Seabattle: Tallinn, Estonia

On the morning of April 12^th, Students from all over Sweden and even some other Scandinavian countries boarded buses toward Stockholm. We hopped on our ferry, the MS Baltic Queen, and headed toward the city of Tallinn, Estonia. I roomed with my American friends Keith, Isaac, and Clay. First thing first, we got to have a free taco buffet. Well, free as in included with the price of the trip. As with most “included with trip” meals (see lappland reindeer), I was rather disappointed with the spread. It was like a cold salad bar with random tortillas spread around next to some nasty, soupy, taco meat. Oh well. Beverages were included! Good way to start the night.

After dinner, we headed out on the deck and checked out the scenery. It honestly reminded me of boating around Lake Vermillion. Lots of pretty lake houses and little islands scattered around the canals heading out of Stockholm. It made me a little homesick. All those memories of fishing with Grandma, Grandpa, and Dad came rushing back. I miss the rat-a-tat-tat of a walleye bump. Oh well. Hopefully the fish are still biting by the time I get back home to Minnesota. Here's a link of the Route the MS Baltic Queen took to reach Estonia:

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Then we hung out in our room for a while. We watched some movies on the TV in our room and had a good time. Then we went to explore the ship for a while. We figured out where all the restaurants, pubs, clubs, discos and everything were. We wanted to sing karaoke, but there were just way too many people in the karaoke bar and there are only so many times you can here classic American songs butchered by English as second language students. So we headed back to the room for some more chill time.

In the morning, we were woken up by an announcement over the PA saying we were going to soon arrive in Tallinn, so we peeled ourselves out of bunks and get ready to explore the city. When we first walked outside of the ferry dock, I was a little worried. Everything looked very industrial and bleak. I didn’t think there was going to be very much to see at all. However, as we made our way over to the Old Town, I was pleasantly surprised. There were lots of old ramparts and tower scattered around the area along with lots of cool antique shops, cafes, and restaurants.

One of the restaurants we saw was particularly interesting. It seemed a little out of place, but I hadn’t had BBQ ribs in such a long time, it was tempting to eat there . . .

Later that afternoon, we got back on the boat, took a little powernap, and then got up in search of some dinner. Isaac, Clay, Keith, and I decided on getting a buffet which included meatballs with potatoes and gravy. Nothing like Grandma Jojo’s meatballs, but they were still pretty good. We then went around and checked out some of the bands that were playing in the ballroom and in the different pubs around the boat.

To finish of the evening, I enjoyed a nice Romeo y Julieta from Havana in the piano bar. We all went to bed pretty late, but were once again woken up by the PA, saying we were soon going to arrive in Stockholm, so we packed everything up and boarded the buses back to Växjö. Check Estonia off the list. Time for a nice nap on the ride home.

Lappland

First off, I want to apologize for taking so long to post updates. I always end up finding something else to do instead, blogging is kind of lower priority. But now I have a break from classes and writing papers so I’ll just power through and post a bunch about my travels around Europe.

Next trip after Stockholm was Lappland. On March 10^th, we took a train from Växjö over to Alvesta where we met up with the Students from Lund. We then took the train up to Stockholm, then transferred to our train to Kiruna. This was the first time I’ve even been on an overnight train in a sleeper car and it was pretty awesome. When you first get into the compartment, you think, how are six people gonna be able to sleep in here? But the backrest of the bottom bench flips up into the middle bunk, and the top bunks flip down from the ceiling, so there’s a triple bunk on each side of the car. Not exactly the most private of accommodations, but we’re all students, so no one really cared.

We arrived in Kiruna, Sweden at about 10AM on March 11^th. We hoofed it over to our motel about a mile away, and then checked out the city. It kind of reminded me of the smaller mining towns in Northern Minnesota. There’s a very large iron ore mine right outside the city. At night, there are hundreds of light posts surrounding it, and it looks like some kind of spaceship landed just outside the city limits. Kiruna also is the host to many Swedish and European space programs due to the fact it is the Northern-most city in all of Sweden. The town is also gradually being moved to the Northwest due to mine. It is feared that the ground on which the town is built on is gradually shifting and sinking due to the mining operation. Most of the buildings are just going to be torn down and rebuilt, but the city hall is going to be cut into four parts, and gradually moved to its new location.

