When I first came, I immediately noticed a soccer field complete with soccer goal nearby so today I went to kick a ball around. Because you know, I have to keep my skills up! Vivian came too. She has never played soccer before today so I was teaching her some of the basic skills. It was pretty fun. It was hot also so after a while we got tired and just laid in the grass. We just watched the clouds and I let Vivian listen to some of my music on my iPod and I heard some of her music. Hers were all in Chinese of course but they sounded nice.
After a little bit of listening to music and watching the clouds, we got up to walk to Bastasjön Lake, the one we saw with Anders on Friday. It is way peaceful here! There was nobody else there; it was like we had the whole place to ourselves. When we were here on Friday, Anders showed us a path around the lake so we decided to walk it today, the sign said it was only 1.5 km. we got about a quarter of the way and came to a block and there was a sign but it was in Swedish so I have no clue what it said. So for all we know, the path was closed for some reason. So we turned around and headed towards the house.
On the way we saw a play ground so we stopped there for a long while and just chilled. We did some sliding on the slide and swinging on the swings and we talked about what our schools are like. Vivian went to an all girls high school (well our high school equivalent) and they have a huge public exam to get into high school and another one to get out of high school. She says it’s really tough. Also the government assigns where each student will go to high school. It was a very interesting conversation.
Nope, I didn’t do much today, just a lot of chilling, some soccer and a very short hike. It was a nice relaxing day!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
7/18/10
I would consider today a pretty chill day. But I would still definitely consider it a memorable day!
After breakfast and playing with Tiger/ feeding him cheese, I decided to brush Zack, the dog, since its summer and I’ve noticed that he is shedding. His coat looked SO shinny and clean after I was done!
Then I had to get ready because we were going to a flea market in Ronneby at Brunnsparken, a park that a few years ago was voted “Sweden’s most beautiful park.”
i really need to learn some numbers bigger then 10 because 10 Swedish Kronors buys me nearly nothing, in fact it’s equal to about $1.40. Haha can’t get much with that! There were SO many people! It was like a huge garage sale. I ended up buying a CD of a Swedish artist, idk who she is but it only cost 5 kronors which is about 70 cents in US money. Her name is Robyn and I'm listening to her songs right now and I kinda like them. And she sings in English so at least I can understand her :)
Then before going home we stopped at the store to pick up materials to make ice cream. A few days ago Madeline mentioned that she had an ice cream maker so Vivian and I really wanted to make some. We made vanilla ice cream completely from scratch and it turned out good and tasty :) it was basically egg yokes, sugar, vanilla extract and cream. And we put it in an ice cream machine that stirred and froze it for us and it only took and hour! Making ice cream was really fun!
From the egg whites we made meringues yummy! That was just egg whites and sugar. The recipe Madeline was following told us to put in chocolate sauce so we put in some. Those took FOREVER to bake!! Like 2 hours! But Madeline said that’s because it was on low heat and basically the meringues had to dry out. They were tasty but I think next time I would like it with out the chocolate sauce because it made part of the meringue chewy like taffy. And I didn’t really like that so much.
I plan to make ice cream and meringues again during this trip for sure!
After breakfast and playing with Tiger/ feeding him cheese, I decided to brush Zack, the dog, since its summer and I’ve noticed that he is shedding. His coat looked SO shinny and clean after I was done!
Then I had to get ready because we were going to a flea market in Ronneby at Brunnsparken, a park that a few years ago was voted “Sweden’s most beautiful park.”
i really need to learn some numbers bigger then 10 because 10 Swedish Kronors buys me nearly nothing, in fact it’s equal to about $1.40. Haha can’t get much with that! There were SO many people! It was like a huge garage sale. I ended up buying a CD of a Swedish artist, idk who she is but it only cost 5 kronors which is about 70 cents in US money. Her name is Robyn and I'm listening to her songs right now and I kinda like them. And she sings in English so at least I can understand her :)
Then before going home we stopped at the store to pick up materials to make ice cream. A few days ago Madeline mentioned that she had an ice cream maker so Vivian and I really wanted to make some. We made vanilla ice cream completely from scratch and it turned out good and tasty :) it was basically egg yokes, sugar, vanilla extract and cream. And we put it in an ice cream machine that stirred and froze it for us and it only took and hour! Making ice cream was really fun!
