Week 2

Sunday morning Pär and I went to see Linn, a student from this past spring, at her church in town. It was Youth Sunday, so the kids sang, spoke, and put on a puppet show. Afterwards we had fika in the basement with the whole church enjoying coffee and homemade goodies. It's always so hard to say goodbye again.

We had some more quiet work time at home, then we had dinner with Pär's cousin and his wife who live nextdoor. They fixed a delicious meal of baked chevre on toast, bbq'd chicken wrapped in bacon, tzatziki, salad with cantelope, and potatoes. Afterwards we went into town again to a large church that is related to the Covenant denomination and listened to a concert consisting of a guy who sang and played the keyboard and a woman who sang. They had great voices, and played both Swedish and American songs.

Monday was my day to say "yes"! 6 of the students picked me up at school at 8am and took me to one of their homes in town. The boy's mother must have been cooking for hours. It was a feast! After breakfast we packed a couple of baskets with food and drinks and headed for Ria Åsar, a beautiful part of Borås that features a hilltop with a beautiful view. Unfortunately, to get to the view required a climb straight up a steep slope, slippery with moss and mud. After about 20 minutes of hard climbing with lots of slilpping, I needed to stop for a breather. The kids felt bad for me, so they decided to stop and have fika, including some delicious homemade carrot cake, there on some boulders.

After climbing back down, we drove back to the school where group #2 picked me up for lunch. After all the food I had just eaten it was hard to imagine, but we went to the Viskan where I ate part of a salad and enjoyed the conversation. When we were done, we went to the Ishall (ice hall) to try our hands at curling. Sooo much fun! It was like playing shuffleboard on ice. You're supposed to wear these black rubber things on the bottom of your shoes that make you slide faster, but most of us stuck with our shoes so we didn't fall on our butts. That didn't, of course, prevent me from falling on my face :)

The third group took me geocaching in town. We found two different caches with lists that we signed our names to. It was nice just to walk around town and see some of the parts of the city that I hadn't seen before. Then we had fika at the Bakgården (backyard) Cafe where I had a lovely cadamom bun - because I really needed to eat again :o

The last group was in charge of dinner. We drove (my driver liked passing cars in the dark in the rain on hills where you couldn't see if anyone was coming the other way) for about 45 minutes to a town called Svenljunga. One of the girls lives in this sleepy little town and invited us all, the whole class, to have dinner at her home. Her mother had fixed a goulash soup and "sandwiches" (bread and cheese.) The students hurdy gurdied and I chatted with a couple of kids at one end about how you can't get a good steak in Sweden. Apparently this is why Daniel was so excited about going to Outback when he was with us! While eating dessert the students picked papers with questions on them (in English) and answered them for the group. That was actually a nice way to hear their thoguhts about things and see them interact with each other.

All in all a wonderful, tiring, filling day!

On Tuesday I spent the whole day at school meeting with the students in the different years, answering questions about coming to America, and working at my desk to catch up with my own students and work. In the evening several of the teachers took me to dinner at a local Greek restaurant. I couldn't believe that rack of lamb was the same price as the chicken, fish, etc.Yay - I never get rack of lamb! It was so delicious, served with roasted vegetables and fried potatoes. And, of course, a nice sauce...everything in Sweden is served with at least one sauce, and often two. How do they stay so thin?!?

Today, Wednesday, I met with the youngest students to talk about when they will come to California in 3 years. I don't think they can even imagine it at this point. Most of their questions were about things like why our drivers' license age is so young but the drinking age is so old (in Sweden they are both 18.) I'm not sure why they would think I would know the answer to a question like that, but I gave it my best shot :) Then I was able to sign in to my new CSUEB class that started today. I like it already! People from all over the country will be my classmates. I'm really looking forward to getting further into the subject with them.

Tonight I had dinner with Rebecca, one of the students who was in California this past spring. She is such a dear. We talked about her experiences with her family, traveling with her classmates, working at the Swedish version of Netflix, and hoping to travel to New Zealand in February. We ate at a Spanish tapas restaurant where we had roasted beet salad, chicken skewers, quesadillas, and, of course, potatoes. It was all delicious, and again it was hard to say goodbye at the end. When I got home they were watching an important fotball game on TV, and this time we won! Happiness in the Sundbaum house :)

That's it for now. Love to you all!