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God Morgon!

I don't know if I will ever get used to waking up and really having no pressing need to get out of bed, when does this ever happen! I should probably take advantage of it, but I got up early anyways.

Lucy left Stockholm yesterday.  I was a bit sad to see her go as it was super nice to have an old friend to hang out and visit with, although at the same time really excited not to have to share my single bed anymore! (I know you were too lucy!) I gave her a 2 day quick tour of stockholm, which included a long run along the water, a walk into Old Town where we went to Kaffekoppen (correct me if that's the wrong name) which is a medieval style cafe that serves the most amazing hot chocolate in these huge soupbowls, amazing! We did a lot of walking and shopping and talking and eating. My favorite things!  Went in to the Acne clothing store where I fell in love with a really cute dress, if anyone wants to sponsor a student wardrobe, please contact me!!

Yesterday we walked to the Moderna Museet (Museum of Modern Art) which was really cool!  It was full of awesome pieces of artists that I used to study in high school and had an exhibit of this Swedish artist called Evert Lundquist.  I really enjoyed the regular exhibit especially the Duchamp stuff  ( in grade 12 Mr. Lund thought studying Duchamp was the best thing ever!! I'm not sure I agreed then but seeing work in person gives me a new appreciation for it),  the Lundquist exhibit was really beautiful but I found his work sort of depressing and uncomfortable.   Maybe I was just having a really emotional day, but the whole experience left me feeling really unsure about everything.. (i'm not really even sure how to describe what i was feeling!!) Anyways, it made me miss the days of trying to tell Grandma what I thought about pieces in the gallery in Edmonton and inspired me to maybe pick up old hobbies of painting.. or even just appreciating art like I should.   Not really sure if that emotional vent made sense, but o well it doesn't have too.  In summary it was a really cool gallery! YAH!

Lucy

So the day got reaalllyy cold and lucy headed back to Uppsala.   I had my (easy!!) entrepreneurship class, which I am so relieved that it's easy I can't even explain, just to give my brain a break from the finance class from hell!! I can't remember if I said this in the last post.. but something I have learned about myself already being here is that I am really not that interested in the Economics side of finance, for now anyways.
After class we went out to this australian bar with a bunch of Aussies to have a beer as it was Australia day.  All I can say is..... LOTS of accents! oi mate!!        (ah!)

That's about all, I'm sorry if my blog is getting a little bit dull,  I will probably just be hanging out in Stockholm for the next little while until I plan some trips! I think Cato gets back to Copenhagen this weekend so I'm really hoping I can head there for some quality cousin time.

I think I will face the cold and go for a run to kill some energy/ try to enjoy some of the rare moments of daylight.   Its supposed to drop to -20 this weekend so I will probably be spending it in cafe's and in bed!! No one told me it was going to be this cold!!!

Alright now I'm just rambling.

Sending all my LOVE,
J

( A rare moment of sun!! Apparently today is 4 min 32 seconds longer then yesterday WOOO!!)

I Love Lucy

Hello Blog land!


(This Semlan bun was Lucy and my Fika today- Swedish tradition to break for coffee and pastries midday- mustn't eat these often if I want to only take up one seat on the airplane... although now that the second seat is free for oversized people... just kidding!!)

Well well,
Here I am lying in my bed with one of my favorite people in the whole world LUCY LYNCH!! I was feeling pretty homesick last Friday (actually I've diagnosed this not to be homesickness but to be.. difficulty adjusting to living in the same room as someone from a totally different culture in a new kind of scary place... that sounds about right doctor jill!) So anyways, I decided to hop on a train after my Friday class and head to Uppsala to see Lucy and Brooke  (brooke is from ontario and used to ski race too!).  This was especially needed after I went to this class and realized I'm the ONLY girl (probably the only person that isn't totally dedicated to finance and economics too...)!! Tomorrow I am going to see which intense Swedish business school, ralph lauren wearing, comb-over haired boy wants to do our group economics paper together.. how fun!

Lucy and my breakfast of champions! (Sydders, the bulk candy collection in this country is UNREAL!)