One of the major attractions in the area is the Ice Hotel. Every year, they make this hotel out of giant blocks of ice by the nearby river. They even send the ice blocks around the world so different cities can make Icebars because the water is so pure in the river, the ice is extremely clear. Some of the rooms in the Ice Hotel are designed and created by artists from around the world. Every year, artists send in their designs and a committee picks their favorite designs and the artists fly out to create their masterpieces. They even had an “Ice Age” move themed room that had an ice slide in it! There is also an Icebar in the hotel that serves cocktails in glasses made out of ice. It was very “cool”. HA! Get it?

The next day, we headed off to our authentic Sami camp (pronounced saw-me). The Sami are the indigenous people of Northern Finland, Sweden, Norway, and some parts of Russia. Many of them are involved with reindeer herding and some countries have laws which only allow people of Sami ancestry to practice reindeer herding. We drove at to a spot where we got to dogsled and snowmobile to the camp. Dogsledding was a lot of fun. Those dogs are really, really strong, and they just love to run. We’d take breaks occasionally so the dogs could catch their breath and rehydrate by eating snow. When we arrived, we were introduced to our guide for the overnight say, Stig. Right away, he put us to work. Chopping wood and clearing snow away from the building doorways. I got some weird vibes from this guy right off the bat. Couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I thought he was a real creep. I realized my suspicions were correct as two days we were there went on. Stig had this really cool dog that would come up to people and seem like he was looking for some attention but Stig kept saying, “You touch my dog, and I get to touch you!” And he was serious, in a way. Anyway, there were two cabins available for our group, a more modern one and a more “authentic” Sami cabin. My friend, Clay, went over to the modern cabin and put our stuff on some bunks to save or places for the night, but they somehow were moved, and we had to go over to the more rustic cabin. Clay and I ended up having to sleep head to toe in a one person bunk with crappy sleeping bags. Not only that, the flu on our fireplace was not working correctly, and the wood burning stove was the only source of heat, so we got really cold and the whole cabin was pretty much filled with smoke. Needless to say, I was a little less than thrilled with our accommodations, and did not think this experience was worth the money. The thing I was most excited about was getting to eat some reindeer. However, our Stig was not exactly the best of cooks. For lunch we got to eat some reindeer soup. It was watery broth with mushy canned vegetables and tiny strips of flavorless reindeer meat. Again, a little less than thrilled. For dinner, we had pasta with frozen stir-fry vegetables and the same strips of reindeer. Ugh. So much for my hopes of getting to eat a reindeer steak or something. So yeah, a lot of our time was spent doing chores. We sawed and chopped wood, brought buckets of water up from the river, stoked our own fireplaces, went with Stig to check his icefishing nets, and prepared the “sauna” for the night. I decided to opt out of the sauna. Although there’s nothing I like more than being wet and sweaty before going to bed in a smokey, freezing cold single bunk with a bed mate, I decided against it. In the morning, we explored the area a little bit, and I got some beautiful views of the landscape and running river. Overall, I wasn’t impressed by this “authentic Sami experience”. Icefishing and snowmobiling are pretty common in the good ol’ MN. But the dogsledding was definitely the saving grace of this experience.

After our Sami experience, we took the train heading up further north. The group split up because we had an iceclimbing experience scheduled at Abisko National Park, but two groups were going to go on the 14^th of March, and my group (made up of the Americans, Germans, and our one token Irish guy of the group) were going the next day. So we decided to take the train past Abisko National Park up to the city of Narvik, Norway. I had never been to Norway, so I figured why not? Check another country off the list. However, I kind of regretted going there. It was extremely cold and snowy, there wasn’t very much to see there at all, and everything was super expensive. It was something like 20 bucks for a fast food meal! There was a pretty cool sign that pointed in the direction of a bunch of majors cities that I got a picture in front of, but other than that, it was a disappoint. Saving grace here was getting to see some awesome fjords on the train ride up there, but it was hard to get pictures from the train. This expedition just further proved how much more superior us Swedes are to the Norwegians!

