Took Matt to the airport this morning :( sad to see him go... but it's good he left before we started driving each other crazy!!
Bandy on boxing day was super fun. The stadium was packed when we got there, and we managed to find the section where the Uppsala/Sirius fans were (spied the blue and black striped toques and scarves) so we got to hear the cheers all through the game. I videoed some of them, eventually I will get around to putting up some of my videos of the year~! It was quite an exciting game, Sirius led right to the end, but they ended up tying... 5-5 though so plenty of chances to jump up and down and wave Matt's scarf around.
Next day we left for Helsinki on the Viking line. Same cruise I did with my friends back in October, but on their other ship. Wednesday we visited the (of course overpriced) market square and market hall, but some of the fur stuff was so gorgeously soft I vaguely considered buying some...
Then we got on the bus to go to the zoo (ironic?). They have an amazing setup for wildcats. Big exhibits but set up SO well to be able to actually SEE the cats. Most of them even walked right up to the glass to show off for us. I have never been so excited at a zoo before. Plus we saw a couple of animals I've never even heard of, which doesn't happen often!!
We only had a couple of hours off the ship in Helsinki, so we wandered around and did a bit of souvenir shopping/Matt waiting around while I looked through the boxing day "ale"s (apparently ale means sale in Finnish..?)
Last night, it being Matt's last night in Scandinavia, I made him try some herring (mustard flavour and dill flavour) and some beet 'salad' (Rödbetssallad). He didn't like any of them, but I wasn't really expecting him to...
HERE are photos from the second half of his trip.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Really??
Today it was a balmy 6 C ...
Sweden's 'warmest December in 250 years' http://www.thelocal.se/38186/
Sweden's 'warmest December in 250 years' http://www.thelocal.se/38186/
Sunday, December 25, 2011
God Jul från Sverige!
Merry Christmas to everyone from myself and Matthew! I hope it's lovely and snowy and full of turkey and other delicious things!
Lots of things to briefly catch up on.
The day after I arrived back home from Deutschland, a bunch of our exchange student friends organized a 'Running Dinner', in which you split into pairs and are assigned one part of a meal to prepare, appetizer, main course, or dessert. We had quite a lot of people, 15 teams, which made for a really nice evening. We started out in Kronasvagen and had some crazy delicious homemade guacamole (made by mexicans). Myself and Jane then 'ran' to my place to warm up our crustless quiche and Taiwanese fried rice to share with many Germans, then headed across the path to eat the best brownie I have ever eaten with some Finns. I really love the community here... I don't know what I'll do when I get back home and don't have 30+ friends living within a 10-minute walk from me!! I try not to think about that and just remember I still have 5 more months here...
That Friday we all went to the Uppsala University Royal Academic Orchestra's performance of Mahler's second symphony, as one of our friends (Timo) happens to be a genius on clarinet. It has been a long time since I've been to a classical concert... it was quite long, but really beautiful. The orchestra had a dress code of black, white, and red, and there was a really entertaining Swede at the end of the violin row with a tuxedo and red socks on. He was really into his violining and his (classic Swedish) hair kept flapping up and down, we tried hard not to giggle (with somewhat limited success)...
13 December is St. Lucia day, an unusual holiday with a very unusual history. In the evening, a few friends and I went to the V-Dala nation for some sweet things and a Lucia concert.
The next week was full of dinners and goodbye fikas, and a big highly entertaining German goodbye party with some glühwein, fencing, and a nativity scene made of bratwurst and bacon.
Matthew arrived here in Uppsala on Tuesday afternoon after my exam for Forest Environment and Conservation. The first day, we just explored Uppsala... got a kebab, did a bit of shopping (of course went to H&M), then went to Flogsta and had some tacos with my Spanish and Mexican friends to celebrate the end of studying before Christmas. The next two days me and Matt took the train to Stockholm, visiting the Vasa museum and Skansen one day, and IKEA Kungens Kurva and Gamla Stan the next day. Skansen was supposed to have an excellent Christmas market... but when we got there, all the stalls were closed... apparently it had closed the previous Sunday. Why??? It's a Christmas market!! We were pretty disappointed. We did get to see some interesting replicas of historical nordic buildings (I thought they were interesting anyway) but the best part was the "Nordic Animals" section. We got to see reindeer, moose, lynx, bison, owls, Icelandic horses, and wolverines!
IKEA Kungens Kurva is the biggest IKEA in the world. They offer a free shuttle bus on weekdays running from the Stockholm central station (which we took of course). It even has free Wifi. Needless to say Matt loves Sweden. Gamla Stan, at least, still had their Christmas market open, but it was quite small. At least Matt got to try some (overpriced) glögg, complete with raisins and almonds and accompanying pepparkakor.
Christmas eve was spent creating two masterpieces, Ponderosa cake and Apple bacon stuffing for 12. Finally my kitchen was empty (all the roommates have gone home for Christmas) so we actually had clean utensils to use. We packed everything into paper IKEA bags and took the bus out to Jane's place in Ultuna, and had a very non-traditional Christmas dinner. Two girls from Slovenia made a potato and onion dish with chicken fried in egg and fried salmon (MMM), the three Italian guys made the best lasagna I have ever tasted, Jane made some really interesting green bean noodles and dumplings, Pien and Carina made a dutch cream vegetable dish (complete with brussel sprouts)... LOTS of food in any case.
Around 10:30pm we went to the cathedral for midnight mass (packed of course). Lots of Swedish songs and Swedish words. I think Matt was woken up by the bells signaling the end of the service... zzz after lots of food and a lot of stuff you can't understand!
This morning we opened our stockings sent over to us by our lovely mum, and watched Frosty the Snowman :) And of course, I made Matt try julmust, traditional Swedish christmas soda that just tastes like Dr. Pepper mixed with coke. I must say I am not a fan... but they sell tons of it at Christmas! Stacks and stacks of cases in every grocery store and in cafeterias.
Me and Matthew also went to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Hollywood version) this week on opening night. It was fantastic, despite terrible choices for most of the main characters. Plenty of Swedish brand placements, but unfortunately the few spoken words in Swedish were cringeworthy. And cringe the (Swedish) audience did. However most people jumped up and down (or whispered excitedly) at the scene filmed in Uppsala's main street!! I certainly did. Every time I saw something I recognized, whether it was the brand on a coffee cup or the fridge contents of the characters, I was whispering to Matt "Look!! I have that!!" But overall, I must say that I prefer the original Swedish film.
This week me and Matthew will go see a Sirius bandy game, and go on a two night ferry to Helsinki, then it's already time for him to go home!! :(
HERE is a link to this round of photos!
Lots of things to briefly catch up on.
The day after I arrived back home from Deutschland, a bunch of our exchange student friends organized a 'Running Dinner', in which you split into pairs and are assigned one part of a meal to prepare, appetizer, main course, or dessert. We had quite a lot of people, 15 teams, which made for a really nice evening. We started out in Kronasvagen and had some crazy delicious homemade guacamole (made by mexicans). Myself and Jane then 'ran' to my place to warm up our crustless quiche and Taiwanese fried rice to share with many Germans, then headed across the path to eat the best brownie I have ever eaten with some Finns. I really love the community here... I don't know what I'll do when I get back home and don't have 30+ friends living within a 10-minute walk from me!! I try not to think about that and just remember I still have 5 more months here...
That Friday we all went to the Uppsala University Royal Academic Orchestra's performance of Mahler's second symphony, as one of our friends (Timo) happens to be a genius on clarinet. It has been a long time since I've been to a classical concert... it was quite long, but really beautiful. The orchestra had a dress code of black, white, and red, and there was a really entertaining Swede at the end of the violin row with a tuxedo and red socks on. He was really into his violining and his (classic Swedish) hair kept flapping up and down, we tried hard not to giggle (with somewhat limited success)...
 |
| photo stolen from my roommate's facebook page... depicting typical young Swedish male hairstyle :P |
 |
| inside the Uppsala University concert hall |
13 December is St. Lucia day, an unusual holiday with a very unusual history. In the evening, a few friends and I went to the V-Dala nation for some sweet things and a Lucia concert.
 | |
| Glögg with almonds and raisins, lussekatter (saffron bun), pepparkakor (thin gingerbread), and some toffees |
The next week was full of dinners and goodbye fikas, and a big highly entertaining German goodbye party with some glühwein, fencing, and a nativity scene made of bratwurst and bacon.
 | |
| Florian's landlord fencing with Andrea |
 | |
| Nativity scene reproduced from an internet photo... impressive!! |
Matthew arrived here in Uppsala on Tuesday afternoon after my exam for Forest Environment and Conservation. The first day, we just explored Uppsala... got a kebab, did a bit of shopping (of course went to H&M), then went to Flogsta and had some tacos with my Spanish and Mexican friends to celebrate the end of studying before Christmas. The next two days me and Matt took the train to Stockholm, visiting the Vasa museum and Skansen one day, and IKEA Kungens Kurva and Gamla Stan the next day. Skansen was supposed to have an excellent Christmas market... but when we got there, all the stalls were closed... apparently it had closed the previous Sunday. Why??? It's a Christmas market!! We were pretty disappointed. We did get to see some interesting replicas of historical nordic buildings (I thought they were interesting anyway) but the best part was the "Nordic Animals" section. We got to see reindeer, moose, lynx, bison, owls, Icelandic horses, and wolverines!
IKEA Kungens Kurva is the biggest IKEA in the world. They offer a free shuttle bus on weekdays running from the Stockholm central station (which we took of course). It even has free Wifi. Needless to say Matt loves Sweden. Gamla Stan, at least, still had their Christmas market open, but it was quite small. At least Matt got to try some (overpriced) glögg, complete with raisins and almonds and accompanying pepparkakor.
Christmas eve was spent creating two masterpieces, Ponderosa cake and Apple bacon stuffing for 12. Finally my kitchen was empty (all the roommates have gone home for Christmas) so we actually had clean utensils to use. We packed everything into paper IKEA bags and took the bus out to Jane's place in Ultuna, and had a very non-traditional Christmas dinner. Two girls from Slovenia made a potato and onion dish with chicken fried in egg and fried salmon (MMM), the three Italian guys made the best lasagna I have ever tasted, Jane made some really interesting green bean noodles and dumplings, Pien and Carina made a dutch cream vegetable dish (complete with brussel sprouts)... LOTS of food in any case.
Around 10:30pm we went to the cathedral for midnight mass (packed of course). Lots of Swedish songs and Swedish words. I think Matt was woken up by the bells signaling the end of the service... zzz after lots of food and a lot of stuff you can't understand!
This morning we opened our stockings sent over to us by our lovely mum, and watched Frosty the Snowman :) And of course, I made Matt try julmust, traditional Swedish christmas soda that just tastes like Dr. Pepper mixed with coke. I must say I am not a fan... but they sell tons of it at Christmas! Stacks and stacks of cases in every grocery store and in cafeterias.
Me and Matthew also went to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Hollywood version) this week on opening night. It was fantastic, despite terrible choices for most of the main characters. Plenty of Swedish brand placements, but unfortunately the few spoken words in Swedish were cringeworthy. And cringe the (Swedish) audience did. However most people jumped up and down (or whispered excitedly) at the scene filmed in Uppsala's main street!! I certainly did. Every time I saw something I recognized, whether it was the brand on a coffee cup or the fridge contents of the characters, I was whispering to Matt "Look!! I have that!!" But overall, I must say that I prefer the original Swedish film.
 |
| "LOOK! Wayne's Coffee!!! We have that here!!" |
This week me and Matthew will go see a Sirius bandy game, and go on a two night ferry to Helsinki, then it's already time for him to go home!! :(
HERE is a link to this round of photos!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Düsseldorf/Cologne/Olpe.
Getting back on track! After getting home from Germany, I was quite sick for a few days, and had madly itchy bed bug bites from the hostel :( Don't worry, washed everything the second I got home and informed the hostel... today has been catching up on readings and freaking out a little that in less than two weeks, A) I have an exam, B) Half my friends are leaving forever, and C) Little bro is coming to visit!
