blogstepharr

[blogstepharr]

the stranded stockholm staycation for the broke swede

happy Easter break!

this final week off has provided a lot of us with the opportunity to take one last trip before our time here in Europe comes to a close. sandy beaches, historic cities, and exciting vistas were calling our names. but for me, the cries from my wallet were louder. so instead of hopping on a plane, I decided to take a little staycation here in Stockholm. my week in Sweden gave me some much needed down time, and with the weather getting better and better every day, it really did feel like a whole different world—my own little vacation town.

I know I can’t be the only one who’s pockets are hurting at this point in the semester. so, if you ever find yourself stuck in the city for a travel week, worry not! here’s my personal guide to the Stranded Staycation for the Broke Swede.

tanning on the docks

there are literally like 30,000 islands in Sweden. no joke. so that means, at any given moment, you’re not that far from the water. wherever you’re living, grab a good book, put on your bathing suit (I swear, you won’t freeze), slather on some sunscreen, and head out to the docks to get some color! laying out for an hour at a time, just reading, listening to music, or even just people-watching gives you the perfect way to relax while still getting out into the city. if you’re bold, dip your toes in the water…I didn’t, but if you choose to, lmk how cold it is.

treat yo self

mr. cake is the only place I’ve found where ordering “cake” doesn’t result in the lime green princess cake that the Swedes love so much (loooove a good princess cake, don’t get me wrong). so if you’re in the mood for some good old fashion American-style treats, head over there to get yourself a cupcake, donut, or cookie that will remind you of home! or, if you’re still trying to ball on that budget, hit up the American grocery store, where you can find yourself some Poptarts or maybe just a huge jar of Nutella. go for the indulgence; it is vacation, after all.

thrift shopping

okay, if you enjoy thrift shopping, and have ever tried to get people that don’t enjoy thrift shopping to go with you, you know what I’m talking about here: sometimes, you just need to do a deep-thrift on your own to get to the good stuff. do some research and find the places that would be within your price range. there are countless thrift, vintage, and antique shops here in Stockholm, with great samples of grungy Swedish style. I hit three great places in Slussen that were within my very modest budget: Humana Secondhand, Emmaus Stockholm, and Siv & Ake.

new group hangs

don’t worry, you’re not the only person that’s pinching their pennies here in Stockholm. although it may not be your usual group of friends, branch out! grab a drink one night, meet for dinner, or grab some snacks and head out for a picnic together in a park! there are always new people to meet; after all, that’s one of the best things about going abroad. don’t be afraid to approach someone from a different housing or a different side of town. in my experience, everyone here at DIS is great, and would make a perfect Stockholm buddy for those days when you just need a little company.

so, despite how fun it would have been to hit the shores of Croatia or see the tulips in Amsterdam, Stockholm is full of beauty, fun and excitement—you just have to get out there and find it! be your own guide (or use me as a guide) and take on your Stranded Staycation with your head held high—you just may find out something new about good old Stockholm.

[blogstepharr]

real life abroad

its been a while since my last post. 

I could come up with a load of excuses and reasons, but lets keep it real: I got sick.

that’s right, we still get sick here. it’s not all rosy-colored glasses and silver linings. it’s real life! so, in the spirit of my past week of bedridden agony, let me give you a couple tips and tricks about what to do when you’re not feeling your best during your time here in Stockholm!

apelsin means orange

okay, I know a quick google translate search could tell you this just as easily, but what I mean to say is: don’t forget to load up on that vitamin C! of course, its better to take this immune system boosting vitamin before getting sick to build up your defenses. but its also imperative that you get a lot of vitamin C during your illness and afterwards, as well. it won’t be easy to find supplements here in Stockholm, but getting some boosts in the natural way, through citrus fruits and juices, will work well enough. any coffee shop will have orange juice and orange-based smoothies, and most local grocery stores have a rotation of fruits, based on the time of year! check in for some big blood oranges or grapefruit for a little extra defense for your immune system.

