So, I took a Swedish exam and enrolled in a class. Last Wednesday was my first day. I wasn’t sure what to expect and was a little nervous on my first day. My teacher was nice and introduced me to the class as “Sam from the USA”. The rest of the class then said their names and what country they were from. I don’t remember all of thier names…but 23 of them were from Iraq.

As you can imagine I was a little nervous!!! I sat next to a 22 year old Iraqi named “Morti.” He and I became friends pretty quickly and he assured me that I wasn’t going to be on the evening news. Actually all of them are very cool. We joke around and talk alot about our countries and about Sweden. Morti thinks it is funny to introduce me to his friends as “George Bush’s buddy.”

Today Morti and I hit the beach after Swedish class. Jonkoping has a large beach. It sits on the edge of a freshwater lake called “Vattern”. We swam alot even though the water was FREEZING. Later we played volleyball with all kinds of people…many of them just walked up and joined in. No one really played by the rules and since this is Europe everyone was kicking the ball over the net “Soccer Style”. But everyone had a good time and so did I.