Snö!

Geez, it is cold here! It has been below freezing for a few days straight now and there are about 2 inches of snow on the ground. It is actually snowing right now. I am all for winter because I love the holidays, snowboarding, and the coziness of inside, but only having a bike is extremely unfortunate and making me dislike winter right now. However, I do love the feeling of my nose hairs freezing…is that weird? 

Anyway, only 12 more days until I go back home and I am more than excited. I have thought about a couple more things that I’m definitely going to get when I’m back: Orbit spearmint gum, maple and brown sugar oatmeal, and wheat thins. 

Last week went by fast. Thesis work, tutoring, sold lottery tickets at the men’s game, practice, cleaning, substituting, and 2 WINS! The team did SO good and we beat the first place team. Now we are in 3^rd place, which is a perfect place to be going into the 2^nd part of the season. No stress, but confident to keep moving up. We have 2 more games before break. Home Saturday and away Sunday. 

It is totally Christmas time here. EVERYONE has candles/lights in their window, shops are selling glögg (spiced wine), gingerbread cookies, candy santas, and Julmust (holiday soda that tastes like captian and coke, which is awesome). I love advent calendars, but I refuse to buy myself one because that is just embarrassing. I’m waiting for my friend to buy me one. Assuming she actually does, I’m ok that it is a little late because then I can eat all the chocolates from the days that I’ve missed at once…don’t judge. 

My roommates and I had a holiday dinner the other night and it was really fun. We all contributed a small tradition from our country/family. I contributed Latkes to bring a little Hanukkah, Mel made a French dish that was like a croissant filled with goat cheese and jam that was awesome, and Hanne got her mom to send her Christmas crackers. They are these wrapped rolls that you and another person hold an end of and you pull and whoever gets the big part when it tears gets the present that is inside the roll. There are these paper crowns in the rolls also that we wore during the dinner to complete the tradition. 

I have been substituting a lot. I had P.E. the other day with 4^th graders and for the warm-up I told them to just run around and dance to music. I put on Gangnam Style and all of a sudden they all form into this “flash mob” looking formation and legit do the dance for the ENTIRE song. It was amazing. In another class I have been watching Wall-E. The joys of being a substitute. I am enjoying substituting more than I thought I would. If I end up staying in Sweden for another year, this school could be a way of supporting myself which would be so great. I have no idea what my plan is after I graduate in June. I should probably start to figure that out. Nahhhhh. 

18 days until home!

All I can think about is my visit back home. I haven’t gone home since a year and a half ago and lately I have been thinking of all of the things I can’t wait to get. 1) bagels , enough said 2) cereal- Honey Bunches of Oats, Life, Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The bomb 3) buffalo anything- wrap, sandwich salad, wings. If only I could get Union Inn wings. I might save up to go to Alumni Weekend just so I can get some blazzin’ ranch and moonshine. I’m excited to drive. Less than 3 weeks!

Before the vacation begins I have 3 more games, a Swedish exam, and data analysis to finish. I substituted at the International English School last week and I love it. It actually surprises me that they keep calling me back. I have NO control over the kids, but they seem to like me and respect me at the same time. Of course I let them do whatever they want as long as they finish what the teacher has left for them. We play Pictionary, charades, music trivia, or just chill. One kid was a troublemaker and I kicked him out of class. It was awesome.

We went up to Örnsköldsvik and Piteå last weekend for games. We went 1-1. The bus ride home was 14 hours. The first 9 hours weren’t so bad. Switched between computer games, the Twilight saga, tv series, and eating. Then everyone went crazy. We took a stop just to get out and we all were dealing with cabin fever. We play the same teams this weekend that we played last weekend so hopefully we can take some revenge. Next Sunday is HV71 again and then the break begins.

Cleaning, Swedish class, thesis meeting, and tutoring this week also. 

Leather and Moustache Party

Mel and I threw a birthday party at our apartment last night and it was CRAZY. Nearly 50 people showed up. The theme was leather and moustache. Apparently it is a common theme in France. So many nationalities were there: France, Germany, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Peru, Columbia, Japan, America, England, and more. Everyone did an awesome job dressing up. The party didn't end until 5am. Mel is a erasmus student. Erasmus is the equivalent to our study abroad. So she has a ton of other erasmus friends that she has met here so that is how we had so many people from so many countries. I only had like 4 friends haha. But the night was awesome and I taught everyone how to dizzy bat and it was a huge hit. I regret teaching them now though because we played it outside and then everyones shoes were dirty and my floor was a DISASTER today. It took 2 hours to mop. A great success though. We had a beer pong tournament and everything.

Tonight I'm going to the annual Halloween party put on by Deb's friend. The theme is games. I think I'm going to be a red solo cup to represent beer pong or drinking games in general. I have a red towel and an unraveled hanger so I'm going to attempt to make my costume out of that. Sweden is really into themes. I think Halloween is already a theme, but then there is a theme on top of that. Weird.

This is the 2nd free weekend in a row from hockey. We play next Sunday home against HV71. All the national team players are gone this week for camps, tournaments, and olympic qualifications so we aren't so many at practice.

Thesis is going well. My data is basically ready to start analyzing. I am excited to see what patterns will show up. Swedish class is also going well. It is so easy to read and write but so hard to understand and speak. I am way better at understanding than speaking because I'm constantly listening to Swedish at the rink. I need to be more strict with myself about speaking. It is just so easy to speak English because everyone knows it. I had some revelations the other day. I never really thought about how English isn't the first language for my friends here and that they are most likely very different when they speak their first language. Like maybe they aren't so funny in English, but they are really funny in their own language. It's weird to think about being fluent in a different language. I hope to become fluent in Swedish eventually.

I am going to start English tutoring a Polish woman who wants to practice her English with a native English speaker. I am looking forward to that. I have never done anything like it so it will be interesting. I also picked up a cleaning job at the rink twice a week.

Time to go make myself a red solo cup. Take care all.

