En Typisk Svensk Jul, ett Gott Nytt År, en Resa till Stockholm och en Fest med Framtida Utbytesstudenter

I have officially made it through my first Christmas away from home and approximately the half-way mark of my exchange both of which have made me extremely proud of myself and have really shown what I'm capable of doing. Lucky for all of you, you're able to experience all of this along with me...in a way. So, let's ring in the New Year with yet another update to Connor's many adventures in Sweden!

I suppose that the first major thing to have happened since the last time I wrote would be Christmas. Now, according to my host family, what we celebrated was a very typical Swedish Christmas, so if ya'll ever decide to come to Sweden for Christmas, this is what you're sure to find :) First of all, all Swedes (and I think a great number of other Europeans as well) always do their big Christmas celebration on the 24th, Julafton (Christmas Eve) in Swedish. That morning my host dad's niece, Maria, and boyfriend , Tommy, came over for breakfast where we had very traditional Swedish breakfast at least for my family with soft boiled eggs, lots of bread and buter and cheese, knäckebröd (a really hard, crackery-type bread that I'm going to miss a bunch, but you can apparently buy at IKEA...so I'll be stocking up at the new one they're putting in Portland, yay!), smoked ham, lök korv (which is sort of like summer sasuage), cereal with yogurt or filmjölk (which is basically sour milk and tastes kind of like plain yogurt though more tangy, I'm not too into it, but can handle eating it) and then I contributed to the meal by making American pancakes with maple syrup. All of it was very good.

After Maria and Tommy left, we didn't really have too much to do besides clean the house and get ready for the guests who were to be coming, those would be my host mom's sister, Anna and her family (husband Jonas and two kids Ebba and Carin) and then my host mom's parents. They all arrived around 3:30 at which point there was a little sitting around chatting, but pretty soon after that we got down to the eating a traditional Swedish Julbord (Christmas Table; you don't actually eat a table, it's describing the table in which all the food items are set out on) and let me tell you, there's a lot of food to be eaten, most of which was just meat. In the picture below you can sort of see the crazy amount of food there was to eat.

You can see a multitude of food behind me, but that was just half of it, there was a whole other counter filled with food as well. My host family made me wear my Rotary blazer just for the picture, though I think they would've liked me to have it on for more of the night. I refused :)


This plate would be round #1. Starting from the left and going clockwise you see prinskorv (the little sasuages), köttbullar (meatballs), skinka med stark senap (ham with strong mustard), julbröd (Christmas bread which was kinda sweet with raisins in it), kokt potatis (boiled potatoes), både löksill och drömsill (both onion pickled herring and pickled herring in a cream and dill sauce) och hårdkokt ägg (hard-boiled egg).

And here we have round #2: mer köttbullar, prinskorv och sinka, sedan potatisgratäng (potato casserole), julknäckebröd med smör (special Christmas knäckebröd with butter) och dopatbröd med senap (bread dipped in the fat of the ham, then eaten with mustard...disgusting in my opinion). You can see a bottle of what looks like coke behind my plate, but that is actually Julmust, which is basically coke, though made by a local company in Sweden and is only out during Christmas (and actually out during Easter time as well, though is known by a different name: Påskmust, but is apparently the exact same thing) and most Swedes refuse to drink actual coke during this time of year (as well as around Easter).

This is what we had for dessert. Risgröt med vispgrädde och körsbärssås med kanel på (rice porrage in whipped cream with cherry sauce and cinnamon on top). There was a big bowl full of the rice porrage which my host dad hid a number of almonds and if you got an almond in your serving you had to make up a rhyme to say. Of course I was one of the lucky ones who got an almond, though I can't remember what my rhyme was...

After eating till our hearts content we had some time to kill until Tomten came to our door. Now, Tomten is the Swedish version of Santa Claus and how it works is he comes and knocks on your door then asks if there's any good children at the home. He then comes in and delivers the presents to everyone in the house. It's a fun tradition, though I'm not really too into it, because it gets rid of the questioning that a lot of younger kids in the States have of whether or not Santa truly exists, because in this case you see him and at one point have to realize that this is just a dude with a fake beard who looks different every year. Regardless of my feelings about it however, the tradition will continue, so whatever. Tomten came and before he gave you your present he'd read out whatever little rhyme was written on your package, then you had to give him a hug. The rhyme on my package had something to do with keeping me warm and when I opened it, I found a very very nice wool sweater waiting inside for me.Here's me giving Tomten a big hug for my present.

The next day, REAL Christmas day as I like to call it, isn't so much of a big deal in Sweden. It's more of a day to relax and take it easy and what's more relaxing than going to the sauna (or bastu as they say in Swedish)? Apparently nothing. So every year my host family (at least my host parents) take a trip to one of the many local bath houses. The one they always go to is called Kalles Kallbadhuset (cold bath house) which is built out over the water and once you're inside, there's stairs leading down into the freezing ocean which you're supposed to submerge yourself in after being in the sauna for a while. Sound crazy to you? Yes. It should. But also realize you're doing all of this stark naked. Yes. I saunaed with my host dad, then jumped into the freezing-cold North Sea...completely...and utterly...buck naked (yes, I know you're wondering if the men and women are separate, and yes, they are). But you know what they say? Take advantage of every cultural experience that you can and I dunno about you think, but this seemed pretty cultural to me.