Uppsala was pretty awesome, and only about a 30 minute train ride away, so it's good to know that I have friends so close. It's a very cute little town.. very little, but beautiful and it was nice to see where Arden went to school!  Lu and Brooke both have really nice single rooms that are super homey so this made me a little bit jealous, but we had a lot of fun, drank wine, ate cheese and relaxed! Today Lucy and I decided to hop on the train back to Stockholm to continue the adventure.  I'm so glad she came back with me, I wasn't quite ready to part!  We went for a great (LONG) run way into this beautiful park full of old castle-like buildings and Swedish people out walking.  We made it back by dark and made a cous-cous creation dinner and have been watching Jersey Shore (awful but amazing MTV show, Clare knows..) and just watched that movie Men Who Stare at Goats which was a little but crazy but kind of good.  Just having an early night so I can wake up early and get some Econ readings done and then show Lucy around the city.


Lu and Brooke in their cute little town!

The Cathedral in Uppsala,  pretty pretty!

So now, with soya sauce spilt on my running shoes (go lily!.. hahah) and an awesome friend next to me, I will sign off for the night.  Hoping for sweet dreams of waist deep powder, and then making it become a reality ASAP because these ski legs are getting itchy!!!

Love you ALL!
xox J


Training through Sweden is sort of similar to traveling through Alberta... white and flat.

I go to Lidel Every Single Day...

                   (learned these self shot skills from Eric Young, PRO self shot taker!)

Hej hej!!! Just a quick update here. O yeah Lidel is the grocery store right outside my building and i'm pretty sure we go in there everyday the people working there know we speak english now.

I'm super relieved right now because late last night I found a class I could replace this Economics course from hell with. I'm still waiting to be officially registered but it shouldn't be a problem, I refuse to go to International Trade ever again!!! muahaha So I'm replacing it with a more friendly course called Entrepreneurship and Gender! (go women!!)

Today.. Cara and I walked to the Nobel Prize museum which is in Gamlastan (old town). I think its the most beautiful part of Stockholm. At the entrance is the Royal Palace where we stumbled upon some sort of military ceremony type thing.. we weren't exactly sure what was going on and were too cold to investigate but it was pretty cool!  I want to be a princess!!!
 I don't know how we found the museum, I think it found us thankfully. It was pretty neat, quite small and didn't have that much stuff going on but it was still cool to learn about the history of the prizes and whatnot. Maybe museums just aren't Sweden's forte? (just kidding sweden!) I think I'm going to go for the nobel peace prize... just saying.

This is the entrance bridge to Gamlastan...

Stopped in at a super cute cafe that was kind of a dungeon, perfectly cozy on a FREEZING cold day, then made our way back home and avoided all clothing stores! (impressive right!?)

Now I'm just hanging out.. reading some financial reports for a class I'm taking (honestly deathly boring, who would want to write 50 pages about this stuff! They would be the worst dinner date in the world!) and getting ready for a night out with all the exchange students to this (apparently really cool) club called Cafe Opera. It's built in the Opera house in stockholm and actually looks beautiful!

Sorry about the rushed post, but my hair is drying in all sorts of weird ways and if I don't do something about it soon it could result in complete disaster!!

Love to all,

xox J

Back to school, back to school...

Wow! We have a lot to catch up on! The days are just flying by here... not just because the sun goes down at 3:30 but also because I've been so busy! I'm not sure if I mentioned it last time but we trekked out to Ikea last Saturday (sooo Swedish right!?) to pick up some things to make our little white rooms a bit more homey. It was quite a trek from Stockholm so of course we went straight to the Ikea restaurant to have some Swedish food, so good! My room feels quite a bit better now, with a real duvet cover and blanket and everything!

