We started with EF and their office is located at Strandvägen in Stockholm; it took us almost 2 hours to get there due to transportation problems (we’re not used to the subway system). But we had counted on that when we made our time plan, so we still got there on time! And once we got there everything went very smoothly; we switch roles today so Alice was the one taking notes while Frida was interviewing. We asked the same questions as yesterday because we need the same information about the different organizations in order to compare all of them to each other. We also learned that with EF you have more options on how you want to live in the country to choose to go to; host families, a campus on the school with other students, or by yourself in a student apartment located close to the school you are attending. First when we got aware of this we thought about not using it in the handbook; but then we realized that this was a good opportunity to show the differences between the organizations in the handbook. Because with YFU which we visited yesterday you can only choose to live with a host family.

After that we went to our next organization; Explorious. Because the previous meeting took a little longer than we had planned, we realized that we wouldn’t get in time to our next meeting. We were also uncertain of where Luntmarksgatan was located, so we decided to call our friends for guidance. They made it clear for us that they didn’t trust our sense of orientation and doubted that we would get there in time (the office closes at 17). Therefore they offered to pick us up and drive us the Explorious. Thanks to them we did get there in time. Once again we got answers to all the questions we needed for our handbook. We also found out that Explorious as well as EF have a larger focus on European countries; you can choose between Irland, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. YFU, on the other hand, focus more on non-European countries. We believe that this will be useful information once we start making the handbook; it’s important to show the differences between the different organizations.    

Today was our first day working with the project work. We had planned to start with it a little bit earlier, but we faced some complications; almost all the exchange organizations that we wanted to visit and interview were located in Stockholm. But first, when we found out that the offices were located in Stockholm, we thought about calling them instead. But we figured that we would get a better picture of the organizations if we talked to them face to face. Then we remembered that we had planned to go to on a trip to Stockholm in the end of October and visit some of our friends that live there, so we took the opportunity to visit the offices at the same time. The first organization we went to visit is called YFU (Youth For Understanding). The head office is located on Vikingagatan in Stockholm, and after running around in circles for a while we finally found it. Only 10 minutes late (we had called them the day before to book a meeting) we entered the office.

We sat down on a couch in a nice decorated room with a woman from the staff and she offered us some coffee. We both turned down her offer. Then we started the interview; Alice talked and Frida took notes. We had prepared some questions of the most important things we wanted to know; which countries you could choose from, the age limit, the prices and what is included in the prices, how they choose the host families and the school, and if you had to have some knowledge before you go as an exchange student. The woman answered all of our questions in a good and clear way, so afterwards we were really satisfied. We also got a really good impression of the organization, the staff was really kind and helpful, and the atmosphere was welcoming.

Tomorrow we're going to visit two other organizations that are also located in Stockholm; EF and Explorious.