A birthday, an evening in the city, och bara Svenska

It has been quite a time since I have last updated this here blog and I believe the only reason for that is that nothing too exciting has really happened these last few days, except for a few items.

I think school would be a good place to start, seeing as that's were I left off on last post. I have to say, that I never really know exactly what's going on (be it during a lesson or otherwise). I just kind of follow the crowd, never really sure where we're headed. Yes I do have a schedule, but it's the craziest and hardest to read thing you have ever seen in your life. Example: Today I had to arrive at school at 8:50 at which point I had a 45 minute "Svensk som andraspråk" (Swedish as a 2nd language) class with the three other exchange students at Peder Skrivares (one from Venezuela, one from Germany and then Chloe and I). After that, it was off to chemistry at 10:10 (which lasts for 50 minutes) and then we have a 40 minute window to catch lunch and change for PE. Following PE, it's an hour and 20 minutes of math (one of my favorite classes, seeing as I actually know what's going on) and then History 'til 4. I decided to take a photography class with Pontus, Amanda, Julia and Frida (a very nice girl in my class who actually lives not far from me) so once History is over we head over to the art school for an hour and a half of Photography (we didn't do anything but go over expectations and technical stuff today; next class we'll actually start working with the cameras and the darkroom). Also realize that the classes are never in the same class room; it depends on what day it is as to which class is where. So I have math in room (made up room number, but looks authentic :)) 5:112 on Monday, but it'll be in 5:103 on Thursday. Half the time no one really knows where we're going....but that just adds some fun to the whole equation.

Last Saturday was Oscar's birthday so we woke up early and went into his room with breakfast and presents, waking him up by singing the Swedish birthday song (which I can't remember the words to, but I'll find 'em out and post 'em up here). He then had to eat his breakfast (it was just cereal, we ate a bigger breakfast a few hours later with scones and eggs, etc.) before he could open his presents. Rickard and I gave him a 100 kronor gift certificate to Videomix (a store where you can rent movies as well as buy movies and CDs) and a new house key with pictures of Bart Simpson on it. I then also gave him my little gimmicky Benny the Beaver golf tee and ball. He got a new bike and running shoes from Lena and Morten.

That evening a bunch of family came over for a very nice dinner party. Oscar made it very clear that he DID NOT want his mom to invite any of his friends for the party, because apparantly at his age (he turned 13) it's very uncool to have your friends come to your birthday because it seems childish. Kids my age, however, think that having friends is a good thing and cool, so long as you have your party without parents. I don't really get it...I think friends are good no matter what and parents aren't that bad, but oh well.

Sunday evening chloe and I rode the train up to Göteborg to meet with the other exchangers where we fika(ed) (a term used to mean a coffee and snack break, but you can fika - it's used as a verb - any time and the more times a day you do it, it seems the better. Kind of reminds me of the British 'tea time'). Along with the newbies (us exchangers who have been here since August), 3 of the 5 oldies came, the 5 students who have been here since January: Tim from Australia, Shannon from South Africa, and Chris from New Zealand, then there's Sam also from South Africa and Emily from Australia, but they weren't able to come. We all exchanged our first day at school stories and the oldies gave us advice and told us how long it took them to start understanding and speaking Swedish pretty fluently (the concencus is it takes about 3 months, one of which I've completed, so only 2 more to go!). It was nice to meet up again and also meet the oldies who I'd heard a lot about.

Today, school was very fun. To start things off, in the very beginning of the day I told Julia "idag, jag ska prata bara svenska", meaning "today, I shall speak only Swedish" she said okej and the message was passed around, so I had to use my little Swedish that I've learned to get around today. People of course helped and I obviously cheated quite a bit or we spoke English if there was something in class that I needed to know or something else needed explaining, but overall it went pretty good. And it made me really proud of how far I had come.

