Leaving Stockholm

Here I am, in the airport waiting to go home, and I am in utter disbelief. How did this time go so quickly? How can everything I have ever imagined for studying abroad be now a finished chapter in my book of experiences? When will I comprehend everything that has happened to me through this amazing, unforgettable semester?

 

None of my friends know (minus Scott, Ang, and Alma) that I am coming home today. I am planning on surprising them which is helping me keep my focus on that rather than how I get a pit in my stomach thinking that my time and semester at Stockholm is over. Looking at the beginning of the semester, I can reflect on my actions, my priorities, and my outlook, and say that now they are completely changed. When first getting here, I had no expectations of what was to come. I was in my habits of life which I had accustomed in America for the last 20 years and slowly, being away from the hustle, pressures, and habits (both good and bad), I can say that I feel more enriched thoroughly. There have been so many times in which at home I will get so much into my own head about problems that I think that I have. Never has this happened here. And now, after so many different perspectives, experiences, and individual time to make a life of my own without anyone who I had known before, I find that I can take so much from everyone I meet and learn from them, enjoy who they are through and through, and just experience and embrace everything we can in this short whirlwind of time we have in our lives.

 

I’m sad to leave Stockholm, Sweden, and Europe for many reasons. Stockholm is because I truly have come to love it. The city, the hidden gems, the good nature of all Swedes, even the transportation system. And of course I leave once I feel super confident throughout all of Stockholm (for the most part).  The fact that I won’t be able to find a cheap flight to Greece for $90 round trip through that despicable (but too amazingly cheap to care) airline Ryan Air, I will even miss. The accessibility of Europe and now the Europeans that I know, when will I be easily able to travel and meet them for a weekend? Obviously, there are and will always continue to be places in which I will want to travel and crave to see. That’s just instilled in me now since the Travel Bug first bit me in 08.

 

I will miss the life that I made for myself. Knowing that I had moved somewhere completely unoriginal from a normal study abroad program, and was able to figure out a system, get in a routine, and meet so many amazing friends. This is encouragement to me that no matter where I go in life, at least I know that starting a life new is not impossible, and can be one of the most enriching experiences.

 

But that leads me back to the people I met. Have I had a big impact on their life? Did they on mine? What can I take from my relationships that I had grown with these people who live all over the world? Especially when I think of the fact that with most of them, I will probably never see them again. It is in a way depressing knowing that with these amazing people, my encounter was so short with them, but it makes me reflect, that there must be a reason for having them in my life during this time. Either to help me grow or just to be a memory in an experience I will never forget, we don’t know. But that’s the beautiful thing about life all together I suppose. There is a reason for everything and not knowing those reasons at first can help develop who we are even further.

 

While I’m thinking all these thoughts, I know that in less than 12 hours I will be in the states again. I couldn’t picture this day ever coming, but now that it’s here, I feel like I’m living a dream. It isn’t comprehendible that I’m going home right now. As much as I will miss everything that Europe and more specifically Stockholm has to offer, I know I can take away so much more than I came with. Inevitably I had to come home sooner or later, and since my mind seems to be rejecting this, I just need to do what I’ve been doing all semester, and embrace this experience with all of the emotional things attached along.

 

Tourist in Stockholm

Yesterday, Lisa and I only have less than a week here. After finishing our school 10 page analysis for Business Ethics, we decided to treat ourselves, by treating those we love by souvenir shopping. We headed to Gamla Stan, rather early at 10 am and started to snake up and down the old time roads. We passed the typical souvenir shops and some more unique authentic Swedish stores, and decided to go into them all. After finding the perfect gifts for everyone we love, we still had some more to do, but we decided to stop for a fika break and get some tea.

 

After shopping from 10 am – 6 pm…actually though… we made our way home with lots of content purchases. That night we met some of our friends to go to dinner at the Lappis restaurant. Matt had to fly back to Australia the next day for some time so it was not only a catch up with how everyone had been or what was new, since everyone was just returning from their various trips over Easter Weekend, but also would turn out to be our final farewell for Matt while Lisa and I were in Stockholm. However, he’s promised to come this summer through to Chicago which we are holding him to! But yet, either way, our first official goodbye was one of the weirdest things to go through. After months of becoming so close due to sharing these experiences abroad together, it was symbolic that this was the first of many goodbyes we would have to face as our time was somehow coming to an end.

 

Then today, I finally made it to the Vasa Museum!!! The Vasa Museum, for those who don’t know, is the tale of one of the greatest and most powerful ship vessel made in the 16^th centuries which sailed from the Stockholm harbor, and sunk 30 minutes later. Because of the cold temperatures of the sea, Vasa was able to stay in contact under the water for over 300 years. Experts were able to resurrect the ship from its grave after hundreds of years, and after many repairs and much work was done on it, it is now on display in the Vasa Museum with 98% of the original ship. In Stockholm, it is a definite must see since there is nothing seen like this, preserved this well, and at that age in the whole world.

 

Agnes, Marco, and I toured around the ship which was so unique to see. Afterwards we walked towards T-Centralen to meet David and Lisa to tour the City Hall. After arriving over there, we found out tours were closed until later that night when City Hall and numerous museums around Stockholm would be open for free because it was ‘Culture Night’. So we hung out and soaked in the sun for a bit while enjoying the presence of our friends. Later that night when we came back, we were able to tour around City Hall which was illuminated with a purple light across the building giving a beautiful contrast to the deepening blue sky. In City Hall is where they have the reception/dinner after the Nobel Peace prizes are given each year. To know that so many amazing, smart people have dined in those halls after such a prestigious event is absurd. We walked upstairs into this beautiful gold room where a live band and singer were performing while couples waltzed and danced across the floor in the big hall. With big halls, studies, and rooms in which official parties hold meetings, City Hall was fantastic.

