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.
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