The Slippers

The last 2 days have been REALLY nice weather! You don't even need a coat! Thursday I met with my friend Veronika (she came to Windsor on exchange..we go for lunch once a week) and after that I was planning on going to the library to study, but it was just SO nice out I couldn't justify couping myself up indoors when I knew this weather was going to be limited! So instead I bumped into a few friends and we just sat on these stairs in the middle of campus and talked for a couple hours. I met this new Canadian kid named Adrian and he's by far the funniest person I've met so far! He and this British guy were wearing huge russian hats on the warmest day yet! Anyway, while I was laying on the stairs I was looking up at the sky, and I thought about how you guys are looking at the same sky and how even across the world the sky looks the same..it made me feel really close to home :)
I also joined a political protest! They advised us against this, but it was peaceful! There was just been an election in Sweden last week and there was a racist party that 6% of hte pop voted for, thus gaining them a seat in the house and the cities have just gone crazy and are super upset at this. This political party wants to keep anyone who isn't a Swede out of Sweden (sounds a lot like Hitler, right). Anyway, we all met in the center of the city and just walked around the city and chanted to show the support for anti-racism. There were about 500 people in Jonkoping, but Goteburg had one with 5000, and Stockholm (the captial) had one with 10,000 people just the day after the election!

After the walk Johan and I decided to make dinner and oh my gosh I am SO proud of myself! I'm finally learning to cook (by force). Me Johan and Lina made potatoes and pork and I didn't even talk with my mouth open because I wanted to soak up the flavour!

Friday (yesterday) I had class early in the morning, but it was a really fun class! We had a mock business transaction and myself adn two others were acting as entrepreners (selling the stupidest business idea ever--a business that improves relationships w/ employees & custoemrs to retain current customers instead of getting new ones) selling our idea to 3 other "venture capitalists". I ended up single handedly convincing the venture capitalists to give us 15 million for 10% of the company. Well, when we started taking up the deals with the rest of the class other people got zero investments, 100,000 for 30%, 1 million for 50%...this led me to confirm that business is my true calling :)

The Slippers:
While I've been here I've really really really been missing my slippers! The ground is cold in my apartment and I hate walking with barefoot or only socks so I usually wear my boots, but my roommates are getting pissed at me because we'll clean the floors and then I'll just muck them up..so I've really really wanted my slippers from home. And yesterday I was walking down the street and in the window I saw the COZIEST pair of slippers! But they were 200 SEK ($30) and I stood there for a while comtemplating whether I was willing to spend that much on slippers. Finally, I justified the price and went in to buy them. When I got to the counter the cashier told me there was a sale and I got 100 SEK off! (15$) so they were only 15$! I swear that has been one of the happiest moments of my trip here!!

I finally found some foods from home! The most I can find is Nutella and Campbell's tomato soup, so last night I cozied up in my new slippers with some campbell's tomato soup and a movie :) Twas a good night!

A month already!?

Well, I haven't written much lately because there hasn't been much to write! I realized early last week that holy crap, I actually still need to get good grades while I'm here! So I've spent A LOT of time studying! We've also chopped in half the amount of nights we go out from 4-5 nights to only 2 nights, which is really great for my wallet, my GPA, and my body!

I forgot to tell you guys about johan's birthday! So it was Johan's birthday a couple weeks ago and at first I just thought me and Joel would take him out for dinner, but on his actualy birthday more and more people kept telling me they wanted to come. So like 2 hours before we were supposed to have dinner I decided to make it a surprise party! So we gathered everyone at O'Learys (this really great, cheap sports bar--and there was a football [soccer] game on!) and Johan came over and I asked him if it'd be ok if just he and I went to dinner and he said yes, but then Joel popped out of the bushes so that was surprise #1! And then I told him about the change of venue, because originally we were going to a nice place to eat, but he was fine with it. So then we walked into O'Learys and saw everyone and he was SO surprise! He had a great night! His meal was free (lucky for me b/c I was going to pay for it) and people were buying him beers all night and he just got to drink beer, hang with all friends, and watch a heck of a football game!

I've been going to the gym a lot here! At least 5 times a week doing different classes-- a lot of yoga! I can't wait to be able to do yoga with an English instructor when I get home because it is SO annoying having to open my eyes every 30 seconds to see what the teacher is doing because I can't understand her!

