My final day in Sweden was spent in one of the larger cities called Gothenburg and the reason I went to this city was…well my flight was there the next morning and it was either get a hotel in the city or camp out at the train station. Something interesting about Jonkoping (and I assume a lot of public transportation) is that the buses stopped running at around 2AM on weekends and do not start up again until 5AM. This means that if you have to catch a bus at 4:45AM before the bus/train station is even open, you either get a very expensive taxi or camp out. Enough about that though, it is time to talk about the final goodbye from Sweden.

The City

When I arrived in the city, I had no desire to really explore it. I had been going non-stop on my journey thus far and the idea of putting in another 25,000 steps was not as appealing to me as it might have been in the beginning. That being said, I did try to go to a few museums and explore a little, but Gothenburg’s national museum was closed as was its medical museum. Taking it as a sign, I decided to explore the harbor and then one of their malls. Something I will say about Gothenburg is that they are the strictest bathroom monitors on the planet. During my exploration, be it train stations, the malls or various stores I went to, all of them wanted to charge me a dollar for using the restroom. I understand that this is more common in Europe, but I didn’t have this problem in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and even the paid bathrooms in Jonkoping did not go as far as to have a toll-taker employed for their facilities. Needless to say, I was not a fan, regardless of the strict restrooms, I found Gothenburg to be a little boring and devoid of anything new.

The Park

 Even though Gothenburg did not prove very exciting, there is one spot that I did find very enjoyable which was their public park. The park itself is located near the train station and it has immaculate views complete with lakes, trees, green houses and a rose garden. I did mention going to the rose garden in Jonkoping, but the garden here made me verbally exclaim amazement based on how many roses of different varieties there were. Of the 3 hours I had spent in the park, roughly half of it was spent wandering the garden and admiring the sight.

The remainder of the day was spent with less enthusiasm. I did manage about 20,000 steps in the city but that was mainly walking in circles. Also, if anyone is interested in seeing a movie in Sweden, nearly all of them are spoken in English with Swedish subtitles. As far as the trip went, I was more than happy with how it turned out and I was more than happy with waking up at 6:30AM the next morning than 2:00AM.

After the final, the next day was rather calming. We all still had to go to the school one last time to have an outro and to accept our certificates of completion. It was really interesting to see everyone again now that we knew everyone’s name had some connections with them. Once we had all gone and received our certificates, we immediately gave them back as we wanted them mailed with our transcripts. As it turns out, nobody was all too confident  with carrying this piece of paper several thousands of miles in a backpack. After the ceremony we all had one last free meal with the staff at the university and we took a lot of photos to immortalize the occasion. Many of us were heading out either that night or early the next morning so we all ended up using the remainder of that day to clean our apartments and plan one last dinner together. Where did we decide to go you ask? We went to a place that all of us would miss dearly and unanimously agreed on, which was MAX. MAX is a fast-food place that had really good burgers and really questionable milkshakes and coffees so it was a no-brainer that this would be our final dining place. After dinner, those who did not have to travel home went back to Raslatt where we celebrated a birthday for someone in the program. Our final activity as a group was to go along Lake Vattern one last time and watch the sun set at nearly 10PM. As we all sat and watched the sunset, we all talked about our experiences and made promises to keep in touch with each other and visit one another. Something about these types of trips is that these promises are always made and whether or not they are upheld, I hope not to forget this experience and not forget that sunset, because it may be quite a while before I get to watch the sun set at a stupidly late time with people of various nations to accompany me.

The moment I have been waiting for and the culmination of 25 days of Swedish academia is upon me…or it was because this happened yesterday. Yesterday was the final task where we all took an oral exam. The exam was structured so that we all were questioned in groups of five for a period of 45 minutes. Of the questions asked, each person was given one question to answer specifically and for the remainder, those who were not being directly questioned could compliment the main person’s answer and provide new information after the initial answer had concluded. After roughly 45 minutes of this, everyone would be graded on a scale of 1 – 5 with 5 being the highest and 1 being a waste of $4,500.

My Exam

I have always been a morning person, or more accurately, I have never been a person to delay the inevitable which is why this test was so painful for me. Though the testing started at 9AM, my group was not scheduled until 2PM which meant that I had the entire morning to attempt to study. That being said, I didn’t really feel the need to study so I ended up basically using the time to goof off and scroll through Reddit and YouTube like a reliable procrastinator. Despite me feeling confident in my answers at the time, I couldn’t help but feel anxious the entire morning out of a sheer desire to “Please, let me get this over with”. When it was finally time for my group to take the oral exam, we went into the room with our two professors and sat down across from them. I was the second to be questioned and much to my delight, I received a question on the state of future businesses based on two theories of Titan and Network. The very short version is that the Titan theory states that larger businesses will soon dominate the world market (Facebook, Walmart, Amazon, etc.) and all of their partnerships will be short-term and solely for profit. The Network theory states that smaller (comparatively) businesses will gain power and form intricate and equal relationships for a more sustainable market through collaboration. My explanation was a lot longer than that overview but seeing as I was one of the few to actually read the article, I did very well with the question. I received my final grade shortly after the final and it is safe to say that I passed the class without issue.

