Dear Jonas...

Dear Jonas,

I'm sorry that I will never send you a text message in order to give you my number. I know I seemed happy to meet up sometime after we met at a swing* dance class, but I am actually very eager to avoid what I anticipate would be an extremely awkward situation. You are 40-50 years old, and I'm 20. You're a tax auditor and I'm a university student. You aggressively ordered me to "breathe" and concentrate on the dance steps, and I laughed awkwardly and continued to mess it up. You're old enough to be my dad, and my Swedish friends confirm that this is not a normal Swedish friendship to strike up.

So somehow I just don't see us having coffee or going for a walk in a park any time soon, like you suggested. (But seriously, it's always past freezing cold outside and the last thing I want to do with anyone is amble through a park for the fun of it.) And past discussing swing dancing, what did you imagine we'd talk about?

I'm sure you are a lovely guy, but I just don't think this is going to work out. I will always keep your business card as a memento of the first Swedish guy to ask me out, and I hope you find a better match at the next swing class.

Sincerely,
Tessa

*For those people who don't know what swing dancing is, I provide this educational youtube clip:

----------------

On a side note, I cut my fringe for the first time EVER today and it didn't end in a horrific disaster. I am actually beyond amazed!

Dear Overalls...

Overalls are pretty great. Even if you look like an eleven year old French kid when you wear them.

Paloma - from the film 'Le Hérisson'

(a must see movie, but only possible if you have a friend called Leyla to scout all of Sydney to find you a copy)

Dear Cold...

I'm 13 days into my exchange and I've finally gotten sick. Spending all Sunday walking around outside while it snowed probably didn't help. But on the upside, I definitely thought this would have come sooner. So today I decided to stay home, and had I not booked to do my laundry at 3pm I probably would have stayed asleep all day. Armed with a giant bowl of Mum's delicious recipe of lentil, tomato, carrot and mushroom soup, I spent the rest of the afternoon watching episodes of Downton Abbey. I could be back home as far as this day was concerned, so I've promised myself to go out tomorrow and explore as I have the day off uni.

Aside from getting sick, I've had a pretty good weekend though. I can't believe it's only my second weekend here, but there you go. Friday night was the Rubik's cube party, which was lots of fun wearing ridiculous coloured clothes and dancing in a kitchen to really bad music. And by 'bad music' I just mean popular club-type music. I will never again take for granted having friends with good music taste. It must also be pointed out that being able to just get the elevator down to your room when you want to go home is going to make coming back to the hour long train trip home each weekend hard.

Saturday was spent recovering from Friday and doing pretty much nothing, but Sunday was a day well spent. We started with a Frukostbuffé (breakfast buffet) at Café String in Södermalm (the Newtown / Surry Hills of Stockholm), and meet two very lovely Swedish girls through the Global Friends exchange organisation. Then we wandered around for a while, finding lots of beautiful churches and old buildings on cobblestone streets, with snow covering everything. Stockholm is so beautiful! We finished up the day looking at the shops in the centre of Stockholm, and chanced upon the oddest vintage shop. It was a part of a brand store called Weekday, and the building had three floors- the first being normal clothes, the second all jeans, and the third a collection of vintage clothes, with a whole bunch being 75% off! Win! So for a total of 150kr ($20) I bought a new dress and another jumper to compliment the cow jumper I bought the other day!

Now as I'm pretty sure this is reaching a very limited audience, I'm going to go ahead and put up the ridiculously narcissistic picture I took of me in my new dress. There's no one here to judge me anyway.

And another one for good measure.

Unfortunately I don't have one with the jumper, but I'll take one sometime soon, I promise. It's a really great jumper, and so definitely deserves its own post.

Dear Fate...

One religion I believe strongly in is the Religion of Fate. Serendipity. Coincidence. 'It was meant to be'. And today's events are some of the best proof yet. Someone could knock on your door and tell you this story, and I can guarantee you would sign away your soul and fortunes to the Religion of Fate, were it to be a real religion and all.

So. This story begins last week on my journey here to Stockholm, where a potentially very bad situation turned into a very lovely one instead. My flight from Singapore to London (after flying Sydney to Singapore) had to make an emergency detour to Abu Dhabi, setting us 2.5 hours behind schedule, and subsequently making me miss my connecting flight to Stockholm. Fortunately I happened to be seated next to a Swedish girl coming home from a trip to Sydney, so we buddied up, had breakfast in Heathrow airport, and then caught a later flight to Stockholm together. She told me about her holiday in Australia, where she was visiting her best friend who was currently on an exchange. When we arrived in Stockholm, she and her dad very kindly took me to pick up my student accommodation keys (we made it just before the office closed!), then took me to lunch, and finally dropped me off at my new home. Not only were they super generous with their time and help, they were both absolutely lovely people, and stark contrasts to the 'quiet and reserved' Swedish nature I'd heard about. Hey the dad even gave me a hug goodbye after it all! If that isn't friendly, I don't know what is.

Now fast forward one week to today. I come home (after buying the greatest jumper ever- see pictures below) and check my computer. My Mum has sent me an email saying that they were contacted by the organisation through which my brother did an exchange to Holland last year. She says they have a Swedish girl who needs a home for the next 3 months, and would it be alright if she stays with them in my room. I read the email forwarded to me from the family she's staying with at the moment, who are going overseas soon and therefore need to find a new place for this girl. When they mention where they live in Sydney, I suddenly realise that this exchange student is the best friend of the girl I met on my flight to Stockholm! I go batshit crazy with excitement of how ridiculously coincidental this all is, and come very close to making an expensive call home (and at 6am Australia time) but manage to hold back and wait for Mum to skype me when she wakes up.

Needless to say, everyone back home was mighty shocked too, and now everything is in the works to organise for this girl to finish her exchange with my family. So you have to admit, this whole affair is absolutely packed with chance, fate, and coincidence.


I think I deserve your souls and fortunes now.

-------
[Jumper photos, as promised]

Dear Emma...

According to my friend, Emma, I need to be more "internet-ly organised" so that people (read: she) can utilise modern day stalking to the utmost limits. So here we are.

I should first explain that 'now you are outside riding a bike' is a literal translation of the Swedish saying 'nu är du ute och cyklar!', which is a phrase you can say to people when they're wrong about something. I haven't had a chance to use this saying yet, but I plan to put it to good use over the next 5 months that I'm here.

Where's 'here'? Sweden. Stockholm, to be exact. Let's jump through the other basics really quickly. I'm on a university exchange from Sydney, Australia. I study medical science, and I'm majoring in immunology. I live in a student accommodation building on one of the quieter corridors, but I have a really odd neighbour. I am constantly plagued by attacks of velleity (if you don't know this word, look it up. It's great.) And two things I'm really missing from home right now are:
1. Proper coffee. I mean coffee made by a barista, with fresh coffee beans and frothed milk. All they drink here is pre-made coffee in a pot. You pay 10kr ($1.40 for Australians), add your own milk, and stir it with a paddle pop stick. I miss real coffee so much.
2. Music. Back home, I go to a lot of amazing small music gigs and I'm really feeling the loss of constantly listening to great bands, playing in backyards, art warehouses, or on trains. I don't know how I'm going to get through 7 months without any of this.

Anywho, I'm going to finish this up with a snippet of conversation between me and a new Swedish friend, from uni today.
M: I don't see why people are concerned about pills that do the same as drinks.
Me: Hmm... well pills just seem more... concerning to people.
M: Ah yes, you humans are like that.

I now debate the possibility of having befriended a Swedish alien.

Hejdå!