And now for part 3...and all the ice and snow you can handle...

I'm not really sure if there is much point to putting this all into segments if people aren't actually checking it. I mean, there will still end up being just as much reading in the end this way. But I am trying to work with short attention spans. So here is the third part of my trip to Sweden.
The day after Christmas we had some pretty terrible weather. There was a snow storm that dropped several inches of snow and made visibility and road conditions rather obnoxious. We'd had plans to make a long drive, but instead opted for something closer. So...we went to Finland! It was funny to drive across the border and watch the words getting longer and filled with morree and mooorrreee llleetteerrsss. In Finnish they like to add a lot of extras for some reason. We were only there for about an hour, but it was enough time to get a picture.

While we were there Malin's dad bought me some special Finnish "treats." He said they usually eat them when they go out fishing on the boat. He is really into boats. I must admit that I pretty much just wanted the flavor to go away, and passed around Ice Breakers once it was out of my mouth. I took the package home and have since shared them with all of my students so they can have the experience as well.
After Finland we came back to Haparanda Sweden and went to a massive Ikea. True to Swedish tradition, we stopped for "fika" in the middle of our shopping trip, right there at the Ikea cafeteria.
The day ended with moose roast cooked by Malin's grandma, and some amazing berries with ice cream and meringues.
On the 27th the weather was looking a little better so we got up dark and early (around 6 AM) to make the long drive up into the Arctic Circle to the Ice Hotel which is near the town of Kiruna. I was really excited to go because I had seen a documentary on how the Ice Hotel is made just a couple of weeks before. It really is a very fascinating and beautiful place. Hard to imagine that they put in all that work, just to let it melt away a few months later!

I would have taken a lot more pictures, but my camera decided it didn't like being in the very cold climate of the Ice Hotel. Fortunately Malin and her dad both had cameras as well, so hopefully I'll get a few more pictures at some point. For now you'll just have to content yourself with these two photos. The first is of the main entrance from a distance and the second is of me next to the doors which are covered in reindeer skins and have antlers for doors.
It was a fun day. After the Ice Hotel we went to a church that had some really amazing art work that was carved in wood and painted by some prince. I only have hard copies from the church unfortunately. We went out for dinner and then headed back for another four hour drive home. Naturally, both on the drive there and the return trip, we stopped by snowbanks along the side of the road for "fika"!
This was my last full day in Sweden. Malin and I hung out while I packed when we got home. We didn't want to go to bed, because in a sense, as soon as we went to bed it meant our time together was over. However, having to get up at 3AM in order for me to make my 6:30 flight meant we did need to get a little sleep. The roads were REALLY icy when she took me to the airport in Lulea, but we made it safely there and soon I was on my way to the next portion of my trip in Norway...

Part dva (trying to teach you all a little Czech...

It was rather odd to be in a place with yet another language to try to manage. It seems that everywhere I go I have to figure out how to maneuver with different languages and ways of doing things. In the airport I suddenly realized that saying "prosim" would no longer serve as "Please, excuse me, thank you, etc." Instead it would only draw me confused stares. But I have no learned a new way to say "goodbye." In Swedish they say "hej do." Or something to that effect. I like trying to say goodbye different ways all the time. Anyhow, this has not so much to do with my trip, so I'll move on.
Christmas Eve morning we hung out at Malin's mom's house for a while, before heading up to her Dad's place, even farther north. I was introduced to the Christmas Eve tradition of watching Donald Duck at 3 in the afternoon. It seems to be the thing to do on Christmas Eve afternoon. They show a bunch of clips from different Disney movies and several short Donald Christmas clips. For a while during this Christmas frippery, I got to hold a 5 day old baby named Siri. She is Malin's cousin, and her mom, Greta, was an overseas volunteer at Mother's Choice my first summer in '99. It was nice to see Greta again, as well as meeting her three adorable children: Elis, Sixten, and Siri. It was also pretty much amazing to hold a small baby again. It has been soooo long!
At about 4 we had our Christmas dinner. Here I sampled a number of Swedish delicacies. On my plate you will see clockwise, green salad, raw salmon, a potato, Mimosa salad, moose meatballs, sausage, ribs, ham, and a prune. Malin made sure I also tried some fish casserole, another variety of raw fish, and some sort of meatloaf.

