Not Dead

Promise.

Sorry about the lack of updates. Things have been simultaneously hectic and stagnant here--when stuff is happening, then everything is happening. Otherwise, I'm basically sitting in my room, using Rosetta Stone or procrastinating on a blog update.

Corporate Finance turns out to be an introductory level repeat of Financial Accounting, which I took quite a while ago. It's certainly a different environment though--where I took Financial Accounting with 17 other students in a small classroom, Corporate Finance is taught in a huge lecture hall, and I have over 250 classmates. It's nice to experience something different than CC; there aren't any consequences if I don't complete assignments for the next class period.

All told, I have class three days a week, for perhaps 8 hours in total. Unfortunately it doesn't look like I'll be making it into Swedish 1--I'd been waitlisted when I asked to join two weeks ago, and I think I'm too far behind now. Regardless, I've been following along with some friends, studying the same things they study. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy learning a language.

Mind you, Swedish is fiendishly difficult to speak. Reading and writing are perfectly manageable, but all consonants disappear as soon as someone opens their mouth. It's just an incomprehensible stream of the nine different Swedish vowels. Yeah, nine. I suppose that's a nice 80% improvement on English.

Tragically, I've yet to eat real Swedish food. Raslatt has a natural deficit of enthusiastic cooks, and despite much searching, I am unable to find a Swedish restaurant. I've been relying heavily on bread and cream cheese, with frozen pizzas and Swedish meatballs (also frozen) making frequent appearances. On the bright side, I've become good friends with a (monstrously tall) Australian who's an absurdly good chef (an evolved cook. Obviously). I'm slowly adopting his more discerning tastes, but it's a gradual process--that's why tonight's dinner is a frozen pizza, bread with cream cheese and lox, and grapes. I'm hoping life will be more baked salmon with avocado and less ramen noodles with crackers.

The Raslatt student association just opened a new restaurant (okay, that's a generous description. Eatery?) in Sockertoppen. While the food isn't quite gourmet, it's significantly cheaper than most places in Jonkoping--did I mention that a Big Mac is almost $10.00? Groceries aren't expensive, but food prices are mindblowing.

Anyway, life is good. Last night, I entered a riddle/logic question/general knowledge tournament style thing with two friends, and we walked away with 300Kr, or about $50.00 to split between the three of us. It was a good start to the week.

Cheers,
Daniel

P.S. I'll try to update more regularly. Once or twice a week? Yeah? We'll see.

Starting School

I'm enrolled in Corporate Finance and Project Management (woohoo). My opinions are divided: on one hand, I'm not exactly thrilled that I'll be back in class; on the other, the last week of nonstop social activities have taken their toll, and I'm looking forward to feeling productive again.

Unfortunately, my wallet disappeared over the weekend. I lost my driver's license, debit card, bus card, student ID, and some number of Krona (about $50.00, I think). I'm feeling the missing bus card the most, though--bus fare is about $4.00 each way, and I generally dislike paying $8.00 just to get to school every day.

I called Wells Fargo to replace my debit card, and had an amusing exchange about how to spell the name of the building I live in--Karrhoksgatan, approximately pronounced "Kerr-hokes-gott-an." The replacement process was easy, though, and they didn't make a fuss about shipping my new card across the Atlantic.

On a happier note, my apartment is quite spacious. As I mentioned before, the same flat would probably fit twice as many Colorado College students. I'm sharing an apartment with three roommates, two of whom attend engineering school (I'm not sure about the third, as he doesn't leave his room). Altogether, the apartment is 25% American, 25% Polish,  18.75% Swedish, and 6.25% Bolivian. I'm happy to report no troubles so far.

The student apartments are just a small part of the whole Raslatt complex: there are about 30 large apartment buildings, only 3 of which are for students. Fortunately, the real estate company--Vatterhem--has constructed a common room, which is in the middle of the three student buildings. Called Sockertoppen, which is Swedish for sugar top, it's got foosball, a TV, and--you guessed it--the sauna. I'll take this small opportunity to brag about how nice it is to wake up in the cold Swedish winter and hop in the sauna before breakfast.

Pictured: The building that has the sauna in it. Ahhh.

This is the first week I have consistent internet access--activation required the apartment rental agreement plus a passport, and for three straight days I managed to neglect one, the other, or both. $15.00 for the whole semester was a palatable price, though, despite the lack of Wi-Fi. Sadly, my ethernet cable is a mere meter in length (that's right, look at this American use the metric system!) so I'm bound to the foot of my bed. On the flip side, my roommate (the Swedish/Bolivian one) said he was getting a wireless router, and I remain optimistic.

A couple of days ago, the university sent us on a short bus tour around Jonkoping (which is pronounced Yon-schir-ping, by the way), which really helped me get a feel for the city. Population-wise, it's hovering around 120,000, although sometimes it feels substantially larger or smaller. Over the past 30 years, urban sprawl has linked it with the neighboring Huskvarna, and the tour took us by the chainsaw factory (they're still churning out 1,150 chainsaws per day!).

