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| Lots of perfect days for soccer |
Monday May 2nd
I woke up this morning and my corridor mate Lovisa told me that they had killed Obama, which made my jaw drop, but she quickly corrected herself and said the US had killed Osama bin Laden, much to my relief! Amazing that almost 10 years after 9/11 we finally tracked him down in a nice house an hour from Islamabad. I heard there was celebrations and partying in the US and while I thought it was good news that the most infamous terrorist in the world was no longer around I thought one of my friends on Facebook put it well by saying we shouldn’t celebrate death but rather pray for peace. The weather has gotten much colder since Valbor, almost a return to some late winter weather
Tuesday
The weather was even colder today and it even snowed and sleeted a little. At night a few of us went to Snerikes for their club night. It was the first club night since Valborg and because of this it was a very slow night. Some of the dance floors didn’t even open up and the crowd was almost entirely exchange students. The Swedes must have still been recovering from the big Valborg weekend.
Wednesday
It was still cool around 7 degrees C. I did some work on my final paper for Actors and Strategies so I wouldn’t have to do the whole thing the day before it was due the following Monday. At night I went to Sustainable Design for a literature seminar. Maybe a quarter of the entire class came and hardly anyone had done the assigned reading so it was another rather boring and almost painful class for Sustainable Design.
Thursday
Everyone at CU is now finished with school for the summer and I missed some good friends graduating. I on the other hand started a new class that will last for the final month I am here in Uppsala today. Today was the first day of Swedish Literature. It is the only class I have taken that is not part of CEMUS (the Sustainability Program I study in) as a result the make up of the class was quite different. Several of my good exchange friends are in the class including Nick L., Katie, Kiri, Sean, and Nick E. It feels a bit strange starting a class so late in the semester, but it shouldn’t be too much work or stress involved in the class. At night we went early to Stockholms nation for the club night. We started on the patio, but it was a bit cold still to be outside especially at night.
Friday
Nice weather returned finally and we took advantage by playing some soccer with Uppsala FC. Took it easy the rest of the day before heading out late to Birgerjarl to go clubbing. At the club a girl approached me and asked me “habla espanol?” I was a little taken aback at this rather random question in Spanish, which you don’t hear too often up here. I said no, but then tried to speak to her in Spanish anyways (I was never too strong in speaking Spanish, but now I’m definitely out of practice). She wasn’t impressed by my attempt to speak Spanish and said that her friends thought I looked Spanish. Strange turn of events, but maybe some of the warmer weather and sun we’ve had in the past weeks gave me some color to pass as a Spanish speaker. Walking back to the corridor at about 2:45AM I could clearly see some light showing on the eastern horizon. The days are getting so long now!
Saturday
Really can’t remember anything noteworthy from this day. Probably enjoyed the return of the warm weather by hanging out on the field outside my corridor.
Sunday
Nick and I went grocery shopping to get supplies for our American BBQ we were throwing for our friends who had already hosted an Italian, German, and Dutch food night. We loaded up on burgers, dogs, corn on the cob, salad, chips, cookies, and marshmallows. The grilling went very well and we even introduced our European friends to some strictly American products like Kool-aid, ranch dressing, and s’mores. It was a great BBQ on a perfect Swedish Spring day. After the BBQ Uppsala FC met up to play some evening soccer. We didn’t start playing until about 8:30 but could play easily without lights until almost 10PM because the sun didn’t set until after 9PM. Once it got too dark we found that we could get onto the artificial turf field that we normally played on and play some more under the lights. The weather was great into the evening. During the day the temperature topped out around 20 C (68 F) and it stayed rather warm even after the sun went down. After a great day of BBQ and soccer I buckled down and finished my final paper for my Actors & Strategies so I could send it in in the morning.
Monday
Only 15 hours after finishing soccer the night before we tried to play again. Everyone was rather sluggish from the “hot” weather (22 C, 72 F, feels hot to me here now) and from playing the night before. I went to Actors & Strategies with some reluctance in the evening because it was such a gorgeous day out. Luckily we were able to have our seminar outside for most of the class and continue to take in the plentiful sun. At night I did some reading for my Swedish literature class by reading the play Miss Julie by August Strindberg a rather famous Swedish playwright during the late 19th century.
Tuesday
I had my second class of Swedish literature at the very early time of 10AM (a time I don’t often see here). We discussed the plays by Strindberg we were supposed to have read. Nick and I hung out in Ekonomikum park with Kiri and Franzi before heading out to Snerikes for the club night. The club was packed and had one of the longest lines I had seen since I’ve been here, a huge contrast to how empty Snerikes was the week before. It was extremely hot in the packed club, but it was a pretty good night.
