I just started my first week of my communications course! These classes are in english (phew) and even though half of us are the CSU exchange students from California (sigh...) I'm really enjoying the class and everyone in it. The education system is so different here... I hate to say it, but I feel much more taken care of. They go through great lengths to make sure we have a welcome meeting, reception AND fika to make sure that we meet all the teachers and administrators in the Informatics and Media (Communications) Department. Even people who I'll probably never meet again were introduced to me, along with everyone I'm going to get to know very well. A lot of PhD students will be teaching us, and they seem so enthusiastic and energetic and I'm very excited for their classes to start. Also, we are going on a trip together to Berlin from October 24-29 to visit the DPA (international news center), the Haus des Rufunks (a public service broadcaster), Die Tageszeitung (a newspaper company) and the Topographic des Terrors, a holocaust museum (which will be hard to see, but very important i think). A group of us are trying to organize a group to leave a weekend early or stay a weekend later to be able to explore Berlin a little bit on our own. I'm so stoked! Also, a classmate is organizing a pub crawl for all of us on friday. It will be so good to get to know everyone... and it's so funny that when he announced it in class, the teachers nodded approval. Professors here KNOW that we drink, ask us about it, tell us which nations have the best beer, and if a lot of people are missing one day, they ask us if the party last night was good. They don't push it away like the professors in the US. Just some things I'm noticing....
I also had my swedish final exam today! I'm so glad to be able to stop stressing about it! I thiiiiink I passed... we shall see. I studied a lot of things that weren't even on the test... but if a swede asks me about furniture, parts of the body, or clothes, I will know what they're saying. I think results will be posted on friday. Fingers crossed!
Finally, I had a really interesting conversation with a friend from Germany today. He said that he thought it was funny that a lot of the people from the USA say that they're from "California" or a lot say "San Francisco" "Los Angeles" or "Chicago." He said that people in Germany just say that they're from Germany, and that they'll tell you which city or Provence if they're asked. I said that I got advice from many people to introduce myself as from "cali" instead of the "usa" because California is much more liberal and a better reputation abroad. I told him this, and said that even though I'm very ashamed of many things the US has been responsible for, I'm proud of being from California and (tend to) agree more with the way people in California think as opposed to other places in the US. He said that he understands that and had never really thought of that before, but it also sounds a bit pretentious to assume that everyone knows where Los Angeles is or that it is a part of the US. He said that it sometimes comes across like we assume that our city is more important because everyone will know where it is. This was such an eye- opening thing to say. There are so many little things that we don't even think about that show how engrained culture is in everyone. He is so right, and I feel so lucky to be here, learning about my culture from an outside point of view. We are CONSTANTLY communicating, and when I say "I'm from San Francisco," I'm saying so much more than just sending basic information. Depending on who I'm with, I'm saying that you should know that city, should know that it is in the States, and should know that it is important for some reason. It's making an assumption that everyone knows this city. I want everyone here to be that honest with me. The conversation continued when I realized that if i said that I was from "America," that is immediately diminishing all other countries in the Americas. Yes, there is common understanding that America usually= the USA, but technically we are only a part of all of America.
WHERE AM I FROM NOW?! I asked what he would think if I just said that I was a temporary Swede. He laughed, but said that that might be a good idea. It says that I come from a place that I'm willing to disconnect myself from and that I respect and am interested in the place where I am. Goodie.
I'm just going to have to pay closer attention to everything I say and do. Thankfully, I'm not saying that I'm from Grass Valley and chastising the people who never heard of it (if you want to know how many, it's no one) or anything, but everything I do and say is communicating some sort of message. If I can figure out why the "american" messages are looked down on, then I can begin to learn how to communicate more effectively with more people. That's what a comm major does, right??
Anyway speaking of communicating, I have a pub crawl tomorrow and I need to rest up. There will be all sorts of communicating going on that I need to prepare for. ;)
xxx
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Layne's Kök Part One: An expierence in foregin cooking on a student budget
Layne's Top Tips for Cooking when you don't know how to read anything in the Grocery Store and can barely afford a can of herring:
1. If you're buying it, you're eating it. You can not afford to waste anything, so it's a good idea to invest in a bottle of balsamic vinegar, bbq sauce, pesto, butter, jam, and anything else that will serve to mask the flavor of something burnt, under seasoned, or particularly northern-swedish.
2. unfortunately, if you bought the stinky fish in a can, there is no masking anything. if you must open it, open the can outside, particularly somewhere far away from flogsta or else everyone in the area will hate you forever. your best bet is to give it to Steffan, the swedish professor from the North of Sweden who loves it.
3. When all else fails, buy something that ends in bullar. kanelbullar, kötbullar... these things have not let me down yet and probably bring me the greatest joy.
4. USE. YOUR. FREEZER. yes, mom did know what she was doing. buy the discount package of 200 chicken breasts, freeze them, and you're set forever.
5. invest in some tupperwear and to-go containers. not only can you take snackies to class, but when you make dinner you can double the recipe, save half and have dinner the next two nights. Clas Ohlosn has some bad ass tupperwears in lovely colours that are microwave AND freezer safe for only about 60 SKR for a pack of three... what a deal!
6. Also, people in europe don't really take things home from restaurants. Yes, this makes the hairs on the back of our american necks stand up, but all you have to do is bring your own to-go container and then you're rocking bonus food at resturaunts, buffets, hostel breakfasts.... i taught this trick to my friends in copenhagen, and now they call "borrowing" butter, cheeze or orange juice from hostel breakfasts "dining american-style"... i can live with this. They thought it was hilarous.
7. Canned foods are awesome. They last forever, and are canned when ripe, and not while they're in a truck on their way to whereever they're going. However, don't try to get yourself into a can of tomatoes after a night out at the nations....
8. My basic strategy at the moment is to alternate between my basic starches: rice, pasta or potatoes, my basic veggies: onions, peppers, tomatoes, leeks, mushrooms, spinach, and my basic meats: kötbullar, chicken, ground beef with whatever sauce i can sort of improvise myself through. So far I've succeeded in a really nice plum and balsamic sauce, mushroom soup sauce, jam?, pesto and jam?, olive oil and lime juice....
9. make friend with ethnic people. i can't stress this enough. you can get some lovely sushi, curry, czech dumplings, and germans always know how to rock a bbq.
10. you will eventually buy too much bread and it will get hard and inedible. but useless? i think not. cut into squares and make croutons, crush up and use it to make crispy chicken, or use it to hammer some nails into the wall to hang your shelves on.
11. have fun. you're on an adventure. buy the fjilmojlk. when you find out that it's a bitter buttermilk-flavored yogurt, just make your friends some rockin pancakes.
xxxx
1. If you're buying it, you're eating it. You can not afford to waste anything, so it's a good idea to invest in a bottle of balsamic vinegar, bbq sauce, pesto, butter, jam, and anything else that will serve to mask the flavor of something burnt, under seasoned, or particularly northern-swedish.
2. unfortunately, if you bought the stinky fish in a can, there is no masking anything. if you must open it, open the can outside, particularly somewhere far away from flogsta or else everyone in the area will hate you forever. your best bet is to give it to Steffan, the swedish professor from the North of Sweden who loves it.
3. When all else fails, buy something that ends in bullar. kanelbullar, kötbullar... these things have not let me down yet and probably bring me the greatest joy.
4. USE. YOUR. FREEZER. yes, mom did know what she was doing. buy the discount package of 200 chicken breasts, freeze them, and you're set forever.
5. invest in some tupperwear and to-go containers. not only can you take snackies to class, but when you make dinner you can double the recipe, save half and have dinner the next two nights. Clas Ohlosn has some bad ass tupperwears in lovely colours that are microwave AND freezer safe for only about 60 SKR for a pack of three... what a deal!
6. Also, people in europe don't really take things home from restaurants. Yes, this makes the hairs on the back of our american necks stand up, but all you have to do is bring your own to-go container and then you're rocking bonus food at resturaunts, buffets, hostel breakfasts.... i taught this trick to my friends in copenhagen, and now they call "borrowing" butter, cheeze or orange juice from hostel breakfasts "dining american-style"... i can live with this. They thought it was hilarous.
7. Canned foods are awesome. They last forever, and are canned when ripe, and not while they're in a truck on their way to whereever they're going. However, don't try to get yourself into a can of tomatoes after a night out at the nations....
8. My basic strategy at the moment is to alternate between my basic starches: rice, pasta or potatoes, my basic veggies: onions, peppers, tomatoes, leeks, mushrooms, spinach, and my basic meats: kötbullar, chicken, ground beef with whatever sauce i can sort of improvise myself through. So far I've succeeded in a really nice plum and balsamic sauce, mushroom soup sauce, jam?, pesto and jam?, olive oil and lime juice....
9. make friend with ethnic people. i can't stress this enough. you can get some lovely sushi, curry, czech dumplings, and germans always know how to rock a bbq.
10. you will eventually buy too much bread and it will get hard and inedible. but useless? i think not. cut into squares and make croutons, crush up and use it to make crispy chicken, or use it to hammer some nails into the wall to hang your shelves on.
11. have fun. you're on an adventure. buy the fjilmojlk. when you find out that it's a bitter buttermilk-flavored yogurt, just make your friends some rockin pancakes.
xxxx
Copenhagen and other Inspired Musings
First, I would like to apologize for the last post I made. I said "totally" too many times in a series of about 2 sentences. That's embarrassing. Anyway, I'm sorry. Goes to show how tired I was.
Anyway! I went to Copenhagen last weekend! It was so great! Our group consisted of Ryan from Greece/England, Stephanie from Germany, Maaike from the Netherlands, Veronica from Venezuela, Franzie from Germany, and Jin from Korea. Quite the international group! The weekend started when we had to wake up at 3 am to bike (in the rain!) to the Uppsala Centralstation to catch our bus to Arlanda Airport at 4. We then took a 6am flight into Copenhagen, and in a sleep-deprived stupor, we finally arrived! Taking the metro to our hostel, we dropped off our things (traveling with just a carry-on is one of the most liberating experiences, by the way) and headed into the city. After about 3 cups of coffee at a nearby cafe, we were feeling semi-human and had the enough energy to go exploring. We wandered around the middle of town, where all the streets are cut off to traffic and are just giant shopping streets with about 2 h&m's on every corner, and lots of cute resturaunts and huge tourist shops. Even though it felt like the afternoon to us, it was still about 10 am, and the City was still very calm and quiet. We walked down to the harbor, and found some (very touristy) boat tours of the City and decided that it would be a good way to orient ourselves. We bought tickets (and ciders... they sold them at the ticket booth and Ryan and I were beside ourselves, we're so used to planning ahead to buy alcohol at the Systembologet in Sweden) and hopped on a boat. It took us around the main canal, the harbor, and past the important buildings and places; The opera house, the library, the stock exchange, the palace, christiania, the little mermaid, and other various pointy buildings. After that we grabbed some lunch, and then continued to explore which eventually ended up being an exploration of all the clothes stores in Copenhagen. Poor Ryan. It was really fun, but Denmark is very expensive, so most of us just opted for ice cream instead. There was this one place that only served home made ice cream and it tasted like coldstone... so good!
