Comenius blog

Hi I’m Steffanie, one of the swedes who went to London. I’ll be writing about what I got to do on the Saturday, our day alone with our host families.

I really wanted to go to shopping so Euan’s sister Alice went with me. We went to Oxford Street and walked around. Sara and her host was supposed to go with us but there were some problems so Alice and I met up with Bella, her host and his girlfriend. Chris, Bella’s host, thought that we should go to Abercrombie and Fitch and check it out. So we did and when we got there Bella and I got to take a picture with one of the male models there. And wow he sure looked good, haha!

After that we split up and Alice and I went to meet up with her friend, Lydia. We ate lunch at McDonalds and then we continued shopping. At around 5 o’clock or so we split up from Lydia since we were supposed to meet up with Euan and their mum. We went to dinner and then we went to the National Theatre to see the play Frankenstein. A great play that I recomend!

We took the tube and as we were on it we realised that if we were really fast we’d make the 22:03 train. So we ran, alot, and we made it! Most fun I had that week, hihi.

I love London and want to go back there really soon!

The trip to London was great. It was really fun and we had to practice our English. On Saturday we were going to spend the day with the host families. I went with my host family to London. We took the train in to London, it took about 40 minutes. At first we went to Portobello Road which is the world´s largest antiques market. It was people everywhere; sometimes you had to stop because it was so many people everywhere. I couldn’t take my eyes of the guy, Aiden who I was living with or his sister because then I would lose them and probably not found them again.  

After that we took the bus to Oxford Street. Oxford Street is a big shopping street in London. It was an amazing place to be in; it was people and shops everywhere. We ate at Pizza Express and looked in the shops.  After a couple of hours we walk to Covent Garden, there we looked at the living statues and street entertainers.

After many hours of sightseeing and shopping we decided to go home. We had to travel with the subway to the train station, but when we came to the train station a football match between Arsenal and someone more just ended. And the football stadium was right next to the train station. So we had some problems with taking us to the train station because the police had closed some passages from the underground but it went well. We just had to wait for the train for a while. After that we went with the train to Aiden´s cousin, who later drove us home.

The days in London were all great. I had really fun and it was a great experience. I have got some new friends too. My host family was great; they really took care of me and did their best to make my stay as good as possible.

/Therese

On Saturday we all got to do whatever we wanted together with our hostfamily. I went into town with jack, who I lived with and Matilda that also is from Sweden and her host David. We went to Covent garden and Oxford street(which is very good shopping areas!) among other places. It was very fun walking around in London and with two personal guides it became a whole lot easier to find the stores we wanted to go to. We ate lunch at a place called “Pizza express”. All four of us got a bit annoyed because we had to wait 45 min for our food but it was worth the wait, it was really good! When we had walked around for hours and started to get tired, we went to the British museum. I have been there once before but it was just as fun as the first time.

Around 6 p.m. me and Jack went to meet his mother and sister to eat dinner and then go to a musical, my second musical during our stay in London. We ate in chinatown, which was cool because I didn’t even know they had chinatown in London. The food was amazing! I ate lemon chicken with rise. Unfortunately I wasn’t that hungry because we ate lunch quite late. After dinner we went to the theatre. The musical we were going to see was “Spelling bee”. It is an american musical about a spelling bee and one of the fun things about it is that four people in the audience were suppose to be in it as contestants. You but your name on a piece of paper if you wanted to be a contestant (I didn’t). But it was very entertaining to see the four people that were the contastants trying to spell all kinds of strange words, I laughed a lot and the music numbers were awsome! I actually think I liked this musical a tiny bit more than “Grease” we had seen the night before. After the musical we took the subway or as the englishmen would say “the tube” home. The day had been great and I could have spent sunday in London too but on sunday we would fly back home to Sweden.

Now I’m going to tell you about what we did on the friday! My name is Bella and of course I am one of the swedish students. The whole group of “tourists” met at the school early in the morning. Our dear hostboys had an ordinary schoolday while we swedish people together with the german and the spanish students went to the capital city! We first were told to stay together and try not to fall into the street. We kind of wondered how big and dangerous London could be before we left. But when we got there.. 14 million people in the same town… it’s a few moore that we have in sweden. First we went underground a while and then we jumped on a big red tourbus! Of course, we tough swedish people went to the roof to have a better view. noone thought of the fact that even if it was spring, it was freezing cold! The wind was like trying to bite our cheeks of the whole way. But what a trip! Oh my, we saw everything you have to see in London! The London Eye, Tower Bridge, The London Bridge, Big Ben and Picadilly Circus and so much moore! And I’m sure that it was because of us the sun was shining on the afternoon.

We had a wonderful day besides the cold wind and really saw London from every view! from the roof of a bus, from a boat on the Themsen and from the ground when we later got into the town to get to Picadilly Circus to meet our hostboys. We ate fish and chips, of course, and felt really english! We were so amazed by the sounds of the town, by the people, the traffic and everyting else! We finished our day with the boys from St Ignatius at a theather. We saw nothing less than “Grease the musical”! So awesome! It was really good, all the dances and the songs.. wow!
After that we had the evning free with our host, so me and my wonderful host went to see London at night! unfortunally the my camera died, so I don’t have any pictures myself, but it was so cool! Lights, sounds, people everywere! The atmosphere was really amazing, everyone were so happy! To honor the night, we went to a cinema and saw “Black Swan”. Really good, scary and truly amazing! The friday in London was the best!

