Tuesday May 17th
I had Swedish Literature class at the bright and early time of 10am! The class has been rather easy so far as we haven’t had to be too accountable for the different literature we are supposed to be reading. The two-hour class is mainly made up of one group presenting on the specific literature for the day’s class and the rest of the time is discussion time, but mainly socializing. Oh and like all Swedish classes like to do we have a 15 minute fika break in the middle of the class, which is a really great way to break up the class. After class a group of us went to VG nation for lunch. They had refillable soup, salad, and bread for only 35 kroner ($6) a steal in Sweden. At night we went to Snerikes for their club night.
Wednesday - Summer internship with ESPN!!!
I went to play my usual post Snerikes soccer match with the Uppsala FC guys at Ekeby. At night I had a conference call with ESPN where I learned that I would for sure be going to Los Angeles for 2 separate weeks this summer to be an Environmental Ambassador at the ESPY’s and the Summer X Games! I am ecstatic that I got this short little internship that incorporates sustainability and sports, my two passions! Even better is that ESPN is paying my way to LA, providing me lodging, food, and paying me about $18/hour even on my travel days! This amazing opportunity fell into my lap thanks to a posting to all Environmental Studies majors at CU that ESPN was looking for an all CU team to be the Environmental Ambassadors at these events because the heads of sustainability for ESPN are CU alumni. I applied and was deemed a perfect candidate and now my awesome year that is 2011 has gotten even better as my summer plans couldn’t be any better than they are now. I will have plenty of free time in Boulder to hopefully get into the mountains and travel as well as start preparation for the GRE, my honors thesis, and working as coordinator for SCORE during the school year at the Environmental Center. I will be in LA for the ESPY’s July 8th-15th and for X Games July 27th-August 3rd.
Thursday
In the afternoon I had Swedish Literature class and it was my group’s turn to present. My group was all American and all girls besides me and was early feminist literature in Sweden, specifically the book Women and Apple trees by Moa Martinson. The presentation went well and I just hung out in the corridor afterwards before Stockholms nation at night. Nick’s family was visiting and we took his sister Kate out for the night for a taste of Uppsala nightlife.
Friday May 20th
I briefly played some soccer with the fellas at Ekeby before taking it easy for the afternoon and evening. At night I decided to stay in and Lovisa was staying in too. Nick had headed to Greece with his family for a couple days so I joined Lovisa with her friends Amanda (blonde) and Amanda (brunette) and watched the first Lord of the Rings. Lovisa and blonde Amanda had never seen the movies, but the rest of their friends had given the nicknames Merry and Pippen like the two hobbit best friends so it was about time they watched the movie!
Saturday
Didn’t do much of anything besides laying outside on the Rackarberget field and hanging with Katie and Dawn.
Sunday
Another lazy day until I went out to play an evening soccer match at Ekeby. The artificial turf field we normally play on was taken so we ended up playing on some nice grass fields behind the turf. It was a good turnout and we ended up playing about 7-on-7 and even had a group of exchange student girls come watch us, which seemed to make everyone try a little harder to show off. It was a perfect night for soccer and we played for over 2 hours past sunset until around 10pm.
Monday
I had to get to class at 9am for the start of a two-day seminar to conclude Climate Change Leadership. The seminar was 6 hours long with lunch break. We discussed what we had learned through the semester and started compiling ideas to write a final class statement. At night I had my final class for Actors & Strategies. Both classes were great particularly because of the many different people I met from all over the globe. It was a bit bittersweet finishing the class and saying goodbye to everyone.
Tuesday
I missed Swedish Literature for the final day of the two-day seminar to conclude CCL. I Went to Stockholms Nation for lunch with Dave, Lukas, Dennis, Ryan, and Jake where we had delicious salads/pasta salad from their huge salad bar for the reasonable price of 50 kroner ($8). We concluded our very general statement on climate change for CCL and I hurried back to my corridor because Ian Buller had just arrived in Uppsala. Ian was traveling around Scandinavia with his family and had been able to make it work where he could come up to Uppsala for a night, while his family was in Stockholm. He was already hanging out with Sophie in her corridor and I met up with them to show a CU, PLC, GlobeMed kid what life in Uppsala was all about! We headed out early for Snerikes because it was the opening night for their summer patio, but the line was already really long at about 7pm so we decided to do a little pub-crawl with Ian to some of the other nations. The pub-crawl was great and later we were able to get into Snerikes for some clubbing action. It was a fun time with Ian and it was really cool he was able to meet up with Sophie and me.
