Well, 48 hours later and I sit here with a transformed reality. 48 hours ago, I was in my apartment in Allston, which I shared with dear friends, driving around the city from Allston to Waltham, to Somerville and going on nearby adventures to Connecticut, New York, Cape Cod and Maine. I was mobile, surrounded by friends, family and familiar communities and you know, etc. etc. Now, I sit here in a studio apartment in the middle of Swedish farmland. My apartment is an efficient use of a small space- fully furnished by, you guessed it, IKEA! Things that usually take up a whole counter space fold easily into the wall (i.e. the dish drying rack) and I have plenty of space to eat, sleep and write my master’s paper. The things around me are no longer familiar, I don’t have internet yet and I’m still confused by the directions of everything. Googlemaps is my new best friend.
So yes, the past couple days have been eventful. I smooched Rodrigo goodbye and off to DC (which was tearful), left my apt and roomies (also tearful) and HollyMike (internally tearful but I was too tired by then), hopped on a plane, made the odd decision to watch Up! (guess i still wanted to shed a few tears!) and woke up in the crisp morning air of Iceland for my layover to Stockholm. Immediately, I felt as though I had been funneled into a new world, as I was surrounded by many languages, fashions, and types of coffee and out of my familiar surroundings where I was a student in yes, an international program, but I was the ‘native,’ the comfortable one, the ‘expert’ so to speak on the area. No time to think though, I boarded to Stockholm and landed in my new home for the semester.
All my bags made it here just fine, but upon retrieving them, I made the official discovery that when “my wheels were acting weird” on the way to the airport, it was actually because one of them is completely missing. Hence commence my hours-long journey to my apartment lugging (this is where the word luggage comes from, I’ve decided) my belongings across the city and cursing myself for packing so much (even though I had multiple advisors help me pare down my things). Anywho, after one bus ride, a cab ride to the housing office and another bus ride, I was in my new Uppsala home. Let me just say, I had gravely forgotten the many many details you have to figure out as a complete newbie to a new country. Luckily, Sweden is highly efficient and organized so things were by most counts, fairly simple to figure out. I, however, was extremely exhausted and emotional from the aforementioned drastic changes in my reality and had a bit of breakdown when I finally made it to my apartment. By my exhaustion measurements, my apartment (which is 20 minutes from the city center) is in the middle of nowhere. While it kind of is away from everything, I quickly realized on my walk to the grocery store that it’s in the middle of beautiful forests and what luck I have to be in nature for this semester.
My apartment complex in the forest, Lilla Sunnersta
My apartment is part of a complex and connected to several ‘city centers’ by a large web of bike and walking paths. I have a studio apartment that is, like I mentioned before, fully furnished by IKEA and efficient in every way possible. My shower, however, is one of those that is one with the rest of the bathroom (aka no barrier) so that should keep things interesting. I’ve never not had roommates before, so this living alone thing is a luxury and a challenge. For example, it’s amazing that I can walk around without pants on whenever I want, but it’s annoying that any mess that’s around the place is something I made and must clean up. Though I did panic a bit when the bus dropped me off in the middle of the forest, I think this semi-secluded complex will provide the right amount of respite for me to stay centered and focused on completing my paper as well as connected to beautiful nature that I have often felt deprived of in Boston.
Anywho, after sleeping for 12 hours, I woke up and ventured into town for the International Students Welcome Reception. It was here that I spotted other students from my program and was able to connect and find out what I had missed during orientation (it started before I could finish my internship), which was a whole lot of irrelevant information for me, who is only studying at Uppsala for one semester. There is a group of students here on the Rotary Peace Fellowships, so they come from around the world with diverse experiences and shared goals. I haven’t met the rest of the people in my program, but from my understanding, the cohort is highly international. With these new friends, I was able to efficiently get a SIM card, the internet and my first Swedish coffee and sweets (known commonly as fika here). Everything seems better once you connect with the people here. I feel like a floater because I am in the minority as an exchange student here for just one semester (though I have found there are many others in my situation, just in other programs).
Uppsala City Center
The next day I went on a day trip to Nothern Uppland to two small historic mill towns to the north, Österby and Lövsta, the iron ore mine at Dannemora and the coastal town of Öregrund. On the ride there, we passed several large mounds out in the middle of large fields, which we learned are Viking burial mounds, most of them were for their boats which were buried with one person in them and many grave goods. The iron mine was cool and we learned a lot about the history of Sweden’s part in the supply chain that sparked in industrial revolution. The abundance of trees in Sweden helped produce large amounts of coal and fuel need to mine the iron. The iron found here is the purest in the world now and has been purchased by NASA to use in various projects because it is untouched by nuclear chemicals.
Other things I learned:
- The classic Swedish home was originally painted red as a way to preserve the wood beyond its natural lifetime. Houses entirely built from wood rot at a pretty fast rate which meant farmers and miners would go through 2-3 houses in their lifetime. In order to preserve the wood, Swedish people started painting their homes with Falu red, a special paint used in the copper mines that would serve a preservative of the wood and help them to last longer. The white gables (window and door frames) were added after as a tactic to improve visibility because it is Sweden and it’s very dark in the winter…
- There are approximately 330,000 trees per every person living in Sweden.
- The roads in Sweden that run North to South are curvy while East to West are straighter to make it easier for lumber trucks to drive goods to the sea ports.
- Sweden is huge.
This tour was a great little jaunt beyond Uppsala and I always love a trip that stops by the ocean.
The Baltic Sea (and Finland in the distance!) 
An artsy picture of a flower and the beautiful Swedish sky!
Tomorrow classes start and I took today to do completely nothing. I slept for quite some time as jet lag is still bothering me and it’s also quite rainy outside. Then I took a walk through some residential streets and eventually wound up at Lake Ekholn, which is a beautiful gulf of larger Lake Mälaran. It was a great walk through some very nice neighborhoods. What I’m noticing about Swedish homes is that they pay a lot of attention to sunshine and warmth. None of the houses are very big (even those for the very wealthy) because they are costly to heat during the cold months (November-March or April) and all have many large windows for sunlight. I think many are built with the direction of the sun in mind so that when there is sunlight in the winter (which isn’t for long, maybe 9am-3pm), the maximum amount will enter the home. The homes look efficient and uncluttered from the outside, which is a lifestyle I’m thinking I want to adopt, especially after moving all my unnecessary stuff out of my apartment before coming here. Simplicity and functionality.
So that’s all for now. Wish me luck on what may be my last first day of school ever!
xoxo
Swedish Jamie
No comments:
Post a Comment