The Arrival: The Longest Day of My Life...

Getting here was probably the longest days of my life. On the way to O'hare I was starting to freak out, but felt a little better when I saw Caroline, one of the girls, and that she had no clue what to do either. I said goodbye to my parents after we ate dinner and I didn't really want to let go of my mother, but I did, and went through security. I hate security. We waited at gate M15 for about an hour before we boarded. I had the window seat and sat next to a guy who was from Minnesota and studying abroad in Copenhagen. The flight was very warm and I had a hard time falling asleep. I tried after I ate dinner, but I didn't eat a lot of it which was a mistake because I got really hungry. When we were flying over Canada I started to freak out again, why am I doing this? This is completely out of my comfort zone, actually WAY out of my comfort zone. I opened my eyes with about an hour and a half left and I snarfed down the "continental breakfast" they served which wasn't enough. When we arrived at Copenhagen Airport, we had to go through security again. We tried to see if we could make the earlier flight, but it was full and we didn't have enough time to get to the gate, in which we got lost and was helped by someone. Our flight didn't have a gate yet so we found a place to sit. I was thirsty so we tried to find beverages. All I had was a $10 so I had to pay with that but get Danish Kroner change, so I have no clue how much I have. The water ended up costing $4.50, very expensive and it was only about 8 oz.. We sat and talked for the extent of our 5 hour layover. We were all exhausted so we pretty much all fell asleep on the hour flight to Stockholm. When we landed at Arlanda, we had to use the bathroom, which was very modern looking. We got our luggage next and went on our way. We didn't go through immigration or anything for some reason so I didn't get a stamp in my passport, just from Copenhagen. We had to trudge across the airport to the train station. We tried to fit on the train but we barely managed because we had about 18 bags to 6 girls.

We took the train to Uppsala and waited there for Mary Beth's buddy. Mary Beth had to use my phone to contact her which ended up being a good thing the next day. We met Malin, her buddy, at about 9pm. She showed us to our keys. This was the start of my breaking point. I lugged about 127 lbs up hills in the snow, not fun. When we got our keys we found our way to the bus station which was my breaking point. Right as the bus was arriving, I got to the stop..I was very far behind. We arrived at Flogsta about 5 minutes later. Again, another hill. I missed information when we got there which was bad the next day. I tried to get into my building, I have to swipe a card, but I couldn't figure it out. Thankfully someone helped me with it and I finally got to my room. I immediately fell on my bed and called my parents. I sobbed quite a bit. They tried to calm me down, and I did a little. I took a shower and fell asleep, not well, but i tried.

SUNDAY:

I was under the presumption that we were meeting at 10:30, but apparently that was for the previous night to go to the grocery store, and they changed the time for the next day to 9:30. So I looked back in my phone and called Malin to see if she knew anything. She told me they were downtown and to get on the bus to the city center. I got on the bus, while trying not to freak out, and I got off at a random spot. We passed the Cathedral when we were getting our keys so I used that as a guide...but when I got there Mailn called me and asked me where I was, I didn't know but knew I was at the Cathedral, so she came and got me, I was so grateful since I was by myself. She told me how to get to the mall were her sister, Sophia, and Mary Beth and two British guys we picked up at the train station the previous day. I found them and was elated! I was starving so I ate something, but nothing much. We were missing the others, but we went to our first store, and there we found everyone plus a few people. They picked up a few stragglers, Donia from Florida and Stephan from Canada. We bought all our essentials and we met up with Malin to get our Welcome Packets. After talking to people for a while we all went to Ikea, Donia left though. We immediately went to the food and I had the Swedish Meatballs. We shopped and left. When I got back to my room I unpacked and then fell asleep.

MONDAY:

We all met up at 1o at the bus stop to go an register for our classes. We passed a beautiful cemetary to get to one place. I wasn't able to register with any class because no one was ever there when I went to see them. It was me, Caroline, Kylee, Jenny, Jackie, and Stephan (he's now one of our group, and honorary American..in Sweden) and we split into twos and went to our places. Caroline and I were surprised that we made it to her campus, but they gave her the wrong room number so thankfully people were helpful. We finished and got our temporary student IDs and we got lunch in the city center. We decided to walk back to Flogsta, which is long, and we had already been walking for about 6 hours and I was not wearing adequate shoes, so it was tough. We met with each other again at 7 to go to the grocery store. I had been surviving on a bag of Swedish fish, not enough. I then lost my entry card...and I fell asleep. I need to go get a new one.

Well thats all that's happened so far. Now that I have internet posts will most likely be shorter than this. I think I am adjusting ok, but I still miss home. Be back soon!

Lindsay