After that... hummm... it was such a weird day because we were all so excited to be there but so so tired that we were sort of floating through the city.... I think we just went grocery shopping for the weekend, then back to the hostel to make some dinner with the groceries we just bought (forgot condoments though and had some of the dryest sandwiches i've ever had... also we forgot knives so we had to bite the sandwich, bite the tomato and hope the ratios in our mouth was ok), and then we sat with some other people from the hostel and they gave us advice about what to do with Copenhagen the next two days. They were so nice and very funny, one guy from Manchester who was studying in Edinburgh, the same university as Ryan. Small world. And then two other guys from Germany came and sat with us as well. As much as we wanted to stay and chat, we were practically holding our eyelids open with our hands and needed to crash soon!
The next morning Maaike and I left early to go the the Hans Christian Anderson museum. It was really good and had a lot of displays about the different stories and parts of his life, but I think it was pretty sugar-coated. He had such a sad life, and so many of his stories are so melancholy... oh well I guess it was more of a "family" attraction. After that, most of us took the train up to the Lousiana Modern Art museum. It was incredible. It was really far out of the city, but totally worth the trip. We saw some great sculptures in the garden, a picasso, these really interesting video installments, a whole room filled with drawings on Ipads, and a huge gallery about how people live and what makes "home." This installation was fascinating at this stage in my life, where I've moved from one home to another. They also had a room that was dedicated to Burning Man... It made me miss Nevada City! There were a ton of burning man videos and I was searching in the background for Amy Putman or Corey but didn't recognize anyone. There were also pieces about virtual living and what social networking means to the home, and there was a huge display about different kinds of apartment living; from giant duplexes to the chinese "cage houses."... we thought Flogsta should be on display along with the cage houses :P oh and sadly my camera battery died while at the art museum! I only got to document half of the trip! :( good thing everyone else had cameras and can share pics :)
After the Lousiana, we went to the Hard Rock cafe (everyone wanted to go there! I was the official menu-translator for what an 8 oz burger is and what fajitas are). Getting there was pretty funny... we were on the train back from Lousiana and when we got off, Veronica turned to me in a panic and said that she left her backpack on the train, and then jumped back on. As she turned back around, the doors shut, and the train zoomed off. We were all shocked and didn't know if we should wait or meet her at the Hard Rock when five mintues later I got a text from her telling us that she just made us a reservation at the hard Rock cafe. Turns out that the next stop was right next to the restaurant and she just bopped right in. After that, more ice cream, then we crashed again at our hostel.
Monday morning we took a bit of a self-made walking tour around town, and went up to the little mermaid to take pictures with all the Asian bus tours of the statue. It's so weird because when I was really little, we went on a family trip to "Little Denmark" in California (Mom, do you remember what that town was called?) and someone bought all of us kids a statue of the Little Mermaid that said "Danmark" on the bottom. I had no idea what it was or what it ment, but it's been in my room for almost as long as I can remember. I do remember Kels, Rachel and I taking little strips of fabric and making her shirts because her boobs were all over the place, but once I got older I discovered what it really was... give it a few more years and there I was, standing right in front of the real thing!
After the little mermaid, we carried on to christiana.... what a trip. It was established in the 70's as a community "independent"from Denmark and the EU. They were tolerated for a long time with their own laws (these laws primarily being to legalize marijuana) and for a while even their own currency. Not until recently (my history is sort of hazy here actually... i'm suffering here without my Rick Steve's Scandinavia book!) did Danish law sort of take over and marijuana was made illegal, but it was still being sold right out on the streets in a section of the town called the green light district. so bizzare! it was so blatently obvious when young men would casually breeze in, buy some and then leave with an inconspicuous shopping bag. Rules about the green light district were posted everywhere: have fun, no running, no photography because weed is still illegal. I don't know if the police in Denmark still bother because it seemed like such common knowledge that you can just stroll into Christiana and buy weed and leave. Oh well. It really reminded me of home in a funny way tho. Yes, Grass Valley is one of the main places in California where marijuana is grown, and especially working in a hippy restaurant in town, i'm going to be around it. It's the first time since being here that i've been around weed because drugs are so looked down on in Sweden. It's very interesting because they view it as someone taking the whole society down and being a burden for everyone because the rehab programs are state-run. Everyone is paying for it if someone gets themselves into trouble, so very few people actually do it. This is such a different mentality than we have in the states. Anyway.... outside of the green light district, there was a market place with lots of hippy jewelry and cheap stuff which was fun to browse. After Christiana, we went to the Church of Our Lady Saviour (i THINK this is the name... don't quote me on it) which has this huge spire where you can climb to the top with a stair case on the OUTSIDE which i admit was terrifying but so worth the climb. Veronica was so scared of heights but wanted to climb it so badly... she was screaming the whole time but made it! It was hilarous... she was near the front of the group and I was in the back and we could always hear where she was.. :P The view from the top was magnificent and we could see the whole city and the bay and the Ørson Bridge which links Denmark to Sweden.
Unfortunately after that, we had to hustle back to our hostel so that we could take the metro back to the airport in time. We were so worried that we would be late, but the train was so fast and we were so early to check in, we had a lot of time in the airport... lucky for me there was an H&M inside and I just happened to have some danish kroner left... how did that happen?! ;) Soon we were flying home, bussing home, and finally biking back to flogsta. We came back on the suggested move-in date for all of the new students for the fall semester, and flogsta was ALIVE. There was a bumping party on the roof of block five and there were students swarming everywhere. The calm and empty summer semester was officially over, and now the town is back to being a university town. I was loving copenhagen, but became strangely homesick for my room in flogsta, my comphy ikea bed, my own shower and my friends in uppsala. I was so happy to flop down into my bed and breathe in my Swedish air, and then go to class the next morning and see everyone.