Today was also the day that we were supposed to get together with the NVES (the program I'm in, though I'm in NVES 2) 1 and 3 classes and have a little bonding time. At 1:00 we rode our bikes to a field not far from the school where we were broken up into groups and then had tasks we had to complete within our group. For example: we had to thread a multi-foot long piece of rope in through the arm-pit hole in our shirt and down through our pants and then give the rope to the next person where they did the same thing, connecting us all to the same rope in the end. We then had to get the rope through and out of the last person's clothes (I hope you all can get the image from that description). We then had a scavenger hunt where we looked for various plants and berries in the nearby forest.

On saturday I'm headed for Liseberg, the amusement park in Göteborg, with the other exchange students. So I'm sure my next post will have info about that in it.

Look for it and leave me comments!

I miss you all, but have to say that I'm having the time of my life!

Class, a workout and some friends!

School started yesterday, and I have to say, so far it's amazing! But, before I start getting ahead of myself, I need to start from the beginning.

Chloe and I decided to meet for luch before our first day of school (because we're 2nd years, we didn't have class until 1:00). We went to our favorite café, Café Mignon to be exact, and then after a short hunt for an umbrella for her we started the ten minute walk to PS (what everyone here calls my school; it's short for Peder Skrivares Skola). The closer and closer we came to the school, the more freaked out both of us became. There were so many students everywhere...and I must say, quite a few of them looked pretty sketchy. Chloe didn't really know where she was supposed to go (Lena took me and showed me my classroom the day before, but apparantly Chloe didn't know where hers was), so I helped her find the principal and then left her to fend for herself or else I was gonna be late for class.

I walked into my classroom and most of the class was already there so the minute I stepped into the room everyone got really quiet and just kinda stared for a minute; I waved and then sat down in the chair nearest me. There were two teachers in the classroom. One was the art teacher I have twice a week in a different building about 5 mintues from the main school and the other is my classes main teacher named Enti (we call all teachers by their first name here, it's kinda cool I think) came in and said some things, passed some papers out and then did a role call. He got to my name last at which point he said "and we have a new exchange student in our class", he then looked at me and said that I could introduce myself, so I turned to the class and did just that, but in English.

We then had a "tour" of the building because it's brand new for everyone at which point a few students came up to me and introduced themselves followed by their less daring friends. After everyone had checked out their locker, most of the class left, not wanting to continue the rest of the "tour". I needed to go see the councilor to try and get my 'individuella' (elective) classes figured out, so a group (Pontus, Julia, Amanda and Frederick) showed me the way and waited for me until I was done with her. They then invited me to go have lunch with them at one of t he many cafés in Varberg. Since I'd already eaten I just had a pastry. Frederick had to go to a wind surfing class, but the other three invited me to a workout session called "Body Pump". The workout was a little intense and my arms are kinda dead now, but overall it was fun and it was great to have some people to do stuff with.

I learned that we all have a lot in common at least with our music tastes and they've invited me to a concert tomorrow, the 24th. I havn't asked the fam yet, but I don't think it'll be any problem. They also burned me some CDs, one of which is titled 'A small lesson in scandinavian music for people from like, Oregon' and it's all very, very good (most of the songs are 5 stars in my iTunes library for those who are interested).

Today in school I had art at 9:20 which was good and the teacher is really nice (I can't remember her name at this time though). We are having a contest to design a poster for a concert that is going to be held at my school for some Stevie Wonder revival band or something...I'm not exactly sure. I then had a 2 hour break where Frederick (he's in my art class) and two girls that I can't remember their names went to the beach for a while, then walked to PS and had some lunch where we were met by Pontus, Amanda and Julia. After lunch we headed to the chemistry room where we were met by Enti. At first it was difficult because I didn't remember how to do the things we were doing, but then it started to come back and luckily for me it was stuff that we had done towards the middle of chemistry last year, so I already know some of it, which means I don't think it'll be too hard. Following chemistry we had English. The teacher was really cool and let us vote on which chapters of the book we wanted to study this term and (obviously) I could understand everything that was going on in this class, a big plus in my book.

