I am a hooker.

I had my first rugby match yesterday in a town just north of Goteborg. I've been practicing for a little over a month now but still have just scratched the surface as to the rules and how-to of the game. I just know that as of last week, I'm a hooker for the Malmo rugby team. I'm guessing the position gets its name from our job in the scrum (big bunch of people pushing on eachother and trying get the ball to their side of the mob) My job is to hook the ball with my foot as soon as it is rolled in and pull it back behind us while holding the other team's hooker at bay. It's not easy and I can't say I'm a great hooker but I'm learning.

The tournament was better than I imagined. I had really forgotten how good it feels to compete in sports. The blood and adrenaline pumping. I must admit, I was shaking in my shoes during the 3 1/2 hour drive north but after watching the first game, I felt a bit more relaxed and when it was my turn, I was ready. Again, I can't say that I played great or even very good but for my first time out, I did have one or two nice tackles. In the end, we won one game and lost 2 but I'm pretty happy with the way things went. Since a lot of the girls on our team are new we did a fairly good job of holding the other, more experienced teams back. In fact, we lost the second game by a goal just before the final whistle. (I'm usually not one to say, 'well, we almost won...that's pretty good!' when talking about sports. Even playing softball in high school, i knew our team was at the bottom of the league but it still made me angry everytime we lost...the closer the score, the more frustrated I was and I couldn't understand the people who weren't bothered. But in this case I think we did a good job and I can be satisfied...next time we'll win.

Here are just a few pictures of the day. It looks like i took a lot of photos of butts but I was just trying to get a good picture of a scrum...the ref kept getting in my way.

In the below picture, I'm pretty sure I'm the girl jumping over (or stepping on) the girl on the ground in the middle of the picture! See here for a grainy closeup!

I had a very good weekend this past weekend. I guess so good that it took me until Thursday night to write this blog about my weekend. Anyways, I went on a camping trip with a rather large group of Swedish and foreign students. When we first came to Sweden, each foreign student was assigned to a 'mentor group.' The leaders of these groups are either Swedish students or longtime exchange students looking to help foreigners adapt to life in Lund. I ended up not being very compatable with my mentor group but was adopted by a friend's. The mentor of this group invited us all (about 25 in total) to go up to his home town of Vaxjo for some camping and canoing.

So, we headed out early (not too early) Saturday morning. We traveled from the rolling plains of Skane (the southern most province of Sweden) to the wooded forests of Smollands (the bordering province to the north-east). It was actually a lot like being in Michigan. I have thought before that there are not so many differences between the landscape of Sweden and the landscape of Michigan but if i didn't know better, I could have sworn I was driving up to the U.P....except instead of deer crossing signs they had elk crossing signs.

Anyways, the camping was great. Really great. His parents prepared a fabulous salmon lunch for us all before we set out to the island on which we'd be camping. Once there we set up camp and just enjoyed nature. Not only was it nice to get away from Lund for once, it was a good opportunity to relax and meet a few new people. There were people there from all over the world but for me, i think the most interesting people were 3 young guys from Iraq. The'd just arrived in Sweden 4 months ago and, although they undertand English they don't speak it. We muddled through a little bit in Swedish but unfortunatly i didn't get to ask some of the questions I really wanted to ask (both because of language problems and because I didn't want to ruin a peaceful camping trip with talk of the war...i've noticed that in Sweden, whenever someone asks me my feelings about the war everyone around us gets angry with that person for 'bringing down the mood'). But, as they were the first Iraqi people I've met (perhaps ever but definatly since this war business has been going on) and since they came recently from Iraq under unknown circumstances, I was happy to see that they didn't seem to harbor any ill will towards me. Actually, some of the others on the trip seemed a bit more hung up on my being American than they did.

Anyways, I was happy to be back home after just one night of camping, however. Although the days were warm, the nights got pretty dang cold and my sleeping bag seems to be loosing it thermal ability yearly.

Here are a few pictures from the trip. I would have taken more but my batteries were low and, although i remembered extras, I forgot to bring tape to hold the battery compartment shut so a switch was not possible.

I had a pretty uneventful Easter weekend. Although I thought (and hoped) I'd have the corridor to myself, one girl returned on Saturday with her entire familly, taking over the kitchen for their Easter dinner. So, I was a bit frustrated since I had planned to celebrate Easter in my own way with a new Gyro recipe and some fresh banana bread.

