A RANDOM BUNCH OF PHOTOS OF ME AND MY FELLOW EXCHANGE STUDENTS!

Hi all. It's about time I put up some photos of the exchange students (and of course now friends of mine) so you can see what they look like...and know that I don't have make believe friends...they really do exist!!!

Puss och kram
Alice
xo

Kathi (Austria), Kim (Holland) and I at the Casino Royale Party at Celsius



Anna (Austria), Kim (Holland) and Kathi (Austria) in what is more like a Charlie's Angels pose than a James Bond pose!



Me with my lovely bike...still yet to be named!!!



Kim (Holland) sitting in what is meant to be a clothes basket thing!



Anna (Austria) looking like she's just stepped out of an old time movie!!



There has been many a debate about this picture as to who's teaching who. I personally think Anna (Austria) is showing Daniele (Italy) how it's done!!



Kathi (Austria) looking all pretty for the James Bond party



Kim (Holland) who is also known as the photographic poser. I'm sure you can see why!!



Valerie (France) trying a Swedish sweet!



Johanna, Thomas, Anna, Kathi (all from Austria) andI at the Casino Royale party



Valerie (France) and I in my room the night after doing our Swedish language exam



I think Valerie (France) is a little confused about who she's supposed to be looking at!!



Daniele's birthday - the Spanish boys were teaching the rest of us how to dance properly!!



Kim (Holland) being taught to dance like the Spanish!



Then it was Valerie's (France) turn!



The cake (best cake EVER!!!) and Daniele's presents - bottle of wine and a leggo toy!!



The decorating of our "common roomo" which is really just an empty room!!



The gang waiting for Daniele to arrive back from class (which finished around 10PM!!)



Our one and only trip to IKEA!



Christina (Austria) and I on the bus to Lund



Kim (Holland) on the bus to Lund



Valerie (France) and Anna (Austria) on the bus as well!



Me on the bridge with Orkanen (Malmo University building where I have all my classes0 in the background. It's the large glass building to the right!!



Valerie (France), Kathi (Austria) and I on the bus to some party...can't remember which!



Another photo of Valerie (France), Kathi (Austria) and I on the bus



Valerie (France), Anna (Austria), Daniele (Italy) and two girls from Spain...on the bus surprisingly enough!!


More pictures on the bus...must have been a long trip!!!


Kathi (Austria) and I



Kathi (Austria) and I again



Christina (Austria) and Daniele (Italy) at the bus stop



Anna and Johanna (both Austria) also at the bus stop



Valerie (France) and I...at the bus stop!!!



Daniele (Italy) keeping himself warm while waiting for the bus!



Christina (Austria) and Daniele (Italy)..........at the bus stop!



Valerie (France) showing us her impression of a snail!



Kathi (Austria) and I at one of the many functions held during the introduction program. At least at this function we received a hat!!



Valerie (France), Anna (Austria) and me with our Malmo university caps we'd been given by the International Co-ordinators during our introduction program



Kim (Holland) celebrated her birthday the first week we were there. This is our lovely home made card (which also served as wrapping paper) that we creative exchange students made for her.



To the right: where we were
To the left: where we wanted to be
Just to the right of the flash: Where we'd come from
We learnt exactly which buses we need to take to get home from uni that day!!!



Christina and Johanna (both from Austria) at the bus stop the day we took and unexpected detour home!

Kathi and Anna (both from Austria) also at the bus stop!

Antti (Finland) and Kim (Holland) using the free wireless internet on Antti's computer

Anna (Austria) and Daniele (Italy)

Valerie (France) making her name sign

Kim's lovely name sign and flower (clearly the artistic one in the group)

Our name signs for our doors...so we could find each other's rooms in the beginning...not just some colourful decorations for out doors!

PS. Now that I have told you which country they all come from a thousand times, I expect you to have locked it into your memory so I can save time and space when writing captions. And also to save myself from sounding rather repetitive!!

xo

Malmö Update - What I've gotten up to so far!!

