Eurotour

I forgot to write about Eurotour so I'll give it its own post.

Started off in Malmö. Met up with everyone and got on the bus there. Then we headed down to start of in Berlin. The first night in Berlin there was a football game between Germany and Italy so after we had our traditional German dinner we headed out to find a bit of culture by watching the football with the Germans. It turned out that we watched the game in a place where all the Italians gathered. Lucky since Italy won.

Photo demonstrating Berlin. with Japanese person for scale

The next night a big group of students went out on the town, but I just went for a walk around. It was nice walk too because the temperature was nice and I had good company on the way back home. I arrived back at the hotel just before the rain came. We had a thunderstorm that night and I took this picture from my hotel room window.

Lightning over Berlin

After Berlin we headed across to Crackow. The roads in Poland were a lot bumpier than German ones but the scenery was nice. There were flowing hills on the way into Crackow which seemed to be a typical Polish landscape. On the first night we had a Jewish dinner. I went for a walk around the main square in Crackow which I think is a pretty special place to be. I was really nice and this was one of my favourite nights on the trip. 

The next day we took a sort walk around the old parts of Crackow and then went to the concentration camp, Auschwitz. Auschwitz was obviously a pretty confronting place to be. The tour guide showed us all the bad places around there and even though it was a bright sunny day there was still an an unpleasant feeling to the place. It was interesting.

We left Poland and headed down to the smoother roads of the Czech Republic. In Prague we had a bit less luxurious accommodation but the town was a nice place. We had a walk around the town during the day and in the night time we went and had dinner on a boat on the river. It was a nice night and after that some people went out to a club. I went even though its not my thing. It was too loud for me but the others seemed to have a nice time. 

     The next morning I felt sick. It was expected though as I was very tired and it always happens on Eurotour. We traveled into Austria that morning and for lunch the guides had organised big plates of spaghetti for everyone. I really couldn't eat any of it unfortunately. The accommodation in Piesendorf in Austria was nicer than Prague. It was a sort of three storey townhouse that was pleasant. In Austria we had a quick visit to Salzburg but the main thing we did was have a walk in the truly beautiful mountains in the Austrian Alps. 

The Austrian Alps

 I really liked Austria. I hope I can go back someday.

     After Austria we drove down into Italy to a beachside town called Lido di Jesolo. We had a day off there so we got to go and relax on the beach. I went swimming and caught up on some sleep. During the night time we had to buy our own dinner. I had some proper Italian pizza at a restaurant. It was very good and cheap too. We all spent the evening on a pier on the beach in Italy which was another one of my favourite nights.

Top: Coming into Italy. Bottom: Beach front city

 In Italy we visited the city of Venice. It was amazingly hot in Venice but the gondola ride was nice and as I remember but it was still worthwhile seeing. We went back to Lido di Jesolo were I had proper spaghetti bolognaise for dinner and we were on the pier again for the evening.

 After this it took us two days to get to Paris. We stopped over in Chambery but the only photo I have from this time is out the window when we were leaving Italy.

My time in Paris was jampacked full of sightseeing. The first night we saw the Eiffel Tower, The Arc de Triumph, and many other things which I can neither remember nor pronounce their names. The next day we had a bus trip around the city and then had the afternoon off. We had dinner at a nice French restaurant and went to look at the front of the Moulin Rouge. On the last day we had a day off like in Venice and I went to see the Paris Opera House and we walked around the gardens near the Louvre.

Paris was the last main stop on the trip. After this we took two days to get back to Malmö, stopping in Kamen, Germany on the way. We had a sort of goodbye ceremony during the dinner then. There were many tears shed during the Kamen stop and when we were back in Malmö, as people said goodbye to everyone. This was because a lot of the exchange students would be returning to their home countries. And that was the end of Eurotour.

After Seven and a bit Months

If I was to leave here on the sixth of January next year then I would have three months and thirty days left. Now I have been here for seven and a half months I am getting the language going more and more and I am making new friends too. In this new school year, which started in mid August, I have begun lessons in a music course at a new school for me. This is going well and I have already made new friends and am having a fairly good time. However for the last two and a bit weeks I have been sick with a common cold which has not wanted to leave so I have had some difficulties in going to school. However things are now looking up so I can't complain.
     I feel fairly comfortable with my life in Sweden now but I do find that increasingly often I find myself missing home a bit. While I've been on exchange everything has been new to me and I've been meeting new people and everything that is expected when you go on exchange but sometimes I miss having familiar people, places and things around me. I think that it will be nice to go back to Australia when the time comes.
    But for now I also am looking forward to the snow coming back to Sweden. The mediocre summer that they had here (they said it was the coldest and wettest in a hundred years) has now gone and in its place has come autumn, which is just as wet and even more cold. So when the snow comes then I will be able to go and do a bit of snowboarding which will be fun to have an activity do that is outside. Nowadays I try to go for walks around the town and around the forest in the hills and that's nice because Falun is a pretty Swedish town.
    I last changed families at the start of August so about a month ago and I will stay with this family for three months in total. They are very nice people who live in a very nice, large house in the old part of town which has lots of nice houses in it. I am about four or five kilometers away from the school I go to and I ride my bike to school. Sometimes I have a break in the middle of the day for three hours so I ride home and go back later on. My host brother goes to the same school as me but we aren't in the same class but still we can ride together in the mornings. I change to the next family in November and by then the snow should be back so I can go to the couple of slopes around here then. I am also looking forward to my first white Christmas. That should be good.


Some members of my host family like to ride horses I took a couple of (unfortunately pretty dark) pictures when i went out there and had a walk while they rode.

Also when I was at my family's summer house(pictured left) on the west coast of Sweden we had a picnic on the bare, windswept rocks of the Swedish coast(pictured right). Disgruntled host brother not pictured.

 Also I had a good Saturday last Saturday as i went and played minigolf and had fun. Here is a picture of me playing, and the ball went in! I like minigolf. That is all.