Sweden!

I arrived in Sweden at 4:00pm on Saturday. I took the train from Stockholm to Uppsala and then walked from the train to the Akademihotel housing office. 1.2 km is a lot farther when you are dragging 2 suitcases. (20 kilos and 12 kilos, per KLM maximum baggage weight restrictions. They also would have let me bring a golf bag for free.)

Along the way, I stopped to have a cigarette. I lit it backwards. It was the lucky cigarette; the first one of the pack that you flip over so that you remember to smoke it last. Because it was already dark and because I wasn't paying close attention, I accidentally grabbed that one and lit it. It didn't light easily and it tasted terrible. What happens when you have a lucky ritual and then desecrate it?

After getting my key and keycard from the Akademihotel housing office, I walked another kilometer to the dorm. The dorms in Sweden are arranged as groups of smaller buildings. Studentstaden, for example, has over 100, each housing around 12 people. Rackersgaten and Studenstaden are immediately next to each other, and not clearly distinguished on the map, which explains why I ended up trying to get in to Studentstaden #24 instead of Rackersgaten #24. I finally realized my mistake and made my way to the proper building. Mistakes are a lot more costly when you're dragging 2 suitcases. (20 kilos and 12 kilos, enough to last me for 5 months. Hopefully.)

My keycard didn't work in the new building either. I knew I was in the right place; unlike Studenstaden, there was actually a room 231 on the list by the door buzzer and at the top it said "Rackersgaten 24". But every time I swiped the card, the forbidding red light flashed, not the welcoming green light I wanted. 0 degrees Celsius is a lot colder when you're locked out of your building. Back to the housing office to get the right keycard. Unfortunately, each housing group has their own housing office. Akademihotel was only passing out keys over the weekend; to get my keycard reprogrammed I would have to go to the Rackersgaten housing office on Monday when the opened. They could call emergency maintenance to let me in to the room, but then I wouldn't be able to leave till Monday.

This is why I don't like to plan ahead. If I had plans, they would have been ruined. But because I didn't have any plans, my biggest concern was entertaining myself through a weekend of reverse house arrest. (I could leave any time I wanted, but once I left I couldn't return.)

That's not completely true. I had also planned to go shopping. Not pleasure shopping, but shopping for the stuff that didn't fit into my suitcases. Stuff like a towel, a blanket, soap, and pillows. A pile of jeans doesn't make a good pillow, especially when you're trying to sleep through a day of no tv or internet.

I did get a chance to meet my floor-mates, the four people I will be sharing a kitchen, bathroom, and shower with for the next 5 months. Carl from Sweden, Daniel from (?), (?) from Belgium, and (?) from (?). The adventure has begun!