P.S. don't forget to feed my fishies on the top right!

Thesis and laser tag

Today was the most productive thesis day I've had in a very long time. I went to campus for a thesis meeting at 9 and stayed until 4 working on it. I figured out one of the problems I was having with ArcGIS so I was able to fly through things. It was a lot of pressing buttons and waiting for the program to run. I have made a goal for myself to have my methods section written by next Wednesday. My other goal is to have all of my data analysis done by the time I go home in about 7 weeks. These next 7 weeks I'm going to put a lot of focus into my thesis so I can be satisfied when I go home for the holidays. My plan is to get to campus around 9 and do work until 4. Then I'll head to the rink. The life of a hockey player. I love routines. I have been slacking on the thesis work and sleeping in instead and going into town for fika. Now it's time for a more productive routine. Bring it on 7 weeks, bring it on.

After my very fulfilling thesis day, I met up with some teammates for dinner at a kebab place and laser tag. I love laser tag. I get so into it. I'm all sweaty and sore after from running and ducking. We played older vs. younger and the youngsters won both rounds :( we almost beat them the 2nd round. My first laser tag experience in Sweden was last spring with my old team for our end of the year party. I stupidly wore a white t-shirt. The playing arena uses black lights so I was very visible. This time I came prepared and wore all black. Stealth. It was a great time and a good, active way to spend our day away from the rink.

My parents bought me a french press while they were here. It makes the best coffee ever. I am so happy to wake up in the mornings and turn my water heater on so I can make coffee. The little things in life.


This weekend is an away trip up to Gävle and Leksand for 2 tough games. Looking forward to playing with my new stick and taking revenge on these teams. The bus ride is long (5 hours), but we have a good time. By good time, I mean we all sleep the whole way. We stay in cabins on Saturday night which is good, fun bonding time. My parents brought me my beloved cow costume, so maybe that will make an appearance this weekend at some point.

Skansen

I went to Stockholm (5^th visit) on Saturday with a friend. We went to Skansen and it was awesome! The weather was shit all day being cold and wet, but it was still a great time. Skansen is an open-air museum that has a bunch of stuff. A zoo, an aquarium, a circus, and models of what Sweden used to look like back in the day. There is a full on, fake old town built and there are actors that work in the shops. Bakeries, markets, glassblowing, printing, and more. There were also models of how the farms around Sweden looked. The zoo was the best part. It had all the native wild animals of Sweden. Wolves, wolverines, owls, lynx, reindeer, bears, seals, otters, bores, and moose.

I am trying out a new stick with hockey and I love it. Maybe it will help me score some goals this weekend against Brynäs and Leksand. We suffered a tough loss on Wednesday against AIK. We were up 1-0 going into the third and ended up losing in overtime. We really need to figure out how to produce more offense. Kim (goalie) and the defense are doing a great job keeping us in the games.

I had Swedish class today and we focused on prepositions. Sometimes it makes no sense. i generally means in and på generally means on. But there are so many exceptions. Like if I am “in” a store I would use i for “in” but if I am “in” a restaurant I would use på for “in.” I guess it is just something I will have to memorize.

Practice was really good today. We did a lot of flow drills which I like. A lot of girls are sick right now so it was only 13 skaters today. Hopefully everyone gets well before the weekend because we have 2 tough games.

I have a thesis meeting tomorrow. I didn’t do much since my parents were visiting so it will be an interesting meeting. I am really going to bust some work out for the next 7 weeks until I go home for the holidays. My goal is to have my data analysis done and methods written before December 16^th. Wish me luck.

I am going to play laser tag tomorrow with some teammates. I love laser tag. I get so into it. I sweat so much. The adrenaline, you know? 

Parent come to Sweden, again.

I just had the best week with my parents. They came to visit and we had a great time. Lots of hockey! I had 3 games while they were here. We played Segeltorps twice and AIK. Won all 3! We had a rough start to the season with 4 losses in a row, but we have turned it around and have won the last 4 games. I think we just needed some time to get used to each other and fix our mistakes. We have been dealing with injuries and players being away with their national teams also. It is time for the Olympic qualifications, so a lot of our team is in and out playing for that. Next weekend is an away trip against Brynäs and Leksand. 2 tough games. We lost to them before, so hopefully we will take it to them this time. After next weekend, we have a break from games for 2 weeks.

The best part about my parent’s visit was that we didn’t really do much. Most visits involve trying to see everything and everything and not really having any down time. Since my parents had been here in February, we didn’t need to do the tourist things. We just chilled and had a lot of fika. The one cool thing we did was go out to the Cloetta candy factory. There is a store there selling all the candy the factory makes. So much candy. It was awesome. My parents bought $100 worth of candy to bring back to the States as gifts. I asked my parents to bring so much stuff from the States that they had to check an extra bag! Red solo cups was a must, of course. Halloween decorations, funfetti cake mix, and my favorite toiletries and medicines. I will be going home for Christmas and New Years this year, so I am looking forward to that. I haven’t been home since I moved to Sweden last August. Now Sweden feels normal to me and I think America will feel weird. I’m interested to see how I will view America now that I have been outside of it for a while.

Besides hockey, I am working on my thesis. I haven’t worked since the beginning of September so I need to get back into it. The school hasn’t needed me to substitute and the warehouse hasn’t needed me either. Maybe soon I will get some work. Along with thesis, I am taking my second level of Swedish. Now that I have been here over a year, I can really understand it. Speaking is my weakness. I am just too slow. But it will come with practice and time. The days are getting darker and colder fast. I am taking advantage of the light while it is still here. Once it is really dark and cold I will really focus in on my thesis. For now, I am doing the fika thing, chilling with friends, and spending most of my time at the rink. 

My new haircut

So the day finally came where I was sick of putting my hair up in a bun. I went to the hairdresser on Wednesday and told her to cut my hair off. I was very nervous, but I am so happy that I did it. Thank you to my teammates that were there with me for support! I have no idea how to style my new haircut, but I will figure it out.

