JULSTÄMNING I TORONTO
This weekend I spent in Toronto, visiting my fathers host sister and her family, to whom my relationship is, as Kolby so nicely described it, complicated. Anyways, I had a wonderful weekend. I arrived with the train friday evening in Toronto where they picked me up. Back at their place they greeted me with all kinds of swedish things such as knäckebröd, glögg och pepparkakor, telling me that if you weren't homesick before, we're gonna make you homesick. I wouldn't say I got homesick really, but it sure was nice being surrounded by swedish things.
Saturday we went to the Toronto annual swedish market, where they sold swedish christmas decorations, herring and a bunch of other stuff. And they were all wearing the traditonal folkdräkt, it might've actually been the most people I've seen wearing them at the same time.
Och när man kan köpa vad som helst svenskt, vaaaaaad köper Elin? - Knäckebröd! Och sill såklart, här ska firas jul förstår ni ;)
Aaaaaaaaand, they had a luciatåg, which was adorable, all little blond kids singing the traditional songs with a bit of accent. (Du hade älskat det Johanna, jisses vad söta dom var)
After the swedish christmas market we went and looked at some stuff belonging to the Grey Cup, which is a huge football event held in different parts of Canada every year, which this year actually was the 100th time they have it. Not a hundred consecutive years though, they had a couple of years during the first world war when they didn't have it. Atferwards we went to a huge place called the fan zone where a whole lot of people walked around dressed up in their teams colours, even more outgoing than franco or bleu-blanc-rouge. Canadians, eh! ;)
(Christmas decorations in the mall, and do notice the very tiny H&M sign on the left side of the tree)
As for the rest of the week, me and Ann got to know a new person, a swedish guy going to CCVS (another high school in Cornwall) who new someone that knew someone at our school who knew I was also from sweden so he stalked my on facebook. It's weird isn't it, how in Sweden you would never talk to a random stranger but as soon as you get out of the country it's like oooh you're swedish too, eh???? (Proudly adapting the culture by adding "eh" to my everyday-vocabulary.)
Friday in school it was lumberjack-day, so almost everyone was dressed in checked shirts, boots, hats and braids. (I did a lot of braiding...) My dance class where part of the performance, so we were dancing, and I actually didn't mess up too bad.
Also people ran a kind of race where they pretended to be lumberjacks, so this ladies and gents is my french teacher. Somehowe I can not see our teachers at Nösnäs agreeing to do something like this...
So what they did where first lying on the floor pretending to be asleep and then when the music started they had to put on the typical clothes, then drinking maple syrup and eating bacon, without hands. After that they got shaving cream on their faces, have to "shave it off" and then shoot a deer, walk with snow shoes over a couple of mattresses, pile some logs and saw off another log. All this racing the other person. So a couple of teachers did it and then students, grade against grade, while the others cheered all they could. Really nice!
So what they did where first lying on the floor pretending to be asleep and then when the music started they had to put on the typical clothes, then drinking maple syrup and eating bacon, without hands. After that they got shaving cream on their faces, have to "shave it off" and then shoot a deer, walk with snow shoes over a couple of mattresses, pile some logs and saw off another log. All this racing the other person. So a couple of teachers did it and then students, grade against grade, while the others cheered all they could. Really nice!
Och här Hanna, har vi dom fina julmotivskopparna, visst är dom tjusiga?
ON TOP OF THE WORLD
I've spent the entire day in Downtown Montreal, shopping with Anne (the girl in my art class). I had a really great day, and I found some nice stuff, and this is my reason for writing so late to you guys.
Now this week is going backwards, but never mind. Yesterday I went with my hostfamily+Annunziata to the annual Christmas Parade. Some of the vehicles were really christmasy and all nice, and others were mainly just commercials, but it was nice all the same. I recognized some people from school, mainly from my dance class, but a couple of others too.