xxxx
Anyway! I went to Copenhagen last weekend! It was so great! Our group consisted of Ryan from Greece/England, Stephanie from Germany, Maaike from the Netherlands, Veronica from Venezuela, Franzie from Germany, and Jin from Korea. Quite the international group! The weekend started when we had to wake up at 3 am to bike (in the rain!) to the Uppsala Centralstation to catch our bus to Arlanda Airport at 4. We then took a 6am flight into Copenhagen, and in a sleep-deprived stupor, we finally arrived! Taking the metro to our hostel, we dropped off our things (traveling with just a carry-on is one of the most liberating experiences, by the way) and headed into the city. After about 3 cups of coffee at a nearby cafe, we were feeling semi-human and had the enough energy to go exploring. We wandered around the middle of town, where all the streets are cut off to traffic and are just giant shopping streets with about 2 h&m's on every corner, and lots of cute resturaunts and huge tourist shops. Even though it felt like the afternoon to us, it was still about 10 am, and the City was still very calm and quiet. We walked down to the harbor, and found some (very touristy) boat tours of the City and decided that it would be a good way to orient ourselves. We bought tickets (and ciders... they sold them at the ticket booth and Ryan and I were beside ourselves, we're so used to planning ahead to buy alcohol at the Systembologet in Sweden) and hopped on a boat. It took us around the main canal, the harbor, and past the important buildings and places; The opera house, the library, the stock exchange, the palace, christiania, the little mermaid, and other various pointy buildings. After that we grabbed some lunch, and then continued to explore which eventually ended up being an exploration of all the clothes stores in Copenhagen. Poor Ryan. It was really fun, but Denmark is very expensive, so most of us just opted for ice cream instead. There was this one place that only served home made ice cream and it tasted like coldstone... so good!
After that... hummm... it was such a weird day because we were all so excited to be there but so so tired that we were sort of floating through the city.... I think we just went grocery shopping for the weekend, then back to the hostel to make some dinner with the groceries we just bought (forgot condoments though and had some of the dryest sandwiches i've ever had... also we forgot knives so we had to bite the sandwich, bite the tomato and hope the ratios in our mouth was ok), and then we sat with some other people from the hostel and they gave us advice about what to do with Copenhagen the next two days. They were so nice and very funny, one guy from Manchester who was studying in Edinburgh, the same university as Ryan. Small world. And then two other guys from Germany came and sat with us as well. As much as we wanted to stay and chat, we were practically holding our eyelids open with our hands and needed to crash soon!
The next morning Maaike and I left early to go the the Hans Christian Anderson museum. It was really good and had a lot of displays about the different stories and parts of his life, but I think it was pretty sugar-coated. He had such a sad life, and so many of his stories are so melancholy... oh well I guess it was more of a "family" attraction. After that, most of us took the train up to the Lousiana Modern Art museum. It was incredible. It was really far out of the city, but totally worth the trip. We saw some great sculptures in the garden, a picasso, these really interesting video installments, a whole room filled with drawings on Ipads, and a huge gallery about how people live and what makes "home." This installation was fascinating at this stage in my life, where I've moved from one home to another. They also had a room that was dedicated to Burning Man... It made me miss Nevada City! There were a ton of burning man videos and I was searching in the background for Amy Putman or Corey but didn't recognize anyone. There were also pieces about virtual living and what social networking means to the home, and there was a huge display about different kinds of apartment living; from giant duplexes to the chinese "cage houses."... we thought Flogsta should be on display along with the cage houses :P oh and sadly my camera battery died while at the art museum! I only got to document half of the trip! :( good thing everyone else had cameras and can share pics :)
After the Lousiana, we went to the Hard Rock cafe (everyone wanted to go there! I was the official menu-translator for what an 8 oz burger is and what fajitas are). Getting there was pretty funny... we were on the train back from Lousiana and when we got off, Veronica turned to me in a panic and said that she left her backpack on the train, and then jumped back on. As she turned back around, the doors shut, and the train zoomed off. We were all shocked and didn't know if we should wait or meet her at the Hard Rock when five mintues later I got a text from her telling us that she just made us a reservation at the hard Rock cafe. Turns out that the next stop was right next to the restaurant and she just bopped right in. After that, more ice cream, then we crashed again at our hostel.
Monday morning we took a bit of a self-made walking tour around town, and went up to the little mermaid to take pictures with all the Asian bus tours of the statue. It's so weird because when I was really little, we went on a family trip to "Little Denmark" in California (Mom, do you remember what that town was called?) and someone bought all of us kids a statue of the Little Mermaid that said "Danmark" on the bottom. I had no idea what it was or what it ment, but it's been in my room for almost as long as I can remember. I do remember Kels, Rachel and I taking little strips of fabric and making her shirts because her boobs were all over the place, but once I got older I discovered what it really was... give it a few more years and there I was, standing right in front of the real thing!
