Rebirth in the North

Since my last blog post, the weather has been getting steadily warmer here in Sweden and I have been moving around a lot, as usual! It was a very long winter, and we thought it would never end, but spring is finally here and it is already beautiful. Today it’s 13 degrees and the sun is shining. The last of the snow is melting but I’ve been surprised by its resilience – the pond in the city park is still largely covered in ice! The trees are starting to grow back their leaves and the sky is blue and clear, whilst hares and birds flit around in the park and woods. 

Academically, this year has gone much smoother than last. I changed my courses for this term to subjects that were more suited to what I usually study at home, and they have proven to be more enjoyable and even more challenging than those that I took last term. This has really affected my enjoyment of living in Sweden and now I’m actually quite sad to be leaving in June. I was surprised by just how much one’s academic life can affect how comfortable one is in general. It may just have been that last term I was a mix of homesick and academically unsatisfied, but regardless, this term I feel much happier in Uppsala. If I were to give one piece of advice to incoming year abroad students, especially now that UCL have scrapped the Year Abroad Project so that one shall only be graded depending on their courses at the host institution, it would be to spend a good amount of time planning which courses to take over the year. Additionally, the host institution (I can only vouch for Sweden with certainty but I imagine it may be similar across the board) is usually rather flexible with scheduling as we are exchange students and as I was told by a student last year when I was enquiring, “they just kind of let us do whatever we want”. This means that if you take a course and you really aren’t enjoying it, the best thing to do is to just speak to the university and they will likely try and make changes for you and perhaps put you on a more suitable course. 

In terms of travelling, this term I went back to Oslo, Norway and I also travelled to Iceland for a week with UCL Nordic Society. Me and a friend visited Oslo in the midst of winter and it was absolutely freezing, but we had a really great time regardless. We bought a 24-hour travel pass and took the public boat service to visit all the islands in the fjord. We also went around all the museums, and being a Scandinavian Studies student, I truly geeked out seeing the Viking-age ships on display in Vikingskipshuset. 

I have to say that going to Iceland was the highlight of my year so far though. What an amazing place and time we had. We stayed near the capital city and spent a few days exploring there, and also went out in to the landscape to see all the natural wonders, with the final night spent at the Blue Lagoon. It was one of the best trips I’ve ever been on and I was really thankful to be with such a great group of people. 

As far as the remainder of the trip goes, next month I will be going to Gotland, which is a beautiful, historic island off of the coats of Sweden, for my baptism and confirmation at the Catholic Church. I’m going to make a proper trip of it and go for the weekend with a group of friends, so I’m really looking forward to that. The weather is only going to keep getting warmer so hopefully next month will be full of lake swimming, BBQs and sun!

By George Ferguson