school? haha. nah, i'm an exchange student.

So the last few weeks have pretty much contained zero school, a lot of tv, and a lack of sleep. As school wraps up I seem to have to attend less and less school. It's pretty sweet really one lesson a day, maybe two. The weather's warming up, and there's been blue skies for the last week. I could FINALLY begin to work on my tan again ;) and don't worry, it's coming back slowly.
On the 28th of May I participated in the Blodomloppet, which is a charity 5km run. I did it along with my host family and David, from Australia.

Me and David enjoying the Friskis & Svettis aerobics warm up! Hahah. 

Other events from the last few days include watching the 3rd grades Studenten Ball, which is totally amazing. As a part of their graduation they take part in an amazing ball, insanely good dancing, the girls are in such gorgeous dresses, even more impressive than our ball dresses at home. Apparently they work for months on the dances. I kind of can't explain the awesomeness of it all, hahah, sorry folks. 

This Saturday the host family and I went out to a lake about half an hour from home for a canoeing afternoon and picnic dinner on a small island (: It was great! We were also joined by two Sri Lankan's who work with my host mum who were really nice. 

Then on Sunday, it was Sweden's national day. So while my host mum was out of town visiting my host sister who goes to town in Falköping, my host dad, other host sister and host brothers headed to gamla (old) Linköping, to see the celebrations. They included, a parade and some random young children singing. Haha. I didn't really understand, but it was still enjoyable all the same. Then we enjoyed a great lunch in the sun at the restaurant. Followed by a trip to Tornby, (kinda like Botany Downs, but on a much smaller scale), so that my host sister could get a laptop for her exchange!

I'm pretty much over my sickness now. Slowly making my way back to normal sleeping patterns, and doing a little bit more than watching tv all day! Haha. I went to an aerobics class tonight, was great ;) Definitely know some people at home who would love these classes as much as I do! 

I only have two classes this week and haven't had one of them yet. So have had a super relaxing two days. Which has been great. I'm definitely looking forward to summer holidays starting on Friday, and then only 3 weeks until Euro tour! I seriously can't wait.. 

Over and out,

Alex.

PS, I also think I'm slowly becoming a little bit more Swedish, and the language is coming along a little bit. Lots of work to do though! 

xx

Oh yeah, another point. Sweden is ridiculously close to the North pole, so the sun stays up for ages! It's kinda annoying when trying to sleep but great when you're out at night (:

This was taken at 10:30pm!

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.

Kiruna madness.

So another week over, another trip away, another two cities, another country and even more new friends. Not to mention being above the Arctic circle? The Kiruna camp is one organized by the tourism programme of one of the schools in Kiruna and they 3 day adventure for us to see the best parts of the city and its surroundings! Kiruna is a town founded off an Iron Ore mine in the north of Sweden.

After having to make some last minute travel changes thanks to the volcano in Iceland I set off on a 20 hour train journey to Kiruna. Myself, David, Crystal, Stevie and Megan all arrived a day before everyone else. So had a night to ourselves in the hostel, and what did we choose to do?! Go out, explore and generally make dicks out of ourselves by making videos and taking photos. Definitely a great night.

The group of us from the first night. 

Monday morning meant the arrival of the rest of the Rotary students. Having checked up on the information we got from the organizers of the camp, meeting at 10am at the train station, we were surprised when at 9am we get a knock on the door from one of the teachers saying that we were going to the train station now. Funnily enough we were all just chilling in our PJs thinking we had around an hour left. So anyway, we got ready and headed down to the train station to meet the majority of the students arriving via train. It was great to see everyone that I hadn't seen since Åre and some even since Vimmerby, and then to see all the new faces of those I hadn't met yet. We got taken on a short tour of the town by some members of the tourism programme at the school then up to the school for lunch. Then was some chilling, chatting and settling in before a quick trip to the ice hotel! So Kiruna have this ice hotel, that you can actually go and stay in?! For the "small" price of 3000SEK for one night at the cheapest.. We saw a quick presentation about the ice and where its from etc, then got to see the factory where a lot of the ice products are produced and kept, then got to see the ice hotel itself! Very very cool I must say.

        

Getting artsy in one of the rooms in the Ice Hotel

Me, Alex (Australia), Jonatan (Kiruna) and Tash (Australia) in the Ice Hotel

The next day in Kiruna started bright and early, literally.. 5:30am wake up call, and the sun was certainly shining already. We made our way down to the school for breakfast at 6am ready to get onto the bus to go to ..... NORWAY! Yeah, that's right.. I got to venture into my third Scandinavian country. The bus trip was long, but beautiful. Snow covered mountains and lakes, seriously, can life get any better? We eventually made it to Narvik, Norway, the closest port to Kiruna, used to ship out the Iron Ore.  When we were in Narvik we got the opportunity to explore the town, and what were we to do with our time? Jumping photos of course!

Rachel (Australia), Me, Tom (Australia), Julia (Canada) and Brandon (USA)

After 2 or so hours in Narvik, we headed back to Kiruna on the bus, and on the way stopped at one of the many ski slopes for a quick fika before continuing back to the hostel. That night we had a dinner cooked for us by the restaurant programme at the school, also the students of Sami (Lappland) background dressed up in traditional dress for us. The dinner was amazing, reindeer stew, actually tasted great! The students from the tourism programme sung us the national anthem of Sweden and then it was up to us to do something for them. So in our country groups we took turns singing our national anthems, however, some of the Swedish girls remembered the Kiwis performance of the Haka last year, and of course that was requested, Stevie and I tried our best, but it definitely wasn't very impressive! 

Wednesday was another great day in Kiruna. In the morning we got to go on snowmobile tour through the bushes onto what I think was a lake for some fun in games. We got taken behind snowmobiles in old wooden sleighs lined with.... Reindeer skins.. Yeah, that's right. Reindeer! The scenery was beautiful, and pretty unbelievable really. Once we had arrived at our location we got out and played some games. Simple, but so much fun! We played bump, and it was great, so much entertainment provided from the ice and snow. Then we split into groups for some mini competitions, one of which included doing relays wearing beer goggles! After an hour or so we headed back to the school for lunch, and on the way back it was incredibly interesting! We ended up heading into a small snowstorm and a few times whilst going up hills we got stuck, had to jump out and push. So much entertainment in a short period of time. LOVED IT! In the afternoon we went in small groups to different classes at the school to talk to them about our home countries. My group had David and Crystal from Australia and Caroline and Pamela from Brazil. So as we were telling the class about our own country we also got to learn about the other countries that were in our group. That nights dinner was a Swedish favourite... Tacos. Seriously, I think they are obsessed! But don't think I'm complaining here, it's amazing! Haha. Then came the random games, chilling and chats. Some of which included, a scavenger hunt and sardines throughout the school and mafia. 

Thursday meant the end of our awesome time in Kiruna, and that was super sad! Saying goodbye to all of the awesome Swede's we had met and also all of the exchange students again, unsure if I will be seeing all of them again. Luckily for me, Stockholm airport was open for a brief few hours so that we could fly back. Then once in Stockholm myself and David took 2 buses, one into town, and then one back to Linköping. Even though we weren't in Stockholm for long I loved it, and can't wait to get back there and explore. On the bus on the way back home, I spent my time putting together a video of Kiruna! Check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzxfZI_0bUc

Kiruna was definitely an experience of a lifetime and I loved just being able to get to be a tourist. I met so many more awesome people this week and made some great friends. This experience is just getting better and better, 3 months down, around 9 to go. LOVING IT

Signing out for another week,

Alex. 

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.

All of my stuff! (And this is only 2 more bags than I managed to travel with!)

Love always,

Alex.