Well, my semester has finally begun. I started this past Tuesday with my first lecture. I didn't think a school could be so different from the U.S. way, but believe me... it is. First off, we had 3 full days of International orientation. This was a lot of useful information about the university and the town. We had a couple of professors come in and talk, the local health care advisor, and the police of course... which was, as usual, the most interesting topic because of the handful of questions some of the students had. For the most part though, I live in a very safe city in Sweden. After the first couple of days of orientation, we were split up in groups to partake in numerous activities such as a mingle evening at the Karen... the university restaurant during the day and pub at night, a city tour, a day at the lake (which is colder than lake michigan yet, we all decided to swim for a couple of hours), a trip to ikea, and much more. This was a nice couple of days just to get to know all of the other international students. The Swedish students arrived earlier this week which was very different because it had been only 180 international students on campus the rest of the time. The Swedish people are very different to begin with. They are much harder to strike up a conversation with. They keep to themselves most of the time and don't like others intruding on their space. I had a hard time grasping that to begin with, but I ended up finding a couple of students that didn't mind me interrupting and I have actually had a chance to hang out with them a couple of times now! It is great actually knowing someone from the city because then I do not feel as lost all of the time and now that I have a phone here it makes things quite a lot easier.
School as I said is very different though. First off, I only have one class so far the first half of the semester... I will have another class starting on the 9th, but that is only once a week for about 45 minutes... so it doesn't even really count. My main course this semester is taught by a Swedish professor who actually speaks English very well minus some of his grammar. I find myself being the human dictionary in the class though for words that he can't remember or doesn't know, but I am used to it from my apartment. The class is divided into 3 different parts for only 10 weeks so we dive into the topics very fast. Each day my class is at a different time, in a different classroom, and will be taught by other professors throughout the semester. I found all of this rather strange because at UW-Milwaukee, and most other U.S. universities... one class is at the same time each week with the same room and the same professor. I just hope that I don't get lost one of these days and walk into the wrong classroom because I don't know much Swedish and know that I would look like a fool, but oh well. Other than that the university is quite nice. They aren't quite as up to date on some of the technology and you end up waiting in lines forever (Try waiting two and a half hours to get a university card only to have the machine break down as you get up to the front... my roommates were livid!! But thank goodness they have really good wireless internet and an unbelievable library.
One experience so far in my classroom took part on the first day of class. Each student was going through their name and where they are from one by one. I was sitting with my friend from Canada and we were surrounded by other students from surrounding countries. The first person to say anything was a guy from Germany and immediately after the teacher said "Oh you students from Germany are so bright, you will have no problems with my course!" The next person was a girl from The Netherlands and yet again the teacher said "Oh yes I have had some amazing students from your country." My friend was next and he said he was from Canada and the teacher said "Oh thats nice." And then it was me and he just smiled and went to the next person. The next student to go was from Finland and immediately the teacher started again with "I think that you will do so well, last semester the girls from Finland did wonderful..." And it continued through the rest of the classroom, always with a phrase of excellence. So the moral of the story is that apparently people from Canada and the United States don't do well in the course! Well Andrew, the guy from Canada, and I are going to prove him wrong and get a partner from another country just in case :p
Enough about the school though... Vasteras is a beautiful city! It is quite small though. Every night minus Friday and Saturday the town shuts down around 9ish. There is a city square which hosts the Farmers Market almost everyday during the summer until it gets too cold, which is apparently very soon. The rest of the "city" is called the City Center... this is where all of the stores and malls are. Literally I think there are about 10 malls within the center! Each block looks like there are just a couple store on the outside and then you walk into a door and a dozen other stores are inside. It is so cool minus the fact that it is very easy to get lost. I live about a 10 minute walk to the outside of the city center, which isn't bad because the university is right in the middle of that! Some students have about a 30 minute walk just to get to the center with another 15 to get to campus... needless to say, they all ended up buying bikes already!
Here are a couple of pictures...
Here is one of each roommate with their flag, drawn by Francios!
Girls
Malardalen Lake
Americans
The alley to get my my apartment
My Street sign
There is much, much more to come...
Love you all,
Rachael
