A Day At School

Day 5

main room

We woke up really early and headed out a care center for disabled people. It was incredible. These homes were actual homes for disable people where people volunteer their services to take care of the residents. This care center is run by taxes, the disable people grow with their families till the age of 18, after which they choose whether or not they want to live at the care center or with their parents. If parents do not care the child is given a guardian. These disable people 'work' to keep themselves occupied and to make a little income.

After this we went to school and had lunch. Around 13:00 we headed out to a pre-school (nursery and grades till 9). It was really clean, no one had shoes on. The 15 year old had just done a religion and ethics class on Hinduism. The students asked us question on Hinduism and were very satisfied with our answers. We also witnessed a very practical approach in the method of teaching and all the students were very interested and participated actively.

one of the disable residents room

Volunteer office

We headed back to Tullinge Gymnasium for our first actual class. It was Swedish Religion and Culture, and I can say without a doubt it was one of the BEST classes I have attended ever. Eva Lundberg our teacher really captivated us, she spoke about their culture, tried to relate it to Hinduism, she even spoke about new age religions like Wicca.

We headed back to the Hotel after the class, thus concluding a wonderful and very educational day.

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

DAY 4

my best friend in the light snow

Well this was just as remarkable as all of the other days, if not a bit more exciting. Why, you may ask? Oh let's just say we were blessed with the temperature hitting a mind-blowing -2°c and snow coming down on us! You can just imagine the excitement as some of the students experienced snowfall for the very first time.

Come morning, the Athena group, along with members of faculty, went to 'Hotorget' where we visited a flea market that displayed on sale all the local produce, along with apparel and other items. We saw really creepy porcelain dolls, right out of a horror movie kind, lots of old paintings, jewelry, books and artifacts. I bought a rather cow boy looking hat from the flea market. We got reaally reeeaaaaally hellish late and ended up getting just 45 minutes at the Natural Science Museum. Their vice principal did not look very happy about it, can't blame him, punctuality is rule number 1 in Sweden. 

So, the Natural Science Museum was wonderful, from dinosaurs to their eggs to fossils to the beginning of life and the existence of mankind, it was all there. 4 of us walked up to the Nordic animals section and played a little game called "guess the animal without reading the signs". After the Nordic Museum, we walked to the Botanical gardens. 

It was gorgeous and very warm. The botanical gardens was divided in sections and each section imitated a various habitats. We had Australian desert habitat, the rain-forest, temperate grasslands and various other fruit and flower trees and plants. I bought a bottle of cool organic lemonade which was an absolute delight.

We then returned to the hotel, only to freshen up so that we could visit 'Sofia Church' in order to experience the soothing and marvelous singing by Åsa one of the teachers and her group

After that, we walked to the nearest food court, gobbled up a scrumptious dinner and headed back to the hotel. All in all, day 4 was hectic yet fun-filled!

Sofia Church

 

Nasta Gamla Stan

 Gamla Stan (The Old Town)

Day 3 started off really well, we took a train by ourselves to Kungshallen to see the flea market but unfortunately it wasn't there on a Saturday, so we did the next best thing, SHOPPING!!. The group scattered away to explore the new place. We hit Sweden's and one of the world's biggest clothing brand H&M. We moved from one shop to another buying even the most unnecessary things on the way because ..well..let's face it who doesn't love an arm full of shopping bags.

Other than the materialistic shopping, a few of us ended up buying luscious strawberries as well.

We obviously got a little delayed, snacked really quick at the Kungshallen food court and rushed to catch a train to Gamla Stan.

Gamla Stan, the Old Town, is one of the largest and best preserved medieval city centers in Europe, and one of the foremost attractions in Stockholm. This is where Stockholm was founded in 1252. The town dates back to the 13th century, and consists of medieval alleyways, cobbles streets, and archaic architecture.
Just as we started moving around with out guide it started raining. Chilly rain but that didn't stop us.

We walked for a good 2 hours, but each lane or house was better than the previous one. We walked on their cobble stone leg aching paths but hey, no pain no gain right?.  It just happened to be Sweden's Cultural Day that meant, we got to enter museum and art galleries ..FOR FREE!. The entire group made it till the Cherry Blossoms after which my room mates and I decided to stay back and explore further. We halted a bit to warm ourselves with hot tea and proceeded to see the place. We went into art galleries and saw their perspective of life and art. We made is to the Opera House and juuuust missed the Alice in Wonderland Opera by a minute. The architecture in the Opera House caught my breath.
We left Gamla Stan around 18:30 and had our dinner at the most homey little Italian pizzeria.

Art Galleries in Gamla Stan

Ducks we tried to play with

Inside the Opera House

Gamla Stan, Outside the Opera house

 

We took a train by ourselves and the 3 of us returned back to the hostel with our stomachs very full and hearts very content, we got back around 20:30 and it was 3 degrees, but the cold never bothered us anyway.

