En resa till skogen, vaniljte, fästningen, och ett disko!

I figure it's high time for another update, seeing as I've been doing them every week or so and quite a few things have gone on from last time until now.

Thursday, instead of having our normal day of school, our class met at the bus stop outside our school where we were picked up by the bus and taken about 15 minutes into the countryside where we were dropped off on some road heading towards the forest (skog) and met by our biology, swedish and PE teachers.

Me, Amanda, Julia and Pontus, slightly bored on the bus.

Today was bonding day in the forest and it seems that nearly all classes that focus around science, do it. Our biology teacher led the way straight into the forest, with no apparent sense of where we were going (he said he forgot the map at home). The day continued like this with occational stops to rest or for him to explain something about the nature around us. After walking (I use this term loosely, as we were trudging straight through the middle of the forest...oh yes, there was a path we could've followed, but that just wouldn't have been swedish enough because it seems that if they're in a forest, they have to go right through the middle of it) for around four to five hours, all the while taking notes and pictures of this adventure, we eventually met up with our teacher's cars. We formed groups of five or six and the teachers began unloading grocery bags filled with all the supplies needed to cook hot dogs and pancake-type things (for dessert). Each group got a bag and we walked up to the top of a hill and cooked our lunch. After lunch, we took the bus back to school and were then free to go home. All in all, I think it was a pretty good day.

Karin and Amanda cooking the pancake things

Vaniljte. Translation: vanilla tea. 'Tis a most wonderful and amazing creation and it seems can only be enjoyed when one stays over at Hallie's house. So, that's exactly what Jill and I did (if you can't remember, Hallie is the exchange student from Hustan, Texas and Jill is the one from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in Canada). I took the train up to Göteborg with some of my friends from school after school (not counting Swedish class, which we skipped :)) last Friday because I was heading for Hallie's and they were going to a concert up there (Håkan Hellström, check him out, he's good and Swedish, which is cool).

At Hallie's we ate lasagne for dinner then walked to meet up with Ashton (from Prince Edward Island, Canada) and Sian (New Mexico) to go to the Håkan Hellström concert. By the time Sian and Ashton arrived however, there would've only been 40 or so minutes of the show left, and we didn't wanna pay to go and only see that much, so instead we took to wondering the streets of Göteborg, which is always a fun thing to do. Hallie, Jill and I went back to Hallie's house, saunaed, made the vanilla tea (it's best with some honey poured in it), ate chocolate and watched Hallie's host sister's Sex and the City DVDs until 5 or so in the morning. Following our late night, we woke up at 8, met the rest of the exchangers (except for Tim, Chris and Shannon) in central station at 9 and took the train to Varberg where we were to have yet another Rotary organized gathering, except this time it was in my town.

From Varberg's train station, I led the group to the Fästning where we were greated by my host dad as well as Catarina Berglund, my next host mom, and Thomas Rydebo, my liason here in Sweden. The reason we walked to the Fästning was that was to be where we slept, in an old jail turned youth hostel; it was really cool! Following our cell assignments, we got a tour of the Fästning museum and then had some free time, which we spent in the Saturday market in Varberg's square and fikaing in one of the many cafés here.

The jail from the outside. The building on the right is also part of the youth hostel, but is just a regular building, not an old jail.The inside of the jail turned youth hostel we stayed in. Each one of the doors down below is the entry to each of our 'cells' that we stayed in.
Jill and I playing dress up in the museum.

Following our time on the town, we were taken out to an island called Getterön by motor boat, from which we took turns taking a ride on a small 3 person sail boat manned by my two host brothers. After the last person had their turn (which in fact was me) we had a late lunch of simple sandwiches. We were then taken back to the mainland where we had some more free time, during which I took everyone and showed them my house here. We then went back to the Fästning, helped cook dinner (tacos), ate, then sat around and talked until we eventually went to bed.

After an amazing night's sleep (after having only three hours the night before) we packed up our things and loaded into cars where we were taken to one of the local golf courses to try our hands at a little golf. First we were all shown how to hold the club and hit the ball at the driving range, then walked a little ways to a shorted nine hole 'practice' course. We were put into teams of three, then played all nine holes, which took about two and a half hours. The winning team (which unfortunatly wasn't mine) won some chocolate and we were then driven back to Varberg's train station where I waited with everyone for the train heading back to Göteborg.

