Mr. President,
As I sit here on this train from Copenhagen, Denmark to Stockholm, Sweden, I can’t help but think about your “Open letter to the Student Body,” and its emphasis on the power and importance of building relationships. When I arrived in Copenhagen at 3am Wednesday morning, I was supposed to stay with Matt Marsh who engaged too much in some extracurriculars that night and had already been out like a light for over an hour. My stubborn self wasn’t going to go out and spend big bucks on a hotel for a couple hours, so I walked to a park near the address where he told me he was staying. Wasn’t my best idea to set up camp on a picnic table 15 yards from a river, because if I had actually woken up there I might be looking like a present day Ted Williams. I put my head down for not more than a minute until I heard two girls speaking what sounded like perfect English. I got up and walked over trying not to look like a homeless creepo, and asked “Are you American?” One told me she was Swedish and I don’t know if the other one said anything. “Oh never mind, sorry” I responded. They asked what I was doing there and I had to explain the situation about how I was screwed over. They insisted that I stayed with them, and me being me, did. Nothing to lose but my life, right? We stayed up until the early hours of the night, conversing over a glass of white. Emmy, from Sweden was 25 and studying in Stockholm. I slept in her bed. Kate, her friend, was 22, from England doing the same thing. Relationships.
As I sit here on this train from Copenhagen, Denmark to Stockholm, Sweden, I can’t help but think about your “Open letter to the Student Body,” and its emphasis on the power and importance of building relationships. When I arrived in Copenhagen at 3am Wednesday morning, I was supposed to stay with Matt Marsh who engaged too much in some extracurriculars that night and had already been out like a light for over an hour. My stubborn self wasn’t going to go out and spend big bucks on a hotel for a couple hours, so I walked to a park near the address where he told me he was staying. Wasn’t my best idea to set up camp on a picnic table 15 yards from a river, because if I had actually woken up there I might be looking like a present day Ted Williams. I put my head down for not more than a minute until I heard two girls speaking what sounded like perfect English. I got up and walked over trying not to look like a homeless creepo, and asked “Are you American?” One told me she was Swedish and I don’t know if the other one said anything. “Oh never mind, sorry” I responded. They asked what I was doing there and I had to explain the situation about how I was screwed over. They insisted that I stayed with them, and me being me, did. Nothing to lose but my life, right? We stayed up until the early hours of the night, conversing over a glass of white. Emmy, from Sweden was 25 and studying in Stockholm. I slept in her bed. Kate, her friend, was 22, from England doing the same thing. Relationships.
The next night
Marsh and I couldn’t stay at his friend’s apartment, so I texted my new friend
again and again, the invite was extended. We both stayed there again.
Relationships.
Yesterday,
Marsh left me to go to Rome and I had a decision to make. Either I could take
an overnight train and arrive in Stockholm at 6 am or stay another night and
get there at two the following day. I chose the latter. She joked that I was
going to move in. If there was ever such thing as overstaying your welcome, it
wouldn’t apply here- the girl loved me. Last night, we went to a bar to meet up
with her friend who she hadn’t seen in over a year. Turns out the girl was born
and raised in Boston for ten years before moving to Germany, and now Sweden. We
had a long conversation, and she gave me her business card. She also is going
to Stockholm today so I’m going to text her when I get there and we’re planning
on going out. Amazing. Relationships.
If I never
said anything in that park would I be right here right now? Snowball’s chance
in Haiti. It’s unbelievable what you can get out of by starting a simple
conversation with someone.
Tomorrow, I
will wake up early and get on an 11 hour train from Stockholm, to Geilo,
Norway- a small ski village town, three hours south of the nation’s capital,
Oslo. A normal person would never go to Geilo, but that’s where I have a
relationship. I’m not sure if you remember Vegard, but he was at Loyola our
freshman year for soccer. The Norwegian native decided that his 3 months in the
Loyola soccer program was not for him, and transferred back to Oslo. During
this short period of time I was able to get to know Vegard very well, and now
I’m going to Geilo, Norway to stay with him and his friends in a cabin in the
mountains. Relationships, relationships, relationships.
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