We had a tough hockey weekend last weekend. We lost 3-2 both to Brynäs and Leksand. It is frustrating because we are the better team, but we can't get our shit together on the ice. I'm hoping it is just the period where we are working out all of our kinks and will start the winning streak soon. We stayed in cute cabins on Saturday night. The rookies had to do a show for the returners. We decided to imitate each returner and they had to guess who we were imitating. It was funny. Then the twins put on a nice guitar sing-a-long. They are great singers. The next morning we had to clean all the dishes before leaving and my teammate (to remain anonymous, KIKI) put dish washing soap in the dishwasher. Lots of bubbles...We have a game against HV71 on Saturday. They are the weaker team in the league, so hopefully we will come out with a win. We need it! We have a huge squad, but with injuries and national team players away with their national teams, we are only 3 lines this weekend. We have such a good off-ice connection and the atmosphere is very positive and fun. We just need to take the energy onto the ice and play with more passion.

Wednesday is the day of the week we have off from hockey. It has turned into a team dinner night. Last week was pizza, this week was enchiladas. A group of us went over to a teammates and we made homemade enchiladas. So delicious. It is nice to hangout away from the rink. My teammate cut her thumb pretty bad while she was cleaning a knife so I had to take over with the cooking. I don't consider myself a chef, so I'm happy everything turned out good. When it is my turn to have the girls over, I think we are going to make BBQ pulled pork sandwiches. YUM.

Great day :)

Today was a very fulfilling day. It started with a thesis meeting from 9-11am. I have been finding it hard to start the next phase of my project because I have been confused about some things and not very motivated. But my meeting went really well and I got a lot of questions answered that I have been trying to figure out. Now I feel confident and ready to begin the next step. The meeting ended with a nice fika. My classmate brought choco-choco muffins for the group. Mums ("Yummy" in English).

I headed to the rink after school to work out. The lift went good and I felt very energized afterwords. Wednesdays is our day off from ice practice. From there I met up with a teammate and we went to the library in town to do some school work. I got a good 2 hours of thesis stuff done. It felt very productive. I did have some A.D.D. problems a few times, but no harm in that. I have been researching fall/winter boots to buy. I have found a pair of Sorels, UGGs, and Keens that I like. Shoes are WAY cheaper in America so I am going to have my mom buy them there and bring them with her when she and my dad comes to visit in a couple weeks. I am so excited for them to come. They will see 3 games which is awesome.

Nothing better than to have a fika after doing some school work. I met up with a couple teammates and we had fika downtown before heading over to a teammate's house for dinner. Homemade pizza and apple pie night! Delicious. We watched an awesome show called Bonde Söker Fru ("Farmer searches for a wife" in English). Basically the Swedish, hillbilly version of The Bachelor. Good shit.

Now I lay in bed exhausted from my long, full day of consisting of two fikas and a great night with friends. Life isn't too bad around here. Talk soon :)

Svenska Hollywoodfruar

Svenska Hollywoodfruar is the best show ever! It is the Swedish housewives of Hollywood. Swedish women moved to America and married rich Americans and just live the dream. It is a Swedish program, but my Swedish is good enough now to understand the majority of it. My favorite fru ("wife" in English) is Maria (2nd from the left). She talks really slow so I understand her the best. She is so OCD when it comes to how her house looks. The best part of the show is seeing how America has changed the typical Swede into an American. The wives are outgoing and open. Something you don't find here so often. I mean Swedes are outgoing, but not until you really know them. And it takes SO long to get to know them. I don't know if it is a cultural thing, but they are so reserved. I am patiently waiting for Dexter to start next week! Breaking bad, Parks and Recreation, and workaholics are also awesome shows that I have been watching here. I heard rumors that Netflix will be allowing Scandinavia to use it. Looking forward to that.

I've decided that one of my favorite things about Sweden is the loose candy ("lösgodis" in Swedish) that is sold everywhere. You will find it in every grocery store, gas station, corner store. The selection is incredible. Chocolate, gummies, sour candy, sweet candy, licorice, etc. Swedes are crazy for black licorice. Not my thang. My favorite are these chocolate candies that are similar to Rolos, but so much better. And a close second is a sugar covered candy in the shape of a skull. You just fill a bag up with whatever and how much you want. It is dangerous! Side note: the Coca Cola here tastes better and I don't know why. Probably because it isn't filled with so much high fructose corn syrup. Side note #2: I will admit that the Swedish fish taste better in America. Ironic.

Hockey: so awesome. I love the new team (LHC-dam) Dam is "women" in English. We had our first season games this past weekend. We didn't fare so well (5-2 and 5-3 loss), but we will get our shit together fast. I was unable to play because my work permit was not ready yet. But my papers are all fixed now and I'm ready to play. We play each team 4 times. Twice home and twice away. 28 games total, then playoffs. The top 6 out of 8 teams go to the playoffs. Our team has been predicted to do really well. We are stacked. A bunch of national players from around Europe. Austria, Denmark, Norway, Czech, and of course Sweden. There is another American on my team. It's nice to have that familiarity. We are playing on the same line and it seems to be working out really well. We work hard and have a lot of fun. The wins will come now.

