A new chapter

This autumn I'm starting a new chapter in my life. Until the end of January, I will be working as a university lecturer in history at the Linnaeus University, and I'm already looking back at my first week. My office is in Växjö, once an important episcopal seat close to the Danish border and the centre of a flourishing medieval church parish. As the pictures below will show - a very modest selection for the time being - it is a beautiful place, marked by lakes and pine forests and a harsh soil that once drove thousands of Swedes from this region to emigrate to America, a higher number than any other region of Sweden. A small town, beautiful in its architecture and one I look forward to explore further in the weeks ahead.

I am immensely glad to have been given this opportunity. I have daunting tasks ahead, and in the process of dealing with these tasks I will learn a lot, and by the end I think I will look back at this time as hectic but immensely rewarding.

I'm slowly settling in, slowly learning the nuances that separate Sweden from Norway, but also the nuances that are shared and familiar. My Swedish improves, a new national literature is awaiting to be explored, and there are new places to visit. It is a new chapter, and I welcome it.