About Luleå

We live in a town called Luleå in the northern part of Sweden. It’s a quite small town, it lives 73 146 people in Luleå. Luleå is 2 110 square kilometres. In the winters we have a lot of snow and it’s dark almost all day long. Many people enjoy go skiing or go snowboarding in the winters. It can be very cold in the winter; sometimes it can be minus 25C. Our summers are quite short but very nice. Then it’s light outside even at the nights. In the summer we have a lot of mosquitoes in the evening. Luleå has a quite small city, the shopping is not very good but it’s the biggest city in the northern part of Sweden. Luleå has the first shopping center in the world, it’s called Shopping. Recently we got a Culture house. It’s very good, you can go to concerts, be in the library or go to the café. Luleå has one of the biggest harbours in whole Sweden. It’s very beautiful in the summers. Luleå have one of the best basketball team in Sweden, Plannja. It’s also very popular to play ice hockey and football in Luleå. I like Luleå quite much but I don’t want to live here for the rest of my life.

Swedish traditions

New year’s Eve

In Sweden the most of the people celebrate New Year’s Eve with one’s families or friends, we eat tasty food and have fun. Many young teenagers drink very much this night and are very drunk. We even like to light fireworks and when the bell call we celebrate it with champagne and says cheers! , One good thing here in Sweden is that you can’t bay fireworks if you’re younger than 18 years old. That’s because many people get hurts. New year in Sweden is the first day in January. The tradition comes from a very old time; it all goes back to Julius Caesar. Julius made the Julian calendar and he decided the New Year should be at January 1.

Another thing many do here is to promise “new years promise” then you decide something you should changes for the next year, for example like loose weight, start practice, stop smoke, stop drinking or get a job and something like that is the usually promise here in Sweden. And every year on this time you can go to the town and look at fireworks if you don’t want to bought your own, because Luleå municipality fix that.


Easter

Easter in Sweden, according a decision that took in a church meeting year 325 decide that Easter invade at the first Sunday after the first full moon after vernal equinox. So every year Easter is on different dates 22 march - 25 April.
Why we in Sweden celebrate Easter is that we symbolize that springtime have come.
The eggs have been the Easter special food we eat and so we painting the eggs. And we write Easter cards and the children gets Easter eggs full with
Candy from the Easter bunny.
And the children dress up to Easter witches and go out and asking for candy.
And we also Easter twigs that we hang feathers in different colors.


Midsummer


In Sweden we celebrate midsummer on the eve of the Friday that occurs between June 19 and June 25. It’s our second most important holiday after Christmas. When we celebrate midsummer we raise a pole that we have dressed with greens and flowers, it’s called maypole. When it’s raised we dance around it and sing, one typical dance is the frog dance. At midsummer, people eat traditional food, like pickled herring and sour cream, much alcohol is also consumed.

From the beginning was midsummer a pagan tradition were they celebrated the arrival of the summer. When Sweden became a Christian country the church tried to tie the celebration of midsummer to the Christian celebration of Saint John the Baptist. But the church didn’t have any success and most of the Swedish people continued to celebrate the popular midsummer.



A work from Sofia Edlund, Michaela Fahleson and Frida Johansson Oja

IKEA

Ikea is a multinational company, the biggest in Sweden. A handsome man named Ingvar Kamprad created it in 1943. The IKEA family is all over the world, its in over 44 countries with about 104000 employees. The company has been a huge success all over the world. During 2006 they made a profit of about 161 billion dollar.

Before the IKEA was started the beautiful and handsome man Ingvar Kamprad sold only pencils, watches, nylonsocks and wallets. At this point the talented entrepreneur Ingvar Kamprad was only 17 years old. Today he is a good-looking-82-year-old man.

The ingenious Ingvar Kamprad was also the creator of the IKEA name, the two first letters “I” and “K” is from his first and last name. The “E” stands for Elmtaryd, the lovely village he was born in. The letter “A” stands for Agunaryd the nearest village next to Elmtaryd.

IKEA has a special way of giving name to its products. The bathroom product gets their name by Swedish lakes and streams. Tables and chairs get manly Swedish names.

