Settling In

It's the weekend and I think it's time for another blog entry!

Not much has happened really, just been getting used to my surroundings having quite nights in watching movies/episodes on the laptop and heading to the gym. With the exception of today, the weather has been mostly light rain. However that hasn't stopped me from going into the centre each day.

Gothenburg definitely has it's charm and I have to say I wasn't that impressed when I first got here...but it's really growing on me and you find the little gems here.

I've gotten to know where the important things in the city are for me for when I start studying, like where my faculty is and the main building of GU. I've never studied at an inner-city University before but I think it's gonna be cool. As they (GU) say on their website, it is pretty much like the whole city is the campus. I thought it was gonna be quite confusing or inconvenient having the University spread across the city but it's all fairly close together and from what I can gather it's just the faculties that are in separate locations. So thankfully it doesn't look like I'll have one class on Aksjashfgatan or Kjsdfhtorget (my comical impression of what Swedish road names look like).

I'm actually really looking forward for the semester to begin. I am keen to see how different Uni will be here compared to ECU back in Perth and I'm really happy to be doing Social Science units and getting some PR/Advertising ones marked off in their place. It's not to say that the PR/Advertising units are bad at ECU, but for me personally I don't feel like they challenge me to think differently the way the Marketing units have.

(Main GU building on Vasagatan)

Since most people seem to get around here by Bicycle, I thought it would be best to get one of my own. I was searching blocket.se, it's more or less the Gumtree/Craigslist of Sweden. So from what I have found is that the amount of used bikes is few and the pricing is not great unless you are happy with a rusted hipster ride, and new bikes are stupidly expensive. However I did manage to finally find a descent bike in Team Sportlia in the shopping complex between Centralstation and the Opera House for 2,500kr! It's an Australian brand as well (Peak) so why not, hey? I will have to fiddle with it a little bit as the gears seem to slip around a bit, but a little visit to the University of YouTube I guess I just have to fiddle with the rear derailleur a bit. 

(My new bike on the left. The right, showing how heavy the use of bikes is in Gothenburg)

So what about the culture here then? Well so far I've found everyone really friendly and willing to help out and have no problem switching over to English for you. There is a structure of how everything should work and the Swedish like to follow it. There is an order of priority: Pedestrians >Cyclists>Cars and everyone understands who they have to give way to and there is no aggression about it. 

I'm yet to really see anything in Sweden that is cheaper than what they would be in Australia. I knew people said Scandinavia was expensive but I thought that was just to the standards of the rest of the continent. Apparently Norway is meant to be even more expensive than Sweden is so on one hand I want to avoid it like the plague but then I hear about the stunning scenery there so I may just get suckered in yet.

I also ran into an old housemate from Australia midweek. I knew he lived in Gothenburg but I didn't think I would bump into him around this more southern part of the area. Even he was saying he never shops at that centre but he was working in the area. It was really good to see a familiar face in what at the moment is an unfamiliar place.

This is the arrival week for most International Students, so it will nice to meet who I'm going to be studying with and have some people to hang out with more regularly. It's all pretty well organised here, On Wednesday there is a Student Fair at the main GU building to get to know everyone and then apparently all International Students are greeted by the Mayor of Gothenburg which I think is pretty cool.

I think that's it for now. Will probably update in a week when there is something to report. Later!