Some Things I Have Noticed

The picture has nothing to do with this post, but it's always nice to see a picture :-)

This post is just going to be about some things I have noticed. Not much is going on here now, and I didn't want to leave you without a post for 2 weeks. This will be the last post until March. This coming Wednesday, there are 9 of us going to Kiruna, the northen most city in Sweden. Dog sledding, snow mobiling, and visiting the ice hotel will be involved; it will definitely be an adventure!

As I said, this post is about some cultural things that I have noticed. At school (not just at the university but also down through elementary) teachers are not addressed as Mr., Mrs., or Doctor, instead, students call their teachers by their first names. It is very informal and that is the way Sweden likes it. The Swedish culture is all about equality. There are two other things I have noticed at school and they really drive me crazy. The first is that there are no clocks in the class rooms. Which seems strange to me since the Swedes really stress timeliness. The other thing is that teachers write on white boards with erasable markers, which is fine, but they dont have erasers in the room. Instead, they have a paper towl dispenser by the white boards. Sweden is all about sorting their garbage and recycling, so I dont understand why they do not use erasers in the classes. Yes, I know these are small things, but I just wanted to point them out!

All the grocery stores here are like Aldi's grocery store. You have to stick 5 kroner into the carts to be able to use them, and of course, you get the money back when you return the cart. You also have to buy your grocery bags when you are checking out. Usually they are 1 or 2 kr. I try to bring along my own bag, but when I dont have it, I have to buy grocery bags, and about half the time, I forget that I have to buy them! It is actually a good idea tho. Maybe they dont really need a "cart boy" like they have at stores in the US. And Sweden, after all, is an environmentally friendly nation. So maybe making people pay for their grocery bags encourages them to bring their own with them!

Well, sorry its so short, I just thought that I would post something :-) A little update on the weather here...its snowing constantly it seems! Its very pretty to see the snow falling and everything white, but I dont think the snow will ever melt! On sidewalks (and maybe on the roads, i'm not sure) they dont use salt to melt the ice! On the sidewalks they throw down these little rocks everywhere! It works fine for traction, but it doesnt melt anything! So there is a layer of snow, rock, more snow, more rock. Its like a continous cycle!

Skiing...

The school set up a trip for exchange students to Branäs, a skiing place about 2 hours from Karlstad. We had the option of down hill skiing, snow boarding, or cross country skiing and seeing as how I have never been on skiis, cross country skiing seemed like it would be the safest of the three. When we got there, we got our equipment, and had to ride a lift to the top of the mountain/hill (i dont really know what you call it, but it seemed like a mountain to me). Once we reached the top, I thought the cross country skiing trail would be there, but of course, I was wrong. We had to ski down hills to get to it. Reminder, I have never been on skiis. It was a bit of a disaster! Two Finnish girls were trying to tell me how to brake, but I couldnt figure it out. So, I just squated down and rode the skiis, that way when I fell, I would be closer to the ground. All the while, these little swedish kids were zooming by me like pros. We finally made it to the trail and I was sooo slow! It was so much work, for as slow as i was going. So I just went on the 1.5 km trail and decided that my skiing days are over. I took off my skiis, hoping never to have to use them again. But the only way to get down the mountain was to take this ski lift thing up to the top so we could take a big ski lift down. The ski lift we had to take up was the kind were you had to catch this thing and put it in between your legs. You just had to hang on to it, keep your skis straight and it would pull you up the mountain to the top. The first time I tried to get on the thing, I wiped out and my skis were awkwardly under me, so I had to roll around on the ground before I could get up (there were lots of people around, I felt so stupid, especially when 5 year olds were getting on it with no problem!) The second time I got it right, but it was scary, I kept thinking I was going to wreck again. Finally we got down the mountain and I turned in my equipment and went to lunch. After lunch I went sledding with the Finnish people. It was fun, talking with them about the differences between the Swedes and the Finns, and about stereotypes of the two and of Americans. Quite interesting! But back to sledding, that was a blast! There was a pretty big hill and not many people on it. At the bottom of the hill there was a pretty big snow mound that I thought would stop you and behind it was a wooden fence. Can you see where I am going here? I went down the hill, not slowing down because the snow mound was there. Well, I hit the snow mound, flew in the air a little, hit the fence, and slid underneath it to where there was an open walking area. It happened so fast I wasnt sure what had happened! Overall it was a good day though! It was a beautiful day with blue sky and sun. I learned that skiing is something that I should never do again, but glad that I tried: #16 on my list of things to do is complete! :-)

Ice Skating, Birthday Party, and Amazing Weather

Where do I even begin? The past couple of days have been unforgettable! Sunday, Rosenborg went ice skating. outside. on a massive lake. with no walls to hang onto. Im sure you can just imagine how that went. I tried to skate, but kept falling. So i decided it would be best if i just walked on the snow that wasnt plowed off the lake. However, a French girl had other plans and pulled me out onto the ice and made me skate. Eventually we got to the point where I could move a little bit with out falling over as often. But overall, not a huge fan of skating on a lake. The ice was thick enough, but it kept making these awful cracking noises! the lake we skated on...you can see little trails that were cleared off to skate on.