After school I went and bought a lock for my locker (they don't have them built in like they do in the US, so you have to bring your own lock and key) with a guy named Wictor (pronounced with a 'V' sound) and then came home.

I'm so happy that I have some friends here and that so far school isn't too bad, but who knows about tomorrow.....

A camp, new friends and a solo train ride

Well, the furthest back I can remember that anything of consequence happened was last sunday (a week ago today) when Chloe and I left for the language/culture camp set up by our district. The camp was held in a small 'Village' called Fristad, about 10 minutes outside the city of Borås. I was picked up by Chloe's host dad and he drove us to meet one of his friends who has a summer house in Varberg, but actually lives in Borås; we were to get a ride from him, 2 hours before we actaully needed to leave (he and his wife decided that they wanted to be home a little earlier).

Now that we've got the back story, I'll continue. The drive to Fristad supposedly takes 1 and 1/2 hours, that's what I'd heard from anyone I had ever asked about it. However, Chloe and I arrived at the front steps of 'Fristads Folkhögskola' in a record time of 45 minutes, the time was 4:00... we weren't supposed to be there until 6:30. After giving us one hell of a ride (and believe me, it was like a ride through hell...I feared for my life), Mr. Freaky-surgeon-fast-driver-guy (I forgot to mention that he is a surgeon) dropped us off in the near-rain in front of two locked glass sliding doors, his only words being "It'll only be a few hours wait". After hunting around the school for an open door, Chloe and I found a covered area to sit and play cards until the rotary folks arrived. Eventually a lady named Susanne arrived and let us into the house that Rotary for us to use for the week.

After a while, the other exchange students began arriving: Hallie from Houston, Texas, Ashton from Prince Edward Island, Canada, Jill from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in Canada, Stéfane from France and Shawn from New Mexico. Yes, you read that right, those are all girls names. I was the only guy, which is both a good thing and a bad one I believe (see picture below of the group).
















(Top row: Shawn and Ashton, bottom row: Hallie, Chloe, Stéfane, Jill, Me).

We all got along really well and there was never an odd man out or anything. That week went by so fast and it was seriously some of the most fun I had ever had. After our lessons during the day, the Rotary people would just leave us and go home (because they lived in Borås) until the next morning where we'd meet back up in the class room after making our own breakfast. During our free time we'd just sit around and talk, or play cards, or take trips to the nearby grocery store and buy candy or nutella or whatever we were craving at the time.

On thursday, Susanne took us to a place called Navet.
















This was seriously one of the coolest places I had ever been. It reminded me a lot of OMSI, though smaller and a lot more hands-on. If you check out my pictures, you'll see photos from it, as well as pics from the entire week. Another thing Susanne took us to do was to go to a picnic at this absolutly beautiful lake. Some people swam, but I thought it was a little cold to, so I just stuck my feet in the water.

After our week in Fristad, we all decided to meet back up in Göteborg on Saturday. So, yesterday at 11:35 I took the train up to the city all by myself (Chloe wasn't able to come because her host brother was having a going away party; he's leaving for exchange in a few days to California). It was a little intense because I needed to buy a ticket before the train came, but the ticket buying line was so long that I didn't have time to, so the plan was that I was to buy a ticket while on the train (which is much more expensive). Supposedly the ticket-checking-lady comes around and if you don't have a ticket, you ask to buy one from her. Well, she never came, so I got a free train ride. Once in Göteborg I had some time to kill before meeting up, so I went ahead and stood in line to buy a return ticket. So in the long run, I got a roundtrip ticket for half price.

Our day in Göteborg was really fun and we ate good food (pesto pasta with chicken) and got some school supply shopping out of the way. Plus, it was nice to hang out with the only friends I really have here in Sweden and joke around and just have fun.

Today I don't really have any plans, though I may go to the gym with my host parents to try it out. If I like it then they'll buy me a membership. Yes, you read that right, Connor Reid Larsen may soon be a member of a gym....it's a little hard to take, I know.

School starts in 2 days!

Two parties, an island and a day on the town

I must say, that Sweden is treating me very well. Every single person I meet is always very kind and willing to try and speak some english with me, for it is very rare that you find someone who doesn't at least know 'hello, how are you?' Which I suppose can be both a good and bad thing. Part of the point of coming to Sweden was to learn a foreign language (read: Swedish) and so as this big adventure gets further along, everyone may soon come to know me as 'That foreign kid who only speaks English' I believe that this is a personal problem and will very easily be resolved when I refuse to answer them in English......but, I'm getting a little ahead of myself as I can currently only understand English and a few Swedish words here and there.

Ok, well....I'm rambling maybe a little too much and I should get back on track as to what I've been doing over the last few days.

A bank account was successfully opened and a new SIM card for my cell phone was obtained. I have also got to know many of Rickard's friends who are very nice and extremely helpful in dealing with my lack-of-Swedish skills. We went to dinner at a potential host family's house who are very good friends with the Stigs and have a daughter Rickard's age and a son a few years younger than Oscar. With us at the dinner was the daughter's boyfriend (Arvid) and his mother, and another for sure host family who has two daughters one my age and another who is 14. The house was very nice and only a 10 minute bike ride from the Stig's home. After the dinner all the older kids met up with Rickard's other friends and went to a boy named Oscar's (not my host brother) house to play some Texas Hold 'Em. No one had any money on them, so we just used poker chips.

The next day we were to go to another dinner party, this time at Chloe's host family's house. We headed out there at about 3:30 in the afternoon where we sat around chatting and eating fruit and little sweets that reminded me an awful lot of brownies (but almost better in my opinion). We then took a short drive from their house to nearby beach where we changed into our swimsuits and jumped into the water, which was extremely refreshing and surprisingly warm. After a short swim we took the short drive back to Chloe's house and had a very nice dinner of grilled pork chops, swedish potato sallad (which I personally didn't care for too much; there was some strange spice that I wasn't too into) and spiced poatoes. If you havn't seen the trend yet, Swedes love potatoes!

Well, I was just going on and on about nothing and then we lost power, so I'm gonna cut right to the chase. We (along with 2 cousins visiting from Stockholm: Otto age 8 and Theodore age 12) went to a small island about 10 minutes by motor off the coast of Varberg called Skrivareklippan (I spelled it wrong on my pictures website....just a small warning, though I don't think any of you would really care, or notice for that matter). We left at about 11:00 in the morning for the island and arrived shortly there after. It was an absolutly beautiful day...I'd say the best we've had the whole time I've been here (which is only one week, but still). There was a small sandy beach to play on and after we splashed around for a while, Lena and Morten gave me a walking tour of the island (see pictures at right). There were a cluster of red houses on one end of the island (I took lots of pictures for you James) apparantly managed by the local canoing club or something....i'm not quite sure.

After we were done on Skrivareklippan we had a small snack and then took a short motor over a very small island nearby called Lilla Skrivareklippan where some friends of the Stigs were. Rickard's friend Johan was there with his family so after a short time on the island Rickard, Johan and I took Johan's small inflatable motor boat to the other harbor in Varberg to get an ice cream. We then returned to the island and it was almost time to leave (lunch was thrown in there at some point, but I can't really remember when, but for those who are curious: we had pasta boiled with sea water, topped with katchup and some sallad and ham. T'was simple, but very good). That night Rickard went to stay over night with some friends on Johan's boat and Oscar was off with the cousins, so it was just the 'rents and I for dinner, which was ok. Morten made pizza with tuna on it (sounds strange but it was actually really good, and aparantly very popular in Sweden). After a short walk with the dog (actually it took quite a while because there was a concert going on down in this area where they do things like that, and we walked through it and Lena kept running into people that she knew so we'd stop and talk and I'd stand there and smile and nod, pretending that I knew what was going on). Anyways, after the walk we headed over to Morten's parents house and met up with the cousins and their mom, Morten's sister. Also there was another cousin there who lives in Varberg and graduated Gymnasium (the type of school I'll be going to) last year. She was in Rent and is planning on continuing her acting career I believe.

