YAYYYYYYY

This is Shanda and Kari reporting to you from our room.... this means WE NOW HAVE INTERNETTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

over and out.

English Envy

I've never been complimented on my English, but this is not uncommon for us American girls while in Sweden. While in class one day, Mariah and I were having small talk, a girl behind us said something to the girl next to us in Swedish (we dont understaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!) and the girl next to us translated that she is jealous of our English. I've never thought about this before, that some people strive to make their English perfect, and to us it just comes naturally. We've also been told we have amazing accents. What? Us? Accents? Amazing? They are so boring compared to everyone else's. A lot of European exchange students have come to Sweden to improve their English because the lessons in their home country are not very helpful. Our International Business teacher told Mariah and I he was nervous to speak English with us there. Ah look at us, intimidating the locals.

One minute we're hanging out the Dutchman listening to them speak Dutch, and the next we're at lunch with some Swedish girls listening them talk in Swedish (we dont understaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!). Confused. We're getting pretty used to not know what the heck is going on anymore. Not going to lie, it's kinda nice hearing people talk in a different language because your brain automatically tunes it out. Not to mention, the accents are entertaining.

Also, a lot of times people will talk to us in Swedish, after we give them blank stares they give us looks like "what dont they understand?" Swedish. We dont understand Swedish.

Hope all is well back in the States!

-Shanda

Confusion

We got our contracts for our housing today. It was in Swedish, and even though there was a separate copy that translated it, it was completely overwhelming and confusing.

Then, I attempted to wash some clothes. The machines are all in Swedish so I pressed a couple buttons and...well...let's hope for the best.

We have almost survived another day in Kristianstad with still no internet in Kari & Shanda's room and mine & Brigitte's kitchen sink is currently plugged. 

Hanging in there,

Mariah 

Bloody Hell..

Today was my first day of “real” class. I got four hours of sleep, and shaved off my nail in the shower all before 8am. Who knew fingers contained so much blood? I wish you all a better start than me folks! –xoko

Reflection

Last night: First, I was cooked an amazing meal by two Dutchmen. I noticed they waited for all of the women to serve their plates and take their first bites before they started. At the end of the night they walked us home. Don’t get me wrong they can swear like sailors, and take our sarcastic hits too, but something was comforting in the fact that chivalry still exists in the world. –xoko

The Dutch

The American Girls are now BFF with the Holland Guys.

When it comes to going home at a decent time (Shanda & Mariah had a presentation at 8 a.m. this morning) they do not take no for an answer. They are very convincing.

The good news is that we had our first real meal tonight. The Holland Guys cooked us salad with bacon and 1000 island dressing, meatballs, and potatoes. We then shared an ice cream for dinner. Het was erg goed.

The bad news is that Brigitte & Mariah's kitchen sink is now plugged and we don't know how to fix it:S

Ohhhh Sweden.

Tot Ziens

Random Thoughts

Mark this one in your calendar, guys. This is where we all got our first double-cheek-french-air-kiss greeting. Caught us off guard. They were caught of guard that we were caught off guard. It was a weird experience, we'll get it down eventually... I hope...

Brigitte and I went to our first sit-down restaurant where everything is almost familiar, slightly bizarre and fairly expensive.

Oh, and while we were walking to our apartments two little girls were standing outside and were yelling at us in Swedish. They then continued to hit me and Kari with large sticks. What the hell.

Mariah and I just met with our group to work on a project in class. One guy in our group asked where we were from and we said Minot, ND and I guess he studied abroad to MSU last semester. Small world. What the hell.

-Shanda

She's a Gem.

Brigitte Lafontaine: speaks two languages, with thirty different accents.

                                                                                                            —xoko

Living&Learning

Random Fact:: In Austria, the right hand is where you put your wedding ring instead of the left.

Doing a Scavenger Hunt with 6 different girls that you have never met before is always interesting.
Try doing one where all 6 girls are different nationalities.  My group consisted of a girl from
Korea, China, Germany, Austria, France, and of course America.  Awesome experience.

*Mariah

Dreams

In the five nights I’ve been here each night of sleep has been filled with odd dreams relaying me back to Minot, except for last night.Last night I dreamt of Sweden, and people I’ve met here. Since I always read into my dreams, I view this as progress that I’m finding more of a place here at Kristianstad and letting it become my home along with the people in it. I woke up happy. –xoko

Proud to be an American

Comparing cultures is a large conversation base at Kristianstad. I didn’t realize I took so much pride in America until I constantly wanted to defend it. The common stereotypes of the states: people are fat and fake. I hope we can change peoples’ perspectives of “Americans” to a positive one. –xoko

Stereotypes

            The most common street in Minot may be considered Broadway. On each side of Broadway you can find restaurants and fast food chains not more than ten steps from one another, opened 24/7, and some even offered twice along your drive just for your convenience. I suppose it’s easy to understand the stereotypes of fat/lazy Americans when we rely on cars, microwaves and people to cook us deep fat fried food which we can grab from a window at 2 in the morning…which we have the option to supersize.

