All good on the Swedish front!

Here is the link to my article in the local newspaper...http://www.folkbladet.se/sport
/default.aspx?articleid=5753625

I was talking about how Union hockey was unfulfilling and I came to play hockey in Sweden to gain my passion back and mentioned I got a stress fracture my freshman year but they didn't get it right in the article. 

Hockey camp this weekend was GREAT. I couldn't ask for a better situation. The level is perfect. Everyone has legit skill and we are all pretty comprable. More intense than club but not as intense and D1. Just from the weekend I already am feeling more passionate about hockey. It is nice to have intensity back because after Union I was kind of just messing around and not taking hockey seriously. The girls on the team are very welcoming. Everyone is very positive on the ice and encouraging. The coaches/staff are great. They speak in Swedish on the ice so I just watch the drill drawn on the board and figure everything else out. I like it. We had 8 hours of ice time over the weekend as well as dryland. I am feeling it today, but it's good. Right now we have 7 forwards, 7 defense, and 2 goalies. We are in the middle of arranging having some girls from Linkoping play for us sometimes because they have two teams and a lot of players. My team has 4 people living in Linkoping so I am all set on getting rides to and from the rink which is awesome. There is also a free campus bus for students that goes between the two cities as an option. As of right now we are going to be practicing 3 times a week and have an off-ice workout one of the days we are not practicing. Pre-season games/scrimmages will be starting end of September/beginning of October and games will start at the end of October. I am looking forward to it.

I had my first lecture today. The class is called "Methods in Ecology." It was from 9:15-noon but we had a five minute break, a 25 minute coffee break, and got out at 11:15. I love Sweden. Nothing can happen without a coffee break. Swedes know how to chill and it's perfect because that's how I roll. It was the first class so we just did introductory stuff. There is only 5 of us in the class. There will be one more coming in a week or two and then someone else will be joining us next quarter. Everyone seems nice so that is good. 

Basically everything is going perfectly. I have settled in great and am now feeling like I am not new anymore. Not that I felt very disheveled in the first place. School and hockey are set in motion and I am waiting to hear about a job. I am in no rush for the job so take your time coaches :). And I'm sure they will. Here in Sweden nothing gets done fast. And when they say things will happen at a certain time (for example they say they will call you back with an answer or they are setting up an interview), they usually don't. It's funny because Swedes are all about being on time for things but when things are planned they rarely get done when they say it will. Not a problem for me. I enjoy the relaxed feeling here. As if I didn't have stress before, I have like negative stress here. All smiles :) 

Frukost, lunch, och middag (Breakfast, lunch, and dinner)

Three more new words!

So I made it through 2 full days of orientation for school. 9am-3pm both days. There are about 10 students in my “Ecology and the Environment” masters program and about 40 in the entire Biology masters department. Seems like a good group so far. I have made friends with a girl named Hannah from England and a guy named Benedict from Germany. The professors also seem nice. The first year consists of courses as well as planning for my thesis. The 2^nd year is devoted to doing my thesis. I can pick any project I’d like that fits within the realm of ecology and the environment. The professors propose their own research topics to choose from as well. They said there are opportunities to conduct my thesis abroad as long as it is feasible and stays within the program’s requirements. The professors have a lot of contacts in different countries such as Bolivia, Kenya, and Vietnam. I am going to try and get a project abroad since I didn’t study abroad at Union. The orientation was pretty boring. Talked about Linkoping University as well as the city and Sweden in general. They went over my program and what to expect. The schedule is pretty intense. Classes everyday including lectures, seminars, excursions, and labs. Gross. I start Monday at 9:15am.

On Thursday we had a break and the school’s orchestra performed for about 15 minutes. They were really good. They had people doing little skits during the songs wearing costumes and being ridiculous. The orchestra wore overalls. Standard. Not a moment goes by without a group of students dressed in something ridiculous doing something ridiculous. It is hilarious. Lines of students marching around campus wearing nun clothling, graduation gowns, space suits, pirate outfits, doctor outfits, bunny ears, etc. They have whistles, instruments, and props. I still don’t get it. It’s just what they do. I wonder if it stops eventually or it is just what normal student life is like.

