Hey everyone,
It officially feels like I am abroad. I booked my first trip here with two others, Sara from Virginia and Andrew from Canada! I am so excited. Ireland was one of my top three places that I HAD to visit while I am here! We leave from Stockholm on September 30 and return on October 5. We will fly into Edinburgh, Scotland and from there we will take another flight to Dublin. We are staying 4 nights in a hostil there and then flying back super early on the 4th to spend a day and a half in Edinburgh. I am ecstatic!
There will be many pictures of all of my trips to come! We are about to plan trips to Prague, Dusseldorf, Brussels, and Amsterdam soon!
Miss you all!
Rachael
Monday, September 5, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Just the start...
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
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
Monday, August 22, 2011
Hulphersgatan 3 - The apartment!
Hey everyone,
Well today was very exciting. All but one of the roommates have moved in! There is one guy and two girls from Germany, one girl from Finland, one girl from Hungry, one girl from The Netherlands, two guys from Spain, and one guy from France! It is a very culturally diverse house. We spent most of the day getting to know each other and learning each others customs. Most of them speak English fairly well. We all range in ages 21-24 so it should be a very fun time. We had a big "family" dinner tonight... Pasta (mhhhh my favorite!) Tomorrow we are all taking a bus ride to ikea together to get some stuff for the apartment and our rooms. So that should be fun! Miss you all very much!
Pictures are coming soon:)
<3 Rach
Well today was very exciting. All but one of the roommates have moved in! There is one guy and two girls from Germany, one girl from Finland, one girl from Hungry, one girl from The Netherlands, two guys from Spain, and one guy from France! It is a very culturally diverse house. We spent most of the day getting to know each other and learning each others customs. Most of them speak English fairly well. We all range in ages 21-24 so it should be a very fun time. We had a big "family" dinner tonight... Pasta (mhhhh my favorite!) Tomorrow we are all taking a bus ride to ikea together to get some stuff for the apartment and our rooms. So that should be fun! Miss you all very much!
Pictures are coming soon:)
<3 Rach
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Made it to my apartment!
Hey everyone,
Well I am officially in my new place for the semester. It is a cute little apartment with 10 other students. I haven't met any of them yet, but the place is nice. We have a big backyard with a Trampoline and barbeque area! The main leader is apparently a lot of fun and has lots of introduction activities for us to do for the incoming days... but I have to get unpacking so I can actually do somethings tonight:)
<3 Rach
Friday, August 19, 2011
Välkomna to Sweden!
Hey everyone,
Well I am officially in Sweden! I met some new friends already on the plane... none of which are living in the same city, but at least the plane rides started off in the right direction. From the airport one of my new friends had an old foreign exchange student that is from the Stockholm area... we jam packed a 2 door car with 4 big suitcases (mine alone were probably enough for the whole car) plus 4 people and all of our carry ons. Needless to say that was an experience by itself. We continued to drive into Stockholm City which was unbelievable! It was basically like a downtown chicago filled with a million people and lots of shops, none of which I could read, but I'll get the hang of it! The grand central station was just like you would see it in a movie... the staircase and big clock with the intricate architecture. It was beautiful, but I was in a rush to get to my platform so I had to sprint through it. I couldn't read my ticket to get onto the train so I ended up getting on the wrong class and then they were going to kick me out because she didn't speak English, but luckily the guy net to me was from England and translated everything for me. Needless to say, she let me stay on... Thank goodness. Once getting into Vasteras, I went straight to my hotel. It is gorgeous on the outside. The inside is a bit older and to top it off they have the smallest elevators in the world. My luggage wouldn't fit in it, the door started making all sorts of noises, and then finally an older man came and tried to help, but then mummbled something in Swedish and walked away. The receptionist saw me struggling and got two others to help take my luggage to the top. It was a rough start in the hotel, but everything is alright and I am settled into my room until Sunday when I get to go to my new place for the semester.
If all of this happened to me in the first day in Sweden, I can only imagine the rest of the adventure to come!
<3 Rachael
Well I am officially in Sweden! I met some new friends already on the plane... none of which are living in the same city, but at least the plane rides started off in the right direction. From the airport one of my new friends had an old foreign exchange student that is from the Stockholm area... we jam packed a 2 door car with 4 big suitcases (mine alone were probably enough for the whole car) plus 4 people and all of our carry ons. Needless to say that was an experience by itself. We continued to drive into Stockholm City which was unbelievable! It was basically like a downtown chicago filled with a million people and lots of shops, none of which I could read, but I'll get the hang of it! The grand central station was just like you would see it in a movie... the staircase and big clock with the intricate architecture. It was beautiful, but I was in a rush to get to my platform so I had to sprint through it. I couldn't read my ticket to get onto the train so I ended up getting on the wrong class and then they were going to kick me out because she didn't speak English, but luckily the guy net to me was from England and translated everything for me. Needless to say, she let me stay on... Thank goodness. Once getting into Vasteras, I went straight to my hotel. It is gorgeous on the outside. The inside is a bit older and to top it off they have the smallest elevators in the world. My luggage wouldn't fit in it, the door started making all sorts of noises, and then finally an older man came and tried to help, but then mummbled something in Swedish and walked away. The receptionist saw me struggling and got two others to help take my luggage to the top. It was a rough start in the hotel, but everything is alright and I am settled into my room until Sunday when I get to go to my new place for the semester.
If all of this happened to me in the first day in Sweden, I can only imagine the rest of the adventure to come!
<3 Rachael
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