And you thought Iowa's windmills were awesome (or maybe you didn't)

Hej hej-

I did something touristy this week! And you'll be happy to hear I only went to one party since I last 'blogged'. Wednesday was my last day of Swedish class and the exam was Saturday morning. I think it went alright. I had to write a 200 page essay on my family. I wish there were more Bergeruds to write about. All I need is a 60% to pass....I think I can manage. I also started my first real class on Friday (weird day to start right?) Its biomedical materials. It seems that everyone in the class is a polymers expert but knows nothing about metals. I'm the other way around. And again, the only native english speaker. It doesn't look like it'll be too hard. I can pretend to know polymers I think. You polymers people make it look so easy.

After the test, me and 3 girls from my floor (Titia from Holland, Rose from Australia, and Natalie from England) took a trip to an island called Utö in the Stockholm archipelago. I really had no idea what it would be like. I called the tourism office on the island and asked if there were any open rooms, and there was only one 4 bed cabin available. So we booked that. It ended up being really nice. We weren't expecting that. It was one of the classic little red Swedish cabins you see so often (well, maybe you don't see them as often as I do) We took the train, followed by bus, then ferry, then we rented bikes and rode them to the cottage (3 km out of town) We had dinner at a restaurant in town. There was a buffet. Unfortunately for me, this buffet featured a lot of shellfish. Not exactly my favorite. Crayfish are really big here during the month of August. People have crayfish parties I guess (I haven't been invited to any yet...) But thats ok, because I don't like crayfish. Too much work for a not so good taste. The desserts at the buffet were really good though. So don't worry guys, I'm eating really healthy here. After the buffet we rode home, stopping every few minutes to take pictures of the sunset and let the mosquitoes eat us alive.

Our little red cabin on Utö

The next morning after a good 12 hours of sleep we got up and made swedish pancakes. We biked back into town and visited the old windmill. Its the big tourist attraction on the island. And what a windmill it was! We had lunch and then visited the old iron mines, which date back to the 12th century! I figured that would be the proper mat e thing to do. We spent the rest of our time there roaming around the island and taking pictures. I feel so Swedish now. The islands on the archipelago are a popular weekend destination for the Swedes. Many own summer homes there. What a life. When I grow up, I want to be Swedish too! Or at least have a summer home on the Baltic Sea and a sailboat. I suppose that would do.

Utö's 200 year old windmill

Hi, do you sell red plastic cups?

Its funny to hear what people think of the states. Everyone drives a huge SUV and lives on fast food and, well... actually, thats pretty accurate. I drive a 95 civic thank you very much. I find it difficult to share american culture with all of my new international friends. They've all got something interesting to share about their homelands. But they also know pretty much everything about the US. Every band, every movie, every tv show...Desperate Housewives and Prison Break are pretty popular...perhaps I'll try watching Prison Break so I can be cool too. And they also seem to know a great deal about rap. And you thought I was the blackest person you knew...

But this quest to share something about American culture hasn't been a total failure. My parents will be happy to hear that I am the only one here that seems to know any good drinking games. So, I made it my mission to teach these people beer pong. Now, preparing for this was more difficult than you might imagine. For one thing, ping pong balls do not reside in the liquor aisle where they belong. I had to go to a sporting good store! Crazy Swedes. I was unable to acquire the proper color of cup as well, but clear worked well enough. So Friday night, the people of 8th floor St Goransgatan 147 held a pre-party for the welcome party at the student union that night. So I set up the table in my room. Probably a bad idea as my floor was covered in beer the next morning. For being an expert at drinking games, I really suck at beer pong. But I was good at explaining the rules at least. I think everyone had fun.

So the next thing I taught my friends was the game of ultimate frisbee. They think I'm great, and maybe compared to them, I am. Good thing they don't know any other Americans...We played at Djurgarden (pretty island with lots of museums) after class, and we also played some football (translation: soccer) Oh, another thing they think I'm good at is shuffling...We play poker a lot, and when they first saw me shuffle and deal the cards, they were amazed. They asked if I had ever worked at a casino. But, yeah, they're probably right. I'm way good at shuffling.

