Uppsala

I’m finally getting around to updating about my arrival in Uppsala!

My first day in Uppsala was less than ideal. Throughout that first day, I had to keep repeating to myself that first impressions are not always correct. Over half the things that have happened to me in Uppsala are the type of situations where if I didn’t laugh about it, I think I would have started crying.

Taylor, Ryan and I had figured out a cheap train to Uppsala and we got to town with complete success. Then we were standing on the corner trying to figure out where to catch a taxi. We had used google maps and figured out that it was a 7 minute walk to where we needed to go... since the sidewalks are nearly impossible to pull the suitcases across... we had decided in advance that a taxi would be best. Just as we were doing this, two American women had overheard us and intervened.
“Don’t take a taxi!” they tell us. “It’s less than 3 blocks away!” they say. They gave us directions and walked away.

It took the three of us nearly one hour to walk the three blocks. They were long blocks on sidewalks that, again, were not shoveled. Poor Taylor weighs about just as much as her bags do. Needless to say, we took a lot of breaks. Walking was the worst advice ever.

We found the check-in place... but it was wrong check-in place. Luckily, one of the students had access to a university van and she took us to get our keys and then to our rooms.

I live in Flogsta. Flogsta is to Uppsala as the 6-pack is to Champaign. It is a huge area that consists of 16 different buildings. Each building has 8 floors full of college students. Each floor is split in half and each side has 12 students. Those 12 students share a living room with a TV, a balcony, 4 refrigerators, 2 stoves and a kitchen area. My room is the biggest room I’ve ever lived in during college. My room has two bookshelves, a desk and a bed (all from IKEA). I also get my own bathroom and and spacious closet. Everything would be perfect if only my radiator would actually heat the room and if my bed didn’t have springs coming out of the mattress.

There is one piece of interesting information about Flogsta that I feel obligated to share. Flogsta has a tradition called Flogstavrålet. Flogstavrålet is Swedish for Flogsta scream. Every single night at 10 PM, all the students open their windows or go out on the balconies and scream. They say it’s because school is so stressful and every student should get to de-stress by screaming their heads off for 1 minute. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ll try to take a video of it tonight. I really truly believe that you could only find something like the Flogstavrålet in Sweden.

We also hear that there is always a party in Flogsta somewhere. So of course, we found that party. It wasn’t hard to find because the music was so loud. The party was nothing like the parties in Champaign. Mostly because there were like 300 people in one corridor meant for only 12. Also because they was a real live DJ with ridiculous speakers in the corner. It was interesting. It reminded me of a frat party in a dorm (which is really funny to picture if you think about it). We left early and went to bed early. It was a long day.



The next day we got up early and had to go meet with our advisor at the International Office. The three of us met with her for about an hour. We were hit with the crushing news that we weren’t actually registered for classes yet. Then we found out that we didn’t have a log-in ID, which meant we couldn’t use the internet in our rooms. It was frustrating to hear so much bad news all at once. The rest of the day, we spent looking for banks, phone companies and grocery stores.




Monday was a great day. We woke up early again and the sun was out for the first time since we arrived. We got our bus passes, got cell phones, tried to open bank accounts, made another IKEA trip and went to an international student meeting. It was a really productive day. It was also the first day that I wasn’t so frustrated and I started to notice how beautiful Uppsala is. Downtown Uppsala reminds me of downtown Geneva except its a lot larger. There are tons of little unique stores and restaurants but also all of the big store names you would expect to see.
Because it was so sunny on Monday, it was painful to see the sun start to set at 3:30 PM. Uppsala is so far North, that the sun starts to set earlier than most places. I absolutely cannot wait until we get 18 hours of daylight though!!


Today, Tuesday, was a big fail for me.
We finally had a class. Taylor, Ryan and I are all taking Swedish Culture. A class that I’m not too thrilled to be taking because obviously, the class consists of mostly exchange students. I want to go to Sweden to meet Swedes and speak Swedish...might be semi-hard in a class full of international students.
Due to lack of communication and me missing the bus, I didn’t make it to class. Then, I tried to meet up with Taylor and Ryan at the Nation’s Fair, but according to our friend, Sofia, I missed them by only 10 minutes. (I promise to explain Nations when I join one.) I also received an email today stating that I can’t get into the health classes I wanted to take. So I might really be stuck taking Swedish culture, instead of getting to take classes with the actual students at Uppsala. I have to meet with my advisor again tomorrow morning and see what I can do.

