A Year in Sweden: September 2007

Wow, I have not updated my blog in a while but I have been rather busy! There is much to do and see in Lund, and I am well adapted to Swedish life now. I am taking classes that keep me pretty busy, plus there are logistical issues that I have been resolving as time goes on, such as setting up a bank account, fixing my bike, and paying bills. People here in Sweden have to deal with the same hassles that we have to deal with in the United States. On top of that, I have been trying to get my classes in order for next semster and I am trying to start the process of extending for the year because I love it here in Sweden. I have already learned a lot of Swedish, and at this rate, I should be able to have a normal conversation in Swedish at the end of the year.

As far as my spending rate, it has been pretty wild this past month because of bills, items for school, a couple items of clothing to fight the cold weather, and miscellaneous items that I have to buy or things I have to pay for. I also had to pay for train tickets to Germany and I think that Oktoberfest will be somewhat expensive, although I am camping there so I should save some money that way. I will have a more normal spending rate in October since I should have finished with all of my initial expenses by then. I will have a Swedish bank account (hopefully with money in it), I am now cooking for myself, I am walking or taking my bike to class, and I am learning how to be more frugal as time goes on, so I think October will be a much cheaper month, and from then on as well.

One of my friends said she uses a program called Quicken to manage her budget back home at UC Berkely, so perhaps I could start using that here. She is also staying for the year and is also going to Oktoberfest, so maybe I can get some tips from her about how she is planning on saving money.

I am planning on doing some travelling while here in Europe, so I will want to save money for those trips. One of my friends is from Helsinki, Finland, and he is planning on taking a fairy there some time and invited me to come. I'm sure I could stay at his house to save some money. I also have friends in Helsingborg, Stockholm, and miscellaneous countries around Europe such as Spain and the Netherlands, so I think travelling around Europe will not be too expensive. I can also go in a group and split any necesssary group expenses like hotel rooms if we need one. I found out that flights in Europe can be very cheap if you do some research online... there are many airlines similar to Jetblu that offer low quality but cheap flights. That is how many of my friends have travelled. I may go to some cheaper countries like in Eastern Europe. Although it is not the cheapest, I think I will visit Prague some time, and I have a friend from there so perhaps I can stay with him if he goes back home some time. Oktoberfest should be one of the most expensive trips I take, but I think it will be worth it.

In other news, I have chosen some prospective classes for next semester and they are basically all engineering courses, so I do not think I will get too far behind for my degree. I may take a class on Nanoelectronics, which I am pretty sure is not offered at Davis. There is also a class where I could be involved with research groups at MAX-lab... I think it is one of the largest particle accelerators in Europe and the largest in Scandinavia. I am trying to choose classes that I would be taking right now back at Davis, but many of them may only be taught in Swedish so I am trying to pick a lot of different options for courses so I will really cover my bases.

I am hagning out with a lot of Swedish people now and have many Swedish friends. I spend more time with Swedish people that American people theses days, which is good for my cultural immersion. I know my Swedish corridor mates really well now, and I am even friends with some of their friends, so I am really starting to feel like a Swede. It is good to be an exchange student though, aparrently Swedish girls like guys from California, and many of them dream of going to California since a lot of the movies and music they have is from there. I thought it would be wise to remain single while I am in Sweden, at least initially, since I will posssibly be here for a year. It would not make that much sense to start a relationship so early, but we will see what happens. By the way, in case there are some of you who do not know, the women in Sweden are incredibly beautiful.

Any way, I am loving life here in Sweden, and look forward to staying for the year. I am committed to taking financial responsibility for myself so I can have this experience, and I will try my best to conserve money. I am learning more and more strategies over time. I can't really talk about all that I have done since my last blog entry because I am leaving for Germany in about an hour. In less that 24 hours I should be celebrating at Oktoberfest with people from all over the world. It will be a cool cultural experience, and I studied German for 4 years in highschool, so I am very excited to finally get to visit the country. I will try to take lots of pictures and post some of them so that you can see what it was like, and I will also post some more recent pictures taken here in Sweden.

Hej då! (goodbye)

Downtown Lund

Lund University Library

My room in Delphi H

Swedish crayfish dinner in my corridor

Me and some Swedish friends

This last week, I completed my Swedish language course. I feel like I have a better understanding of the language, but still not enough to have a good conversation or understand what people are saying around me. I am going to take a normal Swedish language course this semester and hopefully I will know Swedish well after the end of it. I have a certificate to prove that I completed the 2 week crash course in Swedish, which is pretty cool. Now I have something to put on my barren walls.

Last week was a little hectic because I had to figure out what course I am actually going to take. Things are not so easy here because you have to figure out what courses conflict with other courses by yourself. At UC Davis, things are a little more automated and it is impossible to sign up for a class that conflicts because it is an electronic process. In addition to this, I had to go around and have each teacher sign a piece of paper that allows me to take a class because I am an exchange student. Right now, I am signed up to take 2 engineering courses, 2 humanities classes, and 2 language classes (each of which lasts half the semester). My engineering classes are in the E building, or the Elektroteknik Datateknik building, because I am an electrical engineering major. I have about 50% more units than I am required to have so I am almost certainly going to drop some of these courses. I am just happy to have a finalized course list, and dropping a class should be much easier than trying to find one that doesn’t conflict.

