More Funner

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Yoooo!
This blog is the second one of many to come and I plan on writing it in a way that is more similar to the way that I talk. I wrote the first one, while planning to add it to the Gustavus blog forum so I wanted the language to be sufficient but screeeewww that! Let's be real, I'm midly inappropriate at times and not the best writer, so I might as well have a little fun blogging! I've not yet begun to talk about actually being in Sweden so let's do that! The first city that we stayed in was Umeå. It's a pretty legit city with about 111,000 people. It's near the coast so it was actually humid and more wet that further inland= some icky slush that we dragged our bags through :-/ ! We stayed at a youth hostel for five nights and did most of our coursework at the University of Umeå. The walk from our hostel to the U was about 25min one way, but it was nice to make the walk in the morning, I love how crisp the air can be. The University is pretty big, at about 30,000 students, and many of them come from abroad. We found this out by visiting the main hang-out spot at the U called Corona. Does it have to do with the beer? I have no idea! Aside from the bit about the confusing name, it was a pretty neat place. Something that I am quite proud of...I came upon a group of Frenchies and starting talking about politics with them, hahahaa. Jättetypisk av mig (typical)! I was trying to be as diplomatic as possible to convince them that not all Americans are jerks, most of them not even at all. It was pretty funny because I was speaking French/English and they were happy to know that I think George Duyba could've done a better job...all I'm going to say. GOOOOOOBAMA! That's another thing, everyone is obsessed with our new prez, it's pretty bomb. But then again, they've gotta realize that he's just one dude, and it'll take awhile. I'm sure I'll write more about how liberal Sweden is later because it's pretty cool.
More about what we did in Umeå...The first day of class we met with the international education office, who gave us a very nice welcome. Then we met with Krister Stoor (our host during our stay), and one of his colleagues, who make up the Sami culture studies at the U. Krister totally hooked us up. He set up meeting with all the people that are experts at what they do. We had another meeting with a Norwegian woman with a craaazy name, Assbjørg, she let us know that it sucks to tell English speakers what her name is because it begins with ass. But she was bomb and talked to us about their department and a new grad program they're establishing in '10. We also talked with several grad students working with Sami research institute. Isabelle is working with climate change and how it has affected reindeer herding. Åsa is working with hydraulic power and how that affects the Sami lifestyle. Pretty cool projects.
P.S. My next blog focuses on the Sami people, so gettttt ready!

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Photos

Roland's birthday!
Group dinner at the Bishop's Arm.

Megan!
HottiiiiiiiiE!

Feeding ducks!
At the university. Opposite side of the pond is the bird lady from home alone.

Rando shoe
Apparently when you lose an article of clothing they tie it up on a sign. We saw a shoe, a hat (that I wanted!), and a scarf in one walk.

A Little Comparison
This is a map of MN and Canada which shows how far north we are in comparison to Gustavus.