Sadly I didn't get a picture of our dessert. It was another kind of rice dessert, with bits of almonds in it. In each batch they also add one whole almond. The person who finds the whole almond is supposed to be married with in the year. What do you know, Malin made sure that the whole almond ended up on my plate. Funny how that happened :)
Next we moved to the living room for present time. I was overly blessed by all the gifts I received from Malin and her family. Her grandma even knitted mittens for me! Since both my grandmothers were Swedish, it felt really special to have mittens knitted by a Swedish grandmother. Of course, her Grandma is the same age as my Dad, but what does that matter? It was a really nice Christmas.
Malin was determined that I would experience all that Northern Sweden had to offer. First I had to experience the early morning Christmas service. The service started at 6 AM, but we had to be there by 5:15 to get good seats. Consequently we headed out to Kalix around 5AM. The church, which Malin pointed out was built before Columbus sailed to America, was a bit hard to keep my eyes open through, but we especially enjoyed the singing. After the service we came back to the house, ate a small meal and then went back to sleep! Later on Christmas day we went for an adventure on "kicks."




We went out with her Dad to a little cottage in the woods where we had "fika." Malin informed me that "fika" is the first word and tradition most exchange students learn when they come to Sweden. We would probably call it a coffee break, but it is very important to them. So in the cottage we sat down and had some of this absolutely AMAZING bread that her Dad made. Then we wandered around with the guy who owned the cottage and checked out all the work the busy little beavers have been doing in the neighborhood. In one place they had caused the water to rise so much that it had flooded a huge patch of ground, killing all the vegetation and creating a horrifying stench!
In the evening it was time to go to a party. After a brief phone call from home where I got to talk to my parents and David and Ryder, we headed out for a night on the town. Every year most young people come back to the villages they grew up in, and this is their chance to hang out. It was nice to get to dress up and meet some of Malin's friends.
And that's about it for now. More to come...

The Beginning...

As I sifted through my large quantity of pictures, I tried to figure out the best way to share my trip with you all. There are so many things to say, so many pictures to share, and I've been informed that people don't really like to read a lengthy post. Tragic really, but I'll do my best to be brief and concise for those of the ADHD generation :) In truth, I can be a bit that way myself. The thought of a holiday in which one does nothing but sit placidly on a beach is not overly exciting to me. I like to move, to do, to LIVE it up a bit. But enough blathering on about nothing.
My trip began on the 21st. I headed out of my flat in Skalka at about 7:15AM, wanting to be certain not to miss my 8:15 train. It doesn't usually take me that long to walk to the station, but I was pulling along a suitcase this time, and I didn't want to risk any confusion. I spent pretty much the entire day traveling. From train to metro to bus to plane, and ended up in Stockholm, Sweden at about 9PM. My next flight was not scheduled until around 2 the next afternoon, so I spent the night in the airport, sleeping on a less than comfortable couch and doing my best to keep a hand on all of my luggage.
I arrived in Umea around 3:30 in the afternoon, and was overjoyed to be reunited with Malin, and I finally got to meet her boyfriend Anders. (Never fear, I won't burden you with every little step of my journey...) After doing some last minute Christmas shopping, we headed back to her apartment so I could shower and she could make my first Swedish meal: Reindeer! I must confess it felt a bit odd to be eating Reindeer on December 22nd, but it was actually quite tasty.

After dinner I was treated to a dessert of cloud berry sauce over ice cream. Cloud berries look a lot like raspberries only they're yellow and have a much stronger flavor.

The next day Malin and I headed up to see her Mom and I also got to meet a couple of her sisters. Her littlest sister, Amalie, even gave me a present :) She is only 7, and can't really speak any English, but she was still a lot of fun.