Gamla Stan

The narrowest alley

Cherry Blossoms

Tullinge Gymnasium

Day 2

Indian Flag

Zinkendamm Hostel serves such good breakfast, It definitely made my day.
The group took a commuter from Stockholm södra to Flemmingsberg Station. Clearly 'someone' in the group thought it would be a good idea to WALK all the way to Tullinge Gymnasium. Oh well, it was a bit tiring but a very good walk, thank goodness for the breakfast. Tullinge Gymnasium is gorgeous, the school was so clean and spacious I wanted to transfer there immediately.

As we entered a hoisted Indian Flag greeted us at the entrance. Yes! they actually hoisted the Indian Flag to welcome us, I hope we learned something from this kind gesture. Eva Lundberg and Richard Danhill the two swedish teachers greeted us and took us to a class to warm up. They gave us a brief introduction to the entire program. They had a quick fun class where they spoke about Sweden which just made me more enthusiastic for the next 13 days that were going to be there.

Jasmine and Selvi

Then we were given little bags filled with goodies and were taken for lunch. Some of us went to their cafeteria and got some fika. The food was delicious.
My really close Swedish friends Selvi, Nadia, Magnus and Jasmine continued to entertain us till lunch was over because after lunch they had something special planned for us.

We were divided into groups by Joaquim their biology and sports teacher, and we were given different tasks to perform. I have never seen so much team work before, we were running helter skelter, screaming and being competitive. It was so so much fun. By the end of it I was exhausted , so exhausted I was actually roaming around in a Spaghetti strapped dress with no jacket on. whew!

 Botkyrka on the way to school

After this we were gathered and taken to their fancy cafeteria where we got the fika from and while eating dinner we had a quiz organized by Arvid and Nadia.
 It surely was a fun filled day. We headed home from Tullinge back to Sodermalm, Magnus came with us to help us find our way back home. 
Thus we concluded Day 2.

selvi and me

 

Hej Hej Sverige

The Arrival

21^st April 2016, the day I was eagerly waiting for ever since I applied for the exchange program in July 2015. I could feel my blood pumping with excitment as my parents drove me to the aiport, I looked outside the window into the clear night sky waving goodbye to the Goan heat for the next two weeks. My group of 21 students and 5 teachers boarded our first flight to Doha, thus beginning this wonderful journey.

“fasten your seatbelts we're about to land”, after a 13 hour journey from India to Doha and then from Doha to Sweden these words gave me an adrenaline rush. I looked outside the window in admiration, the sight of the archipelago greeted me. We got off the flight, walked through immigration, collected our luggage and made our way out of Arlanda International Airport. There they were, my friends that I hadn't seen since December 2015, the swedish exchange students were at the airport to greet us. All my adrenaline kicked in as I rushed towards a bunch of them, screaming and giggling like nine year olds,in the midst of tears of happiness I hugged them all. Strange isnt it? I met the 21 swedish students from Tullinge Gymnasium in Goa and within a span of 14 days it felt as if I knew most of them my entire life. When we arrived at the airport there was so much chaos, greeting, students running helter skelter greeting everyone, I'm positive the extremely quiet airport will never been the same again. As soon as I got out, I was hit by the most crisp,cool,fresh spring air, I could feel my lungs expanding and taking in every breath it possibly could. 

                    

my roomates

So this was sweden, the demin blue sky, clear like sparkling wine and puffy clouds that had smoky whisps curling up like genies. This was my Utopia, a dream come true. It's April weather and it will change the students warned me as I gushed about the weather. We were taken to Zinkensdamm Hostel in Sodermalm, this was going to be my new home for the next 14 days in Stockholm. My 3 roommates and I immediately left our luggage in the room and headed straight out into the town along with two of our Swedish Friends. 14 degrees sounds like the most ideal climate when you come from a country where it doesn't go below 29 degrees. We walked on the sidewalks stopping every 2 minutes to take pictures, we did this for around 10 minutes and decided to go convert our money, we walked from sodermalm to Gamla Stan (Old Town) one of the biggest tourist attractions in Stockholm. At first it didn't seem like a long walk but on the way back we were definately feeling a bit weary, but that didn't stop us from taking pictures near the cherry blossoms and finding our way back to the hotel my ourselves. We went for dinner around 6:00 pm to the same food court as the cherry blossoms were a little restaurant called "Legumes", this is when I noticed a drastic weather change. It had dropped down a few degrees and it had begun to rain, “so this is what everyone meant by April weather” I marvelled to myself. We had typical nordic food for dinner that evening, after which I could feel my jet lag kicking in. We called it a night and concluded Day 1.

❤