Tuesday, March 10 | 2026
Tuesday, March 10 | 2026
Maud is a 24 year old student from Switzerland who originally had planned to go to Finland. But as we all know, life can take unexpected turns and she is now on her 5th year in Sweden. Here she tells us it happened.
My plan always was to move to Finland. My grandmother is from there and I just love that country. Shortly before I turned 18 I applied for jobs. I didn´t get any and so I tried to apply as an Au Pair. I met some family’s but they all lived very off from everything, which can be boring for a young Au Pair. I received a request from a Swedish Family in Stockholm and I took that job instead.
My plan was to stay for one year and then move on to Finland – but I found love in Stockholm (both the city and a guy), so I stayed.
The whole migration thing is quite tricky for Swiss People. We have more rights than people from outside Europe but less than People with citizenship in EU countries. I didn’t get my personal number for 1.5 years. Without the personal number you can’t do anything in Sweden. So basically I had to pay taxes but could not use anything which is paid by taxes (library, school, even health care was tricky).
The nature, the never-ending-light-days in summer and the always dark days in winter. The non-hierarchy policy and the equality.
Elektronegativitetsskillnaden och häftklammarborttagare
They can be afraid of conflicts and sometimes the Swedish language is quite rude (like if somebody is using hand lotion and you want some, you basically say “I can take some too!” instead of “Can I have some too?”.
In Stockholm people become friends with each other in school time and those friendships hold even in the adult live. To become friend with Swedish people later on is very difficult. They usually are not in need of more friends and there for not “out looking for friends”.
The hot summers, my friends, cheese and chocolate.
We have friends in common and met on a night out. I like this country and he has his friends and family here. We maybe will move to Switzerland for some months in some years but Sweden is a good place to live. Especially when you calculate the social care system: day care for children, free school, free doctors…
Food (Swedish people always eat the same food on every holyday like midsummer, easter, Christmas… and in my opinion it sucks), holidays (example where to celebrate Christmas) , language, maybe your Swedish partner has more friends than you and this can give you some lonely nights.
Learn from each other (aspects and language), multi-language children with healthy genes.
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