quick post on Sweden

Hellö friends!

    I know I promised photos, but I can't seem to find the right cord to upload them...I will find it before tomorrow though.

    My days have been very relaxed, lots of reading, studying Swedish and helping around Alexander's parents' homes.  They have been amazingly welcome, and I already feel at home here! During my endless free time, I was perusing the Internet for blogs that are similar to mine..I found one that featured this clip of different scenes from popular movies (Austin Powers :) ) and mashes them together. It's quite entertaining! 

    Last night, Alex gave me a quick tour of the city at night, which was gorgeous from the mountain top, and today, we did a little bit of shopping!  I only bought strawberries, don't worry mom :) The strawberries were amazingly sweet and surprisingly small, I loved them.  And while "downtown" is a bustling area, it is very beautifully built and organized.  There was only one "ugly" building, but it looked like an average city building in the US.  I guess you could compare Skövde to a smaller Toronto (much more spread out), with ridiculously beautiful and nice people! Since I was unable to post photos yet,I googled the area to give you an idea...

Here, you can see their famous church that is over 1,000 years old...more on that later! Also, in the foreground, you can see their modern apartments, followed by modest houses, and then the ever growing industrial buildings, including two Volvo factories!

This is the downtown area at night, there are many streets like this and during the day time, you can see the Scandinavian flags hanging down instead of lights :) very beautiful.

Well, I have been invited to help Alex's father Patrik cook Swedish Meatballs!! I'm very excited (and hungry!). I will leave you with a question, what is your favorite aspect of visiting another country or city? Is it the people, food, atmosphere? Until next time,

Sara

empty backpack

Hej everyone! I'm finally settled and relaxing in Alexander's hometown of Skövde :) Sweden is very beautiful, especially in this city. The 26 hour trip went as well as it could...and for those of you that know me, I made a million friends on the way!

So, a little background on Skövde..they have a decent population of about 34,000 (and me!) and I find the town to be very modest and focused on keeping nature in the forefront of their community...by that, I mean that the houses and buildings are only as big as they need to be. They could easily expand the city vertically, but they have no need. I love this place!

   Alex and I went "downtown" today, and it was very pretty, even in the rain! We walked by the university of Skövde which was also modest and practical, like most of Sweden! The buildings were similar to smaller cities in the US, older architecture mixed with modern style. They even had a place called "Your American Pizza" (which Alex informed me was thicker and not as good as Mamma Mias). Other than Alexander's houses, we did not explore as much as I wanted (I was falling asleep standing up..); however, on the two hour drive to Skövde we passed a lot of industrial buildings, way more (active) industrial areas than state-side (and SO many Volvos!)

  I will post pictures later tonight after I steal Alex's camera! Hopefully the sun will come out today..

   Until next time...skål (cheers)!(pronounced like "school", kind of)


Sara



     Oh, I almost forgot...after my first post, my close friend Kyle Miskell showed me a trailer for the movie "Up in the Air" which perfectly captures my idea behind this blog, check it out! Also, ive never seen this clip or movie, so I didn't steal it :) bit its eerily close to my concept! http://youtu.be/NSfXolCmnFo (gotta love George Clooney) My favorite quote from his speech: "the slower we move, the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living." And for those of you who know me well, I never do anything slowly :)