Luxembourg

Hello all,
It has been a couple days since I last posted, I have been busy with travels and before that school. I am in Luxembourg right now staying with a friend from school. So far I have ridden her pony which was an experience on it's own, and done a little shopping. She is this small pony, around 13 hands, who is quite stocky and stubborn. I will have photos soon but I do not have internet on my computer where all my photos are. Today we did  a little shopping in a town called Hamilius. It was a really cute, very European town. I visited a nice old cathedral there as well as looked down into the valley where people actually lived in houses carved out of the rock face (very Lord of the Rings). I bought a couple things like a skirt and a sweater but I am saving my money and shopping as I am still traveling for the rest of the week and I have a limited amount of space in my bag. I am heading off to Antwerp, Belgium on Monday and will be visiting a distant aunt, Aunt Charlotte. I am having fun so far being a tourist with my friend. I get to be a tourist on my own and I am quite enjoying being the only one who is taking photos and being shown around. I will have photos up as soon as I have internet on my computer but the internet is not wireless here and I don't want to make a fuss about plugging into my computer. Tomorrow one of  Ida's, my friend, uncle is coming over so that will be interesting.
When I put photos up I will be able to explain more why the houses are so cool and their significance to Luxembourg but for now you will just have to believe me when I say that it is very interesting here and I am loving how old the architecture and history is here. Europe is full of history and interesting buildings! Loving it here!

Enjoy!

Lastning

I have been looking at my schedule on the internet for a few days, I usually don't know what is going on on Tuesdays because it changes every week.
My two classes that I am guaranteed are Unghäst (young horse) and Ridning (Riding). Today I had a new 3 year old to ride! Before we start with the two year olds everyone must skritt (walk), trava (trot), and gallop (canter) a three year old. One of the girls in the other group hasn't done so yet and apparently she is a little nervous. The instructors decided that Fay was the nicest mare so she had Fay today and I rode another horse. It was a three year old gelding named Gaston. He has a foot fungus so he has been a little lame for a while, he hasn't been cantered since the summer and my instructors felt that I could handle him. He was really nice, much bigger and stronger than Fay. Here is a photo:

He was a little uncooperative with the camera.

I also rode Ruzzin again today, she is a little bit of a strange one to ride. But fun.
First thing we did this morning was called Lastning. Hence the title of this blog post, which translates to loading. We had a test for loading horses onto a trailer.

I'm off to Luxembourg, and Belgium at the end of the week!

Enjoy!

Open House

I haven't updated again in a few days, wasn't quite as over my illness as I thought but I am sure now that I am pretty much back to full health. This weekend I am back in full swing as well! My friend Ida is working at an international horseback riding competition this weekend with many other Bollerup students. I am not participating because I wasn't aware of the potential to volunteer, also I was too sick during the week to go (they went all of Wednesday as well as this weekend), and someone needs to stay home and take care of the horses!
I start my days by taking Sidney, Ida's horse, out to the paddock and then veg at home for a while. In the afternoon I head back up to the barn and muck out his stall as well as Hera's. On top of mucking I had to set up Sidney's feed for the night and tomorrow morning, as well as his evening food. I also realized that because of being sick I have not spent any time with Fay in over a week. I went to check on her after I was done in Hera's stall and she was just as cuddly and happy to see me as ever. I finished up with all the mucking tools and decided to spend some time with Fay before getting Sidney in from his field. I spent about half an hour grooming her and making her pretty again as her tail and fur had gotten into quite the mess in my week of absence. I make sure to pick up her feet every time I see her even if I do not have a hoof pick as she starts to get fussy with picking up her legs if I haven't done so in a while.
Once Fay was back in her stall it was starting to get dark so I headed out to the fields to get Sidney in. He gladly walked back to the stable, awaiting his food. Now Sidney is lame right now because he has an infection in his left hind leg. Last year he had an operation on this leg because he had a bone chip, and I guess it took a long time for infection to set in or he got a cut and the leg was more susceptible to infection because of the surgery. I'm not sure. Anyway he is on antibiotics now for a couple weeks and since he is so big it is a little difficult for many to give him his medicine, hence me taking care of him and not another. Thus ends my day with the horses.
Another fun thing about this weekend is the title of this blog post. We had an Open House at Bollerup today for future students and their parents to see what the school is like. Last night we had a meeting and everyone had to take one aspect of cleaning to make sure the house was nice and clean for the visitors. It was kind of cool to have people walking around the house while we were watching, like we were on display.
Anyway, that is the weekend this week. Tomorrow will be much like today except for the Open House. Here is another photo of one of the foals just for fun:

Enjoy!

