Eventful Day

Hello,
     Today was an eventful say, as most of my tuesdays are. Tuesday is the day that I have the most to do but I finished early today, meaning I squished everything into 3 blocks.
As most tuesdays, we started with stalltjänst (7 30 AM). Stalltjänst (pronounced: stal-shain-st) is stable work, taking the horses out to the paddocks and mucking the stalls in the morning and bringing the horses in and feeding them for the afternoon shift. Today during stalltjänst I got run over by one of the horses I was leading. A man was carrying a ladder and the horse decided that it would be a good idea to run into me instead of around me until I fell over and then stepped on me. I'm fine, but I will have bruises tomorrow and i have some scrapes on my legs.

This is supposed to me a spooking horse

I also had a jumping test today, and it was supposed to be during the last block but my teachers decided that it would be a good idea to do it during my Unghäst lesson. Straight after stalltjänst I went up to skolstallet and got Ruzzin ready and off we went (9:15 AM). I did my test at 10:00 and it went well. We jumped 90 cm, or 3 ft. It was nice to get some height in jumping as in Canada I was jumping 3ft6 and 3ft9 weekly. Ruzzin is not an adjustable horse and she needs to go forward in jumping otherwise she tends to chip into the jumps. This also means that when we get a long distance into a jump and she is going really forward it is hard to get her to shorten her step and get back quickly. There were two lines in the course, a 7-stride and a 6-stride. In those lines we got 6 and 5...

Next lesson was Unghäst (young horse) on Jasmin (10 45 AM). We rode in the Ny Ridhus (new indoor ring) which was great because Jasmin is the biggest 2 year old and needs lots of space. Normally we ride in the Små Ridhus (I'm guessing you understand small indoor ring) which is 40x20 m. The ny ridhus is 80x30m, so much bigger. Jasmin usually has a hard time going forward because of how small the ring is that we normally in, and I think that she feels a little claustrophobic and like she can't go forward. Today she was going forward and really moving in front of me! There were cones and poles in the ring to challenge the horses as well, we jumped the pole and she tried to go around the cones instead of through them (there were 2 set up close together to go in between). In the end she was sweaty and tired!

After lunch we had ridteori. At the beginning of the year we were assigned topics to write about and present. My topic was the difference between riding in Canada and riding in Sweden. Today I presented. It was a lot of fun, and I spoke swedish. Of course the presentation wasn't only in swedish as my swedish is not that good yet but I tried and the class understood and I got a big applause at the end.

I am starting to really feel a part of this school and feel great about my swedish!!

=D

Week 2 away: Flyinge

I got back to Bollerup at 10 30 PM on Sunday night from being away since the Friday a week before. You would think that finally arriving would be great and I could just crash on my bed and not worry about the next day. You would be wrong.
Once I got home I had to quickly change the clothing in my bag to what I would need for another 6 days away from school. I was off to work at a Stallion show at Flyinge.

At 6 AM, only 7 and a half hours after arriving back at Bollerup, I was off to Flyinge for 6 days. Flyinge is a school similar to Bollerup, only without the boarding. As far as I know it is primarily focused on equine studies, whereas Bollerup is also very big on their farming program.

The show I was working at all week was a stallion show. People bring their Swedish Warmblood horses to try and get them certified as a Stud, basically to say their genes are good enough to pass on based on their performance. This means that the horses are AMAZING!!

Here are a few photos, I did not take as many as I wanted but anyway:

                                     This is where we all slept       This is the Färs och Frosta

                                                                                              Stallet office

                                  This is how busy we were most         This is the coffee machine 

                                  of the time in the office                       that kept me alive

Some of the jobs I did were: whipper-in, ringmaster, and working in the office at Färs och Frosta Stallet.

We had shifts that could start as early as 6 AM, and end as late as 10 PM. Most of the shifts were about 2 hours long and you would have several per day doing something different in each one. Working in the office was pretty chill, we just wrote down which horses went out, what time and when they came back. The rest of the time we would go on the computer and check out the horses on the internet, or go on facebook. When we exhausted those options we would play solitair, or Harpan as it is called here. The week on the whole was great! I spoke a TON of swedish, really improved it and I used a lot of words I was afraid to use (because of being unsure of pronunciation or if it was the correct context) and I learned many new words. Here are a couple of horses that I loved from the show:

Sohn der Sonne

Luxus CML (SWB)

Zidane (SWB)

Zidane was my absolute favorite, unfortunately I could not find a photo of him under saddle in movement.

Anyway, hope you like the photos! Until next time!

