Planning for a Russia trip!

Wednesday, January 26 -

This evening I went to Uplands Nation for the Russian Night.  It began with generous helpings of borsch (борщ), prepared by Uplands students who had gone to Russia the previous semester - or at least my Russian training tells me it was борщ, they just identified it as Russian soup.  I quite liked it, although as the Uplanders said they had just got the recipe off the Internet and had never made it before, it may not have been the most authentic борщ ever.  Afterwards, they gave a presentation on their trip to Russia the previous semester.  Not the most professional presentation ever, but it still had some useful information.  The trips involve taking a boat to Finland, and then a bus into Russia.  There are three trip options, all involving St. Petersburg, two involving Moscow as well, and the last adding Helsinki.  Not surprisingly, the St. Petersburg-only option is the least expensive.  I've yet to decide which I will take.  Considering that Moscow will add travel time, I'm not sure the 7-day Moscow + St. Petersburg trip is really worth it over the 6-day St. Petersburg trip, given the noticeable added expense (480 euros vs. 325 euros, not including visa application fees).  The trip with Helsinki is 9 days, and we'd probably be going by Helsinki on bus anyway, so it may make more sense  than the Moscow + St. Petersburg one (560 euros, also without visa fees).  Regardless, it's less expensive than the flight alone would be if I were traveling from the States, so I might as well visit Russia while I'm this close.

In addition to борщ-identifying skills, my Russian came in handy yesterday after the reception with the vice chancellor.  Inside the entrance to the main building, several students and I noticed there were tourist maps, highlighting main sites in Uppsala as well as providing another map, which is always a good thing.  But it was entirely in Russian!  We didn't know why it was in Russian until one of the professors came by and explained that the main university building received approximately 300 Russian visitors per day (presumably when the weather is better, I haven't seen many tourists at all this time of year), and many of them didn't speak English or Swedish.  My Russian isn't good enough to read the entire map, but I can read part of it, and knowing how Cyrillic is pronounced further helps identify landmarks whose Swedish name I recognize.  The list contains 14 locations:

• The Cathedral of Uppsala
  
• Uppsala University
  
• The University's Museum Gustavianum
  
• Uplands Museum
  
• The Carolina Rediviva Library
  
• Uppsala Castle
  
• The Botanical Gardens (best to see when it's warmer)
  
• The House of Bror Hjorth (a Swedish artist)
  
• The Museum of Evolution
  
• The Museum of Linnaeus
  
• The Concert and Conference House of Uppsala
  
• The Biotope?  Not really sure about this one
  
• The Sports Complex "Fyrishov"
  
• Old Uppsala
  

So the next time I wonder what to see around Uppsala, I have a list!  I've already made a start on the list, but there's certainly more to see, which is good since I've been here less than a fortnight.  Old Uppsala is one item that deserves a greater description.  Originally, Uppsala was located north of here.  However, over time, the river shifted and the ships got bigger, and it's long not been feasible for ships to reach the location of the original settlement.  Thus the settlement moved downstream, which is to the south as it worked out.  Old Uppsala is where the original settlement, from Viking times, is.  Many people have highly recommended that I visit it, so at some point I will be. After the Russian Night, I went to the Kalmar Nation pub, where I socialized with some other internationals (two Americans and a German, and for awhile a Finn), and we came to talking with some very friendly Swedes at the same table.  I have now met a Swede named Bjorn, which is thus far the coolest name for a Swede I have met, besting Magnus.  I have also met someone with a "Viva la Revolucion" tattoo - not to be alarmed, she isn't anarchist or anything else likely to land me in a Swedish prison.  It's interesting to hear the Swedish perspective on the world (America being world police isn't the most popular thing ever), and the Swedes seemed genuinely interested in the conversation as well.  I also have a new item to add to my very-quickly-growing list of things to do at some point in my life - take the Trans-Siberian Railroad all the way across Russia to Beijing or Vladivostok.  That one might have to wait until next year, though - I'd certainly miss too much class if I did that during this term! On the way back to Flogsta, I barely missed the bus at Skolgaten, so I walked on to Götgaten so as to not be waiting for 10 minutes in one place.  Along the way I realized that the building at the corner that I went by on the bus so often was the police station, and quite possibly also the jail.  Now I know where I'll go if I do get arrested for anarchist activity or something of that sort!  Not that that's likely, but it's always good to know where a police station is if you need one.  While I was there I took some pictures of the big blue/green/red/yellow picture things they have out front (cell phone quality - my camera was recharging after being in the cold).  I'm not really sure what they are or what their purpose is - maybe just to look pretty - but here's a picture of the green one:

In the short time I was there, I didn't see the image change.  Maybe someday I'll learn what these images mean.

Uppsala Slott!

Tuesday, January 25th -

Last night I went to the Reception of Exchange and Master's Students by the Vice Chancellor of Uppsala University in the main university building.  I took the first bus that arrived with the assumption that it would take me generally in the right direction.  Probably not the best idea, but it did get me closer.  It was a very empty bus whizzing past stops as I compared the stops listed in the bus schedule with my map of town to figure out which one to get off at.  I think I would have been fine getting off a stop or two later in the end, but I played it safe and got off at a place whose location was readily visible on my map.  It was then a somewhat lengthy walk to the the main university building, given the time constraints.  But eventually I got to the general area.  I didn't know quite how to get to the main university building yet, though, especially from that direction (the west), and saw a building that looked approximately like what I expected it to look like.  As I approached I thought it seemed a bit higher up on a hill than I remembered the main building being, but I was already halfway up the hill, so I kept going.  Eventually I realized this was the castle (Swedish: slott)!  At that point I was nearly at the castle, so I went to the top and got a nice view of the city before heading back down and continuing on in the (correct) direction of the main university building.  Even at night the castle was impressive, so I decided I had to come back in the daytime to get an even better view as well as pictures.

