Baltic Sea Adventure
Lindsay Gietter

It had been a week since arriving to begin my yearlong stay in Jarfalla, Sweden as an International Rotary Exchange student. Since arriving, I had been sick with the stomach flu, experienced the first signs of homesickness, and was living with my host family in an apartment that had no air conditioning during the worst heat wave Sweden had seen in 10 years. Not the way I had envisioned my first week overseas. So when my host family said that we were going to head to their summer house located on an island in the Baltic Sea for a few days, I was ready and willing to go. I was up for anything that would get me out of that hot apartment and get my mind off of my family back home.

My island adventure, as I like to call it, began like any normal car trip out of town. As I sat crammed in the back seat with my host brother, I took in the breath taking beauty of Sweden. It reminded me a lot of Oregon with its lush trees and green grass. It was so wonderful to be reminded of home that in some ways it made me even more homesick. This was not the best way to start my Baltic island vacation. Although the outside portrayed an exchange student up for anything, on the inside I just wanted to go back to America. My first weeks as an exchange student were not off to a great start.

A few hours later we arrived in a small town that sat right next to the Baltic Sea. Having been told that we would need to take a boat over to the island, I quickly scanned the water for the ferry that would shuttle us to our Swedish retreat. My host father told me not to leave anything behind since we would not be coming back to the car until it was time to head home. With luggage in hand, I followed my host family over to the dock still wondering how long we would have to wait for the boat to take us over. My wait would not last long. Our boat was not a ferryboat at all but a small motorboat that was going to take five people, our luggage, and the food we would need for the next week. This was not what I had expected. I was not ready to be so intimate with a group of people I had barely gotten to know over the past week, on a tiny boat in the middle of the Baltic. However, not wanting to let on that I was ready to pack in this whole exchange student business and head back to the states, I plastered a smile on my face and stepped on to the boat.

About a half hour later we finally reached the island. Since my host fatherís family lived here, I was expecting someone to greet us with a car and take us, and all of our belongings, to the house where we would be staying for the next week. Yet again, I was dead wrong. Not only were there no cars on the island, we needed to carry our belongings and hike to the house. I couldnít believe it, an island with no cars? I had never heard of such a thing. However, not wanting to seem like a spoiled American, I threw my backpack on my back and followed my host family into the woods wondering the whole way what I was in store for next.

After walking for about 30 minutes, we finally arrived! I was quickly given a tour of the grounds. The house we were staying in was once an old milking barn that had been converted into a house several decades earlier. The land had been in my host fatherís family for over 200 years. My host fatherís family lived in a house on the other side of the property.

The inside of the house was very quaint. The room I was staying in was once a milking closet. As I began to take in all the new sights around me, I slowly realized something crucial was missing in the house. Where was the bathroom? Knowing that I would want to take a shower and settle in to my new home, I asked my host mother where it was located. Without any hesitation, she simply said, ìoutside.î These were the words that almost sent me over the edge. As she lead me outside and showed me the garden hose that I would need to heat in the sun before showering, the curtain I could draw to protect me from peering eyes, and where the toilet paper was in the outhouse, I realized that I was not in Oregon anymore. As I stared at the garden hose heating in the sun, the mantra that was taught to us during our exchange student trainings, began playing in my mind like a broken record, ìadapt or dieÖadapt or dieÖ.adapt or die.î

Although there were many other eye popping experiences during my stay on the island, like seeing my host father and brothers skinny-dipping in the Baltic Sea, my island adventure made me a much stronger and more flexible person. However, to this day, I will not take a shower using a garden hose!