Here is Vimmerby update and what was happening last week there.
September 24 - Traveling day to Germany
Host family drop off today was at 7.15 an around 7.30AM we left Vimmerby. I’m really happy that I had a chance to visit that little charming city and I know I will return one day here, if not before that I’m sure to come back with my children.
First we were traveling to west coast of Sweden for 5 hours where we took ferry to Denmark. Ferry ride was only 25minutes long so we come back to bus and continue our traveling for 3hours to the south of Denmark where we again took ferry to Germany. This ferry ride was 45minutes long. And when we finally touched Germans ground, it took us around 4 hours to come to Uelzen.
We come to Uelzen around 8.30PM and major of Uelzen was waiting for us and greeted us. Than we got really interesting host family code where we had to wear some clothes we got in our bag. I got interesting hat and my host family managed to find me.
September 23 - Host family day in Vimmerby
I spend host family day mainly doing laundry and packing for new city. Emelie went with our host mum to church to sing, and Vanessa and I, we were responsible for laundry.
Around 4-5PM Emeile and Ellen, our host sister, returned home with lunch and after that we were packing to end and when Carolina, our host mum, come home, we all together went to visit our host mum’s sister. She is living around 100km far away and she is house keeper. She works as house keeper for one old house. House is build in 18th century and now that house is museum, but also you can have different receptions there like weddings, funerals, birthdays etc. It’s really nice place.
She took us to house to show us how house looks like and it is amazing. There are still a lot of paintings all around the house from 18th century. Some of the rooms are still untouched and it is amazing how house looks like. I love it.
As we were walking in some of the rooms, it seemed that everyone felt a little bit coldness and lady started to talk about ghosts from first owners. After that she went to show us their toilet they used and it is small room a little bit far away in one of the corners in the house. When we were walking towards to toilet, as we were passing by one open room, everyone looked inside and if they didn’t worn us about it, I would probably scream so bad. What was in that room? It was a doll of man and woman and as we were passing by that room really quickly and remember that we were discussing about ghosts few minutes before that, it was really scary to see that dolls just for minute. Really creepy. Toilets are really strange, but beautiful as there are a lot of paintings there. She told us interesting story how people were using that toilet. As it was really cold inside, usually servants went before to worm up the toilet, after that ladies come together to use toilet and they always went together (and you were always wandering why ladies always go to toilet together).
It’s been really cool. After when we come home, Caroline prepared nice dinner. First we ate cheese cake which was really good and after that Swedish specialty lake “lobster”. It was really good.
September 22 - Our show day in Vimmerby
First thing in the morning, Vanessa, Emelie and me tried to figure out what should we wear as it was announced that we are going to have funny rehearsal today so that we should all wear something like Pippi. We found some solution and we put all unmatched clothes together and we were ready to come. Everyone was laughing when we come. It was so funny.
Around 10AM BTS crew had to leave for BTS show. BTS stands for Back Track Show and we were supposed to do BTS in center of Vimmerby to invite people to come to see our show. I was selected to be in BTS also. So, we went to center of Vimmerbe to do the small show and it was really fun. I could never imagine in my life that I would do such thing and by that I mean that I would perform during daytime in center of some city and that people would watch us performing. It was a little bit cold, but once we came on the stage to perform, I didn’t have feeling for cold at all.
After BTS we come back to show facility to have lunch and to prepare ourselves for rehearsal. Out staff team decided to give us fun rehearsal so we were all wearing fun clothes and we rehearsed or show songs in different way. Like instead of doing normal rehearsal for some songs, we had to dance in rock style, or we were practicing techno version of calm songs etc. It was so much fun.
After fun rehearsal we had dinner, than green room and than the show. Show was really good and I loved to be back in the show. It’s so much fun to be on the stage again.
