July 19, 2024 • 28 mins
When a Swedish pop rock group inspires you to become a foreign exchange student, it makes for one amazing life experience. And yes, that really IS how host CH decided to spend a summer abroad. Join us this week as she reflects back on that transformative time, and shares her thoughts on navigating language barriers, pushing through discomfort, finding joy in the simple things, leading with kindness, and appreciating the lifelong influences that resulted from the journey. You may just want to book your own trip to Sweden after listening to this episode (but we might be sliiightly biased)!
Show Notes
- The Swedish pop rock group that inspired CH to pick Sweden as her destination country was Roxette. Fun fact: she still remains a fan to this day.
- Youth for Understanding was the student foreign exchange organization that CH joined. Visit their official site to learn more.
- The west coast of Sweden was home to CH during her summer exchange.
- She stayed near the town of Henån, located in Bohuslän on the island of Orust, but in the smaller land-tied island village known as Vindön.
- Both are located about an hour north of Gothenburg (Göteborg), the second largest city in Sweden; or, two hours south of Oslo, Norway.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This week's Life Note, summer memories and the gift of foreign exchange,
being a student, that is.
Music.
Welcome to Life Notes from Chair 17, a podcast dedicated to sharing life stories,
wisdoms, and inspirations as we navigate life's journey.
(00:23):
Host C.H. Ames to share thoughtful perspectives and insights from her own life
journey, as well as those of special guests and contributors.
Tune in for thoughtful conversations about lessons learned, wisdoms gained,
experiences had and inspirations shared.
Find us where you get your podcasts and be sure to hit follow or subscribe so
(00:46):
you never miss an episode.
Now enjoy this week's episode.
All righty, welcome back in, friends, to another episode of Life Notes from Chair17.
I'm your host, C.H., and as always, I thank you once again for finding me in
this corner of the podcast universe.
(01:08):
And as returning C-17ers know, I always like to start off each episode by thanking
you for your continued support and tuning in each week.
This does include our returning international C-17ers who are checking us out
at different spots around the globe. Thank you for your support.
But if you are tuning in for the first time, maybe you've just found us on one
(01:32):
of the major podcast platforms or via our website out on Life Notes from chair17podcast.com,
a warm welcome in to you. Thank you for wanting to check us out.
Hope you like what you hear and you will want to continue to tune in.
So the title of this episode is Foreign Exchange.
(01:53):
Exchange, and if you've skipped the description, or maybe you've skipped the
small intro, you might be wondering, so is she going to talk about currency
or something? No, I'm not.
Actually, it's more of a summer memory reflection, given at the time of this
recording, it is in the summer,
(02:14):
and I am reflecting back on a time when I was and had the good fortune of being
a foreign exchange student for a summer in Sweden on Sweden's west coast,
and how much that experience shaped so much of my life today,
really, truly, still today, how it taught me to be comfortable being uncomfortable,
(02:40):
how it taught me the gifts of sort of simple pleasures,
I would say, or finding binding commonality in the kindness and compassion of
humankind and the curiosities that come with bonding through those simple joys and interests.
(03:00):
Not to mention, for the first time in my life, being someplace where I didn't
speak the language and I was not aware of some of the cultural traditions.
It was just a really holistic life experience, like truly.
And I don't know that I I knew at the time that it would be something that I
would carry with me through all of my life, even up to this moment that I am
(03:25):
recording it and in the reflection of prepping for this episode.
So it was very special.
So I thought I'd share it here. And if we do get in the way back machine,
and I do mean way back machine, maybe not so way, way back, but still in the way back machine.
When I was a junior in high school, an organization called Youth for Understanding
(03:48):
came to my school to do a presentation on becoming a foreign exchange student.
Now, this was not something I had ever even thought about doing, like, at all.
It was nowhere on my radar. I was not one of those high school kids that ever
thought about taking any kind of gap year or doing some sort of backpacking
(04:12):
through Europe thing once I graduated from our high school and before I would go on to university,
it was nowhere on the radar.
But in true music-inspired fashion, and as long-time listeners know about my
passion and inspiration as it pertains to music,
I had become a fan of a pop rock group from Sweden called Roxette.
(04:40):
Yes, really. And if you are old enough to remember this group,
then you know what I'm talking about.
And if you don't, you can Google them and find out more information about them.
And the funny part was, is I sat in the room listening to the YFU presentation.
I suddenly had this thought of, huh, I wonder if I maybe could go to Sweden.
(05:00):
I kid you not, that is literally how I decided to become an exchange student.
I liked a band. They were from a different country.
An organization came to my school to talk about foreign exchange. change. Voila!
I went home and asked my mom, hey, so do you think I could do this?
(05:20):
And I do remember my mom was a little bit shocked because it was pretty unusual
for me to come home from school and ask for something like that or something major like that.
I didn't really do that very much, if ever.
So we looked over the paperwork and the info and the brochures and the pamphlets,
(05:41):
And yes, for all of our digital generation that is listening,
this was a time that predated finding information in any sort on an online space or in an online space.
There were no socials, no websites, no QR codes. This was just...
