Sweden

German schools in Mecklenburg Vorpommern are blessed with a two week ‘Winter Holiday’ in February. While I’m sure two weeks in Stralsund without school would have been fun (or at least, manageable), I didn’t stick around to find out, and instead I went to Stockholm, with five of the other Mecklenburg teaching assistants. Going further north to get away from the German winter probably wasn’t the best plan, but it was the best offer Ryanair had, and it was on the list of places to visit, seeing as we are living so close to Scandinavia at the moment. So, with our coats, hats, scarves, boots, mittens, tights to be worn under trousers, arm warmers (yes, they do exist) and so on, we set off, and despite Ryanair’s version of Stockholm airport being over an hours drive outside of Stockholm, we made it to the hostel eventually.
Although the most popular phrase of the holiday was probably ‘This is good now, but I bet it would be amazing in the summer’ it was a good trip. We saw Scandinavian animals, ate Swedish food, visited the palace and saw the changing of the guards, went to museums (they were inside, which meant not having to walk around in the cold) and played a lot of card games in the evenings.
I can’t help feeling if we’d come straight from England, the amount of snow in Sweden would have been impressive, but it wasn’t actually that much more or less than what we’ve had in Germany, so it didn’t really get much more than a second glance.Before this becomes an advert that the Swedish tourist board could use- I could quite happily go on about how great Stockholm is, and what a good time I had- I’m going to finish here, but if you do get the opportunity to go, it is a nice place. Though maybe head there when the temperatures are above freezing point…