First four days in Sweden

My dear friends,

I am sending you the "chilly greeting" from Sundsvall. :)
I have decided to write a blog about my life in Sweden as an exchange student at the Mid Sweden University which is obviously situated in the middle of Sweden. :D
I am not quite sure how much time I will have to do this regularly, but I will give all my best to write posts very often.

We safely landed to the Stockholm at 27th August 2012

First of all, in case you didn´t know Sweden is the third largest country in the Europe (it is a pretty long country that stretches from north to south). It has about 9.4 million people which are mostly concentrated to the southern half of the country. There are also many Croatian people living in the south of the country but we, my colleague and roommate Marino Geržinić and I, haven´t met anyone from Croatia yet.

Down below I will show you a few pictures from our flight and Stockholm.

Mr. Marino and myself ;)

The first steps in Sweden

Waiting for the bus from Stockholm Central Station to Sundsvall

So the first thing we learned here about Sweden is that is a very safe country and people are not just safe here but they also feel safe. Sweden is also very proud on their water and they highly recommend us to drink water from the taps and bring it in our bottles everywhere.

I have already mentioned "chilly greeting". Well I have to say that I am really not sure what to do and how it is gonna be later when the temperature drops to -20 degrees Celsius, but I can say that I am already wearing my very warm feathered jacket and I feel just right in it. Although most Swedish people told me that the weather is "trevlig och varm" or very nice and warm these days. Yeeeaahhh right! :D On the other hand many people put on their jackets and scarves in the upper and have sandals or flops down... or they have a simple T-shirts and boots. Very strange feelings about the weather conditions Swedish people have or it is just me :D

In front of our Uni

Anyway people are really nice and very friendly here and luckily they all know English. We even had a free bus ride the first day we came here (because we couldn´t pay the bus tickect with the cash and our Croatian VISA cards don´t work on their buses) and the bus driver was so good and patient with us and explained us (or better told us a whole story) about travelling by bus in Sundsvall.

One more thing different from Croatia is that Swedish people don´t use cash at all, just cards. Of course you can pay with your cash in some supermarkets, but it is not so common.

With Tommaso (Italian) and Bella (Germany) in front of our Uni

Something about our University - Mittuniversitetet or Mid Sweden University. It is breathtaking! It has 3 campuses: Harnosand, Ostersund and Sundsvall. Marino and I are in the Sundsvall which is located on the coast about 400 km north of Stockholm. It looks like the small town or like city within a city. Every building looks different and has the unique label or mark like "N building", "M building", "L..", etc. but most of them are connected with small bridges on the second floor I suppose so we don´t have to go out during the winter (or even now for those who are intolerant to cold like me :D) to enter the another building.

"The bridge" between the M and N building

One of the computer rooms

I really like their library! It is huge and there is so much light in there. There is also a big tree in the middle of the library which is spread over the three floors. Unfortunately I don´t have any pictures yet.

Our Uni and lectures are starting next week and we have "Introduction days" these days. We have already met so many people from different countries. Most of them are from Germany. There are also a lot of Japanese and Chinese people, but also from Italy, Russia, Romania, French, Canada, USA, Finland... and Marino and I are the only one from Balkan here. :D We are special as my good Irish friend says. :) (special in a good way!)

Introduction Day 1

Tour the campus

Amanda from International Office

So, I really like my Uni, the town and Sweden so far, but I hate walking around and looking for the kitchen stuff and dishes and that sort of things. Since most of the Swedish apartments are unfurnished, we needed to rent or buy some furniture for our apartment too. But I hope we will be done with those things by the end of this week.

Of course the first thing Marino bought was the bottle of wine ;)

My room

I am going to learn how to cook, mom! :)

So that is for now. I am not even sure whether someone will read my posts but I will do this for my pleasure and for improving my English. ;)

See you soon!