Change of Plans

One thing I am quickly learning is that just becasue you have a plan doesn't mean that it is going to work out.  I planned last week to spend a week in Poland which would be cool but after taking another minute to think it through I don't think that would be the best decision for me.  Also I feel there are so many other places I want to see more than Poland.  So I am putting that on hold for now.  I also had an awful surprise...my computer crashed making life really hard for a minute.  Luckily my friend is coming next week and is bringing me a backup! It's so funny how things work out.  It is also intersting to see how dependent I am on technology.  It is almost scary really.  Well since I am in the library writing this blog its going to be a short one.  I wanted to let everyone know why I haven't blogged lately and it will probably be awhile for the next one until I get the new computer.  Hope everyone is doing well... I am anxiously awaiting Courtney's arrival!!  I will have much to blog about after our adventures...
Until next time,
Allie

GOOD NEWS!!

Guess what!! I got the best news ever today! My professor just sent me an e-mail telling me it was okay to miss 2 presentations, 2 papers, school visits and a week of class to go to Poland for a week with my friends!!

Krakow, Poland one of the cities I will be going to! :)

March is going to be the best month ever!! One of my best friends in the whole world is flying across the country to spend her Spring break in Sweden on March 5th.  Then the 15th I leave for a week traveling through Poland!  Study abroad is so amazing! When in your life can you miss a week of your life, fly to Poland for less than 20 dollars (round trip!!) and travel around with some great people!  I am SO THANKFUL my sister Betsy insisted I go abroad this really is such a good experience and I am learning so much about myself and I am loving ever minute of it!! Anyway to update you it is FREEZING in Sweden.  There is not a lot of snow really just wind and cold temperatures.  There is some snow but it is old and turned into like ice really so it can be dangerous because it will snow a little bit and cover the old ice/snow and then you slip.  I have become quite good at slipping and then walking it out like I meant to do it haha.  This week has been pretty uneventful really I had class Monday as I mentioned and then Tuesday also.  After class on Tuesday Kaitlyn and Melodie called me to let me know we were going to the sauna.  When it is so cold all the time it is common for Swedes and everyone here really to go to the sauna.  Ever corridor has a sauna for its students which is pretty fun.  So we spent an hour in the sauna and then got ready for a night out at Stallarna because I don't have class at all the rest of the week!! Life is so easy here and I love it!  Today I slept in (shocker I know) and then made a cold walk back to Willy's for some cleaning supplies! I decided today I should clean my bathroom and room.  After returning with a lot more than I really need I thought about cleaning but decided on a nap instead...thinking about all the cleaning I needed to do wore me out!

Then I finally got up after a 4 hour nap (coma or blackout some may say) I told you thinking about it wore me out.  After cleaning I give props to my mom...I live in a shoe box (that I love) and it took me an hour and I think it goes without saying it wore me out! Tomorrow I am going exploring...there is a castle in Vaxjo and I am walking to it and going to take a walk around the lake! Hope it's not too cold!! Pics to come of course!

Best,

Allie

A weekend in København, Danmark

As I mentioned in my last post I left for Copenhagen or København in Danish on Saturday morning!  It was a very quick trip but it was definitely fun!!  This trip was with a group I am in at school called the Växjö International Students (VIS) and we take trips around Scandinavia with other international students so it was really nice to go with a big group of friends!  We left Saturday at 8:30...we were supposed to leave at 8:00 but when you study abroad you quickly learn that the Spanish and Italian's run on their own time which is not on time...not saying I don't love them but this is the reason for the late start.  We took a bus about 3 and a 1/2 hours to Copenhagen in Denmark which if you are not good at geography then you may not realize that this is the country below Sweden or above Germany.  I flew into Copenhagen when I came to Sweden but did not get to explore it before heading to Sweden.  When we got there we checked into our hostel which was nice...better than I thought.  This was my first hostel experience and I was told that it was a really nice one so maybe I haven't gotten the full experience yet but nevertheless it was a hostel.  Then we ventured out on our own to get some lunch and the first restaurants we saw were Burger King, McDonald's, and KFC in the city center so after talking about fried chicken basically everyday since I've been here I was sold on KFC.  It's interesting what a few months out of your country and away from normal food will do to you...I can't imagine being on Survivor...sometimes it feels like I'm on it....okay just kidding :) Anyway Kaitlyn, Ewa, and I decided to eat there.  After lunch we started doing some sight seeing.  Copenhagen is not very famous for many things, that I am aware of, but we walked all through the city and saw canals with all of the different shops and restaurants. 