Thesis: UGH. I really need to bare down and get shit done. I just think about how much it sucked to write my thesis in college and now one year later I am writing another one. It is interesting and fun, but I need to find the motivation to power through it. I have finished going through all of my insect traps that I set up/took down over the summer and identifying the species I caught. That little guy in the picture is what I caught. The yellow-legged clearing. Now I need to use ArcGIS to incorporate oak tree data and run my statistical analyses. I will be relating oak density data to species abundance data and figuring out the habitat characteristic of the species. From there I can create prediction maps on where the species most likely exists as well as can estimate the number of trees that is suitable for the endangered species. Conservation biology at its best. I have a Mac which isn't compatible with most softwares that I want to use, so I am using a PC on campus that has everything I need. My goal is to finish my analyses by the time I go home for winter break. I am so excited to go home for the holiday. It will be a year and a half since I've been home. Last year was the first time I wasn't home for the holidays. I am looking forward to baking cookies with G-ma and decorating the Christmas tree. Of course I am also looking forward to my mom's bitchin Hannukah dinner party. Latkas and matoz ball soup! I'm most looking forward to celebrating the New Year up in the mountains with my family and friends. It is always a blast. Drinking, eating, and snowshoeing. I have a feeling I will experience major culture shock when I return. I have gotten really used to the Swedish lifestyle. Chill and independent. I am going to be so annoyed by all the strangers wanting to have conversations with me in America. Here we have "fika". It translates to sitting with friends and having a coffee and a treat. I drink coffee now. I fika all the time. It is like a hobby now. It is rare in America to just take a break and relax. Here we do it like every two hours if we are working or studying.

I had a great time with my two friends (Elsa and Gentile) from college who came to visit me for like 3 days. We went to the ice bar which was pretty cool. It was damn cold though. And expensive. But definitely a worthwhile experience. This is a photo of us being legit in Stockholm.

I'll start to write more frequently again. I am also blogging for Women's Hockey Life and my University. I have started my 2nd level of Swedish. I am really getting good. It is so awesome to be able to understand conversation. I am using Swedish when I am out in town and at the rink with my teammates. I am hoping by January I will be speaking mostly Swedish all the time. It is definitely fall now. Colder and darker. And it is just going to keep getting colder and darker. Bring it on.

Let the hockey begin!

I'm back on the ice for the 2012/2013 season. It feels so good. I have switched hockey teams and now play for LHC (Linkoping). I'm going to miss Vita Hästen, but I'm looking forward to the better hockey. Thankfully, there were no hard feelings for me switching. We just started on-ice practices. The team is very international. Players from Norway, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, and America. Lots of national team players. We start games in September. I can't wait. We have a big squad. 25. 15 of which are forwards. So there is going to be a lot of competing for spots. I like it that way though. Makes it more interesting. I think it will be a fun, challenging season.

I am taking down my traps for my thesis now. Back to running from cows. Today I tried to face my fear and approached a huge herd. I was feeling pretty confident until a cow started to walk towards me. I took a step back. It started to run. I sprinted to the fence and slid under the barbed wire before it could catch me. I don't believe the people who tell me cows are harmless. If they were harmless, they would slowly walk up to me. Not charge full speed. So I got the car stuck in a ditch at one site while I was putting the trap up. I was backing down a farm road and got to close to the edge and the car slid into the ditch. I found a farmer to pull me out with a tractor. So I was back at that site today taking the trap down and guess what? I got the car stuck in the ditch again. I couldn't believe it. Well, actually I could. I am horrible and backing up. So I found the same farmer and told him I got stuck again. He straight up laughed at me. Swedes are very reserved, don't show much emotion, and don't like to make a big deal of things. So for him to laugh like he did meant that he thought it was hilarious. I was so embarrassed to have to ask him to help me again. Such a nice guy. Taking the traps down is going a lot faster than putting the traps up which is nice. Except for when I get stuck in ditches. I think I'll finish on Friday. After the traps are down, I will look through all of them to see whether the species occurred or not at each site. From there I will relate oak density data to occurrence data and search for an oak density which explains the species occurrence. Ecology stuff.

Gentile and Elsa are coming to visit me next month! I am so excited. I am going to treat them like Egyptian princesses making their first trip to Scandinavia. I hope I am a good host for them.

That's really all that's going on. Hockey, thesis, a little bit of work at the warehouse. Chillin. I went camping with Daniel and Lyndal which was a lot of fun. In Sweden the land is open for anyone to use. So basically you can camp anywhere that isn't in plain site of a house. We went just 10 minutes from Linkoping to a place by a lake. I had bought a tent at a 2nd hand store for like $7 and it worked great. I hope to camp some more before winter comes. I have enjoyed the Swedish summer. When it isn't raining it is really nice. 70, sunny, little breeze. It does rain a lot though. Business hours change in the summer because everyone gets like 5 weeks of vacation. You really have to plan in advance because most likely the store that you want will only be open from 10-3 and even less on the weekends. Deb is moving out so we have found a new roommate. A French girl named Mel. She will be moving in in September. I will miss Deb, but she will still be in Linkoping. I think Mel will be fun and I am looking forward to her cooking ha.

