This past week was a very busy one. I worked at the school Monday- Thursday and it was very interesting to see their idea of "physical education" here. The students are aged from about 13-17 and a couple of them are my teammates. The teacher that I mostly am with is named Katarina and she is a very nice lady. Her husband is also another gym teacher and his name is Mattias. The first day I was there the students did an activity where they would run and have to jump over hurdle type things and go over objects almost like an obstacle course type thing. They would have a party and once they completed this their partner would go and they would keep switching on and off for 8 minutes. I feel like they are very much more active here and gym classes are not really like this back in the states. Another funny thing is a majority of them don't wear shoes during gym and it is usually like this when you go to someone's house. You must take your shoes off at the door because it is considered rude to have them on in the house. In the gym classes here I feel like students want to participate so much more and are very involved in the activity they are doing. After one of the school days was over Katarina told me they would be doing gymnastics next week when I wouldn't be there because I am working at the factory for this week. She let me try many of these activities because I told her we don't have gym classes like this at home. I got to do the bars, the rings, and the vault and it was really fun. On Thursday we ran two kilometers with the girls class and it was very cold outside. Last week Katie and I started up our weekly routine and went to the gym Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Katie loves to lift and come up with different workouts so she was in charge and I followed her lead. It was good to get back in the gym and lift weights, but we were very sore from about Thursday- Sunday! haha The rest of the week consisted of our normal schedule with workouts and soccer school in the morning, work in the afternoon, and our team practices at night. Tuesday night we had a nutritionist come in and talk to the team, which was very interesting because it was all in Swedish and Katie and I had a hard time understanding that. haha
Friday we had a game about three hours North from where we live. We played against a team in our same division, but in the Northern part of it so we will not face them in the regular season. We took two vans with our teammates to the game and it was a very long ride. The roads here are very curvy and hilly with a lot of bumps. It was a long and adventurous ride to say the least. The nice part is everything here is so beautiful and it is always a scenic ride. We finally arrived there and once we got ready and went out onto the field it was snowing. Once we started to play the game and move around I got warm and didn't notice the cold. We played pretty well, but we were kind of up and down the whole game. We ended up winning 5-1 on some great goals from our team and did well at finishing our opportunities. This is the best I have felt about my play in a game thus far so it felt really good. After the game we stopped at a fast food place called Max and then got back to Sunne at about 1:30 a.m.
Saturday was an early morning because we were off to Stockholm on an 8 a.m. train for the weekend =) We got on the train and the man came by so we could buy our tickets. We must have been giving off the American vibe because all Katie said was "Stockholm" and he started speaking English to us. We took the train about 45 minutes to Karlstad which is the biggest town that is pretty close to us. Once we got there we bought our tickets for Stockholm and it was about an 2 and a half hour train ride. I slept most of the way and when I woke up it was snowing outside. We finally arrived in Stockholm central train station and decided to get a plan for the day. First, Katie had to use the bathroom and we were very shocked when we found out that she had to pay to do so. hahah After that we knew we wanted to explore the "Old Town", but couldn't figure out how to get there. We walked around for a while and didn't exactly know where we were going or what we were doing. Once we got out of the train station Katie asked a man if he could tell us where to go. The great thing about Sweden and especially Stockholm and pretty much everyone speaks English well. We found where to go and we were off to Old Town. It was super cold outside, which was the only bad part of the trip. After that we went to see the Palace, we got some sushi, shopped around in different stores that are popular here and later met up with my friend Jackie who I was with in Finland and she is now playing here. She is from America, but has a lot of Swedish friends she played with in college. We stayed at her friends apartment who lives in Stockholm. Later that night we had dinner, some wine, and later took the subway to a bar. Jackie's friends Helenia and Linda are both Swedish and are very nice and showed us a great time. Helenia went to school in the U.S. for five years and could speak English perfectly. Public transportation here is very easy to use and you can get anywhere you want to go. The bar we went to or "club" had one dance floor that was 80's and 90's music and another dance floor with more popular music now. We danced all night and had a great time. On Sunday we woke up pretty late and decided to go for Brunch. All the places in Stockholm were pretty much full so we decided to go to TGI Fridays instead =) I was so excited because I got to get my favorite appetizer which is potato skins and had Ranch dressing for the first time since I've been in Sweden =) We had a big meal and after that we walked to a Jewelry store and looked around there a little. After this we went to a museum and got to look at some cool art and photographs. One of the main exhibits was the Kony one and that was very sad, but also very interesting to see. We later took the train back to Sunne and were exhausted after a great weekend. Stockholm was so amazing and such a beautiful city. I felt like I wasn't even in another country most of the time because everyone around us was constantly speaking English and it was great. It was a great weekend and I was so excited to meet up with Jackie and meet all of her Swedish friends. They were so welcoming and showed us a great time.
On the train home Katie and I tried to April fools our coach and tell him we were stuck and Karlstad and needed a ride =) He didn't fall for it, but it was a great idea!! haha
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