Not the Sportlov I expected

Swedes are very creative.  Instead of naming the week off school mid winter break like they do in the US, they name it "sports break" so that families feel inclined to go to the mountains and be active (ski).
You might remember that I am/was signed up for a famous cross country ski race called the Vasalopet. (Well I am too young to do the real thing, so my host dad and I signed up for the Kort Vasa: "short Vasa").  Unfortunetly I am unable to tell you about how fun and exhausting it was because I was unable to race :(
Instead I got to visit a Swedish hospital!  Don't worry I am alive and getting better, I just had an infection that needed to be taken out imediately.  But this girl had the world's fastest recovery and I was able to do a little bit of downhill skiing the next day!

 Luckily we also had some beautiful weather!

 There was quite a bit of snow.  On the sides of the path leading up to our cottage/house the snow was up to my shoulders!

 Stefan and Axel took me to the Troll forest on one of the mountains :) It is exaclty what it sounds like!

  Seeing that I could not ski as much as I wanted, we had some extra time.  Soo... we took a side trip (30 minute drive) and went to Norway!

Norway looked odly identical like Sweden Teehee :)

A tourist again

Every so often, seeing as I am only spending a year in Sweden, I feel obligated to do some touristy things; learn a little more about the history of Sweden, famous people, and/or customs that aren't exteremly well known. So I my host parents took me to Gamla Uppsala (translation: Old Uppsala).
You might think that this is an old neighborhood of Uppsala with cobblestone roads and old birck buildings. Well no, it is actually a graveyard; but not exactly like the graveyard you are thinking of.  There are total of around 250 burial mounds (graves) and the three main ones were long long ago for royal people.

Oh course Stefan and I had some fun in the play area as well :)

These pictures were taken on the top from the top of one of the main burials.

You can see another one of the three largest graves behind me in these pictures.