Laurent's message... enjoy! :-)

Hej !
I hope everything’s all right with you all. Me, I’ve got to say that I’m quite torn between two sentiments. In 4 days I’m gonna be back in Brussels, and tomorrow will be my last day at school, because on Friday, it’s a huge holiday here, especially for students – it can be compared to the “Saint-Verhaegen” at the ULB or the “24h vélo” in Louvain-la Neuve, but in the whole country here in Sweden – and I’m not ashamed to say that I will make sure I can enjoy myself one last time before I leave, even if it involves a major hangover on Saturday and Sunday . I must say if feel quite happy to come back in Belgium, because I missed my family, my friends and – way more – my girlfriend so much during these 13 weeks in the “Capital of Scandinavia”. But on the other hand, I loved my stay, Sweden and my school so much that I can’t help but feel really sad about coming back to Belgium – and our blessed governments and politicians didn’t help me feel another way…
Last Thursday, after Yves Leterme gave our King is third (fourth? fifth?) resign in 3 years, the teachers asked me to give a 45 minutes “conference” to themselves and the 9th graders (15-16 years old) on the problems which are happening in our beautiful (I’m not being ironic here!) country and why our government resigned this time. After this improvised conference, I had the feeling that ¾ of my audience didn’t understand a thing about it – even the teachers couldn’t quite understand what I was explaining – but I told them it was logic, because even Belgians don’t know quite well why the Flemish and the Walloon communities fight that much in such a small country. When a teacher told me that he couldn’t believe that was happening in such a small country in the heart of Europe, I gave him the stupidest answer ever : “Well, that’s Belgian surrealism, I guess…”.
Back to the task we are asked to do, I must say I didn’t experience a real culture clash here, and that the Swedish culture and mentality is not that different from ours, but there are still some differences and some things that were weird to me when I arrived in Sweden.
First, the way the Swedes eat is different than our way. They usually have a really early breakfast (around 7AM) – a bit later during holidays – and have their lunch between 11 o’clock and 11.45! As the school food is free, and as I didn’t want to eat alone around 12.30, I had to adapt myself to this lunch time, which was kind of difficult in the beginning because I wasn’t hungry at that time. They also eat their dinner quite early (around 17.30), but it wasn’t a real problem to me, because I could eat whenever I wanted as I am living alone. Another weird thing – well, it’s a question of taste, but still – is that most of the Swedes, until 30-35 years old, drink milk with their hot meals! As I only use milk in cereals and coffee, you could imagine how bizarre that was to see that.
Another thing which is different is the mentality of the Swedes, is that they are way more ambitious than the average Belgian. Everybody wants to set high goals to reach in their life, and work hard to reach these goals – even 12-years-olds. They are also quite proud about their Swedish factories and inventions – Volvo, Metro (the free newspaper), Ericsson, … - and feel it’s a huge failure when one of their factories goes bankrupt. For example, when Saab when almost bankrupt, you could see that it was a national drama and that they were really bumped and sad about it.
Finally, something I realized is that they are quite formal when they in their gesture towards each other. Some of the teachers here are really good friends, but they never hug or kiss each other, not even a handshake! They usually say “Hej” or “Godmorgon” in the morning when they arrive and say “Hejdå” when they leave, and that’s it. On the other hand, they are less formal towards the hierarchy. They don’t use any “Sir” or “Mister”… they call each other by their first names, and that’s it (even pupils call their teachers by their first names). I guess that if I had to move here, I would have to adapt myself to that!
Well, that was all for this month - it actually was already way too long - but I'll be able to explain it all way better next week, since I'll be back in Belgium. See you pals!

Laurent