Tuesday after school, I got home, packed my bags, and then Uli, Max, Lukas, and I set sail for our 1 1/2 hour drive down to Hamburg. Helen had texted me that the weather was beautiful where she was, but I can't say near the same for Germany. Germany was conveniently having a huge storm on my day of departure. To my luck, although everything south of Hamburg was closed, I didn't have to fly south, I was going away from the storm.
After getting to the airport and checking in, I said my goodbyes, and was then left alone to fend for myself in the airport. I was an hour and a half early to my gate, and this almost bit me in the butt. After a while, I started getting suspicious, because we were supposed to board soon. I looked at the board one last time, and saw, oh wonderful, gate change! I started to speed walk to my gate, and a few minutes before I was there, they announced my name over the speakers and told me to report to gate bla bla bla, so then I did what any normal person would do, instead of now walking, I was doing a light jog! When finally there, the lady gave me a mean German look, then told me I'm lucky, and hurry up and get on... Germans are great at sugar coating, haha.
Once landed, I had to wait just 30 seconds for my luggage, went to the exit, and met up with the Fredstams (and their German exchange student, Maja). Once home and unpacked, we all sat down and watched the Hunger Games, while having my first 'fika'. Whats a fika? If I can explain in right it's kinda just having tea or coffee, or for me hot cocoa, and a little small thing to eat, this time being grapes. Once fika was finished we all decided to call it a night.
WEDNESDAY
Although I had break in Germany, Helen didn't have break in Sweden, so I took this opportunity to see a little more culture, and went to school with Helen. Because it's a music school, and I had luck, instead of classes Helen had Theater almost all day. Eventually lunchtime came, and I got to have an easter lunch! Unlike America, the school lunches were edible, and not only that, but really good. My lunch there was, no joke, little sausages (swedish kind), potatoes, meatballs (yay stereotypes!), salad, and eggs. Lunch had to end sadly, and it was back to the theater. When Helen was done with the acts that she was in, we thought it would be fun to go to the nearby mall. There I bought a swedish candy, sort of like a kit kat. We went back to the school, candy in hand, sat for 5 minutes, and then the day was over. We took the bus home, I chilled with Helen's brothers, and Helen went to a party.
THURSDAY
If I'm willing to take one extra school day, why not two right?!?! At least today I could understand more. During math they were given work to do out of the book, which I also did, and that was it, haha. Next she had swedish, and just to make it wonderful, they had a lesson on swedish grammar... I fell asleep, literally. After nap time, I went with her brother, who had English class with an extremely crazy, and extremely American teacher. After school was finished, Helen, Maja, and I got on a train into the center of Stockholm. There, we took a little boat ride, walked around, saw the swedish 'white house', and much more. For dinner I had my 2nd swedish food of the week. This time, it was a McDonalds sandwich Helen always talked about, called the McFeast. Really, it was just a burger with a different sauce, but it was still McDonalds... A little culture doesn't hurt, even if it is a burger. A little later, we met up with the family, and went on a 'ghost tour'. This was a tour through Stockholm, but with a twist. Instead of a boring history tour, we were brought to the dark parts of the town, and told stories of what happened here. Most of the stories had historical basis, but were then dramatically changed. I wish I could explain this more, but it's really hard to say exactly what we did there, but I can just say it was an amazing fun tour.
FRIDAY
Finally it was a day free of school, and we decided to go to their summer house on an island. Over the weekend we stayed here, without internet, just playing board games, talking, or watching movies. As a little snack, we had waffles with strawberries and a whipped cream type thing. For dinner on Friday, we had pork with a yellow sauce, apparently also typical, and potatoes.
SATURDAY
Once all up, we went over the the neighbors house (the fredstam grandparents), and got easter eggs. Different from America, the eggs are paper things bigger than what you can just hold in your palm. Likely the size of an ostrich egg, haha. After a little more board gaming, we were sent to walk the dog. When back, we had to find another easter egg. 10 minutes later, and we were all inside stuffing our faces with candy. For dinner the Grandparents came over, and we had a big Easter meal. Lots of fish, some lamb, potatoes, meatballs, sausages, and of course herring, which I was pretty much forced to eat, haha.
SUNDAY
We woke up, ate breakfast in front of the TV, ate Lunch in front of the TV, and were eventually pulled away from watching our movie and told to clean up and pack. After being 8 months in Germany, I still don't have this punctually down, so I ending up throwing my stuff into my bad, putting in contacts in the car, and running around the house so that we weren't late. Before going back, we met up with one of Helen's brother's friends, and had cookies, cake, and 'fikabröd'. One really fun thing with being on an island, is that to get to another nearby island, you drive your car onto a ferry, and every 20 minutes or so the ferry drives you across.
MONDAY
Today we mostly wanted to be lazy after an eventful weekend, but that mindset didn't stay for long. After a bit a friend of Helen's came over, we went to a candy store to see the american candy, and then went bowling with 2 friends and Helen's brother. Just for bragging, I was not the worst bowler in our group. =P
TUESDAY
This day ended up being our lazy day, so we got to sleep in. For breakfast we had biscuits with butter and jam, and for lunch Helen, Maja, and I went to a sporthall and got french fries. There we also watched a little bit of volleyball practice because Helens brother was there. Watching also included cheering really loud every time he made a point. In the evening, we had another fika, and watched a Harry Potter movie.
WEDNESDAY
My last full day in Sweden was decided to be spent in Stockholm doing kind of touristy things. At the beginning, we went to a museum of a ship that sank 15 minutes after sailing on its first voyage, and was then later lifted up and placed into a building. They also had guns and regular items relating to the life on board. After the Vasa ship, we went to Skansen, the first open-air museum and zoo in Sweden. It was also originally made to show the different ways of living before the industrial revolution. We ate lunch there, and I got yet another typical swedish meal, swedish meatballs, with mashed potatoes and lingonberries. Although I thought it was weird at first, it ended up being absolutely delicious! Once full, we walked around, saw tons of animals, looked at some of the parts of towns, and then had one final fika in a little cafe. After we got home, we weren't sure what to do, so we thought it would be fun to play twister... and I learned I'm terrible at twister.
THURSDAY
With a crazy week gone already, it was eventually time to go... I woke up around 11 o'clock, got packed, and then we all ate pancakes and soup (great pair) for lunch. Once back to the airport, Helen and Maja brought me in, we checked in, then said our goodbyes. ='( This time I was two hours early, plus my plane had a little delay. I wasn't sure what to do, so I thought it could be fun if I went and bought something with my extra money I had left, because I can't use it in Germany. I had 29 kronor ($3.30) and after going through every store and studying the prices of things, I bought a mineral water and a twix bar for the exact amount that I had. Eventually my plane came, and I could go back to Germany!
Overall, I thought this trip was a blast, but mostly because the Fredstams had made their week around me. We almost never were just sitting home, and if we were still doing something. It was so fun to give Helen a hard time, and I always think its really funny how we act like siblings, and not just friends. Thanks for reading, auf wiedersehen!