Christmas

I have now officially had my first Christmas away from home. Christmas in Sweden is very different and very similar to Christmas in Canada. The largest difference being that in Sweden, Christmas Eve is when the holiday is celebrated. Here, almost no one puts up Christmas lights, which makes it seem very dark out near Christmas, especially because there's no snow yet and the Sun goes down a little after 3 p.m.

My Christmas started out on Saturday night when I slept over at Henric's girlfriend's appartment. At 2 a.m., there was a special on T.V. about Candy Cane lane in Edmonton, so of course I HAD to watch it! : ) That was when it finally started to feel like Christmas. On Sunday morning, we (Henric, Therese - his girlfriend, Caroline - Therese's daughter, and I) woke up around 11 and had traditional Christmas rice porridge.

By 12:30, we were at Therese's parents' house to eat a Christmas smorgasbord of fish (raw), fish (cooked), more fish, hamk, meatballs, and potatoes. Note the lack of vegetables - I think Europeans have forgotten they exist! Swedish Christmas food is definitely an "experience"!

After opening a few presents, we watched the Donald Duck Christmas show on T.V. which has been a Swedish tradition for over 50 years.

Next, Henric and I were off for the drive back to Eskilstuna from Västerås (about 30 minutes) to pick up Emma and Oscar from their Mom's house.

We then continued on to Henric's parents' place for Christmas dinner and to open a few more gifts. After our evening there, we went back home to relax for an hour before heading on to Henric's sister's place. It was then that I finally got the chance to open my packages from home which was really nice. I really enjoyed reading the cards from home so thanks so much!

After a few hours at Henric's sister's, spent watching T.V. with the cousins, we went to midnight mass at Kloster Kyrka (a beautiful old church downtown). The service was a lot different from what I'm used to at hodme on Christmas Eve (and I don't just mean the language difference); yet, I still enjoyed going.

By 2 a.m. I was finally home and in bed. I have to say, it was definitely the most busy Christmas I've ever had!

Friday, I'm off to Slovakia to visit Lubos (for those of you who remember him).

Happy New Years everyone!

Rachel's, the IB L.A.R.P., Julkul, last day of school

I have so much to write about today and unfortunately not so many pictures so accompy the writing. I've been a little lazy with my picture taking skills in the past week.

Last Friday, all the Eskilstuna exchangers, along with Julien (an honorary Eskilstuna exchanger), went to Rachel's for glögg (a warm, spiced, Christmas drink), pepparkakor (similar to gingerbread), and a movie night/sleepover type thing. It was the first time we've had a get-together at Rachel's which made it kinda fun : ) Unfortunately we had to wake-up the next morning at 7 to get to school for the IB L.A.R.P., a live-action, role playing game which the IB students organize every year to get CAS hours (which probably only my IB friends will understand).

Anyways, this year the exchange students at school were invited to join in. We had no idea what to expect, and it was a bit shocking at first I have to say. We walked into the theater at school (which we had the run of for the weekend), where people were lounging around dressed up as characters. Everyone had a mission for their character and we were divided into 2 sides - the scientists, and the mystics. After separating into our teams, everyone got clearance cards for different parts of the school. I being a student, couldn't go hardly anywhere! The game went from Saturday morning to Sunday morning. It was complete with sword battles in the hallways and deep conversations "in-character". Sadly, my character got killed off for aiding in the murder of the Chairman, so I was out of the game Saturday evening (well I wasn't too sad about that)! I have to say that I have never seen anything like that game. It was almost like a live video game. All the students got really into it and put a lot of effort into their characters.

Tuesday, was Julkul at school (Christmas fun). Everyone crowded into the theater to watch the show. There were mostly rock bands playing, but also some comedy acts and other things. It was really fun to see just how talented the kids at my school were. I remember trying to run a talent show at Shep, and how hard it had been to find people who wanted to participate. Here, that's apparently not a problem.

Wednesday was the last day before holidays assembly at school. Each grade had their own assembly. In mine, some amazing singers performed as well as the drama class performing some songs from Rent (in Swedish). It was really great, much better than our assemblies at home!

After the assembly, everyone went back to their homerooms. In mine, we read a Christmas story and ate more pepparkakor (they're going to be the death of me)!
Later, some of the girls in my class went back to Sophie's for her birthday gathering, and a Christmas gift exchange.

