I love gnomes. For my birthday a couple years ago, my mom got me gnome salt and pepper shakers, a string of lights with gnome coverings, a gnome book… you get the idea. My keychain is a rubber duck with a gnome hat and beard. Anyways, Sweden has a history of gnomes! Only they’re called tomte (tome-tay, more or less). And from what I’ve gleaned, they were thought to protect the farmhouses and were the spirit of the first owner of the house, often the ancestor of the current owner. They are supposedly grumpy little fellows who often demanded some kind of food or treat so they would keep the house safe. Whatever the case may be, they soon became a Christmas icon as well – santa is known as Jultomten. Jul being Christmas of course…. Yule…. Jul. It’s not a stretch. So there’s a lot of cute little gnome-like creatures in shop windows all over town! They are usually made of wool, but I have seen clay and ceramic ones as well. I love it!

I found these guys at a Christmas market! The tomte is the little one with the red cap. The other is a horse. Obviously. They are both handcrafted!

xxx Maren

Sweden looks like a scene from Narnia most days. It really is a beautiful place. The sun is now setting at 3pm and is pitch black within the hour. Now that the snow has fallen though, it seems lighter out. And the Swedes of course have figured out how to cope with the darkness (especially up North where there’s no sun in some places, and even midnight sun). There are candles, or electric candles) in almost every single window, or a lamp, or my personal favourite – paper stars. I love the stars. So even when it’s dark in Sweden, it never seems dead. And even the city center is decorated and there are twinkle lights above the streets. My bike ride to campus is sometimes difficult with the snow when it builds up and I get stick in other peoples’ tracks, but the lakes are frozen and snow has built up on them and so everything is white.  And so eerily quiet. I can even see the snow crystals individual when they land on my jacket, because they don’t melt immediately as they usually do in Oregon. I thought I would maybe be sick of the snow by now, but every time it snows I will still run to the window and sit and watch the snow fall for a while. I also think that it makes the cold a little more bearable – it’s a dry cold rather than the wet and cold we get in Oregon. This snow stays dryer than the Oregon snow I’ve experienced.

Around the lakes after the first snowfall.

xxx Maren

Sorry guys, time for my post on homesickness.

When I left, I thought I would have more time to say goodbye to my mom. But then the line at security went a lot faster than either of us expected and soon I was sitting by myself at my departure gate. This was a familiar feeling. I often travel  by myself for dance competitions. I’d flown to Ireland twice by myself, but something was different this time – as it should have been! My mom is one of my closest friends and definitely my closest family member and she has been the person I miss the most while I am here. But thanks to the magic of Skype and other internet tools, I still get to talk to her almost everyday. I remember thinking, as I sat at the gate, that this was going to be the hardest year of my life. But I just wasn’t sure what I was about to experience.

Sometimes I do get little pangs of homesickness. Mostly for dance though. I call this (oh-so-cleverly) dancesickness. Dance was/is a huge part of my life. This is my first time in 5 years without my dance team. Seeing all the pictures of my friends competing and winning medals and trophies makes me wish I was still there experiencing all of that. I think this is the hardest for me – because I can’t skype dance. Sure, I can still dance here, and that’s great. But it won’t compare to the time spent in the studio with my dance family and my coach yelling (occasionally praising) us. This is what I miss most about home. I’m learning to get through it though, and it only hits me every once in a while. Especially now that regionals are over and so there will be less competitions. I don’t miss it any less now, but I have enough schoolwork to keep me busy and my wonderful friends who will always find something for us to do, whether it’s movie night or going swimming in the freezing cold lake! Or standing on the bank, observing… which I am REALLY good at 🙂

Dance team picture

In conclusion, I guess I’m saying that the homesickness I once assumed would be overwhelming is very, very manageable. In fact, I feel more at home in Sweden than I do in Monmouth. I’m sad that I will have to return to Monmouth and I already cannot wait to go back to Vaxjo. Even right now, while I am in Ireland I miss Sweden. I’ve only been gone 7 days. Oh boy. If I’ve learned anything though, it’s that I can get through it. And there’s always an option to get a masters degree here!

xxx Maren

 These little (or should I say big?) guys I saw at a moose park I visited with many other exchange students on a trip organised through my university. We were so close I could have petted one, but something about that didn’t sit right in my mind, so I kept my hands to myself. Moose are a symbol of Sweden and apparently also cause a good deal of car accidents because they like to run across the road and people like to drive really fast. There was a little scene set up inside the moose park gift shop that featured a real stuffed moose that had been hit by a car. It had done some damage to the car! So be careful while driving your cars here in Sweden!

On this trip, we also got the chance to see some real glass blowing! Glass blowing is a tradition in this part of Sweden and we were able to see the best glass blowers in the area do their work, right in front of us! Super neat. We were also able to see a museum of many of the older pieces that the artists had made.

Lost in translation moment: I was speaking to my French friend at the glass museum and I asked what he thought of all of it (in English) and he told me that he thought it was very cool, but he was still a little confused. I then of course asked why he was confused and he told me that he thought we were going to visit an ice museum (I don’t really know what that means, but it’s not the point anyway). He had been confused because the word glass (not the same spelling, obviously) in French means ice, ore ice cream. So he had been very excited the whole day to see ice sculptures, and then when we arrived he found out what glass really meant in English.

Watching professional glass blowers.

In the glass museum

xxx Maren