Review of my SMART Goals!

1. I will try not to be shy; I will talk to people and interact with them, whether or not they speak English. I will try and do this by introducing myself to at least 3 new people a week. I will also teach my host family a little bit about the American culture and let them teach me a bit about their culture. 


I did a great job of accomplishing this goal. It was not hard to meet new people in Sweden, especially during the school day. Just a few of the people I met within the first week were Emma Moen, Fillippa Moen, Sandra, Jennifer, Maria, and Ellen and later Hampus, Ida, Matilda, Sofia, Patrik, Johan, Emma, and Evelina. Also, Hanna's Mother and Father could understand most of what I said but they had trouble speaking English. It was a bit of a struggle at first but after a while it was easy to talk to one another. I taught both of my host families a lot about American culture from different words, to different foods, and even how to hold your fork like an American. It was all very exciting! 


2. I will try to learn the language and be able to hold a small conversation with someone. I will keep a list of all the words that I learn.


I kept a list of words that I learned throughout my trip, though it is impossible to write them all down, there were so many! I also now know enough Swedish to order off a menu at a restaurant, although I may or may not be able to understand their response. 


3. I will try every new food that I am offered, no matter how different they look. I don't need to finish it, just try it.


I tried a lot of new foods in Sweden, from a special kind of potatoes that grow in a sandy soil to Kokosrutor, to Glögg, and Julmust! It was all extremely delicious, except for one food in particular that Emma and Hanna made me try; caviar. I ate just a small bit off the end of a fork and it was utterly discussing. There is no way that I will be eating caviar in the near future. 


4. I will be respectful of everyone I meet and to myself by not doing anything that goes against my morals and values.


I was respectful of everyone I met and of my host family. I helped out as much as I could with the groceries and the cooking. I was also respectful of myself and my values and I did not do anything that went against them. 


5. I will write about my experiences every day in addition to what I am required to write. 



I tried to write about my experiences every day, and I was successful in the beginning, however things got really busy and I had less and less time to do extra writing. Overall I did write quite a bit.

Wait, is that Lauren!

Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Plane trips! The first leg of our journey home was from Stockholm to Paris! We were both really excited to have a three-hour layover in Paris because it is such a cool airport. When we landed in Paris it was poring down rain. The airplane was not attached to a building so we had to walk across the tarmac to a bus that was waiting for us to take us to the terminal. However our bus had a big problem: two doors would not close! So, we spent 20 minutes or so on a crowded bus with a man yelling in three different languages "I need to go, I will miss my flight, I have a small child!" Finally they transferred us to another bus and we headed off the to terminal. We finally made it to the terminal and had to go through security before finding our way to yet another bus, which would take us to terminal M, the only terminal that was not connected to the rest of the airport, and the terminal that our flight would be leaving from.

Once there Austin ordered us lunch in French and we relaxed is some really comfortable big chairs for a while before exploring some of the shops in the airport. We got to our gate an hour ahead of time so we played on a huge computer screen set into a table with a bunch of games on it. When we returned to our gate they had just started boarding so we got in line. The whole day we had been joking around, what if Jad or Lauren were one our flight!? So, when Austin laughed and said in a shocked voice "hey look it's Lauren!" I thought he was joking. But sure enough there Lauren was, sitting in one of the chairs talking with one of the flight attendants. Apparently as she says "even though I am 16 they treat my like an underaged flyer, maybe because I am so short." It was so fun that Lauren was on our flight, and she ended up sitting just a couple sets way. Overall the flight was long, a total of 12 hours in the air and 15 hours of travel. We were extremely glad to land!

Overall I had an amazing experience in Sweden! I had the time of my life and made some amazing friends! If you ever get the chance to take a trip like mine or even go to Sweden jump on it, I promise, you will not regret it! Tack!!!!!!!!

Last day in Sweden! :(

Today was my last day in Sweden! :( I am really sad to leave all of these amazing people I have met and stayed with! They have made my life so much more exciting for the past three weeks. Tack!

Hannah let me sleep in again today because we got home so late last night. When I woke up this morning I took a look and my room and sighed. It was so messy. It seems that whenever I try to pack things get even messier. Shouldn't it be the opposite? I don't understand! But don't worry daddy, I made my bed. :)

After a breakfast/lunch Hanna and I went downtown to do some last minute shopping with Austin and Ida. We went to the small mall and some of the shops around the town square but many of them closed early or were not open today, but it was still fun. We met Sandra at 4ish and got fika with her at a small cafe. They have fika cafes in Sweden! It is amazing!

After eating fika, Hanna and I hurried home to change quickly before going to the pool house/gym to play floor ball with Ida, Austin, and Ida's youth group. There were less people this time so it was much more intense but still amazing! We should start a floor ball group at school.