We arrived late that night at our hostel in Abisko. Isaac, Clay, David (token Irish guy), had a nice long relaxing time in the Sauna near our room. Apparently, we were supposed to head down to the sauna by the lake where you can actually take a polar dip, then run back into the sauna, but no one ever really told us when we were leaving, so we missed that opportunity. Although, it was nice having it be just the four of us. The next morning, we loaded up on a very good traditional Swedish breakfast and made our way over to a frozen waterfall to do some ice climbing! Both groups that went yesterday had gotten everyone up to the top of the waterfall, so there was no way we were going to be outdone! Most of us made it up to the top with no problems, but a couple of us needed some coaxing. Isaac got about 3/4ths of the way up and was like, “Ok, I think I’m gonna be done now!” But I managed to instill some courage into him and push him up to the top! Way to overcome your fear of heights, Isaac! After iceclimbing, we take the chairlift up to Aurora Sky Station on the Scandinavian Mountain range. This was probably the most beautiful view I had seen in my whole entire laugh. While we stood in awe of the landscape, David, Isaac, Clay and I broke into a four part harmony of “Amazing Grace.” It probably would have brought a tear to your eye if you had been there.

And that’s where the Lappland adventure pretty much ends. We caught the train back to Stockholm station, and then back to Växjö. Overall, I’m very glad I went. It was the experience of a lifetime. If I were to do it again, I would try to plan a trip with a smaller group of people on my own, instead of going with the ESN group. I would cut out the overnight stay at the Sami camp and instead just rent some snowmobiles, and pay for some dogsledding time. We weren’t allowed to drive over 30 km/hr or something like that for safety reasons and because we were behind the dog sleds. The trip through ESN was fun, but I think I could have planned a better trip for less than the 6000 SEK I paid for this trip.

Stockholm

On Thursday, February 18^th, Isaac, Dennis, Clay, and I boarded a bus at the university to leave for a weekend in Stockholm. We got picked up at 10:15 AM and there were only like seven of us total. We each had our own seat and got to throw our bags next to us. However, we had to transfer at Jonköping and our bus arrived only 20 minutes before the bus for Stockholm left and there was a big line of people already waiting for the bus. We all had to sit with random people instead of sitting with each other. Swedes are very shy when it comes to buses. If you’re taking a city bus, people would rather stand on the bus than sit in a seat next to someone they don’t know. We got into Stockholm at about 6:00 PM after a somewhat uncomfortable bus ride. We whipped out about three maps of the city between the four of us guys trying to find our way to the hostel. After about five minutes of looking like idiots, a random guy walks up to us and asks, “Are you guys doing ok?” and he helped point us the right direction, leaving us with a “Welcome to Stockholm!”

We found our way to the hostel in Gamla Stan (which means Old Town) and checked in. We learned that the hostel provided free pasta, coffee, and tea to everyone staying there. All you need to buy is your own sauce and meat to make a good hearty dinner! While we were checking in, a girl sitting at the computers near the front desk overheard our accents and asked where we from. Turns out there were four girls from St. Ben’s visiting Stockholm for the weekend. They were on an exchange program in England and knew my friend, neighbor and teammate Nate Louwagie! Small world! We rented a four person private room with our own bathroom and kitchenette. Our room was on the first floor and was inside a side door to the building. We needed a code to get in the door, but the first code they gave us didn’t work. Isaac had to go back upstairs and figure out what was up. Apparently they had recently changed the code, so we got the new code and settled in.