In the City Center where the main shopping and restaurants are.

This is a famous Copenhagen postcard photo, I know I'm a surprisingly impressive photographer...I get it from my mother.

This is where the boat tour left from.

Melodie (France), Kaitlyn (Georgia), Gonzalo (Spain), Luis (Spain), Maxime (France), Me, Luis (Spain)

This is the parliament or government buildings protected by guards.

Walking on water...okay its frozen still I was pretty scared!

Luis (Spain), Pardo (Spain), Maxime (France), Melodie (France), Me, Kaitlyn (Georgia)

We were walking to see the famous statue of the Little Mermaid and the water was frozen and my french friend Maxime decided we should go walk on the water and that it was frozen enough.  I was very apprehensive but after everyone started doing it I of course had to also.  You notice that the ice is not smooth, this is because the boat's that give the boat tours drive through and break the ice up and then it refreezes.  As we were taking our boat tour the following day and we broke the ice up very near to where we were walking around the day before I realized perhaps that wasn't the best idea but we got some cool pictures and we survived so who cares right?

The Little Pardo...I mean Mermaid 

The Marble Church

After our city tour from Maxime who has been to Copenhagen several times we decided to stop to eat dinner at a place that served Mexican as well as Italian and it was called Mama Rosa.  It was a decent restaurant, actually Kaitlyn and I realized it was the first restaurant we had been to that we got served.  We have only been to fast food or cooked since we have been here.  One thing we quickly noticed was how poor the service was.  In a lot of Europe you do not tip and because of this you get poor service.  One thing was for sure the margaritas were good and that made the whole dinner worth it!

Nothing like cooling off after walking around all day in the windy 10 degree weather  with a frozen margarita!

After dinner we walked back to the hostel to get ready for a night on the town.  The VIS had arranged for us to all go to the same nightclub in Copenhagen.  We got the "VIP" treatment which was fun of course!  We had a very eventful night that ended with a cab ride to Burger King which of course was even better at 3 or 4 am!  The next morning we woke at 8 to take a boat tour of the city.  This would have been really great had I not seen everything the day before.  As you can imagine I did not mind sitting for an hour while I could take a short rest.  After the tour we went on our own to get lunch.  My friends and I had pizza at a small pizzeria which was really good.  After the pizza we went to Christiania which according to wikipedia is a haven for people with certain alternative lifestyles, and was founded in 1971 when the hippies took over an abandoned military zone.   Basically it is a in the middle of Copenhagen but claims that they are not a part of the European union and it is a large hippie commune with lots of "art work/trash".  I would love to show you pictures but due to the fact that they are not allowed while you are in Chistiania I have none...well one....

I can't describe Christiania you really just have to go see it to understand.  I can list off some things that were going through my head while walking through there, I'm scared,  how interesting , this is amazing , I've never seen such long hair on a man, like I maybe knew what the 60's were like, what living in a tepee with a bunch of hippies might be like , do I have a sign on me that says I'm a tourist, where is my wallet, do they accept credit cards here...to name a few.  After walking around this amazing place for a little bit my group of friends and I sat on a hill and people watched for the next hour in the sun because we had seen everything we wanted and we were just plain tired.  Finally at 3 we headed back into town to our bus to head back to Sweden.  I slept most of the way home and then when I arrived on campus I came home and went to bed.  It was a fun weekend exploring a new city.  I am so excited to see what other adventures Europe holds for me! Today I had class and I have class tomorrow then the rest of the week off.  I still can not get over all this free time I have.  It is incredible...I am sure that I will never have free time like this again in my life so I am enjoying every minute of it!
Until next time,
Allie

Today is...

