Halloween - Umea Style

That is, there really isn't much of a celebration. The children dress up and 'beg for candy,' but adults do not participate at all. Today was a beautiful day in Umea. We woke up early to make sure we didn't miss the big delicious hotel breakfast. It turns out today was daylight savings in Sweden so we were an hour early! After eating a variety of traditional Swedish breakfast foods, we rested. Nikole and I decided to go walk to Västerbottens museum. http://www.vbm.se/ It was a beautiful walk and the museum was really nice and there were some great works of art and it was free. Something both Nikole and I noticed at the museum (and also at dinners and cafes) was how parents handled their children's behaviors. The children are always reallybeing children, such as running around the museum, playing in restaurants under the tables. The interesting part of that is the parents seem to enjoy watching their children play and appreciate their behavior rather than reprimand them. Also, the other adults in these public places have the same mentality towards these playing children. It seems as if everyone just knows they're kids and that is how they behave. This makes me even more interested to see what the student-teacher relationship will be like in the schools where we're teaching.

Since it was so beautiful out we decided to grab our laptops and sit in the cafe to people watch and work on some school stuff, and work on my Swedish!

We found out that everything in Umea closes on 4pm on Sundays. After the museum we went to the grocery store to buy some water and noticed everything in the mall was closing. The restaurants, shops and even street venders were closed for the night. We did find an 'American' sports bar where we could have dinner. It was a good dinner, but the rest of the night was boring as there is nothing to do.

Tomorrow we move into our international norms. We are all looking forward to this, so we can finally unpack and start grocery shopping so we can cook some meals. Also, we're planning some day trips since we don't have anything until Nov. 4 at 10am.

Saturday 30th of October part 2

Hej - Since today is so cold and rainy, we are just sitting in a cafe doing some work. We went to the store to get some postcards for our classrooms and walked around a bit. There was a street vender (from Spain) selling natural candy. It was like a cross between licorice and taffy, bra (g00d)! I am still searching for the perfect winter coat and boots! Speaking of fashion, all the girls here wear tights, boots and large, baggy sweaters/jackets and in drab colors. The men wear much nicer clothes and boots as well. Nikole and I decided we'd buy some leggings and try to fit in today. I don't know how successful we were, but I was warmer than I thought I'd be! We also used the Bankomat for the first time today, there was an English option, so it wasn't as scary. The money here is in Krona (pronounced Crown). It comes in either 20,50,100 or 500 bill and the coins are 1,5 or 10. There is no change, everything already has tax included and is always rounded to the nearest krona. The coins are essentially just smaller bills, although they look like coins. I'm not sure what we're doing tonight, but if it is anything interesting, I'll post it. We heard of some celebrations either tonight or Sunday night for Halloween! Ha det bra!

Saturday 30th of October

Today is a very cold rainy day in Umea. Yesterday was Kaci's (one of the girls) birthday. She was having a rough start to her birthday so Nikole and I went to the bakery to buy her a birthday cake. We found a traditional Swedish cake called a 'Princess' cake. Its made up from a sponge cake, whipped cream, and raspberry filling with an almond fondant frosting. It was delicious and it helped brighten her day. After buying the cake we did some more walking around the city, there is so much more to explore! We walked down by the river and took some pictures of the water and beautiful buildings. We don't know what they are yet, but we're working on it. We went out to dinner and drinks for Kaci's birthday. We walked around a lot before we found the right place to go. Many of the restaurants and pubs nearby were so busy it was difficult try to communicate in broken English/Swedish. We found a pub that had amazing burgers and fish & chips dinner. I read online that their 'burgers' often consist of horse meat, so that may be what I ate last night! Everyday we've been here, there has been music playing in the main plaza...the interesting party is that the bands are in a clear plex-glass box that has a TV over top. While we were walking by, we heard Guns N Roses 'Sweet Child of Mine' and Van Halen's 'Jump'. We thought this is where the Jazz Fest would be taking place, but after lots of walking and asking last night we found out that the Fest is in a nice building and was much more formal and expensive. The dinner and pubs were a fine replacement. We noticed that there are no TVs in any of the pubs or music. It is a much more casual area meant for catching up and enjoying company. I'm sure there are more club like places somewhere, we just haven't found them yet.

I am writing this as I'm sitting on my bed in Umea! All of our flights were great. The first flight from Chicago to Stockholm was about 8 hours long, but there were 2 great meals and we each had two seats to ourselves. The second flight from Stockholm to Umea was super quick, only an hour.

It is really sunny and beautiful right now, but cold. There is snow on the ground and everyone is wearing winter coats, hats, gloves, etc.

Our hotel is super cute. Its right down in the main area of everything. The theme of the hotel is modern with lots of bright colors and amazing bathroom. We'll be staying here until Monday November 1st when we move into the international dorms. It's about 2pm Thursday afternoon here. We plan on resting up then doing a little shopping to get a lay of the land and then go out to dinner.

Welcome!

Welcome everyone! This is my blog I set up for when I'm in Sweden and traveling Europe. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up to date and interesting. Take care!