Tack så mycket, Sverige

The street where I used to live in Stockholm.

My time in Stockholm is finished for this quarter. I'm really sad to leave, but I'm also glad that I see my family and friends in Holland again. I'm waiting for Andres to pick up the jiu jutsu gi that I borrowed from him and after that I go to the airport.

As many of you already know, it has been a great pleasure to go here. In the beginning all my Italian friends made my life in Stockholm a little easier by bringing some noise in it. After they left it was more quiet, but by that time Andres and I were up till our necks in the work anyway. So we were not distracted by parties with pasta, wine and loud music anymore and we worked like hell to make new work for our portfolio (not even half of the work is on this site). I want to thank our teachers Tim and Padi, Adam Kerj, Pontus Frankenstein and Marcus and Mats for pushing us further than ever.

After a while I had a small culture shock because of the silence here. But after a while I started to get used to it. And then I only saw the advantages: no dirt on the streets, no criminality and really polite people.

There is a big cultural difference though. But that's not so strange. Stockholm is as far away from Amsterdam as from Amsterdam to the far end of Spain. Some things that are considered normal in Holland (like kicking the shit out of a vending machine when your bag of chips doesn't come out) is considered really rude here. But in the end it's okay, because Swedish people also don't seem to have the urge to say something about your behaviour (Dutch people are the total opposite, they interfere with others too much ;-).

Stockholm is a beautiful city and I met a lot of interesting people here. As you can read in earlier posts, the reason to go here was based more on intuition than common sense and I can't imagine having made a better choice. And for a reason that I keep to myself, I might even go back in the break after my internship in New York.