The reception was more of a meet-and-greet than a lengthy speech, although the history of the building was interesting.  I probably could have gotten better pictures with flash, but this picture illustrates the style of the building:

 Very opulent, with lots of oil paintings, including several of monarchs, and quite a bit of marble and gold.  It reminded me a bit of Versailles.  It was built starting in 1877 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the university, went over budget by 400%, and took 11 years to build.  But it was the first building in Sweden to have electric lighting, central heating, and telephones, all in the same building.  And it most certainly is a very nice building.

So today I made my way back to the castle.  Being high up on a hill above the town, I was at last able to get a picture of most of the cathedral while making my way up to the castle:

 The castle was just as impressive as I'd hoped, and seemed to have very light traffic, probably due to the season.  To the west was an excellent view of the botanical gardens, which, although not much of gardens this time of year, still had nice symmetrical shrubberies and plenty of snow:

 Yes, that's a beautiful sunset at 3:25 PM.  It didn't really seem dark at that point, but it does get dark early here, even more than a month after the shortest day of the year.  Supposedly there's an orangery inside the botanical gardens, which would seem an odd site this time of year indeed.  Imagine - I might see orange trees for the first time in Sweden!

To the west, the castle was fortified in the Italian style, with star-shaped bastions.  This provided an advantage in that the defenders could fire on attackers at the walls while not exposing themselves.  The walls are relatively short compared to medieval standards (the castle was built around 1550 and rebuilt after a fire in the early 1700s), but thick, to resist cannon fire.  I went up onto the top of the bastion that was accessible, and found the cannons on top of the bastion.  Like they were centuries ago, the cannons here are trained on the cathedral.

This bastion is known as the "bishop controller", for obvious reasons.  This design first came about not long after Sweden's switch to Protestantism, which wasn't entirely popular.  The cannons trained on the cathedral served to reinforce the point that it was the King, not the bishops, who made such decisions.  It does appear that these cannons were never fired, at least in this direction.

To the east, the hill in front of the castle was much steeper, and the Italian-style bastions were not necessary - a simple wall in combination with the hill was adequate.  On this side you can see downtown Uppsala:

 The conspicuous building with the odd architecture near the middle of the picture is the concert hall.  It was designed by a famous architect, although I'm no better at remembering architects than I was in 11th grade (it wasn't Frank Lloyd Wright or I.M. Pei).  Locals seem to be split on whether they like the architecture or find it ugly.  For a larger picture of it, see the previous post "IKEA and Sledding".

As for the castle itself, here is a picture from the east:

According to the signs, the castle is in the French Classical style.  The vast majority of the present castle, including the pictured part, is from the 1700s.  A small part of the original 1550s building remains, and is very noticeably different.  My pictures of it are less-than-impressive, though, as my camera's battery very much disliked the cold temperatures (-0 Celsius according to a bank-style sign) and went from near-full capacity to almost-empty in the matter of a few pictures, so I had to be conservative with pictures.

Most enjoyable was standing at a corner along the southwestern bastion (the one not pointing towards the cathedral) and simply taking in the excellent view of the western part of the city.  It was clear from the lack of recent footprints that no one else had been there today, likely due to the light snow, wind, and temperatures, and it was quite peaceful. Twenty feet below the city continued to operate as normal, but there was nothing but snow and a good view from where I was.  It was really neat to be able to freely roam the grounds of a 1550s/1700s castle and find the best views for myself.

The eastern hill was indeed steep, and since I found a path down it, I followed it.  This picture is the best of the ones I have at illustrating the height of the hill:

 It was abundantly clear why it would be extraordinarily difficult for any army to attack up this hill, and why relatively simple defenses were adequate in this direction.

I never did find a way inside the castle, although I'd be surprised if it isn't open for tourists at some point.  So after descending the hill, I made my way back towards the central station, cold from the wind on top of the hill as much as the temperatures, but very glad I had made my way out to the castle.

Nation Membership!

Monday, January 24th -

Today after lunch I went down to V-Dala Nation to become a member!  V-Dala's building is large, but not to my architectural tastes.  I'll add a picture once I have a good one of the whole building.  But I didn't join because of the architecture - rather, because I've enjoyed their events, they seem to have a good slate of future events, and their international committee seems to be quite good.

Thus, after paying membership dues and filling out the application, I received my temporary ID.  Now I can attend Nations' events until my new one arrives in the mail!  This new temporary ID is important because you need it to attend many of the Nations' events, and even if you don't need it to attend, it may get you a discount.  For example, V-Dala's brunch is 50 kronor for V-Dala members, 60 for other nations' members, and 70 for the general public.  The reason nation membership is required for some events, other than to ensure they are for students and not any yahoo who wanders in, is that the nations enjoy some special tax privileges as a 'closed society' that is serving its own members rather than the public at large.  Thus, some of the Nations' events could be considerably more expensive if they were open to the general public.  This is also part of the reason that it is much more affordable to eat out at the Nations than at most restaurants.

After getting my membership, I decided to walk back to Flogsta.  So far I'd been taking the bus into and back from town all the time, but if I'm going to be going by bicycle at some point I'll need to know how to get there and back.  Since it was lovely weather today, still bright for a couple hours, and I had nowhere to be soon, I figured, why not?  - even if I get lost, I should be able to get back to a bus stop before dark.  And the route was surprisingly straightforward.  There's basically one long walking/biking path all the way from Flogsta to the street next to an Asian restaurant I recognized from seeing it many times from the bus.  I hardly had a chance to get lost, and was back in my room 33 minutes after being at the back entrance of V-Dala.  For now I'll probably still take the bus to class, as class is pretty far past V-Dala, about twice as far.  But it may be fairly reasonable time-wise to bike down to class, and might not take all that much longer than the bus depending on the time of day (8 AM seems considerably slower than 10 AM for the bus based on my limited experience thus far).

