What made you decide to go to Sweden for a semester your senior year?

There were a lot of things going on in my head in junior year, and I couldn’t really handle them, so I went to the counselor’s office and it was a matter of crying and trying to realize what was going on during junior year. I was kinda failing some classes and I talked to Ms. Miller and she said that she had a student in previous years go to Sweden, or some other country in Europe to study abroad for a year. I said ‘Wow, that sounds awesome. Could I do that?’ and she said maybe. I think that was a good sign, just something to look forward to because I hadn’t had too much to look forward to that year, and being able to go to Sweden really helped me get in touch with my Swedish roots. I think it was something I had to do.

Who did you stay with?

I stayed with my Swedish family, my uncle and his wife. And I have one cousin that stays with them, Victor, who’s a little older than me. It was an interesting change because they’re in a very small-town, there’s like 5,000 people.

What was your school experience like?

They are tough on you. They are tough graders, except they don’t put a lot pressure on students which is real big difference from here. Here you feel the pressure, but going there was really relaxing, maybe a bit too relaxing. By the time I was done, I thought I had learned a lot about the history of Europe and I delved into a little religion and philosophy, which were some of the studies they have there. They also had music programs which I took, two hours a week for free, which is amazing.

What was the biggest difference between America and Sweden?

They love America. They also thought “American Pie” was 100 percent accurate when you thought of school in America. It was kind of interesting to see their opinion on it and what happened with me was that I came in super nervous about what was happening. And on the first day of school, they don’t have the same schedule as us. They have four periods during the day and they have a lot more breaks than us. So what happened to me was that I followed my schedule like it was a St. Louis Park schedule with five minute passing time and I ended up going to a ton of random classes and I was so confused. It was just a funky first day.

Will you ever go back?
No. It’s too comfortable there, I can’t stand it. Can you imagine just not doing anything? Just laying back and doing nothing with yourself? It’s torture, really.

What was your favorite part?

Everything. Everything was so interesting. People in Sweden said ‘Why are you coming here? You come from America, you have the interesting country.’ I was like ‘Oh, really?’ I guess it’s just the whole routine part about having to do the same thing over and over, and you get kind of tired of it. I thought Sweden would be more interesting, and then that got mundane, which sucked.

What did you learn from your travels?

I learned that whenever you take a chance that involves risks that you dont know of, you truly get to know the meaning of life.