Marchela This time, I decided to take a different trip than the usual. I have been curious for some time in the Scandinavian countries so I ended up in those cold lands. I even enrolled in an intensive Swedish course there just for the fun of it. Not that I needed it, because everyone spoke English i Sverige (in Sweden) and they didn’t even give me a chance for a conversation in Swedish. For example, one grandpa asked me for directions of some streets and until I remember how was “I don’t understand” in Swedish, he was already asking me the question in English. I didn’t realize it, so he looked really strange at me when I finally ended up replying to him in… Swedish!
NB: (un)necessary impressions about the language
Don’t listen to what the Finns say about how easy and sympathetic is the Swedish. This is only compared to the (Suomi) Finnish, which is probably one of the most difficult languages and has nothing in common with Swedish even if almost everyone in Finland speak it. On the other side, how easy or difficult is Swedish for you depends on the languages you speak. Swedish is from the group of the North Germanic languages (more precisely the Nordic languages – most of the languages spoken in Scandinavia). Therefore, it has a lot in common with German and English. But as I use Portuguese more, in the beginning prepositions, pronouns and everything was a huge confusion for me, before I started associating them with English and not with Portuguese. Anyway, as similar as Swedish might look with English, it differs as much.. Yes! I know this is confusing. For example the pronunciation of many words is different enough and everytime I try to say a phrase I say it in 10 000 different ways. Even so, this is what makes Swedish so interesting and sympathetic to learn.
The Swedes themselves didn’t leave much of an impression on me as there were tons of foreigners in Stockholm. What I found really nice is that almost all the foreigners there could speak Swedish, i.e. there was integration and this should be done in more countries in order to avoid lack of communication between locals and immigrants. I won’t lie. I managed one conversation in Swedish with an employee from a shop and I’m really proud. He wasn’t a native speaker, but it’s just a tiny detail.
The most important thing is that I know why I couldn’t manage to keep in touch with the locals. I noticed how with the change of the weather, the atmosphere feels more friendly.
What I wouldn’t do again is going out alone at night in Stockholm. I learnt this the hard way, but Stockholm is dangerous with all the immigration. Once I went to the shop at midnight and ended up being stalked, but I managed to escape. So, be aware.
I can’t say if there is a best way to discover the city. I visited the zone of Norrmalm and the old city by foot, as well as some of the islands, but I went there by bike. In a normal agency the prices for bike rental are around 8 Euro/hour and 30 Euro/day. If we compare it with the public transport, one ticket is 4 Euro and a daily ticket (24 hours) is 12 Euro. If you are too impatient to go around the city by bike, then your best option would be the metro. I didn’t get to buy a daily ticket for the metro, but I heard from others that the decorations in the metro stations are very beautiful and one could go from station to station to enjoy them. Just an idea.
Meanwhile, I didn’t rent a bike for an entire day either as I had classes half of the day and it wasn’t worth it. I was lucky that in my hostel there were discounts on the bike rentals, so I rent a bike for 4 hours just for 5 Euro. Of course I got lost in the beginning and I went in circles for half an hour until I realized it and started checking Google Maps more frequently to be sure I’m going to the right island. Luckily enough nobody gave me a fine, because apparently I wasn’t cycling in the right zones. The looks I got from the people around me and the women running like chicken gave me that feeling. Still it is fun going around by bike, even though in my case I wasn’t sure where I was headed, I would advise you to choose bike over metro.
When it comes to the kitchen, apart from the Swedish meatballs, I didn’t try other specialties, because I didn’t gain enough courage after trying one Swedish yogurt which didn’t get in well. On the other side, I started eating more fruits and salads due to the occurred, so what happened has its pros too.
So if someone decides to visit Sweden, don’t worry! Everyone speaks English. Almost everywhere they ask you for payment with card and don’t accept cash, so you don’t need to change currency. Be careful with the walks at night and one last thing, there IS such a thing as bars where the beer is less than 9 Euro, so Keep calm and search the cheap beer*.
*Cheap beer in Stockholm means around 3,50 Euro
