Second week in Uppsala so far

Monday
Finally getting into the swing of classes and feel like I know my way around town pretty well already. My accommodation is in a very prime location so walking to most places I need to go to is not a problem. Had a very interesting lecture by Martin Hedburg who is a meteorologist about science of climate change in CCL. The lecture lasted from 1pm to 3pm, but he took questions until about 4:30, very interesting stuff, and scary. Then I remained in the same building and had my introduction to my third and final class, Actors and Strategies for Change. All of the classes should complement each other very well and several of the same people are in at least two of my classes and some in all three so it will be good and easy to meet even more people who care about the same things as I do and can work on class work together with.

Tuesday
Had CCL and a lecture about the planetary limits of different pollutants and resources we use beside just focusing on climate change. Climate change definitely isn't the only big problem we will run into in the future and most of these planetary limits are intertwined. I've still postponed ordering my books I need for the classes and need to do that soon or it will catch up to me. For Sustainable Design the whole class had to catch a 20 minute bus to SLU, the other university in the region. There we did a work shop on the process of design and were to create a model of a new type of chair with the given supplies within 40 minutes. My supposed camp chair turned into something only maybe just resembling a chair, but the process was interesting and it was nice to do something in class that made me think in a different creative way. It was one of the coldest days since I've been here and after I returned from SLU Nick and I went to Snierkes Nation for the club. We had just become members of that nation today, which gives us some perks, the main one being we don't have to pay to get into the club night. It was freezing in line and we waited for about 1.5 hours before getting in. Luckily they club was allowed to stay open an additional hour until 2am which is apparently a very big deal here! I don't mind the "early" nights as much as some of the Europeans who are used to partying until 6am, at least here I can be productive the next day still!

Wednesday
Had a seminar (like a recitation) for CCL and discussed what we had heard from lecturers so far. Also need to meet with my group in CCL as we are all giving an 8 minute presentation summarizing the science of climate change next Monday. Had a lecture in SD at night which was a very broad overview of sustainable development challenges and opportunities. The international student pub crawl was tonight, but started while I was in class. After class I didn't feel like joining the crawl late and fighting through the cold so I just stayed in.

Thursday (so far)
Slept in and have tried to start being productive. Cleaned up the room and am about to go try to use the high tech laundry facility here. It is free, but you have to reserve machines for specific times and the machine is in Swedish (go figure). I'm slowly getting used to hearing and not understanding most everyone speak Swedish around me, but there is a fair share of English being spoke as well and most everyone here at shops, on the street etc can speak decent to very good english to you. I am learning some basic words and can make sense of reading instructions better now. I won't be taking the offered Swedish language course as my classes are a full schedule already and I want to leave time for traveling. I am practicing some Swedish through an online program though. We have run into some problems in booking our trip to Lappland, which we had originally hoped to do next weekend. We may do a very cheap 40 hour cruise across the Baltic Sea and back instead for now. The ships go to either Helsinki, Tallinn, or Riga and looking like the whole experience could cost less than $200 we may end up doing several of them this semester. The big draw of the cruises for the locals too is the duty free alcohol, plus how many people can say they've been to Finland, Estonia, or Latvia? Going to do a more substantial grocery run here in a bit and may go out to Stockholms club tonight, we'll see.

Well we are now up to date with my experience in Uppsala! Hoping to have more adventures/travels and pictures soon to add to the post!

Hej då!
Jesse