We're now going to jump ahead to the next Friday...to the disko (Italy-spring-break gang, be excited... I know how you love disco's :)) There's a place in Varberg called Societien that every two or three months holds a youth disko (i.e. no alcohol...inside) where you have to be born in 1990 or later to get in. It has either one or two dance floors depending on the number of people and well, I dunno what else to say about it. Amanda, me, Julia, Pontus and some of their other friends who aren't in our class went to Amanda's early for a little preparty before heading over to Societien. This was really fun and let me get to know some people who aren't exclusively in my class (including Julia and Amanda's boyfriends, who are both really cool); around 10:30 we left Amanda's. The streets of Varberg were just covered with people our age on their way to the disco, which is kind of a switch, because after dark there's usually not too many people out and about; it was a really fun and exciting atmosphere. Once inside we found some other kids from our class and their other friends to dance with and the night just went on 'til 2:00 when it closed.

Ljungskile och Italien

This last weekend, the Rotary exchangers met up in a town around 50 minutes north of Göteborg called Ljungskile for a camping trip in the Swedish wilderness. And man oh man, what a camping trip it was. The entire group of newbies (that would be us exchangers who have been here since July or August, the oldies are those that have been here since January) met up early to go to Ljungskile because we wanted to see Jill's house (Jill lives in Ljungskile) after which we met the oldies and the Rotary members who were going to be taking us on the trip. We drove maybe 10 minutes into the country outside of Ljungskile where we arrived at a really nice area right next to the sea. We walked a short distance and arrived at our camp area. The Rotary club of Ljungskile had already set up three very large tepee's that, apparently, are similar to the houses used by the Sami (the indigenous Swedish people who live up north in Lappland).

The camping group in front of one of the tepees. Backrow: Rotary lady, her son, her husband and chariman of the inbound exchangers, Sian (New Mexico), Ashton (Canada), Rotary guy, Ani (Mexico), Stéphanie (France), Shannon (oldie from South Africa), Sam (oldie from South Africa), Yui (Japan). Middle row: Tim (oldie from Australia) and Chris (oldie from New Zealand). Front row: Chloe (Colorado), me, Jill (Canada) and Hallie (Texas).

The weekend was really great as it gave us a chance to really get to know the oldies (because we'd only met them a few times before and only for a few hours each) as well and see some absolutly beautiful country. I'll give the highlights, as well as some pictures.

That first evening, once it had gotten pretty dark, they led us all into the woods to a rope's course where we were to buddy up and take turns helping eachother to get through it. Realize it was nearly pitch black out, and this thing seemed to go on forever. This however, was just the begining of the numerous amazing and crazy things that this Rotary club had us do over the weekend. The next morning we woke up, ate, and then they led us on a really nice walk/hike through the woods to where they said a surprise awaited us. We arrived at the surprise, which turned out being a 150 meter long, one to three foot wide ravine that we were supposed to go through by using our hands and feet pressed up against the craggy sides. There was a slow creek runing through the middle, so you didn't want to fall and get your feet and pants wet. This was intense and everyone thought these Rotary people had to be off their rockers, but once we all did it (yes, I fell in and got my entire right leg soaked, but completed it just the same) we all absolutly loved it.

That afternoon, after eating lunch, they took us on another short walk at the end of which we'd be in the perfect place to go swimming. We stopped once we reached this two story high cliff, suspended above the water, which had a beautiful view, a great place to lay and sun bathe, and best of all, the perfect place to jump off of into the cold sea below. Hallie, Jill, Chris, Tim, and I went down off of the cliff and walked along the beach, exploring and looking at the various things living in the water (jellyfish, starfish, sea urchins, etc). I have to say that this was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life and I was sad when we had to head back to camp.The cliff that we jumped off of. This place was amazing...Me on the beach with the sea behind me.

One of the many starfish in the water, these things were absolutly beautiful.

Around 11:00 at night, the Rotary led us down to an area next to the sea that had a sauna. What you had to do, was go into the sauna for a while, then run out and jump into the freezing cold water, then run back into the sauna. There was something special about this water though. Living in the water, on the west coast of Sweden, are small plankton that whenever they sense movement, they glow bright lime green, so when you're swimming around in the water, or just move your foot or arm or just drop something in, a shower of green lights erupt all around you. It's honestly the coolest thing you've ever seen in your entire life, not even joking.

The next day, we went out on another short walk, where they broke us into two groups and we went through various group building activities involving thinking and problem solving, etc. Afterwords we came back to camp, cooked and cleaned up lunch and put our things away to head back to home.

I think now would be a good time to tell you all of something else that's exciting and coming up soon. My english class in school has, over the last year, formed a relationship with a partner school in Milan, Italy and this November they're taking a class trip to go visit them. Meaning, yes, I get to go with them and go to MILAN!! Pretty damn exciting, I must say. We leave November 11th to the 18th, a Saturday to a Saturday. One week in Milan and my school pays for most of it, except for around $150 - $200 of it and spending money, which we have to pay for.