It was SO exciting to be able to see Sabrina in Dusseldorf! Couldn't believe she literally lived one block away from where I was... and she was free!! We went and checked out some of the Christmas markets (or parts of one giant market?) and got some gluhwein. The next day while waiting for Sabrina to get off work, I wandered along the Rhine, and came across the World Cup of cross country skiing!! It was quite surprising... there was no snow in Dusseldorf so they had packed fake snow into a great big course set up by the river. It was a really big event, with a stage, booths, even a merry-go-round... not sure why they needed one of those, but Germans seem to like them. Saw at least four of them in the city.
Met up with Sabrina later and had my first Starbucks drink in four months!! I do like Swedish coffee, but sometimes I just want a gingerbread latte with whipped cream and those little sprinkles on top. We spent pretty much the rest of the day exploring the markets, saw an outdoor skating rink, had some currywurst, then after dinner met up with her friend and back into town. Apparently Dusseldorf is home to the 'longest bar in the world', which is not really just one bar but the streets in a certain area are bar after bar after bar... quite weird to see people drinking in the streets. Saw the same thing in Berlin, but since we were out on a Saturday, there were LOADS of people in the streets. Bottlecaps are literally embedded in the asphalt and cobblestones.
Saturday morning I said goodbye to Sabrina and hopped on a train from Dusseldorf Hbf (hauptbahnhof=central station) to Cologne, to meet Gina on her way back from her Rotary weekend. After a bit of confusion, we managed to get everybody on the right train in the general direction of Olpe, and were picked up by somebody's host parent.
Gina's host family were so sweet!! When we arrived, only her host mom Monica was there, and she speaks zero English. She understands a word or two, but really Gina was playing interpreter. She was SUPER nice, let Gina skip school on Monday so we could hang out, drove us to two Christmas markets, and drove me all the way to the Weeze (Ryainair) airport, which of course is in the middle of nowhere, practically on the border with the Netherlands!! But, I got to spend a lovely Sunday evening and Monday morning with my lovely cousin, who is now basically fluent in German :) Proud.
Heeeeeere are some photos from my trip!
It was SO exciting to be able to see Sabrina in Dusseldorf! Couldn't believe she literally lived one block away from where I was... and she was free!! We went and checked out some of the Christmas markets (or parts of one giant market?) and got some gluhwein. The next day while waiting for Sabrina to get off work, I wandered along the Rhine, and came across the World Cup of cross country skiing!! It was quite surprising... there was no snow in Dusseldorf so they had packed fake snow into a great big course set up by the river. It was a really big event, with a stage, booths, even a merry-go-round... not sure why they needed one of those, but Germans seem to like them. Saw at least four of them in the city.
Met up with Sabrina later and had my first Starbucks drink in four months!! I do like Swedish coffee, but sometimes I just want a gingerbread latte with whipped cream and those little sprinkles on top. We spent pretty much the rest of the day exploring the markets, saw an outdoor skating rink, had some currywurst, then after dinner met up with her friend and back into town. Apparently Dusseldorf is home to the 'longest bar in the world', which is not really just one bar but the streets in a certain area are bar after bar after bar... quite weird to see people drinking in the streets. Saw the same thing in Berlin, but since we were out on a Saturday, there were LOADS of people in the streets. Bottlecaps are literally embedded in the asphalt and cobblestones.
Saturday morning I said goodbye to Sabrina and hopped on a train from Dusseldorf Hbf (hauptbahnhof=central station) to Cologne, to meet Gina on her way back from her Rotary weekend. After a bit of confusion, we managed to get everybody on the right train in the general direction of Olpe, and were picked up by somebody's host parent.
Gina's host family were so sweet!! When we arrived, only her host mom Monica was there, and she speaks zero English. She understands a word or two, but really Gina was playing interpreter. She was SUPER nice, let Gina skip school on Monday so we could hang out, drove us to two Christmas markets, and drove me all the way to the Weeze (Ryainair) airport, which of course is in the middle of nowhere, practically on the border with the Netherlands!! But, I got to spend a lovely Sunday evening and Monday morning with my lovely cousin, who is now basically fluent in German :) Proud.
Heeeeeere are some photos from my trip!
Friday, December 2, 2011
Duesseldorf
Safely arrived in Dusseldorf, basically hassle-free...
except for this morning when I realized I can't actually stay with Gina's host family until Sunday night, so an hour before my bus I'm on google searching for a hostel...
And, after posting that on facebook, I got a message from Sabrina, a girl who did an exchange to Argyle in Grade 11, asking where I was staying... turns out she lives five minutes away!! So after thinking I was going to spend today and tomorrow alone, now I have an old friend :)
I'm going to meet her now! I'll take some pictures!
:)
except for this morning when I realized I can't actually stay with Gina's host family until Sunday night, so an hour before my bus I'm on google searching for a hostel...
And, after posting that on facebook, I got a message from Sabrina, a girl who did an exchange to Argyle in Grade 11, asking where I was staying... turns out she lives five minutes away!! So after thinking I was going to spend today and tomorrow alone, now I have an old friend :)
I'm going to meet her now! I'll take some pictures!
:)
Monday, November 28, 2011
Aurora borealis
After a busy week of class and readings, and a really interesting Thanksgiving dinner at a cafe in town owned by a New Yorker, 20 of us exchange hooligans got on the train to Boden at Uppsala Centralstation. The first leg of the trip was on a sleeping train, which I've never been on before (and don't necessarily want to be on again...) the trip lasted from about 6:30pm to 7:30am, 870km. We had several 6-person compartments which we crammed with winter jackets, boots, and food. We had to wake up early to switch trains in Boden, and got on a regular train headed to Abisko and beyond. After about 4 hours, half of our group got off in Kiruna and headed to their hostels/tours. Another 100km/1 hour later, the ten of us got off at Abisko Östra, the tiniest train station I have ever seen. It seemed that the old station was under construction, so what was left was one of those temporary metal construction boxes with some benches inside and a laminated piece of paper on the outside that said "ABISKO OSTRA". We knew Abisko was small, but we had no idea that the hostel was quite literally several steps from the train 'station'.
We didn't have a happy first impression of the place. We go through the front door to a very strong unpleasant smell, are told that our rooms are still occupied so we should go find the grocery store and come back later, that their new sauna isn't ready yet, that there are only a few litres of hot water, and that there is no possibility for dogsledding the next day.
So, we left to walk around Abisko (population: 85). There were only three or so inches of snow, and luckily it wasn't icy, so we used up the remaining hour of sunlight to take some pictures of the 'village' (as our northern lights tour guide called it). We found the one supermarket, the school, a couple of houses, and lots and lots of shrubby little trees. Abisko only gets 300mm of rain per year, meaning it's classified as arctic desert, contrasting to the area all around it, which gets in the thousands of mm's, and has an average temperature at least 10 C colder. For example, it didn't get much colder than -10 C while we were in Abisko, but the girls in Kiruna saw -20 C on their thermometer in the middle of the night.
Around 9pm we suited up for our nothern lights tour. Some girls borrowed one-piece snowsuits from the hostel, which they all LOVED and wanted to buy one for themselves afterward. We all got headlamps and followed our guide up the mountain to a viewing spot. It was a lot of waiting and worrying, because it was fairly cloudy, and of course not everyone gets to see the northern lights when on the tour. 10:30pm is supposed to be "magnetic midnight" when the bulk of the activity happens. By 11pm when we were supposed to go back down, we were jumping around trying to stay warm and trying not to feel too disappointed that we hadn't seen anything. JUST as we were about to head down, we saw a greenish cloud. Within a couple of seconds, loads of clouds lit up, and the clear patches in the sky were suddenly filled with greenish floaty stripes, in funnel shapes and bands. The best one looked like a glowing tree standing on top of a nearby hill. It was magical.
It only lasted a few minutes. My camera couldn't see anything, but one of the girls brought a tripod :) I stole a couple of her pictures. We were SO happy after that.
Since the days are so short at 68.3 N, we woke up the next day and set out straightaway towards Abisko National Park. It was Sweden's first national park, partly inspired by Yellowstone, established in 1909. I WILL go back there in summer, it's supposed to be absolutely incredible. It was incredible in the winter as well. We hiked the path called Kungsleden, which seems to be the most popular path (about 10km) past the lake, along the river, past the mountains. We started at about 9am, when the sun was 'rising' (we never saw the sun all day!! it was too low in the sky), and by 1pm when we started to head back, it was already getting dark. My camera was dying all day, but luckily each time I turned it on, it seemed to have enough battery for one more picture, and then shut itself off. Then I turned it on again, snapped a quick picture, and it died again... this continued for several hours. Hah.
Back at the hostel we met another group of exchange students from Uppsala, some of whom me and Annika had met at the Hostbal at Snerikes!! It was quite funny. The hostel only had a capacity for about 35 people, and we were 21 from Uppsala.
After a solid 28 hours in Abisko, we got back on the train home, arriving to 2cm of frozen snow in Uppsala. Without the dogsledding, our trip only cost about 1200 kr ($175 for 34 hrs on trains, tour, bed). Money definitely well-spent.
I made a super-cool 7 minute Youtube video of some of my pictures, a few from others, and a couple videos I took as well.
If you don't have 7 minutes, or want to see ALL *my* photos, here is the link to my photos from the trip...
We didn't have a happy first impression of the place. We go through the front door to a very strong unpleasant smell, are told that our rooms are still occupied so we should go find the grocery store and come back later, that their new sauna isn't ready yet, that there are only a few litres of hot water, and that there is no possibility for dogsledding the next day.
So, we left to walk around Abisko (population: 85). There were only three or so inches of snow, and luckily it wasn't icy, so we used up the remaining hour of sunlight to take some pictures of the 'village' (as our northern lights tour guide called it). We found the one supermarket, the school, a couple of houses, and lots and lots of shrubby little trees. Abisko only gets 300mm of rain per year, meaning it's classified as arctic desert, contrasting to the area all around it, which gets in the thousands of mm's, and has an average temperature at least 10 C colder. For example, it didn't get much colder than -10 C while we were in Abisko, but the girls in Kiruna saw -20 C on their thermometer in the middle of the night.
Around 9pm we suited up for our nothern lights tour. Some girls borrowed one-piece snowsuits from the hostel, which they all LOVED and wanted to buy one for themselves afterward. We all got headlamps and followed our guide up the mountain to a viewing spot. It was a lot of waiting and worrying, because it was fairly cloudy, and of course not everyone gets to see the northern lights when on the tour. 10:30pm is supposed to be "magnetic midnight" when the bulk of the activity happens. By 11pm when we were supposed to go back down, we were jumping around trying to stay warm and trying not to feel too disappointed that we hadn't seen anything. JUST as we were about to head down, we saw a greenish cloud. Within a couple of seconds, loads of clouds lit up, and the clear patches in the sky were suddenly filled with greenish floaty stripes, in funnel shapes and bands. The best one looked like a glowing tree standing on top of a nearby hill. It was magical.
It only lasted a few minutes. My camera couldn't see anything, but one of the girls brought a tripod :) I stole a couple of her pictures. We were SO happy after that.
Since the days are so short at 68.3 N, we woke up the next day and set out straightaway towards Abisko National Park. It was Sweden's first national park, partly inspired by Yellowstone, established in 1909. I WILL go back there in summer, it's supposed to be absolutely incredible. It was incredible in the winter as well. We hiked the path called Kungsleden, which seems to be the most popular path (about 10km) past the lake, along the river, past the mountains. We started at about 9am, when the sun was 'rising' (we never saw the sun all day!! it was too low in the sky), and by 1pm when we started to head back, it was already getting dark. My camera was dying all day, but luckily each time I turned it on, it seemed to have enough battery for one more picture, and then shut itself off. Then I turned it on again, snapped a quick picture, and it died again... this continued for several hours. Hah.
Back at the hostel we met another group of exchange students from Uppsala, some of whom me and Annika had met at the Hostbal at Snerikes!! It was quite funny. The hostel only had a capacity for about 35 people, and we were 21 from Uppsala.
After a solid 28 hours in Abisko, we got back on the train home, arriving to 2cm of frozen snow in Uppsala. Without the dogsledding, our trip only cost about 1200 kr ($175 for 34 hrs on trains, tour, bed). Money definitely well-spent.
I made a super-cool 7 minute Youtube video of some of my pictures, a few from others, and a couple videos I took as well.
If you don't have 7 minutes, or want to see ALL *my* photos, here is the link to my photos from the trip...
