Student’s blog

I think that I was supposed to write a blog post about my first week in Stockholm. Now that I’m finally getting around to it, it’s been six – oops! Any hope of accurately telling you my “first impressions” of Sweden is now completely gone; after all, my ideas of what it means to be “Swedish” or, at least, an American expat in Stockholm, are constantly changing. And what good are first impressions anyway? I think I spent my first week finding out all sorts of things that you probably don’t care much about: that at an apelsin wasn’t an apple, that mellan wasn’t a fruit, and that filmjölk, despite that cute little cow on the carton, sure as heck wasn’t milk. So how about I tell you instead about what’s going on right now in my life as a Swede, starting this morning in the subway with seven seasick sailors on a ship called Shenghai.
Or, på svenska: Sju sjösjuka sjömän på skeppet Shenghai. It’s the beginning of a tongue-twister centered around the sj-sound, a notoriously difficult-to-describe phenome (ɧ for y’all IPA nerds) that doesn’t exist in any language except Swedish. Its sole purpose seems to be to amuse Swedes as they try to get frustrated tourists to pronounce it correctly. Which, coincidentally, is exactly what a few of my Swedish friends and I were doing at 4 o’clock this morning in the Östermalmstorg subway (tunnelbana) station. We had met some Spanish tourists and decided – varför inte? – to try to teach them some Swedish. The ordeal quickly descended into a contest to try to figure out if anybody – Swedish or otherwise – could actually pronounce that dreaded sentence:“Sju sjösjuka sjömän på skeppet Shenghai sköljde sju skjortor i sjön.” (Nobody could.)
But what, then, were we doing out in the T-station at 4 am anyway? Swedish heroine Pippi Longstocking (Långstrump) might answer something to the effect of “Waiting for a train, of course!” But seriously: every Satuday night in February and early March there is a show on television called Melodifestivalen, where every region of Sweden nominates a few artists and bands with original songs to compete for the best song (judged mostly by viewer SMS votes). The winner becomes Sweden’s entry in Eurovision, which is basically the same thing on a larger scale (that is, almost all of Europe). The type of music is something called schlager, which is a kind of ridiculously cheesy dance-pop music that would feel very much at home next to, say, ABBA or the Backstreet Boys. In fact, ABBA’s breakthrough came due to their being Melodifestivalen (and later Eurovision) winners with their hit song “Waterloo!” American Idol is the closest thing we have in America, but Melodifestivalen is way more garish and theatrical – and way more important. You can always expect the front page of the weekend newspapers to be covering the lives of the performers, early reviews of the songs, Spotify listening statistics, predictions, and so forth. It’s essentially the epicenter of Swedish popular culture in the cold, dark winter-time. And so, every Saturday night my friends and I pack into a crowded bar like Torget to watch and vote on performers, and then afterward go out to schlager clubs like Kolingsborg or Zipper to dance to old Melodi/Eurovision hits until the wee hours of the morning. Of course, Melodifestivalen plays shamelessly into the stereotype that all Swedish music sounds like ABBA, but while a certain segments of the Swedish population genuinely despise Mello, I think most would agree that it’s inseparable from Swedish culture.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I could write on and on about räksmörgås, subway art (the Stockholm subway is the longest art gallery in the world), caviar in tubes, hockey, Ingmar Bergman films, and every other bit of Swedish cultural fantasticness, but unfortunately, I do have classes sometimes too.
Hej då!
–Carlos
Carlos Dominguez
Williams College
Spring Semester, 2012

Student’s Blog

The first thing that I noticed about Sweden was just how organized everything was. I have been here for 50 days and I have not once gotten lost on public transit. As someone who has never lived in a large city before, this is incredibly comforting. Not only is the Tunnelbana system very clear, but the busses are also easy to use, even later at night. Stores and banks are also incredibly organized. Most include some sort of queuing system, where you pick up a number when arriving and wait for it to be called. It is so much better than the jostling that is done in America. Additionally, I was pleasantly surprised to see how people used escalators. In the US, it is common for people to stand on a step together and chat as they go up. That would never happen in Sweden. Here, everyone stands on the right side so that the left can be used by people who need to get somewhere in a hurry. There aren’t even signs telling people to do this; they just do it naturally. It’s amazing.
I was also surprised to see how children are treated in Sweden. Contrary to the United States, advertisers are not allowed to advertise to children. There are no commercials for toys on either television or billboards. It was weird, but also pleasant. It’s nice to know that boys and girls are not being pressured by advertisers to buy a certain toy. The public television stations don’t even have advertisements at all! It was so nice to watch one of my favorite shows, Sherlock, without any commercial interruptions. On the other side, the commercial stations will frequently have fewer commercial breaks, but make them really long, around 10 minutes sometimes! While these breaks can be annoying, it’s nice to know that you have enough time to go to the bathroom and get a snack if you want to without fearing that you will miss anything.
As far as the program is going, everything is fantastic! All of my classes are incredibly interesting and taught by fantastic professors. I feel like I am learning quite a lot in every class period. I have especially enjoyed my Film and Television class. In our discussions, we usually end up talking about Sweden and its cultural heritage just as much as the movies themselves. What a great way to get to know Sweden!
Emily Asp
Oberlin College
Spring Semester, 2012

Student’s Blog

Student’s Blog

Upon my arrival in Stockholm this August, I was immediately enthralled with many things- the archipelago and the islands on which Stockholm is situated make it absolutely beautiful, with opportunities for water sports everywhere (within the first two weeks I was in a kayak in downtown Stockholm); the Swedish obsession with candles, making everything cozy and warm; and the unbelievable friendliness of the Swedes, to name a few. However nothing quite compares with the tradition of the fika.
Fika is a word that basically translates to “coffee break.” Traditionally, it means that you take a few minutes out of your busy day to sit and have a coffee and a cardamom bun with friends. Most of the time, this is what a fika is, although these breaks are taken quite frequently (up to four or five times a day, I’m told) and can range from anything from having a cardamom bun and coffee to having a soda with a sandwich. Fikas also provide an inescapable opportunity to test all the delicious treats in a Swedish bakery- so far my favorite are the chocolate balls (basically chocolate cookie-dough covered in coconut or sugar-yum!). Fikas are a time for Swedes to talk with friends and co-workers, and rest while sipping something hot. The importance of the fika in Sweden cannot be underestimated, and it is a wonderful tradition. I fully plan on continuing my fikas when back in the States, as a way to remind myself that there is always time to rest and have a chocolate ball.

- Willa Oddleifson, Scripps College

Student Blog: What a Spring

Deciding where to study abroad was an almost tortuous experience for me. All the programs sounded fantastic and the various locations looked so beautiful that I wondered if I could just extend my college career a decade or so to experience a handful of them. Unfortunately this wasn’t an option so my choices had to be narrowed. I ended up deciding on The Swedish Program, and if I was to revisit this decision I would pick Stockholm again in a heartbeat.

I managed to arrive without knowing another person and depart with spectacular new friends from all across the country. I got to dance onstage at a concert, watch the American ambassador play in the second-annual Stockholm Diplomatic Cup hockey tournament, and have the best meal on the planet (kanelbulle and coffee) every morning.

I could rant and rave about gorgeous Gamla Stan, the almost frighteningly clean and on-time Tunnelbana, the exceptionally polite nature of Swedes and how a great number appear to speak impeccable English, and copious other aspects that made my months in Stockholm some of the most memorable of my college life. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, one day’s experience in the Capital of Scandinavia will trump whatever I could say.

Max Williams
Hamilton College
Spring Semester 2011

Student Blog: What a Spring

I had some worries before I left for Stockholm. I was nervous about my first time travelling alone overseas. Would I be able to get around? What would I do in a country that didn’t speak English?  However, from my arrival to my departure from Stockholm, I always felt comfortable and welcome. I have nothing but compliments about the Swedish Program staff and my teachers at Stockholm University.  And everybody speaks English.

My apartment turned out to be a great space to call home and my worries about not being connected to Swedish society were baseless due to my wonderful contact family. And then there are all the friends I made. I couldn’t imagine exploring the city with a different group of people. Stockholm has a really great music scene, and people were always game to check out the bands playing at Debaser or Strand. Wednesday nights at the Yellow House student pub were always entertaining, and offered up a good way of meeting other Stockholm University students. I even found people willing to hunt around the city with me for Rose & Born, a luxury menswear store where we could barely afford the socks#. In short, I met a gang of people that I was not only willing to spend my three and half months with, but genuinely loved spending that time with.

And this past spring, we had such beautiful weather. When spring arrives, it brings with it a whole new atmosphere and vibrancy to the city. After making so many great friends, it only made the experience even better to shift it outside, where grassy expanses and cloudless, blue skies allowed us to trade our pants for shorts and scarves for sunglasses. My time in Stockholm was some of the happiest of my life. I made memories I actually will hold dear forever. One million thank yous’ to the Swedish Program for making that possible.

Robinson Schelhas
Spring Semester, 2011
Oberlin College

The Semester Begins!

