Välkommen till Sverige!
Hallo everyone and welcome to my first blog post!
My name is Charlotte (or Lotta), I’m almost 25 years old and just graduated from university. So I decided I will do an EVS project rather than starting my master degree in Intercultural Communication right away. And in September I finally arrived in a wondrous town called Borås! For the next 12 months I will be working at Brygghuset, a “D.I.Y. arena” for young adults.
During that time I would like to share my experiences with you to give you an impression of what it’s like to be a volunteer and how it feels to live in Sweden! If you have any questions feel free to comment, send me an email or follow our EVS Instagram account as well as my own. :)
Equipped with a huge backpack and a small suitcase I went on a scenic 12-hour train ride from Germany via Denmark to Sweden. I know it sounds long and annoying but it was actually pretty amazing! I got to go on a fairy with(!) the ICE and enjoy the beautiful Nordic landscape during the ride plus it’s eco-friendly and cheap! When I finally arrived at Gothenburg main station my two wonderful coordinators welcomed me with a super cute sign with my name on it like in the movies. In Borås the other EVS volunteers who already started their EVS project a couple of months ago awaited us with a super delicious vegan taco dinner. Because apparently that’s a thing here: Taco Fridays!
As you can already tell from this tumblr there are 7 more wonderful volunteers in Borås currently. I know I have 11.5 months ahead of me but the first weeks already went by so fast with welcome parties, goodbye parties, birthday parties, city tours, pub quizzes etc. that I’m sure it’ll be over faster than I can say “Knut satt vid en knut och knöt en knut. När Knut knutit knuten var knuten knuten”.
Oh, and how could I forget about the most Swedish daily tradition ever: fika. It’s basically a fancy Swedish term for tea time/coffee break when you get to socialize and enjoy some yummy kanelbullar or other sweet stuff! Some people also believe, fika could bring world peace...
Actually, Borås is not that cold. It’s rainy. That’s probably why they covered the musical “Singing in the Rain”. But the good thing is that doesn’t stop people from starting amazing projects like the No Limit Street Art Festival! During one week artists from all over the world took over the city to create some amazing art work that’s here to stay. Our awesome coordinators also arranged a guided tour in English for us where we learnt more about the artists and could also see them paint and sometimes even talk to them! On top of that they also offered everyone to paint on an Open Wall so we EVS volunteers became very creative to promote our badass program as you can see below. ;)
All in all I had an amazing time the first two weeks especially because everyone made me feel very welcome – the other volunteers, my coordinators, my mentor, and also my new co-workers. So I would already like to thank you so much for all your efforts and for making this such an amazing experience for me! I am very excited for what is yet to come and hopefully whoever is reading this can benefit from it in some way. In my next post I will introduce you to my working place!
Vi hörs!
Charlotte