The Routine Begins...

This past week was the beginning of classes at JIBS. I had a grand total of two, very difficult. ;-) The first was "The Constitutional State" with an ancient, soft spoken Swede. The classroom and class structure was similar to classes back in Virginia. Meaning the professor talks at you most of the class and occasionally asks a question. The only people who answered them the first class were foreign students much like the coordinator said. Swedish culture is known for being reserved and very collectivist so expressing your opinion, especially if it's different, is counterintuitive. That class only meets once a week and has a reading list similar to the States. My other class last week was Swedish. I was much more impressed with the prof. she was very expressive, interactive, and had a good sense of humor. It appears that the grammar is going to be really easy because verbs aren't conjugated in the present tense. The pronunciation is another story. I cannot roll 'R's at all and there are apparently two different forms of it in Swedish for regional dialects. The different sounds for o, u, and å game me trouble at first. I have Swedish on Tuesday and Thursday. My third class, "Classic Political Theory," starts this week. I'll update that later.

I've also gotten into a Swedish routine in other ways. I go to the grocery store every few days because I have to carry my bags on the bus and walk a ways from the bus stop to the dorm. I bring my own bags because you have buy bags there otherwise. I found a much cheaper grocery store on the way to downtown called Netto... or something. It looks like what I imagined an upscale Soviet grocery store would have been. Little to no decoration, food stacked in crates, industrial style fluorescent lights, that kind of thing. The grocery store at the A6 mall is much more like what Americans would be used to, it's almost a mini-Wal-Mart.I also find myself going to bed a lot earlier, because the days are so short, and waking early to darkness, which really doesn't bother me. I thought it would after a couple of weeks. Every Friday in a lot of bars and restaurants have really cheap buffets from around 4-8 called "afterwork." The food was mediocre but there was a lot of it.

The dormmates continue to party every night. The walls are pretty sound resistant so that's fine. One night a Russian guy was very drunk and started singing ABBA on the karaoke game. It was very funny. On Friday just about all of went to a party on the otherside of the city at the new dorm. It was late at night so the buses weren't running a lot so we decided to walk form the juneporten. It was a far walk but some of the girls had "pregamed" and were singing American hip-hop songs all the way there. The party itself was kind of lame. The dorm was apartment-style and the rooms open on to a common courtyard; so you had to either stay in one of two cramped rooms or stand on the deck in the midnight cold. We all left pretty quickly. It was another entertaining walk through the city. Most people went to Centrum again but me, a German, and another American didn't feel like paying a cover charge and 45:- for a beer. ":-" is the symbol often used to denote price in crowns.

Saturday night I stayed in and made dinner with a few people. All four stove tops were being used at once along with the oven. Our little kitchen was crowded and hot but it was fun. Some people went out to the Student Union's club Akademien. I stayed in with some others and watched movies and played games. Everyone came back completely inebriated. I heard them coming for what seemed like minutes. They were rowdy, loud, and hungry. They made hotdogs, play fought in the hallways (which ended with a large heavy bench somehow turned over), and being generally crazy. A typical night in Vilhelmsro!

I also went to the pool on Friday with two friends to swim some laps. The are very strict about keeping the pool water clean. You have to take off your shoes before you even enter the locker room. You cn't where shorts or boardshorts that you've walked around in all day in the water. Sorry surfers. Showering before even stepping on the deck is required not simply suggested. The pool was shallow the whole length and only three lanes wide. My friend said it was attached to a school so it closed for a couple hours in the morning and afternoon. One of my friends is Finnish and he ran into some fellow Finns in the pool. They were elderly women who, like many Finnish people, immigrated to Sweden. Everyone in Finland is required to learn Swedish so moving isn't as difficult as it would be for other nationalities. Being Finnish he knew how to regulate the sauna just right and we had a nice one.

Random Observations:

-Spinning doors are really popular in Sweden. They keep warm air in better?

-Floors around entrances are always wet. Everyone tracks in snow.

-Europeans really like McDonald's

-Sweden has a lot more round-abouts and far fewer traffic lights.

-Swedes are really extroverted and musical when intoxicated.

Week One

This entry is very stream of consciousness. So there isn't a lot of order to it. Whatever popped in my head landed on the page.

