Txell’s first few months in Sweden (:

Dear diary, I’ve already been in Sweden for four months and I’ve been doing so many things that I almost forgot about you! The nostalgia of the first few months is kicking in so I’ll delight you with my memories.

I arrived a bit later than the other volunteers, and it was the first time I took a flight alone! What a day I had, I was so nervous!! New people, new country, new language, new 

workplace, new house… The other volunteers are very sweet, they became good friends in no time.

The first week went smoothly and I learnt a lot at Mästeriet and I also realised I now live by a lake, A LAKE! We also went to the university on a board game night, but it was so full that we ended up in the library, what a time!

The sunsets were spectacular when we were still able to see them, some days they made me want to cry of how pretty they were. Now the sun sets when we’re still working and we almost never see the sun, which makes me quite sad, but that’s making the weather nice and cold, and we have also seen a lot of snow!!

We started going to the university activities of a group named “Cultural connection” everyone is so sweet and now after a few months we have so many international friends!! No one told me that Swedish people my age are harder to find than a needle in a haystack!

A few weeks later we had the on-arrival training in Stockholm, it was full of feelings! From excitement to see a new place and people, to homesickness when we went to a concert of a catalan group, but it was a good time, we made a few friends, and everyone was sooooo nice! We played board games in the night and doodled on random papers when we got bored of the actual training, we also laughed making funny faces across the room, and we played the clothespin game. By the way, you just lost the game (;

Right after coming from Stockholm I went to a Zombies run at university and we had so much fun running around, I even ran into a bush accidentally, it was such a nice afternoon and I met a few new people.

We also met the neighbours! They are so sweet, they invite us to have fika with them sometimes and we do the same. Lately we’ve been starting to speak Swedish with them and it’s a good way to practice! There’s also a cat in the neighbourhood that sometimes comes to visit us, she’s so sweet and loves to be petted. We decided to call her Eleanor, and she has a brother, we call him Vincent, well, George decided a waaaaay longer name for him, but Vincent for shorts.

At the end of october we went for a small night walk to a wind shelter and we slept there, we had good laughs and deep talks, we woke up with the prettiest lake view and we went to jump to the lake, IT WAS FREEZING COLD! I also received a package from home and there was stuff my parents thought I’d like to have in sweden. My favourite chocolate (I still have some left), some soup, my cookbook, a toooone of pictures… That made me cry a lot.

In november we took an afternoon trip to Kalmar to see the city and visit the castle museum. It looked so pretty and there were some very nice facts about it!

I also had some not-so-nice days that made me want to go back home for a week to see my family and surprise my friends. I listened to my needs, which is something I started learning how to do when I came here. It was so nice and I came back with charged batteries and renewed energy!
Oh, I forgot to mention I started running (: Well, I runned until one morning I woke up and the temperature said -12°C HELL NO! I went right back to bed. We started going to the gym instead, but it’s not the same… I liked the view of the lake and the sun waking up the trees, it made my mind tingle in a nice way.

December got closer and the Christmas decorations appeared everywhere. I was shocked by how much Swedes decorate their houses! We made some Christmas cookies and went to our local Christmas market. Hannah and Charlie were so disappointed but I was quite happy about it, there was even a small choir singing songs in the streets! We also made a huge gingerbread house!

There’s also this sweet Swedish tradition we followed. Every day a Christmas episode of a small series is released, like an advent calendar and it was so interesting, even if we didn’t understand half of it (because it was in Swedish with Swedish subtitles) but we learnt so much! We also went to the cathedral to see the Lucia representation, it was so so sooo impressive and they sang so nicely!

Then we all got sick (:

I mean, we live in a very cold place, it was quite obvious that we would get sick, we didn’t drink enough hot chocolates and chai lattes to keep us warm. It was a nice last, chill, sick week before heading home for Christmas.

And… Well, now I’m at Växjö again, it snowed A LOT. I had so much fun running around, writing messages at the bus stop and doing snowball fights with my friends. Today the snow is almost melted and the floor is slippery, but I’m sure it’ll snow again and we’ll be able to make a snowman and more snowball fights!

Well, see you next time, my sweet diary, I’ll try to keep you updated with my little histories!