From the egg whites we made meringues yummy! That was just egg whites and sugar. The recipe Madeline was following told us to put in chocolate sauce so we put in some. Those took FOREVER to bake!! Like 2 hours! But Madeline said that’s because it was on low heat and basically the meringues had to dry out. They were tasty but I think next time I would like it with out the chocolate sauce because it made part of the meringue chewy like taffy. And I didn’t really like that so much.
I plan to make ice cream and meringues again during this trip for sure!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
music and videos from the music festival on 7/17
i just got a new camera before i left for this trip so im just learning how to use it and all of what it is capable of. when reading reviews of this camera it repeatedly said that this is not the camera you should get if you want to take videos with it. i think this is mainly because it doesnt take HD quality video like a lot of the other cameras on the market. Either way i wasnt buying the camera for taking video. that said, i still think these are pretty darn good videos...i was expecting much worst. ANYWAYS...here are some examples of the music i heard at the Hasslö Music Festival on the 17th of july.
SINN FENN
Amanda Jenssen
Sinn Fenn
Ognob
note: i personally didnt like this groups' music style but thier head banging intrigued me lol! right after recording this video i went as far away as possible and called my parents. just to say hi and tell everyone i missed them and to see how everything at home is going and all that good stuff
Mary Jet
ENJOY! and i hope they all work!
SINN FENN
Amanda Jenssen
Sinn Fenn
Ognob
note: i personally didnt like this groups' music style but thier head banging intrigued me lol! right after recording this video i went as far away as possible and called my parents. just to say hi and tell everyone i missed them and to see how everything at home is going and all that good stuff
Mary Jet
ENJOY! and i hope they all work!
7/17/10
To describe today in 5 words: rainy, thunder, lighting, music, fun.
Woke up to thunder and hard, pounding rain outside my window. At first I was scared cuz there’s always that few seconds of confusion when I first wake up but when I realized it was just the rain, I relaxed. I just laid in my bed for a while just listening…rain hitting the roof is so relaxing and I love the rain, everything about it.
I finally decided to get up and go down to breakfast (after like 30 or so minutes of just listening) We always eat breakfast outside on their little patio thing (which luckily has a roof) which I especially enjoyed today since I was close to the rain and the fresh air. Breakfast was the same, yogurt and cereal and some cheese on the side. Yummy.
Today we didn’t have any internet since we have to unplug everything when ever there is thunder and lighting. Which in all honesty, I was totally chill with. I had tons of fun, trying out new things with my new camera and trying to capture a picture for my 365 project to portray a rainy day. And of course plain relaxing and listening to the rain and all of us talking about the rain and all that good stuff.
Our plan for the afternoon was to go to a music festival so we were worried that it would be all rainy and stormy there. We had the radio on all morning to listen to the weather. Luckily it cleared up around 2.
At 5 we left to go to a Chinese restaurant. We went today because they were serving a buffet today. When we got there Madeline made me go up and look at the food to make sure there were other things besides rice that I could eat. I did a quick look and saw noodles and some vegetables and fried things that I could possibly eat. When I actually went up to pick out my food, I found that the noodles had some sort of meat in them and basically everything had some sort of meat in it. My plate consisted of (a whole bunch of) rice, fried eggplant, some other fried thing, broccoli & carrots that I picked out of one of the serving trays. The egg plant and other fried thing tasted icky…I don’t really like the taste of fried. The carrots and broccoli were ok but I couldn’t get a lot since they were mixed in with the other things in the serving tray. In fact I think I picked out all of the carrots in one of the serving trays, lol! The rice was really dry and kinda hard but I fixed that with putting tons of sauce on it. It filled me though so it’s all good.
