Ripsa

Disclaimer: The following and previous blog entries (including this one) are without proof reading of any type, probably containing many grammatical and spelling errors. Meh.

Preseason is getting harder by the pancake...

We arrived to the town of ripsa, but not without a little bit of help from Tuscany and her host sister. It was lateish when we got there, met the incredibly shy Johnny(another exchange student living in the house) and Tuscani’s host sister and mum. We had some left over salmon and rice stew? It was good, but talking lots made it cold J) Tuscany’s host mum was cool, she set us up when she got home, and then had to go to bed as she was working the next day. We worked out a mini plan on what we were going to so the next day – funky then went to bed, and me and Tus talked until late, too late really, as the nights before that had been quite late – so this ended up making the next day a coffee day (how work has taught me about coffee days). Their farm is located in the south east of Sweden in ripsa, basically in the middle of no-where (how is that spelled in english?) and had many things that are traditionally normal of farms back in Australia (wide open spaces, big yards, fruit trees and no traffic) – warranted there are many types of traditional farms in Australia, the ones that I have been to and had experiences have the above characteristics.

For the teachers... Note that there is no table up the front...
The one on the right could fit barely a book and a laptop

 That morning we were treated to breakfast (well I was as Andrew didn’t have breakfast) and we set off early as they had to be going to their first day at school for the “year” but get this – and lucky for us, they only had 1 hour of school! Crazy. The first week at Swedish schools seems to be some sort of O-week introduction type deal.  But in the morning we got our own little personal tour of the town, seeing all the major sites in Nykoping! Haha. Well there was a castle, and following the traditional model of Swedish castles, it was small and amusing! Haha. So not worth seeing really if you are thinking of going to see nykoping. We let tus know! We then went off to see the second biggest attraction of nykoping! The harbour, which had the longest pier in Scandinavia (for about 5 seconds until Tuscany told us that it wasn’t true), but it was worth a look, and nice having a walk around the town. We then had to hightail it back to tuscany’s school so that we weren’t late, she took us up stairs to the school (office block) foyer which was located on the 3^rd floor. Strange here, all students walk around without shoes, and have huge areas for coats – not real lockers to speak of, Books from the library can be taken and read or borrowed without being recorded and also the students (which may I remind you are of high school age) have their own coffee machine and area to prepare/eat meals. If only we didn’t have a convict background! (although they have a viking background…) Good luck trying that at Traf, even the staff would take the books probably – and although sad, things do continue to go missing from the school.

I bought two books from the library, which although I haven’t read or even opened yet, I think that they will make it into my package home before I start going home. We then ate some Swedish crepes(or pancakes) with very generous amounts of cream and jam… mmmm. The 100kg club is getting closer I think, stupid metabolism.. We got picked up and tried to talk to Johnny (the other exchange student) my goodness he was like a vault, nothing got in or out. One wonders what kind of people choose to go on exchange – the shy that need to “broaden” their horizons that end up just going even more into their shell under the scrutiny of the unknown, or people that are already outgoing and have decided that they want to meet people that are different. It’s probably a little mean and unfair to categorise exchange students into those groups, and I’m sure that there are people that fit outside this. Poor Johnny, he didn’t seem like he was enjoying himself at all. That afternoon after lunch it started raining, a little bit of stuffing around on the computer, and I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to get outside and see the countryside – the fields that were behind their house were lush green, and ran all the way up to the woods (I love writing woods) to which all the light that was radiating off the green grass was trapped – almost creating a mystical atmosphere like in the Sherwood forest in England. I convinced Tuscany to go for a walk and then bikeride down to the lake, and then along the lake through the forest, it wasn’t as nice as the stream mushroom picking in Are, but still pretty good. Nice to talk and share ideas with someone that has done something similar to you (excluding people that you are traveling with). Now – I think that it is much harder to travel as an exchange student as you have to try and integrate yourself into a new society and social group. We had to do that, but it is easier I think with a sport – less contact time. But going back to the forest, it started to rain, and the splattering of the rain on the lake was pretty cool, as well as the prospect of not outrunning a bear (visited too many zoos recently). We got very wet on the way back – as I write this 4 days later, my shoes are still not dry. We got back and cooked pancakes (yes again) and sausages for dinner, tried to talk to Johnny again without success and crashed as the many nights of little to no sleep came crashing back to meet me. I spent the last night talking to tus in her room, trying to buy a new digitial camera, which finally was successful (on the net) I (for those interested ) bought a lumix dmc tx3 ( I think) it is the rival to the olympus tx810. The feature that swayed my decision – the full HD video. Reading multiple and many reviews, getting stressed about which camera to buy – finally came to a decision. Lets hope it is the right one.  

We left that morning, and after forgetting my jacket, my shoes and my towel (although the latter was not left by me) behind we tried again with better results, arriving in Copenhagen at our hostel at around 2:30. Traffic was light, and the views were quite nice. I leave ripsa and surrounding areas, mainly the area where they were living with fond albeit brief memories. Wrapped up Sweden for me I think, and I’m glad I went.

Copenhagen. Well – that can wait.