Paper stuff as I would say to my
(06:01):
good friend Cindy and after I
talked it over with my mom we decided to apply and see
if I would get accepted because it wasn't just like hey I'm gonna
want to do this okay great you can do it you did have to go through an application
process so we did and I did get accepted and the cool thing about the program
that I thought was you could do varying lengths of the exchange so if you wanted
(06:25):
to do a summer which was about three months or about 10 weeks, you could do that.
If you wanted to do a semester or a term, you could do that.
If you wanted to do the full year, you could do that.
I chose to do just a summer.
As I've thought back on this now over the course of time, I really should have
done a year so I could have experience going to school in another country.
(06:50):
I just feel like I might have missed that. That could have been an even longer
and more impactful experience.
But alas, still to this day, choosing to do this for a summer,
one of the best decisions of my life, hands down.
And it wasn't without its worry, though. So when I did get accepted,
it's like buyer's remorse.
(07:10):
Sometimes you have, whether you buy a house or a car, you do something and then
you kind of have that moment of, oh, my gosh, what have I really done?
Can I really do this? because for me, other than family trips here in the U.S.
To different states, I had never really traveled internationally,
and I hadn't traveled by myself for that extended period of time.
(07:32):
So it was a fairly big leap of faith and a growing adventure,
and I don't think I thought of it in those terms when I took the paperwork home
and asked my mom, hey, do you think I can do this?
But as part of that and as part of knowing that this was or going to be a big
(07:53):
impactful moment for the students that got accepted into the program,
no matter what length of time you were doing it,
why if you really had a very significant preparation involving the students that got accepted?
It wasn't really not, here you go, thanks, here's your family,
good luck, or okay, thanks, bye, right? No.
(08:14):
There was a lot that went into understanding how to successfully make the experience
a good one, both not only for me, but for the family that was going to host me.
And I remember going through kind of months-long prep of that,
which did include a, I think it was a weekend-long orientation that really walked
(08:39):
us through the steps and stages to get ready for the trip.
So that is from, you know, getting accepted to finding the host family match
to being introduced to that family and having to start to build a connection
with that family to sort of the legalities of traveling to the country.
So passports and visas and all that kind of thing.
(09:01):
So in my case, Sweden did not require a visa for my length of stay,
but other countries did.
And of course, if you were staying for a semester or a year and there was schooling
involved, there would be particulars about being enrolled and what classes you
would take and how those would translate back to the credits in the school here
in the States and all that kind of stuff.
So it was a several months long lead up with mine arguably being on the easier
(09:27):
end, given it was a summer and there wasn't schooling or visa stuff involved to make it happen. in.
But I will say that one of the other best parts of this process through this
particular organization at the time, and to be fair, sidebar,
this is not a sponsorship episode by YFU.
(09:48):
I have not actually talked to them, looked into anything since basically I did this.
So I'm just stating it as this happened to have been the organization.
There's probably other ones out there. And this This was my experience with
this organization at the time.
So small, small caveat, just in case anyone was wondering.
But they did do a really good job of matching me with a host family that resembled my own family.
(10:15):
So I was matched with a single mom with an only daughter, which was very similar
to me because I have no brothers and sisters.
And my mom was and did divorce my dad when I was about eight years old.
So it was a like-for-like situation, and some family student matches were not successful.
(10:37):
So, for example, at that weekend-long orientation, I befriended someone who
was coming from a similar area of where I was coming from in Southern California.
She went through two families while she was over there before they found her the right one.
So it was not always a perfect match
and it was not always something that landed right away and
(11:01):
sometimes certain students were actually moved to different families because
for whatever reason it didn't work out in my case it was a perfect match and
it was a beautiful match and i really appreciated that that happened because
i don't know at that age if i would have been.
You know, wanting to up and move
and then move again and then feel like I hadn't gone there and settled.
(11:24):
So I was lucky, I was fortunate. And in building the connection that I built,
and as I reflect back on this now, it was such a simple connection,
right? This was pre-digital age.
So there was no real email, no texting, no WhatsApps, no socials.
It was long distance, once a week phone calls.
(11:46):
It was handwritten letters. That was it.
And we would talk on Sundays for I think about a couple of months leading up
to the departure because it was the cheapest day of the week in which to make
an international phone call if we remember those days.
I'm obviously dating myself, but that's okay because that's part of this memory of this experience.
(12:09):
It was kind of a gift to be able to talk to them and to talk to them during
that, you know, once a week call.
I remember that that was really when I started to ask about the kinds of things
that I could bring as thank you gifts for being my host family,
because this was one of the things they, the program advised us to do,
(12:31):
because it's a big thing to host somebody for an extended period of time.
And you want to go into the experience really showcasing gratitude and being
very thankful for them wanting to open their home to you so the the big ask
for the gift was actually Levi's jeans I'm not kidding,
(12:52):
because it was not something that they could get as cheaply over in Sweden as
we could here so it was like it was kind of like two for one like I could bring
two pairs of jeans for the
cost of one pair for them at the time, at the time.
And I do want to qualify this as at the time.
And I just sort of love the idea that we became pen pals and we started writing
(13:16):
letters to each other to talk about what was happening in our life.
