How to fake your way through Sweden...

Not Swedish? Here are four things you'll need in order to appear like an everyday Swede:

I'm not going to lie, I'll probably pick up a shnazzy pair while I'm here.

1. Shoes.  Converse shoes.  Everyone wears them here.  It's either Converses or black leather ankle boots.

Jeggings.  Why...?

2. Skinny jeans.  If you're walking in town, 75% of the girls you see will be wearing skinny jeans, leggings, or  worse, jeggings.

Swedish, tall, but no blonde hair.  Also, not female.

3. Blonde hair.  The stereotype is kind of true.  No wonder people whom I can't recall having met at orientation remember me instantly.  I have to remind myself that I'm not at UBC/Vancouver anymore...

4. Height. Let's face it, most of the Swedes here are not shorter than 5''.

So long as you have skinny jeans and Converses, you're basically a Swede (even if you're not).

Numbers 3 and 4 are important, but not as important as numbers 1 and 2.  So if you don't have blonde hair and are short, you can still resemble a Swede, and maybe someone will even walk up to you and say, "Hej, Talar du svenska?"

It's raining apples!

Apples galore!

 
Studying at a smaller school definitely has its perks.  SLU delivers the same environment and feel as LFS does back at home.  Class sizes are smaller, I have the opportunity to get to know my classmates better, and since this is an agricultural sciences school, many students have the same values and interests as I do. 

How many schools have you attended where your housemates all compost and recycle willingly, and can have a conversation with you at breakfast about soil hydrology and their experience dissecting a cow udder? (Thankfully, cow udder dissections are not a recurring theme at the dinner table).

Ultuna apples

And did I mention that the campus has free and local food?  That's right, we've got an apple orchard on campus.  Jackpot!!

Ready to devour our desserts!

I went over to Lies and Laura's place for an ice cream party, so I brought over a Swedish Apple Pie.  Well, according to Allrecipes, this is a Swedish Apple Pie.  Regardless of its authenticity, it's simple and easy to make, and even more delicious with the freshly-picked apples from Ultuna :)

Swedish Apple Pie.  Or should I say, "Swedish" Apple Pie..

Swedish Apple Pie (is it really Swedish?)

1 1/2 pounds thinly sliced apples (or enough to fill the pan)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Toss the apples with 2 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon.  Pour into a pie plate and spread evenly.
In a small bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients.  Spread the dough over the apples, pressing it firmly overtop to create a crust.
Bake for 45 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

All this apple pie and baking talk had some of my friends asking me what is a Canadian dessert?  To be honest, I could only think of nanaimo bars, beaver tail, and anything involving maple syrup.  So I have a question for all of you that I hope you can help me out with: what is a Canadian dessert?

I am Canadian!

I had an interesting conversation with a guy in my class last week.  It started like this:

"Where are you from?"

"Canada."

"Oh, but you don't look Canadian!"

"Right.  My ethnicity is Chinese, but I am Canadian."

It's funny how I always take for granted back at home that people understand that being Chinese doesn't mean that I'm not Canadian. What is the definition of a Canadian, anyway?

My classmate apparently has different ideals.  He told me that I should respect and acknowledge my ethnic heritage: "If your Dad is Chinese, you should say that you are Chinese."

Am I ashamed to be Chinese? Of course not!  I'm proud of who I am, my background, my family heritage.  However, my first time visiting China was not until this summer, and I was born and raised in Canada, with English being my mother tongue.  I suppose I could say I'm Chinese-Canadian, but why should I have to defend my reason for calling myself a Canadian? Legally, my birth certificate clearly states that I am Canadian. 

It is definitely an experience having to constantly explain to someone that I'm Canadian, followed by, "Oh, and I'm Chinese," since this will most often be the next question (or else the person will walk away looking slightly confused).   Many people who have not traveled to Canada don't have an understanding of just how multicultural our nation is.  And with that, I present to you a personal favourite Russell Peters clip (I hope you appreciate his humour!)...

There's no stopping me and my camera

Me, Tina, Sonja, and Noemie in Stockholm

I have a bizarre, almost uncontrollable need to take several shots of the same scene, and so I often end up with about five pictures in a row that are practically identical.

