2014
Food on Christmas Day
I went with Heather and her family to a cabin in west/northern Wisconsin. We went skiing, snowmobiling, played games and watched movies :)
I cut and colored my hair
Penny took some photos of me in the snow
I went shopping with money I got from my parents and grandfather for Christmas
Last Friday I went skiing in Sunburst with school. It was so much fun!
December
A month ago it was Thanksgiving. Penny and I made a turkey. Penny also made pumpkin pie. I have never tried pumpkin pie before but it tasted good. I made some Mizerja (polish dish) and Bob and Penny liked it :) We also dressed the Christmas tree and took out the Christmas decorations.
Svenska julkalendern from Emilie
Some weeks ago it was Black Friday in America. Black Friday is when stores have big sales over one night. Heather and I wanted to do the whole Black Friday experience so we woke up at 3 in the morning and went to Fond du Lac to do shopping. It was a fun experience to go shopping during the night. We were both really tired but it was fun. Then we ate breakfast at Starbucks and we went back to Heather's house and slept from 7-11am. Then in the afternoon we went back to Fond du Lac to see Catching Fire in the Cinema.
The last weeks before Christmas break I had so much to do. I have basketball practice everyday after school or a game either at school or in an other town. Basketball is fun and I think I'm improving. Two weeks ago at a game I got tripped and I sprained my ankle, so that was not fun... My ankle was all purple and swollen :(
The last weeks I had a lot in school. My hardest class is AP Biology. Sometimes I have a hard time understand because the teacher speaks really fast and uses hard biological terms, but it's not that bad. The Algebra 2 course is a lot of homework but it's not that hard. In Choir we just had a Christmas Concert. In English we just finished writing a theme comparison paper comparing Macbeth and The Crucible. In PE we have played basketball, indoor hockey and volley boll.
Last weekend it was the Benzschawel Christmas party. Bob's family is big so they meet before Christmas so that they can all celebrate Christmas together. The party was at the Chilton Hotel. It was a lot of people there and lots and lots of food. I made some Swedish gingerbread cookies for the party and everyone liked them. Everyone though that the cookies were really really thin... Americans usually do everything bigger and better, haha. They also usually put frosting on the cookies. After we ate and swam in the hotel pool we played some big Jenga, so that was fun. Kate, Bob's daughter from Chicago came to visit and it was very nice to meet her :)
This weekend I slep over at Heather's house with Karissa and Veera. It was a lot of fun. We had our gift exchange and we did some scarfs. I got a Monsers University Blanket, some basketball tshirts and socks :) Karissa tought us how to arm knit scarfs. It was a lot of fun. In the morning Heather and I made some Swedish pancakes for Karissa and Veera. They all liked it and I didn't burn them so that was good.
Here in Wisconsin the weather is different than at home. Right now we have 30cm of snow and -10* Celcius while thereis no snow at home... The last weeks it has been really cold some days. Some days it was less than -20* Celcius... Yesterday apperently it was said that is was a storm (they named the storm Alice). It was snowing all day and it was very windy. Penny took some great photos of me in the snow :) Sometimes we see turkeys outside our house which I think is really cool because we don't have wild turkeys in Sweden (I think…)
The 26th of December I'm going with my friend Heather and her family to a cabin. There we are going to ski, ice skate and go snowmobiling. It's going to be so much fun. I'm also going to spend New Years Eve there.
Sleep over!
Last week it was parent/teacher conference in school. Penny, Bob and I went there. It was a little embarrassing sometimes because the teachers thought it was funny to embarrass me :P I have good grades though and the teachers say I'm good so that feels nice :)
I'm in the A Honor Roll which is a good thing apperently. My GPA is 3.723 of 4.0 which is good too.
Last Friday Penny and I went to Fond du Lac. We went to a Christmas store. Americans are crazy. It was a whole two floor store open all year around. They had so much stuff.
Last week it was cold and it was snowing :O
Last Friday I also did rice with appels in the oven which is a Polish dish. Bob and Penny really enjoyed it!
Last week I also bought an Iphone case and some Monster University PJ pants :)
On Saturday I went shopping with Heather, Karissa and Veera. It was a lot of fun. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings where the food was okay and then we also went to Starbucks :) At Starbucks we drank some hot Christmas drinks. They were so good!
After that we went to Piggly Wiggly and bought some ingrediences. Veera and I was going to make some Polish/Swedish/Finnish food for Heather and Karissa. We made köttbullar (meatballs), klyftpotatis (potatoes in the oven), Mizerja (cucumbers in sour cream salad) and also ungspannkaka (oven pancakes) for breakfast. Karissa and Heather made Monkey Bread for us. I had no idea what it was. It is like small breadballs that you roll in cinamon and then u kind of dip them in carmel toffe mixture. It was very good :) Here are some pictures from that night :)
Karissa and I
Karissa and Veera
Monkey Bread
Package from home!