            In Kristianstad you will find three fast food chains located a two mile walk from campus. I’m thinking we have a lot to learn from the other students who ACTUALLY cook from scratch and have never heard of the terms pb&j or grilled cheese. –xoko

I Can't Speak...

We all feel our English is suffering being here, which is funny since many students study here to improve their English. I have noticed myself using the most general words, because saying a word that may be in your daily life at home such as bizarre, homework, or rock they often will not understand. I’m ALWAYS using hand gestures..I really don’t know why I think this will make this understand my English better? Lastly I’m phrasing sentences completely wrong, saying things like “it would be much stupider” and so on. I know this is happening from only talking with people whose English isn’t completely correct such as the French girl who often says things such as “Oh yes you must go, it’s so funny!” when she really means to say “fun”, but how fast it’s going downhill can’t be a good sign. When we come back, be prepared for us to sound like idiots. –xoko

Cats&Kids

I have come to two conclusions so far while studying here at Kristianstad.

1.     I am a Swedish cat whisperer- When I’m around, you will see at least three cats, and I will most likely pet one.

2.     Swedish cats like me better than Swedish children- A little girl started yelling at us in jibberish today, and proceeded to hit me with a stick….I ran.

                                                                                                                        —xoko.

New Friends!

Hanging out with some new friends. Flora, Hannah, and Verena from Austria, Bo from Korea, and Sab Rina from Germany.

Scavenger Hunt

Alright, so last night the campus arranged a scavenger hunt in the town centrum for the foreign exchange kids. We WALKED about 3 miles to get there... in the cold. The walking thing is getting really annoying, so we got bus passes (the "lazy American" thing is not far off). The centrum is AMAZING, mostly due to the old structure of the buildings, streets and dozens of shops. We need to get bikes so we can go there more often! But basically its a place where all the shopping, restaurants and pubs are. We were split up into groups, Kari and me had two girls from Austria and one from Czech. republic. They were very nice, and I was more than glad when they agreed to lose after walking in the cold for an hour. Instead we got (STRONG) coffee instead and looked and the shops. I should not be allowed into their two story H&M.... crap. After we changed and met back up with a group of girls we met and headed over to the Greek/French guys apartment. Here we got to know a lot of the other foreigners and everyone is generally really friendly.

-Shanda

The First Day of School

First off, Brigitte & I bought a World Poster so we can study it and not look like idiots anymore. We also bought a twilight poster...of courseJ.

Since Shanda and I are both business majors, we have all the same classes here and had our first day today. I just want to start this off by saying it was amazing!  We woke up and walked there and were one of the first people in the room. As more and more people entered, no one was speaking English. It was super overwhelming until we began to talk to the people around us.  There were two French guys behind us that we talked to, and right after we met another 2 French girls and a guy from Greece.  They were all super nice and interesting to talk to.  The accents were a little hard to understand, but we understood them for the most part.

At the beginning of the class, the professor did roll call and did the Swedish students first and then went through all the exchange students. We had to stand up say hi and say where we were from.  We learned that people were from France (most of them are), the Netherlands, China, Czech Republic, Barbados, Spain, Korea, Greece, Italy, and of course Sweden. When it was our turn he said “Maria” in an accent and I stood up, said hi, and said I was from America. Instantly everyone started talking and looking at me (like they were surprised).  Shanda shocked them again shortly after. We later found out that not too many Americans come to Sweden so that is why they were so wow’ed. 

I really like the professor so far.  The subject is International Business so he talked a lot about different cultures. During the second lecture Shanda and I noticed him looking at us a lot and asking us questions. It kind of put us on the spot a little but what can I say…I am proud to be an American and representing our country.

It is so cool that we can help change the generalization of Americans to the people we meet here.  Some examples we have heard from people already are “fat, fake, all about me me me, ect.” It is so cool to come here and be ourselves and show that we are genuine people and are nice. The professor mentioned that if the US’s states were countries they would all be so different, and it is so true. In North Dakota, like we know, you are going to find the most genuine and nice people.

I wish I could totally explain how awesome it was to be surrounded by so many different people. They all had their own look and different styles. I loved it and I can’t wait until tomorrow. 

-Mariah

January 21, 2012

Eating our second fail dinner, we heard a faint knock on the door. Mariah anxiously ran to the door and invited two new friends into our apartment, while I scattered to throw my undergarments in hidden places (oh to be a girl). Michele, from Holland and Alejandro from a small city by Venice were just ecstatic someone finally opened the door to them. Instantly Michele made us laugh by questioning Mariah’s age. We exchanged stories of our home life and culture and found one common interest, watching movies. The American Girls in Sweden will be introducing the prize production Mean Girls to them tomorrow night.

