getting really warm
here, around 15 Celsius and getting hotter, so it’s really nice to be able
to go outside again without heavy jackets on. Hopefully I can regain a bit
of tan that has been lost from 6 months of long sleeves and pants, so we’ll
see how that goes.
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July 18 Journal
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So now I’m sitting down once again to write a journal, probably
my final one, so be prepared for a long one, as a lot has happened in the past
amount of time since my last journal.
Valborg
The first interesting topic to cover would be Valborg,
which is a Swedish holiday celebrated on the 30th of April. Like many other
Swedish holidays, Valborg is celebrated mostly by extreme drinking. Just
kidding, there are actually some traditions and other events that happen
between and or during the drinking. Valborg is meant to celebrate the
arrival of spring, and most Swedes like to start the day with a champagne
breakfast. In Uppsala this is usually followed by watching the
försränningen on the river in the center of town. This is where many of
the university students float down the river on self made ”boats” and try to
stay afloat even after going down the small waterfall downstream. The entire
population of Uppsala (this is the fourth largest city in Sweden) packs
along the river and space is tight; everyone’s inner sadistic side really
wants to see the poor students crash and have their boats destroyed. These
“boats” have all different shapes and designs, ranging from actual boats
(one looked like a Viking Line Ferry) to random objects (such as a floating
toilet). After this most people go home because they are so tired from
waking up so early to get a good spot by the river. Lunch is then eaten and
the rest of the day is spent relaxing with a nice dinner at the end of the
day.
Sundbyberg
The next interesting event was a Rotary-organized trip to
Sundbyberg, which is a small municipality in Stockholm. It is actually the
smallest municipality in Sweden, and it covers an area of about 7 km². The
day started with a visit to a “make your own CD” studio, where we split into
groups of six and recorded 3 songs. The first two groups recorded “Take a
Chance on Me” by ABBA and “Wonder Wall” by Oasis, respectively, but our last
group was very mixed; there were no two people from the same country and the
majority were from non-English speaking countries (finally!). Needless to
say, it was a little difficult to find a song that all of us were familiar
with, so we wound up settling on none other than the legendary Ms. Britney
Spears. That’s right, we recorded “Oops I Did it Again” for our track on the
CD. This certainly shows the impact of a pop icon such as Britney Spears has
on the world.
After leaving the studio we headed to a small botanical
garden in Sundbyberg, which was really pretty because it had a bunch of
flowers that were just beginning to bloom. Now maybe the old me wouldn’t get
that excited about flowers, but the new me definitely appreciates them
because after a long cold winter with no sun, little things like some
flowers really brighten up your day. After a nice stroll in the park we went
to the Rotary Club of Sundbyberg for lunch. After we ate we all had to stand
up one by one and introduce ourselves and the Rotarians asked us questions
from a list, such as “what is the biggest difference between (insert country
here) and Sweden?” It was then that I realized how ungrateful some of the
other exchange students are. It was really sad to see what little effort
they had put into learning Swedish; after being here for 8/9 months (at this
time), one would expect that they would be able to understand and respond to
basic questions such as those. I can understand that the southern hemisphere
people who came in January would of course not be as good at Swedish yet,
but I think it is unacceptable to be unable to speak even basic Swedish
after 8/9 months. I hope that everybody in Sweden realizes how grateful I
am, because I think one of the best ways to show it is by actually learning
the language; I think it disgustingly unacceptable and disrespectful to not
learn the language of your host country. Now I seem to be getting off topic
however, so back to Sundbyberg… After eating lunch we went to the town hall
and watched a presentation (all in Swedish, and I can say about 90% of the
room was completely lost, what a shame) about the history of Sweden’s
smallest municipality. After that we just had free time for the rest of the
day to just wander around together and just hang out; generally what
exchange students do best!
Sailing
It was also around this time that I began a sailing course
down on the lake right near my house. I went with my friend Iliyas from
France, we figured it would be something fun to do together, as we had taken
ski lessons together in the winter. Unfortunately it wasn’t what we
expected; it wasn’t a beginner’s “Learn to Sail” course, it was more just a
sailing club for people that already could sail, and most of them were much
younger than us, In any case, it was still fun and we did learn a bit,
although I definitely can’t say that I would feel comfortable enough sailing
alone or without somebody else that knew how to sail. Every Tuesday and
Thursday we would head to Skarholmen where the boats were kept. The boats we
sailed in were known as “två krona” and were about 12 feet long and could
hold between 2 and 4 people. It was interesting to learn all the sailing
vocabulary; all new concepts to me because I have never sailed before. All
in all it was a fun experience, but at times I felt mostly just like dead
weight because I didn’t really know what I was doing. At least my dead
weight helps keep the boat from tipping on a windy day!