And when we did that, it was capturing that moment of our life in the letter.
And in today's world, we would message someone for an instant check-in.
It would be a WhatsApp voicemail or something like that.
But back then, these snapshots of life, of my life, of my host sister's life,
(13:38):
was captured in the words of those letters, and it felt like I was reading a
small story every time that I received one,
and in a particular moment in the story every time I received one.
And I will say, sidebar, honestly,
I never thought I would look back on handwritten letters via snail mail as this
(14:01):
beautiful thing or actual three by five,
you know, four by six printed pictures that we would sometimes put in the letters
to give a sense of not only where I was going to but also where I was from.
And I think about that now, and it might sound corny, maybe it might sound like
(14:22):
an old person reflecting on something from long years past, but I swear there
was an art to that, and there was a beauty in that.
And I reflect on it now and really appreciate having had that experience or
been able to grow up in a time where that was still a thing that we did.
Because it's very unique and different than having a digital connection.
It took more time. It took more effort. It took more, I think,
(14:46):
thought and personality that you put in these written words and the pictures
that you chose to mail with that letter.
And again, it was just like a simplicity and a slowed down appreciation of time.
It's not to say you can't create beautiful digital connections.
We do that all the time still today. But I think we take for granted how easy
it is to make a connection today and how more effort was required in a time
(15:11):
when it was not the digital age.
So that is just my opinion as always.
So I don't mean to nay say digital connections, but there is something to just
putting a stamp on an envelope and sending a letter to someone.
And I definitely reflect on that now, especially as I've done and prepped for this episode.
So where I stayed in Sweden was actually on the West Coast.
(15:33):
It was a couple hours outside of Gothenburg or Göteborg, which is the second
largest city in Sweden, and it was in a town called Hienan in a village called Vinden.
And the West Coast is known to be a summer destination for many Swedes.
And as I learned it, it was not uncommon for many Swedish families to have a
(15:57):
second summer home in this locale, as my host mother was very gracious to help
me understand the difference between,
let's say, people that were living in Stockholm and people that were living on the West Coast.
And it was very easy to see why this would be a summer location of wanting to
have a second home. It was beautiful.
The weather was seemingly perfect. It was not too hot. It was not too cold.
(16:22):
And the days were incredibly long.
And I'm talking about sun does not go down until 11, 1130 at the height of the summer long.
So I will never forget being out in the garden.
I think it was maybe 1030 at night, and it was completely as if it was midday.
We have You can have pretty long days up here in the Pacific Northwest.
(16:44):
Of course, Alaska and as farther north that you go, you can kind of have the
endless days where there is no night.
That wasn't quite true for Sweden.
It's just that the summer days were even longer than ones that I had ever experienced.
And it was really beautiful to think that you could just be out gardening in
the garden at, you know, 1030 and there was no indication the sun was going down.
(17:06):
Really, it's pretty magical. I would like to say it's magical.
And if you've never traveled to the West Coast, the coastline in this particular
area is punctuated with inlets, not unlike Puget Sound here in the greater Seattle area.
So the actual coastline is set back a bit from looking out at the wide open horizon of the ocean.
(17:30):
You kind of have to meander up and around to get out to it.
And I remember being taken to a favorite place called Rumsvike.
Which is a very... It's in the top five list of favorite places that I have in the world. It was...
Like someone picked up Donner Summit in Truckee, California and
sort of plopped it down in this location because it's very bouldery and rocky
(17:54):
and it has very smooth rocks that have been essentially worn away and eroded
over thousands of years for the waves crashing down upon them.
But the cool thing was you could hike out across this sort of park, I would like to call it.
I don't think it was an official park, but it's a location where a lot of Swedes
(18:17):
would go to have a picnic or something.
And this was very common. You could kind of just make your own adventure and
go to a place something like Romsvik and bring stuff for the day and then come back.
And if you did this and you hiked out
across these rocks you could get all the way out
to where you would have this unobstructed view and my host mother kept saying
(18:40):
to me when we were getting there you will be able to see the horizon from here
and I thought okay I remember being so confused as to why she said this but
because our village of where we were coming from a clear view
of the horizon was not possible because it was shielded by the endless this
was a much more vast view and so it was a real treat to see the vastness from
(19:04):
that lens in that perspective.
And there were i could go on and on for probably several episodes talking about
each location that we went to and other beautiful adventures like we went to
smergen which was near ramsvik we went to Marstrand. We went to Fiskebackshiel.
I got to experience for the very first time seeing castles, which of course
(19:26):
we do not have here in the U.S., but is very prevalent in other parts of the
world, as our international listeners will and probably attest to.
But it wasn't just the adventures, and it wasn't just being out in beautiful
locations. There was also something to just the beautiful memories of the day-to-day.
Notably, I remember arriving in and around the time of the Midsummer Celebration,
(19:50):
which is essentially a big welcoming of summer and the solstice,
and being taken to a good friend of my host family and their house,
and they took me for a ride in a canoe.
And I will never forget that the seagrass that was growing up from essentially
(20:12):
the bottom floor of the ocean was wheat field thick.