We stayed the night there, and I was up "early" to get a picture of the sunrise. Okay, so it was about 9:30 or so when the sun was coming up. It was a bit like being in Alaska again.

It was fun to be back in a place where they have houses that look like what I'm used to in the US. Most houses in the north of Sweden are painted red or yellow.
I'll end here with a picture of our Christmas Eve breakfast which is very traditional in Sweden. It's kind of like a rice pudding, and you sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar.
I hope you've enjoyed this first part of my trip, and I'll be sure to post more before long.

It's coming soon...

I had a positively frabjous time on my holiday to Sweden and Norway. I have more pictures than you can possibly imagine, and as many stories to go along with them all. It'll have to wait, as right now I really ought to be getting around to lesson planning since I have class in a mere 3 hours and no idea what I'm going to do. It'd be nice to just sit around and talk about vacation for 90 minutes with each class, but that is probably a wee bit of overkill...I also have two classes to plan for tomorrow as well. Isn't there some unwritten code that says you must ALWAYS have at least two full weeks holiday for Christmas? Sounds nice, but it's back to the daily grind for me a few days short.
Happy New Year to you all (2008, can you believe it?) and I promise there is more come come sometime in the near future when I can manage to get all my photos downloaded and my thoughts in some sort of order.

Savoring the moment...