Speaking of the weather, it's been nothing short of fantastic here compared to what I'm used to this time of year.  Back stateside the general consensus was I was going to be going north to some sort of arctic snowglobe area with sun six hours a day, and while the sun part wasn't that far off, otherwise it's been really nice here - much nicer than Columbus and nicer than Richmond as well.  Of course now I've probably jinxed myself and it'll hit -20 (Celsius) tomorrow.  But it's been just about freezing almost the whole time, only a few degrees colder than night than at day, and above freezing at times during the day.  No significant snowfall, and while there's been cloudy days, there's also been sunny days, and more sunny days than an Ohioan is used to this time of year.  Right now it's 8 degrees (Celsius) warmer than in Richmond and 10 degrees warmer than in Ohio, and from what I've heard, it's warmer right now in Ohio than it has been a good part of the past week.  Not all the internationals are finding the weather quite as excellent as I am, so perhaps I'm just used to lousy weather in the winter.  And the Swedes have said that this is unseasonably good weather.  But, so far, going north hasn't meant going into the tundra.

IKEA and Sledding

Sunday, January 23rd -

Today a momentous occasion occurred - my first trip to IKEA!  In keeping with the chronological order, however, I'll start with brunch.

This Sunday, I went to V-Dala's brunch with Elaine and Thomas instead of GH Nation's brunch.  They opened a bit late (11-12 minutes), so there was a huge line outside the door, but once they opened the doors they had their act together.  Another very satisfying Sunday brunch.  Elaine and Thomas said that last semester V-Dala was consistently better than GH for brunch; I'd say so far this semester they are on equal footing.  The 10 kronor discount that V-Dala students get on V-Dala's Sunday brunch is a reason to join V-Dala, however.

Afterwards, I went to IKEA!  IKEA is a gigantic store, the largest I've ever been to, and they carry practically everything, except most groceries (you can buy a few items such as meatballs there).  They even had the chair that Shams said I should buy back when I was in Ohio.  I didn't buy it because I have no need for it here, plus it would have been really awkward to try to take back on the bus with everything else I was buying.  Instead I bought improved bedding, dining utensils, a rubbish bin, a dozen and a third hangars, and some hand towels.  Almost too much to take back easily on the bus, but not quite.  IKEA itself was impressive, though.  The store is laid out similar to a labyrinth - there's really only one way through, so you see everything, which probably is part of the reason that people tend to end up buying more than they anticipated when they go to IKEA.  I was already planning to buy a decent amount, which probably is why I bought about as much as I anticipated.  Pretty much anything you could want, you can buy.  Plants, check.  Lumber, check.  Nice soft quilts, check.  Stuffed animals of various sizes, check.  Hot dogs at the cafe past the checkout for low prices, check (one member of my party ate three, as he'd skipped lunch).  Larger meals at the restaurang upstairs, check.  Definitely worth a visit, and I'll have to see if the one back home is similar to the one here upon my return.

Once we returned to Flogsta, we decided to go sledding.  There is a big hill behind the Flogsta apartments, and someone had left an old mattress there for sledding purposes.  Many people had already been sledding, so the hill was well-iced along the sledding path and had very little friction - all the better!  Trying to get all four people on the sled at once didn't really work, and we settled upon one-person-at-a-time, headfirst being the best combination for quickly traversing the hill - all the better becomes it seems even faster when you are six inches from the ground.  No serious injuries occurred, and the sledding was a success!

I also happened upon the Uppsala Koncert and Kongress building, where classical concerts are held in Uppsala (pictured above).  They've quite a few concerts, but amongst the performers I recognized Philip Glass, who will be performing before I leave in late May.  Provided my finances aren't in shambles then I hope to attend, and will be looking at the schedule more carefully to see if there may be other concerts I'd like to attend as well.

Corridor Dinner Party

Saturday, January 22nd -

The past couple nights I've stayed in and eaten here, rather than going out to one of the Nations.  It's inevitable that this would occur eventually, or else my bank account may have forced it to happen.  But it's been good, as I've started to get to know my corridormates better.

Tonight we had a corridor dinner party.  The main course was lasagna - but it was Swedish lasagna.  Googling for "Swedish lasanga" doesn't really bring up what this Swedish lasagna was.  Basically, instead of a tomato sauce, there was a milk/butter/cream sauce, and the sauce also had some flour in it so it would expand a bit (there was no ricotta cheese).  There was a meat-and-tomato sauce as well, but the milk/butter/cream sauce was the more prominent one.  The entire lasagna was covered with cheese on top.  It was quite good, well worth a try.  There also was a spinach salad (so much better than lettuce salads), and Spanish wine.  For dessert, we had pineapple pie.  Which, I should mention, is not a traditional Swedish food, although it is quite tasty.  One of the girls in our hall had pineapple pie a week or so ago with a friend, and was looking for an occasion to have it again.  Considering how often we eat pineapple and pie separately in America, I'm surprised no one ever thought to combine them - the result is very good.

The dinner was enjoyable, lasting about three and a half hours.  We talked for most of the time, on many different subjects.  There were many good stories, such as that of Markus the one-time philosophy student, who, along with his other flatmates at his old residence, bought a Bonsai tree for 1000 kronor (about $150) because they thought it was awesome, looking like a big tree but being small.  Little did they realize it required much care to survive, and despite their best efforts, by the time they moved out it had three leaves.

Turnout was good, too - nine out of the twelve residents showed up.  I'm going to have to keep a list to remember the other three, but I'm getting to know those who showed up tonight - also the ones I'd seen the most before - decently well.  It's certainly proving to be a good corridor to be in.

Regularly scheduled maintenance

I had a pleasant surprise during lunch on Wednesday when someone came into the corridor, walked by the kitchen, then came back and asked if I lived in room 442.  He was here to replace the fire alarm.  I can only figure it was regularly scheduled maintenance, as I hadn't been aware of anything not working.  Kind of reassuring that the owners of Flogsta do some maintenance on a regular schedule rather than just waiting until the residents reported that the building was falling apart.