I did manage to update my blog today though :-)

Gamla Stan

On Friday, I was finally leaving for Stockholm. I didn’t want to leave though. I think I could have stayed in Gothenburg forever. Gothenburg is a lot like Chicago except it’s smaller and....better. Gothenburg has a long, unique history, its a clean city and the people are really friendly.
In Sweden, (from what I understand) one is either a Stockholm person, a Gothenburg person or one of those crazy people that chooses to live in the Arctic Circle. I realize that I haven’t been to Stockholm yet but I don’t think anything could beat Gothenburg. Thorlief has a joke that he likes to tell:
Q: “What’s the best part about Stockholm?”
A: The road going to Gothenburg.
Well said.


Leaving Gunilla and Arne was really hard. I tried not to cry but failed kind of miserably. It took me 21 years to get to Sweden the first time... who knows when I might be back??

Gunilla had two parting gifts for me. The first was my very own chunk of amazing Swedish cheese. She said she didn’t want me to go hungry at Uppsala. The second was a clock that was made in the porcelain factory that Gunilla used to work at. It even has a little “Made in Sweden” design on the back.



The flight to Stockholm was fast and easy. I think (again) that I am the luckiest person when it comes to travel (knock on wood!). I was sitting at the window seat...and even though there was a row of seats in my front of mine...there was randomly a seat missing right in front of me. I guess they only take away the seat nearest the exit window. So I had a window seat and got to stretch out! Lucky!

I realized today that in my almost 3 weeks of traveling, I have been to 6 different airports already. Stockholm’s Arlanda airport is huge. I had the seemingly impossible task of trying to find Taylor and Ryan but we semi-randomly ran into each other after only 10 minutes of searching.

When we finally got to our hostel, I convinced Ryan and Taylor to fight the jet lag and we went out to dinner. Conveniently, our hostel was only a 10 minute walk from Gamla Stan. Gamla Stan is one of the major sightseeing stops in Stockholm. It’s the “historical district” of Stockholm and it reminds me of an over-priced version of Gothenburg’s Haga.

After dinner, we watched Dancing with the Stars in Swedish (which was actually really entertaining) and went to bed early. Off to Uppsala tomorrow!!

I think my shrimp is looking at me.

January 13th, 2011

My last full day in Gothenburg was very entertaining. In the morning, I was allowed to be lazy and I finally started to update a lot of the pictures up onto my facebook. I have to admit that I may be already starting to get a little homesick. I’ve stayed away from home much longer in the past, but I was always close enough to home to just jump in my car and leave whenever I wanted to. I think just knowing that I am so far away makes missing home a little worse.
A little after noon, Gunilla’s brother, Håkan and his wife picked us up for lunch. We ate at a restaurant called Långedrag Värdshus. It is a really fancy restaurant that is on the Atlantic Ocean. I think it is the prettiest restaurant I’ve ever eaten at. It also happens to be one of those restaurants where you only get three choices: the dish of the day, a salad or some stand-by dish. Since the dish of the day was some sort of soup that had three different types of seafood in it, I sprung for the stand-by dish. The best translation they gave me for it was “hamburger that is nothing like McDonald’s.” I should hope not.