After the little mermaid, we carried on to christiana.... what a trip. It was established in the 70's as a community "independent"from Denmark and the EU. They were tolerated for a long time with their own laws (these laws primarily being to legalize marijuana) and for a while even their own currency. Not until recently (my history is sort of hazy here actually... i'm suffering here without my Rick Steve's Scandinavia book!) did Danish law sort of take over and marijuana was made illegal, but it was still being sold right out on the streets in a section of the town called the green light district. so bizzare! it was so blatently obvious when young men would casually breeze in, buy some and then leave with an inconspicuous shopping bag. Rules about the green light district were posted everywhere: have fun, no running, no photography because weed is still illegal. I don't know if the police in Denmark still bother because it seemed like such common knowledge that you can just stroll into Christiana and buy weed and leave. Oh well. It really reminded me of home in a funny way tho. Yes, Grass Valley is one of the main places in California where marijuana is grown, and especially working in a hippy restaurant in town, i'm going to be around it. It's the first time since being here that i've been around weed because drugs are so looked down on in Sweden. It's very interesting because they view it as someone taking the whole society down and being a burden for everyone because the rehab programs are state-run. Everyone is paying for it if someone gets themselves into trouble, so very few people actually do it. This is such a different mentality than we have in the states. Anyway.... outside of the green light district, there was a market place with lots of hippy jewelry and cheap stuff which was fun to browse. After Christiana, we went to the Church of Our Lady Saviour (i THINK this is the name... don't quote me on it) which has this huge spire where you can climb to the top with a stair case on the OUTSIDE which i admit was terrifying but so worth the climb. Veronica was so scared of heights but wanted to climb it so badly... she was screaming the whole time but made it! It was hilarous... she was near the front of the group and I was in the back and we could always hear where she was.. :P The view from the top was magnificent and we could see the whole city and the bay and the Ørson Bridge which links Denmark to Sweden. Unfortunately after that, we had to hustle back to our hostel so that we could take the metro back to the airport in time. We were so worried that we would be late, but the train was so fast and we were so early to check in, we had a lot of time in the airport... lucky for me there was an H&M inside and I just happened to have some danish kroner left... how did that happen?! ;) Soon we were flying home, bussing home, and finally biking back to flogsta. We came back on the suggested move-in date for all of the new students for the fall semester, and flogsta was ALIVE. There was a bumping party on the roof of block five and there were students swarming everywhere. The calm and empty summer semester was officially over, and now the town is back to being a university town. I was loving copenhagen, but became strangely homesick for my room in flogsta, my comphy ikea bed, my own shower and my friends in uppsala. I was so happy to flop down into my bed and breathe in my Swedish air, and then go to class the next morning and see everyone.
xxxx
Thursday, August 18, 2011
the movits!
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=movits+sammy+davis+jr&aq=0&oq=movits!+samm
Last night, this band was playing in Uppsala (for free!) and they were so good! Take a listen! They're apparently quite big here in Sweden and everyone was so stoked that they were here. They totally rocked and even though I'm totally knackered today, last night was totally worth it.
Last night, this band was playing in Uppsala (for free!) and they were so good! Take a listen! They're apparently quite big here in Sweden and everyone was so stoked that they were here. They totally rocked and even though I'm totally knackered today, last night was totally worth it.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
pictures from weeks 3 and 4... and they're way out of order. :/... please read the text part of this post (below) first!!! I'm handicapped at internet stuff
Flax angles in Gamla Uppsala
"god touched me with his paddle"
Gah it's been two weeks! Time here is so hard to keep track of! It seems like a lifetime ago when I was saying goodbye (crying goodbye more like it) to my family at SFO, but one week here goes by in an instant. I have been here exactly four weeks total! It went by so fast, but when I think back to everything I have done, it seems like I've lived a two months in 4 weeks. Alright... let me go back and think about what I have done since last we spoke....
Right. We had an international bbq put on by the international committee of Uppsala (no they didn't bbq the international students... dad I knew you would jump on that one) which was so so fun. We all had little portable grills and bbq-ed little weenies and hamburgers and veggies and drank beers and had a chance to meet everyone else on exchange, plus the international committee members and other important people.
right. so a few days after the last blog post, we went on our first tour with our class. This tour was around Upplands, the province of Sweden that Uppsala is in. We visited the summer house of Carl Von Linné, the very important Swede and Uppsala University alumni who invented the classification system of plants and animals. Brilliant man, but sort of an ego-maniac, as our tour guide liked to point out. Carl's wife's room had not one but six portraits of him in it, and just one of her, only because it was a set of paintings to go with another one of his. It was fascinating to see where he took his students for lectures and to see the very desk and chair he was sitting in when he invented the classification system. Also, he wallpapered his room with the pages of an extra book that was sent to him by mistake... I want to do this in my room! :P It was very hip.
After that, we went to the castle at Skokloster which was filled with lots of guns and things. The story behind this castle is that when the Son of the King asended the throne, he wanted to show up his father, so he built a gigantic castle right next to the "castle" that his father lived in. The difference is huge... I think that there is an ego issue here as well. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the castle tho.. :( But it was still very interesting, and the coffee in the cafe was very good. :P
After that, we went to the oldest (and maybe smallest) village in Sweden called Sigtuna. It was so cute and I wish that we could have spent more time there! Sigtuna is this little medieval town that takes about 3 minutes to walk through (remind you of anything back there in grass valley? ;) ) . We also went to some ruins of an old church, and as we were forbidden to go inside, our guide told us to climb in once he wasn't looking because it would be a lot of paper for him to deal with. So, naturally, he went for ice cream and we hopped the fence and had a look inside. So fascinating! It turns out that the kings of Sigtuna were trying so hard to keep up with the rest of Europe that they built nine christian churches in Sigtuna because they thought you had to build a new one for each coronation. It took nine kings before they got the memo that you can use the same church! I want to go back to Sigtuna again and have a better look at the sea and the other ruins.