We were dropped off at the mostly diserted dorm without so much as a "here's where the grocery store" is. So most of us were hungry the first until we found the mall the next day. It turns there were more people in the dorm than I originally suspected that weekend because a lot of people crashed out or werer feeling shy andstayed in their rooms. It did create a sense of community because we are on the edge of the city away from everybody else. I'm sure as people, incluidng myself, find thier niches that will decline but it has been a great help in adjusting to the local enviroment. We uaully traveled in groups everyone much to the locals annoyance probably. A few of us went to the mall one day to buy cell phones at a tiny shop. The short Swede seemed confused, overwhelmed, and a little bothered by a group of rowdy college students tearing up his sore. I got a simple cell phone for 500 SEK which is pretty cheap.

The routine during the week mainly consisted of"

-Waking up too early to go to school

-Going to school, which involved about 15 foriegn students climbing on the the local bus and traveling in a loud pack through downtown.

-Going to required and boring seminars that could have been through email and one session.

-Having or going to a party somewhere in the city.

The bus trip from Vilhelmsro, my dorm, to downtown is very short and easy. It only takes about 5-7 minutes and our stop is the main bus stop, the uniporten. Earlier in the week before the snow began to evaporate, trampled down, and plowed it was hard to tell where the dividing line between sidewalk and road was. The weather has been cloudy and the brief sight of the sun causes much rejoicing. I can already tell the days are getting longer little by litTle. I was concerned about the cold before but those fears seem to be unwarrented. It is apperently a lot colder than usual but with layers it feels like home. The few Swedes I've interacted with seem very apologetic for the weather, as if it's their fault.

That brings me to meeting Swedes. Vilhelmsor is all international students from what I can tell A few more people will move in today. This is kind of disappointing because I wanted to live in Sweden not go to an international camp that happened to be in Sweden. During those seminars the speakers, many of them Swedish, aknowledged that Swedish people are very shy and reserved. They suggested we "grab a Swede" and force them to come to our parties. Apperently they don't even like to answer questions in class. I've looked into joining some clubs to rty to meet the locals. Once classes start I think I will meet many more in those classes and in the student during breaks. I also signed up for the family and contact person programs but have yet to here anythhing about them.

A few times during the week a group of us gathered in one of the kitchens to cook and eat together. It was really fun to try some real cooking from a few other countires. Most people made easy things like pasta and tacos. I did try a Turkish dish which I of course forget that was... interesting. I can see ow one would get used to it though.

I met the disability coordinator on Friday and she was very nice and helpful. Her accent was thicker than most Swedes I've met but still quite intelligible. I have more responsibility in coordinating my accomadations and things seem more casual here. Overall though it appers that I have the same rights to access and accomadation.She and I then went to the very nice library, housed in an old mill, to pick up my DAISY disc player

which is the format my books are on.

The overall system is much more independent and casual too. You are in charge of making sure your classes to overlap or clash. The computer isn't there to help you. Classes only meet a few times a week and for a short time. They expect a lot of reading and research. It looks here you actually have to do your reading. Most Americans students will tell you that you don't back home.

The introductory session for the Swedish course for which I signed up sounds very intense but worthwhile. The professors at the session stressed independent study and to use where we are as a resource.

On Friday night almost everybody from Vilhelmsro went to a local club called Zentrum (I think). I thoughtt it was a bar but it turned out to be a typical obnoxiously loud, crowed, and dark dance club. So I was essentially blind and deaf. FUN! A friend helped me to the bar where we ended up chatting most of the night. It was exactly what either of intended to be doing on our Friday night but we made the best of it. A Kosovo refugee came up to me and we talked breifly. It would have been to nice meet in a different setting so I could talk to him about his homeland because that topic interests me greatly. I've written several papers onit in school. That wouldn't have been fair because he was trying to have a good time.

The clubs in Sweden open late like they do in most places so the gys in the dorm entertained themselves by making up a drinking game that involved a football (soccer), multicolored cups set up across two ends of the hallway, and beer of course. It was fun to watch them kick the ball down the hall and scream and carry on. I kicked it a few times and managed to knock a cup down which resulted in a bunch French guys had to drink. It was quite to watch. I got to talk to some of the new arrivals and ask all the usual questions.

