CW 2: Stockholm (Syndrome)

"Bättre älskat och förlorat än att aldrig ha älskat"

Stockholm is my second home. I lived there for a good 6 months of my life and it was the greatest experience so far. When moving to Stockholm, I didn't really have any expectations of the city. I was moving to study at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, which by itself just sounds perfect and was indeed the reason I chose Stockholm for my exchange year.

I had visited Stockholm before, when I was about 10 years old, but I didn't remember much, so I had no expectations for the city or any attachments to Sweden in general - I guess I didn't even have any expectations on how my exchange year would go, which was probably the best way to approach it. Within only a few days I had found my group of friends who I'm still in contact with a year later and my apartment was better than I could have hoped. Every day we would visit new places and especially in the "warmer" summer months we would watch the sunset in a different place almost every day. Back then when there wasn't a pandemic going on, lots and lots of students would gather somewhere and just drink the night away while enjoying the new company and wonderful views.

With time I started appreciating the Swedish culture more and more and fell in love with every single bit of it - especially the Fika. A super cute little coffee shop on the campus of KTH called "The Coffice" was my favorite place to go. After studying a whole afternoon with my new-found friends, we would go there and enjoy a hot tea with a Kanelbulle and just talk the afternoon away. The spontaneity was probably one of the things I enjoyed the most. Watching a movie in one of the lecture halls, having dinner with friends, going for Fika, travelling to other places like the north of Sweden to see the Northern Lights, a boat trip to Riga or Helsinki. I learnt that doing an exchange year is not about studying - it is all about making wonderful memories and having unforgettable experiences with likeminded people.

Stockholm started to get incredibly close to my heart. Gamla stan (the old town) just teleports you to another dimension. Djurgården is just pure beautiful nature right next to the heart of the city. Every little coffeeshop, beautiful house or cute square I would find by simply taking a different route every time I would go somewhere was a highlight. Eventually, when casual travelling is possible again (and let's hope that is very soon) I will start a "Travel"-section on this blog and write about Stockholm and all the secret places you need to see.

So, basically Stockholm wasn't just my weekly obsession, but is something that will always stay with me. This week especially though, I missed it a lot. I did indeed think about the Stockholm Syndrome and why it actually is named after the city and looked it up*. Reading through the Wikipedia article that mentioned different places in Stockholm brought me right back and thinking about being there in a time where I didn't need to be worried about people coming too close to me, makes me want to be there even more. I still have friends living in Stockholm right now, that I miss dearly. I'm at the point where I'm jealous of anyone who gets to be there at this moment, and I can't wait to get back. If I could, I would do it all over again, and do even more trips and say yes to every single thing. Thinking like that though, will probably just drive me nuts, so I will just keep everything coming and have as few expectations as possible.

Unfortunately, my time in Stockholm was cut short because of the C-word. The day I left a cab picked me up from my apartment on campus. As we were driving by the majestic entrance of KTH, I held back a tear, thinking how fast the time went by and how abruptly it all ended. When the plane took off and I watched as my home disappeared in the distance, I shed a tear, I couldn't believe it was over. I still regret my decision to leave Stockholm earlier than planned, to this day. However, the people, experiences and memories will always stay with me and no one can take that away from me...

...not even some person on the other side of the globe, eating random animals. 

* Stockholm syndrome is a condition in which hostages develop a psychological bond with their captors during captivity. It is called Stockholm syndrome because it was first observed after a failed bank robbery in 1973 at Normalmstorget, a square close to Kungsträdgården in central Stockholm. The robbers held people hostage for 6 days. When the hostages were released, non of them would testify against their captors and instead even began to raise money for their defense.