And even though I had grown up around the beach and I had seen my fair share
of seaweed, this was in my cornball view and opinion at the time,
it was like attack of the seagrass creature or something.
And I really was not the same for years. I didn't put my arms outside of the canoe.
(20:38):
I was like, this is way too sketchy. I don't know what this is.
And that said, in hindsight, it's funny to laugh at. It was beautiful.
It was a real gift that they wanted to do that for me.
And I will say that having paddled Lake Washington now for well over a decade,
my fear of any sort of underwater grass growing up from the bottom of the body
(21:00):
of water has subsided, so I thank Lake Washington for getting me over that finally.
But, you know, that's a funny memory that wasn't necessarily a location that
we traveled to. It was just kind of an adventure at a friend's house.
There were funny things like discovering this place called Obes,
so O-B-S exclamation point, which was like Costco and a shopping center all in once.
(21:24):
You You literally did not have to go anywhere for anything else,
ever. You could just go there.
I got hooked on strawberry and cream.
Cookies that I later discovered I could actually buy at Ikea here in the United
States, which I was super thrilled about at the time.
I learned that my host family didn't eat out very much, so if we did go eat
(21:47):
out, it was kind of a big deal and it was a gift in its own way to go off and do that.
I learned that Swedish pizza is not what we think of when we think of pizza
in the traditional Italian sense,
and ordering it was kind of an adventure because it came back with no real cheese
and just kind of sauce and toppings on an interestingly thin crust.
(22:09):
Almost like a flat bread, I guess, but also then not so much.
And I remember my host sister and I laughed about this for quite some time,
and even after I left, we still laughed about it.
I also learned that ketchup could indeed become a topping for nearly everything,
because Swedish food isn't necessarily known for being super spicy.
(22:30):
And weirdly, I had no idea how much ketchup could be so versatile to just add
a little bit back into whatever I was eating. So who knew?
I do remember walking through the shops in Gothenburg. And if I wanted to buy
something, having to get up the courage to say, hey, you know what? I don't speak Swedish.
Do you speak English? And if not, do I need to have my host sister with me.
(22:53):
I was not at that time of my life comfortable walking up to people to start
a conversation like that. So for me, that was a real growing moment.
It was also a vulnerable moment that made me really rethink how to speak to
those where English was not their first language,
like with my host sister's friends who were studying English as their second
(23:14):
language, because Swedish was their first language, of course.
And they were so shy about wanting to speak English to me as an actual English speaker, but.
I wanted to encourage them to do that, just like the kindness of those shop
clerks that did the same thing.
And I wanted to convince them that it was okay for them to practice on me and
(23:37):
that they actually ended up sounding probably better than I did,
which was kind of a beautiful turn-of-the-table moment.
And so there was another incident in the video shop, yes, remember those?
Again, dating myself, but that's okay, where a gentleman turned around to me
and he heard me speaking English to my host sister, but he couldn't discern
(23:58):
if it was English, English, or American English.
And I do remember being somewhat flattered that he couldn't tell the difference,
but also sort of insecure and not exactly sure how I sounded.
But at time, it opened a conversation, a very lovely conversation with a complete stranger.
And those kinds of things, while the overall language barrier was pretty small,
(24:21):
given a lot of Swedes, particularly younger Swedes, were comfortable with English,
they were these gentle moments, really, of finding connection and a way to communicate
with complete strangers that I really reflect very fondly on now.
I reflected on it then, too, because I kept a journal and I wrote about these kinds of experiences.
(24:47):
But they were simple, right? It was curiosity. It was a little bit of courage.
It was an adventuring spirit. It was just appreciating the learnings and teachings
from people who I might not have ever known a year before, but suddenly had
become as close to me as my own family.
Or it was the gift of space and time to be in a place where...
(25:11):
The language and the culture was not mine, but it welcomed me into it.
And it forever changed, really, how I see and interact with people.
And it really made me appreciate, actually, a Swedish heritage on my dad's side
that I didn't know I even had, which, funnily enough, was proven to be by my host mother,
(25:32):
who used to love to do genealogy way before there was ever something like Ancestry.com.
She did it by scratch and by hand in my research.
And it was kind of a beautiful gift for her to confirm that for me.
So I say all of this because if you ever do get the chance to travel to another
(25:52):
country for an extended period of time, maybe you get to live there, I highly encourage it.
You learn just as much about
yourself as you do about the place but it
does require an open heart and an
open mind it requires checking bias at the
door it requires being humble and patient
not only with yourself but with others but above all i would say it requires
(26:17):
kindness and a willingness to want to connect with people in a place that is
perhaps not like the one in which you left and of which they may not be like you.
And that does include when you suddenly learn you should know your home airport
code because when you get to the gate to check in for your flight to come home
(26:40):
and the ticket agent has never heard of your city,
it's really helpful to know the code.
And yes, that really did happen to me.
Or when you take four flights in one day to get home and you take off an hour
late on your third flight and you are thinking there is no way you will make
your fourth and final connection,
you start to think, you know what, I'll just walk home, even if that means walking
(27:06):
from Utah to California, because really,
at that point, you seem so much closer to home compared to the faraway place you had just come from.
