I will explain later

I dont have the time or energy to write what this was all about right now, but i thought i should share it with my faithful blog readers,
lets just say it was the celebration of the first school semester ending.
I hate bishop mcnally,
I love sweden.

Swedish Christmas

http://www.nordicway.com/search/Sweden/Sweden_Christmas%20traditions.htm

See you soon!

I miss you!!!!
My Dad and I are going to see the eiffel tower on January 2nd!
I am so excited for him to come, he'll be here on the 29th of December!!!!
Hipphipphooray!

Christmas Craft Party

this is artistic christmas victor.

i was so tired in this picture i couldnt even smile

Sara, my swedish equivalent of my Sara Hughes at home,
had a little christmas craft party get together last night (Wednesday night).
She made homemade ginger bread dough and we cut them out (me and anna made a women factory- the stove- and made feminist gingerbread women haha) and we could make these pretty orange decorations and christmas cards and picture frames and these things called snowballs (cream, white chocolate, butter and coconut rolled in icing sugar) and make snow flakes to hang in our windows. We also had glögg (warm wine) and we had to dress up christmas-y (wearing xmas decorations) Sara and I wore red shirts and christmas bulb earings and christmas socks.
It was Sara and I, Örs(my good friend) and his brazilian Girlfriend who came here to visit him for 3 months, Jessica, Victor and his little girlfriend thing, Anna aka. Boranna, then another Anna and her boyfriend whom I've met before but I can't remember his name.
our women factory haha.

i made this =D

Hippy

On Sunday morning Jan and I drove Christel to Båstad to go bowling then we went to their summer house to water flowers ect. and then we went to watch a cute little christmas horse show of some little kids but one of the girls is taking care of Hippy (Isabella's-my host sister's Horse) for the year so we were watching her.
Here are some pictures of that. These are my host parents, Jan and Christel and my host doggy, Remi!

St. Lucia Day- December 13th 2006

These are Luciabulles- A sweet bun made with Saffron and cardamon, they're super delicious and fun to make. I made them with my host-dad last Saturday.


Lucia Bulles are a traditional christmas time bread here in Sweden even though they're often made throughout the year.
They are made around St. Lucia time which is the 13th of December.

Saint Lucia Day

'This Swedish festival of lights helps to brighten up the long winter nights in December. It celebrates the life of a real saint, Lucia, who was known for her kindness and love.'
Sancta Lucia was a saint because of her kindness and her love. She was an Italian Christian who lived in Sicily in the 4th century. Some people believe she once visited Sweden. December 13th is also her feast day.
The way she became a saint was that a man who loved her and Lucia didn't like him, Lucia's mother asked her to marry the man but she refused so the man heard about this and he said he would burn her. But Lucia prayed to God to have the power to survive the fire. Because of her kindness to others her wish was granted. The man tried to burn her but she had the power to withstand fire so the man got a sword and stuck it into Lucia's throat. Still Lucia survived for three more hours speaking beautifal words.
-----------------------------------------
Saint Lucia Song- I sang this in Domstens Choir

The night goes with weighty step round yard and (stove i.e. house, hearth?) round earth. The sun's departure leaves the woods brooding. There in our dark house, appears with lighted candles Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.
The night goes great and mute. Now one hears its wings in every silent room murmuring as if from wings. Look at our threshold. There she stands white-clad with lights in her hair Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia
The darkness shall soon depart from the earth's valleys thus she speaks a wonderful word to us. The day shall rise anew from the rosy sky. Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.

Here is a video of my school 'Santa Lucia Celebration'
You can't really see the people singing very well but their singing was really beautiful.


On Tuesday (the 12th) it was a tradition for all school children to go to their teachers house in the evening and sing Lucia songs while waiting for the 'arrival' of Lucia. That tradition over the years transformed and in the past few years Lucia has been considered to be a night to party and stay up the whole night and go to school the next day.
Because of tragic accidents that were happening because of young people drinking and stuff, the government in Sweden decided that they would sponsor other things that could go on all night that youth would participate in- so for the last few years movie theatres in cities are encouraged to have a lucia evening where they show feature films all night.
SOOO that's what I did. You pay 200:- crowns (32 can) to watch movies from 11:30 at night until 8:30 in the morning. They gave us 'free' popcorn and drinks, lucia bulles, hamburgers and more drinks and we watched 3 movies that are debuting this Friday in Sweden, The Prestige(sooo good), The Holiday (helloooo Jude Law... *drool*) and Deja Vu (I was falling asleep in that one haha)

So Last night was the first time I have slept since Monday evening!!! But it was really fun to celebrate 'Lucia's Arrival'.

Though Xmas is here, Winter isnt

Somebody please explain to me why the grass is still green in Sweden on December 7th?

Where's the snow????

