Valentine's in Sweden

Wow. It has been a LONG week of traveling! I have been to three different countries in the course of a week and I need a break! So today is my day to stay in pajamas, read and update my blog!

Last Friday (the 13th) a couple of the girls from my ward, along with the sister and a friend of one headed to Sweden for a Valentine's Convention held in Anglisas. Now I had never heard of these before, but apparently every couple of months, a city in Europe (typically Northern) will have a convention over a weekend for YSA who want to get together. And once during the year there is a large convention that lasts a week that has dances almost every night (this year it's in Copenhagen during the summer). Anyway, I think they are formed so that members of the church have the chance to meet up with people their own age because there aren't as many members here as in the States. I went with a group of 6 other girls: 1 English, 1 other American and 4 Scottish girls. I had a grand old time with the girls and hope that we can stay in touch! It was a lot of fun to hang out with LDS people my own age who have the same standards as me and know how to have fun! It's been quite sometime since I've spent that much time with any number of LDS girls my own ways, I think the last time would have been at girls camp, but I really enjoyed my time spent with them!

We left at 3:30 in the morning to catch our flight to Gothenburg. Thankfully, because Europe is so close to one another, the flight was only about 2 hours long, so we weren't on the flight for forever, I think most of us slept the entire time. We arrived in Gothenburg at the Landvetter airport and there was a bunch of snow on the ground and you couldn't see very far because there was fog everywhere, needless to say that I was a very cold person!

The 7 of us rented a large rental car to get too and from Anglisas instead of taking a train. I was copilot because I get carsick so easily, so I was put in charge of getting us from place to place. Let me just say this, by the end of the trip, the girls said I was really good with a map! So I can add that to my list of accomplishments!

Ok, so where do you go when you're in Sweden and are looking for a good, but cheap place to eat? You guessed it! IKEA!!! Thats right folks! Our little van of 7 went to IKEA in SWEDEN and got some delicious meatballs and treats!

For those of you who want to know, IKEA was pretty much the same as it was in the states. The only thing that was different was that the Swedish flag was the only flag flying outside the door and all the signs were just in Swedish, not English. They may have had a couple more food items downstairs and the cinnamon rolls had sugar crystals on the top instead of frosting, but other than that it was the same. Just so you know that the American version of IKEA isn't trying to rip us Americans off. 

We spent some time in Gothenburg because we couldn't check in until 4 o'clock or so. We explored the center area that was full of trams and shopping centers. 

In the center of the shopping center there was an old church, I'm not sure what it was used for or when it was built, but I would have liked to know. Unfortunately, we didn't have time for a tour or a history lesson of the city, but I think at some point in my life I want to go back to learn more about the Swedish culture and history.

The convention was held in a school in Anglisas and we slept on air mattresses in the classrooms. It ended up being pretty cold in the rooms because the heaters weren't working, but we rented sleeping bags as well and stayed pretty warm. The 7 of us were able to find a small classroom which we piled into and set up our mattresses and then we had some time to kill. The Scottish girls and I (I'm sorry I'm calling them that, I didn't ask any of them permission to put them in my blog, so that's how I'm going to  keep calling them) made a Megabed, where we placed three of the air mattresses together and slept on it long ways. So there were 4 of us spread across the 3 mattresses, we ended up being pretty cosy.

After checkin in, we went and found a supermarket to grab dinner and some snacks to eat throughout the weekend. It was a shock to me because I hadn't seen any grocery store in quite some time. It was more of a Walmart than a Safeway or Fry's because it sold clothes and other items. I got some chocolate (not for dinner) and it was tasty! That night the convention had rented out an ice skating rink that we spent a good 4 hours in.

I didn't skate that long, because my feet were killing me in the rented skates. But I did manage to only fall 2 times and I had bruises on my knees for the rest of the week, other than that I would say that I did ok. Just ok because apparently when you live in the Scandinavia countries, you are born with skates on your feet. There was a large portion of the group that zoomed around, did flips and spins and played tag on the ice, meanwhile the rest of our group was just struggling to stay upright. (Well I was struggling anyway)

We headed back earlier than everyone else because we had had a long day and wanted to make use of the available sinks and toilets before a large queue formed. Once we had tucked down in our sleeping bags and some of us had fallen asleep, the rest of the convention came home and wanted to party. The halls were filled with noise and lights till about 3 or so in the morning. Needless to say, I had a very hard time going to sleep. That might have also been the lights in our classroom turning on randomly every 45 minutes or so and needing to be shut off. I probably got up between 8-10 times that night.  

We woke up that morning to see if we could get in a shower before the rush. Apparently in the Scandinavia culture, they don't have a problem with community showers, because thats what our shower was. There was a shower room and a sort of locker room attached so you could put your clothes down and change. The three of us (2 Scottish girls and I) were very uncomfortable and thankfully there was only 1 other person in the room, so we took turns going in the shower room. 

