Sweden - An Overview

I spent five weeks in Sweden, and there's so much stuff I can't remember it all, and I don't want to remember it all! Five weeks of working, a little dancing, not so much sleeping..now I'm in Prague and a little sick.

Herrang Dance Camp had it's ups and downs but overall it was great and I met some awesome people! I have made so many friends and I have so many couches to go crash on...I hope that people will come and visit NZ too, although I can understand if they can't. Sweden is a bit like NZ, more so than Spain anyway, in terms of greenness, although the countryside doesn't really change much. You're driving along and you fall asleep and when you wake up it looks like you've moved about 5m down the road..but maybe that's just me!

For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, Herrang Dance Camp is a swing dancing school that runs for four weeks every summer. It is 'portable' in a sense, in that the buildings we use are the school and community centre, so it's all packed up during the year. I was there for five weeks because I helped with setup week too.

The Ice Cream Parlour, located in the school gym kitchen, makes the BEST banana bread ever..which is a bit like banana cake but also not, with walnuts and stuff. I'd go to get ice cream (which was delicious there too) and walk away with banana bread. Being staff, I was given free meals and accommodation and the chefs at the volunteer kitchen (the kitchen dedicated to camp workers) were great...they were also Spanish. They could dance. And they could play jazz...one had a guitar and the other a (double) bass!! Seriously, I was kinda annoyed. I mean I spend five months living in Spain and I have to come to SWEDEN to find spanish guys with similar interests. They were also from Barcelona, I guess that had something to do with it.

Anyway, on the subject of guys, I did find someone...for all you gossipmongers to chat about. I got on very well with one of the Swedish guys, only he's off to China in a couple of weeks until December so I don't know what will happen. And that's all I'm saying here!

I also managed to learn some Swedish. Yo (I don't know how to spell it but that's what it sounds like) is Yes, Nej (nay) is no, Tack (tahck) is thanks, Hej is hi and Hej-hej is bye..and I have the numbers one through twenty written down too. There are some similarities with Czech, and Polish...in Polish, Tack is yes (I believe) and in Czech it is 'so', as in soooo......what to do now?

Goal for next year: Learn to tap dance. I wanted to before, and now after watching classes and teachers..oh man!! Teach me too!!

There was lots of crazy stuff going on. We dressed up as Mosquitos, interrupted classes with a trumpet, had people strip down to their underwear and run through the camp...we had a camp pillow fight, I organised a couple of scavenger hunts, some air mattress racing on the lake (HUGE fun by the way!!)...also here's part of an email I wrote to Dad:

The cat at the place where I'm staying is so funny! It loves water!! He (called Nalle - Nah-leh) [which means teddy bear] spent the night on the bathroom floor and when I came in to have a shower he stayed just outside the curtains and, you know how Clover [one of our cats] used to hide under Natalie's bed? And then attack your ankles? He kinda did that to the water. Last night I turned the shower on to drip for about a minute for him, and he chased the water towards the drain. Crazy cat...

I also have to write about Prague so I'll stop here. The bad parts of the camp were mostly a problem due to lack of sleep so overall it was pretty good! Photos are on facebook. Some, anyway.

Hej-hej!!