International 4-H Youth Exchange

Greetings and welcome to my final newsletter on my IFYE Adventure,

I really have a hard time believing that this day has already come. It kind of seemed like last week I left the airport and told mom, "I think this trip is going to go fast!" Those were the last words to any of my family until I saw my mom and Grandparents in Copenhagen, Denmark. This trip has gone fast for the most part. Sure, there were a few dull moments but overall I can't believe it is over. I know one thing for sure... I will be back definitely in 2003 for the World IFYE Conference. Someone asked me what one thing that I would remember about my trip in Sweden. I think the entire trip was special and I don't think there will be only one thing that I only remember about the trip. I am going to remember all of it. Some of it may not be as clear as others but I am going to remember the entire trip.

The family that I am living with for my last stay lives near Enköping which is about 1 hour west of Stockholm and 1 hour south of Uppsala. I live with Håkan and Inger Carlsson and they own a thirty-cow dairy farm. They have three boys, Tommy, age 17; Mattias, age 13; and Niklas, age 7. They also have two dogs that they work with to teach them how to hunt roe deer and also to round up the cattle.

When I showed up on Saturday afternoon they took me back to their house and that evening we were going to have a birthday party for the oldest boy. We also celebrated my birthday that weekend also. My mom had brought out a present in September and I carried it with me until November when my birthday came. Because I hate pigs my family decided to send me "my first piglet to start my new pig farm when I get home" I couldn't believe that they did that. All I could do is laugh. My host family didn't know that I loved the marshmallow cars and they got me them and also a fishing magazine. I also got many cards from family and also several eCards from friends and family. It was very nice to get all of them.
Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Sweden at all. Thanksgiving Day is just another day on the calendar. I did get an opportunity to talk with my family over the Internet using ICQ. I love technology! It was very nice to be able to talk to them. It almost seems like I am not even gone when I can do that and also listen to the radio station from Minneapolis/St. Paul all the way over here in Sweden.

There were a few tasks that my host family wanted me to do during my stay here at their house. I changed the blades on the plow so it was ready for next spring. He had a John Deere 6810 hooked to the plow. Talk about a nice tractor. I think I may have to convince my dad to get one for me. :-) We also ended up spending a weekend trying to unplug their kitchen sink. It isn't often that they use chemicals to remove the plug, plus this one wouldn't have been able to be removed using chemicals. As you know from my last newsletter people in Sweden are required to have winter tires on their car from December 1 until the spring. One of the largest projects, and my first, was to change the summer tires to the winter tires. I changed the tires on quite a few cars.

As you probably know from my first newsletter, church is not attended a whole lot but I got an opportunity to attend my second church service while in Sweden. That was on the first Sunday in Advent. There were more people at this service then the last one that I attended. Also the first Sunday in Advent officially starts the holiday shopping season so we went around the area to various craft fairs to see if I could find some nice Christmas gifts. They also had fireworks in Enköping that night at 4:15 p.m. Because of the position of Sweden on the earth it gets dark at about 3:30 or sooner in the winter but in the summer it doesn't get dark until after 10 p.m.

I spent one day in Uppsala doing the last of my Christmas shopping and I was going to be staying at Inger's parent's house because the next day I was going to be with a guy, Rolf, at the University Hospital in the IT department. He is the network person there. He is in charge of the network cables. I also got an opportunity to spend a day at Telia, Sweden's largest telephone company. A neighbor to my host family, Folke, works at Telia in the security department. I was able to spend a half a day with him finding out what he does. With all of the talk that I had with him, both at his work and also several nights when I went over to their house, I learned that there are so many areas of the IT department. I am going to have to eventually choose which area I really want to be in. I think security would be a great area because there are always new things developing to get past Windows 95/98/NT, Novell, Linux, etc. and Folke works with the hackers to create solutions to make a network more secure.
I also got an opportunity to spend a Friday and Saturday in Stockholm. Even though I was there in September, Stockholm is so big that when I went this time I saw some new things. I got an opportunity to see the Royal Palace and King's church this time. I didn't see that in September.
Something that I found very interesting was that you don't see the "yellow school bus" to transport children to and from school. Instead the children are given a yearly pass to ride the local bus. Because fuel products are so expensive it is cheaper to have "city" buses go into the countryside to transport children and other people. Anywhere you go in Sweden you will find a local bus stop where you can ride the bus and go almost anywhere you want. Also, another interesting fact, Swedish people love to go out to the bars on Friday and Saturday night. Because the laws for drunk driving are so strict people don't drive drunk here. They enforce the drunk driving law by doing random police roadblocks and will stop whoever they want just to check the driver for drunk driving. Plus insurance companies here will refuse to pay for an accident if you are drunk driving. There was one time when I came home from Folke's house and there was a car in the driveway. Here a neighbor who lives about three miles away called his wife to pick him up because he had drank too much beer. Someone was telling me if you don't feel like drinking at the bar and someone asks you if you want one instead of saying "no I just don't feel like it" tell them that you are driving and they will instantly quit asking you if you want a drink. It is embedded in most Swedish people that you just don't drive drunk.

Well, now at this point I am going to travel back to Washington, D.C. to have a "debriefing" and then I will be traveling back to Wisconsin. I had a great time on my trip. There will be a lot of memories to look back on. I have made a lot of friends here and hope to keep in touch with as many as I can. If you would like me to present my trip to your group please contact me to set up a date. You can either call me at 715-263-2174 or email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Thank you again for all of the support that everyone has given me during this trip. I couldn't have had a great time without your support. I especially would like to thank Kim Reaman for distributing my newsletter to everyone and also the newspapers for covering my trip so well. Also, I would like to thank Cecile Babich Morrow, CD International Program Services, LLC, for doing a tremendous job at making this program a great program. This program wouldn't be alive without her hard work. The last, but not least, group of people I would like to thank is my family and friends. We exchanged many emails and snail mails while I was on this trip and it was great to have their support the entire time. I look forward to meeting with anyone who is also interested in taking this adventure of a lifetime.

Hej då,
Jason Fouks
1999 IFYE to Sweden