Written 1/17:
Boy has it been a long 2 1/2 days! Things didn't start off so well as my plane leaving Indy was delayed about an hour. They actually had to send a new plane because the one that was supposed to come from Chicago broke down. That means that I had an hour to get from my plane, across O'Hare Airport, go through security again, and get on the plane to Stockholm. Luckily I made it in time and I got my section to myself so I actually got to sleep a little on the plane (4 hours)! But an hour wasn't long enough for my luggage to switch planes so I didn't have half of my stuff when I arrived. Thankfully we packed the essentials in my carry-ons. The airline, SAS, was really helpful though and they had sent my bags on another flight via Copenhagen and then they drove them to my door from the airport :)
The train ride from the airport to Uppsala was really easy and fast so I beat Nikky to the train station. I don't know why but I can't seem to dial Swedish numbers from my iPhone even though we paid for the service. I can dial out to the USA but everytime I dial a Swedish phone, I get a message in Swedish and then it hangs up on me. Fortunately the lady at the ticket window let me borrow her phone to call Nikky. Once she got there we rode the bus to her place at Flogsta so we could figure out which bus to take to Eklundshovägen because she had never been there before and it's on the opposite side of town from her. During that process we realized that the International Office was getting ready to close so we rode the bus to campus instead and I checked in with the University first. They told us that VG Nation (one of the student clubs) was offering car rides for people moving in so we thought we'd check that out. On the way to VG I also registered for the internet. At VG I got a temporary student ID (I'll get my real one once I decide on a nation to join) and signed up for a bunch of activities during orientation week. We had just missed the car and didn't feel like waiting there so we walked into town.
I was able to buy a phone that wasn't too expensive (399 SEK) that has pre-pay as you go minutes. I didn't realize there were different types of minutes so I got the wrong kind at first; I was only able to talk for maybe 7 minutes with my mom before I ran out. Which made things difficult when the airline called. I missed their call on my iPhone but I couldn't call them back because it was a Swedish number and I didn't have any more minutes. My landlord is so nice- she let me use her phone and I was able to arrange with the airline to get my bags.
I haven't yet been able to get a bank account. Hopefully I can do that soon because I'm almost out of cash and I'm going to have to charge my purchases at IKEA tomorrow. But I was able to pay first rent, get my phone, go groccery shopping (sort of, I need to go again), pay for some student activities, and get 2 meals. I'm having trouble with the money. I keep giving everyone wrong change unless it's a really round even amount of bills.
My first meal in Sweden was at Kebab House, a fast-food resturant, which serves "kababs" aka gyro meat served over french fries. Very interesting and good. Everyone at Purdue should go to Captain Gyro and just dump their gyro over the fries if they get the combo, it's essentially the same thing. After lunch we finally found my housing complex. It's way up the hill outside of town in what seems like the middle of nowhere. The grocery store is a 20 min. walk as is town. The one good thing is that I'm really close to the buildings where my class is. There are 3 buildings in my complex and I'm in the middle one. We have a nice view because we are on a hill though I don't get to enjoy it because I'm in the basement, at the end of the hall, next to the laundry room. I might being less rent though because of that. I feel really isolated due to the location, both of my room and of my buidling in general. I did meet some nice exchange students last night who live in my building- Robert from San Jose, Jennifer from Austin, and Polina from Helsinki. Robert has been here a semester already so he offered to show us the ropes.
We got up early today so Robert could show how to get to ICA (said eek-a), the grocery store. You have to bring your own bags if you don't want to get charged for a bag so you can only buy as much as you can carry. The place is pretty small, maybe the size of the produce section of the Marsh at home, but I was able to get dairy-free milk (I still don't know if it's rice or soy based though) as well as a few things to make meals and top up my phone with the right kind of minutes that let me talk to other Tele2 users for free and call to the USA at much better rates. I have to figure out what I'm going to do about lunches because some days I get an hour break, but some days I don't- I have class from 10am to 5pm. Speaking of which, I spent like an hour entering my schedule into my calendar because I have so many different "classes" for my one class. Sometimes it's class, others it's lecture, then there are seminars and tutorials plus this thing abbreviated IT/ITD as well as lab. I'm basically in class all day, every day for the next 4-5 weeks though most of the time I get Fridays off :) though not the one that I would need to go visit Lappland during the Winter Market. I might still go anyways because I know Jennifer and Nikky are interested in going anyways. Not to mention that trip will be hard to plan without internet. I have homework due every week and one 5 hour long exam as well as a project.
