What is the best part about traveling abroad? I think many people would have different answers to this question. I have been traveling for only five days but I know that my answer would be connecting with new people from all over the world. When I was in Copenhagen, I shared a hostel with travelers from Chile, Colombia, and Argentina. Due to being tired out from over 10 hours of traveling, I didn’t take up the opportunity to get to know them very well until breakfast the next morning.
When I reached my AirBnB in Malmö I spent my first night getting to talk with a guy from Germany who was in his lower 20s who was traveling across Scandinavia while on summer break from university. He was moving on towards Hamburg after my first night in Malmö. The second guy who was in the AirBnb that night was a guy who was in mid-20s from India who had studied architecture and interior design, but was focusing on interior design as he began searching for potential careers. He was staying in Malmö overnight before continuing on Copenhagen and then continue his journey home.
The second and third night I spent at my Malmö AirBnB had two different couples that stayed in the lower lever, but were not as interactive. However, on the upper level where I was located was a pair from Serbia. Both of them had gone to university for architecture and were now halfway through a 3-month long journey across Scandinavia. The first night we spent talking about each of our own journeys so far and where we were planning on visiting. We also discussed urban planning, different landscape typologies, and some architecture. As we talked, we verbalized we were all now colleagues and became Facebook friends so we could continue to keep in touch. The second night we talked about how people’s languages vary from place to place and also just between older and younger generations. It sounded like we were all having interesting endeavors of trying to communicate with people who we don’t share a mutual language with. Naturally, this lead to the pair trying to teach me some words and phrases in Serbian. Serbian seems like an interesting language because in addition to the verbs varying based on the subject and speaker, the can nouns vary as well. For useful terminology I asked to learn “Where is the toilet?” and learn it is "Gde je eh toalet?” For fun terminology, I learned potato (krompir) because I already know that word in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language. As they taught me a slew of random words and phrases we discussed how they spoke English well, but the noticeable part of their accent is sharpness of r’s. You have to use a sharp “r” sound when speaking Serbian.
On my second day of staying in Malmö I visited Lund which is northeast of the city. It was a good trip and I met some wonderful Swedes there. However, the reason I mention this day trip is because when I arrived at the Lund Central Station to make return trip to Malmö, I asked a guy which train would direct me to Malmö Central (the main stop before Triangeln Station where I was heading). This gentleman told me and we ended up taking the same train back and sat next to one another. As we talked I learned he was from Moscow and was visiting his aunt who lives in Malmö. He was a friendly and very interesting guy. We had a nice conversation He told me that his father was Russian and his mother was Polish and Jewish. He was curious what I did for a living and I told him about my travels and schoolwork. When I asked him what he did, he replied he works with golden diamonds. We never discussed politics, and it was awesome. As we both left the train at Triangeln and made our way up the escalators, he began to sing “If I Were A Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof. As we parted ways at the surface he called to me and said “Next time I see you in Moscow” and we both left waving and smiling.