Here is a quick recap of the last 3 or so days:
August 3rd: Said a tearful and sleepy goodbye to my family and headed off to the San Fransisco Airport. After slightly losing my faith in the goodness of people, I managed to navigate through countless different lines and rude people to make my flight to Washington with a few minutes to spare.
The flights were thankfully uneventful, and I slept great on the flight to Copenhagen (thank you, benadryl!). SAS is a wonderful airlines, by the way. They have lots of movies to choose from, comfortable seats, and dinner came with two bread rolls (which was the first meal I had in over 10 hours)!
August 4th: After landing in Denmark, I bought a train ticket to Lund, Sweden. I must have been too proud of myself for only bringing one big bag because I managed to get on a train with a fellow UCer who had 2 massive, overweight bags plus 2 duffel bags and a purse. She needed lots of help carrying the 60+ lbs. bags up and down stairs, so that was a lot of fun. On my way to get to the Housing Center, I got hopelessly lost, but I was able to see a lot of random parts of the city. After 30 minutes of wandering with a now very heavy backpack and bag, I was able to find a map and get to the Center.
Unfortunately, even though there was about 9 other UC students waiting to get our room keys, the offices would not open until 1pm which meant we had to wait for 3 hours. Everyone was dirty, jetlagged, and pretty grumpy, especially me. I was also going through my typical first day blues where I missed everyone and wished I wasn't there. It also didn't help that everyone from the UCs were talking about how excited they were to get wasted tonight either.
However, we finally got our rooms, and it was wonderful to get a shower and unpack a bit. Then I went to the train station to pick up Lena, a girl from Davis who needed to stay with me because the Housing Office closed before she arrived. It was wonderful to talk with her (she is a Christian too!) and walk around the parks near our dorm rooms. We also went to the little market nearby our rooms and picked up some food. It was pretty simple to figure out what the stuff was, but I was suspicious about the cheeses which looked shady to me. I did recognize pepperjack, but I nearly cried when I saw the price: 99 kr. (nearly $15 for a small block).
August 5th: We had two orientations-- one for our language program and one for all the UC students. Both weren't extremely helpful, but we got fed sandwiches so I can't really complain. I found out that I am taking 3 1/2 hours a day of Swedish for 2 weeks which should be fun; I am expected to take 2 or 3 classes for the Semester; I probably should have paid more attention because I don't really remember anything else.
I also bought a bike (will have a post on that to come) and got a SIM card for my cell phone.
A bunch of people were going out to party, but Lena and I stayed in and watched Chocolat instead!
August 6th: Today was our first day of Swedish class. Wow, it was intense. The teacher was great and only spoke to us in Swedish, but seeing that I knew 2 words in Swedish, it was a bit intimidating. After hour 2, my head was hurting as we kept learning the different pronunciations for one syllable and finding out the differences between a and å and ä and o and ö (they all sound virtually the same!). After class, I wandered around with different people and got a public library card (remind me to take a video of the crazy checkout book machine).
I really enjoy the feel of Lund: it is very European and cultured. Tons of people spend all their time in outside cafes drinking and eating for all hours of the day. The streets are almost all cobblestone, and the buildings, bricks.
In the evening, I had dinner with some girls from Berkley (practically the only other ones who weren't out clubbing!) and then Lena joined us for an interesting game of Scattergories in Swedish.
I'll conclude this post with some lovely pictures of the city .
yes, I am in a Swedish Davis. How ironic.
And this is my university! It was built in the '60s.That is, the 1660s!
Just one of the many charming streets in the center of Lund.
this beautiful building is our library! How amazing is that?
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