Sweden is amazing. That’s all there is to it. It is so beautiful here and the people are so friendly. I live in a residence hall with mostly other exchange students. There are people here from all over the world (mostly Europe), and it is so cool to learn about their cultures as well as find out there ideas about the US culture.

In Vaxjo, where I am living, everyone bikes. Whether they are 7 or 70, dressed for biking, or dressed for a night out. It is such a pedestrian and cyclist friendly town, with  bike paths everywhere. My hall is unfortunately located far away from campus, but thankfully I am very close to the centrum (downtown) and the bike ride around the lake is beautiful; even in the morning and my face is freezing. I am so excited to start classes, but these past few days have been near perfect as I have found a good group of friends and we have been cycling everywhere and learning more about our surroundings. Tomorrow we will bike around the entire city, on the outskirts and picnic near one of the many lakes.

My other favourite part of living in Sweden is fika (pronounced: fee-kah). It means coffee, but refers to a time to meet up with your friends and have coffee/tea and some pastry, maybe kanelbullar, which are Swedish cinnamon rolls. And delicious, might I add. It is very similar to British tea time. There are many cafes on campus, so there is always a place for fika!

Sweden has been great so far, but shopping is by far one of the most overwhelming experiences I have had. For one thing, everything is in Swedish. And I do not speak Swedish, although I am catching on! I was trying to find face wash the other day and had a very difficult time trying to find what was face wash, what was scented, non-scented, and all the other things that I am so used to just being able to read on the labels. The other thing is that everyone thinks I look Swedish and therefore start talking to me in Swedish, leaving me very confused and informing them that I do not understand and only speak English. When I was buying my bike, the man helping me was very surprised when I told him I wasn’t Swedish, to which he replied. “not even Finnish?” Nope, sorry. Not even Finnish.

I think I will enjoy this place quite a bit, once I overcome the language boundary. Thank goodness most people can speak English, or I would feel so lost and confused! I am very ready for classes to start though, I cannot wait to see how classes work and what it will be like to be a real Swedish student!

Kaffe and kanelbullar at my new favourite time of day- fika!

Walking through campus.