27 August 2014
Utländske means Foreign in Swedish, and nØlla means Zero. Here at KTH all of the incoming students are called nØllan because they are technically not in their first semester yet. They spend two weeks before school starts going through “Reception” aka organized hazing. For those of you reading this from Cal Poly, they are basically wowies. They have to wear silly things on their head, and they are lead around by groups of older students wearing funny clothes. In Sweden, all of the older students wear colored jumpers/overalls. Each program has a different color (Computer Science is hot pink). They look like this:
The last few days have been spent site seeing, making new friends, and getting to know the KTH campus. I visited the Palace, explored more on Galma Stan, walked around the city (a lot), took a second trip to IKEA, and participated in KTH new student events. Here’s a few pictures of the adventures!
On Sunday August 24, Matt (also from Cal Poly) and I took a trip to find the best Kanelbullar in town. It was absolutely enormous, but so amazing! :P Kanelbullar are the cinnamon buns that Sweden is famous for. They sell them in every cafe, 7Eleven, and grocery store in town. We also adventured through the city and found this really cool skinny pathway (which other people seemed to think was important as well). This was the day we also went on top of a super tall building and took the gorgeous panoramas of the city (as seen above).
Stockholm is such a beautiful and special city. It’s full of rich history, beautiful people, and so much life. KTH is such a beautiful school as well. I am absolutely thrilled to start my courses next Monday. How could I not be excited? I get to go to class in these buildings! When it comes time to buckle down and study, I get to go to the beautiful building below the panorama where sun shines in from the skylight, and baristas make amazing soy cafe lattes.
In the evenings as I walk back from a tiring day of meeting new people, walking many kilometers, and learning about a new culture, I am greeted by this skyline of the Natural History Museum of Sweden and the student housing up the hill. Det är en vacker utsikt.