I really can't get enough of the scenary in this town! It's SO beautiful (when it's not raining). And of course, I lost my umbrella week one! But I love just walking through the city and to the dock overlooking Lake Vattern and to all of the little shops. And I'll be getting visitors soon!! Lesley is coming for a couple days the first weekend in October, my friend Duncan is doing a Eurotour so he's stopping in the last week of October and we've booked a flight to barcelona in that time!, and hopefully Mark can come about the first week of November, where we'll go to Paris and Rome, and I'm hoping my grandma, dad, and jennie will be able to visit as well! It'll be so much fun being the tour guide instead of always having people show me around--now I get to show people my city! :)

I can't believe I've already been here a month! It's gone by SO fast--it's really scary. For a while I thought that maybe I'd want to try and stay for another semester, but I think 4 months away is the perfect amount of time away, or as the Swedes would say "lagom". I'm picking up Swedish pretty quickly and quite well! I'm finally getting down the seemingly IMPOSSIBLE intonation! I miss my family a lot though, but soon enough I'll be home :) I had a dream last night that Sweden got rid of all of its traditional chocolate and instead smartened up and started importing Reese's cups! That's a sign of a girl who misses the deliciousness of home. But they have some AMAZING choclate here--it's dangerous!

Last night was Wednesday, which is night out at the school pub. It was really fun! The thing I love about the clubs here is that people and guys aren't as gross as they are in Windsor. Like whenever you dance with a boy here it's like tango or salsa or some kind of ballroom, even to songs like lady gaga! They all know how to dance and it's very refreshing!

I'm meeting Veronika today for lunch (we have lunch once a week). She's the girl who came to Windsor on exchange and she's from Sweden. It's fun being able to talk about home with someone who knows what I'm talking about. I've also recently discovered that our friend Forss is an AMAZING cook, so I think me and Johan are going to pick up some groceries and bring them to Forss' for Forss to cook them!

I'll try to start writing more often, even if it's boring stuff because I'd like to have this to look back on when I'm home as well :)

Miss you all to smitherines!!!
xoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxo

I really suck at this blogging thing

I know it's been a while since I've updated, but now that school has started it's been super busy!

Well last Friday was my first Sweden "football" (aka soccer) game. Johan and I went to a little pizzeria we found to get pizza and watch the game. Of course, the menu was in Swedish so Johan had to translate and I told him that I only want pepperoni & cheese on my pizza and his mind was just blown--he could not understand it. So we get to the counter and he's like well how many pepperonis do you want? And I was like what do you mean? I can choose? And he pointed to what a pepperoni is in Sweden and it's that long, green hot pepper! It's the little cultural differences like that that make this experience so funny and different. Then we ate our pizza (which isnt NEARLY as good as North American pizza!) and watched the game!

Saturday we went to Gotenburg (pronounced Gothemburg). It's about two hours from Jonkoping and one of the girls, Elin, is from there, so she, Mikaela, Johan, and I drove down there on Saturday. Me and the girls did a little bit of shopping, went for a cute little lunch, met up with the rest of the crew and had dinner. Then Saturday nigght we met up with Johan and his friends and just hung out at his friends' apartment and learned a whole bunch of Swedish :)! Sunday we did a bit more shopping and then headed home. Gotenburg was beautiful, but while I was there I kept thinking of how much I missed Jonkoping. Jonkoping really is where my heart is at!

Sunday we started a tradition that will continue for our remainder of the time here: Family Dinner Sundays. All of us that live in Raslatt [Elin, Isabelle, Brett, Dereck, James, Joel, Johan, and my roommate AnnaKaren] made a big dinner on Sunday and had a family dinner which we'll do every Sunday from now on :)

The beginning of last week (monday and tuesday) I've been taking it really easy. Trying to keep up in my classes and making dinner with Joel, James, and Johan most nights. And of course, Wednesday night was the night out at the school pub Akadamien. So we all hung out at Derek's to preparty before going out and it was really fun! Akadamien is really cool because it's only students and you have to be a student to get in!

Joel and Johan left Thursday to Stockholm to visit their girfriends, so I'll be without my buddies for the weekend :(. Thursday was laundry day! Our laundry room is super scary and looks like a place out of a murder scene, so me and Annakaren made sure to do our laundry together. That literally took ALL DAY. But Thursday night was Taco night!! A bunch of us from Raslatt made a bunch of stuff for tacos and played authentic mexican music like gypsy kings in the background! It was really fun but everyone was in a food coma after eating so much!

Friday we played nightbowling! Kind of like rockinbowl or whatever it's called in Canada. It was a bunc hof us and our fadders (we still hang otu with them all the time) and it was fun even though I hate bowling. There were cool lights and really awesome music!!

Saturday we had an adventure day! I signed up for this trip that said "canoeing and horseback riding and bbq lunch" which was a VERY misleading sign! Especially since we only canoed for like 40 minutes max, and went horseback riding for the same amount of time. Also, I was in the "brave" group for horseback riding thinking we'd be galloping and we "jogged" maybe twice. And the bbq lunch we had to bring ourselves. And then the afternoon was games! Stupid "team building" games you play in grade 3. So I was pretty rattled, but the canoeing was really fun I just wish we did that a loooott mre. Saturday night we went to a place called "Huset" where they played LADY GAGA (upon request of course).

