5 Guys Burgers & Fries

Just ate at Barack Obamas favorite hamburger place, pretty cool.

Just wink those eye lashes..

How to get a lot of stuff at a baseball game:

1. Look cute & wear something descent.
2. Have really good seats, right by the dug-out is the best.
3. Learn the players names from the program, makes them think you actually know who they are.
4. Scream for the players as the walk by after a play or just happen to have a ball.
5. It also helps to pull a line like "I'm from Sweden!". In my case it's true, but if it'll get you a ball, go for it.
6. You definitely need to stand up as you do all of that, another attention getter.
7. After a while there's not enough players, because they don't wanna give you more than one ball, then it helps to sit next to a cute little girl or boy, point at her, then snap the ball.

But that last one is only for the heartless people. I actually helped a little girl to get one.. and an older boy. I felt generous.

Reality kicks in

I know its still a week and some days left, but I started packing today.. With the busy last days I'm going to have here I need to start work on it. I've done pretty good with staying organized to it shouldn't take up too much of my time. Just the fact that I'm actually packing to go home, leave here, don't see people anymore.. It's just weird, and I don't like it. I do want to go home though, so much, but man.. I'm gonna miss people around here.

Churchill Downs

One of the first days here, we went to Churchill Downs, just to see the outside of it. The other day we went all in. I went their with Connie & Steve, their son Caleb and Connies friend Lisa. I was very fortunate Lisa went, because she managed to get me a free tour of the place. I saw places that not many people can see, and probably never will see.

I didn't bet much, because I don't know squat about horse racing and wasn't planning on loosing a ton of money. In addition a strolled around, watched the horses being showed up, as well as the tiny jockeys. Saw some very famous ones, which makes it a lot more cool. It was just an awesome day at the race track.

Millionairs lounge, with an inredible buffet

Hand blown glas figures of Churchill Downs

Twin Spires

Big winner of the day..

Graduation in Visby

One year from today, I would graduate back home. After this year though, I still have two more years. That doesn't bother me that much. What does bother me, is that I can't be home on this day to celebrate and see my friends and two cousins graduate. For you American folks I'll tell you how we do it back home, it's just a little bit different..

Outfit: Guys in tuxes, girls in pretty summer dresses, often white.
Schedule: The day starts with a champagne breakfast and mingle in a beautiful park by the ocean. They will also get cake in another part of the city during the day. The home room class you've taken classes with all year has each decorated a big carriage pulled by a tractor. On them they will be taken to parties at the houses of different families of the class. Then on to the ceremoni down on the concert hall balcony by the beach.
Ceremoni: Every home room class has picked a song that plays as they run out on the balcony. The song plays for a while as they're up there celebrating. The music takes a break for a speaker that says some short words, the music continues and they walk down to their familys in the crowd.
Signs: Each family make a sign of the graduate from their childhood, either an embarassing one or a cute one, depends on the family..
Continuation of schedule: After the ceremoni each class get on their decorated carriage, loaded with speaker equipment. They play crazy loud music and ride around town dancing and having a great time until the cops tell them its time to quit, we're talking AM here. Then they move on to the night clubs and continue the party.

Sign made by Bosse, dad of my cousin Elias

My one year older cousin, miss you

My other cousin Tove, sign made by her dad, Janne

Cousin Tove to the right, friend Maja next to her

                                       

Track Banquet

Yesterday I had my very last event at school, our banquet for track and field. It's sad to think about, but with that group of people it's always fun. There's constantly people joking, laughing and having a good time, which is one of the reasons I loved track so much. I've been around some outstanding athletes and it makes me want to get even better at what I do.

There were a lot of food as it always is at events here. Then there was a slide show with all of our accomplishments this year. Our coach reminded us that despite that we didn't have a track to practice on, we set a school record in medals at regions, and many school records, pretty good accomplishments. I was just sad I couldn't contribute with any medals at regions because of an injury. Stupid. Anyway, there were many awards handed out, MVP's, record takers, point scorers and the one I got to put my hands on, Senior Award. Every senior got one, as well as some nice words from coach, or in my case, call-outs. So yes, coach Bradley, when you pick on me, I will pick on you! But in all seriousness, you're the best track coach I've ever had, also the only one, but still. I will miss you a lot, and if you're lucky you might get a nice little post card some day, who knows.

