Author Archives: pricemv

Moose and Glass

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Mr. Moose Moose again These little (or should I say big?) guys I saw at a moose park I visited with many other exchange students on a trip organised through my university. We were so close I could have petted one, but something about that didn’t sit right in my mind, so I kept my hands to myself. Moose are a symbol of Sweden and apparently also cause a good deal of car accidents because they like to run across the road and people like to drive really fast. There was a little scene set up inside the moose park gift shop that featured a real stuffed moose that had been hit by a car. It had done some damage to the car! So be careful while driving your cars here in Sweden!

On this trip, we also got the chance to see some real glass blowing! Glass blowing is a tradition in this part of Sweden and we were able to see the best glass blowers in the area do their work, right in front of us! Super neat. We were also able to see a museum of many of the older pieces that the artists had made.

Lost in translation moment: I was speaking to my French friend at the glass museum and I asked what he thought of all of it (in English) and he told me that he thought it was very cool, but he was still a little confused. I then of course asked why he was confused and he told me that he thought we were going to visit an ice museum (I don’t really know what that means, but it’s not the point anyway). He had been confused because the word glass (not the same spelling, obviously) in French means ice, ore ice cream. So he had been very excited the whole day to see ice sculptures, and then when we arrived he found out what glass really meant in English.

Watching professional glass blowers.

Watching professional glass blowers.

In the glass museum

In the glass museum

xxx Maren

Ireland for Christmas!

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I just saw my mom and my brother for the first time since leaving the States. We decided Ireland would be a great place to come for Christmas since they had never been, and I love it here (I have been Irish dancing all my life and was just here for the World Championships in April). This is the longest and furthest I have been away from home in my life, referring to living in Sweden of course. Admittedly, I thought I would have a harder time leaving than I did, but maybe I’ll write about homesickness in another blog. Seeing my family here in Europe was a little surreal, considering I have never been here with them before, but I loved it! And Ireland is so festive at Christmas time – everything is decorated, absolutely everything. Since it is Ireland at Christmas time though, all the stores and shops have been closed and we spent all of Christmas day in the hotel. But never fear! My mom and I watched several cheesy romantic comedies, including PS I Love You which is partly set in Ireland! (We saw the hills the characters meet in on our tour the other day!) We spent the remainder of our time walking around Dublin, sight seeing. I dragged my brother and my mom into the National Archaeological Museum which I enjoy very much every time I am here (and admission is free!). It was really great getting to see my mom and brother, but I think it’s finally hitting me that I won’t see them for another 6 months as I sit here writing this.

Luckily for my sanity, I’m currently in my hostel (the Avalon House, which I recommend if any of you will be travelling in Dublin) and waiting for my friend Natalie to arrive. She will spend next semester in Cork and so I am meeting up with her while I am still here.  We spent all summer working side by side, so I am very excited to see her. We are planning to go on a couple day tours, including one to Connemara, and of course just explore Dublin city… Maybe I’ll make her explore the museum too 🙂

I can already tell I have changed since being abroad. I now feel overwhelmed by the crowds here in Dublin – the mass of people you just don’t find in my small town in Sweden. I find myself missing trying to decode the Swedish on the back of everything I buy. I now say the typical Swedish, hejhej (pronounced: hey hey) as a greeting rather then hello or what have you. I look outside and hope for snow! The first few days I was here there was even sunlight, which is something I have not seen in a long while due to the cloud covering and darkness that lingers over Sweden. I can’t lie, my eyes hurt a little bit the first time I was wandering around here, but they got used to it after a little bit. I’m glad to have a break from the snow, but I’ll be happy to return to my little winter wonderland.

xxx Maren

I love Sweden.

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I have been too busy living my life over here, I completely forgot I need to write my blog! I think the title sums up my feelings for my life over here pretty well though. But where to go from here? There is so much and so little to tell!