Wow, this is getting really long and I still have two days to tell about.

So, on Monday Chloe (other exchange student) and I got together and just explored Varberg together. Nothing too exciting happened that's worth mentioning. She stayed for dinner and we watched 'Ensam Hemma Två' or Home Alone 2. Lena made Swedish meatballs for dinner and I have to say, that was probably the most delicious meal I have almost ever eaten. If we would've had mashed potatoes instead of boiled it would've been the meal to beat all, I'm telling you...So yeah, that was a very good day and meal.

Today (tuesday or 'tisdag'), we went to the school to figure out what my schedule is to be. I have decided to take the Science and Art track or line (whichever you'd like to call it) where the majority of my classes are going to be Chemistry, Physics, Math, Biology (with a short class in History and then English, Swedish and Swedish as a second language which is mainly just for exchange students and foreign kids) and then I get a choice between Dance, Theater, Painting and Sculpture, and Music. I'm going to choose the painting and sculpture. After that Chloe came over for a while and we went to luch at a place called Campino's Pizzaria...which. was. amazing. Doesn't beat American Dream of course, but still...it's very traditional Italian Pizza with a thin crust. YUMMM!!!

Sorry, I had to have a little freak out there.

So yeah, after Chloe left, Lena and I went to the bigger grocery store outside of Varberg which to me seemed very similar to Winco, maybe a little smaller. For dinner we had spaghetti, then Lena and I watched a British drama called Muder in Midsummer. Morten went to bed early because he has to get up at 4:45 to catch a train to Stockholm for a 2 day conference, so he'll be returning on Thursday.

That's all that's been going on these last couple of days, and I must warn you, don't get used to the length of these posts because they take up an awful lot of time to write and I'm not too sure how much time I'll have. Just a warning!

Be sure to leave comments and send me e-mails!

Fisk, Rent, and other such things

I have been so busy it's hard to even know where to start...

I believe that I left off saying that we were on the way to the café, Café Mignon to be exact. It is the Stig family's favorite place to grab a coffe or 'kaffee' and something sweet to eat. On our way to the café we wandered through the market that is set up every wednesday and saturday in Varberg's main square. The market is filled with clothes (an awful lot of socks I noticed), fruits, veggies, handy crafts, etc. I must say, that it seemed very European. :) After the café, Rickard, Morten and I came back to the house and me and Rickard decided to take the dog for a walk, so we walked down along the path that is right next to the ocean, and we'd stop every so often and he'd explain what a certain building was or where a certain path led.

This is getting too lengthy for the time that I have, so I'm gonna speed things up and cut to just the important parts. That evening Oscar, Morten and I went next door to Morten's parents house to visit his sister and daughters who are here visiting from Amsterdam where they now live. They were very nice and quite funny and of course spoke perfect english (as does nearly everyone). Once returning to the Stig residence, we played some cards (I learned a game that loosly translated means 'Shit Mouth' it's actually very fun and it seems that almost all Swedes know it) and waited for Thomas Rydebo, my contact person in the Rotary club, 'cuz he was going to be having dinner with us. We ate 'tacos' which is very similar to our burritos though they put cucumber and mushrooms inside along with the normal American burrito fillings (ground beef, cheese, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes [which I of course opted out on], salsa, etc). After dinner they decided to eat their dessert outside in the garden under the retractable awning. Would've been a good idea except that it was 70 degrees and slightly sprinkling. For dessert we of course ate ice cream (what else would you have in that kind of weather?) I was bundled up in my warm sweatshirt where everyone else was fine in shorts and t-shirts....crazy swedes. Another thing I found peculier is that swedes aren't silence fillers. If there's nothing to say they'll just stare around a room waiting for another topic to come up, which is kind of difficult for me, because I don't handle awkward silences very well (though I don't think that it is awkward for them).