That's all for now with nothing really coming up except for the next exchanger gathering which is to be this coming Saturday and it's held in Varberg. We're staying in the youth hostel inside Varberg's Fästning (fortress). I'm sure my next update will speak of that.

Leave me comments and tell me of your lives, if you can't tell, I'm slightly out of the loop :)

Nina's, sjöräddningssällskapets, klassfesten och bilder för dig!

Well I must say that it's high time for another update in the saga that is Connor i Sverige (by the way, it's pronounced: sver - ee - ye... but said really fast and the "i" is pronouned: ee).

I'll start with the party at Nina's house (Nina being a girl in my photography class). It was actually Amanda who extended the invitation to me from Nina. You see, Swedes are, as a general rule, as unforward and subtle as possible (read: painfully shy at times), meaning, Nina didn't know me too well and didn't know how to get a hold of me besides photography class, so she beat pretty far around the bush by asking Amanda to invite me. But I don't care, because....I WAS GOING TO MY FIRST OFFICIAL SWEDISH PARTY WITH REAL SWEDISH PEOPLE! (yes, it is a time for screaming extatically). We, being Amanda, Pontus and a few of Pontus' friends, left Amanda's to head for the party at around 8:00, not that the times are incredibly crucial for you to know...but whatever.

When we arrived it was pretty chill, not very many people and some calm music playing in the background. We didn't exactly know what to do until someone spotted the boardgame Labyrinth (for those of you who attended my incredibly entertaining Labyrinth party, you'll know what game I'm talking about...if you didn't attend the party, well, I'm sorry, but you still may know the game being mentioned, if not, google it perhaps: www.google.com). Anyways...this is taking much too much time to get to my main point which was a) the party started out pretty lame, then b) more people came, music got louder, the night got later, everything became more intense and the party picked up and turned out to be a pretty amazing affair. I met some pretty cool people, met some pretty sketchy people and overall had a great time.

The next morning I got up pretty early and rushed to get ready, for Lena was taking me to Chloe's house where we getting a ride from her host mom to Hovås (a small town outside of Göteborg) where we were going to have our rescue boat ride organized by Rotary. We were divided into two groups because we all wouldn't fit on the boat at one time. While one group was on the boat the other got some information about the Swedish sea rescue system, not incredibly exciting, but not bad (and the soundtrack for the video we watched was pretty jamming I must say). It was then my groups turn for the boat, so we loaded up, put on some lifejackets (and in Hallie's case, completely waterproofed herself) and we were off. Picture time:
This would be the safety boat we road on and I have to say, the colors are very Swedish.
Anidelia (Mexico), Hallie (notice the jacket of which goes nearly to her knees), Jill and ChloeThe bay of Hovås...such a nice day it was.

After finishing up with the boat ride, we decided to head into Göteborg to grab some lunch (the only Subway in Göteborg and I have a feeling one of the few in all of Sweden) and do some shopping before we all went our separate ways.

That evening was to be my class in school's Klassfesten or Class Party. I met Pontus, Julia and Amanda around 7:30, after somewhat of an adventure of trying to figure out exactly where they were planning on meeting. We arrived at Martin's house (the boy in my class holding the party) who lived around a half hour bike ride south of Varberg. Most of our class was there and it was just an extremely fun time with dancing and eating and just sitting around talking, and in my case, getting to know a lot of kids in my class that I didn't really know too well.

At Klassfesten as well as the following week at school, I took some pictures of kids in my class, my two school buildings, and as some of you have been hoping, I've got some pictures of typical Swedish food.Me, Julia, Pontus and Amanda at the Klassfest

Karin and Frida at school. No, they're not as odd as they look...though not far off :)Rosenfred, the school I go to for my art and photography classes. It used to be an old elementary school until they reworked the school system and did away with having two separate schools for elementary and middle schools. It's now an all art, dance, theatre, music, photography, etc. school.The building that I have nearly all of my classes in (other than art, swedish and swedish as a second language) on the Peder Skrivares campus. This building is brand new for this year, so it's pretty damn nice.

Köttbulle or meatballs, Swedish style with tomatoes and lingon berry on the side (note: I opt out of the tomatoes) I have found this to be one of my most favorite foods in the world. Period.

Pannkaka or pancakes. Here filled with lingon, but can be filled with nutella, peanutbutter, honey, sugar (or any combination of those), or just plain. These are eaten for dinner, not breakfast and they think the idea of eating them for breakfast is just rediculous.

Korv med potatis slå, morot och kneckebröd. Strange combination, but pretty good, so long as the potatoes are real (these ones are from school so you can tell they are made from powder).

Up next is talk about our camping trip to Ljungskile.

