By: Nicholas Caldwell, Senior
I hopped off the plane in LAX with a dream and a cardigan. No, my experience went something like I trudged off the plane in STHLM with tears salty on my eyelids and two fifty pound suitcases. I had decided last December that I would spend my Senior year in Stockholm, Sweden. I sit here at 20:43 (8:43pm) reflecting on my past 40 days here in the land of the midnight sun and I begin to wonder, where has the time gone? I feel as though I’ve lived here for only a week, and no, I do not want to come home (as much as I miss all of my favorite Palisades teachers).
I live in Gustavsberg, the largest island in the Stockholm Archipelago, a vacationland for many, but only a twenty minute SL (Stockholm Lokaltrafik Bus & Metro) ride from Stockholm Central. Gustavsberg has become my Coopersburg. I go to school everyday in Liljeholmen, a small part of Stockholm, and the commute has been much more appraised than my 5:45am-120 minute bus ride freshman and sophomore year to Palisades.
I go to an international school, a school filled half with students who are immigrants and expats, and the other half, Swedes. It is life changing to feel like an immigrant when you’re from a country with an immigration issue. I am so fortunate to have gotten to know my peers, whose families have come from facing hardships in Iran to leaving the USSR to moving to Sweden because of how progessive it is.
How do I feel about home now? I used to think the United States of America was the best place in our universe. Since being here, I’ve begun to realize that my tarnished and belligerent American patriotism overshown my appreciation for other cultures, lifestyles, and countries. As fantastic as the States is, I unexpectedly found a new love for Scandinavia's most modern and progressive country.
It’s Friday night, and I’m home alone. Home alone on a Friday night in Sweden, 20 minutes away from the biggest city in Scandinavia. If you would have told Nicholas Caldwell this statement a year ago, he would have been completely disheveled. My life was “so great” back home, going out to Philadelphia, New York City, or sprinting to some other event every weekend. While I do appreciate those moments, I find solace and appreciation in getting to relax in between the constant “Hej” (hello) “Hej Då” (goodbye) of my current life here.
Life here is, in a way, much calmer, and I think I will call it My Year of Rest and Relaxation.*
*My Year of Rest and Relaxation is my current favorite novel by author and Booker Prize nominee Otessa Moshfegh.
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