Electric fences DO shock you

So my thesis field work has become quite the adventure. Basically every site I go to has a fence I have to get through. All are electric to keep the cows in and then some add barbed wire to that. I have mastered getting past fences…kind of. The other day I was trying to be very quite getting through the fence because there were cows in the distance. I don’t care what people say, cows are f-ing scary. So if the cows see me, I turn around and don’t set traps up at that site. Anyway, I was getting through the electric and barbed wire fence when I lost my balance and my lower back landed on the electric fence. Of course it shocked me and I screamed which made the cows be aware of my existence. All that work and pain to get over the fence and I had to go right back through it because the cows were coming. Ugh. Some pastures are wetter than others. A few times I have gotten a boot stuck in the mud and my foot has pulled fully out of the boot. I then have to balance on one foot while I try to pry the boot out of the mud. I have been lucky not to fall into the mud…yet. When I am not being chased by cows or electrocuted, I am falling because the ground is covered with rocks and roots. I was setting traps in a forest and I got lost for about a half hour before I found the car. My heart was racing. I knew I was going to be ok because I had a gps, but I was still freaking out that I was never going to get out of there. I was parking on the side of a dirt road and I didn’t see that there was a small ditch. I got the car stuck in it. I had to walk 2 km to the nearest houe and bother the cutest Swedish couple on their holiday to help me. Thank god the dude was a car guy. They pulled my car out with a rope. They were really nice. When I go back to take the traps down I am going to bring them a present for saving my life. Another encouter happened today when I got a flat tire. My first flat tire. I looked for the car manual to find directions on how to change a tire and I couldn’t find it anywhere. So I googled “how to change a tire.” I was in the process of lifting the car with the jack in the pouring rain when a guy pulled over to help me. He didn’t speak English so I had to speak in Swedish. It was awesome. I am confident that I can survive on Swedish now. He was a pro at changing the tire. I have been very lucky to not have these problem out in the middle of nowhere, where some of my sites are. I have been seeing a lot of wild life. Deer, rabbits, a weasel, and a muskrat looking thing. I have a good time doing my thesis, but it is a lot of hours driving and being out. I am trying to get all the traps up as fast as possible so I have been pulling 10-12 hour days. I think I have 3-4 days left and then I will be able to chill for about 2 weeks before I have to go back out and take the traps down. Enough of thesis stories. Our apartment threw a 4^th of July party and it rocked. There were like 12 of us and we had a nice bbq paired with American drinking games and American song singing. We made s’mores for the Swedes. They liked them. We had sparklers too. It doesn’t get pitch black here ever  in the summer and the darkest point in the night is at like midnight so we did the sparklers in the light. But they were still awesome. We ran out of beer so I had to keep the party going. I chose to get everyone to play Catch Phrase. It became so intense. It is really fun to play with people who don’t speak English as their first language because the way they try to explain words can be quite funny. I took a day off from thesis the other day to chill and went to Berg which is like 15 minutes away from Linkoping. There is a small beach by a lock in a canal. It was really nice. The other relax time I spend watching Games of Thrones (which is awesome). That is all for now. I am going to go be so Swedish and eat some salmon and potatoes. Peace and Love.

Sommar i Sverige

So my master’s thesis (graduate project) has begun. I have been planning and doing some things since March, but now the fieldwork is here. For some reason, I choose projects that involve me having to do nightly tick checks. Good thing I brought my “tick removing” tweezers with me to Sweden. I have removed 4 ticks so far I think. Here is a quick explanation of what I’m doing. Old oaks in Sweden are host plants to many species. One species is the yellow-legged clearwing moth. Due to humans, oaks have been declining and thus the species dependent on oaks have been affected. The aim of my project is to determine how many oaks and at what scale provide a suitable habitat for the moth. This information can be used to create conservation plans and so on. This involves driving around the region setting up sex pheromone traps to get occurrence data of the moth. Then, I will relate that data to oak density data and find for a certain density of oaks that explains the moths occurrence. Enough of the boring stuff. The fun stuff is having absolutely no life while doing this fieldwork. I now understand what everyone in grad school meant about having no other life. I train in the mornings and then go out all day to random sites in Östergötland. I get home around 11pm and then do it all over again the next day. I’m basically living out of a car. I am renting a car from the university. I have about 120 sites to visit for my project. I aim for setting up 15-20 traps a day. So optimistically it should take me 6-8 days to set up all the traps. Then later on this summer I will go back out and take the traps down. Cows scare the shit out of me. I have never been around them before and they are a lot bigger than I thought. I have to walk in pastures at a lot of my sites and some of them have cows. The first time was scary. About 8 cows approached me while I was hanging traps in a tree. As I started walking back to the car they started to follow me. One cow in particular was not very fond of me. I think she was the mom and her calf was around so she was being very protective. She would start to charge at me but I would hold my hand out and yell NEJ! and she would stop. The moment she first began to charge at me I legit thought I was going to die. I carry a small knife on me, but that wouldn’t do much to a momma cow protective of her young. I slowly backwards walked about 200 m keeping an eye on the angry cow. She kept attempting to charge at me but she would then get scared once she got about 3 m away (yes, I use the metric system now). Once I was about 20 m from the barbed wire fence, I turned around and booked it. The cow followed. I ripped my shirt and pants on the barbed wire fence trying to get through it as fast as possible. I laid on the ground on the other side of the fence for a couple minutes because my heart was beating so fast. F-ing cows man. Another funny story was when I was putting traps up near a persons property. A woman came out and was curious about what I was doing. I explained to her and she asked me if I would like to take a break and have a “fika” with her. SO Swedish haha. Anyway, on top of my project I am helping a group from a different university in Skåne, (SLU) put up sex pheromone traps for other insect species around the region. Since I am helping them now, they will help me with my project later on this summer. So a lot of fieldwork needs to be done this summer, but it will keep me busy. 

I am happy to be staying here over the summer. It does rain a lot though. At the moment I don’t have time to work, but maybe when I have a break from my fieldwork I will get some work at the warehouse. Deb and I are going to have a 4^th of July party on Wednesday. A little BBQ action. Show the Swedes what Independence is all about. Fireworks aren’t sold here except around Christmas and New Years so we will have to find other things to light on fire. We bought marshmallows but graham crackers and herseys chocolate are not available here so we wont be able to do s’mores. Sad. I have been spreading beer pong and other solo cup drinking games around my Swedish friends. They love it. Mandy brought me a wiffle ball bat back from American in the spring, but my dizzy bat fun was very short lived. Midsommar is a holiday here where people celebrate the summer with drinking, eating, singing, and dancing. It was last week and I celebrated it with my dizzy bat. Somehow the dizzy bat didn’t make it home with me and is lost somewhere in Linköping. Bummer. Hope everyone's summer is going well. Miss you all. 

Jag är tillbaka! (I'm back!)

