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September 28, 2004
Today Has Been Shitty
It started with the people upstairs having a screaming match. It's hard enough to get going on a cloudy, gray morning without the accompaniment of animosity-drenched voices.
Then, Roya announced she was moving out at the end of October. Not because of us (I think), but because she wants to be closer to school. In addition, Kungsmarksvägen has gotten progressively sketchier. Allow me to provide the following examples:
* Several nights ago, Alvaro was walking out the door of his apartment (two entryways down from ours) and noticed a guy laying on the ground. Alvaro assumed the guy had just passed out (as people are prone to do here in the ghetto of Karlskrona) and walked by him to go to the grocery store. Coming back a few minutes later, he was startled to see an ambulance outside his door and the guy lying in a pool of blood. We're not sure what happened, but we guess he was stabbed.
* We have confirmed that the "rice-like" particles that appear in our water after boiling is not soap residue (remember when I was sick last week?). The true cause is yet unknown, but it definitely is coming from the tap water. Whether or not it's toxic is up to debate, but it's creepy to drink water that you know has foreign bodies.
* The neighbors upstairs have become increasingly ferocious in their fighting. While it was once a random occurrence, this past week there has been screaming every day. After talking with a Swedish classmate, I don't believe calling the police will work. She suggested just knocking on the door and asking them to be quiet, but I'm not sure if this will solve or exacerbate the situation.
* I usually park my bike inside my building, where there is a storage room accessible only with a key. Aside from being really scary inside, I noticed today that someone had sawed through a bike lock (the bike being presumably stolen). So instead, I awkwardly hauled my bike upstairs, where it now sits in the corner of my room.
* We are getting more definitive reports that this apartment complex is dangerous. It seems there are gangs of young guys that will aggressively harass (and sometimes physically injure) other guys who walk by. While for once it's nice to be a girl, we worry about inviting people over to the apartment—especially if they will be traveling at night.
* In addition, there have been several times when I have felt distinctly unsafe. The bike/pedestrian paths up to Kungsmarksvägen are adjacent to woods, and the lighting is extremely poor in the evenings. In fact, biking back home at night requires the use of my bike light just to see the road. And the laundry rooms are constructed so that you have to pass through two sets of doors, unlocking both, to get into the actual facilities. Unfortunately, the first door swings shut behind you, and creates a terribly creepy place to be caught after dark (they turn the electricity off at 9 p.m., so you can get stuck in the pitch black space while trying desperately to unlock the 2nd door). To avoid this problem, you prop open the first door, thus opening it up to anyone who might be passing by.
Anyway, it's quite discouraging. I try to remember that Washington, D.C. could be quite dangerous (and Summit Hills was not a country club), but there's something different about it here. Already, several people from our program have moved closer downtown, and several others will make the move this month. Given the growing momentum, Jess and I are considering a move ourselves. Part of what made this place tolerable was that we were surrounded by people we knew. Now that they're fleeing in droves, we want to get in on that bandwagon.
At any rate, I spent the morning feeling groggy, sad, and restless. Once on campus, I realized that the International Reception desk had been closed two days earlier than advertised, and therefore would be unable to sign for my FedEx package (which I had rerouted from Kungsmarksvägen because I couldn't be there all day to sign for it). So I have no idea if the FedEx guy managed to find the International Office (which was only open from 9-4, with an hour break for lunch—what a life!) and deliver my package. Moreover, because I don't know what this package is, I can't tell what it might be, and whether or not I'll be able to get it home on my bike.
And to top it all off, I still haven't received my last shipment of textbooks from Amazon.com. They were supposed to have arrived last week, and of course, Amazon.com doesn't provide tracking numbers for international shipments. So I've had to send an email to a customer service, which already wrote me back to say they didn't understand my query (duh!), so I'm now in the eternal waiting game.
Grr. I think I'll take a nap.
