Life is good

Well, unfortunately our roadtrip we had planned for this week to Gothenberg, Sweden and Oslo, Norway had to be pushed back due circumstances out of our control. Basically, long story short... the Budget Car Rental in Lulea is officially the least professional business I think I've ever encountered. First of all, why is the contact number to a car rental business a cell phone? Secondly, why is the person with said cellphone going on a day-long drive that leaves him with little to no service? Finally, why would said person with said cellphone not return our multiple calls even though he said he would? It was a frustrating and annoying couple of days, that's for sure.

That being said, despite the fact that we had to push back our trip to Norway, I'm still surprisingly perky today. I'm talking like downright giddy. For really no good reason at all. I thought most of the morning about it trying to pinpoint exactly where this good mood is coming from. Because let's face it, sometimes I can be such a Debby Downer. And I guess the only explanation I could think of for this extreme happiness is simply that I love my life. I really do. So on my walk back to the apartment from class today, instead of focusing on the chilly wind or the snow that was beginning to fall, I just thought about all the things that gave me this warm fuzzy feeling I have today. Here's the list I've come up with so far...

Things that made Christina happy so far today:

1. Waking up for my early morning class and not being tired because I actually went to bed at a reasonable time. This one really made me happy because I am not a morning person what-so-ever... but when I'm a responsible adult and actually make myself go to bed early, I just feel so much better the next morning.
2. The Oboy chocolate milk I had for breakfast. I can't quite decide if this powder is better than Nesquik... I guess I'd have to taste them back to back to be sure. But even then I think it would be a close call. Oboy is just so darn good!
3. Learning Swedish. I realized today that although it will be of no real benefit to me after I leave this country, it makes me happy to learn Swedish. I really enjoy leaning a language. It's just so exciting that two months ago I didn't know a single word of this language and now I can read a text and comprehend about 90% of it. I'm nowhere near being able to speak it fluently, but I don't care. It's just fun to take a class that I actually enjoy instead of one that I'm required to take. I'll definitely miss that when I return to UMD...
4. My friends I've met over here. Manuel, our friend from Austria, asked me this morning after class if he could make us a traditional Austrian meal for dinner tonight. So we are having everyone over to eat Austrian food and celebrate Tyler's birthday tonight. How nice is that?! So nice... It really is going to be weird leaving these people in less than two months... they are the only people I've seen and hung out with other than Ryan for so long. I don't remember anything else. 
5. My husband. For rubbing my feet when they hurt after running, for always watching the movies I want to watch, for giving me the last piece of candy, and for taking out the stinky garbage because I hate doing it. I love him.
6. Warm fuzzy socks and soup. When it's cold and snowing outside, there is not many things better than bundling up and eating some soup for lunch.
7. I'm done with class for the week. Need I say more?
8. Only 51 more days until Christmas! That means it's only 51 more days until I can fatten myself up with cookies and good food. Yum! I can almost hear my pants yelling at me already...
9. Only 47 more days until Ryan and I are back in Minnesota! That's less than 7 weeks people... I can't wait! I can't wait to see my family and my friends and all the people I've been missing since we left in August.

Wow, that is a lot to be thankful for! When I actually type them out instead of just thinking about them, it makes me realize exactly how lucky I really am. God is so good. Life is good.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic week. Just think, only one more day until Friday! :)

Peace, Love, and Swedish Meatballs!
-The Bogarts

I'll be home for Christmas...

For most of last week, I spent my time hunched over books and notes and reviewing exams from past years from my Pulp and Paper Technology class. I spent countless hours formulating and memorizing answers to these questions, only hoping the same questions would be on my upcoming exam. As I'm sure you could imagine, it gets rather boring rather quickly learning about fibre morphology, chemical recovery, and recycling. So to cheer myself up I listened to Christmas music. Even though it wasn't even Halloween yet.

What can I say? It just puts a smile on my face thinking about the holidays.There really is nothing better than listening to Bing Crosby singing "I'll Be Home For Christmas"... especially while counting down the days until we really DO come home for Christmas. Yes, you heard me correctly folks! For those of you who didn't already know... Ryan and I will be back in Minnesota for Christmas!

Not only will we be coming home in December to celebrate Christmas with our families, but we will be home for good as of 5:32 pm December 21st. Assuming there are no flight delays, of course. No, it wasn't always the plan. We didn't try to deceive you into thinking we'd be here until June while secretly plotting to come back half way through the year... but some things have come up that made us change our plans.

You see... the whole reason we chose to study here in Lulea, Sweden is because UMD had a program set up that allowed Industrial Engineering students to spend their last year here taking all the classes they need in English and then graduate after they get back. Plus, they also had some really interesting Chemical Engineering electives that I was excited to take. Sounds like a pretty safe, well established plan, right? We thought so too. Boy were we wrong!

It turns out that Lulea is currently in the process of changing that "well established program" over here... So not only are a lot of classes that Ryan thought he'd be taking over here not even being offered this year, but the classes he has taken so far have been taught in Swedish. Also, half of the classes I thought I could take over here are not being offered this year either. Shocked yet? So were we.

There was some sort of grave miscommunication somewhere along the way. Either Lulea failed to notify UMD of these changes or UMD just decided not to notify us. After all, why should they care if we waste a year studying abroad in Sweden? We're still paying tuition fees to UMD despite the fact that universities in Europe don't charge their students tuition. You can see now why we'd be angry... we're paying all this money only to be misled. Awesome, right?

After evaluating the situation from our first quarter here, we discovered that there would be no useful classes that we could take spring semester to transfer back and help us graduate. So it was either go home a semester early or stay the whole year like we had planned but have to put back graduation. Definitely not an easy decision. At first, we were dead set that we would just stay and enjoy ourselves, travel Europe and worry about the consequences when we got home in June... but then reality set in. It just wasn't realistic to essentially waste a semester's worth of tuition for both of us just because it was our original plan and just because I desperately wanted to travel Europe. We had to be flexible.

So... we booked plane tickets home. And I found us an awesome apartment via Craigslist. We move in January 1st and we're going to be subleasing from a girl who is studying abroad next semester. So it worked out perfectly for everyone. And our new apartment even has a dishwasher! And a washer/dryer in our apartment that's not coin operated! I haven't had those kinds of luxuries since I left my parent's house four years ago. I'm SO excited.

In the end, after we made the tough decision to come home, it was like everything fell into place. We both know now that it was how it was supposed to be the whole time. The big guy upstairs was just telling us that ten months away from our friends and family would just be too much. And I agree with Him. We're both so excited that we'll be able to celebrate our first Christmas as a married couple with our families and to be closer to home for the remainder of the year.

For all of you who were excited no to see us until June, I apologize. I guess you can just pretend we aren't back in Minnesota until then... But we'll be home in 7 weeks whether you're ready or not!  You better enjoy what you have left of that unseasonably warm weather. Because I'm sure I'll be bringing back one heck of a snowstorm just in time to have a white Christmas! Who's excited?! Because I sure am!

Can't wait to see you all in 7 weeks and 1 day!!!

Until next time...
-The Bogarts