reach out for help

DIS offers us all great health insurance while we’re here, and there’s an emergency number that we can contact to schedule doctors appointments or get more immediate help, if necessary. (keep that insurance card in a safe place! otherwise, you could find yourself tearing apart your room in desperation until you finally find it...yes, I’m speaking from experience). all it took was a phone call and a couple of emails to get me into the doctor and get things figured out. and they even checked up on me afterwards to see how I was doing! they’re happy to help and that’s what they’re there for--you just have to be smart enough to ask for it.

talk to your professors

the most stressful part about being sick (especially right before finals roll around) is missing class. DIS has pretty strict rules about missing class, but let’s be real, nobody wants to catch the flu in the name of the attendance policy. let your professors know what’s going on and be honest with them! a couple days off isn’t going to make or break you, but it could break that fever you’ve been struggling with.

rest and relax

there’s SO much to do here in Stockholm, and it seems like every afternoon and weekend my friends and I have a new activity planned! it makes the FOMO real and makes slowing down so hard to do. but there’s nothing more important when you get sick than taking a beat to let your body recover. so throw on a movie, maybe grab a face mask, and just relax. maybe your friends will even join you--though you may end up quarantined to avoid contamination.

wait it out

like I said, this is real life. you’ve been sick before, and you’ll be sick again. all you have to do is take your meds, hydrate, and rest. you’ll get better soon enough, and you’ll be able to go full speed again, I promise! as long as you take care of your body, you have nothing to worry about.

so yes, I’ve been a little under-the-weather lately. but don’t you worry, I’ve been drinking my apelsin juice, I’ve been taking my meds, and I’ve definitely been resting! but look at me now, blogging away. looks like things are getting better already:)

[blogstepharr]

a week in berlin

here I am, hot off a crazy week with my Core Course on my Week Long Study Tour in Berlin! and you may be sensing a theme here, but Berlin is a place I never saw myself visiting in this life. yet, here I am, ripe with stories and experiences from this city full of history, struggle, and culture.

I traveled with the European Security Dilemmas and Intelligence course, where we focus on real security threats, potential security threats, and the dangers of framing and securitization. in our course we’ve dealt with immigration, the Russian threat, hackers, and more. we’re rounding out the semester by addressing the Second World War, the Cold War, and the implications that this kind of history presents. Berlin proved a unique way for us to dive into all that this time period represented for our present and our future.

the academic experience being in Berlin was unreal. we toured a concentration camp, got to sit down with a real Stasi prisoner, and got to speak with one of the top political analysts in Berlin about the rise of populism and what it could mean for our political landscape. but even beyond the clear academic enrichment that this Study Tour provided, the cultural experience and flourishing comradery with my classmates was just as impactful.

waking up at 8 am for a day full of walking tours (or just plain walking), catching metros (or U-bans, as they’re referred to in Germany), and asking as many questions as we could got very exhausting very quickly. being around like-minded people who shared my interests was great, but being around friends who share my plight was what really brought us together. no matter how tired we were, we bonded over our excitement for the next step and our awe for the triumph of Berlin’s rich culture after all the city has been through. we split donors (kind of life German gyros), searched for good bratwurst, and scoured through records in the punk rock district. with an eight person Core Course, we had the unique opportunity to travel together, learn together, and experience together, becoming closer all the while.

I couldn’t possibly give the days justice in description here, but head over to Instagram and check out @disstockholm highlight titled “Study Tours” to follow me around for a day! spoiler alert, you get a sneak peek at the Cabaret show we went to at the end of the day...sensory overload is an understatement. my favorite part was probably visiting the Eastside Gallery (basic, I know), which is a section of the Berlin Wall that has been preserved and has turned into a sort of exhibition of graffiti art and a medium for artists to express themselves in relation to this little slice of history.

of course, I got some mural pics.

of course, they are of the usual caliber of the pictures that I have posted of myself on here:

still basic, I know.

after the long and full week, we returned to Stockholm to debrief and decompress. so much information was taken in and we all needed a moment to digest. this decompression came in the form of some

much.

needed.

sleep.

as much as we love to learn and travel together, we need to recuperate after all is said and done!

but how wonderful it is to come back from a trip exhausted both mentally and physically. how wonderful it is to have gotten so much out of an experience that you need to sleep for 10 hours afterwards. how wonderful it is to have gone to Berlin.