And yes, this also so it didn't really happen to me, but good news,
I did make my flight connection.
Suffice it to say, though, these travels forever changed me,
and they left a lifelong imprint on my heart.
(27:31):
And so I dedicate this episode to my Swedish host family, so Ingele and Karin.
Tack så mycket, which is thank you so much in Swedish, for one of the best experiences of my life.
And with that, as always, I ask you to be kind to yourself. Take it one hour
at a time, one day at a time. And I will see you next time.
(27:53):
Music.
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Life Notes from Chair 17.
Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode. We'll see you next time.
Music.
This week's Life Note, summer memories and the gift of foreign exchange,
being a student, that is.
Music.
Welcome to Life Notes from Chair 17, a podcast dedicated to sharing life stories,
wisdoms, and inspirations as we navigate life's journey.
(00:23):
Host C.H. Ames to share thoughtful perspectives and insights from her own life
journey, as well as those of special guests and contributors.
Tune in for thoughtful conversations about lessons learned, wisdoms gained,
experiences had and inspirations shared.
Find us where you get your podcasts and be sure to hit follow or subscribe so
(00:46):
you never miss an episode.
Now enjoy this week's episode.
All righty, welcome back in, friends, to another episode of Life Notes from Chair17.
I'm your host, C.H., and as always, I thank you once again for finding me in
this corner of the podcast universe.
(01:08):
And as returning C-17ers know, I always like to start off each episode by thanking
you for your continued support and tuning in each week.
This does include our returning international C-17ers who are checking us out
at different spots around the globe. Thank you for your support.
But if you are tuning in for the first time, maybe you've just found us on one
(01:32):
of the major podcast platforms or via our website out on Life Notes from chair17podcast.com,
a warm welcome in to you. Thank you for wanting to check us out.
Hope you like what you hear and you will want to continue to tune in.
So the title of this episode is Foreign Exchange.
(01:53):
Exchange, and if you've skipped the description, or maybe you've skipped the
small intro, you might be wondering, so is she going to talk about currency
or something? No, I'm not.
Actually, it's more of a summer memory reflection, given at the time of this
recording, it is in the summer,
(02:14):
and I am reflecting back on a time when I was and had the good fortune of being
a foreign exchange student for a summer in Sweden on Sweden's west coast,
and how much that experience shaped so much of my life today,
really, truly, still today, how it taught me to be comfortable being uncomfortable,
(02:40):
how it taught me the gifts of sort of simple pleasures,
I would say, or finding binding commonality in the kindness and compassion of
humankind and the curiosities that come with bonding through those simple joys and interests.
(03:00):
Not to mention, for the first time in my life, being someplace where I didn't
speak the language and I was not aware of some of the cultural traditions.
It was just a really holistic life experience, like truly.
And I don't know that I I knew at the time that it would be something that I
would carry with me through all of my life, even up to this moment that I am
(03:25):
recording it and in the reflection of prepping for this episode.
So it was very special.
So I thought I'd share it here. And if we do get in the way back machine,
and I do mean way back machine, maybe not so way, way back, but still in the way back machine.
When I was a junior in high school, an organization called Youth for Understanding
(03:48):
came to my school to do a presentation on becoming a foreign exchange student.
Now, this was not something I had ever even thought about doing, like, at all.
It was nowhere on my radar. I was not one of those high school kids that ever
thought about taking any kind of gap year or doing some sort of backpacking
(04:12):
through Europe thing once I graduated from our high school and before I would go on to university,
it was nowhere on the radar.
But in true music-inspired fashion, and as long-time listeners know about my
passion and inspiration as it pertains to music,
I had become a fan of a pop rock group from Sweden called Roxette.
(04:40):
Yes, really. And if you are old enough to remember this group,
then you know what I'm talking about.
And if you don't, you can Google them and find out more information about them.
And the funny part was, is I sat in the room listening to the YFU presentation.
I suddenly had this thought of, huh, I wonder if I maybe could go to Sweden.
(05:00):
I kid you not, that is literally how I decided to become an exchange student.
I liked a band. They were from a different country.
An organization came to my school to talk about foreign exchange. change. Voila!
I went home and asked my mom, hey, so do you think I could do this?
(05:20):
And I do remember my mom was a little bit shocked because it was pretty unusual
for me to come home from school and ask for something like that or something major like that.
I didn't really do that very much, if ever.
So we looked over the paperwork and the info and the brochures and the pamphlets,
(05:41):
And yes, for all of our digital generation that is listening,
this was a time that predated finding information in any sort on an online space or in an online space.
There were no socials, no websites, no QR codes. This was just...
Paper stuff as I would say to my
(06:01):
good friend Cindy and after I
talked it over with my mom we decided to apply and see
if I would get accepted because it wasn't just like hey I'm gonna
want to do this okay great you can do it you did have to go through an application
process so we did and I did get accepted and the cool thing about the program
that I thought was you could do varying lengths of the exchange so if you wanted
(06:25):
to do a summer which was about three months or about 10 weeks, you could do that.
If you wanted to do a semester or a term, you could do that.
If you wanted to do the full year, you could do that.
I chose to do just a summer.