Where do the international students hail from? Read on

Saturday, January 22nd (updated February 16th) -

There certainly isn't an even distribution of where students who study here come from - smaller countries sometimes greatly outnumber much larger, nearby ones.  In approximate order, I've met people studying here from these countries:

- Canada
- United States
- Belgium
- Australia
- Germany
- Netherlands
- France
- Spain
- Italy
- China
- Finland
- Singapore
- Austria
- Turkey
- Egypt
- Georgia
- United Kingdom

Amongst many other students whose place of origin I don't know, and not counting any Swedes who are originally from other countries.  The two that stand out as unusually high are Canada outnumbering the United States, and Belgium outnumbering France.  I suspect climate is a significant factor in the first one, and a factor in the second one as well, at least relative to southern France.  Also surprising is that I've yet to meet anyone from the UK.  It's certainly the largest missing western European country.  I've heard there are a few British students here, but not a whole lot.

This post may be updated in the future as I meet more international students from more countries.

updated on Feb. 16th to include more nations from whence I've met students

The wonders of the Internet

Friday, January 21st -

One of the neat things about being abroad is that the power of the Internet becomes much more apparent.  If all we had were international phone calls, it would be prohibitively expensive to be in contact with anyone in the New World very often.  But instead, I can call the States for free with Google Voice (plus a bit of network skills), and whoever I'm calling doesn't even need to know I'm abroad.  And I can write this post while listening to Pandora Radio, even though it's not Swedish, either.  Meanwhile, I can order books from a Swedish-language-only online bookseller thanks to Google Translate and save money from what it would cost with international shipping or buying at a brick-and-mortar store.  For that matter, even if international calls were cheap, I wouldn't have had time to tell more than two people what I've written in this blog.  It took just a few short years I became used to using the Internet for all sorts of things domestically and it seemed like it was just part of life, so it's kind of neat to realize again just how powerful of a tool we actually have.

That said, it hasn't taken over everything.  I got back earlier this afternoon from going downtown to pay my rent in cash.  It's possible to pay over the Internet, but it's easier to in cash (and conveniently my debit card works at the ATM).  And it wasn't easy to get modern communications set up upon arrival.  By and large, though, distance has reinforced just how powerful - in a good way - technology can be.

Fika! and, crazy Swedish medical students

Thursday, January 20th -

There were two fikas this afternoon, but I had to do some laundry today (there's a post about laundry in Sweden), so I wasn't in time for the first one.  But I was in time for the second one, which was a "winter fika" at V-Dala Nation.  The full description reads,

"Winter-"fika" at V-Dala Nation.  Nothing is better than a nice "fika" (candles, friends cookies, "glögg") to warm you up during these dark times."

Well, it is dark times if you go the amount of sunlight.  I can't help thinking of the "dark times" like "Dark Ages" or "grim times" when reading that description, but that made me want to go more rather than less, even though it's been quite cheerful times so far.

And it turned out I liked this fika much better than the previous one.  Both the food and the drink were better.  Rather than rather hard, not-all-that-flavorful cookies, there were thinner,  and more flavorful - unfortunately I don't really know that much more about them.  Glögg is actually hot, spiced, red wine.  Much more palatable than coffee to me, with my one-point-makes-a-trend experience with both.  I also met the head of the V-Dala International Committee while I was there, a friendly French PhD student.  I think she's actually the head of the entire university's International Committee as well, although I didn't realize it at the time.  Probably a good thing, as it's always more difficult to be star-struck and easier to be natural when you don't realize someone is as important as they are.  At any rate, the event went well, and I've since received two more invitations from V-Dala's International Committee (ice skating and skiing).  I'm impressed by their International Committee and they seem quite friendly, so they are certainly one of the Nations I'll be considering joining.

After fika a large group of us went to Kalmar Nation's pub for dinner.  Amongst the group were Americans, Germans, Spaniards, Australians, and Austrians.  The menu was entirely in Swedish, but for the most part wasn't actually that difficult to figure out - a decent number of cognates with English in food areas plus one with French, and we could tell what most of the dishes basically were.  I ended up getting a pork and potatoes dish, which was tasty.  Many of us also got Swedish Rekorderlig cider, which I'd recommend.  It's apparently much more affordable in Sweden than Australia as well.

The conversation was good, but the real memorable entertainment were the Swedes.  There are a good number of new Swedish students here this week as well (called "nulls", translated to "zeros" during their first week due to their newness), and on this particular night the new Swedish medical students were doing a pub crawl.  By the end of the night, none of us had any doubt that Swedes weren't always reserved.  Very much the opposite in this case.  The Swedes were playing a game where they were all in a circle, with one person in the middle.  That person had to make romantic advances towards people in the circle until someone started laughing, and then that person was in the middle.  To be clear, these were not casual, formal romantic advances.  There was much physical contact, and while everyone remained clothed, it certainly would not have been permissible in a public places in the states.  Four or five groups of nulls came through, all playing this game.  It was a site to behold, and several times a particularly determined player-in-the-middle distracted us from our conversation.  The Europeans weren't quite as surprised as the Americans or Australians, but they certainly weren't expecting that, either.  Now when we come back in 10 years and have to go to the doctor's, we can tell the doctor we know what they did during their orientation week...

But all said, certainly another good evening, if eye-opening.  Kalmar is enjoyable as well.  I'm glad we won't be cut out from other Nations' events by joining one.

Pictures...

So what does it look like over here, after all?  Here's part of the answer!

  

 This is one of the buildings at Flogsta, where I live.  It's building 5, I'm in building 6.  Kind of Soviet-like in appearance if you ask me, especially since all 11 buildings look mostly identical, but it's pretty nice inside.  More pictures of the inside will be coming at some point.

 This is one angle of the cathedral in Uppsala.  It is the largest cathedral in Scandinavia.  I was unable to get one picture of the front of it due to its height.  It's open to tours, so I'll visit it at some point.

 

This is the Museum Gustavianum.  Right across from the cathedral, I've read it's one of the sights to see in Uppsala, so I'm sure I'll be there at some point, too.

And this is the main university building.  The inscription over the building reads, "Universitas Regia Upsaliensas", which is Latin for "Royal University of Uppsala", unless someone knows Latin better than I do, which is somewhat likely.  I've been inside once, and shall have to photograph the inside as well.

