Christian’s Journals

November 30, 2025

First Snow

I've been here for four months and now it's finally starting to get cold. At the beginning of the month it was one of the exchange students' birthdays so a few of the other exchange students went out to the archipelago to his host family's summer house. We ended up doing a traditional swedish sauna where we did the sauna then jumped in the lake. We ended up doing this around 4 times. 

The winter season here has really started to kick off and we've already had our first snow. It has since melted but it was nice while it was here. The Christmas festivities have also started to kick into full gear. This past weekend I went and picked up the Christmas tree with my host family. I also went to a tradition in Sweden called advents fika. On the 4th Sunday away from Christmas they gather to socialize, drink glögg, and eat food. 

Earlier this month I participated in the Strängnäs half marathon which was a lot of fun! In the US I didn't run at all but I have been getting into it while here. I finished in around 2 hours and 15 minutes. I'm quite happy with this seeing that I didn't know I was doing it till the day before. When I originally went to sign up there were no more slots so I expected that I wouldn't be able to do it. The day before the race my host mom told me that her friend had signed up but unfortunately wouldn't be able to do it so she offered me the slot. 

One of the more fun things I did this month was a day in Stockholm with a lot of the exchange students. Me and one other guy started off the day by going rock climbing in the mall of  Scandinavia and did some shopping, we went and hung out with a few of the other exchange students in Stockholm, and then to end the day off me and one of my other friends went ice skating on a rink in the center in Stockholm.