Wednesday
We played our usual post Snerikes game of soccer (a great way to freshen up after a good night out actually). It was the warmest day of the year at 25 degrees C (77 F)! I soaked up the great weather again on the field at Rackerberget and tossed the football around with Nick, Katie, and David. In early evening I skyped with Kelsey and Grandma on her new Ipad! Kels was visiting Grandma on her little trip to Illinois and Wisconsin and helped Grandma use Skype for one of the first times. My Grandma was so excited to see me and be able to talk to me through the amazing technology of Skype. At night I went to Sustainable Design and heard a lecture from the co-founder of DEM, which is a fair trade clothing company.
Thursday
Had Swedish literature again and we all discussed the book Gosta Berling’s Saga even though once again much of the class had done limited to no reading of the literature. After class I met with my Climate Change Leadership group to discuss our final project. We realized that the paper was due in only 4 days on Monday and all agreed on different sections of the paper to write. That night Lovisa was celebrating her birthday a few days early with friends and invited Nick and I to her celebration as well. We had some champagne punch and appetizers Lovisa prepared and hung out with her Swedish friends (Nick and I often out of the loop as they spoke in Swedish, but they also included us with some English too). After the little birthday celebration we went to Stockholms nation for their club night. It was a great night with tons of my friends there and I had some good conversations about Sweden and the US with Lovisa’s friends Susana and Matilda. We grabbed a delicious hot dog from the hot dog stand guy who always is outside the nations on their club night and then headed home.
Friday the 13th
It cooled off again and rained again today. At night we went to the Birgerjarl club again. This time we had a big group that included Katie, Dawn, Sean, Ben, Rick, and Ryan as well as Nick and me. It was a really fun group and a lot of the group had never been to BJ’s before. I impressed the group (or maybe embarrassed myself a little) by showing off some of my dancing skills to Beyonce’s “All the Single Ladies”, which I knew a little of due to my Halloween costume a couple years back with Andrew and Taylor.
Saturday
I woke up rather early, 10AM, to meet up with Katie, Dawn, Rick, and Ryan to go to VG nation’s brunch. Brunches are rather popular in Sweden on the weekends and many of the nations put on brunches, but I hadn’t attended one since the first week I was here. The brunch was very good and filling and it was nice to have a larger proper meal in the morning with Swedish pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, salad and more. After brunch I went and played soccer with Uppsala FC. A large group of us showed up and we had a couple good games of 7 on 7 on the grass fields. After soccer I ran about 3km to Kantorsgatan to have a BBQ with Katie, Dawn, Rick and Ryan. It was another gorgeous day, but a bit cooler than the previous days. At night Nick and I met up with Franzi, Marten, and Ezra and walked down to Flogsta to attend a rooftop party. The theme was a hat party and we all sported simple hats made up newspaper. The party was a bit chilly on the roof and I was rather tired from the long active day so I left the part a bit early and headed to bed by 1AM.
Sunday
The Internet was inexplicably out in all of Rackarberget and Kantorsgatan so Nick and I headed to Ekonomikum to check everything we needed to online and I also buckled down and finished up our group final paper for Climate Change Leadership. It is amazing how dependent or addicted my lifestyle is to the Internet and it was rather annoying not having it all weekend. The positive to not having Internet though is that I couldn’t waste my time looking at random websites and could instead be productive or do something else for a change. Without Internet I did a lot of cleaning of the corridor and my computer and continued to read the Dan Brown book I had started, Digital Fortress. Not having Internet also meant that I couldn’t video chat with my parents like I normally do on the weekends and I haven’t talked with them for almost 2 weeks now. At night I watched the movie Baby Mama in Katie and Dawn’s corridor. Today also marked the day that means I only have exactly one month left over here in Europe! Time is going so fast!
Monday
There is still no Internet in our corridor so I came over to Ekonomikum again. I sent in my final papers for Climate Change Leadership so now I only have to attend our final two classes for that class. Classes are all winding down. I still need to do a final paper for Sustainable Design as well as present our group project. I do a group presentation for Swedish literature on Thursday then a individual presentation a week from Tuesday then finally a take home exam, but that is about all of the class work I have left for the rest of my time here. The family comes in less than 3 weeks now and I am excited to see them and travel with them, but I also don’t want the fun of this semester to end and have to say goodbye to all of my new friends here. I went to my final lecture for Actors and Strategies tonight (we have some informal presentations of our projects next week). After class I went down to the soccer field to play. It had been raining off and on all day, but had more or less cleared up into a nice refreshing spring evening. Uppsala FC played against a group of Swedes in some great 8 on 8 soccer for about 2 hours. We won the final game 2-1!
Another update soon!
Jesse