We then went out into town to buy some food and supplies for the weekend. The city is absolutely beautiful at night. There seemed to be an H & M on every single street corner! After we had bought our supplies, we decided to get some food, so we found a kebab shop. It was probably the best kebab I’ve had since I’ve been here. Kebab here in Europe is a little different than the kebab in the states. It’s like gyro meat shaved off of those big pieces of rotating meat with cucumber sauce instead of steak or chicken skewered with vegetables.

After we got back the hostel, we decided to play some games up in the shared kitchen. We met some German guys named Hauke and Phillip and had an interesting conversation with them. They asked if we wanted to go out to the pubs with them tonight. The one thing that sticks out in my mind is when we started talking about the girls in Sweden. Hauke simply said, “These Swedish girls, they are just so beautiful!” So we went to go out to the pubs but it being a Thursday night, nothing was really open that late, so we left the Germans and decided to go back to the hostel.

Friday morning, we decided to go check out the Royal Palace. It was only about four blocks away from our hostel. They do a changing of the guard there which is pretty cool. These baby-faced Swedish teenagers come out and march around for about five minutes with flags and guns. I hear it’s much more impressive in the spring when they start to involve horses and such so I guess I’ll have to head back then and check it out.

After that, we decided to head to the Armory. This was probably one of my favorite things on the trip. They had all sorts of shields, swords, daggers, weapons, coats of armor, muskets, pistols, axes, rifles, etc. in this place. It was very impressive. The US being such a young country, we don’t have those types of older weapons and it was absolutely fascinating to take a look at them.

But the most impressive part of the museum was in the basement. They have managed to keep and maintain about a dozen royal carriages that the royal families have used over the centuries. These things are absolutely gorgeous. And it’s not like these carriages really were worn out, but new carriages were made for special occasions and whatnot.

After the Armory, we headed over to Tommy Borglund’s office building. Tommy is my Grandma JoJo’s cousin Sture’s son. I had emailed him earlier in the week letting him know I was visiting Stockholm with three buddies and he invited us to come check out the city from his building’s 9^th floor terrace. Now, I know 9^th floor doesn’t sound very impressive, but there honestly aren’t that many tall buildings in the city of Stockholm. I don’t think I saw a building over 15 stories in the whole city. Tommy works for a company called Hallverson & Halverson and does work with business to business consulting . . . or something like that. I’m still not exactly sure. We sat down and had a nice fika with him and he marked our map with a bunch of cool places to go check out in the city.

When we were walking back to our hostel for dinner, we decided to check out all the touristy shops in old town. I personally don’t like shops like that. Everything is overpriced and nothing is authentic. I didn’t buy anything this time around thinking that I’ll be back later in the spring, and honestly, anything I buy in Sweden that is yellow and blue and has the Swedish flag or the word “Sverige” on it I won’t wear until I’m back in the states. As we were walking back through the snowy cobblestone streets of Gamla Stan, we noticed a car having a little trouble driving up the steep alleyways. We decided to help out, so we ran up and pushed the car up the hill until they could get some traction. Anything to make the US look a little better!

That night, we cooked up some pasta with meat sauce. Naturally, I had to act as human garbage disposal and eat all the leftovers, putting away probably twice as many noodles as my other travelling companions. After dinner, we played some games in the kitchen with our hostel mates. There were people from Germany, Spain, England, the US, and more. Hostels are really a great place to meet people. Our pal Dennis probably knew every single person staying in the hostel that weekend. After we were done with the games, we four guys went with the four St. Ben’s girls to a heavy metal bar a few blocks away called Medusa. It was kind of a novelty for all of us as none of us were really into heavy metal music. A couple of the girls were jokingly headbanging on the dance floor when a guy tried to walk through the middle of them. Unfortunately, one of the ladies was not paying very much attention, and banged her head right as he was passing through. What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion: her head came down on this guy’s glass, and it completely shattered. At first we thought the glass was just knocked out of his hand and broke, but her tooth had come down right on the lip of the glass and completely shattered it in this dude’s hand. The 3 other gals swooped her off to the bathroom to make sure she was ok. Amazingly, they bumped into a dentist in the bathroom. That’s right. A female dentist just happened to be in the heavy metal bar right as this girl shattered a glass with her tooth. This girl got all checked out and was completely fine. She had a little cut in her mouth and her tooth was pushed back a little bit, but it was not chipped at all. This event has now earned her the nickname “Sabertooth”.