I guess I’ll start with my classes, since that’s the most important. I love the school system over here! Seriously though. Love. I don’t care if that makes me sound like the biggest nerd in the world. I have about 6-9 hours of class time a week and the rest of the time to do my reading and assignments. We don’t have busy work here like they do back in the States (at least that’s how it has been in all of my classes at WOU) and all the papers we write are pertinent to our class work and focus on analyzing current conflicts in our world. And instead of normal written exams, I am graded based on my final papers and my participation in a discussion group with the teacher.

The weather here is always interesting. The sun sets around 4pm and it’s pitch black outside by 4:30. Sometimes it’s very sunny, other times it’s foggy and overcast like it was today. It snowed very briefly one day about a month ago and it got my hopes up, but we haven’t had anymore since then. When there is sun though, I like to take advantage of it as much as possible by taking hikes or riding my bike into the town center.

My friends here have quickly become like family. I live in a flat with 15 other people. I have my own room and bathroom, but I share the kitchen and living room. On my floor there are people from many different countries all over the world, and we spend a lot of time together. This past Friday we decorated the hall for Christmas (since most of us won’t be here for the actual day, we’re starting early!) and played card games until late. Then a  few of us stayed up to watch Home Alone. I’ll post some pictures of the decorations later! Tonight, and every Sunday, we have hall dinner where someone from the floor cooks for the rest of us. Usually it is something from their home country, but not always. Last week myself and the other American on my floor, Valerie, made tacos for everyone; this week, our German friend will be making us dinner and our English friend will make dessert! Not only is it a fun way to experience different cultures, it is also pretty inexpensive which is nice for all of us students here because Sweden is not the cheapest country to live in!

I will post more specific posts soon about various events I have been to over the past two months!

Getting Ready to Leave

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I said a couple posts ago that I had had some trouble socializing in the hall I lived in. I think my living situation was a bit different than what I was expecting; I wasn’t sure whether I would be living alone or with someone else, but I figured it would be easy to integrate myself with the people around me. But for whatever reason, I just didn’t click with the people in my hall, maybe because I had already made friends with people in another building. I also had a room to myself; apparently this is pretty normal in English universities. I value my personal space and never thought I’d begrudge having my own room, but in a different country where I don’t know anyone, I would have appreciated a roommate.

Once I realized that most of my friends lived in Eleanor Rathbone, most days I’d pack a bag and walk two buildings down to hang out in the ER common room. I became good friends with many of the people who lived there, and by the end of the term I was deemed an honorary Rathboner. Yes, that’s the correct term.

Group picture after the ER Christmas dinner

I had expected to be meeting more English people, but when I got here, it seemed that I was mostly spending time with Americans. This frustrated me at first, and I’ve talked to other American students who felt the same way. We felt like we weren’t getting the fullest possible experience if we we were still spending time with Americans. Eventually, I think everyone (or at least most of us) realized that meeting students from other places in the U.S. was just as valuable, if not more so, than meeting students from England. I was able to learn about English culture from English students while forming close relationships with American students.

ER’s last night out, three days before I left

I’m really happy to have made so many friends, but it’ll be hard to leave. I’m not looking forward to saying goodbye. It’ll be strange to suddenly be back in America again, having a car and a house and maybe a job.

This experience has, in some ways, made the world seem very small to me. Before crossing the ocean, the world seemed impossibly enormous. There were so many places I had never seen, places that might not exist for all I knew. But now that I’ve crossed so much of that distance and landed right in the middle of the unknown, it doesn’t seem quite as unknown anymore. It’s a little sad, but I suppose the world seems more plausible now. It would be easier to travel again, but I’m not sure I want to. For now, I’d like to stay in Oregon.

