To Catch A Hedgehog

There are hedgehogs here! I also saw a Swedish bunny rabbit yesterday, but last night after the crayfishparty I saw three or four hedgehogs on the walk home. I took pictures of them, one would've let me touch him, except he was terrified and all prickly, so I didn't. But they are really big hedgehogs too. Normally I think of a hedgehog as being able to fit in the palm of your hand, but these were bigger than two fists. They must've weighed at least a pound. I really want to catch one and bring it home as my pet. And feed it carrots and celery and love :-).

Okay, now that's out of my system.

So in Sweden, August is sort of an unofficial crayfish month. They have parties where everyone eats crayfish and drinks and sings songs. So our mentor group had one of these parties last night.
The kräftskiva (crayfish party, or crayfishparty rather, I've found that there must be a lot of compound words in Swedish, because the information from our mentors always includes words that are stuck together i.e. mentorgroup, etc. Anyway, it was awesome. I got there late, but I still had time to learn from Benedikt the German (everyone is German) how to eat one. The tails are pretty good, actually, and aren't too gross to eat. It tastes like lobster, but I think it's better. I ate two of them, and you are supposed to eat the chest-torso part too, but it looked too weird for me.

Pictures soon, I promise!

Jag heter Ellen och jag kommer från USA.

^ My new favorite phrase, it answers about everything. I thought today I'd talk a bit about the Swedes. And the Germans, and Australians (including New Zealand, sorry Michelle), and Japanese.

The Swedes
The Swedes are pretty much the most beautiful people on the face of the earth. Easily. They are all blonde and tall and tan and thin. With blue eyes, of course. Okay, not every single one is blonde, but the ones that have brown hair have it lighter than mine. They even have 'Nordic Hair Care' shampoo in the grocery. But anyway, I've noticed that they all look very very young. Like there are people with three kids walking around the centre and they don't look any older than me, although I know they have to be. Even the older people are fresh-looking and youthful. I have yet to see a Swede look tired. They are also super helpful if you have the courage to ask. They will not come up to help you if you look lost, but if you go ask where there is an internet cafe, they will tell you five are in this city and three in the next. It's really great, except for when you are just looking for the closest answer, of course.

Das Deustchlanders
I speak absolutely no German, so that probably isn't how you say the germans, but it's close. Probably. So yeah, there were like 6 or 7 Germans in my group last night and they all just kept slipping into German. I mean, it's fine, but if it were Spanish or French, I'd be able to tell at least the subject of their conversation. But in German, I got nothing. It was a bit unnerving, also because the other American, Eric, and our mentor, Martin, can speak German as well. Ugh. I feel like such a big loser that can't get into the German club. But anyway, Germans are all very nice, albeit arrogant. In fact, this morning in my Swedish class I sat next to Sebastian, who was like, I'm very good at this (meaning Swedish) and I called him out for being an arrogant German. He was so fun. We just kept making jokes about how the instructor could beat him up and he said it was easy to be an american girl's friend, all you have to do is laugh and smile a bit, and so on and so on. Matthias, a guy from my group last night did a high school exchange in Oregon and has gone back to the US every summer since (3 years). He and his friends did a roadtrip from Portland, through San Francisco, Los Angeles, the Grand Canyon, all the way to Mexico and back up through Las Vegas and Colorado or something equally crazy. I can only imagine...all that driving. Sheesh. Anyway, all you folks at home need to make a time to Skype me. Seriously. I want to talk to all of you and see your fresh bright beautiful faces.

Well, I've just tried to take a short nap at 1 pm, and woke up and it's 3:20 already. I guess no crayfish for me (they have to defrost, and the party starts at 5). Maybe someone will let me try one from their pack for a few kroner. I really really need a bike. Hopefully today is the day.

And now, I live in Delphi.

Sorry this blog is so long and boring. I just needed something to do last night before I had internet set up. I promise this will get more exciting and there will be pictures soon! (as soon as I unpack my camera cord...)


