This was a rather late blog as I spent most of the time adjusting myself into the weather and visiting places in Sweden.
Arrived here on an almost 14 hours flight and it was not even dim at 7 pm when I touched down. The sun eventually got down like 10:30. It is the “summer” here, but nights are still below 10 degrees (utterly cold). But there are like 20 hours of daylight so everything is fine (I would say). And it rains, a lot.
- Attractions
Apart from rather gloomy the weather, the people and architecture here are fantastic. People always say the Swedes are shy people, but the people I meet from the Student Union’s events are extremely friendly and energized.
Oh, I must admit that there is almost always an International reception event by the student union on every single day. Though there’s a limit for registration, you can always hop on and be the plus one (or plus many). I went to the Skansen [open air museum with a zoo??], the Gamla stan [Old town], the Drottningholm Palace, the Archipelago and many many Pub crawls and parties.
- Food
Sooo. most of the time it is really expensive to eat out, even if your Swedish friend says it is a cheap meal. (I ate a 120 SEK meal which he insisted on it being cheap). But if you ignore the cost, the food came in a super large portion and served with free bread and salad, almost always.
And you definitely have to try a fika with your friends. It is like afternoon tea with lots of sweet cookies. And oh, do not miss out on the kanelbullen!
- Lesson
I came here about 2 weeks earlier than the rest of the group to take part in an intensive Swedish course. I have to admit that Swedish is a really difficult language to speak. For example, the “k” sometimes makes a “sh” sound, “sj” makes a “whuu” sound, “sk” makes a sound I could not even pronounce properly, and the locals speak so fast that I could only hear the vowels.
Ranting aside, the language is really interesting. and at least now I could understand the names of my IKEA furniture. and it is also mappable back ~~
- Conclusion
Definitely excited for the months to come, though it is going to be only colder and colder and school is going to start soon, but we are going to travel a lot while we are here during the weekends [like flights to countries as far as Hungary is only €20 ]and share with you guys our experiences. Stay tuned
-Zhou Zhi