American food has been a difficult thing to share, as it can only be properly made at McDonalds it seems. I thought maybe hotdogs, but gosh, you wouldn't believe the amount of hotdog vendors in Stockholm. Swedes really like hotdogs I guess. So that didn't work. Then I thought, perhaps chili cheese dogs...but I don't even like those. I settled on making rice krispie treats. Marshmallows are also difficult to acquire, but I found some in the special American shelf in the super market, along with the Mountain Dew and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (no Reeses Puffs though, sad) I think my biggest culinary feat will come around the fourth Thursday in November...by the way, does anyone know how to cook a turkey? Better yet, does anyone know where I can even find a turkey in Stockholm?

Is there anything more American than beer pong, ultimate frisbee, and rice krispie treats? I think not. So don't worry, I'm representing America well. I think I have the most fun explaining to them how the electoral college works. Oh one quick thing I found funny this week... I told this Irish guy I was from Chicago, and he asks- Do you know Kenan and Kel? - That's the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Chicago too. But I don't like orange soda, sorry. But yeah, I don't think you want to hear what I did the rest of the week (besides my quest to spread democracy)...you might think me an alcoholic. But don't worry, I have many trips planned for the month of September, so be on the look out for more interesting posts.

Speaking Svenska

So for the month of August I'm taking this intensive Swedish language course. My teacher likes to ask me lots of questions. I'm the only native english speaker in the class, so she'll often ask me if we use the same phrases in English (for example, "sleep like a log" was something we translated) She likes to come up to me at the beginning of class and talk to me about the Olympics. I usually hear something like- blah blah blah Bejing blah blah Micheal Phelps blah blah blah...so I sit there with a blank stare, and usually respond with a "ja" once she's finished, hoping this response is appropriate. Reading and writing Swedish isn't so bad, but if someone starts talking to me, even if its a phrase or words I know, I'm suddenly lost. It doesn't help that everyone here speaks English, so learning the language really isn't necessary to get around. But I guess I've pick up a little while I've been here. I get a newspaper everyday and try to figure out what the headlines mean ('och'...thats 'and'! yes!) And the club I went to Friday was called FemtioFyra...54! I'm really good at numbers. If only I could figure out the alphabet. I have class from 9-12, monday-friday...or should I say, måndag-lördag (are you impressed yet?)

The campus is about 30 minutes away by tunnelbana. At first I thought this would annoy me, but its not so bad. The Stadshagen station is right near my apartment, and the Tekniska Hogskolan stop is right near school, so minimal walking is involved. The tunnelbana system is really nice. So clean. Each station has been decorated by a different Swedish artist, so they're really fun to look at. I hear they offer a subway art tour that I might want to go on sometime (jealous?) Usually after class I'll wander around part of the city. It has taken me a little longer than usual to get a feel for my surroundings, but I think I'm ok now. I have gotten lost a few times. I have trouble remembering some of the Swedish street names...St Goransgatan, Hornsgatan, St Eriksgatan...names like these are too difficult to remember. Eventually I find a tunnelbana station and I'm ok. Although I have also been stuck in the rain before (sadly it has rained a lot this month so far) and thats no fun.

On Friday night, the ISS (International Student Society) organized a Swedish dinner which I attended. They told us to wear yellow and blue (the colors of the Swedish flag) so we totally looked like native Swedes. I didn't have any yellow clothes, so I bought a yellow shirt, and yellow shoes (how practical...) The dinner had 3 courses, lots of alcohol, and a band playing traditional Swedish party music. They gave us the words but we didn't know the tune, so the songs didn't sound so great. After the dinner, we went out to Södermalm (the south island where a bunch of cool clubs and bars are) and ended up at the 54 place I mentioned before. Again, the alcohol was expensive. I think I should stop trying to think in dollars. It makes me sick to think about how much I spend here. On Saturday I hung out with a few Irish girls and we went to an Irish bar (surprisingly, there are a ton of Irish bars around here) and watched a rugby match. I ordered nachos, but they didn't have any cheese. In America we call this chips and salsa, but whatever. And now, finally, a picture of me. Proof I'm actually doing what I say I'm doing.

