Hej då Sverige!

Well, this is it! I am leaving Sweden tomorrow morning. I cannot believe that my time here is already over. I still don't think it has actually hit me yet, maybe its better that way. For any one thinking about studying abroad, DO IT! This has been one of the best experiences of my life. I was able to meet so many great people and see/do so many things that I would have never been able to do if I didn't study abroad. I just cant believe how fast my time went. I remember the weeks leading up to when I left the states..I was an emotional wreck. I seriously thought I was making a really bad decision to study abroad. Yeah, I knew it would be a great experience and that I would regret it if I didn't do it, but I wasnt sure I was strong engough to do it. Afterall, I was the kid who couldnt even spend the night with my friends because I got home sick! How on earth was I going to manage being away for 5-6 months?! I remember the day I left the states, the drive to the airport was extremely terrible. I was with my family and best friends and I never wanted the ride to end. I didnt want to get to the airport because then I would have to say goodbye to them...However, all of the anxiety and nervous feelings I felt, totally werent worth it. I got to Karlstad and was instantly surrounded by a new family: my rosenborg family. I was placed in a house full of international students. One of the first nights in Karlstad, I was talking with a mix of exchange students from last semester and some from the new semester. The old exchange students said that living in Rosenborg is something special. We live with each other 24/7. We are only here for a short time but the bonds we make are so strong. Your friends become your family. Little did I know, but that is exactly what happened. To my rosenborg family: Thanks for everything. You guys were a HUGE part of my study abroad experience. If it werent for you, Im not sure what kind of experience I would have had. We had so many great times that none of us will forget. You guys are great! Thanks for the memories, thanks for the laughs, and most importantly thanks for being great friends! :-)

With that being said, this will be my last post. I will finish it like I started. My first post was written exactly two weeks before I came to Sweden and this post marks 2 weeks until I go home. Thanks to those who have been reading my blog! I have really enjoyed writing it and I hope you got a little taste of what I was able to experience. UNFORGETTABLE!

Ancient History and the Traveling Pants

My second night in Sweden, my Canadian friend Sarah and I were talking about how we both really wanted to go to Greece. Finally 5 months later, it happened. We spent a week in Greece: 3 days in Athens and 3 days in Santorini. It was amazing :-)

We left Karlstad in the middle of the night to take a bus to Stockholm. From there we flew to Budapest Hungary and then finally onto Athens. Lots of traveling, but it was worth it! We saw all of the sights that we wanted to see while we were there. Obviously we stopped at Acropolis and the Parthenon (the picture at the top). It was crazy to see buildings and temples that I have only read about. I remember in 7th grade art class we had to draw the Parthenon and to finally see it in real life was unbelievable! It was fairly large and so impressive to think about how people in the 5th century BC were able build something like that.

The Temple of Olympian Zeus. This picture was taken from the Acropolis. In the 6th century BC construction started on this temple and was finished some 650 years later!

Panathinaiko Stadium. The place where the first Summer Olympic games took place in 1896 and used again for a couple of events in the 2004 games. It is completely built of white marble. Sadly we werent allowed to go in the stadium :-(

From Athens to we took an 8 hours ferry ride to Santorini. The ferry ride wasnt the best. Apparently when you buy economy class tickets on the ferry that means you get to sit at a cafeteria table (think Mcdonalds or Taco Bell) for 8 hours. Not so comfortable. The first half of the ferry ride we were surrounded my old greek people who were extremely loud. We got a bit tired of that so we went to try some new seats. We ended up finding much nicer seats to sit in for the rest of the time on the boat. I dont think we were allowed to sit there though!

Santorini was beautiful! My favorite movie is the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants; ever since seeing those movies I have wanted to go see the island! The first day we were there we took a boat ride that lasted the whole day. We made several stops. We climbed on a volcano, stopped at Thirassia (an island of 300 inhabitants) and some people swam in a hot spring.Behind the cruise ship is the volcano that we climbed on.

Another day we went to the towns of Fira and Oia. Fira is the capital of Sanorini. The picture above is Oia at sunset.

This is the town were the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie was shot (this is the house from the movie). Oia was such a cute place! Lots of white houses and orthodox churches with accents of blue. We stayed in Oia to watch the sunset and disappear behind the other isalnds. AMAZING!

To see more pictures from our trip, click here!

Like I said, we got to see and do a lot on our trip! It was definitely quite the adventure trying to navigate around Athens and Santorini. We never got completely lost, just did a lot of back tracking. When we left the port of Athens and tried to get to the airport it was crazy. There was a sea of taxi drivers at the port and down the street. Every five feet we took we were asked if we wanted a taxi. Of course we didnt. Long story short, after we found out we couldnt take the metro to where we needed to go we had to wait for a bus. While waiting, a taxi driver pulled up and told us we were in the wrong spot for the bus. We were so confused of what he was saying. Finally he pulled away. I guess he was trying to get the attention of the bus driver (of the bus we should have been on). Then he put it in reverse and came back down the road and started yelling at us. "The bus! The bus! I tried to get its attention. Come! Come! Get in! I take you to the bus!" [sarah and i completely confused at this point. not wanting to get in the crazy taxi drivers car] "Come! I take you to the bus! No pay! No Pay! Get in! I take you to next stop." Still confused we get in the cab. He takes off like a maniac, chasing the bus. Weaving in and out of traffic. Then into the opposite lane of traffic trying to get to the bus. Finally we get close to the bus (as we are still driving down the road) the taxi driver starts yelling in Greek at the bus driver. In the middle of the road and traffic, the bus and our taxi stops. The taxi driver yells "Go! Go! Go! get the bus!!! he stopped!" Thankfully we made it to the bus, but it was a crazy adventure!

Now I am back in Karlstad and only have a few days left. I am leaving for good in four days (Wednesday). I dont think it has really hit me yet that I will be leaving and not coming back. I need to start packing soon, but that will be a mess of its own. I have NO clue how I am going to pack all of my stuff back up into 2 suitcases!

Vättern Runt

Last weekend, about 30 people, mostly exchange students but also a few swedes, went on a 3 day lake adventure around Sweden's second largest lake: Lake Vättern. I actually was not planning on going on this trip, however the night before they were leaving, I got a phone call from a girl asking if I wanted to take her spot. I am sooo glad she called and that I was able to go! It was the perfect "Let's see Sweden" trip. There were 4 8 passenger vans that were driven. We drove two hours to get to the lake and we got to see so much! The host students planned the trip, so all we had to do was sit back and enjoy. No worrying about how to get from point to point because we were chaufered around! They would drive us to a place we should see, let us explore for a bit, and then repeat! In the end, we saw many different castle ruins, churches, explored several towns, watched candy be made, went canoeing, hiking, barbequed, ect. It was a great time getting to explore a new part of sweden with great friends! We got to do a lot! Click here if you want to see pictures from my trip :-)

So, as I am typing this post, I should actually be studying. However, that isn't going so well (obviously!). The weather has been amazing!!! and that makes it even harder to concentrate on what I should be doing. I have my last exam, Swedish, on Wednesday and then I am done with classes at Karlstads Universitet! Crazy how fast it went!