Here's a picture of Kalles Kallbadhuset taken when I first got to Sweden. It gives you a good view of how it's built out over the water.

After my "cultural experience" we went home and my host parents started working on a turkey feast because that's what they heard all Americans eat for Christmas. I think they were a little dissappointed when I told them that my family usually eats roast beef or ham. But! I never got my Thanksgiving turkey this year, so a Christmas turkey was gladly accepted (and it actually turned out really good seeing as it was the first time either of them had cooked a turkey).

Host dad Morten carving up the turkey.

The next major event after Christmas has to be New Years. I celebrated this at Hallie's host family's house where they had an incredibly fancy dinner party. Fancy to the level of "champagne sorbet to cleanse the pallet between courses". Mind-blowing...yes. Though it turned out pretty fun and gave me a chance to meet some interesting people. The dinner portion itself lasted about four to five hours with three courses (not including that sorbet) and much chat-time in between. Hallie and I sat at the ungdomsbord (kids table) with two sixteen year-old twins named Pontus and Casper who were the sons of one of Hallie's host parents friends. They were incredibly nice and probably the chic-ist sixteen year-olds you've ever met in your life (Rolexs and Armani socks...). The evening passed rather quickly with us chatting away and before we knew it, it was time to toast to the new year. But oh wait, the party wasn't over yet, we still had dancing (which we did not partake in) and coffee left, which took another three to four hours. So, after everyone left around three or so in the morning, Hallie, her host mom and I proceeded to clean up after the party. Safe to say that we slept in until two in the afternoon.

Fireworks in downtown Göteborg next to the Opera house.

More fireworks to ring in the New Year (realize these pictures were taken around 5:00 in the evening...and it's that dark out and had been since 4:00).

The second of January, my host dad, younger host brother Oscar and I got in the car rather early and headed off on the five to six hour drive to Stockholm, capital of Sweden, to visit my host dad's sister and family as well as to show me the city. We arrived around 3:00 just as the sun was starting to go down and my host dad drove around the city for a while, showing me the main downtown of Stockholm.
Stockholm at dusk, taken around 3:30.

I really liked this building. It looks so old-fashioned as did many of the buildings in the city.

After driving around for a while we headed off to one of the many islands that Stockholm is built upon to visit the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship built many years ago that on it's first trip out onto the water, sunk almost immediately. They have since dragged the ship up from the bottom of the ocean and constructed an entire museum around it. The inside of the museum was rather dark, so all my pictures turned out pretty bad...(if you want some shots, follow this link: http://www.edwebproject.org/scandinavia/vasa.html - thanks to Jo for finding it) Following the Vasa Museum we headed off on the 30 minute drive out to where my host dad's sister, Oline, lives, on an island in the Stockholm Archipelago (though the island is so big you don't really feel like you're on one...it just sounds cool to say).

The next morning we headed back into the city where my host dad dropped Oscar, his cousin Theodore and I off as he headed to work (he works for IBM and a few times every month he takes the train to Stockholm to work, this time he drove instead and brought us with him so we could go explore while he was working). Theodore showed us around the city for a while before my friend Beau, who's an exchange student in a town called Norrköping, which is only about an hour south of Stockholm, came in to meet me and I spent the remainder of the day going around with him, who knows the city pretty well. Below I'll put a bunch of random pictures that I took while wandering around the city.

Stockholm is built on a bunch of islands so there's water and bridges everywhere.

What I believe is an old church.

Just another cool building.

Taken as the sun was coming up over Kungsgården (The King's Garden/Park).

The Royal Palace. Can I just say that it's probably one of the ugliest buildings in the city? Apparently there was a much more beautiful one, but it burned down like 75 years ago.

Cool church.

An modern art piece that is erected in the middle of one of the main streets downtown. At night it lights up, but I wasn't able to get a good shot of it at night.Gamla Stan or the Old Town. Full of little narrow streets and cafés and lots of touristy stuff. Probably my favorite part of Stockholm; it made me think of Venice actually.

As the sun was setting. Stockholm is an absolutely beautiful city and reminds me kind of a combination of Portland and Venice. A strange combination yes, but it's about the size of Portland and pretty modern and liberal, etc. But is built on a bunch of islands and has water and bridges everywhere, and then Gamla Stan has a bunch of really old narrow, crooked streets. Stockholm = a very cool place.

The only other recent thing that has happened is my host family had a dinner party where they invited friends of theirs who have kids wanting to be exchange students in the next coming years. There was one boy named Hugo who has already applied and is hoping for either Australia or New Zealand, it was nice to talk to him and share all of my "professional" advice :) There was also a family called the Victorins who I'd met many times before and are possibly going to be one of my host families whose daughter Maja is going to apply next year. And there was one more girl who's going to apply either next year or the one after, she's not sure yet. So yeah, this was a nice party and it was good for them because they got a chance to ask questions and find some stuff out about exchange, Rotary, etc.

That's all I've really been up to this last month or so. I'll hopefully get more pictures up on my Yahoo picture site, but it's currently being weird and none of the pictures are uploading. I think it's just a glitch in the system and hopefully will be fixed soon.

I hope you all had an absolutely wonderful Christmas and New Years and know that you can always leave me a message or e-mail: connorlarsen@gmail.com

Ha det så bra och gott nytt år!