Later Sunday night, my Rosenborg family threw me a surprise birthday party! It was sooo nice of them! They made a cake and it had yellow sprinkles on it to represent the corn in indiana. (yeah i dont think i have mentioned this yet, but the words indiana and corn are never mentioned by themselves, they pretty much go hand in hand here. i have been nicknamed corn kid by some people). They also made me a book called "The Rosenborg Cookery Book." It has recipes in it from different people in Rosenborg, and before we leave, I hope to get most of the people to fill it out! And I got a cooking glove with moose on it for my cooking lessons :-). I had a lot of fun at the party. To make it like a party at home, Jump on It was played (and i had to teach the dance) and so was our favorite Prince song, dancing on chairs was involved just like always! I think that song was a hit :-P When it turned midnight, everyone sang Happy Birthday to me again because I was officially 21. Then out of German tradition, everyone lined up to give me a hug and tell me Happy Birthday. There is a video that I wanted to post, but I think the file may be too big. Yujin from South Korea filmed the first 20 minutes of my party. I will work on trying to get it up so you guys can see!

On Monday, I got the best birthday present ever! I woke up and the sky was blue and sun was shining in Karlstad! It was amazing, considering we havent had a day like this in a month! The sky was soo blue and the sun so bright, and all of the trees and the ground was covered in snow. It was like a winter wonderland or something. So, of course, we had to take advantage of the day. Sarah and I walked around the town taking some pictures and then we went to Mariebergskogen (the wooded area). We walked on this wooden pathway to a look out tower that was in the middle of nowhere. It will be a great place to go when the sun is setting because it over looks quite a bit. Later, about 6 of us went to IKEA for my birthday dinner. We ate swedish meat balls, boiled potatoes, and lingon berry sauce. It was delicious!

So much food and it was so good!

Here are a couple of pictures of the town:

This statue was a gift from Norway to Sweden. Papers were signed in Karlstad that gave Norway its independence from Sweden. This statue has been voted the ugliest statue in Sweden.

Sola i Karlstad. Legend has it that this girl was an orphan. She worked at a hotel/restuarante to earn money. Everyone liked her so much because of her great personality and warm heartedness that they tipped her. Tipping, however, is not a common thing to do in Sweden. She ending up earning enough money to buy the hotel/restuarante. Lindy, even though you arent an orphan, this could be you! You can take over the Kettle and we could build a statue of you outside of the kettle! I think this has potential! :-)

If you want to see more pictures, just click here.

Today in Swedish class, the class sang happy birthday to me in Swedish. It was fun but really kind of awkward because everyone was standing and I had to sit. I filmed it, so you can hear the swedish birthday song and see how awkward i felt! Here is a rough translation of the song:
"Yes, may she live, yes may she live, yes may she live for a hundred years. O sure she will live, o sure she will live, o sure she will for a hundred years. And when she has lived, and when she has lived, and when she has lived for a hundred years. Yes, then she will be pushed, Yes then she will be pushed, yes then she will be pushed on a wheel barrow." A four times hurra for (name). May she live. Hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra!...such a great song when translated to english, dont ya think?


I just want to say Tack saa mycket to my rosenborg family! You guys gave me a birthday that I will never forget! :-)

Movies, Cooking, and Basketball

Last Sunday a few of us went to dinner and a movie. It's so strange that even the simplest things like going to a movie, are so different than what I am used to. Before we could go to dinner we had to buy our movie tickets first. After dinner, (we ate at a Chinese place. Not the best food and not the worst) we went back to the theatre to watch The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Button. FYI, probably the saddest movie I have ever seen. But thats not important, I just want to let you know how the theatre is. There is a Mcdonalds and a grocery store connected to it. They dont care if you bring in outside snacks or drinks into the movie. You can just go to the grocery store and grab a snack or drink and then go watch your movie! This could be why the movies are so expensive though. I think it cost almost $14! I later learned the reason why we had to buy our tickets early. Apparently they have assigned seats!! It was definitely a new experience!

