Umeå was a good choice. People keep asking me, why Sweden? Why not someplace warm or just why here versus somewhere else? There are a couple of different reasons but basically because I could, it seemed as good maybe better than any other place and my lack of foreign language experience wouldn't be a problem. Almost everyone speaks English here in fact if I only spoke Swedish I would be at a major disadvantage. English has made it easy to get around and so far everyone has been extremely friendly and accommodating. Originally I was worried that because of Americas fantastic foreign policy that people would associate that with me and thus not like me as a result. This has not been the case. I think that people understand that a government does not necessarily directly represent their people, it happens all over the world. Sweden seems to be an exception but that's a different story. Actually Swedes like our culture, most of the music at clubs is in English, sometimes songs that I haven't heard in years. Michael Jackson and early Greenday, do you have the time to listen to me whine? Not a particulary xenophobic country at least as far as Americans are concerned...