After the show, I was signed to do interviews again and this time I was in team with Dave. We were sitting and discussing about everything and finally after some time, they announced that they don’t need us as there are not so many people for interviews. I went to see if they need me on the strike and I helped a little bit there. We finished with strike and everything even one hour earlier so we just hang in the gym which we found out to be really fun playground for us. Some of the people were doing some gymnastically things and me and some people practiced free climbing on artificial climbing place. It was so much fun and I loved it. They had 4 different climbing places considering how good you are in climbing and first I went on harder one as I didn’t saw easier one and I couldn’t climb at all. When I discovered easier one, I just fall in love in that sport so who knows, maybe one day I will start practicing free climbing.
September 21 - Last day of CI
Today was our last day of CI project. In the morning when I came to facility, I found out that very good friend of mine had to leave us. It was really hard for me to accept that. I felt big loss. It’s hard not to feel about every cast member as one big family and when people are leaving us, it’s really hard for whole cast. I already miss you...
Life goes on and I just hope that we will meet one day soon.
After morning meeting, we went to place near Astrid’s birth house, just next to lemon tree. There we had our guest speaker who talked to us about Ground tree, an organization who connects young and adults. It was really interesting speech and I liked it that we were in park, not in indoor environment. After speech we were part of little ceremony where they mixed salt and dirt from other part of world and spread it all around the tree. It was really interesting and I’m really happy that I was part of that ceremony. It made me feel really special.
After that, we come back to high school as there we had gust speaker Eva, an alumni and lady who work in Ikea. She talked about Ikea’s environment statement and it was really interesting. I loved it.
After that we moved to show facility and we started our rehearsal for little show we had and for Youth Conference. Whole thing looked like first 1-2 songs from show and than presentation of each group. It all lasted together for around 45 minutes and it was fun. It’s good to be back on the stage. I missed that feeling really much and I’m really happy to be back. I remember first show when I was afraid to come out on the stage, and now I couldn’t wait to get out.
After show I helped admission team with interviews. I was in team with Johnny and this was my first interview experience. To explain what does that mean, after every show admission team had presentation about the program and after presentation, people who are really interested and want to do an interview, they can do it immediately after show and that’s where we jump in and we help in with interviews.
After that, we just had some free time to chill and it was fun as we played some games and we eat really good cake we got for dinner. It was really fun.
Our host mum prepared us nice apple cake so I enjoyed also in apple cake after coming home. I think I started to eat too much, but I enjoy good food and I cannot help it.
September 20 - 2nd day of CI
Today’s day was really hard day. I’m feeling really tired and emotionally tired. Today we were mainly working on our project for tomorrows Youth Conference presentation and we had to finish our presentation today. Our topic is Lifestyle, food consumption and trade. Yesterday it seemed to be really easy discussing and it seemed that everyone are on the same page, but today when we started to make presentation and when we started collecting ideas about presentation we concluded that we don’t have right solution and that we kind of went away from our mail topic and it was really hard to return on the right track. I was feeling so helpless from time to time and I just didn’t have any idea how we can fix the problem. It was so frustrating from time to time. At the end we agreed and we believe we have right solution for tomorrow’s conference. It’s going to be challenging present our solution as we only have 5 minutes to present.
It was really hard day as I’m feeling a little bit helpless and I miss a lot of familiar things and people. Well, I have to learn how to deal with this as it’s not easy at all. That’s all about U with People that every week you change environment and you have to learn how to fast and what it is the easiest way to adapt to new environment.
For all people to whom I still didn’t have chance to reply to their emails: if you think that I don’t think about you, I do, always. I just don’t have so much time to write you all as my schedule is pretty busy and it doesn’t allow me, so please, be patient and keep reading blog.
After whole day, our host mum took us to meet hers parents. They are so nice people.
September 19 - Half way through
Today is our ½ ways through the program. We still have to finish ½ and than in 2 and half months we are going to say goodbye to each other. Only question now is if people see this as glass half fool or glass half empty or if I translate into UWP language if we experienced half of things and we are happy about half which are still waiting for us or if we only have half left and soon we will say goodbye to each other. I rather chose glass half full as we already experienced a lot and there are still so many things that we can really looking forward to and it’s just going to be great.