After floor ball Hanna and I hurried home to take quick showers before Matilda, Frank, and Patrik came over for tacos. In Sweden the Friday night food is pizza, tacos, or Chinese food, all very delicious! It was so nice to spend my last night in Sweden with friends like these. We spent the time playing Mao which was really funny because Frank got really frustrated and Hanna and I were the only ones who had played before. Frank, Patrik, and Matilda also took the cinnamon challenge, which was really funny. Frank ended up running around in circles because some of it went down his throat. After Matilda, Frank, and Patrik went home at midnight Hanna went to sleep for three hours, we were waking up at three, when Hampus was driving us to the airport. I stayed up to pack. I finished just in time.

It has been amazing here in Sweden and I am so fortunate to have had this amazing opportunity! I am excited to go home but I am going to miss everybody here so much! Tack så mycket! 
 

"Surprise!!!!!!!!!!!"

11/16/2012

Today was the last day of school and it was bitter sweet. I am really excited to go home and see my family again but I am also really sad to leave everybody. Today classes went pretty much as they regularly do, with a few exceptions. Hanna did not have German class today so while Hanna had a free period and studied, I went to Spanish class with Evelina, a girl from Hanna's class. It was really cool to go to a Spanish class because I understood a lot of what they were saying. First off the students took a test and then we read a couple of questions that they would be talking about in small groups next week and we also read an article about chocolate! It was really fun! The rest of the day proceeded as normal: Swedish, lunch, Social Studies, math, chocolate ball, biology, except there was a substitute in math class. It was really sad to say goodbye to all of my fellow classmates, I am going to miss them a lot.

After school Hampus drove Matilda, Hanna, and me to the silver mine so I could get gifts for everybody. ;) Afterwards he dropped Matilda off at her house and then drove us home. Hanna and I spent the rest of the day, or until 6pm when we were going over to William's house with Austin and Ida, we watched what we though was the movie prison break, but when it ended abruptly at a cliff hanger and we freaked out we realized that is was a TV series and promptly continued to watch the next episode.

At a little bit before 6 we headed over to Ida's house so that we could all walk to William's house. At William's we played a game where you had partners and a set of cards. You were then given a topic and you had to pick out the top cards that described that topic, lay them out in order of most to least, and then try and get the same cards as your partner. It was William and Olivia against Ida and Hanna against Austin and me! It was a lot of fun.

After about one hour Ida got a text from her Mom saying that dessert was ready at their house and we could come over for ice cream if we wanted to. Who passes up ice cream?! So we all headed over to Ida's house for dessert. We had just reached the house when Austin said he had seen some people in one of the windows. His vision was explained away by, oh it's probably just one of the family. We hurried inside, took off our hats, coats, gloves, scarves, and shoes, putting them in the pile with all of the others, and then headed into the kitchen, where we were met with the shout "Surprise!" Ida and Hanna had organized a surprise going away party for Austin and me with all of our friends: people from school, people from church, and of course Emma! It was so amazing! Austin and I didn't even realize or suspect anything, although it might have been a little strange that there were people in the window and there were a lot of shoes at the front door. But in our defense, there are always people in the house and lots of shoes at the door! :) It was both Austin and my first surprise party ever, and it was perfect!!! There was tons of ice cream, games, and fun. We even played a game where you competed in groups of three to do silly activities like who can get the Swedish fish on a string into their mouth the fastest using only their tongue - Austin, and who can pick up a piece of paper folded in half with their mouth but no hands the most times as it gets smaller and smaller because of the many folds - a tie between Ida and Matilda (the 3rd grader, not the one in Hanna's class). It was so nice to just sit and talk and laugh with everybody on the night before our last night in Sweden. Tack så mycket everybody for an amazing surprise party! You are all so amazing and I am going to miss you so much. See you soon, I hope.

Three hour school day with a side of rhubarb pie!

11/15/2012

Today was an amazing day! Hanna's class did not start until 10 this morning so we got to sleep in! We had two options of getting to school, bike or walk. We choose the walk option although it would have been smarter to take the bike, even though there was only one bike we could use. We thought it wouldn't take us as long as it did to walk to school, but we got to class just in time. The first class of the day was chemistry! They did a lab in chemistry about molar mass and which metals were good conductors and which were not so great. It was really fun and I was able to understand most of it. After chemistry we ate a quick lunch before heading off to math. At the beginning of math class the Swedish teacher came in and said something and then walked out. Everybody looked really excited, I looked really confused. I still don't know what the Swedish teacher was doing there but he had delivered some exciting news. We no longer had our final classes of the day, just one period of math left, not two as usual followed by Swedish. Apparently this did not happen often, but when it did it usually happened on a day when they had a lab. It felt very weird to have been in school for only 3 hours, 45 minutes of which was lunch.