Last week I finally bought a bike and a few more items to help me get settled here in Lund. I am getting more used to this country every day. Soon I will be following a regular course schedule and everything should be streamline. I know about the bus system now and where many important buildings are in town. It seems like I meet new people every day, and now that the school year is about to start, I should be meeting a lot of Swedes.

I have mostly been meeting international people. I started going to the nations, which are like fraternities but coed and much less exclusive. It seems that almost everyone joins a nation. I am trying to go to each of them at least once before a decide to join one, although it does not really matter because you can go to all of the nations just by joining one, but I think I will mostly be hanging out with the people in my own nation. So far I have been to Västgöta, Krischansta, and Lunds. Västgöta is my favorite one so far because they play music that I mostly like and it is not too crowded. I met a cool German girl there named Anna who is from Munich and who I have been hanging out with recently.

I have discovered some cool places like the LTH Studiecentrum which is like a library and café where engineering students can study. It is right next to where my engineering classes will be so it will be really convenient to study there in the future, especially on rainy days. I also saw the Lund Observatory, which stands out because it is a tower in the engineering area. There is a bronze bust of Tycho Brahe in front of the observatory, which I thought was pretty cool. Everything in Lund seems to have some sort of historical vibe to it, and I feel like I am discovering an old culture by finding out more about the town. But Lund is also very high tech, with start of the art research being conducted and modern corporations in a business park. So it is like a clash between the past and the present. I like technology but I also like the rustic feeling of the town, so Lund is a good place for me to be.

Yesterday was one of the nicest days since I have been in Scandinavia. I brought a sweatshirt with me to go downtown, but never needed it because it was so warm. There were a lot of live bands playing in downtown, and the streets were swarming with people. It was really a fun environment to be in. I walked down some of the streets and then decided to walk back to walk back to my dorm because the weather was so nice. I did my laundry for the first time in Sweden once I got back. You use a RF chip to gain access into a dorm building where the laundry machines are located in the basement. You have to book an appointment with a terminal on the wall, and you can choose what machines you want to use and at what time. Then you have to use the RF chip on your keychain to get into the hallway to get to the machines. It seems very high tech and high security for a laundry room. It is free to use the machines, and they are just as high tech as the booking system. Lund is a high tech town, but it surprised me to hear that wireless internet is not available for free in cafes, which is a luxury enjoyed in the United States. After I finished my laundry I met up with some American friends of mine for a BBQ in the courtyard in Delphi. Everyone is trying to use the good weather while it lasts for these sorts of events. The BBQs have been a great chance for me to meet people, most of which have been international. I have met several Germans, a Swiss guy, an Irishman named Mark, A Finnish guy named Antti, a Scottsman named Robert, and several others. It is comical how Mark acts like a stereotypical Irishman, and his accent is hilarious at times. He keeps asking me to join his rugby team comprised of exchange students but I am probably not going to at this point. He has already messed up his knee playing the sport here. It is ironic that I know four different people who have suffered knee injuries here in Lund. I am trying not to get injured here in Lund, because I already know some people who have been. I am also trying to shy away from my American friends because I feel like they always just hang out with each other rather than Europeans. Antti is becoming one of my better European friends here because we have similar interests and tastes in music. I feel as though I have connected better with the Europeans here, even though most of my Californian friends have been in Lund for the whole semester.

Tonight I met some more people on my corridor and we had a meeting to talk about some procedures for the semester or year. Most of the people on my corridor are Swedish and they always talk in Swedish unless they want you to know what they are saying. They like hanging out with each other so it can be a little hard to get to know them as well as I would like to, but they are otherwise very friendly, and we are going to have a corridor party soon, which should help everyone get to know each other better. We spent about an hour cleaning up the kitchen after the meeting, with everyone working at once. The Swedes seem to be crazy about cleaning; it was like they were trying to turn the kitchen into one of the model kitchens you would see on display at IKEA. I am used to living in a fraternity house, which is basically always dirty. Here, people were taking handles off of cabinets to clean them and move furniture out of the way to vacuum. They even have a recycling system with a bin for each type of recyclable material. This is a procedure that I wish my fraternity would adopt. I like living in such a clean environment, and making the adjustment to the communal expectation of cleanliness was not hard after the initial astonishment. I am starting to feel more like a Swede as I change my lifestyle and habits, and now I can even find most of what I am looking for in a grocery store, although there are some products I just do not recognize. With any luck I will become Swedish to the point where I will be a little shocked when I get back to the United States and am reintroduced to that lifestyle. Tomorrow is the first day of the real semester, and I am looking forward to the journey that awaits me this semester.