31 days.

There are only 31 days until I leave. I'm getting anxious. I'm brushing up on Swedish. As well as, going through my wardrobe to find what I am taking, and what I'm not. I'm constantly making sure that my passport in a safe place. I'm so excited, and nervous. I'm not nervous because I think the trip will be a disaster. Just nervous because I'm about to take a huge jump, from being a young woman in North-west Ohio, to being a young woman in Sweden.

Which, in reality isn't a HUGE jump, but for me it is! Its been my dream to travel for years, and now its finally happening. I've always worried that I am going to make a bad impression, like many other Americans, by not knowing how to speak the language, or offending someone without knowing it, by doing something, that is common here in America, that is not so common, or polite there. Although Anton says that its not going to happen, that I will be alright. I just am  a bit worried. I am more excited for the trip than worried though. I love the idea that I am going to finally be a world traveler, that I've finally got a start to my dream of seeing the world.

I am excited to be able to get there, and report to everyone what I find, what is different from home, whats the same as back home, just everything! I think it will be interesting for me to be there for three months, because its not like I will be there for just two weeks, (average vacation length) I'll be there for a lot longer! I think that is to my advantage though. I think it will help me get used to things, and learn more things about the culture, that if I was only there for two weeks I wouldn't have had the chance to!

I am excited to prove to everyone, here as well as there in Sweden, that I can make it living in another culture. I want to have a very good grasp of the language before I leave to come home, so I will be using Swedish as much as possible while there. My goal is to come back, nearly fluent...(Which I doubt will happen) but I can hope! I've been working on Swedish during the days here, I have a book that has basic words and phrases. I also have a few other books, that I reference from time to time, to attempt to learn about sentence structure because it might be useful to know. Knowing all the basic phrases is going to be a good start though!

I feel like it would be good for me to post on here some of the phrases that I will be using the most often. Even if only for myself, to see if I was right about what phrases would be important. As of right now the phrases that I think are important, are just based on what I think. I could be completely wrong. I think it will be interesting to see if the phrases that I think will be common for me, will really be that common, or if I will find that I use other phrases more.

So I suppose I should start with the basics and work my way to the tougher phrases.

Hej  - Hello/ Hi
Hej då  - Good bye
Hur mår du?   - How are you?


I guess those are the basic phrases, besides the responses to "How are you" But I know those, and can put those up here later if I feel like it. I guess for this post, I've bored everyone enough, maybe I'll get around to posting another thing tomorrow, maybe I wont, but for now you have this post to read... but not to fear, I've got ideas stirring for my next post already!