After school ended at 12:40 Austin came home with us, because Ida had a trombone lesson, along with Matilda and Sofia. We had to walk all the way home again but it was not that bad because we were not racing the clock. Once home we set forth to bake a rhubarb pie with vanilla sauce, a project we had been talking about ever since I tried describing Thanksgiving to them and pumpkin pie, which they have never had and we would have made it except for the lack of pumpkin in Sweden. We didn't read the recipe fully so we added melted butter to the dough instead of cold butter and we had to chop up a huge block of frozen rhubarb but it turned out great and very delicious!  We ate our pie, hung out, watched my big fat Greek wedding, from the beginning so the others could catch up, and played cards. Everybody went home before dinner and after the rhubarb pie had been demolished.

The rest of the night was spent eating a delicious dinner which contained an amazing potato, cheese, and cream casserole and watching movies. Over all a very relaxing day! Tack, tills imorgon!

There are two kinds of people - Greeks, and everyone else who wish they were Greek.

11/14/2012

Today was another wonderful day at Kungsängsgymnaset, I can almost say it properly! Today our class took the national English test and I got to take it too! I think it was one of the few test that I have taken and both enjoyed and laughed at. It was very fun to take the English test and think, is this how fluent Spanish speakers feel if they took my Spanish tests that I freak out about. It was also very funny because it was all British English and in the audio all of the voices had British accents. Also I learned two new words today: lorry, a truck, and Torry a conservative member of the British parliament. The test took up the whole morning so we did not have our usual two Wednesday morning classes, Swedish and English. After lunch we had only one class: German! In German class they did a worksheet with the teacher. At first I tried to understand what they were talking about but after a couple of minuets I was completely lost.

Once school was over, at 12:45! love their schedule!, Hampus drove us home and then returned to school to finish his classes, he had had a free period. Once home we dropped off some of our stuff before walking into town. We were on a ongoing search of a Dalahäst. Why did we not look in Sala before trying to find them all over Sweden? They had been right under our noses this whole time! We found a great selection of Dalahäst in a floral and home goods store in the mall! Mission complete! After walking around Sala for a couple of hours we headed over to Ida's house to try and Skype Saskia and Katharina however we just missed them and were unable to connect so instead we just hung out for a while and tried out Ida's game for a scout event tonight: you had to remake a Lego structure but the structure was in a shoe box with only a couple of holes. Hanna and I joined Ida's family for an amazing dinner of potato and leak soup and corn pancake, I had never had it before and it was delicious! After dinner Ida and her family left for their scout event while Hanna and I walked back home. Along the way we meet up with Linnea and we walked home together. It was so nice to see her again since last February when she came over to MV. The rest of the night was spent watching movies, Free Willy and My Big Fat Greek Weeding!, with a midnight (aka 8:30 but it felt later because it had been so dark outside for such a long time and because we were so tired) snack. Overall a very nice day! Tack så mycket, tills vidare.

The ultimate decision in life: Tryffelkaka or Kokosrutor?

11/13/2012

Austin and I were unable to go to Ekebyskolan today so we returned to Kungsängsgymnaset for another great day. In the morning Hanna and I went to English and Social Studies. In English class the teacher took two more groups out of the room to talk about their books, while the rest of the class stayed inside and read an article, if they had not already, about catching and eating tiger snakes. They also had time to prepare for a practice English test that they will be taking tomorrow. I will be taking the test tomorrow too and I am really excited. It will be on British English so things will be a bit different but very interesting and very fun! In Social Studies a couple more groups presented their presentations and then the teacher talked for the rest of the time. Next came a lunch of burritos and tacos that we quite delicious. Then came math! Yep, you guessed it, two whole hours of math! Ida had to take an English test which was writing an essay so Austin came with us to math class. After the math teacher had finished talking the students were given work time. Work time for Austin and I meant crafts time! I think we have perfected the art of making balloons and cranes out of graph paper! We grabbed our usual chocolate ball snack during our five minute break before returning to class. After math, the last class of the day, we met up with Ida and talked for a bit before parting our separate ways, we would be meeting up later for dinner at Lars's house, our sponsor!

When we got home we thought it would be fun to bake something. We were going to make tryffelkaka until Hanna saw a link on the page to a recipe for a short cake-type backed good called kokosrutor. Change in plans, we are making kokosrutor! Kokosrutor os a type of thin, light, and fluffy chocolate cake covered in chocolate icing when it is hot so that the icing melts in a bit before hardening again and then it is covered in a light coating of shaved coconut. It was amazing!

Tonight Austin and I got to meet our sponsor for the first time: Lars! It was very exciting. We went over to his house for tapas and we brought our kokosrutor with us to share with the others. Hanna and Ida came along with the four girls who will be coming to the Toledo in February: Emma (my host sister), Hannah, Matilda, and Christina. It was very nice to meet all of the girls before they came over to Toledo. We talked about Maumee Valley and Lars told us stories of his travels. Afterwords, when Hanna and I got home, we collapsed on the couch to watch part of a movie before going to bed, completely exhausted. Tack, tills imorgon!