Norra Berget i Sundsvall/North Hill in Sundsvall
Went walking recently up the north hill in Sundsvall with Anna, a German girl I live with. There’s a tower on the hill and it’s the highest point for a few kilometres so when you’re up there you can everything. Nothing much to say about it, but I took a Kalles cheese sandwich and a nutella sandwich and it was great. Here’s some pictures:
This is me, to the back is east of Sundsvall and the east island.
This is the university where I study and I like the architecture on it. It’s all villagey like.
Borås to Göteborg
Went to a concert on Thursday night in Borås last week. Probably not my kind of music but it was interesting! The next day we went to Göteborg which was pretty cool. Nice city, there’s no underground transport so they have trams everywhere. And apparently you can travel by boat to Denmark from here.
12.21.08Choices Choices
I have two choices, unless you count the rest of Europe which I pretty much ruled out. My languages are English and German(ishnot) which gives me the choice of Vienna and Oldenburg.
So how to decide? A friend of mine just suggested drawing up a list of good and bad, so I am going to try.
Here goes – Vienna::
The Good
- It’s got 72,000 students. Thats big, which is good.
- You can ski in Austria.
The Bad
- I know nothing about Austria.
Oldenburg:
The Good
- I know Germany fairly well.
- People are good.
- It’s easy to get to!
- I have friends in Germany.
- Ski is nearby in neighboring countries.
The Bad
- Oldenburg is a small place. I like big ones.
- It’s in the north and a bit in the sticks.
You know what, I still don’t know. But Austria is winning with skiing.
ERASMUS
Comes from the name Desiderius Erasmus Roterodasmus, a Dutch guy notable for doing quite alot of travelling, which is what I’d like to do. The relevance? Well from his name was created the ERASMUS programme, although it also stands for the European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students. They happen to offer this at my university which means I can travel to virtually any European country, which for me studying German leaves me with and English speaking university (there are a few!) plus any German speaking ones (despite the fact I will struggle). Austria and Germany I can do but apparently Warsaw in Poland as well (if I wanted to just speak English).
The whole idea happens to have caused me alot of stress lately as to whether to do it or not and asking myself alot of questions I cant answer, like “Will this screw my degree up?” or “Why don’t I just go to an English speaking one?” and “Can I actually learn a language and do it in one year?”. Well.. I have for a couple of months attempted to answer these. For one, “Why don’t I just go to an English speaking one?”. Well, I’m keen to learn another language. Employability and travel options go up with learning a new language, plus opens doors to meeting new people which seems pretty good. But it’s alot of work. Alot. Involving plenty of embaressment, mistakes and pain… But also plenty of gain as it’s extremely satisfying to understand what’s going on. If I did choose to go to an English speaking uni, I would for one not be going to a German speaking country, so have no idea what else is going on as I would have already learned German and not know the native language. For second, what’s the point? I might as well stay in England. This view isn’t shared by everyone, because not everyone wants to/needs to learn a language, fair enough you only really need English! Thirdly, it’s better to make friends when you can speak their native language. You can talk to them, you can talk to their family and friends and join in conversations and at least understand what is going on!
“Can I actually learn a language in and do it in one year?”. Heh. We’ll see about that one, I’m working pretty damned hard on it and reading lots. I have not done any notable German prior to this September. So for all you out there wanting to do ERASMUS too, don’t rule out places you don’t know the language, so long as you can find a suitable one year course like myself. My university offers an excellent language scheme with excellent teachers so I can learn alongside my studies. I will keep you posted on how my language goes, I’m due exam results within the month, so sit tight!
“Will this screw my degree up?”. Well yeah, course, so I’m learning the language. I’m terrified. Made a phone call to the European office the other day asking a billion questions. Her response was “You know people have done this before yeah and they haven’t had horrible things happen to them”. That included people who learned the language in the year beforehand. Being English, it seems so daunting… but I never stopped to consider that people will have actually done all this before! So why shouldn’t I?.
Okay, so I’ve decided I want to do it, and decided I want to do it in the native language but now it leaves one question.
Am I going to Oldenburg – Deutschland (Germany)
or am I going to Wien (Vienna) - Österreich (Austria)
By the way… you can choose the modules… so choose well! I have posted some videos on ERASMUS, visit the Video Player by the links or click here. Also, keep watching the ERASMUS category, I will post all specific info in this category.
