Part of October and November
It’s been a little while since the last time I last wrote. I’ve been doing really well. I’m still really enjoying my time in Sweden and my town Eskilstuna. I’ve become closer with my Swedish friends and I’ve met a lot of people. Within the last few weeks my Swedish has been getting much better. With the encouragement of my host family and my friends to speak more Swedish, I have learned a lot. I still have a long ways to go though. Most of the time during the week I have a stable routine, go to school, go to the gym, have Swedish lessons, play Innebandy (floorball), have Fika, and playing Fifa. On the weekends however there is always something going on.
Around Halloween it was really nice to see that some of the Swedish people also go trick or treating, it reminded me of home even though I didn’t get any candy (luckily they have whole stores full of hundreds of different candies to choose from, so no worries I still have plenty of candy). We also had some masquerade parties were everyone dressed up as any character you could possibly imagine. Even some of the clubs had masquerade nights were people dressed up and hit the clubs dressed up as clowns and movie characters.
I went to a Digitalism concert in Stockholm (which is one of my favorite bands). On the way there we stopped at this massive mall that had an Ikea and a movie theater with 18 theaters. The concert was a really cool environment to have a concert. When you walked in to the left was a big stage and a big dance floor, but to the right there was a bunch of old sofas, a ping pong and a foosball table. We ended up playing foosball with a couple of German guys. We ended up being so focused on the game (we couldn’t let the Germans beat a Swede and an American) next thing I know about 600 people had shown up. From then on the night just got better and better. The band started to play, the crowd started to form, and then me and my friend were about 3 feet away from the stage. At some points I was pushed up right next to the stage, all of my clothes were shaking with every beat. I looked down and saw my bands moving back and forth, and underneath my moving pants I had goosebumps. The whole crowd seemed to move with every note. It was an amazing concert and my friend that went with me had never heard of digitalism but he said it was the best concert that he had ever been to.
On another weekend a fellow exchange student from Australia who lives in near Eskilstuna had just turned 18. She was having a joint birthday party with her host mother who was turning 60. So that family had invited me and a few other exchange students to a party at a castle at a nearby town called Flen. It was a lot of fun, the castle was beautiful and right on the lake, everyone was dressed up, we had a 5 course meal, sat by the lake even though it was very cold but beautiful, and we danced all night long.
A lot of these castles in Sweden were never made for defensive or military purposes. They were just made for the rich and loyalty. This castle actually has a lot of history, it has been around since the 1300, it has had a lot of different owners, including the German explorer Eric von Rosen and his brother Hermann Göring a famous German aviator and Nazi leader spent a lot of time at this castle. On the door to the castle there is a Swastika and one theory is that Hermann Göring got the idea for the Nazi symbol from this. It’s was a big shock to hear that I was in a building that could have so much history behind it. I may have been in a castle that caused a symbol that originally started out as a symbol of peace, which has now been turned into a symbol of hate. On the weekends I almost always seem to be doing something or if not we almost always seem to go to the club one night. It’s really a cool environment since you can go with your friends, and we’ll also see are friends there, I meet new people and we just dance the night away.
During the fall break my host family took me to Vienna, Austria. My host family used to live in Vienna a few years ago so they went back to visit the city and visit with their friends. We left early Monday morning and drove to the Stockholm airport. It was about a two and a half hour flight to Vienna. Their friends picked us up and brought us back to their house. They lived in an area of Vienna where a lot of the places where Beethoven lived. Also Einstein lived on that same street, so I stayed at a house right down the road from Beethoven and Einstein. We went to the top of this mountain which would look over Vienna but unfortunately it was too foggy so we were unable to see anything. We then traveled into town and I was able to see the beautiful center of town, the State Opera House, and we walked through this market that seemed to go for miles. Next they took to Schoenbrunn, which was an amazing palace, and we had a coffee at the Glorriete. I think just the palace was as big as Farmington. It had over 1,441 rooms, and so many beautiful statues, monuments, and gardens. That night we went to a traditional Viennese restaurant and we had Weiner Schnitzel. 
The next morning we went to Prata, which is this huge piece of land that used to be the Kings hunting grounds. Now it’s a park and and Amusement park. Me and my host sister went on a few rides, including this revolving swing with thin metal chains that went about 600 feet up, we could see most of Vienna from way up there. We also went into Madame Tussaud’s and saw wax figures of famous Austrians and I was able to learn a lot about Austrian history and culture. After that we met up with their friends and they drove us around the city. It was nice having multiple personal tour guides showing me Parliament, palaces, monuments, museums, and beautiful architecture. Our hosts served us this wonderful dinner with moose, potato dumplings, and other typical Austrian food. 
The next couple of days we mostly shopped for clothes and stocked up on Austrian things, and walked around the city. Vienna is surrounded by all of these wine vineyards and on Wednesday night we went to a almost a wine bar. There one of the vineyards sold their own wine and served meals. It was a great environment to be in, lots of laughs, wine, candles, and a guitarist singing Austrian folk songs. Overall it was a wonderful few days in the beautiful city of Vienna. I haven’t done a lot of things with my Rotary district but one thing we did was my rotary district had a conference in a nearby town. So the exchange students in my district went and we performed for our district. We had a small play that was about going to our first rotary meeting in Sweden, a dance performance to Dancing Queen by ABBA, and a duet. The performance was really good seeing as we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for it.
I’ve been doing great and really enjoying my time in Eskilstuna. I hope things are going well!
Tim