Marissa

Last Week of Classes

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The end is drawing near…. its the last week of classes and many people leave at the end of the week. I don’t leave until January 1st, but it will be sad to see so many good friends leave. I have finished my Alternative Health final, my presentations for Tropical Dance Theory are all done, and I have my last final this afternoon for Tropical Marine Biology. Tonight we are also going to go see The Hobbit since it is super cheap to go see movies here. I’m so excited to see my family who arrives here in Costa Rica on Wednesday. We will be spending the last 2 weeks traveling around to different areas of Costa Rica. It will be really wierd to have a Tropical Christmas. Koryn

The Christmas Story

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Some of my friends got free tickets to a play since one of the doctors that they work with was directing it. The play was The Christmas Story which is pretty nice being away from home for the Holidays (They take Christmas very seriously here, esp when it comes to decorating). The play was really good, the acting was great and very comical, and I understood most of it despite it being in Spanish. We had been doing a detox for the 3 days  prior so 3 out of the 4 of us were very hungry, and at 8:30 (when our detox ended) we went and got a muffin and coffee since that was the same time as intermission. Best coffee and muffin EVER!!! So blessed 🙂Image

Theatre Nacional

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We didn’t go anywhere, but on Friday we went to the National Theater to watch the symphony. We got to get all dressed up and the National Theater is gorgeous. It is very fancy and they were serving wine… The music was beautiful as well. Its very relaxing and there weren’t words so Spanish wasn’t a problem. Great time out with friends. Koryn

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Rollerblading

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We decided to go rollerblading after class on Tuesday of this week. We took a bus to the roller rink and it was only like $5 to get in and use inline skates. It was just like the roller rinks that we had in the states as kids and it was similar music as well. They played a lot of 90s music, some Latin music, disco, and some modern pop including Gangnam style. They would occasionally turn out the lights and use strobe lights instead. There were games every once in a while where you would have to make a chain and if you fell or broke the chain, you were out. They also had specific times for people who wanted to go really fast or race. There were some people that were really good and could do jumps or dance… some of them could even do partner dancing like salsa and merengue on skates. Afterwards some of us went and just hung out and told riddles at Burger King.      KorynImage

Trying to Figure Out England

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One of my biggest challenges here is trying to figure out how the English do things. There are a lot of traditions and everyday English things that I am unable to authentically experience (I’m mostly thinking of food and other holiday-related customs), and I’ve decided that I can never fully understand what I am calling the ‘English psyche’ as I’ve spent the first twenty years of my life in the U.S. I’m not saying that Britons aren’t as human as Americans or anything like that; I just think that people’s experiences affect their personalities and ways of thinking. I can learn about the differences between America and England, but for now and maybe for ever, it would be hard to get far beneath the surface.

I began realizing a week or two ago that the U.S. comes up quite a lot in my classes. I didn’t notice at first because I’m used to learning about American things, and only recently I realized this is a bit odd. I certainly don’t hear as much about England in my writing or film classes at WOU. This isn’t something I can ask an English student about (‘Excuse me, why do you know more about America than I know about England?’), so I’m just going on speculation here. It might be that America is a bigger deal in the world than I thought, though that seems a bit egotistical to me, and people care about America because we’re just that interesting. Or maybe people in other countries are just better educated; maybe America is just to focused on itself to bother learning about other places. Those are the only two ideas I’ve come up, and I guess either way, America is full of itself.

The Christmas decorations around here are fantastic. And I like bokeh.

The Christmas decorations around here are fantastic. And I like bokeh.

Furthermore, today is Wednesday, and I’ve realized today that Sunday will be here very soon, and that that will be the start of my last week here. I am in England, which is incredible, and I am about to leave. Like I said in my last post, I’m very excited to go back home; Oregon seems very magical right now. But I know that Oregon will eventually become normal again, and I’ll probably re-romanticize England and want to come back. It’s what I do with summer and winter, or (my) short hair and long hair. So I guess, the moral there is to live in the moment. Carpe diem. YOLO. Etc. etc. or something.

This isn’t my ‘returning home’ post, though. I plan to get at least one more ‘while abroad’ post in before that. So in the spirit of while-abroadness, I would like to say that I plan to keep doing stuff in my next 10 days. I’ve got a bit of homework to do at least — after Monday everything will be turned in and done — and I would like to still do a bit of traveling around England. Blackpool looks to be in the works, and probably Liverpool. Oh yes, and the pictures are also in the spirit of while-abroadness. Traveling and such.

Marissa

We visited the Christmas markets in Manchester

We visited the Christmas markets in Manchester