What Am I Doing Here?!!!

Umm.. taking a ridiculously advanced Swedish class. So, after taking 1 year of Swedish at UW, I was sitting pretty comfortable at "Intermediate Swedish." So, I get here, and they keep saying- oh- the advanced class this, the advanced class that, and I thought it was maybe a lost in translation thing. Nope. Turns out they only have a beginner class and an advanced class. Since I already know how to say "My name is Courtney. I like ice cream." (Jag heter Courtney. Jag gillar mjukglass.), they put me in the advanced class. We aren't allowed to speak a word English, and for the first week of class I got really familiar with the phrase "I don't understand." (Jag förstå inte.), but it is going a bit better now. That whole immersion thing may sort of have some bearings, it turns out. My class has 10 people in it. Me, 3 Californians, 1 older German guy, 1 older crazy looking Romanian lady (Looks like this:)


1 annoying Greek guy, 2 nice Chinese girls, and 1 awesome girl from Gambia. The other 2 beginning classes are made up of mostly 40 19-20 year old Californians. They are all really nice, but kind of a lot to handle. Most of it is probably the age thing. I suppose if I was 19 and was in a country that allowed you to drink at bars, I would probably be like- "Dude! Lets get wasted!!" too, but I'm not, so well, yeah, I'm not.

I usually have 1-2 hours of homework every night. It probably wouldn't take that long for most people, but since I am not advanced, I have to look up every other word or so. But- the good news is that the weather this week has been amazing and so when I'm not at class (3 1/2 hours a day) or on one of the feildtrips (more on some of those later) with my program, I have been doing my homework while laying out in the sun in the park next to my apartment. I cant complain about that, that is for sure.

Most days I wake up, make my quadruple americano (I cannot kick my caffeine habit and having an apartment furnished with an espresso machine isn't helping), ride my cute pink bike with a basket to class, sit through class, go shopping at the square in town that has a farmers market everyday, come home, make lunch, sit outside in the sun, do some homework until Blake comes home, and then we make dinner and either go for bike rides or relax and hang out and watch a movie. Yeah, I would say I like it here. :)