The Arrival
21st
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.
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| 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.
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| ❤ |
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