My AMAZING mother's birthday! I wish I was home to go to dinner with the family but since that is not possibly perhaps I will just post this wonderful ballad on here for you...Mamma Mia-ABBA to send my love...I am not sure this song is about a mother but it talks about a Mamma so thats good enough!  I shall also raise a glass to toast to the most wonderful mother out there..she really is the best! I love you Mom Happy Birthday!!
Tomorrow I leave for my first trip, I am going to Copenhagen in Denmark.  We are taking a bus and leaving Sweden at 8:00a.m. and arrive in Copenhagen to explore the city around 12:00p.m. or 6:00a.m. for all of you at home! One of the things I am most excited about for this trip is the fact that there is a Hard Rock Cafe in Copenhagen...you know what that means...AMERICAN FOOD! I really hope I find it, Kaitlyn and I fully intend on finding it and feasting when we do!  Other than that there is really not a lot planned for us, a tour of the city and a party in the evening and some shopping!  That is all for now I need to finish packing.
Until Next Time!
Allie

Feels like home to me

Okay so I have been busy the past few days and I haven't had time to update you on my weekend and now it's already Wednesday!  Lets see I think the last time I blogged was last Wednesday so I will update you on the past weeks events..Thursday I can't remember what I did so probably nothing too exciting.  Friday I had the 80's party and it was SO FUN! It is always fun to go to dress up party's here because I get to see what everyone from the other countries thinks is from the 80's or gangster or whatever the theme may be.  This particular nights theme as I mentioned was 80's & 90's and a lot of people participated which made it really fun. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the night :)

This is my friend Thomas from France & I

These are some of my best friends here..from left to right..Melodie (French),  Pardo (Spanish),  Luis (Spanish),  Kaitlyn (Georgia, U.S.A.)

Melodie & I

As you might imagine we were out very late since it was a Friday night and a special night at that.  Well the next morning we had to wake up at 9am to go get in line for sign ups for Sea Battle.  This is a weekend cruise to Estonia I believe but I am not even sure.  You see this cruise isn't really about where you go its about the fun you have on the boat.  You dance, eat  at buffets, go to the casinos, or just hang out with over 2000 international students during a 48 hour cruise over the Baltic Sea.  Everyone talks about Sea Battle and there are only a limited number of spaces which is why we had to go wait in line 4 hours early.  It was misery but we made it fun and got tickets so April 11-13 I will be sailing the Baltic Seas with all of my international friends.  That day was a beautiful day so to kill time we took pictures...the sun was actually out it was amazing!

Melodie, Allie, Kait on campus by this large trumpet thing.

One of the main buildings on Campus H House with our yellow Flags.

Saturday evening we decided to try a new club that opened on campus and it turned out to not be very popular at all.  Even though it was overpriced and no one was there of course we still managed to have a great time!

Me Kait & Melodie we have managed to befriend one of the club photographers so there are always a lot of pictures of us the next day :)

Sunday I spent the day reading a book for class that I have had weeks to read but didn't until the day before it was due....typical.  Then I wrote a paper over it so Sunday was a productive but boring day.  Monday, Valentines Day, while I'm on the topic I should say that this day is nothing like Valentines Day in America..no one really talked about it or did anything for it.  For all of us single people out there it was pretty nice if I do say so.  I had class Monday and I got back the first four papers I have written and was pleasantly un-surprised that I got A's on all of them..as I mentioned in earlier blogs school here is ridiculously easy..I'm not complaining though.  Then after class I got a call from Kait that we were going grocery shopping at Willy's.  This is a big grocery store like a Wal-Mart (not a Super Wal-Mart though) but it is a 15 minute walk from where I live so we do the logical thing and "borrow" the grocery carts.  We walked to Willy's in 10 degree weather and pushed our LOADED shopping carts home in the snow along the highway...it was the biggest workout I've gotten since I've been here.

Just pushing our carts back to Willy's to do some shopping!

I told you we bought a TON of stuff, that trek isn't one you want to do very often.