Saturday morning was extremely windy and cold but we decided to make the trek to the Wasa (Vasa) Museum. This place is dedicated to the ship christened the Wasa that sank soon after its maiden launch. The building holds the entirety of the ship. Right now, the ship looks a pretty boring dark brown, but it originally was extremely vibrant, being ornately painted with over 20 colors. I took a lot of pictures of this place and thought it was pretty impressive they were able to bring this huge ship up from the depths and put it in this museum.

For lunch, we decided to go to one of the restaurants that Tommy and recommended to us. It was called Grodon which means frog in Swedish. I decided to split some beef Carpaccio with Isaac for a starter. Dennis started off with some pumpkin soup. For an entrée, I had some thinly sliced smoked salmon with boiled potatoes in cream sauce. Isaac had some beef liver with onions. Clay had a club sandwich (with all the vegetables taken off, of course) with fries, and Dennis ate some thinly sliced steak with onions and fries. All the food was pretty good, but it was a little on the pricey food. However, it was nice to find a place that serves some traditional Swedish food. It’s kind of hard to come by.

That night, we had planned on meeting up with the St. Ben’s girls and going ice skating at the rink in the middle of the park near our hostel. It was a beautiful evening and big, fat, fluffy snowflakes were falling. However, our idyllic evening was somewhat spoiled when we found that he skate rental shop was closed. Instead of skating, we just goofed around on the rink and around the park then went back to the hostel and cooked some more pasta for dinner. The gals had to get up early in the morning to catch their flight back to London, so we bid them goodnight and went out for a night on the town.

We slept in late the next morning, but still managed to clean up and check out of our room in time. We had a very lazy morning and spent a lot of time on the hostel computers, skyping and facebooking friends. We then put our bags in the luggage room and went to meet Johanna for a fika. Johanna is the friend of a friend, Jessica, who lived in the same hallway as me at the U of M this fall semester. We went to one of her favorite cafes that her father would always bring her to when she was younger called Saturnis. They served gigantic cups of coffee and cinnamon rolls the size of your head. We had a great chat with her. We talked about her experience being an exchange student in the US in high school and our experiences so far being exchange students in Sweden. Hopefully I’ll be able to see her again before I leave Sweden.

The evening was also quite lazy. All we pretty much did was watch the Olympics and cook up all the food that we had leftover in the fridge at the hostel. We fried up some bacon, sliced turkey, and sliced potatoes to make some “hash”. Unfortunately, the only skillet available for us to use was a piece of junk and started to burn the ‘taters almost immediately so we had to abort and eat some undercooked spuds. But hey, it was better than nothing.

After “dinner” we hoofed it over to the central bus station to catch our overnight bus back to the Uni. The bus station was extremely crowded and there was really no form of line in front of the door our bus was arriving at. People were cutting, splitting off, forming new lines, etc. Disregarding orderly and fair lines is one of my absolute pet peeves so I was getting a little hacked off. It also seemed like there were WAY too many people to fit onto one bus. I did not want to end up having to sit next to some rando again or get bumped onto another bus. So we genius travelers devised plan: Dennis and I would take all the bags to put under the bus while Clay and Isaac saved seats for us on the bus. It worked like a charm and we all sat next to each other for the bus ride to Jonköping.