I had my first “fikka” after orientation today. It means coffee break. Everyone stops what they are doing, drinks coffee, and eats treats. It is what Swedes do. Everyday, multiple times a day. I like it. The coffee is good here and I don’t like coffee. The bathrooms (or shall I say water closets) are personal rooms along hallways which is kind of cool and more private. Maybe there is a lot of poop fright here.

There was a girl wearing leopard pants the other day. And I see dino girl next door all the time wearing her dinosaur tail everywhere she goes. I went to Norrkoping this morning for an interview about hockey for the paper. I’ll post the link to the article when it comes out. I have never been interviewed before and I’m sure I said some weird stuff so hopefully they focus on normal things. I’m excited/nervous to see the final product. And I hope I look semi-normal in the picture.

I’m staying in Norrkoping this weekend at Mandy’s (American teammate) place.  I ate my first kebab here and it was SO good. A pita with meat and veggies and a sauce. Norrkoping is a really cool place with lots of shops and walking streets as well as canals throughout the city. Saturday and Sunday hockey camp starts at 7:30am and goes to the afternoon so I don’t want to have to commute a half hour in the morning and go back to Linkoping Saturday just to come back Sunday morning. I have been told that we are sleeping over in the rink Saturday night as a team building activity…interesting. I brought my sleeping bag/pillow.

I am going to explore Norrkoping this weekend which I am excited about. Can’t wait to meet my team and get on the ice to see what it’s going to be like. I’ll report back about the hockey camp/weekend.  Have a good weekend! Oh and I already have a nickname. “Suess” like Dr. Suess. Apparently when Swedes say my name it sounds like Suessanne. I kind of like it J

Hej!

I never got it together and planned a trip to Stockholm this weekend but oh well I will get there eventually. I have finished my room. I'll upload the pictures of the final product. It's definitely a "me" room. Crooked posters on the wall, no feng shui, pictures of Brody, and a world map. I made my first trip to IKEA this weekend and it was awesome. Such a big store and everything is wicked cheap. I got two cute little plants to have in my room to have some life. We will see how long I can keep them alive.

I am anxious waiting for school and hockey to start. School orientation is on Thursday and Friday and I have a hockey camp Saturday and Sunday. I am excited to see what the hockey will be like. School officially starts on Monday. We will see how well Union did...

The weather has been great besides one rainy day. Its the perfect temperature. 60's and sunny with a breeze. I am not looking forward to it changing to cold winter soon. I bought the bike I was borrowing from my Pakistani friend Ethan. I love it. I rode it into downtown yesterday to go to the bank and it is such a short ride. Took me like 7 minutes to get downtown. Everything is so close to where I live, it's great.

Karin is here now with her Italian boyfriend Dino who is adorable. He cooks real Italian food and I drool. I think it's funny because they speak English as a couple when it's not their main language. I would like to see a fight between them because I'm sure it sounds retarded :) But I guess that's kind of mean so I take that back...kind of. Her dog, Brille, is very cute. A mushing dog. I'm going to ask Karin if he can mush me to class in the winter...she is going to say no but I am going to ask anyway.

The coolest thing about Sweden is how chill it is. Everyone stays to themselves and doesn't get all up in you business and keeps their distance. Personal space is a big deal here. I love it because I don't like people and it is great not seeming like a standoff bitch because it is just the norm here. I don't have to talk to anyone and I can just do what I want and no one bothers you. I mean I like people but I also like to not have to talk to them if I don't have to.

One thing I forgot to add about the grass party I went to last Wednesday...Swedes break out in song randomly. Out of nowhere someone will start singing and everyone will join in because apparently there are songs that every Swede learns when they are younger and so everyone knows the same ones. I guess it would be similar to us knowing America, the Beautiful or something. I don't really know.

This was a random blog just because nothing really exciting has happened in the past few days. I have just been hanging out and doing little things here and there. Once the weekend comes I will have lots to say about school and hockey.

