13 Sep Reflections from a Swede

Hi everyone!

I am Jonas and I am an exchange student from Uppsala, Sweden.

In Sweden I am studying law, I won´t be studying that in San Francisco though. Since I am not able to transfer any of the credits I take at SFSU back to Sweden, I´ll instead take classes in Communication, History, and English.

Hence all my classes are on freshman-level and my schedule gives me Mondays and Fridays off, I am hoping to experience a lot of what San Francisco and California has to offer. These experiences are what my blog posts are mostly going to be about, and I´ll also be doing some comparisons between life in Sweden and Europe versus life in San Francisco.

*****

So, I´ve never done any such thing as blogging before, so I am going to start off easy with writing about some reflections from my first month in San Francisco.

• Expensive housing. I had heard housing was expensive, but that´s kind of sugar coating it. Paying 1000 dollars for a room is not uncommon, and if you want to live closer to downtown, in the Mission, or in some of the surrounding neighborhoods you need to pay about the double, or share a room. When I was looking for housing I called a friend who used to live in San Francisco, but she had moved to “the more reasonable priced Manhattan”… I guess that gives some idea of how expensive this city is. I ended up renting a room with a friend in a two bedroom apartment in Upper Market, needing to pay 1000 dollars per person. After one week of house searching we considered that to be a great deal. That monthly rent equals three rents for my apartment in Sweden, and then my city in Sweden is considered somewhat expensive back home. Lucky me the Swedish currency is strong compared to the US dollar. .

•  Uber. It´s a taxi-app offering cab-rides for about half the price of a regular one. Handy in a city where walking home from a club is not really an option and where traveling with public transportation can be a bit trappy.

• Off the Grid. A street food fair that´s arranged down at Fort Mason every Friday from spring to fall. It´s a food trucks standing in a circle, serving all kinds of delicious food and beverages. People in all ages were there and there was also a live band playing, all in all creating a great atmosphere.

• Public transportation. San Francisco is one of few cities in the US where the public transportation is actually an accessible and useable way of getting around the city on an every-day basis. Great for me as a student since it means I don´t have to buy a car.

• Small school desks. They have the smallest possible school desks in this country, you know the type where table and chair is one piece. You can only dream about fitting both a notepad and a book or a computer on your desk.

• Sleeping students in school. I don´t know why but it´s common seeing students sleeping in the library. When entering the library you´ll walk pass a handful and there is usually a handful more within eyesight where I study.

• Homelessness. People are talking a lot about the homeless and the junkies who are living in San Francisco. Yes, there are a lot of them, and when I first arrived here it was kind of shocking and a big transition compared to life in Sweden. Maybe the presence of them was more substantial since I lived downtown during my first week, but there are for sure a lot of homeless people here. After living here for a month now I must honestly say though that it doesn´t really impact my life. I am not saying it´s not a problem from a societal point of view, but I just want to point out that it´s not really an every-day issue and that though a lot of people talk about it I hope no one will ever refrain from experiencing San Francisco just because they´ve heard about the homeless people. You get used to it, and once you´ve learn which streets to walk on and which to avoid the presence of homeless people and junkies lessens.

*****

To finish off this is what´s coming up in my world:

• Japantown today with my new found friend Kota and some other exchange students. Being from Japan I have high expectations that Kota will be the best possible guide for a day in Japantown.
• Frozen sing-along tomorrow. My understanding is that this is a regular cinema-showing with the only difference being that the audience may (will for sure!) sing-along. It´s going to be awesome!

*****

A bunch of exchange students at a club the other week. (Me in the red shirt)

****’

Take care!