So I’ve been a tiny bit worried that this year Sara could get into some trouble at camp this year, especially now that she’s 14. The kids in her group are as old as 17, and I was no angel when I was that age. When I checked the camp pictures this morning, I had quite a shock. Look!
Howdeeeeeeee!
Ok, so here’s the whole deal. Sara became interested in studying Swedish when she was 12, relatively out of the blue. We’re not of Swedish descent, and although my great-grandmother had a Swedish-themed room in her home, we didn’t really know anything about Sweden except for Ikea. Nor did we care, to be honest. So when Sara suddenly decides that Sweden is the new utopia and starts to teach herself the language and study the culture, we were just waiting for her to grow out of her latest phase. Pretty soon, though, when Sam started picking up a few phrases of Swedish from Sara’s constant Swedish enthusiasm, we realized that Sara wasn’t just kidding around. Jon found Concordia Language Villages, a summer camp in Minnesota that offers foreign language immersion programs for kids. The camp is part of Concordia College, a well-respected liberal arts school known for its language programs, and the camp had a Swedish program! The camp had an excellent reputation, and my mother was quick to point out that Chelsea Clinton was a graduate, so it couldn’t be too crappy, right? So off she went.
My Mom and I flew out to Minnesota last year to attend Family Day at the camp and to see just what all the fuss was about. I was actually speechless at the end of the presentation (which as you know almost never, ever happens) in which the counselors and students demonstrated what they’d been doing by singing, dancing, and even acting out a little skit. The energy of the staff was infectious and the kids were totally caught up in it. It was really remarkable. I would have been happy with that, but wait, there’s more! Each language program (there are 15) has its own self-contained area that is designed to look like that country. The kids sleep in little cabins that are very typical to Sweden (yep, we know this now) and eat authentic Swedish food (Sara said that last year’s food was the best food she’s ever eaten in her life). Lots of the counselors are native speakers, and many other counselors and staff are former campers themselves. This is big time. This is not your old Camp Sunrise or Camp Moon River or wherever it was that you got sent when you were a kid. There’s no archery, no bug juice, and certainly no shitty arts and crafts out of popsicle sticks. These kids have language lessons, learn about cultural traditions like Midsommar, and find out why traditionally yellow pea soup and pancakes were eaten on Thursday night. As they eat them on Thursday night. They have sailing lessons after which many kids can sail their own boat but can’t tell you any of the terms in English, and the kids use real Swedish currency at the camp store.
OK, so I sort of like it there, you’re getting that by now. After Sara’s experience last summer, we decided to try home exchange so that she could see what Sweden is really like, and put into practice some of what she learned. It truly was her camp experience that set our home exchange plans into motion, and for that we’re all grateful. I can’t say enough (obviously) about the quality of Concordia Language Villages, and neither can Sara. Before she left, she told us that she will get an after school job when she’s 16 so that she can save up enough money to send Sam to camp when he’s 7. If that generosity of spirit were the only thing to have come out of Sara’s experience at camp, it would be cheap at twice the price, as my father would say.
If you’re still reading this (congratulations on staying with it) and want to see what I’m talking about, click here to see the camp and learn about Sara’s first day!
Just wanted to share a picture of our amazing Sara at Concordia Language Villages Swedish language camp this summer. Although she can’t phone us during camp, the camp posts pictures online so we can see what the kids are doing while they’re there in Minnesota. Yes, Minnesota! This year she is in a very small group for language lessons, with only 3 other students. The caption reads Martin och Gustava jobbar tillsammans med sina duktiga elever – Martin and Gustava teach their very good students. Hmmm. Does this mean that her Swedish skills really are as good as we think they are? We’ll have to wait until she writes to us…um, she gets home…to find out.
The other day we went for a walk with my sister and her family and decided to look for the yaks that lived nearby. Well they weren’t in fact yaks (who the hell knows what a yak looks like, anyway?!), but rather Highland cattle that live in a nature preserve a few minutes away from our place. Luckily we ran across a woman tending the cattle who could answer some of our questions, but she didn’t speak any English and Sara became our translator. We leaned that these cattle came from Scotland with the woman’s grandfather, and that there are 2 newborns, 9 weeks and 11 weeks old! The kids loved to watch the woman give them a drink by spraying water in their mouths with a squirt bottle. It was so cool to watch Sara speak Swedish with the woman and then translate for us – very impressive! The best part was that there is even a cow named Sara. I wonder if she is better behaved than my Sara. Hmmm.
