It seems like an irony, but getting involved with Swedish people being in Sweden is a bit difficult when we are living within an international community of students. Well, I have learned something this weekend; once you get to know Swedes you will live a whole new experience here!
This Saturday I changed the Oktoberfest for going to a Swedish birthday party!. I was invited by a friend and as the saying goes: ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’.
The only information I got about the party was that it was a masquerade so when I got noticed about this I immediately associated the theme with carnival or Halloween and I started looking for the most funny and horrifying mask, but I was making a mistake. Once there I realized that the theme was rather like a Venetian carnival type of masquerade.
The invitation was at 19:00 so I was thinking about going maybe at 8:30, but actually my friend advised me to be there at 6:45, surprise surprise…almost everyone was there already! Swedish time.
The evening started really well organized with an outdoors game in order to know whit whom to sit in the table. Once the birthday girl announced the availability we all were allowed to get inside the house with our respective table mates. Of course our names were on our sits together with a really diverse menu, it was a complete and fancy dinner so no potato chips or Cheetos for me at that party.
We had a host that was regulating everything inside, so at dinnertime the table number 1 took the soup and the number 2 the salad and after some time we changed roles. I have to emphasize that the food was new but delicious!
Once in a while there were speeches in honor to the birthday girl by their closest relatives, and guess what…the speeches were all in Swedish of course!
After finishing the dinner the party host gave us 20 minutes of break for mingle among all.
After the break it was dessert time and the host surprised us with a guitar player who delighted us with beautiful Latin (yes Latin!) music. After that it was time for dancing, the music started playing but this wasn’t a common dance floor, we had a dance teacher! The teacher was teaching us an African choreography and everyone got excited and involved with it. At the end random music started playing, we danced with each other and we had a great time.
Someone told me that when you make Swedish friends they will remain forever. I made baby steps this weekend getting to know Swedes in an informal environment and as you see it was a whole new experience! So why don’t you give it a chance?
Source:
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