Linkoping!

I finally arrived in Linkoping today! The city is absolutely beautiful. I got a really good look at it because I had to go out on my own to buy a shape adapter for the outlets and accidentally got on the wrong bus at the central station. Luckily, all of the buses return to the central station anyway, so I never really got lost. What impresses me most is the architecture. Twice on the buses I passed by the nearly 900-year-old cathedral next to "stora torget," the downtown-ish section of the city with a bunch of shops, restaurants, cafe's, etc. Unfortunately, because I was running around like crazy I left my camera in my room. Pictures will be coming very soon, I will definitely try to go out with some of the other exchange students this weekend before classes start. If not, then I'll just have to go alone like I did tonight.

As for living, the room is large and well-kept and the corridor mates are pretty nice. I do have to do all of my own shopping and cooking, and anything other than staple products are wicked expensive, though some fish is relatively cheap. However, because the Baltic Sea is fairly polluted, most of the fish isn't necessarily good to eat, except the salmon. The city as a whole is definitely a "college town" on American standards. Ryd, the suburb where the students live, has a mall where students can buy pretty much everything they need and pay rent, do mail, banking, etc., everything is well set-up and logical, and accessible via bike or public transport.

Totally copying Allison here, but some random observations:

- Sweden has A TON of American influence. I've seen more McDonald's than I can count and half of the TV shows are in English. In fact, the American dialect of English, not the British, is taught in schools.

-Packaged foods are much less common in stores, and even the packaged brands are fresher and higher-quality than what is found in the US.

-Sweden is barely as heterogeneous as the blonde-haired, blue-eyed stereotype would indicate. Around 1/10 of the people of Sweden are foreign-born and minority populations abound, I don't feel like I stick out at all until I open my mouth.

-Breakfast is the largest meal of the day for pretty much all Scandanavians, and may feature a lot of deli meats and cheeses Americans would consider lunch or dinner items.

-Only the state-owned liquor stores can sell alcoholic beverages with alcohol contents greater than 3.5% by volume, and all such stores close by 6 PM. Students here LOVE the pub in Ryd.