I feel like half of my blog is spent describing food, but I can’t help it. Each meal I have is better than the previous one! This meal was the best beef, the best mashed potatoes and a yummy cooked apple. I felt like Remy from the Disney movie Ratatouille. I had one bite of the meat and that was amazing. Then I took a bite of the mashed potatoes and the meat together, and that was even better. Maybe I’m just too poor to go to restaurants like this in the US, but otherwise I would think that Swedish food (errr, food in Sweden) is much better than American. After lunch, we had coffee. Coffee was included in the price of the meal because they assume everybody would buy it anyways I think.
After fika, Håkan took us on a driving tour of where him and Gunilla grew up. They showed me the old house they lived in as well. In fact, when my great-grandfather Charles visited, he had stayed with Gunilla and Håkan’s parents.
This is really important because I definitely think it is because of Charles’ last visit to Sweden that has allowed me to also visit. When he visited, Thorlief, Gunilla and Håkan were young kids and they remember meeting him, asking him questions about his American cars and seeing American money for the first time. I also think it should be said that not once in my entire time in Gothenburg did I spend one dime. They wouldn’t let me. I wanted to buy a postcard to send to my parents and even though it was less than a dollar, I wasn’t allowed to buy it myself. This is because when Charles visited, he took the entire family out to dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town. Gunilla still remembers how good the dinner was and she remembers his generosity.

Next they took me to a church that is at a high point in Gothenburg. From there, we could see the bridge, the harbor and what seemed like the entire town.
After all of this, we got back home and had only a few hours before dinner. Gunilla had called a few cousins and invited them all over for dinner. So for dinner it was Gunilla, Arne, Thorlief, Ewa, Håkan, Håkan’s wife (whose name even if I did remember, I don’t think I could spell the right way), Birgitta and myself. Birgitta’s grandmother was Teckla, who was a sister to Charles. I was really hoping most of the dinner would be in English. However, no such luck because Birgitta and Håkan’s English wasn’t so great.
So when we sat for dinner, Gunilla showed me what we were eating. It was fresh shrimp caught from the Atlantic Ocean just that morning. They were the kind of shrimp that have the eyes, the antennae, the legs and my first one just happened to be pregnant and was full of eggs. I wish at least one other American had been there with me because I was laughing at myself. Thorlief had to teach me how to open them and he was like, “It’s really easy, you just twist and rip the head off like this and then just pull the legs and skin off and... done! Bon appetit!”

I’m not really what one would call a seafood person. All of the Swedes were really confused by this. “Don’t you live on a big lake?”
Ummm... Can you eat the fish out of Lake Michigan? I’m not even sure if you’re really supposed to swim in it or you might get cancer or something.
In the end, I really liked the shrimp. And Gunilla had bought pizza (something she knew I would like) for the main course.
After dinner was fika, and I tried my best to listen to all their fast Swedish. Listening to a different language is actually really tiring. At one point I was only half listening and Birgitta suddenly turned around and in broken English demanded to hear my Swedish. I always feel awkward when people say that to me. What do you want me to say?
I said a few sentences and she said I sounded pretty good for not knowing much Swedish. I Swedish-gasped at that...and that was the end of the conversation.

I was grateful that I got to meet the people that I did. I made sure we took a picture of everyone. It’s kind of a funny picture because I don’t think people pose for pictures in Sweden the way Americans do. They like to take candid pictures; which is why I think no one but me is smiling.
After everyone left, Gunilla taught me how to make kräm. I can’t wait to subject my friends to my Swedish recipes when I get back to Champaign.

Swedish gasp

OK, so this entry isn’t about any day in particular, but I feel a little mad at my Swedish teachers. I don’t know if there is an official name for it, but in Swedish conversation there exists this... gasp?

You know when you are having a conversation with someone and they take a deep breath in before they talk? That noise is a word in Swedish. It means a lot of things. It mostly means “I understand, or yes, or keep talking.” It might be almost equivalent to a nod or something. It occurs in every conversation I have had so far in Sweden. Every time it happens, I turn and stare at the person...because I expected them to take a deep breath and say something. But that’s it. Just a gasp of air to let you know that they are still listening or that they understand what you’re saying.

In fact, when listening to my family talk in the Swedish, the Swedish gasp is the only word I need to know how to say. It was really strange at first, but now I think it’s the best word I know.

Konstmuseum

I’ve officially been in Europe for 2 weeks now and I think I somehow have turned into an art junkie. In fact, over half of the pictures on my camera....are just pictures of pictures. Even after seeing two art museums in Paris, when left with the choice, I chose to go Göteborgs Konstmuseum or the town’s art museum for my second full day in Gothenburg.