The next day, sunday, we took a trip to Åland, a Finnish island near(ish) Sweden where you and get a bus from Uppsala to the ferry, then a ferry to åland and then a ferry/bus back all for only 90 skr (about $14... what a steal!) On the ferry ride there, we terrorized the buffet as one would expect from a group of students from Germany/Czech/Spain/England/Greece/America and... well... Korea (but she still put it away as well). Germans amaze me.. I was two plated down and pretty finished, whereas the Germans were on 4 or 5 and still going strong. They are also the best coaches for eating. "Don't fill with bread, don't let yourself stop or you'll feel full..." they're geniuses. Anway we ate the Smörgasbörd which was a little bit of everything (pickled herring!!!) and then had adventure time in Åland. We didn't really have any plans of what to do once we were there, so we just walked along the beach. We found a "nice" swimming area where some brave people took a swim, and it was there that Danny the Spaniard found a giant paddle about 3 meters long. Oh and he loved that paddle. He loved it so much that he proceeded to drag it all over Åland, take it on the ferry, the bus, and finally on his bike back to Flogsta, which isn't a quick bike ride. Currently, the paddle lives in his corridor and comes out for parties, and it has it's own facebook account. It's basically a local celebrity at this point. Anyway we explored a "town" called Storby for a bit, if you blinked you missed it, and had some coffee and took some silly pictures. As we started heading back to the harbor, we had about 40 minutes to walk, a giant downpour came and we were soaked in about 2 minutes. It was insane. We showed up to the ferry soaking and dripping and so miserable. It was awful at the time but now makes for a very good story!
After that it was business as usual. Class in the morning, studying, nations and roof parties in the evening. We had a trip to Gamla Uppsala after class one day. Gamla means old, and it is the original place where Uppsala started in the Viking days. There is an open air museum there where we had a tour of old farming houses (during the winter, everyone lived in the kitchen, maybe 15 people plus the animals! all winter! incredible! and during the summer, everyone lived in different houses all spread out... too much together time!) and then we had craft time where we learned how to make fiber out of flax stalks and we made little angles with them. And then we had fika and played old viking games and walked on stilts (i did it!) and it was a lot of fun.
hummmm more socializing, nations, dancing, fika, class... lalalala then we went to STOCKHOLM! This was another class tour and it was so much fun! we saw the Vasa Warship that sank about a minute after setting sail and has been preserved in the Stockholm harbor until it was brought to shore in the 50's. Amazing. Then we went to Gamla Stan (there is that Gamla word again, and Stan means city) where there is the Castle and lots of touristy shops. There was a shirt there that says I <3 Swedish Boys that was all too tempting to buy... and then I was seriously concerned about myself that I actually wanted to buy it....
After Stockholm, my body finally started yelling at me and telling me to slow the hell down. I spent almost all day monday and tuesday in bed (i DID make it to class thank you very much) and my bike had a flat tire both those days, so both my bike and I took a few days off. But now I patched my bike (I can patch a bike now! I'm so hardcore!) and I feel a million times better and I'm ready to take on Uppsala again. I also went to the migration board which is the Swedish equivalent of the DMV and we had to wait there for about 2 hours to get our photos and fingerprints taken. But now I won't be deported, so It's worth it. :) I also met with my international coordinator and the head of the Informatics and Media department so i'm officially official, I'm registered, have my welcome pack, and told my coordinator that if i pass swedish one, then I want to sign up for Swedish two! Gah! It's so hard, but I want to learn it so bad!!
uh what else? I'm trying to post pictures but it's really difficult.... i'm probably doing something wrong.
So I'm just going to post this and then do a new post with pictures? I'm sure you all understand. :) Anyway I have to go.. tonight my friend Chris is making us Curry! and he's from Australia.... hrmmm....
lots of love!!
xxxxx
Right. We had an international bbq put on by the international committee of Uppsala (no they didn't bbq the international students... dad I knew you would jump on that one) which was so so fun. We all had little portable grills and bbq-ed little weenies and hamburgers and veggies and drank beers and had a chance to meet everyone else on exchange, plus the international committee members and other important people.
right. so a few days after the last blog post, we went on our first tour with our class. This tour was around Upplands, the province of Sweden that Uppsala is in. We visited the summer house of Carl Von Linné, the very important Swede and Uppsala University alumni who invented the classification system of plants and animals. Brilliant man, but sort of an ego-maniac, as our tour guide liked to point out. Carl's wife's room had not one but six portraits of him in it, and just one of her, only because it was a set of paintings to go with another one of his. It was fascinating to see where he took his students for lectures and to see the very desk and chair he was sitting in when he invented the classification system. Also, he wallpapered his room with the pages of an extra book that was sent to him by mistake... I want to do this in my room! :P It was very hip.
After that, we went to the castle at Skokloster which was filled with lots of guns and things. The story behind this castle is that when the Son of the King asended the throne, he wanted to show up his father, so he built a gigantic castle right next to the "castle" that his father lived in. The difference is huge... I think that there is an ego issue here as well. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the castle tho.. :( But it was still very interesting, and the coffee in the cafe was very good. :P 
After that, we went to the oldest (and maybe smallest) village in Sweden called Sigtuna. It was so cute and I wish that we could have spent more time there! Sigtuna is this little medieval town that takes about 3 minutes to walk through (remind you of anything back there in grass valley? ;) ) . We also went to some ruins of an old church, and as we were forbidden to go inside, our guide told us to climb in once he wasn't looking because it would be a lot of paper for him to deal with. So, naturally, he went for ice cream and we hopped the fence and had a look inside. So fascinating! It turns out that the kings of Sigtuna were trying so hard to keep up with the rest of Europe that they built nine christian churches in Sigtuna because they thought you had to build a new one for each coronation. It took nine kings before they got the memo that you can use the same church! I want to go back to Sigtuna again and have a better look at the sea and the other ruins. The next day, sunday, we took a trip to Åland, a Finnish island near(ish) Sweden where you and get a bus from Uppsala to the ferry, then a ferry to åland and then a ferry/bus back all for only 90 skr (about $14... what a steal!) On the ferry ride there, we terrorized the buffet as one would expect from a group of students from Germany/Czech/Spain/England/Greece/America and... well... Korea (but she still put it away as well). Germans amaze me.. I was two plated down and pretty finished, whereas the Germans were on 4 or 5 and still going strong. They are also the best coaches for eating. "Don't fill with bread, don't let yourself stop or you'll feel full..." they're geniuses. Anway we ate the Smörgasbörd which was a little bit of everything (pickled herring!!!) and then had adventure time in Åland. We didn't really have any plans of what to do once we were there, so we just walked along the beach. We found a "nice" swimming area where some brave people took a swim, and it was there that Danny the Spaniard found a giant paddle about 3 meters long. Oh and he loved that paddle. He loved it so much that he proceeded to drag it all over Åland, take it on the ferry, the bus, and finally on his bike back to Flogsta, which isn't a quick bike ride. Currently, the paddle lives in his corridor and comes out for parties, and it has it's own facebook account. It's basically a local celebrity at this point. Anyway we explored a "town" called Storby for a bit, if you blinked you missed it, and had some coffee and took some silly pictures. As we started heading back to the harbor, we had about 40 minutes to walk, a giant downpour came and we were soaked in about 2 minutes. It was insane. We showed up to the ferry soaking and dripping and so miserable. It was awful at the time but now makes for a very good story!