Fjuckby
Oh dear. Yes, Fjuckby, no, it’s not a typo, it’s actually
the name of a very small town/village here in Uppland (the region in which I
live), about 18 kilometers from my house in Uppsala. After I found it while
randomly searching on a map, I knew I had to go and take some pictures. So I
dragged my best Swedish friend Anton with me there. It’s not the easiest
place to find; we had to take one of the city busses out to the very end of
the line to a place called Lövstalöt and then walk another 4 kilometers to
get there, through fields and a small forest. I had a map, but Google Maps
didn’t really give the correct location so we had to wander a bit and
eventually found it. We met some sheep along the way that were really nice
and came up to us to let us pet them. We finally made it there, but there
was nothing really interesting there, mostly just houses. The main
attraction, however, was the signs that marked the name of the village:
Fjuckby. In case you are wondering, it’s pronounced “fyook-bee” in Swedish,
and the spelling has changed from a more ancient spelling of Fjukeby, which
is slightly less funny. It is also the location of an ancient rune stone,
but this is really common in small Swedish villages such as this, so that
wasn’t all that exciting. I hope this post doesn’t offend anybody!
Fika och chillar
The same week that I made my adventure to Fjuckby I also
received a visit from a good friend that I flew over to Sweden with. Her
name is Meredith and she was the second exchange student I met on my journey
over to Sweden (not counting ones I had met in the US). She called me up out
of the blue (excuse the cliché) because she would be coming down to Uppsala.
I spent the day with her and Anthony (other exchange student in Uppsala from
Australia) showing her around Uppsala and going for fika (Swedish
word for going to a café, eating pastries, drinking coffee, and talking for
hours, no real English equivalent). Later that night I met up with a Swedish
friend from my class, Viktor, and we played pool and hung out for a few
hours in town, which was a lot of fun.
The next day we followed her to Stockholm because we had
the day off from school (Kristi Himmelsfärdsdag, something not celebrated in
the US) and met up with some of the other exchange students and had a grand
old time as we usually do.
Linnea och Anna
It was also around this time that my host sister Linnea
came home from her exchange in Spain, she had only been there for about nine
months; I met her before she left and will spend 2 months with her before I
leave. I like to think that I made the most out of my year by staying as
long as possible to enjoy every last second of my time here.
Another very exciting event was getting to see my oldie
from Australia, Anna, who had gone home back in January. She came back to
Sweden for a month to see her host sister graduate and to see her friends
again. It was really great to see her again, I realized how much I missed
her while she was gone. Exchange is really something special, you make
instant unbreakable bonds with so many people, and the hardest part is
saying goodbye, and knowing that you might not get to see them again. But
more on this later, this is only the tip of the iceberg…
Katte-Skrapan Kampen
The school I attend here in Uppsala is something like 600
years old and has had a rival school here for probably almost as long called
Lundellska Skolan. My school, Katte (Katedralskolan) and Skrapan (Lundellska
Skolan) have been at war forever and every year there is one day where they
both compete in mixed athletic events. Skrapan has won for the last 15 years
or so, and everyone always hopes that this year will be the year that Katte
wins. After a long day outside in the cold rain it was finally over and the
winner was announced: Katte! It was a big surprise and everybody was very
happy and excited. After the events everybody rushed to the nearest café to
fika and warm up a bit.
Eskilstuna
As some of my more avid readers may recall, Eskilstuna is
the place where my district had it’s language camp (along with our two other
friend districts) and it’s also where a bunch of my exchange student friends
live. I went to Eskilstuna for a goodbye party for Michael from Canada and
to celebrate Brenton from Australia’s 18th Birthday. The goodbye party was a
complete surprise and he had no idea that we had gathered 20 people to meet
him, he thought it was just going to be the 5 people that lived in
Eskilstuna. We grilled hotdogs outside and hung out in this park for the day
and then went back to Brenton’s house for the night. The next day we
celebrated Brenton’s birthday at his house; we baked a cake and people
bought him presents, overall it was a fun experience.