Last week we had a sleep in on Tuesday and Thursday. We started school at 10:45. On Tuesday I spent 3h in school just doing catch up work for the week I was gone to Atlanta and sick. I was sick the whole last week. At the end of the week I went to the doctor becuase I felt really bad. I had pink eye which is an eye infection and also infection in my bronchial tubes. The doctor thought that I had pneumonia but it later turned out that I didn't have pneumonia. I got some eye drops with antibiotica for the pink eye and I also got some cought medicine.
This week has gone by pretty fast. In AP Biology we are doing a lab testing respiration which is fun mostly because I have a good time with the group I work with :) Today Heather, Colton and I were preparing for doing the lab and we (Heather) accidently (she blaimed it on me) spilled a lot of water all over our table and everything got wet. I really like AP Biology except that the course is really hard. In English we are reading Macbeth which is very challenging. My English teacher always picks on me so I usually have to read out loud and everyone thinks it's really amusing when I read because of my accent. In PE this week we played pickle ball which is basiclly tennis but with wooden rackets and a indoor hockey ball (innebandyboll). We were in pairs and we played a tournament. I played with Erick and we played three games and we lost two of them so we are now out of the tournament. In choir we sing the songs "God bless America" and "Homeward Bound". We are going to preform for the Middle school on Monday because it's Veteran's day.
Yesterday I got a package from my parents which made me really happy. I'm most happy about the kinder eggs because here in America kinder eggs are apparently illegal :(
Bob got a LHC tshirt :)
Funny carrots we picked in our garden and ate yesterday
A cake Penny made a week ago
So on Thursday because we had a sleep in Veera, Karissa, Heather, Jessica and I went to Seven Angels in Chilton and ate breakfast before school :)
Georgia Aquarium
On Friday my host mom Penny and I flew to Atlanta in Georgia. We are staing with Penny's daughter Tara, her husband and their two children. They also have a huge dog named Reggie.
Atlanta
TGIF with Penny at the airport
Reggie and I
On Saturday we went to the Georgia aquarium. The Georgia aquarium is the biggest aquarium in the whole world. The aquarium has more than 30 million liter water, 100 000 animals and 500 different species of animals. It was a very cool experience :) I got to pet Rays and sea starts. I saw a dolphin show which was very cool.
Turtles
Albino Aligators
Rays
Sea otters
Some sea animal similar to crabs
Baluga Whales
Starfish
Whale sharks
Dolphins
Jelly Fish
The biggest tank with Whale sharks and other creatures
Homecoming week :)
Last Friday Heather and I went to the football game together. It was so much fun and a really interesting game. We won by 21-20 :D After the half time I helped out with other Ice Fishing Club members with sellig popcorn, pretzels, soda, candy etc to people at the game. It was very fun :) After the game when Heather drove me home a deer ran infront of the car :O
Last Sunday Penny, Bob and I went to Pat's (Bob's sister) house. We watched the packer game and the Packers won. I got to borrow Bob's jersey :) Every Sunday a lot of people here in Wisconsin wear Packer cloths. We went just in and out of Walmart and I saw 13 people wearing a Packer t-shirt/hoodie. Sports are so big here. Almost everyone is intrested in sports here. So different from Sweden and Poland. The whole day I was asking questions about football so I think I got it now :)
This week in school is homecoming week. It is a lot of fun stuff happening in and after school. On Saturday we have the Homecoming Dance :) Every grade has a theme. We are the Sinister Seniors :P
On Monday I went paintballing for the first time in my life :) It was so much fun and I really want to do it again! The team that I was in played four games. We were supposed to get to the middle of the field, take the flag and then take the flag to the other team's base tower. When you got hit you were out of the game. During the first game I was the last one in from my team with the flag. Someone from the other team run behind me and shot me six times from a close distance. So now I have six big bruices on my ribs, side and arm. I really want to play paintball some other time again!
