Today, I had my first college class here in Umeå! It was very exciting because I have met other students from Germany, Sweden, Spain, Austria, and Romania. They all speak English, but it is very hard for them to understand. I also find it hard because terms we say in English have a different meaning than what they are trying to say. For example, we were talking about our school placements and on a document it states: placement in "witch" schools/teachers are placed. In the English language it should be placement in which schools/teachers are placed. They also spell organization as "organisation" or we are talking about a "hole class" when it should be spelled as whole class.
- We have been here for about two weeks now and I am seeing differences from the American culture and the Swedish culture. Here are some observations that I see around me:
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| Light Switch in the Rooms |
Clothing style: leggings or skinny jeans, tall boots or heels, looser top, scarf, petticoat or jacket with lots of pockets are a necessity around here. You do not see many people dressing up in black pants and really nice shirts for work.
Light switches: they are more like a square inch button that switches up and down, and they are about 6-7inches lower on the wall than in the States.
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| Shower and Sink in the Bathroom! |
Toilets: The flush levers is located on top (center) of the toilet, and often have to pull it up to flush or push it down either to the right or to the left. It depends on how much water flow you would like to use.
Showers and Toilets: They are combined into a bathroom like home, but there is no wall or tub to stop the water from going over to the toilet. The shower seems like it is flooding and getting the toilet all wet because there is no ledge for the water to stop flowing over.
Doors: You honestly never know whether to push or pull the door open, it is inconsistent here. It is very confusing and I tend to find myself wanting to push when I go out the door, but you are suppose to pull towards yourself most of the time.
Time: Everything here is in Military time. I am still trying to get used to the time of 15:00, instead of 3:00 p.m. I feel like I am doing a lot of math trying to figure out the times that our professor gives us in military time to the actual U.S. time that I am used to seeing all the time. For example, I will start school at 8:10 and will finish around 14:00. Can you figure out what time I will be in the classroom for?
Saying Hello: You have to be careful how you say hello in some situations. If you say hey (hej) Swedish people think you can speak Swedish and start talking Swedish to you. The safest response to that is a confused face and then ask for English. They will talk English to you and you can understand everything they are saying in English. So if you walk into a business and want them to speak English, you have to say "Hello" instead of "Hey."
Saying Hello: You have to be careful how you say hello in some situations. If you say hey (hej) Swedish people think you can speak Swedish and start talking Swedish to you. The safest response to that is a confused face and then ask for English. They will talk English to you and you can understand everything they are saying in English. So if you walk into a business and want them to speak English, you have to say "Hello" instead of "Hey."
Recycling and Garbage: Sweden is very environmentally friendly. For example there are four separate bins in the kitchen: plastic, glass, paper, and aluminum. Then they also have a program for recycling food scraps. The food scraps will become fuel for cards and fertilizers for the forest. They do not have many garbage cans around, or if they do there is nothing really in them because they find ways to “recycle” scraps of everything.
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| Swedish Kronor 500 Kronor = about $76.04 U.S. Dollars 100 Kronor = about $15.21 U.S. Dollars 20 Kronor = about $3.04 U.S. Dollars 10 Kronor (small gold coin) = about $1.52 U.S. Dollars 5 Kronor = about $0.75 U.S. Cents 1 Kronor = about $0.15 U.S. Cents |
Paper: Their paper size is not the same as the United States! Their paper is bigger than an 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper that we use at home. Their paper is probably about 8 ½ by 14. They do not fit in my binders! The paper is bigger and the hole punch is not a three hole punch, it’s a 4 hole punch that is in the middle of the paper!
Measurements: Be careful because everything is in degrees Celcius here or measured in the metric system. Currency is in Swedish Kronor (pronounced Swedish Crown). I am still trying to get used to the Swedish Kronor! I still pull out my currency convertor to figure out exactly how much money I am spending in U.S. dollars!
Traveling: Everywhere you are go, you see people either taking the bus, walking, or riding their bike. You do not see many cars on the streets! I am getting my workout in by walking everywhere around campus and to the center of Umeå. Which is about a 30-minute walk. They even have a walker and cyclist counter on the path that we walk to campus!
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| Walker/Cyclist Counter |
Here are some more Swedish terms I have learned:
gymnasiet – high school
buss – bus
god morgon – good morning
god eftermiddag – good afternoon
vatten – water
vit – white
spannmål – cereal
bil – car
skinka – ham
hur mår du? – how are you?
hur - how
Måndag – Monday
Tisdag – Tuesday
Onsdag – Wednesday
Torsdag – Thursday
Fredag – Friday
Lördag – Saturday
Söndag - Sunday
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