Färjestad Hockey Celebration

So this post is about a week late, but I am just getting the video that I wanted to show you all! Last week, Karlstad's hockey team, FBK, won the Swedish championship! Last Thursday there was a celebration in the town square for the hockey team. There were so many people there! It was a fun atmosphere; there was swedish hockey songs being sang, and of course none of us exchange students knew the words, so we were just making our own words up as we went! Here is a video that my French friend made, she did a really good job! You can kind of get the effect of what was going on :-) [warning: I apologize for my awkwardness in this video in advance. However, this is my life, full of awkwardness, now its just caught on tape.]

Easter was pretty uneventful. There were a few exchange students that had family or friends visiting, or they were out traveling around...The weather has been amazing!!!!! I cant believe I am actually saying that Sweden has had good weather, but its true! High 50s with blue sky and sun! However, there seems to be some kind of sickness (head cold maybe?) floating around Rosenborg, so sadly, I couldn't enjoy the outdoors like I would have liked to :(

Cruise to Tallinn

From Sunday until Tuesday, I went on a student cruise to Tallinn, Estonia. It was craziness! Think about 1500 college students being together on a boat. This is only waiting for chaos! It definitely was not my type of thing, but it was soooo much fun people watching! As I am typing, I am still laughing at the craziness...

Here is how the 3 day schedule looked:

Sunday:

11:30am: leave university by bus

5:45pm: leave port in Stockholm
Monday:

10 am: arrive to Tallinn

5:45pm: leave Tallinn

Tuesday:

10 am: arrive in Stockholm, take bus back to Karlstad

The few hours that we were able to spend in tallinn, were nice. Although the waeather was cold and grey, the city was really neat! It was very "European" with the cobblestone roads and ancient buildings. Not gonna lie, I felt a bit like I was in a Disney World village or something like that. It didn't seem real, the things that I was seeing. With the cobblestone roads, the buildings with so much history to them, a fort like wall running through part of the city, it was very intersting! Below are some pictures of the city.
I love the castle like look, with the fortress wall to the right

There were several of the little carts with wooden wheels around. Behind it, to the right, was either a bunch of people selling flowers or gloves (there was two different areas like this)

Cobblestone and narrow streets everywhere!

Ok, so this wasn't much of a post, but at least you can see a little bit of Tallinn! A new post should be up within the next couple of days. Karlstads Hockey team, FBK, won the the Swedish championship last night. Today there was a big celebration in the town square. Pictures and videos of that will be up soon!

Royalty Comes to Karlstad

Today, on a beautiful Spring day, the King and Queen of Sweden came to our little city of Karlstad. Sounds like an April Fool's joke, doesn't it? Many people thought it was a joke when they heard that they might be coming, but in all reality, it wasn't a joke! There are even pictures to prove their existance in Karlstad! :-)

I was taking the bus to the city centre to walk around and enjoy the nice day. Two of my German friends also got on the bus and said they were going to the university to see the King and Queen, so I went with them instead! I had no clue they were even supposed to be in town, so it was all news to me. Apparently they were there becuase the university was opening up a research center or something like that and also there is an international food store that is owned by the state, so they were in town for that. I dont really know, I could also be very wrong about what I just said! All I know is that I got to see the King and Queen of Sweden today :-)

King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden

Queen Silvia of Sweden and her assistant (??). She is half German and half Brazilian and she is from the same town in Germany as one of my friends here!


Swedish security. Notice the dilly bar in his hand! haha HARDCORE!

This is where the royal family stays when they come to visit Karlstad. I pass this everyday that I take the bus and just found out today what it is!


It was interesting to see how the Swedes reacted when the King and Queen arrived because they hardly had any reaction at all. I thought maybe there would be clapping or at least some kind of acknowledgement of their presences. But nobody really did anything. Everyone just watched and waved back to them. And as you can see, the security was not that big of a deal! There were some cops and people who had on Securitas jackets and the "ice cream man" but that was about all!

Life has returned back to normal here. Exams are over!!!! So now I just have Swedish 2 and that meets twice a week. That will be really nice once the weather starts getting warmer because I will have lots of free time to enjoy it!