It has been WAY too long since I have blogged. Sorry guys. Lets see, I went to Dublin/Amsterdam with Daniele and it was so much fun. We drank so much Guinness. It is like chocolate milk there. We partied with a crazy bachelor party from England and had an unspeakable night. I loved how every single bar played live music in Dublin. Everyone was very happy and drunk there. On the weekend there were tons of bachelor and bachelorette parties out which was unexpected. All the local Irish guys were out taking pictures and making fun of the drunk tourists. Irish breakfast = survival. We only survived Dublin because of it. So much meat on that plate. And loads of bread. Beans, black and white pudding, eggs, tea, orange juice, coffee, mushrooms, bacon, sausage, etc. I have learned that quickly drinking a bottle of Jameson is not the best idea if you want to remember your night. Daniele and I learned that the hard way. We basically pieced together our trip based on the pictures and when we took them. Not that I see anything wrong with that ha. It felt so nice to be back in Amsterdam. I think that's my happy place. It was so great to see Daniele. We got some good laughs in.

I'm not going to lie, I missed Sweden while I was gone. I have really gotten used to my life here. I am also starting to really grasp the language. Things are so much easier when I can read and understand Swedish. My weakness is speaking, but that will come with practice. I put a lot of time into learning Swedish and it is really paying off. My goal is to be speaking more Swedish than English with people by the Fall. Being in Ireland made me realize how well Swedes are put together. Their fashion and style seems so much trendier/classier than other places. I stick out SO bad, but I don't care. I'm going to buy a pair of black jeans to try to fit in better. And to fit in even more, I may even roll the bottoms. Guys where short shorts here. It's funny looking. Everyone has Ray Bans. And Converse.

School is going well. Lately, I have been focusing on my thesis details. I will start trapping moths in June so I need to get all the methods sorted out before. Along with thesis, I am taking a seminar course on different ecological topics. Every seminar a different student presents a 45 minute lecture and holds a discussion afterwords. The topics are related to everyones thesis topic. It is nice having the students be in charge of the lectures. We can really jump into our thesis topics and share our knowledge with the class. The campus is crazy when it is nice weather. Everyone is outside hanging out taking advantage of the good weather. Swedes are all about BBQs. I have a backyard with a BBQ which is awesome. Just the other day was a holiday called "valborg". Huge bonfires are made the night before the 1st of May. Our apartment had a nice big BBQ. It is so hard to do school work when the weather is so nice. I just want to play outside and take in the sun. But I really need to focus and get a paper done, prepare for seminars, and work on my thesis. UGH.

I am going to train with LHC (Linköping Hockey Club) over the summer. I went to their tryout a couple weeks ago to get a feel for what teams in Riksserien (top ladies league in Sweden) are like. They asked me to train with them for the summer and will decide if they want to keep me for the season later in August. I am not sure what I am going to do. I want to play for Vita Hästen again, but the organization is shit right now and it is not very secure at the moment. We will see. Tomorrow is the end of the year party for VH and hopefully good news will come out of it.

I worked a ton in April at the Stadium warehouse so I can take a break from work and focus on school until June. I will be around all summer and will have plenty of time to work and save up for traveling. Who knows where I'll go next. Maybe Italy? There is the update on my life for you. I'll get back into blogging weekly so you can follow my groove. Peace and Love

Swedes being Swedes

There is a funny joke about Swedes that they like to keep to themselves and not interact with anyone so at bus stops people are spread out like 5 feet from the next person. I got a perfect picture of it today on my way to the campus bus stop. Funny stuff.

My trip to Ireland with Daniele is booked! April 20-26 with a pit stop in Amsterdam Apring 22-24. I can't even express how excited I am. Guinness all day all night. MMMM. I also have booked a trip to Copenhagen with Mandy and her classmate/friend Erin. Mandy needs to check out some Dutch museums for her thesis and she asked if I wanted to tag along. Of course I do. I have been wanting to go to Copenhagen really bad since it is so close (3.5 hour train ride). The free city tours that Court and I did everywhere on our Eurotrip are in Dublin and Copenhagen so I am definitely going to do those. I have definitely caught the travel bug and I love it. 

I have been helping with construction work at the golf course. I like it. The floor is being done at the moment so we have been leveling out the gravel and laying foam blocks on top. Lots of chainsaws, measuring tape, and rocks. Using a chainsaw is badass. I have also gotten myself back into working at the warehouse for Stadium (sports store). So I am going to be busy with work and planning my thesis at the same time as well as still having hockey practice for a couple more weeks.

I am a little nervous about next year's hockey season. First off, I am worried we aren't going to have enough girls to have a team. I have been hearing rumors about girls leaving and we were only 12 consistently throughout the year this season. However, I think the coaches have been trying to bring new girls in so I hope we have enough. It is sad because we have now moved up to the higher division and this is when we really need the girls' commitment. Secondly, I am worried there are problems with money and management. The guys team did not make it through the playoffs so there is a good chance that sponsors are going to pull out. Us being the girls team I think will really be hit hard from that. But this is all me speculating and being a negative nancy. I have faith that my coaches will fight hard enough for us. They are really invested in the team and I don't think they will give up.

It is SO spring here and I love it. The days are getting longer and I no longer need to where my hat and gloves. Those were definitely my best friends this winter. Time for the flip flops, sunglasses, and drinking beers outside. Mmm. My Swedish is coming along well. I have learned how sentences are structured which makes everything a lot easier. I've also learned the rules of things. Like why nouns end certain ways and stuff like that. The big thing left is learning vocab. I need to watch Swedish shows/movies to get the sounds down better. Some of the sounds are impossible to make. One of the sounds is very simular to the way Stewie on Family Guy says coolHWhip. The It is also good to watch shows in English and read the Swedish subtitles to learn vocab. I was thinking the other day about being fluent in another language. I am nothing close to being fluent in Swedish, but I was thinking about how when my Swedish friends speak English they are just freely talking and listening without thinking about it in Swedish first. I find that crazy. Mostly because I am trying so hard at Swedish but still I am so slow and bad. Oh well. It will come with practice. 

Vi ses (See you)!

Spring?

So all the snow has melted, it has been sunny and warm, and stuff is green. I am confused. I am in Scandinavia in the beginning of March and it is Spring conditions. I am not complaining, I am just confused. I am about to pull out my flip flops. But I have a feeling it is only teasing me and there will be another month cold spell where it is freezing to the point where I won't go outside unless I absolutely have to and I wear like 3 layers.

