Ahoy Sweden!

Well I'm finally here. A year's worth of planning has finally come full circle. I arrived in Sweden mid afternoon on Monday. As always, I didn't sleep on the flight from the states and therefore was a bit disorriented upon my arrival. The train from Kobenhavn (as the danes spell it) was filled with fellow grad students and even a couple of families that were relocating their entire tribe to Lund (pronounced looooond). As predicted I had the most luggage out of the bunch, but now that I think about it, I am twice the size of the asian kids that were sharing the train with me, so perhaps in all actuallity we were schleping about the same amount of gear.

Upon exiting the train in Lund I was greeted by a host of mentor's from the university. They promptly signaled a cab for us and took us to the arrival/check in buidling on campus. Check in was a typical Scandinavian cluster-f$%* where everyone kind of stands around and looks at each other with no real help or direction (these were common in Finland and apparently are a fad here as well). After spending 40 minutes in the wrong line I made my way to the correct line: housing! I felt very fortunate that I had already booked a room to rent and had paid for my first month of living. There were probably 20-30 international students waiting for word from a rental agency as to where they might be able to find accomidation. After sigining my contract I was handed my keys. I then was escorted by the hosts to my place.

My place lies on the western (ocean) side of the city. It's actually a little further than I had pictured from the city center and campus. My part of the campus is about as far away from my apartment as it could be. I guess it will be good exercise getting to and fro. The place itself is a bit run down on the outside, but is completely new and modern on the inside. I have a bed, a desk, a couple of book shelves, a couch, my own bathroom (shower) and a floor lamp. Good living!! We have a shared kitchen where we each have a spot in the fridge labeled with our room number, and we have a spot in the freezer labeled the same. My room itself over looks a large center square that has some benches, trees, and bushes. I'd compare it to living on sixth avenue in Manhatten and the view to central park (maybe a bit exagerated).

As for the people in my building I'm slowly introducing myself to them. I only know a couple of their names, but so far everyone seems nice. My immediate neighbors are a russian guy who eats only cheese apparently, an english teacher chick from Greece, a dude and a gal from France, Farhad a lad from Iran, a turkish fella named Jim?, Brett from Berkley, CA, a couple of german dudes that enjoy horror movies and loud rock music (they're at the end of the hall), and Margarita (or Juanita, I can't remember) from Columbia. That's only 2/3 of the people on my floor. The building has 4 floors and their are 4 buildings in our square. Should be able to meet plenty of new people during my stay here. Valkommen!!