I thought it was about time I posted another update from Malmö. So it is Saturday afternoon here, I've spent the morning doing my homework and am now just chilling out!

So on Monday my classes started. For all those studying at university you will be able to appreciated (well maybe be a little jealous also) that my course only has maximum 6hrs of classes a week. And at Malmö Högskola, they only like you to take one course at a time (a course is like our subject)!!! So my life, at least until March, is pretty chilled. I have a 4 day weekend with class only occurring on Tuesdays and Thursdays so this means I have lots of travel opportunities which suits me just fine. I already have a few trips I'm hoping to take but I'll fill you in on those a little later.

My course, Children's Literature from a Global Perspective is really good. We have to read a bunch of different children's books. I've just finished reading Pinocchio and still have Anne Frank, The Little Prince, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, just to mention a few, still to read before the end of March. We watched a Japanese anime movie the other day called Spirited Away (recommend seeing it if you can get your hands on a copy). So we read or watch these texts and then discuss them in class and have to answer a bunch of questions as our response to the text. Pretty easy if you ask me. We also have a major project which involves me writing my own picture story books, which should also be fun. I have already written the story and now just need to find someone artistic to help me with the illustrations and then just plan the layout of the book and put it all together. We will also be required to do an author presentation and a book presentation but that also should be interesting and rather fun to do.

...So overall, loving my course!! It should be quite an interesting couple of months. Then in April I begin a new course - Sports Psychology! As of yet I don't know much about it but will find out soon enough. It also sounds like it will be pretty relaxed and hopefully interesting and fun also.

Anyway, I will stop boring you about my course now and tell you about some of the goings on that have happened over the last couple of weeks.

Last weekend, as part of our introduction program, we had a trip to Lund. Unfortunately the day as extremely cold and windy so walking around outside didn't really happen. We did have a tour of a place called Kulturen. If anyone ever travels to Sweden and visits Lund, this place is worth a visit and I'm hoping to go back in Spring when the weather is nicer and more bearable. Anyway this place is an outdoor museum which has a wide variety of houses which were collected by a Swede, take down, transported to this place in Lund, and then reconstructed in the same way as before. There are a wide variety of houses from all different classes of society covering a range of different periods in history. There's a lovely little church from the 1800's, which even today is still being used for weddings and baptisms. We had a tour guide who showed us a few of the house and gave us a brief look into the history of Sweden and how people of the different classes lived back then.

Once the tour was finished, most of us were frozen to the bone and so during our free time opted for the warmth of a cafe to spend our time in. I did manage to get some shopping in!! I am looking forward to going back and having a proper look at Lund later in the year and will give you more details when I do.

Apart from that, I've spent my time hanging out with the exchange students, going to the movies or movie nights in people's rooms here at Sommarstaden, attended Swedish classes, university classes and a couple of lectures included in the introduction program, visited some pubs, been to a party at Rönnen (there has been a party there every week since we got here!!), celebrate some birthdays and tonight am heading to Celciusgården for a Casino Royale themed party!! Then this weekend coming I plan on hitting the night scene here in Malmö. Fredde Le Grande will be in town next week at the biggest nightclub in Scandinavia, which so happens is located here in Malmö, so am going to see if I can get a ticket as I think many of the exchange students will be attending.

So that's about all that's been happening with me over the past couple of weeks. Now I am in the process of research a couple of trips that I'm hoping to go on. One is visiting the Ice Hotel up in the very north of Sweden, another is an orgainsed trip to Helsinki, Moscow and St. Petersberg over Easter, then there's possibly a trip to Berlin to stay with one of the girls on exchange here for the weekend and finally, possibly a trip to Vienna to visit two girls also here on exchange but who are heading home in April. There's few other places on my wish list but will see how the money holds out as well as the spare time.

Now that you're up to date I think I'm going to go and add a few more photos and then maybe relax by watching a movie before heading out for tonight's party!

Hope you are all well back home. Feel free to flick me an email so I can keep up with what you're doing at home!! Other than that...till next time...

Puss och kram
Alice
xoxo