I get to sit in my room and enjoy a white Christmas and it feels so goood.
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| The forest where I live |
I’m done with my first semester here at Södertorn Högskola and I’m not sure if I did well in my last class, but it’s another one of those classes that are so bullshit it seems to be easy throughout and then it turns out that you might have a slight chance of getting a bad grade kind of classes. I hope that’s not the case with my Racism and Xenophobia class. There is this guy from Syria and apparently he learned a lot in the class about racism. The fact is that he hates Latvians because they are “evil and cold blooded people”. I went to Riga recently and most people were actually really cold and mean, but I don’t blame them. This Syrian guy has a pretty good reason to hate Latvians due to a fight that include bats and hip stabbing. Get this, he was hit by a bat by a Latvian guy and damaged the Syrian guy’s lower spine (probably for the rest of his life) and has to have on-going surgeries to fix his back problem. Then he goes on and explains the rest of the story loathing every person in Lativa through his words, he goes on and says that his friend at the time (after he was hit) chased the attacker and stabbed him in the hip with a knife. His friend was going to stab the guy another time, but “the knife was stuck in his hip bone and he used all his force to pull the knife out, but he just couldn’t do it”. The funny thing is that he’s a really loving guy who talks and has lots of energy, but I can’t stop laughing in my head when he disrupts the class with his moaning and attention grabbing sounds during serious racism discussions. He would get up and put his hands on his back and moan and take deep breaths and you can see that in the corner of everyone’s eyes, he’s causing this distraction that snickers everyone’s mind.
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| Swedish people love lamps |
Other than school, I had my first visitor here in Stockholm! He stayed for 9 days. I met him 2 years ago in San Jose, then I went to Scotland last year and he showed me around and this time I got to show him around. Actually that wasn’t the case, I planned everything in Scotland and he just followed along. I really appreciated him coming to visit me because it was nice to have someone who knows me during the holidays. I would have been really homesick if he hadn’t come. We went to Göteborg with 7 of my friends. We went to many places in Stockholm that I haven’t been to. I successfully immersed him into my life here in Sweden, going to university group meetings, using trains and busses as the only mode of transportation, socializing with people I encounter everyday, and allowing him to see what I go through emotionally (though I bet you he doesn’t really soak it in deeply). He has a girlfriend now and has a completely different life than what he had last year, but he is still the same person I remember. He’s a good guy, sometimes out in his own little day-dreaming world, but other than being a brutally honest, say-what’s-on-his-mind, silly guy, I saw that he’s actually a really intelligent guy who’s down to earth and real. None of that mumbo jumbo crap you get from people who say what you are want to hear. I like him and I hope I can keep in touch with him.
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| Cafe in Göteborg |
Now on to the future part of my Winter vacation! I just celebrated Cristmas with my Björnkulla family in my kitchen. We had secret santa and people made food and dessert for dinner. Music was playing, drinks were consumed and all of us stayed up until 3 in the morning spending time with each other on a snowy white Chrismas Eve. I got a travel book on Prague from Honza and Eli for Christmas because I will be visiting them sometime near summer. I got Honza and Eli each a keychain from San Fransisco that says “# 1 Dad” and “#1 Mom”. They are the best people and they act like a mom and dad to me. I also got a bottle of wine and hand lotion from my Secret Santa. The connection with wine and hand lotion is still a question to me, but I liked it anyway.
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| Frozen lake by City Hall in Stockholm |
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| View from inside of the City Hal |
I’m spending Christmas day cleaning my room and cleaning the kitchen that was left from last night. I’m going to Romania in 3 days for New Years with Sylvie. In 3 days, it is the start of my traveling adventure that Sylvia and I had planned for months now. She was eager to travel to Europe again and decided that she would join me in Romania and then come back to Stockholm where I can show her my life here in the cold. Then I will join her in Paris for a week. I’m planning to see my friend from San Jose that is teaching in Paris. I can’t wait to see the hyped up talks about Paris, how romantic and beautiful it is with the cafes and the atmosphere. All the best while I’m alone in a Romantic city. Wonderful. Hopefully I accidently win a young hot French guy’s eyes who asks me to join him on his scooter where he drives me down the streets of Paris ending in a happy lunch on a blanket while serving me some cheese and baguette in front of the Eifle Tower and then we fall in love and eat more cheese and bread. The weather in Paris is going to rainy and snowy, so the chance of that happening is 100 percent!
I can’t wait to see all my Romanian friends again and hopefully my students that I taught last year. The AIESECers are making a New Years party and most of the old friends I met will be there. I’m scared I’m going to be emotional, but I will have Mici and Cozonac (my favorite food in Romania) there so that will make up for it. By the way, Coznac is one of the best things ever made on the face of the earth.
Merry Christmas,
Dandelion Traveler
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| The best view of Stockholm |
dandeliontraveler 