So don't ask me how in the world this has happened, but somehow I"m sitting in my living room and I'm online. I've tried to work with the random airport connections that show up on my computer a ton of times, and suddenly today it decided to work. It's like God is trying to tell me something. Maybe, just maybe, there can be highs...
Let me say first that this past week has honestly been the worst week of my time here. It was mostly stupid things, but I was feeling endlessly frustrated and like nothing was worth my time. I don't know why it was so awful, but it just was.
Then came the weekend. Ah the weekend. This weekend has been seriously incredible. It has more than made up for all the misery of the week. First of all after work on Friday my friend Nicole came and hung out with me. We just wandered around Cheb and had a great time. Naomi joined us for dinner and then we parted ways with Nicole and went to our Christmas party. Tammy was sick and wasn't able to come, but other than that it couldn't have been better.
A lot of students came and I was feeling good and brave and circled the tables like I knew what I was doing. It was so nice to just get to know them all better in a more relaxed setting. Then they performed their songs, which was also a lot of fun. In the middle of the students Naomi and I put on our own little show. We sang Silent Night in Czech and it was a HUGE success. Funny, because we started too high and my voice was all over the place in annoying ways, but the students LOVED it! We're talking they clapped and clapped and clapped and asked for an encore. Fortunately we had also planned a short poem, so we were able to give the people what they wanted. It was really great. Afterwards several of my students kept gushing over how great it was when we sang. They said it was all they would be talking about in class on Monday. So sweet. I kept moving around and visiting with different groups and then I got to be made a spectacle of when one of them decided we should dance. It was a rather unique experience, but again the people said they enjoyed it.
(wow, I just got to talk to Janet on Skype here in my own little flat! Way too cool!)
After the main party I went with a group students to another place and we hung out there and talked and played fusball (I really don't know how to spell that!) until about 2:30! I got home about 2:45 and was in bed by about 3.
At 8 my eyes popped open and I knew that it was time for me to get at the day since there was so much to be done. I got ready for the day and hurried out as soon as I could. On my walk to the train station I got a text from my friend Crystal telling me she'd forgotten her passport and had to go back to Sokolov, meaning we would have to take the next train two hours later.
I met Crystal at the train station around noon and we walked to the international ticketing office. As we headed over I recognized this random guy from Germany who had come to Winfield for 3 days on holiday to practice his English. I'd just had him in class Friday morning, and talked to him a little at the Christmas party. He asked where we were headed, and when we said we were going to Nurnburg he said he was on his way home to Stuttgart and asked if we would like to ride in a car. How could we possibly pass up the option for a free ride in a BMW??? So of course we took him up on it, and away we went on a fascinating drive through Germany. Not knowing him very well, it was a little difficult to come up with conversation for an hour and a half, but we managed, and it was all quite nice. We also had the experience of going about 200km/hour on the autobahn. Pretty sure I've never gone that fast before. Good times.
We arrived in Nurnburg around 2 and had a great time just randomly wandering around the Christkindle Markt, after having a nice (and rather expensive) lunch at Burger King. We were commenting on all the English we were hearing, and how amazing it is how we overcompensate when we hear English. At this point it has become so rare, that we can recognize the dulcet tones of our native tongue from some considerable distance. And then, out of nowhere, I heard my name. Much to my surprise, I turned around and there were 4 of our teachers from Slovakia! Of all the crazy things! We couldn't have planned it to work out so well. We wandered around with them for a while, which was also really nice. Then we continued through the market where we had a great time looking at all the ornaments and Christmas food, and of course the frightening prune dolls. Don't even ask!
It was incredibly cold, and by about 5:30 we were ready to curl up someplace nice and warm. We found a Starbucks, and felt as though we'd stumbled upon a little piece of Heaven for sure. It was so nice to enter the familiar surroundings, and breathe in the happy smell of coffee from home. We both sipped on Creme Brulee Latte's and just enjoyed the beauty of the moment. We discussed plans for the future, and the deep things of life. Coffee tends to make us wax philosophical just a bit. Then it was off to find der Bahnhof.
I must confess my German is lacking, but we did decently well, all things considered. We both got over any fears we may have had about approaching strangers, and managed to book a couple tickets back the Cheb. Getting on the train was a bit baffling. Here in Czech there are always conductors wandering the platforms that you can ask if you're in the right place, but it wasn't so easy to find help. In the end we just climbed on what we were certain had to be the right train. A guy got on after us and with my rather pathetic German we were able to verify that we were in the right place.
It was the last train to Marktredwitz of the evening, and it was quite packed. In the end we squeezed into an already full passageway and did our best not to melt. Let's just say we had to put up with all kinds of temperature changes today. The guy who had helped us when we first got on found us again, and after several minutes let us know he wasn't actually German either, and spoke decent English. It was fortuitous because a few minutes later a conductor came to inform us that the train would be splitting in two. At the moment we were on the portion going the wrong direction, so the guy helped us switch to the right half of the train.
We ended up standing almost the entire way, but got to sit the last ten minutes into Marktredwitz where we changed trains and got on the train to Cheb. What a day of excitement for sure.
Once in Cheb we thought for certain the day would come to a quite close. I sat with Crystal in the station until her train from Sokolov was meant to depart, and then headed back to Skalka. I'd been having partial phone calls with Janet on the train, so when my phone rang, and then died, a few minutes later I figured it was just her trying to call again. Several minutes later I started hearing the text sound. I decided to just walk really quickly so I could find out what was going on.
Once home I pulled out my phone, only to discover that the train had not taken Crystal home, but had instead decided not to run at all. So I had to walk back to town to rescue Crystal. Tammy had come down to meet her, but since she'd been puking earlier in the weekend we didn't want to risk Crystal staying with her.
By the time we got back to my flat we were both cold and hungry. We munched on cheesy pretzel sticks dipped in ranch and let our bodies slowly thaw. I'd been carrying these cheese sticks as well as a coke, mandarins, and two twix bars around all day, and just never got around to eating them since none of our travels provided us with a comfy moment to eat. We then spent several hours curled up on my bed talking about any and every thing. At long last around 1 AM we decided to call it a day and curled up for a little sleep, a little slumber.
All in all it was a pretty crazy and amazing weekend. After my lousy week, it was really a blessing. And now I just hope this posts and that I really can have internet here in my flat!
There will be photos to come, but right now this connection is pretty slow and I don't want to risk it in anyway, so this'll have to do for now.