After that it was business as usual. Class in the morning, studying, nations and roof parties in the evening. We had a trip to Gamla Uppsala after class one day. Gamla means old, and it is the original place where Uppsala started in the Viking days. There is an open air museum there where we had a tour of old farming houses (during the winter, everyone lived in the kitchen, maybe 15 people plus the animals! all winter! incredible! and during the summer, everyone lived in different houses all spread out... too much together time!) and then we had craft time where we learned how to make fiber out of flax stalks and we made little angles with them. And then we had fika and played old viking games and walked on stilts (i did it!) and it was a lot of fun.
hummmm more socializing, nations, dancing, fika, class... lalalala then we went to STOCKHOLM! This was another class tour and it was so much fun! we saw the Vasa Warship that sank about a minute after setting sail and has been preserved in the Stockholm harbor until it was brought to shore in the 50's. Amazing. Then we went to Gamla Stan (there is that Gamla word again, and Stan means city) where there is the Castle and lots of touristy shops. There was a shirt there that says I <3 Swedish Boys that was all too tempting to buy... and then I was seriously concerned about myself that I actually wanted to buy it....
After Stockholm, my body finally started yelling at me and telling me to slow the hell down. I spent almost all day monday and tuesday in bed (i DID make it to class thank you very much) and my bike had a flat tire both those days, so both my bike and I took a few days off. But now I patched my bike (I can patch a bike now! I'm so hardcore!) and I feel a million times better and I'm ready to take on Uppsala again. I also went to the migration board which is the Swedish equivalent of the DMV and we had to wait there for about 2 hours to get our photos and fingerprints taken. But now I won't be deported, so It's worth it. :) I also met with my international coordinator and the head of the Informatics and Media department so i'm officially official, I'm registered, have my welcome pack, and told my coordinator that if i pass swedish one, then I want to sign up for Swedish two! Gah! It's so hard, but I want to learn it so bad!!
uh what else? I'm trying to post pictures but it's really difficult.... i'm probably doing something wrong.
So I'm just going to post this and then do a new post with pictures? I'm sure you all understand. :) Anyway I have to go.. tonight my friend Chris is making us Curry! and he's from Australia.... hrmmm....
lots of love!!
xxxxx
Friday, August 5, 2011
favourite things about uppsala (no particular order)
1. meeting so many new people. granted, this one is kind of a given, but it is still my top #1 favorite thing about being here.
2. seeing a 12th century cathedral from everywhere in the city.
3. swedish classes with Steffan and figuring out how to make and understand 28 different vowl sounds (maybe this should be on a least-favourite list...:P)
4. the shower curtian that the ex-tenant left me
5. night-cycling
6. gatherings on the roof
7. the 10:00 flogsta yell and the guy in block 9 who plays his trumpet instead of yelling
8. swedish meatballs.
9. when danny the spaniard is telling me about the american midwest and says that they need their guns to get the tornados off their land
10. sommersby pear cider
11. how fit my legs are going to be from all the biking
12. hearing so many different accents all day long
13. ikea and claus ohlson (the best stores ever!)
14. being in the bbc (blue bike club)
15. meeting someone new every day
16. cross-cultural sex jokes
17. when people working at the stores only talk to me in swedish and i get away with not knowing what they're saying and still look and sound "swedish"
18. franz's pointing game
19. FIKA
20. the way my swedish hairspray smells
21. the squeegie in my bathroom
22. how people here say toilet instead of bathroom
23. fanta
24. biking on cobblestones (initially it's fun and silly... but after a while my bum starts to die a little bit)
25. how everyone smells really good
26. delicious sushi
27. the breaks during classes when all the international kids get together and make plans for the rest of the day
28. dancing at the nations
29. cooking for my friends
30. the fact that i've only been here one week and feel like i've already had a life-altering experience
2. seeing a 12th century cathedral from everywhere in the city.
3. swedish classes with Steffan and figuring out how to make and understand 28 different vowl sounds (maybe this should be on a least-favourite list...:P)
4. the shower curtian that the ex-tenant left me
5. night-cycling
6. gatherings on the roof
7. the 10:00 flogsta yell and the guy in block 9 who plays his trumpet instead of yelling
8. swedish meatballs.
9. when danny the spaniard is telling me about the american midwest and says that they need their guns to get the tornados off their land
10. sommersby pear cider
11. how fit my legs are going to be from all the biking
12. hearing so many different accents all day long
13. ikea and claus ohlson (the best stores ever!)