I just had a two day home exam that drained me. I spent way to much time thinking and doing school work. Like 14 hours in two days. Not fun. But now it is over and I am very relieved and excited for the weekend. I have one more week of Conservation Biology. It will consist of a debate. I have to argue against people being able to utilize/live in national parks/reserves in the tropics. Meh. I have never done a debate so I will probably suck. After this course I have a 4 week thesis planning course where I get everything figured out for my thesis. I have changed my mind on my project. Instead of wetlands I am going to study an endangered beetle that relies on old oaks. Oaks are declining so I am doing a survey on the population of the beetle. I'll walk around old oak forests and find beetles. My kind of thing. I always seem to be involved in things dealing with forests. I like them. Maybe I'll end up in some kind of forestry job/research in Sweden and never leave. Yeahhhh. I have been thinking since education is free as long as I have a work permit that I will stay and get my PhD here. Maybe. Why not?

So two teammates decided to prank me and put tiger balm on my lufa. I showered and it burned. I decided to get them back and put a laxative in their water bottles during practice. Yup, payback is a bitch. The next morning they were best friends with the toilet. Don't mess with me. However, I am scared to experience their payback to this. I think this is going to be an on-going battle until someone goes to far. I hope it's me who gets the last one in.

Daniel plays pick-up floorball (innebandy) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have gone with him a couple times. It's a good time. I am not good at running with the ball yet but I will get better. It is like competitive floor hockey with a wiffleball and plastic sticks. Basically what we play in P.E. in elementary school in America but it is a real sport here. Most kids play it and continue into high school with it.

My next travel plans are Ireland and Copenhagen. I need to work a lot this month to save up. Daniele and I are planning to go together. What a shit show. We are thinking to go the week of April 16th and take a day trip to Amsterdam on the 20th. No reason. Ha. If anyone is traveling to Europe let me know because I will so meet you where ever you are.

Everything is good. Every once in a while I'll be riding my bike in beautiful weather and just think about how awesome it is to be in Sweden. It's like so chill. I am looking forward to the next phase here. No hockey, no school (maybe a little thesis work), a lot of work, and a lot of traveling. My brother wants to come out this summer and backpack/camp here. I think that will be really fun. Sweden is full of nature. I love it.

Undefeated Season!

That's right! 14-0 this season. A team in Division 1 South declined their position so we got moved up to Div. 1 without needing to qualify since we won our division (Div. 2 South). I am sad the season is over. I love my girls! We are practicing through March and may have some scrimmages. Then off-season training starts. I am excited to play in a higher level with more competitive teams. I have no idea who is coming back so next season will be interesting. We had an end of the year party and played laser tag. So intense.

My parent's visit was great. I missed them. It kind of sucked that I had school and hockey because I couldn't do much with them but we still had a nice time. Lots of home-cooked meals that I had been missing and nice days walking around downtown. They went to Stockholm and Gothenburg while I was busy. I am sad they are gone. I asked them what they thought of Sweden and they responded with "expensive and cold" ha. Pretty accurate. I think there is so much more to Sweden though. I love the flow here. No one is in a rush, no one cares about your business, everything is clean and efficient, and the Swedish race is beautiful. It's my kind of speed here. Enough preaching. I'll have to get my mom to come visit this summer. I don't think I will be going home until Christmas. I would rather travel Europe in the summer than in the winter and snowboarding is the best at home so I think I'll wait until Christmas break to go back to the States for a visit.

I'm pretty busy with school right now. I have an intense 3 weeks coming up in Conservation Biology but then it calms down for the rest of the school year. It is now time to start thinking about my thesis UGH. I have decided to pick a project pertaining to wetlands and phosphorous retention. I will be collecting data starting in the spring and throughout the summer and into the next school year. WOOF.

I worked at the golf course on Thursday. A barn is being remodeled into a club house so there is a lot to be done. I was scraping dirt off of stone walls with a metal brush to prepare them to be painted. It sounds unappealing, but it actually isn't that bad. But that might be because I was working with Mandy and we have a fun time together. And it's Sweden so they gave us 2 weeks to finish something that took 3 days to do. It is hard to not work as efficiently as possible, but Mandy and I are learning to stretch work out so we continue to have it ha. Lots of fika breaks.

There was a 3 week cold spell where it was not higher than like 10 degrees. Bhurrrr. It has warmed up a little bit. Still not that much snow. There is a good half a foot layer but I'm surprised by how little it has snowed here. It is so pretty. The snow stays white. I don't know how, but it doesn't get dirty. That's all I got for you. Sweden rules, America drools.

