May: a month of birthdays and holidays.

May seems to be a good month here. We started off with a holiday, which was wonderful. May first is basically the Swedish equivalent of labor day. It was great to start the month off with a relaxing day. Anton's youngest brother, Isak, celebrated his birthday on the 2nd of May. We went back home the weekend after, because he spent the weekend before traveling in Iceland. The weekend of May 5th we celebrated Isak's birthday, by going to see the avengers and having cake with the family. I really enjoy spending time with the family. Everyone is so kind, and so loving, and they speak English around me which puts me at ease, because then I don't feel pressured to speak Swedish. Although I am starting to pick up on what everyone is saying when they speak Swedish, which is nice, because it makes me feel like I am really improving in my language skills. We always have delicious food when we go home with the family as well, which is an added bonus. On a side note, I love Swedish birthday cake. Its amazing. I will have to get the recipe before I come home.

The next week was not very eventful, I just cooked new foods for Anton, and had a lot of fun. And of course I went to class. I feel like through out this whole time I have learned a LOT of the language. and I feel great, and I have been using my skills more and more, because I feel silly not speaking Swedish. I have the opportunity to speak it and get better, so I feel silly not speaking it. I still have problems with speaking, because I feel like I don't know enough vocabulary, but I am getting a LOT better. I really enjoy the language, although I will say that I am not too fond of the skåne accent. Its a bit difficult to explain, but just as we have accents in different areas of the United States, there are different accents here in Sweden. Skåne is the most southern region, and the accent sounds so awful. In my opinion it sounds very throaty, its very difficult to replicate the accent.

Here are two videos that show examples of skånska. 

Even though you wont be able to understand the videos, they give a pretty good example of the different skåne accents, and how awful they sound. I have one more video to share. I guess, I have disproved the image that we as Americans have come to see of Sweden. After being here for officially over one third of a year, I have noticed that many of the images that we see of Sweden are not true at all...  this video is made of clips from movies that you probably have seen at some point, and it proves at least to me, that the image that many Americans have of Sweden is very different than what things are really like here. 

After Isak's birthday came my birthday. Now as many of you know, I am now 20 years old! Its exciting to have spent my birthday here in Sweden. I got Swedish cake, and spent the day in gorgeous weather, and got to see Isak perform with his gymnastics group! It was lovely. I have lots of pictures and videos. So I guess I will just place those here... 

The first thing that happened on my birthday was I was awakened by singing, food, flowers, and presents. What a great way to start the day! I actually have video of it. Please excuse my morning hair.