After we drove to Hasslö for the music festival. I got to listen to some really nice Swedish rock music. My favorite groups I heard were Mary Jet, Sinn Fenn and Amanda Jenssen. One note: in Sweden they pronounce the letter J with a y sound. I loved Mary Jet’s lead singers’ hair…she had dreads and her music was nice too! Sinn Fenn seemed to be the crowd favorite. The lead singer grew up on Hasslö so he was a local. Their music was all in Swedish but it was really up beat and happy. Amanda Jenssen was the second place singer in a recent series of Swedish Idol (like American Idol) Vivian and I had front row view right at the stage. It was amazing!
Even though on some of the artists/songs I had no clue what they were saying since they sang in Swedish, I did like them! And I had lots of fun! We didn’t come back to the house till 12:30 in the morning.
Woke up to thunder and hard, pounding rain outside my window. At first I was scared cuz there’s always that few seconds of confusion when I first wake up but when I realized it was just the rain, I relaxed. I just laid in my bed for a while just listening…rain hitting the roof is so relaxing and I love the rain, everything about it.
I finally decided to get up and go down to breakfast (after like 30 or so minutes of just listening) We always eat breakfast outside on their little patio thing (which luckily has a roof) which I especially enjoyed today since I was close to the rain and the fresh air. Breakfast was the same, yogurt and cereal and some cheese on the side. Yummy.
Today we didn’t have any internet since we have to unplug everything when ever there is thunder and lighting. Which in all honesty, I was totally chill with. I had tons of fun, trying out new things with my new camera and trying to capture a picture for my 365 project to portray a rainy day. And of course plain relaxing and listening to the rain and all of us talking about the rain and all that good stuff.
Our plan for the afternoon was to go to a music festival so we were worried that it would be all rainy and stormy there. We had the radio on all morning to listen to the weather. Luckily it cleared up around 2.
At 5 we left to go to a Chinese restaurant. We went today because they were serving a buffet today. When we got there Madeline made me go up and look at the food to make sure there were other things besides rice that I could eat. I did a quick look and saw noodles and some vegetables and fried things that I could possibly eat. When I actually went up to pick out my food, I found that the noodles had some sort of meat in them and basically everything had some sort of meat in it. My plate consisted of (a whole bunch of) rice, fried eggplant, some other fried thing, broccoli & carrots that I picked out of one of the serving trays. The egg plant and other fried thing tasted icky…I don’t really like the taste of fried. The carrots and broccoli were ok but I couldn’t get a lot since they were mixed in with the other things in the serving tray. In fact I think I picked out all of the carrots in one of the serving trays, lol! The rice was really dry and kinda hard but I fixed that with putting tons of sauce on it. It filled me though so it’s all good.
After we drove to Hasslö for the music festival. I got to listen to some really nice Swedish rock music. My favorite groups I heard were Mary Jet, Sinn Fenn and Amanda Jenssen. One note: in Sweden they pronounce the letter J with a y sound. I loved Mary Jet’s lead singers’ hair…she had dreads and her music was nice too! Sinn Fenn seemed to be the crowd favorite. The lead singer grew up on Hasslö so he was a local. Their music was all in Swedish but it was really up beat and happy. Amanda Jenssen was the second place singer in a recent series of Swedish Idol (like American Idol) Vivian and I had front row view right at the stage. It was amazing!
Even though on some of the artists/songs I had no clue what they were saying since they sang in Swedish, I did like them! And I had lots of fun! We didn’t come back to the house till 12:30 in the morning.
Friday, July 16, 2010
pics from 7/16
a note: so appearently there a limit on how much pictures i can upload each month on flikr and somehow i already used it all up, with one day's worth of pics! so im gonna have to figure something else out...
until then:
grocery shopping like we do everyday lol
like ive mentioned before, they have to pay for thier bags here and also they have to bag thier own stuff.
walking the dog Zach :)
Just keep walking just keep walking *said in the style of Dory from the great movie Finding Nemo*
so much green!
the lake so peaceful and quiet
there are some random horses pened up here and idk where any owner is...
Zach just chilling and trying to cool down after our walk to the lake
ZACH!!! its a hot day aint it?
there is graffiti here too... :/
In sweden you cant buy alcholic beverages in normal grocery stores so they have special stores filled with all kinds of alcohol. kinda reminds me of a BevMo. anyways we had to pick up some wine for our surprise. dont worry it was mainly for Madeline only.
the hegehog that likes to chill in the yard and then gets freaked out when Zach runs to it and starts sniffing it and barking like a madman
Left to right:Annika, Adina, Stefani(Lucia), Rebecca and i never learned her name.