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Bandy
Saturday I was lucky enough to get a special nation-discount on a ticket to a bandy game! We had a really nice free brunch at Värmlands nation of pytt i panna and coffee, some glögg with almonds and raisins, then we all walked to the Studenternas IP stadium. It's an outdoor stadium, quite small, and everyone sort of stands on the bleachers (too cold to sit?).
Bandy is a bit like hockey, but with a round rubber ball, a funny curved stick, a giant net, less padding, and double the players on the ice. And at some points the whole team seems to crowd inside the net while the opposing team takes a shot (you can see this at 2:52 in the video below)... must read up on some rules or something before going to another game...
I must say, at some points I just really wanted to see someone get slammed into the boards, but there were no boards!! Must find a way to watch some Canucks games over here. :P
Uppsala's team is called Sirius (hence the play on words in the video below!)
Every time their team scored, they would play a clip from this song! "Wooaaaaooo.... Bandy is a Sirius game...."
Unfortunately they lost, but it was a really close back-and-forth game!
It reminded me a bit of a Whitecaps game before MLS, with a section in the top of the bleachers waving big flags and singing cheers with tunes to English pop songs but with Swedish bandy-related lyrics :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jKbctl2txQ
just a quick update for now! Must get to bed. Will post pictures after I steal them from my friend`s camera.
Bandy is a bit like hockey, but with a round rubber ball, a funny curved stick, a giant net, less padding, and double the players on the ice. And at some points the whole team seems to crowd inside the net while the opposing team takes a shot (you can see this at 2:52 in the video below)... must read up on some rules or something before going to another game...
I must say, at some points I just really wanted to see someone get slammed into the boards, but there were no boards!! Must find a way to watch some Canucks games over here. :P
Uppsala's team is called Sirius (hence the play on words in the video below!)
Every time their team scored, they would play a clip from this song! "Wooaaaaooo.... Bandy is a Sirius game...."
Unfortunately they lost, but it was a really close back-and-forth game!
It reminded me a bit of a Whitecaps game before MLS, with a section in the top of the bleachers waving big flags and singing cheers with tunes to English pop songs but with Swedish bandy-related lyrics :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jKbctl2txQ
just a quick update for now! Must get to bed. Will post pictures after I steal them from my friend`s camera.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
framgång! success!
Just got the results of my Forest Management exam... 5! In Sweden, you can get a grade from 1 to 5, 1/2 being fail grades. A strange thing: you don't want to see a check mark on your work, that means bad! You want an R. Not sure what that means yet but I'm sure I'll find it out pretty soon in my new class, considering I will spend about 10 times the number of hours in class as I did last term.
I have also heard that this is the warmest November in Sweden for at least 10 years. Apparently they don't even have snow in Kiruna?? This is yet to be verified on a weather website, but we are a bit nervous due to our upcoming Abisko trip. Can't dogsled if there isn't any snow!!!
So... the autumn ball/Höstbal! It wasn't until around Thursday that I discovered when they say ball, it means tailcoat, white bow tie, BALL gown. That was a bit of a shock considering I had two days to find some sort of floor-length dress... so I spent five hours shopping across the entire city looking for a floor length dress, of any sort. Unfortunately it's completely the wrong season to buy something like that. There wasn't even that much selection of proper ball gowns (the 2500+ kr ones... =$375+). Eventually I found a dress that was almost floor length and didn't fit quite right, but it seems to look fine in the pictures!!
The ball was organized much in the same way as the other gasks, except for you are seated with your partner. And since we don't speak Swedish and didn't understand the signs when buying our tickets, we didn't realize it was a date sort of thing... luckily the four of us all made the same mistake so we weren't alone...
It was a four course dinner (more than the other dinners), started at 4pm and lasted til just before midnight. Since that's eight hours of dinner, they actually had two 'breaks' of about 15 minutes, so that we could stretch/refresh and the servers could replace the candles and take away the dishes. There were many more speeches, but the entertainment was much better. We entered the dining room to a small orchestra playing!! There was also a jazz ensemble, two traditional choirs, one guy dressed in a top hat and cane singing a song about mashed potatoes, a skit, and a very charismatic songmaster. I will put together some video clips I took and post a link! The food was unbelievably delicious, including foie gras soup and ox meat, and many mystery drinks (one I believe was apple brandy but two others are still a mystery). There was much singing, including more songs with actions, and one where everybody jumps up and starts dancing with their partner, and of course standing on the chair for the final song. Luckily no feet on the table this time.
I also learned a new tradition: in addition to signing your table partners' songbooks, you can also bite the cover and leave your teeth prints. This doesn't seem to be across the board, maybe just for certain nations? But of course we all bit each others' songbooks anyway.
After the dinner, they had a live band upstairs playing music for ballroom dancing, and the non-student/older couples (the emeritus curators and whatnot, important guests) were all up there dancing, and they opened the lower floor for students and others who didn't actually go to the ball. It ran until 4, so we really did spend 12 hours in the nation!! Overall a great night, I will definitely go to the spring ball!! At least now I have a couple of months to find a dress... :P
PICTURES of the ball!
I have also heard that this is the warmest November in Sweden for at least 10 years. Apparently they don't even have snow in Kiruna?? This is yet to be verified on a weather website, but we are a bit nervous due to our upcoming Abisko trip. Can't dogsled if there isn't any snow!!!
So... the autumn ball/Höstbal! It wasn't until around Thursday that I discovered when they say ball, it means tailcoat, white bow tie, BALL gown. That was a bit of a shock considering I had two days to find some sort of floor-length dress... so I spent five hours shopping across the entire city looking for a floor length dress, of any sort. Unfortunately it's completely the wrong season to buy something like that. There wasn't even that much selection of proper ball gowns (the 2500+ kr ones... =$375+). Eventually I found a dress that was almost floor length and didn't fit quite right, but it seems to look fine in the pictures!!
The ball was organized much in the same way as the other gasks, except for you are seated with your partner. And since we don't speak Swedish and didn't understand the signs when buying our tickets, we didn't realize it was a date sort of thing... luckily the four of us all made the same mistake so we weren't alone...
It was a four course dinner (more than the other dinners), started at 4pm and lasted til just before midnight. Since that's eight hours of dinner, they actually had two 'breaks' of about 15 minutes, so that we could stretch/refresh and the servers could replace the candles and take away the dishes. There were many more speeches, but the entertainment was much better. We entered the dining room to a small orchestra playing!! There was also a jazz ensemble, two traditional choirs, one guy dressed in a top hat and cane singing a song about mashed potatoes, a skit, and a very charismatic songmaster. I will put together some video clips I took and post a link! The food was unbelievably delicious, including foie gras soup and ox meat, and many mystery drinks (one I believe was apple brandy but two others are still a mystery). There was much singing, including more songs with actions, and one where everybody jumps up and starts dancing with their partner, and of course standing on the chair for the final song. Luckily no feet on the table this time.
I also learned a new tradition: in addition to signing your table partners' songbooks, you can also bite the cover and leave your teeth prints. This doesn't seem to be across the board, maybe just for certain nations? But of course we all bit each others' songbooks anyway.
After the dinner, they had a live band upstairs playing music for ballroom dancing, and the non-student/older couples (the emeritus curators and whatnot, important guests) were all up there dancing, and they opened the lower floor for students and others who didn't actually go to the ball. It ran until 4, so we really did spend 12 hours in the nation!! Overall a great night, I will definitely go to the spring ball!! At least now I have a couple of months to find a dress... :P
PICTURES of the ball!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
All crispbreads are not created equal
Hello there!!
It's been a VERY long time since I have had both time AND energy to write a blog post. And, since I am avoiding a very large stack of readings, obviously now is the perfect time to do it!!
Going back in time to Berlin...
EXCELLENT experience. I really fell in love with the street art and graffiti, and the feel of the place. Concert posters are literally plastered on every available surface, at least in the neighbourhoods we were in (Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain mostly) and secondhand and independent shops abounded. Our hostel was in Kreuzberg, fairly standard... gigantic rooms with a dozen beds, and everything smelled like smoke. We spent hardly any time in there (myself and Michela, my travel bud from New York), we mostly wandered the streets, shopping, grabbing some of Berlin's famous currywurst ... basically chopped up bratwurst covered in ketchup with some curry powder... YUM! And of course, we had to visit the East Side Gallery, an old chunk of the Berlin wall, which is covered in art from one end to the other.
And I'm sure you noticed the photo of Canadian-style thanksgiving dinner at the beginning of the Berlin album! I really wanted to have some sort of Canadian dinner with my friends, but could never think of what exactly Canadian food IS... other than maple syrup... but you can't really eat maple syrup for dinner. So, I made aunt Shirley's delicious stuffing recipe, with some random replacements... they don't have anything resembling breakfast sausage here, just a hundred types of hotdogs, and chorizo?? We also got a small roasting chicken (no turkeys to be found here) and some other bits to make a delicious dinner.
After getting back from Berlin, we had one class, then it was straight on to the study trip to Östads Säteri (säteri translated = manor), a sort of old fiefdom belonging to Swedish nobility. I believe it was owned at one point by the man who introduced potatoes to Sweden back in the 1700s! One of his descendents owns it now. One component of Östads Säteri is a teaching/research forest run partially by Gothenburg University and SLU, so we stayed in guest houses on the property. Each morning we met in the meeting/lecture hall for a bit, then piled into our minibus to drive out to various sites around the area. Mostly we were estimating stems per hectare, measuring tree heights, ages, and diameters, basal area of the stands, etc etc etc. But when I said wet before, I meant WET. It did not stop raining Monday through Wednesday. It reminded me of an extended field trip with Suzanne, my forest ecology prof from last year, who would take us on four-hour trips into Pacific Spirit Park in the freezing cold wet mornings to stand around in puddles and dig soil pits. Luckily this time, since our class was only six, we actually had enough equipment and instruction to get things accomplished! I took a core from a tree! I was so excited! But I was more excited to come back at lunch and dinnertime to dry out and make some food with my classmates. It was quite interesting sharing food with three Spanish students, a French girl, and a Swedish hunter. Somehow we managed to agree on spaghetti, falukorv, and ham and cheese sandwiches (with liver pate and pickles and a big glass of milk). Falukorv is much like a giant hotdogwrapped in red plastic. I am not kidding when I say Swedes love every type of hotdog. You slice it up, and fry it in butter... oh boy is it delicious! We ate it with some potato patties... mmmmmm. One of my Swedish roommates... I swear all he eats is meatballs, potatoes of various shapes, and falukorv with ketchup.
The weekend after we got back, after I had cleaned off my excellent (and expensive, like everything else in this country) GoreTex Solomon hiking boots, me and a few friends went to the älgmiddag... the moose dinner run by the Ultuna student union.
My dad was a bit confused about what exactly Ultuna is. There are two universities in Uppsala, Uppsala University (famous for Linnaeus) and Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet. UU courses are held in various places around Uppsala, but most of them are in the centre of the city. I live about a block away from Ekonomikum, the centre for the economics classes, and there are several other buildings scattered around the city. Ultuna is a bit like a suburb of Uppsala, to the south. All the SLU buildings are in Ultuna (excepting the other campuses like Umea of course). UU has its own student union, and so does SLU, which is called the Ultuna studentkår. Most people living in Uppsala haven't been to Ultuna, because there isn't really much there other than some sparse student housing, the university, and a gym, and it isn't on the way to anything too interesting.
Back to the moose dinner.
What a STRANGE night.
