It’s been three months since I left for Sweden, and I thought that I should write an overdue update about how everything is going. So far it’s been both interesting and fun adapting to the European culture. Stockholm is a very multicultural city so it hasn’t been hard to find people in a similar position as me. Everyone here is super friendly so the transition here has been easy. School has been going great, regardless of how good my Swedish is. It’s beginning to feel like I belong here except I miss my CSU friends (there are plenty of other things to whine about like how dark it is all the time, but I’m not writing this to complain).
As for skiing, I’ve joined a new club Sundbybergs IK, which is for all age groups. More specifically I’ve been training with Sundbybergs Elite which is for juniors and seniors racers. There’s a lot of talent within the group and it’s been interesting to see the differences in skiing between the US and Sweden. I’ve been training hard, and am super-siked for this winter even if I don’t know how it’s going to work out. The focus for this year is to the gist of things here. I also have to make a big jump in race lengths from 5k and less to longer races that can be between 10 and 30k. To get ready for this I have done one 10k and two 30k rollerski races. Rollerskiing is taken very differently here, almost as if it is its own sport. I’m ready to start racing!
This past week I had vacation, so my family took a trip to my grandparent’s ski-house in Funäsdalen, a village in the mountains about seven hours north of Stockholm. Nearby is another village, Bruksvallarna, which has hosted several world cup level events. Unfortunately they didn't have any natural snow, but they had a 3k uphill which was covered with manmade snow. It made for some great early season skiing. I think I logged about 10 hours on snow. The French and Japanese ski teams were there along with some Czechs, Swiss and of course Swedes and Norwegians. It was a fun trip and I look forward to going up there again over winter vacation when they have more snow.
Overall, I’m enjoying myself here, but still miss Boston. I promise to keep everyone more updated in the future. Thanks for making my time in CSU enjoyable, I look forward to seeing everyone again next summer.
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| 10km Race |
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| View from the trail |
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| Erik on Snow! Sweet! |
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| Note the Reindeer in the background! |
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