I slept this night so good that I woke up a lot of minutes earlier than my alarm clock would turn on. It was good thing that I went sleeping really early yesterday and that I had some time to catch a little bit more sleep than all other days in past few weeks.
After breakfast we came to high school Gymnasium and our CI day could start. Funny thing happened before morning meeting. I went to grocery store to buy some water and similar stuff and I bought also hot chocolate and I managed to spill hot chocolate on my nice cloths. I was so mad at that moment that I decided that I will never ever buy hot chocolate on machine. When I came to high school, I went to wash my skirt and everything went off so easily and I’m happy that my skirt is saved.
After morning meeting high students joined us and our CI project was about to start. This week I’m working in Youth Conference where we are going to discuss more about environment and ecological issues. First we were watching movie “The Planet” about environment and human affects to environment and if you ask me, it was the best movie I have seen on that topic. Truly recommend to everyone. Movie was full of facts and interesting things and what most affected me was when they were talking about that it is so hard to save big animals with which we can see their emotions and how are we going to save small ones like butterflies or bees if we cannot save bigger like monkeys or tigers.
Movie really affected a lot of people and I’m really happy that we saw that movie. After watching movie we went to eat lunch and we got pancakes. I haven’t eaten that for a while.
After lunch we got guest speaker Kristina, who is UWP alumni and she asked us some tough questions about environment like how to make people to move from thinking to actions? I think a lot of people struggle when it comes the environment issue. Everyone are thinking how great it would be to do something for environment and when they have to move and do something, than they just forget everything and stay in their comfort zone. Like recycling… please, admit. How many of you do really recycle? Even small change like personal change is a big thing and it can help saving planet and maybe your change will inspire others to change also. Put your thoughts into action.
After guest speaker we were split in 5 groups and we got our topic on which we started discussion and we are going to work on our topics discussion tomorrow and in Friday we are going to present our solution on topic. So, my group’s topic is “Lifestyle, food consumption, trade”. We started out discussions and it was really interesting to hear what people think and we really had discussion full of passion. Our assignment for today was to find question which everyone can ask to make people think about our topic. At least we come to question: How do consumption and trade affect your lifestyle? Please, think about it and if you find some nice answer to it, send me an email and I would love to continue also discussion with you.
It was really hard day today especially as we are working on something that I’m really interested into and I’m really happy to be part of Youth conference on that topic. I mean, as an icebreaking game we were playing “Have you ever?” and one of the questions were “Have you ever recycle?” and there were a lot of people who were standing outside of circle which means that they never recycled. This is good opportunity for them to learn about planet and continue spreading learned knowledge in their communities.
When we come home tonight, first we went into the woods to walk the dog and it was so nice, so calming just walking in the woods. I love it. Woods smelled on mushrooms as there were a lot of mushrooms around. After nice walk, we had Thai dinner and this Thai food tasted much better than real Thai food in Thailand. I think I will start to love Thai food but our European or American version of it.
September 18 - Memories of Astrid Lindgren
Today we spend whole day in learning about Astrid. In the morning we had educational workshop with Cindy on topic catalyst and achievers and it was really nice to hear from people who they think is a catalyst in their life.
After that workshop we had first guest speaker and lady was talking to us about Astrid’s life. For people who do not know who Astrid is, Astrid is author of the world famous children story about Pippi Long stocking. She wrote big number of different children stories and of course, everyone knows her for Pippi Long stocking.
We heard about Astrid’s history and also we went around exhibition place to see Astrid’s house where she was born and where she was raised. She was born in small red house and at the age of 11 her father build new bigger house just next to the small one and front porch of the house she used as idea in some of hers books. Also, next to the yellow house is lemon tree where she used to play and now that tree is famous tourist spot for taking photos.
