Sincerest apologies

Hello blog followers!

I am so sorry I haven't been posting regularly. The internet here isn't completely reliable, so sometimes it just doesn't work. I will try to keep you updated as much as possible. And don't forget, if you would like to mail me something, here is my address:

Kaeli Riccardi

c/o Fackelbararna

Brunnsv. 31

57015 Holsbybrunn

Sweden

The second "a" in Fackel... has two dots over it.

peace, love, and mail time.

kaeli

Day Eight

10:04pm

Today was pretty uneventful. Not a whole lot to report. Although, I know that if I don't journal and post it on Blogspot, Taylor will flip. =) I couldn't post it this morning after breakfast like I normally do because I got up at 6:15am for a little thing called a Bible Marathon.

We are assigned a certain amount of scripture (in order from Genesis to Revelation) to read by a specific time. A Bible Marathon happens every Saturday, or every other, and we meet in the Bik at 6:45am to eat breakfast and then read the Bible for six hours. We stop at the end of every hour to discuss and take a break. Lunch is also thrown in there somewhere.

It was pretty difficult to stay awake until after lunch. I almost dozed off a few times. We read until about 4pm (we went a little over) and we finished Exodus. It was cool to hear things that I didn't catch but were caught be other people. (This is an optional thing, by the way.)

After that, I went and showered, then went to dinner. Heidi cooked tonight and she made some awesome baked pasta. I was wondering when an Italian meal was going to show up.

I got to talk to Cory on Skype today which was really nice. He really is a great guy. I'm so happy he supports my decision to be in Sweden, even though we can't be face-to-face until Christmas.

A game of capture the flag was happening tonight at 7:30, but I was way too sore from the ropes course, football, and innebandy. Plus we are playing American football at some point tomorrow, so I want to feel good for that. Instead of capture the flag, I went over to Heidi's and had some tea and hung out. It was fun. We told funny stories, sad stories, and more funny stories. She's probably my favorite female staff member. Along with Coral.

Well, I'm going to go get some sleep so I won't be exhausted tomorrow.

peace, love, and English Breakfast.

kaeli

Day Seven

10pm

Today was an eventful day. Breakfast was a hard boiled egg; I ate it with a roll and a piece of cheese. After breakfast, we all were assigned a place to work at until lunch because it's Friday, and that means work day. I was stationed in the kitchen, oddly enough. But instead of cleaning pots and pans, I helped Tyler from Washington clean dishes. Then we had to clean the whole area we were in.

We got finished early, so I got to help make lunch - enchiladas. That was pretty cool, and I enjoyed it. After lunch I just sort of hung out and watched the last two groups do the ropes course. At 4pm, I went and played football with seven other people. (If I ever say football, I mean soccer. If I'm talking about American football, I'll put "American" in front of it.) I didn't score any goals, but I didn't do that bad considering I haven't played in a while.

At dinner we all decided to sit at one table since we smelled because we played until dinner time. We had leftovers. Dan, guy's RA, got up and gave an announcement about taking people to play innebandy at 7pm. Innebandy is basically floor hockey. I went and played for an hour and it was a lot of fun, but I'm tired.

peace, love, and incredibly sore.

kaeli

Day Six

10:45pm

Pancake Thursday. Yum. With a capital Mmm.

Class was good today, but since I didn't get to sleep till late last night, I thought I was going to fall asleep in the middle. Thankfully, I made it all the way to the end of the first hour, and then it was tea break. Tea break is about 20 minutes long, so I put my head down on my desk and took a 20 minute nap. Twenty minutes later, I felt completely rested and was able to make it through the other two hours.

My bro was on IM earlier this morning (about 2:45am his time), so it was neat to talk to him. He asked if I had eaten Elke's Swedish meatballs yet, and I told him no. Sure enough, we had those meatballs for lunch. And let me tell ya, the ones back home don't even compare to these. That's right, be jealous.

My family group had to go through the ropes course today. Eek. I was the last one in my group to go up. First you have to climb a rock wall and get over the top. That wasn't so bad. They encourage us to test our harnesses and stuff, so I did that and I was slightly more comfortable. Haha. I walked across a wooden bridge, a few wires, a wobbly log, foot swings, more wires, more logs, and a zip line to the bottom (although if the zip line went to the kitchen, that would've been sweet). I'm not really explaining a lot because I'm tired and I have pictures that explain better. The whole point of the course was to show the difference between belief and trust. We believed that we would be safe (the safeties hold 2.5 tons, wires 5 tons, and something else 10 tons), but we had to put that belief into action (trust) by doing the course. Same thing with God - we know/believe he's there and in control, but we need to show that we trust him in all the difficult times in life.

