Day 5

I have such a fun job here in Sweden. My main responsibility is to hang out with and get to know a bunch of really nice teenagers. Today I met with the students who will come to California in 2 years. I met them all a year ago when I went to Stockholm with them on their field trip. They have great personalities. Lena arranged for us to play games together. One was "Guess that TV/movie theme song." I'm really terrible at that, but I was very impressed with how good the students were. They knew the theme songs from House, CSI, Scrubs, 2 1/2 Men, Avatar, Star Wars, Superman, and many many more. These are not media deprived kids, as Dan would say :)

Then I met with the students who will come next year. We talked about how I will match them with a family, what they can expect in terms of food, school work, and spiders. These seem to be the 3 main concerns for students each year. For some reason Swedish students believe that Americans eat fast food 3 times per day, and that we live with monstrous spiders roaming through our homes. They also think that if they go for a walk, it's likely that snakes will jump out and bite them. I'm not sure where they get these ideas, but I try to reassure them that we will feed them healthy food and try to keep the spiders and snakes at bay. I have to admit that occasionally I tire of hearing how fat and unhealthy Americans are. Maybe because, as Garfield would say, I resemble that remark.

Lena and I had lunch in the cafeteria. The students all eat in a big room together. They use a special card to get their plate from a machine, then they can eat anything they want. There is usually one main dish, a salad bar, flatbread, and drinks. We ate in the teacher's lunch room. It's usually the same food, though the side dishes might vary slightly. Lena, like some of the students, has a special diet which is always accomodated. Today's lunch was fish, boiled potatoes, rice, salad, and flatbread.

I have been trying hard to keep up with my classes at home as well as email, Skype, etc. but it's been hard. I'm generally at school from 8am to 3pm, then home for a couple of hours before the next activity begins. I find myself staying up late to get things done.

Last night I helped Lena make a delicious KräftaOst soup (kreft-oost = crayfish/cheese). While I would like to say I'll try to make it for my family when I get home, I probably won't since the main ingredient is a cheese that has crayfish in it, and I don't remember seeing anything like that in our local markets. When we were done eating it, Lena, Malin and I, along 2 of Malin's friends piled into the family car and drove to town. We parked in a store parking lot, crawled under two fences and found ourselves in the parking lot of a factory where a stage had been set up, along with a small sound booth.

After awhile a man in bright green pants came onto the stage saying hurdy-gurdy things and then introduced a man in a suit. He spoke for maybe 20 minutes about a new water storage tank that had been built (you can see it behind the girls) that would provide heated water to the town in some eco-friendly way. This was the the grand dedication for the water tower.

After the suit finished speaking, a famous singer named Peter Johanson came out and, along with a guitar player in a very groovy blue-flowered suit, began singing rock and roll; Kiss, Queen, Lady Gaga, etc. He was really good! We were standing very near the stage since the ladies wanted to be sure to get a good look at this handsome guy. When I turned around I realized there were probably 300 people there! And then it started to rain. We put up our hoods and kept watching.

Then it began to pour. The umbrellas came out which made it hard to see, but we stayed put. Until the power went out. Then the singer asked us all to come closer to the stage, he went and got his acoustic guitar, squatted at the edge of the stage and kept singing and playing. The power came back on and they went back to having lights and instruments. After about an hour and a half, the show was over. But wait! Green pants returned, and then the suit along with several other guys who looked important. We all moved to where we had a better view of the water tank and the light show began. "Now the tower is red, symbolizing the fact that the water will be warm! Now the tower is ..." You get the idea. By now my feet were too numb to hurt any more. Half an hour later, we left. Cold. Wet. Tired. But happy to have seen the grand unveiling of Borås' new water tower. A night to remember!

A few short videos from the performance :)