I am indeed in Sweden for those of you who have yet to hear from me! I arrived three weeks ago by plane, via Copenhagen. It was quite an adventure making it here to my apartment. The plane ride wasn't too long, but sleep was scarce and I was running on fumes when I got to Copenhagen to start my journey. Unfortunetaly the airline lost one of my bags so I was walking around for an hour looking for it in the airport, thinking that I
simply had not noticed it at the baggage claim. But it turns out that it hadn't gotten on the plane from Nashville. Luckily I did receive one of my suitcases so I wasn't at a total loss. And I had packed extra clothes in my carry on.
I managed to sleep on the train ride to Karlskrona. It is about four hours from Copenhagen.
Once I got here I managed to find my way to the real estate agency here in town and get my account settled. They gave me my key and I took the bus to my apartment, here next to the BTH campus. (BTH stands for Blekinge Tekniska Hogskolan). Basically its a small technical university.Since then I have gotten settled into this new Swedish home. A couple of the things I've noticed since being here:
Housing prices are comparitively cheap to the United States. For instance, my apartment overlooks a beautiful bay, its close to campus, and I pay about the same as I paid in Knoxville for it.
Food (and all goods) is extremely expensive. The cost of living is very high in Sweden, and they pay the second-highest taxes in the industrialized world.
It is custom to take your shoes off when entering a house here. Swedes get very upset when you don't do this...
The Swedish people are a little stand-offish at first, but once you get to know them they are very very kind. They generally take well to foreigners, and everyone speaks English here.
School is heating up as well. We have to give two presentations next week and there is a test. I shall be ranting on here more soon, with more details of this journey.
