Misha in Sweden: Orientation and First Impressions

Hej!!

It's been a while without wifi at orientation, but I am currently on the platform waiting for my train at the Stockholm Central Station headed to Göteborg where I will meet my host family! I'm so excited and more than a little nervous.

These past couple days have been amazing and quite a blur. There was a lot of lugging around suitcases, but it was nice that there was always someone who offered to help at every stop. The plane ride to Stockholm from Frankfurt was surreal. At our gate, they checked us in and we were taken to a bus that drove us out to the runway where we walked up the stairs to our plane. It was a first for me doing that. It was an exciting moment. Rebecca and I sat together again and listened to music and finished my Swedish language packet. I saw my first bit of Stockholm and it was breathtaking. The city is on an archipelago and there is sparkling water everywhere! The moment our wheels touched the Swedish runway, Rebecca and I squealed and I froze, suddenly realizing that I won't be back to the U.S. for another 10 months. We turned to each other and almost at the same time we said "What did we get ourselves into?!" Well I still don't have an answer to that, but hopefully I will have a good idea soon.

Once we landed, we waited at baggage claim and met five Swiss students. We all went out and met some of the cheering YFU leaders with huge signs. We were put into small vans and it was about an hour long ride to the camp. I sat up front with the driver, who was an exchange student to Japan in high school. My observations thus far were the number of Volvos and Saabs on the streets. The ads were prettier and everything was cleaner under a perfect blue sky.

Our camp was on the shore of a lake/river (since Stockholm is an archipelago I still can't quite decide what the bodies of water qualify as?) We were surrounded by the clean water and lots of green trees. The air just seems to be sweeter and fresher and there never seemed to be enough to fill my lungs. We were greeted by several cheering, peppy young leaders who all either worked at the YFU Sweden offices or had gone on exchanges and were now volunteering. The leaders throughout the whole trip were so amazing and fun, it was the best.

That first day was so exhausting and it was quite a struggle to stay awake to overcome my jetlag as soon as possible. The whole day was really relaxed as we waited for all the students to arrive. We took an informal walk to the royal palace, which is like 20 minutes away. It was big and beautiful, especially with all the water (again). We had a nice YFU meeting at the end of the night and then it was bed.

I shared my room with two girls from Germany and a girl from Switzerland. My small group, with a single leader, were all girls from different countries - Thailand, USA, Switzerland, Hungary, Germany, Australia. The orientation was an English one, so nearly everyone had to speak and listen and read in a language other than their native (for most). I felt kinda bad. It was like we English-speaking people were kind of stepping on their toes but really everyone does speak the language and communicates with English to people who aren't necessarily American or English or anything traditionally such. I loved meeting the students, they're so interesting.

So let's talk about the observations I have made about Sweden so far.

1) Nudity. The showers are two different rooms that close with two shower heads and two sinks. There is a small glass divider in between the two showers but no curtain or anything. You get pretty comfortable with your friends or with whomever is next to you in the shower line pretty quickly. Also, if there is a group of people just hanging out on the docs, there is often a call for random swims. You're swim suit is in your room? No problem just use your underwear. The leaders, boys and girls, all shared a room (but not the students, don't worry Bob). People walked around in their underwear or just a towel and there was not a single eye blinked.

2) Food. Swedes are like Hobbits, they eat all the time. I kid you not, there was not a single time during the orientation when I was hungry because we ate so often. Typically, a Swede will have breakfast, fika (a coffee and snack break), lunch, fika, dinner, fika. The food is not particularly heavy or anything but it's interesting. During the orientation, we only had one fika after lunch at about three (which made the Swedes at camp very upset). They seem to always be hungry and they can't function without almost constant nourishment. What's funny is not a single one is overweight. I was in line for dinner behind two Swedish leaders and one of them turned to me with an absolutely worried, distraught face, "You must eat a lot now, because this is our last meal before bed." She was so worried, poor thing. Regardless, they had fruit and crackers as a snack for anyone during our later activities that night. Also, they (and other Europeans) eat with a fork in the left hand, knife in the right. They are careful with their food and use their knife to sculpt eat mouth full on their fork before eating it. Very interesting - but I have little patience for it.

3) Fika. As I mentioned before, fika is a social institution in Sweden where you and a friend or family or a group of people go out to a coffee shop or just at home or work to sit for a while and socialize, always with a hot drink of some sort and a sweet treat. Let me tell you, the Swedes love their fika. Our leaders were really the only Swedish people we could meet but they were a pretty great example. They would start to get antsy and look at their watch, counting down and announcing the minutes left until fika. They were legitimately upset that there wasn't a morning fika. Because of so many breaks for food and free time throughout the day, I felt that we hardly did anything! It was still a blast though.

4) The nature! Again, it is so breath taking! The Swedes have a law that anyone can enjoy nature publicly. Unless it is private property (which isn't common) or someone's backyard, you can go out and camp, swim, pick berries, anything. I don't blame them, their country is absolutely gorgeous. Water everywhere, green everywhere. Honestly it is like nature 2.0 because it was all the good with none of the bad. It was really clean, no litter or anything, and very fresh. We were next to the lake but there were no mosquitos. Or at least none that bit me. Also no uncomfortable humidity or even a bad smell from the water. If you went for a swim, you didn't smell like it afterwords. There weren't very many bugs that irritated us either. Come on America, get it together.

Anyways my past few days have been so fun, and I'm nervous to face the real world without my new friends for the next year. I can't wait to meet them again at the end of the year orientation when we can all speak together in Swedish!

As for now, goodbye!

P.S. Here are a few pictures but there are more to come!