here comes the sun..

So the sun is finally coming to this crazy place called Sweden! And it's beautiful. This week has been great. 22 degrees most days. Shorts, t-shirts and jandals. I LOVE IT. It's great that I've only had to cope with 4 months of being cold..
Oh yeah, so I've been gone for 4 months now. What the heck?! Yeah. So a third of my exchange is done now and it's weird. But cool.

So since last blog, I've been doing much of the same, school, swedish, gym, eating, watching tv, and then repeat. It's so nice now that it's warm. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the snow. But to be honest I think this is much more of my scene. Last night I went to a BBQ at a girl from my class's house. It was sweet. Very chilled and I had a great night. Not to mention the fact that I captured some great videos of them. Haha. http://www.youtube.com/user/AlexandraInSweden

Me and Kathi, the German exchange student in my class

Today has been extremely chilled. Watching some movies. Sleep. Now am settled in to watch some of the French Open! Getting ready for my last 3 weeks of school before summer! So keen. It's unbelievable.

Anyway, that's about it from me.
Love always.
Alex. x

long weekends. the life of an exchange student.

So life is good. I miss home. But I can deal with it. This place is beautiful. It's kinda hard to believe sometimes that I'm half way around the world from everything I know. And that everyday I'm listening to a different language that's slowly becoming familiar. 


We had a 4 day weekend this weekend and I went out to the summer house with my host family. It's great. Their summer house has just been redone so after we arrived we had to move in the furniture and stuff so that we could actually live there! The weather was kinda crappy but I still had enjoyable time with my host parents and host brother. Saturday the weather cleared up and I actually got to expose the skin to the sun after almost 4 months (!) of jeans, jackets and snow. 


It's kinda weird being here and not having the busy schedule that I've lived at home for the last, uh, 18 years. There's endless amounts of spare time, and not much to be able to do to be busy. But I guess that's one of the challenges of being an exchange student, finding things to occupy your time. For me, I've been reading, making video's, going to the gym, sorting through my computer files (haha, nerd life), and occasionally trying to learn Swedish! 


So, another week's down.. On Thursday it will have been 4 months since I left home. 1/3 down. It's weird. It's like each day passes slowly, but then all of a sudden you think, oh wow it's been a week since then, and then it's been a month. 


Bye again for now,
Alex. xox


PS Mum and Dad, I've stopped biting my nails :O Haha. I hope you appreciate it :)

En bra vecka - A good week.

On Sunday my host family took me to a nature reserve, called Svartåmynnigen, for a bit of fika. It's a place popular with bird watchers during the Spring. Was really nice to get out and about within Linköping and see a little bit more of what the town has to offer.

The week was fairly uneventful, just living the regular Swedish life, going to school and gym, with the occasional baking spree and fika inbetween. A continuing cold is still hanging around which sucks but you know, you grab a cup of tea and get on with it!

On Friday night my host mum took me and my host brother out for dinner. The restaurant we went to was called 'Kniv & Gaffel' or 'Knife & Fork'. Where I got to eat some good old New Zealand lamb! So good. Definitely been missing it. Then we had a good old movie night and watched Angels and Demons. Pretty good, but no where near as good as the book. As always.

Saturday meant my first trip to Göteborg, and hopefully not the last. My host mum, host brother and I left Linköping at around 9:30 to begin the trip across the country, with the temperature being a wonderful..... 2 degrees! What the heck Sweden? I thought this was Spring! After an hour or so we made a stop in a town called Gränna, to pick up some Polkagris which is hard candy. SO GOOD! In this small town of around 2,500 (I think) there were Polkagirs shops every 2 or 3 stores. So ridiculous. But it is what makes the town so whatever, Im good with that! Haha.
We carried on to Göteborg, arriving around 1 when we picked up my host dad from the airport after he had been in Austria for work. Lunch time. Then came a quick trip to an art exhibition called :And There Was Light. An exhibition on Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Rafael. I got to see the recently discovered Da Vinci painting! Pretty sweet really. Along with a whole lot of other original works by the 3 artists and also several copies, including a full size copy of Micheangelo's "David".
Then we picked up my host sister from the train station, and headed to the hotel. Then went off to my host dads sisters house to meet the family! It was his sister's husbands 50th birthday celebration and I'm glad that I got to join them. The night was to consist of a boat cruise around the Göteborg harbour and out into the archipelago and an awesome seafood dinner on board.

Oh the joys of seafood ;) me and my host sister, Anna. 

It was absolutely beautiful, and the dinner was awesome. The weather even managed to clear up and warm up a bit for us. We managed to get a beautiful sunset and I also managed to get some sweet photos in there.

The beautiful sunset featuring the Swedish flag. LOVE IT

So the last few days have been spent doing the usual, school, Swedish lessons, chilling and watching movies. Particularly today as I've gotten sick, again, which sucks. Tomorrow is the start of a four day weekend which I'm looking forward to spending with the host family, hopefully heading out to the summer house for a few days. 

Missing you all, 

love Alex. 

En vecka som låtsas vara svenska - Another week pretending to be Swedish

The weekend after Kiruna, I started to feel sick, just like half of the others from my room in the hostel we stayed at. So I spent the majority of the week not feeling the best. Even having to take a day off from school to recover more. Not fun. It's weird being sick in another country! You don't have your favourite foods, drinks or medicines that you always take or eat when you're sick. So that took up the majority of my thoughts etc for the week.

Tuesday morning's Rotary meeting this week meant one thing... PRESENTATION TIME! Everything went splendidly (: Got the projector and computer set up fine, had an enjoyable breakfast, remembered my speech, showed the beauty's of NZ and even managed to answer the majority of their questions! Except for one, haha. So I had previously been told here that they don't get New Zealand wine, so when the topic of our exports came up, I said 'well our wine industry is quite big, but apparently not in Sweden' to which most of the Rotarians were like, uh nope, you can actually find plenty of NZ wines in the System Bolaget (alcohol shop).. Haha, being shown up about my own country... Love it. But hey, I am a Rotary student, NO DRINKING.

Friday here in Sweden was something exciting! It's another one of their strange holidays or celebrations. This one was called Valborg, celebrating the arrival of Spring and the beginning of May. On the night of the last night of April, it is tradition to light massive bonfires! I went down to one of the big public celebrations in Linköping with my host parents. There I met up with Evan and David the two other Rotary students in my town and a Swedish friend Frida. We watched the lighting of the fire and also a fireworks display! It was really awesome, and yeah, I am slightly obsessed with fires. Haha. Really exciting to watch.

 The bonfire at Tannefors slussar - Linköping

Today, I went with my host family out to the summer house for the day. They have been getting it renovated so wanted to check out how everything was going. The house is only about an hour and a half from our house and located on a small island just off the mainland, connected by a bridge and is really close to the water. It was gorgeous! I cant wait to spend some of summer out there with them, and hopefully some more time before then too.

Well, that's about it for the week. Nothing super exciting this week sorry.
Lots of love, Alex.