you make great first impressions.

For Justine, who may be even better than me at making a lasting first impression.

...28 hours without sleep doesn't translate to German.

My tale of not intended first impressions begins on the night of my arrival.  I had landed in Stockholm at 8 a.m. after a red eye flight and spent the majority of the day traveling up the eastern coast of Sweden by bus.  Remembering the numerous people who gave the advice to not nap my first day in order to avoid jet lag, I stubbornly decided that I would not sleep in anything other than my new bed.  I did not sleep on the 10 hour flight, nor did I sleep on the first bus, in the bus station, or on the second bus that glided peacefully by the countryside.  Nope, I arrived in Sundsvall late in the evening, powering through my 28th hour without sleep.  It's as good a time as any to inform you that my hallway is populated mostly by Germans with a random Dutch or Swedish person thrown in for good measure.  I've come to really enjoy the company of my German friends, but will never forget how I met most of them.

In honor of Amanda moving out and my moving in, she convinced everyone that the Germans needed to finally teach her how to play Flunky Ball (flunky ball is a German drinking game traditionally played in the summer, but more on that in a second).  Everyone decided that this was a great idea, and after a quick trip to a grocery store for some extra beer and the creation of a ball out of knotted towels, we all tromped outside to play.  It is in this drinking game arena that I met the majority of my German neighbors.  During the beer run, the ball tying, and the division of teams, I introduced myself to nearly everyone, having high expectations placed on me because I was American.  Aside from that, I found everyone to be friendly, welcoming, and very capable of speaking clear English.  We only played one game because of the -15 degree temperatures, but it was a blast.  I was chosen to be the bottle returner for my team, knocked the bottle down myself three times, and was the second person out of everyone playing to finish my beer.  All in all, I thought it was an appropriate way to mark my entrance into my new community.

This game is definitely something that I think needs to come back to Coe with me, especially as its name is practically begging to be played sometime in April.  Here is a brief overview of the rules (with illustrations!) for my guys back on 4th East.

Object of the Game:

The ultimate goal of the game is to have each member of your team finish their beer (or normal sized drink- no shots) before the other team.  This is accomplished by throwing a ball (or anything you can ghetto rig into a ball) at a 2-liter bottled that has been partially weighted down by water (no other liquid is allowed).  If someone on your team knocks the middle bottle over, everyone on the team starts chugging.

Defense: 

Once the other team has knocked over the bottle, it is the responsibility of the two quickest people on your team to retrieve the ball and bottle.  The bottle must be returned to its upright and central position, and the ball must be carried across your side line.  Once the ball and the last person have reached your sideline, the team yells STOP!  At this point, the other team must put down their beers.

Particulars:  

1.) The sidelines are measured out by placing the bottle in a central location and having the tallest person playing take 10 long steps in each direction.

2.) If your beer gets knocked over at any time for any reason and spills, you are charged with a penalty of a second beer.

3.) You may not throw underhanded, always go for the win!

4.) You must let everyone throw.

To reiterate:

I'm looking forward to playing this with all of the guys when I get back.

...your powerstip smells like a firework.

I awoke to my first day in Sundsvall after collapsing into a 12 hour coma brought on by my severe sleep deprivation.  Realizing that my bags were in the same unpacked position near the front door I left them in last night, I decided to start putting my room in order.  I unpacked most of my clothes and the few odds and ends I brought to keep myself entertained.  After I finished, I set about getting my computer hooked up so that I could get in touch with people back home and tell them of my safe arrival.  Feeling completely prepared, I opened one of my two power converters/adapters, found the Northern European plug adapter, plugged it into the wall outlet, and then connected my computer chord.

Mennhhhhhzzzzzzmmennnnhzzzzzzz.

