So I've gone five months with barely a word about the place I've been living...
Goal 45: Live and study in a foreign country
This one was basically a given completion goal, because by the time I joined the Day Zero Project, I was basically on my way to Sweden. Regardless, I did live in a foreign country, and I did study (sometimes). I would like to add a bit of validity to the goal, mentioning that until the final month or so, I wasn't really living in Sweden at all, just surviving. So what does that even mean?
Well, most of my time in Sweden was spent under the oppression of a few of my peers, and one night, Ariel, Kenneth and I all joined together in a pact to live it up during the final days of our Swedish residence permits. This decision single handedly saved my impression of Sweden.
We started by climbing the roof of our school. We started out with minor mischievous pranks such as making cup pyramids and turning all of the microwaves on. When I found an open window, we achieved the high point of the school, and relaxed in our discussion of our final days.
The first big win was in the vehicle class. We found derelict bikes, fixed them up, and used them as a new, and primary, mode of transportation for our adventures.
The study portion of the goal is an interesting thing to note. Sweden does the courses much differently from the US. They have two periods for every semester, and courses can take any speed. Full time is considered 30 credits. Courses can be 7.5 credits and take the whole semester, or just one period, depending on their speed. I could continue to explain, but as long as you have a total of 30 credits over a semester, you're full time.
I specifically chose my courses in order to have the maximum amount of time free, every week. I took one online course, one course in each period, and one class that started in the middle of the first period, and ended in the middle of the second. Long story short, I had at most 2 classes a week, and little work to do, which is how I managed to visit ten other countries while studying.
Ariel and I then teamed up at a Beer Pong party in which we went 9 for 10 in drinking games. My favorite play was a two-balls-one-cup move that 'sploded all but one of our opponents' cups into their bellies.
Food was a common means of gathering in the final days. We barbecued, we made cornbread, we had birthdays, and we made cookies.
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The final days were also filled with flag signings and goodbye toasts. Many friendships deepened as we all realized that this thing was coming to an end. It was really beautiful to share parting stories with so many great people.
Graduation in SwedenGraduation is super awesome in Sweden because all of the highschoolers dress up and take to the streets. Many of them were carrying around boomboxes, or had choreographed dance routines. It seemed like so much fun, and I wish so badly that the US had some great community events such as this and Valborg, where everyone gets out of the house and on to their feet.
My personal favorite was the crew of colored spandex suits. They reminded me of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and made me wonder where I find a suit of my own.
The Final, Final DaysFor about a week before I left Sweden, my days were packed. One of the most exciting things I did was swim to an island in the middle of Mälaren lake. I did this with Aaron Kahn, and it proved to be harder than we expected.
It was about 400m or so from shore to the island, but it was 400m of freezing cold. We got to the island with almost no problem, but once we could touch, we had to wade through another 50m of sharp reeds. Once we got through that, we had to fight off mass quantities of mosquitos and ants until we found a nice spot overlooking the lake with a bit of a breeze to it. We warmed up a bit and began to swim back without much delay.
Once we got in the water to go back, we tried to push a stockpile of reeds together, with two floating logs underneath in order to create a raft that we could possibly paddle back to shore. Our raft quickly deteriorated, leaving us with a soccer ball and an old buoy for floatation. These turned out to be lifesavers (possibly literally) because the swim back was severely more difficult. We lost more than our fair share of body heat and energy getting across the first time, so it was a tough cookie getting cramps and wanting naps on the return swim.
By this time, I found out that I had passed my course, 'Swedish for Foreign Students,' with ease. Jag talar inte flytande Svenska, men jag talar Svenska.
At the very end, I had to leave a bunch of stuff behind. Mostly stuff that I got with my room or found along the way, it was too good to throw away. In order to make someone such as our Finnish friends less unnerved about taking abandoned things, I left a note that said 'This stuff is all yours' on the soccer ball.
The final month was filled with reflection on what had happened. It had been quite an experience, and there are a few very important things that I've learned from my trip. Firstly, that it doesn't matter if most of the people you know are lame, you should always find the ones that aren't, and stick with them. Secondly, every city in the world is almost the same. The sights are good for seeing, but towns and countrysides are good for experiencing. The third thing is part of Goal 1: Send a postcard to Postsecret, so I won't mention it here.