Now a few weeks after the arrival in Sweden I’ve had time to digest all the impressions and the time in London has been very fun and I’ve learn many new things, especially more English. In the beginning it was a bit hard to keep up with the english students because they talked very quickly, but after a day or two it wasn’t hard at all. Instead it was fun that we understood eachother, even if they talked quite fast and my English isn’t the best!

On Thursday we were in the English students’ school, St Ignatius College, which was a catholic boyschool. To come there, me and Jayjay (my host) first took the bus to the trainstation, and at the trainstation we took the train. When we got of the train we walked about 1-2 km and then we were at the school. A distance that takes about fifteen minutes with a car, took about 40-45 minutes with bus and train. Anyhow, when we came to the school we followed our host to their registration, they called all names of the boys in the class and then one of them stood in front of the class and prayed. After that we all met up in the library (the people from Spain, Germany, England and Sweden). We talked a lot and everybody was curious about how the first day had been. Then we had a roundtour in the school and some of the older boys showed us around. It was a lot to see and it was not so much like our school in Sweden. For example they had a big chapel where they prayed in the morning. But there was only about 40 of 1200 students who went to the chapel in the morning.

All the boys had school-uniforms and the tie showed which grade they were in. After the roundtour we walked into a few English classes to tell them about Sweden. It was appreciated, I can tell. In one class the boys were high and low and spoke out loud all the time and asked a lot of questions, maybe they were a bit to interested in Sweden? =)

After the presentations we ate in the dining room, there was three different dishes to choose from and two different desserts. I chose chicken and rise. It was okey, it didn’t taste so much because the pupils was not aloud to salt their food. That is a decision of Jamie Oliver, the famous chef. He thinks that salt is not healthy and because of that the students could not salt the food. But the teachers on the other hand, had a set table with salt and other spices. Not so fair.

At the end of the day we played Volleyboll, we Swedish students were in the same team as three or four English boys. Our team came on third place. After the volleyboll game we went home with our hostes.

In my opinion, the day in their school was great and it was really fun to see what their school looked like. That was all I had for this time! / Sara

We met at the school at 7.30. Linda and AC had rent a minivan. We were all very excited and nervous. But also curios!  We were going to live in a host family. Some of us had lived in a host family before, but not everyone. We didn’t know our host families  but  we had talked with them on facebook. The driver drove us to Skavsta. We arrived early, so we couldn’t check in our baggage. So we ate sandwich  and some fruits from the school. After that, we checked in our bags and then we walked to the hand baggage control.  We left Sweden at 12 o’clock. The trip was about two hours.

When we landed, were we all very starving! We hurried to the “bag delivery” and took our bags. But A-C couldn´t find her bag! We waited and waited… No bag! Well. A-C needed some help. So she started to looking for help, but then we saw her bag! Fjuh! How lucky! We walked to the waiting hall. There, we met the Germans. We said hello to the Germans and then we went to Burger King to eat. It tasted very good! After that, we would go to the school.  But first, we had to take our bags to the English teachers’ car. And after that, we were forced to go the hole way back plus a bit more to the minivan… And it was very windy! Not funny! The trip from the airport to the school was about one hour. We saw a lot on the way! When we arrived at   St Ignatius’ College, we walked to a room. And there, we waited on our hosts and then we followed them home.

Hello!
It’s time for me to formaly present myself here on the Comenius blog. My name is Mattias Eriksson and I, like pretty much the rest of us from Sweden, am studying my second year at Bredgårdskolan. The direction of my program specializes in Social studies, languages and foreign cultures. I myself study Spanish, English, Latin, Italian and of course Swedish (duh´).

I am one of the students who will be hosting one of the students in the coming trip to Sweden in May. As Spanish is my first-choice language, I’ll probably be hosting a Spanish student!

On my spare time I like hanging out with my friends. I also play and sing in a local band in my hometown, Degerfors. We’re having a gig coming up this very week on thursday, so I’m realy exited now!

And then that’s about it I guess..
Cheers!

*Me on the pic below*

This is a presentation of me and my thoughts and expectations for the exchange students which are coming here in May.

My name is Olivia, and I’m studying my second year at Bregårdsskolan, which is in Karlskoga, Sweden. On my spare time I spend time with my friends and play basketball.

Right now I’m really fed up with the typical swedish winter. Everytime you think the spring is on it’s way, it starts to snow again. It feels like the spring is never coming.

I don’t know what to expect about the exchange, but I’m sure it will be great!  Now I don’t know what to write anymore, so, byeee!

Hi everyone!

Our first day has been very intense, so many impressions. We have spent the whole day at St. Ignatius college. We been guided through to school. Its very big compared to Bregarn. At the end of the day the students had a volleyball tornament. Sweden got the third place. Well done girls!

We are so lucky to here and our english hostes are great!

For tomorrow we say: London here we come!

Sleep well! / Linda