Well, it looks like i've become a little lazy with the blog and i really have no great excuse. My life has become a bit busier lately, and the internet hasn't been working, so i guess those count for something. As Calvin said in response to this (imagine an overdone southern accent): "Darn Swedish internet service! I just knew it couldn't be as good as the 'Mericn kind."
I can't believe I have been here for a whole month now! I feel some days quite settled here, and other days it still feels so foreign. I have been living and working with my au pair family for 2 weeks now and we already love each other so much. I can't imagine having a better family. We really fit together, and as Hanna Klum (the mamma) said the other day, "what if you were the type that wanted to go out to the casino in Stockholm in your spare time?" Instead, I work in their garden and bake them apple cakes, which suits both of us so well. Alexander is too cute for words. Even though he has no idea who I really am or why i am here, he completely embraces my presence in his life, and asks for "hannawhite" when I am not home. :)
I have been cycling a lot, and now I'm borrowing Hanna's bike with the baby seat on the back so I'm sure I'm mistaken for a young mom, especially when I'm toting Alexander around on the back. :) I'm also manuvering my way around these Swedish highways in their manual car, which I am still quite a newbie at, and it makes the confusing signs and traffic rules even more complicated. But that is nearly the extent of my stresses here, so I have nothing to complain of.
I am taking Swedish for beginners through the folkuniversitet (literally's the people's univ.) which will begin in September, and I am looking forward to studying Swedish in a more formal way. For now, I am just picking it up as I go and jotting down some words on a list we've started specially to help me understand Alexander's vocabulary. I also found a course entitled "Global Challenges and Sustainable Futures" offered at Uppsala University for free which will meet every Monday night this fall and I hope will give me some intellectual stimulation. I hope it will also connect me with some like-minded students here to have friendships with.
A couple interesting notes beyond my everyday life.....it seems that Sweden is all about learning. There are countless ways to keep learning once one is out of college. Beyond the folkuniversities, which offer music, art, language, and other courses, unique to Sweden is something called a "study circle." This is a very informal, inexpensive gathering of 10 or so people who are interested in learning the same thing. I suppose one of the people in the course is more knowledgable than the rest, but as far as I know it is very much a group-learning experience. So if you want to learn to say, speak Italien or knit, you can join one of these circles! It seems like a nice idea to me, and a way to keep aquiring knowledge and skills of all kinds as you grow older.
Another note...in Uppsala people heat their homes and run the city busses on "biogas", a product produced when everyone's trash is burned. So they solve both the problems of waste/landfills, and the overuse of fossil fuels with this system. Nice.
The days have been lovely here.....the temp. is around 75, the blåbär (blueberrys), ligonberries, and mushrooms are in the forests available for the taking, and the apples are delicious and in abundance. Tomorrow Erik and I will go to a worship service being held in the forest. Once a year Uppsala has a kind of "skogen dag" (forest day) and in addition to this service there are some family activities going on. The forests here are amazing....the above picture is typical of here (white birches), but there are also forests with lots of pines, firs, and moss-covered stones. Today I took my hammock into the woods for a nap and when walking around afterwards in a sleeply state, I felt almost as if the forest itself eminated a sort of tranquil, fairy-land like potion on it's inhabitants. I can easily imagine now where all the great children's writers from Sweden got their inspiration for their books filled with scences from nature.
More later....Hej då for now!
4 comments:
Hej Erik, did not the mayor of Warrenton have plans for "biogas" like that?Do you think he got his idea from Sweden?
Wonderful to hear from you again Hanna!
So Glad it all works out.
Keep it up please. Love ,Janke.
Hannah!! I want to visit Sweden! It sounds so lovely. I'm delighted you're having such a great time doing all the special, memory-making things you always do: making people apple tarts, going on coffee picnics, picking blueberries, being your ever-sweet self.
And, I want to talk to you! I have a phone card...
Hannah, I love your updates (I check almost everyday for them). Sweden sounds wonderful. And I really like the sounds of the study circle--wish we had them here!
Americans may have "better" internet service, but we could learn a thing or two about burning our trash to produce energy! What a great idea!
I think the ways to encourage learning are excellent! I think sometimes things like this are offered over here in the big cities, but there's isn't enough publicity. Americans don't take learning for learning's sake very seriously as a whole.
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