Goal for the week: Make a Swedish friend and ty some local foods. We've cooked meals form home in the kitchen or gone out to eat. It's ridiculously easy to miss Swedish food.

Random Observations.

-Most bathrooms so far appear to be single person. The only communal one was at a club and the stalls and urinals were seperated by wall within the same room. This must be very nice for the people in the transgender community.

-Americans need stronger pockets and coin pouches in wallets. You get a lot of change in heavy coins

-Cell phones don't come with contracts. You load it with minutes like a track phone.

-The library looks like a giant IKEA showroom says my friend John back home. And it really does. If you like Scandinavian design it really is everywhere and you would love it here.

Hej/Hey,

It’s been an exciting few days to say the least! A lot has happened so I’ll start from the beginning. I flew from Washington Dulles early Thursday and two good friends from Mason were there to send me off. (Thanks guys!) The check-in procedure went normally until I told the airline I needed assistance getting to the plane; his is the blind part of the “TheBlindGeek,” which means having an employee escort me to the gate. The airline sent a man to take me and a quiet elderly woman to the plane. He was kind but his English was limited and heavily accented. That makes telling a nearly blind where to go and what to do difficult.

Next we went through security; the new process is intense. Everyone has to take off their shoes, belts, and any clothing with metal. Shoes, computers, and liquids get their owns bins to be individually scanned. We went through a standard metal detector and not one of the full body scanners. The new vigilance slowed things down but also made me feel very secure.

We arrived at the gate and only had to wait a few minutes because our escort was initially late and security took so long. That was fine by though because that was a few more minutes of not waiting there. I was able to board the plane early and get settled in my window seat before the rush. A young blonde (of course) Scandinavian women sat next to me but we never had a chance to to ask because who immediately pulled out her blanket, pillow, and headphones.

I was very impressed with Scandinavian Airlines. The staff is polite and professional; the planes are kept in clean and fully stocked. The food at dinner and breakfast was even good. In the morning we were given hot towel towels to help us wake up. Very nice, though I didn’t really get a lot of sleep. What song played before the captain announced our decent into Copenhagen and turned off the entertainment system? Mamma Mia! I was very amused by ABBA playing as I was about to go Sweden and laughed. This elicited a strange look from the women next to me but I didn’t care and decided it was a good sign.

I wasn’t sure which Scandinavian language the crew was speaking. I know that they are mostly mutually intelligible. It most likely Danish since we flew into Copenhagen. I think I can decipher when syllables end and begin which is a start.

I’ve flown to Europe a few times but I still find it disorienting to fly into the night. It feels like you’re chasing the dawn or dusk depending on which direction and time. About halfway through the flight I noticed the sun was peaking over the horizon. At first I thought we were flying into the European morning but when it got dark again. I think that it was actually the mid-Atlantic twilight.

I was met by a really nice, uniformed Danish woman at the gate who helped me find my luggage and the bus stop. We had a chance to chat while everybody’s luggage circled around. I was expecting a full service ticket counter for the bus company but it turned out to be a sign at the drop off point I had assumed my plane would be late because of winter weather and my luck so I bought a ticket for a bus several hours later. However, my plane unexpectedly arrived on time so I needed to exchange my bus ticket for an earlier one. The information desk wasn’t authorized to exchange my ticket but they said I might be able to do on the bus, which I was. The driver was a friendly, grayed, middle aged man who used the bus’ internet connection and computer to print me a new one. The bus had free internet which I used to alert everyone I had made it safely. I was reading a computer screen while we spun around endless roundabouts in Copenhagen and Malmo and I felt sick pretty quickly. The busses were nice but cramped. I couldn’t open my laptop all the way while having it in my lap.

The bus arrived at Jonkoping on time, 1:40, but I had to wait around a while at the train-bus station until the drivers from the university arrived. They finally did and picked me and two Australian guys up. We talked on the way to the Student House, which is basically a student union, and they said since it was so cold and people were using so much electricity to heat their home that the power fail. Luckily it hasn’t so far. We went to the university got our room assignments and then were driven to our dorms. I got a single room in Vilhelmsra, which is just outside the city. It’s a ten minute walk and a 15 minute bus ride to downtown.

