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