I'm Finally Here!!!

Yep, you read it, I am in Sweden!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It has been sort of chaotic the past few days, so I will break it down day by day.

Friday, 29th of July
This was the day I was originally supposed to arrive in Sweden, but because of the visa trouble, I was still sitting at home in Colorado. Finally tired of waiting for the email from the embassy, I called them around nine o'clock in the morning. They looked up my file and said 'Oh, your visa was approved two days ago, I'm not sure why we never emailed you.' As you can guess, this really pissed me off, because it meant that I could have left on time, but oh well, there is nothing I can do. Anyway, they emailed the visa acceptance to me right away, and I forwarded it to my travel agent so she could make the flight arrangements. The problem is, my travel agent never got back in touch with me, even after I sent two emails asking if she had gotten my information. So finally I called her and it turns out she never saw my emails. But because she felt bad for missing them, she stayed late and arranged my flights for me, for the next day. After everything was arranged, my friends Carli and Anna came over to help me finish packing and cleaning out my room and such. We messed around for a couple of hours then they went to sleep. I managed about 30 minutes, but then I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, so I just stayed up.

Saturday, 30th of July

Carli, a stuffed bear, me, my dad
and Anna

My mom, dad, Anna, Carli and I drove up to the local airport around 11:00am. We were early, but it was a good thing, because there was some trouble figuring out how to get my bags to Göteborg without haven't to pick them up and re-check them in Denver. But we figured it out then spent a little while messing around and saying good bye. My plane boarded at 12:30 so we all said our goodbyes. I only cried a little bit, but then I boarded the plane quickly afterwards so it wasn't too bad.

My first flight was just one hour from my town to Denver. It was fast and easy, no trouble at all. At the Denver airport I had to take a train from one part of the airport to another, but I figured it out easily and got to the terminal with three and a half hours to spare. Because I was tired and nervous, I didn't wander around very much, and mostly just sat there and waited.

The flight from Denver to Frankfurt was absolutely terrible. There were four seats across, a guy sat on either aisle and no one had the seat next to me, so I thought that it would be a good flight. I chatted with the guy next to me for a little while but then we both fell asleep. I woke up about 45 minutes later with a migraine. I brought my migraine medicine with me on the plane, but it was in the overhead bin which I was too small to reach so I just tried to sleep. I couldn't eat any of the dinner because I felt sick and about eight hours into the flight I threw up.

Sunday, 31st of July
My flight landed in Frankfurt at 11:00 and my next flight didn't leave until 17:00 so I was left to wander through the airport for six hours. I would have liked to wander around the airport a bit but at this point I had slept a total of six hours in the past 46 hours, and I spoke minimal German, so after getting lost and having multiple people refuse to help me because I couldn't speak German very well, I was about to break down. At the Frankfurt airport they only post your gate number about an hour and a half before your flight takes off, so you just have to stay around the flight board until your gate pops up. There aren't many chairs there, so when I got one, I didn't get up until my flight came onto the board about five hours later. I slept a little, but it was loud, bright and uncomfortable so it wasn't very good sleep. Most of the time I just people watched or spaced out.

The flight to Göteborg was very nice. It was a medium sized plane but there were not very many people on it. I had a window seat and a guy and his daughter who was about three sat next to me. There is one thing that I learned on this flight: The little boy behind you speaking German is completely adorable, until he starts shouting and kicking the back of your seat. However, the little girl speaking Swedish next to you is always adorable especially when she starts singing Swedish children's songs to you.

Magnus, Me, Axel, Anna and Oskar
(yes I realize I'm short)

In the Göteborg Airport it was surprisingly easy to get all of my bags, and since I did my passport and visa stuff in Germany, I didn't have to deal with it there. My host mom, dad, and two of my brothers met me in the airport. I was worried that it would be awkward, but I was actually really comfortable with them. We drove to their house, they showed me around, we had steaks for dinner, I met their older son Johan, Anna (my host mom) and I took a walk with the dogs around the neighborhood, and then I passed out.



I am going to write more tomorrow about my first day, the summer house and touring Göteborg with Johan, but right now I need to sleep.

Hej då!