Engagement pictures. 5 of 270.

Todays Swedish lesson. Förlovning= Engagement

Congratulations mom!

Yesterday was mother's day and today is mom's birthday. Too bad I have to work both days. But we went home Friday to eat and give a present, so I hope that counts anyway.

Erika is back! Yes, you read right. She decided she didn't like Miami and came back home. So now the family is complete again. Too bad for Miami, wonderful for us!

Saturday we took our engagement pictures. Lovely, lovely. :) I haven't fixed any yet, but as soon as I have, I will put some on here. And when we get high speed internet, I plan to put more than one online for everybody to see.

I now have one more day of school, the big exam on Thursday, and then I'm done.

Now: Going out in the rain to return some books to the library and to take a walk.

I'm mad!

The day of our exam, we all have to object/criticize another essay/thesis. We started looking thorugh the one we're criticizing today. It is so bad! Only half done. One every single page (of 47) they have spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes and things that would have been easily fixed if they only had bothered to read through it one time before they turned it in. It is also very hard to check their sources because of 49 footnotes, 34 have mistakes in them or are incomplete! The reason I am mad is because if they had only taken an hour or so to check it and not turn in a half-finished paper, they would have saved us a lot of time that we now had to spend looking through and correcting things. And the bad part is that I know I won't be able to be as mean as I want to on the exam. So I can be mad here now instead!!!

On a happier note: Me and "the girls" went out for ice cream this evening. Very nice. It is almost spring weather here today. Always fun to catch up on my gossip. :)

Memories

I started looking through the pictures yesterday. It's amazing how many things you forget so fast, just because you're not thinking about them every day. I looked through both the pictures from last year's Indiana trip and this year's. I can't belive how much fun we have and how fast time goes when we're there. I also remembered I never published any pictures from the wedding, so here are two. Enjoy! :)

The DaVinci Code

I have seen it now. What a movie! After two hours, I really didn't think they were going to be able to finish up in time. The first two hours just flew by! The only thing I am a little disappointed in is that they changed some details in the end. And I can't really understand why. The ending was really fine the way it was. But except that, I really liked it. So did Annelie, and she hasn't read the book. She's going to now though.

Simply the best!

Could we BE any better? The Swedish hockey team has now won Olympic gold and the World championship the same year. How cool is that? :)

I'm better now. Both my spirit and my foot has started to improve. And I have tomorrow off, both from school and work. Me and Annelie are going to go see The da Vince code. Can't wait!

Not good, not good at all.

Bad thing 1: When I was out running Friday, I sprained my ankle. So no dance contest for me. "Limping dance" isn't really that popular. Instead, I got caught up in all kinds of things to do, I was responsible for keeping the contestants in the right place and just generaly helping out. I don't know how many times people called me "Limping Lotta" (but in Swedish of course= Halta Lotta). Last night I could hardly walk at all, this morning it feels a little better. Good thing because I work at the movie theater tonight.

Bad thing 2: Sweden finished 5th in the Eurovision Song Contest. "Hard Rock Halleluja" from FINLAND?!?!?! won. They have never ever won before and their song was really crappy. The only reason they won is that they look like monster. I mean just look at this?!?!


Does the people of Europe have no taste at all? We cheered for Denmark, they had a really good dance song.

Another week over...

... almost. Just a couple of days to go. Don't get me wrong, I love to work at the paper, but the shifts are a little long (noon -midnight) and it kind of gets to you after a couple of days. And then I worked at the movie theater yesterday. Good thing there was so much to do because of "The da Vince code" that comes today, so I never had time to sit down and relax. If I would have done that, I probably would have fallen asleep.

This weekend is of course as busy. Tonight we have a spring dance at the danceclub and tomorrow is the "club contest". After that some friends are having a barbacue and then we're watching the Eurovision song contest which is a big song competition between the European countries. Carola, the artist that is competing for Sweden, won the whole thing in 1991, so we're crossing our fingers this year too. ABBA actually also won this conest in 1974, cool huh? :) But that's tomorrow.

Yesterday we turned our thesis in! The first draft. The exam is June 1st, then we have a week to turn the final version in. Can't wait until that's over!

Almost midnight...