Also, a note on when I will be coming home...I was originally planning on coming home July 31, but unfortunately some plans fell through and some visitors aren't going to be able to make it to Sweden. There is no point in me staying that long if they aren't coming and especially since most of my Rosenborg family is moving out at the end of June. No worries though, I still have a couple of trips planned. As of now, and as long as everything goes ok with the airline, I should be coming home July 7. (I have already ran into problems with them once. I was wanting to come home June 23, but they were going to make me pay an extra $900. um, no thanks!) So, after Wednesday I am done with classes, so I will just be able to hang out and enjoy a Swedish summer. I will also be heading to Greece June 12-19. My Canadian friend Sarah and I will be going to Athens and to Satorini. Once we get back, friends start leaving to go home :-( At that point I will also be leaving Sweden and heading to Norway once more before I leave.

Norway!

A few days ago I got back from a wonderful week in Norway. It is probably one of my favorite places ever! This trip I stayed in Stavanger for a few days with Eliann. We were able to go to Preikestolen one day. It was absolutely amazing! Preikestolen is a massive cliff that stands 604 meters high above the fjord that is down below. In order to get to the top, you have to climb (and climb and climb). Supposedly it is supposed to take two hours to get to the top and two hours to get back down, but I am pretty sure it didnt take us that long. The climb to the top was a bit difficult for me, but completely worth it! The water running down the mountain was so clean that we were able to drink it as it flowed down the rocks and from the streams. The water was very cold and very fresh! When we got to the top, we took a break and just took in all that we were seeing. We also had lunch on top of Preikestolen. Eliann brought a disposable grill with us and we cooked hot dogs and relaxed.

Lunch time: Eliann, Corey, and his friend Joe. If you want to see more pictures of our trip to Preikestolen click here!

After a few days in Stavanger, Eliann and I went to her home town which lies in Karmøy, a small island connected to the main land. It was so nice to be able to see all of her family again!! They are great people who are soo welcoming! They feel like my own family, so it was good to have a sense of family again since I haven't seen mine since January.

While we were in Karmøy, the Norwegians celebrated May 17th, which is their national day. It is a very traditional day. Norwegian flags are able to be seen EVERYWHERE and many people where their national costumes (or bunad as they call it).

Eliann and her nephew Edvin on May 17th
Judith (Eliann's sister) and her son Morgan

The schools usually have some activity going on to entertain people and they also serve lunch along with lots of cake :-) After we had lunch and visited with some people we went to watch a parade. It was a fun day to be able to experience! To see more pictures from May 17th and other pictures from my time in Norway, click here!

There's More Than Corn in...Karlstad?

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I was just waiting for something good to write about. Although this post may not fall under the "something good" category, I just had to share this with you! A while back, my Uncle Paul sent me a package. Inside was some food, pictures, and hat. A hat?? Yep, that was my reaction when I was reading the outside of the package. The hat ended up being a joke. It's actually a corn hat. It is a huge foam hat that looks like an ear of corn. The pictures that he sent, was everyone from my family posing and wearing that hat. Probably the funniest package I have ever recieved!

So, a couple of us took the corn hat around Karlstad and had a lot of fun putting it on random statues and such! If you want to check out all of the pictures we took, just click here!

Other than the corn hat, the past week has been pretty great! Corey and his friend came to Karlstad on Friday. (for those who don't know, Corey is a friend from home. He was studying in Kenya and now is traveling around Europe). We have had a lot of fun hanging out the past couple of days! We have been catching up on lost time and reminiscing about past times growing up together and our friends that we miss dearly! I took them on a tour of the big city of Karlstad, took corn hat pictures, biked to the university, and just hung out!

As I am typing up this blog, I sit in Eliann's living room in Norway! Corey, his friend, and I got here yesturday. They will leave Friday, but I am staying until next tuesday/wednesday. It's great to be back in Norway and get to see Eliann and her family! I am also here for May 17 - Norway's national holiday. In about a week or so, I will have an update about whats going on in Norway!

Färjestad Hockey Celebration

So this post is about a week late, but I am just getting the video that I wanted to show you all! Last week, Karlstad's hockey team, FBK, won the Swedish championship! Last Thursday there was a celebration in the town square for the hockey team. There were so many people there! It was a fun atmosphere; there was swedish hockey songs being sang, and of course none of us exchange students knew the words, so we were just making our own words up as we went! Here is a video that my French friend made, she did a really good job! You can kind of get the effect of what was going on :-) [warning: I apologize for my awkwardness in this video in advance. However, this is my life, full of awkwardness, now its just caught on tape.]

Easter was pretty uneventful. There were a few exchange students that had family or friends visiting, or they were out traveling around...The weather has been amazing!!!!! I cant believe I am actually saying that Sweden has had good weather, but its true! High 50s with blue sky and sun! However, there seems to be some kind of sickness (head cold maybe?) floating around Rosenborg, so sadly, I couldn't enjoy the outdoors like I would have liked to :(

Cruise to Tallinn

From Sunday until Tuesday, I went on a student cruise to Tallinn, Estonia. It was craziness! Think about 1500 college students being together on a boat. This is only waiting for chaos! It definitely was not my type of thing, but it was soooo much fun people watching! As I am typing, I am still laughing at the craziness...

Here is how the 3 day schedule looked:

Sunday:

11:30am: leave university by bus

5:45pm: leave port in Stockholm
Monday:

10 am: arrive to Tallinn

5:45pm: leave Tallinn

Tuesday:

10 am: arrive in Stockholm, take bus back to Karlstad

The few hours that we were able to spend in tallinn, were nice. Although the waeather was cold and grey, the city was really neat! It was very "European" with the cobblestone roads and ancient buildings. Not gonna lie, I felt a bit like I was in a Disney World village or something like that. It didn't seem real, the things that I was seeing. With the cobblestone roads, the buildings with so much history to them, a fort like wall running through part of the city, it was very intersting! Below are some pictures of the city.
I love the castle like look, with the fortress wall to the right

There were several of the little carts with wooden wheels around. Behind it, to the right, was either a bunch of people selling flowers or gloves (there was two different areas like this)

Cobblestone and narrow streets everywhere!

Ok, so this wasn't much of a post, but at least you can see a little bit of Tallinn! A new post should be up within the next couple of days. Karlstads Hockey team, FBK, won the the Swedish championship last night. Today there was a big celebration in the town square. Pictures and videos of that will be up soon!

