VI

Now that I´ve started my second course here I´m getting the feeling that, as opposed to the stories I had heard from students that already went on exchanges, the courses at Stockholm University have a higher difficulty level than I´m used to. I´d heard a lot of stories about courses being a lot easier in other countries compared to the Netherlands, but I must admit I haven´t noticed that! The 2 courses I´ve followed until now (Real estate management and now History of the welfare state) are pretty die-hard! Maybe it is because you do not follow different courses simultaneously, but nevertheless the level is pretty high. History of the welfare state is actually the first real course for me, since I dropped Real estate management (see an older blog entry). The course basically consists of 6 lectures in total, and a lot of home reading. We’re talking about approximately 1200 pages of material here, so that’s not too shabby! Each lecture consists of a presentation by the professor, and 2 presentations by students, followed by a discussion. It is a very interactive way of learning and you really get involved with the subject. With 12 people it’s also a really small group, which is also nice. 

Next week another course of mine starts, namely International marketing. I have to do 2 courses simultaneously (which, as I’ve explained many times, is not usual here) because I dropped the first course but I still have to meet my requirements. Since I`ve had quite a lot of spare time the last weeks because I had no courses except for the Swedish language course, I already started reading for International Marketing, and I´ve actually already finished the book. I can imagine people would declare me completely lunatic for starting my studies before the course had started, but I found it quite satisfactory to finally be able to do something useful after doing such an incredible amount of fun things. In addition to that, I was really into the book; this course seems to be exactly my field of interest. You can imagine that I’m pretty glad I was able to change courses! Hopefully the lectures will be as interesting as the literature!

Last but not least: The Swedish language course level 1 is running to an end. We’ve learned quite a lot of the grammatical aspect of the language, including present tense/past tense/perfects in verbs and plurals. However, I would have liked if we would have spent a little more time on learning some vocabulary. It’s good to know grammar, but when I do not have words to apply it with it does not have much use for me! Next week is the exam on Monday, so we’ll see how that goes. Depending on the result of that we can choose to do a follow-up level 2 course. But first we’ll see how this one will come to an end!

That’s enough about my university business here! The senior buddy program organized a Swedish dinner. Since we were supposed to dress up in a Swedish theme, Urban and I went to the city beforehand to find something suitable for the evening. The result of this is viewable in my last blog! It was funny to see that most people put an effort in to dressing up; There were a lot of Vikings, Björn Borgs, Pipi Longstockings, and a lot of people dressed in yellow or blue (Colors of the Swedish flag). The dinner was of course completely in style: Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. As a desert we got a Swedish pastry. After this, the dinner tables were pushed to the sides and the party started! However I couldn’t stay for very long, because I had to pick up my sweet sweet girlfriend from the airport the next day very early in the morning! I showed her as much as I can show of Stockholm in 2.5 days, and we had a very very very lovely weekend. It was hard to say goodbye again so quickly, but luckily she will visit me again soon!

The buddy program also organized for the complete group to go on a cruise to Finland. I was expecting a relatively small cruise and a likewise party, but the cruise was huge! It had accommodation for 3000 people, and included a complete shopping mall, several swimming pools, a sauna, several bars and a club, and much more! I had never been on a cruise like this so I was quite impressed. We had to get up really early to get there, so everyone was very tired throughout the day. However, this didn’t keep most of us to participate in the scavenger hunt the buddy program had organized. There were some pretty funny assignments on there, such as asking one of the crew members to marry one of our group members and finding a rubber duck. It was great fun, and our group actually won! However the prize was a bit disappointing, namely a big piece of candy. After this, we had a couple of hours to kill before the dinner. The dinner was a very big buffet, with a lot of different kinds of fish and pretty much everything else you can think of. After this dinner, we started to do some drinks and eventually go to the bars area. There was also a karaoke bar where we sung a spectacular version of “Angels” by Robbie Williams. The cruise was a lot of fun!

I´ve really got used to living here in Stockholm. The city, the atmosphere and the people I´ve met here are just phenomenal! Sometimes I wonder about how it would be to live here and frankly, I think that´s a thought that will occupy my mind for a long time!