The day after we picked up all the students at the airport, all students and staff went on a two day archipelago trip. The island we went to is called Finnhamn and it’s far out in the Stockholm archipelago. The weather was absolutely beautiful so it was the perfect way to experience the last days of the Swedish summer. The most brave ones even went swimming in the ocean. We stayed in small cabins in a lovely hostel. The hostel was built in 1915 as a summer manor for a Swedish coal-dealer.

Apart from the archipelago trip, the guided tour in Gamla Stan (the Old Town in Stockholm) is one of my favorite activities during the orientation week. The old town is fascinating with all the old, beautiful houses and its rich history. During the summer it is easy to get mixed up with all the other guided groups, but it is easy to understand why it is so popular.

By the end of orientation week all the students with contact families met their family for the first time over a “fika”. Fika is probably the first word you learn if you come to Sweden. It simply means that you have a coffee or a tea often together with something to sweet to eat, and that you sit down and talk for a while. Almost like having a coffee but just a little bit more. And we Swedes just love our fika!

The orientation week has been a lot of fun but I think that everyone is glad that the courses have started now. It is nice to get into the rutin. Now it is time to get to know Stockholm for real!

Student Blog: Put Your Foot Out There

There is not a more beautiful place on earth than Sweden. Perhaps it would be quite odd to say such words every time I wake up in my home with my Swedish host family, but it’s a thought that comes to mind when I walk outside. Our place is atop a hill overlooking a beautiful patch of trees that a river splits in half like two sides of a cookie. And speaking of food, my host mother is one of the best cooks I’ve ever encountered—well it’s to be expected of a former restaurant boss. She greeted me the day I arrived with a great, big hug. It was at that point that I knew something special had been waiting for me all those long hours I had been stuck in the air traveling.

Regardless of whether or not you have a host or contact family, there’s one thing that you can depend on as a student: that is The Swedish Program. All of my classes have teachers with a deep interest in what they teach. I would have to definitely say that the pearl of the Swedish Program is our Swedish teacher, Eva, who really shines when she gets a chance to work with us on our Swedish. Our student adviser, Roscoe, is our point man on all the events and activities that we can try out at the university and in Stockholm. You’ll find him if you walk through the 5th floor of Södra Huset—the Swedish Program’s base of operations—where our administration always has an open door and smiling face anxious to meet you and be of the utmost help.

There are numerous organizations on campus. And funny enough, I am the vice president of the English Student Council, a group that is some sort of liasson for students studying English at the university. It’s funny because I’m not studying English here. During the first weeks of school, most of the groups like the All English Society, which hosts English-related events, have a kick-off party. So if you are interested in what they do, you can swing by and meet some Swedes.

Students are strongly encouraged to spend as much time out of class as possible exploring everything in and outside of Stockholm—from the vast music scene in Sweden’s capital to the chocolate-tasting festival in the southern city of Göteborg. Your method of exploration will be the Tunnelbana (Sweden’s subway) — Sweden’s ever-punctual transit system which is a piece of cake to use.

What is great about having a host family is that I am often invited to do various things with the youngest child, like going swimming or accompanying him for a walk in different parts of Stockholm. I had even gone to a crawfish party—a Swedish tradition—because one of my host mother’s daughters invited me. Having the chance to meet her friends and just have a good time really made my first week in Sweden.

If you like to pick up languages like myself, there is no better way of learning Swedish than by living with a family. The second best way is to make friends with some Swedes. Because Stockholm university attracts so many students from other countries, you’ll even make non-Swedish friends, one of whom happened to have free tickets to a Santana concert this week and invited me to go (it was amazing).

When I was not stuck on how green and clean the city is or how polite the people are, I took time to take dance lessons, go bowling with a friend I met at a political campaign rally, and even drop in on a house party hosted by a Swedish friend from film class. Just as in the States, there’s nothing impossible if you put your foot out there and take advantage of all that your semester in Sweden has to offer.

Vance Monet
Brown University

Student Blog: First Impressions!

I thought I was getting my first taste of Sweden when I boarded Scandinavian Airlines flight 412 from Chicago to Stockholm.  While waiting at the gate at O’Hare, I saw people who I knew were Swedes as they were tall, blond, and almost frighteningly well dressed.  A variety of Swedish newspapers were available for free on the jet bridge right before the door of the plane—a quiet signal that a major language shift was impending and a small but important comfort for most of the people who boarded the aircraft.  As I buckled my seatbelt I was for the first time in my life surrounded by more Swedes than Americans and was already noticing subtle differences.  Besides the abundance of people looking rather Nordic, quietly surprised but amused me, making me wonder how many of the stereotypes I had heard about the Swedes would come true.  I took three Tylenol PM tablets and prepared to sleep for the next nine hours, excited that by the time I woke up, I would be in Stockholm, a place I had never seen, but had previously agreed to live in for the next four months of my life largely based on my love of Robyn and The Knife (and of course the many appealing promises made by the Swedish Program).