Royalty Comes to Karlstad

Today, on a beautiful Spring day, the King and Queen of Sweden came to our little city of Karlstad. Sounds like an April Fool's joke, doesn't it? Many people thought it was a joke when they heard that they might be coming, but in all reality, it wasn't a joke! There are even pictures to prove their existance in Karlstad! :-)

I was taking the bus to the city centre to walk around and enjoy the nice day. Two of my German friends also got on the bus and said they were going to the university to see the King and Queen, so I went with them instead! I had no clue they were even supposed to be in town, so it was all news to me. Apparently they were there becuase the university was opening up a research center or something like that and also there is an international food store that is owned by the state, so they were in town for that. I dont really know, I could also be very wrong about what I just said! All I know is that I got to see the King and Queen of Sweden today :-)

King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden

Queen Silvia of Sweden and her assistant (??). She is half German and half Brazilian and she is from the same town in Germany as one of my friends here!


Swedish security. Notice the dilly bar in his hand! haha HARDCORE!

This is where the royal family stays when they come to visit Karlstad. I pass this everyday that I take the bus and just found out today what it is!


It was interesting to see how the Swedes reacted when the King and Queen arrived because they hardly had any reaction at all. I thought maybe there would be clapping or at least some kind of acknowledgement of their presences. But nobody really did anything. Everyone just watched and waved back to them. And as you can see, the security was not that big of a deal! There were some cops and people who had on Securitas jackets and the "ice cream man" but that was about all!

Life has returned back to normal here. Exams are over!!!! So now I just have Swedish 2 and that meets twice a week. That will be really nice once the weather starts getting warmer because I will have lots of free time to enjoy it!

Update on Life...

Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates lately; things have been pretty busy here! This past week Eliann stayed here in Sweden with me! (For those of you who dont know, my family hosted an exchange student from Norway 4 years ago.) Ah! It was sooo nice having a familiar person around. The week went by wicked fast though.

Thursday night, the university hosted international night. Each country had to make a main course and a dessert. "Team USA" made a southwest chicken salad and a delicious apple cobbler. It was fun getting to try all the different foods, espicially the desserts :-)

Right now there is not a lot to report about. Life here is becoming very routine, which is fine, but it doesnt give me too much to say to you guys! Next week, is kind of like finals week. Two of my classes are finishing up so its crunch time now :-S I have 3 exams next week (a listening comprehension and a written exam for swedish and an oral exam for intercultural) and an 8 page paper due soon after. It really isn't a lot like I am used to in the States, but I havent really done a lot of homework since I have been here, so it is a bit intimidating! In both of my classes, we haven't had any exams yet. Everything we have learned will be on the final tests, so I should probably start studying soon! Oo, I would like to point something out! You can buy past tests from the University so you know what you should study. Today I payed 15 SEK ($2) for a past Swedish exam. I totally think we need this system at Ball State!! :-)

Hope everyone had an amazing spring break!! :-) Cant wait to see your pictures! Here, we still have snow, but i think it might be trying to melt. Today and yesturday have been warmer than usual, so maybe all of the snow will go away this week?! Ah that would be nice!

Lapland - An Arctic Adventure

This amazing picture was taken by my friend Lauren.

I don't even know where or how to begin telling you about the adventure that I just had the opportunity to experience. I have a feeling that words can only fail me. Last Wednesday, 8 other international students (2 Americans, 2 Germans, 2 Finns, a S. Korean, and a Canadian) and I left Karlstad for Kiruna: one of the northern most cities in Sweden. We had to take a three hour train ride to Stockholm and then we took an hour and a half plane ride to the beautiful Kiruna. We stayed in a hostel called Yellow House. It was cheap, close to the city, and not too terribly gross, but it had a wicked smell to it :-S

The first night that we were in Kiruna, we wanted to see the northern lights. So we had to walk as far north as we could to get out of the city and try to get to the highest point possible. Well, we walked for a while, in some pretty deep snow. If you stayed on the hard packed down snow you were fine, but when you got off the path into the soft stuff, the snow could have easily been up to your knees and even higher. After we reached a point where the land kind of ran out, we sat and waited to see if we could see anything. We ended up seeing a whitish cloud that kind of had a tent of green to it. Yes! We could see the northern lights! They weren't even that strong, but it was enough just to catch a glimpse of them to make us excited! #20 on my list of things to do and see: check!

Thursday, we went to explore the "city." When I say city, that might be streching it a bit. Kiruna is a pretty small town. It doesnt take too long to walk from one side to the other. So we went wondering around, seeing the sights. The first place we went to was Kiruna Kyrka.

Not the best picture of the church, but at least you can see it. It was very pretty and the inside was incredible. It was built around 1910 and in 2001 it was voted as Sweden's best building.

Here is the inside of the church. It is almost completely made of wood and you can smell the wood scent when you walk in.

After the church, we found possibly the best thing in Kiruna: Cafe Safari. It was a nice atmosphere and they had the best sandwiches, hot chocolate, desserts, etc. We actually went twice on Thursday and I think 2 more times while we were there. It was nice to go inside the cafe to get warmed up. The high temperature was around 15 F and the lowest it got was -13F.

Thursday night, we went on a northern light snow mobile excursion. This night, it was -13F. Thankfully they gave us really thick clothes to wear. The trip lasted about 4 hours, from 7 - 11pm. We rode the snowmobiles for a little while until there were absolutely no lights visible other than the headlights to the snowmobiles. We stopped in the middle of no where and turned all the snowmobiles off and it was completely dark and silent. Never in my life I have seen a sky like what we saw. Every star was out and we felt so close to the stars, like we were on top of the world. It didn't even seem real, it felt like we were in a planetarium. After a few minutes of taking it all in, we had to keep driving to get to the little cabin where we ate dinner. It was great getting to the cabin and being able to sit around a fire considering how cold it was outside. The dinner we ate was made over the fire. We had a reindeer stew (i guess thats what you could call it) there was reindeer meat, potatoes, and some kind of sauce together, to drink we had lingonberry juice, for dessert we had coffee and cloud berries. After dinner, we went back outside to watch for the northern lights. We got to see them again! This night, they were stronger and more green. It was amazing standing there just watching them move around and grow stronger and weaker. The picture above, was what we were able to see. However, I didnt know this before I went, but a good camera is able to pick up more of the northern lights than one's eyes can actually see. Eventually we had to leave, but on the drive back, we stopped back in the middle of no where. The northern lights were still out. There were actually 2 sets. One reached across the sky like a green rainbow and underneath it was a little glob of green. unbelievable!

Friday was another incredible day! We went dogsledding :-) The dogs were soooo cute! They all wanted to get out and play and run around. We took two dog sleds and ten dogs pulled each sled. On one sled there were 3 people and the dog sled driver (musher?) and on the other there were 4 and the driver. The dogs were so well trained and just did their thing: run. Apparently ten dogs are able to pull a mini van, so pulling 5 of us was no problem for the dogs. Sometimes we would get to go down hill and it felt like we were flying. We would hit bumps and the sled would bounce up in the air!!! It was a bit of a rush! Here is a little clip of what we got to experience!

We stopped at a Sami tent for a warm drink and a snack. We thought that when the break was over, we would get back on the dog sled and go back to the starting place. Well, we were wrong. Some how we didnt get all of the details about what was going on, but it worked out just fine! We traded with another group and they rode the dogsleds and we rode snow mobiles again. It was fun though! The night before we rode when it was dark out, this time we rode when it was daylight out and it was soo pretty! The sun was breaking through and everything was white and sparkling from the sunlight and snow!Taken while we were snowmobiling. It was a pretty day!

