Vancouver

So I am back in Canada for a few weeks over winter break. It's great to be back in the city, I must say.

The trip back was super stressful as every plane I was on got delayed. The whole trip started on a bad note, though. My train heading into Malmö got stuck in traffic and was sitting just outside the train station for about an hour, causing my friend and I to have to take a taxi to Copenhagen. I had to take a taxi instead of waiting for the train because the next train to Copenhagen was at 12 25 and my flight was scheduled to leave at 1 20! By the time I got to the airport I had 45 minutes to check in and get to my gate for my flight. When I got there the people letting us into the gate took forever so my flight was delayed about 40 minutes. This stressed me out because I only had an hour and a half in Reykjavik (Keflavik) to get to my next flight. By the time we had gotten to Keflavik I had 50 minutes to find my next flight. I got to the gate to find that it had been delayed an hour, leaving my only 1 hour in Seattle to find my flight to Vancouver. We got to Seattle, with an hour and a bit to get through customs, pick up our luggage, re-check it in, and find our next gate. I, of course, took the wrong train and went to the wrong terminal. The only reason I actually got onto my last flight was because it was delayed 10 minutes. It was scheduled to depart at 6 30 and I got to the gate at 6 35. The last one to get on the flight, we took off, and an hour later arrived in Vancouver! Vancouver went quickly to get my bags and find my mother, and we were off to our house!

While I was away my parents were renovating our house, kitchen among other things. At 8 30 at night I was taking the grand tour of my new home, and it looks great. I will have photos up soon enough, I have a new closet that I am in love with! My mum now has an en-suite bathroom, and we have a powder room just outside the new kitchen. We have also acquired a back porch and the small driveway in our backyard was taken out making our backyard that much bigger. Many of the walls have been re-painted and light fixtures have been changed making the whole house look like new.

Last night I went out with a friend to a movie, Black Swan, downtown. I was reminded of how much I like being in the city. Being at Bollerup is great, but I don't think I will be moving permanently to the country in Sweden. If I do end up moving to Sweden it will definitely be to a big city.

Now I am just procrastinating un packing, or taking a break, whatever you want to call it. My room in half way unpacked but I have to figure out how to put all my books and things away, I have a new desk area. I also have to do laundry and then put it in my new closet, after being in Sweden with not too much clothing I realize just how stupid an amount of clothing I have. It is quite nice to have more options for clothing!

Upcoming Break

Sorry I haven't been updating recently, I have been quite busy. Last time I updated was right before a friends 18th birthday party. It was really fun, parties are different here than I expected. When I got there we first hugged the hosts (my friend was having a joint birthday party) who were waiting at the entrance. After the hugs we picked a number out of a pot, one for the girls with even numbers and one for boys with off numbers, for the sitting arrangement. After that we had to go around the entire room, for some reason everyone was arranged in a circle around the room, hugging everyone or introducing yourself to those you don't know. The circle led to the bar where there were drinks for everyone. After a while everyone was called to the dining room where we were all sitting boy-girl-boy-girl. Every 2 placements had a package of songs between them. During dinner people would periodically stand up as if to make a toast and everyone would break into song, each one ending with a drink. After dinner the tables were cleared and the dining room became a dance floor. The dancing was another thing that I am not used to, it was like what you see in old movies. The ballroom partner dancing instead of what you normally see at dances.
The past week has been a bit of a blur, I was sick on Tuesday.
This week started with Sankta Lucia on Monday. I am in the choir here so I was part of the winter tradition. I would spend time explaining it but you can google it.
Yesterday I spent time with the class that is here from France. First I was with them while they made posters about their life in France and the swedish people spoke about Sweden to them. Last night we did some swedish baking with them to share the christmas traditions. We made Papparkakor, gingerbread cookies, marzipan things, knäck etc. After we ate them and sung swedish and french christmas songs. It was great to speak french again, though now when I speak french I mix in swedish. The opposite of what happened when I first got here when I was mixing french into my swedish.
On top of the french people I had riding and unghäst yesterday. Tigris has proved to be quite difficult when it comes to the riding. He is perfectly fine with the lunging and everything on the ground, even having people try to get on him from the ground. He is fine with all that but as soon as you try to get him to move he gets worried and refuses to do anything until he explodes.

That is the news so far, today I will be working with Tigris and then playing innebandy against the french people. Tomorrow I will be spending the whole day with the french people visiting other cities: Glemmingebro and Helsingborg
And then on Friday I will be heading back to Vancouver!

Coming Around the Mountain

Christmas is just around the corner, I will be home in two weeks!!
I last wrote on November 30 the night of our pre-Naked Run. December first here is the Naked Run, a run where you run around in your underwear (or less if you want ;P) for a mile. We did a lot less then a mile, as a mile here is 10 km. I did participate in this event, and it was only my house that really did it (there were 4 people there who weren't from my house). At midnight of the 30th a few friends and I ran around with pants and a bra on to promote the run which would be happening the next night at the same time. To get an idea of how it was for us you have to know that it had been snowing and storming all day, luckily it had stopped storming while we were running. We did a loop around the stables and I was one of the first to get back to the start! Next was sitting on the couch for a couple hours with friends wrapped in blankets to warm back up.
It has been snowing everyday here for a while now, it is very beautiful here when there is no wind. Here are a few photos:

These photos are taken in the rare moments when the wind has died down enough that you can see where you are going...

It looks like there isn't much snow on the ground here but it is actually that the wind has moved in somewhere else, we do have a ton of snow! 

This is the courtyard of my house: Äpplet. We have a little christmas tree that has lights on it:

The snow has cancelled most of my classes because the teachers can't get to school, which is kinda nice. This leaves me with a lot more free time than I know what to do with so I have discovered some fashion blogs that I am getting into. One of such blogs is lookbook.nu, I am setting up a widget on my sidebar for those who want to check it out. I spent some time with Tigris this week but I keep forgetting my camera which is not very good. I also spent time in the breeding stable yesterday helping out with stable duties as that class was cancelled. Foals are the cutest things! Photos of them are to come as my friend, Alice, got some cute ones of me with the babies. I also went into Tomelilla with the school and ICA, our grocery store, is now supplying Julmust for the holiday season:

Anyway I am just excited about everything going on and how close I am to coming home (17th!!) to see all my friends and my family!

Can't wait to see you all

Enjoy life!