(I look much happier in this picture than I was)

When we got home Kaitlyn and I decided to cook Melodie and Pardo a Valentines dinner of Fettuccine Alfredo and it  was so good if I do say so myself! 

Tuesday Kaitlyn, Melodie & I took the bus to the outskirts of Vaxjo to go to a Mall because we wanted to shop but it was too cold to be outside shopping.  The mall pretty much has the same stores as town but they are all indoors which is much better when it's so cold!  Tuesday night we went to Stallarna of course to go dancing and had a great time!  This morning I had to wake up at 9 to go to a preschool in town.  We participated in the music class which was really neat.  I am not sure if I have mentioned this or not but the Swedish children start learning English at 7 so these children could not communicate with us by speaking but through music and dancing we really got to have fun with the kids! The age for preschool is up to3-5 so there were older children too. After the preschool visit I came home and took a much needed nap! Now I am doing laundry and writing this blog.  Everything here is becoming routine...my routine feels good.  After this weekend I can say I feel like part of the group.  I don't feel like the "new girl from America" anymore but like a part of the group.  I spend so much time with some of these people and I feel like I have a little family here, Vaxjo, Sweden feels like home to me and I like it!

Montessori, Money & McDonalds makes me happy :)

Vaxjo Montessori School

5 & 6 year olds working independently.

7 year olds learning how to subtract large numbers.

More 7 year olds working independently.

The title to this particular blog might have you wondering what I am talking about.  The first word Montessori is because on Tuesday my class visited the Vaxjo Montessori School which was very nice.  The school is named after Maria Montessori who was an Italian educator and is known today for her philosophy of education.  This is not the only Montessori school, they are all over the world but this is the one located in my town.  Students in the Montessori schools are given a lot of responsibility from a very young age and they get to decide what they learn with in reason.  Students are encouraged to make their own decisions. Each morning the students are to work on whatever they choose until lunch time with out being interrupted.  I found this from Wikipedia and it best describes Maria Montessori's methods..."The Montessori method involves a curriculum of learning that comes from the child's own natural inner guidance and expresses itself in outward behavior as the child's various individual interests are at work."The teacher is there to assist with anything they need but no classroom instruction is given as a whole.  While I was there all of the students worked independently on various subjects.  I even visited the 6 year olds and they were working on math independently.  There were a couple things I noticed while I was there...All of the children were spread out throughout the whole school working, another thing I noticed  was the peace and quiet.  Even though the children are given freedom to go and do what they want they are extremely well behaved.  It was incredible!  Then after going to the Montessori school I headed back to campus because I had class in the afternoon as well...This was a lecture with a class of Swedish students.  This was nice because I got the opportunity to meet new Swedish students.  After class our professor announced some wonderful news that Wednesday we would not have class so I was officially on my weekend by Tuesday afternoon...oh the life of a study abroad student.  Wednesday (today) I decided to do something that was way overdue....pay my January's rent haha. Your probably wondering why I have not paid and that brings me to my next word...Money.  FINALLY the university gave me the stipend for rent and food so Kait & I decided to go pay our rent and do some shopping.  After we paid our rent we bought our first food with our stipend...

A Big Mac!

Whoever said money can't buy happiness obviously never lived in Sweden and had to cook on their own.... every time Kait & I go to town we buy a little bit of happiness :) --Side note a Big mac combo in Sweden is approximately $9.50....totally worth it!  After we ate we shopped around and ventured into new stores that we have yet to visit.  We also got outfits for the 80's & 90's party in Friday night which we are anxiously awaiting..don't worry I'll blog and post pics after it!  We spent majority of our time in the home stores looking at things that we wish we could buy to decorate a house with.  It is so hard because we hate to spend money on things that we can get by without but at the same time its not so fun living in a plain room...so I bought some candles that were on rea (sale).  Don't they look nice?  So today I'm realizing how little things in life can make me happy like some candles on sale, a big mac, paying my rent...finally, and visiting a neat school in a lovely small town.  Looking forward to the 80's party and the rest of my relaxing weekend!