After surrounding tour, we went to see exhibition of Astrid’s life and it I can say that I was really impressed with exhibition. It was so cool. There was also big closed box where was dragon Katla who represent everything bad that may happen and it’s locked in that box so that it cannot run away. Whole exhibition is a little bit strange but in a positive way.
After exhibition we had one more guest speaker and he is CEO of Astrid L. Word which is a playing park for children. He was talking about how the park is running and what we have for amusement there. It was quite interesting.
Astrid Lindgren World paid us a lunch at their place so we went to Astrid’s world to have a lunch. Lunch was really good and I loved it.
After lunch we went to visit park and from what I can say, it was really nice experience. I found my childhood there. Whole Park is made for children and houses are small. If I would be kid, I know that I would enjoy park really much. Whole Park is big playground. Manuel and I, we went into houses and it was pretty challenging to get inside as we were too big for small doors, but we managed and it was really fun. I loved it. I will bring my kids one day for sure to Vimmerby to visit Astrid’s park.
After great time in park we went to High school to have one more educational lesson. This time we had to draw our dream house. After that we were split in groups and we whole had to draw our group dream house and after that we were drawing whole cast dream house. This was hard but we managed to do it. It’s hard as there are so many different opinions among every each member of the house.
September 15-17 - Show day in Sodertalje
Yesterday it was a show day here in Sodertalje. We had our show in Taljehallen basketball court. From the morning it was really busy as we had really a lot of thing on ours mind.
In the morning, we had to take care that BTS and promotion team reach right place. BTS is small show for certain audience and only few people are performing in that show. So, our BTS was taking place in Sodertalje center as part of Fashion show which was taking place in center of the city. I wasn’t there so I don’t know how it was and how everything looked like.
I was taking care of the Taljehallen facility and it was really busy as everyone needed rooms for tonight and we had to figure out where to put certain events happening after and before show so that everything can logistically work out fine. Soon after that came the lunch time and it wasn’t much work with that as we got donated sandwiches from Nancy’s so they just had to take sandwich.
After lunch, it’s been busy as our VIP backstage tour was starting. VIP backstage tour is tour for potential students in Up with people who have an unique chance to go backstage, see how things work backstage and spend whole afternoon with cast.
We also had guest speaker Tommy Spaulding, CEO of Up with People as our guest. It’s been really good to hear his speech as that’s what we needed at that point.
After the backstage tour, our children choir came. They are in the show with us in 2 songs.
When we took care of all of that, it was already dinner time so it was our responsibility to take care of the dinner. For dinner we had past with tomato sauce from PastaHuset. It was really good meal and cast was really happy to get that.
After dinner things went really fast… Green room… guests… show… From the dinner to show, everything is a little bit blurry to me as it was happening so fast. Green room was awesome and I missed it for this 3 weeks. It’s good to be back in the cast.
Show was awesome. I almost cry when I saw my cast standing there and performing. As Faith and I, we were in advanced work; we didn’t have to participate in the show. We watched the show and we were so proud of our cast.
After the show I met girl coming from Bosnia. It’s ironic as funny thing happened yesterday morning when Faith and I started to prepare ourselves for show day. I was standing in bathroom, after just wakening up and I was washing my face and question just popped out of my mouth: “Kaj planiraš obuæi danas?” She was looking at me and than I realized that I spoke Croatian language with her and that I have to correct that so I asked her again: ”What do you plan to wear today?”
Life is so unpredictable and sometimes I think that life is playing with us. Sometimes things happen that tried to worn you of some things happening in near future and this things are the things to watch out for as they can really be precious. In my deep mind, life tried to tell me that I’m about to meet nice girl from Bosnia and that I’m about to speak some Croatian language today. And I didn’t realize that until I met her and when she introduces herself in Croatian language, not English. That was moment to remember.
Post je objavljen 25.09.2007. u 18:20 sati.