It’s been a quick month in Sweden. Between lectures, socializing, the market, and time spent trying to digest it all, the days roar past, and leave me scratching my head. “Has it really been 5 weeks already?” I wonder out loud. The sensory overload of it all- learning new things, seeing new places, meeting new people, and traveling, present a plethora of new experiences that, day-in-day-out, can be easily taken for granted. As I began to consider that I’ve been in Sweden for over a month, I found it difficult to grasp what it really means to me to be in a foreign country, and to be fully immersed.

As a child, I never had any formal geography lessons. Instead, I stumbled upon a series of books on different countries in the elementary school library, and immediately started to horde these publications. There was an old globe that sat in the corner of my Dad’s office, and I talked him into letting me put it in my room. It’s still there today. When I wasn’t looking at my books from the library, I would sit in my room and examine the globe, looking at borders and cities, and running my fingers over the terrain. Norway has big mountains, but Sweden doesn’t. Boy, Lichtenstein sure is small. It bordered on obsession. Why couldn’t I be content to collect Pokemon cards like a normal 8-year-old? Whether or not I could understand the concept of culture at this time, I was beginning to understand that there were different people, living in different places, who did different things. I remember being shocked and fascinated at the same time. It was liberating to know that there was a whole wide world to explore, yet sad to think that I was only a child, tethered to one place; a place which seemed dull and entirely un-exotic in comparison.

I think back now, and try to appreciate my current experience through the lens of the 8-year-old with a backpack full of overdue books. It’s an impossible task, to try to consider what that dorky kid would make of all this. I’m not always sure what I make of all this. But I feel contented to think that I followed through, and, as an adult, made it to someplace new and exciting across the sea.