Jonkoping University. Picture unrelated.

The best part of the tour, though, was at the peak of a nearby hill, with the city lights reaching around the lake as the sun set. I wish I had a picture to share, but by then it was too dark for the limited capabilities of my point-and-shoot. Here's an unrelated picture of the university instead.

I took today to run around the city by myself and explore a bit. There's an incredible cathedral in the center of town called Sofiakyrken, or the Sofia Church. It's been around since the late 1800's, and it's absolutely incredible.

The rest of the afternoon was spent finding the highest point I could reach on foot--an adventure that took me through a 300 year old graveyard overlooking Lake Visingo and to the foot of an awesome clock tower. Next time I go explore, I'll remember to put my SD card back in my camera so I can take pictures. Yeah.


A couple of new friends came over last night and we prepared our own Swedish meatballs and pasta. It was, needless to say, a delicious meal.

Cheers,
Daniel

Guess what?

I have a sauna.

There isn't really a way to encapsulate the events of last week, since I left the States. I traveled for 30 hours, on three planes and two trains. I met an architecture student from Denmark on my flight over the Atlantic, a satellite technician working for NATO in Naples on the plane to Washington, a German anesthetist on the train to Nassjo, and students from Australia, Kazakhstan, France and a dozen other countries.

I've started the painfully slow process of learning a new language, gone on a pub crawl, eaten Swedish meatballs in an Ikea, and taken the bus approximately five million times (with a projected 25 million to go).

I'm living in the Raslatt apartment buildings in a suburb of Jonkoping. The buildings are painted in shockingly horrible pastel patterns, but my flat is relatively nice. The same space would house twice as many students at CC.

And yeah, the student common room has a sauna.

Cheers,
Daniel

Now Boarding

I'm staring at the McDonald's sandwich I just bought with more than a little trepidation as I start this post. My flight takes off in about an hour and a half, and there's nothing to do except put off eating my Sausage Biscuit with Egg for a few more minutes. The guy across the aisle from me is struggling mightily to sleep in these deceivingly awful waiting chairs. He's managed some impressive contortions so far, including several I didn't think were possible unless one had several decades of yoga experience.

Here's an idea: rent out one of those airport shops, and start a nap clinic! It would need soundproofed sleeping areas, because airports are loud, and some method of waking clients up peacefully. Also, the employees would have to be screened for massive amounts of patience, because the only thing worse than airport travelers are ones who have just woken up.

But seriously--I'd design a sort of sci-fi sleeping cot, with a transparent, sound-proof...lid, I guess you'd call it. It'd have that awesome foam sleeping stuff, and a nice pillow, and the lid would gradually light up when people wanted to wake up. They could also have an employee wake them up, too. I'd charge people by the hour, and sell sleep paraphernalia in the lobby. You saw it here first, ladies and gentlemen. No stealing.

Moving on from silly ideas, I'm finally starting to get truly, viscerally excited. In some ways I'm dreading the next 30 odd hours of travel, but I think it'll be really, really cool.

Now it's only half an hour 'till boarding, but my sandwich isn't looking any more appetizing. I'm thinking it's a lost cause. That 30 wasn't a typo, by the way. I won't get to Jonkoping until 6:00 tomorrow night (CET, or the Swedish time zone). I'm flying to Washington right now, and I'll land in Dulles close to 4:00. Then, my flight to Copenhagen takes off at 5:15, and I'll get there (plus the time change) at 7:00 in the morning. It's a short hop to Stockholm at 8:00, and then I'll wander through customs, and grab a train to Jonkoping at around noon. Finally, after a stopover in Nassjo, I'll stumble into Jonkoping. I anticipate a good night's sleep.

On a side note, some lady sat down right in my line of sight out the window, preventing me from watching the planes take off and land for fear of appearing like I'm staring at her. Drat.

Oh, and I threw the sandwich away.

Cheers,
Daniel

Just Sleep Left

I wrote a bunch of stuff about how messy my room was, and the packing process, and even mentioned I only had just over 36 hours before my flight left. Then, as I was about to publish it today, I realized none of it still applied. My room is (mostly) clean, I'm (almost) completely packed, and I've got 12 hours to go before I fly to Washington. It's 17 hours until I leave the country, but that's just nit picking.

Here's the picture I was going to include in the section about how much of a mess my room was. This is, mind you, after about three days of cleaning.

Missing from this picture: About 40 books, a couch, and two loads of laundry.

I'm not particularly emotional at this point. A little excited, sure, and maybe even a little scared. Mostly, however, I just don't know what to expect, and I'm really interested in how this'll go.

I managed to do everything on the checklist from the other day except see friends. I may have mentioned it before, but I'll repeat: I've been feeling rather antisocial this past month or so. It's not a conscious choice, but I guess I've checked out a bit in anticipation of not being here. It's an illogical decision, as a lot of the friends I was trying to see are ones I don't see for longer than six months at a time. There seems to be something very final about this trip, though. The more I contemplate the days ahead, the slower they take to arrive.

To do:
1. Leave

Cheers,
Daniel