Snapshots 2011

Time goes by so fast.  I've now been living in Sweden for 8 months, there are only 4 months left in the school year, and before I know it, it will be summer. In an attempt to savor the greatest moments of this past year, I've created a timeline of snapshots for 2011.  Now, I look forward to creating more amazing moments for the year to come :)


January 2011. NYC.

NYC weekend trip. 

February 2011. Kingston. 

Practice teaching. Great people, experiences, and stories here :)  

March 2011. Vancouver.

Home sweet home for a visit. 

April 2011. Kingston. 

Education Formal with 2 of my favourite people. 

May 2011. Kingston.

Special Friends Bring Special Memories 

June 2011. Kingston and Yellowstone National Park. 

Degree in hand and ready to go after 5 years at Queen's.

Road trip 2011 - Driving from Ontario to BC, through the USA. 

July 2011. Vancouver and Iceland. 

Last week in Vancouver. Hanging out in Stanley Park.

Stop over at the Blue Lagoon. 

August 2011. Sundsvall. 

My new home. 

September 2011. Sundsvall. 

Birthday celebrations with new friends

October 2011. Sundsvall

Season of change

November 2011. Tallinn.

Fall break:  Tallinn, Estonia. 

December 2011.  Sundsvall and Vancouver. 

Christmas market on Storgatan. 

Home for the Holidays. 

January 2012. Maui. 

On the coast of somewhere beautiful. 

I survived

So I survived my first week teaching!  I've never worked so hard in my life. It's an amazing place to work though, so it's worth the sweat and tears.  Teaching is so mentally exhausting.  Add the fact that the students are speaking Swedish with each other in the halls and cafeteria, and there's so much more to process in a day.  My body gave me a sure sign that I had reached my highest level of exhaustion on Friday.  I was getting ready to leave for a celebratory "we survived the week" drink out with some co-workers.  I headed down the stairs, and missed a step.  And then I continued to fall, down a couple stairs, did a flip, and landed at the bottom on my face/shoulder!  I was horrified that my face was going to have a massive bruise - luckily, I iced it enough in the first hour, that there's no mark to be seen!  The rest of my body is a little black and blue though.  I'm also convinced I had a minor head injury.  Nothing was going to stop me from going for that drink though - I had, after all, worked too hard this week to let a little stumble stop me!

I think I'll try and take it easy this week ;)

First Day of School Tomorrow

This weekend has involved a lot of preparation, heavy lifting, and hours of planning! Yesterday I spent 9 hours at the school, along with another 20 or so teachers, cleaning and moving old furniture, and then more planning for the upcoming fall term. It was nice to see everyone lending a hand, and working as a team, to make the school look beautiful! We prepped and organized for the 600 new (and old) students arriving Monday. Something that surprised me was that every kid also gets a package of school supplies on the first day -kind of takes the fun out of back to school shopping if you ask me.

I've been thinking about how I used to feel on the first day of school.  I was usually a nervous wreck, and for a couple of years, I would make myself sick to my stomach (literally) from the anxiety. Thank god I grew out of that in high school! I really hope my students don't feel like that tomorrow.

My Grade 1 school photo

Tomorrow I meet my group of Mentor students! This is something I hadn't heard of before coming to Sweden, and it's an incredible idea if you ask me. Each teacher is responsible for 16 students in a Year group. As a mentor, we are the main point of contact for parents, we give guidance if they are struggling with a specific subject, and in general, we are that person they can come to if they are having a rough time at school.  We meet with our mentor classes once a week and check in with their parents twice a month.  There are also opportunities to go on trips outside of school with the mentor students. I am really excited to meet them!

I am less excited for Tuesday - the first day of formal lessons. I'm a bit nervous to be honest. It will be my first  year as a new teacher, in a new country, surrounded by a new language and culture, while learning a new curriculum and assessment program.  Here goes nothing ... Wish me luck!

Stockholm: The Venice of the North

This past weekend I decided to play tourist in Sweden`s capital, Stockholm. The city is about a 4 hour train ride South, and even though I could practically fly across Canada in this time, it was well worth the trip.  On Friday, all the new teachers met at the train station at 6am for our new teacher training at the school`s headquarters in Stockholm.  We got there just in time for fika! Swedes love their fika. After a short day, we headed back to central Stockholm for a couple hours before the others had to catch the train home.  One of the Swedes was nice enough to give me a hot-spot shopping tour of central Stockholm.  I took mental notes, hoping I could find all these places on my own later.  The best shopping district was Biblioteksgatan. Here, a red carpet was laid across the street, so you could walk along and feel rich and famous!

Red Carpet on Drottninggatan

I said goodbye to the rest of the group at Central Station before heading straight back to Biblioteksgatan.  I blame it on the red carpet, but I had to buy something in one of these shops.  There were Sales or 'REA' everywhere, so it wasn't difficult to find something in my price range.  Well, once you took the 70% off the original price, it was with in my budget! I bought a cute fall jacket from Jackpot, it's organic cotton and so comfy!!

I was extremely nervous about traveling alone, and getting lost in a big city.  Especially since the hotel I booked was a last minute decision, and I didn't look at the reviews until after I booked.  I was pleasantly surprised though!  The room was a good size - perfect for just sleeping and getting ready for the day.   There was a single bed and a tiny bathroom.

My little hotel room!

