Day 8 – Traveling to Umeå

My sleeping area

We have finally arrived in Umeå! It was a long journey over night but we all slept pretty much the entire train ride here. We boarded the train at 10:01 p.m. in Uppsala and it arrived at 7:00 a.m. here in Umeå! I could not believe that our adventures around Sweden so far have been amazing! Sweden is such a beautiful country.

Shower and Toilet Room

Once we arrived in Umea, our Swedish professor, Lennart, was kind enough to pick us up from the train station and take us to the university. He had a very small car and we crammed all our luggage into his car! I do not know how we made it to the university but we did! Once we arrived on campus, he drove around showing us various places we need to know about like the international housing department, where our class will be held, where to go shopping for groceries, and where we would be living.

Our rooms are in close proximity, but four of us are in a separate building, as for Amanda and I are just a floor apart in the same building. While visiting everyone else’s dorms we have met some very nice people. No one is really out and in our complex, so we try to keep together. Our rooms are very different from the U.S. we have a shower, toilet, and closet in one area, followed by a door that I can close and lock. Then there is a bigger room where I will be sleeping. It is different sleeping in this huge room where there is no one else around.

My closet for now

After we got settled into our rooms, some the UWW girls and I went to the grocery store since we were still waiting for Kim and Sara to get to Umeå. It was an experience! I know that we have been at different grocery stores throughout Sweden, but this store just seemed smaller and it was much harder to find groceries. We were trying to read the labels on everything, but it was all in Swedish. But luckily I had my handy dandy Swedish dictionary to help us out with a few words.

Tomorrow we plan on touring Umeå to visit the places on campus. This should be interesting seeing the various campus rooms. We might even adventure out off campus to see what else we can find!