Gasques (gask in Swedish, which translates to 'spree' or 'party') are a special kind of formal dinner found only in Sweden. I already talked a bit about them after the Varmland nation's gasque in September, but the Varmland nation has many international student members, so a small part of it was actually in English. Not so for the moose dinner. It began in the big hall of the union building on campus at about 4:30pm, everyone was given a 'welcome drink' of champagne, and stood around chatting. Every twenty minutes or so from then on, you hear a CLUNK. CLUNK. CLUNK. Everyone turns to the speaker holding the great big pole with the golden union logo on top, and some words are said in Swedish, then people either go back to what they were doing before, or sing a short song thanking the speaker for what they just said. Luckily I was standing near Aino, a Finnish girl who spoke some Swedish, and she knew a bit about the songs. After, we all took our assigned seats in the restaurant hall, and listened to several more speeches all completely in Swedish. My dinner partner was absent, so I was asking the girls across the table from me what was going on... there was a guy in a plaid shirt and a large rubber moose mask/hat accepting snapps (shots) from various men around the room. I discovered later this guy was actually my dinner partner... by the time he got back to our table, he was so drunk he could hardly sit on his chair... luckily as soon as he sat down, there was another strange tradition to complete. The men all had to stand up and file out of the room, to go who knows where. As soon as the last man left, the women all got up and went up the stairs to the loft, where we were given another glass of champagne and a pink sheet covered in song lyrics. This was probably the most entertaining part of the whole evening. The next half hour was full of somewhat crude Swedish songs about 'we want strong sexy men' and whatnot led by mostly drunk union committee members, with lots of stomping and cheers from the ladies. Quite hilarious.
Moose gask photos: right heeeeere
It was about 8pm by the time everyone got back to their seats, and we actually got to eat our starter course. The rest of the evening was singing, speeches, performances, and waiting for food and snapps. The singing went much like the last gasque, except ALL the songs were in Swedish. Nobody I asked seemed to know why certain songs were sung... my favourite being the Swedish translation of "I Wanna Be Like You" from The Jungle Book. WHY??? What on EARTH could that song possibly have to do with anything??
Eventually we actually got to eat some moose! It was served with some cloudberry jam (yum) but the meat was actually quite dry, I don't think I liked it. We had amazing chocolate brownie cake with coffee for dessert, followed by the BEST song of the night. I have no clue what it was, but everyone had to stand on their chairs and put their right foot on the table while singing it. This was quite a challenge for most people, considering high heels and snapps consumed. This was all over just before midnight, when we all filed in orderly(ish) partners back to the union hall for the släpp (afterparty), which lasted until 4am. Quite a long night, but very entertaining.
Next, there was Halloween. Among Swedish university students, Halloween seems to last about two weeks. It begins on the Tuesday before (first club night of the week), and doesn't end until the weekend after Halloween.There are literally still costume parties 6 days after Halloween is over. We had a dress up party in one of my friends' corridors. There were a lot of toilet paper zombies (last minute costume!?), and I dressed up as Tintin to celebrate the movie that just came out! I am still looking for a picture of me among my friends' facebook photos... let you know when I find one!
To celebrate the end of our first course, me and a few friends went to Stockholm on our first day off. We checked out an outdoor market, and I was really excited to find a little Chinese import shop. I got myself some Shin Ram Yun noodle packets and some sriracha sauce. I can find most of the asian sauces I would normally cook with in the bigger ICA supermarkets, but they are ridiculously expensive. I had a short 'business lunch' with Louise, my friend's husband's cousin who just finished up at SLU last term. I had been in contact with her since early this year, asking her all about Sweden and SLU, so I was SO glad to finally meet her! She is doing an internship at a forestry consulting company in Stockholm, so has had even less time than me to meet. Then, my friends and I checked out the Vasa museum. Very cool. Basically, it's a giant warship built about 300 years ago that never really made it out of the harbour, due to some sketchy calculations during the building. It didn't have enough ballast, so just tipped right over, killing scads of people. But, somehow it was discovered on the bottom of the ocean some decades ago, and is on display in the museum.
Well, my Italian/Serbian roommate Marin has moved out now, replaced by another Swedish girl. I am now completely surrounded by Swedes. Therefore, our fridge is now completely full of ketchup, caviar, margarine, cheese, milk, sour milk, berry soup, and berry jam. On each shelf.
I have met a few English-speakers who have been living in Sweden quite a while, and they have introduced me to a few delicious Swedish foods, mostly to do with potatoes or crispbread. Some of my favourites are pytt i panna, literally 'pieces in a pan', which is really just hashbrowns mixed with diced onions and ham, hasselback potatoes, and crispbread sandwiches. I have discovered (through trial and error) that all crispbreads are not created equal. But of course crispbread, being extremely popular as a breakfast food, is mostly sold in giant packages, so I keep winding up with giant packages of crispbread with one piece broken off, not knowing what to do with the rest of it. I tried one type at a friend's house, and instead of calling to ask what it was called, I thought it would be OK to just pick one at random... bad idea. Anyway, the basic components of a crispbread 'sandwich' are a piece of a big round of crispbread, using a wooden butter knife to spread some 'butter' (mixed with oil or margarine to make it spreadable), using your handy dandy cheese slicer (which everyone has) to slice your gouda or your greve, and putting a thin slice of turkey or ham on top. Num.
Stockholm and other random pictures... HERE!
Stockholm and other random pictures... HERE!
I have also become somewhat attached to the oddly flavoured mineral water here. Probably because the tap water tastes so nasty... but I find myself thinking, "hmm, I really want some watermelon/citrus/coconut mineral water right now." Which, considering my initial reaction to mineral water, really surprises me. But, there you go. I am adapting to Swedish life.
Which brings me to my next topic: I am staying in Uppsala until June! I have been chatting with classmates at home about the courses they're taking, and long story short, I have decided that the courses offered in Uppsala are a more unique opportunity, and takes away the possibility that I would have to double up on wildlife management courses. I applied to and was accepted to: “Geographical Information Systems II”, “Applied Environmental Assessment” and “Diseases and Pests of Forest Trees” for next semester. This has two added bonuses: I don't have to move (expensive and a PAIN), and I can stay with friends and studybuddies already made here!
Monday I started my new course, Forest Environment and Conservation. It seems to be a real course, unlike the last one I signed up for (ha ha.) There are seven students, and... seven professors... but the course is set up much differently. Each professor is an expert in a different field, and will teach us different aspects of the course. Although, we have only met three of the professors and we're already mixing up which readings are for which professor and when exactly they are due.
For the most part, we have class everyday from 9-2:30. Some days are longer, some are shorter, and some days we have time scheduled in to do our readings (essentially free time). I am actually quite glad we have more than one professor, as the first one we met speaks softly and slowly, and usually rambles... not a good combination for early in the morning... sleepy... zzz. I can see myself becoming addicted to coffee in the very near future. I just bought myself a (shockingly expensive) coffee maker and thermos... it has begun.
One really unfortunate thing about having this course in November is that in a few days, it will be dark when I get to school and dark when I come home from school. Already, the moon is out by 3:30, and it's pretty much pitch black by 4pm. And it's only the first week. Luckily, the weather has been quite mild (or so the Swedes have been telling me), around 6-7 C (in full sun of course) and no snow or ice. Louise told me usually it's around zero by now, or below, even at midday. Hmm...
In the library this morning... it's about 3 C today... and the weather channel says it's going dooowwwnnnn. Brr. Almost time to bust out my fur-trimmed knee-length jacket.
Well, it's time to get back to work...
Upcoming stuff:
Fall gask (Höstbal) @ S-Nerikes nation - this saturday!
Nov 25-28 Abisko dogsledding trip!
Dec 2-5 Dusseldorf to visit my lovely cousin Gina!
Dec 20-30 My awesome little brother flies to Sverige!
Well, it's time to get back to work...
Upcoming stuff:
Fall gask (Höstbal) @ S-Nerikes nation - this saturday!
Nov 25-28 Abisko dogsledding trip!
Dec 2-5 Dusseldorf to visit my lovely cousin Gina!
Dec 20-30 My awesome little brother flies to Sverige!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
studietid - study time...
This month has been full of more exciting Swedish things to do... but mostly, study. After returning from our study trip, we jumped straight into a report on comparing forest management methods in BC versus Spain, then on to the exam! Two more days to study, then I get a weekend break! I will tell you all about the wonderful and slightly insane moose dinner, along with several other fun Swedish-style things I have discovered (including an iPod app for Regular Ordinary Swedish Mealtime) :D
Hope everyone is doing well!
Pic of me, studying hard :P
<3
Hope everyone is doing well!
Pic of me, studying hard :P
<3
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Photos: Helsinki, Berlin, and Östads Säteri
I've been really busy these past two weeks, actually have a bit of schoolwork now (finally!)
Don't really have time for a post, have to wake up pretty early tomorrow for 'forestry exercises,' but I've put up pictures from our boat trip to Helsinki and me and Michela's three days in Berlin, and from our very very wet day today making measurements of spruce stands.
Helsinki photos
Berlin photos
Ostads Sateri photos
Don't really have time for a post, have to wake up pretty early tomorrow for 'forestry exercises,' but I've put up pictures from our boat trip to Helsinki and me and Michela's three days in Berlin, and from our very very wet day today making measurements of spruce stands.
Helsinki photos
Berlin photos
Ostads Sateri photos
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Tjugoett (Twenty one!)
Hej hej!
This week was a pretty quiet one. Unfortunately we waited too long before booking to St. Petersburg, so it didn't work out. Possibly in November... we shall see. So, I ended up with a lot of spare time, considering I didn't have classes! But, since most others DID have class, I didn't do a whole lot except enjoy the sun and gorgeous fall colours, cooking some new things, fika with friends, and watching a season of How I Met Your Mother that I borrowed from Marine. Oh, and went to see the new Three Musketeers movie! I must say I prefer the one with Kiefer Sutherland... it's less like Oceans 11 meets Pirates of the Caribbean in 3D.
Saturday morning, since it was another beautiful day, a few of us went on an exploratory hike from Jälla to Stovreta, about 7-8km. I just can't get over those red and white spotted mushrooms! It felt a bit like an old fairytale, ancient-looking blankets of moss, huge forests of paper birch, brightly coloured mushrooms, and I even saw some lipstick lichen ! It's so neat to have learned about these things and see them in real life by accident! Of course, my companions being animal science majors, they just think I'm a bit crazy playing with lichens...
My birthday was really great. I had class for the first time in two weeks, and finally got some readings to do! It might seem weird that I'm excited to get a big stack of readings on my birthday... but it's time to get to work now. After class some girls and I went out for dinner at the Thai restaurant in town. We had a lot of discussions about different rules about using cutlery, and we all had a good laugh when Angeliek's food came wit h chopsticks (she's the only one who had never eaten Thai food) and Ningchen's food only came with a fork (she's from Taiwan). After dinner, I finally visited my nations' club! It seems to close at random hours and their events are always sold out really early, so I haven't been very involved in it so far :( but it was a lot of fun with everybody there. And, I was given a really awesome plant for my room! No clue what it is (if you know, send me an email?) but it looks really great! Also, apparently October 4 is cinnamon bun day in Sweden (hahahaha) so of course I was given a big bag of cinnamon buns which my roommates are now eating. All in all a super day.
Two weeks from now, the Ultuna Student Union is planning a Älgmiddag (literally: Moose dinner). Apparently it is a formal dinner in which they serve moose. I am buying a ticket tomorrow, no way I'm going to miss that!
Then, this weekend it's off to Helsinki!
Hope you are all doing great!
Link to photos: here!
This week was a pretty quiet one. Unfortunately we waited too long before booking to St. Petersburg, so it didn't work out. Possibly in November... we shall see. So, I ended up with a lot of spare time, considering I didn't have classes! But, since most others DID have class, I didn't do a whole lot except enjoy the sun and gorgeous fall colours, cooking some new things, fika with friends, and watching a season of How I Met Your Mother that I borrowed from Marine. Oh, and went to see the new Three Musketeers movie! I must say I prefer the one with Kiefer Sutherland... it's less like Oceans 11 meets Pirates of the Caribbean in 3D.
Saturday morning, since it was another beautiful day, a few of us went on an exploratory hike from Jälla to Stovreta, about 7-8km. I just can't get over those red and white spotted mushrooms! It felt a bit like an old fairytale, ancient-looking blankets of moss, huge forests of paper birch, brightly coloured mushrooms, and I even saw some lipstick lichen ! It's so neat to have learned about these things and see them in real life by accident! Of course, my companions being animal science majors, they just think I'm a bit crazy playing with lichens...