We arrived that at about 3:30 AM, and lucky us, the bus station didn’t open until 6AM or so. I was a little flabbergasted that a bus company could drop off two dozen people off in the middle of the night in subzero temperatures without any form of shelter. We wandered around for a little bit trying to find some place to keep warm. We walked into a parking garage and tried to figure out what to do. We decided that if worse came to worst, we would break down some palettes and start a fire in this parking garage. Luckily, a cabby came by and told us there was a 24 hr McDonald’s nearby and that he would take the four of us there for only 100 SEK. We took him up on the offer and took shelter in the loving arms of the Golden Arches. I ate 18 chicken nuggets with cheddar cheese, apple curry, and mango salsa dipping sauces. Quite a change from the simple BBQ and sweet & sour sauce I’m used to. We slept on the plastic tables for a while and then our favorite cabby came back to take us to the bus station. We grabbed our bus back to the University and got home at about 9:00AM on Monday morning. When I made it back to my apartment, I promptly passed out until 4:00 PM. What a weekend.

Getting Meatballs

So, despite the name of this blog, I’ve had traditional Swedish meatballs twice already since I’vebeen here. At 9 AM on the 22^nd, a bunch of us international students got on board a charter bus that drove us about an hour to the first IKEA ever in existence. Some “fun facts” about IKEA: It was founded by Ingvar Kamprad who was born in 1926. He registered IKEA as a furniture store when he was only 17 years old! The name IKEA is a combination of the first letters of Ingvar’s first and last name and of the farm and village he grew up in, Elmtaryd and Agunnarydrespectively. Today, there are over 250 stores in more than 35 countries. Every year, more than 450 million people visit an IKEA store.

Well, this was the first time I had ever been to an IKEA. It was very interesting how they have you snake around the showroom and different furniture set-ups they have before you get down to the warehouse and area where they actually sell things. I bought a large doormat to keep our entryway clean(er), a bathmat, a small hand towel, and a red wastepaper basket for my room. I kind of wish I had bought some larger squares of carpet for my room and maybe for the kitchen.Oh well. Then after we were done shopping, we of course had to go eat some Swedish meatballs and boiled potatoes with lingon berry jam! I was actually kind of disappointed with the food though. Grandma JoJo’s meatballs are still far superior to the small, bland meatballs they served here. Of course, add enough gravy and jam to anything it will taste good. But still, Grandma’s are just much more flavorful and moist.

So it was a successful trip for the most part. I didn’t have to go buy pots and pans because I had found an ad the night before posted in the library by someone who needed to get rid of their kitchen stuff. I managed to get two pots with lids, two pans, and a bednight stand for 100krowns! Score! And of course at this point, I’m still desperately searching for a George Foreman grill, or something similar to it.

Saturday the 23^rd was the night of the VIS exchange student dinner and that was an absolute blast! They had a small program for us. The MCs gave us a small introduction to Swedish life and some advice on how to survive and make friends around campus. The dinner consisted three courses. First was some bruschetta with garlic cream cheese. However, the toast was nearlyuncuttable and rather grating on the inside of the mouth, though it was pretty tasty. The main course was a roast chicken breast with roasted vegetables and cake of fried hashbrowns with a creamy mushroom sauce. It was quite good, but a little cold. For dessert was some panacottatopped with raspberry jam. Pretty good, if a bit bland.

After dinner, they gave each nation represented amount the exchange to perform a short five minute skit, song, dance etc. I would have to give the humor award to the Germans. They put on a skit making fun of typical German stereotypes: Getting to the hotel pool at 6am to reserve deck chairs, then keeping their stuff the all day so no one else can use them, drunkenly singing in groups, getting to breakfast right at 7am when it starts, stuff like that. Award for most enthusiasm would go to the Greeks. They performed a traditional dance, but what put it over the type was the lone Greek guy that was going NUTS the whole time. He was throwing in all kind of crazy spins and dips and standing in the center of the circle, all kinds of stuff. Of course, I think I did hear him say he had consumed a whole liter of wine before the dinner had even started . . . but nonetheless, it was awesome. But Best in Show would have to go to South Korea.They blew the doors off the place doing a choreographed performance of some South Korean pop song. It was really great. They were all in sync. After the dinner, we headed over to Stallarna, one of the student pubs on campus and danced until 2am. It was a lot of fun, and we got to meet a lot of the other international students.

