...the man dancing next to you is named Magnus.

and

...the party theme doesn't make any sense.

After just a few short days in town, before my body had adjusted to the time change and stopped waking me up at weird hours of the night insisting to be fed, I learned that there was going to be a party for new students at a club loosely connected with the university (they give students a discount on the cover).  Because of my traveling fiasco, I had missed the orientation event in which they had handed out the entry wristbands and revealed the party's theme.  The day of the party I went about my routine like normal: waking up confused as to where I was, eating food out of containers with labels I couldn't read, running uphill, smuggling my powerstrip out of the building (another story for another time); all the time thinking that I wouldn't get to go to the party.  Fortunately for me, while I was making dinner my neighbor Alex from Latvia asked me if I was going to the party that night.  I explain to him my lack of wristband, and he offered me an extra one he had been given on accident during orientation.  Success!  He told me he'd see me at 8 p.m. for the pre-party in the upstairs kitchen.

At 9:30 I made my way up to the pre-party, remembering that nothing starts on time here, and walked into the overcrowded kitchen.  Kitchen parties are apparently the way things are done here at Norrmalm (my apartment) due to the fact that the lounge is closed for renovations and our rooms can't handle more than five or six people.  Holding the one beer I had left after meeting my German neighbors (also for another time), I walked in and immediately sat down next to a group of people.  Three seconds later when I realized I don't speak Dutch, I turned to find someone else to talk to.  I introduced myself to a girl named Lies (sounds like lease and also Dutch coincidentally), and we ended up talking about the different classes we would be starting in a couple of days.  We were joined by the other later comers, mostly because we were standing in front of the door, and before long, everyone stood up and paraded out for the club.  On the way, I asked a Belgian guy I met named Hans what kind of party we were going to.  His answer: Hawaiin.

...his name was Magnus.

Yes, I was also confused/surprised.  Here, in Sweden, amidst the 3 feet of standing snow, we are actually walking to a Hawaiin party?  I know that I'm the only American in my building, but I feel like at least one other person should have been as perplexed as I was.  This apparently was not the case, and everyone else was pumped for the party, especially the guys.  I couldn't blame them; it was their first theme party in Sweden.  I was just having trouble assembling my expectations.  Their imaginations were already lost in visions of anticipation, while mine was struggling to form a coherent opinion.  When we finally arrived and checked our coats, the reality was not quite what we had expected.  There were no tiki torches, no fire dancers, no grass skirts, only a few bartenders wearing bikinis, two flowered garlands sagging low from the ceiling, and a mob of what we were later told were nursing students running around in the masks and caps they had gotten at their clinicals that afternoon. 

Confused by this initial site, I passed by the bar to where some people were dancing nearby and tried to establish a game plan.  People quickly swarmed all around me in the overcrowded area between beer and boogie, and while I stood there half dancing / half trying to figure out if the bartenders took anything other than cash, someone sort of fell into me from behind.  He was apologizing before I even turn around, saying that it was completely his fault and asking me to forgive him.  I began to say that it was no problem because of how crowded the club was when I found myself face to face with a Tiger of Sweden.  This man was so well put together and well dressed that I had to remind myself the people around him were normal like me and not a group of uglies he paid to follow him around and highlight his prepossessing features and wardrobe.  I held out my hand to introduce myself and show I wasn't upset, and he gladly returned the gesture.  He told me his name was Magnus and being a Sundsvall native, asked me how I liked the city so far.  I briefly told him that I was enjoying myself and struggled not to be distracted by the fact that people (both men and women) stopped as they passed by us just to stare at him.  He listened politely, as I eventually learned all Swedes do, and told me he hoped to see me again in the future.  Still a little stunned but realizing that when he walked away he took the crowd with him, I hurried off to find the people I came to the party with.

...you are handed three beers.

Being the heavy non-drinker that I am, I forgot to bring any cash with me to the club.  So when I made it over to where my group was, I had trouble explaining why my hands were empty.  It didn't take me long to learn that if you are a likeable enough guy, many Europeans will gladly buy you a drink with a sort of unspoken agreement that you will return the favor sometime in the future.  I was more than alright with this arrangement and for the rest of the night tried keeping a mental tally of IOUB's in addition to remembering each person's name.  This worked well for a couple of hours, and I had a great time talking with the people I walked over with.  It wasn't until later in the night, about the time Charlotte (shar-low-tah) from Holland was berating me for not knowing Nils Holgersson, a mischeif causing, giant goose riding, fairytale character so dear to many Europeans' childhoods that he is even on the 20 Kronor note (which he is I discovered)
             

that three different people approached me at once holding a new beer for me.  Well, between you and me, let's just say that I didn't want to be rude.

...the after party was in a cigarette.