I had my rotary presentation on Thursday.
It went pretty well except for my humiliating rendition of, Oh CANADA!

but otherwise I had tons of people there to *support* me including fellow exchange students, teachers, host families, friends and my whole rotary club and some of their spouses.

I did the beginning part in semi Swedish and continued mostly in English.
After that we went to the H-IF game (Helsingborg's local soccer team) and they won 1-0. Chloe and I met a really nice fellow(not) at the hot dog stand who kind of hated me for asking for a 'korv med bröd'.

Anyways it was a cool night, and thats a picture of us Helsingborg exchange students with the district chairperson of exchange, Birgitta.

Julen är här!

Julen är här means:

The christmas are here.

aka: CHRISTMAS is here.

yay... finally the *oh so anticipated* christmas season has arrived in Scandanavia. It commenced here in Helsingborg on Sunday with the lighting of the town christmas tree (to your left) and everyone saying awww ooo wowww prettty... and eating glögg and pepperkakor(gingerbread... go to ikea and try 'Annas' if you would like to know what I eat like 10 of everyday.

It was really nice. We had a 'fika' (got coffee and hotchocolate) and it was really beautiful. It's so funny cause it's pretty cold here, no snow, but the grass is STILL green. Everyones saying this is the warmest "winter" they've seen in ages... but I figure, if it's gonna be cold there might as well have snow.

The whole town is lit up very nicely now which is a relief because getting off school at 3:40 it's already dark and it's so dull to walk to a dead lit city. But now it's not, and I am happy and really excited for christmas. It seems really nice and cozy here. Very picturesque. All swedes have these little light things in their window. Something to do with lent and tradition. My host mom couldn't exactly explain but I will take a picture cause i have one in my window. Other than that and some white lights here and there, and stars they put over their simple lights in their houses, thats pretty much the extent of christmas decoration. They enjoy simple wreaths and candle holders. Make simple hard cookies and just enjoy the cold holiday season. It's so cute and even better than I expected a Swedish Christmas to be. Of course it doesn't give me tingles like the season at home as I am without family and friends and pets and my traditions, but it will definately do.

So anyways today (Wednesday) Chloe and I had a day on the town... Stephany being our photographer, and we uhhh ahem *promoted our Canadian pride*??? hehe. Well it involved big buildings and a Canadian flag. Also this hay horses(GAH i can't remember the name right now but I'll update that when I put up the picture of the window things)

Anyways here's some pictures from that.

I am also taking part in *Domstens Kör* Domsten's Choir... I don't know how I got suckered into it. But it's really cool to learn funny Swedish Christmas songs... Or translated ones like I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus is : Jag visade momma kysser tomte.

Please note the zoomed in picture of Chloe Curtis, my fellow Canadian ABHAHAHAHA... what are you doing my dear? gah.

My Picture doesnt work

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l175/paparrazzzi/DSC04658.jpg

I can't get my font or pictures or anything to work, but if you go to this link it's a picture of my new best friend here in sweden. He's a camel.
He's like an xmas ornament and he's so cute and i can't wait to have him my whole life and be like oh check out my camel from Sweden(actually i bought it in denmark yesterday),
and yeah he has shoes and feathers.
I have yet to name him though.
I'll put the picture up when this blog thing isn't being so annoyingggg! hehe
<3 rachelle

Happy December- Happy First day of Advent- God Jul in 22 days!

Highlight of November: WELL, November was Swell. I think that oh yeah PARIS was the absolute highlight, but that wasn't in Sweden so I'll say what happend in Sweden. I think that Thanksgiving dinner at my next host families house was really awesome. We had a really good time cooking and eating and all of us together celebrating thanksgiving. I think as well that going partying with my classmates and friends was awesome... Actually legally going out on the town :D
Challenge of November:
Umm school again, I am so tired all the time, especially since when I wake up it's dark and when I come home from school at like 3:30 it's dark already. I go to bed at decent times and I just feel so extremely exhausted all the time. Ummm coming home from France was really hard, I can't remember if I put that in my October thing, but yeah, ahhh how could leaving the eiffel tower and your two best friends be easy?
But yeah for school, it's like really hard to go. Really hard to be motivated to go. I do go... but unwillingly and then yeah this one teacher said I'm not cheery and nice in Class, WHICH I SO TOTALLY am but yeah I'm just so tired. I think it's the whole culture shock thing. Getting tired, and fatter.
So other than those two things I don't think I had many challenges. November was good, contrairy to popular belief that most exchange students november's suck.
Things to look forward to this month:
Christmas, my Dad's arrival (Dec. 29th), New years with Family Roos and my Dad.
Julie's Bake exchange. Julmarknad på Fredriksdal. Just all the cute little xmas stuff that's going on here in sweden! (NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO: pickled herring-just kidding i tried it and it's pretty good.jejeheh)