Still un-domiciled

On Sunday all of the rental offices were closed. I spent a leisurely morning at the cabin in Dragsö setting up this blog and searching for apartments on Blocket, the Swedish equivalent of Craigslist. Around noon I got a text message from Kara Stonehouse... she and a few other people from the program had come up to Dragsö for the afternoon. I walked outside and found them just as they were renting a canoe. I decided to go with them and so together we rented another one. Kara and Matt Mayer (both from Canada) took one boat and Sophia, Carlotta and myself set off in the other one. It was a beautiful afternoon and I would have loved to have taken some pictures, but mindful of what happened to Elizabeth when she lost her camera in the water in Costa Rica, I left my expensive SLR back in the cabin. We were after all setting across the open water of a small bay in two fairly tippy aluminum canoes. So, gentle readers, you will have to content yourselves with pictures from my earlier jaunts around Karlskrona, because I have no new ones to offer you.



We rounded the point that protects the campground beach and then we were really out in the open in a wide space populated by a wide variety of sailboats and yachts. There was a strong tailwind so we made good time going down towards the college campus. More or less across from the campus is a small uninhabited island where we made landfall. We climbed out and had some snacks and explored a bit, although it only to about 5 minutes to walk around the entire perimeter. There were stands of pine trees and a few excellent camping spots, and also stands of purple gorse. Wild roses with giant rose hips tangled along the coast above the smooth granite bolders that protected this scrap of land from the sea.

There were many interesting plants, making me wish I had an identification book of Swedish fauna. I also found the broken egg of a very large bird, as well as the skull of another avian.

Going back we had to fight a strong headwind, so the journey took more than twice as long as on the way down and proved to be a real workout. I enjoyed hearing about Sophia's experience as organizing sustainability programs and where her and Carlotta's backgrounds. We eventually made it back to the campground about half an hour past the allotted time for the canoe rental. Fortunately, the ladies at the reception only scolded us and did not make us pay for an extra hour.



On Monday, I got up and out fairly early so that I could make it up to school in time for the first of our orientation meetings. I power-walked down to Trossö (downtown Karlskrona) and caught a bus up to Högskala Grasvik, as the campus is called. I checked in first at the international reception, which is now open, but found that I would have to wait a few days to get my student PIN number which will allow me to access the internet on campus and get into the buildings. Then I went to the orientation meeting and heard some of my classmates introduce themselves and met the campus Nurse and Priest. The latter seems to be a pretty jovial fellow who likes to dispense spiritual guidance from down at the campus bar from time to time. The nurse clued us in about a type of Swedish health insurance we can get which only costs a dollar a day and covers everything in case we need medical treatment. Sounds great, but why in that case did I have to pay $500 for a probably useless policy with a high deductible just to meet the Visa requirements?


After the meeting I helped drag the bicycles donated by previous classes out into the light of day to assess their condition. There is talk of forming a “bike co-op” that would handle the maintenance of the bikes and lease them to students. The problem is that currently few of the bikes are really in rideable condition and many of them need quite a lot of work, or even complete rebuilds. The unsustainable fact of the matter is that it is often cheaper to buy a used bike in decent working condition than to buy all the parts and contribute all the labor to rebuild one that has been neglected. It will be interesting to see how this problem is resolved in the coming months.

At any rate, I was able to temporarily borrow a lovely bicycle to ease my commute from Dragsö. It is orange in color and was originally a three speed, although only one gear is currently functioning. The front brake lever dangles at an awkward and ineffectual angle from the handlebars, but the pedal brakes do work after a fashion. The handlebars are cocked in one direction and the seat in another, so that I sort of feel that I am steering around in a circle even when I'm going straight. It does go, though, and I'm very pleased to have it since it makes the long walk down from my cabin a thing of history.

After the bike clinic I stopped by an apartment complex that is close to town. The lady in the office said to come back after a half hour and I could tag along with another group when she showed the vacancies.

While I was waiting I ran into AJ who is from Turkey, but once lived in Myrtle Beach. She is really lovely and fun and I had a good time talking to her. We went down to the office and when the other apartment seekers came in, they were all other folks from the MSLS program! I thought the apartments that we saw were really nice... modern, clean, very large and attractive, and in a great location just by the school and close to shopping and downtown. They were a little on the high side of my budget, except for one that had three bedrooms and was about 10,200 kroner per month. Split three ways this would be less than $500 per person, which doesn't seem bad considering the advantages of the location. No one else seemed ready to jump on it though, so the hunt continues.