First Day in Sweden

So today was my first day in Sweden. Already I’ve learned some important phrases.

Talk- thank you.

God morgon- good morning

God dag- good day

God middag- good afternoon

God afton- good evening

God natt- good night

My host family seems nice. Chill. The apartment is decorated in a very modern, simplistic manner. It feels spacious even though it is rather cramped, still, there are four bedrooms, a bath tub, a shower, two toilets and three sinks. There’s a small kitchen and a dining/sitting room.

I haven’t figured out the money system yet. I exchanged my money, but I still don’t know what to do with it… I figure that will come with time. Right now I’m looking out over the city of Stockholm, and there is a hot air balloon floating over the horizon. I’ll have to get some pictures of the skyline uploaded.

Right now I’m struck by similarities and differences. The plants Anita and Magnus (my home stay mother and father, though I’m not sure if they are married and I’m not brave enough to ask… yet) have in the apartment are similar to the ones in our house, they have a Christmas cactus, a peace lilly, a tree that I often see in people’s houses back home and other cactuses. They drive on the same side of the road, Samuel listens to English-speaking music which is similar to the music we listen to.

However, the roads are paved in a red type of tar- the edges outside of the lines are the normal type of tar. I wonder if it is a type of paint. The subway is much cleaner. Tonight for dinner we had Tai-esque food, similar to the food I’ve seen some of my really liberal families eat. They use tofu. I don’t know if it is because any of them are vegetarian, or just because.

I feel exhausted. I slept for most of my journey, still, I’m several hours short of my normal amount that I sleep. I’m trying to stay up at least until nine, which is 45 minutes from now. I have to get up around seven.

Tomorrow and the next day I’m going to the archipelago to one of the islands and staying there overnight with the program. Then when I come back I turn right around and go visit some family of Magnus. It’ll be interesting… I’ll be surprised if I’m not falling over after that. I’ll have to make up some flashcards to practice while I’m gone. I really really really want to make an effort to learn as much Swedish as possible, especially before classes start. At least then I’ll have some type of grounding to base everything on. Pratice, pratice, do it again… over and over until you get it!

I mean, what else do I have to do with my time?

Oh yeah, work on my proposal. *rolls eyes* Well, I’ll get to that. Right now I need to talk to Magnus about where I’m going to meet him on Friday to go visit his family.