When I go traveling, this obsession with picture-taking becomes unleashed (and yes, I still make fun of the silly tourists in Vancouver).  And to matters more complicated, I am finding it difficult to keep my hands from constantly holding the "peace" sign when someone takes a picture of me.  It seems as though the two weeks I spent in China still haven't rubbed off..

This weekend, Sonja, Marisa, Tina, Noemie and I left Uppsala to visit Stockholm, which is conveniently only an hour bus ride away.

As Stockholm is made up of 14 islands, you're surrounded by the Baltic Sea.

I have fallen in love with this city.  So historical, such beautiful buildings and architecture, so European!

The Royal Palace, from a distance.

We first hit up the Royal Palace of Stockholm (the Royal Family does not actually reside here).

Famous chocolate cafe in Gamla Stan

Next, we visited Gamla Stan, or "Old Town." This is kind of like Gastown (minus the sketchiness and dirtiness), with cobblestone pedestrian streets, cute little cafes in the alleys, (overpriced) tourist stores, famous chocolate shops and restaurants...

The Vasa

We then walked towards Djurgarden, but stopped short to visit the Vasamuseet, the most-visited museum in all of Sweden!  It displays  the intact (95% real) Vasa, the ship that sunk 20 minutes into its journey from Sweden to Poland in the 1600s.  I'm not much of a museum person, but this is one museum that I highly recommend going to!  It costs 80 SEK for students.

Note to self: turn on the flash!

After lunch outside in the sun, we wandered through Ostermalm, and into the Saluhall.  This is just like Granville Island!  A foodie's dream!  Artisan cheese, chocolates, Swedish (and French) pastries, breads, coffee, even reindeer meat.

The Princess Cake

 We ended our day with fika at a lovely little cafe in Gamla Stan.  I tasted my first Swedish dessert, called the Princess Cake.  I was honestly not impressed, as I found it way too sweet and bland for my taste.  But I did feel somewhat royal while eating it..

This one's for the Sisterhood. Teddy had a blast!

Not bad for just one day in the capital city of Sweden!  I will definitely be coming back again to visit more of its sights, or for its Christmas markets.  And of course,  my camera will be there to capture every moment :)

Oh, right, school.

I'm a dork, I can't help it.

 Classes started last Monday, and I am one of the few exchange students who has class every day.  Lucky me!

The semesters are quite different from those in Canada.  Instead of taking four or five courses at time per semester, students here take one or two courses per "bloc." There are four blocs per semester, so each class finishes up in just a couple of months.  The first class I am taking, a Masters Level course, is "Soils of the World."  On the second day of class, we went to the Kunsangen Farm, which belongs to SLU as a research farm and is a 15 minute bike ride from campus.  Unlike my soils class at UBC, where the TAs are kind enough to dig the soil pits ahead of time for us, my professor divided us up in groups of five, gave us a few shovels, and pointed to where we should start digging.  I'm not complaining, as in the end I got to see some awesome soil horizons and we had to identify the each layer of soil.  Don't laugh, I know I'm a nerd.

My second class is another Masters course, called, "Water Management, Soil Conservation, and Land Evaluation."  I have a question for you: does this title in any way imply engineering??  Because it turns out it's an agricultural engineering course!  This is just fine and dandy for me, the girl who has avoided all physics courses in university and barely understood Physics 11.

The class sizes are pretty small, by UBC standards, at about 20 students in each class.  Most of them are international Masters students, seeing as how the professors speak English in these classes.  There are a few exchange students, including a couple of Quebecois - hooray, Canadians (sort of)!  Since most of classes are at least 3 hours a day, we have plenty of time to get to know one another as well as speak one-on-one with the profs, who themselves teach in an informal, rather relaxed fashion.  We often have fika after every hour.

Oh, yes, fika.  Fika fika fika.  This word means coffee break, and happens all the time in Sweden.  We meet for fika with friends between classes, visit their places for a quick fika and visit, or go to town at night for fika.

You might be wondering which nation I chose in the end.  I went with Varmlands nation.  It's pretty much the same as many of the other nations, in that it has a sports club, choir, fika, brunch, pub, etc.  I also joined the SLU Student Nation for another 250 SEK, because this also gives you access to events and happenings on campus.  So when I'm not struggling to understand physics, I can head to the pub to drown my sorrows.  Just kidding..