Sweden blog post by Toni Sauer (7B)
In September 2023, the class 7B and 10D went on a trip to Sweden learning about mental health, sponsored by Erasmus. It was one weeklong and happened during the project week. Keep on reading this blog post if you want to find out more about how we spent our time there, the people we met and what we’ve learnt! Let’s go!
Day 1
The first day started pretty early: at around 3am to be exact! Everyone had to get up in the middle of the night to be on time for the flight to Sweden. Our first stop was at the train station, where we said goodbye to our parents and took our train to the airport. When we arrived, we went through security, gave them our bags and all that stuff and also had some time to go into the “duty free” shopping area, eat, or look at other things. Right after, it was time to hop on the plane and make our way to Sweden! The view in the plane was beautiful and the clouds looked so fluffy!
When we got there, we took the bus for a bit and then walked the remaining 30 minutes with our luggage to the hostel – That was quite a challenge because most of us had packed a lot of things which made our bags extremely heavy!
When we got to the hostel, we could leave our bags there but because the hostel couldn’t let us in yet, it was time to go out and about and explore Haga which was actually right nearby! We walked through the village in groups looking at the buildings and going into the little shops. After, we got all together again and went to a Café: But not just a normal one… one with extremely huge cinnamon rolls, which were fantastic and pretty cool to look at and eat. When the hostel opened, we went back, had dinner and got ready for bed. And that’s how we ended the night.
Day 2
Welcome to the next day! We all started by getting ready and having some breakfast. After that, we had a meditation by Mr. Lippert, and it was really relaxing and helpful. We learned about where you can find meditations and how they help you.
Then, we all made our way to go play beach volleyball with the Swedish students! It was a big hall, with several volleyball fields and the floor covered in sand. Everyone was enjoying playing and had a good time. When we were done, some people got ice cream and it was time to go back to the hostel.
Day 3
Hey, you’re still here! Happy to see you, let’s move on to day three. After everyone got ready and had breakfast, a classmate did yoga workshop. We got lucky because the hostel had a room which we could use for the workshop, and it was really fun. Then, we went to the Swedish Gymnasium called Sjölins where we got to talk with the Swedish students and sit in the back in their lessons. You won’t believe what I am about to say, but they actually have no oral marks! So that means students rarely raised their hands! Every lesson was the teacher just giving a presentation with everybody else listening – Isn’t that so different from our system?! The classes they have are also quite different: They do have “normal” ones, like physics, German, English, math, but they also have ones that are very different. For example, “How to buy your own apartment”. What do you think about that? In between of attending their classes, we also had pretty yummy lunch there. We walked back home, had some phone time and ended the night with yummy dinner.
Day 4
The fourth day in Sweden, Gothenburg, started with an early breakfast but only for a small group of students, including me, who prepared a German lesson for our partner students! We ended up almost being late but because we started sprinting, we still made it. We told them about our school and how our system works. They got a worksheet and we started to go around helping them. They were quite stunned at first because we gave them a worksheet and they actually had to do something in class – Remember that there are no oral marks? Yeah, so that means they never do actual worksheets or something like that in class. Afterwards, we walked to a hill where the tour from another group of our Swedish partner students started. It was really long, and we went through all of Gothenburg, which was nice since we got to see a lot of cool places. Then, we had lunch at Sjölin’s (the Swedish gymnasium) and went back to our hostel. We weren’t there for a long time though, because we walked to a “mini zoo” where we got to look at moose and pigs. The location was nice, it was right by nature. We ended the night by getting back to our hostel and having dinner all together!
Day 5
Welcome to the fifth day in Gothenburg! On this day we went to the Swedish school for a project about social media. We watched a video about a woman being addicted to taking selfies because of social media and a guy who developed body dysmorphia and then got in groups. We talked about the video and then created a list of actual healthy ways to use social media. After that, we all did a meditation together to practice meditation and calm down. Then, we had a lot of free time! I went shopping with some friends and we went into lots of different stores, which was so nice. When we got back to the hostel, we were able to choose between three workshops: Yoga, a body walk with Ms Loeff (a walk in the park with included meditation) or one with Ms Schwager where you write cards with motivational quotes on them and then put them in your pencil case, for example. I chose the yoga one and it was really nice to learn about all the different movements and how to do them correctly.
Day 6
This was our last official full day in Sweden! We decided to do something altogether: A museum trip! The museum was basically underground, which was cool. There were old jets and a lot of information about the second world war and also Oppenheimer. The Swedish students were there too, and we all had burgers together for lunch. One of our partner students actually was celebrating his birthday, so they sang him Happy Birthday in Swedish and we kind of tried to sing along. After that, we decided to do something really special: Eat in a restaurant! It was a Chinese one and we walked there. The food was amazing! Afterwards, we walked a bit till we got to a harbor – At that point the sun was already setting, and it felt magical just having fun with my friends and laughing. Most of us took pictures of the sunset and were messing around with their friends.
To make the day even better, we all went to the movies, and we could choose between “Oppenheimer” or “Barbie” to watch. I chose Oppenheimer just like most of us and the cinema looked so pretty, with red seats and a great atmosphere. I really enjoyed the sixth day.
Day 7 – Bye, bye Gothenburg!
Welcome to the last day: It started bright and early because a lot of us were going to an amusement park! To make the most out of it, we obviously had to wake up quite early. Before making our way, we still had to clean up our rooms – Trust me, most of them were extremely messy! When we were done with that, we went downstairs to put all of our luggage in a room so that we could pick them up later again and make our way to the airport.
The people who went to the fun park said it was really cool and that the rides were intense! I didn’t go though, because I knew I would just be too exhausted after all the rides, walking and then still the way back. That’s why I went with the others to the sea where we pretty much did the exact opposite: Relax! It was really nice, and we took such pretty pictures and videos. But then, it was time to sadly go home… We all got together at the hostel again, grabbed our luggage’s and went by bus to the airport. But when we arrived in Germany, we didn’t get our luggage in time so that meant we had to sprint to catch our train – And that was exactly what we did! But when we made it, not all of us were there so then we had to let the train go and wait for the others. When a second train came, the others still weren’t there! So that means we missed the train two times and were drenched in sweat. But after that it luckily got better, the others finally came, and we got a train.
All in all, I am so grateful that I got to go on this trip. Meeting the Swedish students at their school was so interesting, seeing so much of Gothenburg was so beautiful, meeting so many new people there, was really great and experiencing so much was incredibly cool! I have learnt a lot about mental health, which includes meditation, mindfulness, yoga and clean eating. By the way: All of us actually cooked every night! Before the trip, we got into cooking groups and decided on a meal we would want to cook, which is healthy but still yummy and simple. I can’t believe I had such an amazing opportunity and I actually include meditation in my everyday life now. When I am stressed, meditation helps me to relax, and I also do yoga sometimes.
A big thank you goes out to Mr. Lippert, Mrs. Schwager and Mrs. Löff. Thank you to all of you because you helped us where you were able to, and organized the trip really well.
