Top ten surprises from Sweden

Dinner with the gang: pan roasted chicken, roasted sweet corn, broccoli, garlic mashed potatoes, fresh bread, fried onions and garlic, local Swedish beer. Yeah we are pretty awesome.

1. People looked like ME! I was starting to feel comfortable with the fact that everything about Europe was different from me, including how people look. My first day in Sweden I was tempted to point at people and tell my friends “LOOK there’a another one,” every time someone walked past.
2. Northern Minnesota and the Swedish country side could be twins.
3. When we got to the airport we had to walk for like 3 min on the tarmac at night. Don’t believe Ryanair when they tell you the airport is in Stockholm.
4. People kept expecting me to speak Swedish. I don’t, but I realized what it must be like for the people in our group with mediterranean blood who always get mistaken for spaniards.
5. Halloween partying in Uppsala. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was surprised and had a FABULOUS time dancing the night away in a college town.
6. 4:30 PM. That is when it got dark in Sweden. It was the closest I have ever been to the arctic circle and you could tell by the way the light changed.
7. Diego. My uncle Dave’s friend who I had lunch with in Stockholm. He is a Spanish expat and we had an amazing meal and shocked all the swedes by talking loudly in Spanish.
8. The food. There is not a lot in my diet back home that closely resembles Mallorcan food, the opposite was true in Sweden. Oh and the food was delicious too.
9. “Family” Dinner. All of my friends and I made a giant dinner together one night. One of my friends even fried onions in butter for the first time in her life.
10. Sweden. I never expected to see Sweden while I was here. It was beautiful, welcoming, and I LOVED it.