Last week I had sportholydays, just like the rest of Stockholmslän. My hostfamily and me went to Åre (on the westcoast, ca. in the middle of Sweden) from Saturday 22nd to Saturday 1st for skiing and snowboarding. We lived in my hostgrandmother's partner's apartement only few metres away from the skipist. It was very cozy and relaxing, I enjoyed it a lot being outside everyday and do some sports. It didn't get really cold during the whole winter, so there wasn't that much snow beside the pists. Normally they would start the snowmachines, but because of the sunny autumn the lake in Åre doesn't contain as much water as in other years, so they weren't allowed to take out that much water for the machines. In the end of the days the snow often turned quite wet and heavy, before the temperature sank to minus degrees over night and parts of the pists became icey. Exactly this icey snow was the reason of why I've got a big, darkblue bruise on my thigh. I have to admit that i fell out of the ski lift three times. In a row. At least I have a lasting memory now... :-) On Thursday we went out for a tour with the crosscountry skis. Even if we just run 7,5 kilometres and even took an orange-and-chocolate-break after 4,5 kilometres, I was kind of sweaty in the end. With my own lousy crosscountry-experiences in mind, I have great respect for everyone who run the Vasaloppet last Sunday (the Vasaloppet is a crosscountry competition that takes place in Sweden every year and is about 90 kilometres long). Last Saturday we had to clean the apartement and drive back home to Huddinge again, because school started again on Monday.
Jonas, Ylva and me on the ski lift with seat heating.
This is the lake I was talking about earlier. Karin made this picture of me when we just went onto the pist again after a coffebreak in the restaurant "Kastrullen".
Here we took a break from crosscountry skiing to drink some water and eat an orange and some chocolate. It was very sunny that day, wonderful weather for spending some hours in the nature.
Yesterday, the 4th of March it was Fettisdagen (eng. fat Tuesday). This is the day before Ash Wednesday, which is 6 weeks before Palm Sunday and 7 weeks before Easter. Following the tradition of Fettisdagen you eat "semlor" (sweet bread buns filled with almond paste and whipped cream, which often are served on a plate filled with warm milk) for dessert. Eating semlor is something like the Swedish answer to all the carneval traditions in catholic countries (when we discussed the meaning of Fettisdagen while eating our semlor, Jonas found this declaration in a book).
At the same time as it was Fettisdagen, yesterday also was my 200th day in Sweden. Unbelievable!
Just imagine a lake of milk around the bun and you get a perfect dessert for Fettisdagen. :-)
You sure all know that it's Valentine's Day today, but only few of you knew that today also was Human Rights' Day in my school. Therefore we didn't have normal class, but a special program with a speech in the aula and different workshops with human right organisations. Dilek Baladiz, the leader of the organisation Origo, held the speech and told a lot of very good and eye-opening things about the different expectations society has of girls and boys. She also gave personal exampels, which made the speech lively and impressive. After this ca. 1,5 hours long speech we ate lunch and were free to talk with people who work for help organisations, but to be honest my friends and me were too lazy so we just hung around and discussed for our selfs. It was cozy :-). Then we had the workshops where we talked about normes and expectations in the everyday life. In the end of the activity we reflected about all we heard under the day with the class.
But as I mentioned it wasn't only Human Rights' Day, but also Valentine's Day. That's why the student convening organized a Speed-Dating in the school cafeteria after the program. I thought it might be funny to go there and speek with other people from the school I haven't met before. And it really was funny. There were more people than I expected, so I can't remember all names but it's always cool to meet new folk and hold on for a talk. At the moment I'm on a sugarflow because I ate way too much candy, but I just couldn't resist the cute heart shaped sweets. So long - glad och varm Alla Hjärtans Dag till er alla! :-D
Our latest project in the artclass was to pick out a art-historical period (Maya and me chose surrealism) and draw or paint a piece with the title Human Rights. This is our work and I'm quite confident with the result. I'm standing in front of the painting because I wanted you to see how big it is. We thought it's better to make it as big as possible for being eye-catching. The painting hangs now in the corridor. I think that's cool and it also fitted perfect to the topic of the day.
The whole school is getting ready for listening to the speech.
A picture of Sofia and me while catching free hugs from the plastic m&m :-)
Romantic candle light at the Speed-Dating
Hey folks, I finally made my way out of the lazyness and found some motivation to write a new post. Yay!
Two weeks ago, from January 24 till January 26 I was in the AFS Midstay-Camp with all the other exchangestudents from Stockholm and Uppsala. We slept over in a highschool in Sigtuna, so we all had to take the train to Märsta and then the bus which was filled with almost only AFSers.
After arranging our sleepingbags for later, one group made dinner (spaghetti and tomatosauce - classic) and we others just hung around while talking. This is quite the best description for AFS-meetings I guess: hanging around while talking. On Saturday, we had group sessions the whole day, where we talked about our experiences in the hostfamily and school. We also discussed our wishes and plans for the other half of the year. When we had a break, Xenia (from Switzerland), Agustin (from Argentina) and me went for a walk and found a bording school not far from where we had the camp. It seemed as if this bording school had Open House Day, because the Aula was open and they were playing scenes of the theater piece "A westside story". When the three of us had a look through the door, the actress told us to come in and take a seat. It was funny to watch them practicing their theater piece. On Saturday evening we played Karaoke all together, which was very cool and funny. The last day of the camp, Sunday, was quite short. After breakfast Samuel (the leader of AFS Stockholm volonteers) held a speech about comfort-zones and growing bigger in life. I was impressed by the things he told. This day we were having lunch outside: hotdogs from an open fireplace. Delicious! :-) There was no afternoon program, because it was time for us to travel home again. In the bus and train I learned a lot curse words in different languages (always good to know), which I won't write down here. ;-) Well, this is how it went by, the second (and second-last) AFS camp. The next camp will be in June, with all of us from whole Sweden. But I refuse to think about this right now.
Not the coziest place in the world, but okay for two nights. Unfortunately, it was quite cold in the whole building. There was one weird rule we had to follow: we mustn't eat nuts of any kind indoors, because some of the pupills in this school are allergic on nuts on an airbasis, which means they show allergic reactions when they're in a room where there are nuts.
Just what an average AFS meeting looks like.
Yummie sausages :-D
