March 15th: Uppsala

“…The great voyagers are continuing their perilous journey, as they now move into the Swedish urban area, the distractions will likely increase. Will they be able to keep their focus on the more important things, or will they get caught up in the urban culture? …”

Hej Blog Buddies,


Monday, March 9th:

On this day we had our first formal assessment of our Nordic Politics class. It was a written test, short and mid length answers. After some last minute studying we went into the classroom to begin the test. When the professor arrived, he realized that he had forgotten the papers we were supposed to write our answers on, so we ended up using just plain printer paper. The teacher for the class, Lennart Sacradeus, is a Riksdag member (the Swedish parliament) and a former E.U. parliamentarian. He his a member of the Christian Democratic party, which is fiscally pretty liberal, but has the social policy most similar to the Republican Party. Lennart is one of the most “conservative” members of his own party, but has a very loyal following. He is even considered by his fellow party members to be too conservative.
We were given the test and 90 minutes to complete it. It consisted of ten questions, each with several parts. The topics included were about historical political figures in Scandinavia, the various political parties, and issues concerning Scandinavia and the E.U., among other various things. Besides being a lot of writing, I thought the test was, for the most part, pretty easy. However, we will not get our results back for about three weeks.
After the test, we had lunch, and then continued with lecture into the mid-afternoon. This was technically our last official day of lecture, though the course will continue when we arrive in Stockholm, with visits to the Royal Palace, Riksdag, meeting other political figures. When we are in Stockholm, we also have a paper on Swedish current events, a research paper with a partner, on a topic of our own choosing (Aaron and I are doing a comparative analysis of the Nordic model of education compared to the U.S.), a presentation on our paper, and a final exam. So, we have got a lot of things to do over the next few weeks. After the class, I went for a run to help calm my mind, and get some much needed exercise.
After waiting up for the results, I learned that unfortunately Emily and I did not win the Co-Presidents election. We took second place by like 8%. The pair that we lost to is the one who, if we had to lose to someone, I would have preferred losing to. They are both very qualified and will do a good job. I actually lived with both of them last summer, and know them pretty well. I am a bit disappointed but life goes on and I’ll just have to focus my attention elsewhere now.


Tuesday, March 10th:

On this day, we went to a former Headmaster of Mora Folkhögskola’s house for fika. It must be a large undertaking to host a group of fourteen Americans for coffee and snacks. But Mr. and Mrs. Ekström did so. The husband is now the cross-country ski teacher at the school. He also leads a fund raising program that sponsors three schools in Africa, one in Tanzania, one in Kenya, and one in Uganda. He and his wife have traveled to these schools nearly twenty times. Their house was decorated with various items that they have acquired from their many visits to Africa.
Before coffee and treats were served, he wanted to give us a quiz about various “world figures.” I don’t really know why he wanted to do this, but we agreed. We were separated into three teams. He handed out envelopes with newspaper clipped pictures of famous people, such as Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt and the French President Nicolas Sarcozy, among others. Then each group switched envelops until we had seen each of the three packets. After we met in a large group and discussed our answers and briefly talked about each person.
Several of us also decided to that the following day we were going to go skiing at a nearby place, so we planned the details of that.


Wednesday, March 11th:

On this day, three of us took a trip to ski resort about 20km away from Mora. We hopped on the bus and about half an hour later we were at the ski shop. The place we went was called Gesunda. I would compare it to anything that could be found in the greater Duluth area, in terms of quality. By the time we got our skis and lift ticket, it was about 10a.m. and we were ready to hit the slopes. This was my first time downhill skiing in nearly five years, but after the first trip down the slope, I was re-acclimated to the sport. There were some good runs, each taking anywhere from five to twenty minutes to get down.
Wednesdays must not be very busy days there, because there was never a wait to get back to the top. The runs seemed pretty deserted, but that gave me more freedom to swerve back and forth and make a fool of myself. The view from the top of the hill/mountain was really beautiful; we could see out over lake Siljan and off into larger hills in the distance. The sky was a mixture of clouds and sun, but the temperature must have been nearly 40º. It was a perfect day for skiing. One thing I thought was pretty cool, was that when looking out over one of the longer runs, I could see about ten wind turbines off in the distance.
In the past when I’ve gone skiing, I usually just stick to the main path of the runs, however, this time I went on the narrow paths that meandered through the woods; many of them had little jumps and moguls, but were really fun. I was able to get some good pictures, and I took a video while I went down one of the runs. It looks kind of cool.
The place closed at 4:00, and we turned in our rentals by 4:30. We expected the bus to go back to Mora at 4:55, but after waiting at the bus stop for about 15 minutes, it never arrived. We went into the hotel to ask when the next bus would come, after a few minutes of searching the guy working the desk told us that the last bus was at 12:30. He was as surprised by this as we were. He told us that our only option was to walk into town and wait for the bus there. So we walked for about 20 minutes into town, and caught the bus there. A slight delay and inconvenience, but it worked nonetheless.


Thursday, March 12th:

On this day we were supposed to watch the movie the “Seventh Seal,” but the DVD wasn’t working, so we impromptuly (is that even a word?) decided to hold a discussion with the Swedes about stereotypes of Sweden and U.S.
Most of the comments that were made, were based on what they had seen on television (many of the shows aired here are just reruns of shows from the U.S.), for example, the show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grade?” or the Jaywalking section of the Tonight Show. Some of the common themes about Americans are that we’re all either fat or ignorant. They also said because of many of our politicians, they think that the U.S. is this enormously religious country, where everyone goes to church, all the time.
Hopefully through our conversations, we were able to dispel some of their misconceptions about the U.S… We also talked about what we thought about Sweden, and how foreigners see Sweden. We talked about the stereotypical “Swedish look” of tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, and about the perception that Swedes are all shy and introverted. (Though, many of the Swedes I’ve met are louder than many Americans…)
After lunch I realized that I had very few pictures of the town, so I went for a run, and stopped occasionally to snap a few photos.


Friday, March 13th:

This was our last official day in Mora; we did a field visit to the Hospital again. Here, we met with the wife of our Politics teacher, who is a county-level politician. She explained more about the Healthcare system, specifically in Dalarna County, which is roughly the size of Belgium, but with only about 2% of the Belgium population. After lunch we met with an orthopedic surgeon, who really just told us about his life story and the work that he does.
When we returned back to school, it was time to start packing. So I spent the rest of the day organizing my things, packing, doing laundry, and getting ready for our travel to Uppsala the following day. I have acquired more things since coming to Mora, but not so much that I couldn’t fit everything into my bags.

Saturday, March 14th:

I woke up this morning at 6:45, so we could be ready to go at 7:30. We drove to the train station about 3km away, with our luggage and with them, piled into the cars. The trip took about three hours and ten minutes. The train was surprisingly smooth and quiet; I slept the entire way.
When we came to Uppsala, we were met by our new teacher and former Gustie, Daniel, along with his sambo, Julia. We took a 15-minute cab ride to our hostel, which is about 5 miles away from downtown. We’re only here for ten days, before we leave for Stockholm. I was hoping that we’d be more centrally located, but it is apparently a short bus ride into town. The place we’re staying seems pretty nice, but the rooms are pretty small, with little storage space for our stuff. Also, Internet is not free here, so we have to pay for it. It is kind of a mixed blessing, though. It is about $8/day to use it. I won’t buy it for the entire time we’re here, but I will for part of it, at least. So if I’m not online or calling as much as I’ve been able to, that’s why. Hopefully, this will force us to go explore and make the most of our time in Uppsala, not that we wouldn't otherwise.
After briefly getting situated, we walked to a pizzeria and had lunch. I had a chicken pesto pizza, which was pretty good. After, we went to a grocery store and bought food and snacks for the week. Some people are planning on going out tonight, but we have “games and Melody Festival” (a television program) planned… I think I’ll do the latter.


I am really happy to be out of Mora. It was just too small for me, with not enough to do. I am hoping that Uppsala will be the change I’ve needed.


Hope everyone is doing well,

Andrew