I realized I'm a bit of a psycho when I bought a set of Ikea curtains and my friend Cara from NZ and I constructed the most poverty looking curtain wall i

n the middle of my room to give my roommate and myself a little bit of privacy. My roommate was happy about the idea, and I was VERY happy about it. I never knew how much I like time on my own, although now that there is a bit of privacy, no matter how hideous it looks, I fe

el significantly better. It definitely isn't sound proof though... I'll probably come home fluent in cantonese!! This is Cara poking her head out of our amazing creation... (note how awesome the curtains in the background are)

On Sunday I woke up and went for a really nice run. I'm not really sure where I went and was memorizing every turn I made to make sure I didn't get lost, but it was all beautiful and the distractions made me feel as though I could run forever! The sidewalks are pretty sketchy right now but it definitely kept me on my toes! I forgot a touque to run in so I wore the team Canada hockey headband to represent. Haven't been able to drag any of the friends out for a run yet... they aren't quite seasoned for the snow. They say stores are closed on Sundays in Stockholm, turns out this is a huge lie! We went shopping yesterday and I bought some beautiful boots at Topshop and a jacket at this Swedish store called Monki! There is so much great stuff here... must practice self control!

Pia and I beginning our afternoon shopping. PUB is a mall... not a bar!

Today... I started SCHOOL! ahhh I was really

enjoying not being a student for a while there! But back to reality, and was it ever a shocker! I'm questioning why I didn't do more research on schools and pick one where I could take easy courses and really enjoy traveling... but I tend to do this to myself a lot, so I will suck it up and work. I had international trade policy today which I was expecting to be really easy until the prof started unleashing these crazy equations with letters and curvy lines (all things I haven't had to learn since first year? or never?), anyways, I have a test on it all on Monday, really excited.

After class, rather then doing something as lame as studying, Cassandre (Paris), Pia (Aussie), and I decided to go to the Vasa museet. Its a museum focused on this war ship called the Vasa that was built hundreds of years ago for some king dude, and sunk before it even got out of the harbour. ( A bit of a laugh to make a museum about this I think.. VasAMUSING if you will..) Anyways, it was sort of cool, the ship was really well preserved even though it was at the bottom of the ocean for something like 300 years because of the low salt levels in the Baltic sea. (don't quote me on this :) ) So, it wasn't the most awesome museum I've ever been too (is there such thing??) but I'm glad we went, and we had a great walk home and then went to our second Swedish lesson. Still hopeless

at Swedish, now I just smile and node and say YAH!

for mom: I bought a coffee maker! You win, it was easy, I am just crazy.

Well, I guess I must hit the books.... I'm so glad exchange is only pass/fail!

Alskar, (Love)

xox J

ps: apologies for any wierd formatting, I'm still trying to figure this program out... computers were never my strong point. I'm trying to post more photos but getting these two on just took my about 25 minutes... which is not going to help with my studies!

I'm new here...

Hej from Stockholm Sweden!

I'm starting this to keep whoever is interested in my new swedish life up to date, might make it a little easier to stay in touch so lets hope i keep it up!

I will give you the long story kind of short on the past couple days to fill you in on what you've missed, enjoy!

...

After about 4 days I'm already starting to feel really at home here. I've made some awesome friends, Pia from Aus, Cara from NZ and Cassandre from Paris. They are all a ton of fun and I'm sooo happy that the friend part was that easy!

I am living in a residence in central stockholm right next to my school with a nice girl from beijing, she is really quiet and there are clearly some cultural differences between us, but it will be a good experiance.. right?!!

My school is beautiful, it's a single building on one of the main streets called Sveavagen and looks like something from Harry Potter. Spiral staircases, huge wooden doors, marble on the walls.. amazing!

I haven't had a lot of chances to really get to know the city yet, but its really easy to walk through, and what I have seen is beautiful! Beautiful city, beautiful people! (beautiful boys!)

It's a bit cold, but once I think about the minus 50 back home it makes it seem like spring here.

Everyone speaks English here which is a huge plus, because Swedish is probably the most confusing language I've ever heard, they are offering us free swedish lessons at school though so I will do the best I can!!

I need to cut this short because these Euros I'm living with force me to party alll the time!! Time for bed to catch up on my sleep. Tomorrow I'm going to join a Swedish gym and work off some Swedish meatballs!

Good night! (Good Afternoon in Canada!)

xo J

PS LUCY IS HERE!!!!!!! She called me today from Uppsula and I am so so so happy that she made it!