This really was the best choice for many reasons. One was that I was pleasantly surprised to find Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, Rembrandt and of course, Carl Larsson all present in the galleries. The second reason is that Thorlief’s father, Sven Wallqvist was an artist. Therefore, unsurprisingly, Thorlief knows a lot about art. Especially since a good portion of the artists featured in the galleries went to art school with Thorlief’s father right there in Gothenburg.

I feel very ignorant when it comes to art (as I should). I only know a few names, and the only Scandinavian one I could name was Carl Larsson. So as we were strolling through the galleries, Thorlief would ask me, “Surely, you’ve heard of Anders Zorn?” The best response I could come up with was, “Tell me about me him.” Because Thorlief knows. And then I would hear his life history. And now I know who Anders Zorn is.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. They had an entire section dedicated to Carl Larsson’s Singoalla drawings, which I had never heard of before, but really liked. After almost two hours at the art museum, it was of course time for fika.

First we had to go back to Thorlief’s car because he only gets two hours of free parking...so we just move it one block over. Also, when Thorlief picked me up in the morning, he brought Maya with him. Maya is a plump little bull terrier type dog; she looks like a little Duke. Thorlief and Ewa treat Maya as if she is their child and its really cute. Maya gets the whole backseat of the car to herself, which she won’t leave because Thorlief has a doggy seat heater that plugs into the cigarette lighter in the backseat. So even though we left her in the car for almost two hours, she was nice and warm and snoozing in the car.

After fika, Thorlief took me on a driving tour of where he “really” grew up. It is the equivalent to what we would call a suburb. Thorlief actually grew up in Partille and his old house is on the side of a mountain. Thorlief had a few stories about going in the forrest to pick wild mushrooms and berries (a very common pastime in Sweden).

After all of this, Thorlief had invited me for dinner at his house. First, we went and picked up Ewa from her job at a hospital in Gothenburg. Then we made the drive back to their home in Torslanda. Torslanda is it’s own town but it still has a Gothenburg address.

For dinner, one of Thorlief’s sons, Johan joins us for dinner. Johan and I are of the same generation, so it was nice to meet my third cousin (? I think).
After dinner, we, again, had fika. But I finally had my first cinnamon roll (!!!!) , a type of which is famously Swedish. During fika, we had a wide variety of conversation topics. One which comes up is healthcare in the United States. None of the Swedes understood why people wouldn’t want universal healthcare in the United States. The only answer I could come up with was people just think very differently in the US and it’s not like Sweden where you grow up in a socialist environment. Then Thorlief started asking me about some current events in America...something about a political shooting or something... I finally had to admit, that in my limited internet time, I hadn’t checked the US news once. It was all pleasant conversation, mostly just asking questions that you want to know about someone living in different country.

It was a late night. But when I got back to Gunilla’s house at maybe 10:30 PM, she was still awake and had bread and Swedish cheese waiting for me.

Gothenburg

January 11th, 2011-

For my first full day in Sweden, Thorlief was going to pick me up in his little car and take me for a sightseeing tour of Gothenburg. I have to say that I was really nervous. I was spending almost a full day with someone that I had only exchanged a few emails with in the past. What if we ran out of things to talk about?

Even thinking about that now makes me want to laugh. True Life: Not only am I sorority girl, but I am one that is in love with recruitment or “rush.” I could honestly make conversation with a wall if I had to.

As it turns out, Thorlief is also a conversationalist. He really is one of the smartest and one of the most interesting men I have ever met. Thorlief can speak fluent Swedish, English and German. He is also pretty good at French and knows some Finnish too I believe. Even though he is now retired, Thorlief still talks a lot about his job as an engineer with Volvo. It is the reason why he knows so many different languages. Thorlief is also a spokesman for a Swedish animal advocacy group (whose name I do not remember). Thorlief reads newspaper articles from all over Sweden and anytime an article refers to certain breeds of dogs as “evil” or “unfriendly,” he sends that newspaper or journalist literature defending that breed. Therefore, Thorlief defends mostly the pit bulls and the bull terriers. He, along with his wife, Ewa, also own an English bull terrier. Her name is Maya and I really can’t wait to meet her because Thorlief talks about her so often. All of this is rather close to my heart because my dog, Duke is a pit bull. It’s funny how families are so alike.

