I have just taken a trip to Sweden over the Christmas break to see the lifestlye of Swedish people. I went in a student exchange program and I was paired up with a young boy named Sven Johansson. When I first got to the country by airplane, I noticed how beautiful the wildlife was and I thought to myself that this was going to be a great time. The Johansson family picked me up and took me to their home just outside of Stockholm, the country's capital. The family's house was relatively large, and I concluded that they were a middle-class family. The family mostly spoke Swedish, but Sven spoke a little English since he was currently learning English at his school. I could pick up his English just enough to know that his dad worked in Stockholm at a very large company called Ericsson. I could tell he was a very smart guy since he was doing work at his desk. Sven told me his mom was a math teacher at his school and it was very convienent for him to go home each day since his mom could drive him home. Sven said he went to a primary school because he was fourteen years old and they called it "grundskola". He was currently on break, too and he had to go back in early January. After all the conversations I had with Sven, his mom prepared an excellent dish for dinner called palt. Palt is a traditional dish in Sweden and consists of dumplings filled with pork. They also had fresh baked bread, which was excellent. The whole meal was delicious, and it felt good to eat something different! At that point, I could not wait for dessert! The dessert was also excellent, and it was called ostkaka. It was a traditional cheesecake in Sweden, and it tasted different from American cheesecake. Since it was Sunday, I had a chance to go to school with Sven tomorrow. Sven's school was very nice and most of his classes were similar to the ones I am taking now at my school. He is in the ninth grade like me and he technically graduates after this year. During that week, my exchange students and I went sight seeing in Stockholm and we also visited neaby countries including Denmark and Norway. The Johanssons even took me sking in the mountains of Sweden, located in the north. One thing that stood out the entire trip was that it was extremely cold the entire time and I had to wear multiple layers the whole time. I would definitely come back to Sweden again later in my life since it was so beautiful and I was amazed at how clean the counry really was! It also snowed a couple days I was there, and it was really exciting to see the snow pile up! It was also dark for most of the days I was there, and they said they only saw about 6 hours of daylight in late December. It was just a great overall time for me and I was very fortunate to have a family like the Johanssons take care of me during those two weeks. I was actually upset to leave Sweden on the last day because I knew I would be leaving behind so many memories behind on that famous trip.
Sources- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page for all pictures
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