Today I also cleaned the entire apartment since I was able to get AJAX powder at ICA. I have a wardrobe style closet, a bathroom with a shower, a sink, mini-oven with a "stove" on top, a microwave, a refridgerator with freezer box, a small table, a huge desk with book shelf and dresser which is under my lofted bed. As an added bonus, the girl who lived here previously had a 2nd mattress installed on the floor since she didn't like sleeping in the loft. The landlord said I could leave it in my room if I want so I'm going to get some stuff at IKEA to turn it into a couch/seating area. I'm not sure how many visitors I'll have considering where I live in comparison to most of the other exchange students (who live in Flogsta) but maybe I can get a few of the science majors to have lunch with me or something since I live so close to those classes.
Actually there's one physics major from France in particular who I hope will join me. His name is Solenn, he's in Physics, and I met him at Kalmar Nation tonight during open-mic night. I hadn't originally intended on going, but I needed to check with the International Office about missing the orientation meeting due to class (apparentally it isn't important, they mostly remind us that we are here to go to class) and then go on a tour of the town. On the tour I met a ton of exchange students: Jan (Germany), Cenda and Zaneta (Czech Republic), Sylvia and Stephanos (Greece), Natalee, and Jenny (Canada), Wim (Belgium), Kristy (Illinois State University and will be taking my chem class with me), Michal (Slovakia), and probably some more people who I can't remember. After the tour Cenda, Sylvia, and Natalee convinced me to go with them to Kalmar. They wanted to go because they thought there was going to be table tennis. It's a good thing I went because I ended up having to lead everyone there because no one else trusted themselves with the map. Anyways we got there before they opened so we went down the street to a cafe and got coffee and warmed up and talked since we had been walking for over an hour at that point. We went back later but they were only doing open-mic night in the pub but we decided to check it out anyways- none of the European kids knew what an open-mic night was. I felt bad because we couldn't all fit at one table so we had to split up and some how Jenny, Natalee, and I got stuck at one table with the Greek kids and then the French guy showed up and the Greeks left so it was just native English speakers and the French guy who was having trouble keeping up. It's nice that all of the exchange students have English as a common language but some are better at it than others. At the pub a bunch of people got Swedish beer (Ă…bor) and I got pasta med linsbolognese, which I thought was pasta with bolognese sauce, which it was, sort of. It actually was bolognese sauce made with lentils instead of meat since Kalmer is a vegetarian-friendly nation. All the guys who sang sang in English and weren't too bad, but we were getting tired and I had to walk a ways to get home (I'm still jet-lagged and it gets dark by 4pm so my internal clock is really messed up).
Boy has it been a long 2 1/2 days! Things didn't start off so well as my plane leaving Indy was delayed about an hour. They actually had to send a new plane because the one that was supposed to come from Chicago broke down. That means that I had an hour to get from my plane, across O'Hare Airport, go through security again, and get on the plane to Stockholm. Luckily I made it in time and I got my section to myself so I actually got to sleep a little on the plane (4 hours)! But an hour wasn't long enough for my luggage to switch planes so I didn't have half of my stuff when I arrived. Thankfully we packed the essentials in my carry-ons. The airline, SAS, was really helpful though and they had sent my bags on another flight via Copenhagen and then they drove them to my door from the airport :)
The train ride from the airport to Uppsala was really easy and fast so I beat Nikky to the train station. I don't know why but I can't seem to dial Swedish numbers from my iPhone even though we paid for the service. I can dial out to the USA but everytime I dial a Swedish phone, I get a message in Swedish and then it hangs up on me. Fortunately the lady at the ticket window let me borrow her phone to call Nikky. Once she got there we rode the bus to her place at Flogsta so we could figure out which bus to take to Eklundshovägen because she had never been there before and it's on the opposite side of town from her. During that process we realized that the International Office was getting ready to close so we rode the bus to campus instead and I checked in with the University first. They told us that VG Nation (one of the student clubs) was offering car rides for people moving in so we thought we'd check that out. On the way to VG I also registered for the internet. At VG I got a temporary student ID (I'll get my real one once I decide on a nation to join) and signed up for a bunch of activities during orientation week. We had just missed the car and didn't feel like waiting there so we walked into town.
I was able to buy a phone that wasn't too expensive (399 SEK) that has pre-pay as you go minutes. I didn't realize there were different types of minutes so I got the wrong kind at first; I was only able to talk for maybe 7 minutes with my mom before I ran out. Which made things difficult when the airline called. I missed their call on my iPhone but I couldn't call them back because it was a Swedish number and I didn't have any more minutes. My landlord is so nice- she let me use her phone and I was able to arrange with the airline to get my bags.
I haven't yet been able to get a bank account. Hopefully I can do that soon because I'm almost out of cash and I'm going to have to charge my purchases at IKEA tomorrow. But I was able to pay first rent, get my phone, go groccery shopping (sort of, I need to go again), pay for some student activities, and get 2 meals. I'm having trouble with the money. I keep giving everyone wrong change unless it's a really round even amount of bills.
