Tjena!

It feels so weird to be writing this blog about the final month of this exchange, and June was a rollercoaster and a half. It’s been a month of winding down, of many many goodbyes and of wrapping up this whole experience in general. For each of our close friends who were leaving one by one, my friend group prepared a goodbye ‘prank’. We would invite them to someone’s house for dinner but surprise them with an act we had prepared: an outdoor scavenger hunt in their native language, a karaoke song rewrite about how much we’ll miss them, friendship bracelets with inside jokes, an especially curated playlist, or a diy t-shirt of our favorite funny quote that person had ever uttered. It was both extremely funny and extremely sad to spend those last bittersweet bits of time with them–those people who had made Lund feel like home.

I stuck around for a little bit longer until the end of the month, and was in Lund to celebrate Sweden’s National Flag Day (it was spent at the pub and at karaoke, while leaving behind little Swedish flags in random places), and the famous Swedish midsommar! As you might know from the film (if you know, you know), midsommar is celebrated on the eve of the longest day of the year. It has roots in pagan tradition, celebrating the summer solstice. (Some parts of it are like the film, and other parts definitely not.) Friends and family gather to enjoy garden parties and picnics in the sun, wear self made flower crowns, eat a typical holiday meal of ‘sill’ (pickled herring), new potatoes and ‘jordgubbstårta’ (strawberry cake), ‘snaps’ (which means spirits) with drinking songs and dancing like a frog around the May pole. Lund had a town celebration at its historical open air museum which I attended with some friends. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and there was lots to see and hear, including a folk duo who showed us how to do the traditional May pole songs and dances. The rest of my midsommar was spent in Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens to see a concert by Sweden’s favorite artist Veronica Maggio (my friend and I had been listening to her for the longest time to learn Swedish!). Although Copenhagen and Lund are not very far apart, our day was spent in two different countries and ended with all trains over the Öresund bridge getting cancelled, leaving us stranded at Copenhagen airport…

(Spoiler: we made it home! But it was the dead of night….)

Right before midsommar, I began the process of packing up my dorm room to move back to the Netherlands. I needed to get it done quickly, as I had limited time between moving day and some final travels I would do before leaving. My friend and I flew to visit some of our exchange friends who had just returned to their home in Helsinki, Finland. We stayed for a few days and had the best time exploring the town, trying not to die in the sauna, swimming in very (very) cold water, trying to learn new Finnish words, listening to loads upon loads of Finnish hip-hop, enjoying the midnight sun, and reflecting on what our exchange meant for us. We shared a bittersweet goodbye one more time before reassuring one another that we’d go on another trip together soon. After returning to Lund I quickly finished all the cleaning, packing and errands needed before I could move out, and my last night was spent at my favorite falafel place (Clemens Falafel, I’ll miss you) & a karaoke bar with the last of my friends still in Lund.

The next day, it was time to move home… :’)

I’ll tell you more about that experience soon!

Hej då for now,

Ana