On Tuesday after school me and Penny went shopping to Green Bay. I found black high heels for the homecoming dance :D
Yesterday was a very fun day. First Veera came home with me after school and Penny colored our hair and we did our "Sinister seniors makup". After that we went to the school. For the last week or two the senior football players have had practices with the senior girls. They have tought us how to play football. Yesterday it was a game between the junior girls and the senior girls. A lot of people came and watched. In the beginning I was a little scared that I would screw up, but I didn't. I played Nose Tackel. Nose tackle is the person who tries to get through the line of offense and get the ball from the quaterback. We didn't play with tackle though. Instead of tackeling the juniors to the ground they had flags on a belt that we were supposed to rip off. I got to play a lot because I have come to all the practices that we had :) One fun thing that happened was when I got a little upset because several times I would run through the line of offense and rip off the flag of the quaterback with the ball, but the refs didn't see it so the play would just continue. After that happened three-four times I got upset and went to the Ref to told him that he should look when I rip off the flags. He blaimed it to be because I'm Swedish so I got more upset and told him that I wasn't. Mr.Neilsen who was commenting the game in a microphone said "And now Aleks, the sweed, is arguing with the Ref" and apperently everybodyin the audience laughted... Hehe... After a hard game the Seniors won (of course) by 12-0 :D After they game everyone rushed out on the field and it was such an amazing moment! I really had a great time yesterday.
Today on Tuesday on PE we played lacross. I have never played lacross and I knew very little about the sport. Basicly what you do is that you run around with a type of stick/tennis racket and tackel people in your way. You get a point by getting the ball in the other team's goal. It's a mixture of hockey, soccer and football. We had to have chest and shoulder protection, gloves and a helmet. The sport to me is very weird and different but it was a new experience.
Today at home a tried deer loaf and it was very good :)
Yellow School Bus
On Sunday I had a meeting with the other exchange students in the Wisconsin area. There were about 13 exchange students. They were from: Finland, Thailand, Japan, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Brazil and Sweden. I met 3 other girls from Sweden and it was really nice to speak some Swedish for a change :) In the beginning of the meeting you were supposed to take a peice if toilet paper (nobody knew what for). I thought that I would be a little different than everybody else (that took just two pieces) so I took around 20 peices. It turned out to be a getting-to-know-each-other game. We had to say something about ourselves for every piece of paper that we took, so everyone at the meeting got to hear a whole essay about me... hehe... But everyone clapped at end :D
Today I took the school bus to school. I think that it is so cool that I'm going on THE yellow school bus. I'm going to go with the bus this week. I sadly have to get up an hour earlier than usual to go on the bus, but to go on a yellow school bus is a thing that has to be done when I'm here.
Today I also tried a potato-cheese-hotdog gratin that Penny made which was very tasty. Penny also made a pumpkin in the oven which was also something new to me, but it tasted really good.
Today I took the school bus to school. I think that it is so cool that I'm going on THE yellow school bus. I'm going to go with the bus this week. I sadly have to get up an hour earlier than usual to go on the bus, but to go on a yellow school bus is a thing that has to be done when I'm here.
Today I also tried a potato-cheese-hotdog gratin that Penny made which was very tasty. Penny also made a pumpkin in the oven which was also something new to me, but it tasted really good.
Lake Michigan
Now my first week in school is over. :) It was a lot to take in but it was okay. The lesson that I enjoy the most is PE, I think. I have PE every day which is so different from Sweden where I had it once a week. This week we played Soft Ball and Golf. I'm so bad at both, but it was so much fun anyway. I also had a short private lesson with the choir teacher. I will have those once every second week. I just had to sing some scales for her.
On Friday Penny bought Macaroni and Cheese, because I really wanted to try. I think it's a thing you have to try if you are in America and I liked it. Some days ago I also tried Root Beer which is an American soda. I thought it tasted like the toothpaste I usually use so I couldn't drink it because it felt like I was drinking toothpaste
And this is me and Dolly. I usually call her sneezer because she always sneezes in my face. She sometimes joins me when I eat breakfast.
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Today Penny, Bob and I went to Manitowoc. First we went to a Harley Daivdson motorcycle shop. After that we went to the beach on Lake Michigan. It was really nice and Penny took some photos of me :)
My first day of school
Today was my first day of school. I was really nervous, but it went well. The classes that I take are:
Concert Choir/Outdoor skills
Chemistry
AP Biology
PE
English
Algebra 2
American History
I have the same schedule every day. I go to school from 7:55 a.m to 15:15 p.m.
I will just have Choir one semester and the other semester I will have Outroor Skills. In Outdoor skills I will learn about fishing, hunting etc.
Chemistry and AP Biology wasn't too difficult or too easy so that was really good. During PE we played Soft Ball, and of course I got picked last to join a team :(
A lot of students helped me and they were really nice to me. The school is so different to what I'm used to but I like it. The break between each lesson is 4min long and it's so hard to manage to go to your locker to get your books for the next class, find where your next class is and sit down when the bell rings after 4min. I didn't get loss though because I had a map :)
I was afraid that I would sit alone in lunch, but I didn't :) A girl explained how the lunch worked, because there is two lines with different food choices, and then you have to have a student account number to pay for the lunch.
My name is Aleks and I'm 17 years old. 
