Swedish Lessons

"The thing about a downward spiral is that you never know you're in one at the beginning. In fact, in my embarrassingly vast experience, they typically begin with unabashed enthusiasm. I should have recognized the pattern too, having just recently tumbled to the bottommost depths of my own personal barrel. But there I was, back on top, embarking on a thrilling adventure abroad. What was the fun in learning from your mistakes when you could just repeat them? On a much grander scale? On the other side of the Earth?"

So begins Natalie’s "adventure" as an au pair in Sweden. On a farm in the middle of nowhere, working for an employer who may or may not be the head of a cult, she embarks on a year-long assignment to "nanny" teens who speak fluent English and need no supervision. Instead, she finds herself splitting time between life as an undocumented domestic servant and as the live-in girlfriend of a car mechanic down the road, because he is literally the only other human within miles.

Natalie’s ability to lay bare her blind sprint into indentured servitude is nakedly funny and will leave you wishing you could sit down with her to have a beer and hear more.