Wonderful Weekend with the scouts (e. 6)

I had the great joy of spending this past weekend with scouts from all over Uppland.  The event was called a videohajken which means "The video hike".  Only half of that title really describes what we did over the weekend, the video part :)

Friday evening I hoped on a bus with several other people going to the same place as I.  It was the first time I had taken a yellow bus (a bus that goes out of Uppsala into the countryside and to neighboring towns)! The cabins that we were going to stay at were a 10 minute drive outside of a town called Knivsta (knife town in english :) )

 The sunset on our way to Knivsta

 Sierra and Beth (2 exchange students who went as well)

 Axel was the only one I knew who rode the bus.  He was also the only one that came from our troop, so he was really the only one I knew at least a little before hand.

Friday night about 20 scouts showed up from different scout groups so we played "get to know you" games before starting the movie brigade.  About half of us stayed up all night or at least stayed in the movie room all night with movies playing.  Over the entire weekend probably 20 movies were shown, but I can only name probably 6.  Half were in Swedish and half were in English.  For the Swedish ones I was able to read the Swedish subtitles and understand a bit of what was going on.

 The cottage/scout house that we stayed in.

 Saturday morning we played a munch of game out in the field (in the sun!).  My favorite game that we played was 123 British Bulldog, which is like Sharks and Minnows but instead of just tagging a person to make them a shark, you must pick them up, off the ground long enough to say "123 British Bulldog".  As you can imagine this is a little bit harder than sharks and minnows.  I did alright at the running back and forth part, but when it came my turn to be the bulldog and pick people up I just about died!

 Later Saturday we began watching movies and then playing a games related to the movie.  For example we watched Battle Royale which is pretty much the same a the Hunger Games.  So for a game we all got a rope (our life) to put in our back pocket.  The goal of the game was to be the last one standing; for if someone pulled out your rope,  you "died".

 After our taco dinner on Saturday night Sierra told me she had a candy craving.  So we asked one of the boys who lives in Knivsta if we there was an Ica (grocery store) nearby that we could walk to. 
We gathered 10 people who wanted to go buy candy and food at we all took a 40 minute walk into Knivsta at 9pm.  It was amazing to look up at all the stars and see how bright they were.  Also it was a great bonding experience and I got to know some of the people even better on this night walk.

 Sierra and Beth picking out candy

 Those of us who went on our night time walk

Sunday after everyone was awake and semi alive we watched one last movie, cleaned up the cabin and heading home.  Beth, Sierra, and I were going to catch a bus back to Uppsala but we missed that because we were having so much fun cleaning :) so Axel was able to give us a ride home since he lives in Uppsala with the rest of us. 
I made so many new friends this weekend (I really think not sleeping and acting like zombies made us bond a lot)!  And it was so nice to be able to sit outside in the sun and soak it all in possibly for the last time this year when I was sick of sitting inside watching movies.  It was a great weekend! :)

National Cinnamon Bun Day weekend (WW e. 5)

You might not know this but Friday was National Cinnamon Bun Day.  And Swedes take any chance they get to celebrate together.  Friday at school we had field day and instead of having tables that have power bars and fruit there were tables with buns and chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, sprinkles, coconut, and anything else you can possibly want or think to put on a cinnamon bun.  People were having competitions to see who could decorate the buns the prettiest or who could put the most toppings on. 
On Saturday Marie, Mikael, Johan and I went up to Falun to visit Rolf and Kris (my host grandparents) and go mushroom picking!!  We drove about half an hour away from their house, parked on the side of road, and just wandered through the forest looking for mushrooms!

There was only one type of mushroom we were looking for; ones with orangey/yellow stems and on the top there is a tinny hole right in the middle where the stem goes down.
Apparently this was the worst year that they have ever gone mushroom picking and we only found a handful or so of them.  Because there were so few I got a little sidetrack by the wild blueberries that were everywhere.  They made me think of you, dad :)

Saturday evening me and two other exchange students got together at Sierra's house and baked cinnamon buns!  We experimented with two different types of buns, both of which turned out wonderfully!  The first type was the traditional cinnamon bun way, where you roll the dough and then cut slices to make the bun.  The second way we cut strips of the dough and then twisted it and tied it in a knot and tried to make it look pretty :)

 We even got to wear cooking aprons!!

 The cooks (left to right): Abigail (from Colorado), Anna (Abigail's host sister and the expert cook), Sierra (from Utah), and me

You could say we made a couple cinnamon buns... :)

 And yes, some of them were oddly shaped...they had a lot of character.

Once all the buns were made me had dinner with all of our families and ate  lots of cinnamon buns.  We talked a lot of svengelska but mostly Swedish which was very good even though we excahnge students didn't understand everything.  We picked up the main gist of most conversations, but I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the night trying to understand.  Sunday was a very laid back day with pretty nice weather too!  The colors of the trees are amazing, as green turns to yellow and yellow to a deep red and the deep breathe of crisp Scandinavian autumn air you breathe in every time you exit a building.  I can't wait for the first snow to arrive!