Touring more nations, and class

Wednesday, January 19th -

On Wednesday I had my first class.  8:15 in the morning.  I managed to get a decent amount of sleep as well as some breakfast, but the bus was slower than I expected and I still didn't arrive before 8:15.  But I certainly wasn't the last one to arrive.  The lecture was decent, with a 15-minute break at 9:00.  The student next to me was a PhD student, which surprised me - I'd kind of expected some master's students, as this was a D-level course, but not PhD.  There are, to my knowledge, 5 levels of classes here.  A,B,C,D, and E.  E is entirely postgrad, masters or doctoral.  D is for near the end of undergrad or for graduate students who haven't taken the course yet.  At one point I saw that exchange students were advised to take A and B level classes... yeah.  I'm taking whatever looks most interesting, and if it's an E level, that's fine.  As it worked out, I have one B, one C, and one D level, plus beginning Swedish, which I'd guess is an A level.

After class I did my first cooking, for lunch.  I could have used somewhat better diets in the previous days, so waiting until today to cook may not have been the best idea, but it also was the first time I had a good amount of open time for cooking.  Not needing to sleep for 12-13 hours every night helps with that.  Farfelle bolognese with mushrooms, and it turned out quite well.  One mushroom became the appetizer - why more people don't eat whole raw mushrooms, I don't understand.

After an afternoon nap (seven hours of sleep seems like quite little after 12-13 hours the three previous nights), I went down to Gotlands Nation for the Crash Course on Swedes.  It was an informative course, largely about what Swedes are thinking behind the scenes, from a very friendly Swedish member of Gotlands Nation.  I stayed for dinner at Gotlands afterwards, which was good but being a burger wasn't that different from what I was used to - although pleasingly the Swedes include cucumbers instead of pickles with their burgers.  I also wasn't as hungry as usual thanks to cooking more than I realized at lunch - I need to get to IKEA so I have my own dishes I can use to store leftovers.

With dinner concluded, I went down to the pub at Uplands Nation, where I met with a few international students I'd met before to varying degrees, as well as two Swedish girls (I believe one was the international buddy of one of the other internationals).  We had a long and interesting discussion on all sorts of topics, and I learned many new things about Swedes.  Firstly, this was certainly the longest, most open discussion with Swedes I'd had, unless you count the orientation events such as the one at Gotlands earlier this evening, which wasn't really a typical conversation.

I also realized afterwards that although almost all Swedes do speak English, the east with which they speak it does vary.  The Swedish girls at Uplands spoke very smooth English, obviously very comfortable with the language.  Some other Swedes either aren't as comfortable speaking English, or perhaps aren't as experienced or confident.  It's very rare that it's actually at all difficult to understand a Swede speaking English, but there are some who are especially comfortable while speaking English.  It also reminds me of what several American students have said: we don't want to be the jerks who are speaking super-quickly with the Canadians or Australians because we know we'll be understood and we're natural English speakers, when most people here aren't (and every so often we do speak too quickly).  But these Swedes were comfortable enough with English that it seemed entirely natural to speak just as quickly as we would have at home.

Another interesting topic was the difference in ages of marriage.  The Swedes said that they, and most other Swedes their age, planned to get married around 30 or 32, whereas in America that average is more like 25 and there are a lot of people who get married quite a bit younger than that.  One of the Americans who was present does plan to get married by about age 25; the rest of us were less certain.  I think most Americans would find an average marriage age of 30 to be a bit old, and the Swedes certainly found it odd that at some American colleges it's common to know multiple people who are getting married while still in college.  Another interesting moment was when one of the Americans asked one of the Swedish girls if she was planning to marry the guy she was dating, as they'd been together for three and a half years, so in America that would be a logical question.  But, rather than the answers you'd expect to hear in America - "yes" or "it's too soon", she answered, "no"!.  I don't think she meant it as in "never", but it certainly wasn't an answer we were expecting.  But she was still considerably below the average Swedish marriage age, so marriage wasn't something yet seriously being considered - perhaps not even casually being considered.

Once again it was an excellent evening - that was becoming a pattern, and a very good pattern at that.  Uplands was fun, and it may end up being the Nation that I join.

More Positive Swedish Food Experiences

Tuesday, January 21 -

Almost forgot this! So putting it in its chronological place, despite the fact that the rest of this entry will sound less continguous. Tuesday was the day I tried Swedish yogurt. Swedish yogurt is not the same as American yogurt. Generally, Swedish yogurt is more liquid and less solid, and is sold in cartons similar to (cardboard) milk cartons. Buying milk is thus hazardous if you don't know what you're doing, as you're liable to end up getting yogurt or sour milk (another Swedish food) instead. But anyway, I was having cereal for breakfast, and decided I might as well add some of the yogurt I'd bought. It tasted all right, but left my stomach feeling not so well until dinner. Maybe I'll try it again in a few days when I'm more accustomed to Swedish cuisine.

On Tuesday I did make it down to my exchange coordinator in time, and talked both with her and with a professor who could tell me more about the particular classes I was interested in taking. As it turns out, there were time conflicts between at least two of my classes. But don't worry, the professor advised me, as long as they don't overlap all the time. Just go to whichever one is more important. An elegantly simple solution to not having time-turners, even if there is a downside. Now armed with my schedule for at least the next few weeks, I knew I had class the next day at 8:15 in the morning. All these years of going to a school with a coffee shop named after its 8:15 classes, and it takes until I go abroad the last semester of my senior year to actually have a class at 8:15.

Schedules are interesting here. Interesting in that they aren't really predictable. You'll have a completely different schedule for the same class from week to week. My parallel programming class meets anywhere from 1 to 3 days per week, and anywhere from 2-6 hours per day that it meets. It seems that they are based on when the professor decides would be a good time to have class, rather than on predictability. That's why every so often you get conflicts if you have more than one class at a time. In most disciplines you do only take one at a time, but computer science is one of the area where you often take two at a time. I'll get to experience that in February.