After a short drive, we arrive in a part of Gothenburg called Haga. Haga is what in the United States we would call the historical district and it is the part of town that used to be known for 15 people living in one room. I actually learned that Arne grew up in Haga. Nowadays, each little house is now a little shop. It has uneven cobblestone streets but it is definitely a charming area. Thorlief promises me that like most places in Sweden, it is much better to visit when it is warmer out.

Since Thorlief grew up in Gothenburg, he has stories about everything. He also seems to know the entire historical history of Gothenburg by heart. He showed me an old fortress that was still standing, where he went to high school, where his son used to own a shop and more. I was impressed. Obviously. Even given that my hometown of Geneva has much less than half the history Gothenburg does, I know that I could not tell you the entire history of Geneva. Thorlief knows the years of everything, what businesses were located where and how life must have been when Gothenburg was a booming harbor town.
We only stay in Haga for a little less than two hours. Thorlief owns (from what I understand) a diesel car. Because the emissions of his car are considered environmental friendly, he can park in the city of Gothenburg for free for two hours. This is something he is clearly proud of and I understand why. It seems like people in Sweden care about these things. Thorlief wants cleaner air and less pollution to save himself and future generations. I only draw this contrast because I feel like most Americans think that being environmentally friendly is in order to save the polar bears.

Next up, we finally go to the modern downtown area of Gothenburg for lunch and to walk around. For lunch, we get sandwiches (mine with Swedish cheese on it of course) and coffee. By 1 PM, I was already on my second cup of coffee (keep in mind that I woke up at 10:30 AM). It was all very good though, of course.

After that, we just walk. My favorite part of visiting a different city is just to walk around and look at everything. With Thorlief as my knowledgable tour guide, I see the harbor, the ferris wheel and we walk around the shops downtown. The weird thing about the sidewalks is that there isn’t much salt put down. The just put gravel on top of the ice to make it less slippery. However, suddenly in the middle of everything, the sidewalks are perfect. Outside sidewalks, no gravel, no salt.... but how ? Chicago, I introduce you to the next big idea: heated sidewalks. I’m not kidding! The sidewalks in the business touristy district are heated just enough to keep away the ice and the snow.

Then, maybe two hours after our lunch, we stop for fika. Fika is Swedish for a break that usually includes coffee. Thorlief and I get coffee at a shop that roasts their own coffee beans. The whole place smelled like thick, smokey, delicious coffee.

For dinner that night, Gunilla made pork with Swedish cheese that has mushrooms in it on top, small “Swedish” potatoes where you need to peel the skin off and carrots. I was so hungry and it was so good, I didn’t even realize I was supposed to take the skin of the potatoes. Whoops. For dessert, we had the best thing ever. Gunilla pulled out the Swedish-English dictionary for the name of it...but it only translated to cream. In Swedish, she called it kräm. Even better, it was blueberry kräm that she made herself. She asked me for the English translation and the best thing I could come up with was jello. Gunilla seemed mildly offended by that, “Jello is just sugar, water and color.” I tried to explain that anything that jiggles, I call jello and that I didn’t necessarily mean the brand name. In the end, kräm is best described as maybe blueberry pie filling...but better...and more like jello. You eat it with some milk and cream in a bowl. Apparently, instant kräm exists according to Gunilla.
I’m already know what my Swedish college student diet will consist of: cheese and kräm.

Sverige

I promise to make an entry about Paris later :-)


With my flight to Gothenburg leaving at 1:40 PM, my bus to the airport was scheduled to leave at 10:40 AM. The bus ride from Paris to the Beavauis airport takes about an hour but it only costs about 15€. Sorry RyanAir, but that airport is not really in Paris. Although I don’t think I will ever hate on RyanAir. Because although I did try to wake up early, I failed to wake up early enough to print out my boarding pass (I needed to go to Aaron’s university to use their printing). I also failed to purchase my bags online and in advance. Normally, it costs an extra 40€ if you don’t print your boarding pass. You also have to pay even more for your bags if you buy them at the gate. On top of that, your bags cannot weigh more than 20 kilos a piece, which is about 40 pounds I guess.