[blogstepharr]

spring break

after two months at DIS, it was about time for a little relief. it feels weird referring to early March in Stockholm as ‘spring,’ but since my core course wasn’t traveling during this week, “spring break” it was. 

I had the privilege of traveling to Paris, France during this week, since I have both family and new DIS friends that live there. I also got to spend a couple days with some friends from my home university, so I was surrounded by and friends new and old!

after the long trek to get there (gotta love those cheaper airports...don’t gotta love how far they are from the city), the week in Paris was PACKED with activities that made it a one-of-a-kind experience.

 I went to the ballet:

I climbed pillars outside the Louvre:

beheld (and emulated?) the beauty of Notre Dame with my DIS gals:

and even got to squeeze in a few macaroons in front of the Eiffel Tower with my Furman gals:

the city of love brought me rain, sunshine, laughs, dance, art, new experiences, and some just-like-the-good-old-days times, too. 

My travel week in France was better than I could’ve imagined. I spoke some French, spoke a lot of English, and loved every second of it. As my last college spring break ever, this was definitely one for the books.

[blogstepharr]

rc life

once a week, my hallmates and I shove all of our tables into one room to create one long dining table, venmo the humble hosts, and come together around 7:00 for a huge family dinner. its a great time for us to catch up, cook each other’s favorite meals, and really just learn more about each other’s lives. I never thought I’d be calling a group of strangers my family (and frankly be having more ‘family dinners’ with them than with my blood relatives), but here I am. hamburger dinners, taco nights, and midnight breakfasts have been my favorite part of each and every week. this is all thanks to the family that I’ve been given through my residential community.

DIS makes an effort to place all of us into the living community that we most want to be in. at DIS Stockholm, this can be a homestay, a studentboende, a residential community, or one of the many living & learning communities. after filling out a housing application, DIS places you in one based on your preferences and availability. we get to rank the housing options based on our top three choices; I chose residential community, studentboende, and then homestay as my top three. thankfully, I ended up getting my first choice! and let me say, my experience has affirmed just what I expected: residential community was the best way for me to get close with other DIS students in a way that is natural and beneficial for who I am.

there are ten DIS students in my residential community. after the first night, spent at a slightly uncomfortable dinner in the area filled with small talk and the constant, “what was your name again?” there was no telling what the semester had in store for us. but fast forward a month or two later, and there’s something I find special about each and every person I met that night. from sharing fikka, to hitting new bars, to studying together, its only March and the memories I’ve already made are better than I could have imagined. 

a residential community was the best fit for me because I wanted to live with other students from different walks of life, with different backgrounds, interests, and goals. although I am interested in meeting Swedes, I wanted to do this through getting plugged in to the community. I’ve always valued the relationships I form with who I live with, so being so close with my hallmates helps Sweden feel like home. your time abroad is what you make it, but loving your living situation is a huge part of being happy here!

like I’ve said before, I can only tell you guys about my experience. but if you want to read more about it, check out the DIS website: 

https://tinyurl.com/y3qmlozv 

we’re halfway through our semester at DIS, and so I only have two months left with my family here in Stockholm. in that time, I hope for many more memories together, many more dinners together, but maybe not so much studying together...much less fun. 

[blogstepharr]

abroad bod

bread, princess cake, those little balls of pure chocolate--the food here is really getting to me. how am I supposed to stay healthy when there are so many carbs ready for my consumption? has anyone else noticed how easy those 3-minute ravioli bags are to whip up a quick dinner? how do I stay healthy, while also staying happy? I can’t say I’ve mastered this. at all. I’m definitely still in the “I’m in Europe, I’m gonna eat the baguette” stage. but check out some of the ideas I’ve come up with below for how to feel my best while also trying my best to eat clean!

fikka feels

I am NOT going to stop going to fikka. its such a special time to spend with friends, and a great way to get out of the house and be productive on those lazy Sundays. but I can’t keep ordering those huge semlas and expect the pounds to stay off. instead, try splitting pastries with friends, or choosing to stick with coffee or even tea for a day. otherwise, just hang out and get some work done or enjoy everyone else’s company. as a last resort, just hit somebody with the “are you gonna finish that?” and chow down.

exercise ?

