Emily Wright reflects on her exchange year in Sweden
Posted by Gayle Roth on Oct 06, 2016
Emily gifted us with an interesting talk about her year long experience in Sweden. Unfortunately her pictures were not in a format that could be shown.
Emily spent her student exchange in Taby, Sweden ( north of Stockholm) from July 2015 to July 2016. She was hosted by two families and described those families to us. She enjoyed participating in Swedish traditions such as cray fish, hunting and gingerbread. She loved the mid summer, longest day celebrations with flowers, alcohol and a maypole.
She studied fashion design for four months. She went to the top of the world and also travelled to Europe for 18 days. Her favorite placed in Europe were Venice and Budapest. She studied Swedish in a separate class with 2 others, and was proud when she learned to speak Swedish well.
Unfortunately, the local Rotary Club was small and was not very interested in their exchange student's experience.
She told us that the challenges came from fitting into a culture which keep to themselves. I learned that Swedes are very expressive within their own family/friendship circle, but are not as willing to include strangers as we are in Canada. The girls in Sweden dress in skirts and dresses, as well as jeans, so that too was a change for her.