There Was an Attempt

It has been nearly three days since I have landed in the great land of Sweden, and while I have attempted to keep the culture shocks to a minimum, there have been quite a large number of things I have overlooked and/or taken for granted that I would rather not talk about. That being said, what would be the point of creating a blog if I didn’t emphasize the mildly interesting and mostly embarrassing things that have transpired? The answer to that question is so I do not fail my blog post assignment…I suppose I will still share them anyway though.

Day 1: What Did You Say?

Getting off a plane after nearly 28 hours of not sleeping is never a good idea, even in the best of circumstances. It gets even worse when you realize that the skills you have spent nearly 15 years acquiring get outshined by local kindergarteners now that you cannot read, write, or speak in nearly any capacity. I found out quickly that even though “most” of the people in Sweden speak English, all of the signs do not, and you cannot charade what you are trying to accomplish to them no matter how hard you try. It was from that moment on that say Google Translate and I became very good friends. The other contingency to the statement “most Swedish speak English” is the word “most”. I want to preface that I do not expect anyone to pander to me especially when I am visiting a foreign country, after all, adapting to the culture of that country is one of the best parts of studying abroad. That being said, most of my conversations started with me introducing myself in Swedish and asking the recipient if they spoke English. If their answer was anything other than “Ja” followed by them switching to English, we ended up having a problem. I’m also pretty sure I was mocked by some middle-school-aged kids because of this fact but I couldn’t understand them. I would like to think that this was the silver lining of my illiteracy and before you jump to conclusions on their intentions, I stand by my judgement that no good conversation with strangers starts with them yelling at you and calling you Harry Potter. Anyway, as it would turn out, I wasn’t the only one who had problems adjusting to the language because I soon went on to meet roughly 40 other students from around the world and they were just as confused as I was!

Day 2: The Stove and The Washing Machine

The second day was all about us settling in. Aside from all of us going on a group shopping trip the night before and playing “Guess the meat” we were doing pretty well for ourselves. That quickly came to a halt when I found the second biggest challenge so far which was: How does the stove work? As it turns out, it is rather common in European nations to have a timer switch linked to the stove on the wall to which the stove will not start otherwise. I would like to say that I figured this out, but I ended up having to contact my Canadian friend Trey who showed me after many of us were stuck on this for hours. In exchange for his stovetop secrets, I showed him where the washing machines were. To this day it is renowned as one of the greatest partnerships between the US and Canada. Now you may be thinking, “what is so hard about finding a washing machine? Isn’t it in the basement?” Why yes, it is. The challenge comes from the basement being barred, yes barred, and the elevator not having a basement floor. As it would turn out you have to scan your apartment key in the elevator and go into a basement  that can be best described as a horror movie set piece, complete with flickering lights and possible dead bodies (I didn’t check all the rooms). From there, you have to find the correct door which, when you don’t understand Swedish, can turn into quite the guessing game especially when jigsaw could have possibly rented out one of the rooms for his traps. Luckily, I bought a Swedish to English dictionary (unfortunately that is the correct order) and reverse translated ‘washing machine’ or at least recognized it enough to understand the sign on the door.

Day 3: The Quest for WIFI

So, you might be like my sister and wondering if I have just been lazy on updating my blog or if Liam Neeson has to track me down now that it has been 72 hours. To that I say, despite every mistake that I have made, this one wasn’t my fault. To preface, before even coming to Sweden I pushed for information regarding our accommodations including utilities, rooming, laundry and WIFI. The answer to all of these questions was a helpful email saying yes to everything. Yes to the utilities, yes to the laundry, yes to the WIFI. However, I should have started asking for more specific things like copper wiring, power outlets, and WIFI routers because the building provided only two of those and you would be hard pressed to guess incorrectly on this. My roommate and I had to buy our own router, which was not a big deal, but we also had to register said router before we could use them, and the registrar’s office is only open from Monday through Thursday from Noon to 17:00 (5PM). I have 2gb from now until July 1st and Google Translate and Maps can only be so data efficient so in an attempt to keep my data usage to that of a floppy disk, I decided to forego posting. It was only later today after running from my first day at Jonkoping to get to the registrar that I actually had access to WIFI, and even that took 45 minutes after awkwardly crossing the street to board the correct bus and go home. Side note: I am not good at public transport.

Although this was my first day attending classes I feel as though it would be more appropriate for me to post about the school at a later time considering that this was merely an introduction to the school. I will save that for tomorrow now that I have WIFI. Until then, if someone could phonetically tell me how to say “Thank you for joining me” in Swedish it would be a great help.

The Pre-Tale

With less than a week before my journey to Sweden begins, it occurred to me that now might be good time to complete my first assignment and discuss my preparation and expectations. I would like to preface that the latter is a difficult question because I said yes to the “going to Sweden” part before I even knew what the study abroad class was, thus making my expectations stop at literally going to Sweden. The other thing I should note is that even though this is a school required assignment, I would like to keep this as fun as possible and hope that translates well into the writing. And without further ado, I present the first installment of my Tales From Sweden, the pre-tale.

