Time has been weird in Sweden. Of course, I knew that coming in- 18 hours of daylight and mandatory blackout curtains were one of the few things I really knew about Stockholm. Yet, I am somehow still trying to get a grip on my time here.
The first day was long- way too long for my liking. Why is it that first days seem to soak up the other hours of the week, leaving what seems like nothing for Friday? From 10-11 (I start at 10am and I couldn’t be more thrilled) I was given a tour of the office. It was once the main post office for Stockholm, but the perfume they spray into the air smells like you walked into an Abercrombie and Fitch (in a good way!). The reception desk is in the middle of the room, sitting beneath a wide painted scene on the ceiling of swans and flowers in some kind of beige setting. They are propped up by wide carved columns that give the impression that should the domes decide, they could fall away and leave the roof perfectly intact.
It is now a converted office space for a few dozen companies, and wow- talk about culture shock. There were couches along the walls and underneath more painted ceilings, as well as tables that had a few people typing away at laptops. Towards the back of a room was a round wooden table with a few pieces of fruit sitting in a bowl. My supervisor told me that this is where the office would provide everything from breakfast to the occasional “candy buffet”. There’s also a free wine bar. I promise this is a real place.
From 11-1 I met the rest of my coworkers. The majority of them were Swedish, but there was also a guy from Finland as well as a woman from Poland. I could tell they were going out of their way to speak English and make me feel comfortable, which I really appreciated.
1-5 was work. I actually used stuff I learned in programming class which was pretty exciting, and made a Python script to clean some data. Afterwards, I combined it with another data set to create a list of potential leads. You know, work stuff.
I hadn’t met too many people at this point, and for the first week, I’d usually wander around central Stockholm listening to music. Occasionally I’d go into a shop to check out some clothes, or get a bite to eat, but I mainly just explored. It’s a very old city, but after huge remodeling post-WWII, it had a relatively modern feel. The streets are mostly on a grid, and it would have felt like your stereotypical European city if it weren’t for the occasional stretch of water that carved up the different sections of town.
This is the general format of the past couple weeks at my internship, although work is of course the entire day. My supervisor and I would go on a small break every hour or so, or we’d start talking about whatever is going on in our lives. I really appreciated these little breaks, and they allowed me to decompress while staying engaged with my work. It also helps that my supervisor is from Florida, and very cool!
These last 2 weeks seem to have flown by, although my favorite experience by far was a weekend trip my friends and I went on for Midsommar, the longest day of the year, a few days ago. We took a train, then bus, then ferry, to a small island about 2 hours away from our lodging. Of course, it was everyone’s first Midsommar, but we picked up the general idea pretty quickly. In the center of the town square was a huge Maypole that a couple hundred people danced around while a band in the middle played songs about washing clothes and frogs.
Afterwards, we wandered around the island and slept on the beach. On the way back, we passed through what is probably the most beautiful forest I have ever seen in my life. The trees sprouted straight out of the moss covered ground, about 12 feet from each other, 30 feet into the air. Sunlight spilled through these trees, illuminating the shimmering spiderwebs and morning dew. Considering most peoples phones had died a few hours ago, this was probably the peak of the whole “weird time” thing.
Overall, I’ve been managing my time relatively well. It helps that the majority of my day is structured around my supervisor, but I’m happy that I’ve been able to experience life in Stockholm outside of the workplace.
