One Month in!

Well I have now been here for one month and 5 days, and it feels like far longer since I left home!

Since my last post/email, I have been to the famous sauna. This is where many naked people ( men and woman are seperated of course) lie in a hot hot hot sauna untill they cant handle the heat any longer and so go outside ( still naked-and when I did it it was about 2 degrees outside, although goodness knows what the water temp was!) and jump into the sea. yes the sea. this sea seperates Denmark and Sweden. Then they run back into the sauna and so the cycle begins.

I experianced this with my host mother and her girlfriends from Gantofta and Brittany, the other exchange student living in my house. Well Brittany and i broke the rules and wore our bikinis. Well I tell you it was an experiance!!! One that I certainly could not have done in New Zealand!!! I have now seen all the ladies of Gantofta nude plus several from the city of helsingborg who were also participating in the crazy activity! It was very funny because Brit and i felt so awkward sitting chatting away with all these naked ladies. It was hard to know where to look because we there were three heights of chairs and well you can imagine... Anywho I survived walking through the showering block where various shapes and sizes were scrubbing various areas and into the sauna where I stared outside and the windy blustering sea, almost unable to see Denmark, only 4000 metres away! Then it was time to jump into the water.

wow oh wow. boy it was cold!!! Here are the photos to prove my achievment..

Walking ( slowly, so very slowly!!!) into the freezing water. Aka hell!

a picture says a thousand words!
brit and I competing to see who could last the longest.
I did not do well.
the location.




School is improving. The girls still let me sit with them and follow them around. Inbetween classes one day i even went to somebodys house! So I think that school will be fine. I have now experianced communal showers because we went swimming for p.e one day although 5 of us showered in our bikinis and only one girl showered without her togs so that was ok! although it seems like everywhere i go now people insist on being nude!!! Sadly I no longer really notice when somebody walks past me naked!

I have just spent the weekend in Kristianstad ( kir-farn-staad) ( or if you live in my city they say q-fwin-stad) ( or if you live somewhere else...you get the idea! Makes it difficult to purchase tickets!!!) staying with a kiwi exchange student, Alana. It was lots of fun seeing her again and being able to talk quickly and with understanding!

I am on holiday this week and so I am about to go and meet two american exchange students at the train station as they are staying at my house. We shall pop into denmark tomorrow for a little squiz. I havent yet met one of them so that will be nice to have a new friend!

Nothing much else to report now so I shall leave you all to your busy lives!

hope your not all missing me too much!!

much love,
x

Helsinborg

This is me with helsingborg city in the backround, and you can see the stretch of land across the sea which is Denmark.

First 2 Weeks

Hey Everybody,

Well I have now had 2 weeks in my new life in Sweden. So far I have had two days at school. One day last week before my language camp and one today. I made it very clear that I am not at all interested in participating in a science program this year which I was assured was all hunky dory and so you can imagine my suprise when, come my first day I am given a timetable which includes stage four chem, bio and physics! I thought I can cope with that for a day untill I get the chance to fix it all up. My classmates fought all day and had a huge blowup in the girls changing room after sport. Not the class for me I decided. A bit unfortunate really because the girls were really nice to me and when they saw me today said hello and let me pretend they were my friends during my break.
Today I had my first day with my true class, which I am staying in all year. Two girls spoke to me while the only other 3 in the class didnt say anything allthough it wasnt in a snobbish manner just shy. The boys didnt speak to me, so Mum I think you can safely tell Opa I wont be returning engaged! It was quite funny at the end of the day when one boy asked me if I could find my way home ok. I was so surprised he spoke to me I didnt really realise what he said! It sounds horrible and it sort of is but I know that once I can speak swedish to them they will warm up and that swedes are generally quite shy.
So I just have to keep it together for a month or two and they will come right. Although the girls who spoke to me today did tell me that the canadien exchange student last year that was in their class had to go home after 6 months because she wasnt happy! But they told their classmates they had to be nice to me this year and not exclude me like the last student. Which is promising? She'll be right.

Im yet to experiance the infamous communal showers so no comment there so far.

School aside, I spent 5 days in Ronneby with 9 fellow exchange students from the southern hemisphere to learn some swedish. There were 2 brazillian girls who were quite quiet as they felt they knew little english, and we didnt know any portuguese, another kiwi alana and I from NZ and then too many aussies! 6 to be exact, However after much banter between poor outnumbered Alana and I with them we all became friends which is lovely as none of us had any in Sweden yet! We visited about 10 classes throughout the week to talk to them about our countries, however when we got there very little wanted to talk to us and those who did only wanted to talk of Australia. Nobody cared about NZ or got confused about the fact that we were not aussies. In every class we were introduced as australiens and 2 brazilians. goodness!

Anywho Camp was fun so that was the main thing. So now I have had the chance to see and experiance the many differences between NZ and Sweden although I havn't felt any big culture shock, so adapting isn't really a difficulty at all although it is challanging at times for example the cold. I have been keep a basic record of all the differences really so I do not forget anything or simply not notice things because its so different.

