Lesleyanne MacKay – Film & Media – Level 3
Malmo University, Sweden
Part 1
I arrived in Sweden on the 10th of January and stayed the night with a good friend.
The next day was filled with excitement which quickly deteriorated into paranoid madness. It was moving day, and I was meant to sign my contract which I was inevitably late for due to the fact I was lugging around 35kg of baggage.
Afterwards I got shipped off in a taxi to my apartment building where I was to be greeted by a friendly fellow student with my keys. However, upon arrival I found nothing and no one except the dark cold night. After waiting a few minutes for someone to appear I began questioning the taxi driver and his ability to follow a Sat Nav. A few minutes passed where I unconvinced myself I had been stranded with all my luggage outside a random apartment building I went for a wander hauling my bags behind me searching to see if I was possibly dropped at the wrong entrance.
After perhaps ten minutes a student living on the same floor as me let me in the building where I had to simply wait for my keys to appear with a person. It took approximately an hour for the floor representative to make an appearance, and he sorted everything out from there.
I was finally let into my room after two hours of what felt like unnecessary stress and left to unpack and get settled. Once settled I went to the shops which deserves a whole other post and so it shall receive one. I then spent my night messaging family and friends and watching Netflix.
Part 2
After unpacking I found myself unbelievably hungry after the stress of simply trying to get my keys. The local supermarket is roughly a three-minute walk from my building so it was easily found, and I began my journey to fill the massive appetite I had managed to work up.
Now shopping is easy enough, you find what you need, put it in the basket, then pay.
Or at least that’s what I thought. Being in Sweden I was expecting the products to be written in Swedish… this only occurred to me as a problem when I realised, I would be unable to check the ingredients in the products – I’m vegetarian and so checking that everything was suitable for me to eat became a challenge.
Now I’ve never had to use Google translate for many things before and definitely not while shopping, it was certainly a task. Thankfully not every item needed translating and after far too long I realised I should simply search for the phrase ‘suitable for vegetarians’ which in Swedish is ‘passande for vegetarianer’.
Due to the mass of food that I purchased (which led me to return back to the basket area and collect another basket as well as hold items) and my lack of trust in paper bags I morphed into a reject who steals supermarket trolleys. Yes, I stole a trolley for my shopping and walked it all the back to my apartment - just as well too seeing as when I arrived the paper bags were ripped when I made it back.
Part 3
My first month here has been pretty comfortable, I haven’t done all that much exploring which is something that needs to change, I’ve mostly went to classes and binge watched programmes on Netflix.
Classes have been really fun so far and not too challenging. They’re very different compared to my home university: the readings aren’t as long or as challenging to decipher; there is lots of non-compulsory class time; obviously the subject is different but I’ve found that there’s lots of crossing between what I’m studying in Sweden and what I study at home - perhaps that factor has helped me in understanding better than others who seem to struggle to grasp certain concepts.
I bought a contract for Malmo by Bike which is a company that allows you to rent bikes situated throughout the city and rent them for up to an hour, you can then return the bike and select another one if you wish to. This makes travelling around really easy, the land is super flat here so cycling makes so much sense - plus it’s quicker than walking everywhere, not to mention healthier.
If I’m not in class, I can usually be found in my bedroom watching Netflix on my laptop or on Facetime to my girlfriend. I have managed to work my way through seasons 2-5 of ‘Orange is the new Black‘, season 2 of ‘Disjointed‘, season 1 of ‘The end of the f**king world‘, seasons 2-5 of ‘Gilmore Girls’ as well as keeping up with ‘Riverdale‘, ‘The Flash‘, and ‘Arrow’.
Having written that out it’s the first time I have actually taken in and realised how much I have watched, and that’s just the TV series, I didn’t even mention the films I’ve watched… I think I’ll give that a miss.
That is pretty much my month first on exchange… how productive.