Sportlov

It has been quite a while since my last post.
I have been away from Bollerup for 2 weeks, and before that it was all the same things here.

Week 1 away from Bollerup:

I had one week off from school for what we call sportlov. During this time I visited friends in two countries! I spent my first few days away from Bollerup in Berlin with an old family friend. It was really fun. I did a free walking tour my last day there because Tehya and her boyfriend were both working. It was a lot of fun and reviewing Berlin history was interesting.

    

                            Me at Brandenburger Tor                     Holocaust Memorial

                                        Fernseturm (TV Tower)                   Reichstag

My time in Berlin was made slightly more stressful as my phone does not seem to work outside of Sweden at this point. I had a great time walking around Berlin with Tehya and Cole. On the Sunday I was there Tehya and I went to Mauer Park Market where I bought a cute necklace and a nice scarf which I made good use of in the cold weather. As you can see from the photos it was super nice weather, which in winter also meant that it was super cold. It was almost like being back in Vancouver with all the different foods from different countries; mexican, indian, thai, and much coffee from Starbucks. Next I was off to Prague!

I was in Prague visiting another friend for a few days. My lack of use of phone was also quite stressful as on a couple occasions we got separated. My train to Prague was a couple hours late and so I missed meeting my friend at the station, and apparently there are no pay phones in train stations anymore. Pay phones have gone into extinction.

My first day in Prague I did two walking tours, also very freezing because there were no clouds to keep in the warmth. The city is really beautiful and I learned a lot! Walking around town on my own was also challenging as the map I bought was not great. The street that my friend, Lisa, lives on was not on the map.

We also spent a couple days outside Prague at her dad's house in Hluboká:

 

As you can see from the last photo, we went riding there as well. The first photo is looking down the street from the castle. The second is the castle and the third is the stables where the horse I was riding lives.

After the few days in The Czech Republic I spent 15 hours on a train to get back to Tomelilla.

Next post will be week 2 away from Bollerup! Enjoy the photos!

Vecka 4

This week was pretty crazy. I have only 3 classes throughout the week, except for my profile day which is full. I finally asked one of the trainers, Linda, if I can work with her on my free days. She happily accepted and I have worked with her twice this week. On Monday I had chemistry, which is hard. I then had my profile day; unghäst, ridning and stalltjänst. I have a new unghäst because Tigris is still being stubborn about being ridden and my trainers feel that it would be unsafe for me to try to get on him, so I have a new horse until Tigris is safe. Her name is Jasmin, and she is the biggest mare that they have. I have already ridden her off the lunge line and trotted in both directions!! She is a little lazy so I have had to use a short whip on her to keep her up in trot. I will have photos up soon of her.
On the topic of young horses, as I have been working with Linda I have been working with the horses in the Hingst stallet. That stables is where they keep the horses that they feel are the best, and Fay is there. For those who don't remember, Fay is the 3 year old that I started my unghäst program with. I lunged and clipped her. Here are a couple photos of how she turned out:

This is just after I clipped her

 I did quite a good job if I may say so

She looks older now, bigger and much more grown up looking.

This week I also rode Jamarra. I have been having a little trouble with her lateral aids, which is understandable for a horse who was brought up with driving and isn't used to the leg aids. I got my small spurs out because I felt that she needed a little more power of my leg, and it worked like a charm. Of course I had small problems at the beginning, her not being used to having to move sideways and all, but by the end of the ride she was shaping well around my legs!

So mostly I have been busy with horses this week!

It's been such a good week!

Back in Sweden

Tuesday this week I got back to Sweden!

It is a little weird being back in the middle of nowhere as in Vancouver everything is easily accessible for me. I have been working with horses since the day I got back which is great because when I was in Vancouver I didn't work with them at all. Tigris is still being a little difficult, and it's going to be a while before I get on him. On Tuesday I am going to ride one of the 2 year olds that my teachers is training because I at least should get on a 2 year old even if Tigris is being difficult. We are also going to work with the teachers 3 days a week instead of 2 days that we normally do. The 2 year olds are also inside now. They are in the same barn as Jamarra, whom I have been working with everyday as Emma (her owner) has hurt her ankle, Gamla Ko.

When I was in Vancouver I did quite a bit of yoga with my mother and before I came back I bought a DVD with yoga routines on it so I can further my practice. It has been fun doing yoga here everyday since I got back, especially because no after school exercise activities have started yet.

Since not much has happened here yet here are a few photos I took up at Whistler:

         Here is a view from the Red Chair                                  Going across the Peak-2-Peak

This one is going along the cat track to 7th Heaven Chair

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!