Uppsala in some pictures

a lake in a forest in Vattholma

                                                             by Uppsala's river

                                                                in my favorite café

                                                   

                                                                          by the river

                                                          one of my favorite places in Uppsala, the river

                                                                   in the centralstation

                                                            a painting of me

                                                                 the river by night (4pm ;)   )

                                                                         on the bus

                                                              another picture of my favorite café

                                                             landscape in the morning

                                    At the mainroad

                               

                          Swedish autumn in all the beautiful colours

                           Noemi and me fed the ducks who live in Uppsalas river with some bread

Lessons I learned so far

I'm writing an essay about this in my swedish class right now, so it inspired me to do a blogpost about this. 

It's not so bad.

Being grateful

More than anytime in my life I feel grateful. For the whole adventure I got to go on, and for all the small things that are atually pretty big, that I always took for granted. Like having enough to eat, having a place to sleep, having good people around me, being loved, being abe to do what I want to do.

You're so much stronger than you think

I often feel like I've reached my limit. But that's not true. I still got a lot of energy. And I fixed so many difficulties. You solve one problem and then you solve another problem and after that you solve another problem. But that's fine.

I got limits

I also had to learn the opposite. That there are limits. And sure, stepping over a certain line a little bit is always good. It's the only way to success. But you shouldn't go to far. I learned it the hard way, when I studied super much in the beginning. I spent many days on translating swedish texts. It helped me a lot with my swedish but I felt burned out after a while. And this is not what I came here for. So I had to admit, that I do have limits. And that I should listen to myself more.

Trying new things is a good way to get to know yourself better

I started painting for example. I was never interested in art, I always thought I couldn't paint, but I started to enjoy it very much. Or pole dancing, which seemed like the weirdest thing to do, but now I'm very passionated about it. And weird swedish food of course. I say YES to everything. Well most of the time :)

I also learned to be more honest with others and myself.



Health

I learned that health is the most valuable thing to have. Mentally and physically. The exchange year is often exhausting, (especially in the beginning) and if I wasn't healthy I couldn’t enjoy this. Also I put on some weight and it does not bother me. It just makes me even more healthy. So I'm really grateful for not having any health problems.

100 days! a few thoughts

Today is day 100 for me in Sweden. When I looked at my timer today and saw that number, I was shocked. I started to think of what I've already done and what I want to do. Time flies so fast here. You just close your eyes once and then another week is over again. The last 3 months before I left Germany, felt like 2 years. I figured it is, because of all the crazy stuff that happened. Like these kind of things you'll remember when you're 75. Remarkable. And here the weeks pass, I'm in school most of the time and I do some fun stuff after school and on the weekends. And I like going to school here, I like all my teachers a lot and I don't even mind studying so much. That's my theory on why time passes so quickly here. But I'm happy, I'm so happy to be here. And I talked about it to a friend, who said: It does not matter how fast the time flies, as long as you're happy. It already is remarkable if you are happy.  And really, I couldn't ask for more than this deep joy.

My adventure so far has been difficult and beautiful.  


And I love my german family and friends so much, but I stopped missing you. I'm right there, where I belong. And I wouldn't want it any other way.


An exchange year is a roller coaster ride, everyone has told me that a thousand times. And I discovered how true it is. One week ago I was super down and now I'm euphoric. And it comes out of nothing. Sometimes you suddenly get super happy, when everything is just super bad. And sometimes you're super sad and don't even understand the reason. Then you have to make sure, that you do things that make you happy again. Like you had bipolar disorder. But it's normal they say.


And even if you think that nobody cares about you and how you feel, (which is not true) and nobody tells you how brave or how strong you are. Then you just have to tell it yourself. It might be super hard to say: "I did good and it didn't work though, but it was the best I could do and I'm happy with what I did." It's super important. It's a lesson I learned here.



"And every battle scar I have, if nothing else, it's proof
That I fucked up more times than I should've
More times than I would've liked, if I could take it back I still wouldn't
Cause life is a roller coaster ride
I make it if I try"


And I might complain a lot. About the weather, about Swedes. But honestly I love all of this so much and I wouldn't give it up for anything in the world.

Photos I never posted

I just realized that I forgot to share so many photos with you. Here they are:

When we visited the family in Darlana

Naturhistorisches Museum in Stockholm

Moosepark! :)

Last weekend I was in a moose park (älgpark) with my hostfamily. It was very nice! I was even able to stroke them. For all non german speakers: elchestreicheln means stroking mooses. So I finally completed my mission, I guess :D We were on waggons and the guide talked about the mooses in swedish and english, with the most wonderful swedish accent I've ever heard. The world is a bad place, politics are rough right now, but as long as  there is that swedish farmer that loves his mooses and tells people from all over the world in english with this wonderful accent about the animals, I'm good and I have faith in humanity. It's soothing. Mes condoléances à Paris. Be safe.

    a blurry photo of a moose warning sign 

 A baby moose :)

 Here you can see how cose the mooses were.

"We have a Santa Claus museum as well" Uhm okay... disturbing :D

 Later I had a sleepover with a few exchange students and we had pizza from a real pizza oven.