Hej! (that’s hello in Swedish which is now one of two of my favorite Swedish words).
Today marks the end of the first of four weeks in the iSeed program in Gothenburg, Sweden! I landed here on Saturday, June 1st, a bit too early to check into the hostel we would be living in for the month. So, I dropped of my bags and decided to walk around a bit and familiarize myself with the local area. I came across a huge, and when I say huge I mean HUGE, park with playgrounds and ponds and a zoo! I found a local cafe and got some lunch, which was my first (and pretty much last) interaction with someone who doesn’t speak english, however communicating wasn’t really an issue. That night the group went out for our first dinner and started to get to know each other.
On Sunday night we had our official welcome dinner at the rooftop restaurant that had a great view of the river. We met the rest of the professors that would be in charge of the Dare to Build program.
We dived right into classes that Monday and started at 9am. The tram system is pretty complete here so we can pretty much take it anywhere. Plus we got month long ride passes that work for any type of public transportation in Sweden (trams, buses, ferries). Our classes are held in the engineering/architecture building, which is super bright and modern. Days are pretty long as we go from 9-6, but we always looked forward to a nice, lively fika– a cultural tradition of taking a coffee break at 10am and 3pm every day– which is definitely something we have quickly gotten used to (also fika was the other of my two favorite Swedish words if you didn’t already guess). Classes increased in difficulty quite quickly, but with all the time we spent practicing, I definitely felt more and more comfortable as the week went on.
June 6th was Swedish independence day so we had a half day of classes and spent the rest of the day exploring and taking in some Swedish traditions. We went back to the park, which was packed, went to the zoo, saw a bit of a live orchestra concert. Later we headed over to Haga, which is a cute little street with cafes and shops and took a little fika. We checked out the mall after that, but most things were closed because of the holiday, so we got dinner and called it a day.
On the weekend, we went to an annual street party, where we danced and interacted with some locals. There were some food stands and local vendors on the street as well that we checked out. On Sunday, we went to Liseberg, which is an amusement park nearby. 10/10 would recommend this amusement park; it had some of the best rides I have ever been on and it wasn’t too busy. We do have some homework and midterm coming so we all had to work on that as well.
In general, the first week was pretty jam-packed but it was filled with some pretty exciting stuff. I definitely feel like I have a much better understanding of fusion 360 and in general we tend to see things in a cad mindset, pointing at random things and shouting out how to make it. While we tend to joke about it, it really has changed the way we view things.
On Monday we start engi200, which will include working on a local project creating an interactive experience in the woods for both children and adults to enjoy. While I’m not entirely sure what to expect yet, I am super excited!