Dennis from Eau Claire had a great idea for us to experience food from other countries. With the help of some wonderful Swedish gals here at the university, he planned and prepared a traditional Swedish dinner: Swedish meatballs with gravy and lingonberry jam and boiled potatoes and a traditional Swedish apple cake for dessert. The meatballs were very delicious, but I still think Grandma JoJo’s recipe is the best!

On Wednesday, I went over to VUGI to play some basketball. VUGI is like the sports club here on campus. They have floor ball, aerobics, basketball, and core strengthening classes. I didn’t do so well. I pretty much only bring three things to the basketball court: hustle and two elbows. But I did manage to score a few baskets and grab some rebounds without hurting myself. “Finesse” would not necessarily be a word I would use to describe my basketball skills though. I do set a pretty wicked screen though. The first time you play is free, then after that you have to pay 250SEK for the semester. I’m not sure I’ll go back though. Once the snow starts to melt and the rugby team in town starts practicing, I probably won’t want to play too much basketball.

I’ve been making my way into town a lot. It’s a really awesome city. Very quant. I’ll take the bus on occasion, but the walk isn’t too bad, especially on a sunny day when it’s a balmy 28^o F! I made my way over to a store very similar to Best Buy, and I finally got an electric contact grill so now I won’t starve to death! It ain’t no George Foreman, but she’ll get the job done. I can fit like two burger patties or a large chicken breast on it.

I started my Swedish language class finally. It’s from 5 to 7:30 PM on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It seems pretty difficult right now but I’m hoping once I start putting in some time outside of class it’ll get a little easier. Right now I’m having a hard to mastering all the vowel sounds. I’ve got English and Spanish in the back of my head right now and it’s kind of difficult to make the switch. So many of the vowels sound so similar! We took a little in class quiz and I didn’t do so well . . . Oh well, I may just have to have some of my new Swedish friends to give me a tutoring session or something. But I do really want to learn the language. Hopefully I can continue studying it at the American Swedish Institute once I return home.

That’s all for now. Some of us were thinking of taking a weekend trip to Stockholm in the near future so look forward to hearing about that!

Kram och Puss!

Getting Settled

Well, I made it here and have gotten somewhat situated in my apartment. I still have yet to obtain pots and pans, garbage cans, and some sponges or brushed to do dishes, so it looks like I’ll be going out to eat until I manage to get to Ikea. I’m in a two bedroom apartment with a shared kitchen. My roommate, Travis, is a big dude from Wyoming and is studying political science.

The last few days have been kind of a blur so I’m just gonna do my best trying to recap what I’ve been up to.

Friday

Friday was a lot of orientation stuff. I had flashbacks of U of M welcome week horribleness . . . *shudders* But still, it was very informative. We met all of the faculty and staff involved with the exchange program here at Linnaeus. They fed lunch that was a little odd but still pretty good. It was a chicken breast in some kind of red sauce that looked like marinara but didn’t actually have much flavor to it. Oh, and it was cold. That was kind of a surprise for the first bite. Also on the menu was pasta salad, a small piece of cheese (probably Jarlsberg), and some bread. After lunch, were had some more information sessions. These took place in the Leonardo classroom. We all felt like we were at an Intergalactic Senate Session from Star Wars! (http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3467626&id=581593015) We got some important information from the Vaxjo Chief of Police (who was actually an Aussie) about some of the different laws in Sweden. For example, you are REQUIRED to have a light on the front and rear of your bike when riding after sundown. During this time we were also introduced to the idea of Nations. Nations are kind of like co-ed fraternities here on campus. They organize events, and trips like going skiing or camping on the weekend or having dinners and getting to know people better. You also need to be a part of a nation to get into some of the student pubs on campus because they are actually operated by the nations. There are five to choose from and they all have a style of their own. I think I’ve decided on the ÖSTGÖTA nation. Their mascot is dragon/gryphon looking thing and they are kinda the party nation on campus . . . and the gals running their info table weren’t too bad to look at either.