Best,

Allie

not so short...Weekend Update

Well it is Monday which means the weekend is over.  Since my last post on Thursday morning I have gotten some feedback that I should continue blogging so here we are again.  Friday I spent the day sleeping I think...I can't really remember and so that is probably what I did because normally if I don't have class that’s where you will find me....sleeping.  Tuesdays & Friday nights my favorite pub Stallarna is opened.  This pub/club is located on campus and is student owned and ran so you have to be a member of the student union to go.  Well this means it’s a ton of students crammed into a small place dancing to old-ish American music/house music.  Its sweaty, loud, overpriced beers & cider and its fantastic.  I dance the night away with the whole international community it seems and some brave Swedes.  The pub closes at 2 which always leads to an after party at one of the corridors that we decide as we are in the queue to get our coats.  That’s right everyone I guess it’s a Swedish thing or perhaps a European thing but you check your coat at the pub, it’s amazing! Friday evening it was in Lyan 61 where partner in crime Kaitlyn lives.  She is from Georgia and we tend to stick together for the most part.  This particular evening the after party consisted of dancing to Latin music led by our friends from Spain.  It was another unforgettable night with fun people.  Saturday I again slept in, why wake up early there is nothing to do, it’s cold and dark.  Then that evening I had a get together with some girls from class.  One thing that I really love about school here is the fact that the people in my classes are my friends.  This is a really neat dynamic because I don't know if everyone would agree with this statement but at home I have "school friends" that I sit with each day and do projects maybe sometimes grab lunch with but that is where the friendship ends.  Here we hang out of evenings, on weekends and at the pubs, it creates a great atmosphere in class because we are all getting close.  We went to Ewa's (pronounced Ava she is from Poland) to help her build a chest of drawers from IKEA. She insisted that we did not need any mans help that we could construct them on our own.  I know what those of you who know me are thinking....Allie is a great person to invite over to help you build something...that’s right up her alley...hahahaha just kidding.  As you can guess I sat back while they struggled and laughed...I did add some wonderful music to the event and drank ciders :)  It was fun to spend time with some girls from class, we laughed a lot and learned why things from IKEA are so cheap, the labor is really hard...or at least it looked hard, I wouldn't know.  Watching them struggle to put that together wore me out so I decided to go to bed at a decent hour since I had to meet my "friend family" on Sunday.  A friend family is a family that volunteers to be your family while you are in Sweden they can make you dinners, take you sightseeing, or whatever you want to do with your family.  Sunday at 12 my friend family picked me up from campus to go to their flat to eat lunch.  The family that I have been assigned to consists of Elias the man of the flat, Charlotte his "girlfriend/live-in partner/baby mama" and their baby boy Victor. There are also 3 children Elin 11, Samuel 14 and Jacob 8 which are Charlotte's children from a previous marriage and they only live with Elias & Charlotte every other week, I have not met them yet.  The flat was very nice and very modern.  Charlotte made a wonderful, traditional Swedish meal.  Swedish meat balls, boiled potatoes, corn, lingon berries, and cucumbers.  It was really good I actually enjoyed some Swedish food for once; I guess when properly prepared it can be good. For desert we had traditional Swedish cheesecake and coffee.  After lunch baby Victor woke up so I got to play with him.  My family & I talked about my life and home and really everything about school kind of like talking to my own parents actually.  It is really neat to get to know a family of Swedes.  As I mentioned it can be hard to meet Swedes so this gives me the opportunity to ask and learn a lot about Sweden.  After spending the afternoon with them they brought me back to campus and I had to work on a paper.  As most papers go I spent 60% of the time using Facebook rather than working which is when I ran across the fact that Sunday was the super-bowl.  Needless to say I freaked out! Not because of the game that I was going to miss but the food! I quickly called Kaitlyn to go to the store with me to buy food to celebrate this holiday. We bought SO MUCH FOOD! It was unreal anything we saw that looked like American Super bowl food...we bought it.  We hurried home and cooked everything.  When I was walking with my groceries to Kaitlyn's corridor one of my friends passed and was eyeing all of my bags...I made sure to clear up to him that it was a holiday sort of like the Chinese New Year in America today so we had to cook a feast.  Feast we did! Not long after eating I had to go to bed because I was worn out from such a long day...I had no idea who even was playing in the Super bowl...let alone who won. haha  Today I had class and it was scheduled from 1-3 so you can imagine when I checked my phone at 3:38 and we were still in class how shocked I was...class felt so long today because it WAS.  We went an hour over...gross.  Well that pretty much sums up my weekend.  Actually now that I look at this...it’s not a summary at all but more like a narration of my weekend sorry....I'm a talker.  This week I finally get to go to the Swedish schools and see the children I can't wait so there will be plenty more to come soon!! 