The religious Ingvar Kamprad made up nine theses that sums up the “IKEA spirit”
The nine theses by Ingvar:

1. Assortment – our identity
2. IKEA spirit – a strong and living reality
3. Profit gives us resource
4. The reach good results by using simple means
5. The simple ness is a virtue
6. Use a different path
7. Power – important for our success
8. Taking responsibility – A privilege
9. The most is yet unmade. Wonderful feature!

by: Simon H, Emil J, Oskar V, Joakim H

Swedish Crimes

The Swedish police workthe work of the police is only one of the phases in the administration of justice. When someone has fallen victim to a crime and reported this to the police, a whole chain of events is set in motion. If the crime in question is a serious one, the entire legal system will eventually become involved, i.e. the police service, the public prosecution service, one or more courts of law and the prison and probation service. The crime level in Sweden is pretty low compared to for example Finland.In Sweden the most familiar crimes is car theft, personal abuse, shoplifting and robbery. In Finland the crime level is way above the Swedish, but it’s the same familiar crimes.
When you’re at the age of sixteen years old and you are living in Finland you have the right to carry a weapon but in Sweden there is nearly impossible to wear a gun. That’s one of the reasons that the crime level is so high in Finland.
In the big cities in Sweden there is a few neighbourhoods that is dangerous at nighttime.We also have some known gangs in Sweden like Hells Angels and Wolf packs. They run the most of the underground crimes in the big cities, so you don’t want to fuck with them because then you can get yourself in some serious trouble. The chances are not so big that you end up with those gangs.

In Sweden the penalties are not so hard, if you get a life long penalty you will not be in jail your whole life. You will only end up there eight to ten years, which is not much if you have killed some one compared to other countries. We don’t have death penalty either. In general the Swedish prison are in good shape, where you get nice food and even TV in your own cell, its luxury. Sometimes homeless people become crimes just so they get in the luxury of jail.

Famous people in sweden

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is a football player, as you might know. He is one of the best football players in the world and he plays now in Inter. Zlatan has been playing in Malmö FF, Ajax and Juventus before Inter. He has two children and his wife is Helena Seger.











Victoria Silvstedt is a blond glamour model. In 1993 came Victoria at second place in miss Sweden contest. She is also very famous for being in the Playboy Magazine. She grew up in Bollnäs, which is very close to Luleå. She has also been a part of some movies, but no one got so famous.











Robyn, or actually Robin Miriam Carlsson is a girl who has done a breakthrough with her music. Who’s That Girl, Don't Stop The Music, Be Mine is some of her famous songs. Robyn was born in Stockholm, which is the capital of Sweden. Robyn had only been at upper secondary school three days before she dropped out because she wanted to focus on her music. She is also an ambassador for UNICEF.








Svennis (Sven Göran Eriksson) is a very good football trainer. He has been national team manager for England’s man team. He has also trained Manchester City. Now he is national team manager for Mexico.







Stellan Skarsgård is a very famous actor in Sweden and also international. He has six children and three of them is quite famous and also actors. Some of his most famous movies are Pirates of the Caribbean (Bill Turner), Arn, Mamma Mia and King Arthur.






Peter Stormare is an actor and a director. He has been doing his latest movies in USA. He is probably most famous for his character John Abruzzi in Prison Break.










Henrik Henke Larsson was born in Helsingborg in Sweden and he plays football. He is one of the best in Sweden so he plays in the Swedish national team. Henrik has played with clubs like Celtic, Barcelona and last year he signed a contract for only 3 months with Manchester United, then he returned to Helsingborg again were he plays now.

By: Tyra, Jennifer, Karin and Hanna

Prejudice against Sweden

The most common prejudice against Sweden is that all the Swedish girls have blond hair, blue eyes and have big breast. That prejudice is not true but it hasn’t been wrong if it has been. It is not more girls in Sweden that are blond that brunette or some other color. And all girls don’t have big breasts but almost every Swedish girl that are famous outside Sweden is silicon girls like Natacha Peyre, Victoria Silverstedt and off course Puma swe.

An other prejudice is that we have polar bears walking on the streets. And that isn’t true eider.
We got very much snow on the winter and its very cold but not so much that its polar bears hear.

An other prejudice is that Swedish people often take suicide than other countries. And it gets dark five a clock in the day in the summer. That isn’t true on the summer it almost doesn’t get dark at all. But on the winter its almost dark all the time.