Friday was a day off school, which is something they have a lot here, and me and Annunziata found out just how much you can achive with the magical word exchange student. We went to check out the library, which looked really old and fancy from the outside but on the inside looked just like any other ordinary library. Then we found a second floor and from there we saw a staircase leading to the roof, so we figured no harm in asking, and that turned out to be a good decision, the view was good from up there ;)
And we did not only check out the library, we also went into one of the other schools in Cornwall, CCVS, which was huge and confusing with a lot of turns and stairs. I really liked that school though, they had nice slippery floors...
Also, we watched these four girls dance, and oh my were they good. Afterwards they thaugh us some of the moves from their dance, and that was really fun, and we all did our best, but it was hard. At least, I found it hard, maybe the rest didn't, they're all so good.
We also got to watch a lession in action, taught by their 70 year old teacher (not kidding, they told us he'd turned 70 this year). He was so energetic, and his students jumped sooooooo high. Then he had us do weird jumping stuff, and also the going around by your hands first you know (hjula), which is something that regardless all the effort my sister put down I never learned.
The rest of the week was quite uneventful, as far as I remember. Next weekend I'm going to Toronto to visit my fathers host sister and her family, and I am so excited!
For you though, this means next time'll be a late update too, but since my only reader loves me, I'm sure you'll forgive me anyways ;)
For you though, this means next time'll be a late update too, but since my only reader loves me, I'm sure you'll forgive me anyways ;)
GUL BUSS!
Est-ce que tu embrasses les inconnus? Non? Donc, je me presente.
Today it's a memorial day for all those who've died in wars. So I'm wearing my cute little flower-thingy which they handed out in school friday, where we sat in the cantine and sang Oh Canada, and had a girl saying a prayer and of course a silent minute. Or maybe it was two... Anyways, this week. I've been collecting good french pick up lines, and let me tell you, that is good one ;) So the best one out of the bunch in my opinion is the one at the top, it means Do you hug (it might be kiss too, not entirely sure...) starngers? No? Well then, let me introduce myself. I've got a good english one too, since the majority of students wheels in english;
What are polar bears for if not to break the ice? How's it going?
What are polar bears for if not to break the ice? How's it going?
This thursday it was the International Day of Hug an Exchange Student, so I walked around telling that to people and then hugging them, so if they didn't find me weird before, they do now. I think I might've actually gotten up to my former usual daily amount of hugs, so it was really nice, I should invent a bunch of more days like that, moahahha.
And yessssss, I have taken my first trip on the yellow school bus! :D It's a bus and it's yellow, and well, that's pretty much it, but being as easily amused as I am, I was flying high. I went with Ann back to where she's staying, and we had a movie-moment, sitting on the porch drinking hot chocolate, talking and eating cookies with a calm nice song playing in the background. No idea where it came from, probably some of the neighbours. Quite cute.
I've also been recruited to something called Citashow (the school's name is La Citadelle, do the connection...). I haven't quite figured out what exactly I'm supposed to do but the boy recruiting me said he wanted me in because I have a nice french accent, so I'm like you think I talk funny.... He assured me it's because I have a France-french accent, but naaah, not too sure about that. Anyways, I'm sure it's going to be really fun doing that, it'll be a great experience, and if I end up making a foll of myself, well then at least I only have three months left and I'll have a bunch of nice photos ^^
Same guy told me a couple of days later that he feels bad for me, because he's talking to me as if I'm a retard. I guess I'm not as good in french as I wish to believe. I'm keeping to my usual statement though: I'm improving!
MATSPECIAL
Since it's so long until next sunday, and since I by that time will have already forgotten. (And since I'm actually starting to enjoy this whole blog thing, not that I'll ever admit it...)
