Hello everyone and welcome to my last Erasmus diary. I can’t believe it’s gone so quickly, and Christmas is just around the corner. I still have just over three weeks left here in Stockholm before I come home, and I’m definitely going to try and enjoy every minute that I can. The first snow of the season landed today, and it really is magical to see the snow and the Christmas lights in this beautiful city.
I don’t have much other news from the last few weeks other than my mother and my boyfriend came to visit me for the last few days. It’s been really great to have them around and show them the city I’ve become acquainted with in the last three months. I got to show them my favourite spots and bring them to my favourite restaurants. There’s a Mexican restaurant here that make the nicest quesadillas and I’m obsessed. I might have even persuaded them to come three times during their short visit. It was also my boyfriend’s birthday this week and I was so happy we got to celebrate it together as the worst part of Erasmus has been being away from him. (We celebrated it in an Irish pub of course, to make sure we live up to that Irish stereotype.)
For my last few weeks, I’ll be doing a lot of travelling. This coming Saturday I’m heading to Warsaw in Poland for several days which I’m very excited for. After Poland, I’ll be venturing to Sweden’s second biggest city, Gothenburg, for one night and from there I’m off to Riga in Latvia. Then, on the tenth of December, I’ll be flying up north to Lapland which is my Christmas dream. We’re staying in a town called Romanievi which apparently is Santa Claus’s home town.
I’ve found it hard to think of ways to conclude this diary especially as I still feel I’ve got quite a bit of time left before I leave. However, if you’ve chosen to follow my Erasmus story for the last few weeks, I hope the main thing you’ve taken away from it is that Erasmus is absolutely worth doing. This is especially true after the gruelling two years we’ve had in this pandemic. It teaches you many things like how to embrace your own independence, how to adapt to different cultures, and how to socialise again after two years indoors. It’s also an amazing opportunity to travel and try so many new things. If Erasmus is not an option for you, I hope this has inspired you to travel abroad at some point in your life. Living in a new city in a culture strange to you can’t be replicated in Ireland. Even a small job working somewhere in Europe for a few months would be good for the soul in my opinion.
So, I guess this is where I leave all of you who have been patient enough to read this diary. I’ve enjoyed writing my experience and I can’t wait to read back on all of them in the future. So, again, thank you for reading and I hope you’ve a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.
