So it has been 8 days since my arrival in Sweden. My flight in was fairly unremarkable so we’ll just fast forward to Saturday, once I arrived. That first afternoon I spent getting settled into our (fairly small) hostel room. I figured out if I set out the clothes rack over my suitcase I could basically double my storage space so it all worked out. Then that evening we went out for dinner right by the hostel. The food was pretty good so that was a definite plus. We spent this evening getting to know one another, I was already friends with Megha and Daniel because we were on the same ENGI 120 team and share a home college, respectively. I knew Kung from our LPAP and this was my first time meeting Christian, Yufei and Scott. I know Christian and Scott knew one another but I think that’s everyone that knew one another beforehand.
Then we had a free day Sunday right up until the evening. I spent that day and afternoon getting oriented and getting food for my room and to make my packed lunches. Then in the evening, the University paid for us to have a really nice dinner at this rooftop restaurant. The food then put the food from the night before to shame. It was simply incredible.
Then Monday we started ENGI 355. I was not especially nervous because the class assumed we had no CAD/Fusion 360 experience and I had some from ENGI 210. We spent much of the day learning the basics on TinkerCad. Then I learned about my new favorite thing, fikas. Basically, in the middle of the day, it’s Swedish custom to take a quick break to increase productivity. I think if it’s done correctly it can be super helpful but I don’t think we really got the hang of it until Friday.
The next few days all followed the same recipe. Wake up around 8, make myself lunch, stop by the store on the way to the tram to grab a yogurt drink and possibly a pastry for dessert after lunch. Hop on the 8:39 6 tram and head on over to Chalmers. Then be at Chalmers until around 6, at which point we would either tram or scooter back to the hostel.
But Thursday was a national holiday so we had a 3 hour day. We spent the afternoon wandering the city. First, we went to the park and watched a concert and went up to the zoo which was nice, they had lots of hooved animals but not much else. Then we all hopped on scooters and zoomed down to Haga, a neighborhood that has lots of cafes. After we had a snack at Haga cafe we went to the mall. All 7 of us split up to find scooters and then by some miracle we all made it to the mall. All of us found a different entrance but it worked out. We had dinner at some sushi place by it and then headed back to the hostel.
Friday was a standard weekday, although we played soccer in the evening. Then I spent most of Saturday working on my homework assignments and just generally resting.
Sunday we went to the largest amusement park in Scandinavia, Liseberg. It’s really cheap (485 SEK) and it was a lot of fun. Scott and I decided to scooter back from there once we left, and after a 20-minute scooter ride the cost was like 40 SEK (so cheap!). I spent the evening working some more and resting.
Despite my mother’s instruction I have failed to take pictures. But I will start to take some now — both for her and for you, my dear readers.
Catch ya next week,
Ben