I love pools and adore the ocean, but I really don’t love swimming. I like to get in the water to cool off, not to swim all around like some kind of crazy person. Now that we’re having regular summer weather here in Sweden – or at least what passes for summer in Scandinavia – we had to get a small inflatable pool for Sam. It has taken 4 days of sitting outside for the water to warm to acceptable levels, even for Sam, and today was the first day that I even considered getting in. A baby pool is right up my alley – not much commitment is required and it lasts until I get bored with it and move on to something more interesting. Usually that’s the day that it sprouts it’s second leak, the day that I consider it tainted and pronounce it ready for the trash. One leak is manageable, unnoticeable even when it’s in the side wall, but two leaks are just too much to handle. Then the pool starts to stress me out and I can’t enjoy it anymore. Who wants to lean against the side of the pool when it could collapse at that very moment? And nobody wants to sit in a baby pool with non-functional side walls, having to sit up straight like a schoolmarm…come on, that’s just ridiculous. So we’re on day 5 of our new Swedish pool and to date it’s been a smashing success, so much so that the kids spent the rest of the afternoon lying down and trying on my sunglasses. Ah, summer.
I was just thinking a little more about Sara and graffiti. Doesn’t this make you think of her, too?
image from michael.jr’s Flikr
Today Sara took me to the mall in downtown Gothenburg for a girls’ day. Sara and Grace, our visitor from Florida, had taken the bus many time so this was Sara’s turn to teach me the route. As we were waiting for the bus to arrive, I noticed that some idiots had tagged the interior walls of the bus stop with gold graffiti. In English. With the F word and something even worse. So there I am, waiting for the bus, when it hits me. My daughter has the same initials of the person who wrote this graffiti. Her friend Grace has the same initials of the other person. Yep, busted. We know what Sara will be cleaning tomorrow – too bad Grace has already gone home.
Miss Sara is 14 years old today!! Despite all the trials and tribulations of raising a daughter, I wouldn’t change a thing. Happy birthday to my wonderful daughter.
In case you missed what Sara has been up to this year, click here for a review of her adventures in Europe while attending Florida Virtual School.
Tomorrow we are leaving for Copenhagen where we’ll be spending the night in order to collect Sara’s best friend Grace from the airport. International flights typically arrive early in the morning, and the train from here takes 3 hours, so we can’t get a morning train early enough to make it. Oh, well, it gives us an excuse to spend some time in what is supposed to be a very enticing city. Anyway, our little mermaid Sara is very excited to see Grace, and she’s been a guest of ours before when we rented a condo in Cape San Blas, Florida last summer. The girls enjoy their independence, and here they can make use of the vast public transportation system that will take them into downtown Gothenburg as well as to the local shopping mall, and we’re working on fixing the bikes to fit us better. Once we find the tools we need (who knew it would be so hard to find the right size Alan wrench here in Ikea Heaven??), there will be 2 bikes that the girls can use to ride to any of the beautiful local beaches. So, I’ve set up an extra bed in the (extremely) small bedroom Sara uses, and am washing the duvet and making a shopping list of Grace’s favorite treats. I’ll be ready - but Sara still isn’t! She hasn’t finished 3 of her classes and unless she gets the work done by tomorrow morning, she’ll be doing school work while we go hang out in Gothenburg with Grace. Hurry up, Sara – we really will leave you at home!
You might be wondering how we are able to spend 6 months traveling abroad with a daughter in middle school. We are lucky enough to have access to a totally online school for Sara, and it’s free for Florida residents. Technically, Sara is considered a home schooled student who participates in the Florida Virtual School curriculum, but this is a full-fledged middle and high-school program through which she is finishing the 8th grade. I am not home schooling her (yes, I would kill myself): she is like a little self-employed consultant, working alone on her laptop with the occasional conference call to her teacher. The teachers have been great, and very curious and encouraging to Sara when she talks about her time abroad. We didn’t know what to expect with the online experience, and have been pleasantly surprised along the way. Her teachers are as involved as they need to be without being intrusive, and Sara’s grades are better than they’ve ever been. We’re really grateful to have FLVS as an option to us, and they have a global school option for students outside of Florida who are interested in online education. Thanks, FLVS, we couldn’t have done it without you!
Here is some of what Sara has been learning during the “regular” school day.
While Sam had originally agreed to be the animal helper during our exchanges, Sara has quickly taken over and really loves the chicken. She is responsible for the chicken’s food, water, and now…cuddles!