That night, my newfound buddies and I went out to one of the student pubs on campus: Slottstallarna. The name means stables which is appropriate since it is built near where the stables for the castle that is on campus used to be located. What’s that? Oh yeah, there’s a castle on the campus grounds. More on that later. Anyways, the pub was a great time, with great music, and some seriously great FISTPUMPING. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that we were from the good ol’ U S of A.

Saturday

Saturday morning was a lot more information meeting stuff yet again. Pretty boring but still, good things to know. We found out about all the trips the Vaxjo International Students group are offering. Then they fed us lunch. Cold salmon with a caviar cream sauce, potato salad, brie, bread, and salad. Lots of the American students I was sitting next to couldn’t bring themselves to eat the fish, but I loved it. After lunch we got a guided tour of campus. My tour group consisted of two guys from the cities and three guys from Eau Claire . . . and our tour guide was from Eau Claire, studying in Vaxjo since last semester. We haven’t really branched out too far yet, but we’re working on it! It was nice to get some help figuring out where everything is since I have an absolutely dreadful sense of direction.

After the guided tour of campus, we got to go on a bus tour of the city of Vaxjo. Even though the campus is technically within the city limits, it’s kind of situated away from the actual city center. When the university was first built many many years ago, they thought it would be best to keep all the college students AWAY from everyone else. Pretty good plan if you ask me. After the bus tour, we got a walking tour of downtown Vaxjo. The city isn’t super big, but they have lots of cool shops and restaurants around. They also have a gorgeous church in the city with some very cool looking twin spires that make it the tallest building in Vaxjo. . . most buildings aren’t higher than 3 stories.

Saturday night, I just spent time with new friends. Mostly Americans, but there was one crazy Frenchman thrown in there, and some Canadians.

Sunday

Sunday morning at 11, there was a flea market put together by VIS. My roomie and I went thinking we could pick up some necessities likes pots and pans and maybe a doormat or an entryway rug. No such luck. The building they had it in was WAY too crowded and they could only let in a few people at a time. We got there right at 11, but there was a huge lineup already. Travis got in there before I did and gave the selection a once over. Nothing good. Sandwiches still for now I guess.

At 2, there was a Swedish Fika put on by VIS. Fika is a coffee break that Swedes tend to take during the middle of the day with some type of cookie or sweet pastry like a cinnamon roll. During the fika, we got a chance to sign up for a few type. I talked it over with a few friends, and we decided to shell out the big bucks to go on a weeklong trip to Lapland in the North of Sweden and enjoy some dog sledding and the beautiful ice hotel. The cost was 6000 SEK and we had to pay it all that day, so we went and literally emptied out the only two ATMs that are on campus. So, on March 10^th through the 16^th, spring break is gonna look a little bit different that years past. Instead of deciding on pool or beach in Naples, Florida, it’s gonna be, “Dog sledding or reindeer blood sausage cooking?”

Monday through Wednesday of this week has all been kind of a blur. I’ve gone to ICA a few times which is the local grocery store, went to the gym to workout with Clay and Arthur, went into town to pay the rent at the bank, and went to a few more parties and made friends with lots of people. People from Spain, Germany, Austria, France, etc.

The one that REALLY sticks out in my head though, was lunch on Wednesday. I managed to pluck up enough courage to text my relative, Sara Gustafsson, if the family would like to get together sometime before I have class so we could all meet each other. Rickard, Jonny, and Sara took me out to eat at the Golf Club. I had a really, really great time. The food was great; Salmon and boiled potatoes in a cream sauce with pasta salad, mushroom salad, and potato salad. BUT, the company was even better. Sara kept apologizing for her English, thinking it was bad, but she speaks great. Jonny and Rickard are so fun to talk to as well. Grandma Gunn and Grandpa Viede were feeling a little under the weather, so they could not make it, but they want to meet me soon as well. Viede especially wants to apologize for his English when my dad called him. He was not prepared to receive a phone call in English!!!

Plans for the today and tomorrow: Swedish intro class tonight at 5, IKEA tomorrow at 9am, then party time at Clay’s apartment and off to Stallarna! More to come later!