They say that we also like to change living partner often. That I don’t think its much higher in Sweden that in other countries.

That we get messy and want to fight when we drink alcohol. It’s exist people that gets like that but don’t all gets like that.

That Swedish woman doesn’t like to make food and take care off the home.

That Swedish people are very serious from Monday to Friday, but on the weekend we change personality and get more relaxed and like to drink and party.

Joakim

Hello, my name is Jocke.
I’m 16 year old and I live in Sweden, Piteå. I have two homes, my other home is in Luleå there I live on school days whit myself. I’m going at my second year on the sports program with icehockey as my specialisation. My mum work with school children in Piteå and my dad work on SCA. When I get some spare time, when I not playing ice hockey with Luleå hockey. I like to spend some times with friends and play some Xbox 360 and have fun. With my team we practise maybe 7-8 times at a week maybe more sometimes.

Oskar Nilsson

My name is oskar nilsson and i live in a suburb to luleå wich is called Gammelstad.
I have a family that contains my mom,dad and one sister and one brother.
My parents divorced when i was around 10 and my siblings is like 10 years older then me so they have moved from home a long time ago.
If i m not at school i play ice hockey with Lulea rebels and if iam not at practise i play poker hang out with my friends or watch a movie.

Swedish climate, animals and nature

Weather

Sweden lies in the north part of Europe, on the east side of the Scandinavian half island. The country is adjacent to Norwegian in west, Finland in east, and also Denmark in southwester.
The south part of Sweden lies in the warm temperate zone there the summer period is relative warm and long and the winters are not to cold. Against towards north the climate becomes colder, and there lies the cold temperate zone. There is the vegetation period shorter and the winters long. At some place in north, at least one time every winter the temperature can fall down to 40 minus degree and at extreme case it can sink down to 50 minus degree. The summer in Sweden is about equal warm as the summers in North America and Asia at corresponding latitudes. The winters in whole Sweden is however colder than North America and Asia at corresponding latitudes. July is usually the hottest month in the whole land and the temperature different is now days small between the south and the north part of Sweden.


The Beautiful light that dancing in the north sky is called Northern light.

You can see this beautiful thing in the north part of Sweden; if you have luck and take a careful look you can also se it in the south part of Sweden to. There is also a light in the south of the world called south light. This two light have a jointly name called polar lights. The most beautiful ones in Sweden are in the north Swedish mountains when the sky is dark. There are different types of northern lights. You can se it in different colours, red, green, blue, yellow, pink, white. You can also see it in different shapes and it moves in different speeds and directions. To see a real northern lights are something special, that you don’t forget in the first place. It is different from what you usually can see in the sky.


Animals

The animal life in Sweden is rich on mammals, birds and fish. The most usual mammals are fox, squirrel and hare. Some typical animals in the north needle zone are wolf, elk, roe deer and reindeer.

The animals in the north weigh 15-20% more than animals in the south Sweden. When you are on the road in the north you see many warning signs with reindeer on. You have to watch out because the reindeer are crazy and crosses the road without notice the cars.
In the north of Sweden the bear is getting more usually to see. They are getting more tame, and that’s can cause trouble if you are walking alone in the forest. So watch out if you come and visit! But in the winter you don’t have to be afraid because the bear is going into hibernation.

We have unusually many different owl-types. They sleep on the day
and hunt on the night. That’s because the hearing is more important
than the eyesight.

The squirrels excise in the whole country. At the autumn the squirrel change to a more thick fur so it can survive the cold winter. The animal has also become tamer and can come very close to people. One time in the central city, a squirrel claimed up on Ida´s leg. She screamed and shaked it off.

By: Sanna, Malin, Ida L, Lovisa

Calle Almgren

Calle Almgren

Hello my name is Calle Almgren and I am 17 years old. I got a family my mom, dad and a sister. I live in Sweden in a town called Luleå. We live in an apartment. My dad is a physiotherapist and my mom is a teacher in Luleå and my sister she is 15 and she play basket ball and she go school in björx. I have also a cat her name is Misse. I m in second year in upper secondary school. I go sports program whit ice hockey specialization. I play hockey in a team call Luleå hockey and I play forward. I think sports is very fun and I like to play football to on my spare time when I don’t play hockey. I like to take it easy and se films and sit on the computer to. As person I m kind and happy. I don’t like to study so much.