a lot of us are used to having a gym at our home universities to hit up any time we want to get our sweat on. going from pumping iron to walking up escalators as your workout can be a big shock for your body. DIS offers us a special with SATS gym, which I highly recommend taking advantage of since it’s so hard to sign up for a gym here without those special Swedish Personal Numbers. DIS also offers a membership with SSIF, which is a great way to play a sport and get to know some Swedes along the way, too!

but which one to choose? I can’t tell you what’s best for you, but I can tell you what my experience has shown me! I joined SSIF soccer, and get to play soccer with DIS and Swedish players alike, every Sunday evening. above all, its a great way to get some exercise in, but I also love the camaraderie and competition! that said, its hard to get over there on some Sunday evenings, especially when I’m swamped with work. so what to do to get exercise when you can’t use either of these options?

take advantage of the weather

being here in the spring gives us the opportunity to see the weather get better and better. knock on wood, but when we got here things were slippery and sullen. today, the sky was blue, the sun was out, and it was a toasty 47 degrees Fahrenheit. paradise, for real. as much as I would have loved to curl up to some Netflix after class, I forced myself to get out there and get some good old fashioned exercise outside...crazy, right? run as fast or as slow as you want, sprint up some stairs, and take in everything you have to see! (if you guys have been following me, you know I’ve been trying to make an effort to run outdoors from the beginning...I swear, I’ll get better at it!) 

get creative!

to work my muscles, I actually downloaded a Barre app on my computer. my roommate and I push the beds aside, use water bottles as weights, and get a nice toning workout in whenever we can! its different and fun, and all a part of the experience of breaking our status quo and heading into uncharted waters this semester! sure, the school gym is great at home, but being here and looking out at Stockholm city while I do squats in my room is a once-in-a-lifetime deal. find ways to do things outside of the gym: find a park to run around, make yourself do a daily a push up challenge in your room, anything! 

cooking

for most of us, this isn’t our first time cooking for ourselves. so I don’t need to tell you to buy healthy foods, or that you shouldn’t go grocery shopping while hungry, or to not eat out too much when you have food at home. but really, don’t forget these things! regardless of our infinite independence and wisdom, being abroad is a whole new level of being on our own. it’s easy to indulge just because we can. its important when we’re cooking to realize that we’re eating to fuel our bodies, and to give ourselves the fuel that we need to be happy and healthy while we’re here! 

the abroad bod is real. freshman year its 15, sophomore year its 20, and while you’re abroad no one really wants to keep track. but staying healthy should always be a priority, no matter what the scale says. make an effort to understand that what you’re putting in your body is important, and that your body still needs exercise halfway across the globe! trust me, you want to be healthy enough to hit the town and take in the sights whenever possible.

p.s. bread

eat the bread. never stop eating the bread. 

[blogstepharr]

core course

hello hello hello !

if its been a little longer than usual since I’ve posted, its because I just got back from our first mini core course travel week! technically the travel time only added up to about three days, but I still feel exhausted from it. i mean goodness. will I ever be able to talk about immigration in Sweden again?

yes: right now.

because I’m going to give you a fun day by day recap of the time I spent with my core course group studying European Security Dilemmas and Intelligence in the great big city of Gothenburg.

!!!

day one

after a painfully early wake up time, I had a nice three-hour nap on the speed train out of Stockholm. I’m sure there were a lot of sights to see on that trip, and I would really recommend not falling asleep. I think something with the G-forces knocks me out, because I was totally incapable of staying awake on that train. so overall, great train ride.

rested up and ready to go, we got to Gothenburg and headed straight for our first destination, where we ate Curdish food (so much naan bread)

and got to talk to the only official Integration Police Officer in all of Sweden. and no big deal, really, but I got to hug him. 

from there, we got some great dinner and headed off to our hostel.

as a gal that knew absolutely nothing about hostels before this, we stayed in a pretty nice one. I was picturing one huge room with beds lined up on either side, Annie-style, so basically anything else would have seemed like a five-star establishment. but this little slice of bunk-bed paradise really made Gothenburg feel like home. #swanky.

day two

our first full day in Gothenburg had us up bright and early to head to the town of Hjallbo, the most segregated town in all of Gothenburg. the immigrants in Hjallbo represent 80 different nationalities with over 100 different languages. we had the opportunity to meet with the spunkiest Swedish elderly woman I’ve ever met (I haven’t met many). 