14. being in the bbc (blue bike club)
15. meeting someone new every day
16. cross-cultural sex jokes
17. when people working at the stores only talk to me in swedish and i get away with not knowing what they're saying and still look and sound "swedish"
18. franz's pointing game
19. FIKA
20. the way my swedish hairspray smells
21. the squeegie in my bathroom
22. how people here say toilet instead of bathroom
23. fanta
24. biking on cobblestones (initially it's fun and silly... but after a while my bum starts to die a little bit)
25. how everyone smells really good
26. delicious sushi
27. the breaks during classes when all the international kids get together and make plans for the rest of the day
28. dancing at the nations
29. cooking for my friends
30. the fact that i've only been here one week and feel like i've already had a life-altering experience
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
one week and wraping my head around my new reality
 |
| oh bugger. i meant for all these pictures to be at the end and don't have the patience anymore to move them. so i guess here is a little preview to what you're about to read. this is the roof of my building. |
I can't believe that I've been here for a week already. Although time has flown by, I feel as if I have had to completely re-learn how to do everything! Just opening doors was hard the first few days (ok fine, i'm still having major issues) but I'm almost all settled and on my feet. I have a swedish phone, I have paid my first month of swedish rent, i have my bus card, my room keys, i (almost) have my swedish bank account, and I'm getting my bike tomorrow. I have class in the morning and so many friends to see, plus my own space to sit and study. I take back what I said in the first post; I am a HIGHLY lucky lady and I can't be more humbled with what I have experienced this first week.
I (attempt to) wake up at 7:30 and am out the door at 8:30 to walk to my 9:00 class (these times being: halv ätta, halv nio och nio klocken, respectively... yeah i learned how to tell time today). I always run into another international student on the way there and the walk is never boring. Swedish class is from 9-12 but they go by so fast. I'm the only american in my class, and it's fascinating to be in a class with people from new zeland to tiwan to france to austria all learning the same languge. I feel like I'm cheating tho... they are learning their third or fourth language (and everyone's english is SO GOOD) and I just happen to know english. There are so many things that I don't know and I'm so determined to be bilingual at some point in my life. Rant. anyway.
class is great. my teacher's name is steffan, and i'm learning a lot, but they call it an intensive for a reason. homework piles up and the swedish words are hard to remember but i think it's sticking, especially because i can go out and practice often. today i had an entire transaction at clas olson (the best store ever that sells EVERYTHING) entirely in swedish (ok so what if all i said was hej and tack so mycket...i understood, right?) and that was really exciting. we had a presentation on swedish food on tuesday and got to sample pickled herring (sill inlagd... hard to get down...) salmon with some sort of mustard sauce (lax gravad), smoked reindeer (rökt ren... just like ham) kötbullar med lingonsylt (oops i swapped.... meatballs with lingon berry sauce... so yum!) , some knäckebröd med messmör (crispy bread with this cheese by-product spread.. it was kinda sweet and like some sort of frosting? hard to describe but really läckra) and finally fika (coffee with little cakes or cookies) i also won two liters of this drink called must that they only sell during the holidays and easter because i answered a question about swedish xmas smörgasbörd. it tastes like a mix between cola and beer (öl... very important to know in swedish) and although i still can't figure out if i like it or not, i've almost drank a half a liter while writing this. hence this lovely picture to the left. after class there is always something to do. usually it's running around buying phones or looking for used bikes or going grocery shopping and having picnics by the river. On sunday, we had a tour of the Uppsala Cathedrial, the University museum and the Carolina Redivevia library. it was so fascinating (btw almost everything here is older than my country) and I got to meet the other people in my group. After the tour, a huge group of us (almost all the exchange students, probably 20 of us) went by bus to the lake. it was so nice to sit in the sun and take a dip and then sit and talk for hours. Then on monday after class, i did some homework at my friend riley's house, and as i was on my way home, thinking about how nice sleep is going to be, I ran into a group of other flogsta people who literally grabbed my shoulders, turned me around and told me that i'm going the wrong way, no excuses. So that night I went out again. we went to the norrlands pub and it was so fun to sit in a giant drunken united nations of college students. then last night we had a sort of roof party where we did the 10:00 flogsta scream, and then most of us went out to the nations, but i stayed on the roof with a few other people and sat and talked till the wee hours. I love going out in groups, but I also really enjoy spending time getting to know a few people at a time.
and then today after class i went out to lunch with a swedish lady and then fika with a swedish guy i met at the first nation we went to. they are SO nice and it was good to talk to people who know what they're doing. They gave me some pointers on my swedish and it was a really good day.
anyway we (the international kids) are pretty wiped out and today everyone is turning in pretty early. the difficult thing is that the sun stays up so late that it's hard to judge when it's time to go to bed! this is the first night that i haven't had any plans (i better not go outside or get on facebook tho, that may change! i'm so easily convinced to go out!) and i finally have a chance to sit and update my blog, study some swedish and tidy up my room.
oooo i should also explain the nations! i don't think that i have. ok. imagine a mix between american frats/sororities and the houses in harry potter. nations are student clubs that everyone is required to join. there is one nation that represents each provence in sweden (if this existed in california, there would be like a humbolt nation, a bay area nation, an LA nation etc) and it was started so that students can meet other students from their areas. Now anyone can join any nation, and they are sort of the social center of the students. each (most?) nation has a resturaunt, pub, and club and they host events throughout the year. also they have clubs within the nation that people can join, like sports and music and it just a really great way to meet people. I've meet loads of new people every night i've been to one! I have a temporary pass to each one, but by september i have to choose which one to join and i have no idea! i've been to snerkis' club night, v-dala, upplands for dinner and norrlands for pub night. they're all so good and so different! I think there are...13? 16? I don't quite remember, but i have a lot of work running around to all of them before i decide.
let's see... is there anything i forgot? i don't think so.... this is a pretty long post. goes to show how much has happened in one week! i miss you all.... please let me know how you're doing! send me letters!! :)
love you all!!
xxx
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