Half Way Done!!

Well I successfully made it through the 1st 3 weeks of my 6 week course. Huzzahs all around! We had a ridiculously hard test that I studied for all week and making me more stressed than I like to admit. The test was so absurdly hard that I witnessed a full on freak-out by one of my fellow classmates (the only person in the room who doesn’t eat meat or dairy... coincidence? I think not.) But my teacher told me afterwards that I did really well. And although I am not sure it was a congrats for doing better than she had thought that I was going to do, which is kind of condescending, or if it was that I actually did well, I will take it.

So the program is really 2, 3 week sessions, so some of my classmates will not be returning for the next 3 weeks (unfortunately the super annoying greek guy is one of the ones that is returning.. boo). Some are the sentimental type and wanted a picture of our class (annoying, rude greek guy had left by this point, so he isn’t pictured), and now you can see what I mean about the crazy hair! Isn’t that crazy?
Hopefully in the next 3 weeks I can try and figure out what I missed by being able to know begginer and really advanced swedish, but not knowing the stuff in-between, like how to say "I dropped my fork, can I get another one?"

Jag Lär Mig

So whenever I try to talk to strangers in Swedish, I usually preface it by saying: "Jag lär att prata svenska så min svenska är inte så bra." Which I thought meant, "I am learning to speak swedish, so my swedish is not so good." Turns out, lära means both to teach and to learn, but learn is reflexive (yep, they lost me on that one too). So, what I really have been saying to everyone is, "I am teaching swedish so my swedish is not so good." Ha! They probably are thinking, man- her students are jätte-screwed!!!

(For the few of you that care, I will now say, "Jag lär mig att prata svenska så min svenska är inte så bra.")

Fourth of July in Sweden!

We did the impossible folks. We held a successful American celebration on foreign soil. We gathered everyone we knew in Sweden (with some guests from Iceland by way of Copenhagen too!) and held a bar-b-q at the park behind our apartment. All of the Californians made it (all 40 or so of them) and there was hot dogs and hamburgers abound. I even whipped up some awesome baked beans, which are not sold here! We played some Kubb (a swedish lawn game, which I actually played in Michigan about a year ago at an O'Neill family gathering), racquetball, some football (the real kind) and some football (the other kind).

My favorite part of the evening was when we convinced one of the Swedes, Daniel, that the best way to eat a Smore is to shove it all in your mouth at once. We told him it was the American way. haha. You should know that Swedes eat hamburgers and pizza with a fork and knife... I dont think they enjoy getting messy!

When the sun finally went down, (around midnight) we gathered everyone, which was a miracle in itself, and walked over to the Stadsparken (The City Park) to set off some fireworks. Now, these arent your typical, buy at the side of the road in the states, fireworks. Blake bought these (legally) and they were incredible. Almost like something the city of Seattle or Detroit would set off. I would say our fireworks show rivaled that of a small towns.

Apparently the whole town heard them, and one of the barisstas this morning asked one of the Californians if he was part of the group setting of fireworks at midnight on Friday. Ha! Success!

Tykarpsgrottan and Wånas

For our next big feildtrip we first went to a man-made cave called Tykarpsgrottan. It was, well, to be honest, super lame. I guess it would have been one thing if it was natural, but none of us found it very impressive. I call this one- searching for something interesting: But the feild trip wasnt all bad. After the "caves" we hopped on Scandorama (Blake was sad to hear that this is in no relation to Futurama) and headed to Wånas, a historic castle that has modern art exhibits that are incorporated into the landscape and structures.
Some of the art is located in the buildings that are on the property, but there are woods that you can hike around in with artwork located randomly throughout. The following, "Love in the Afternoon" was the group favorite: Some of the exhibits didnt quite make sense, but Michelle and I interpreted them the best we could. This one is inexplicitly titled "The Eigth Chimney." Yeah, we got nothing....
The coolest/creepiest part of the exhibit was an old barn that had different floors with different random things. All the windows had a red tint to them, and there was a rotating alarm that was saying something in Swedish in a very serious, monotomous tone. Yeah, I realize that doesnt expalin anything. You just had to see it. Here is Vicky trying to get out of the creepy place:
The only non-creppy part of the barn was this random rotating floor. Again, I have no idea how this is art, but it was fun. Here, Brianna attempts to slide across it:

Well, that about covers that trip. If you want to see the rest of the pics, you can see them here.

They have hedgehogs!

No really. Real hedgehogs. I saw 2 in the first 2 nights I was here. This one was pretty scared:

My New Favorite Thing

Hear me out. A Swedish Meatball Sandwich garnished with the Swedish equivalent of tartar sauce and lingon berry jam. Soooooo good!!!!!!!!!! I had seen Gurka Salad (I thought it was pickle salad- yumm) everywhere and so I bought some, and it turned out it was tartar sauce. In case you don't know me, I happen to love tartar sauce, so I was pretty excited that this is everywhere here. And lingonberry is sort of like cranberry. Hey- I haven't started eating caviar out of a tube yet. (they love things in tubes here, give me time, I'm sure...)

What Am I Doing Here?!!!

Umm.. taking a ridiculously advanced Swedish class. So, after taking 1 year of Swedish at UW, I was sitting pretty comfortable at "Intermediate Swedish." So, I get here, and they keep saying- oh- the advanced class this, the advanced class that, and I thought it was maybe a lost in translation thing. Nope. Turns out they only have a beginner class and an advanced class. Since I already know how to say "My name is Courtney. I like ice cream." (Jag heter Courtney. Jag gillar mjukglass.), they put me in the advanced class. We aren't allowed to speak a word English, and for the first week of class I got really familiar with the phrase "I don't understand." (Jag förstå inte.), but it is going a bit better now. That whole immersion thing may sort of have some bearings, it turns out. My class has 10 people in it. Me, 3 Californians, 1 older German guy, 1 older crazy looking Romanian lady (Looks like this:)


1 annoying Greek guy, 2 nice Chinese girls, and 1 awesome girl from Gambia. The other 2 beginning classes are made up of mostly 40 19-20 year old Californians. They are all really nice, but kind of a lot to handle. Most of it is probably the age thing. I suppose if I was 19 and was in a country that allowed you to drink at bars, I would probably be like- "Dude! Lets get wasted!!" too, but I'm not, so well, yeah, I'm not.

I usually have 1-2 hours of homework every night. It probably wouldn't take that long for most people, but since I am not advanced, I have to look up every other word or so. But- the good news is that the weather this week has been amazing and so when I'm not at class (3 1/2 hours a day) or on one of the feildtrips (more on some of those later) with my program, I have been doing my homework while laying out in the sun in the park next to my apartment. I cant complain about that, that is for sure.

Most days I wake up, make my quadruple americano (I cannot kick my caffeine habit and having an apartment furnished with an espresso machine isn't helping), ride my cute pink bike with a basket to class, sit through class, go shopping at the square in town that has a farmers market everyday, come home, make lunch, sit outside in the sun, do some homework until Blake comes home, and then we make dinner and either go for bike rides or relax and hang out and watch a movie. Yeah, I would say I like it here. :)