On Saturday, we took a thirty minute bus ride to the Ice Hotel and Ice Church. This was rediculously crazy what people can do with some ice and snow! Our tour guide said that 90% of the hotel is water. All of the resources used to make the Ice Hotel come from the Torne River. When the hotel and church start to melt, all of it goes right back into the Torne River. It is such a clean river that you can drink directly from it. This is also the reason that the ice is so clean and see through in the hotel and church. Speaking of the church, here is a picture. There are usually about 150 weddings here every year. I think it might be a little cold!

Each room in the hotel has a different theme. One room was called "Getting Cold Feet" and it had a snow/ice sculpture of a foot in a high heel. Another room was called "Get Bad" and it had a sculpted naked lady. It was a lot of fun wandering in and out of the rooms, seeing the different themes. We also went for a walk on the frozed Torne River to get to another turist attraction. We walked to another church, Jukkasjärvi kyrka. It is over 400 years old! It wasnt as amazing as the Kiruna church, but it was interesting to see a church with such a long history!

Well, to put it simply, this trip was unforgetable. amazing. once in a lifetime. It didnt really sink in until we were snowmobiling that we were north of the arctic circle we were getting to see and do so many wonderful things and Im so glad I got to experience it with such wonderful people! We had so much fun just hanging out, doing the turisty stuff, and laughing way too much! So, if any one is even just thinking about going to Lapland. Do it! I can guarantee there will be no regrets! :-)

If you want to see more pictures of Lapland or the Ice Hotel, just click on the links!

PS: My Swedish teacher pointed out that I made a terrible mistake in translating the birthday song in the post Ice Skating, Birthday Party, and Amazing Weather. Apparently, in Swedish the word shoot and push are the same. So I definitely used the word shoot, when I should I have used push. So if you really want to see the correct lyrics, just click on the link above. :-)

Some Things I Have Noticed

The picture has nothing to do with this post, but it's always nice to see a picture :-)

This post is just going to be about some things I have noticed. Not much is going on here now, and I didn't want to leave you without a post for 2 weeks. This will be the last post until March. This coming Wednesday, there are 9 of us going to Kiruna, the northen most city in Sweden. Dog sledding, snow mobiling, and visiting the ice hotel will be involved; it will definitely be an adventure!

As I said, this post is about some cultural things that I have noticed. At school (not just at the university but also down through elementary) teachers are not addressed as Mr., Mrs., or Doctor, instead, students call their teachers by their first names. It is very informal and that is the way Sweden likes it. The Swedish culture is all about equality. There are two other things I have noticed at school and they really drive me crazy. The first is that there are no clocks in the class rooms. Which seems strange to me since the Swedes really stress timeliness. The other thing is that teachers write on white boards with erasable markers, which is fine, but they dont have erasers in the room. Instead, they have a paper towl dispenser by the white boards. Sweden is all about sorting their garbage and recycling, so I dont understand why they do not use erasers in the classes. Yes, I know these are small things, but I just wanted to point them out!

All the grocery stores here are like Aldi's grocery store. You have to stick 5 kroner into the carts to be able to use them, and of course, you get the money back when you return the cart. You also have to buy your grocery bags when you are checking out. Usually they are 1 or 2 kr. I try to bring along my own bag, but when I dont have it, I have to buy grocery bags, and about half the time, I forget that I have to buy them! It is actually a good idea tho. Maybe they dont really need a "cart boy" like they have at stores in the US. And Sweden, after all, is an environmentally friendly nation. So maybe making people pay for their grocery bags encourages them to bring their own with them!

Well, sorry its so short, I just thought that I would post something :-) A little update on the weather here...its snowing constantly it seems! Its very pretty to see the snow falling and everything white, but I dont think the snow will ever melt! On sidewalks (and maybe on the roads, i'm not sure) they dont use salt to melt the ice! On the sidewalks they throw down these little rocks everywhere! It works fine for traction, but it doesnt melt anything! So there is a layer of snow, rock, more snow, more rock. Its like a continous cycle!

Skiing...

The school set up a trip for exchange students to Branäs, a skiing place about 2 hours from Karlstad. We had the option of down hill skiing, snow boarding, or cross country skiing and seeing as how I have never been on skiis, cross country skiing seemed like it would be the safest of the three. When we got there, we got our equipment, and had to ride a lift to the top of the mountain/hill (i dont really know what you call it, but it seemed like a mountain to me). Once we reached the top, I thought the cross country skiing trail would be there, but of course, I was wrong. We had to ski down hills to get to it. Reminder, I have never been on skiis. It was a bit of a disaster! Two Finnish girls were trying to tell me how to brake, but I couldnt figure it out. So, I just squated down and rode the skiis, that way when I fell, I would be closer to the ground. All the while, these little swedish kids were zooming by me like pros. We finally made it to the trail and I was sooo slow! It was so much work, for as slow as i was going. So I just went on the 1.5 km trail and decided that my skiing days are over. I took off my skiis, hoping never to have to use them again. But the only way to get down the mountain was to take this ski lift thing up to the top so we could take a big ski lift down. The ski lift we had to take up was the kind were you had to catch this thing and put it in between your legs. You just had to hang on to it, keep your skis straight and it would pull you up the mountain to the top. The first time I tried to get on the thing, I wiped out and my skis were awkwardly under me, so I had to roll around on the ground before I could get up (there were lots of people around, I felt so stupid, especially when 5 year olds were getting on it with no problem!) The second time I got it right, but it was scary, I kept thinking I was going to wreck again. Finally we got down the mountain and I turned in my equipment and went to lunch. After lunch I went sledding with the Finnish people. It was fun, talking with them about the differences between the Swedes and the Finns, and about stereotypes of the two and of Americans. Quite interesting! But back to sledding, that was a blast! There was a pretty big hill and not many people on it. At the bottom of the hill there was a pretty big snow mound that I thought would stop you and behind it was a wooden fence. Can you see where I am going here? I went down the hill, not slowing down because the snow mound was there. Well, I hit the snow mound, flew in the air a little, hit the fence, and slid underneath it to where there was an open walking area. It happened so fast I wasnt sure what had happened! Overall it was a good day though! It was a beautiful day with blue sky and sun. I learned that skiing is something that I should never do again, but glad that I tried: #16 on my list of things to do is complete! :-)

Ice Skating, Birthday Party, and Amazing Weather

Where do I even begin? The past couple of days have been unforgettable! Sunday, Rosenborg went ice skating. outside. on a massive lake. with no walls to hang onto. Im sure you can just imagine how that went. I tried to skate, but kept falling. So i decided it would be best if i just walked on the snow that wasnt plowed off the lake. However, a French girl had other plans and pulled me out onto the ice and made me skate. Eventually we got to the point where I could move a little bit with out falling over as often. But overall, not a huge fan of skating on a lake. The ice was thick enough, but it kept making these awful cracking noises! the lake we skated on...you can see little trails that were cleared off to skate on.