St Mikolaš Day

So today is a bit of an event here in the Czech Republic. On this day the jolly old saint strolls about the streets with and Angel and a Demon. Children flock to them, some with excitement, others with tears in their eyes, to have their goodness or evil rewarded. For good little children, especially those who manage to stammer out a Christmas poem, or quaver through a Christmas song, a gift awaits them in the hands of the Angel. For those who haven't quite managed to keep themselves under control for the past year, and who fail to perform, a potato or coal is delivered to them by the Demon. I haven't done all the research, and none of my students have really managed to give me a full history of the day, but I find it rather fascinating.
Just now I went to the grocery store downstairs and watched as the children lined up around the highly decorated trio. There were children in tears, especially one little boy of about 8. He seemed aware of his own depravity. Something we could probably all learn from. Others bore giant grins, certain that something pleasant would soon be delivered to them. What an interesting commentary on life. It seems that so often, as we grow older, we lose the fear of our failings and the joy of our strengths. We manage to pass them off as part of life, forgetting to measure them up as the days go by. These children, however, are very aware of how they have been living. Just something to make us all think a bit.
Apparently I missed out on the excitement of the morning when three of our students dressed up and performed this ritual with the students. Sometimes I do miss out a bit on not being here every morning, but I really can't complain as I do enjoy having those days to sleep in.

December so soon

Hard to believe that it is already December. A good reminder that I need to get packages in the mail if I want them to arrive by Christmas. Things are going quite well here. I'm keeping busy as always, and doing my best to remain focused. I had my second experience in a Czech home this week. That was really exciting. We went over to the house of another one of the teachers and his girlfriend who also used to teach here. Their flat is really nice. They live in the top of an old building, and have completely remodeled it themselves. It's a really nice place. We had a nice dinner, and after several glasses of Cola I remembered that it is common for them to just fill your glass whenever you run out, so I made sure to leave a swallow or two at the bottom so I wouldn't totally drink them out of Coke.:)
I also met another English teacher in Cheb this weekend. She is here independently from Canada and is teaching at a gymnasium (which is like a high school). She went with Tammy and me to Karlovy Vary yesterday and we had a nice time just wandering around the city and shopping. There was also that exciting opportunity to go to McDonalds. I really can't put in to words how much I enjoy going to McDonalds overseas. It's so strange because I really never eat there at home. Ah well. It was extra good in my way of looking at things.
Today we had our first house guests as well. A couple of the guys from our church came over for a taco dinner. I was a bit of a Mary, just showing one of them pictures of Hong Kong while Tammy and Naomi made lunch, but I did the dishes so it worked out in the end. It was nice to have guests (even if it did mean some extra cleaning) and gave us an opportunity to hang out with people besides ourselves, which is always welcome.
Next weekend we're having some of the teachers from Prague come out to experience West Bo. I'm really looking forward to that as well. We'll be taking them out to Loket so we can go to the big Christmas Market there. I'll definitely have some new pictures to post next week.
Please keep us in your prayers as the days are getting shorter and darker all the time. The gloomy weather tends to put a damper on my spirits, and I really don't want that to be the case. We're also all getting to the point where life has become routine. It's no longer this big rush or excitement that we live in Europe. We're just here in Cheb, day in and day out, making lesson plans and trying to figure out how to help our students understand our language. It can be difficult to communicate with the people in stores and restaurants, and I find myself longing for things to just make sense easily, and to be able to know what to do from day to day.
Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention. Friday afternoon Naomi and I both joined Tammy at the local orphanage. I don't really understand the system here. Tammy doesn't really know either, but a lot of them have families that they visit on occasion, so I think most of them are not up for adoption or anything. I don't really get it, but it was a lot of fun. We were playing with a group of younger kids that ranged in age from about 2 or 3 to probably 7 or 8. I always enjoy hanging out with little ones, and they didn't seem to mind not being able to understand us. They just openly ran to us and were happy for every ounce of attention, sitting on our laps and climbing on our laps as though this was the most natural thing in the world though they'd never seen me in their lives.
I must confess it is often difficult for me to decipher exactly what my "mission" here is. For now I'm just trying to love the people that I come into contact with, and to teach to the best of my abilities.