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| Two AM in the morning |
Around noon I headed to Blasenhus for our final presentation of my group’s Sustainable Design project at the CEMUS Sustainability Fair. We stood around our presentation board for our sustainable community center and answered questions people had about our project. After the presentation I was completely done with my sustainability class at Uppsala. At night I went to Norrlands Pub to meet up with some friends to say goodbye to Julian as he was leaving the next morning to travel Sweden and then return to Germany. Julian was the first person to leave of my better friends and him leaving really made it seem like the semester had flown by and that I really needed to do everything possible to make the most of my final weeks.
Thursday
There wasn’t any Swedish Literature class today for some reason. Nick and I went with Lovisa to Amanda’s (blonde) corridor for dinner. The girls made a pasta dish with a cream sauce with moose, peppers, mushrooms, and onions. It was delicious. We also played some fun games of hide-n-seek in which I stumped Lovisa as the seeker because I switched hiding places to somewhere she had just previously found Amanda, so the game went on much longer than one would think is possible in a tiny little apartment. We also did a ridiculous race where we had to walk, hop, or run with a wood clothes hanger pinned between our knees, it was very difficult and rather painful, but hilarious to watch!
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| Best picture ever |
Friday May 27th
I slept right up to one before rolling out of bed for some soccer. At night we went out to Varmlands for the first time in a long time for their final club night. It was a good time and afterwards Nick, Ryan, Katie, Dawn, Anna, and I went to BJ’s for some late night clubbing.
Saturday
Went and played soccer again in the afternoon. Nick and I stopped by a little Rackarberget BBQ that was going on, but headed to Varmlands with David to catch the Champions League final. There we met up with most of the Uppsala FC guys and watched Barcelona dominate and win 3-1 over Manchester United. Afterwards there was supposed to be another large stairway party at Rackarberget 34, but that never got started. We ended up hanging out in Katie and Dawn’s corridor and playing some drinking games and staying up entirely too late once again.
We played a big match of soccer once again at Ekeby against a team of Swedes. It was a fun match, which we won 4-2. I took it easy for the rest of the day before hanging with Anna, Katie, and Dawn for Anna’s last night in Uppsala before going on a Scandinavia trip with her parents. Katie and Dawn were also packing up everything from their rooms in preparation of moving out, another reminder of how little time we all have left in Uppsala.
Monday
Nick left bright and early for Barcelona. After I woke up I bit the bullet and started to clean up our kitchen, which had turned into a disaster area with an overflow of dirty dishes. In the evening I had a video chat with the parents in preparation for their arrival on Saturday. After this I met up with Katie and Rick and we headed to Norrlands pub to see some people before going to Snerikes to see more people and hang out on the patio. It was the start of the last week for most people and many good-byes and group photos had started to happen.
Tuesday
I had Swedish Literature at 10 AM with nothing noteworthy happening in class. Today was the hottest day in Uppsala so far and also maybe windiest. A few of us tried to play some soccer for a little, but the heat (28 C, 82 F) and the wind had sucked all of the energy out of us. At night Katie, Rick, Dawn, Sophie and I went on a mini pub-crawl to V-Dala, which had an awesome rooftop patio, and to Upplands, which had an awesome outdoor garden and patio. We then all went to Snerikes after the line had died down. Upstairs the DJ was playing great music and I met up with a bunch of the Uppsala FC guys before heading back to the corridor.
In the afternoon I had my last day of Swedish Literature and we held the class outside one the lawn on a beautiful Swedish spring day. Despite being the end of class I still have to turn in a 4 page final paper via email that isn’t due until June 24th and most likely won’t be done until I am back in the States so I can focus on enjoying the rest of my time in Europe. After class I took it easy after so many nights out late I decided to stay in for the night before one last big night on Thursday for the final Stockholms club night.
Thursday
Unfortunately, today was a day of lasts, but fortunately they were great lasts. First it was our last big soccer match with Uppsala FC and about 15 of us showed up along with some Swedes and we played a big long match of roughly 10-on-10.
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| Uppsala FC |
Friday June 3rd
Lovisa woke me up early to say good-bye as she was heading home. I stayed up and did laundry and then started packing up my room in preparation of the family coming and moving out on Tuesday morning. In the afternoon Nick and I played tennis with Jonathan and David (America vs. Sweden) in an awesome little indoor facility about 300m from our corridor (wish we had know about it earlier!). Nick and I were a bit rusty and both the Swedes were pretty good, but we both definitely started getting our strokes back by the end, my serve and backhand were surprisingly strong while my forehand and volleying was rather pathetic most of the time. At night went out to Snerikes with Nick and Rick and met up with Jonathan and David, but very few other people we knew were there. I called it a night early so I could get up in the morning to meet the family at the train station after their long trip over to Sweden!
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