My birthday was really great. I had class for the first time in two weeks, and finally got some readings to do! It might seem weird that I'm excited to get a big stack of readings on my birthday... but it's time to get to work now. After class some girls and I went out for dinner at the Thai restaurant in town. We had a lot of discussions about different rules about using cutlery, and we all had a good laugh when Angeliek's food came wit h chopsticks (she's the only one who had never eaten Thai food) and Ningchen's food only came with a fork (she's from Taiwan). After dinner, I finally visited my nations' club! It seems to close at random hours and their events are always sold out really early, so I haven't been very involved in it so far :( but it was a lot of fun with everybody there. And, I was given a really awesome plant for my room! No clue what it is (if you know, send me an email?) but it looks really great! Also, apparently October 4 is cinnamon bun day in Sweden (hahahaha) so of course I was given a big bag of cinnamon buns which my roommates are now eating. All in all a super day.
Two weeks from now, the Ultuna Student Union is planning a Älgmiddag (literally: Moose dinner). Apparently it is a formal dinner in which they serve moose. I am buying a ticket tomorrow, no way I'm going to miss that!
Then, this weekend it's off to Helsinki!
Hope you are all doing great!
Link to photos: here!
Monday, September 26, 2011
København, Danmark
Copenhagen is a really, really great city.
So beautiful, and so much to see and do. We were a group of 7, Marine & Marie-Amandine (France), Pablo, Carlos, Alberto, Elena (Spain) and myself. We woke up suuuper early (3ish? although some of us didn't bother going to bed...) to catch the train to Stockholm, and sort of blundered around Stockholm C for a little while trying to find coffee and the right spår (track... but we didn't know that :P ). Sleeping on a train when you can't find the lever for the seatback is pretty much impossible as well, so me and Elena resorted to looking through my Scandinavian Europe lonely planet guide (that's what my last post was about... I realize the picture is really bad, but it's cool that I posted it from the train, right?).
When we finally got to Copenhagen at 11:30am, we didn't really know what to do, being exhausted and not being able to check in at the hostel until 5pm. We ended up with a really nice walk down Strøget (really famous shopping street) and a cheap boat tour, then walked to the statue of the little mermaid. It was nearly impossible to get a picture of the statue, because every tourist in the city was there also, trying to take a picture (or twelve) with it. At that point we realized our hostel was in the complete opposite direction from the park we were in, on the other side of the city... and the streets don't go East-West so we zigzagged across the city with all our bags for close to 9km over an hour and a half... the boys joked later (yoked... Spanish people always have this problem. Also cheap/sheep/ship/sit) that we didn't need to do any city tours, we've already seen the whole city...
The next morning we really slept in, so we didn't have too much time to see museums/castles etc, but I still feel like we saw a lot of the city. We climbed all the way to the top of Our Saviour's Church, the tallest building in Copenhagen (I think?) with stairs all the way up, that disappear into the spire. After, I was just sort of following the boys (they are all Spanish so logically always speak Spanish) and ended up in Christiania. I recognized the paintings on the walls from the Rick Steves video I watched with Dad ages ago... but I realized it a bit too late as we had already wandered into the Green Light district where they were selling every type of marijuana (legally). The 'market' area was only about a block or two long, the rest of the self-contained city was actually really neat. It reminded me a bit of Tofino or Gibsons or some other tiny little hippie town, or something out of the musical Rent?... with really old neat shack-style cafes and restaurants, and some really artsy/fairytale houses and apartments and mini gardens and strange little works of art. It wasn't like a big settlement of homeless people, more like a functioning city. And, they were just two days from celebrating their 40th anniversary as a little ... settlement?... so they had some decorations and posters up, and some bagpipe players and other oddities. Overall it was really neat, and I'm really glad I wound up there accidentally as I don't think I would have ever thought to go in there.
After that little adventure we spent some more time wandering around the city. It really is very pretty. We tried out the Nationalmuseet, but we were all too tired to enjoy anything except the giant skeleton of a prehistoric mammoth thing (auroch? see the pic!). Then we went into some really nice royal gardens, and cooked some spaghetti back at the hostel. Next day we again had all our bags. The guys really wanted to go to the Carlsberg brewery, but we ran out of time. We ended up finding an outdoor art exhibit and a couple of flea markets, and yet another nice park to eat our ham sandwiches. I swear ham sandwiches were the only thing those guys ate. Breakfast lunch dinner, white bread with ham slices. Oh except for our spaghetti night.
Literally about half an hour after we got home, we went out to a costume party for the international students (dress up something to do with your city or country), which was really entertaining. There was a bullfighter, a cookie, some lederhosen, an eiffel tower, Scary Spice (from the Spice Girls), a couple of Berlin walls, a LOLcat, an Argentinian soccer player, Mozart, and a bunch of other really random costumes. Luckily I had my giant Canadian flag (thanks mom) and some olympic gear so I was set.
Last night, Annika asked "Hej Fiona, wanna go to Stockholm tomorrow?" Guess what I said, I bet you're right! I was pretty tired but I am never sure when people are going to be available to go places, so I said "Of course!!"
It was a really nice sunny day. We set out to Gamla Stan, really nice to walk around. We found a Mint museum that was free on Mondays, which was sort of neat but too many coins!! Then we did a (really expensive) boat tour which was also really nice, but unfortunately I forgot to charge my camera after Copenhagen so it died during the boat trip. We didn't want to spend any more money so we just wandered around on one of the islands trying to find Rosendal slott, which as it turns out is extremely small and not really a castle at all... quite disappointing. But the landscape was really nice. We are going to go back another day (once Annika's scholarship money comes in... hahaha) to the Vasa museum, check out the shopping, maybe Drottningholm, and other bits.
Copenhagen photos: here
Stockholm photos: here
So beautiful, and so much to see and do. We were a group of 7, Marine & Marie-Amandine (France), Pablo, Carlos, Alberto, Elena (Spain) and myself. We woke up suuuper early (3ish? although some of us didn't bother going to bed...) to catch the train to Stockholm, and sort of blundered around Stockholm C for a little while trying to find coffee and the right spår (track... but we didn't know that :P ). Sleeping on a train when you can't find the lever for the seatback is pretty much impossible as well, so me and Elena resorted to looking through my Scandinavian Europe lonely planet guide (that's what my last post was about... I realize the picture is really bad, but it's cool that I posted it from the train, right?).
When we finally got to Copenhagen at 11:30am, we didn't really know what to do, being exhausted and not being able to check in at the hostel until 5pm. We ended up with a really nice walk down Strøget (really famous shopping street) and a cheap boat tour, then walked to the statue of the little mermaid. It was nearly impossible to get a picture of the statue, because every tourist in the city was there also, trying to take a picture (or twelve) with it. At that point we realized our hostel was in the complete opposite direction from the park we were in, on the other side of the city... and the streets don't go East-West so we zigzagged across the city with all our bags for close to 9km over an hour and a half... the boys joked later (yoked... Spanish people always have this problem. Also cheap/sheep/ship/sit) that we didn't need to do any city tours, we've already seen the whole city...
The next morning we really slept in, so we didn't have too much time to see museums/castles etc, but I still feel like we saw a lot of the city. We climbed all the way to the top of Our Saviour's Church, the tallest building in Copenhagen (I think?) with stairs all the way up, that disappear into the spire. After, I was just sort of following the boys (they are all Spanish so logically always speak Spanish) and ended up in Christiania. I recognized the paintings on the walls from the Rick Steves video I watched with Dad ages ago... but I realized it a bit too late as we had already wandered into the Green Light district where they were selling every type of marijuana (legally). The 'market' area was only about a block or two long, the rest of the self-contained city was actually really neat. It reminded me a bit of Tofino or Gibsons or some other tiny little hippie town, or something out of the musical Rent?... with really old neat shack-style cafes and restaurants, and some really artsy/fairytale houses and apartments and mini gardens and strange little works of art. It wasn't like a big settlement of homeless people, more like a functioning city. And, they were just two days from celebrating their 40th anniversary as a little ... settlement?... so they had some decorations and posters up, and some bagpipe players and other oddities. Overall it was really neat, and I'm really glad I wound up there accidentally as I don't think I would have ever thought to go in there.
After that little adventure we spent some more time wandering around the city. It really is very pretty. We tried out the Nationalmuseet, but we were all too tired to enjoy anything except the giant skeleton of a prehistoric mammoth thing (auroch? see the pic!). Then we went into some really nice royal gardens, and cooked some spaghetti back at the hostel. Next day we again had all our bags. The guys really wanted to go to the Carlsberg brewery, but we ran out of time. We ended up finding an outdoor art exhibit and a couple of flea markets, and yet another nice park to eat our ham sandwiches. I swear ham sandwiches were the only thing those guys ate. Breakfast lunch dinner, white bread with ham slices. Oh except for our spaghetti night.
Literally about half an hour after we got home, we went out to a costume party for the international students (dress up something to do with your city or country), which was really entertaining. There was a bullfighter, a cookie, some lederhosen, an eiffel tower, Scary Spice (from the Spice Girls), a couple of Berlin walls, a LOLcat, an Argentinian soccer player, Mozart, and a bunch of other really random costumes. Luckily I had my giant Canadian flag (thanks mom) and some olympic gear so I was set.
Last night, Annika asked "Hej Fiona, wanna go to Stockholm tomorrow?" Guess what I said, I bet you're right! I was pretty tired but I am never sure when people are going to be available to go places, so I said "Of course!!"
It was a really nice sunny day. We set out to Gamla Stan, really nice to walk around. We found a Mint museum that was free on Mondays, which was sort of neat but too many coins!! Then we did a (really expensive) boat tour which was also really nice, but unfortunately I forgot to charge my camera after Copenhagen so it died during the boat trip. We didn't want to spend any more money so we just wandered around on one of the islands trying to find Rosendal slott, which as it turns out is extremely small and not really a castle at all... quite disappointing. But the landscape was really nice. We are going to go back another day (once Annika's scholarship money comes in... hahaha) to the Vasa museum, check out the shopping, maybe Drottningholm, and other bits.
Copenhagen photos: here
Stockholm photos: here
Thursday, September 22, 2011
On the train
4th hour on the train after waking up at 3am... rrrr. But now is the time to find our hostel on the map.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Båtturer (Boat trips)
Right now I feel like I'm rocking side to side...
This weekend was full of boat trips. In total, I spent about 36 hours on various boats over Saturday-Tuesday...
... but first, the gasque. Gasques are an awesome Swedish university tradition, a fancy dinner party with lots of singing. This gasque was only for new students, a 'reccegasque'... they have several throughout the year open to everybody. But this one began at 3:30pm with everyone meeting in front of their nation in suits and knee-length dresses & heels. We all pair up and 'march' to the central Uppsala University building (from previous photos, it's the oldest building of the univeristy) with our nation's flagbearer, and then everybody 'marches' into the main hall. It's a gorgeous round hall, gold leafed everything, high arched ceilings. We listened to speeches, a classical ensemble, and one of the nation's choirs, then we all marched back to our own nation (technically my nation is Snerikes but all their events sell out quickly... so I go to Värmlands instead). You have the option to buy the nation's songbook, which I did, then you sit at your assigned seat in the main hall. My 'cavalier' was an Australian called Rhys. A gasque involves a lot of sitting and toasting as well, it turns out. We didn't even eat anything until 9pm. There were some more speeches, a skit (in Swedish), and many occasions when you sing a "schnapps song", toast "skål!" in a very precise way (right, left, in front... and NO clinking), and then drink 1/3 of your schnapps. Since they know a lot of international students joined Värmlands, they had a booklet at each seat with a couple of 'rules' like this. Anyway, there are dedicated sections in the songbook for beer, wine, schnapps, Uppsala, and other random categories... ones that involve lots of arm linking and swaying, and also standing on chairs... Amazingly, it includes "The Beaver Song" which I learned at Outdoor School ... I really couldn't get over that. Why on earth??? At the end of the dinner, everyone signs each other's songbooks, and everyone tried to sign on my Beaver Song page...
The next morning, we woke up really (really) early to catch the bus to the Grissleham ferry terminal, to take the Eckerölinjen ferry to Åland. The crossing time is about 2 hours, and then we were in Finland! Åland is self-governing, has their own stamps, speaks Swedish, yet is technically part of Finland. Lots of Swedes take the ferry to Åland just to buy duty-free.