Rose from Australia, Natalie from England, me from America, and
Jane from Northern Ireland taking the theme for the Swedish dinner
very seriously

I've got hos in different area codes

I suppose thats a lie...i really don't have many hos, but as the discussion today has to do with area codes, I thought my favorite Ludacris song (EVAR) was an appropriate title for this post. So for some odd reason, the people of Sweden take their area codes very seriously. In Stockholm, the area code is 08, and supposedly Stockholmers are known by the other inhabitants of Sweden as 08ers. So last Friday happened to be 08/08/08 and this was a very big deal for the 08ers. There was a huge city wide party- lots of free concerts all over, different events (like a huge watergun fight in Gamla Stan), and fireworks (not as good as our 4th displays though). We ate together as a floor then went out to explore all the festivities taking place in the city. We first went to a concert in Kungstragarden, however as we looked around, we noticed the majority of the audience was middle aged couples. I should mention that they were all Swedish bands, so we really didn't know any better as to whether the bands were cool or not. So we left there and went instead to Stureplan, a busy square in Stockholm. They had closed down all the streets in the area and had a dj playing from a balcony. It was insane. We could barely move it was so crowded. I had heard there were 50,000 people expected to attend, and I don't doubt that thats how many were actually there.

The crowded streets of Stockholm on 08-08-08

Once the dj stopped playing, we went on a quest to find somewhere else to dance. As you might expect, everywhere was ridiculously crowded. We stood in a line at a couple places for awhile and when we finally got in we were all so excited that we didn't care that we had to pay 180 kr cover ($30!). The club we went to was called Cafe Opera. It was the one place everyone said I had to visit while I was here. The building itself is an old opera house, so it was really unique and cool. We were defintely the most under dressed people there. Everyone was in suits and dresses and then there was us, these stupid looking college kids in jeans dancing right in the middle, but we didn't care that much. I even got to dance with some Swedes! While we were dancing, we didn't give much thought of how we were going to get home once the club closed. We missed the last tunnelbana train, so we searched around for a bus that would take us home, but this was sail. It was eventually decided that we would walk. So we walked for an hour in uncomfortable "going out" shoes as the sun was rising (it gets light out really early here) and came home at around 5 am to a homeless guy sleeping outside the elevator on our floor (first one I saw in Sweden....didn't take a picture though) but we were too tired to care. I'll keep the rest short...Saturday- slept till 2, shopped, hung out on the floor, Sunday- wandered/got lost, skype chatted with the rents, birthday party at another apartment, irish bar near Stureplan
Thats it for now. Later dudes.

Like Amy Winehouse

Greetings from Stockholm!

I have finally found the internets (along with a computer cord that works with the plugs here) so I will commence with the "blogging." For those of you that don't know, I am attending KTH (which stands for something that translates to Royal Institute of Technology) for the fall semester. I arrived last Friday and so far I've met lots of cool people with cool accents (although I suppose I have an accent to them too). There are a ton of international exchange students here. Over 500 right now, and 300 more in September. Most of them are French, German, and Spanish students. So far I've only met one other American (another Chicago-an who was actually on my flight) and I've heard that another one exists. But I'm the only American girl it seems, so as you might imagine, I'm a pretty big deal over here. And they don't seem to hate us either. In fact, they always have lots of questions about tv shows and california and obama and stuff like that. I guess Amy isn't a very common name over here. Everytime I introduce myself its always something like this....

Me: Hi, I'm Amy
Them: Emma?
Me: No, A-my
Them: Amy? Oh! Like Amy Winehouse

I've had like 4 people say that to me. Anyways, I thought that was funny. My apartment is really nice. I have my own kitchen and bathroom and everything is modern and ikea-y. Everyone on my floor is really social. They come from switzerland, england, holland, portugal, ireland, australia. So I mostly hang out with them and people from the floor above us. I was pretty jet lagged the first few days I was here (7 hour time difference and all), but Sunday I did this scavenger hunt type thing with the floor that they arranged for the exchange students, so I got to see a lot of the city. However we eventually got tired and went to a bar instead. Oh speaking of bars, alcohol is way expensive here. Usually like 60 kr for a beer ($1 = 6 kr) I'm going to be an expert at dividing by 6 by the time this is all through. And multiplying by 9/5 and adding 32.

I started my Swedish class on Monday, and it's really hard. Languages aren't really my thing. But I'll try my best. The worst part is that the teacher knows my name and calls on me all the time. It's probably because I'm American. I might throw in a few Swedish phrases in here as I learn more, so make sure to have your Swedish-English dictionaries handy. Anyways, I have lots more I'd like to say, but I'm going to try and keep these posts less that Brent-sized. I'll add some pictures later. Thanks for reading!