Dinner Fails and Nature Walks

Hej hej! 

So I think I'll just go ahead and say that I'm going to post every two weeks... since that's what I'm doing by forgetting every other week XD haha. 

Sweden is still cloudy and rainy, but we're trying to figure out ways to have a good time in the gloom. My buddy, Antonia, and I went on an adventure! We took a walk through the woods, kind of, and met some nice horses. 

Isn't he cute?!

It was also Valentine's Day last week. Jonathon made me blueberry pancakes and got me a cute yellow flower (p.s. if you didn't know, that's my favorite color :) ) He's a keeper! My sweet family sent us American candy and a cute package, and I even got a Valentine card from my best friend. Gotta love those people :)

We've been trying to do some wedding planning, which happens to be really difficult when you aren't able to go see all of the venues and vendors! Wish us luck ;) 

We also attempted to make mac and cheese the other night... yeahhhh, that didn't turn out so great. They don't really use Cheddar cheese here, and when you find it it's really expensive. We used Gouda, and this happened: 

Cheese isn't supposed to blob like that...

I don't think I'll be trying mac and cheese again, sadly. Then, this morning we went to a Swedish church service! That was definitely an interesting experience. The service was in Swedish, but we got a receiver so that an English translator would come through our headphones. It was so difficult to manage hearing the pastor through the speakers and trying to listen to the translator through the headphones. The translator was a sweet guy, and hopefully we will be attending some small group sessions in the future thanks to him!

Though church here is nice, I think we both miss home a bit. I miss my sweet doggie, Joe! I wish I could see my hardcore sister playing softball, too. :) Love you sissy. Everyone else in the crowd will just have to cheer a little harder to make up for me not being there to be your cheerleader. ;) 

Isn't she awesome?!

I miss and love my friends and family! Hope all is well. 

Bye for now!
Laura. 

Culture Night and Yummy Food

Well, I guess I was a bit later than a week to create a new post... Oops! The sun came back! These last few days have been wonderful. I actually didn't need to wear three layers to go outside! Haha. Jonathon and I have been getting to enjoy the sunshine; he bikes alongside me as I run around the melting lakes here. I know he probably gets bored of having to bike so slow, but he's great and I super appreciate him. :)

Last Saturday during Växjö's Culture Night we got to meet our friend family: Zum and Pär (pronounced Pear). They have a thirteen-year-old daughter whom we got to meet as well, Ella, and a sixteen-year-old son that was not with them. It was a great experience to meet them; they welcomed us with love and acceptance right away and took us throughout the town to see all of the night's events. We visited the town's museums and pondered their glass works of art (Småland is famous for its glass works), ate their Swedish dishes (goat cheese -bleh- and the yummy kladdkaka included), and even watched a fire show.

Kladdkaka with cream - yum!

Pretty crazy huh? (Sorry for the awful quality.)

Other than seeing guys throw and spit fire around, we've also gotten to get kind of cultural at our apartments. We live in apartments meant for non-European students, so while it is mostly Americans we can still learn new cultural things. Last week Jonathon and I got to make okonomiyaki with our new friends and floormates, Rika and Ayano. The best way I can explain okonomiyaki is that it's like a cabbage pancake with bacon and covered in whatever sauce you like. We used bbq and mayo haha. It was so yummy! 

Okonomiyaki

We have to make every meal here - there isn't a cafeteria, so we are learning to get creative with our food! We also made homemade tortillas! They may have been kind of ugly... but they tasted fantastic!

We had to go to the migration board to finish our residence permits. I wrote about that experience here on my other blog. 

I've also gotten to have fika with my buddy again, which was a blast. I think they did a perfect job of pairing us up; she's so sweet and it's always great to meet with her! We also had dinner at Jonathon's buddy's apartment. She is also sweet and it was a good time!

Until next time :)

Laura.