I was completely freaked out at the beginning, and I cried from fatigue in the middle, but if anyone ever gets the opportunity, do the ropes course. Grown men have even cried on it.

After that little adventure, I got showered and headed over to Matt and Coral's where Heidi and Coral cooked some freakin' good fondue. Another splendid meal. We just spent some time getting to know each other and telling funny stories. Matt and Coral have four extremely cute kids. No joke.

I got back at around 10pm and my mom and Denis were at Holsby waiting to say goodbye to me. I have an international cell phone now, and they got me some things from Germany. Tomorrow they head back home to the states. And tomorrow is also mine and Cory's 7 month anniversary =)

peace, love, and cuteness.

kaeli

Ps. Go to youtube, and type in David Hasselhoff - Hooked on a Feeling. Funniest thing EVER. And yes, it is a real music video.

Day Five

5:07pm

I woke up later this morning, yet still exhausted from not having slept well enough. That meant I would be tired for the rest of the day. For breakfast today, cream of wheat was sitting on the table. I was a little skeptical about it, but Wesley from Alaska said  it was god and that I should just put butter and cinnamon sugar in it. It tasted a little like oatmeal, just with a different texture.

We only had one set of lecture hours today (instead of two), and it went pretty well. We had to start picking up the pace a bit so we could get through what we needed to get through. That didn't make me happy because I really liked how in depth we were getting. I've heard the stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, Noah, and Moses hundreds of times, but we were getting so much more out of it. We had Fika (snack) today which was unusual. We normally only get a tea break and two 5 minute breaks. But the Fika was good. It was some cinnamon sugar coffee cake. Mmm.

Lunch was absolutely delectable. It was pesto pasta with salmon in it. Probably some of the best I've ever had. Again, Bekah and I missed out on the salad. We were planning on going to town today, but then she remembered today was her day to do laundry, so we decided to go some other day.

As it turns out, we overpaid on tuition, so I got 2,020 Krowns back today - cash. It's only about 336 US Dollars, but still.

Since we didn't have class, I didn't know what to do to pass the time. I figured I could finish reading a book - I only had about four chapters left, so I did that. Afterwards, I went to watch the groups that were doing the ropes course today... insane. My group goes tomorrow and I am incredibly nervous, but I know that if I don't do it, I'll regret it. While I was watching, Brad's (cook) wife, Cecelia (or Cici), came over to talk to me. She said she knew my brother. She is originally from Sweden, so she knows how to speak Swedish. I asked her to teach me so I could say some phrases and stuff. I know how to say,  "I am hungry," but that's it. Dinner time!

11:25pm

For dinner, we had the leftover pesto pasta with salmon, but it was baked into a quiche. Definitely still good the second time around. Spencer, who got a bee out of my hair today, basically told me I was sitting at his table over dinner. He's Canadian . Marie was sitting next to me and she is German. All the Canadians, except Jenn, say, "eh?" all the time. Some of them don't even realize it. And all the Germans say, "ya." It's just funny to pick those things out.

We had some time after dinner before we had to meet up for Dorm Life so I took a walk down a trail behind the chapel. I had my camera and my iPod with me, but I forgot to charge my iPod, so it didn't work. I did get some neat pictures, though.

DL was neat. We got to talk about some thing and just be girls. Danielle, my RA, said she had a little somethin' somethin' for us. That was fun to try to explain to the Germans what that meant. It ended up being Fika - nachos. We also had a little "What Not To Wear" about modesty. Since there really is no dress code here, they just wanted us to be aware of what is and isn't modest.

After the mingling, we all went into each other's dorms and we had to present something about ourselves - sort of like show and tell. It was really cool to hear more about the girls. When it got to me, I started to get a little emotional and slightly vulnerable, but I shrugged it off as quickly as it came. It's weird because I don't have a problem talking about it with my friends at home, but here I do. I guess that's because everyone at home already knows my story, and no else's parents (here, in Sweden) are divorced and have gone through my situation. If I have to explain it here, I know it'll be something I'll have to relive.