Arrival day was more exhausting than I thought. First I checked out of the hotel, went to exchange my money, and got on the bus to the train station. I figured it was easier to go to the train station and get shuttled to the SOL-centre with the other students just arriving, rather than lugging my two suitcases around the cobblestone sidewalks until I found the place. Well, I missed the train station the first time by, and so the bus came back and I got it then. One of the mentors helped me find the shuttle right away. Then the fun really began. First, I had to wait in line, oh, sorry, I mean the ‘queue’ to drop off my luggage in the luggage room. Maybe ten minutes. Then I went to the exchange-student check-in line, basically so that they know I’m here and can give me a bag full of information and maps and whatnot. An hour and a half wait! Seriously. But, there were two guys in front of me who were absolutely nuts. One was from Australia and the other from London. The guy from Australia, Lewis, kept saying “Bonjour, mon petit pigeon” in a heavy French accent to everyone that passed. Funny at first, then annoying. But yeah, they were hungover and just crazy and couldn’t stop talking. The other guy, Richard I think, was reading the international student guide aloud, “Call home and let them know you’ve arrived safely. Well if you don’t fucking know that, honestly, how did you get into university??” The other funny one was “Put up pictures and posters in your room to make you feel more at home. Man, they could just make this whole book into one page of helpful information than this shit. Put up posters, no thanks, I ‘ll just take a shit in the middle of my room and have a good roll around in it and I’ll be set, thanks.” Anyway, then I had to wait in line to get my keys, another hour, probably. And then wait to get the shuttle to Delphi (which is pronounced Delphee btw). So I got here, sort of unpacked, got on the bus and bought a discount card, and went back to Martenstorget. I bought a phone, because there is still no internet in my room and I really needed to try and call offices or places to help me. I spent more than I would’ve liked, but they were out of all the really good deal phones. But whatever. I got it and it works, except I don’t know how to call home yet. I also went to the Coop (grocery) at Martenstorget and bought some things like mystery breakfast meat, eggs, Swedish meatballs, a pizza making kit, bread, etc. I need more still, but it’s so hard to know what to buy when nothing is clear what it is. I then came home, realizing I still didn’t have sheets and had no idea how to take the bus to Malmo to go to Ikea. So tonight I am sleeping on my towel and coat, with a nice t-shirt pillow. And tomorrow I vow to find some internet somewhere and figure out how to get to Ikea.
I also met three of my corridormates..Teresia, Caroline, and Tobias. I still don’t know all the rules of the corridor kitchen…I’ll start asking as I get to know people better, but for now, I borrowed someone’s glass for water. So goodnight to everyone sleeping on proper sheets, tomorrow I go to Ikea, the general information meeting and my first Swedish class for the Swedish Language and Orientation Programme, or SLOP. Which is pronounced sloop, so it sounds even more disgusting…lol.

Swedish Breakfast

My first night here was a bit rocky. I walked to the McDonald's for some much-needed food, and got a happy meal for like, $4. I ended up going to sleep at about 8pm, because I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. Well, it turns out, I must not have been that tired, because I woke up at 2am and couldn't sleep until 4. Without any alarm clock (currently sans phone) I luckily made it to breakfast around 10, before it stops at 10:30. Swedish breakfast was not extraordinarily different from what I'm used to, but it was a bit unsettling. There were loaves of bread and some rolls of all different varieties and some sort of meat that smelled like salami and looked like tiny bologna. Along with these things there were several things I couldn't recognize, either because they were in tubes or I just didn't know. There were also small glass jars of cereal, but no milk? Oh wait, there was one bowl labeled 'Sour Milk' and four others around it. After discretely messing with a ladle in one of them, I determined these bowls to be yogurt. Haha. So I put some blueberry yogurt in a bowl and some rice krispies(only recognizable cereal) on top. I was afraid to try everything because there were many other people and I got some funny looks for sitting alone anyway. I'm vowing from now on not to just sit alone in the corner anymore. There was another guy who seemed to be stumbling and alone and he must've been another exchange student. But of course, I said nothing. I thought about it, and he must have been too, because we kept giving each other awkward glances. So, next time, no hesitation.

