District conference and other stuff.

Life here is really settled, I've got a routine with mostly school, gym, Swedish lessons, fika and movies. It's pretty good really. With my final quarterly report done and dusted for Rotary in New Zealand, and the date for my final presentation for Rotary here in Sweden it's really hitting me how soon my departure date is which is incredibly scary. Don't get me wrong, it will be great to see everyone again, but this home and family feels like mine, it's getting harder and harder to remember what it's like living at home.

So amongst the normality of my Swedish life there are the Rotary weekends! This past weekend was the District Conference for district 2410 which has some of Sweden and also includes Latvia. We got to go down to Öland bright and early on Saturday morning to the hotel where the conference was held. After dropping our stuff off the exchange students headed off for our first activity, GOLF. We were all thinking, what the heck are Rotary doing making us go play golf! But after an hour or so of hitting some balls on the driving range and a bit of putting I think we all had a great time. Then was back to the hotel to organize our presentation for the rotarians later in the afternoon; which after a bit of stressing actually went really well. Some of the boys started out by singing a Swedish song, followed by a skit showing our expectations of Sweden including, tall blonde people who party all the time. Then we showed a bit of what school is like, with people walking in late, eating, txting, leaving when they want and casually a bit of music too. We also did one of the midsommar dances. I think the rotarians were pretty impressed and certainly got a laugh out of it. Then was back to our accomodation (some cabins at a campground whilst the rotarians got a hotel!) to get ready for the dinner. So with us all donning our blazers we headed back to the hotel for the formal dinner for the weekend.

At the medieval chapel on Öland

After a long night we got taken back to the hotel at around 10am and our choices of activities were either swimming at the hotel, or just sitting and chatting. But one of the girls, Mariah knew someone who wanted to go and explore a little bit so myself, Mariah (from Canada) and Ally (from USA) headed off to see some of the tourist spots on Öland. Including, a ruin from a Medieval chapel from the 12th century, an old village, and the royals old palace. So we adventured for a few hours before getting lunch at the hotel with everyone, and then it was back to Linköping after yet another great rotary weekend.

Some one notable event since the District Conference have been that at school for the week before Halloween we had people dressing up, scaring people, giving out candy, costume competition, just to name a little bit. So for a country that doesn't really do anything for Halloween (e.g. no trick-or-treating) it was pretty cool!

Leaving Göteborg

Church in Aalborg

So the past week has been Höst Lov (Autumn Holiday), so my host mum decided to take me and my host brother down to Aalborg, Denmark for a few days to see her mum, and her sister, amongst other things. After almost not being able to go after having managed to catch the fever that my little host niece and nephew had we headed to Göteborg to catch the ferry to Fredrikshavn on Monday. Tuesday I spent chilling in town with my host brother Nikolaj and then we met up with his friend Søren who was on exchange with Nikolaj in Mexico and then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with him. Wednesday was relaxed, did a bit of shopping, and then had dinner with my host mums sister and her husband which was really nice! Then we just came back today. 


It's crazy to think that it's now November, so I unbelievably have two months left here in Sweden. Which I'm definitely going to make the most of, and hopefully it's going to start snowing soon so I can enjoy that as much as I can before heading back into Summer in NZ :P

Well that's it from an almost nineteen year old (?!)

Love Alex.