When I finally got to the terminal, I did not have my boarding pass, I had not paid for my bags and on top of that, both my bags were overweight by at least a few kilos a piece. Technically, I would have to owe, I would guess, maybe something around 100€ or $130. But a RyanAir miracle happened. I got to the terminal and I got one of those you-have-to-be-kidding-me kind of looks from the French woman. She asked me what I was doing in Sweden. I told her that I was visiting family and that I was going to be a student in Sweden (I even pointed out my Swedish visa in my passport). She walked away and said something in French to another airport man and handed me back my passport. She said in her broken English something like, “I don’t know how to explain this you other than the fact that I can explain that you are very lucky.”
I even tried to hand her my credit card because I didn’t understand. I... don’t...owe...you any money? Really? Are you sure? But no. Miracle.

Although my day wasn’t completely lucky. I left my huge, puffy, Swedish-weather-proof jacket in Paris. I guess I’ll have to go back fairly soon or Aaron will have to brave the darkness and cold weather to visit me. Given RyanAir fares, I would almost assume that it is just an expensive to ship something big like my jacket as it would be just to fly there.
The flight was fine. It wasn’t until the plane was starting it’s descent that I realized that I was finally going to Sweden. It seemed like the day was never going to come! Then, the nervousness set in. I was going to Sweden. By myself. To live with people I have never met. I have been in email contact with my Swedish family since maybe 2007 or 2008. But I’ve never met them in person. The last time a relative from the United States had visited them, it was my great-uncle Stuart and his wife Leota and they came in October 2001. Apparently, my great-uncle Stuart was 88 years old at the time but the Swedes claim he never once seemed that old and that he was extremely happy to visit. They also remember when my great-grandfather Charles visited in the 1960s. It is maybe because of this visit, that I am able to visit with such ease. Charles is the connection that I have with this family... but I’ll save the family tree entry for another day.

When I arrive at the airport, I don’t even want to call it an airport. It’s an airport just as DuPage County airport is an airport/parking lot. I walk down the stairs of the plane, through a plane graveyard, and have to walk maybe 5 minutes to reach the actual airport building. Needless to say, it was very easy to find Thorlief (my cousin who was picking me up). Thorlief has a “strong Nordic name” as he says and is very hard to miss as he is very tall.
Gothenburg city airport is, again, not actually what I or what anyone would call in the city of Gothenburg. After a scenic drive, I finally arrive where I will be staying. Thorlief and his wife, Ewa don’t have a spare bedroom. However, our other cousin does. So I am staying with Gunilla and her husband Arne. Both who can speak English, but Gunilla speaks it a bit more. When I get there, I am treated to what Gunilla promises is a typical Swedish meal. After having a typical Parisian meal of a chocolate crouissant and a bottle of Coke from the metro earlier in the day, I feel as if I have never had a better meal. It was beef with vegetables in the meat, potatoes and some sort of mushroom sauce that was amazing. We even had dessert: chocolate cake with walnuts in some milk and cream. Amazing.

It’s funny because when I tell people I am studying in Sweden, a common question is, “what do they eat in Sweden?” My response was always coffee, bread that goes with coffee, and fish. Sometimes I would mention the ginger cookies or lingonberries or something too. The truth is, as far as I can tell, Swedes drink a lot of coffee and eat really good food. Mostly because maybe they make their food (as opposed to my typical American meal of DP Dough in Champaign or Portillo’s in Chicagoland). I have also discovered that I am in love. I am completely head over heels for Swedish cheese. Yes, I realize that I just spent quite a few days in the land of wine of cheese... but I don’t think it’s quite the same as Swedish cheese. For one, France has more choices of cheese than I care to learn (or care to ask for the translation for). There are too many choices! Half of them look like the cheese that my roommates and I sometimes accidentally grow in our refrigerator in Champaign. Swedish cheese is just amazing. I tried to ask for the name of it and Gunilla happened to have a book on Swedish cheese. It contains mostly big compound words that I only understand parts of but I think its safe to say that all of it looks fresh and delicious. There is also no need to distinguish between “natural” and “cheese product” as Kraft likes to do in the United States. Love.

