Week 16 At SVF

December 3rd - 9th

The last couple days in Stockholm were cold but wonderful. Sondag morning David and I decided to sleep in and then head out to go rock climbing. His mother along with one of her friends decided to join us. His mom lent me some clothes to climb in and then we drove to the gym. Climbing was a lot of fun and I even got to try some of the harder climbs. We climbed for a while and then went back to shower, eat dinner and then go ice-skating. When we reached ice-skating however, there were no more skates in our size so we had to get skates that were too small for us, which hurt. So we only ended up skating for only around 30 minutes. After we were finished skating, we walked around the city and enjoyed the beautiful Christmas lights. We walked around a bit till we found an espresso house to sit and have some Christmas coffee drinks in for a while. We sat and talked for a bit and then decided to go home and keep the Christmas spirit alive by making pepparkakor (gingerbread cookies) and glögg (similar to apple cider but its like a spiced wine). We rolled out cookie dough for our cookies, and made the glögg and then I wanted to show David something Americans do on Christmas so we watched Elf. We watched and ate the cookies and drank the glögg then decided to head to bed for more time in the city tomorrow. The next day David needed to go into the city to get some tests done for his visa process for the States and I was planning on meeting up with Kajsa and Olivea to hang out in the city before meeting the others at the hotel. I took the train into the city and then walked to an espresso house that Kajsa and Olivea were in. We met up and then decided to walk to the Vasa museum which is a museum based around the history of the Vasa ship sailing out in the see in 1628 but then later sank before it could even leave the dock. Today Vasa is the world's only preserved 17th century ship and the most visited museum in Scandinavia. It was rather interesting to get to see the ship and all the artifacts about the ship. After the Vasa museum we went and got lunch and then headed to the Stockholm Tea House which was lovely. We ended up buying some flowering tea, which is like a ball of looseleaf tea that blooms once you put it in hot water. Kajsa also bought a tin of Earl Grey tea and Olivea also bought a tin of their special tea and I bought a tin and a package of Glögg tea which I am very excited to try. After we left the tea house we went back to Gamla stan and bought some more gifts for friends and family. We walked around for a while and then Kajsa got a text from a friend that was at a cafe and wanted to meet up with her so we walked to the cafe to sit for a bit before heading to the hotel. The cafe was rather close to the hotel so when we were ready we just walked a couple blocks over to the hotel. We got there and met up with Rachelle, Marianne, Gabbe, and one of the other teachers who will be coming to North Park as well. We all decided to go out to dinner together. We went to this Italian restaurant which was really good. The concept of the place was that everyone got a card and then ordered their food at the kitchen, swiped their card and then at the end of the meal would give the card to the front desk and pay for whatever you ordered. Gabbe and I decided to also get dessert; I ordered a lemon cheesecake and Gabbe ordered a Panna Cota. When we were done eating we walked back to the hotel so we could rest after a long day of walking around. Tisdag morning we woke up and had breakfast in the hotel with Rachelle and then decided to meet up with Jack at the Nordiska Museet. This museum was special because it is Swedens largest cultural history museum. The museum told the story of cultures throughout the ages and the lives of the people. After we were done at the museum we decided to go get some lunch before heading to the bus stop to go back to Jönköping. We got to the bus station and met up with Jonatan, Gabbe and Marianne. The bus ride was rather long but the time flew by because I was typing my blog for last week and Jack and I watched a movie. When we got back to Jönköping, Jack and I decided to go to dinner but the others wanted to go back to SVF. We walked around a bit trying to figure out where to eat before deciding to just go to Pipes. We ordered a veggie-burger to split along with the pipes basket that Kajsa and I had tried the other day. We sat and talked for a while and it was really nice to get to talk to him again after a couple days of doing our own things. Onsdag morning we woke up for our religion class we discussed more controversial topics. We assigned three corners in the room to our answers. One corner was I agree, one was I disagree, and the last was other. You would go to the corner that would represent how you felt about the statement. We discussed death, slavery, internet and the royal family. In comparative politics we worked more on our countries and then in the U.S culture class we continued to work on our countries. Torsdag morning we had Scandinavian culture class and we were given another paper to write about like we had earlier on in the year that would be due the 18th. In comparative politics we continued to work on our country presentations and then in Creativity I worked more on my knitting. After Creativity, Malin, Kajsa and I went into the city to get some things from flying tiger, H&M, and NewYorker. When we got back to campus we ate dinner and then hung out for a little bit before going to bed. For P.E the next morning we did some Christmas games that were rather fun but tiring considering I was feeling a little sick. After P.E we had Mediterranean History where we talked more about Jerusalem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After classes were over, Jack and I walked into the city to get some groceries for dinner. We came back to SVF, we made soup and then went to Herrgården to watch Arrival and play Mario Kart. Lordag, I woke up pretty late but then decided to go into the city with Jonatan, Jack, and Kajsa to get something I had put on hold at H&M, get Linnea her birthday present and get groceries for the night. After we got back we made dinner at Herrgården and then decided to go out. We met up with some other people and then headed home to sleep after a long weekend.