After getting my schedule I made my way to the International Student Fairs, where most of the nations were advertising themselves. It's probably about time I explain in more detail what the Nations are. Basically, they are big student social organizations, ranging in size from about 600 to about 6000 students. They
date back to the 1600s, and originally you had to be from the geographic area that each one represented - Uplands being the area around here, Stockholms being the are around Stockholm, etc. Today students are free to join whichever one they feel best suits their interest, although as I understand it it's still common to
join the one representing your home region. As exchange students we have one week to join a Nation, which really doesn't seem like enough time to make an informed decision, but that's how it is. Fortunately it doesn't actually matter a whole lot which Nation you join - you can still go to any of the other nations' events, but you won't get the discounted admission to some events that being a member brings. As I'm writing this, I still don't know which Nation I'll join.

There was about an hour after the International Student Fairs before the Swedish Food Night that I planned to attend at Kalmar Nation. I was both hungry and uncertain how the Swedish food would get along with me after the smörgasbord on Sunday, so I went with another exchange student to a good Asian restaurant first (not all Asian restaurants specialize in one particular country's food here as they tend to in the States). After getting an appetizer there I went to Kalmar Nation, and was quite pleased by the food. The main course was Swedish meatballs, with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce on the side as well as a salad. Yes, they do eat Swedish meatballs in Sweden. They aren't that dissimilar from what we have, either, although they aren't always served on pasta or noodles here. After the meal I stayed and talked with some Americans, some Australians (the first I'd met to that point I believe), and an Italian at our table until we noticed there was no one else in the room. All in all another good evening.

Laundry in Flogsta

So I was doing some laundry while making the last couple posts.  In most of Sweden, you sign up for a time slot to do laundry, and do laundry during that time.  Thus you never waste time walking down to the laundry room only to find all the machines taken.  Of course, if you do laundry outside of your time, that's Very Bad.  I've heard that the laundry room is where fights are most likely to break out in Sweden, when people do laundry outside of their time.  One of the American master's students at Smälands on Monday had an experience with that recently, when her laundry was still in the dryer when someone else's time started.  They were quite displeased and made their displeasure known, despite the fact that the washing machines were completely free and they'd need to wash their clothes first anyway.  Eventually they let up a bit after realizing she was a "silly foreign girl who didn't know what she was doing", but laundry schedules are apparently a serious business in Sweden.  Be aware if you ever come here.

But in Flogsta, there are no laundry schedules.  So I went down to the laundryroom (in building 7, near my building at least), and was lucky to find an open machine.  When I came back a few minutes later with a second load, there were 3-4 people standing around waiting for an open machine.  I wanted to get lunch anyway, so I just went back rather than waiting around for a machine.  One person was reading a book while waiting, but most people were just waiting.  Perhaps there were only a few minutes left on the machines, but it seemed a bit odd.  At any rate, I made a point to go down and put my laundry in the dryer as soon as my wash cycle was done (thank you cell phone timer) despite being halfway through eating lunch.  There are three types of washers here - blue, green, and white.  They are different models.  Elaine had warned us that the white ones occasionally ate clothes.  I used blue this time, and my clothes were fine.  Well, when I went down later to pick up my dry clothes, I saw one of the white ones spinning up at the beginning of its cycle, and I'm no longer at all surprised why it occasionally eats clothes.  It's a side-loading machine, with a somewhat small drum.  But it spins fast!  Much, much faster than any laundry machine I've ever seen!  The whole machine was shaking, and the door was moving so fast that the movement appeared choppy - it was moving faster than my eyes could keep up with the motion.  It sounded like it was trying to power either a jet taking off or perhaps a space shuttle about to lift off.  Clearly ridiculous amounts of spin.  Maybe there was some sort of award for fastest-spinning washing machine at the washing machine expo that year, but it was obvious why it might not be the best option for your clothes!

Getting Lost, or, Why I Generally Dislike Busses

Monday, January 17th -

I slept in late on Monday (10 AM seems late when it gets dark at 4 PM) in hopes of getting better from the illness, and although it would take until Wednesday that I was feeling fully better, I was more or less better on Monday.  First priority was getting an unlimited bus pass - the last thing I wanted was to be stranded and lost because I ran out of bus fare.  I took the bus to Centralstation, and not surprisingly there was a long line for the bus passes as it was the first day students could get the month-long bus pass at student rates.  The process was organized, though, and I did eventually receive my bus pass.  I then decided to head down to the Information Technologiskt Centrum to meet with my exchange coordinator.  Unfortunately I didn't know what bus to take, and bus maps are pretty much nonexistant in Uppsala.  So I went over to Vastgota Nation, to ask there, as exchange student registration was still open there.  While there, I encountered my international buddy and Vanessa (the Vancouverite) again, and we decided to meet for dinner at the pub at Smälands Nation.

I left armed with a list of bus routes to take, the closest to Vastgota Nation being the 20 on Drottningatan.  So I went down to Drottningatan, and caught the bus, which was quite late according to the timetables at the stop.  After about 20 minutes, I figured I had to be pretty close, but the bus kept going without reaching my stop.  Eventually I pulled out the route listing (which included the station names, but contained no map) and started comparing the stops we'd gone by to the ones listed.  I realized I'd taken the bus in the wrong direction, and if the route were circular, would have gone to about 4/5 of the stations instead of 1/5 to get to my destination.  Unfortunate, but a tour of the countryside.  Or so I thought until we got to the last stop listed in the direction we were going, and the bus driver said something in Swedish that I presume meant "last stop".  Great.  The route wasn't circular, and I was somewhere way out in the countryside with no idea how to get back, except a general sense of which way north (back to Uppsala) was.  Even better, the bus stop's time table indicated no more busses were coming that day.  There was a pizzeria right by the stop, in an otherwise residential area, so I tried asking if I could use a phone to call a taxi, but the man at the counter was the first Swede I'd met who didn't speak any English.  So I began walking back in the direction the bus had come in the first place, and eventually reached the second-to-last-stop, and then the third-to-last.  At the third-to-last stop, I saw a bus approaching in the direction of the end of the line.  Thrilled that a bus might be coming after all, I jogged across the street to the stop in the direction of the end of the line, and when the bus pulled up, I got on, asked if I could take the bus back to Uppsala, and scanned my bus pass when the driver indicated I could.  I'd get back before midnight after all!  It was a long ride back to Pollacksbacken, where I was supposed to meet my international advisor, and by the time I arrived it was about 5:00 (an hour and a half after the bus originally left Drottningatan), and she'd already left for the day.  The building was actually a bit of a ghost town.  A nice building, in good condition, but hardly anyone there.  The trip wasn't  a total loss, however.  Purely by chance, I met a French full-year exchange student who was in one of my classes, and said he'd e-mail me my schedule.  So, 1/3 on knowing my classes.  At least I was making progress.