This is a noise that the little black box along your computer's charging chord should never make.  Wary of this evil sound and the growing heat coming from my chord, I decided to only have my laptop plugged in for about 15 minutes at a time.  I believed this to be the best plan to avoid computer death.  After about 6 hours of this annoying-ness, I became more courageous.  I thought, maybe it's the converter/adapter, so I switched.  Negatory.  Maybe its the outlet.  I am now confused by my reasoning as well, but that was also wrong.  With two strikes against me, I couldn't possible fail now.  I couldn't possibly make one the most obvious mistakes of power chords (again, my reasoning was not with it that day).  I decided to plug my power strip/surge protector into the converter/adapter to try and "tone things down".  So far so good, no weird noises from the power strip.  As I stood there with laptop chord in a hand, I had one moment of sanity in which I thought to test this little maneuver.  I got out a rechargeable battery charger and tentatively approached the power strip. 

BYYEOORRRRRZZ-KKHHHCK

Holy Marty McFly!  That was a bad sound.  And all the lights are out....great.  And what's that smell?...  What smells like the 4th of July?  Oh, it's my powerstrip; the one that is now burning my still tingling hand.  Perfect.  Better go out into the hall and try and despose of the evidence.  Oh, there are people out here....  Hey, my name is Jordan. Nice to meet you.  Oh, you're from Latvia?  I do know where that is, but you're the first person I've met from there.  Yeah, my lights just went out too.  There must be something wrong with the wiring.  Let me hide-I mean, finish something in my room, and I'll come back out so we can try and fix it.

It was unfortunate that the fuse box was possibly 50+ years old and ran on a weird type of fuse that neither I, nor my two German friends who took a look at it could figure out.  We must have messed with that thing for half an hour, unscrewing fuses, replacing them, flipping switches.  Eventually, we gave up, and I graciously volunteered to contact the landlady on behalf of my three neighbors who were also without overhead lights.  After two days living by lamp light, I admitted my guilt in passing to my neighbors who took the news well.  Nevertheless, I'm still the American who almost electrocuted himself the first day in his apartment.

...you were going for the ball.

The first person I met in Sundsvall was Peter.  (Yes, the first impression was a good one; he was laying on my bed when I arrived at my room.)  Peter gave me a grand tour of the city my first night and has helped me more than anyone else to adapt to living in Sweden.  He's an all around quality Swede.  About two weeks into my stay, Peter invited me to play volleyball with some of his friends.  Eager to go out and meet some new people, I agreed.  When he came by to pick me up that night, his friend Alex was in the front seat.  Alex introduced himself, and we were on our way.

Volleyball was a lot of fun.  We switched teams after every two games, and even though I was on a winning team only once, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Everyone I met was very friendly and a little older than the exchange students living in my building.  As the night went on, I didn't make any really bad mistakes and managed to pull off a couple of good kills and set ups.  I was just getting over my nervousness for being around such a large group when there was a 50-50 ball right over the net.  Alex was opposite of me on the other side, and we both went up for the ball.  Being a little taller, I didn't need to jump as high, and after getting a hand on the ball and directing it away, I landed first.  As Adam Becker will tell you, jump straight up.  Don't go into the net or you'll mess yourself up.  Knowing Adam Becker, my jump was safely out of the net.  Unfortunately for Alex, his jump took him into the net, and he landed awkwardly on my foot.  

Let me take this moment to say he took it extremely well.  His pain tolerance must be pretty high because he brushed himself off and limped off to the locker room without saying a word.  I'm pretty sure that I was the only one who really knew from that start that he had severely sprained his ankle, but when I looked up to say something Peter was giving me the thumbs up and telling me nice shot.  We quickly finished that game and called it a night.  By that time, Alex was sitting on the sideline, and everyone was gathering around to look at the ankle he appeared to have exchanged for a mango.  He made it a point to tell me that it wasn't my fault and he wasn't mad at all, which I was extremely grateful for.  I have had the opportunity to hang out with Alex and the rest of Peter's friends a couple of more times after that first encounter, but as many of them would tell me at the bar later that night, putting someone on the ground is one hell of a way to enter into a new group of friends.