Gun runs an NGO in Hjallbo aimed to support the immigrants living there, and we got to chat over fikka about the work that she is so passionate about. Gun simultaneously made me want to change the world and curl up with some semla to just pick her brain--something that would be difficult without an interpreter, since she spoke little to no English. Regardless, Gun was inspiring in how she was able to cross divides: language divides when trying to talk to us, and cultural divides that she crosses every day to help the immigrants. an amazing woman, through and through.

the next highlight of our day was the boule ball tournament. so if you’ve never played it, boule ball is kind of like curling but only by throwing small weighted balls. can’t say it’s something I’ve encountered before, but it seems pretty big over here in Europe. so, with my lack of experience and my consumption of hard cider, it logically follows that my team lost. my competitive self was fuming, but I tried my best to be a good sport and only photobomb the victory photo once or twice.

day three

our final day in Gothenburg was short, so we spent most of the time at the Universarium, an interactive museum of science complete with a rain forest, a health section, ocean world, and so much more. honestly, we were as in awe as the toddlers that were running around our feet. we saw sloths, did pull ups, and played with stingrays! not quite what you expect when you go to Gothenburg, but I swear, I almost cried when I saw a monkey three feet in front of me.

all in all, our first study tour was fun, exciting, exhausting, surprising, and pretty rainy. we learned a lot and have a lot of reflecting to do. I just can’t believe that it’s only been a month and I’ve already experienced so much.

from spunky old women, to lovable cops, to obscure sports--I wonder what the next study tour has in store for us..!

p.s. I did fall asleep on the train ride back, too.

[blogstepharr]

weekends abroad

one of the best things about being here in Scandanvia is the fact that I never thought i would find myself here in Scandinavia. seriously, I still barely understand where I am on the world map. why would this be a good thing? well, I get to go places that I’ve never been before and probably will never have the opportunity to go to again. and let be honest, any prospective student that’s reading this looking to study with DIS is probably asking themselves one question: okay, but can i travel?? 

well I’m here to tell you: heck yeah you can travel. it may be spur of the moment and random and totally unexpected, but yeah, you can travel. let me tell you about my spur of the moment, random, totally unexpected, awesome trip to Helsinki.

Helsinki. barely knew where it is (geography isn’t my thing if you couldn’t tell), I might have heard about it in a song before, and i think it was the setting of some obscure Nordic film I stumbled across one day, but other than that, I knew nothing about it. but one of my hallmates in my residential community texted my roommate and I on a tuesday night and said, 

“would u guys be interested in going to helsinki with some people from a studentboende?” 

to which I replied, 

“what that sounds SO DOPE gimme deets.” 

and just like that, I was signed on to go to Helsinki for the weekend. 

that night, after hours of searching, we bought our round trip flights for around 100 USD (a flight that i bought completely in Swedish, since my computer stopped translating my webpages and I was afraid to refresh and lose the flight). the next day we locked everyone else in--we even got some people from DIS Copenhagen to join us! we booked the airbnb, downloaded the Helsinki public transit app (a very important detail that i highly recommend), and were ready to go. 

of course, we waited until class was over on friday to leave. but after that, ready to go.

I’ll spare you the details of our slight struggle to find the airbnb and our terrible choice in flight times (we got back at 1 AM monday morning. a mere seven and a half hours before our 8:30 classes). instead, let me tell you: going somewhere totally random and unexpected gave me the best weekend I’ve had to date. 

from walking through downtown, to taking a ferry to the sea fortress suomenlinna, to visiting ancient cathedrals, to running from the extreme heat of a sauna to jump into the freezing cold baltic sea, this trip was full of things i never imagined myself doing with people I never knew i’d be doing them with. that’s what it’s all about, right? 

all in all, helsinki, was beautiful, fun, enriching, and cold. so so so cold. helsinki was my short little real-life adventure.

this, my friends, is why we go abroad 

(and for an enriching academic experience. I swear, I’ll talk about that soon).

in the meantime, check out some snaps I got of this mini-adventure below.

and by the way, Helsinki is the capital of Finland. who knew, right?

