#vallgatan

Before I left, I had a rehearsed dialogue of what I was most excited about for Sweden. "Living in an international community" was definitely one of the chart toppers, with reasons such as hearing all the accents, hearing about the different cultures and sampling the different foods.

Those reasons offer only a bird's eye view to what it's really like to "live in an international community". It is simply something that one has to experience for oneself.

In the beginning, I honestly had a hard time seeing further into people's real selves past their accents and varying levels of English proficiency. Of the 14 people on this floor, only myself and Ruth speak English as our native language; even then, Ruth is from Australia so sometimes I have just as much trouble understanding her as the rest of the bunch.

After eight days of intercultural integration, I feel as though we have all gotten into a flow - and it also helps that now that everyone is more or less comfortable with each other, so the conversation comes more easy. That's something uniquely special I have come to enjoy about this community: the silences. In between conversation, when maybe some are searching for the right English words to say or whatnot, I think it's fascinating that most everyone is thinking in a different language in their respective brains.

To me, all of this is one fantastic fairy tale, so as in a story, I would like to introduce the characters!

1201: Melissa from Germany. This is her third semester abroad, with the other two being spent in Belgium and in Lithuania. Her major is something about international things, so while it makes sense that she has traveled so much, she said her university would hardly allow her to come here, as she has hardly studied at her own school.

1202: Lilli from Germany. She is a very pleasant girl to spend time with that I have yet to get to know in depth. Very sweet and always a willing participant to socialize amongst Vallgatan and whatever else is going on. Luckily I have a semester to get to get to know her more!

1203: THE INFAMOUS STEVEN! He has actually not moved in yet, but our whole floor has already managed to include him in our everyday conversations. All that we know about him is from a post he made on the Linnaeus International Students FB page, asking someone in his program to fill him in when he arrives a week late. Hopefully he feels welcome when he finally arrives, as we have quite a few inside jokes that revolve around our guesses as to who he is and what he will be like.

1204: Saori from Japan. My neighbor! A night owl like me, which I'm happy about because I always enjoy knowing I'm not the only one awake, and I hear her scuttling about next to me. She is adorable and lovely and has befriended a group of fellow Japanese students who sometimes hang out on our floor, which is always fun! They're actually here right now and cooked a meal together that looks DELICIOUS.

1205: Me! I introduce myself as coming from California, then I tell people I grew up in Southern California but go to college in San Francisco. Then if they inquire further about my hometown, I always bring up Little Miss Sunshine, and sometimes Easy A. Ask them what I'm known for :P

1206: Zoë from Belgium. My other neighbor! A joy to chat with and I learned today that she did humanitarian work in Burkina Faso this summer and usually travels to Spain for vacation. She studies mechanical engineering and seems to be a left-brained wonder woman! Her and Gautier, both native French speakers, are gently being slapped on the wrist by the floor to only speak English. They both always cook their meals together, which I might poke fun at, but I'm mainly just jealous of their food.

1207: Konstantin from Moldova. Computer programming. Fluent in FOUR LANGUAGES: Russian, Turkish, Romanian and English. I hope that's right. Unknown to most of the floor, he has an identical twin brother who is his best friend. He's more commonly known as Paprika Man: in his ideal world, everything would be made out of paprika. He's quite the jokester and troublemaker, we are beginning to learn.

1208: Mafalda from Portugal. Oh this woman. The definition of a "go-getter". We agreed for each door to have our names on them, and when some of the floormates did not put theirs up after it was officially announced at a floor meeting, she made polite but firm notices which she taped on each empty door, saying "WE ARE STILL WAITING FOR YOUR NAME ON YOUR DOOR!". I just scurried outside my room to verify the wording, and she guessed exactly what I'm doing. Yes, you are a mind reader. But besides that, she's sassy and fun and very well put together.

1209: Unoccupied. We are deadset that someone will move in, as there were FB posts of people trying to find housing, so we know it's not a shortage of available tenants, but we have no clue when. We have a theory that someone lives there, but just sneaks past all of us.

1210: Svenja from Germany. A fellow first time chef. We confided in each other that we both sorta just pretend like we know what we're doing when we cook and hope it turns out like food. Very easygoing and fun to hang out with - I can always look to her to giggle about whatever is happening with.

1211: Andrea from Germany. "The party girl" is what she was nicknamed early on! She was one of the few Vallgataners who arrived before the 27th, so she spent a lot of time getting acquainted with the town and some other early arrivers. Extremely caring and organized - very good with details about the going-ons of life. Everyone on our floor (and probably the whole building) appreciates her friendly, outgoing company.

1212: Gautier from France. Previously discussed as the French counterpart of Zoë. He is a hoot. He has been making fun of my voices and general excitement from probably day 1, but has quite the slew of his own funny noises himself. Even his laugh has a French accent, and his facial expressions (complete with French moustache) sometimes divulge more than his words.

1213: Michael from Austria. A lover of pizza and beer (sounds American!). Last night, a few floormates and I watched World War Z, which is a quite a scary movie, and the whole time, Michael didn't seem to react at all. Suspicious. Easygoing to hang out with and overall good guy.

1214: Tia from Greece. Sneezes when she's nervous (see: World War Z with sneezes at all the tense, scary parts). When she laughs, Gautier likes to flap his arms like a duck because of the sounds that come out of this girl. Has twice accidentally spoken to me in Greek, which she apologizes greatly for but I think is hilarious. Always dependable to go out with. She brings such a fun energy to the floor.

1215: Ljubica from Austria. Likes to "shake shake shake" when she dances, and also great fun to go out with. She is so wonderful to be around and seems to radiate good energy. Very welcoming and pleasant. Enjoys snapping pictures sporadically, not sure for what purpose because I have yet to see anything on FB, but I appreciate it nonetheless!

1216: Ruth from Australia. Born in AU but grew up in Cambodia, Bhurma and the UK! She has a British-Australian dual citizenship. Her parents work with peace and development which has led her to become passionate about the same, and she is lucky enough to have done heaps of traveling throughout Asia and other bits of the world as well. Told us some riveting stories about when she came face to face with a shark snorkeling in Aussie waters and eating fried tarantula in some Asian country. Artistic, funny and open to any opportunity that she can seek out.

All but myself, Gautier, Konstantin and Saori are here for a semester. Us four will be living together for a year.