My kids love hotels. There is something rejuvenating about a room without the clutter that inevitably fills a house, and as soon as we unlocked the door to our room at the cute red hotel in the mountains my kids relaxed and were ready for their next clue. This time they had a Detour, a choice between two different tasks, so they set off on an Olympic-themed scavenger hunt and really worked together. They came back with one demerera sugar cube, a 10 kroner coin, and a single, rejected crampon they found in a snow pile. I said crampon. Seriously, get a dictionary. Sara liked the scavenger hunt so much that she wished the list had been longer. Instead of the colors of the Olympic medals, you should have said the colors of the Olympic flag! 
Sara and Sam did a great job leading us to the Lillehammer train station, which included a train change in Dombås and of course the clue was Don't be a dumb ass, change trains here. Do you really think I could resist that? Everything was going great until they got the next clue, a map. Using this map, find your way to 24 Birkebeinervegan. Easy, yes? I thought a regular map might be too hard, so we used Google maps and drew the line that showed the best route. It was the easiest clue, or so I thought. Well, it turns out that Sara doesn't know how to read a map. Really? Is this actually possible that she doesn't know how to use a map? So the kids were sort of screwed now, since Sam can't read anything, and the pressure finally got to Sara and she had a bit of a meltdown. It didn't help that the directions were up an enormous hill covered in icy sidewalks. So Sara wasn't in a good state of mind, and she refused our help and instead headed back to the train station in quite a mood. At least she has the map, Jon said. Determined not to let one bad attitude ruin the adventure, we let her go back to cool off, and just when I wasn't able to take it anymore I saw her heading back up the hill. Fine, we can move on. So remember those icy, hilly sidewalks? Sam wanted his turn to complain, I guess, so he spent the rest of the walk whining about how he was sooooooooo tired from walking. Luckily, we were heading to a hotel (24 Birkebeinervegan is the address) so that the kids could rest their weary feet and attitudes, and Jon and I could lock ourselves in the bathroom.
It's not every day that your kid comes home from school telling you that tomorrow the class is going into the woods for lunch, or that today she taught her classmates how to play 4 Square in a combination of Norwegian and English. We knew when we were planning this trip that the kids might have some trouble assimilating, and we were dead wrong. From the second day here, Sara was attending the local Norwegian school and had made friends by the time she walked home. She was fearless and speaking Norwegian to her teachers and friends as best she could. With all of the new things to learn, we worried that she'd be too tired to do her American schoolwork on line, as going to school all day and then working on line at night is a lot even for adults. The on line program is new to her, and she can be easily frustrated sometimes. We expected bad grades, or, worse, missing assignments. Turns out we are the ones who can't assimilate. Sara is doing exceptionally well in American school, with only As and high Bs and a chance of getting all As if she keeps it up. She is quite popular with her Norwegian classmates and is speaking more Norwegian every day. We are in awe of our amazing daughter!
Sara has been going to the local Norwegian school since our 3rd day here. It is a short walk, about 10 minutes, and now that the weather has warmed up a bit she no longer has to walk there in the dark. Although I had emailed with the headmaster of the school before arriving, Jon suggested we stop in and see what the deal was and make sure Sara would still be allowed to join. I was told by our exchangers that school is casual in Norway, and yet I was still surprised to see all of the teachers wearing jeans and big sweaters. They all looked like they were just in from the slopes to grab a hot chocolate. The Headmaster is still called Headmaster, even though she is a woman, and the students call the teachers by their first names. I was expecting a formal way of addressing the teachers, since to me the title "Headmaster" is very forboding and reminiscent of my formal schooldays with a Headmistress. Ugh. So when the teachers walked around without shoes, in their big sweaters and drinking coffee, I was curious. Would the academia be casual as well? Liv, the Headmaster, showed us the lesson plan for Sara's class that week, and explained that the kids would be going swimming all morning on Wednesday. Weird. They have recess 3 times a day, outside, even when it's cold and snowy. The best part is that Thursdays and Fridays are half-days, and Fridays are totally non-academic days to focus on the Arts. Sara thought this sounded pretty great. Although she was a little nervous on the first day, and didn't love the whole bathing cap at the pool thing, she has adapted extremely well to her new school and had made friends by her second day. She has since been out with her new friends 2 times, and has a friend over today. Oh, yeah, and she is also getting all As and Bs in her real school online. Go, Sara!
