I got a house! It's on Erik Dahlbergs Street. Erik was a boat builder in the 1800's, and apparently earned enough distinction for his own street.

My address for the curious:
Erick Dahlbergsgatan #6
Karlskrona
37141
Sweden
Everyone knows I love mail, and I always write back with fantastic postcards.



This is the house. I live in the upstairs half, with Matt (Ottowa) and Ece (Istanbul). They are both in my program and look to be a lot of fun. Matt found the house, he happened into it and I was lucky to get one of the rooms. Thanks Matt! It is big and bright inside with lots of old items and charming decor. Interior shots to follow. It is also a tremendously good deal in comparison with other options here. Even cheaper than Portland. Great!






Inge, myself, Lillian, and Tony. Inge and Lillian are my new downstairs house mates. They do not speak any english at all. Tony speaks some, he's their son, and lives four houses away. They are all incredibly friendly. Inge and Lillian are 85 years old, and have been living in this house for 53 years. Inge and I have conversations, he speaks in Swedish and I respond in English. He doesn't mind and keeps talking, so I keep responding and so forth.




This is the view from my bedroom window. The Swedish flags/pennants are popular and found all over the place.












Here is a record player in our living room, it's from the 40's I think. I'm going to ship it to Michael Olsen even though it weighs 1oolbs. I will try to figure out how to upload audio files, then record some selections from my modest inherited collection of traditional swedish songs on vinyl.

First Impressions

Karlskrona is a great place. Unfortunately, one of the notable events of my first week here was dropping my camera into the sea on a kayaking trip, so I don't have a lot of pictures to share. But the camera has proven resilient and seems to be working well enough, so be on the look out for some slices of Scandinavian life over the coming months.

These life rings, incedentally, are ubiquitous throughout the island. There are at least two rings for every person I've seen swimming.







I went swimming, off of the high dive. The water was not nearly as cold as I would have imagined when hearing the words "Baltic Sea"















The floating sauna, however, I haven't tried yet. But I am pursuing leads to find out who owns it and how I get in.











And although I haven't actually pursued any leads to get behind an oar on one of these beauties, I'm sure that will come together at some point as well.