At about two o'clock yesterday (May 30th) my cell phone's new email alert went off. My phone tells me when I have a new email, but won't let me see it. At first I wasn't going to bother checking because I tend to get a lot of junk email to that email address, but I decided to check it anyway. When the page loaded up, I saw the an email from a Magnus A. (I'm not going to post the full name here) I thought it was an odd name and figured it was one of those "You've won a million dollars, just fill out your name, birthplace and social security number" sort of emails, but then I looked at the subject line. It read: "Hello from your family in Sweden!"
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| My house in Sweden!!! |
The email was from my host father, Magnus. He is 48 years old and works as an account manager at an advertising agency. His wife, Anna, is also 48 and has her own business as a physiotherapist. They have three sons, Johan is 18 and went to Minnesota last year on exchange, Axel is my age (16) and he will be in Houston, Texas next year, and their youngest son Oskar is almost 12. They also have a six year old Irish Setter named Gibson. They live in a beautiful house (pictured on the right) in a neighborhood right out side of Göteborg, the second largest city in Sweden. Göteborg was the city I was hoping for in the first place, though I did not actually think I would get it seeing as a lot of kids go on exchange to Sweden and not all of them can go to a city. I would have been happy with anywhere, but I am so ecstatic, because it seems like such an amazing city. Also, since I have spent pretty much my entire life in a ranching town of 15,000, a city of 600,000 will be a nice change of pace.
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| Back row: Axel, Johan, Magnus Front row: Anna, Oskar, Gibson |
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After I responded to the email, I posted to a facebook group for exchange students headed to Sweden for the 2011-2012 year about my host family. A few minutes later, a girl named Ellen who is from Sweden going to Japan next year commented saying this:
Danni...I think you will come to my family as well! And I know your family ( I think...) If they have a son named Axel. I live in Göteborg, and together with two other families mine will have three different exchange students, one from colorado. Do you play the cello??? :D
So I commented saying that, yes one of my host brother's name is Axel and yes I play the cello. So it turns out that her family will be my second or third host family. Ellen also plays the cello, so I can use her cello while I am there, which is great because bringing musical instruments as large as a cello on planes is extremely difficult. I don't know too much about Ellen's family yet, only that she has two younger brothers. She also told me the name of someone that will possibly be my third host family. I haven't heard anything about what school I'm going to or anything from my host club, but I'll update you when I know more.
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| Anna and Gibson! |
Having all of these brothers will definitely be something I'll have to get used so, seeing as I have one sister, I'm hosting a girl and the only male I've ever lived with is my father.I'm also very glad that my family has a dog. I have two dogs, a black lab named Maddie and an Australian Shepard, Blue Healer mix named Max. I got Max when I was three years old so I've pretty much had a dog my entire remembered life. I was worried about what I would do without a dog, so now if I am upset I can play with Gibson or take him for a walk in the huge park near my house.
That's all for now, I'll update you when I find out more!