The next day we got up and Morten decided that we should go fishing. So, we loaded up our things into their chic little European car (you can see a picture of it in my pictures.....see link to right ---------->). We picked up a family friend's 12 year old son named Ted on the way and drove a half hour into the country to a very beautiful lake. The drive out was absolultly beautiful along back country roads. We got the paddles from a man that we rented the boat from, put on some boots and gortex pants, and headed for the water.

We were out for maybe three hours and Morten was the only one who caught anything, a 4 1/2 kilo beast who kept moving all around the boat even after a knife had been shoved in it's head. Exciting, yes.....disturbing, I think so as well. (again, see pictures at right) We got back from fishing in time for dinner (salmon and 'dilpotatis' or dill potatoes) and then Lena, Oscar and I walked to the theater where we met Chloe the other exchange student in my town who is from Colorado and her host brother and his two friends. The play that we were to see is Rent, put on by a club from my school that is semi-professional group who do a play every February and then an encore every summer. This play blew anything that I'd ever seen straight out of the water and the theater they had it in was absolutly beautiful, best of all though, it happened to be in English, so I understood nearly all that was going on (some of the accents were hard to get around).

We came home, I went to bed, and got up at 6:30 to meet the Rotary club and eat some breakfast. The breakfast was very American (a good thing) with scrampled eggs, bacon, bagel-type things, hot chocolate, etc. I must say that I kinda pigged out. The Rotary meeting was kinda boring, everyone was very nice of course and I met a lady who may be my 3rd host family, if I even end up having 3 (they're still not sure yet, though they do know that I'll be staying with the Stigs for 5 months, so i'll move right after Christmas).

Some clarification:
Lena = Host mom
Morten = Host dad
Rickard = Host brother, 15 years old
Oscar = Host brother, 12 (2 weeks until he's 13) years old

Today I'm going to open a bank account and get a SIM card for my cell phone, we also may go sailing. Tomorrow we're heading to Chloe's host family's house and Tuesday I'm having a meeting with the head master from my school to talk about what classes I will take.

Be sure to have a gander at my pictures and I'll write soon.

I'm Here!!!

Well, guess what everyone.....yup, you guessed it, I'm officially in Sweden! (but you knew that, right?) My flights were long and pretty uneventful and boring...though the flight out of Minniapolis was delayed for nearly three hours because the plane's air conditioning broke, meaning yes, I missed my flight from Amsterdam to Göteborg (I can now make ö, ä and å without having to type in a special code :) I think I'm the only one excited about this....). Because I missed my flight, that meant that I had spend 4 1/2 hours in the Amsterdam airport, waiting for the next available flight, which I felt pretty lucky about because the other Rotary kids who missed their flights to Stockholm or Copenhagen had to stay the night in Amsterdam.

So, I arrived here safe and sound with no problem. My host family met me with big hugs (from the mom) and handshakes (from the dad and boys). It took about 40 minutes to get from the airport in Göteborg to my new home in Varberg and the time went pretty fast with all the questions and everything being asked (luckily my host parents speak pretty good english and the brothers understand it pretty well, though have a harder time talking).

My house is absolutly amazing...3 stories and very swedish looking I think, with little nick-knacks everywhere. I woke up this morning kinda early (6:00 am swedish time, 9:00 pm the day before Oregon time), and spent about an hour and a half putting all my things away. I then ate some breakfast (special K cereal :)) Then went into my room to read (everybody else was still asleep, except for Oscar who had to leave at 8:00) But then I fell back asleep for 2 more hours, and now I'd say I'm pretty well rested. Look at me going on as if you all really care about my sleeping patterns.

I've got to go now, me Lena and Rickard are heading to the square to look at the market and stop at a little café that they like.

I'll update soon!