The After Party

That night was our final cultural event as well as our official farewell dinner. We all met up and sat down for dinner and trivia. The trivia was all song-based and after securing one of my professors as a teammate, our team won without issue. After the trivia, the stage was open to karaoke which turned out well. After some persuading and coercing, I was forced on stage and went to my go-to karaoke song which is Sweet Caroline. I will say that despite its lack of a global presence, Sweet Caroline still holds up so long as everyone is drinking and at least six people in the crowd know it. Overall though, we had a great time and I am glad as to how the night went. Today is my final day in Jonkoping as tomorrow I go to Gothenburg and then home again. I will be sure to update about today’s festivities but, as it turns out, I need to stop doing double entries because I do need to get close to 27 blog posts.

Tomorrow will mark the end of the study abroad program as we all take an oral exam. Personally, I haven’t really been worried about it because I find that if I am able to pay attention the first time around, going through the notes is all that is really needed. That being said, there are really only five PowerPoints worth of information, so the difficulty level of this test is rather limited by the pool of possible subjects. This will be my first oral examination in over two years and that always seems to put pressure on a lot of people, especially those who are more introverted. As you might have guessed, I find it difficult not to talk but I do understand the unnerving situation of giving a presentation. I can’t even imagine how those who are still struggling with certain terms in English are feeling, but I wish them the best. With all things considered though, I don’t think any of us traveled thousands of miles…well for most, thousands of kilometers, just to fail a class now.

Preparation

As I have said, I have mainly been going through the notes on the course, but I also don’t believe in over-studying. These past two days have been rather calming for me as I have been entertaining myself lately with the food festival that had set up at the beginning of this week. This festival has probably led to me gaining 5 pounds but in my defense, they have a solid 20 feet of fudge lining a section. This post is mainly being made to satisfy an assignment requirement and, in an attempt to bring this up to 300 words, I will share the good news that my apartment finally got a microwave. That’s right, a brand-new used microwave just a few days short of me leaving. Thank you Raslatt.

As the final week came into full swing, I awoke to realize that the coffee shop I have reliably visited for the past 3 weeks had closed its doors for the remainder of the Summer. I do not know if the timing was a coincidence or if this was a planned mission, but either way, we truly are in the end game now.

The PowerPoint

Yesterday was the final group presentation with my group of six, which meant it was the final time I would have to deal with TW (Time Waster). I had actually chosen to wait her out instead of trying to cause a fuss about it because I figured it might just be easier now that we only had one assignment. This final assignment included giving a 20-30-minute presentation and perhaps having someone that spoke in pure nonsensical filler statements might actually come in handy. That being said, she only had one part out of the ten total to speak, and it only had three points. To help give a streamlined view to our presentation, a group mate of mine and I decided to make a PowerPoint with basic points and emphases on what we needed covered. Everyone in the group was able to look it over as well and since all of us had specific parts assigned, it made the transition fairly smooth to the point where I was actually confident. Oh, how I would come to regret my decisions.

The Presentation

The hour comes upon us where we all go to present as a group. I plug in my laptop and kick off the presentation with a summary and opening statement. From there, each of us goes through the 9 steps of supplier development as we had been instructed and we all hit our marks well. Our timing is good, and we have very solid information to the point when we get to the 8^th point, we hit around the 18-minute mark. As I have said, the parts have all been split up and everyone has at least two parts except for TW. Part 9 is TW’s time to shine and she did so as well as my cave flashlight. Step 9 in the supplier evaluation is how to monitor improvements that have been implemented in the previous 8 steps. In a theoretical situation, three points, as we all agreed on, was more than enough. Let me tell you that when TW pulled out her notebook containing four pages, there was a collective look throughout both the presenters and the audience that said, “we’re never going to get this time in our lives back”. Before you try to justify this, she did not have a pre-written speech, she did not have a focused point, and she did not just stick to step nine. Instead, she talked about part 9 to an extent, what she thought of a few other points that had long passed, a few of her own stories of when she bought something, and maybe her grocery list; nobody was paying attention at that point. Five minutes of Mississippi’s later and she finally stopped talking to the point where we quickly went over the second topic and then abruptly ended. The instructor began asking us questions (from previous groups I knew he would ask roughly 3 or 4) and after I answered the first question, I let TW answer the second question. Approximately one daydream later she stopped talking and he stopped asking questions. I knew this would be a long presentation but what was initially an elegant relay race to the finish line turned into a crippled limp sputtering in before being immediately being rushed to the ER. I was told that Midsummer was the longest day in Sweden, but I never thought to question whether or not they might be wrong.