In the end, I had a fantastic weekend.  I loved traveling all by my lonesome.  It wasn't as bad as I thought.  I did get lost A LOT! Now I know for sure that I'm directionally challenged.  I saw so much of the city!  I followed a walking tour from my Lonely Planet book on Sweden.  It took me through the city center, across to Gamla Stan, and around to the Royal Palace.  My favourite stop was Katarinahillen - A lookout tower over Stockholm.  There's also a bar at the top, and scattered seating to enjoy the view from.  I felt guilty, so I bought a beer (for 10 dollars!).

View from atop Katarinahillen

Another view from the top!

It's true - Stockholm is VERY expensive!  In fact, I kept track of all my spending while in the city.  So in case you're wondering, here's what a typical weekend in Stockholm would cost: PS this is minus all the shopping I did ....

Day 1:

- subway passes (pkg of 9) 180 sek

Inside the Nordiska Museet

- dinner at Sandy's 64 sek
- hotel (outside of city centre) 2 nights 790 sek

Day 2:

- Fika at cafe in Gamla Stan 50 sek
- Souvineirs in Gamla Stan 70 sek
- Lunch at Sundsberg konditori 75 sek
- Beer at Katarinahissen 60 sek
- Dinner at Chutney in Sodermalm 210 sek

Day 3:

- Entrance to Moderna Museet 100sek

View from the 4th floor of Nordiska Museet

- Ferry ride to Djurgarden 40 sek
- Entrance to Nordiska Museet 80 sek
-ps - this is a much better museum than the modern museum!
- Fika at Cafe Bellman in the city centre112 sek
- Train ticket back home 329 sek

Total cost of a trip:  2160 SEK (about 330 CAD)
(not including the train ride there, which was paid for by the school)

It will be a little while before I have enough money to return to Stockholm again, but I will go back - it's a beautiful city!

A Swedish Shopping Experience

Yesterday was the first rainy day in a long time, so naturally I went shopping.  There's an indoor mall about a 5 minute walk from the apartment, with three stories and a city block worth of shopping! It is on the main street, Storgatan, which is lined with stone, European -esque buildings. You can enter the mall through any storefront that has a giant, green IN sign, and then get distracted for hours with shoes and clothes! 

The stickers always seem more outrageous than they actually are.  I have yet to find the equivalent of a Walmart or Target here.  The average price of shirts are 200 -300 SEK, which is approx 30 - 45 CAD - which is why I ended up only buying sale items. 2 of them were from H&M (of course), and 1 from Cubus, which reminded me a bit if an American Apparel.  I've already picked out where my first paycheck is going too.  There's a knit cardigan in MQ that I desperately want to buy, but can't justify spending 799 SEK on a sweater right now. It's so pretty though - see ... I told you so:

I also need to start a list of things to get shipped from home.  Shampoo and conditioner come in teeny tiny bottles and cost a lot of freaking money. Makeup is insanely priced.  A tube of Maybeline mascara is 120 SEK ... that's 18 dollars!  My theory is, if you take the price you expect to be and times it by 3 - you get the actual price! I've also been buying Lattes from the coolest cafe I've ever stepped foot in, called Barista, and only yesterday did I sit down and actually calculate how much CAD money I was spending.  A large vanilla latte is 42 SEK - that's 6 dollars - yikes!  As soon as work starts, I will stop going there!  And the count down is on ... 3 more days until vacation is over! 

Söker efter Karl

Last night we went out for a birthday beer.  We ended up at an Irish pub close to the main street.  There was a house music festival in the market square so it was impossible to find a patio seat close by. The place was relatively quiet so we practiced ordering beer in Swedish.  You say:  "stor stark" - which literally translates to big strong. Beer in Sweden is divided into the percentage of strength. Anything below a 2.25% is considered light, and is sold in the supermarkets. The strong beers are above 3.5%

Later on, the title of my blog - Searching for Sven - came up.  It turns out Sven is not a common Swedish name -- Lars and Daniel are more common. To broaden my search we learned how to say Searching for Man in Swedish - "Söker efter Karl"  Now I can ask for 2 things at the bar using 1 phrase 1) stor stark = big strong 2) stor stark karl = big strong man.

2am - the sky is starting to get bright

The IKEA gods are against me

It has been 10 days since I arrived in this amazing country, and I wouldn't care if I didn't see another IKEA for 10 years!  Not a single build-it-yourself piece of furniture that I bought went together without a disaster! But after borrowing an electric drill and a couple hand saws, I managed to set up my room! Well, it's almost there.  I'm just happy to have a bed and some black out curtains!

Our apartment is to die for!  It has stunning views of the gulf, wall to wall pine floors, a balcony and lots of extra room - so much room, we're afraid we won't be able to fully furnish it!  The only flaw was our leaky sink. We went to the rental company to make an appointment to have it looked at, and expected to wait at least 1 day for it to be fixed .  Walking back up to our apartment, we were greeted by the repair men in our hallway - they had beat us home!

I'm surprised at how well I've been adjusting to my new surroundings, in a new country, half way around the world. Aside from the whole not understanding Swedish aspect, I haven't felt any feeling of culture shock. Sticker shocked, definitely feeling that.  Things are very expensive! The people, for the most part, are very friendly, and patient with our lack of Swedish.  Almost everyone here speaks English, which has been helpful!  I do feel guilty for not knowing more Swedish though, I'm sure it will come to me. In 2 years I'll be fluent ... haha, probs not.

View from our apartment window