Vaxjo

Hej everyone,

I realize just how out of place it seems for me to be writing a blog, but with all the people who want to know how the trip is going and get updates about all sorts of things, the number of different emails going every which way is quite tedious, so lets just go ahead and compact it all here in one place.  I am sure that as time wears on I will undoubtedly write less and less frequently (although it appears I am not off to a great start, as this is the first entry and I have been out of the states for about a week now), but I believe there is a comment section where anyone can ask questions about something or prod me for more information.

I guess the best place to start is at the beginning.  I left the states last Monday morning after being back in the country for three weeks since being back from Malaysia, and back in Essex for just the last week of that.  After a long 10 hour layover in D.C. (one that was mostly composed of sitting in a terminal and franticly trying to learn Swedish on Rosetta Stone), I flew into Copenhagen, Denmark (an 8 hour flight) and bought a train ticket to Vaxjo (pronounced vek-hua), Sweden a couple hours away.  The train ride consisted of more Rosetta Stone and enjoying the beautiful landscape passing by.  The cute European towns and green countryside of Denmark and southern Sweden are both beautiful and quite reminiscent of home.  The biggest thing that stuck out to me during the ride was the European architecture and a surprising number of windmills, both on land and sticking out of the water (which I thought was a great place to put then).

The Swedish City of Malmo taken from train ride to Vaxjo

I arrived in Vaxjo at about 10:40 am local time (6 hours ahead of Vermont) feeling pretty good having slept for 5 or 6 hours on the plane (during what would have been the middle of the night in Sweden).  We (there were a number of exchange students from China also arriving on my plane) were greeted by a couple of students from VIS (Vaxjo International Students) and driven the 5 or 10 minute drive to the campus.  After getting some brief information and signatures we were set loose to find our dorms and settle in.  I spent much of the next couple of days trying to set up the things I needed to do for the school and exploring the city, mostly downtown Vaxjo on my way to buy all the things I would need.

My dorm room was very nice, with just about all the space I need.  It is located right next to the path that takes you downtown (which is very nice if I have to walk downtown instead of biking).  My room has it's own bathroom, but I share a living/dining room and kitchen with my corridor (although we each have more than enough shelf room, the fridge space can be a bit tight, with each of us only having one shelf in the fridge and half a shelf in the freezer).  Among the first things I bought was a bike so that I could easily travel downtown (maybe 2 miles north of campus) without having to take (and wait for, and pay for) the city bus.

My room (single) when I first arrived

View of parking lot and bike path instead of other dorms since mine is the last

Space before my hallway consisting of closet
space on the left and my bathroom on the right

Floor living room

Dining area

Half my floor kitchen, the other half is an exact replica for
 the other side of the hall, this portion is shared by 6 people

View of some of the other dorms from my floor's deck

The town of Vaxjo is a wonderful place and reminds me in some ways of Burlington. On the way from campus to the town is a moderately narrow stretch of land that is surrounded on both sides by two beautiful lakes.  One is 5 km around the perimeter and the other is 3 km, and with a path all the way around they are a great place to run or bike around.  There are many lakes around the area, but the larger one here is the one for which the town in named.  The area immediately around Vaxjo contains 80,000 people, but the place where I spend most of my time (as it is the closest and the busiest) is downtown Vaxjo which reminds me very much of church street in that there are lost of shops, no cars driving through, and stone streets.  

The bike path towards downtown

The bike path along the larger lake

A shot of the lake

By beautiful bike

The view of the edge of downtown from the lake

The church

One of Vaxjo's 35 roundabouts

Looking in at the city

One of the downtown streets

Vermont making it's presence known

The smaller lake, with Teleborg Castle in the background

Another shot of the lake

Linnaeus University main building

The walk to my dorm

The walk to the Student Union building

A small showing of the clowns I spend time with.
From left to right: Chrisoph (Germany), Andre (Germany),
 Jackson (Canada), Mike (California), Simon (Germany), Chris (Canada)

The inside of the castle pictured above, our first school sightseeing trip

So far I have enjoyed just about everything about being here.  The only thing I might change is the weather, it is completely unpredictable and quite rainy.  I think it has rained at least a little each day we've been here.  On the plus side, the weather is very beautiful when it is not raining, but on the other hand it could go back and forth between raining and being perfect outside 3 times in an hour.  I have heard that this just happens to be the rainiest city in Sweden.  Hopefully the winter will be cold enough that we only get snow (I believe that the official average temperature for winter is above freezing, but we will certainly get a fair amount of snow) so that the random precipitation won't be a problem.  

The people are also extremely nice.  89% of the population, including everyone under 45, speaks (or at least has theoretically learned, and for the most part are extremely good at, English.  People around town and at the school are always willing to try and help (although Swedes are said to be very shy and private people), and all the exchange students are all looking to meet new people (quite reminiscent of freshman year) so everyone is very friendly.  I feel very young compared to most other students.  Some countries require service time before entering college and also simply start school later.  There are also some post-graduate students living with us as well, so many of the others are older than myself.  I have hear of a couple 19 year-olds, but the majority I would guess are 21-23, with some a bit older (there is a 26, 27, and 28 year-old on my floor, and a fantastically interesting 36 year-old Whales-men named Steve who I think sets the age record for exchange students).  There is also a lot of cultural diversity. My floor contains Iranians, Swedish (Chinese ancestry), Chinese, Korean, German (including one from Afghanistan), and probably a few more that I'm forgetting, most of whom aren't even exchange students.  Exchange students from Asia are popular in Sweden, but the country that has the most here are the Germans.  

There is much more that I could write, and perhaps I will reminisce about the first week some more later, but right now this is more than enough writing for at one sitting for me (plus a picture is worth a thousand words, so it's a lot more than it appears), so more will have to wait.  Ask questions or comment if there is anything you want to know, and I signed up for Skype as well, so look me up if you want to chat. Until next time...

Hej du