[blogstepharr]

just keep running...

so I would like to introduce a concept to you guys. I’ve been here in Stockholm for a little over a week (feels like its been at least a month already), and I’ve gone for a whopping total of two runs in that time. at first, I was terrified of slipping on ice and breaking my leg, or maybe falling into the freezing cold water of the canals, but I’ve realized that the odds of those worst-case scenarios aren’t as high as I thought. so yeah, only two runs, but two runs with zero falls is a win in my book. 

in these runs, I’ve been sensing a pattern. whether I’m running with one of my hallmates or alone, both of which I have tried, I somehow end up getting lost. honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised. I keep telling myself that if I just follow the coastline eventually it will lead me back where I came from. that’s probably true--it would just be after running around an entire island. not really my speed.

so, inevitably, I get lost. but I’ve realized something about getting lost here: its beautiful. to be in a whole new place, with nothing familiar around you; just you and the trail that you’ve made getting there. it’s honestly one of the best things that I’ve encountered so far. this is a different beauty than we find in the museums and the hip cafes. this is a calm, isolated beauty. even when I’m with others, I can’t help but feel alone. like it’s just me and this new place that I discovered. intimate and bewildering.

so, i would like to introduce a concept. every time I run, I will try to blaze a new trail. I’ll try to get lost. it won’t be hard, believe me. and in that, I’m going to try to capture the new place I’ve found, do some research on it when I get home, and report back. hopefully that way, you guys can discover with me.

since I’ve been on a couple runs already (where, yes, I got lost), I’ll have to go back and try to capture those ‘new’ places again. in the meantime, here’s a little sneak peek at the exquisite photography that you can expect from this column of my blog.

all in all, I hope just keep running leads us to two things: first, I want to keep this spirit of discovery alive as long as I can during my time here in Stockholm. second, I just really need some accountability to exercise while I’m here, ya feel?

you keep reading, and i’ll keep running!

cheers:)

[blogstepharr]

hej, stockholm

January 9 at about 5:20 pm: the exact moment I literally didn’t look back. I had made my family wait until the last possible moment. I was playing chicken with time, daring fate to make me miss my flight because I’d spent so long saying goodbye. As I walked through the winding security line, I told myself to only look once. Once turned into twice, and then maybe a third, but after that, I promise. I didn’t look back.

I think looking back is something we’re all wondering about right now. I think we see these people around us--DIS students, locals, host families--and we’re afraid that if we look back too soon, we'll miss what’s right in front of us. So instead of looking back, we throw ourselves into moving forward. We go to bars; we hit downtown; we get groceries. Honestly, its a blast. While our friends are Snapchatting us about how they have homework on their first day back, our biggest problem is riding the wrong way on the metro. We fight the jet lag, gather our kronor, and head off into our new lives, trying our best not to look back at our old ones. 

But its also exhausting. Even though I know I can’t take it all in at once, it feels like a crime not to keep moving until I am physically incapable. I may not be getting sleep, but I’m in Stockholm. I’ll sleep when I’m home, right? Right now, I would say I’m probably running on naps and fikka. And that cold air keeps me awake just fine. But we’re not gonna last if we keep moving forward at 100 miles an hour. Even if we don’t want to look back, we should all try to take a second to slow down so we can relax and look around.

I can’t predict who I’ll be when I go home. Fast forward a couple months, will I be in Arlanda Airport, telling myself not to look back at the life I’ve made here? Maybe. I don’t know, really. Like I said, we’re just moving forward. So many new paths are being lain out in front of us right now, but none of them will matter if we aren’t present for them. Truth is, at the end of the day, all those paths lead us home eventually. Come May, our semester will end and we’ll be headed back to where we came from. So I’m here to get lost on the Tunnelbana and stumble over new Swedish words with my hallmates. I’m here to embrace the fikka and open my mind to new ways of learning. I’m here to maybe slip on ice a couple times, to travel to places I never would have imagined, and to experience every moment I can with new people and in new ways.

That’s why I’m still telling myself not to look back, at least for now. Soon I’ll be in that airport at home, but instead of walking away from my loved ones, I’ll be running into their arms. 

What a shame it would be if I didn’t come back with any good stories to tell them.