Amanda lives in Jönköping, in a neighborhood upon a hill. There are many student apartments, some shops, restaurants, a school and a kindergarten. One of the many things she loves about the area is the possibility to feed the ducks, in the small lake in her neighborhood. She also likes her neighborhood because it is cozy and calm.

Amanda’s favorite family tradition is birthdays. She absolutely loves them because she gets to celebrate with her family. The typical traditions in her family consist of celebrating each other at 7.am in the morning, with presents and a breakfast in bed including hot chocolate, two toasts with ham and the mandatory Swedish flag. Later in the afternoon, they celebrate with a traditional Swedish cake, called “princess cake” which is extremely popular in the county where Amanda lives.

Apart from being Swedish, Amanda also origins an Indian heritage. She was adopted from India and has visited the country once. Growing up, Amanda wanted to become a doctor because she wanted to help people in need. Amanda is truly passionate about helping and understanding people, and she thinks kindness to both friends, family and strangers is really important.

Her favorite subject in school was domestic science because she thought it was really useful to learn more about adult life and how to make food, take care of clothes and economics. She also really liked media, information and communication when she was a bit older. It fascinated her because it made her understand how our current society depends on information and media. Amanda also emphasizes her interest in how it could affect people and how it could evolve in the future.

In her free time, Amanda enjoys meeting her friends and family, reading and baking. Amanda is baking occasionally and two of her favorite pastries to make are cinnamon buns and raspberry caves. Since Amanda doesn’t have a bake machine, she makes the dough herself and therefore it takes longer. She reveals that the secret to making really good cinnamon buns is to double the amount of cinnamon and butter and sugar. When it comes to food, her favorite dish is potatoes with lingonberry-jam and elk-meat. Additionally, the dish is served with some cream sauce with jelly, and carrots with garlic and butter. She claims that her father has a fantastic recipe for it.

Apart from being a baking enthusiast, Amanda also loves the Eurovision Song Contest. What she loves about it is that it is a peaceful and unique way to get Europe together “like a big family” during a week when everybody supports and celebrates each other through music. Other countries traditions can also be seen in music. Amanda likes the concept of not taking everything so seriously, but rather to focus on glitter, and cool lights and colors. Due to her high interest, Amanda knows many facts and statistics about the contest. She explains that Eurovision started with the purpose to unite all European countries. The countries with the most wins are Ireland and Sweden, who each have 7 wins. Amanda says that if Sweden wins this year, Sweden would pass and win over Ireland and would then be the country that has won the most times. Amanda truly hopes that will happen.

Amanda’s favorite holiday is Christmas. She loves to spend time with her family and watch the traditional Swedish TV show “Donald Duck and his friends” which is seen by millions of Swedes on every Christmas Eve. A perfect Christmas for Amanda is a Christmas with snow. She loves the snow and she is an outdoor person. She especially likes to make snow-angels, snowmen and snow-lanterns.