As of this week, I have two classes now! I started Intercultual Communication which is also on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think it is going to be an intersting class. Plus it is going to be a huge help! For Ball State, I have to write a cultural comparison paper to get credit for a class this semester. The interculutral comm. class, pretty much covers everything that I plan on using for the paper. The class on Tuesday is from 1-3. The teacher gave us like a ten minute Fika break. (fika is what the Swedes call a coffee break. They love love love their coffee). On Thursday we had class from 1015-12. Got a 5 minute break in that time. Had a lunch break from 12-115. went back to class from 115-3 and also had another break in that time. Its fun! :-)

I have also started cooking lessons. My friend David is giving the lessons to me because I cant cook. So on Tuesday we made noodles with a cream sauce and bacon mixed with it. Proud to say it turned out and was edible! yay! Passed day 1 of class :-) On Thursdays, since we are at school for lunch, I get to eat the traditional pea soup and pancakes! Ahh its sooo good!

Last night, I went to play basketball. There were 3 of us from Rosenborg that went and nine people total. However, I was the only girl. It was actually a lot of fun, but I learned that I am completely out of shape and today my body hates me! I feel like I have been hit by a bus or something! When we went last night, I just thought we would jump write into playing games. But I was wrong. The first half hour was like a middle school basketball practice! We did lay up drills, the three man weave, and dribbling drills. It kinda made me laugh! Eventually we did get to play three on three tho!

The something I have noticed section is actually getting hard to write. I have been here for a few weeks and the stuff that I first noticed as strange is just becoming a part of every day life. But with that being said, I'm sure I can always find something! Swedes like to be on time. They want to be on time and they want everyone else to be on time. Teachers always point this out and really expect you to be in class, when class starts. Not walking in a couple of minutes late. To help with the act of being on time, busses actually stick to their schedule. You know that when the bus schd says the bus comes every half hour, it will be there every 30 minutes. Some of the bigger bus stops have these computer genereated signs that says how many minutes you have until your bus comes. Its a very nice system becuase everything seems to run so smoothly!

Here are some pictures that I have taken this far. Just click here to see them!

Hockey Game and Boda Borg

On Thursday night a big group of exchange students went to an FBK hockey game (Karlstad's hockey team). We had so much fun. We had second row seats and only payed like $13. The fan section for FBK was absolutely crazy! They had a drum and a ring leader guy and they sang different songs the whole game. They were almost more entertaining than the hockey game! Karlstad won, but I was a little disappointed because there weren't any fights :-( That is my favorite part!
The fan section...

As you can see, we were pretty close, FYI, the black team is FBK


Here is a video from the hockey game...you can hear the fan section, thats how they were the whole game and you can see some of the people i went with! A mix of spanish, german, and finnish.


On Saturday, Karlstad University sat up a day trip for exchange students. We went to a place called Boda Borg. It is hard to explain what it is becuase we having nothing like it in US. There are 22 courses and at least 3 rooms to each course. There are physical and logical tasks that you have to do to pass each room. If you pass, a light turns green and you can go through the door to the next room. If you fail, it turns red and you have to start the course over. If you make it through the course then you get a stamp for completing it. We were there for about 4 hours and my group only got 4 stamps. The challenges were so hard! Sometimes it was a logical challenge that you had to figure out. For example one room was about vincent van gough. There were different parts of the body sculpted to the wall and there was also a sculpted knife. Well you had to figure out that he cut his ear off with a knife. So some one had to touch the knife on the wall and someone had to touch the ear in order for us to pass. At first, we had no clue what was going on, but the more rooms you went through, you kind of got the hang of it. The physical tasks were sometimes crazy rediculous! You had to climb up latters, through tunnels, hang on to stuff on the wall and make it across with out touching the ground, etc. It was a really good work out! Today I have bruises all over my legs though. But I think we should def. get one of these in Indiana!


Since I have been here, I have been learning about different cultures since I live with people from several countries. It is a lot of fun, but sometimes the differences surprise me a lot. In the past couple of days I have learned that there are things that we do as Americans that are just completely American. I have never thought about some of the stuff being strictly to our culture, but I guess there are a few. For example, it is very American to say I love you to your family. I was talking last night with 2 finnish girls and they asked what we say when we hang up the phone. I thought about it for a second and I told them when i am talking with my family I say "bye, love you." They started laughing (not in a mean way of course!) and said that was so American. I guess in finnish culture, it is just understood that you love your family, you dont have to say it. The other day we were at a little cafe and I was with 2 germans, 2 finnish, and a swedish girl. I ordered hot chocolate and it came with marshmellows and some of them pointed out that was not common at all to have marshmellows in hot chocolate. Also, two of the girls ordered sandwiches and chips came on the side. They also said that they had not seen that before. It is fun learning about all the differences!