Falling in Love

The first week here has been a lot: a lot of new faces, a lot of new places, but most importantly, a lot of love for this country.

The first week was an adjustment, where I was still getting my bearings with trying to understand public transit that is in a different language. It wasn’t until I did a scavenger hunt around Stockholm with a group of friends that I now feel much more comfortable with my sense of direction. As I was doing the scavenger hunt, I became pretty excited to come back and spend time at all the locations because we were visiting a lot of iconic places, like the ABBA museum!

Modes of transit within Stockholm include the tunnelbana (subway), buss (bus), båt (boat), and more. What I find awesome about the subway system here is that it is the world’s longest art exhibit: each stop has its unique artistry that you can spend several days just exploring all the subway stations. As an example, here is a photo from the Stadion stop that I use to get to class:

Earlier in the week, I went to a place in Stockholm called Gamla Stan, also known as “Old Town.” Walking through the area where the streets are narrow, and where the cobblestone flooring made it difficult to walk, I couldn’t help to imagine how people lived (and still live!) the way they did.

Visting the Stockholm Palace located in Gamla Stan gave me a small glimpse as to what life was like through the eyes of the nobility. Even though Sweden is now a secular country, and where the Royal Family no longer holds the same power as to what they did back then, it is still interesting to see the dynamic amongst those in power and the great strides they took to keep it (I guess if you look closely enough, you can see that history repeats itself). Different era’s throughout Sweden’s history was explained through clothing and artifacts.

One of my favorite things here is something called Fika, where Swedes take a break during the day to sit with a friend and drink Kaffe (coffee) alongside a Swedish pastry. Culturally, this is really important to people here because it helps establish a proper work/life balance. In the US, society has ingrained in us never to take breaks, as that is seen to be a waste of time instead of doing the work that needs to be done. However, in Sweden, taking the 10-minute break that allows you to not think about work helps improve the quality of life and also allows people to be more productive in the workplace.

I’m signing off, but below is a photo of a daily phenomenon that happens right outside my window. This was taken just earlier today:

Vi ses! (See you!)