To Sweden and Back

As a student at DIS, I picked a core class called 'Cross Cultural Encounters in a European Context' in which I get to take two study tours: one three day trip to Sweden and a week long trip to Istanbul in October. This past weekend my class piled onto the tour bus and hauled it across the Baltic Sea and all around Sweden. It would be an understatement to say that I had a fantastic time. The trip was the definition of fantastic even despite the cold and cloudy weather.

While all of the other DIS classes went around Denmark, our class got the pleasure of going to Sweden to travel and compare Denmark's immigration policies to that of Sweden's. Our first quick stop was to the city of Rosengård which is considered the "ghetto" of Sweden. A little background of the city: it houses some 111 different nationalities, only 39% of the residents have a job, and there can be between 300/400 kids who live within one block. After a visit with Brick's representatives, a group that works in the area to help with integration of the area, we took a ten minute drive over to Malmø.

In Malmø we were given two hours to go explore the city and it was blatantly obvious that we weren't in Denmark, nor Rosengard, anymore. It was of higher class compared to Rosengard and had much more history and charm to the city, but with around ~46% of Swedes being foreigners, we definitely were not surrounded by the beautiful blue-eyed blondes like we are in Copenhagen.

A group of us walked on over to Malmös, the oldest Renaissance castle in Scandinavia laid in 1436 which has served under several different powers and was even a prison during the late 1800's. Although the history makes it sound cool to some regard, the castle is weak sauce compared to the castle's in Denmark. 

Do you know what's not weak sauce?

...Becca!

All weekend long, Becca and I couldn't get over the fact that we were in Sweden. We are in Europe. This is our life. A life that can't get much better.

When in Sweden, eat a Falafel!

With lunch and free time over, we had another academic visit but this time to the Red Cross House of Humanity. After the first ten minutes of the tour and lecture, it was quite obvious that I wasn't feeling the humanitarian issues at stake and although interesting to some of my peers, I would have much rather  fast forward to when we arrived in Gothenburg late in the evening after a 3.5 hour bus ride.

Friday was filled to the brim with events. 

Starting with a trip to the Museum of World Culture. 

Although the Museum was impressive, lunch at Bagels & More was without a doubt the best decision of the day. Becca, Clair (a newly loved friend!), and I were in heaven with mouth watering vegetable soup and warm, fully loaded, honey/walnut bagel sandwiches! My heart is melting away at the thought of how delicious it was.

Next on our academic list: Round Table with Gothenburg University Minority/Migration researcher Goran Larsson. Nothing too interesting to report on this topic except a shout out to family back home that don't worry - you're not going to have to break and reinforce my political views when I return home...thus far. :) 

Fun fact about Gottenborg: it is one of the main settings of the book 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

With the academic side of the trip done, DIS filled our afternoon with a Boat Tour of Gothenburg throughout the old moat and canals of the city dating back to the 17th century (pictures above), then took us out to a fancy-dancy restaurant called Brasserie Lipp, and the next morning we departed to a town on the coast called Varberg where we went sea kayaking and out on a sailboat.

Trip = EPIC success and only leaves me counting down the days until TURKEY!