So this potluck dinner thing was really nice, I got to talk a bit swedish to the other swedish guy, and I find that my swedish accent is all messed up and sounding really ugly. I'm losing my swedish buhu :(
Anyways, here's the main dishes. I did read all the labels, but honestly, I don't remember what's from where. I took a small piece of everything (jag vet, jag är ett matvrak) and there's some stuff underneth which you can't see in the picture. But do you see the chili, in the left corner? That was made of mouse, canadian recipe. My favourite thing out of these though, I think was the broccoli salad, it was delicous. I guess I just like broccoli ^^
So this potluck dinner thing was really nice, I got to talk a bit swedish to the other swedish guy, and I find that my swedish accent is all messed up and sounding really ugly. I'm losing my swedish buhu :(
Anyways, here's the main dishes. I did read all the labels, but honestly, I don't remember what's from where. I took a small piece of everything (jag vet, jag är ett matvrak) and there's some stuff underneth which you can't see in the picture. But do you see the chili, in the left corner? That was made of mouse, canadian recipe. My favourite thing out of these though, I think was the broccoli salad, it was delicous. I guess I just like broccoli ^^
These were the desserts, and out of those I really liked the star thing, it tasted kinda like gingerbread, and also the raspberry youghurt thing. I love raspberries. i did not take any of my own buns, partly because I knew there weren't enough if everyone would have one, and well I'll admit it, partly because I had quite a lot of the dough yesterday anyways...
The tasties thing out of all things though, that was this fantastic little piece. Some kind of homemade chokladkola made by the Brazilian guy. I was in heaven. It was just so so good. Me and chocolate, we go way back. The picture doesn't really make it justice though. It's not on the plate above, because they handed it out afterwards kinda, so I just tried taking a picture, but as you see, it didnät turn out too well.
HALLOWEEN OCH LITE TILL
This week there's happened a lot, I don't even now where to start. I guess I'll just do it in order of apperance.
We had a short visit by the Hurricane Sandy monday night, with heavy wind and a blackout that made the clock on the microwave reset itself. Otherwise it didn't bother us too bad over here.
Tuesday we had a dance-presentation. We worked on it for two weeks and then we had to have matching outfits that suited the type of dance; hip hop. So this is what my group came up with, personally I think we looked really nice ;)
Tuesday we had a dance-presentation. We worked on it for two weeks and then we had to have matching outfits that suited the type of dance; hip hop. So this is what my group came up with, personally I think we looked really nice ;)
And then we have Halloween. We started out tuesday, Kolby and I, by carving pumpkins, and this is our masterpiece:
Then wednesday there was the actual Halloween. All day in school the teachers handed out candy to us and my lovely chemistry teacher gave me and tthe other exchange student in the class one lcute little box of maple sirop which he said he'd made himself. I was kinda astonished by that actually, and then he told me he would give me a big one in the end of the yera to bring home to my parents so that if he would come to sweden they would think oh the guy with the sirop. Hahah, he's random that teacher ^^
And I walked around all day wearing a green dress and a midsommarkrans (dock utan blommor). And after all these years, I still always make it too big. And peoples reaction was like omg are those real?????? Kinda funny ^^ Everyone wasn't dressed up, but I think at least half of the school was.
With evening came trick or treating, we went first in to Cornwall for a little while and then amongst the neighbours. It was nice, and we got a lot of candy and also some adorable gingerbreads.
(I mean honestly, aren't they just soooo adorable?)
And now seeign my nice picture of Ann, Kolby and me, it came to my mind you probably wonder what happened to her. Well, it turned out her allergies were too bad, so no, she wont come live with us, which is too bad, but she's still be my locker-buddie :)
Thursday we (me, Ann and the third exchange student, Elizabeth) started a new tradition, first day of the month we shall have a picknick in shcool. So we sat on a blanket in the entrance hall (since it was raining outside) and ate our gigantic cookie. Beeing tired in the mornig after beeing up to twelve trick or treating, I forgot my camera.... :( but Elizabeth had one and she's gonna send them to me, eventually. And for december we're doing gingerbread!
Last thing for this time, later on today there's a pot luck dinner with STS where everyone is supposed to bring something from their home country. So I spent part of yesterday making kanelbullar, but since this country doesn't seem to have pärlsocker, they don't look too funny, but they taste just fine all the same.
(Jag ska ta lite kort på alla konstiga utländska maträtter åt dig My ;) )
