Back From Sweden!

Hi everyone! I’m back from Sweden and have a little time to write to you now :D Sweden was awesome, we spent 2 weeks there for Rachel’s church youth group camp (ha, we go to Mylor Baptist camp, they go to Sweden) which is quite a long time so I’m just gonna briefly describe it all. There were a lot of forests, and trees, and then more forests, seriously, I think Sweden is just one big tree. Anyway it’s a pretty glorious beautiful tree nonetheless. It took a 24 hour bus trip to get there, and two ferries, hehe I’ve been to Denmark now too! When we got there it poured with rain for a couple of days and most stuff got wet and there was SO many mozzies (but I did not get ONE bite for the entire two weeks!! Some people got 40 or more poor things), and it rained while we did canoe training (that was NOT fun let me tell you, freezing and wet and we’re having to capsize our canoes, but sauna afterwards hehe). But then once we started off for our week of camping and canoeing we had the most beautiful weather imaginable for that week and the next :D The first week was canoeing with everything we needed and camping on different islands. There was 60 people on the camp but for the first week we split into groups of about 20. It was so much fun, we canoed on these amazing wide open lakes with blue skies and cute little red and white Swedish houses dotted along the banks. It was hard work and a little scary at first and Rach wanted to go with Helge so I went with a guy called Daniel I didn’t really know which was interesting, but we turned out to be a great team and went together for the rest of the week. We stayed at different islands but ‘illegally’ stayed at one place for 3 nights hehe, it was the best island ever, actually had a toilet (but one of those drop ones so it stank, the rest of the time we dug one for the group) and a jetty and logs and a campfire all set up. In the first week I read the whole of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ (Berri – I cried), we canoed, visited a Swedish shopping centre (after trekking through all this wilderness coz we had to get out of the canoes and onto land, and there wasn’t a bay or harbour of anything)...coz we needed bread, sung songs around the campfire, built a ‘pizza oven’ one night for a challenge and it was the best pizza I’ve had in ages. Everything was beautiful, the moon was full one night and reflected on the water and I just could not believe I was on an island in Sweden. We cooked with the trangiers (?) like on all the school camps which was fun, and tasted great. The people (most) were genuinely lovely and helpful. Daniel, my canoeing partner and his sister Johanna quickly became friends that I could just be me around. Of course everything was in German which was hard coz if everyone is talking fast in a language you don’t understand and can’t really speak it’s hard to know what to do with yourself or how to react. Everyone was really helpful with translating and always turned around to me at the end and asked if I knew what was happening. They’re all so flipping great at English, it’s annoying!! Haha but I’m so thankful as well. The second week was spent at the campsite with all the rest of the people. Mainly though we stayed in our own groups, it was weird being with everyone else again coz I didn’t really know them, the rest of the people were nice, but lets just say I’m glad I was in the group i was. The second week marked the return of showers YAY!! But still sleeping in tents. The food was good, the bread got a bit ikky by the end (I’m getting used to really dense bread and Swedish bread was a too doughy and sweet lol). We had a ‘ladies day’ and a ‘men’s day’. Ladies day we massaged people, with oil and everything lol. I dunno why it was the girls doing the massaging for the guys though, gosh!! They had makeovers and photoshoots, aerobics and drink mixing, then at night we had a party. Complete with songs ‘SHE HIT THE FLOOR, everybody got low low low.....’ i CANNOT escape that song argh!! I bet rach they’d play ‘I kissed a girl’...they didn’t, but apparently played a German song that was just as bad lol. Men’s day they had ‘Highland Games’, complete with log throwing, log pulling and log chopping and all the guys without shirts and with towels round their waists. All very manly. Lol. The rest of the time the second week we had devotions, singing, eating and hanging out basically. On the second to last day we went to the capital – Stockholm. We visited the ‘Vasa Museum’, all about a ship that sank ages ago, kinda like the titanic. We walked around the harbour, all around colourful beautiful houses and ships. Did lots of sightseeing and tourist shopping, saw some castels with guards trying to keep a straight face while everyone’s taking photos and pointing, hard life hah. The leaders of Group B (which was me) shouted us all an icecream for being so awesome with the canoe training in the rain that second day, it was finally worth it lol. And that just about concludes my trip to Sweden, the bus ride back was ok, cool because I then knew everyone. We went on the ferries again, that was great, we went up on the deck and the wind was blowing so hard and everyone’s singing ‘my heart with go on’ from titanic with their arms outstretched and their hair blowing in the wind, well, I was anyway...hehe. The last couple of days from Friday to today (Sunday when I’m writing this) I’ve been in Cologne (Köln in Deutsch). Helge’s stepfather had to go for a ‘Polterabend’, it was a party before a wedding for one of his friends. So of course his wife was going, Helge’s mum and asked me and rach along to. We camped at a site with their camper van and massive tent and then took a taxi there. Ha, so i’ve been to a random Arabian (that was the theme) Polterabend in Köln!!! :D it was fun, there was food and dancing. Major awkward tho coz we didn’t know ANYONE of course and were kinda crashing their party with close friends and relatives. But all turned out ok. There were English and American ppl there which was cool coz I was hearing English instead of what I usually hear which is ‘blahblahblahsomewordithinkimightknowblah’. I met a ‘bleeding pom’ (yes that’s how he described himself) who asked where I was from and when I answered ‘Adelaide’ he roared with laughter and said I ‘lived in bloody nowwhere’. Haha I was amused, and of course couldn’t stop grinning coz of the accent lol, he was old though girls so no, havnt found my perfect guy with an accent yet haha. Saturday me, rach and Helge explored Köln, we visted the Dom, which is INCREDIBLE, I loved it. We climbed 509 spiral steps to the top which was pretty sweaty work but not too hard and we were soon at the top looking over beautiful Köln. The rest of the day was spent checking out the Chocolate Museum (which we didn’t go in but visited the shop), walking round the streets, eating icecream by the Rhine. Everything, like always, was stunning. we got ‘Bratwurst’ (a kind of sausage with bread, I LOVE it) and ‘pommes’ (chips) for lunch. We stayed till it was dark (we’d left in the morning). Around 10pm we had a drink near the Rhine again after wondering around for ages and looking at other buildings and churches, there was a fire twirler (from Australia no less lol) doing some awesome stuff with the fire, and it was night so it looked so cool. Before that they’d been a little band playing for another cafe with a double bass yay...a guy with an accordion started playing near the place we sat, he was really good, I realised after a while it was ‘it’s raining men’ that he was playing lol. We made it home finally. Today (well it’s 12am now ekk, so I spose it’s Monday). Sunday we got up, breakfasted but had to leave the camping site by 12. We got home after getting an icecream along the way (I’m eating so much blooming icecream lol). Ok now I’ve had a sleep and It’s Monday, Rachel’s older sister Elizabeth has come to stay for a day, I havnt met her yet she’s still asleep. I miss you all of course. Thanks for your emails and messages, and sorry I’ve been slack with postcards, it’s surprisingly expensive to send them all and there’s so many of you!! So sorry L I really do love you!! Hope everything’s going awesomely at home, that school, work and uni are bearable. Hang in year 12’s, you’ve only got what? 4 and a half months? Less than that. And hang in uni ppl, you’ve only got....well not that long :S hehe. Ok, time I went and enjoyed the sun while it’s still here...ohh how’s the weather Down Under? :D God bless, lots of love, giraffes, and all good things :D Sofiexoxoxoxox