 

Afterwards, Briana Patten, Agnes, Lisa and I went to a Musketmuseum where they had live music and dancing. At 11, a jazz band performed along with dancing. But, the jazz band and dancers ages ranged from kids of 11 years old to 20 years old. Thinking of kids that age in a jazz band, you think ehh, mediocre, but this, my friends, was more. They were absolutely phenomenal!!! Not to mention that the lead director played his trumpet so unbelievably high, you could tell his talent. Mixed with the interpretive dancing with an obvious certain theme, these kids certainly had talent. The best part of the whole show was how into the music and performing that they all were. It set the bar high and gave me a glimpse again of why I love music so much – because getting lost in music is a beautiful experience.

 

We called it a night after meeting up with Jae and Nikki. While the others went home, I walked with them to potentially go into City Hall again seeing as it was holding a party for the whole city. Rumor has it that thousands show up to this party, and after seeing the line, we can concur. We decided to just walk around Stockholm at night while discussing everything, and made way for just an amazing night.

Skansen

I have mentioned Skansen in posts from before, but what Skansen actually is, is a huge section of the Djurgarden island which is a bit of a zoo… (actually though). Along with having some wildlife including elk, brown bears, seals, reindeer, etc. Skansen also have many markets which sell candy, smoked fish, handmade trinkets, and things of this sort, while most employees working in these shops are dressed in authentic old time Swedish attire. Some of these markets in particular that we went to include a traditional bakery, a glassblower, and a steel maker. This was absolutely how we wanted to spend our day.

 

Walking around where some of these trade makers shops are, it felt as if we were back in time in the streets of old time Sweden. Walking into the bakery, the smell was divine and sent from God himself, and all of pastries, cinnamon rolls, and bread looked just as good as it smelt. Having my first cinnamon roll from a hand-made bakery was too good to be true. We came across the glass blower next where you could see the techniques they used into making some beautiful pieces of glass and work. I ended up getting a beautiful glass bowl for my brother and sister-in-law that is authentic Swedish blown glass. Apparently, Swedish glass is a popular item to buy when coming to Sweden.

 

After watching the animals and enjoying the gorgeous weather, we headed back to get some groceries for a BBQ with everyone else back at Lappis. Once the sun started to go down a bit more a few hours later, I headed back for my corridor dinner that Marco had put together.

 

My corridor is mixed with a bunch of genuinely interesting and kind people. Most of them, which I don’t know their names, or ever will due to my bad memory with names, came and each had something traditional from their country to give. There was risotto, seaweed, rice, spicy chicken, potatoes cooked a specific way, these amazing desserts (which took this one guy who is the sweetest and quietest guy from Serbia three hours), and what did I bring… Walker’s shortbread cookies bought from the English Store of course. At first, I’m not going to lie, I thought it would be more of a drag seeing as we never have communally gotten together and shared something of this sort. However, I was surprisingly pleased and had a fantastic time! We talked about what always seems to be the topic in a bigger international group of people, which include differences in culture, differences in food, our studies. Overall, it was a great idea put on by Marco, which I know everyone had enjoyed thoroughly.

 

Another filled day of beautiful people, sights, and food, as the countdown of leaving this beloved place sadly continues.

Food for thought

Today I had quite the laundry experience. While getting back from Dublin, my laundry had piled up to where I had almost no clothes. Finally going to my allocated time for laundry, I brought me three loads full and left to go say hi to my friend Andrea. After leaving his place to go switch the laundry, I quickly realized I didn’t have my keys I needed in order to unlock the laundry room. In a frantic rush, I ran back to Andrea’s, then to the laundry room, to see them sitting on top of the washing machine, exactly where I had left it. For the next 45 minutes, I proceeded to wait outside in order to catch someone going in. FINALLY, I switched over my laundry with an hour left to dry my clothes.

 

During this time, my friend from Switzerland Marco, had invited me and Lyle for some burgers since they were grilling out in Kungshamra. With the weather so nice and some good company, I enjoyed the sunny weather with some fresh burgers off the grill. To my surprise (but then again not really), I learned how it had snowed the day before in the morning. Classic Stockholm, for it to be almost spring and then have a random snowy day. During this time though, me being me, I completely forgot to go and grab my clothes from the drier. The laundry here works that you must book in advance online for an allotted 2 hours of laundry time, and then an extra hour for you to dry. After this time, your key will not allow you to come in again seeing as that should be enough time. Fifteen minutes late, I had to wait again to grab my clothes by hanging outside the door and knocking to see if anyone was in there already. At this point in the game, all you can do is laugh at how idiodic I was.

 

Tonight, some of my new Italian friends invited me for dinner in Lapis with some other international students. I was debating whether or not to even go until Andrea persisted he was going to rip me out of my room. So, I put my homework aside for the next few hours and headed over from Kungshamra to Lappis for dinner at my friend Niki’s place. Niki is from Australia and one of the happiest people you will ever meet. Always so gracious, she had about 10 of us over for dinner. I didn’t eat much seeing as I had already eaten at the grill out, but still enjoyed everyone’s company and a lot of laughter and fun. I feel like these encounters with multiple international friends is something I can’t take for granted here. Knowing that my time in Stockholm is limited, I must enjoy and grasp every opportunity to spend time with these people, I most likely will never see again. It not only makes me sad, but allows me to feel blessed for having met such amazing people in such a short amount of time.