Sweden

I took a lot of pictures while I was in Malmo Sweden, so be expecting more!

One of the international students in my container invited me on this trip. He is from the suburbs in Chicago and a girl from Finland and a guy from Paris also came on the trip.

It takes about an hour for me to get to the center of Copenhagen if I walk from my apartment to the train station and take the train. The bus ride from Copenhagen to Malmo was an hour long. So, it only took me two hours to get into Sweden.

While there we went to a museum inside a castle and a technical museum. The technical museum was great! I got to go inside a U-boat and they had a good collection of old motorcycles. I was a little less impressed with the museum in the castle because they didn't have anything translated to English, so it was hard to enjoy all the neat stuff without really knowing what it was.

Inside the museum was a cafeteria-style restaurant. They had some good options, but it came down to hot smoked salmon, or fried pickled herring. I usually go with whichever option I feel will be most memorable. And my good gracious, I will not soon forget chocking down ice cold fried pickled herring. As if pickled herring doesn't start off bad enough, frying it just toughens it up, and they serve it cold! I should be fair and say I can imagine some people would enjoy it, it wasn't that bad. And the potato's were good! But I have tried it, and next time I will be having some hot smoked salmon.

No Hot Water

The first picture is of a birthday party we had for the guy who is doing a handstand. The other two pictures are of what my room currently looks like.  My apartment is not very well decorated, but that one wall is filling up nicely with cards from everyone. Thank you!

We had some electrical problems in our container. How many international engineering students does it take to fix an electrical problem? (More than we had.) So at noon today we found out we won't have hot water until late tomorrow morning. That is going to work as a wonderful excuse to not exercise today.

I have talked to my adviser and am officially registering to graduate in December.  I shouldn't even have to take too difficult of a fall semester to accomplish this. It will be nice to start life, but i am enjoying my vacation (+ school) right now!

I have a friend from Chicago that is planning a trip to Sweden, and a friend from Germany that wants to go fishing in Norway. Those are hopefully going to be my upcoming excursions.

I hope everyone has access to hot water! Have a good week!

Tax Fee Tax

The first picture is just of a neat bike that i saw at a local residence in Copenhagen. The other three pictures were taken by me for my bulding renovations and rebuilding class field trip. We are currently filling out a report for a renovation on a building of common build in Copenhagen. I put them up because i really just haven't been taking very many good picture lately.. I'll work on that.

Kelli sent me a package with some TV shows on DVD. For me to physically receive the package i had to go to a local corner store that holds them for the post office and i had to pay a tax, a fee, and then a tax on the fee to get the package. Of course, it was worth it. But now i know that if they suspect a package to be worth more than 150 DKK (~$30) they will find its approximate value and tax it if its from outside Europe.

School is still moving right along. After this week i will be over a quarter done with lectures!! But it turns out the finals are spaced out over three weeks, so the overall semester really is quite long! Then its on to the 3-week course. Course registration has not started for the 3-week course, and it is possible i may not be able to get a class that will transfer back as Civil Engineering credit.

Today an Indian room mate of mine showed me how to cook some Indian food. He Americanized it for me a little, which i appreciated. They always mix and eat there food with their hands, but he made it so we could use spoons. He also made it really mild for him, Which is HOT! He would go through all the ground red pepper my mother has in her house in less than a week i think.

I hope everyone is doing well! Have a nice week!

My Container and Classes

The first four pictures are of the container that i live in. It houses 9 people and has a kitchen plus two showers, two bathrooms and a washer + dryer. The container is comprised 6 manufactured buildings and included pictures of how they are connected both inside and outside.  The last picture is of salsa that aunt pat and max sent to me. It was a little mixing packet plus a can of tomato's and it was GREAT!!!

I am keeping up on homework and my reading. I have had to put a stop to all my casual reading because there are a lot of introduction papers to the classes that i need to read. Soon i should be caught up and start reading for pleasure again.

Out of my four classes i believe i only have to take one final. That final is going to be worth 60% of my grade and be oral, so that is unfortunate. The grades in my other three classes are heavily dependent on group projects. So far the people that i am in groups with are very hard working and communicate well. Working with groups is a good experience in these classes because i am mostly taking classes that include many different disciplines. They aren't like WSU where all the other students are civil engineers at the same level as me. My classes have a large mix of different majors and mostly graduate students.

I haven't had any problem with getting packages so far but i have been told by friends it is best if you can somehow label the packages with "Gift." Some people have been taxed for what is in the package if they think it is something we purchased online. This is just something i have heard by word of mouth and don't know if its true.

First Week of Classes

The top picture is a photo i took of Copenhagen in the late afternoon. The second picture down is the package Carrie sent me. It ended up a little beat up, (but it may have started that way?). The third picture is my main meals. I either make a pita, wrap, pizza or tortellini. The last picture is one other meal i made, Duck Flavour Yum Yum. A little bit more expensive than top ramen but delicious!!

I have received 3 packages and one more letter since my last blog post. Thank you very much for all of them! In those packages were some delicious things but most notable was incredible salsa, beef jerky, and vitamin c drink flavors which is good because i am getting a little sick.

I got a gym membership here for the university fitness center. It is about a room instead of a gigantic building like WSU, but there are a quarter of the students and very few people work out. Its nice to stay active! I feel better and sleep better when i can work out.

Classes are very enjoyable! I am happy with the quality of all the lectures. I am a little sad that the first homework's did not follow the lecture in a couple classes so i am scrambling to figure them out. I have a few friends in each class now. To follow that statement i learned something about Europeans. If i meet someone, and know them well enough to say hi to them when i see them, i consider them a friend. But, it's harder to become a "friend" to people here. I did read about this before i came so when i knew someone well i asked, and its true. So i have friends in all my classes even if those people don't know it yet!

First Two Days of School

I have gone to two classes so far. One turned out to be the universities most advanced Geotechnical class, comprised of 90% graduate students. It required a strong background in soil structure, programing, and finite element analysis. With my background in geotech consisting of a B in the intro to Geotech class at WSU, and my only finite element analysis knowledge coming from modeling a concrete canoe i though it best to not take the class. I did plan on dropping one class so i am perfectly alright now (although i kinda wanted to drop the class on Fridays.. dang it). I am also taking one more class than the minimum amount after dropping the class so there is a still wiggle room to work with. The two lecturers i have had so far were very fun to listen to and easy to understand! I was a little nervous about accents, but it has not been an issue.

I had a little trouble getting back from Copenhagen last night. Late at night there is only one bus every hour. I missed it by a few minutes so i had to wait for 38 minutes for the next bus. The bus ride is 25 minutes and i was riding it with a friend that has already been going to the university for a semester. Trusting him to know which stop to get off at under his level of intoxication was a decision soon regretted. Although he "wasn't that far off" we ended up walking against traffic on a 3 lane highway. Don't worry mother, it had a large shoulder. Another positive is everyone here owns small cars, so it was like walking next to a remote control race car track. If a car got out of control and barreled into the shoulder, chances are it would have been a smart car and could have stepped over it.

I got my first letter yesterday (thank you Larry and Oma!) and my first package today (thank you mom and dad!).

Tonight i have an international dinner to go to where i am supposed to bring a dish from my country. So wish me luck as well as everyone that is going to consume the dish i am going to make! I miss everyone and best wishes to all of you!