new school, short vacation

Today was my third day on my new school. Friday was my first one. I'm glad I changed school, my class is very nice and people are more open-minded, intelligent and rooted to the soil.
Everybody please forgets everything I ever said about the level of school in Sweden (Except for what I said about maths, it's still easy). It depends so much from school to school. In my previous school, I had more breaks than lessons, not anything to study at all. And now I don't even have enough time for lunch, and how much they study is just INSANE! What that means to me...well very very very much for me to do. A few hours of studying every day, for 2 weeks. Just for one test! Unfortunately this is not the only test. It is normal to read 40-60 pages for one test-even more sometimes.   Translating the textes takes the longest time. Today I had my first longer conversations in swedish. I am so proud :)
School is very tiring. But still I am glad I changed. It will get easier, the better my swedish gets.
But when I get home, I just want to sleep. So many impressions, being surrounded by a foreign language 24/7, (even in my sleep :P ), new people anywhere. Today I was at a lecture in the theatre. It was about politics. But I didn't understand much. Leaving the house at 7:30 and coming back at 21:30 is not something I'd like to do every day.
 I'm exhausted and I just want to sleep, but I want to tell you about last weekend. We were at Sälen, a swedish holiday resort and stayed in a stuga (summer-/winterhouse). Many people go skiing there iin winter. We went hiking, because there is no snow yet of course. It was super calming and nice to spend much time with the family. The house was so cozy. I could read a million bookd in that place. And drink even more cups of tea.
 The nature was the most beautiful thing that I have seen in Sweden. Here are some pictures:

On sunday my swedish morbror (uncle) turned 40 and it was on our way home. We visited them in their house, ate together. I almost met the whole family. Everybody is so adorable. I like them very much. I didn't take any photots on the birthday.

politics: refugees

Everybody looks up at Angela Merkel. Every person I talked to in Sweden likes her and thinks that she's a good politician. They think germany is a good conutry in general. Nobody has forgotten World War 2, but they don't judge Germans for that. We weren't even alive when that happened. I think we need to take responsibility for that, so it never happens again- (but actually Europe is in a very bad situation and many really bad things are about to happen right now), but I don't think we should feel guilty. Before coming to Sweden I thought I would be much more confronted with that topic. But it's like they forgot, or forgave.

Not having to face this problem, I'm confronted with another issue that makes me very very sad. It's how they treat refugees. And with "they" I mean my (finally :) ) the students on my LAST school. As you may know, Sweden takes the most refugees of all the european countrys. And there are already many foreigners in Sweden. And it is not very hard for them to find jobs and a place to live, at least after a while. They can go to school, be in special programs where they learn swedish better. The system is good.
 The Swede's are proud of that. But there is one thing tha makes me very sad. It is the fact that the "Native Swede's" are not interested in them at all. We had that new guy in our class. He's 19, turning 20 soon. Just as my sister. He's coming from middle east. His family fled from Afghanistan to Iran when he was young because of the war. He couldn't go to a public school there. At the age of 16, he left Iran with one of the refugee boats without telling anyone. He had to spend a lot of money for that. He didn't even know that there was a country such as Sweden. So he arrived and was confused how reserved everybody was. He didn't know any swedish. He learned it, he got a job on the weekends so he can afford living here. He hasn't seen his family since he left. Because it's very expensive. He came here with nothing, knowing noone, don't speaking the language. And in 4 years he built up all this. At the age of 16 you're a child. I couldn't do that, living all alone, working and studying at the same time. But I understand their problems really good. Because I'm in a foreign country too, don't speaking the language. But a completely different situation.

I hate the way the "Native Swede's" treat them. They just ignore them. Wearing their michael kors bags, feeling sorry for all the refugees that die on their way to Europe, they save up some money with the school to help them. But then again- a little bit money won't fix these problems. And they only see what happens somewhere in the ocean, but not what happens in their school. It could be so easy to just walk up to them and talk to them. They speak swedish, honey! But people just don't want to care. Everybody has their own story to tell. And if only you would listen, it would blow your mind. But people don't want to look over the rim of a tea cup. I am afraid there could be an underclass with the refugees in Europe. And I think It's already starting. We need to incorporate them in our society.

