Last night (my last night in Sweden), Roma, her friend, and I headed over to our Swedish friend Oscar's for a little Christmas celebration. I was locked out of my apartment due to room inspection, so I stayed at Rach and Roma's my last night. The Christmas party was awesome--very traditional. We made homemade lingon berry sauce with homemade Swedish meatballs (delicious!), homemade scalloped potatoes, homemade french onion dip, sausages, and some vegetable plate, which we all know I didn't touch.
We also played White Elephant. Roma decided to give very "special" presents--unused candles, a jar of honey, tissues, and a package of soup. I received two Swedish CD singles--Dr. DJ and some cover band. Very awesome. We also had Julmust and glögg, which is very traditional for Swedes around this time. It was a great way to end my adventures.
And then, after a rough night of sleeping, one of the most stressful days of my life took place. After getting to the train station fine via taxi, and a long, but stress-free, train ride, I arrived at the Copenhagen airport. And it was snowing. The plane was late getting in to the terminal, so we were delayed 20 minutes. No big deal. As we were sitting in the plane, however, we were informed that the company who de-ices planes before take-off ran out of de-icing fluid (who does that?! In December?), so we were delayed another 40 minutes so the company could get more. And when they finally did, we were delayed another 50 minutes because the runway was too icy for take-off. Now, for all you math nerds out there, that's a delay of 110 minutes, or almost two hours. And I had about an hour and a half lay-over time to catch a connecting flight in Chicago. The odds were not in my favor. So I spent that entire 8 1/2 hr. plane ride freaking out about catching my connecting flight. Not fun, at all.
Upon arrival in Chicago, and waiting another 30 minutes for luggage, passport control, and customs, I discovered I had, in fact, missed my connecting flight. Go figure. So SAS was going to put me up in the Hilton and booked me for a flight on American Airlines at 6:45 a.m. I was not a fan of this plan. They told me to check in and get my luggage checked in at night so I didn't have to wake up tremendously early to get it checked in. The tremendously helpful workers at the AA booth got me the last seat on a flight at 10:30 p.m. that night, which made everything all okay. After frantically racing to the terminal, I got on the plane. And upon arrival in the Minneapolis airport, I walked down to luggage claim, and saw all of my friends waiting for me. They screamed and shouted, and even made a sign for me. Very, very awesome. They also brought me a Diet Coke and a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I knew there was a reason why I considered them friends. So thanks, Brandon, Garrett, Lyndie, Melanie, Travis, Lillian, for showing up!
After arriving at the airport, we headed back to the house to just spend time hanging out. Lyndie made Better Than Sex cake, which was amazing. I realized how much I missed everyone while being away.
To sum it up, I had an amazing time in Sweden--studying abroad was the best decision I have ever made. But it's also great to be at home for the holidays.
Somehow, however, I know that I'm going to miss Sweden terribly. Next goal in life: make it back someday. It's going to happen.
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