-Kari

9 Things We Miss About The USA

After our first full day of a foreign country the ten things we miss most from the USA:

9. Family and Friends. Of course 

8. Knowing Where Everything is. We haven’t even left the campus yet because there is only an average of 6 hours of daylight and we have been busy getting our apartment livable.

7. Restaurants & Stores Open Most of the Day. Most things here close at 2pm or 6pm and aren’t open weekends.

6. Random Household Things. We couldn’t find a lot of things that we could easily get at Target. Some examples are hangers and a body mirror. Plus we don’t have a microwave or a toaster.  Everything we buy here we will most likely throw away at the end because we won’t have room to take it home, so we are going try to live without certain things.

5. A Television.  Coming from watching Jersey Shore every Thursday and Teen Mom every Tuesday, no TV at all is difficult.

4. The Exchange Rate. 100.00 US Dollars are the same as 685.00 Kronar.  It’s pretty scary seeing a frozen pizza with a price tag of 27.00. (which is only 4.00 US Dollars, so everything is about the same price as in the US so far.)

3. Grocery Bags. In Sweden when you get groceries you have to buy your own plastic bags, and carts for that matter. The first time we were there we had no idea and stuffed everything in our backpacks.

2. A Strong Internet Connection. We have internet here, but only in Brigitte & Mariah’s room as of right now, and it does not work very well at all.

1. The English Language.  Most importantly. A pocket dictionary is pretty much worthless.  Grocery shopping when almost everything is in Swedish is really difficult, but one thing they did have was Oreos.

It has only been one day but we know we will adjust soon.

Soon to come is the “10 Things We Love About Sweden.”

-Mariah, Kari, Shanda, & Brigitte

The First Few Days

DAY 1:

After leaving our home of our whole lives, we said goodbye to our families and jet-setted off into the unknown. The travel was long and a lot harder for Brigitte and I since we thought it would be a good idea to not sleep the day before... not one of our best ideas. We arrived in Kristianstad (pronounced something like Kkwanstad by the locals, we’re still trying to get that down) at around noon. We noticed right away that the current climate is warmer than ND, there was no snow on the ground and everything is green and slightly damp. We were then shown around our on-campus international apartments. The apartments have their own bathroom, kitchenette, beds, and a table.  Our apartments are in two different buildings but it’s only about a 5 minute walk.  Kari and I’s apartment is larger and less smelly. There are little “pain in the ass” tributes to them, for example: no microwave, no toaster, no outlets in the bathroom, no space in the bathroom and a burnt out light bulb. But it’s still nicer than we expected. The worst part was the internet has no connection in our building. This is by far the hardest part since this means no talking to our family or friends. I do have letters from Calli and Jenna that I reread when I’m missing them or feeling down.

Then we cleaned up a little, unpacked then walked off campus to a store similar to a Walmart, but smaller and slightly shitty. The shittier part was not having any plastic bags because apparently in Europe you have to buy them, which we didn’t know until after we checked out then we had to stuff our purses and backpacks full of our purchases, making our journey home not enjoyable. After this trip, we walked to the grocery store which is in the same area as the all-purpose store and got frozen pizzas since no restaurants were open or in the area. We turned in at around 8:30 PM because we were exhausted, we got a full night of sleep and started the day early at 8:00 AM.

DAY 2:

Apparently I snore now? Fabulous. Well, Mariah and Brigitte came over in the morning then we headed to the grocery store to stock up (this time we came prepared with plastic bags). WEIRD THING ALERT: food in tubes. Walls of it; mayonnaise, cheese, fish, bacon… you name it. BACON? In a tube, gross…. I want one. We made some grilled cheese sandwiches, then we had true intentions to walk into the city Centrum (around a 45 minute walk) to get our bikes and phones…… instead we went on the internet at Mariah and Brigitte’s apartment then took a nap. Oops, productivity at its finest. Kari and I failed at making spaghetti then we heard a faint knock on the door. Michele and Alejandro were bored and desperate to make some friends. We invited the two men in (while Kari frantically threw her undergarments behind her bed) and had casual talk with them about their home countries of Italy and Holland. Mariah took one for the team and asked where Holland was, which made both of them laugh. We made plans to meet up with them tomorrow and watch a movie. YAYYYYYYY FRIENDSSSSSSSSSSSS.

-Shanda

Welcome

This is a blog about Brigitte, Shanda, Kari, & Mariah's adventures in Sweden.  We are attending Hogskolan Kristianstad University in Kristianstad, Sweden.