Back to Sweden

Friday and Saturday

07.08.2015-08.08.2015

Now it has become time to end this story. This is the last post and it is about both sadness and happiness. Enjoy!

Friday morning we woke up early and walked together with Magnus, Freya and Gareth to Sandringham Primary School. There we took goodbye of the children. We know that we will see more of them in the future and we look forward to it. 

Then we thought that we should have one last hot chocolate from Australia, so we walked down to Sandringham to a café. Gareth went home because he had some work that he needed to do.

One last time...

On the way home we saw this bautiful tree and decided that we had to take a photo with it.

When we came home we packed the last things and weighed our bags.

Before leaving the house we said goodbye to the bedroom that Freya had borrowed us for the last 8 weeks. Thank you very much for that Freya!

Then Gareth drove us to Melbourne Airport. The Check-in for our bags was not open jet, so we sat down for a while and Gareth had a coffee. After that he helped us to Check-in and then we took goodbye of him too. On the picture we are just about to go to the Passport Control.

When we had went through all cntrols and checkings, we had lunch. Both of us had Pizza Margherita.

Then we had a look in some shops. We knew that we had some time before we had to go to the gate, so we did not hurry...until...we hard them call our names out and ask us to come to Gate 18. We did not know why, so we ran there as fast as possible. But we did not need to worry, because all they did was to give us a copy of the paper that our parents have signed because we are under 18.

A little bit later, we boarded the plane to Singapore.

When we sat down we got our hot towels. We had three seats, because the plane was not full.

During the flight we enjoyed ourselves by watching movies and listening to music.

We also got dinner...

 ...and dessert. Yum!!!

Through the window we watched the sunset.

 Before landing we got a nice pie too.

Before we left Melbourne, Gareth had told us about how you can get 40 Singapore dollars free when you travel with Singapore Airlines to Changi Airport. So we got it. The first 20 dollars we could use for anything in the airport, so both of us used it to have a shower. The other 20 dollars you could only use for buying alcohol, tobacco, cosmetics and perfumes. This one we used to buy nail polish.

The next flight was the one to Copenhagen. On this flight we tried to sleep. We got some hours, but we could not sleep all way.

In the beginning of the flight we were given dinner (again)...

...and in the end of the flight we were given breakfast.

After the two long flights we arrived to Copenhagen 6.30 AM local time.

We bruhed our teeth there and got the boarding passes from a transfer desk. A funny thing is that she was impossible to understand when she spoke danish, but when she spoke english there was no trouble understanding.

Then it was finally time to board the last plane.

It was a very small one and it was not full.

Flying over Denmark.

Welcome back to Sweden!!! At Landvetter Airport we got our bags and took out a Australian flag that we waved when we walked out to meet our families.

Eight weeks have past since our journey begun. It has been fantastic in all kind of ways and we loved to spend time with the people there. We have done so many things and we will keep this close to our hearts for the rest of our lives.

Thank you to all of our Aussie friends!!!

We will miss you and the time with you!!!

//Elin & Matilda

The Last Day

Thursday

06.08.2015

 

Today we woke up and ate breakfast at 8 o'clock. Then Sam took the kids to school and we walked to the gym. We did some exercise there and met Heidi.

 

After the exercise we walked to the supermarket and bought some things.

It was a wet and cold day, so we thought that we deserved a hot chocolate. So we tried a new café and ordered a hot chocolate. It was hot chocolate...but not DRINKING hot chocolate as we thought. It was thick and more like a thick and hot chocolate soup. But it was good!

And guess who we met there too...Heidi! We were starting to think that she kept an eye on us... :-)

She wished us a safe trip home.

When we came home we had a shower and then we showed Sam how to make Kanelbullar.

For lunch we ate toasties.

Then we did some washing (is Elin really doing it or is she just watching PlaySchool?)

We also packed our suitcases for tomorrow.

 

When Sam took Magnus and Freya for "Busy Thursday", we walked down and (maybe...) bought some things at Hampton Street.

 

When Gareth came home we ate dinner (Spaghetti Bolognese) and we had a look at Google Maps.

This was the last day here. We have lived here for almost 8 weeks and we call it "home". It will be sad to say goodbye... 

 

...but here are all of us together one last time!