Enjoy your week friends/family. Miss/love

ett, två, tre, fyra, fem, sex, sju, åtta, nio, tio

I taught myself 1-10 in Swedish today. It will probably be useful to know. So the overall party in the rain Wednesday night was awesome. A section of grass on campus was roped off for it because in order to sell/drink alcohol on campus it needs to be contained in an area. The party was put on by older students in the computer science department for the new students as sort of a way hangout and drink beer. Deb's boyfriend Bjorn is in that department so we tagged along. There was a huge trailer full of crates of beer that were sold for cheap and there were burgers as well for like 3 bucks. There is this sauce which is a combination of fry sauce and thousand island dressing and it is SO good. The area filled up with tons of students and everyone grabbed crates of beer and sat in groups of about 6-8 people and played caps. It was a very simple game and a lot of beer was drinken. There is a middle cup filled up all the way with beer and everyone places their cup around it and fills it about halfway and sits indian style a legs length away from their cup. Going around in a circle you throw a bottle cap with your elbow on your knee and you can't extend past 90 degrees to try and make it in a cup and who evers cup you get it in they have to drink it. If you make it in the middle cup everyone drinks and yells hjalte (hero). The person can challenge back if you make it in theirs and if they make it into yours you keep going back and forth until someone misses and you have to drink the amount of caps that is in your cup. There are funny rules also. If someone burps you try to slap people on their forehead and to prevent it you put your hand to yours. Also, if someone does anything stupid/embarrassing they have to drink. If you ask whos turn it is you have to drink. If you take too long to throw someone can go "ahhhhh tempo...tre, tva, ett, kuk (three, two, one, cock) and everyone points at who they think is supposed to throw and whoever has the most people pointing at them they have to drink. It's a fun game. 

It's raining today. I might plan a day trip to Stockholm this weekend. Have a good weekend everyone! Miss/love

Jag skulle vilja ha en ol tack (I would like to have one beer thanks)

Day 2 and 3 were a success. I got a bed for 15 bucks and checked out downtown Linkoping which is such a cool place with tons of shops, cafes, and sweet architecture. I went to the local student bar/club last night to finish off the night right. It's funny because Swedes are all about their personal space so the dance floor is just a ton of people standing next to each other but not touching and swaying back and forth and dancing basically with themselves. Emily, I brought the finger point dance to Sweden and it's a hit :) The music was really good also. I learned my first Swedish phrase as you can see and I am very excited about it. The bartender understood me! More to come, more to come.

Today I met a Pakistani dude named Ethan who I became friends with when looking to buy stuff online over the summer. He turns out to be AWESOME and is going to be my information bank and handy man. He knows all about Linkoping and Sweden because he has lived here for like 10 years (he's like 28). He is a funny guy. You know the Pakistani guy on The Simpsons? His english kind of sounds like that and its hilarious. It's not that intense but here and there his voice gets high pitched with some words and I love it. Gentile, his high pitched words kind of sound like our Econometrics professer...I'm blanking on his name. He knows all about bikes, were to get the best cheapest stuff around, how to get places, and basically everything. I find him to be very important for my initial survival.

I registered today so I am now considered a real person here. I will get my personnumner (SSN) in a couple weeks and with that I can get a bank account and get stuff from the pharmacy. 1st thing I've found to diss American on...from the time I walked in and grabbed a number (in Sweden there are no such thing as lines, people take a ticket and when your number is called it's your turn like they sometimes have at delis in grocery stores) to the time I left registered as a Swedish citizen was 15 minutes. It took me 6 hours to get an expedited passport in NYC. F you America :)

So I found out what the dinosaur girl was all about. Apparently every program at Linkoping University makes their first year students do weird/embarrassing things in order to be considered "one of them." This girl happens to be apart of the technical biology program and they wear dinosaur suits...Why not I guess. These "hazing" things apply across the whole school so we will see what ridiculous thing the natural sciences got going. I am kind of excited because I love dressing up and going out in public.

