Weekend in Sweden (EN)

On September 16th me and my host family went to Sweden on a cottage for weekend. The journey lasted approximately 3 hours and I was excited like a little child, because I've never been there before. We went over the bridge and there we were. Hello Sweden! I started laughing, because the first thing I saw right after we crossed the border was IKEA. We stopped at the grocery store to buy some food for the weekend there, because it's cheaper than in Finland. Then we continued driving north for about an hour. I was watching how autumn changed the landscape. Orange leaves were reflecting the sunshine. Then we went through a cart-road into almost untouched nature. It was a beautiful autumn evening. When I got off the car, the coldness woke me up and I ran inside of the cottage as fast as possible. We ate dinner together as usual and tired from travelling fell asleep.

I was woken up by my little brother and sister's footsteps. I rolled up the curtain and sunlight brighten up my room. It was a beautiful sunny morning. After the breakfast I ran out, but apparently I forgot (after almost 2 months of living here) that I'm in Scandinavia and sunshine doesn't always mean warm weather. Coldness got me again. We went down to the river and I was just silently staring at the landscape. North is different. Everything's different. The sky has a different shade of blue, the Moon is much bigger and it's close to the horizon. If it's not cloudy and light then you can observe the northern lights. That's always very magical, so is almost untouched nature. The Sun is also different. It's bigger, but it doesn't heat up the ground as somewhere else. Later in the morning grandma and grandpa came. We picked up carrots and potatoes and ate lunch together. What else could we eat than the salmon, which was by the way so delicious. In the afternoon we went to the town to this lovely retro café. We sat down in the cottage agaiin and later in the evening we went to see Jockfall. And so I don't forget. On Spetember 17th I crossed the Arctic circle for the first time. When we came back, shivering from coldness we did some BBQ and then what else would we do than going to sauna. I got a chance to try the traditional smoke sauna. That was interesting. We fell asleep really fast again.

In the morning we were only chilling, watching TV and walking around the cottage. Then we cleaned everything up and went back home. On our way we did the most Swedish thing, yes. We stopped in IKEA. Then we drove back home and exhausted from traveling ate some food and then went to sleep.

On Monday we were forced to go back to our casual work/school life. I really enjoyed the weekend. It was full of adventures and family time. I was never happier. I don't want to say, that I don't miss stuff back home, of course I do (don't get me wrong). But I'm also realizing how lucky I am that I chose Finland and got into my host family. My world view is changing. Maybe the idea of becoming "adult" and being responsible for myself is a little frightening, but I'm not alone in it. There are so many amazing people helping me out, especially my host family, who give me the feeling of being home. I don't really have anything else to write. There's nothing to complain about. Everything's absolutely great, I'm alive, healthy (or not diagnosed well) and happy. My life has never been more interesting and adventurous than it's now.

Heippa!