Studentvecka

Graduation here in Sweden is a much bigger event than it is back home in the states. In Sweden there is a whole week of celebration leading up to the actual graduation ceremony. It started on monday, I went with the third year class to Norberg (which is a city that is only about 30 minutes away) and we ate a nice lunch at a fancy restaurant, walked around the town, and had a nice fika which was a lot better than taking my religion test! Then on wednesday we had the ball (prom). I went with a friend of mine who didn't have a date and some of the main differences were that first of all was that almost everyone arrives to the ball in a old american car. I think my group came in a camaro, but it was really interesting, it felt like you had just stepped back in time to the 50's era. Then when we arrived in our old american car, there was a heard of people waiting outside just watching everyone come in and taking pictures - there was even a red carpet! Also, unlike prom, they serve a full three course meal at the event and they sell alcohol as the drinking age in Sweden is 18. And actually the school, more or less, encouraged drinking (throughout the entire week). But the ball was a lot of fun we had a nice dinner and I danced the night away with all of my friends! Then thursday was the last day of school so I we had a class fika with my actual class (second year) and then we got dressed up for the "graduation games". It works like this, each class has a theme (ours was circus) and everyone dresses up really crazy. Then we play a lot of competition games - some of which I've done before like throwing an egg or wheelbarrow races but then there were some that I was surprised the schools condoned. Such as, one game were you have to take off as much clothing as you are willing then put it all in a line - the first group to have the longest line wins. So basically everyone was going around naked...yay Sweden! But while all of this is going on there is also a constant vatten krig (water war), so as you can imagine it was chaotic to say the least and a lot of fun! Then afterwards we went and grilled, played kubb and brandy ball, and just hung out.

Then came friday, which was the actual day of graduation. We meet at 06.30 sharp to have a champagne breakfast before we headed off to school. At school we meet with our teachers, took pictures, had a fancy lunch, had a the actual ceremony , and finally we ran out of the school's front doors. Then you look for your family who usually have a sign with a picture of you as a kid and then you go around and people you know often congratulate you with flowers, stuffed animals, ect. on some ribbon. Then after that you meet up with your class again then you go around town for about an hour on a wagon pulled by a tractor. It's surprisingly a lot of fun, well that is until people started throwing water ballons at us. Girls always wear white dresses, which everyone did despite the fact that it was around 50 degrees (10 for you guys who don't live in the US) and being wet just made it so much worse! But overall it was great!  It's defiantly something I will remember forever.

And finally I will leave you with a link to a video a girl in the class made, she basically video taped the entire day of friday so if you interested you can see that here.

inte så mycket tid kvar nu,
till nästa gången

Bryana Shook