Days One and Two

God Morgon! I just woke up for the second time here at Uppsala to the 4am sun... it's so lovely. That was sincere, it's so beautiful and I don't know if it's the sun or the jet lag or the fact that I'm just too stoked to be wasting my time sleeping, but I've been out of bed at 6 both mornings ready to go. It's nice and I don't feel so lazy, but I'm sure that I'll break this habit all too soon. :)


Anyway getting here went very smoothly even though it took such a long time. The family dropped me off at SFO where I took off on my 9 hour flight, then I landed in london at 2 in the afternoon their time. I took a cab to my hotel and promptly fell asleep for the next 14 hours. Woke up in the wee hours of the morning and watched the bbc and trashy english telly for a few hours while I drank every pack of complimentary coffee in the room. When breakfast finally opened at 7:30, I popped downstairs and got some food and was joined by a guy from Japan who was on his way to study in Leeds. Both exchange students en route, we had a lot to talk about and he was really nice. We both said that it was a good omen that we haven't even made it to our universities and we're already making friends. :) After that I hung out with the owner of the hotel while I waited for my taxi. He was so funny with that suuper dry British sense of humor, and told me to take care of myself. After that was my 2 hour flight to Stockhom, then a bus ride (that was fun with all my bags) and then I finally made it to Uppsala! So amazing! Riley and Collin met me at the station and helped me drag all my bags to the place where I had to pick up my keys (also it was so hot and it got so disgusting lugging my backpack all over... nice first impression). At the keys place, I met a girl from the Netherlands who was also signing into  her room at Flogsta, so we shared a cab to Flogsta which was such a good idea because it's pretty far from the city center. After I unpacked a little bit, Collin Riley and I got some food and then I came home and sleeeeped.

Yesterday morning I woke up early, took a shower in the silliest bathroom ever. You have to turn on the sink and then flip a little switch to make the water come out of the shower. Also there is no specific floor space for the shower, it all kinda drains into a hole in the floor. Also it's small enough for me to sit on the toilet, brush my teeth, shower and shave all at the same time. There is no wasting time here! :P Then I met Riley at his house and we made breakfast after grocery shopping at the ICE (my new favourite place), then wandered around Uppsala until we had to sign up for classes. We checked out the cathedral (which is older than the USA by the way) where they were holding a communion. It was absolutley breathtaking. After that, we went to register for our Intensive Basic Swedish class where we met TONS of people! We all decided to meet back up in an hour to go to ikea together which ended up being such a fun trip! My buddy (the university matches up international students with swedish students and it's been such a big help!) Stina came with us. It was my first time meeting her and she's so nice and helped a ton navigating and telling us where to get alcohol :P The group consisted of 5 californians (two from monterey, two from sonoma and myself), two ladies from the netherlands, two irish girls, a lady from Switzerland, a guy from Germany, an Aussie, a Spanish fellow, Stina and I think that's it. It was so so fun and so great to meet all these new people. After Ikea and the Systembologet (the government-run store when you get alcohol), we split up for dinner, but met back up at Flogsta for drinks. We sat outside on the lawn till midnight exchanging stories and talking about life in the places we're from. I loved it and I'm so excited to see everyone again today.

Finally, this morning I woke up too early again, but finished unpacking and I have my room pretty much the way I want it. I need to go back to Ikea and get some storage things for my desk but I think I"m pretty much set. The girl who lived in my room before me totally hooked me up and left me FOUR duvets (gave one to Riley :P), sheets, a hair dryer and straightener, a phone, ethernet cable, a giant red area rug, hairspray and lots of other little nick nacks. Thank you so much Devin from Illinois!

Alright. I'm off to do some grocery shopping and to buy minutes for my phone, then I have class at one! so excited!!

 my plane!

 do i look scared/topheavy enough?

 tiny room in london.

 room 7.. or...

 lunooy?

 the first swedish meal... pizza.

 mmmmm.

 in the process of unpacking.

 riley already fell asleep in my bed. i haven't even been here 6 hours. goodness.

 devin from illinois is the cooles and left a badass shower curtain.

 welcome to the jungle

 second hand coffee.

 brekky

 to ikea! what a good looking group.

 it was a long day.

 finished unpacking! looks so good!

 probably the neatest it will ever look. let's be honest.

Hej Då!!

Made It!

Hej everyone! I finally got to Uppsala yesterday! Phew. After two planes, one hotel, three taxis, a bus, and too much luggage, I made it. Lordsy. I will have more time for a proper update, but I'll just say for now I'm here and I'm happy (but so tired.)

Details to follow. :)

not switzerland.

oh and side note... please stop asking me about my trip to Switzerland. i have no plans for Switzerland. i am going to Sweden. i know they're both cold countries with mountains and have  a sw beginning but please try to revisit your elementary geography class and note the distance between the two countries. Thanks.