Emil Johansson

Hello! My name is Emil Johansson.
I am 17 years old and I live in Luleå, in the northern part of Sweden. It lives approximately about 75000 citizens here, so it´s not to big comparing to for example Stockholm but no to small either. I´m going at my second year on the sports program with icehockey as my specialisation. It means that we get to play icehockey on school hours. I´m living with my family in a big house. My family contains of four people including a dog, my mom and dad, my brother and of course my dog.
On my spare time, when I´m not playing icehockey with the Brooklyn tigers, I like to spend some time with friends playing xbox 360 and so on. With the team we practice about 4 times a week witch includes a game at the end of the week on the holiday.

Karin Viklund

My name is Karin Viklund. I’m seventeen years old. I live in Luleå in a house with my family. Luleå is a quite small town. I have a mum and a dad and a little sister. My little sister is two years younger than me. My family has a cottage at an island called Sandön. I’m at my second year in high school. During school time I have special sport education. At my spare time I like to be with my friends and work out. I like to listen to music and sometimes watch TV. My favourite program is One Tree Hill. At the weekends I like to be with my friends. We like to go shopping and sometimes we party. In the winter we have a lot of snow here, I think it’s very fun to go skiing or go snowboarding. I also love to travel.

Hanna Sandkvist

My name is Hanna Sandkvist and I am 17 years old. I live in a village nearby Luleå and Piteå in the north of Sweden. It lives about 2000 citizens in my village. I live in a house with my family. I have one big sister. I’m going to Upper Secondary School. My specialisation is health and we are doing a lot sports two times a week.
In my spare time I like to be with my friends, go shopping and play football. At the weekend I often have football matches. But when we don’t have any matches I like to hang out with my friends. We often use to watch some movies and just relax. We also use to go shopping and sit at a café and just talk. I love to go abroad to hot countries, because it’s very cold in Sweden. In the winter it can be up to –20 degrees and a lot of snow. In the winter I like to go skiing. The summer is short but it’s my favourite season of the year. In the summer I like to go to festivals and travel.

Oscar V

Hello there, my name is Oscar, I’m 17 years old and live here in Luleå in the north of Sweden. I’m going at the second year on the sports program at the upper secondary school with ice hockey as my specialisation. At home I live in an apartment with my mom and my small brother who’s 5 years old. The most of my spare time goes to play ice hockey, I’m training 5-6 days a week, but when I’ m not training, I like to spend a lot of time with my friends. My friends trains a lot, so It’s hard to find time when we all is, free but when that’s happens we often watch a movie or maybe just hang around with eachother.

Sanna

My name is Sanna Lindberg and I am 17 years old. I live in north Sweden in a town called Luleå. I have a mum and a dad, but they are divorced. I live the most time whit my mum who lives in an apartment. My dad has a new wife and they have two children together. It is like my sister and brother. My dad lives on a horse farm so when I have time I like to ride the horses. Before I competed in horse jumping.
The summer here is very short and the winter is cold and long. In the winter there also are a lot of white snow and in the summer it is a lot of mosquitoes. I like the autumn here best because it is not to hot and not to cold and the leaves is read and yellow. In the autumn the mosquitoes is gone to.

I am going in upper secondary school. My specialisation in school is football. In school we play football two times at week. After school I play in a team called LIRA BK. We have a lot of practise, almost every day, so the football and the school are taken very match of my time.
In my spare time I like to be with my friends and family. When I am with my friends we like to hang around in someone’s house and see a movie and eat candy or see a football game.

As person am I a kind, happy one who like to laugh. I also like to travel in the whole world to see different things.

Simons presentation

My name is Simon Holmberg and I live in Luleå, it is a little city up in north Sweden. At my spare time I like to play ice hockey and be with my friends. We are four people in my family it is me and my brother who is 19 years old, and he also plays ice hockey. I have a father and mother too they are kind. I like to drive snowmobile because it is a lot of snow here.
I am at second year in high school. During school time I have special sport education.

