Winter Trends

Wow, time is flying past and my updates are growing further and further apart. With less than 2 months to go, I have been keeping myself busy enjoying my time in Sweden with all sorts of things. We had our first fall of snow this month, and I am so excited to see the whole town covered in white once again. I have been learning more and more Swedish, keeping up with friends and decided it was time for a change of style.

My host family and I have been making several trips to Kåbdalis now that the snow is on its way. It's always fun to practice my snowboarding skills and race down the slopes. Adam, my 8 year old host brother, is a little professional on the skis and is usually busy performing tricks all the way down to the end of the track. While he is busy doing that, I am merely focusing on trying to keep up with him without losing my balance! Luckily for me, Adam is a very patient boy and is happy to help me out! Marcus also joined us on one of our trips up to Kåbdalis, bringing his guitar with him. This was great for some music throughout the evenings, and to teach Adam some of the basics on guitar. We all also tried out some bobsledding which is seriously so much fun, but very tiring. Walking up snowy hills is quite a difficult task, but I think it is worth it for the ride down. My host family often have friends come over for dinner, and I also met some adults I knew from Luleå through Jaymie, an exchange student who left Sweden about a month ago. Kåbdalis is so great for meeting up with people and enjoying the outdoors despite the cold.

When I am not with the host family, I am usually either at school or hanging out with friends. School is keeping me busy with assignments, and I am surprising myself with how much Swedish I actually know. I am currently writing two reports completely in Swedish, and it's amazing to think that before I came to Sweden, I barely knew a single sentence, yet I now can put together a whole page of information. I also made a video of me speaking only Swedish, and this is now on youtube. For any of my readers that are interested in checking it out, here is the link! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gD_kh0lnv8

My friends and I have been out bowling, playing music, watching movies and more. It's always great to organise different things to do to keep me busy, and it's always so much fun. We also often attend !performances that our friends participate in. This includes one at the acusticum for an event celebrating that refugees were welcome to Piteå. Some of my friends also recently performed at krokodil - a cute little cafe in our town. It's really cool to see how the majority of the class showed up to support them and it was a great show. My host mum, Albin and Adam also came along to check it all out, and little Albin, 3 years old, somehow managed to fall asleep despite the amplified sound.

Now, I earlier mentioned that I decided it was time for me to try a new style. So, I got a haircut! Rather than just a trim, I decided it was time to mix it up a bit and try something new. So with the help of a lovely hairdresser and my friend, Julia, who helped colour my hair at home, I am now rocking a much shorter hairstyle. While I have always loved long hair, I am enjoying the ease of short hair, and my only complaint would be that I no longer have any hair to properly cover my neck from the cold. Looks like I'll be needing scarves all the time now!