Swedish hat trick!

Ok, so I apologize for going so long without blogging. It is the first time I’ve gone this long from writing and it won’t happen again and I have some good excuses for why it has taken me so long to write. 1) I flew back to the States (Burlington, VT) for a quick (4 days) mission trip to get Afton back. It was more like a 6 day trip if you include travel time. Mission accomplished. I’m not going to go into detail, but most of you who are reading this have already been explained to in more detail about the situation. Basically, I had to fix what I had messed up which meant taking a romantic gesture to get my girl back. It worked and I am now happily back with Afton. The trip back to America was amazing. It was so nice being able to ease drop on peoples’ conversations instead of just constantly hearing Swedish. You don’t realize how different home is until you go back and see it with having a different perspective in mind. After being in Sweden for about two months, you can see how different it is from home but it isn’t until you return to home that you really can see how the two differ. The biggest thing I noticed was how “friendly” strangers were. Everywhere I went I found myself having more than a “Hi, I would like blah blah blah thank you bye” conversation. Random things would be talked about with complete strangers. It is not like that in Sweden. There is no customer service. You get what you ask for and you go on your way. At Dunkin’ Donuts they asked me a billion questions when I ordered an iced latte. They made sure I was getting exactly what I wanted. In Sweden if I asked for an iced latte I’d get a plain iced latte with no sugar or milk unless I stated it in the beginning. That is just an example. I really enjoyed eating bagels while I was visiting. Sweden doesn’t do bagels. It’s a shame. And being the Jew that I am, its tough without bagels. Watching football on Sunday was a big thing I didn’t realize I’d miss but I did. It felt good to drive since I don’t have a car in Sweden and I love driving. I enjoyed being able to read everything and understand everyone. Overall it was a great trip back to America. I brought back to Sweden with me tampons (Sweden doesn’t understand the concept of applicators)(Sorry dudes that are reading this J), Halloween stuff for our Halloween party because it doesn’t exist in Sweden, clear hockey tape because Swedes use packaging tape for sock tape which I am not fond of because I need to use my skate to rip it, and peanut butter because it tastes like shit here. Care package ideas hint hint J.

Reason #2 why I have been blog non-existent: The end of my first quarter for school is this coming Friday so I have been really busy working on a final project and finishing rewrites that are due by the end of the quarter. I am doing a project on the effect of traffic on lichens. I had to go around Linkoping and sample 80 trees. I have to write a maximum 8 page (SINGLE SPACED L) report and have a 15 minute presentation on Friday so I need to bust out a ton of work this week. I am happy for this quarter to be over. I am ready for a new course. This last course was “Methods in Ecology” and focused on labs, reports, and scientific articles. Next course is “population ecology” which seems interesting. I think a lot is going to be on computer modeling which I am nervous about because I am not too into programming and modeling but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Bring it on.

Reason #3: Im lazy. I probably could have written before now but I decided to watch American tv shows on my lap top instead J deal with it.

Let’s see…Hockey. We had our first season game today agasint Karlskrona which is about 5 hours south from Norrkoping. We won 7-0 and I got a hat trick as well as an assist. Pretty baller. I got the game puck which is sweet. I am so happy I am playing here because I have gotten my passion back for hockey. I am having so much fun with my team and everything associated with the hockey. I enjoy the practices and the team is getting closer which is awesome. The intensity is high enough to where I cant mess around but it is not too high to where the fun is taken out of it and it is more of a job than an activity. We have our second season game next Sunday at home which I am excited about. My roommates said they might come to support which would be awesome. And my friend Ethan also wants to catch a game so hopefully I’ll have some fans.

When I got back from America the weather was significantly colder. I was not prepared for it. Its only going to get colder and darker. On a positive note I’ll get to where my kick ass winter hats that I love so much. I work tomorrow at the warehouse which I’m looking forward to because I haven’t worked in a couple weeks because of school. The last week and a half we haven’t had class because we are doing projects. It was a perfect time to take a trip because I wasn’t missing anything. This week is also projects so I am hoping to work because it is hard for me to work when I have class. I wouldn’t spend 8 hours working on my project anyway so I would be doing nothing so I’d rather work.

I promise I won’t make you wait this long for an entry ever again. I am currently sitting on the team bus watching Boondocks Saints with Swedish subtitles on our way home from our game. Bad ass. Peace, Love, and Swedish hat tricks J