Innebandy

Sorry for the dead air on my part. I have been quite sick, back to school sickness. Not too much has been happening with me, not surprising considering I was sick and spend most of the past week in my room. Most of my time outside of my room was spend in the barn mucking out.
Tuesday I attempted at Friskis & Svettis (aerobics) but my strength was still quite low from being sick. Today was the first day that I have been feeling much much better, I have more energy but my throat is still a little croaky so I can't quite speak like I usually do. Considering me energy was better I went to the first session of many sessions of Innebandy.

Innebandy is like a mix of indoor field hockey, real hockey and that strange sport you play with the whiffle ball and a "banana". The ball obviously has holes in it, it's a whiffle ball, but the stick also has holes in it. It is shaped like a normal ice hockey stick except the part that you hit the ball with is just a hard plastic "net". Rules are different from field hockey to, especially regarding the foot rule. I kept stick handling the same way you would in field hockey (having to flip the stick over to touch the ball as in field hockey you are only allowed to you touch the ball with one side of the stick) which I got a few strange looks for. I had tons of fun with this sport and I am feeling a ton better finally and much happier now that I have gotten some exercise!!

Enjoy!

Löshoppning

Tonight we did free jumping or löshoppning. This is when we create a barrier around the center of the ring so that the horse has a track to run around and on one long side is a one stride set up. We do this with the horses to see how high they can jumping with no one riding them. It's also a good way for horses to learn how to jump and learn to fix issues of striding and distance to the fence on their own. We did this with Fay today, as we did last week as well but I forgot my camera last week. This week I remembered it and she jumped 125 cm today, or 4.1 feet! Here are a few photos:

Unfortunately the quality isn't the best but at least you get the idea of how she jumps and what the height kinda looks like.

Enjoy!

History

Today I had a great day. It was one of those days when you just wake up on the right side of the bed, with the right attitude. I was feeling great about my hair, my body (I had a good work out last night), and my swedish as I have been working really hard on it. I first had a swedish study session where I felt great about my swedish, I had finished all of the work that my teacher had given me. This was impressive as she gave me a ton of work, she does so because this way I have a lot to do but she doesn't expect it all to get done. I also am almost finished my RosettaStone course. I'm on the last unit of the last level. Back to my great day, I had a good swedish study lesson and we are starting to read The Hobbit which I am excited about and she gave me many worksheets for swedish grammar. I mucked out Hera's stall after lunch and then I had photography, and my partner in photography explained more to me what the teacher was talking about (and she did all this in swedish and I actually understood so I was pretty proud of my swedish considering I have been studying it for less then two months). My last class of the day was an evening class, history. For the past few weeks we have been working on presentations on a piece of History, my partner and I chose Mayan Mythology. Today we presented and I felt great about my swedish, it was my first time speaking swedish in front of my class. Many people in the class were surprised at the level that I had (not top swedish, but most of them think that I can't speak any swedish) and I got thumbs up from quite a few of them. My teacher also was really happy with me, that I actually was clear with what I was saying in front of the class. This is the close to my great school day. My evening was also pretty fun, it is a friends birthday tomorrow so another friend of mine baked a cake for her and we sat around having cake and talking and having a good time. I'm starting to feel more like I belong here and I'm not so much the foreign girl.

Enjoy Life.

Great Riding

Today I had two great rides on my school horses. We did jumping in my normal riding class. The line we did was a bounce to a three stride to a three stride to a bounce with two poles two strides after the first bounce and two strides before the second bounce : I   I   |   |     I     |   |   I   I
At the beginning it was a little rough, I'm riding a 6 year old who is not used to being a school horse yet so she is quite wiggly in the line. We also had issues with getting a good distance to the first fence also which effected the whole line. When this happened, I simple thought about what my jumping instructor in Canada would say; "allow the horse to go forward out of the short turn". When I remembered this things started to go much better.
My next good ride was on Fay. Today we went outside (all of our rides have been in an indoor riding house) and it went great. Even when passing a car, which if I was walking beside her she would have freaked out at, she was great and didn't even look at it. here are some photos of her and I:

Enjoy!

