Touring Linköping and Easter Dinner

It's been a very busy weekend  - touring the city and getting everything settled to know how to get places using the bus system, where to go, where school is etc. 

To describe Linköping - it's a city with approx. 150,00 people. From the country's capitol, Stockholm, it's a two hour train ride. The buildings are all very pretty with a lot of yellow brick and beautiful architecture. The landscape is pretty flat - everything it laid out so that it is readily accessible by taking the bus or riding your bike. Everyone rides their bikes here.  

Resecentrum - Central Station

We bought a monthly bus pass for our stay here so we have unlimited access to riding the bus for the month we are here. We rode into the city center where a Swedish student teacher, Elin, met us to help us explore and figure things out. Before we began, we stopped at a coffeehouse and had some "fika". Fika is very important to the Swedes. It is a break in the day to enjoy some coffee and generally a cinnamon roll or some other small bakery item. My fika was delicious! 

Afterwards, we began to walk around city center and head to Resecentrum which is where the train and bus depot is located called Central Station. We had Elin translate for us with the worker to figure out how we needed to go to get to school every morning to student teach. Thankfully, it shouldn't be too hard to get to school tomorrow for my first day!

The Cathedral

One of the most famous sites in Linköping is their cathedral. The cathedral was built in the 12th century, and it is gorgeous. The tower is 107 m high, and you can see the tower from many places in the city if you look for it. Hopefully, I may get to go to mass on a Sunday sometime that I am here!

Table set for Easter Dinner in the corridor

Today, we all joined Katie's corridor roommates in a traditional Swedish Easter dinner. Because everyone went on Easter break last weekend, they decided to have Easter dinner tonight instead to still be able to celebrate. It was filled with tons of food like salmon, sausage, meatballs, eggs, salmon sauce, beet salad, etc. There were 15 people eating dinner, and there were still leftovers! The dessert was the best part- it was called a Silvia Cake named after the Swedish Queen made with vanilla flavoring and came with some ice cream, too.

Tomorrow is my very first day at Folkungaskolan! I'm hoping for a successful travel to the school (no getting lost), and a great experience with the teachers and students! I'm waking up at 6:00 AM, leaving for the bus at 7:00 AM, and getting to school to meet my teacher before 7:50 AM. I'm not sure what exactly to expect during the school day, but I am anxious to see :)