When I came to Alicante, Spain, to study for a whole semester, I knew that I wanted to take advantage of my time abroad. I was incredibly fortunate to get schedule with classes only on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays (I’m in class for over six hours on Mondays, but “así es la vida”). With my four-day weekends, I’ve been trying to travel as much as time and money will allow. After visiting many parts of Spain in the first couple months here, I decided to do something different. I found cheap flights to Gothenburg, Sweden, and Oslo, Norway. I’ve always found Scandinavia to be fascinating, though I will admit that before this trip, a decent percent of my knowledge about the place came from IKEA.

We landed in Gothenburg on a cold March night. The first thing that surprised me was that at 9 p.m., the entire city was dead. I hardly saw a single person out on the street. In Spain, 9 p.m. might be the busiest hour of the day! We spent all the next day exploring the city, despite the cold, clouds and intermittent mist. I saw reindeer, ate big cinnamon rolls and a plate of ridiculously expensive meatballs, and greeted people with “hej!”

The next weekend, in Oslo, we had a bit more time. The first thing that surprised me there was how cosmopolitan the city was. Our hostel was in a primarily immigrant neighborhood, where we saw as much Arabic as Norwegian! I saw old Viking buildings and new modernist skyscrapers, I looked out of Oslofjord from a still-snowy patch of pine forest, and I accidentally got on the wrong train because I couldn’t understand Norwegian. Spaniards, and perhaps Southern Europeans more broadly, tend to think of Scandinavians as pragmatic and boring. When I told my Spanish host mother that I was going to Sweden and Norway, she said “Why would you do that? You’re already in Spain!” It was definitely a change of pace from Spain, in fact, many things felt like they were exactly the opposite. The weather was cold and cloudy, the people were quiet and reserved, there were no warm beaches nor old plazas nor mobs of tourists. I recommend anyone who is staying in Southern Europe to try taking a trip to the North. It will leave you with a newfound appreciation for both areas.

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Learn more about this blogger’s study abroad program: ALI Abroad: University of Alicante