Until next time,

Allie

Settling in Sweden...

Hi Everyone!!
So this is my first ever blog post.  Since this is my first blog consider this my official warning...I am horrible with grammar and spelling...if it bothers you then my blog might not be the right one to follow.  If your still with me despite my downfall then I will give you an update on Swedish life.  It is currently 3:00 a.m. in Sweden and I thought this was the perfect time to start a blog.  To update you a bit about my situation, I am in Vaxjo, Sweden at Linnaeus University "studying".  I put studying in quotations because I do not need to study. I am in a class called Inter-cultural Competence and Understanding.   It is more of a discussion about the different cultures in my class when we meet the 3 times a week. Thats right I said class, I only have one its amazing!! I live in the dorms here and I have a single room with a bathroom.  When I arrived I was thrilled but now so much quiet time makes me go crazy so I miss my sorority house.  I watch a lot of movies online to pass the quiet time. My city has approximately 80,000 people and is said to be the "greenest city in Europe".  As you might guess this means we recycle EVERYTHING...you know when you hole punch a paper and the holes fall out of the hole punch and you just pretend that you didn't see them fall...well folks those are considered recyclable...you don't become the greenest city in Europe for nothing.  Needless to say I am an expert on classifying which bin things go in.  This week I did a big task...my 1st load of laundry! I know many of you are shaking your heads...ridiculous right?  Well I happen to have the best mother in the world and she has done my laundry for the past 21 years.  I was forced to learn over here because my mother was not available to fly to southern Sweden this week and after 23 days here I am out of socks and underwear so it was life or dirty laundry...I chose life.  Turns out laundry is awesome! I have not had such a feeling of accomplishment in ages.  If your wondering what Swedish food is like imagine going to the grocery store to buy ingredients and not being able to read one word of any description, and not recognize any brand or picture really.  Well that is my reality, It is always a shot in the dark when shopping.  For example try one in ICA (the Swedish Grocery Store near my residence) I bought milk to accompany my Oreo's (packed from America).  I get home and pour a glass of the "milk".  I took a nice drink of the room temperature sour milk.  Yep, SOUR milk....who buys this intentionally, I'll tell you someone who wants to punish their child.  I don't like trying to grocery shop here.  The other problem with grocery shopping here is the fact that the Subway is right beside it.  So far every time I go to shop at the grocery store to buy something to eat I have been hungry.  Rather than risk getting home with some reindeer meat instead of beef I stop in the subway and order the only sandwich that is listed in English, Chicken Teriyaki.  I know I can'tlive on this all semester but while I'm adjusting to the system here it is my "comfort food".  I have been doing better on cooking but eating that delicious sandwich takes my taste buds to america for a minute and I can't resist it!  Lets see what else to update you on...oh how about the Swedish people.  In general they do not speak to the International students.  This is sad but they are just shy, supposedly.  I know some swedes and they are great but they are definitely not like people from the Midwest.  They do all speak English when you can get them to speak.  In general I hang out with people from Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Japan, Holland and USA of course to name a few.  I have met some great people that I know I will be friends with for life! Well I think for now this is a good first blog...it is kind of random but I wanted to cover some things you may have been wondering about!  So far I am having a WONDERFUL time.  Currently I am sleeping a lot (it gets dark at 3:30), spending time with new friends, buying food I think will be good and never is, going to the Pub, oh and going to class.  The things I miss the most right now all happen to start with F's...FAMILY, friends, food, food and fried chicken. Feel free to send me any of those listed!
More to come soon!
Hej då!
Allie