Var Redo: Kopparbo- Svenska Scoutförbundet

"Kopparbo is the permanent campsite, training centre and the centre for an active outdoor life. The activities have developed over the years. Today it is one of Sweden's best sites of its kind."...those are the first words you may find if you go on the website of this great camp.

Here are some interesting datas about Kopparbo:
- it functions under Svenska Scoutförbundet which is The Swedish Scout Association
- it is as larg as large as 96 football fields
- the camp sites can accommodate approximately 5000 guests in tents
- the King of Sweden visited Kopparbo several times (himself being a true scout)
- thousands of scouts visited Kopparbo (there's a scout camp every 4 or 5 years), almost 800 scouts are expected this summer in a so called Dalacamp


Further than all these information, Kopparbo became our home home for this 90 days, and the people that we work with became our family:
Lennart (Kimmen-on his scout name)-is like a father, always asking what else we need
Ingrid-we feel her like having a mother role for us, always caring and protective
Lars Eric-is like a close uncle, full of jokes and good spirit
Annelie-is definetly our older sister (even she's younger than us), taking care of us and helping with everything
Leif-is the good neighbour(especially to fixing things), that you whish to have close to your house.
Blackie- is our family pet (a black intelligent labrador, Bubu's favourite member of the family)
..we do not know why we love them exactly so much: for being swedish or scouts, or maybe for both reasons.

In this little community, the scouts' spirit is everywhere. Here is a version of a scout pledge, both in english and swedish:

1. En scout söker sin tro och respekterar andras
A scout seeks his own belief and respects others'
2. En scout är ärlig och pålitlig.
A Scout is honest and trustworthy.
3. En scout är vänlig och hjälpsam.
A Scout is friendly and helpful.
4. En scout visar hänsyn och är en god kamrat.
A scout is considerate and a good companion.
5. En scout möter svårigheter med gott humör.
A scout overcomes difficulties in a good mood.
6. En scout lär känna och vårdar naturen.
A Scout learns to know and protects the Nature.
7. En scout känner ansvar för sig själv och andra.
A Scout accepts responsibility for herself/himself and others.

Pionjärspåret= Pioneertrack

Many groups of students come at Kopparbo together with their teachers and/or parents to go through the famous Pjonärspåret. What is this in fact?

It is an interesting track built in the forest in 1979, consisting in lots of bridges made of rope and passings over ravines or rocks, or climbing big hills and it ends with a 5o meter cable swing.

It takes almost 40 minutes to go all over the challenges who have the goal of bringing back the memorial times of the old people who were living these places, or people coming from America in order to hunt various animals and take their fuhr. Kids learn in the nature and of course would experience how the traps for the animals worked, how huge cliffs were climbed on to the top, how people from old times used to build the bridges over rivers, how they used to make ladders from huge trees, or lift up big weights when building something.

It is educational, fun, exciting, both for children and adults.

All the three of us, guided by Annelie, had a tour of the Pjonärspåret. BuBu was of course really excited and not afraid at all and she was encouraging Monica several times.

We redescovered BuBu's climbing abilities and her desire to search for little adventures all the time.

Other fun activities we do at Kopparbo camp are:

- climbing

- canoeing

- bread baking

- black smithing

- fishing

- bathing

- camping

- teambuilding activities

- all sort of outdoor games

We will try them all, of course.

You can find more pictures about Kopparbo camp activities, at http://www.kopparbo.com/photogallery/

Get to you back soon!

Swedish houses-little museums in the forest

Yesterday we went for a nice sightseeing of the area and we payed a visit to a 68 years old lady named Lillian. She used to be a scout and worked for a long time at Kopparbo.

She lives by herself in the forest and takes care of her beautiful house that really looks like a little museum in the forest. It's a little museum because the house was built in 1913 by her grandparents and used to be an important place in the community as they had a store where villagers could buy almost anything.

You can find so many old objects that could serve as museum pieces like tools for making butter and cheese, gardening tools, bottles of beer, mouse traps, almost anything.

Lillian still live in the house and takes care of the property, but only in the summer time, as it would be really hard to live the in the hard winters.

It was really impressing to see in one of the rooms a quite new computer seated on a furniture that is almost 1oo years old. In fact, all the house is like that, an interesting combination of old and modern. Lillian lives here alone and sometimes her children and grandsons visit her. She spends her time working around the house, planting flowers, gardening, going fishing, reading a lot and playing computer games.

But the main occupation is taking care of the house and her yard. This is something like a moral duty for her, and for all the swedes that own a house.

Swedish houses are like little museums: always clean, ready for guests, at least one special corner with old stuff or artsitic objects like artefacts, new technology is a must and all the modern facilities that makes your live easyer.