Liseberg, a slumber party, and a change in the weather

Liseberg, 'tis honestly a very, very wonderous place. No, it may not be the "Happiest place on earth" for Disneyland stole that headline, but it's not far off. Liseberg is home to the largest and highest rated wooden rollercoast in the world, Balder and is also the biggest theme park in all of Scandinavia. Not to mention it's in Göteborg, which is very, very close for me.

Jill, Hallie and I met in the train station on saturday so that Jill and I could take our over night stuff to Hallies before we entered the park. We planned to stay the night because we lived the furthest away of the entire exchange student group (Varberg, where I live is 40 minutes south of Göteborg and Ljungskille where Jill lives is an hour north) and we were planning on staying in Liseberg until it closed at 11 and neither Jill nor I wanted to ride the train so late at night.

We met the rest of the gang inside the park at around 3 and along with the regulars, we also had Anidelia, the exchange student from Mexico who just arrived because she had problems with her visa and Shawn's host sister, who is a year younger than me. Sorry I keep telling you all so many people's names, it's hard enough for me to remember everyone, and I've actually met them, it must be impossible for you. Anyways...yeah, we met inside and were there until closing (I'd go through all of the details, but I personally don't want to and it'd take a heck of a lot of time, I'll just give high-lights). The top three best rides had to have been

1.Balder, the huge wooden rollercoaster I talked about in the beginning (observe picture below). Yeah, it's insane, and freakin' fun!


2. Kanonen, a huge purple steel rollercoaster that shoots you off like a cannon (hence the name) from the beginning at which point you reach 75 kilometers an hour within the first 2 seconds and go through multiple loops and upside-downy things. It's intense, but amazingly good!
3. Top-Spin, you choose one of the seats in a row where you're then straped down and swung upside down and around for the duration of the ride. I think the picture explains better than I ever could.


Following a full day of amusment park goodness Hallie, Jill, Ashton and I went into Göteborg hunting for a café where we could fika before heading back to Hallie's house. In the midst of our hunt, the rain storm that had been brewing all day finally decided to rear it's ugly face. And boy oh boy did it rain. We ended up sprinting for a covered area which ended up being under a hot dog vender's umbrella. Jill and I decided to share the cost of a hot dog so we wouldn't feel guiltly stealing his dry space. We remembered passing a Café named Frank's in our mad dash, so we headed back and made refuge in there while enjoying a steaming cup of varm choklad med vispgrädde. Realize that the time (in the story) is now 12:45 at night; I think the lateness really added to the adventure.

Once Frank's closed (at 1) we all headed for the bus stop to get a lift back to Hallie's or as close as we could come with the bus. Luckily the rain had let up some, though we were already soaked (I mean the wettest I have ever been whilst still wearing clothes), so it didn't matter a whole lot either way. After the bus ride and a short walk, we arrived back at Hallie's. Wet. Cold. And tired. We preceded to fika once again (this time with vanilla tea and bread with butter and cheese and an entire chocolate bar) after changing out of our wet clothes and sat up talking 'til 4. Very cozy, I must say.

The next morning we woke up at around 11, made a really good breakfast at 1 and then headed into Göteborg, met up with Shawn, scoped out a few shops to head to on our next shopping trip (it was sunday, so everything was closed), fikaed and then we all went our separate ways as I took the train back to Varberg, Jill to Ljungskille and everyone else went home.

School this week has been pretty ok. Nothing extra special to report or say. We've actually started taking pictures and using the dark room in my photography class, and I have to say...I LOVE IT!! Photography is so fun it's crazy. So, yeah, I may have a new hobby when I come home :) Oooh, other good news. I've officially been invited to a party (well, technically two parties, but one is kind of by default). Yes, exciting I know. Tomorrow (friday) a girl from my photography class is having a party and Pontus, Julia, Amanda, Frida and I are headed for it around 8. On saturday I'm meeting up with the exchange students for a Rotary organized trip through the Göteborg archepelago on a rescue boat, should be fun and we're planning on fikaing afterwords (if you havn't noticed, the swedes and really transformed us and I can't go through a day without a fika or two, even at school. We have a little café in our building where you can buy anything that your heart desires...coffee, chocolate, other goodies, sandwiches, soda, ice cream, fruit. 'Tis a very good thing). Saturday evening is my class' party held at Martin someone's house for everyone in NVES2. It should be fun. Yes, slowly but surely my social life is picking up and you don't even know how happy that makes me :)

Oh and if you wanna see more pictures from Liseberg, check my pictures section. Though I have to say, I didn't take too many pictures and the ones I did aren't too good. One of these days I'm gonna take my camera to school so you can see it as well as my friends, classes, etc.