Sunday was another catch up day and I literally sat in my bed all day and did homework! My classes are pretty hard and I'm realizing I really need to get on top of this stuff!! But Sunday night we had another family dinner :) A little smaller this time though. We made stirfry and buns and rice, except no one knew how to make rice so it was more like mashed potatoe/gruel.

Today was SUCH a long day! I had my Macro class from 9-12 then had to meet with my group for our project [oh ya, we're starting a business here! discount cards for students for taxi rides!] and then more class! But i went to my first kick box class tonight :) It was so much fun!! I feel like I'm Rocky after just one class--which reminds me, the other day I went for a run and i was scoping out new paths and all of a sudden the air just smelled like such crap and then i turn the curve and there are like 30 COWS just in a field! And they literally all just stopped and stared at me. I kind of started to get worried cause I was like holy crap, do cows charge? Thankfully, they didnt and just watched me run by with their big fat ugly disgusting faces. But, tonight I just did homework all night :( It's definitely not kick off week any more! I actually have to start doing homework. But tonight I plan on watching stepbrothers which I rented for only $1.50! The guy wouldn't let me just buy it so I told him I'm just going to keep coming back and renewing my rental until he gets fed up and just lets me buy it!

Missing you guys and home lots lately!! <3

Weekend

Well we finally got half a day's rest on Saturday. I went to the mall with my roommate and her friend Maia and we had Ikea meatballs! Oh my goodd they were so amazing! Then Saturday there was a big caps tournament and then everyone went out to the club; it was really fun! We were out on the patio and I randomly saw my roommate (Annakaren) walking by so she joined us and then once the club closed we all went back to one of the fadders' houses and showed each other our music for a few hours (they don't really like Canadian/American music). They mostly listen to really cool techno here.
Sunday I got to play paintball for the first time!! I thought I would hate it because I hate that feeling of being chased and hiding and stuff but it was actually really fun! I got shot a bunch of times though..me and Johan had a pretty serious rivalry going and I'm sad to say he won :( I have bruises all over thanks to that bastard. Everyone kind of just went home Sunday night because its been such an insane week, we all needed a night off.
Monday Emilee and I walked around the city for a bit and checked out the little shops which was really fun!! They have so many cute little cafes and shops here. We got lunch at Waynes Coffee which is an awesome spot overlooking the city, lake, and the canal! I love how relaxed Europeans are. There was a bird flying around inside the cooffee shop and no one even cared. Everyone kept on with what they were doing and they were kind of like oh well, there's nothing we can do about it. I love it! Then We got a city bus tour of the city! There aren't even words to describe how beautiful this town is! We saw a whole bunch of parks and stuff and little forrests with trails in them it was awesome! Then me Emilee, Shannon (cdns) and Julie and Amy (Texans) went for lunch at this really cute little place before our night mission with our group! Our mission was a scavenger hunt so we got a list of like 150 things we had to find! Some were easy like pink cell phone, blue and pink socks, bra, batter, but then others you like had to find people and a priest and a picture of us with a mom and a baby stroller. Emilee and I were really good at finding people so we did that mostly. My favourite was we had to find "Dennis" (we had no idea who that was) and propose to him in front of the judges. So we went into the pub and asked her who he was and the girl told us he had dark slicked black hair and a white t-shirt and were just about to run out into the campus but we were like wait a minute, that guy by the door..he has dark long slicked back hair, and hes wearing a white shirt..so I asked if he was dennis and it was him! Then I proposed to him in front of them (and assured him my proposal was real and I actually wanted him to be my Eurohusband). And in the middle of it we'd get little mini challenges for extra points. Our team did really well, though, and found almost all of our items! Then all the people from Raslatt (where i live) went home and went in our sauna (which i dont really like but i was feeling sick so I thought it would help).
Tuesday I had my first day of classes! I really like them sof ar! The teachers have really good English and are pretty funny actually. I have friends in both of my classes so I'm thankful for that! There was a formal dinner that night for all the JIBS students but I accidentally bought the wrong ticket and bought the one for the health students! So Joel (switzerland) and Johan (Gotenburg) and I went to my house and got some stuff for dinner and made dinner with my roommate while we waited for Emilee to be done class. Then Emilee came and we all played games before going to the bar to meet up with those that had gone to the formal sitting. Then I made good friends with the bar owner because when we got there he hadn't put toilet paper in the bathroom so I had to wait so he gave us all free drinks and free coat check! We had an awesome night!
I'm planning on taking it easy today. We have that dinner but I'm not sure I'll go--I'm not really feeling up to dressing up and that but maybe I'll just go for the dinner. :)