After dinner, Gunilla started to pull out all the old pictures. Every family has that person that seems to collect the family’s old photos and apparently Gunilla is that person. I actually almost start crying; Gunilla and Arne keep a picture of their American cousins on their wall and it was a picture of my grandmother, Greta and two of her brothers, Stuart and Bill (all of whom I have met and all of whom are now deceased). We looked over pictures for maybe an hour or two. I took a bunch of pictures of the pictures to pass on to my family. Gunilla gave me two of the pictures. One is a picture of Charles when he first arrived in Chicago that was taken at some company on Clark Street. The other is a picture of Greta, “Billy”, Ethel and Stuart (all siblings) sitting on a porch as young children. Two things I will be eternally grateful for.
Even after drawing all these connections to family, I still feel like an outsider at this point (obviously). We were sitting on the couch and just talking about life I guess when I asked who played the beautiful piano they had. Gunilla plays the piano (and very well, I might add). Gunilla and Arne also used to sing in a church choir in the town they lived in before Gothenburg. I think Arne used to play the guitar, too. Gunilla then asked if I had learned an instrument. I of course responded in English, “cello.” I have looked up the Swedish word for cello before and I think it is the same word. So of course, she didn’t understand me because I can’t say the word “cello” with a good enough Swedish accent.

Gunilla, Arne and I have quite a few moments when I don’t understand what they saying in English or Swedish and they don’t understand what I am saying in either language either. So I think both sides have that mutual understanding of “I am just going to smile and nod even though I don’t really know what you’re saying.” So that was the end of that conversation. However, it’s important to note. Later that night, I finally noticed that in the corner, halfway hidden, they had, lo! and behold!, a cello! Why do they have a cello? I pointed it out to them and we finally had that “Aha! I know what you’re saying!” moment. Apparently, Arne had once tried his hand at the cello many, many years ago. He had not even tried to play in many, many years they said. But they took it out, and Arne helped me tune it. Tuning a wood instrument that hasn’t been in tune in years is very hard to do. However, Arne and I finally got it tuned well enough. So I played the cello for them. Lucky for me, I happened to play a bit before I left the United States, so I had a few songs from memory at least.

Then, the best part of the night happened.

I should say first that Arne speaks English but he prefers to speak through Gunilla or speaks to me in Swedish-English mix (Swedglish or Svenskgelska maybe?). But after I was done playing, Arne said something I hope I never forget. He came up after a few minutes and in perfect English said, “Listening to you play an instrument that I hold so dear to my heart was very inspiring. I am so glad to have met you. I am very happy to hear the real sound of a cello in my house. Thank you very much.” Music speaks many languages and I was glad to make that connection with Arne.
After all of this, we watched some TV. However, the Swedish on TV is spoken very fast and I soon realize I can only understand the first and last words of each sentence. I finally give up. I thanked Gunilla and Arne again letting me stay with them and for the amazing dinner. I was so tired that I went to bed at 9:30 PM and actually fell asleep with my normal clothes on. I call success.
My first day in Sweden :-)

Svenska Flicka

I think there are two very difficult things about having a blog. One is deciding on a name for it and the second is to keep up with writing entries. (The explanation of the name will come last in this entry).
I have seen many blogs that start with really long daily entries and end with short entries about nothing that are updated maybe once every three weeks. I think the reason for this is that people either find whatever they thought the world needed to know in the first place suddenly uninteresting or they realize that they don’t have an audience. I know that I can overcome this because
I know that living in a foreign country that I have dreamed about for years will never become uninteresting to me,
I know that my parents will read this everyday and
I don’t plan on writing this blog for anyone but myself.

