Birthday and meeting the new in bounds!

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Hey guys,
I know it has been forever since I have written anything. I have just been extremely busy. It was like the first semester of school I was bored looking for things to do, now I have to find time to do things! I think its a good thing though.
Well, my birthday (January 25th) was nice. I didn't really do anything special. One of my good friends stayed over the night before, until midnight just so that I could open his present first. Chocolate, of course the best thing in the world! My birthday was on a Sunday this year and nothing is open on Sundays or after 4pm in Sweden but I needed to return a video I had rented so I walked into town to drop it in the drop box and then walked home haha My host parents were really sweet and made me a special Swedish dish for dinner with raw salmon and then a raspberry cake. I loved the cake very much! On Monday all my friends at school sang to me (in Swedish) and gave me cards. It was really sweet of them😊 Then on Friday as a fresh 18 year old I went to the local club for some dancing. It was really fun but a lot more expensive than I had imagined so I haven't gone again. My parents sent me a mega box of stuff for my birthday. Mom sends me stuff all the time but this was the mother load! Everyone at home all sent cards, letters and money. Thank you all😊 They are all absolutely wonderful and my birthday was really special to me this year😊
In mid February all the in bounds got the meet the out bound for our district and the new Aussie in bounds. The out bound is a girl who is going to the New Mexico-Texas area. I was excited for that because there is just so much culture there that I hadn't even realized before so I think she will enjoy it. I hope she will at least😊
The Australians are really nice. One boy, John and one girl, Robyn. We had a great time talking during the whole meeting instead of getting ready for our district conference like we were suppose to. We all exchanged e-mails and phone numbers so we could meet up later. And we did. This last weekend we all got together for dinner and a music festival in another town. it was really neat to hang out with them all day and see the creativity in the music festival together. They had a million questions to ask us about our first few months and we had a million questions to ask about Australia.
My host sister, Julia, who was in Australia last semester had some complications in her club and was sent home at the end of January just after my birthday. My host parents said it was o.k. that I stay as long as I am o.k. with living with her. At first I really didn't know how much longer I would be staying with my host family, but I had to give it a try because they don't have another family lined up for me. It turned out to be ok. At first she yelled at me about stuff-a lot, so we didn't start on a good foot but eventually we learned about each other and now we are all happy roommates.
Well now I only have 4 1/2 more months until I go home and I can not believe how fast time has flown! Sometimes I find myself just thinking about my first days here and my first thoughts about things and comparing them to now. WOW, is all I can think of to say.
Anyway, big hugs to you all!!
Love, Rachel

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Comments

[byrk]

Ba-BANG!
Nice to see that you got newbies too! Sound close too so nice to go visit them. :)