:)

Monday was off to a great start, NOT! The first day my body clock decides to sleep in I set my alarm for 7:30PM not AM and nearly miss my 8:30 bus to school. After breaking into a run I just make it and am somehow still on time to class, miracle.

After the first class we had a three hour break until Swedish language started so what better time to shop! I was in the market for a new coat, Kathy wasn’t doing me any justice I was still cold! So a couple of us decided to walk to the main shopping street around the corner from school and hunt for coats. This task wasn’t as simple as some may think. Yes it is Sweden and yes there are millions and millions of coats but you seriously need the perfect one! One that will not only keep you nice and toasty warm but is waterproof, has a hood, is longer to cover your bot bot and one that has a slit in the back so you can wear it whilst riding your bike. An added difficulty for us Australians was currency conversion and finding a coat for what we think is a reasonable price.  I was lucky enough and found a coat after 5 shops and I love it! 

My new friends are also coming to slowly realize that I sing and dance wherever I go and can somehow manage to turn anything into a song for example we were walking into town someone mentioned something to do with ‘it’s cold’ I instantly start singing ‘it’s getting cold in here (so cold) so put on all your clothes’.

 Moving on Swedish class was very very average today and I seemed to find myself staring outside at the snow rather than paying attention to learning the names of the Swedish royal family and learning to converse, oops. To contribute to my lack of attention I was so excited to be going ice-skating that afternoon at an outdoor rink in the middle of a park, yippee!

Outside the window.

ICE SKATING

The time had arrived; it was time to go out door ice-skating with ESN and drink hot chocolate or hot choklad as the Swedes would say YAY! We arrived at the rink lined up and ordered our skates. The line was huge and you didn’t get a chance to try sizes so we were left guessing in European sizes and shoved out of the way. The guesses soon became an issue when it came to actually getting the skates onto our feet. Now these skates let me tell you were a) so uncomfortable I could barely feel my feet b) so so so old and shabby and c) probably 2 sizes too small for my feet. So of course with feet squashed, no support and laces hardly tied it was time to hit the ice. This was hilarious and I wish for all of you back home that someone actually got this on film, holding onto the only pole at the rink so tightly I finally let go and yep you know it, I cannot move!

After a while I slowly got the painful hang of ice-skating and thought hey I’ll pick the speed up, BAD IDEA because of course, I fell over.

As you may see, this photo is stationary and took quite some skill to be able to stand let alone do our best ‘figure skating’ pose for you all.

We were done with ice-skating and had no feeling in our feet the entire duration of the trip home. We were all cold, hungry and decided a Mexican family dinner would make it all better! And that it did, tacos will always hit the spot.

It was time for bed and getting to sleep yes is still a major problem! Especially when you are just about to nod off and a plough comes and ploughs the student entrance and shines its massive industrial lights (and I have no curtains). No sleep for Holly so what do I do I decide to sit up and watch the plough man go around in circles and then a little man on a four wheeler lay fresh salt everywhere! So interesting haha and the only thing I would want to be doing at 12AM not sleeping.

I finally get to sleep and boom it is time to get up and head to the migration office and collect my residence permit, yeah it’s official! Little did we know we would be lining up for ever! But it was okay because there had been a massive snow fall the night before and was still currently snowing heavily so made the novelty of waiting outside in the line for the migration office to open so much more entertaining.

After submitting my data and getting an amazing photo taken at the migration board for my permit I was headed to uni again, for a dairy tasting session and my Swedish class.

The dairy tasting session was interesting, the Swede’s love their dairy products and love to call them all the strangest of names making it difficult to find what you are looking for! We tasted disgusting things such as caviar paste and prawn paste, the smell was enough to put me off! I was informed about what milk I should be purchasing (not the one I initially brought) and learnt that they sell all of their yoghurts, natural yoghurts, sour milk etc in milk cartons making it so god damn confusing!!!!

 Man lever bara en gang!

Todays Swedish class was off to a great start with the translation of You Only Live Once (YOLO) hahahahaha, although it does not have quite the same ring to it.

We also got to create a story based upon a picture, our characters Fat Tony & Fredericko Italian brothers in the mafia you can only imagine what happens next. Soon enough the class was dragging and the teacher announces times for fika! YAY, so we toddle off to the student centrum for free hot choklad!

By this stage there is snow absolutely everywhere outside it is amazing, even the lake is freezing over and water fountains have newly formed icicles.

Home time came around soon enough and most of us had decided to have our own family movie/card game night! Cards a success however, the movie selected Wall-E, I watched a good ¾ of it but must admit I am now sitting here writing this! Haha it’s 10:22PM, and definitely my bed time, this whole time difference/jet lag thing has been a total pain in the bum.

Anyway until next time from Sweden with love,

Holly xoxoxoxoxox