Not to be confused with Easter Island. Entirely different.

Well last post was a doozy wasn’t it! Sorry you all had to read my extremely unedited thoughts under duress last week. Let’s make this post a little lighter and a little shorter on account of the holiday.

So it’s Easter! Here in Stockholm the exodus for the break begins on the Thursday of Easter weekend and lasts through Monday-ish. As it was explained to me, there are two holidays where everyone with the means to gets out of the city; Easter and Midsummer. Makes sense, in a country where one must treasure every bit of the warm sunny months by being outside as much as possible. I’ve had the absolute pleasure of getting to be a part of that crowd by getting away to two lovely destinations this weekend, the islands of Marö and Sandhamn.

I don’t know how many ways I can ever express my gratitude to my host family that will be enough to recognize all the wonderful opportunities they’ve given me over the past couple of months. Hosting a foreign student isn’t easy, and hosting a student in the middle of a pandemic must be insane. But I have had the distinct pleasure of getting to see parts of Sweden as the locals do, and getting to enjoy them with an extended loving family that welcomed me in and has made me feel at home. I’ll always be grateful for how I’ve been nurtured and taken care of while trying my best to fit in in this society, and I don’t think there’s anything I can do to pay that back. If any of you are reading this, I love you dearly and always will.

But Easter! What a lovely time we’ve had. After finally being released from my quarantine and getting to head back to school for the last day before break, we took off from home to head to the island of Marö, and my host family’s summer house, on Thursday (incidentally also my youngest host brother’s birthday. Grattis Gabriel!!!!!)

To get to the island, like many other of the smaller ones in the Stockholm archipelago, you can only go by boat. Incidentally, you can take one of the archipelago ferries all the way to Marö on the SL system and pay with your transit card, and you know that was extremely exciting to me. But we took my family’s boat and also picked up my dear friend Elsa’s family later that day, with who we were celebrating easter.

Stockholm is a city comprised of islands, but let me certify that those islands come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. When you’re in Stockholm, it doesn’t really feel like an island if you’re just hopping about on the train. But on Marö, where you can walk from one end to the other in under 15 minutes and there are less than 50 families in residence, you really feel the island life. One begins to understand the summer house culture if you have the opportunity to get a taste of it.

It truly was the perfect place to celebrate Easter and spend some time with the family after being separated for so long, and to recuperate after a hectic couple of months. Sweden is a pretty secular country and the holiday is pretty separate from its religious connotations, but you really feel the spring feelings (vårkänslor) when in a setting like this. It forces you to refocus and get a grip on what holidays are vacations are supposed to be about, which we know I need. Couldn’t have asked for more!

After a lovely couple days on Marö, we hopped back into the city for the evening to refresh our bags and get ready to head out to Sandhamn by ferry (we were going to take the boat but the lovely wind picked up just a bit too much.) But I’m not complaining! It was a wonderful trip over and gave me very Washington State ferry feelings. Just a hop skip and a jump on over to our next island, which luckily gave us many more sunny days and nature hikes!

We had a lovely evening in Sandhamn enjoying ourselves and a lovely dinner, and continued our theme of winding down and taking it easy. And today, the last day of our trip, we took another lap around the island and caught our ferry back home. If anyone knows how to make the most of a short trip to a beautiful bucolic location, it’s this family.

And that’s about it! Back to the school grind for me, after a disturbing amount of time away. I hope everyone had an absolutely splendid Easter holiday and took a moment to appreciate the scenes around you. A bit rich coming from me in this amazing Swedish island paradise, I know, but after being stuck inside for a week I’m still trying to make the most of my gratefulness. Take a breath and smell the newly-blooming air!