This morning, in our Swedish for Beginners 1b lecture, Ryan and I met another guy from America! This was very unexpected seeing as we thought we knew all seven United States foreign exchange students. (One guy from Missouri, three grad students from Nebraska, one other guy from UMD besides Ryan and I, and then of course... us.) Anyways! We stumbled upon this fellow American during a group speaking exercise... After speaking a few Swedish phrases with one another he asked where we were from, commenting that we seemed to have an "American accent".
Through some small talk (not in Swedish, sorry Asa!) we found out that Joseph is originally from New Jersey. He also got married this summer and is currently living in Lulea with his wife while earning his masters in IT. Although, on the surface, it may appear that our stories and Joseph's are nearly identical, they are actually very different.
You see, Joseph's wife is Swedish. And not like the 25% Swedish that most Minnesotans are... she's actually from Sweden. He met her while she was in the United States working as an au pair. They apparently met, fell in love, and somewhere along the lines decided to get married and move to Sweden to be with her family. So that's exactly what they did. They got married in Sweden this summer in the historical Gammelstad Church Town and he is now living here on a permanent basis... Pretty crazy, huh?
I can't wait until my parents hear this story slash read about it. I hope it makes them appreciate the fact that I got married a mere two hours drive away from my home town to a fellow Minnesotan more and realize that ten months in a foreign country really isn't that long. Especially when I could've had a destination wedding that's a half days plane ride away to someone from Scandinavia and decided to move here permanently... See, Ryan and I aren't THAT crazy afterall!
On a side note... Ryan wants me to mention on here that I finally made us a true Scandinavian dinner. We had potatoes and Swedish meatballs complete with gravy to pour over it all. Even though it wasn't truly homemade... it was still pretty darn good if I do say so myself. It will definitely be on the menu again in the near future.
We hope your dinner and day is as good as ours.
Peace, Love, and Swedish Meatballs!!!
-The Bogarts
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