Anyway, we took another bus to get into Mariehamn, the largest city in the 6700 islands that make up Åland. It's a really sleepy, charming little town. There wasn't very much to see, and the main island is fairly flat, but we were able to hike up to a beautiful viewpoint to see a big Russian sailing ship that was docked (complete with real Russian sailors), and afterward we accidentally wandered into a little fall festival. Mariehamn had dozens of beautiful wooden sailing ships docked in the 'marine quarter' where the festival was, and we stayed a long time poking around in the little harbour and just enjoying the view.
Sunday afternoon, we hopped on yet another bus to take us to Stockholm's port, to ride the Tallink ferry to Riga. The crossing time for this trip was 16 hours. It doesn't need to be so long, but it's an 'overnight' trip so that people can enjoy the restaurants, bars, spa, and shops on board. We brought our own food because it's really expensive (30 euros for dinner??). Our cabin was really tiny. I have never been on a cruise ship, so I have no idea if they were unusually small or just normal... there were four beds, a bathroom, and a TV crammed into a maybe 4x6 meter room. We spent a lot of time up on the sundeck and in one of the lounges,and they were actually running a presentation on Riga in the lounge, which turned out to be really helpful. We left as soon as the mime started, though...
We got off the boat around 10:30am Swedish time and had the whole afternoon in Riga. Me and Carina took a Hop-on Hop-off bus tour on a bright red double decker bus... really glad we did, because we would never have seen so much of the city by ourselves. Riga is a really interesting and different city. The old town centre is mostly original medieval/slightly newer buildings, so it's a UNESCO world heritage site. There are definitely a lot of places that look just like haunted houses... ancient buildings, falling apart, boarded up windows, cats jumping around on the roofs of little shacks... it was so cool. But I was glad I was on the bus and not walking past. There are also tons of city parks, and some ultra-functional looking Soviet buildings, which makes for a really jumbled-up city. There is a lot of energy in the city, a lot of really modern stores, but you really get the feeling there is a lot of poverty. We saw several of the stereotypical old baboushkas begging in the underground and by the market. Some of the stores (the grocery stores or ones that sell lottery tickets) had security guards (or policemen?) patrolling the store... it was quite odd.
I would have loved to stay another day to see the old churches and some of the other monuments and parks.
For lunch we accidentally found a Charlie Chaplin themed restaurant, with some somewhat creepy sticker/cutouts of Charlie Chaplin on the walls and in the bathrooms etc, but the restaurant was actually really nicely decorated and we got a really great meal for only $4 CAD. We also tried some deep fried bread with garlic cheese sauce!! It was really tasty but it was a good thing we shared between 5 people!!
I have to go do my group assignment now (finally some homework!) and pack up for Copenhagen Thursday morning! I didn't have time to sort through my pictures or steal any from other people, so those will be posted maybe when I get back from my trip.
Bye all!
UPDATE:
Gasque photos: here
Aland photos: here
Riga photos: here
This weekend was full of boat trips. In total, I spent about 36 hours on various boats over Saturday-Tuesday...
... but first, the gasque. Gasques are an awesome Swedish university tradition, a fancy dinner party with lots of singing. This gasque was only for new students, a 'reccegasque'... they have several throughout the year open to everybody. But this one began at 3:30pm with everyone meeting in front of their nation in suits and knee-length dresses & heels. We all pair up and 'march' to the central Uppsala University building (from previous photos, it's the oldest building of the univeristy) with our nation's flagbearer, and then everybody 'marches' into the main hall. It's a gorgeous round hall, gold leafed everything, high arched ceilings. We listened to speeches, a classical ensemble, and one of the nation's choirs, then we all marched back to our own nation (technically my nation is Snerikes but all their events sell out quickly... so I go to Värmlands instead). You have the option to buy the nation's songbook, which I did, then you sit at your assigned seat in the main hall. My 'cavalier' was an Australian called Rhys. A gasque involves a lot of sitting and toasting as well, it turns out. We didn't even eat anything until 9pm. There were some more speeches, a skit (in Swedish), and many occasions when you sing a "schnapps song", toast "skål!" in a very precise way (right, left, in front... and NO clinking), and then drink 1/3 of your schnapps. Since they know a lot of international students joined Värmlands, they had a booklet at each seat with a couple of 'rules' like this. Anyway, there are dedicated sections in the songbook for beer, wine, schnapps, Uppsala, and other random categories... ones that involve lots of arm linking and swaying, and also standing on chairs... Amazingly, it includes "The Beaver Song" which I learned at Outdoor School ... I really couldn't get over that. Why on earth??? At the end of the dinner, everyone signs each other's songbooks, and everyone tried to sign on my Beaver Song page...
The next morning, we woke up really (really) early to catch the bus to the Grissleham ferry terminal, to take the Eckerölinjen ferry to Åland. The crossing time is about 2 hours, and then we were in Finland! Åland is self-governing, has their own stamps, speaks Swedish, yet is technically part of Finland. Lots of Swedes take the ferry to Åland just to buy duty-free.
Anyway, we took another bus to get into Mariehamn, the largest city in the 6700 islands that make up Åland. It's a really sleepy, charming little town. There wasn't very much to see, and the main island is fairly flat, but we were able to hike up to a beautiful viewpoint to see a big Russian sailing ship that was docked (complete with real Russian sailors), and afterward we accidentally wandered into a little fall festival. Mariehamn had dozens of beautiful wooden sailing ships docked in the 'marine quarter' where the festival was, and we stayed a long time poking around in the little harbour and just enjoying the view.
Sunday afternoon, we hopped on yet another bus to take us to Stockholm's port, to ride the Tallink ferry to Riga. The crossing time for this trip was 16 hours. It doesn't need to be so long, but it's an 'overnight' trip so that people can enjoy the restaurants, bars, spa, and shops on board. We brought our own food because it's really expensive (30 euros for dinner??). Our cabin was really tiny. I have never been on a cruise ship, so I have no idea if they were unusually small or just normal... there were four beds, a bathroom, and a TV crammed into a maybe 4x6 meter room. We spent a lot of time up on the sundeck and in one of the lounges,and they were actually running a presentation on Riga in the lounge, which turned out to be really helpful. We left as soon as the mime started, though...
We got off the boat around 10:30am Swedish time and had the whole afternoon in Riga. Me and Carina took a Hop-on Hop-off bus tour on a bright red double decker bus... really glad we did, because we would never have seen so much of the city by ourselves. Riga is a really interesting and different city. The old town centre is mostly original medieval/slightly newer buildings, so it's a UNESCO world heritage site. There are definitely a lot of places that look just like haunted houses... ancient buildings, falling apart, boarded up windows, cats jumping around on the roofs of little shacks... it was so cool. But I was glad I was on the bus and not walking past. There are also tons of city parks, and some ultra-functional looking Soviet buildings, which makes for a really jumbled-up city. There is a lot of energy in the city, a lot of really modern stores, but you really get the feeling there is a lot of poverty. We saw several of the stereotypical old baboushkas begging in the underground and by the market. Some of the stores (the grocery stores or ones that sell lottery tickets) had security guards (or policemen?) patrolling the store... it was quite odd.
I would have loved to stay another day to see the old churches and some of the other monuments and parks.
For lunch we accidentally found a Charlie Chaplin themed restaurant, with some somewhat creepy sticker/cutouts of Charlie Chaplin on the walls and in the bathrooms etc, but the restaurant was actually really nicely decorated and we got a really great meal for only $4 CAD. We also tried some deep fried bread with garlic cheese sauce!! It was really tasty but it was a good thing we shared between 5 people!!
I have to go do my group assignment now (finally some homework!) and pack up for Copenhagen Thursday morning! I didn't have time to sort through my pictures or steal any from other people, so those will be posted maybe when I get back from my trip.
Bye all!
UPDATE:
Gasque photos: here
Aland photos: here
Riga photos: here
Monday, September 12, 2011
Kulturnatten och resplaner (Culture night and travel plans)
Hej hej!
This past week has been VERY busy (although much of my time was spent on google. I'll get to that) but VERY exciting.
By the way, I suggest clicking on the links in the text (hopefully you can see them? the underlined pink words) because usually they link to a picture or a map of what I'm talking about.
Wednesday was a shopping day. I went in search of winter shoes, but came home with fancy boots instead... I'm finding it really hard to figure out what exactly I should be buying for winter. All the shoe stores seem to have three options for winter: Fuzzy lined sneakers, fuzzy lined chunky heel shoes (1) (2), or waterproof/goretex hiking boots (EXPENSIVE). (BTW the word for rain boot is the cutest Swedish word ever: gummistövlar.)
After a mandatory hour in the first shoe store, we headed over to the other mandatory stop, H&M. It gets freezing cold at night, pretty much as soon as the sun goes down, and I quickly realized I only have a sweatshirt or a winter coat, neither of which is appropriate for going out to dinner in 8 C. Luckily H&M is the perfect spot for a cheap fake-wool peacoat (which I have worn every night since then, definitely going to get my $45 worth out of that coat this year). We also stopped in a few other neat stores, which I have learned from my dutch friends are very popular in the Netherlands as well, like Cubus and Vero Moda. We stopped for lunch at MAX, home of "Sveriges godaste hamburgare" (Sweden's tastiest burgers... also most expensive burgers... 64 kr, seriously??) I don't think I'll go back there.
Then we finally made a trip into Uppsala's main Systembolaget, the government-run liquor store. In Sweden you have to be 20 to buy alcohol of more than 3.5%, which is only sold in these Systembolagets. It was MUCH bigger than I expected. You can get wine in a single serving bottle, a juicebox-size carton, a big bottle, a really big bottle, a tetra pak, or a box. They have (almost) any kind of alcohol you could ever want, and if they don't have it they can order it in for you (for a fee of course). I came away with a bottle of Cidre de Normandie (YAY!), a tetra pak of Rose (see the photo!) and some really ridiculous flavoured 'ciders' (Cactus and lime?? why??). Swedish ciders are incredibly sweet, and they only seem to have Pear, Apple, or Wildberry flavours. I think I'll stick to cidre brut de Normandie...
Class on Thursday was more of the same. Two coffee breaks in a three-hour class. We were scheduled to go until 2pm, but the professor announced "I can't make it after lunch so we will end at 12 today". The class is actually quite interesting now. And still no homework. Did you know that in Sweden you get four chances to pass the final exam? FOUR! With no penalties whatsoever! I can't imagine how anyone could ever fail a Swedish degree program. (Don't worry I'm not planning on retaking my exam four times...)
Magical discovery of Thursday: my building has FREE COFFEE. But not just coffee. Any kind of hot drink. Tea, cappuccino, hot chocolate, mocha, caffe au lait...(see pic of the machine!) but you must bring your own mug. We only discovered this on Thursday, when we followed our professor out the door in the first coffee break. None of us had mugs, but a TA suggested we use the tiny disposable cups from near the bathrooms and switch them out... so of course we did. I guess this is where my 25% tax dollars go... Excellent.
After class we all discussed what we were going to do in the week with no lectures (Sept 19-23). Luckily I have been Google-translating all my advertising e-mails from Ticnet (Swedish Ticketmaster) and SJ (Swedish rail company), so I ran across a 94 kr cruise to Riga, and a SJ promotion where if you go to the SJ booking office between 10 and 2pm on Saturday Sept. 10, you can get 50% off up to 2 round trips anywhere in Scandinavia (and Denmark), travelling before November 30. This is a SUPER good (and rare) deal, so we spent Thursday afternoon and all day Friday exploring every option and planning the cheapest trips possible.
Here is what we have planned:
Sept 18-20: Night cruise to Riga, capital city of Latvia. One day in Riga, night cruise back to Stockholm. Total cost with return bus from Uppsala to the port in Stockholm: 314 kr ($48). That is cheaper than two nights in a hostel anywhere. If you're interested, here is the website: Tallink swedish page (translated)
We have also learned ALWAYS look at the Swedish webpages, for trains, cruises, tours, whatever, because they ALWAYS have better prices and better offers than the English pages. If I had booked on the English page, I would have paid 41 Euros just for the cruise (41 eur = $56, whereas 94kr = $14... pretty crazy). Google translate is my best friend.
Sept 22-24: X2000 (high speed) train trip to Copenhagen. Leaving at about 4:30am to Stockholm, but we can get from Stockholm to Copenhagen in about 5 hours (arriving 11am!). We will have one full day and two half days in Copenhagen. The half-price round trip cost is 575 kr, $87. Our hostel is about 20 euros a night, ($27) so the trip cost is about $141.
