My New Home and Meeting My Swedish Host Family

by Jared Ebel, Greenheart Travel high school student in Sweden

I did it! I made it to Sweden to study abroad. After eighteen hours in and out of airports, me and my luggage landed in Stockholm Arlanda Airport Sunday morning. I was greeted at the airport by my host mom, Lena, my host father, Joakim, and their dog, Gypsey. It was crazy seeing them for the first time.

Lena greeted me with a Swedish and an American flag as well as a blue and yellow scarf with Sweden engraved on it. We left the airport just as the sun was coming up, roughly 8:30 right now in Sweden. The drive home was overwhelming to say the least. We talked about all the different areas of Stockholm we were passing and what points of interest were along the way, such as Joakim’s workplace.

When we arrived at home, Lena and Joakim showed me around the house and to my beautiful room, which has a lot of Swedish memorabilia in it, such as a blanket with the Swedish flag on it, a sculpture of a Viking standing in Scandinavian boat, and a coffee mug shaped like a Viking horn.

I have a beautiful view out of my bedroom window, too. It’s just too bad that it’s almost always too dark to enjoy it.

After being shown around my new house, I went up to my room and unpacked all my clothes into my closet. I went downstairs then to meet my host brothers Jonas and Tobias as well as their cat, Skrållan. Me and Lena sat down and talked about all of the beautiful things Stockholm has to offer and I will get to see.

There are plenty of places to visit such as Skansen, a large open air museum, Vasamuseet, home to an actual Viking longship that was pulled from the harbor, and Gamla Stan, the oldest part of Stockholm. As I have difficulty sleeping on planes and had an overnight flight, I was incredibly jet lagged. I decided to take a two hour nap as to not further ruin my sleep schedule.

Four hours later I awoke, accidentally oversleeping. Jet lag is awful to get over.

Getting to Know My New Neighborhood

After my longer-than-intended nap, Jonas took me for a walk around the area I am staying. It was hard for me to adjust to it being dark out at 3:30 in the afternoon during our walk. On the walk he showed me the local gymnasiet (high school), the Pressbryån, a Swedish store somewhat similar to a seven-eleven, and an ancient Viking stone in the area. The walk helped greatly to dissipate my jet lag. We came home just in time to meet my host sisters Cecilia and Erika, who don’t live with us, but came over for dinner.

Cecilia does not speak English, so that offers me a good opportunity to practice my Swedish, which is far from ample. I enjoyed my first Swedish meal of reindeer and Hasselback potatoes, traditional Swedish dishes. We talked about my first couple hours here and the topic of conversation eventually veered towards Swedish and American politics and upcoming elections.

After a long day of excitement and adventures, I was exhausted and went up to my room looking forward to a good night’s sleep. Then began night one of battling jet lag. I finally fell asleep around two or three in the morning and rested intermittently through the night. My first day was such an amazing Swedish experience and I hope it is evident of what the rest of this crazy adventure and travel will bring me.