If you take a look at the house from outside you would say it's a pretty small house, but you have a shock once you get inside because you can not understand how suddenly rooms become so big, how so many things fitted in. We think that swedes are specialists in room management and using every single centimeter. (Even in our little room fitted three beds, lots of drawers and is still a lot of air to breath, and we were thinking that back home we would use two rooms for all it's in there.)

Also, swedes prefer to buid their houses on their own, it is something like a local culture. If they can not do it on their own, they tell the building company how it should be built.

Almost all the swedes have or at least want to have their house in the forest, it is part of their way of living, the desire for personal space.

We feel like we want to have swedish house too. DON'T YOU?

What Swedes know about Romania

As a good Romanian, I was of course interested to find out what Swedes know about Romania and Romanian people.

This is going to be a really short post because I asked around and found out that they know almost NOTHING- nästan INGETING.

Young people have no idea about Romania. Adults have a little bit of knowledge. They heard or know a little bit about:

• Dracula and Transilvania (and they ask where is precisely)


• Ceausescu (they know it was a really bad guy)


• Gypsies (that we exported to Italy and Spain); they are too polite to consider all Romanians like them


• Hagi (just because they love football and respect someone who is valuable)


• The fact that Romania is located in the Eastern Europe and we speak a Latin language
  

This would be all that an average adult (not a teenager!) would know about Romania.

As a good Romanian, I make sure they understand we have a beautiful (“honey and milk”) country, and I hope they won’t go there and realize I lied to them so bad!

We like Sweden because...

1. 
   Busses and trains (tåg) always arrive in time according to their schedule






2. 
   The train controller helps you (hjälper dig) with directions, smiles at you, makes jokes and even carries your luggage. They have a cute system for opening doors (dörrar) in the train, called “wave and smile” which I think it’s a state of facts for Swedish.






3. 
   Almost everyone speaks English (Engelska), so it is really easy to ask for any kind of information.






4. 
   Swedish people appreciate it a lot if you try (försöka) to speak any Swedish (svenska). In fact they are happy and willing to teach you some words (ord).






5. 
   You can drink (dricker) the water directly from the tap because it is so good. Swedish consider a really stupid thing to buy water. There are a lot of water (vatten) contests between villages, so they are taking really good care of it. Also, they tell you that you can swim (simmar) in the lakes and drink the water in the same time.






6. 
   Swedes have really healthy food, no fat at all and cannot start a day without a good breakfast (frukost). Also, they would always respect eating hours.






7. 
   They would use one key (en nyckel) to open a lot of locks. I was given a master key that opens 43 locks in our camp. And most of doors and gates are not locked because (därför) no one ever would go in unless has the right to do it.






8. 
   Swedes trust you a lot. If you have a driving licence, they just borrow you the car (bilen), if you have rock climbing experience they allow you to teach others, if you can light a fire, you can prepare dinner.






9. 
   When it comes to work (arbeta), they are serious, pragmatic and really practical. They expect the same, but they know to appreciate your hard work.






10. 
    I feel so much comfortable to drive (att köra) in Swden because:
    -Everyone respects driving rules (speed, priority)
    -Streets are so wide
    -You can not find a single hole in the road
    -Other drivers won’t send you to origins or yell at you if you do a mistake






11. 
    Sweden is so green; 80% is forests (skogar), the rest is lakes, even sometimes I feel is the other way.






12. 
    Towns, streets, houses (hus) are so clean and Swedes love and respect nature (naturum).






13. 
    Wildlife is everywhere. You can see at any moment a dear (djur), elks, rabbits, foxes and a lot of birds (fåglar).






14. 
    Swedish people love children (barn). Teachers and (och) parents do everything they need to for them. There are playgrounds everywhere and facilities for kids.
    We learned that if you slap your child you can even go to jail, there’s a law that says that.






15. 
    Just because we get to do new interesting things like:
    -Driving a bus (I am learning now to drive a tractor)
    -Going with canoes and boats on the lakes
    -Fishing
    -Swinging on cables
    -Learn to cook Swedish food and to eat it
    -Meet a lot of Swedish kids with their teachers and parents
    
    
    NOTE 1: What we just said we like about Sweden is what we experienced so far
    NOTE 2: In the black brackets, you can find the Swedish for the last word before the bracket. It is meant to be like a little Swedish course.
    NOTE 3: The list will stay open, I am pretty sure we will find other reasons to like Sweden
    NOTE 4: We will start a list with things that we do not like in Sweden (it is clear so far)
    NOTE 5: We will also have a list with weird things in Sweden