Later Sunday night, my Rosenborg family threw me a surprise birthday party! It was sooo nice of them! They made a cake and it had yellow sprinkles on it to represent the corn in indiana. (yeah i dont think i have mentioned this yet, but the words indiana and corn are never mentioned by themselves, they pretty much go hand in hand here. i have been nicknamed corn kid by some people). They also made me a book called "The Rosenborg Cookery Book." It has recipes in it from different people in Rosenborg, and before we leave, I hope to get most of the people to fill it out! And I got a cooking glove with moose on it for my cooking lessons :-). I had a lot of fun at the party. To make it like a party at home, Jump on It was played (and i had to teach the dance) and so was our favorite Prince song, dancing on chairs was involved just like always! I think that song was a hit :-P When it turned midnight, everyone sang Happy Birthday to me again because I was officially 21. Then out of German tradition, everyone lined up to give me a hug and tell me Happy Birthday. There is a video that I wanted to post, but I think the file may be too big. Yujin from South Korea filmed the first 20 minutes of my party. I will work on trying to get it up so you guys can see!

On Monday, I got the best birthday present ever! I woke up and the sky was blue and sun was shining in Karlstad! It was amazing, considering we havent had a day like this in a month! The sky was soo blue and the sun so bright, and all of the trees and the ground was covered in snow. It was like a winter wonderland or something. So, of course, we had to take advantage of the day. Sarah and I walked around the town taking some pictures and then we went to Mariebergskogen (the wooded area). We walked on this wooden pathway to a look out tower that was in the middle of nowhere. It will be a great place to go when the sun is setting because it over looks quite a bit. Later, about 6 of us went to IKEA for my birthday dinner. We ate swedish meat balls, boiled potatoes, and lingon berry sauce. It was delicious!

So much food and it was so good!

Here are a couple of pictures of the town:

This statue was a gift from Norway to Sweden. Papers were signed in Karlstad that gave Norway its independence from Sweden. This statue has been voted the ugliest statue in Sweden.

Sola i Karlstad. Legend has it that this girl was an orphan. She worked at a hotel/restuarante to earn money. Everyone liked her so much because of her great personality and warm heartedness that they tipped her. Tipping, however, is not a common thing to do in Sweden. She ending up earning enough money to buy the hotel/restuarante. Lindy, even though you arent an orphan, this could be you! You can take over the Kettle and we could build a statue of you outside of the kettle! I think this has potential! :-)

If you want to see more pictures, just click here.

Today in Swedish class, the class sang happy birthday to me in Swedish. It was fun but really kind of awkward because everyone was standing and I had to sit. I filmed it, so you can hear the swedish birthday song and see how awkward i felt! Here is a rough translation of the song:
"Yes, may she live, yes may she live, yes may she live for a hundred years. O sure she will live, o sure she will live, o sure she will for a hundred years. And when she has lived, and when she has lived, and when she has lived for a hundred years. Yes, then she will be pushed, Yes then she will be pushed, yes then she will be pushed on a wheel barrow." A four times hurra for (name). May she live. Hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra!...such a great song when translated to english, dont ya think?


I just want to say Tack saa mycket to my rosenborg family! You guys gave me a birthday that I will never forget! :-)

Movies, Cooking, and Basketball

Last Sunday a few of us went to dinner and a movie. It's so strange that even the simplest things like going to a movie, are so different than what I am used to. Before we could go to dinner we had to buy our movie tickets first. After dinner, (we ate at a Chinese place. Not the best food and not the worst) we went back to the theatre to watch The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Button. FYI, probably the saddest movie I have ever seen. But thats not important, I just want to let you know how the theatre is. There is a Mcdonalds and a grocery store connected to it. They dont care if you bring in outside snacks or drinks into the movie. You can just go to the grocery store and grab a snack or drink and then go watch your movie! This could be why the movies are so expensive though. I think it cost almost $14! I later learned the reason why we had to buy our tickets early. Apparently they have assigned seats!! It was definitely a new experience!

As of this week, I have two classes now! I started Intercultual Communication which is also on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think it is going to be an intersting class. Plus it is going to be a huge help! For Ball State, I have to write a cultural comparison paper to get credit for a class this semester. The interculutral comm. class, pretty much covers everything that I plan on using for the paper. The class on Tuesday is from 1-3. The teacher gave us like a ten minute Fika break. (fika is what the Swedes call a coffee break. They love love love their coffee). On Thursday we had class from 1015-12. Got a 5 minute break in that time. Had a lunch break from 12-115. went back to class from 115-3 and also had another break in that time. Its fun! :-)

I have also started cooking lessons. My friend David is giving the lessons to me because I cant cook. So on Tuesday we made noodles with a cream sauce and bacon mixed with it. Proud to say it turned out and was edible! yay! Passed day 1 of class :-) On Thursdays, since we are at school for lunch, I get to eat the traditional pea soup and pancakes! Ahh its sooo good!

Last night, I went to play basketball. There were 3 of us from Rosenborg that went and nine people total. However, I was the only girl. It was actually a lot of fun, but I learned that I am completely out of shape and today my body hates me! I feel like I have been hit by a bus or something! When we went last night, I just thought we would jump write into playing games. But I was wrong. The first half hour was like a middle school basketball practice! We did lay up drills, the three man weave, and dribbling drills. It kinda made me laugh! Eventually we did get to play three on three tho!

The something I have noticed section is actually getting hard to write. I have been here for a few weeks and the stuff that I first noticed as strange is just becoming a part of every day life. But with that being said, I'm sure I can always find something! Swedes like to be on time. They want to be on time and they want everyone else to be on time. Teachers always point this out and really expect you to be in class, when class starts. Not walking in a couple of minutes late. To help with the act of being on time, busses actually stick to their schedule. You know that when the bus schd says the bus comes every half hour, it will be there every 30 minutes. Some of the bigger bus stops have these computer genereated signs that says how many minutes you have until your bus comes. Its a very nice system becuase everything seems to run so smoothly!

Here are some pictures that I have taken this far. Just click here to see them!

Hockey Game and Boda Borg

On Thursday night a big group of exchange students went to an FBK hockey game (Karlstad's hockey team). We had so much fun. We had second row seats and only payed like $13. The fan section for FBK was absolutely crazy! They had a drum and a ring leader guy and they sang different songs the whole game. They were almost more entertaining than the hockey game! Karlstad won, but I was a little disappointed because there weren't any fights :-( That is my favorite part!
The fan section...

As you can see, we were pretty close, FYI, the black team is FBK


Here is a video from the hockey game...you can hear the fan section, thats how they were the whole game and you can see some of the people i went with! A mix of spanish, german, and finnish.


