Swedish Nerd Vs. The World

I loved Italy before I ever went there because I grew up loving Serie A in general, which is the Italian football league, and AC Milan more specifically. Before every game on Swedish television they showed a guide to the city where the match was being played and it seemed like a dream environment. The passion for football, food like pizza and pasta and the nice weather and old beautiful buildings, everything resonated with me. So it was like a dream come true when me and my friends Johan and Pidor went to the capital Rome in our early 20's. We rented an apartment in the city and as soon as we hit the streets, we stumbled upon the main tourist attraction called the Colosseum. It was grand but it was more interesting from outside than inside though. One night we had a pre party in the apartment and we poured vodka in a melon and then just swiped the glass through the melon to get ourselves something similar to a drink. That was until the glass broke in the melon during the swi...

Iceland was a special place for me long before I even went there, because of the magical music that spawned from the small island. The most famous artist is Björk but the band that really got me into Iceland was Sigur Rós who I still think is the best band ever. They play their own unique version of post-rock and the music sounded like the landscape of Iceland while the singer Jónsi sang in both Icelandic and vonlenska, which is a language of made up words that sounds right to the music. I got so blown away by them that I quit my plans for being a journalist and instead I went to the university to learn Icelandic, so I could move there. It was a hard language to learn and although I finished my courses I felt like I hadn't learned a thing after I graduated. Then I landed a dream job at a culture house in my hometown Helsingborg and the plans for going to Iceland went away.  Then it was in the back of my mind for ten years before I finally decided to fulfill the dream of going th...

Me and my friends Johan and Pidor had been flying around Europe when we came to our last stop, which was Dublin in Ireland. I thought it would be England all over again but Ireland was something completely different, it has got so much more character. It started off with us looking for the hotel after arriving to the city center and we were tired after the other trips so when we couldn’t find it, we just got in a cab and figured he would find it for us. He started to drive 5 meters and I told him the street and he got confused and stopped. “But that’s this street”, he said. “The hotel is here”. We laughed and got out of the cab again, but he wouldn’t let us leave without paying the fee for starting the fare which was ridiculous since we hadn’t gone anywhere.  After checking in at the hotel we went out on the streets and every other building was a pub. It didn’t feel like a “lets-go-mental-because-we’re-drunk”-vibe like it's in Sweden on the weekends. It was more warm and cozy ...

When I was a kid and came home from school with my friend Marco, we went up to my room to play and suddenly my mom called me down to the kitchen. She told me she had a surprise for me, that me and her were going to the outskirts of Chania on the island Crete that belongs to Greece together with her new boyfriend since my birthday was coming up. I couldn’t believe it, Greece, that was far away and with sunny beaches and swimming pools and it all seemed so amazing! I remember I bragged about it for Marco and I felt like the coolest kid in the world, me, I’m going to Greece! It was the first time I ever went on a trip to a country that didn’t remind me of Sweden, like the neighboring countries or Scotland had done. This was going to be something completely different and I was looking forward to be seeing a new side of the world that I already loved beforehand. It felt like the best birthday gift ever. When we arrived, it was just like I had imagined, I fell in love with all the whi...