As I've thought back on this now over the course of time, I really should have
done a year so I could have experience going to school in another country.
(06:50):
I just feel like I might have missed that. That could have been an even longer
and more impactful experience.
But alas, still to this day, choosing to do this for a summer,
one of the best decisions of my life, hands down.
And it wasn't without its worry, though. So when I did get accepted,
it's like buyer's remorse.
(07:10):
Sometimes you have, whether you buy a house or a car, you do something and then
you kind of have that moment of, oh, my gosh, what have I really done?
Can I really do this? because for me, other than family trips here in the U.S.
To different states, I had never really traveled internationally,
and I hadn't traveled by myself for that extended period of time.
(07:32):
So it was a fairly big leap of faith and a growing adventure,
and I don't think I thought of it in those terms when I took the paperwork home
and asked my mom, hey, do you think I can do this?
But as part of that and as part of knowing that this was or going to be a big
(07:53):
impactful moment for the students that got accepted into the program,
no matter what length of time you were doing it,
why if you really had a very significant preparation involving the students that got accepted?
It wasn't really not, here you go, thanks, here's your family,
good luck, or okay, thanks, bye, right? No.
(08:14):
There was a lot that went into understanding how to successfully make the experience
a good one, both not only for me, but for the family that was going to host me.
And I remember going through kind of months-long prep of that,
which did include a, I think it was a weekend-long orientation that really walked
(08:39):
us through the steps and stages to get ready for the trip.
So that is from, you know, getting accepted to finding the host family match
to being introduced to that family and having to start to build a connection
with that family to sort of the legalities of traveling to the country.
So passports and visas and all that kind of thing.
(09:01):
So in my case, Sweden did not require a visa for my length of stay,
but other countries did.
And of course, if you were staying for a semester or a year and there was schooling
involved, there would be particulars about being enrolled and what classes you
would take and how those would translate back to the credits in the school here
in the States and all that kind of stuff.
So it was a several months long lead up with mine arguably being on the easier
(09:27):
end, given it was a summer and there wasn't schooling or visa stuff involved to make it happen. in.
But I will say that one of the other best parts of this process through this
particular organization at the time, and to be fair, sidebar,
this is not a sponsorship episode by YFU.
(09:48):
I have not actually talked to them, looked into anything since basically I did this.
So I'm just stating it as this happened to have been the organization.
There's probably other ones out there. And this This was my experience with
this organization at the time.
So small, small caveat, just in case anyone was wondering.
But they did do a really good job of matching me with a host family that resembled my own family.
(10:15):
So I was matched with a single mom with an only daughter, which was very similar
to me because I have no brothers and sisters.
And my mom was and did divorce my dad when I was about eight years old.
So it was a like-for-like situation, and some family student matches were not successful.
(10:37):
So, for example, at that weekend-long orientation, I befriended someone who
was coming from a similar area of where I was coming from in Southern California.
She went through two families while she was over there before they found her the right one.
So it was not always a perfect match
and it was not always something that landed right away and
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sometimes certain students were actually moved to different families because
for whatever reason it didn't work out in my case it was a perfect match and
it was a beautiful match and i really appreciated that that happened because
i don't know at that age if i would have been.
You know, wanting to up and move
and then move again and then feel like I hadn't gone there and settled.
(11:24):
So I was lucky, I was fortunate. And in building the connection that I built,
and as I reflect back on this now, it was such a simple connection,
right? This was pre-digital age.
So there was no real email, no texting, no WhatsApps, no socials.
It was long distance, once a week phone calls.
(11:46):
It was handwritten letters. That was it.
And we would talk on Sundays for I think about a couple of months leading up
to the departure because it was the cheapest day of the week in which to make
an international phone call if we remember those days.
I'm obviously dating myself, but that's okay because that's part of this memory of this experience.
(12:09):
It was kind of a gift to be able to talk to them and to talk to them during
that, you know, once a week call.
I remember that that was really when I started to ask about the kinds of things
that I could bring as thank you gifts for being my host family,
because this was one of the things they, the program advised us to do,
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because it's a big thing to host somebody for an extended period of time.
And you want to go into the experience really showcasing gratitude and being
very thankful for them wanting to open their home to you so the the big ask
for the gift was actually Levi's jeans I'm not kidding,
(12:52):
because it was not something that they could get as cheaply over in Sweden as
we could here so it was like it was kind of like two for one like I could bring
two pairs of jeans for the
cost of one pair for them at the time, at the time.
And I do want to qualify this as at the time.
And I just sort of love the idea that we became pen pals and we started writing
(13:16):
letters to each other to talk about what was happening in our life.
And when we did that, it was capturing that moment of our life in the letter.
And in today's world, we would message someone for an instant check-in.
It would be a WhatsApp voicemail or something like that.
But back then, these snapshots of life, of my life, of my host sister's life,
(13:38):
was captured in the words of those letters, and it felt like I was reading a
small story every time that I received one,
and in a particular moment in the story every time I received one.
And I will say, sidebar, honestly,
I never thought I would look back on handwritten letters via snail mail as this
(14:01):
beautiful thing or actual three by five,
you know, four by six printed pictures that we would sometimes put in the letters
to give a sense of not only where I was going to but also where I was from.