Smälands Nation was good and not-quite-so-good.  The menu was basically burgers and quesadillas, and everyone at my table got quesadillas.  Mexican food here is a bit different than what I've heard about other parts of Europe.  It does exist.  There are Mexican restaurants, and there is a Mexican section at the grocery store.  By Mexican, however, is usually meant "tacos".  Tacos are very popular, other Mexican food, not as much.  Quesadillas, obviously, exist at times as well.  Spiciness is also different in Sweden, from what I've been told by long-term American residents.  Even when something is called spicy here, it apparently is not.  I'm going to see if I agree with this later, but there was no spiciness option for the quesadillas.  They were good, but certainly not spicy.  The bigger issue that the lack of spiciness was the slow service.  Smälands was clearly not prepared for the volume of traffic they received.  The girl working the bar was apparently on her first day at the job, but she actually kept up decently well.  The kitchen was another story.  We arrived at 6:00, and it took perhaps 20 minutes for Elaine, who ordered first, to get her food.  Not bad.  Those of us who ordered a bit later, 30 minutes.  A bit long, but it's a student pub, so not a big deal.  Elaine's fiancé arrived about 7:30.  At 8:30, he still didn't have his food.  He's a native Swede, so he'd know if this was standard, but it wasn't, so he did inquire just to make sure they hadn't completely forgotten his order - they hadn't.  At this point I left with a couple other exchange students for the game night at V-Dala, and there still were quite a few people at our table.  But Smälands certainly could have done with a couple more cooks in the kitchen.

Exploring on my own for the first time

Sunday, January 16th (still retrospectively...) -

Today I had planned to meet up with Vanessa, the Vancouverite I met yesterday, for brunch at V-Dala Nation.  Unfortunately, our communications fell through, making this impossible.  It wasn't all that surprising that communications did fall through, as communications is something the exchange students really don't have a lot of upon arrival in Uppsala.  We don't get Internet until we file an application for it (although our international buddy provided an unofficial work-around), American phones don't always want to dial numbers (international or not) in Sweden for some reason, and you have to go down to the supermarket and buy time to get your Swedish SIM card to work (it doesn't help that the instructions are completely in Swedish).  And if you don't have an unlocked American phone, you have to buy a phone.  Fortunately AT&T was helpful in unlocking my phone, but at this point my phone was essentially a glorified PDA.  So, the way you met people was by meeting them in person, and if you didn't try to meet each other at the same time... you didn't meet.  Kind of like how it was 200 years ago, only nowadays you're used to having more recent technology.

Once it became apparent that brunch probably wasn't happening, I went down to Vastgota Nation, where we picked up our temporary student IDs.  I'd actually been there on Saturday, too, but they had closed before the orientation schedule said they were going to close so I couldn't pick up my ID.  Sunday they were open.  While there I noticed signs for a brunch at GH Nation (Gästrike-Hälsinge), and as I found their nation before V-Dala, went their for brunch.  I joined a couple of Swedes for brunch, members of Stockholms Nation as it turns out, and found them to be quite friendly.  Quite Swedish names, too - Magnus and Mans.  I learned that apparently there's a bit of a rivalry between west and east Sweden - men from western Sweden aren't supposed to like men from eastern Sweden, and vice-versa.  They said they were bridging the gap, being from opposite sides of Sweden themselves.  It sounds to me that it's similar to how Ohioans aren't supposed to like Michiganders, and vice-versa, not like actual fights break out over it.

Oh yes, and the actual food.  It was very good as well.  Some type of apple salad, a baked potato but more flavorful than bland, boring American baked potatoes, a roll, a crepe (or perhaps the Swedish equivalent?), and orange juice on the side.  Definitely would be worth going back to GH Nation for Sunday brunch again.  They claimed to be the best Sunday brunch in town, and they just might be.

After brunch I trekked to the International Office, which was more difficult than it should have been because Google Maps lied to me about which side of the river it was on.  After scouring pretty much the entire east side of the river along St. Olofsgatan for the international office, I asked in Hotel Uppsala where it was and my suspicions that it was actually on the other side of the river were confirmed.  After crossing the river, it was easy enough to find, although the advice that it was in a yellow building was much less helpful here than it would have been in the states.  Unfortunately the International Office couldn't give me my schedule, but they were able to tell me where to go to get my schedule.  Here, you have to meet with your department's exchange coordinator to get your schedule.  Why it can't be centralized I'm not sure, but that's the way it is.  At least as helpfully, they were able to give me a map with all the university buildings highlighted on it - just the map I needed to find the International Office earlier in the afternoon!

At 4:00, as darkness descended on the town, I embarked on the Practical Tour that set off from Vastgota Nation.  While searching for the meeting place (the people upstairs said it was downstairs, and the people downstairs said the people upstairs were lying), I explored a decent part of one of the Vastgota Nations buildings.  The tour went to all the Nations, as well as to the main university building (the one on all the postcards),  nearby banks, shopping areas, and cathedral (you can't miss it, it's the largest one in Scandinavia).  This wasn't enough to ensure we knew how to get to all the Nations, of course, but it would prove to be at least somewhat helpful.  When it finished, many of the tourgoers made our way to Uplands Nation for a smörgäsbord, taking a very indirect way despite the recent tour.  The smörgäsbord was not as much to my taste as I'd hoped, and by the end I was feeling queasy.  I'd planned to go to the movie night later in the evening, but decided to head back to Flogsta instead.