10 highest point scorers

Me & Coach Bradley

Surreal

What I don't think I realize at this time, is that I'm actually going home in three weeks. It's so weird to think that I'm not gonna be here anymore. It is rally hard because I have so much emotions, torn emotions.
I'm sad because I'll be leaving my family here, I'll be leaving all of my friends, my really good friends that I will miss so much. Friends that I might not see again, ever. That is the most hartbreaking thing about leaving. Even if I see them again, it'll be for some weeks, then what? We go separate ways again..
I'm happy that I will get home after a year of being away, to see my family and friends. I'm excited to once again have my mom's cooking, my grandma's cooking, to over all have the Swedish food.
I'm so very anxious to play soccer with P18 again, I can not wait!

It's hard. I feel guilty about wanting to leave, I too feel guilty about wanting to stay. There's been tears the last couple of days, with graduation and just realizing it's all coming to an end. It wont be the last one's though, and I'm not looking forward to them..

Silly Strings

Class of 2011

Well that's that. I have graduated from Nelson County High School with my fellow classmates, and I couldn't have asked for it to end in a better way. I've always seen movies of various graduation ceremonies where they wear the traditional cap and gown. It was some what of a surreal feeling to wear it. But there is a lot more to an American graduation ceremony than you would think. The very same morning, we go through and practice the whole thing, we're talking hours of practice here. But even so, the unexcpected should always be excpected. Especially when it comes to the Class of 11.
To explain how it works, you walk up on a stage, get your diploma, shake some important persons hand, look in the camera and smile, walk to your seat. We had one graduate who did it a little different, he walked up, shook the important persons hand, got his diploma, and fell, face first. It was planned all along, but no one else than us knew it.
Then, at the very end you might recon that the graduates threw their hats in the air. As we did that, people sprayed silly strings all over the place, which was also planned, but kept secret by all of us.

Walking in

Alycia & I

Choir performance on stage

Me and Madison

Camping in America

Got an invitation to go camping with my friend Paige and her family. I ended up going with them over Memorial Day Weekend, which is a long weekend with no school on monday, today that is. We had a great time and they shared their camping traditions, and I shared mine. Food wise they had a lot, and they had it often, as Americans often has when it comes to.. to all kinds of events really. We had the big traditional breakfast with eggs, sausage, bacon, toasts, gravy and so on. Dinner was made on the grill and various snacks through the day. On the night we had smore's (grilled marshmallow with chocolate in between two graham crackers). I shared our swedish grilled bananas with chocolate, very popular.
Activity wise we were out on the boat all day long. Tanning, swimming, diving, jumping and going down the slide. Yes. Down the slide from the second floor. And when we weren't on the boat we took long walks, played volleyball and at nights some card games did occur. I learned one, Golf, and shared two, translated to Turn-over-10 and one I couldn't remember the name of.. Just remember playing it with Kerstin all the time..

Also note this, when going to store's you probably shouldn't leave in just shorts and a bikini top. Apparently you might not be able to go in if you're that undressed. Learned that leasson when I had to sit in the car in 90 degree wheather as we were hunting for some floats. I really did feel like such a European..

American vs. European

So me and Hannah made us some sandwiches the other day. The result turned out to be the perfect representatives for the American style sandwich and the European kind. Hannah made herself a PBJ (peanut butter & jelly sandwich), with some cheetos on the side. From what I could find in her fridge, I made a sandwich with butter, ham and feta cheese, grapes on the side. It was just kind of funny.

By the way, Happy 16th Birthday brother!! One day too late but still..

It's getting hot over here!

In comparison to Europe, Kentucky is at the same level as Greece. Now when the summer is here, and the sun is out, you can tell. The difference though is that it's a lot more humid here. But a whole days worth of tanning back home, you can get done in two hours here. So when it comes to the tanning part it's awesome. It's not so awesome when you have a game, or just watching a game, working outside with something or whatever. It's just too darn hot! And I get too darn swetty!

Battle of the Classes

Our Spirit Week ended today, with a Battle of the Classes. Which is just what it sounds like. All of the classes, Freshmans, Sophmores, Juniors, Seniors and the teachers compete against each other in various competitions. There was dodgeball, a relay with many different aspects to it, musical chairs (hela havet stormar), tug of war (dragkamp), find a piece of gum in a pie then blowing a bubble with it, and to do it first, pull out all napkins out of a box, in that too you had to be first.
The teams were "drawn fairly and randomly", but still we all had surprisingly strong teams out there. I was one of the 10 competing to win Battle of the Classes. I've heard all year about the lack of school spirit Nelson County has, but today it was everywhere. Result: Seniors of 2011, won Battle of the Classes. 88.

Presenting our team!

Freshmans..

Juniors

The band were playing

Musical chairs

Supporters in Jacob and Cody

Mr. Sparrow ( Psychology teacher)

Juniors in dodgeball action

Seniors taking home the tug of war

Seniors of 2011!