Zumba

Tonight I participated in an activity called Zumba. Some of you may have seen infomercials on tv for it, it's an aerobic fitness class based on the use of dance. Monday's for the next few weeks will be intense for fitness as I have soccer (fotboll) starting at 5 30, and then an hour later I have Zumba for an hour. Two intense hours of physical activity. Most of what we did in Zumba was butt shaking, a lot of it.

Babies at Bollerup

This weekend consisted of a little more than my normal weekend. I studied a great deal of swedish, I'm almost finished with RosettaStone Swedish (I highly recommend RosettaStone for anyone who wants to learn a new language). I have been going on some trips into Tomelilla, our closest town, and each time I go in I pass a couple paddocks and fields with foals!! Today I went up to the field to take pictures of the foals. Super cute little foals, less than a year old! 

A paddock with four little colts! One of the colts has a bandage on his leg, I'm not sure why. Poor little horse!

This is a field with foals and their mothers.

One of the colts with a bandage on his leg.

Other than the foals, I mucked out my stall (two students from the young horse program share a stall to muck everyday and my partner is not here on the weekends so I do it then), and I watched many movies with friends. Movies we watched this weekend include Black Beauty, Across the Universe, Spirit; Stallion of the Cimarron and Moulin Rouge. Hope you enjoy the pictures!!

Another Thursday

Today I had another day of waking up late as my classes did not start until 1 in the afternoon. These late days are good for me as I like to sleep and I don't usually get to go to sleep until late because the other residents of my house like to stay up really late and laugh and speak loudly. My first class was chemistry, we went over the lab that we did on Monday and went over a practice test from last year. After that was my vet course where we dealt with acute diseases.
My last course of the day was my young horse class. It's not really a class on Thursdays but we have to have a short lesson so that the horses get worked twice a week. Today I'm unhappy that I forgot my camera because we did loose jumping today. Fay looks like she really likes jumping, and has great form over the fences. Would have been a good entry to have a photo of her jumping!

Just Another Tuesday

I would have updated my blog yesterday, but alas my fatigue got the better of me before I had the chance. Tuesdays are always hard for me as I have to wake up much earlier than any other day of the week and I have classes all day which I am not used to. On this particular Tuesday I started out with my young horse program, Fay was great as usual. We did canter today and I'm very proud of Fay as she was the only horse to not break into trot the whole time we were cantering. There was also a women who came to look at the 3 year olds to buy, and of the four horses there she chose to look more closely at and ride Fay and one other horse. The little mare is also becoming quite the Houdini. 

When you tie up a horse you need to do a quick release know so that you can undo it quickly if there is an emergency, some older horses figure out how to undo it but we have a way of making it more difficult to undo. Fay actually undid my knot twice, she tugs and bits and pulls at it until it comes undone, smart little girl. Right after this I had my riding class, and now I finally have a picture of the horse I ride for my school classes; Ruzzin. 

This week I started to listen much better to the instructor (it also helps that I understand her better) and I am finally feeling like I am riding Ruzzin much better. She is a 6 year old mare who is not used to being a school horse yet. She is also difficult to ride because she is a little scared of the bit and tends to shorten her neck and tighten her back when you take any contact.

The next part of my day was a lesson on hay, or tractors, or how tractors harvest hay. There were a lot of photos of tractors being put up on the screen. What I mistook for föl (foal in swedish) was actually föder, which is feed. 

After I had dinner I spent some time with Fay and then went with a friend to do some join up with her horse, who unfortunately was lame. Finally I had my aerobics class at 7 15 in the evening, concluding my full Tuesday.

Weekends at Bollerup

Weekends here at the school are very quiet, not too many people spend their whole weekend at school. I spent the first couple weekends either in my room or on the couch in the common room.
As I my young horse program has gotten more serious I now muck out one stall every Friday to Sunday, and I time with Fay every day. One stall is not very much but at least it gets me out of my house.

More photos; these are three of the four horses I have going.

Jamara: The horse who hasn't been ridden in a year. She went amazing today, I'm finally realizing how much leg it takes to get her to really use herself and go well!

This is Sidney, my friends horse. He looks more lanky here than he actually is, though he is 180 cm tall (approx. 18 hands) and needs to fill our quite a bit more. He is really fun to ride and works really well, once he muscles up more he will be a fantastic horse!

And again, Fay! The cute little mare whose mane I'm in the midst of pulling her mane. For those who don't know; pulling the mane is thinning it out and shortening it by pulling it out from the roots. This process doesn't hurt horses because they don't have any feeling in their crest (the part of the neck from which the mane grows).