Arrival!

So, I’m sitting at the Stockholm airport, just arrived and now have a four hour lay-over. (Ugh.) So I thought I’d record my first thoughts of international life…
1. The flight wasn’t that bad, except I couldn’t sleep much. The plane was really nice and everything, but they gave us coffee after dinner plus I was really nervous/excited on top of that. So, only an hour or two of sleep for me.
2. When we first dipped below the clouds and got my first glimpse of Sweden, I was kind of like, ‘Shit, what have I gotten myself into…and geez there are a TON of trees here.’ Like, literally, a million. Oh and it’s raining, so we made cool splattery things as we landed, it reminded me of a goose on a lake.
3. Everyone really IS blonde. Like, not just kind of light sandy brown, but probably half the people on the plane had hair that was blonder than most California blondes. Seriously.
4. It figures the exchange rate is the most horrible I’ve seen it right when I get here. I was going to buy a Lonely Planet book here, like Prachi suggested, and they take dollars, but it would have cost almost $50. So, I’m sure that would be worth it, I’m not quite ready to spend that amount right off the plane, I guess. Idk. Whatevs.
5. It’s very very quiet in this airport. The only sounds are clicking of the camera from the two Asian girls behind me, and then of course them discussing which pictures are the best.

I’m going to try and take advantage of this silence and get some sleep. I don’t know how successful I’ll be, I can barely sleep soundly with Tom, even, let alone a bunch of foreign strangers hanging around. But I guess I’m the foreign one now.


I made it! I'm in Lund! And already I have had some very unlucky and very lucky things happen. When I got off the train, I could not find the map I had printed out, so I started walking in the general direction I knew where the office was. Luckily, two guys said something to me about being a new student and asked if I was going to the International Housing Office. I said yes, and they said they were too, so I was able to follow them. That was the very lucky part, along with the fact that I'm pretty sure one of them lives in my corridor! Strange, huh? Well, the bad news is that the Housing Office was closed, and this guy I was with, Ali, called all the phone numbers that were posted on the door, but no one answered. This makes me really upset because I specifically emailed the office telling them the exact day I would arrive and they told me as long as I arrived before 5pm I could get my key. So for the time being, I am homeless in Lund. Ali and Hassan (they are from Lebanon, brothers. Ali is a PhD student at Stockholm University, and Hassan is doing exchange here, like me) helped me find a hotel. We went to two different ones, seeing if there was a lower price, and called a third. I settled for one that is close-ish to town, so I can walk to places I need to go, and is about $90 per night, I think, by doing the conversion in my head. It's expensive, but I think it's worth it. I get breakfast both days and the room is like a tiny little apt with a two burner electric stove and microwave and coffee maker and sink. And it's on the 5th floor so I get to see a bit of the city. There is a cykel (bicycle) shop right across the street so I am going to go there later and check out prices of bikes. So I'm in this hotel now, got my converter to work and is charging my computer, using my room's internet(free) and trying not to think about the fact that it is only 11:30 am at home. It's 5:30 here of course, but it feels like it too! I'm exhausted!

Departure...

OMG I'M LEAVING IN THE MORNING... I feel completely unprepared and uncertain. And sad. And terrified. And horribly EXCITED. More than anything else. All I can do now is hope everything with my classes will work out well and I haven't forgotten to pack anything necessary for survival. I'm trying to leave space in my bags to bring things home, but it's so hard not to want to fill every pound with my stuff from here. I want just one more pair of shoes, my stuffed lamb, hat, another purse...blah blah blah. Luckily have a total of 118 lbs of space to pack anything into, which is a lot more than the students coming from elsewhere in Europe (only about 44 lbs).

I don't want to be too 'loud annoying american', not that I think I am in the first place, but hey, you never know how you might be perceived.
I want to stop freaking out like this, and I'm sure I'll relax pretty soon(like when I get there).

Goodbye USA.