Hello. I've decided to start posting about my life again now that I've gone and moved 5000 miles away from most of my friends and family. For those that don't know, I just moved to Stockholm to work on a master's degree in Scientific Computing at Kungliga Tekniska högskolan (the Royal Institute of Technology). We had some review classes last week, but my real courses start tomorrow. I am very excited to be here.
Stockholm so far seems really great. Geographically, it reminds me of Seattle in a lot of ways, but is colder and flatter. I don't know any Swedish (my program is taught in English), which causes problems with reading my mail, some signs, and a lot of web sites. Fortunately just about everyone in Sweden speaks English very well. I hope to learn the language as soon as possible though.
So far I've met several other new international students via some parties and other events organized by the university. There are people from something like 100 countries coming into my school this year, which is very cool! I've met folks from France, Greece, Moldova, The Netherlands, Pakistan, Australia, a whole bunch from Iran, and some other countries. So far I've only seen three Americans. And, amusingly enough, I haven't really met many Swedes yet.
This weekend I managed to get some items that I've been sorely missing, namely reliable Internet access, a phone, and a bicycle. My Internet connection is novel in that it uses the mobile phone network, and thus works everywhere in Sweden, but is quite cheap at 199 crowns a month (just under 30USD). I might be replacing it with DSL due to it being a little slow and very laggy, but it's a nice interim solution for getting online. The bicycle I just got today. It's a nice used steel touring bike outfitted with racks, fenders, and other handy gizmos. I will take some pics and post those soon, but in the mean time there's a photo on the ad where my friend Kalen found it.
Well that's enough for tonight. I bought a new camera just before I got here, so you can see some of my photos here on flickr.