Back at Flogsta, I met my neighbor across the hall, a Canadian named Sam.  By this time I'd already noticed the fairly high amount of Canadians studying abroad here.  When I mentioned that I wasn't feeling well after the smörgäsbord, she said that she'd actually been sick in the morning, and as it turns out had been on the same flight across the Atlantic.  Neither of us had slept on the flight over, nor eaten well on Saturday.  I was sick later that evening, and once again went to sleep about 9:00.  A couple days later, I met another person who had also been sick on Sunday, and had also been on the same flight over, not slept Friday, and eaten poorly on Saturday.  This is why I mentioned in the previous post that the red-eye may not have been the best idea ever.  Maybe it was just someone contagious on the plane, but the number of decisions we all made that weren't in the best interest of our health make it seem likely that those decisions were at least significant contributing factors.

Arrival in Uppsala

Saturday, January 15 (written four days later, pardon any anachronisms!) -

My arrival in Uppsala went as smoothly as I could have hoped!  I took the red-eye flight from Boston via Reykjavik, which in retrospect might not have been the best decision ever (as a future entry will tell).  But it did have its benefits.  Having an extra day in Boston was nice, although I'd already worn myself out after getting lost in Cambridge while wearing boots that weren't good for walking on Thursday, so I wasn't able to explore Boston as much as I might have otherwise.  As important, having two days instead of one before the first week of classes was critical.  Really, two days wasn't nearly enough.

Even before I arrived in Sweden, I realized my Icelandic was quite bad (i.e. nonexistant).  Icelandair was less dissimilar from American airlines than I expected, but it was an Icelandic first, English second airline, and there were many Icelandic passengers.  The Boston -> Reykjavik flight was at or near capacity, and the Reykjavik to Stockholm flight was 60-some percent full.  Both were on 757's, so good-sized, comfortable planes, with seatback entertainment.  As I expected, sleeping on the planes proved fruitless for me.  Unfortunately, as it would turn out.

Upon arriving at Stockholm's Arlanda airport, I found that my ability to read increased drastically without Icelandic all around, and with... not all that much Swedish.  Without too much difficulty, I was able to buy a train ticket, and on the platform I met five exchange students, all heading to Uppsala.  We were easy to identify by our ridiculous amounts of luggage.  The Swedish countryside was peaceful, with large amounts of snow, semi-sparse pine trees, and the occasional farm, often with cattle in a few fields.  Unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures, but instead had good conversations with an American and a Dutch exchange student.  The ride was relatively short, and fortunately the instructions from my international buddy on navigating into the train station proper upon arrival proved entirely accurate.

Which brings me to the International Buddy Program.  It was absolutely essential to quickly settling into Uppsala.  There certainly were some poor international buddies, who never met their advisees or did much of anything else beyond exchange an e-mail in December.  But I was fortunate to have a very helpful buddy, who met me at the train station in Uppsala.  After meeting with her (as well as another of her advisees, a Vancouverite), we acquired declining-balance bus tickets (no unlimited month-long tickets until Monday, when classes start), and headed over to the housing office.  Conveniently, in the spring semester, the residents of the largest student residential area, Flogsta, can pick up their keys at the Uppsala housing office on Saturday - in the fall, they must be picked up during the week at Flogsta's office, although they can be picked up by the buddy for the exchange student.  I then moved into my residence, which is quite nice by Richmond standards.  I'll have to take pictures, but it has a very nice, large desk, a good bookshelf, shelving on the wall, a bed, a few more storage pieces, a couple chairs, a file cabinet/office storage piece under the desk, generous closet space, and a private bath.  I also share a kitchen and common area with 11 other residents of my corridor, of whom, usually, 10 are Swedish and 2 are exchange students.  The quality of the furniture is also much above what is found anywhere at Richmond, except Lakeview and Freeman.

Also neat about Flogsta was the inheritances.  When previous exchange students move out, they leave behind what's still in good condition, but won't fit in their luggage, in the closets.  So I inherited a couple rugs as well as  a large amount of bedding and a pillow, some of it in quite good condition and clean.  Not quite as good as what I could get at IKEA, but it turned out to be very useful since getting IKEA in on the first day simply wasn't happening after 30+ hours without sleep!

After moving in, we went down to the grocery store, ICA Vast (West).  It's not a Wall-Mart Supercenter, but it has a pretty good selection, is extremely close (walking distance), and has what are considered good prices in Sweden.  Stateside, it might be considered a bit pricey, but not as much grows this far north.

It got dark around 4:00, at which time I was at Hotel Uppsala where another of my buddy's advisees was moving in.  By this time it felt quite late at night thanks to not having slept forever.  This actually became a rather cool feeling.  We decided to go to fika despite our fatigue.  Fika is a Swedish event that involves coffee, some type of cakes or cookies, and socializing.  Sometimes it is at a coffeehouse, oftentimes at someone's house.  We went to the fika at Göteborgs Nation, one of the student nations here.  I have to admit I wasn't terribly impressed - I don't know if I simply don't like coffee, or if that particular coffee wasn't to my liking.  But I'll give it another try, at a different nation.  We left around 6:00, which felt like 2:30 in the morning.  Most of the rest of the evening was spent helping my Vancouverite friend move into her residence, also in Flogsta (a lot of students live in Flogsta), and then finally going to sleep around 9:00.  Overall it was a great first day, but very much a whirlwind of a day.  So far I've made two voyages east across the Atlantic, and those two days have the records for the longest amount of time I've been awake at once.  Maybe someday I'll figure out how to fly east across the Atlantic and get some sleep.

Hello everyone!  I had no idea the days after arrival in Sweden would be quite so activity-packed, or that I'd need to catch up on quite so much sleep, or I may have set up this blog earlier.  Already I've been all around Uppsala, had a few misadventures, and finally managed to become completely connected with the outside world.  I'll be posting several entries this afternoon to catch up on the first few days, and thereafter we'll see how my schedule goes.  There's a lot that's happened already!