Last Day of School
The next day was the last day of school, known as
Avslutningen, where everyone gathers in the auditorium and the principal
says a few words about the year. We were surprised when she called Iliyas
and I up to the stage to receive some presents from the school, we both got
a book and a pin with the school’s logo on it, and a big round of applause
from the whole school. After the assembly we broke up into our individual
classes (mine is NV2, Naturvetenskap, natural sciences, year 2) and had a
little fika in the classroom. My best friend Anton then called me up and
presented me with a red Katte sweatshirt that the class all pooled together
to buy for me, which was really nice. The head teacher for our class, who is
also our class mentor, Swedish teacher and my Swedish as another language
teacher presented me with a book of Swedish poetry, because we didn’t have
enough to time this year to read enough Swedish poetry, according to her. I
was so grateful for everything that the class had done for me, they had been
so nice and accepting for the whole year. Tack så jättemycket till alla
er i NV2 på Katte!
After a little while the class went outside to a field
near the school and we played a game called brändboll, something I
had never played or heard of before. It is like baseball except there is no
pitcher, you have to throw the ball and hit it yourself, and you have to
make it to the bases before the person standing in the center gets the ball
and says brand (burn). I personally think it was more interesting
than baseball, but that’s just my opinion. I had fun in any case. After
playing we went into the center of town and ate lunch at this nice
restaurant; my class treated me to the meal, which was really nice. After
that it started pouring so we decided to head to somebody’s house and we
chose Stina’s, which is in Sävja, a little far out from town but still nice.
The plan was that almost everybody would come but it turned out just being
about 7 people including myself that showed up. We wound up playing Trivial
Pursuit for a few hours, which was not nearly as hard as I expected, despite
the fact that it was in Swedish. I felt like I really got closer to some of
my classmates that day, it’s a shame that it’s the last day of school, but
oh well.
That Saturday, I wanted to get out of the house so I went
with Anton to his family’s summer house (all Swedish people have summer
houses/cottages, some every have several) in Sandika, which is near
Östhammar, which is near the coast, about an hour from Uppsala. It rained
the whole day so we wound up just hanging out inside and watching TV, but it
was still a nice change.
Riksdagen
On Monday I was invited by Hamza from France to take a
tour of Sweden’s Parliament building in Stockholm along with a few of the
other exchange students because his counselor works there. It was really
interesting to see how the government in Sweden looks, and the building was
really beautifully decorated on the inside. We even got to go in and watch a
debate on the parliament floor. It was just something about some
environmental policy, so it wasn’t extremely interesting, but it was still
really cool to sit in and see what everything looks like.
That night I was invited to a movie night at Emma from my
class’ house. They hadn’t decided on a movie yet but by the time everyone
got there we wound up just watching Mean Girls on TV, which I hadn’t seen
before and was actually quite funny.
Pool Party
That Wednesday my class had a pool party at Viktor’s
house. Many of you may be wondering if there are any pools in Sweden, and if
so are they ever warm enough to bathe in, well he has a pool, yes it’s
outside, and yes the water was very cold despite the fact that they had a
heater. It was a cool 24 degrees Celsius, which is about 75.4, a bit too
cold for my taste, but I went in anyway and had a fun time. At least I
wasn’t the only one that thought it was cold, most of the other Swedish
people thought it was pretty cold; I was pretty proud of myself because I
managed to stay in for longer than most of them. We spent the rest of the
day chilling in and out of the pool and enjoying the sun. We wound up going
to McDonald’s later because it was the cheapest thing in town and the
easiest way to feed 20+ people. It was after we ate that I had to say
goodbye to many of my friends, most likely for good, because I would be away
for a large part of the summer and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to see
any of them again before I went home. It was really sad because I felt like
I had just finally gotten to know them, and then I had to say goodbye,
possibly forever. But that’s all part of being an exchange student, and I
knew what I was getting myself into when I signed up!
Midsommar
Midsommar is another one of those
Swedish-people-getting-really-drunk-and-then-dancing-around-a-phallic-shaped-pole-pretending-to-be-frogs
kind of holidays, not too dissimilar to Valborg, previously described. I
went with my host family to Hudiksvall, where they have their summer house
and we spent Midsommar with their friends that live there. Overall it wasn’t
the most interesting holiday, except for watching full grown adults jumping
around a pole pretending to be frogs, a phenomenon I like to call “små
grodorna complex.” It was also funny to see the Swedish people sing about
small bumble bees in between drinking snaps (which by the way is pronounced
as it’s spelled, there is no “sh” sound in snaps), something I like to call
the “Vi äro små humlor vi complex.”