Oct 7-9: Cruise to Helsinki. This was planned beforehand by a big group of us, but we managed to miss the cheapest pricing by a couple of days. This cruise is the same sort of thing as the cruise to Riga, two nights on the ferry and one day in Helsinki... but we will be with at least one native of Helsinki, so we have a free tour guide :) This cruise (and bus trips to port) cost $71. (Not so helpful) website: Viking Line translated page
Nov 25-28: Train trip to Abisko. Although Abisko and Kiruna are more exciting in December and January, I would much rather go with friends and get 50% off my train trip!! We leave Friday evening, take the train north for 17 hours (!!) and arrive in Abisko national park around lunch. In the evening we booked a package with a family-run tiny tour company (Lonely Planet recommended :P) for a snowshoe northern lights tour. Afterwards we stay in their hostel (which of course has a sauna), and in the morning, a two hour dogsled tour. The original 'Icehotel' in Kiruna unfortunately doesn't open until December 3, so we will miss that (unless of course I go back next term, from Umeå... much closer so it seems likely!) We are trying to also book a snowmobile moose safari (hahahahah.) but it may not be possible because of the lack of transport between Abisko and Kiruna on the weekend (only two trains a day and no busses). Cost of 'couchette' roundtrip: 533 kr. Cost of tours and hostel: 1425 kr. In total: $296.
So, for $556, I can see three countries/capitals, be above the arctic circle, go dogsledding, see the northern lights, and get 9 nights accommodation. I call that a win.
Saturday morning we got to the SJ shop right at 10am. It's true what I've heard about the numerlapp (Take-a-number machines) so there isn't a giant line, there are just billions of people hanging around on the benches outside the shop, watching the numbers on the screen. We didn't leave until 11:30... but luckily they had glasses of sparkling apple juice and After Eight mints for us. How civilized. I love this place.
Afterward, since I was with three animal science students and one cat lover (and I am of course also a cat lover), we went to the Scandinavian Winner Show, which just happened to be in Uppsala this year. I just discovered that yesterday, two cat lovers got MARRIED at the show. Weird. Anyway, we got to see loads of different breeds of cats, especially special Scandinavian breeds we'd never seen before, like the Norsk Skogkatt... huge animals, the biggest cats I've ever seen, with fluffy necks and ears. We saw ocicats, rex cats, sphinx cats, British shorthairs, Scottish folds, Maine coons, chinese squishy faced cats (??) and lots of others with strange Swedish names. Unfortunately my camera died after about 10 minutes so I have a few blurry ones from my phone in the album.
Then I ran home to charge my camera battery, and we went to Linnaeus's house for a free tour in English (most things were free because of Kulturnatten). It was really really neat. Lots of original furniture, clothing, wallpaper, etc. The garden is also very nice, although most flowers are starting to die now. He had 3 gardens in Uppsala, I'll let you know when I visit the others! Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) is a big deal here, considering he studied and taught at Uppsala University. I learned that one of his daughters lived in a house next door to him, and that house is now the two storey Café Linné, where I had fika with Marie-Amandine just a couple of days beforehand!
None of us were able to figure out where everyone was getting their schedule booklet for Kulturnatten, so I just set out into the city to see what I could find. I missed a parkour presentation by about a minute (Rrr!) but I saw loads of food stands (mostly for hotdogs, though... lots of pictures of stands), and about 12 outdoor stages all with something different... kids dancing to traditional songs, 'oriental' dance, screamo, techno, pipe bands, heavy metal, etc etc etc. There were book sales, booths for churches and political groups, there was a movie screen being set up on the ridge where the Uppsala castle is, choirs in front of the famous university library Carolina Rediviva, choirs at the cathedral (I missed these! boo), and lots of free movies in the local theatres. We went to a bollywood movie Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. It was a lot of fun, most of the people I went with had never seen a bollywood movie. This one had the two main characters instantly falling in love, quickly followed by the epic dance scenes around the Egyptian pyramids (even though they are still in India). Just watch the first couple of seconds of that video and you will get the picture. Everybody in the tiny 70s theatre was laughing with the pyramids shot, but almost everybody stayed right to the end of the (3 1/2 hour) movie. It was a really great night.
A couple of random bits to finish off my post. I got my awesome sparkly student card in the mail, I got my Nordea bank card (I can finally stop using my Mastercard as soon as the bank transfer goes through), my stove was fixed, I went to an info meeting for a 3-day St Petersburg tour, and this Friday is the Reccegasque, the big formal dinner party for all the new students. Each nation has their own gasque, mine was sold out but luckily you're allowed to go to another nation's party, so I'm going to the Vrmlands one... most of the exchange students seem to have joined that nation. It starts at 3:30pm and goes all evening... I am to wear a dress and heels, expect lots of singing, and not be surprised if everyone has to stand on their chairs at some point in the evening. I'll tell you all about it!
Here's the link to my photo album from this week: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/September122011?authuser=0&feat=directlink
This past week has been VERY busy (although much of my time was spent on google. I'll get to that) but VERY exciting.
By the way, I suggest clicking on the links in the text (hopefully you can see them? the underlined pink words) because usually they link to a picture or a map of what I'm talking about.
Wednesday was a shopping day. I went in search of winter shoes, but came home with fancy boots instead... I'm finding it really hard to figure out what exactly I should be buying for winter. All the shoe stores seem to have three options for winter: Fuzzy lined sneakers, fuzzy lined chunky heel shoes (1) (2), or waterproof/goretex hiking boots (EXPENSIVE). (BTW the word for rain boot is the cutest Swedish word ever: gummistövlar.)
After a mandatory hour in the first shoe store, we headed over to the other mandatory stop, H&M. It gets freezing cold at night, pretty much as soon as the sun goes down, and I quickly realized I only have a sweatshirt or a winter coat, neither of which is appropriate for going out to dinner in 8 C. Luckily H&M is the perfect spot for a cheap fake-wool peacoat (which I have worn every night since then, definitely going to get my $45 worth out of that coat this year). We also stopped in a few other neat stores, which I have learned from my dutch friends are very popular in the Netherlands as well, like Cubus and Vero Moda. We stopped for lunch at MAX, home of "Sveriges godaste hamburgare" (Sweden's tastiest burgers... also most expensive burgers... 64 kr, seriously??) I don't think I'll go back there.
Then we finally made a trip into Uppsala's main Systembolaget, the government-run liquor store. In Sweden you have to be 20 to buy alcohol of more than 3.5%, which is only sold in these Systembolagets. It was MUCH bigger than I expected. You can get wine in a single serving bottle, a juicebox-size carton, a big bottle, a really big bottle, a tetra pak, or a box. They have (almost) any kind of alcohol you could ever want, and if they don't have it they can order it in for you (for a fee of course). I came away with a bottle of Cidre de Normandie (YAY!), a tetra pak of Rose (see the photo!) and some really ridiculous flavoured 'ciders' (Cactus and lime?? why??). Swedish ciders are incredibly sweet, and they only seem to have Pear, Apple, or Wildberry flavours. I think I'll stick to cidre brut de Normandie...
Class on Thursday was more of the same. Two coffee breaks in a three-hour class. We were scheduled to go until 2pm, but the professor announced "I can't make it after lunch so we will end at 12 today". The class is actually quite interesting now. And still no homework. Did you know that in Sweden you get four chances to pass the final exam? FOUR! With no penalties whatsoever! I can't imagine how anyone could ever fail a Swedish degree program. (Don't worry I'm not planning on retaking my exam four times...)
Magical discovery of Thursday: my building has FREE COFFEE. But not just coffee. Any kind of hot drink. Tea, cappuccino, hot chocolate, mocha, caffe au lait...(see pic of the machine!) but you must bring your own mug. We only discovered this on Thursday, when we followed our professor out the door in the first coffee break. None of us had mugs, but a TA suggested we use the tiny disposable cups from near the bathrooms and switch them out... so of course we did. I guess this is where my 25% tax dollars go... Excellent.
After class we all discussed what we were going to do in the week with no lectures (Sept 19-23). Luckily I have been Google-translating all my advertising e-mails from Ticnet (Swedish Ticketmaster) and SJ (Swedish rail company), so I ran across a 94 kr cruise to Riga, and a SJ promotion where if you go to the SJ booking office between 10 and 2pm on Saturday Sept. 10, you can get 50% off up to 2 round trips anywhere in Scandinavia (and Denmark), travelling before November 30. This is a SUPER good (and rare) deal, so we spent Thursday afternoon and all day Friday exploring every option and planning the cheapest trips possible.
Here is what we have planned:
Sept 18-20: Night cruise to Riga, capital city of Latvia. One day in Riga, night cruise back to Stockholm. Total cost with return bus from Uppsala to the port in Stockholm: 314 kr ($48). That is cheaper than two nights in a hostel anywhere. If you're interested, here is the website: Tallink swedish page (translated)
We have also learned ALWAYS look at the Swedish webpages, for trains, cruises, tours, whatever, because they ALWAYS have better prices and better offers than the English pages. If I had booked on the English page, I would have paid 41 Euros just for the cruise (41 eur = $56, whereas 94kr = $14... pretty crazy). Google translate is my best friend.
Sept 22-24: X2000 (high speed) train trip to Copenhagen. Leaving at about 4:30am to Stockholm, but we can get from Stockholm to Copenhagen in about 5 hours (arriving 11am!). We will have one full day and two half days in Copenhagen. The half-price round trip cost is 575 kr, $87. Our hostel is about 20 euros a night, ($27) so the trip cost is about $141.
Oct 7-9: Cruise to Helsinki. This was planned beforehand by a big group of us, but we managed to miss the cheapest pricing by a couple of days. This cruise is the same sort of thing as the cruise to Riga, two nights on the ferry and one day in Helsinki... but we will be with at least one native of Helsinki, so we have a free tour guide :) This cruise (and bus trips to port) cost $71. (Not so helpful) website: Viking Line translated page
Nov 25-28: Train trip to Abisko. Although Abisko and Kiruna are more exciting in December and January, I would much rather go with friends and get 50% off my train trip!! We leave Friday evening, take the train north for 17 hours (!!) and arrive in Abisko national park around lunch. In the evening we booked a package with a family-run tiny tour company (Lonely Planet recommended :P) for a snowshoe northern lights tour. Afterwards we stay in their hostel (which of course has a sauna), and in the morning, a two hour dogsled tour. The original 'Icehotel' in Kiruna unfortunately doesn't open until December 3, so we will miss that (unless of course I go back next term, from Umeå... much closer so it seems likely!) We are trying to also book a snowmobile moose safari (hahahahah.) but it may not be possible because of the lack of transport between Abisko and Kiruna on the weekend (only two trains a day and no busses). Cost of 'couchette' roundtrip: 533 kr. Cost of tours and hostel: 1425 kr. In total: $296.
So, for $556, I can see three countries/capitals, be above the arctic circle, go dogsledding, see the northern lights, and get 9 nights accommodation. I call that a win.
Saturday morning we got to the SJ shop right at 10am. It's true what I've heard about the numerlapp (Take-a-number machines) so there isn't a giant line, there are just billions of people hanging around on the benches outside the shop, watching the numbers on the screen. We didn't leave until 11:30... but luckily they had glasses of sparkling apple juice and After Eight mints for us. How civilized. I love this place.
Afterward, since I was with three animal science students and one cat lover (and I am of course also a cat lover), we went to the Scandinavian Winner Show, which just happened to be in Uppsala this year. I just discovered that yesterday, two cat lovers got MARRIED at the show. Weird. Anyway, we got to see loads of different breeds of cats, especially special Scandinavian breeds we'd never seen before, like the Norsk Skogkatt... huge animals, the biggest cats I've ever seen, with fluffy necks and ears. We saw ocicats, rex cats, sphinx cats, British shorthairs, Scottish folds, Maine coons, chinese squishy faced cats (??) and lots of others with strange Swedish names. Unfortunately my camera died after about 10 minutes so I have a few blurry ones from my phone in the album.
