Thursday, October 16 | 2025
In my opinion, the hardest thing during the winter is not low temperature, but the daylight hours. The sunrise is at 9.00 am and sunset at 3.00 pm. Just 6 hours of light. It’s very hard for me living without the sun. For Italians living in Sweden, the lack of sun is just awful.
At that moment I had nothing to lose, so I decided to find a way to move to Sweden from Italy. My problem was that I didn’t know any of the language language – I didn’t even know how to say “Hi”.
So I wrote an advertisement as an au pair. I love children and I thought this could be an opportunity to discover the country day by day with the help of a Swedish family. In the end I found a wonderful family, we met on Skype and after 2 weeks I took the plane to Stockholm.
The first obstacle was the time of dinner. In Sweden the dinner time is at 6.00pm, in Italy it’s at 8.00pm. It was very strange for me to have an early dinner and during the first days I was hungry again at 10.00 pm.
I love the nature in Sweden. Swedes have deep respect for the nature, they don’t destroy the environment but preserve it. They behave very well, like guests. I also find Swedes very humble, not exhibitionist and hospitable. Italians in Sweden must seem very loud! That is one of the strangest things when you move to Sweden from Italy.
My favorite Swedish word is “lagom” ( meaning: just the right amount) of course. I think that is the symbol of this country and I love it because there is not a similar word in the other languages.
I went out with Swedes and during the night people went home without saying goodbye. I think that for me is not possible to disappear without saying goodbye.
All Italian people will say food, pasta, pizza etc but personally I miss the bidet 😀
I find Swedes very hospitable but at the same time is very hard to create a friendship.
Learn Swedish as soon as possible. In this country English is the second language, all the people can speak English. But I think that the best way to integrate yourself completely is by speaking in Swedish.
In Italy when you feel sick, you must stay at home. In Sweden is the opposite. If you have fever or other type of disease you must go out to breath clean and fresh air. Initially I thought that was crazy but now I think that is the better way to recover yourself.
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