I survived and on Sunday I went to church at the local International English church here in Lund. I have been there just once before and didn't really care for it too much because i felt that everyone was a bit too....creapy. Very low, slow, sombre voices. Long pauses. etc. But, being Easter I decided to give it another shot. This time I got kind of the same impression during the service but after there were tea and cookies so I stuck around. After, some of us went down to the local English pub to celebrate Easter European style. It was really great. Not only was the pub cozy, the beer good (and paid for) but at the next table there was a group of Irish folk musicians gathering together for their monthly meeting. They just sat there and 'jammed' for a couple hours with their accordians, flutes, fiddles, and guitars. I couldn't have asked for a better atmosphere! (of course, it wasn't really Swedish but it wasn't like anything I've experienced before). It really was a nice Easter after all!

I couldn't resist sharing this. Forget piercings and tattoos, Europe has a new trend...eye jewelry. Take a look here! Maybe if i save my money I can get one before I leave.

I don't have much to write but I figured someone would check the site and I thought I'd put something up just for the heck of it. I don't have any pictures 'cause it's been raining. It's pretty quite around here these days. My corridormates began going home for Easter vacation already last week. Now it's down to me, a guy who never comes out of his room, and a girl who listens at her door for someone to move to the TV room so she can come out and moan, groan and sigh about how depressed she is...but she doesn't want to talk about that. She'll be going on Saturday and I'll have the place all to myself for two whole days. Man I miss having my own apartment!

I don't know what to do with myself for the next few days. No school. The gym is closed. It's raining. nothing to do. At least I have rugby on Monday and that will take up about 5 or 6 hours. I went again yesterday and it was pretty fun but I was ready to drop by the time I got home. Since it is so expensive to take the bus I've decided to try my hand at bike riding and, even with my neighbor's great bike it took me 1 1/2 hours to get to the practice field...then 2 hours of practice. Then 2 hours home. (I don't know why it took me 1/2 longer to come home than to go because I thought I was pedaling fast.)

Oh well, Happy Easter everyone. While you're eating the Easter ham and sour cream potatoes, remember poor little me sitting here eating leftovers all alone. *sniff sniff*

It's really been an eventful week. It all started last Tuesday when i went to my first rugby practice. I was hooked from the very begining. Ever since I was in 2nd or 3rd grade I have played some kind of team sports like soccer, softball or (briefly) powder puff football but since I've graduated from high school I havn't had so many opportunities to join due to a busy schedule, moving around, or just being lazy. I have shifted towards more individual sports such as tennis and jogging. As soon as I the practice started I remembered how much I like being part of a team. It was great. Everyone joking around, encouraging eachother. And, as luck would have it, i don't suck at rugby (I was actually the only person to make a field goal---if that's what you call it in rugby--and on my second try!) so I have a feeling I'll find myself traveling back and forth to practices once or twice a week which will be a strain on my budget since the practices are a 30 minute bus ride away. I rode my bike the other day but it took 2 hours one way...I'm going to try again with a decent bike and see if i can't get that time down to 1 1/2 or so...then it would be ok.

So, now I've been to 3 practices since Tuesday. On Saturday the team went to the local horse race track to win some money for the team. There is some big promotion going on right now so teams can come to the track and bet for free...any money they win will be thiers. So, we went along to try it out...turns out we didn't win anything but the coach won almost $1000. I bet twice since, when i wasn't betting i was picking the winning horses everytime. Actually, I SHOULD have won money but the stupid man behind the counter screwed up. I put 20SEK (about $3) on two horses to place. After I got my ticket i saw that he had given me the two horses to win. I was going to turn back and demand he change it but then i thought, 'no, one of the two will definately win and i'll get more money this way.' As I sat down I told my story to the team and laughed saying, 'boy, would i be upset if my 2 horses come in second and third and, say, Revenue (another horse) comes in first! hahaha'...and that's exactly what happened. Well, count my losses. Long story short, I won't be returning to the race track anytime soon.

Anyways, I've started my new methodology course this week as well. So far it doesn't seem to be interesting. Still cooking and baking up a storm. Made some delicious lentil burgers tonight. I'm doing my best to get healthy through all the excercise and healthy eating. So far I can't really see a difference and it's been over 1 month since i started...maybe I'm just not capable of being in shape. Well, time to go for a run anyways. Maybe I'll give it another month.