Nerd Day

The title speaks for it self. So does the pictures..

Tyler

Grant with other unidentified dork

Kimiko Kasama

Jacob, Jacob & Cody

Nick, ?, & Gabe

Hannah

Paige, me & Megan

Spirit Week

As we see in the American movies, people gather up when there is a school event going on. Whether it's a game, a play, cheerleading or tournaments there is always that American spirit there. From what I've written before, it's not only in movies, it's everyday life here. This week we are dressing up in different catagories to show our school spirit. Monday we did camouflage. Tuesday there were no school. Today we had decade day, check in out!

    Monday - Camo

Lauren in the ultimate camo

Madison & Savannah makin' it cute

Wednesday - Decades

Lauren, Megan & Paige workin' the 80's

I went for the 50's and Hannah goes pre-historic, as a cave woman

Nick in the old basketball style, Gabe as a hippie and Jacob as a rockin 80's dude



EF Orientation

Had a trip to Louisville today. It was the "Going-home-Meeting" with EF.. Already? Felt like I was sitting at the first orientation meeting like last week or something. Not much information I didn't already know, or could figure out by myself, but it was still fun.

The thing is, many of the other exchange students know each other from various trips with the organization. I haven't been on any of those trips and don't know many of the other exchange students well. I don't really care. What I've got instead is closer friendship with friends and family around here, American friends, and American family. Which is what I came for, and what I came to, America. I don't regret one bit not going, or not getting to know all the other exchange students better.

Bipartite Patella

I'm not that superstitious, only a little when it comes to soccer. But there's no soccer what so ever involved in this. But hurting my knee the night before Friday the 13th makes me wonder.. Anyway, it was at a track meet, and I was doing long jump. Some way in the jump or landing I managed to hyper extend my knee (it goes the other way pretty much). It hurt yes, and as one that takes out my pain more verbally, I expressed my pain with some probably not so pretty swedish words. But hey, at least no one could tell.

But so today met with our trainer, and with him and coaches order I went to the doctor today. I had x-ray and luckilly there were no major injures, just a strain. I did however find out I have a "Bipartite Patella", which basically means my knee cap is split in two parts. Weird I know, and apparently pretty unusual. I thought it was kind of cool, (now that I found out I'll be fine with some resting and ice).

So no worries, my soccer family back home, I'm not pulling an "Emma".

The Kentucky Derby

From what I've been writing here and probably already knew is that sport is huge here in the U.S. But I don't think you knew that the biggest sport event here in Kentucky is horse racing. It is the annual Kentucky Derby I'm talking about, and it is always at Churchill Downs here in Louisville.
It's huge wether you're going or not, people loosing money, women in their fancy hats and occasionally some people win money. This year the winner was an underdog, Animal Kingdom. All and all I lost 6 dollars. Not that bad.

Kentucky Standard

http://www.kystandard.com/content/photos-bardstown-invitational 
... and go to the next picture

Food Day!

As mentioned earlier, I have food science. Today we were all suppose to bring a dish of whatever fruit or veggie we had been working on. I had avocado. I wanted to make it easy for me. I made guacamole. I also brought home most of the guacamole. I know what I'll be nibbling on tonight.

Breaking news

Yesterday evening I heard from my hostmom that the president would make an appereance on TV, regarding Osama Bin Laden. I turn the TV on and on every channel they are talking about what it can be. As the president is taking time the break the news on CBS - Osama Bin Laden is dead. Later on, around 11.45pm president Obama is making his statement on live TV. He mentioned that when he became president he had the CSI make their top priority to kill Osama Bin Laden. He also said they recieved news last august about where he would be. Since then a secreat group of men, SEAL team 6, had been practicing the mission in a replica of the compound here in the U.S. The news were out in the open.

People here are taking this relatively calm, they are happy he is dead but are fearing a possible new terrorist attack. Around here people worry for the Kentucky Derby, that will be saturday. Probably the most people flying in and out since the news, and possibly most people at the same place. Also Fort Knox is on the table of targets. But people aren't afraid really, it's just speculations. I'm not really worried at all, just think it's cool to experience this from the U.S.

Cincinnati Reds

We had a two-hour car ride to Cincinnati, and went out to a ballgame. A game between Cincinnati Reds vs. Florida Marlins. A game that started slow but definitely picked up towards the end. The Marlins had the lead until the very end were the Reds managed to turn the game around. We won with extra endings, otherwise known as overtime, which I didn't even know excisted in baseball.. We didn't catch any baseballs, we didn't see any homeruns or out-of-the-ballpark hits, but we did have an amazing night at a ballgame.