I guess that third one sounds a bit selfish but it’s true. I’m writing this and I will continue to write so I won’t forget all the new things that happen to me. I feel like I need to tell everyone this now because I can tell you now that some of my entries will be long and maybe parts of it uninteresting. I’m not writing to make it interesting; I am just writing what happened next. (It takes a lot of pressure off to have an interesting day everyday as well).

My journey begins on the couch one night in an apartment in Champaign, Illinois in June 2010. I had always talked about studying abroad with my roommate, Kelsey Stocks and I had always said that I wanted to do so during the Spring semester of my junior year. It was Kelsey that had asked me the big question that night, “Aren’t you studying abroad or something next year?”

I have always been, as most college kids are, a huge procrastinator. So it wasn’t until maybe July that I finally decided to meet with a study abroad advisor.
The whole process through the Study Abroad Office or SAO was, in one word: painful.
When I met with the advisor, I had already picked out my program. I wanted to study in Lund, Sweden. Lund is in southern Sweden where there is nicer weather, it is closer to where my family lives and it much closer to mainland Europe so it is easier to travel. My advisor told me in the first 2 minutes of our meeting that I couldn’t go to Lund. Apparently she was canceling program due to lack of interest. Plus I wasn’t an engineer and it was mostly for engineering students. I was heartbroken.
The other 18 minutes of the meeting was spent telling me about how I should study abroad in Italy. Italy. Italy? Do you know that I don’t speak Italian? I like pizza and everything but have you seen me? I have blonde hair and speak Swedish!... and you want me to go to Italy? The last 30 seconds of our meeting the advisor remembered that I could go to Uppsala, Sweden...but it was very far north and cold and dark and she made it sound less than ideal.

So my choices were: the dark, snowy and cold Uppsala, Verona, Italy, or the only other interesting European destination without a language requirement, Aix-en-Provence in southern France. I needed to figure out what I wanted most from a program. I decided that goal was to see as much of Europe as possible. Since Italian wasn’t a language that seemed very important to me, I chose France. (And you thought it was Sweden).

I started filling out the application for France. I even took a French language class (alongside my Swedish language class) for one week until two things happened.
French is hard. Especially when Swedish seemed so easy to learn.
The university in France changed which classes they had available and none of them would transfer to anything all that important to my major.

So that left me with study abroad in what the advisor made sound like a black hole or don’t study abroad at all.

I did some research, talked to people who had actually been there (unlike my advisor) and decided that Uppsala was actually an awesome program. It just happened to be located pretty close to the Arctic Circle.

After a few months of some pointless meetings, loads of paperwork, deadlines and having residence visa rejection letter nightmares, I finally became accepted into Uppsala Universitet.

I also decided to do some traveling before my arrival in Uppsala.
From 12/29/10 until 01/10/11, I plan to visit Aaron in Paris, France.
From 01/10 until 01/14, I plan to visit Gothenburg, Sweden and visit my relatives and
From 01/14 until 06/04, I will be a student in Uppsala, Sweden.

My orientation for Uppsala starts on January 15th, but I plan to spend the night before in Stockholm with Taylor Marti and Ryan Knighton. They are both University of Illinois students who will also be going to Uppsala with me.


Now, I finally give my explanation for the name of this blog. The name was hard to choose. I wanted a name to explain all of the traveling I intend to do and also something that was very me.

Svenska flicka is Swedish for Swedish girl. It is the first Swedish phrase I ever learned and I learnt it at such an early age, I cannot even tell you when it was. I can tell you who taught it to me. It was my dad’s mother, Greta Jean Trautman. She was one of my most beloved relatives on this planet. She is a woman I share a middle name with and she is also the reason I ever even cared to learn Swedish. It is because of her that I chose to formally learn Swedish in college and therefore chose to spend nearly 6 months studying there.

When I was growing up, my Nana had many names for me. I finally told her when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old that I was “too old” for little kid nicknames. She finally agreed but only if I would agree to always be her svenska flicka. Finally, the last time I reminded her of this, she smiled at me and passed away only minutes later. She died in January 2010 at the young age of 92 and I never would have guessed that one year later, I would be dedicating an internet story to her about my travels in Sweden.