The rest of the night went very well.  We even made our way down to the bigger dance floor where house music was playing and people from all over the world were dancing.  Seeing so many people representing so many different cultures dancing together was a great experience.  There were no expectations and very little self consciousness.  The best part was that it was actually dancing, not the normal sex-in-public style from back home. 

The club eventually closed at 2 in the morning, which I was informed was way too early for respectable Europeans, so we quickly attached ourselves to a group heading to an apartment building for an after party.  Upon arriving at Domas's (say it a couple of times to yourself and then try not to laugh like an immature American) apartment, we realized that it would be standing room only for most of us.  Things were going okay, but after awhile, I couldn't help feel the aggravation that accompanies second hand smoke.  I agitatedly kept looking around the room, but I couldn't find anyone with cigarette in mouth or hand.  Hans quickly realized my confusion and informed me that Domas had a special smoking light (pseudo Swedish vaporizer thing) in the room so people didn't have to go out in the cold to smoke.  Perfect, I was standing in a giant cigarette.  Fortunately, we all decided to leave soon after that for the comfort and chairs of our apartments.

All in all, my first Swedish-Hawaiin party was a success.

Until next time, Ha det bra. 

Everything's normal when... getting there is none of the fun!

Finally.  I'm saying it so everyone else doesn't have to.  Yes, I'm finally going to start updating this blog to tell you the stories of my time abroad.  I will try and make it more interesting as we go, but Blogger's resistance to that neat little slideshow of pictures from my first week may have killed any desire I had to be creatively ambitious.

The beginning of my story and everything that has followed since has not gone according to any plan at all.  I am slowly growing to accept that the unexpected has taken a recent interetest in me, and I'm going to just have to go with it.  In the end things usually work out, but in a way different from the "normal" you would expect.  That is why, sometimes you just have to convince yourself that everything's normal when...

...You don't have your Visa yet?
Some advice for anyone planning to leave the country for an extended period of time in the future: you need a visa or equivalent document to enter a country before you leave the US.  It doesn't matter if the form you need to fill out vaguely indicates that it is possible to apply for your residence permit (type of visa) after already arriving in your desired country.  If you fall for this little trick in the translation, don't fret because you have two stressful weeks of half hour long phones calls (5 minutes of non-hold conversation) with your insurance provider and the D.C. located embassy of your country which only takes visa questions for 1 hour a day.  After all the questioning, scanning of documents, pleading, rescanning of documents, and insisting that you're just as harmless as a real Swedish person, they will glady send you your visa.  And look, it arrived 22 hours before you needed to leave for the airport.  You had nothing to worry about!

...Winter doesn't get its act together until your Visa arrives.
When it began to snow the evening before I left, I hoped the blizzard that shut down Chicago and New York over Christmas would have gotten the airports used to actually having bad weather in the middle of winter again.  The man at KCI ticket registration the next morning kindly informed me that was not the case.  After hearing that my flight would be delayed past the time which my connecting flight from O'Hare to Stockholm would leave on time, my parents and I reasonably agreed to rebook to fly out the next day.  As we turned to leave and were walking out the door, he called out to us saying that he had been able to fit me onto a plane leaving this moment and that I needed to get through the gate.  Rebooking aside, the spirit of adventure swept me through the security check, and I was hustled onto an awaiting plan as my parents nervously waved goodbye.   

...the line to rebook your flight travels a brisk 10ft per hour.
I pushed through the crowd and the man sitting next to me who smelled like muddy nicotine everytime he coughed into our shared air vent when the plane touched down in Chicago.  Sprinting from Terminal 1 to Terminal 5, I joined a group of similarly hurrying people only to be stopped by a airport official right before customs.  She tersely explained to us all that they had decided to close the gate 15 minutes before departure.  That was 4 minutes prior by my watch.  We were then all asked to return to Terminal 1 and stand in line to rebook our flights.  As the wait grew longer and more people were let in front of us "because they were on time for their flights" snapped one attendant, the large group of Swedes before me in line slowly become more vocal and developed stronger and stronger accents when trying to discern what options we had.  Call me a pansy, but when given the choice of staying a night in Chicago or taking a 17 hour, five stop, overnight flight through Europe, I decided to go find a hotel. 

...you remember why no one uses pay phones anymore.
Stranded and in need of a way to book a hotel room, I cast about the terminal for a shop that had change for a pay phone (having left my cell phone at home, because why would I need it? I had thought to myself).  I ended up getting only enough money from a coffee shop tip jar to tell my parents that I had missed my flight.  Now, I'm not sure if it was my natural good looks or my natural look of desparation, but I managed to borrow a phone from another college student and book a cheap hotel room.  The Giordano's I ordered from the room was for my sanity.