And I think about that now, and it might sound corny, maybe it might sound like
(14:22):
an old person reflecting on something from long years past, but I swear there
was an art to that, and there was a beauty in that.
And I reflect on it now and really appreciate having had that experience or
been able to grow up in a time where that was still a thing that we did.
Because it's very unique and different than having a digital connection.
It took more time. It took more effort. It took more, I think,
(14:46):
thought and personality that you put in these written words and the pictures
that you chose to mail with that letter.
And again, it was just like a simplicity and a slowed down appreciation of time.
It's not to say you can't create beautiful digital connections.
We do that all the time still today. But I think we take for granted how easy
it is to make a connection today and how more effort was required in a time
(15:11):
when it was not the digital age.
So that is just my opinion as always.
So I don't mean to nay say digital connections, but there is something to just
putting a stamp on an envelope and sending a letter to someone.
And I definitely reflect on that now, especially as I've done and prepped for this episode.
So where I stayed in Sweden was actually on the West Coast.
(15:33):
It was a couple hours outside of Gothenburg or Göteborg, which is the second
largest city in Sweden, and it was in a town called Hienan in a village called Vinden.
And the West Coast is known to be a summer destination for many Swedes.
And as I learned it, it was not uncommon for many Swedish families to have a
(15:57):
second summer home in this locale, as my host mother was very gracious to help
me understand the difference between,
let's say, people that were living in Stockholm and people that were living on the West Coast.
And it was very easy to see why this would be a summer location of wanting to
have a second home. It was beautiful.
The weather was seemingly perfect. It was not too hot. It was not too cold.
(16:22):
And the days were incredibly long.
And I'm talking about sun does not go down until 11, 1130 at the height of the summer long.
So I will never forget being out in the garden.
I think it was maybe 1030 at night, and it was completely as if it was midday.
We have You can have pretty long days up here in the Pacific Northwest.
(16:44):
Of course, Alaska and as farther north that you go, you can kind of have the
endless days where there is no night.
That wasn't quite true for Sweden.
It's just that the summer days were even longer than ones that I had ever experienced.
And it was really beautiful to think that you could just be out gardening in
the garden at, you know, 1030 and there was no indication the sun was going down.
(17:06):
Really, it's pretty magical. I would like to say it's magical.
And if you've never traveled to the West Coast, the coastline in this particular
area is punctuated with inlets, not unlike Puget Sound here in the greater Seattle area.
So the actual coastline is set back a bit from looking out at the wide open horizon of the ocean.
(17:30):
You kind of have to meander up and around to get out to it.
And I remember being taken to a favorite place called Rumsvike.
Which is a very... It's in the top five list of favorite places that I have in the world. It was...
Like someone picked up Donner Summit in Truckee, California and
sort of plopped it down in this location because it's very bouldery and rocky
(17:54):
and it has very smooth rocks that have been essentially worn away and eroded
over thousands of years for the waves crashing down upon them.
But the cool thing was you could hike out across this sort of park, I would like to call it.
I don't think it was an official park, but it's a location where a lot of Swedes
(18:17):
would go to have a picnic or something.
And this was very common. You could kind of just make your own adventure and
go to a place something like Romsvik and bring stuff for the day and then come back.
And if you did this and you hiked out
across these rocks you could get all the way out
to where you would have this unobstructed view and my host mother kept saying
(18:40):
to me when we were getting there you will be able to see the horizon from here
and I thought okay I remember being so confused as to why she said this but
because our village of where we were coming from a clear view
of the horizon was not possible because it was shielded by the endless this
was a much more vast view and so it was a real treat to see the vastness from
(19:04):
that lens in that perspective.
And there were i could go on and on for probably several episodes talking about
each location that we went to and other beautiful adventures like we went to
smergen which was near ramsvik we went to Marstrand. We went to Fiskebackshiel.
I got to experience for the very first time seeing castles, which of course
(19:26):
we do not have here in the U.S., but is very prevalent in other parts of the
world, as our international listeners will and probably attest to.
But it wasn't just the adventures, and it wasn't just being out in beautiful
locations. There was also something to just the beautiful memories of the day-to-day.
Notably, I remember arriving in and around the time of the Midsummer Celebration,
(19:50):
which is essentially a big welcoming of summer and the solstice,
and being taken to a good friend of my host family and their house,
and they took me for a ride in a canoe.
And I will never forget that the seagrass that was growing up from essentially
(20:12):
the bottom floor of the ocean was wheat field thick.
And even though I had grown up around the beach and I had seen my fair share
of seaweed, this was in my cornball view and opinion at the time,
it was like attack of the seagrass creature or something.
And I really was not the same for years. I didn't put my arms outside of the canoe.
(20:38):
I was like, this is way too sketchy. I don't know what this is.
And that said, in hindsight, it's funny to laugh at. It was beautiful.
It was a real gift that they wanted to do that for me.
And I will say that having paddled Lake Washington now for well over a decade,
my fear of any sort of underwater grass growing up from the bottom of the body
(21:00):
of water has subsided, so I thank Lake Washington for getting me over that finally.