Them singing buitifully
Me dressed in Lucia clothing
me and Vivian joining in Lucia pictures
Swimming at 9:30 at night!!
From left to right: i forget her name, Annika, Rebecca, Adina, and me :)
until then:
grocery shopping like we do everyday lol
like ive mentioned before, they have to pay for thier bags here and also they have to bag thier own stuff.
walking the dog Zach :)
Just keep walking just keep walking *said in the style of Dory from the great movie Finding Nemo*
so much green!
the lake so peaceful and quiet
there are some random horses pened up here and idk where any owner is...
Zach just chilling and trying to cool down after our walk to the lake ZACH!!! its a hot day aint it?
there is graffiti here too... :/
In sweden you cant buy alcholic beverages in normal grocery stores so they have special stores filled with all kinds of alcohol. kinda reminds me of a BevMo. anyways we had to pick up some wine for our surprise. dont worry it was mainly for Madeline only.
the hegehog that likes to chill in the yard and then gets freaked out when Zach runs to it and starts sniffing it and barking like a madman
Left to right:Annika, Adina, Stefani(Lucia), Rebecca and i never learned her name.
Them singing buitifully 
Me dressed in Lucia clothing
me and Vivian joining in Lucia pictures
Swimming at 9:30 at night!!
From left to right: i forget her name, Annika, Rebecca, Adina, and me :) 7/16/10
Ever since I first arrived, Madeline and Anders have been telling me and Vivian that they have a surprise for us on Friday, today. They created this big hype and wouldn’t tell us what they had planned for today. By Thursday, and part of this morning I started getting very annoyed with how they wouldn’t tell us anything. I mean I love surprises but you should leave it at that, a surprise. They kept telling us part of things like who they were going to invite and that they wish this one opera singer could have come but she already had plans. Like hinting at things but when one of us asked about it they would be like “nope, it’s a surprise” I guess its just me, I don’t like it when someone tells me part of something but wont tell me all of it and I would much rather they say nothing at all, idk.
Anyways, this morning, after breakfast, we went to the store to pick up food for later, for the surprise. I think ive said this before but we go grocery shopping every single day. Luckily I find it interesting still, looking at all the different products. Kinda off topic but not really, the swedish word for pineapples is “ananas”. I love saying it :) and I learned that from looking at the sign in the grocery store. Going to the grocery store is a great way to learn the names of products in swedish since I can see the product and make the connection between what it looks like, the english word and the swedish word. Also kinda related, the swedish word for sale is “rea” and the tax is included in the price of the products here so the price you see is the price you pay.
When we came back to the house we took the dog, Zack for a walk around the neighborhood with Anders. It was a nice way to see the area around their house. We ended up walking to a small lake near by called, I think, Bastasjön. It was really pretty and peaceful. Anders said that there is a path so we can walk around the lake. Vivian and I plan to do that sometime next week. While we were walking back Anders told us that they build their house and have been living in it for like 26 years. He said that to build a house in their neighborhood costs around 5 million swedish kronors. In American money that is like $678,030.75. I don’t have a good concept of money and how much it usually costs to build a house at home but that sounds kinda good. There are still empty lots in the neighborhood here but im not sure I’d like to live here cuz the price for everything else is so high. The swedish government does pay for college here so then mommy and daddy could have their house in the British Virgin Islands and their boat called “college fund” :P haha! The nature around the neighborhood here is really nice but I do really love my home and where its located and plus we have lots of nature around our home too.
Back at the house, we just chilled till 4 (when the surprise was supposed to start) but people ended up being late and we didn’t start till 6. Whatever happened to the swedish not believing in being “fashionably late”?