It has now been just over two weeks in Stockholm and one week since I had my first “I’m definitely going to be happy here” moment.  I knew that this moment would come soon after arriving, but it took as long as a week because I needed time to be absolutely sure that I would enjoy my day-to-day life in Sweden.  By the time the first week of mainly orientation activities was over, I had seen that Stockholm was beautiful, knew my apartment was spacious and comfortable, was confident that I was going to enjoy my classes, and was generally content with the look, disposition, and demeanor of the city and its inhabitants.  Furthermore, my first weekend in this city included an incredibly warm and comfortable dinner at my contact family’s home (the program sets willing apartment students up with Swedish support families), dancing all night with new Swedish friends and (most importantly) the opportunity to attend The Knife’s electronic music opera, ”Tomorrow in a Year” (Robyn performs a DJ set at Strand next week and I WILL be there).  I am optimistic about my time in Sweden because of how easily the little things are working out, either by happenstance or as a result of the hard work of the program staff—from being set up with an amazing contact family to being able to see my favorite Swedish band’s new opera within a week of arriving to meeting new friends right off of the street, I know that it will not be hard to live here or to be happy here.

While Sweden itself does not exactly resemble SAS flight 412, a few expectations I made while on that flight have been fulfilled—many people are blond, even more are tall, and they are friendly and easy to talk to.  Most importantly, I find it similarly easy to fall asleep here—this time not because of the aid of Tylenol PM, but rather because each night I know that I get to wake up the next day with Stockholm and everything it has to offer at my (gloved) fingertips.

Lucas Habte
Harvard University

Student Blog: Close to Perfect!

It’s been a dream of mine to live in Sweden since I was a little girl.  My mother is Swedish, and we used to come here to visit relatives every other summer.  To me, Sweden was a land of sunshine and swimming, where I could run from the house to the beach, pick blueberries in the woods, and eat as much candy and strawberries as I wanted.  When I told people that I was going to study in Stockholm from August to December, then, everyone told me that I would be completely disillusioned.  November would do it, they said.  There’s nothing fun about November.  It’s cold and wet and you won’t be eating strawberries; you’ll be doing homework.

Well, it’s December 2^nd today, and I still love it here.  Sure, there were only fourteen hours of sunny weather during all of November and I had to spring for a new winter coat and boots, but I certainly don’t regret coming to Sweden– quite the opposite.  Sweden is a real place for me now, not perfect, but also not a barren wasteland of drizzle either.

The two best parts of coming on the Swedish Program have been living in a host family and working for the Stockholm International Film Festival– neither of which have been affected by November.  My host family is made up of Ulrika, my host-mom, Niclas, my host dad, and Sofie, my 12-year-old host sister.  I couldn’t have been luckier when I was placed with them.  It’s probably corny to say, but I know that I will keep in touch with them forever.  It isn’t that we’ve done anything particularly crazy together; I’ve just been invited into their everyday life.  We eat dinner, go to the movies, bake Christmas cookies, and go out to eat.  I’ve met my host-grandparents and they let me organize a Thanksgiving dinner for them and 6 of my American friends in their kitchen.  Sofie and I play cards and Nintendo Wii together. We speak Swedish together everyday except the one “English night” per week, so my Swedish has gotten infinitely many times better.  I can be out late when I go out with my friends, and I have my own space in my room in the basement, but most of the time I just want to hang out with them, baking something with Ulrika, talking about music with Niclas, or watching “Mamma’s Pojkar” (the Swedish version of the TV show “Mama’s Boys”) with Sofie.

The other great experience that the Swedish Program has facilitated with me is a volunteer job with the Stockholm International Film Festival.  I sell tickets– sure, not very glamorous, but it’s actually been awesome.  I’ve met some real Swedish friends that I’ve hung out with while working and at the volunteer parties put on by the film festival, and I got a pass to get in free to all the films that weren’t sold out during the festival.  I saw 13 movies in 12 days (the most I saw in one day was 3) and one of my friends saw over 40!  I met an Academy award-winning documentary director and went to a panel discussion on female directors in Sweden.  And the festival was in November.

As I look out into the thirty-degree weather and remember that sunset today is at 2:54 pm, it’s hard believe that before this year Sweden was just a summer-land for me.  Now, after this experience, it’s a land of memories of my host family, going to class, sitting in movie theaters all day with my friends, and learning about the true beauty of wool tights.  Sure, Sweden’s not perfect, but as a study-abroad destination, for me, my host family and the film festival have made it pretty much as close as it could get.

Sara Forster
Swarthmore College