Tobias' presentation

My name is Tobias Johansson and I’m sixteen almost seventeen years old. I live close to the town Luleå, I live in my own apartment. My parents and my sister live in Gothenburg. My brother also live in his own apartment in Luleå but in another part of the town. In the winter at my spare time I like to do freestyle skiing, otherwise I like thaiboxing, gym, climb and also hang out with friends. Me and my friends like to party and have some fun, but we also use to chill out, maybe watch a movie or something. I live about 2 miles from the school so I take the bus to the school.

Christoffer Hansson

Hello, my name is Christoffer Hansson and I live in Luleå that is a city very far north in Sweden. I am seventeen years old and my family exists of my father, mother and my younger brother. My father is thirty-eight years old and is an ice hockey coach for a team in the city. My mother is thirty-nine years old and works like a teacher at the upper secondary school. My brother is fourteen years old, and the only thing he is doing on his spear time is to play counter-strike all day. I am going the second year in upper secondary school and I go the sport program with ice hockey like specialization. I think the school is very hard because we have so long days. We are going nine hours in school almost every day. You get very tired at the end of the school day and have a hard time to make a god work. My hobby is to play ice hockey in the Luleå J-18 team. We got practice almost every day besides one and match the whole weekends. And on the little time I got free I spend with my friends or my girlfriend.

Frida's presentation

Hello my name is Frida Oja and I’m 17 years old.
I live in a small village in Sweden named Rutvik in Luleå. I live in a big house with my parents and my little brother.
I go the second years in high school with concentration football.
I like to play football. I have played since I was 8 years old. My first team I play with was RSK I played in five years then a change club to GIF and first I played 2 years then I played for two different teams GIF and SSK. And now today I play for GIF.
During the week I have a lot of football training activities.
On Monday I have one training on Tuesday I have 2 –3 trainings and on Thursday I have 2 trainings. And at the weekends I have football games.
A regular day for me is that I go to school and then i have a football training and after school I also have one and at the evenings I spending some time with my friends.

Jennifer Rönnberg

Hello!
My name is Jennifer Rönnberg and I am seventeen years old and I live in Sweden in Luleå. It is a small town with 75 000 citizens.
I have a mother and a father, one little brother and one older sister. My sister and me have a horse together his name is Flippen. Our house is near a stable so it’s easy to get there.
The school were I go is in the middle of the city so if you have breaks you can go shopping or maybe drink some tea at a diner, that’s fun.
But I live about ten kilometres from the city and the school, so I have to take the bus every day. The bus ride takes around twenty minutes so its not that long, but sometimes I wish I lived closer to the city because almost all my friends live their, and the busses don’t go very often from were I live.
I play football in a team called Lira BK. We are in division 3. I play middle fielder. And this season we ended up at second place. I think that’s pretty good because in our team, almost everyone is seventeen to eighteen years old so we are pretty young team.
I go in upper secondary school and my specialisation is football. That means that I play football two times a week, wile I’m at school. So I play a lot of football. It gets around six trainings a week. We have a football field at our school were we always train, except when the snow comes, we have to take the bus to a big gymnasium were we can play.

Malin Lodnert

My name is Malin Lodnert and I am 17 years old soon, my birth is December the third. I go in high school with specialisation in football.
I live in a town called Luleå in a terraced house with my parents, my sister and our dog which name is Fanta. I also have a brother, but he doesn’t live home anymore.
I play football in a club called Lira BK, it is a good team with a group of girls who all are very kind. The most of my free time goes to football, but now I have hurt my knee so I can’t play. So I have turned from a football-girl to a dullard. Hehe
I spend a lot of time to be with my friends, we watch movies, go to cafés, we always do something fun together. Bye bye!!

Calle Sandström

Hello my name is Calle Sandström. I’m 17 years old and live in Luleå, Norrbotten.
In my spare time I play Ice hockey and sometimes I play football. I’m going on an ice hockey school. There we get to play Ice hockey on school hours. On the winter it’s really cold but in the summer the weather is pretty nice. On the winter there can be up to 1-meter snow.

