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!