Welcome to my amazing sportlov!

Sportlov is actually a Swedish name, it is winter break according to the translation, but I would prefer the lovely Swedish way.
But still it is necessary why in English it is called winter break but in Swedish it becomes 'sport', as Sweden is famous for the cold weather and a lot of snow, this week is more likely to give all the students time to do the sport, well, actually ice skiing!
For a long time I found myself wasting time during the holidays in Sweden, maybe it's because I haven't used to getting a holiday without bunches of homework! So this time I planned for my holiday, just to make it wonderful and instead of just sitting in front of the computer.
My host mother helped me to apply a visit in my host sister's school in Karlstad, it is an amazing school to me because this school has the class such as 'horse caring' and 'animals', my host sister is studying about horses there, to someone like me who loves animals so much, how can I miss it! So well, on Monday and Tuesday I went with my host sister.
It took us nearly three hours to go from Trollhättan to the school by train.

Here is where my host sister lives, it is a normal house, but this one is allowed to take dogs if you want.

 

 

On Monday I went with my host sister to her class, it was the day all the students just spend all day taking care of the horses or just do some cleaning. And unfortunately I forgot my camera and my phone so I didn't take any photos, but what we do was far more beyond the imagination, as a school guest I didn't even get a chance to ride the horse, but I weighed the hey for different horses, cleaned the stable, to tell the truth, it was really heavy work, luckily we got sunshine that day, so when I was too cold in the stable I just went out to feel the sunshine for a while. After the lunch, the students got the chance to ride a horse, by the way, during the working day, the students are divided in different small groups, which means my host sister and I were with just five other girls. However that day our group only had five horses, so after the sortation my host sister lost the chance, so we helped other members to clean the horses, put stuff on the horses and helped them to get on the horses, then we just followed them to take the horses out. After school I went out to take some pictures, it is really magnificent to see the sun and snow together, right?

 

 

The next day I followed my sister's roommate, she was in the animal part, which means I would have chance to see more animals, and it is wonderful that the school owns a zoo!

I helped a lot also to clean the zoo and took care of different animals, as I was a little sick it was actually hard when I worked outside as Tuesday was so cold, I felt I was freezing when I did the job.

Then we had a lovely FIKA, which is so typical Swedish. The best part for me was after lunch, we could finally just stayed inside to take care of small animals! It was much warmer, and you can always hug all the little creatures if you would like! But I didn't take pictures of some zoo animals like guineas, so there are some normal photos of me and the pets.

They are just food! Poor little guys.

 



 

It's nice to have the little mouse in my hand, but she was so nervous that she keeps pooping!

 

 

Our work clothes!

 

The night I would say goodbye to this nice school as I must go back, so at the last moment I took some photos of the school and also my sister and I spent some time in Karlstad centre before the train.

One of the classrooms or some place for rest!

All the graduation photos!

Other student houses!

 

The train station.

I bought some nail polishes in Karlstad, it is always difficult to say no to these fancy things.

 

 

On Wednesday I was with my good friend in Gothenburg, most of the time we spent in IKEA which is really the first IKEA I have ever been in Sweden!

But before IKEA we were just near the train station which is also the centre of Gothenburg.

 

This one made us laugh for a while. Not KFC? Ha-ha!

 

Before IKEA, we also stopped by the biggest candy affair, no matter who opened this shop, it must be a genius!

 

 



 

IKEA to me was different from the one in Shanghai, I'd say IKEA here is much better! But maybe also the furniture design and some opinions in China and in Sweden are different, which I just so enjoy the Swedish way in this IKEA.

It was new for both of us, so we got on the right bus but got off one stop earlier.

I was so excited to see IKEA that I couldn't even stop taking photos of the ambulance! My friend joked as there must be someone exactly the same excited as me that made the ambulance appear here.

These designs are really sweet, just like a real home, so even though I was the only one kept taking pictures but I thought I didn't look too much like an idiot.

Things in IKEA are always much cheaper, but to me, the most attractive thing is nothing more than the FIKA part, we had too many candies on the bus, so our stomachs only allow us to have some desserts.

 

We were so satisfied with the FIKA and somehow we acted just like children! So please ignore my terrible face in the photo!

Just before I left, the traditional in IKEA is definitely the cheap ice cream!

 

Before I leave the pictures I took at home, and after a whole day in Gothenburg, I became so terrible again!

 

On Thursday I was at home, well, after all I had never been out for so much time. However, me and my other host sister were so hungry in the afternoon, so we decided to bake kanel bullar which is a typical Swedish snack together.

And then on Friday my juniorfadder who is my helper in English asked me to go out for some shopping. It was nice! We even watched a movie at her home which is sadly the AVATOR that we didn't get the 3D disc.

For the rare disc we went from Överby to Vänersborg, though we still didn't find it, we did have a fabulous little time in the centre there.

According to my helper it was the ancient cycle in Europe, but I tried and only found it was really too tall for me to cycle on it!

 

But with the candies again that I bought for nearly half price in ICA MAXI, the movie was still great!

Since I tried to avoid too much chocolate I got addicted to the fruit candies! OMG!!!

 

 

But still, it was the most amazing holiday I have ever had!