Change in Season

Summer in Sweden is officially over (and has been for a few weeks now), and although the nice weather was only here for a short time I find myself very excited for the fall season. I haven’t experienced the fall in 2 years and it just feels right being able to watch some football Sunday evening and have the weather outside be just cool enough to wear jeans and a sweatshirt when I venture out. Hopefully, I’ll even be able to teach these Swedes how to make a proper bonfire with some S’mores one of these evenings, even though everyone thinks I’m crazy for being so excited that the weather is getting colder. 

I also thought that I would be really homesick at this time of year. It’s exactly 8 weeks until I make my way back to Chicago, which is close enough that I start to think about having some good pizza nearly every night, but not quite close enough that I can start to get excited about being home. But with the fall finally here, and the next 8 weeks broken into 3 separate blocks of time (3 games in the next 10 days, then 1 month left in the season, then 2 weeks until I’m home) I know the time will pass quickly.

Speaking of the season, we lost to a red hot Halmstad on Monday night, and now find ourselves in need of a win Saturday afternoon against Umeå to stay in 5^th place in the league. At this point in the season promotion is an unrealistic aspiration, and we are just a few good results away from being safe from relegation as well. If we can continue to string together solid performances, and win our remaining home matches, we should finish the season right around 5^th position which would be a very good result for this team considering the significant disadvantages the club faces financially and how unlucky we have been with injuries this year.

In other news, I am only a few weeks away from becoming a functioning member of society in Sweden. I believe I’ll actually be immigrating to Sweden, which will allow me to take Swedish classes offered by the town, pay my own bills, rent movies, and a lot of other things that I haven’t been able to do on my own. Needless to say it will be nice not to have to rely on other people to take care of simple tasks. I’ll most likely have to wait until I get back in January to start taking Swedish classes but it’s something to look forward to!

Hope all is well back in the states, go Bears!