Sunday (Christmas Eve) is Christmas here so I will be celebrating it with my host family. We will be at my host dad's girlfriend's place Saturday night, and Sunday morning, then we will go back to Eskilstuna to go to Henric's (my host dad) parents house, then we will go to his sister's, and then finally to midnight mass to end the night. It sounds busy busy busy to me, so hopefully it will be good. : )

Merry Christmas to everyone, I hope you have a wonderful holiday. I miss you all so much!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox - Claire
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Santa Lucia Day

December 13, was Santa Lucia day. In the morning, all the classes went into the auditorium which had been decorated for Christmas and listened to the Lucia concert. Students from the school, both boys and girls, dressed in white robes and carried candles. They filed into the room in a procession, first the boys, then the girls. There were people singing all around us as some were on the stage, some on the sides, and some on the balcony above. It was beautiful! I think that it's my favourite Swedish tradition so far. The concert went on for about 40 minutes and then we were back to class as usual.
This weekend is the big Lucia concert in Stockholm, so if I have the time, I would like to see it! For anyone who's interested, here's some more info on Santa Lucia day on how and why it's celebrated in Sweden.
http://www.internet-at-work.com/hos_mcgrane/holidays/nora.html

Marianne's Birthday and Stockholm at Christmas

Friday night was Marianne's (France) 16th birthday. A group of us went over to her house and had a nice dinner and then hung out and danced the rest of the night.
It was really nice because I hadn't seen a few of the other exchange students in a month or so!

Saturday morning, all the exchange students got up bright and early to go into Stockholm for a Rotary planned day of activities. We started by going to the Cosmonova (Imax) to see a Swedish movie about Mars. After that everybody
went for lunch at McDonald's and ordered lots and lots o food (exchange students like free food)!

The highlight of the day was going skating downtown at an outdoor rink (which they have to specially make because there's no snow yet and it's still quite warm out). It was really fun to go skating with a group of people who had never been before(although I have to admit that I struggled a bit in the beginning as I've never used hockey skates before, which was a bit embarassing because the Canadian's are supposed to be pro skaters)! Everyone spent at least a few laps going around with the 2 Japanese girls which as really nice - by the end they were getting quite good actually!

FRANKRIKE (France)!

Last week, I went to France with my French class at school. There were 8 students and 2 teachers on the trip. We left Friday morning and drove the 1.5 hrs to the tiny airport where we took our RYAN AIR flight ... for anyone who's not aware, RYAN AIR is probably the cheapest way to travel and well - you can tell!!! We couldn't even take water on the planes because of their rules, so instead we had to buy it onboard. After this trip, I have learned to pack like a European - my suitcase only weighed 9 kg!

Once arriving in France, and successfully finding our way to the hotel (after only a few wrong turns), we went up to our rooms. You know you're in France when there's smoking everywhere, including the hotel rooms!! The hotel was actually quite alright and the view from our bedroom window was wonderful! After settling in, we went out for our first dinner at about 7 p.m. which is unheard of in France as everyone goes out to eat at 9 at the earliest. We were lucky that our hotel was right in the Latin Quarter which is where the young people usually are.

This is how people park in France - the same cars were there everyday, so we assumed they couldn't move their cars! Little shops and cafe's were open until at least midnight so we got to stroll around after dinner most days or go and sit in a lounge and people watch. France is definitely different from Sweden! In Sweden, almost all the stores close at about 5 p.m.

Starting the first night, all our discussions were a mix of English, Swedish, and French which got quite confusing at times! I can now understand quite a lot of Swedish, even if I can't speak very much.

From the first morning onwards, we woke up to breakfast in bed, with fresh croissants and baguettes which we ate while watching the countdown of French music on t.v. (my personal favourite song everyday being the one with french rap performed by gangsta's in ski goggles!! lol). It was the most enetertaining anyways : )

The first morning, we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower. The view from the top was amazing, even despite the almost 2 hr wait!
Later we visited Les Champs Elysees (the huge shoppiong boulevard).
It was really nice because when we arrived it was just getting dark and the entire 2 km stretch was lit up with Christmas lights.

During the week, we visited:


Notre Dame Cathedrale,
Le Moulin Rouge,
Le Place de Tertre, Sacre Coeur,
L'Arc de Triomphe,
Les Halles (a huge shopping centre where we spent the whole day as our entire group was girls who love to shop)! - it was at Les Halles that I had my 1st Starbucks in 4 months mmmm : ) and my 1st European haircut - not in the picture, I'll have to take another one and put it up later (I now have bangs)!,
Le Louvre, and Le Centre Pompidou.

On the last night, 4 of the students and one teacher went to see "Le Roi Soleil", a very popular, french musical that is new this year. The show has become so famous in France that the music is played on the radio and the artists/actors are celebrities. It was absolutely AMAZING! There was acrobatics, dancing of all types, singing, and acting. I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Paris in the next few months. I have to say that it was my favourite part of the week!

Wednesday evening we arrived back in Sweden. As we walked from the baggage claim through to the exit, we started to hear singing. When we got out of the hallway there was a group of girls singing, all dressed up for St. Lucia day which is on December 13th. They were serving pepparkakor (really thin ginger snaps), and Glogg (a Christmas drink in Sweden). It was a really nice thing to come back to!