Yes, I know, this blog is actually about my year in Sweden, but now I want to write about an other country: England. Or, to be honest, just about its capital.
This week the Swedish schools have autumn holyday and my hostfamily and me went for 5 nights to London. We experienced so much that it's simply not possible to write only one post. Therefore I'm going to tell separately about each day. So, here we go:
Friday; take off and arrival
Last friday afternoon I had to hurry with my painting in the artclass, so that I wont come home to late. We drove to the airport Arlanda at 14:00 and had plenty of time to check in our luggages and go through the safety check. After this we still had about 1,5 hours before the gate opened and so we went to Starbucks and spent our time with drinking coffee. Without any stress we went to the bus that would lead us to the plane. The flight took about 2 hours, and I spent most of this time with sleeping. When we got our luggages back at the airport in London, we took a taxi to our bed&breakfast hotel. Even driving taxi was special, because, as you may know, in England they drive on the left side of the street and have the steering wheel on the right side inside the car. Because we were five passengers, two of us (including me) had to drive backwards. It took very long to get to the hotel, because the main street was closed and the taxidriver had to search all the small ways. But finally we arrived and could put the luggage in our two rooms before we went out again to the fish restaurant, where we had a reservation. We ordered fish&chips. Normally I know this in a cartonbox, with plastic forks and fat sauces. But not so in the restaurant. We got whole fish fillets and separat bowls with chips, vegetables and homemade sauce. It was delicious! However, it was quite late and we all were tired, so we went back to the hotel and fell soon asleep.
Enjoying coffee and fresh sandwiches at Starbucks
Jonas in the front of the plane
The Jesmond - our bed&breakfast hotel
Yesterday my class and me went on an excursion to the Swedish parliament in Gammla Stan, Stockholm. I was not sure if I could go with them first, because I normally don't go to the society class, but I simply asked the teacher when I met her randomly in school and this was no problem for her. In the parliament we had a guide which showed us some of the rooms and told some history and facts. But is was so much that I can't remember every detail, so I better add some pictures and tell something about them separatly.
This is what you see out of one of the windows of the parliament. Swedens capital =)
Here is the main room, where the political discussions take place. All the discussions are public, so even I could go in and listen. You can also follow them on TV or on the official website in the internet.
This is my class and me - listening to the guide.
On this picture you can see a weaving with the official name "minnet av en landskap" (eng. the memory of a landscape). The landscape on the weaving doesn't really exist, it's out of fantasy. The guide told us, that around 1980 every district of Sweden donated yarn for this weaving and it took one year to weave it. When you see it in real, it doesn't look so big, but it's as big as a small accomodation (I don't remember the exact size, unfortunately...)
This model shows all the buildings that belong to the parliament. We were just in the main building, the one in the middle. Other buildings contain for example accomodations for those employees which have a long way to travel. In the front of the model would be the rest of Gammla Stan and in the background the city of Stockholm.
Easy to remember the name: room of stairs.
The symbol of Stockholm (They are rarely used theese days. A lot of my class neather new that this one belongs to Stockholm.)
This room is one of the newest ones. The women's room. When the women in Sweden got the right to vote in 1921, this room got its name. Theese four pictures show first women in Sweden's politic. I can neather remember their names nor in which position they worked, sorry.
Today was a very extraordinary schoolday. We got a visit of the "Karolinska Institut" which is something like a university for medicin. First we had to go to the Aula and listen to two speaches about "Att vara hudläkare i Afrika" (eng. being dermatologist in Afrika) and "Tuberkulose i ett globalt perspektiv" (eng. tuberculose in a global perspective). Both of the women who had these speaches, spoke about their own experiences and showed own-taken pictures in a power-point presentation. This was really interesting and the sometimes shocking photos made it lively. After the speaches was a little break for half an hour and therefore went we to the big hall (named Sahara, because it's really almost as big as the desert) where the students of KI told and showed us what their study is about. This was my favorite part of the day, because you got everywhere a lot of things for free, like for example tooth paste ore ear drops. Everyone who knows me, also knows that I LOVE things for free! The same counts for Nazla, a girl of my class, so we went around and picked up whatever we could reach. We were so concentrated in this, that we didn't notice how the time went by. That's the reason why we were late for the next point on our schedule: Information about KI's educations. Well, this was not that interesting for me, because I won't study there anyway and I'm not even interested in study medicin somewhere else. But it didn't go long until this talk was over and we could go for lunch. Gonca, an other girl of my class, and me went to the Sahara again, so that she can get a tooth brush and I can take more post cards. We walked a little around again and tested different workshops. One of the information desks was about bio medicin and there was a microscope with a sick blood corpuscle. We had to guess what kind of illness this could be, but even if our guesses would have been right, the woman wouldn't have told us. She didn't want that anyone tells it around until everyone knows it and doesn't have to guess anymore. I was not confident with that, so I asked again, if she would let us in the end of the day, but the woman said no, because then it's no miracle anymore for next year. Well... in situations like this, it's an absolute advantage to be an exchange student. After I told her that I won't be here next year and why, she was very pleased to tell me the answer. Great exchange bonus ;-)! I had of course to promise that I will keep this little secret for me, so I won't write down here, which kind of illnes the blood corpuscle had. When it was time, Gonca and me went back to our lockers and then further to the next talk about endemies, epidemies and pandemies. In the end of the day our class met and we wrote a short text about what we learned today and so on. The whole day was very fun and chill!
The way to my school - autumn comes...
Tadaaa: my school HUDDINGE GYMNASIET
what a beautiful picture - greetings to my mother: ig ha bim "hamschtere" es paar mau a di müesse däiche ;-)
This is my motto for the year: "The language is the occurs ticket for the life"