I bet youre wondering what the surprise is. Well, the surprise was a swim party with her Lucia girls. And they sang some songs for us. They are very good singers. Lucia is a thing they do in sweden around christmas time where a procession of 7 girls go around to old people homes and sing for them. I guess kinda like caroling but these girls have to audition for it and it’s a big honor to be chosen as Lucia or one of her “court” (sorry that’s probably not the best word but I cant think of any other) they are 17-20 years old and they were all really nice. They taught Vivian and I some more swedish words and helped us learn how to count to 10. The words for 2, 4 and 7 are really hard to pronounce!! And they thought it very funny when ever we tried to say them. Haha it was fun though. After their little show of singing for us, Madeline had Vivian and I dress up too in the Lucia clothes and we all took pictures together. (Vivian and I didn’t sing, thank goodness!)Then swimming! It was a short swim cuz everyone was tired but we all had fun.
Overall, I enjoyed our surprise and Im glad I got to meet some people my age. Im already friends with one of them on facebook :) haha! Now our friendship is official :P
Anyways, this morning, after breakfast, we went to the store to pick up food for later, for the surprise. I think ive said this before but we go grocery shopping every single day. Luckily I find it interesting still, looking at all the different products. Kinda off topic but not really, the swedish word for pineapples is “ananas”. I love saying it :) and I learned that from looking at the sign in the grocery store. Going to the grocery store is a great way to learn the names of products in swedish since I can see the product and make the connection between what it looks like, the english word and the swedish word. Also kinda related, the swedish word for sale is “rea” and the tax is included in the price of the products here so the price you see is the price you pay.
When we came back to the house we took the dog, Zack for a walk around the neighborhood with Anders. It was a nice way to see the area around their house. We ended up walking to a small lake near by called, I think, Bastasjön. It was really pretty and peaceful. Anders said that there is a path so we can walk around the lake. Vivian and I plan to do that sometime next week. While we were walking back Anders told us that they build their house and have been living in it for like 26 years. He said that to build a house in their neighborhood costs around 5 million swedish kronors. In American money that is like $678,030.75. I don’t have a good concept of money and how much it usually costs to build a house at home but that sounds kinda good. There are still empty lots in the neighborhood here but im not sure I’d like to live here cuz the price for everything else is so high. The swedish government does pay for college here so then mommy and daddy could have their house in the British Virgin Islands and their boat called “college fund” :P haha! The nature around the neighborhood here is really nice but I do really love my home and where its located and plus we have lots of nature around our home too.
Back at the house, we just chilled till 4 (when the surprise was supposed to start) but people ended up being late and we didn’t start till 6. Whatever happened to the swedish not believing in being “fashionably late”?
I bet youre wondering what the surprise is. Well, the surprise was a swim party with her Lucia girls. And they sang some songs for us. They are very good singers. Lucia is a thing they do in sweden around christmas time where a procession of 7 girls go around to old people homes and sing for them. I guess kinda like caroling but these girls have to audition for it and it’s a big honor to be chosen as Lucia or one of her “court” (sorry that’s probably not the best word but I cant think of any other) they are 17-20 years old and they were all really nice. They taught Vivian and I some more swedish words and helped us learn how to count to 10. The words for 2, 4 and 7 are really hard to pronounce!! And they thought it very funny when ever we tried to say them. Haha it was fun though. After their little show of singing for us, Madeline had Vivian and I dress up too in the Lucia clothes and we all took pictures together. (Vivian and I didn’t sing, thank goodness!)Then swimming! It was a short swim cuz everyone was tired but we all had fun.
Overall, I enjoyed our surprise and Im glad I got to meet some people my age. Im already friends with one of them on facebook :) haha! Now our friendship is official :P
Thursday, July 15, 2010
pics from Vivian and my adventure on the 15th
ok im gonna try something new...ive been taking lots of pic everyday and uploading them one at a time to blogger is a pain so flickr is gonna become my new best friend :) this is a slide show and i realize its kinda small but if you click on it it'll bring you to the flickr page where the pics are bigger and ive also put discriptions of the pictures. i hope this works! enjoy!
edit: if you cant see the pics maybe a link will work? let me know: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37034002@N03/sets/72157624418142039/
edit: if you cant see the pics maybe a link will work? let me know: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37034002@N03/sets/72157624418142039/
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