Overalls. They are "in" here. Really "in." I probably saw 1 out of every 10 young person wearing a colored overall suit yesterday. But not like the overalls we have. Like full body painters suits. Sort of like the white suit I wore for work if any of you got the pleasure to see that. And they come in all different colors. Sort of like the dinosaur thing, each school department has a designated overall color and they wear them for events they throw and such. Like tonight, I am going to Deb's (roommate) boyfriend's (Bjorn, which means "bear" in Swedish) program get together thing in a grass field where they all wear their overalls and sit around and drink beer and eat outside. The new first year students don't have their overalls yet so everyone at the event can tell who the newbies are. I guess seniority is a big thing here. There is a drinking game called caps which I will learn tonight. As a joke, the party throwers are holding a lecture to teach the new students how to play. I'm so getting in on that. Also, there are rules to the overalls. 1) They must never be washed...ever. The only exception is if they get somebody else's bodily fluids on it and that gives them permission to wash it by jumping into the water with it on to clean it. 2) If you are dating somebody from a different colored program you cut the bottom 1/3 of the legs off and switch with your gf/bf and sew their colors onto yours. Weird. I wonder what happens if they break up. 3) They decorate them crazily with patches, drawings, fur, etc. The brown overalls that I am borrowing tonight (so I don't look like a newbie) have Garfield painted on the back and random patches.

I checked out the campus today. An interesting thing is that all over the walking/bike paths and some buildings there are paintings of the different department's logos. But they are funny. I have taken some pictures of them.  I'll upload one big album after I take enough pictures and caption them. There are also random paper machete figures all around campus and they get painted over constantly by different departments (comprable to the idol at Union). 

In the grocery store there is food in tubes. Its weird. The weather has been really nice. Perfect temperature and sunny with some clouds. Lovin it. Ethan is letting me borrow his bike until I find one. I might by it off of him. Everyone rides bikes. You're not cool unless you have a bike...and overalls.

Miss you all

DAY 1!

Besides it taking me 10 minutes to figure out how to work the luggage cart at the airport (you have to push down on the handle to unlock the wheels and the Swedish cartoon did NOT make sense) and seeing airport workers flying around on scooters (I knew my Razor scooter would have fit right in here), my first day here wasn't that bad of a culture shock. Oh, I can't read anything and I have no idea what anyone is saying also. But I did watch "300" last night and all English tv has Swedish subtitles so I have learned some good fighting words in Swedish :) I think the subtitles are really going to help with learning the language. It is true that once you get outside the cities (driving past Stockholm was unreal btw) the houses are all red and white set back in meadows surrounded by forest. It rained and is humid, my jew curls went CRAZY. 

I haven't explored much, that is on my list today, but my apartment is SWEET! I'm in a first floor flat with a huge room (pictures will come shortly) with a porch and a backyard and its right up against a forest. I looked out my living room window last night to see a student walking into her place wearing a dinosaur tail down the back of her back...like a big green one with spikes and everything. I'm gonna have to ask someone about that. Only one of my roommates is here (Deb from Boston) and she's a cool cat were gonna have a good time. Karin (the Swede) arrives in a couple days with her mushing dogs and we will all be a happy family. I wish Brody was here.

I dropped my stuff off at the rink and the arena is hugeeee. The ice looks way wider that any rink I've seen so that will be interesting. We stopped at a gas station to grab something to eat and my first Swedish meal was a roll with cheese and lettuce and a citrus mineral water...surprisingly tasty. I am making my first grocery shop today. I'm pumped to check that out. 

I have no furniture in my room so I need to get on that. I am hoping to pick up some cheap stuff people are giving away/selling...until then I shall be a minimalist. And I CAN'T wait for my first IKEA trip.

That's all I got for now, more to come soon. Either it hasn't hit me yet that I am in Sweden to settle in for a while or I just feel like home here but it is a very fresh, optimistic feeling in the air and I like it. Hope all is well in America bitchessssssssss :)

Love, 

Me