I was really hoping to get to talk to Cory tonight on Skype, but because of the room tours, DL went on until 11:10pm. The internet shuts off at 10:30pm, which is curfew (curfew is when you have to be in the building your dorms are in, not necessarily in your room). I really miss Cory. =(

peace, love, and tireddddd

kaeli

Day Four

2:24pm

I woke up this morning, still exhausted from jet lag. I don't know when I'm going to finally get used to being six hours ahead of home. For breakfast, we had cold oatmeal with fruit in it. I declined. I wasn't feelin' the cold oatmeal. Dave from Alaska bought a jar of Nutella last night and brought it to breakfast. I tried some of it on bread and it was brilliant. So for, breakfast I had two pieces of bread with Nutella, and a piece of cheese. Yay for nutrition!

The first lecture hour was more orientation stuff, and that made me really tired. Not cool. But then Todd started telling the story of how he met his wife, Debbie. That poor girl. I don't know how she had that much patience with him. To make a long story short, he was basically afraid of letting someone that close into his life at age 25, because he never had a girlfriend before, so he kept changing his mind. We haven't gotten to the end of the story though; we're supposed to finish it at class in the afternoon.

Lunch was pretty good today. We had Kasespatzle. It's a German meal that has these weird noodles, onions, and cheese in it. Cookies for dessert. I wanted to get some salad as well, but I like to eat my salad last and there wasn't any left when I wanted to get it. (When I say last, I mean after the main meal.)

It was surprisingly sunny out today, and sort of hot. I had to take my jacket off. I hope if gets colder again.

I met my family group leaders today - Heidi, and Matt & Coral Huyle, or however you spell it. Matt and Coral went to CCC and they are 33 and 34, I asked them if they knew JJ or Beth. Matt said that JJ's last name sounded really familiar. I wonder if JJ and Beth know them? I meet with my family group on Thursday night and the leaders are cooking us dinner.

I played soccer on a real team when I was about eight. And I played for a few summers when Josh was the youth pastor at FSCC. But I haven't really played a whole lot since then, not that I was very good in the first place. All of this to say, I signed up for intramural soccer. That will be interesting.

3:53pm

Todd just finished telling the story. Wow, props to Debbie for sticking with him through that. It really is a long story (it took him three hours to tell it), but once he proposed to her, he never got scared again. Then he tied it all in to the fall of man saying that we can't hide from God like Adam and Eve tried to do - it doesn't work. It'd probably make more sense if you were here to hear the story.

Then he gave a side not on marriage and love that I thought was really neat:

"The tide goes in and the tide goes out. Those mushy gushy feelings that we call love will be there at times, and at other times those feelings won't be there. But when those feelings aren't there, just do what you are supposed to do as a husband/wife, and those feelings will come back."

8:59pm

After class this afternoon we had dinner and it was leftover night. It wasn't horrible. I haven't really been eating a whole lot lately. Just enough to satisfy my hunger for the time being, but then I end up being hungry an hour later. Eh, oh well.

A bunch of people played soccer around 6pm and I just went to watch for a bit. As it turns out, almost everyone that signed up for intramural soccer has had 10+ years of experience, whereas I've had 1. Kjell is the only one that hasn't played at all, but I have a feeling that he is going to catch on quickly. I am going to do so bad, haha.

I feel like I'm having a harder time making friends than I thought I would be. I know I'm not being myself, but I guess it's because I'm not comfortable being myself. I've never been shoved into a place where I didn't know anyone. The only people I've been me around are Christy (roomie), Luke, and Joanna. I really hope I make more friends soon.

Tomorrow, Bekah and I, along with Josh from England and a few others, are supposed to go into town so that should be fun. I don't really know what to expect.

Well, it's hardly after 9pm right now and there's not a whole lot to do so I'm just going to go read.

peace, love, and loneliness.

kaeli

Mail's here!

Ok, so I haven't received any mail yet, but that can change! And it can change today.

Here is my address if you want to mail me something. It can be anything from a letter, or a package with who knows what in it.

I would really like some pictures and some letters from you all. I have a bulletin board next to my bunk I can hang them on.

Kaeli Riccardi

c/o Fackelbararna

Brunnsv. 31

57015 Holsbybrunn

Sweden

The second "a" in Fackelbararna has two dots above it. I couldn't copy and paste it onto blogger for whatever reason.

Please mail me stuff!

kaeli