But, you know, that's a funny memory that wasn't necessarily a location that
we traveled to. It was just kind of an adventure at a friend's house.
There were funny things like discovering this place called Obes,
so O-B-S exclamation point, which was like Costco and a shopping center all in once.
(21:24):
You You literally did not have to go anywhere for anything else,
ever. You could just go there.
I got hooked on strawberry and cream.
Cookies that I later discovered I could actually buy at Ikea here in the United
States, which I was super thrilled about at the time.
I learned that my host family didn't eat out very much, so if we did go eat
(21:47):
out, it was kind of a big deal and it was a gift in its own way to go off and do that.
I learned that Swedish pizza is not what we think of when we think of pizza
in the traditional Italian sense,
and ordering it was kind of an adventure because it came back with no real cheese
and just kind of sauce and toppings on an interestingly thin crust.
(22:09):
Almost like a flat bread, I guess, but also then not so much.
And I remember my host sister and I laughed about this for quite some time,
and even after I left, we still laughed about it.
I also learned that ketchup could indeed become a topping for nearly everything,
because Swedish food isn't necessarily known for being super spicy.
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And weirdly, I had no idea how much ketchup could be so versatile to just add
a little bit back into whatever I was eating. So who knew?
I do remember walking through the shops in Gothenburg. And if I wanted to buy
something, having to get up the courage to say, hey, you know what? I don't speak Swedish.
Do you speak English? And if not, do I need to have my host sister with me.
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I was not at that time of my life comfortable walking up to people to start
a conversation like that. So for me, that was a real growing moment.
It was also a vulnerable moment that made me really rethink how to speak to
those where English was not their first language,
like with my host sister's friends who were studying English as their second
(23:14):
language, because Swedish was their first language, of course.
And they were so shy about wanting to speak English to me as an actual English speaker, but.
I wanted to encourage them to do that, just like the kindness of those shop
clerks that did the same thing.
And I wanted to convince them that it was okay for them to practice on me and
(23:37):
that they actually ended up sounding probably better than I did,
which was kind of a beautiful turn-of-the-table moment.
And so there was another incident in the video shop, yes, remember those?
Again, dating myself, but that's okay, where a gentleman turned around to me
and he heard me speaking English to my host sister, but he couldn't discern
(23:58):
if it was English, English, or American English.
And I do remember being somewhat flattered that he couldn't tell the difference,
but also sort of insecure and not exactly sure how I sounded.
But at time, it opened a conversation, a very lovely conversation with a complete stranger.
And those kinds of things, while the overall language barrier was pretty small,
(24:21):
given a lot of Swedes, particularly younger Swedes, were comfortable with English,
they were these gentle moments, really, of finding connection and a way to communicate
with complete strangers that I really reflect very fondly on now.
I reflected on it then, too, because I kept a journal and I wrote about these kinds of experiences.
(24:47):
But they were simple, right? It was curiosity. It was a little bit of courage.
It was an adventuring spirit. It was just appreciating the learnings and teachings
from people who I might not have ever known a year before, but suddenly had
become as close to me as my own family.
Or it was the gift of space and time to be in a place where...
(25:11):
The language and the culture was not mine, but it welcomed me into it.
And it forever changed, really, how I see and interact with people.
And it really made me appreciate, actually, a Swedish heritage on my dad's side
that I didn't know I even had, which, funnily enough, was proven to be by my host mother,
(25:32):
who used to love to do genealogy way before there was ever something like Ancestry.com.
She did it by scratch and by hand in my research.
And it was kind of a beautiful gift for her to confirm that for me.
So I say all of this because if you ever do get the chance to travel to another
(25:52):
country for an extended period of time, maybe you get to live there, I highly encourage it.
You learn just as much about
yourself as you do about the place but it
does require an open heart and an
open mind it requires checking bias at the
door it requires being humble and patient
not only with yourself but with others but above all i would say it requires
(26:17):
kindness and a willingness to want to connect with people in a place that is
perhaps not like the one in which you left and of which they may not be like you.
And that does include when you suddenly learn you should know your home airport
code because when you get to the gate to check in for your flight to come home
(26:40):
and the ticket agent has never heard of your city,
it's really helpful to know the code.
And yes, that really did happen to me.
Or when you take four flights in one day to get home and you take off an hour
late on your third flight and you are thinking there is no way you will make
your fourth and final connection,
you start to think, you know what, I'll just walk home, even if that means walking
(27:06):
from Utah to California, because really,
at that point, you seem so much closer to home compared to the faraway place you had just come from.
And yes, this also so it didn't really happen to me, but good news,
I did make my flight connection.
Suffice it to say, though, these travels forever changed me,
and they left a lifelong imprint on my heart.
(27:31):
And so I dedicate this episode to my Swedish host family, so Ingele and Karin.
Tack så mycket, which is thank you so much in Swedish, for one of the best experiences of my life.
And with that, as always, I ask you to be kind to yourself. Take it one hour
at a time, one day at a time. And I will see you next time.
(27:53):
Music.
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Life Notes from Chair 17.
Remember to follow and subscribe so you never miss an episode. We'll see you next time.
Music.
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