My oh my! How has it already been a week?!
So much has been happening!! I am now back from Sweden and officially settling back into my Oxford routine, prepping for the start of term next week. 🙂
Since I last wrote, I have…
Gone to a vegetarian buffet in the hipster part of Stockholm! With two new friends I made in Stockholm. 🙂
Funny story actually, I met Vincent and Viktor at the Far East Asian Artifacts museum, while I was eating at the museum cafe where Vincent works. We all struck up a conversation, and I ended up staying and talking to them for an hour!! We later made plans to meet up again during the week, before I headed back to England. 🙂
After lunch, Vincent flew his drone around and it was such fun to watch! I had never seen a drone up close and live before!
And then LATER that evening–I attended the Stockholm Go Club’s weekly meeting! 😀 😀 I don’t know if I told you in previous posts, but I’ve been learning how to play the ancient Chinese game of Go, in an attempt to connect more with my roots (along with practicing reading Chinese articles, watching Chinese tv shows, and calling my parents and relatives to practice speaking more Chinese). The Oxford Go Club members taught me how to play, and it was such fun to see such a prolific club at Stockholm!! Apparently popularity for the game has grown ever since AlphaGo made the news. 🙂 Figures!
And then on Friday, I went to a friend’s ping pong tournament! Ha. Yes, you read that correctly. My friend and his family + some friends were having a friendly (monthly, actually, for the past two years!) ping pong tournament in his grandfather’s garage, where they have a ping pong table. It was so cool to visit the suburbs of Stockholm!! Stockholm itself is composed of so many different islands, all connected by bridges (or not; to get to my friend’s island Rindo for instance, I had to take a ferry!) and it was SO cool to see the more rural/suburban outskirts of Stockholm. And to see where my friend lived. 🙂 Got to meet his grandparents and everything!! Definitely a much more local experience than I was expecting–and in a very good way!! Who would’ve guessed three years ago, during that fateful summer of 2013, when I met these Swedish kids on exchange at Zhe Jiang University in Hang Zhou, China, that I would eventually visit them in Stockholm, and have drinks and meals with them, and meet their families, and play ping pong with them! Ha 🙂
And on Saturday before I left (my flight was at 9pm) I got to see one last friend, whom I hadn’t had the chance to meet up with all week, due to him having a hectic schedule. This was the last friend of mine from Hang Zhou whom I hadn’t seen yet! Was so good to see him and catch up; we talked for 4 hours straight!! He even baked me a very Swedish cake for us to eat while talking. 🙂 Apparently this is the very common “fika” in Sweden.
And the adventures didn’t stop after I got back to Oxford! My friend Mike, whom I met in Edinburgh a few weeks back and with whom (plus his friend Brian) I rode back to Oxford, joining them for part of their road trip through the UK! 🙂 Here we are taking a bike tour through Oxford (truly the easiest and best way to see Ox!) and then enjoying ice cream cones at the local G&D’s on St. Aldates. 🙂 Such good times! And yay for the couchsurfing community. 🙂
Aaand that brings us up to speed! 🙂 Term is about to start so I am just resting up, collecting my wits, preparing for my last (:() month or so at Oxford!! (I’m actually cutting this term short, and leaving 2 weeks before term end, because my summer internship back in the States starts at the beginning of June. 🙁 Sigh. How I will miss this place!!)
Though I am excited to go back to Wellesley, too! It’ll be so good to be back. 🙂 And I’ll be living in the sustainability co-op next semester!! It’ll be so fun. We’ve already done room assignments, and I have a relatively big room, and I’m on the first floor, which means I won’t have to take the stairs to get to the kitchen… 😀 😀 😀 All good things.
Alright! I’m headed off now to the Oxford Go club meeting. 🙂 Until next week!
~Emily