Welcome Dinner and the Weekend

On Thursday, all of the new and old exchange students were invited to a welcome dinner. I guess you could call it a cultural experience. Two host students dressed in their traditional Swedish costumes that they wear during Midsommar festivities. All of the Swedish host students sang and danced to traditional songs as well. It was pretty funny to watch, espicially since we do not have anything like that in the US. Other countries sang traditional songs too, but thankfully the US didn't do anything! Here is a video of one of the songs the Swedes sang. Sorry its kind of dark!

After the welcome dinner, we went to Arena, the dancing place. It was so much fun! They play the most random music, but thats kinda what made it fun. They played everything from katy perry to dolly pardon to abba (of course). On Thursdays, students get in free, so we will probably be going there a lot!

Friday, we had a couple inches of snow, so we went sledding! There is a hill just outside of Rosenborg that is perfect for sledding! Back at Ball State, when we went sledding we used lunch trays. Here, I used a garbage bag and it worked just fine :-) Later in the day we went to Blue Moon for some free food, but we didnt stay very long. We tried to go bowling, but the place we went to was so massive (a whole 5 lanes) and all the lanes were filled, so we played pool for a while. Saturday afternoon we tried to go iceskating on a lake that is not far from here, but the ice was too thin. Maybe another day! I have never skated on a lake, when I go skating I usually hang on to the wall and scoot along. So when we actually do go skating, that could be interesting! Saturday night we went Nöjesfabriken, another dancing place. This place was pretty big. There are three different music rooms: dance/techno, rock, and a room where they played a lot of Swedish music. It also has a bowling alley (with more than five lanes!). It cost ten dollars to get in, and to be honest, it sucked. The music wasnt that great and the place was huge. If I never go back, I would probably be okay with that.

Sunday, I attempted to do my laundry. I have been here for two weeks and have been putting it off for as long as I could, but I finally had to do it last night. I had no clue how to work the washers, so I had my German friend come down and show me what to do. Not gonna lie, I kinda felt stupid asking for help with my laundry! The washers are the smallest things I have ever seen. I filled all three of them with clothes and probably over filled two of them. Once they were done, it was time to dry them. I put most of my clothes in the drying closet. This thing is awesome! I think we need one at home! You hang your clothes in this closet thing and then warm air circulates and dries them. I didnt put all of my clothes in that thing though. I put some in the dryer, left for about half an hour and came back hoping they were dry. Well one of two things happened. 1) the dryer doesnt work or 2) i cant work the dryer. When I came back, my clothes in the dryer were still wet like they just came out of the washer. So I messed with it for like 20 minutes trying to make it work and had no luck. I just gathered all of my wet clothes and brought them up to my room and was planning on putting them on my drying rack in the bathroom. Well when i was trying to set that up, i broke it off the wall. great. I had to rig something up so it would stay on the wall and so i could hang some clothes on it. I hope next time I do laundry, it goes a little smoother!

There are like 7-10 of us planning a trip to Lapland (which is in the arctic circle) I bought my plane tickets to night! I am so excited!! We will be leaving on Feb 25 and coming back March 1. I think that we are planning on doing a dog sled trip one day and possibly a Northern Lights snow mobile trip another night. Should be lots of fun!! Later tonight, I think I am also booking a trip to Tallin, Estonia. A lot of exchange students studying in Sweden go on this trip. You take a boat from Stockholm to Tallin and spend a few hours in Tallin and then ride the boat back. Its like a three day trip that will happen in the beginning of April.

Something I have noticed...a lot of places we go to have a coat check. For example, at Blue Moon we pay 20 SEK for them to hold our coats so we dont have to worry about them. In return they give you a ticket with a number on it. It could be bad if you lose this ticket because then I think you have to wait for everyone to leave before you can get your coat. They have this system at the dance places as well as the bowling alley/pool place. I thought it was so weird to have it there. Could you just imagine having that at Coopers?! Maybe this is normal for some people, but I have never done this before coming to Sweden!