Breakfast consisted of cheese, some sort of meat (maybe ham or turkey slices), a couple different types of bread, yogurt, butter, milk and apple juice. Which may not sound like much, but it was quite tasty and held us over until lunch. We had workshops in the morning, you could choose to sit in on a lesson about missionary work, build teddy bears or octopus for kids or practice singing in a choir. I chose to build a teddy bear! These were going to be traveling in ambulances with kids so that they could focus on them instead of the pain that they were in. 

I was pretty proud of my bear! It may have not been the best, but I did it all by myself! It took us over 2 hours to create the bears and we met some nice people from all over Europe. From what I could hear, I was the only American in the room, which was pretty cool. I met some people from Copenhagen that know my adopted Grandma. There was also a guy there who lived in Germany, but was previously from Israel. 

Unfortunately, we weren't given lunch at the school, so we left to go find some! We stumbled across this food stand that sold different kinds of hot dogs, I ended up getting a hotdog with mash (mashed potatoes) on top. It was actually really good. 

Afterwards, we met up at a shopping area that we were supposed to go serve in. We ended up getting there late because our service project went over, but we found everyone. I'm not sure what the other two groups were doing, but because it was Valentines, the singing workshop ended up singing love songs on the corner, they even had an electric piano. Inside the shopping area we found a ice cream place (don't worry I didn't get any) that had a HUGE jar of Nutella and I had to take a picture next to it. 

It's pretty much as big as my head

We then returned to the school for Volleyball games, which is a very serious sport in Scandinavia (I'm only guessing, people got pretty competitive. That's why all sport in a church setting are from the devil). Our team (consisting of 2 of the girls in my group and some other random people) actually lost pretty bad, the entire time I was thinking "why the heck aren't we playing soccer instead?" It was probably because there was snow on the ground outside, but that shouldn't be any excuse not to play. 

After Volleyball, it was time to get ready for the dance! I didn't have much to do, so it was just relaxing time for me! We went back to the grocery store to pick up food for dinner and then got dressed for the dance. The dress code was "formal" and it was interesting to see how each culture viewed that as. There was a couple of people in church like clothes (me), some other people in gowns that could have gone to prom, and even some clothes that could have been worn to the beach. The dance was held in a mansion about a mile from the school and it had 2 different floors. The first was for chatting and eating snacks, the second was for dancing. I think this is a place that is typically used for wedding receptions, but not that night!

I was expecting a more Stake dance atmosphere, where every couple of songs is a slow song, but this was more of a high school dance, where most of the songs were fast pace and throw back songs or songs from Europe that I'd never heard of before. I was just a little disappointed, because I actually love to slow dance (yes, there will be dancing at my wedding reception) although I typically never get asked. Someone told me later that this wasn't so much a dance, it was more like a mix and mingle in fancy dress with music. Thankfully, I did get asked to dance once on a slower, but still fast song. So that was a plus of the night!

We were finally ready to leave close to midnight and 6 of us headed back to the car. While we were waiting for our number 7 we saw that the entire group of people who were at the dance went out and took pictures and lit off lanterns (like in Tangled), but I was too warm in the car to go back outside in the cold. So we just all watched from the car. 

No one really went to bed after that, there was a midnight snack (the same thing we had for breakfast) and our group stayed up till about 3 in the morning talking to people we had met that day. Once we finally got back into bed, it wasn't very long until we had the lights turn on again because of the stupid sensor in our room. 

We all slept in until about 10, right before breakfast ended, we ran down and grabbed something to eat. Our Sacrament meeting started at 10:30 and a few of us were late because we woke up late. But it was a 2 1/2 hour meeting because after the sacrament, a bunch of people got up to bare their testimony. I'm not going to lie, I was falling asleep and may have done so once or twice, thankfully the Scottish girl sitting next to me kept poking me awake. 

Afterwards it was time to clean up the rooms to get ready to leave. Our flight wasn't until 9:00 or so, so once we cleaned up we joined some other people from the convention and played charades to kill some time. We then headed back to Gothenburg to explore the city a little more before we headed to the airport. 

I found a library!

You may have seen the picture I was tagged in on Facebook in front of the museum. We arrived just as it was closing so we couldn't go see anything inside, but we got to step in from the cold for a moment. We walked down around the Boulevard just exploring the area and looked for some dinner. 3 of us found another little hotdog stand that was completely vegan and got some more mash with our hotdogs. 

After dinner it was time to head back to the airport and head home. We had a simi empty flight, so I think that all of us got to spread out and sit with a seat between us so one of us could lay down. Once we landed and got through customs, we took a train back to Liverpool station to try and make the last tube home. I felt bad because once the train stopped I took off to the Underground station without saying goodbye, but I think that they understood. 

I didn't get home until 1:30 Monday morning and I was super tired that day. Monday was my day to catch up on my homework. I had two papers due the 19th of February and they needed to get done Monday because I was leaving again early Tuesday morning. I went shopping for a small suitcase and had to go print off my information at the ISA office, but I was able to finish them and turn them in on time! 

Anyway, my next post about Brussels and Amsterdam should be up soon!