PreSweden: Fourteen days and Stressin'

I've been saving up for and planning this trip for the last two years and don't feel the least bit ready to leave. For a year. In FOURTEEN DAYS. Fourteen days! That's nothing! It took me about a minute to turn fourteen when I was a kid. I'm not sure if everyone understands the brevity of this situation of which I've put myself. I have never moved out of the room in my house that I currently reside. Ever. I was placed in a crib in this room when I was a wee baby, and nothing has changed since. Well yeah I graduated the crib and eventually the twin into a luxurious queen, and I admit that  I made the grave mistake of painting my walls lime green when I was a freshman in highschool and now six years later the color raises my stress levels enormously..... I'm still here. As I pack and clean out my room, I found a Christmas ornament that I made in Mrs. Howry's first grade class. I've found shoeboxes filled with notes from ex boyfriends, leftover felt and pipecleaners from middle school art projects, and a bag filled with clothes specifically for zombie costumes. Ok let's be honest. Everyone knows that last one is fairly recent but that's beside the point... I'm now moving to a DIFFERENT COUNTRY. No cushion. No knowing that I'll always have backup pipecleaners if ever I need them. No knowing that there will always be food in the fridge. No sister's closet to be raided should all my clothes be worn and forgotten to be washed.

I couldn't be more excited.

It's time to move on, and time to make it impossible to turn back. Go big or go home, right? I'm ready to start appreciating California for what it is, and the best way to do that is to leave. GV has been home for 20 years, and I will readily tell anyone how much I love it, but also will easily spew every nuance about this town that makes me crazy. Same with this country. Actually I may hesitate about "loving" the US, I'm still convinced that it's high time the Cali cuts itself off at the plate line (Reno can come with) and starts paddling off into the pacific. We have ample farmland to support ourselves, the chillest people in the country, good food, dope cities, dope, and everything from hot deserts to dusky redwood forests. Hasta La Vista USA! Welcome to the Grand Republic of Cali-for-ni-a.



i digress.

I'm moving away. I'm pumped. I'm suddenly really self-conscious about how people at home are going to be actually reading this. So allow me to delve into something a little more concrete about what awaits for me up north. I'm sure that that is probably why you are here.

Right. I'll be living in and going to school in Uppsala, Sweden at Uppsala university. I will be studying Communications (Uppsala's Department of Informatics and Technology) and will be taking Media, Culture and Society; Media Policy and Regulation; Media Analysis; Strategic Communication and Basic Swedish. Please only ask me what those courses will entail once I have taken them. For now, that is practically all the information I can give you, but I will have you know that being a Comm major takes you places! That's right, two field trips to Berlin and London! So stoked! Anyway I am also really excited to be taking Swedish as well. It is such a beautiful language, and I am so excited to have the opportunity to use my new language every day. Language classes and I don't jive too well, because I can easily remember things when they're fresh, but once I stop practicing and my working memory gets filled with other fluff, it all seems to disappear. Soo hopefully the submersion method will work. Also everyone there speaks english, so that's a nice backup. I'll have all the benefits of learning a language in it's home country, but since all my classes are in English, I won't have that  pressure to master the language super fast that sort of puts a damper on studying abroad. But I mean, to each his own. It's definitely the freeway to fluency, but also sounds terrifying. I'm perfectly content with an easy country highway to superior conversational skills.


I continue to digress. sigh.


I will be living in Flogsta, a cluster of residence halls in Uppsala for International Students and Swedes. From what I hear from past students "flogsta... that place is an animal house." so. crap. but from what I read it honestly sounds like heaven. Each floor has six swedes and six internationals who all share a kitchen and common area. I hear that it is very easy to meet people in Flogsta and that you'll make fast friends with your corridor mates. I get my own room and my own bathroom to deck out to my hearts content in Ikea goodies and I hear tell that there is a sauna on each roof of Flogsta? Ok so maybe the occasional beer can or cigarette butt will fall on my noggin while I'm walking home, or there may be a toga party going on right outside my room, but I'm going to pay my price for my. own. bathroom. And meeting tons of people from all over the country. So yeah, room 222. Easy to remember on the occasionally drunken stumble home (kidding, mom) (ish). Thrilled.

That being said, packing is hard. Only being here for 14 more days is hard. There are so many people I want to see and places I want to visit before I leave. Some other things are easy, like telling people that I don't really care about their problems because they will be a world away in two weeks. Ok that sounds a little mean, but it sounds funnier if you can see my cheeky smile that goes along with it. Of course I care about your problems, I'm just moving away from them. I have bigger fish to fry. Like fermented herring. Which, yes, of course I'm going to try while I'm there. Why do people keep asking me this? I'm going all the way to Sweden, of course I'm going to slather my rye flatbread in a healthy portion of fish in a tube, and I'll like it goddamnit. Like I said: go big or go home. Why travel all that way if all I'm going to do is try to recreate what I left behind?

Righto. I really should be packing. Or doing another budget to make sure for the 12th time that I will not run out of money. Lordsy I sure hope not. I'm fairly certain that I will be alright. oh btw fun fact: I worked at Ike's Quarter Cafe for the last 2 years and saved nearly 100% of my paychecks and most of my tips to fund this year. All me. So if one more person says "you're so lucky you get to go," I might just punch them in the throat because I worked my goddamn ass off to get here. Sorry. It's a sensitive topic. Annnyway.... packing. Right. I really hate leaving on such a negative note. I think it sounds negative if a neutral third party were to read this. Shoot. OK. I'm REALLY excited, already am friends with some people who will be there and they are rad people. I am psyched, honestly. And I am lucky.. I have to admit even to myself. I have a rock solid foundation of family and friends here in Grass Valley, and without those people I know I would not have the courage to go to Sweden... But shhh don't tell anyone. ;)