On Saturday, Karlstad University sat up a day trip for exchange students. We went to a place called Boda Borg. It is hard to explain what it is becuase we having nothing like it in US. There are 22 courses and at least 3 rooms to each course. There are physical and logical tasks that you have to do to pass each room. If you pass, a light turns green and you can go through the door to the next room. If you fail, it turns red and you have to start the course over. If you make it through the course then you get a stamp for completing it. We were there for about 4 hours and my group only got 4 stamps. The challenges were so hard! Sometimes it was a logical challenge that you had to figure out. For example one room was about vincent van gough. There were different parts of the body sculpted to the wall and there was also a sculpted knife. Well you had to figure out that he cut his ear off with a knife. So some one had to touch the knife on the wall and someone had to touch the ear in order for us to pass. At first, we had no clue what was going on, but the more rooms you went through, you kind of got the hang of it. The physical tasks were sometimes crazy rediculous! You had to climb up latters, through tunnels, hang on to stuff on the wall and make it across with out touching the ground, etc. It was a really good work out! Today I have bruises all over my legs though. But I think we should def. get one of these in Indiana!


Since I have been here, I have been learning about different cultures since I live with people from several countries. It is a lot of fun, but sometimes the differences surprise me a lot. In the past couple of days I have learned that there are things that we do as Americans that are just completely American. I have never thought about some of the stuff being strictly to our culture, but I guess there are a few. For example, it is very American to say I love you to your family. I was talking last night with 2 finnish girls and they asked what we say when we hang up the phone. I thought about it for a second and I told them when i am talking with my family I say "bye, love you." They started laughing (not in a mean way of course!) and said that was so American. I guess in finnish culture, it is just understood that you love your family, you dont have to say it. The other day we were at a little cafe and I was with 2 germans, 2 finnish, and a swedish girl. I ordered hot chocolate and it came with marshmellows and some of them pointed out that was not common at all to have marshmellows in hot chocolate. Also, two of the girls ordered sandwiches and chips came on the side. They also said that they had not seen that before. It is fun learning about all the differences!

Finally Took Some Pictures...

Today I had nothing to do, so I took a walk around the wooded area not far from Rosenborg. My plan was to go geocaching**, but I waited too long to go and it was getting dark. Instead, I just walked around and took a couple of pictures!

One of the many walking paths in the wood...I cant wait to go back when there is snow on the ground!

Random windmill

So many options! I was afraid I was going to get lost, but I had my geocaching GPS with me. One of the first days I got here, I programed the coordinates for Rosenborg just in case I wanted to go out exploring, I wouldn't get lost!

The place I went walking, had everything! There were a few playgrounds, a petting zoo, a place to rent ice skates, and a putt putt place! During the summer, this place will be neat! It almost made me miss my days working at putt putt.

This is Rosenborg, my house for the next 6 months! If you look really close, you can see a red arrow on the third floor. Thats my room :-)

More pictures will come eventually! I have been waiting for a blue sky, sunny day to go out and take pictures, but I have only seen one of those since I have been here. So, I am about to give up hope, waiting for one of those days.

As most people back home know, I suck at cooking. My cooking skills are practically non-existant. I have been eating a lot of bread, cereal, macaroni and cheese, and something similar to Ramon Noodles since I have been here. So last night, David from Spain and I were watching Americas Funniest Videos and we got to talking about milk shakes and a milk shake sounded so good. We decided it would be a good idea to go to McDonalds and get one. But I was also starving, so I decided to get food too. You all know how anti McDonalds I am, but OMG I have never been that excited for a cheeseburger before! I felt like I was at Texas Roadhouse or something. That's how excited I was. It's pretty bad if I consider McDonalds a good meal. :-P I have been told that I will be getting cooking lessons soon...maybe when I come back home I will be able to cook something other than purple macaroni and cheese and popcorn?

Hope everyone is loving the 12 inches of snow you just got and all of the school cancellations! Have fun!

**Click here for a description of geo caching if you want to learn more about it. It may sound kind of lame, but it really is a lot of fun!

Welcome Dinner and the Weekend

On Thursday, all of the new and old exchange students were invited to a welcome dinner. I guess you could call it a cultural experience. Two host students dressed in their traditional Swedish costumes that they wear during Midsommar festivities. All of the Swedish host students sang and danced to traditional songs as well. It was pretty funny to watch, espicially since we do not have anything like that in the US. Other countries sang traditional songs too, but thankfully the US didn't do anything! Here is a video of one of the songs the Swedes sang. Sorry its kind of dark!

After the welcome dinner, we went to Arena, the dancing place. It was so much fun! They play the most random music, but thats kinda what made it fun. They played everything from katy perry to dolly pardon to abba (of course). On Thursdays, students get in free, so we will probably be going there a lot!

Friday, we had a couple inches of snow, so we went sledding! There is a hill just outside of Rosenborg that is perfect for sledding! Back at Ball State, when we went sledding we used lunch trays. Here, I used a garbage bag and it worked just fine :-) Later in the day we went to Blue Moon for some free food, but we didnt stay very long. We tried to go bowling, but the place we went to was so massive (a whole 5 lanes) and all the lanes were filled, so we played pool for a while. Saturday afternoon we tried to go iceskating on a lake that is not far from here, but the ice was too thin. Maybe another day! I have never skated on a lake, when I go skating I usually hang on to the wall and scoot along. So when we actually do go skating, that could be interesting! Saturday night we went Nöjesfabriken, another dancing place. This place was pretty big. There are three different music rooms: dance/techno, rock, and a room where they played a lot of Swedish music. It also has a bowling alley (with more than five lanes!). It cost ten dollars to get in, and to be honest, it sucked. The music wasnt that great and the place was huge. If I never go back, I would probably be okay with that.

Sunday, I attempted to do my laundry. I have been here for two weeks and have been putting it off for as long as I could, but I finally had to do it last night. I had no clue how to work the washers, so I had my German friend come down and show me what to do. Not gonna lie, I kinda felt stupid asking for help with my laundry! The washers are the smallest things I have ever seen. I filled all three of them with clothes and probably over filled two of them. Once they were done, it was time to dry them. I put most of my clothes in the drying closet. This thing is awesome! I think we need one at home! You hang your clothes in this closet thing and then warm air circulates and dries them. I didnt put all of my clothes in that thing though. I put some in the dryer, left for about half an hour and came back hoping they were dry. Well one of two things happened. 1) the dryer doesnt work or 2) i cant work the dryer. When I came back, my clothes in the dryer were still wet like they just came out of the washer. So I messed with it for like 20 minutes trying to make it work and had no luck. I just gathered all of my wet clothes and brought them up to my room and was planning on putting them on my drying rack in the bathroom. Well when i was trying to set that up, i broke it off the wall. great. I had to rig something up so it would stay on the wall and so i could hang some clothes on it. I hope next time I do laundry, it goes a little smoother!

There are like 7-10 of us planning a trip to Lapland (which is in the arctic circle) I bought my plane tickets to night! I am so excited!! We will be leaving on Feb 25 and coming back March 1. I think that we are planning on doing a dog sled trip one day and possibly a Northern Lights snow mobile trip another night. Should be lots of fun!! Later tonight, I think I am also booking a trip to Tallin, Estonia. A lot of exchange students studying in Sweden go on this trip. You take a boat from Stockholm to Tallin and spend a few hours in Tallin and then ride the boat back. Its like a three day trip that will happen in the beginning of April.