My first meal in Sweden was at Kebab House, a fast-food resturant, which serves "kababs" aka gyro meat served over french fries. Very interesting and good. Everyone at Purdue should go to Captain Gyro and just dump their gyro over the fries if they get the combo, it's essentially the same thing. After lunch we finally found my housing complex. It's way up the hill outside of town in what seems like the middle of nowhere. The grocery store is a 20 min. walk as is town. The one good thing is that I'm really close to the buildings where my class is. There are 3 buildings in my complex and I'm in the middle one. We have a nice view because we are on a hill though I don't get to enjoy it because I'm in the basement, at the end of the hall, next to the laundry room. I might being less rent though because of that. I feel really isolated due to the location, both of my room and of my buidling in general. I did meet some nice exchange students last night who live in my building- Robert from San Jose, Jennifer from Austin, and Polina from Helsinki. Robert has been here a semester already so he offered to show us the ropes.
We got up early today so Robert could show how to get to ICA (said eek-a), the grocery store. You have to bring your own bags if you don't want to get charged for a bag so you can only buy as much as you can carry. The place is pretty small, maybe the size of the produce section of the Marsh at home, but I was able to get dairy-free milk (I still don't know if it's rice or soy based though) as well as a few things to make meals and top up my phone with the right kind of minutes that let me talk to other Tele2 users for free and call to the USA at much better rates. I have to figure out what I'm going to do about lunches because some days I get an hour break, but some days I don't- I have class from 10am to 5pm. Speaking of which, I spent like an hour entering my schedule into my calendar because I have so many different "classes" for my one class. Sometimes it's class, others it's lecture, then there are seminars and tutorials plus this thing abbreviated IT/ITD as well as lab. I'm basically in class all day, every day for the next 4-5 weeks though most of the time I get Fridays off :) though not the one that I would need to go visit Lappland during the Winter Market. I might still go anyways because I know Jennifer and Nikky are interested in going anyways. Not to mention that trip will be hard to plan without internet. I have homework due every week and one 5 hour long exam as well as a project.
Today I also cleaned the entire apartment since I was able to get AJAX powder at ICA. I have a wardrobe style closet, a bathroom with a shower, a sink, mini-oven with a "stove" on top, a microwave, a refridgerator with freezer box, a small table, a huge desk with book shelf and dresser which is under my lofted bed. As an added bonus, the girl who lived here previously had a 2nd mattress installed on the floor since she didn't like sleeping in the loft. The landlord said I could leave it in my room if I want so I'm going to get some stuff at IKEA to turn it into a couch/seating area. I'm not sure how many visitors I'll have considering where I live in comparison to most of the other exchange students (who live in Flogsta) but maybe I can get a few of the science majors to have lunch with me or something since I live so close to those classes.
Actually there's one physics major from France in particular who I hope will join me. His name is Solenn, he's in Physics, and I met him at Kalmar Nation tonight during open-mic night. I hadn't originally intended on going, but I needed to check with the International Office about missing the orientation meeting due to class (apparentally it isn't important, they mostly remind us that we are here to go to class) and then go on a tour of the town. On the tour I met a ton of exchange students: Jan (Germany), Cenda and Zaneta (Czech Republic), Sylvia and Stephanos (Greece), Natalee, and Jenny (Canada), Wim (Belgium), Kristy (Illinois State University and will be taking my chem class with me), Michal (Slovakia), and probably some more people who I can't remember. After the tour Cenda, Sylvia, and Natalee convinced me to go with them to Kalmar. They wanted to go because they thought there was going to be table tennis. It's a good thing I went because I ended up having to lead everyone there because no one else trusted themselves with the map. Anyways we got there before they opened so we went down the street to a cafe and got coffee and warmed up and talked since we had been walking for over an hour at that point. We went back later but they were only doing open-mic night in the pub but we decided to check it out anyways- none of the European kids knew what an open-mic night was. I felt bad because we couldn't all fit at one table so we had to split up and some how Jenny, Natalee, and I got stuck at one table with the Greek kids and then the French guy showed up and the Greeks left so it was just native English speakers and the French guy who was having trouble keeping up. It's nice that all of the exchange students have English as a common language but some are better at it than others. At the pub a bunch of people got Swedish beer (Ă…bor) and I got pasta med linsbolognese, which I thought was pasta with bolognese sauce, which it was, sort of. It actually was bolognese sauce made with lentils instead of meat since Kalmer is a vegetarian-friendly nation. All the guys who sang sang in English and weren't too bad, but we were getting tired and I had to walk a ways to get home (I'm still jet-lagged and it gets dark by 4pm so my internal clock is really messed up).
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sounds like you've already had your fair share of hang-ups. DITTO, and i haven't left yet. but all in good fun! who is Nikki? Also, i'm glad you have Fridays off! Now we can spend a weekend together somewhere!
ReplyDeleteNikky is a girl from Purdue who is also studying here, but she's here for the whole year
ReplyDelete