Obviously number one is the language difference. But standing in the city near my little tribal village ( haha!) you can see Denmark. You can stand in one country and another is visible! incredibile!
The schools are incredibly different. The students can be dressed however they like and I can tell you that anybody no matter how bogen or emo or sporty or geeky will all fit in. There are many weirdos! Anywho you may get up and walk out of class should you feel like it. Address your teacher by their first names and of course should you be unhappy with their style swear at them. You can pop out for a smoko etc. They all look at me in horror when I describe school at home. and I didnt even mention the no walking on the grass rule!

A big change is they drive on the right side and not the left side of the road. This doesnt sound too major I know, but when you go to cross the road it can be a bit hazardous! And sitting in the front seat while driving somewhere, while I have gotten used to being on the right side of the road however when we go onto a roundabout or go to turn into a road I still freak out when I see my host Dad looking the wrong way! I forget the cars are coming from the other direction!

Also, cyclists ( and there a many, it is a very popular method of transportation to school and work) have their bike lane but it is on the footpath which of course being a kiwi I had no idea of this and so yes I have been 'run over' ( well run into anyhow) by a cyclist who continued to ride while yelling goodness knows what in swedish at me. I learnt quickly how to walk on the footpath.
Another traffic difference is the lights go red orange green rather than straight to green which I found weird but another difference that I find really cool is that on the highways etc they have signs informing drivers which carparks have spaces available and how many!

In shops you must put all the clothes you dont wish to buy back on the shelves yourself rather than give it to the shop assitants which I think is silly.
Cafes etc close at night.

Trains, central heating.
Toilets. They dont have nice toilet paper like we have in NZ. Its like the paper used in public places that they have in their homes. You can imagine the standard in the public toilets. Well actually I wouldn't know because its $1 to use public toilets, and in some cafes where you are dining. I refuse to pay.
When one flushes the toilet it empties and refills at the same time! Well worth a mention!
Walking along roads etc you find puddles have frozen over. It is very entertaining to jump on them and break the ice!
Sparkling water is hugely popular here. I tried to buy a bottle of water on my way to school one day but there were no bottles of still water in the shop! There were however all the flavours of the world in bubbly water!

You flick the light switches the opposite way. Im sure there are many more but thats all I can remember now and this email its pretty long already so I will leave you all to continue sunbathing while I sit by the fire rubbing my toes!

LOVE
xx

Hej everybody,

It is 11am here in Gantofta, Sweden where we have been warned by the newspapers all week about a huge storm that is coming. It has been a bit of a joke with all the passangers on my many flights and at home with the family that this is how the swedes would like to welcome me to their country! So at the moment its about 5-7 degrees which im told is very warm for this time of year. I dont find it too bad anyway.

Well LA was fun, going to Universal Studios and Disneyland. Disneyland was amazing, the attention to detail was incredible! However, I must say that I despise American food. It was disgusting, the portions were huge but fatty. While at Disneyland Jess, Greg ( the two whom I went round the theme parks with) and I became very excited when we saw fruit and vege stores and promptly bought carrots and celery etc. Greg chose sliced apple and discovered it came with a thick caramel sauce, which gives you an example of how they like their food.

That aside it was a great transition and we 40 students departed for our countrys after a few sad goodbyes, but mainly really excited for our individual journeys and of course extremely sleep deprived. We were chaperoned as far as frankfurt. Seven of us went through customs together and we all set of the metal detectors. But other than that we got on our flights ok, I was with 2 others flying to Stockholm where they were picked up by families and I was to go on to my next flight to Malmo. That was a bit tricky, navigating through a swedish airport where there is little english in the domestic section but with a few tears and the help of a kindly norweigan pilot I checked in ok and finally arrived in Malmo where I could not see anybody waiting to pick me up. After awhile I decided the time had come to give them a call and thankfully they were only at the international arrivals, not realising I was on a domestic flight. As you can probably imagine, I was thoroughly exhausted and went to bed as soon as we arrive home.

I have only had one day so far although it was so busy it feels like more. My host family are really lovely, exactly what one would wish for upon arriving in a foreign country at 17. If I listen, I can understand the topic of the conversations and what they are asking me although obviously I cant reply in swedish. In the morning I woke up surprisingly early considering how exhausted I had been, while everyone stayed in bed. Hannes my 7 year old host brother got up soon after, saw me said good morning and ran away! I managed to ask him how old he was and he taught me how to count. We watched the Lion King in swedish which was cool, and Emmy surfaced as it started. Emmy is 5 in may and so cute! Anyway those 2 love me and tried to teach me lots of swedish which was fun. I went with my host brothers to the dairy on the far end of gantofta. We were home after ten minutes but it was nice to see the area! I think it will be beautiful in the summer.
My host parents then took me for my first ride on a train into the city of Helsingborg with the 2 littlies and we had lunch and saw my school etc. In the evening I recieved a phone call from brittany asking if i wanted to join her and another exchange student for a coffee which I did and that was excellent.
When I got home, a friend of my host mothers was there and I talked with them partly in swedish, partly in english for a good 3 hours before my host father who is a real boy at heart whisked me away to play nintendo with him! It was quite funny because it was that interactive thing, where you hold the sensor and so we played bowling.

So as you can see I feel very welcome in Sweden, not too many glitches so far. Hope all is well at home, Vi sesxx