I think our dormitory is a former home or school for the disabled because the doors are wide, the light switches are low, the shower is on the floor, and there is ramp in our part of the building but not at the entrances.

The first night I unpacked, chatted with the guy across the hall, Francis from Montreal, for a while and then crashed out. At four in the morning a pipe burst at the other of the building so Francis’ friend Roxanne had to move all of her wet things to a new room across from me. The cleaning crew was her all day draining and drying the water.

Two students from Montreal and a guy from Spain went shopping downtown. We went to the main mall, had lunch, and then bought things at Ikea and a grocery store. The guy from Spain was here last semester and helped us navigate the bus. I bought a monthly bus pass which is cheaper than buying daily tickets but still expensive. It was SEK 500, about $65.00.

Saturday night I slept until a bunch of guys came back from the pub and threw a party in their room which I went to. My sleep schedule is way off because of the time difference and being exhausted from traveling. Most of the partiers were French speakers. There appears to be a lot of Francophone people here. I count 2 from Quebec, 5 from France, and 1 from Belgium in my dorm alone. At the first induction meeting there were even more. The most common nationalities appear to be Canadian, Chinese, and French. I have yet to run into any Americans which is fine by me I didn’t come all this way to hang out with them. A few stood up during introductions but I haven’t met them. There are two Australians, a Dutchman, a Canadian, and a Columbian. There are a lot of people I haven’t met yet.

Today we got up early to go the university and get our computers connected to the network. I didn’t understand the technobabble but I can now blog! We went to a decent restaurant downtown for lunch that served a variety of foods. I decided to see what the Swedish take on a burger was like and it was pretty good. We went to the first induction meeting where we were overloaded with information and vored by endless speeches. I guess that’s universal at universities. We got out of there as fast as we could and raided the the state-run alcohol store, Systembolaget, for a party tonight. The store was surprisingly fully for a Monday. The alcohol there is expenisive; the govies are trying to cut down of alcoholism by control and taxation. I don’t know how successful I is statistically but there were a lot of people there. I’m not going to the party tonight I am way to tired.

Random Observations:

1. Anyone can take their dog inside a train station no matter how obnoxious it might be

2. I was mistaken for a Swede about 7 times in 24 hours.

3. For a supposedly reserved people Swedes are not afraid to yell across a train station. It happened twice within the hour I was there.

4. People in southern Sweden complain about the cold when its colder than normal.

5. Toddlers speaking Swedish is adorable. There were a lot of young families at Ikea when we were there.

6. Swedes like to use English swear words. A rushed business women asked a question at the ticket office and swore when she got her answer.

7. The sun sets around 3:45. It appears to rise in the south-east and sets in the south-west.

8. You can see where people walked their dogs because of all the frozen yellow snow. Gross. I was much happier not knowing that.

Only a few days to go...

Apologies for not blogging sooner. I've been really busy with final exams, holidays, and catching up with old friends. I had to move back into my mother's house in my hometown since I had to cancel my lease at school. It has given me the oppurtunity to catch up with people I haven't seen in a long time.

I've been working on getting my last minute arrangements set up and starting the packing process. I'be booked my flight and bus tickets, gotten my visa, arranged to be picked up and signed up for housing. I'm leaving from Washington Dulles on Thursday night on Scandinavian Airlines. The plane will arrive early on Friday in Copenhagen, Denmark. That's the easy part though.

I then have to somehow find the bus terminal in the large foreign airport, wait around a couple hours and start the next part. The first bus ride is fairly short; it is from Copenhagen across the Oresund Bridge, which is largest bridge-tunnel in Europe, to Malmö. Luckily EU integration means no border stop at the Swedish-Danish line. The final leg of the journey is from Malmö to Jönköping. That's about a four and a half hours. The busses supposedly have inernet s I MIGHT be able to blog on the way.

Someone is meeting me at the bus/train station and I go from there. They've told me basically nothing about what happens after that. I won't know where I live until I get there. Certainly a cavalier way to start an adventure wouldn't you say? That's part of the fun I guess!