His english was quite bad. He didn't have a good chance to learn it. But his swedish was good. And still I was the only person talking to him. Which made me so sad. He's just one of so many people who share similar stories. I have a great respect for these people. What they do is impressing.
I feel so sorry for him that I left the school, I really hope he'll be fine.

#tiredofyourignorance #keinbockaufnazis



(I want to be very careful with complaining about this. Because I don't know very much about how it is in any other place than my "old" school. And I have no idea how it is in Germany. I just really really hope it's different. Because these stories broke my heart. )

Change

I'm so tired right now, but I tried to find time for this since a few days and in the next time I will probably have even less time. And that's because I'm changing school. Yes, finally. And I'm so happy! On my birthday, I realized that I don't want to spend my year at the school. I'm not happy there and I just can no longer deal with being lonely. At the restaurant we talked about trying to change school. Then my hostmother called my new school the other day. And they've a place for me. In exactly the program I wanted to be in. And maybe I will even be able to learn spanish. It all went so quick. Yesterday (monday) I talked to YFU about changing school. They were not excited about that, but I finally managed to convince the woman from YFU that my situation is very bad and changing school is the only thing that works. And I didn't have to lie. My situation IS bad. The people in my class were just rude. They were uninterested, quite arrogant and  they didn't even say hello to me. I knew I had to get out of there. Because having so many nasty people around me for such a long time every day was just depressing.
So this evening YFU told me that tomorrow is my last day of school and that my new school already starts on friday. That happened so quickly. But now I'm just happy. I really don't know how to say goodbye to those people who haven't even said hello to me in 4 weeks. But I'm not gonna miss them and they are not gonna miss me either.



A thing I like about the swedish school system is that school starts late. My first lesson often starts around 10. Then I need to take a bus at 8:30. So I can sleep at least until 7:30.
So when I go to sleep at 23:30 I still get 8 hours of sleep. That is amazing. In germany I need to get up at 6 every morning. My bus leaves at 6:50. But usually I would get up at 6:25 and be in a hurry, I wouldn't have time to eat. And I would never get enough sleep.


This weekend relatives of my new family visited us. I'll just write about it later. I am too tired.

                                         Katedralskolan

 Birthdaycake

 Birthdax in the restaurant

               Going for a walk with Sönkes dog

                Lunch break at the library

                  Åhléns

 Stockholm

                        Blodpudding

Stockholm, My birthday, School update

Hello, It's me again.
(Actually I really don't feel well in that school.)
My swedish is getting better. Today in school I realized I nearly get half of what they say in the lessons. A least in swedish class. We talk about literature epochs.
A few days ago, I decided to go to german lesson, because my french lesson was cancelled and I had nothing to to anyway. My french class is mostly in swedish, which I don't like. The french level is very low. In the german lesson they only talk german. And they're quite good. In the course is another german exchange student, Anni. She's also from YFU, in the same program as I am but in a different class and I spend a lot of time with her. She is the reason why I went to the german class. The teacher is very nice and I she seems to be very very glad that her students get the opportunity to talk to native speakers. So eventhough being in that course does not really help me, I would do it just for that reason. But there's another thing I really like about that. The students are very nice, open-minded and interested. It was the first time in three weeks that someone came up to me by themself to talk to me.  They don't fear speaking to us in German. And to be very honest, there's a lack of nice people on that school. And it is a pleasant feeling to have good people around, at least twice a week.
So I changed the course and said Au Revoir to le francais.
I want to tell you about the subect: CSI. It exactly is what it sounds like. A subject about crime. We watched a documentation with the disturbing tite: The perfect murder. I thought I should share the knowledge of how to kill people properly so the police does not get you. First of all you should use an icicle and stab the person. The reason is obvious. The weapon melts and leaves no traces. And you should leave the corp... No I shouldn't talk about that, right? I just wanted to show you how weird it is that they teach us how to kill people in school. But though fascinating and very interested. Except for the part were they murdered a pig and hanged it to show with the aid of the insects eating the meat that you can see how long a corp has been dead. That was just disgusting.
Did I turn mad? No, I didn't. It was just as strange for me as it is for you. But very interesting though.