Sofia Edlund

Hello my name is Sofia Edlund, 18 years old and live in Luleå (Sweden) with my parents and my brother. We also have a cat, Cissi. I study on the second year on the upper secondary school. I’m a nice girl and for the most I’m very happy but sometimes maybe if something went wrong I’m unhappy. A study many subjects but also I have a specialisation in school; we study health two times in week. It’s like an usually athletics time. I like to meet my friends on my spare time. I also like to watch movies, read books, visit to the cinema, practise for my self and my health, and talk with my friends on the computer. But most of the time I study, we have sometimes very much home works. Animals are something that I really like, I have a cat and sometimes you just can sit with her and cuddle with her. She just looks at me and doesn’t say anything. They are like soft toys, when you fell alone you can always talk with the animals even if the don’t say something back. I have some TV-series that I like to watch, one tree hill, it’s about the teenagers and theirs life. My friends is everything for me, when I need to talk with someone I always call them and the listen at me all the time. Luleå is not so big so you can’t do whatever you want to do. But we have the most things here to do, we have gym, cinema, and a relative good town.

Ida L

My name is Ida Lindström and I’m seventeen years old. I live in the central city of Luleå with my parents and my older brother. Luleå is a city in the north of Sweden, so in the winter we have a lot of snow.
I’m at my second year at high school. My specialisation is football and we work out two times a week at school. At my spare time I play football in a club called Lira and we play in division 3. At the weekends, when I’m not playing football I hang out with my friends. We like to go shopping or just sit and talk at a café. I also like to listen to music and watch TV, my favourite program is Grey’s Anatomy.
My family and me like to travel, in this year we have been to South Africa and seen the European football championship in Austria.

Tyra Eriksson

Hello! My name is Tyra Eriksson and I live in Luleå, a town in the northern parts of Sweden. There is a location called Sinksundet outside Luleå, about 10 km northeast of the city, and that is in fact where I live. I live with my mother, her name is Annika, and her husband Stefan, who isn’t my real father. The house which we live in, might be considered as a cottage, but so to say, I enjoy my home whatever it is called.
My biggest interest is to play football. I play in a team called Lira BK, and I think I’m quite lucky to be able to play in such a nice club.
Firstly I have my best friends there, and secondly Lira BK is counted as the leading club in Sweden in personal development. Hopefully that will give me some opportunities to reach my own goals and ambitions, even though I don’t have any certain ambitions yet. Maybe have fun is the main reason I’m playing. My interest to football made me choose it to my specialisation, at upper secondary school.
I have recently started my second year at upper secondary school and I think it is quite nice, probably because I have such fantastic friends who make my days more bearable.
And soon it’s my birthday (6/11) and then I become 17 years old.

Erik Sturk

My name is Erik Sturk, I am 17 years old and live in northern Sweden in a town named Luleå.
I live in a house whit my parents and my sister, we got a dog as well. I am going on the 2nd year on the sports program here in Luleå whit ice hockey as specialisation. On my spare time I play hockey and be whit friends. I have played hockey since I was 6. My position is center forward.
I play here in a local team here in Luleå named Luleå rebels

Martin presentation

My name is Martin Tunlind and I am sixteen years old almost seventeen. I live in the town Luleå with my mom and my dad. My older sister lives in a town called Umeå because she’s studying to become a psychologist and my older brother lives here in Luleå but in a different section of the town. At my spare time I like to do freestyle skiing, climb, gym, longboarding(skateboard) In the evenings I like to hang out with my friends and have fun, for example we like to party and do extreme things like skiing or jump trampoline.

Michaelas presentation

Hello my name is Michaela Fahleson. I live in a small village in Sweden named Skurholmen in Luleå. I live in a big house with my parents Anna and Tomas, and my little brother Adam. I am seventeen years old and I’m at the second year in high school. I like to swim, and I am training 7-9 times a week. I have been swimming since I was eight years old. I like to listen to music, I listen to all kind of music.

Elias' presentation!

Hi!
My name is Elias Henderson; I don’t have a big family, it contains my mother and big brother.
We live in a house in Luleå. I go to school at Kungsfågeln, which is a pretty big school with about thousand students. In my spare time I like to climb, go to the gym, ride some inlines and go skiing, which I enjoy very much. We don’t have so big mountains around here so I often end up skiing at our local skiing hill. It is not the best hill but it works fine when you are in desperate need of skiing. In the winter it gets pretty cold up here, about - 30 degrees Celsius and about one meter snow.
I also think it’s nice to take it easy and listen to some sweet music, I like some different genres but one of my favorites are reggae. It’s also cool to chill by the computer and watch some awesome series like “entourage”.