Sverige 2010: Påsk lov - one week, three countries, five new cities..

The last week was one of much travel and little rest! Very hectic, but also very enjoyable.

The week started on Thursday, finishing up school doing a presentation on New Zealand to a class of 18/19 year olds, they seemed pretty interested really, and enjoyed the few short videos I showed them, including the Beached Whale, and the Mitre 10 DIY advertisements from home. Then I got picked up by my host mum to start our 4 and a half hour drive down to the summer house in Mölle, in the south of Sweden for Easter, or Påsk. I got to see the changing scenery driving down the E4, through Småland into Skåne, slowly getting to see more and more spring; a lot of the scenery in this part of the country was pretty similar to driving through the Waikato back home..

Enjoying some of the sunshine in Skåne!

Easter weekend was spent in the summer house with my host mum and brother, then my elder host brother who lives with his girlfriend in Lund. It was so nice to see the ocean again, even though it was no where near warm enough for a swim. During my 5 days in Mölle I got to explore the harbour-side town that is obviously a big tourist attraction in the summer. Also during our time there, there was something called the Konstrundan which was where a lot of the local artists opened their homes to let people in to see their work and to sell it. We went around to a few of the artists homes and all of their work was really beautiful! Another thing that I got to see whilst in Mölle was, Kullaberg. Kullaberg is one of the oldest lighthouses in Sweden. The day that we went to Kullaberg was beautiful weather! So we took a little fika on the rocks and enjoyed the sun while it lasted.

The lighthouse at Kullaberg

On the Tuesday after Easter my host mum, host brother and I headed out on a day trip to DENMARK! One of my favourite things about being in Europe definitely has to be the fact that everything is so close! So we headed off to Helsingborg at around 9, once there we caught the ferry over to Helsingör. We spent the morning walking through the town, and of course for me, taking plenty of photos! Then we caught the train down to Copenhagen. First opinion of Copenhagen = awesome! We just spent the day walking through the streets, down past all of the shops, and the beautiful old building that were everywhere. We walked down from the train station to the harbour where I got to see the new theatre which was beautiful. However I didn't get to see the Mermaid statue, because apparently it's currently in China? I don't really know why, but oh well! I will hopefully be making another trip back to Copenhagen within the next few months and it might be there by then. Copenhagen was so beautiful, just walking through the streets with the sun shining, and a little bit of warmth in the air.

The next day, I caught the bus back from Helsingborg to Linköping because my host mum had to go to Belfast for a conference. I spent the next day getting ready for my trip to Germany and then moving family's! I don't quite know how I accumulated the amount of things that I did, but we will see how things go in the next few months!

GERMANY! So yeah, I went to Germany this weekend for a Water Polo training camp! So much fun. There were 12 of us girls plus the two coaches, and we spend 3 days in Krefeld, in West Germany, training, playing games, being tourists and having a great time hanging out (: We got to fly on the goodness of Ryan Air, now that was definitely an experience. No assigned seats, no checked in luggage, no space, no food or beverages (for free that is). After a taxi, 2 trains and a bus, we finally made it to the accommodation, which was like a small backpackers/hostel located just outside the pool. And our first task.... Break into one of the girls bags because she lost the keys to the locks! Hahah. Definitely an interesting task at 11pm. But we succeeded. Saturday we started with an hour and a half of training, an exploration into the town, lunch, then a training match against the local junior team, dinner, SLEEP! The next two days were similar but we didn't head into the town.

After I got home from Germany it was time to begin the mission that was, packing up my stuff. I've now moved host family's to my second family for the year.. And surprisingly I haven't really gained all THAT much stuff from when I left, although that's not hard.. Considering that I had a 46kg bag allowance.. Plus three carry on bags, which is generally helpful :) I've moved closer into town so can now bike to school instead of catching a bus for 30 minutes! Don't expect me to biking when I get home though.