A Day In The Life of an Exchange Student in Sweden

On January 23, 2017, I had been in Sweden for exactly half of my exchange year. I decided that now is the perfect time to share exactly how one day of my life in Sweden is like. I’m hoping that future exchange students will be able to have some questions answered by reading this as I definitely had a lot before I left. I was actually able to find some blogs from other exchange students on previous years who wrote about a day in their life which I read multiple times. For those who are simply curious about what it’s like to live in Sweden, I hope I can answer all of your questions with this as well. Because it is the most typical day of the week in my eyes, I will describe a Wednesday. Wednesday is also my favorite day of the week, excluding the weekend. Every day of the week is different for me, from classes, to the time school starts, to what I decide to have for breakfast, but I will try to stick to the most typical things that I do every day. Every day I wake up to the obnoxious sound of my phone alarm, and every day I end up sleeping half an hour later than I had planned which leaves me rushing to get everythingtogether before I need to head out the door. Most mornings I make a smoothie and while I’m drinking that, I work on Duolingo, an app that helps you learn languages. After breakfast, I brush my teeth and finish getting ready. On Wednesdays, I start school at 11 so I usually have an hour or two to chill before going. I can either clean my room or work on school work. Every day I leave 30 minutes before school starts so I have time to go to my locker and then chat with friends before class. During the fall, when school started, I looked forward to the bike ride to school every day, but now that it’s winter and the warm sunny breeze has turned into a icy typhoon pushing against me, I have a little bit more hesitation when getting on the bike. I don’t know why, but the weather likes to make it as hard as possible for me to access my education. On some days, I will fight against a headwind the entire way to school, only to see that the wind has shifted course by the time school is out and I once again have to battle my way home, but this time uphill! There was one day where I got to school and my entire left side of my body was soaked, while my right side was dry, just because of the wind pushing the rain sideways. Despite my problems with it, I still appreciate biking to school as it helps keep me somewhat in shape. Once I’m to school I sit through the lessons and desperately try not to daydream. One of my problems is that when someone is speaking Swedish but not directly to me, my brain tends to filter it out. When I am having a conversation in Swedish with someone, I have to actively think about what they are saying, translate it in my head, and then reply. Because of that, it’s hard to pay attention and listen for the words that I know when someone is lecturing in Swedish. In most classes, I am able to understand the majority of what is going on and I can do the school work from there and with the materials that they provide online. The only class that is different is my Swedish class where I really do have to pay attention. I’ve found that just an hour in that class exhausts me because I have to stay focused and translate everything that is said for the entire class. Luckily, my teacher is amazing and knows just the right times to tell me the word in English when we’re going over a particularly difficult subject. After my morning classes, I always enjoy a delicious school lunch. Yes, I know, usually the words “delicious” and “school lunch” wouldn't go together, but in this case, they most definitely do. After lunch, I usually have about half an hour before my next class so I like to sit in the school library and write my blog. My school provides every student and teacher with MacBook Airs to work with during the year which has made doing homework and writing so much easier. This August when I first arrived, I didn’t have a computer so I was attempting to write on my phone. I would not recommend this. It was a blessing to find out that I would have a device to use during the school year. After I’m done with all my classes, I hop back on my bike and head home. Once I’m home, I take fika, usually with Ebba, my oldest host sister, and then do homework until it’s time to help with dinner. I always enjoy eating dinner with my host family and listening to them banter about the day’s events. Most of the time I get so caught up listening and translating that I forget to chime in. After dinner, I help clean up and then if it’s a Monday or Wednesday I get ready for kickboxing. I absolutely love my kickboxing class. At the beginning it was intimidating having the trainer yell instructions out in Swedish while I just had to watch and copy those around me, but I’ve been going long enough that I know the other regulars who go as well and I look forward to seeing them every week. The ages in the class are varied. I think the youngest person who goes regularly is around thirteen and from there we have most ages until seventy. The class may sound like it’s easy seeing as it has both young and old, but I always find that I want to collapse after every burpee-filled lesson. It’s not just the people in the class that I love, it’s also how fun it is. With remixed ABBA music blasting over the speakers, it’s hard not to get in the exercise spirit. At the end of every class I take ten minutes to stretch and for the first time since I took dance classes when I was eight, I can touch my head to my knees! One of my goals is to be able to do the splits again, but I still have a long way until that happens. After kickboxing, I get a ride home from one of the adults in my host family and hop in the shower as soon as we get back home. For the rest of the night, I sit on their big grey couch in the living room and watch Swedish TV shows. For a few months we watched the National TV show called Idol, which is just the Swedish version of American Idol. After four weeks of that, we all got pretty sick of it and now flip between the news and whatever seems interesting at the time. At a certain point every night, when it seems like nothing else will come on, we all say godnatt and retire to our rooms. At the end of every day I am absolutely drained of energy and cannot wait for my head to hit the pillow before starting a new day tomorrow.

Words of the Week

Bike-Cykel

Goodnight- Godnatt

Breakfast- Frukost

Lunch- Lunch

Dinner- Middag

#DayInTheLife #School