 

//Elin & Matilda

Sandringham Primary School and Chinese evening

Wednesday

05.08.2015

 

Today we woke up early, 7.20 AM, because we wanted to go to the gym in the morning to do some exercise. So we ate breakfast and headed there.

When we came home again, we had a quick shower and when Sam came she took us to...

...Sandringham Primary School (Magnus and Freya's school). Because today we spent some hours there to find out what things are alike to Swedish schools and what differences there are.

 

First Sam helped us to "check in" and then she helped us to find our way to Magnus' classroom. First lesson was reading. The topic was "The human body" and today they learned about the eye.

Then they had math. They learned about division and did some calculations. We did the calculations too.

Then it was time for lunch. We had packed sandwiches that we ate while the teacher, Mrs Maria Russel, read a book for the class. After that it was lunchbreak. First we wandered around talking and watching the children play. Then four 10-year-old children came and "attacked" us and asked us thousand of questions. For example, "Why are you here?", "Where are you from?", "Why do you have white jackets?", "Where did you buy those jackets?" and one of them loved chicken apparently. They were entertaining, but fortunately Mrs Russel came and rescued us after a while. She told us to go and have a hot drink in the staff room and on our way there we met Sam (she had been helping in Freya's class when they were in the swimming hall) who showed us there.

When the break was over we went back to the classroom and sat in the back while all year six classes listened to a teacher who told them about a computer program.

In the end of the school day the children wrote down things in some kind of diaries.

Here are some facts about Australian schools:

In Australia the students...

...can choose if they want to go to a private or a public school (the private schools are more expensive).

...have to bring their lunches with them from home.

...wear school uniforms.

...name their teachers by surname, ex. Mrs Russel.

...begin the school-year in the end of January. 

We had to have yellow stickers on our shirts to show people that we were visitors. It was interesting to spend the day in their school and see how they learn.

 

 

After school we went home and had some quiet time while Sam and Freya were at Freya's gymnastics and Magnus and Charlotte made some more gluten free bread.

 When Gareth came home we all went to a fancy Chinese restaurant in Brighton. 

 We ordered many different meals and shared them so that we could try different things.

The food tasted very good and we had a very nice evening together. :-)

 

//Matilda & Elin

Chadstone

Tuesday

04.08.2015

 

Today we woke up 07.30 and got ready for a big shopping day at Chadstone.

 We jumped on the bus at 08.24 AM and arrived at Chadstone one hour later.

 When we came there we were a little bit cold so we begun the day with a Hot Chocolate at a place called Koko Black that Sam and Gareth had told us about. It was delicious!

The best hot chocolate ever! / Elin

 Then we enjoyed some hours of shopping!

 For lunch we had a very nice chicken avocado salad...

 ...at the very crowded food court. 

Then we continued our shopping day.

 For Afternoon "Tea" we went to the Lindt café.

 

At 5 PM we caught the bus back home.

 For dinner we tried some different flavoured sausages with mashed potatoes and veggies.

 And we also tried Magnus' homemade gluten free bread. Yummy!

What a great day!

//Elin & Matilda

School Concert

Monday

04.08.2015

 

We woke up at 7.45 AM, ate breakfast and got ready for some exercise.

 We walked down to the gym were we use to go.

 

After exercise we walked home and met Sam. The three of us walked down to Hampton Street and bought minced and onion at the supermarket.

When we came home we ate lunch and made meatballs, out of the ingredients that we bought, for the family to keep in the freezer.

When Magnus and Freya came home from school they got dressed for their school concert. 

We caught the train to the city to eat dinner there before the concert.

In the food hall we met Gareth and the grandparents and ate dinner. Elin had Lasagne and Matilda had Ravioli. They were good.

After dinner Sam and Gareth took Magnus and Freya to their classes because they needed to be there early, while we had a nice time with the grandparents. On our way to Hamer Hall (where the kids were going to have their concert) we had this beautiful view.

Here are the tickets!

The concert was called "Evolution Revolution". The children had been practising for a very long time and they had made their own costumes and all.

Here are Freya and Magnus in their costumes. Freya and the other preps had a dinosaur theme on their performance and Magnus and the sixes had Men in Black theme.

We were not allowed to take photos during the concert, but we can assure you that it was fantastic! 

A picture of Magnus and us in front of Melbourne Art Centre from after the concert.

 

The concert ended late, so we did not come home until 11 o'clock.

//Elin & Matilda