Something I have noticed...a lot of places we go to have a coat check. For example, at Blue Moon we pay 20 SEK for them to hold our coats so we dont have to worry about them. In return they give you a ticket with a number on it. It could be bad if you lose this ticket because then I think you have to wait for everyone to leave before you can get your coat. They have this system at the dance places as well as the bowling alley/pool place. I thought it was so weird to have it there. Could you just imagine having that at Coopers?! Maybe this is normal for some people, but I have never done this before coming to Sweden!

10 Day Mark

Hej everyone! Sorry I haven't written sooner, the past few days have been pretty busy! I can't believe I have been here over a week now! It seems like forever since I left home, but my first week here went by so fast. Here is a little recap of the last 5 days! This past weekend was supposed to be a weekend of fun, but it didnt turn out so great. On friday, everyone went to Blue Moon. It cost 20 SEK ($2.50) to get in. There was a free snack buffet with the most random food on it. Before we went, we were told it was taco night. So my friend Sarah and I were expecting tacos. Apparently "taco night" has different meanings though! There was chips and salsa, which is what I ate. There was also some kind of meat, bread that tasted like black licerice, different kinds of salads like fruit salad and pasta salad (i think??). There was a band that played as well. They played all kinds of music from bon jovi to bob marley to pink floyd. They were funny! Blue Moon was a fun place to hang out and it was cheap entertainment! We will probably go back there again. On Saturday, all the internationals in Rosenborg got together for a lunch. There were maybe 15 of us. We had a pitch in and everyone brought something. I made cinnamon rice btw! We had soo much food! During the lunch, though, I started not feeling very well. So I came back when we were done eating and realized I looked pretty scary! My eyes were swollen and my bottom lip looked like someone hit me and I had a wicked headache. I took some benadryl, layed down for a nap, and hoped that I would feel better later. All of the exchange students had free tickets to get into Arena later that night, which is like a dance club place. After a few hours of sleeping I got up and tried to get ready, thinking if I moved around a little I would feel better. But when I was straightening my hair, my adaptor for my straightner started smoking!! It smelled so bad and I thought it was going to catch on fire! I freaked out and left the bathroom, but realized I had to go back in and unplug everything. All the while I started feeling worse. So it turned out that I had to miss a fun night and I slept instead!

On Monday we were interviewed for a newspaper. There were three American students and also three Americans who have now lived in Sweden for more than 20 and 30 years. We were asked about how we felt about Obama, what changes he will bring, and so on. It was actually a lot of fun! Here is a link to the article: http://nwt.se/karlstad/article452952.ece. Its obviously in Swedish, and I have really no idea what it says! But I am quoted in the last section of the article saying that our healthcare system needs fixed because it is crap! Other than that, I am not sure what it says! And speaking of Obama...yesturday I was able to watch the inauguration! There are three North Americans in my building (Sarah from Canada, Joel from Kansas, and me) So we all watched it together along with a girl from Germany. The station we were watching, actually sent reporters to cover the event, so when people werent giving speaches, we listened to the Swedish reporters talk about who knows what! I was really surprised that they sent people over. I thought that they may buy like CNNs coverage and play it, but it was pretty neat they covered it themselves.

Class started yesturday! Right now I just have one class (Swedish 1) and it meets on tuesdays and thursdays from 830-10. The class seems like it will be a fun class. Yesturday we learned some simple questions and phrases. The pronounciation will be the hardest part of the class I think! At the beginning of February I will be starting another class called Intercultural Communications. That class also meets on tuesdays and thursdays. It looks like I will be having a four day weekend every week! Ahh thats a lot of free time, maybe I will pick up a new hobby while I am here?

I finally have a clean kitchen!!! Last night a Swedish and a German girl and I cleaned the disgusting kitchen. It looks so nice now, but it was so gross cleaning out the refridgerators and dirty dishes. There was milk that has been expired since October and other food that expired in 2007! Now, you can probably imagine how our kitchen smelled :-(

Before And After

Before And After

Everyone who lives in Rosenborg seems to have a lot of spare time. It always seems that you can go into a kitchen and there will always be someone to talk to. The past two nights, we have met in the second floor kitchen and just talked for hours. Last night I didnt get to bed until after 230. One of my spanish friends was here last semester and he was trying to tell us new students about the experience we are going to have. He says that the life we live here, isnt real. Never again will we get to experience something like this. We are surrounded by the people we live with 24/7 and the people start to become your family. We are here for such a short period of time, but the bonds we make are so strong. And when we try to go back home and tell everyone about what we have experienced, no on will understand like we want them to. Just the people who we experienced it with will understand. So, in six months, when it is time for all of us to go home, I will let you know if this is how it really is!

It has been snowing here! yay! we probably got about 4 inches of snow, but now most of it is melting. There is a little day care place right beside Rosenborg and for the past three days all of the kids have been sledding on this hill just outside of my window. One day they were all wearing helmets! Everytime I came in and out of my building they would say Hej! (which sounds like hey in english). They are so cute!

Oh I almost forgot the "something I have noticed" part. I think I will have this section in all of my posts. A section dedicated to things that I notice in Sweden, that are different that back home. People in Sweden always take off their shoes when they go in someone's house. Yeah, some people do that in the States, but not nearly as often as they do here. I almost think everyone does this! One day Ida, my host student, came into my room. I just walked right in with my shoes on. She looked at me kind of confused.

Ida: Are you not taking your shoes off?!

Me: Um no.

Ida: oo ok, well i wont either!

A few days passed and I seen Ida again. Ida: I have been wondering this a lot! So do you just have all of your shoes lined by your bed? When you wake up in the morning you put your shoes on and are ready for the day.

Me: haha no! I leave my shoes at the door. It just makes more sense. (and it really does. my floors wont get as dirty fast haha)

Ida: o thats good. im glad you realize this and it only took you 20 years to learn! haha

FYI: Here is my address in Sweden.

Brittanie Middleton

Oldevigsgatan 1/67

652 30 Karlstad

Sweden

Pea Soup and Pancake Thursday

Yesturday for lunch, this is what I ate: pea soup and pancakes. Supposedly it is Swedish tradition that on Thursdays most restaurants serve this meal. Although it is a really weird combination, it was surprisingly good! Yesturday was also our last day of orientation! One of the lectures we had to listen to was about cheating and plagiarism. It was over an hour long, listening about what happens to you when you cheat, how to properly cite other peoples work, etc. I felt like I was in english class or something!

Here is a video of my room! Its kind of dark and I dont know how to make it look the normal way, instead of sideways, but I guess you can bend your head a little to watch! So in my bathroom, you might see that I have a shower and a toilet, but there is nothing that separates them. I have a drain on my floor, so the water goes there and the shower curtain stops most of it from making my bathroom too messy.

