Sweden II

I will preface this blog post by answering the question: "What happened to day two?" During this time I was trying in vain to recover from jet-lag which led to me pulling an all-nighter right before orientation. Not a smart move. But onto the retelling of my last few days!

Day Three: A Cookout and a Castle 
After a fitful day of sleeping, I got myself ready to go out to a cookout the Linnaeus University international committee hosted. They called it a BBQ, but there were only hot dogs and soda. It was reminiscent of home well enough, although mustard, like most everything, is much sweeter here. I met a good amount of people there, eventually getting together for drinks at a local cafe. After getting done with the cookout, I walked up the hill to check out the locally famous Teleborg Castle, which was built in the 1900's as a gift from a local count to his wife. It is now used as a hotel and conference center. Cool, right? UNCG should learn something and build a castle on campus.



Afterwards, we took the bus over to the city centre, which is a quaint cobblestone plaza by the bus station. I got drinks with essentially the Western Hemisphere representatives. There was myself, a two girls named Brittany and Emma from the States, Derek from Canada, Sebastian from Mexico, and Alejandra from Colombia. We got in intense conversations about dating, cultural differences, politics, and of course Game of Thrones, both the show and the book series. I sipped on a Somersby Pear Cider and munched on a meat platter with bread and butter. It was absolutely delicious, and I had a dessert of "fika" which is coffee and a pastry which is usually saved for late afternoon and a social standard of Swedes.

This ended the festivities and we walked back to our apartment complex where I proceeded to not sleep until late into the night, prompting a rather long day of orientation the next day.

Day Four: Parkour and People 
Off to orientation, which was mostly logistical information. I gulped down a Red Bull and sat through a day long orientation. Not much excitement. Although the orientation started off with a video of students doing parkour through campus, which was interesting. It definitely startled my sense of reality in my caffeine-fueled, sleep-deprived state.

Day Five: Purple Hair and Pizza by the Lake 
The next day was a slightly shorter, more lax orientation hosted by the student associations on campus. One of the members of the student union had very bright purple hair and that spoke volumes to me about the youthfulness of the school and the country. More often than not, I saw people of all ages wearing casual yet snappy clothes and there is a sense of virility and style you see from many of the people. They make it look effortless, and one of my new goals is to take care of my appearance a little more. The Swedes know how to do it. I went shopping at the nearby Coop Nara, which seems to be equivalent to a 7/11. That is peculiar, as most things open late and close early here in Vaxjo.

Swedes love their sweets!

Later on that day I was invited to get pizza and drink beer by Lake Trummen near campus and we got together on the bank. We talked about all manner of things, myself, Jake, and Sarah being from the States compared things with Rachael who is from the United Kingdom. After getting too cold, we spent time at Sarah's place and I eventually walked back in the dark to my apartment, 40 minutes away. The walk was unsettling until meeting a cat, who is now a familiar friend: an orange forest cat who I see on my walks to campus almost everyday. There were many hares about too, where they are much larger than rabbits back home.

Lake Trummen

Creepy walk back, but the moon was very bright.

Day Six: Travel and Tribulations 
This was the day I became frustrated. Long story short, there were tickets being sold for cheap trips coordinated by the VIS (Vaxjo International Students) which ended up being sold out. So I got together and had a beer with some people from my apartment floor. Carlsberg is a terrible beer, would not recommend.



Day Seven: Cleaning and Cards 
Mostly I just cleaned and got my library card. Not too much excitement. Here's a rainy day picture from my window:



Day Eight: Geography and Groceries
First day of class! In a class about Sweden's landscape and the history of its people. The class was almost exclusively international students. The class was intriguing, and right up my alley as far as my studies for my history major. After the two sessions of class were over, I went out to go shopping and paying rent. Someone's birthday was today and there was a get together on my floor, and I dropped in.

Day Nine: Laundry and Laziness
Yet another unexciting day, mostly of cleaning, laundry and running errands. But tomorrow, I will take plenty of pretty pictures, as I am going on a field trip with my class to visit some neolithic excavation sites our instructor is familiar with. Stay tuned for more!

Addendum: Here are some out of order pretty pictures: