Hey Everyone,
So my four month adventure began with airports. I got to Toronto Pearson airport at around 2:00 Sunday afternoon. After some waterworks from my mother, I was on my way. I bumped into Justin Logan, Katheryn and Jen from Mech at the airport and sat with them on the plane to Dusseldorf, Germany. They are all heading over to Barcelona for a 10 day trip before school starts. The flight was alright, the lights were only off for about 2 hours and they just happened to be the only two hours that this giant sized baby felt like crying though. I got to Dusseldorf for a four hour stopover and met some people who were also going to Lund on exchange from Canada, Pooja and Nick. After four excruciatingly long hours in the airport, we were finally on our way to Copenhagen, Denmark. From Copenhagen four of us (we picked up a girl from holland) took the train to Lund and were welcomed at the train station by exchange mentors. They threw us into a small van with all of our stuff, let us off at a building on campus and the cueing began.
The lines were enormous. First we had to 'check in' which took about two hours of twisting and turning through the rows of a lecture hall, only to be given a package with our name on it and our internet codes. Then we had to wait in another line to get our residence keys which also took about two hours. At this point the three of us from Canada hadn't slept in about 30 hours, hadn't eaten in probably 10 hours, we were just miserable. But when all the cueing was done with we decided to wander around and find something to eat. We came across this very small greek place that turned out to be pretty good and the food really hit the spot. We went back to the building to try to shuttle to our residences when we came across another 45 minute wait. It was tough. I finally made it to my residence and then through the labryinth into my room and I passed out.
It was a long day, but I met TONS of people (most of which call line ups 'cues', hence the name of the post) and they were all very nice and from all over the world. I got to residence and my floor is pretty much all swedish, so they might be able to help me figure out phones and teach me some swedish and stuff like that.
I woke up today at around 5am, which is pretty bad, so today might also have to be a long day where I try to stay up as late as possible (hopefully to midnight or something) in order to help me sleep in later tomorrow morning. In a couple hours I'm off to an orientation meeting thats probably going to be completely useless, but apparently they are talking about cell phones so I must attend. After which I should be meeting up with Pooja and Nick to go wander the city and pick up things we need for the school year and our residence rooms. Tonight there is a mentor program thing, which is kind of like frosh week cept for exchange students. It should be interesting, and I'll meet more new people.
So from what I've seen so far of Sweden and Lund they are both extremely beautiful. The weather so far has been great, nothing but sunshine. The streets here are all cobblestone and the buildings are old and brick. Everyone rides bicycles and is very friendly. So, not such a bad place afterall.
Thats really it for my first post. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE comment or send me an email at andrew.j.baron@gmail.com. I want to hear from EVERYONE. I'll let you know how the week goes a little bit later.
Cheers,
AJ
