Sweden is awesome!

It’s Tuesday today which means that I’ve been in Sweden now for two days. I arrived late, late Sunday night after a million hours in the plane from HK to Franfurt and then hundreds more hours in Frankfurt airport after my flight to Stockholm was delayed. Actually, it wasn’t so bad. The flight was pretty good – Lufthansa aren’t nearly as bad as everyone says – but I was still tired and impatient just to get there!

Anyway, Sweden. So far I really like Sweden. And all I’ve really seen is Uppsala and the airport. It’s a place that really makes sense to me. It’s full of colourful old buildings and tree-lined roads and bicycles and random cathedrals and castles. The people are very friendly and mostly very good looking. I love how environmentally conscious it is. The buses all run on biofuel, the heating is powered by refuse (I think), there are recycling bins and composting bins everywhere (yep, everywhere). And the supermarket expects you to bring your own bags. There’s heaps of greenery everywhere and people seem to recognise the importance of that. And everything is so organised. There’s a system for everything and people are very happy to explain it to you and help you the first time. Like when I got my bus pass yesterday. At the place you buy bus passes there is a system for lining up where you take a number and then when the very helpful person gives you your pass, they even have a replica of the swipe thing that’s on the bus so they can show you how to work it! Ah, so clever.

The only thing I don’t like so far is that I feel hopelessly inadequate that I can’t speak any Swedish. It’s just not fair that you should come to a country to visit and expect everyone to speak English. But here they do and are quite happy to talk to you in English –not the slightest bit worried. But it does make me uncomfortable and I would like to learn some more phrases while I’m here.

My work is going well so far. Today I caught the bus (using my new bus pass) to the uni just outside Uppsala and spent a very interesting day with my collaborators. And I think that workwise, things are going to work out very well. It seems like a very international department with staff from all over the world. Interestingly this means that English is the main language at work. So much so that one of my collaborators who is from Lithuania says that his Swedish is much worse than his English as he hardly ever uses it! And, importantly for a work place, the uni refectory seems to serve an interesting array of Swedish food for lunches!!

View from the window of my bedroom
My room
The front of my building
My street
My first IKEA item - a towel.

Street stall selling chantarelles (that's those yellow mushrooms in the boxes)

What else to say about Uppsala so far? My little room is very comfy. I’ve successfully braved the supermarket twice and think I mostly bought what I meant to. Not so sure if I’ve managed to work the washing machine properly though – my Swedish phrase book didn’t have a ‘laundry’ section….. And I have come across some amusing signs: