The rest of the week at my school was equally as educational and inspiring as the days before them. It has been hard to keep up on the blog because my sleep schedule is so bothered by the lack of daylight. On average, the sun comes up a little before 8am and sets before 3pm, today it is sunny but scheduled to set at 2:42pm. Those are the days the sun actually comes out, there are days when it is just cloudy and overcast until 3 then it goes completely dark. I knew this would be a hard adjustment for me. I On Wednesday we got about 5 inches of snow, but it really did not phase daily life here in Umeå. We also found out that they never cancel school for the weather here (not like 5” would have done it in Wisconsin either). There are so many small schools right in the students’ neighborhoods that they all usually only have a 3 -5 minute walk. Those students that doe come from further distances because of special needs get taxied in, so there is no reason to be late or absent from school.

I am really liking everything about my school and it’s faculty. Most are so helpful and happy to share the history of Sweden and their perspective on education. Those that aren’t as helpful is because they are not confident with their English, but everyone is very friendly. I am starting to make progress with my Swedish, more reading it than speaking (which is common for language learning). I, like my Swedish counterparts, am not confident in speaking. It is very hard to hear all the sounds in the words as Swedish people talk very quickly. Also certain syllables or sounds in a word are really emphasized without any indication why.

Weekends here are our down/boring time, opposite from back home. Everything here is too expensive to do; shopping eating out, going to pubs or nightclubs (bottle of Heineken beer is $7-$8),so expensive! So instead we stayed in and made travel plans and did some school work. This weekend Nikole and I planned out our weekends for the rest of the time we’re here. We rented a car, which is done at any gas stations, for next weekend. We plan to drive to an elk farm in a neighboring town. This is something Nikole has wanted to do since we arrived in Umeå. I think it will be fun, we just have to make reservations at the farm, which is difficult because everything is in Swedish. However, once we get there I think it will be fun, apparently guests are able to ride the elk. I promised my cooperating teacher here a video if that is the case! If you’re lucky I will post it here for everyone to enjoy.

Today after school Nikole and I are going to the train station to look into routes and information on our trip when we’re done teaching. We plan to get a Eurail pass to travel to southern Sweden (stops in Stockholm and Lund) and into northern Europe including stops in Munich, Paris and possibly Switzerland. It will be a lot of time on the train, but I think that in itself will be an adventure. Yesterday we researched the hotels and days we’ll be needing to stay in them, we found some for very cheap, but with shared bathroom. Haha, I guess that is all part of the experience. The only thing holding us from pulling the trigger on this adventure is again the ticket price. Because Nikole is 23, she is considered a student (anyone under 25) and her ticket is considerably less expensive than mine even though I am also a student. This is true for everything here, age 25 is the magic age to be. However, I think it will work out and we will get to explore Europe!

At school today, we got to teach with the 6^th grade class. It was really neat, because they all know English pretty well and were eager to impress us with their skills. However, they are at the age where they don’t want to seem too eager because they are cool. They were reading a passage from their ‘English’ books, it was about LA and New York City. The book talked about the awful pollution, gangs and Hollywood as well as beaches when talking about LA. For New York City it was focused more on the boroughs, the skyscrapers and the terrorist attacks. The stories really did not put either large city in the greatest light, but the students were interested and wanted to visit anyway. I know in the other school, the girls from UWW were getting asked if everyone carries guns in America. The TV shows they have to reference are COPS, Family Guy, My Super sweet Sixteen, among other gems. Knowing this, it makes more sense why they have these notions about America!

Random side note - I have not seen one single squirrel here. But, they do have these huge birds, I tried to take a picture of one, but it is somewhat camouflaged. Look on the right hand side of the tree picture. They are not afraid of people, just like the squirrels in Whitewater! They are called, Skata.