And last weekend I was at Stockholm! :)
This city is so beautiful and relatively green. One day is really not enough to see the city. It was not even enough to go to all the shops I wanted to go. Stockholm is the best city in Europe for shopping that I ever visited. There's: Brandy melville, Victoria's secret, Ahléns (muuuch make up), Hollister, American Apparel, Monki and  BIKBOK (both remind me a little bit of Bershka, but just a little bit. The clothes are much nicer) These are just some shops I wanted to mention because a lot of girls my age will be interested in that. Stockholm is an amazing place to shop. You go from one mall to another and it is just does not end. But I also spend my time visiting the city a little bit. But just a little bit because time passed so fast. And the city is very big so it takes a while to walk around. You probably heard of the island of the museums. We saw it but didn't go there. There were people fishing in the lake/river around the island. Strange to see someone fishing in the citycenter. The contrast between citylife and nature, fast-moving people and the patience of the fishers.
We spend our time at the park and I enjoyed feeding the ravens. I think my friend Sönke was a little bit scared of them. Or just annoyed, I'm not sure :P We had a great day :)

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 16. I felt quite homesick for the whole day, and I had a really bad day at school. But in the evening my hostfamily went to a restaurant with me and I totally forgot about my homesickness. It was a restaurant/bar in the style of a thai boat restaurant. It was really amazing and the food was amazing too. I didn't take a photo but it looked very much like this.

I got a book about swedish traditions and another book with beautiful photos of different parts of Sweden. And my little hostbrother (he's 10) got me a bar of chocolate. That was so cute and really, we had a great evening. Later we had cake. One of the best cakes I ever had. Thank you very much to my hostfather.

This is typical swedish:

We have that in Germany too, but Sweden has it in like, every shop.
Next tuesday I'm going to a soccer game in the stadium. I'm excited :)

I hope you all are doing good. Franzi

                                                                    Jam session

                                                                        baking applepie

                                                                  blueberries

                                                                   forest in Sweden

school

Hey again. I already wanted to upload this post yesterday but something got in between.



Monday 31.08.

It's hard to find time. Right now it's monday, 8:45 am and I'm on my way to school. I've been in school for a week now. My first day of school was good. The following days weren't. But it's alright. Things will get easier, I guess. Everything is different from Germany. They have a year of preschool in the swedish school system. Elementary school is until 6th grade. Then you change school until grade 9. So everyone learns on the same level. After that, you change school again and go in "gymnasiet" for 3 years. So 2nd graders in gymnasiet are as old as 12th graders in germany. And I'm in grade 2 here. In gymnasiet you can choose different programs. Like science, social studies (politics and psychology), social science (sociology or media), and on very few schools also a language program. There are so many programs and I have no idea what the others are, because I just know the ones heard about. I am in social science. I couldn't choose and it's not what I would have chosen, but maybe I can change it. I'll just have to try.

The school does not begin nor ends at the same time everyday. The lessons aren't 45 minutes,but about 1 hour. Actually that's different from lesson to lesson. When you're at school at 8:30am you can get free coffee. Lunch in the cafeteria is free also. Sadly the cafeteria is far away from my school. It's 2 stations with the bus.
You don't pay for schoolbooks, and you get a laptop which you can buy for 750 SKR (about 75€).
Swede's get paid for going to school. And not too less... They get about 1500SKR (=150€) But I don't. Because I'm an exchange student. And they normally also pay for the bus and train tickets.
I wondered how they can afford all this. My hostbrother and me did a research and found out Sweden invests  13% of all taxes in education. Germany uses 5%. That is for too little. We don't even have white boards... Dear german politicians, it is time fo change. We even have free WIFI in school!
School spirit is different from german schools, It is not strange to carry a bag with your school logo. Maybe that's because Uppsala is a big city and you really choose your school instead of just going to the nearest school.
The teachers are very nice. It's a relaxed atmosphere betweeen students and teachers. And the teachers really prepare their lessons. And yes, it's right that we call them by their first name. And that they thank the students for the lesson.
Everything is perfect except for...the students. They are very diifferent from what I used to. I can just talk about my program, because I don't now what the other programs are like. But I have the impression that they care much more about their looks than about school. My program is very easy compared to science. And that's the problem I think. Most people probably chose social science because it's easy. And I am much more ambitious than they are. So I don't really fit in.

some pictures