Hej guys!
I arrived in Falun, Sweden on January 17, after a 2:30 hour flight from Paris to Stockholm and a 2:30 hour train trip from Stockholm to Falun. The first thing that impressed me when I arrived at Stockholm Arlanda airport was how quiet it was compared to Paris Roissy-CDG airport. There were considerably less people, and therefore far less noise.
During the following days, I discovered the joys of dealing with the cold, even tough my body seems to have adapted to the Swedish cold quite quickly : in France, when it was 2 degrees Celsius, I was like "AMAGAD I AIN'T GOING OUT IT'S TOO COLD", now I'm like "Meh, -7°, nice weather.".
But the other day, I had to go out in -25 degrees weather, and MAN I WAS COLD!
Also, I just can't get used to night falling at 4:00/ 4:30 PM.
Because of that, I always tend to believe it's 7 PM when it's actually 5PM. xD
Other than that, there's snow everywhere and the landscapes are incredibly beautiful. I guess the city will look totally different and new after the snow melts. Can't wait.
The following pictures were taken a week ago near Britsen, our student residence :
I live in a student residence with many international students like me. Surprisingly enough, I haven't met any native English speakers yet. :/
As the days passed, I began to feel down, for many reasons. First, it's harder to make friends when you're not speaking in your native language, so I felt kinda lonely. Also, being a stranger is a whole new feeling for me. Being an absolute beginner in Swedish, I felt sort of isolated each time I went to the supermarket and heard people saying things I didn't understand.
That being said, each time I needed help, I could ask in English and people would speak English to help me. And they would really take the time to explain things, not just say a few words as fast as possible to get rid of me.
Sadly, that just doesn't happen in France. I wonder how foreigners feel when they come for the first time in France. If you go outside the most touristic areas, chances are people will give you weird looks if you talk to them in English. Not because they're not willing to help, but because they are absolutely not used to speaking English. English is like a "school-only" thing in France.
I chose to study in Sweden for 2 reasons :
1/ To improve my (spoken) English
2/ To learn a whole new language (yayyyy Swedish)
I've had 4 Swedish classes so far. I can't tell you how great it is to suddenly find out you're able to understand a few words, or even whole sentences at the supermarket, even though I'm totally unable to reply in Swedish for the moment. x)
Concerning English, I've always been very self-conscious about my accent, and I am even more now. For the past few days I've been hating myself for not being able to speak without having to make efforts to pronounce everything the right way. It's so frustrating to be able to watch TV shows and movies in a foreign language, and not be able to speak as well as the characters. So, for the past few weeks, I have been angsting about my accent.
And then I realized a very obvious thing, so obvious I didn't even think of it before.
It was along the lines of "Well of course you have a French accent, DUH. You've never spoken English outside of France, how could you NOT have an accent?". Now, I'm beginning to get used to the idea that I'll never sound like a native speaker
(because I'm obviously not one --"), but I'm still willing to improve my accent, so that I can speak without having to concentrate like mad on each word. Wish me luck, 'cause I'm gonna need it. I keep making silly mistakes when I talk! My written English is decent (at least I hope so D: ) but my spoken English is terrible in comparison. And it's damn frustrating. Anyway. Enough with the rant. x)
That's it for today!
See you /
vi ses!
PS : More pictures on my blog :
goodmorningsweden.wordpress.co…