Back to the grind

Sorry that I haven’t blogged in a while. I will get back into the weekly postings now that I am back from my Eurotrip and settled. The rest of my Eurotrip was nice. In Munich we went to Dachau which was pretty intense. When learning about it you think yeah ok it happened and it’s really crazy. But when you visit a site of the Holocaust it makes it so much more real and unbelievable that something like that could happen. A legit walled and fenced-in area with rows and rows of barracks. There was a really good exhibit that took about 2 and a half hours to walk through and I probably only read half of the information. Rainer (hockey guy we met up with in Munich) took us to a traditional Bavarian restaurant for dinner. It was awesome. I ordered this huge piece of pork and it was so tasty. Fell right off the bone. It came with really good gravy and this potato ball thing. Yum. I think we got drunk at the hostel bar that night. We basically drank everyday so I have my nights mixed up. We flew to London next and stayed with our college teammate Hiss. She lives in such a cute area on the edge of London. She is up on a hill so you can see all of London. We were tired since it was week three of our trip so we mostly just hungout. We met up with an Israeli soldier Court met on her Birthright trip for a fun night of drinking. It felt really good to be home but I could have kept on going for a while backpacking around Europe. This trip we had where we were going to be for how many days planned out. Next time I’m just going to plan where I start and then the rest is up to what happens. Most likely I will start in Amsterdam again. It is very plausible that I will stay there the entire time ha. I loved it. Afton came to visit the day after I got back. I got some grades back from my first semester and I have passed everything yay. This term I’m taking a mathematical modeling course. It blowsss. The biological part is fine but the coding of models is not my thing. Good thing it is only 5 weeks long. Along side that course I’m taking a course called Advancements in Ecology. Its only once a week and we hold a discussion about literature we read. So my school load this quarter is pretty light. All the classes start at 1:15pm which is really nice. I may be able to fit in one day of work a week but it might be too much. Next quarter we have a period where we don’t have class to work on a project so I will work a lot then. I need to make some money so I can plan my next adventure. I’m aiming for Dublin in the spring. Hopefully Daniele will accompany me. Hockey is going really well. We beat the other competitive team in our league 7-0. We are 10-0. Complete 180 from Union ha. As long as we keep going strong we will win the league and then we just have to place well in the playoffs at the end of the season against the 4 last place teams in Division 1 to move up to Division 1. Rikserien is the highest league in Sweden. One above Division 1. Our team goal is to get there by 2015. As long as I can find a job after I graduate I plan to stay around in hopes of playing in Rikserien.  I have completely fallen in love with Sweden. The other day workers laid ice on the outdoor rink behind my apartment. I skated on it last night for a minute to check it out. So smooth. I am going to be out there everyday. My parents come tomorrow! They haven’t seen me play hockey since Union so I am excited they will see me play. Since I will be busy with school and hockey they plan to do trips during the week and then come back and watch my games on the weekends. My roommate Doctor Karin is moving out L she is going to go be a real person and work because she graduated med school a couple weeks ago. We had a nice going away party last night. Brought out the solo cups and played some flip cup. Deb is a spectacular baker and made a red velvet cake. It was damn good. She has a gift. Pretty boring right now sorry. Hopefully I’ll get some good stuff for next weeks blog. Stay classy America

EUROPE

I'm obsessed with backpack traveling. I don't want to return to reality. It is day 15 of the trip and Court and I have had a blast. I missed my flight to Amsterdam on December 26th. That didn't stop me from getting there though. I bought the next flight out and got to Amsterdam only two hours later than expected. Such a cute city. It is very easy to walk around. I somehow became map girl of the trip and surprisingly we haven't gotten lost yet. I have uncovered a hidden talent I didn't know I had. Amazing Race here I come. Highlights from Amsterdam: ate Gouda cheese IN the city of Gouda, stroopwafels are the most amazing treat in the world, walking around the Red Light District, and the quite/chill atmosphere when walking around crossing the canals. Bikers are CRAZY there. They don't stop...ever. And there are so many of them. The hostel we stayed at (Flying Pig Uptown) was great. People from everywhere chilling in the bar and the smoking room. We went to Berlin next and stayed with a family friend, Susanne and her son Korde. Such a cute family. Susanne walked us around Berlin and took us to the most famous currywurst stand. It was delicious. A hotdog with curry spice and ketchup. It originated in the Turkish area of Berlin. We were in Berlin over New Years and went to the huge celebration at the Brandenburg Gate. Over a million people were there. A 2 km stretch of street leading to the gate was blocked off and filled with food and drink stands and about every 100 meters there was a different stage playing music. 80's rock cover bands, djs, etc. The fireworks were beautiful. In every city Court and I have been doing these free city tours New Europe and they have been so awesome. They are about 3 hours and take you around the entire city and talk about the history of the city. They work off tips only which is a cool concept. We have learned so much about every place we've been to. It is basically an interactive, interesting history lesson but you're standing where the history happened. Pretty badass. Like we walked through the square where the book burning night happened before WWII where all the books written by Jewish authors or preached something against national socialism were burnt. We saw the hotel in Berlin where Michael Jackson held the baby out the window! From Berlin we headed to Prague. My favorite place so far. I don't know why exactly. But when I was there I felt the most connected to it. The city is so cute. The buildings are all the same but different pastel colors. The history about how it escaped communism is really interesting. It is weird because I am normally so uninterested in just about everything but being in these old cities and learning about their origins and the things they have gone through are intese stories. America is such a baby. Court and I had an unexpected absinthe night. Apparently it is a big deal in Prague. It was 5:30am until we went to bed. We partied with two brothers from Colombia. Good times. While in Prague we took a day trip to Plzen (hour and a half away) where Pilsner beer started. We went on a brewery tour of the Pilsner Urquell Brewery which supplies all over the world. It was an awesome tour. They took us down into the underground cellars where they stored huge barrels of beer and gave us glasses from the barrels. Way cooler than from a tap in a bar. Prague was SO cheap. We were buying beers for like 20 cents. Fried cheese is a traditional thing in Prague. It is like mozzarella sticks on steroids. So good. We went to Munich next. Which is where we are now. Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer. We took a day trip to Salzburg. A really cool city in Austria that has a huge fortress. Pictures will come in a week or so. It is like a fortress from a fairy tale. Walls like 300 feet tall and holes for shooting cannons out of. There is a women's ice hockey tournament going on in Fussen which is about 2 hours from Munich. We somehow got in contact with a guy that is involved in the European hockey world and he took us to the tournament. 6 nations: Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Russia. It was fun to watch. Sweden beat Findland. WHAT UPPPP. We were going to go to the Hofbrahaus but we went next door to the Augustiner Brewery instead. Such a good decision. No tourist. Full of old German men drinking liters of beer. We are off to London tomorrow to stay with Hiss (college teammate) until Friday. Then I'm back to Sweden. Back to the real world of hockey and school. I wish I could jump from hostel to hostel with a backpack forever. Traveling is such an amazing experience. I can't wait to travel more this spring/summer. I left so much out about my trip. I could go on forever about everything. Basically I love Europe and never want to leave. Goodbye America <3