Early Springtime

After a little over two months into my exchange I feel well settled into my new lifestyle here in Sweden. Although the language isn't quite there yet for my general comfortableness has increased from the start when I was a bit unsure of pretty much everything everyday, now I can go about my daily business happily. The early springtime has helped me to feel optimistic but I am in no doubt that my host family is responsible for my quick assimilation. I have to say that they are the nicest family your ever likely to meet.

How did they help me? Just by being nice, letting me do my own thing most of the time and inviting me out to various events around town. Each night my host family and I have dinner together. This helps immensely with getting to know them, through a simple thing like dinner table discussion.

What has been going on recently. I have been on a ski trip to Åre for a week with forty other exchanges. A hectic week was had by all I'd say. I personally had a great time snowboarding for four days straight, and the opportunity to meet the other exchanges was nice. Soon I will be going on another trip with rotary the finish off the month of March, in which we will be travelling for twenty hours by train to the freezing town of Kiruna, Sweden's most northern settlement. Whilst there we will be visiting the ice hotel as a main attraction.

Another small thing I did was the go ice fishing on a frozen lake in a small village called Vika, south of my town. This opportunity was afforded to me by a rotary member I know only as Stieg. He began fishing at five-thirty in the morning, and when I arrived at eight, he had caught one large pike. He inviting me to go fishing with him during my first rotary meeting in Falun. My new host club has got many activities lined up for me so I am sure in the coming months I will have plenty of new experiences.

Normal life here is school and home. I have been lucky to have had a friend and helper from the very start of my exchange, a french guy called Thibault. He is also on exchange with rotary and he has been in Sweden since August and thus can give me advice on what to do and how the systems operate. Also he is a good guy and it helps to have a friend around.

In the top photograph is the shores of the lake I was Ice fishing on. The sun came out after a while and made everything look like springtime should. On the right is a picture of my new mate Stieg and the grand fish he caught.