The backstory:

 A little while before Spring Break (roughly early March) I received a semi-targeted email from UCF to the entire IE department. The email contained a brochure that said that I should go to Sweden this June and to figure the rest out later, although in hindsight this may be a bit paraphrased. Not being too reckless though I decided to attend a study abroad information session directly after Spring Break. It was at that meeting that I realized that study abroad trips took 6 months to a year to plan, and the trip that I was considering (less than 2 months from starting) was not even listed in this informational session. When I raised my hand and told the instructor of my situation, I was taken aside and, after it was found out that I was not lying nor crazy, was told to not even attend the rest of this information session and to run to the coordinator, to which I did. I came to the office of the coordinator and was told that I had to make an appointment through some ridiculous appointment maker of which I did not know how to do. Instead of that, I decided to email the coordinator directly as I rushed out a 500-word essay on why I should be able to study without American adult supervision. Before I could finish my plea of temporary emigration, I was told again to run to the coordinator’s office, to which I did…again. Having met my step goal I was then sent through an expedited process to sign up for the study abroad. Apparently one of the study abroad candidates decided to resign which is why a spot was open so late. As fate would have it, that spot was the perfect opportunity for me and my impulsive decision making. I then fully committed to a trip having been assured that if nothing else, I was the fastest to ever sign up for a study abroad in UCF history. Whether or not that says more about myself in a positive way or a negative way, I will let the audience decide. I did not have time to worry about that though, I had to learn how to prepare for a trip…and tell my boss that I would be going away for a month.

The Preparation:

Despite having a rushed application I felt relatively calm. I have always been an over-planner, and this seemed to be one of those times where my compulsive worrying might actually come in handy. As you may have already guessed, making impulsive decisions with a compulsive planning feature has not always worked for me but in this situation, so many things aligned to the point where I had to chock it up to fate, mysticism and my magic 8-ball. I had just recently gotten a passport because my brother and I had planned on visiting the motherland of Ireland. Unfortunately, one of us could not attend at the planned time due to a work conflict. I won’t say which of us it was but one of us now has a passport due to that trip, I couldn’t be too upset with him though due to me needing it. From there I decided to tackle the actual paperwork of the trip, and after signing everything that covered injury or death by stupidity, I was ready to move on to the next step. I did make fun of some of the paperwork I had to sign but when my initial thought after finding out that my health insurance was covered through UCF was “Huh, I should do something to not waste this”, I understood why these waivers existed.

My next hurdle was the financials of the trip. When I began college, I also began tracking my financials after the discovery of the glorious tool that was Microsoft Excel. I have always considered myself financially savvy and due to my record keeping, I already knew my weekly/monthly spending habits which I then modified for vacation studying abroad. In addition, UCF also gave me a cost estimate report that detailed most of the financials of the trip which were very helpful as a base number. Again, as fortune would have it, my planned trip to Ireland meant that I already had a good amount of money saved for a trip abroad. This along with Bright Futures, made the financials not as stressful as they could have been. I will say that I genuinely enjoyed setting the budget for this trip but with the planning of financials came my first small blunder, the currency conversion rate. As a precautionary measure, I decided to go to my local bank and withdraw 2500 Swedish Krona (Roughly ~$260 at the time). Once I did, including bank fees and the later depreciation of Krona that I did not account for, I ended up spending about $279 on $250 worth of currency. I take it as a learning experience but still do not regret the overall decision. A few things that other travelers should note is that first, Discover IT has a 0% foreign transaction fee, the only thing is that not all parts of Sweden take Discover. Second, you are almost always better off using your debit/ATM card and withdrawing the currency at a local ATM once you get there. Third, if you are going to look up flights for a small city, say Jonkoping, Sweden as a completely fictional example, you should choose a large city close to it or you may have a massive panic attack when the flight is $5,500. Thank goodness I did not make that last mistake (well, at least I didn’t purchase the flight).

The remainder of my preparation has been researching Sweden and the customs along with it. One of my biggest worries about going to a new place is accidentally offending someone and being seen as a jerk, or worse, an American tourist. I studied basic phrases, customs, tipping, environmental issues, political issues, and other facts about Sweden that are hopefully true according to the YouTube and Reddit comments. For the most part I can manage the transition but there are certain habits I have been trying to break in preparation. As an example, I am the youngest child of four and to put is gently, my inside voice can sometimes be heard across the room. This is barely acceptable in the United States and Swedes are supposedly much more reserved. For the sake of my dignity I have been trying to cope with that change but just in case I plan on buying soundproof pillows for when I inevitably have to scream into one. The language has also been difficult for me and it isn’t because of my monolingual upbringing (although that is a large part). My problem is that some of the words and phrases in Swedish mean very different things in English. For example, the first phrase I learned was “good morning”. In Swedish that translates to “god morgon”, “god” and “good” are pronounced the same way but the “g” in “morgon” is not pronounced. In essence, wishing someone a good morning in Swedish is telling someone how good of a moron they are in English. Other fun language barriers I have found (from English to Swedish) are kiss meaning urine, good meaning bra and end meaning slut. To be clear, I do not burst into laughter, but I do find it amusing picturing telling someone to go to the slut of the station. Regardless of the English to Swedish dictionary, the overall planning of this trip has been quite a fun time and it has made me want to experience Sweden first-hand.

My expectations:

I would like to say that as my research into Sweden expanded, so did my expectations. To be completely honest though my expectations have not changed substantially. The emphasis on this trip has always been the “abroad” part rather than the “study” and though that sounds bad in writing, that is not to say that I plan on negating the class. My passions for studying purchasing logistics on a global scale merely stop at Sweden and had the technical elective offered been something else in my major, it would not have changed my decision to go so long as the destination remained the same. That being said, I do expect the schooling to be quite different from UCF as the overall population difference between the schools changes enough aspects, let alone the culture difference. I have always had suspicions on where my own university falls short due to its massive emphasis on profit rather than quality and the overall archaic nature of the United States schooling system which was geared to produce factory workers as opposed independent developers. Overall, I should say that my scholarly expectation is to experience something in a different vain when it comes to learning and my personal expectation is to enjoy the time I have exploring the new world that is Sweden. I have never been outside of the continent before, nor do I plan on this being my final trip outside of it but when I say that this is a journey, I truly do expect it to live up to that title.