A Day In Lund

Yesterday, on Friday, I joined some other exchange students to hang out in Lund and watch Inglorious Basterds. We got off at the train station and were immediately set upon by scientologists in matching red tee-shirts trying to get us to take a stress test. We tried to make them leave us alone in the nicest way possible, which failed, so we ended up just ignoring them and walking away quickly.

We had originally planned to watch the movie at around six, but two of our group were taking too long so we decided to go to a later showing. Then we split into two groups. One group went to a cafe in search of ciabattas and the other went off to find a kebab shop. I was part of the kebab group. After we ate, we went and rejoined the others at the end of a very, very long coffee shop, where we had hilarious conversations about school fundraisers, the color of Caienna's hair and ironic patronuses. Eventually we were asked to leave. The waitress said it was because the shop was closing but that was a blatant lie because we were the only ones she told to go. I suspect we were being too loud and foreign.

At some point we visited a cathedral. It was very beautiful, and the people there knew it because they had a little tourist booth set up in the corner with brochures and everything. There was a lady playing an organ while we were in there and the acoustics were pretty amazing.

Later, we got a call from our waylaid friends who told us they had arrived so we went back to the train station to pick them up, where we found them taking stress tests from scientologists. We waited patiently and then disappointed them again (the scientologists, not our friends). What followed was just wandering around Lund and talking and stuff. We found a little place in the park where we stayed until the movie started. By the time it was about to begin, only half the people wanted to go so it was only three including me who actually saw the movie.

It was a decent movie I suppose, Inglorious Basterds was about this team of guerrillas who roamed France during World War II killing and scalping Nazis. It's not based on historical fact, it's just straight out of Quentin Tarantino's imagination. The movie was funny, but it was also brutal. Especially the scalping.

We left right after the movie ended, it was already late. Unfortunately, our train didn't show up so we had to take and overpriced taxi. At least he had the decency to drive too fast.

One Of My Many Wednsdays

Today started well with my Psykologi class being canceled, so I got to start much later. Standard day, I'm still not sure how my gym class is working, I haven't been to a single one yet because every time I go to the gym there's no one there and apparently everyone in my class is taking it today instead of yesterday unlike my schedule seems to indicate. Whatever. It's not like I am a huge fan of gym or anything.

In Filmkunskap (kunskap means "knowledge"), we watched a western called "The Wild Bunch". Afterwords we studied the various themes in the movie and read some reviews. The teacher asked us to explain the American frontier so Chad got up and did a full fledged lecture on the whiteboard and a potato-shaped continental U.S. with territory lines, cities and everything.

No comment.

Then I headed off home to get ready for soccer practice. It was pretty dark when we finished.

Kanoting

I got back yesterday from a weekend of canoeing with other exchange students. We started in Stockamöllan, which is right in the middle of Skåne province and went about 42 kilometers down the Rönne river. I woke up early and took the train to Höör, which is a couple of hours away. As we went, we were joined by more and more exchange students, until we were all assembled at Höör station and collected by Rotarians who took us to the starting point of our journey.

We paddled for a long time and had to ford twice on the first day, but it was still a lot of fun. The river passes by a lot of farmland so we saw plenty of cows. We all stopped at a campsite and stayed there for the evening. That night we stayed in a large tent together. It would be a gross understatement to say it was chilly. I was later told it got down to about 2 degrees Celsius. I got up earlier than usual because the alternative was to not move around and be cold.

We had an excellent breakfast of bacon and eggs and yogurt. I watched as people amused themselves by continuing an axe-throwing competition that they started the night before, then we were off again with new partners (two to a boat). We paddled for what seemed like ages upon ages upon more ages with a side of ages with ages on top. We actually missed our original stopping point so we had to go an extra 7 kilometers which didn't help. The truly sad part was that when I hauled my exhausted body into the car for the way back it only took like a half hour to get back to the train station.

Ugh...

... at least I enjoyed those hours. What a great weekend.

The Day To Day

So, for a while now I've been waiting for something interesting to happen in my life to report on that would be interesting. But then I realized that my life is not that interesting. Then I felt bad, until I realized that it didn't matter. From now on this blog will be more about my daily life, and all the little things that have more value than I first anticipated.

Yesterday our economics teacher told us that all of our business classes for thursday and friday would be canceled, so my thursday schedule went from starting at 8 in the morning to 1:30. Woo!

That meant that I could stay up and sleep in, which I did. Now I can just hang out until my class starts and then leave again at 3. I have soccer practice later today. All the practices have been moved up half and hour so we can practice in daylight.

School Life

So I've just started my second week of school, and I have a better idea of how things work. There are many differences between American schools and Swedish ones. The schedules are much less rigid, you might have one class in the morning, then a half hour break, then maybe another class for an hour and a half then lunch. Tomorrow on Tuesday I have about a two and a half hour break before my gym class. Last week I came home and took a nap.

The teachers are much more laid back. The common opinion is that you are responsible for your own education so they aren't really concerned if you show up late or just wander our during the class to go to the bathroom or whatever.

The school is pretty much open campus. Today me and some friends went to a pizzeria for lunch because they didn't want to eat the free school lunch because it was fläsk-pankakor, or pork pancakes.

I was very surprised by the language choices. At St. Johns, we have French and Spanish, but at Österport Gymnasiet there's:

Danish, German, Russian, Italian, Latin, French and Spanish.

Here's how language classes work: The teachers have about nine hours a week each that they are in Språkvärlden (Language World), which is a big library/classroom for all the classes. It's up to you how much time you want to spend there, because like the rest of Swedish education, the responsibility to learn is in the hands of the students, not the teachers. I really like this situation because it's so flexible and it allows me to work at my own pace, whether it be faster or slower than everyone else.

Right now I am taking Russian, and I might take some French at some point. So far, I've only been to one class, and I am starting to learn the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet (Русский Алфавйт). It's pretty interesting as well as challenging. There are 33 letters, and you have to learn the print version and the handwritten version of each one, and each has and upper case and a lower case.

Here is my name in Cyrillic: Филип Осцар Едвин Витевин, or Фил short.