The Sound of Settling

We have almost been in Mora for two weeks which means our time in Sweden is almost half done. Sometimes I think about how much more we have to do and how seemingly short it now feels. 2 more weeks in Mora, then 10 days in Uppsala, then 10 days in Stockholm, then Spring Break and then we finish in Jönköping and go home. I constantly think about how I need to take advantage of everything because I don't want to regret anything when I get home. So far, I have no regrets. Today marks 6 weeks ago that we gathered in Minneapolis for orientation. I know I have talked about it before, but that seems so far away and distant. I looked around that conference room, not really knowing too many of my traveling companions, and now we have eaten, studied, and laughed together. We have seen each other in swimsuits in the sauna many times and in our towels as we walk to the shower. Yes, we are a make shift family.

Sometimes the class days can get a bit long. Especially the days when we have 4 hours of Nordic Politics. Somehow, we manage to entertain ourselves. As someone who has more than a few gaps in knowledge of European History, I enjoy some of the historical tangents Lennart occasionally goes on to include dates and historical perspectives. We talk a lot about how Sweden developed as a welfare state post WWII and reasons the U.S has not. We spent a lot of time talking about family legislation this week and how vast the differences between Sweden and the U.S seem to be. Where as in the U.S someone may be lucky to get a few weeks of maternity leave, the Swedes are guaranteed at least a year. There have also been incentives to try to persuade men to take the same amount or more leave than women. Day care is also funded by the Swedish state, whether that day care is a private home or a bigger company. Marriage is also thought of differently in Sweden. It is common for couples to live together for several years and have children before they even think of getting married. Lennart told us that when he and his wife went to parenting classes for their first child, they were the only couple of ten who were married. It is so interesting to compare policies across the world.

Swedish classes continue and I can feel myself improving a little. (I think!) My pronunciation is still pretty bad, but I can tell that I understand more and more of what is being said around me. Today we wrote directions to somewhere in the school and then had to direct our partner, in only Swedish, how to get there. I am proud to say, though I seem to be bad at directions in any language, I ended up where I was supposed to be.