And here is my o so wonderful kitchen! Notice the dirty dishes on the left counter and the empty cartons and cans on the right. By the table you can bags of garbage. But the garbage is all sorted so I havent thrown it away, because I don't really know where sorted garbage goes! Other than the kitchen needing to be cleaned, its a nice room! The microwave was confusing to work at first. It has two knobs, one for temperature (i think?) and the other for how long you want something to cook. Then there is a buttton on the wall that you have to push to make it work, which took me a couple of minutes to figure out.

I have noticed that the Swedes try to be very efficient. In many places (banks, electronic stores, some offices, ect) they have this system where you take a number and have to wait for it to come up on the screen and then it is your turn. Yesturday, my host student, canadian friend, and I went to the accomodation office. There was only one other person in the office and they were talking to the accomodation lady. We had to pull a number though, we couldnt just stand in line.

There are 6 American students here this semester and we got an email from a news paper reporter saying she wants to meet with us on Monday. She wants to interview us about Obama being inaugurated! That should be fun :-) Maybe, I will be in a Swedish newspaper? haha

Jag är i Sverige!

I made it to Sweden! The last few days have been really busy, so its hard to know where to even begin! So I am going to just break down the past couple of days into sections.
Trip to Sweden
My flights over were pretty uneventful which is just fine with me. I lucked out because on 2 of my 3 flights no one sat with me so i had the seats to myself. I flew from Indianapolis to Philly to Manchester England to Oslo and then took a 3 hour bus trip to Karlstad. FYI: the manchester airport is by far the most dirty and creepy airport I have ever been to. I was trying to find the bathroom at one point. I got directions and had to go down a narrow stair well to the bathroom. No one was around and it was kind of dimly lit. I felt like I was in a scary movie! I opened the bathroom, but there werent any lights on and I couldnt find the switch, o but of course when i looked down, the switch was level to my knees. Ah such a logical place for a light switch!
Host Students
Karlstad University has a program set up so international students get host students to help them them get settled in. In my group we have two Swedish girls (Anna Stina and Ida) who are hosts to me, Sarah from Canada, and Kathrin from Germany. They are so nice and have been so so helpful! They met us Sunday night at Rosenborg (our corridor) after we arrived and helped get our luggage up to our rooms and to make sure we have everything we need in our kitchen (like plates and glasses, which we have 0 of btw, but that should be changing). On Monday, they showed us around town, helped us get bus passes, and they are letting us use their old cell phones so we don't have to buy one while we are here! That was a nice surprise :-) If I didn't have them, I would be completely lost and confused! So to Anna Stina and Ida: Tack saa mycket! You girls are great!
Rosenborg
I live in a building named Rosenborg. My room is actually quite nice. I have a bed, 2 desks, 2 chairs, and cabinets/shelves plus my own bathroom and shower. There are two kitchens on my floor and less than 20 people. The kitchen I have to use is disgusting. But after talking to other international students, most everyone else has a gross kitchen no matter what place they are staying in. I dont understand how mine is so dirty though. I havent seen anyone in my kitchen. The only way it can be this way is if the students from last semester just left all of their garbage and dirty dishes with cleaning it up. In my kitchen there is also a dinner table and a living room type of deal. There is a couch and a tv (which btw plays american shows. i have been watching the hills from like 4 seasons ago and Americas funniest videos). My building is three floors. I live on the third floor. On the ground floor there is a ping pong room, a laundry room (i think it may have been the first laundry room ever built from the looks of it) i have no idea how to work the washers/dryers and all the directions are in swedish. Should be interesting! In the laundry room there is also this drying closet thing. Apparently, you hang your clothes in this thing and it dries them? im not really sure. We also have a sauna. I havent looked at it yet though. Rosenborg is kind of like Laffollotte (one of the really old dorms at BSU). Its really old and kind of ran down. I think after we leave they are tearing Roseborg down this summer.
Karlstad University
The university is about a 25 mintute bus ride from where I live, but the ride is not bad at all. We have had orientation the last couple of days. Tuesday was a very long day listening to lecture after lecture of information about the school. We also went on a little tour of the school (and btw, their tours are not like BSU. The didnt walk backwords and talk at the same time.) The different buildings do not have names like Braken Library or Cooper Science. Instead they are numbered: hus 1, hus 2, etc. The university has a very modern look to it. I heard that in one building there is a classroom that is shaped like a big egg. You can see the Egg shape from outside of the classroom, but once inside it is just like a normal classroom. I will take pics of it soon so you can see. The way they schedule classes is different too. For example, right now I have no clue what time/date/or building my classes will be in. And i just found out today that one of my classes has been cancelled so I have figure out what I want to replace that class with.
Karlstad - The City
Karlstad is a neat little city. I can walk to the city center in about 20 minutes or take the bus and be there in like five or ten minutes. The city center is called Stora Torget. There are lots of shops and banks and those sorts of things around it. Today, we had tours of the city and also played a scavenger hunt type game. Basically it was for us to go out on our own and try to figure out where things are. Most of the sidewalks and walking areas are brick and have a cobblestone look to them! The city is surrounded by water and the houses are very cute. They look like old wooden farm houses, but are painted and look new and nice. Something that will take getting used to, is crossing the road. It's not becuase they drive on the opposite of the street (which they dont, they drive like we do). Here people have the right a way to walk at all corners or where there is the white lined walk way. They just walk out in the road and the cars stop for them! It is hard for me to do that. I sometimes catch myself stopping and waiting until there are no cars until I cross the street. Heck if you walked out like that in the US, you would get ran over!
The People
There are lots of exchange students from Germany, The Netherlands, Finland, and about 6 from the US. The past few days I have met soo many people and heard many names that I cant even say, let alone remember. Its funny when I meet people and they ask for my name. I say Brittanie, and they are like oo ok like Britney Spears. I have heard that quite a few times now. And when they ask what state I am from, I of course say Indiana knowing that most people probably have no idea where that is. But there have been two people who say they have a "connection" to Indiana. One girl's mom was an exchange student in Indiana when she was young and another girl had an aunt who lived in Indianapolis. Last night, all the exchange students went to a place called The Bunker in english. It is a place for students, ran by students and I guess a lot of people call it their second living room. It was a pretty neat place, kind of felt like a house. There were lots of couches for everyone to sit. Getting to the Bunker was a problem though. Sarah (from Canada) and I left Rosenborg and took a 25 minute bus ride and from there we were lost for about 35 minutes until we finally found it.

Sorry this was so long and probably pretty boring. I havent taken any pictures yet, but for the next post, I promise there will be some! I should probably get to bed now. I am still jet lagged. I fall asleep for like 2 hours and then I am awake for 4 hours and then try to fall back asleep :( Another thing that is difficult to adjust to is the darkness. It gets dark about 330 or 4. It makes me so tired! O and the weather here is about like home. Well I guess not so much now that you guys have snow! I left home and then it snows and I come to Sweden right after theirs melted! I hope everyone at BSU is have a great first week of school! :-)