A Beautiful Autumn

Hej Hej!

Well I have enjoyed a lovely few weeks since returning from England. It is now autumn here in Sweden, and it is just so pretty. IT is a real treat ony my way to and from school I walk through a park that has these huge trees making the ground just a sea of beautiful orange and red leaves. Just loving it! The temperature is starting to come down now, nice to change into jumpers and cardigans again although I fear all too soon it will be freezing temperatures!

I haven't done anything terribly exciting, but thats not too say I have been bored. I am swimming once a week with a few girls from my class, hanging out with friends through the week, and being invited here and there on the weekends which has made for several fun friday nights!

I am looking forward to two trips that I have planned in the next month or so, in the upcoming autumn week holiday I will spend 2 or 3 nights in Motala with Adele from Australia. Ill have a look around her town and we will drive up to Stockholm for a day trip with her host sister which should be really cool, I have only been there once with Rotary which meant we were at museums etc the whole time so it will be nice to go there just with friends.

I am also going to go and stay with Nikki in Karlstad ( its about as north as oslo), who was an exchange student in NZ in my district. So that should be lots of fun for the both of us seeing each other again. Hopefully this will be another great weekend!

Not much to report really, just having fun being home really since my trip to england. Yesterday ( wednesday) was an american exchange students birthday so I went to Kirstianstad, it was really nice being able to hang out with the 4 exchange students there as I dont see them terribly often, its an hour and half train ride away but costs about $20 there and back.

This weekend I am moving back to Gantofta to my first host family again. This has been planned since day one, nothing has happened to bring about this change. Although it will be nice to be back with that family, almost like going home!

I went to a play on tuesday night with my class, a play that we are studying in swedish class, however it was written about 120 years ago in old swedish so it was rather difficult to understand which made for a rather boring evening. However I did feel much better when several swedes at the end of the play were still sitting there making comments such as ' I dont get it..'!

I had dinner with my Rotary councellor ( my contact person who helps me if I have problems with families etc) at the house of a man from Rotary who takes care of my banking, and his wife. I had a suprisingly very enjoyable evening, to be honest I had been well ´not dreading it but wasnt exactly excited about it, however I was pleasantly suprised and laughed all the way through the evening. About 5 minutes after we had arrived the couple hosting us turned to me and asked me how I was going understanding the conversation. Well I must admit when it comes to people suggesting that I cant understand something in swedish I have a tendancy to get rather defensive and offended, so of course my reply was Of Course I Understand, I have been here 9 months!! To my suprise they just laughed and explained that the wife was actually from Norway, and therefore not speaking swedish but norweigan instead! Granted it wasnt full on norweigan, it was a little swedish-ified with the accent etc but she still used different words and pronounced lots of words differently. I had just assumed she was from northern sweden, as we in the south dont speak proper swedish but skånska ( a southern dialect/pronounciation). Well they just thought it hilarious that I hadnt noticed that I was speaking with a lady who was replying in a different language!

This reminds me of a story Anna, my first host mother, told me about her son Anton when he was about 5 years old he played with a danish boy. When Anna asked Anton and the end of the day whether he understood everything the dane had said to him he asked her what she meant, having had no idea that the little boy was from another country speaking danish!

Anywho I best be off, will post some pictures later,

xx