Ode to the Swedish man at the sandwich shoppe

Today started out like any other Saturday-- woke up, rushed to work, made sandwiches and cleaned black plastic containers for $7.75 an hour. The familiar state of apathy mixed with hatred for my life was beginning to set in when-- all of a sudden-- there he was. A vision in a black hooded sweatshirt and matching visor. His eyes were blue, partially hidden behind stylish black glasses. His age-- late forties, early fifties. There was something peculiar about him. Something... European.
Sure enough, when he opened his mouth to order two ham sandwiches on white bread he had a distinctive Scandinavian accent. I was dying to ask him where he was from, but refrained from doing so for fear of making him feel uncomfortable. However, my manager (who is very chatty and doesn't worry about making other people feel uncomfortable) managed (get it?) to ask him straight away.
"Swedish," he replied, and went on to describe his family's trip through Canada.
"You're Swedish?" I asked excitedly.
"Yes." He looked a little uncomfortable. Why was this girl, with hair that had clearly not been combed before it was sloppily arranged in a bun on top of her head and a uniform that smelled of onions and shame, interrogating him about his country?
As soon as I explained that Sweden had been my home for three years-- "Oh really?"-- we talked about our different living arrangements-- he was a farmer, I lived by the sea. He thanked me for making his sandwiches and bid me a good day.
That was it. A minute of interaction with a complete stranger who I had no connection to other than the fact that we shared a country. And yet I felt like on some level we knew each other. Maybe it was the fact that we both (probably) flew out of Arlanda airport in Stockholm. I've set foot there. So have you. What are the odds that I would run into someone from a country of 9 million people in a state that isn't even inhabited by one million people?
It might sound stupid to you. It might sound utterly insignificant, and you may wonder why I dedicated an entire blog entry to this encounter. But it was all I needed to put me in a good mood for the rest of the weekend. That's the beauty of embracing diversity. I came to Sweden a complete foreigner-- an immigrant whose only knowledge of the language was the word "hej" (which means hello and which I was only able to comprehend because it's pronounced like the English "hey")-- and left totally besotted with this beautiful country, to a point where meeting someone Swedish feels like meeting someone you're related to for the first time.
So, in closing, thank you, random Swedish man traveling through North America, for reminding me why I'm working toward what I'm working toward, and for putting a smile on my face today.