Final Rotary Meeting
I had to wake up early the next Monday to go to my final
Rotary meeting for the year and thank all the Rotarians for having me and
for basically giving me tons of money to live off of for the year (the
students in Uppsala got almost double the amount of money that the rest of
the students in Sweden got). Since I had already given my presentation about
myself on my fourth day here (a bit of a mortifying experience, but
definitely mortifying in a good way, if that’s possible), so I just had to
sit through the meeting and then thank a bunch of people and give out a ton
of hugs. I received a present from the former president, who has been so
nice to me this year, which was a book about Uppland (the region in which I
live).
My club is a breakfast club, so I still had a ton of time
for the rest of the day to pack in all the things I had planned. I met my
friend Anton and we hung out in town and then I met Viktor to give him back
his jacket that I had borrowed. We then met up with a few other people from
my class and we decided that we would go to a movie tonight, despite the
fact that I needed to pack tonight for a big trip that I would be taking the
next day, but more on that later. So after eating lunch with them I rushed
home and did several loads of wash and then quickly shoved everything in a
bag and got ready to go out again for the movie that night. We saw the new
Terminator movie, it was pretty good, but I hadn’t seen the first ones, lots
of killing robots. It was good, though, because they treated me to the
movie, they really are so nice. At the end I had to head home, and also say
goodbye to a few people, which is always really sad.
Eurotour
One of the main highlights of the year I have to say was
the Eurotour. It had to be one of the greatest adventures of my life,
excluding of course my whole exchange to Sweden. Our group consisted of 68
exchange students from all over Sweden, who came from many different
countries, it was really an awesome multicultural experience, many people
from different cultures exploring many different cultures together. We
visited 7 countries in 18 days, it was only a taste of each country, but it
really was awesome. We visited Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria,
Italy, France and Belgium. I won’t go on and on about each country in detail
because then it would go on for pages and pages and this report is already
really long. But I will say that Poland was very nice, Prague was absolutely
gorgeous, hiking in the Alps in Austria was awesome, Italy has great food,
Paris was just beautiful, and Belgium has good chocolate and waffles.
All in all the entire trip felt like a mini-exchange in
itself, and coming home gave me a preview of what it will be like to come
home to the US, really scary and honestly kind of horrible. It’s not to say
that I don’t want to come home, because part of me does (albeit an extremely
small part), but I have met so many great people and made so many lifelong
friends that I just really don’t want to leave. But that is just part of
exchange and life goes on; we’ll all stay in contact and now we all have to
plan tons of trips all over the world to see our best friends. As quoted
from a speech that someone read at the end of the tour that somebody else
had written: “It’s not goodbye, it’s just see you later.” It really doesn’t
have to be goodbye forever, even though it may seem like it is, they are my
friends for life, and I know that I’ll see them again some day.
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July 27 Journal
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Now I’m sitting down to write what will most likely be my final
journal for the year, it’s not very much of a journal compared to my other ones,
more of a random collection of some thoughts. Today was my final full day in
Sweden and I am leaving the country tomorrow. If it was up to me I would be
staying here forever, but that can’t be helped; it is a natural part of
exchange.
I have to say that this year has been the best of my life
so far; it has been such an amazing experience, I don’t even know how to
begin describing it. I’ve had so much fun and met so many people, but mostly
this year has been a big learning experience. I have learned so much about
the world around me and about other cultures, but most of all I’ve learned
so much about myself. I can reflect back on the year and see how much I have
changed as well; I definitely know that my parents are not getting back the
same Michael that they sent away to Sweden almost one year ago, and whether
it’s a good thing or not is yet to be determined. I think it’s a good thing,
I feel that I have been able to improve on my weaknesses and become a better
person. I hope everybody else feels the same way; I know that many people
are expecting the same Michael to come back, and they may be shocked to find
otherwise. But so goes exchange.
The hardest part about going home is not so much leaving
the country, it’s more leaving all the lifelong friends that I have made
here. This last week has been very tough and downright depressing because
I’ve had to say goodbye to so many friends for indefinite periods of time,
possibly forever. This has to be the absolute best and worst thing about
exchange; you get to meet so many amazing people and then before you know it
you are ripped apart from them. Luckily we live in a time of modern
technology with things such as skype, so the world gets a little smaller,
but it is still very hard to say goodbye to people that you have become so
close to. But I knew what I was getting into when I signed up, and now I’ve
mentally prepared myself to go home now and I think I’m ready to face it.
And finally just one final thought. I would just like to
thank Rotary and all the Rotarians in both Florida and Sweden for everything
that they have done for not only me, but for all the other exchange students
this year, in previous years and in the years to come. This really has been
the best experience of my life, I don’t even know how to put into words how
grateful I am for this. Thank you so much, tack så hemskt mycket för allt
ni har gjort. |
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