... and here I am, at work! Working 12 am-12 pm. Long shifts, but so far I have gotten away with only a little headache. I am of course very tired, but I think the 1 hour running this morning is what is getting me through. And I better get used to it, this is how I'm working all summer. 12 hour shifts. I work for four days and then have four days off. Four on- four off and so on.
The sad part is that me and Snutte will see very little of each other since he works 7 am-4 pm. Maybe that will teach us to use the time we have together better? We'll see about that... :)

Tired

Yesterday I was really tired. After the fair and dinner, I actually slept for like three hours! A Saturday night! I blame the fact that we came home at 3 am Friday night though. But after all the sleeping we rented a movie, Monster-in-law. And before we could watch it, I noticed that Criminal minds was on tv. And Uncle Tom, if you're reading this: It was a really good show. Too bad they show it at 9 pm Saturdays here. And the movie was good too, really funny.

And Betsy, thank you for correcting me. Doesn't it sound like there's a "d" in there though? :)

Today: Piteå

A new fridge!

I am sooo happy we're only renting and don't own this apartement. Since I moved here in August, they have replaced the toilet, the stove, the kitchen fan and now, yesterday, the refridgerator and freezer. That would have cost a lot of money if we had to buy it ourselves!

Last night we went to Umeå (1 ½ hours away) to dance. I haven't been out dancing in a while, so it was really fun, but I did get very tired after the brake. And we weren't home until 3 am!
Today we're going to the spring fair here in Skellefteå. A couple is actually getting married at the fair. I could never do that, would be nervous enough infront of family and friends at a church, couldn't imagine what it would be like infront of maybe 500 strangers!!!

Snutte, mean or weird?

Well, you judge on the basis of this picture! I found it on the dance club's home page, it is taken at a dance night, the week before we came over to Indiana. If I only had eyes on the back of my head... :)

Today didn't end as good as it started. I'm working, the people at the news paper called when I wan on my way home from school, and our refridgerator has probably broken. They're going to look at it tomorrow. And to top it all off, I found out that our favorite dance band are quitting. So not a good ending to a day that started really nice...

A beautiful day!

Yep! The sun is shining, and we're almost done with our essay. We have written everyting, so the only thing remaining now is our last "consult" with our teacher, some final read-througs and then the big exam. Then I'm done!!! Can't wait!

I'm taking a late bus today that's not leaving until 10.30. So now: Running! A wonderful way to start the day. Of course with some really good music in my Mp3-player...

Engagement party?

Is it common over there? I don't think it is here, but mom and dad had one and they absolutely thought that we should, so now we are! June 2nd. But actually it's a combined engagement/graduating from college party since my big exam is June 1st. So my family, Snutte's family and our closest friends are coming. Mom and Dad thought we should invite our aunt and uncles too, but we counted up to 160 and gave up, so we're not doing that. In that case mom and dad have to get a bigger house, and that feels unneccesary for one party, so we're going to be around 30 at the party. Or party, it's more like a dinner. And my friend Irene is making the cakes. She makes the best cakes in the whole world. Oh yes she does!

Me, a fire fighter?

Well, yesterday I sort of was. Our friend Micke (Mikael) had his birtday party yesterday. His 30th birthday was actually March 26th, but the big party was yesteday. And since he's a fireman and his whole family and old friends were here (Micke comes from the south of Sweden), he had borrowed a practice field so we all could try to "smoke dive". We got to sit in a room were the temperature came up to 800 degress C (that's alot in F too!) We sat there for about 7-8 minutes and got to see how fast the fire spreads when the fumes in the ceiling starts to burn. It was sure a cool experience!

I have some more pictures of this in my Swedish blogg (click Min svenska blogg on the right), but here is one of me in uniform.















The party was wonderful too. Good food, good music and a lot of dancing. Wonderful!

I beg your pardon...

... I never promised you a rose garden. Or to update this every day even. But I am very sorry I haven't updated for a week. Shame on me! The only excuse I have is that my week has been pretty boring and busy at the same time. This is what it has looked like: All day spent in Piteå, writing our essay. Then straight to work at the movie theater where it has been really calm and emtyp this week. I have been hoome around 10 ever night, and then there has been nothing left to do but to sleep and worry about the next day...

I do however want to ask all of you to mark this day in your calenders. I am, for the first time in Sweden this year, wearing my capri jeans. And we ate lunch outside today, Åsa and me. How wonderful isn't that? Sunny weather, around 15 C (60F). Wonderful spring weather!