A summary-The first few weeks

Now, I have always enjoyed writing, but English was always one of my worst subjects in school. So please bear with me if my language choice isn't as colourful as you had hoped!

For those of you who don't know, I am spending four months on the island of Gotland, off the east coast of Sweden, in the middle of the Baltic Sea! I am spending my time here working on a sheep farm, and of course exploring! Now you may be thinking, how the heck did she find herself a farm halfway across the world!? Well, I am on an AgriVenture exchange. I received a scholarship from 4-H Canada to help cover a large portion of the cost of the trip. With AgriVenture, you can be set up with a farm in many different countries, and you can also choose the type of farm! The idea is, I spend my weeks working full time, in return for a small salary (room and board is taken off), and I get my weekends to explore!

I have been here for three weeks now, and am slowly getting into the routine of things. I help a lot in the barns (feeding, weighing, weaning etc) and outside (gardening, painting etc). Once a week I get to clean the house, and sometimes I get to bake! 

A bit about Swedish life

I eat 5 times a day here! And almost every meal contains dairy.. they love their milk, butter and cheese! Sometimes my lactose intolerant tummy doesn't like it, but usually it's okay in moderation. Three of these "meals" (breakfast, and 2 "fika" [coffee breaks]) are made up of bread, butter and whatever else you like! Lunch and Supper are always hot meals.

Many people here speak English very well (big sigh of relief when I found that out!). The money they use is Swedish Krona, and it's about 6.2 times the Canadian dollar! Hopefully I'll be great at arithmetic when I get back with all the mental math I have to do here ;).

Of course the most famous things out of Sweden are IKEA and ABBA! I learned that the guy who owns IKEA is very tight with his money and still drives around an old clunker.. Of course everyone still shops there anyway! Some awesome things that I didn't know were Swedish are H&M and Pippi Longstocking! The house from her TV series is on this island, I will have to visit some day!

Gotland 

Gotland is the island I am on. It is an extremely popular tourist destination with the mainlanders, and it's because it is so beautiful!I seriously recommend it for anyone wanting a vacation that is a little less mainstream, unique in it's own way, and very relaxing, I definitely recommend Gotland! 

 I am on the south part of the island and no more than a 15 minute drive from the sea in 3 directions! This island is very well known for it's Gotlandic Sheep (we have some on the farm here). Almost every gift shop has sheepskin products in stock!

Gotland is also famous for it's medieval history-there are over 90 medieval churches on the island! Vikings also lived here many years ago-there is a museum full of artifacts on the island that boast it holds the most viking related artifacts in the world!

As I have been here for 3 weeks already, this post could go on for much longer... Perhaps I will spare you this time and within the next few posts I will start talking more about my daily life here.

Cheers!