Sweden been a wonderful experience, and I am so glad I made the decision to come study abroad here. Part of me loves it here and doesn't want to leave, but another part of me is ready to go home and be with my family and my cat again.
In Sweden, I decided to become a yes girl (within reason). One of the best things I said yes to was becoming a fika vard (fika host) at my nation, Ostgota nation. I've gotten to meet a lot of really great, really nice Swedish people.
I'm at the nation a lot, which is why I haven't been blogging that much. I started this fika vard gig back at the end of February. Here's what I've been up to:
1. Landskap (formal election for officers, positions, awards, and scholarships) and a Sexa (informal dinner) afterwards
The whole thing is in Swedish and it is a very formal affair, but it was very cool to watch and learn more about how the nation runs. Each nation is run entirely by and for students and it takes a lot of work and dedication.
One of the fika bosses ran for a scholarship, so I was glad that I could vote for her. The second landskap of the semester is a lot bigger and a lot longer I've heard, but this one was only about an hour and a half to two hours. I felt completely unqualified to vote for anyone, but the only real position we had to vote for was the second curator. There will also be a new fourth curator, but she is the only one running. Most of it is that if you run for a position, you get it and people just affirm you into it.
The sexa is free for all the new members, which I am. It's tradition for the newly elected to buy rounds of drinks for everyone else, so I treated to a cider, a snaps, a vodka cranberry, and something called a skinny bitch. I passed off most of my alcohol to my fellow fika vards, but I did have fun trying them all.
Everyone I know says Ostgota is one of the best nations to work at. We do work, but we have a lot of fun too. I went on a delicious pub crawl with the other fika vards and the KLV (the klub workers). In my group was Victor and Linnea (who I met at the Dammidaggen), and Sam the KLV and Kristin one of the Saturday fika hosts who I met the first time I worked on the eight day. I've come really far from then.
We went to all of the different nations that were open on Tuesday, and then ended up dancing and drinking the night away at the Snerikes nation club. One of my favorite parts of the event was all the different people on the crawl (or runda as the Swedes say) met up at V-Dala and we took a blueberry whipped cream shot. It was delicious. We also sang a snaps song together and then had a skål (cheers).
Since I attended the dammidagen, I volunteered to help out at the hermiddagen, the gentleman's dinner. I was in the decorating group, but then I ended up serving. It was a lot of fun and I bonded with some of the other girls at the nation. The theme for the party was birth to death, and we each dressed up in costumes. I'm a professional business woman; the girl in the middle is my teenage rebel daughter, and the last girl is her daughter from a one night stand. Three generations.
Here is a from working the fika:
my fellow fika vards, Frederic, Alex, and Tess