Then I ran home to charge my camera battery, and we went to Linnaeus's house for a free tour in English (most things were free because of Kulturnatten). It was really really neat. Lots of original furniture, clothing, wallpaper, etc. The garden is also very nice, although most flowers are starting to die now. He had 3 gardens in Uppsala, I'll let you know when I visit the others! Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) is a big deal here, considering he studied and taught at Uppsala University. I learned that one of his daughters lived in a house next door to him, and that house is now the two storey Café Linné, where I had fika with Marie-Amandine just a couple of days beforehand!
None of us were able to figure out where everyone was getting their schedule booklet for Kulturnatten, so I just set out into the city to see what I could find. I missed a parkour presentation by about a minute (Rrr!) but I saw loads of food stands (mostly for hotdogs, though... lots of pictures of stands), and about 12 outdoor stages all with something different... kids dancing to traditional songs, 'oriental' dance, screamo, techno, pipe bands, heavy metal, etc etc etc. There were book sales, booths for churches and political groups, there was a movie screen being set up on the ridge where the Uppsala castle is, choirs in front of the famous university library Carolina Rediviva, choirs at the cathedral (I missed these! boo), and lots of free movies in the local theatres. We went to a bollywood movie Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. It was a lot of fun, most of the people I went with had never seen a bollywood movie. This one had the two main characters instantly falling in love, quickly followed by the epic dance scenes around the Egyptian pyramids (even though they are still in India). Just watch the first couple of seconds of that video and you will get the picture. Everybody in the tiny 70s theatre was laughing with the pyramids shot, but almost everybody stayed right to the end of the (3 1/2 hour) movie. It was a really great night.
A couple of random bits to finish off my post. I got my awesome sparkly student card in the mail, I got my Nordea bank card (I can finally stop using my Mastercard as soon as the bank transfer goes through), my stove was fixed, I went to an info meeting for a 3-day St Petersburg tour, and this Friday is the Reccegasque, the big formal dinner party for all the new students. Each nation has their own gasque, mine was sold out but luckily you're allowed to go to another nation's party, so I'm going to the Vrmlands one... most of the exchange students seem to have joined that nation. It starts at 3:30pm and goes all evening... I am to wear a dress and heels, expect lots of singing, and not be surprised if everyone has to stand on their chairs at some point in the evening. I'll tell you all about it!
Here's the link to my photo album from this week: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/September122011?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Våfflor (Waffles)
So, even though our stove/oven is impossibly complicated to operate, it seems to be broken. Which leaves me with very little food choices... cold sandwich, microwaved oatmeal, or waffles. Dinner tonight I think will be a salad with lunch meat and waffles...
Our hiking trip through the Upplands trail yesterday was very nice. We went through a lot of different forest types, rocks covered in lichens, mossy ground, grass, fields of wildflowers, boggy stuff... it was great to get into nature. The Finnish girl we went with picked a bunch of berries and mushrooms (a recurring theme in Scandinavia...), and we saw some really neat poisonous ones too :P
We must have taken a wrong turn, because instead of going south to Knivsta, we ended up on a highway in between Uppsala and Knivsta... at least we had our GPS, so we were able to follow the roads to Knivsta and then take the train back home (about 6 hours of walking, 10 minutes on the train...) Luckily we saw some very cute farmhouses.
This afternoon, we went in separate groups (depending on how late you stayed up...) to Gamla Uppsala, which means old Uppsala. Uppsala used to be located north of where it is today, when the river level was higher and you could reach it by boat. It was the original sacred spot, for thousands of years. It's the site of 3 large burial mounds, thought to hold a king or queen. Two have been excavated to check, but one was left alone. They have all been restored, as people used to ski and sled on them, not knowing what they were! They were only protected about 25 years ago.
We went into the little museum, mostly about vikings and the original pagan centre here which was turned into a church in the 12th century, and was the seat of the first Swedish archbishop. We went into the cafe for a fika (coffee/cake/relax time), and wandered around the burial mounds for a little while. I think we will come back another sunny day and bring a picnic... there is a little hill with a path that you can sit on, and it has a great view. You can even see the Uppsala cathedral from there.
Other news... I have bought two winter jackets. One is just a warm raincoat, the other is a big fluffy thing with a fur-trimmed hood... I chose one with removable fur though as I think it looks kind of silly on me. Apparently now is the time to buy, because if you wait too long all the good ones are gone (so say my finnish friends). Tomorrow I'm going on a hunt for winter boots, and a jacket to wear in the evenings... it gets down to 8-9 C after the sun goes down most nights. I seem to only have cardigans and a sweatshirt, I'm not sure how that happened.
I have learned that here, each day is 5-6 minutes shorter than the day before (I think for Vancouver its 2-3). When I got here, the daylight was 05:22-20:20, but now it's 05:51-19:45. Having fun with the daylight calculator... Vancouver's shortest day is 08:05-16:17 (8 hrs), Uppsala's is 08:50-14:45 (6 hrs), and in Umeå it's 09:29-13:48... four hours of daylight. It's going to be interesting...
I forgot to talk about my classes!
Our building is gorgeous. BRAND new, opened a few weeks ago. Our classroom is on the top floor (5) which you need an access card to get into, which none of us have (ha ha). We have to arrive a bit early and wait for a staff member who has an office up there to let us in. It has a great view though. (yes dad I will bring my camera to class one day :P)
My class consists of three are Spanish exchange students, one French, and one Swedish student. The professor is very much a forestry guy. And very much Swedish. I asked Olof, my Swedish classmate, what was up with the coffee break... he said all Swedish professors seem to have this unwritten rule that you break for coffee 45 mins into every lecture. Also, Mr. Johansson likes to turn his g's and j's into y's... he makes yokes, and talks about the reyeneration of trees. This will be weird to get used to. Other than that, it's not too hard to understand him.
I'm pretty excited for our field trip. On October 17, we will be piling into a minibus and driving all day to a house that SLU owns in the middle of a forest close to Östads Säteri, and staying there to do 'forestry exercises' for Tuesday to Thursday, and driving back on Friday.
That reminds me, our international student facebook group likes to plan things, and we have planned for a whole lot of us to go on the Viking Line cruise from Stockholm to Helsinki and back. If we booked in groups of 3, it's only about 430 kr for the bus to Stockholm and the cruise ($66). This doesn't include food of course... I think we will pack some food and do the big buffet on the way home, all together. We leave Stockholm at about 5pm Friday October 7, arrive in Helsinki Saturday morning, and leave for Stockholm again on Saturday night. We are going with at least one girl from Helsinki, so hopefully she can show us all around!!
Also this week I joined a nation! My nation is the Södermanlands - Nerikes nation, Snerikes for short, after the two regions from which the Swedish members are from. I stole a lovely picture of their 'castle' from their website, because it was evening when I went. They had their first 'club night' on Friday, and a few friends and I went to dinner there. It got a bit chilly but they hand out blankets! (see pix.) Afterward we wanted to go to the party at the Värmlands nation, but arriving at 9:05pm means you pay 80kr each to get in! Instead we paid 80kr at the ICA and got some nacho supplies. "What? You put chips in the oven??" It was a fun experience. We then played a dutch "Animal Sounds" card game followed by some slapjack and spoons in my tiny kitchen.
My pictures from the Snerikes dinner and the Upplands trail are in the first album. The second album starts with photos I stole from others from the hike, and my pix of Gamla Uppsala and a couple other random photos as well!
First: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/September32011?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Second: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/September42011?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Our hiking trip through the Upplands trail yesterday was very nice. We went through a lot of different forest types, rocks covered in lichens, mossy ground, grass, fields of wildflowers, boggy stuff... it was great to get into nature. The Finnish girl we went with picked a bunch of berries and mushrooms (a recurring theme in Scandinavia...), and we saw some really neat poisonous ones too :P
We must have taken a wrong turn, because instead of going south to Knivsta, we ended up on a highway in between Uppsala and Knivsta... at least we had our GPS, so we were able to follow the roads to Knivsta and then take the train back home (about 6 hours of walking, 10 minutes on the train...) Luckily we saw some very cute farmhouses.
This afternoon, we went in separate groups (depending on how late you stayed up...) to Gamla Uppsala, which means old Uppsala. Uppsala used to be located north of where it is today, when the river level was higher and you could reach it by boat. It was the original sacred spot, for thousands of years. It's the site of 3 large burial mounds, thought to hold a king or queen. Two have been excavated to check, but one was left alone. They have all been restored, as people used to ski and sled on them, not knowing what they were! They were only protected about 25 years ago.
We went into the little museum, mostly about vikings and the original pagan centre here which was turned into a church in the 12th century, and was the seat of the first Swedish archbishop. We went into the cafe for a fika (coffee/cake/relax time), and wandered around the burial mounds for a little while. I think we will come back another sunny day and bring a picnic... there is a little hill with a path that you can sit on, and it has a great view. You can even see the Uppsala cathedral from there.
Other news... I have bought two winter jackets. One is just a warm raincoat, the other is a big fluffy thing with a fur-trimmed hood... I chose one with removable fur though as I think it looks kind of silly on me. Apparently now is the time to buy, because if you wait too long all the good ones are gone (so say my finnish friends). Tomorrow I'm going on a hunt for winter boots, and a jacket to wear in the evenings... it gets down to 8-9 C after the sun goes down most nights. I seem to only have cardigans and a sweatshirt, I'm not sure how that happened.
I have learned that here, each day is 5-6 minutes shorter than the day before (I think for Vancouver its 2-3). When I got here, the daylight was 05:22-20:20, but now it's 05:51-19:45. Having fun with the daylight calculator... Vancouver's shortest day is 08:05-16:17 (8 hrs), Uppsala's is 08:50-14:45 (6 hrs), and in Umeå it's 09:29-13:48... four hours of daylight. It's going to be interesting...
I forgot to talk about my classes!
Our building is gorgeous. BRAND new, opened a few weeks ago. Our classroom is on the top floor (5) which you need an access card to get into, which none of us have (ha ha). We have to arrive a bit early and wait for a staff member who has an office up there to let us in. It has a great view though. (yes dad I will bring my camera to class one day :P)
My class consists of three are Spanish exchange students, one French, and one Swedish student. The professor is very much a forestry guy. And very much Swedish. I asked Olof, my Swedish classmate, what was up with the coffee break... he said all Swedish professors seem to have this unwritten rule that you break for coffee 45 mins into every lecture. Also, Mr. Johansson likes to turn his g's and j's into y's... he makes yokes, and talks about the reyeneration of trees. This will be weird to get used to. Other than that, it's not too hard to understand him.
I'm pretty excited for our field trip. On October 17, we will be piling into a minibus and driving all day to a house that SLU owns in the middle of a forest close to Östads Säteri, and staying there to do 'forestry exercises' for Tuesday to Thursday, and driving back on Friday.
That reminds me, our international student facebook group likes to plan things, and we have planned for a whole lot of us to go on the Viking Line cruise from Stockholm to Helsinki and back. If we booked in groups of 3, it's only about 430 kr for the bus to Stockholm and the cruise ($66). This doesn't include food of course... I think we will pack some food and do the big buffet on the way home, all together. We leave Stockholm at about 5pm Friday October 7, arrive in Helsinki Saturday morning, and leave for Stockholm again on Saturday night. We are going with at least one girl from Helsinki, so hopefully she can show us all around!!
Also this week I joined a nation! My nation is the Södermanlands - Nerikes nation, Snerikes for short, after the two regions from which the Swedish members are from. I stole a lovely picture of their 'castle' from their website, because it was evening when I went. They had their first 'club night' on Friday, and a few friends and I went to dinner there. It got a bit chilly but they hand out blankets! (see pix.) Afterward we wanted to go to the party at the Värmlands nation, but arriving at 9:05pm means you pay 80kr each to get in! Instead we paid 80kr at the ICA and got some nacho supplies. "What? You put chips in the oven??" It was a fun experience. We then played a dutch "Animal Sounds" card game followed by some slapjack and spoons in my tiny kitchen.
My pictures from the Snerikes dinner and the Upplands trail are in the first album. The second album starts with photos I stole from others from the hike, and my pix of Gamla Uppsala and a couple other random photos as well!
First: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/September32011?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Second: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/September42011?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Upplandsstiftelsen ("Uppland Foundation")
This morning we are going hiking on the Upplands trail,
http://www.upplandsstiftelsen.se/eng/hike-the-upland-trail__448
of course the english page is tiny compared to the Swedish page, but it gives an idea. We're going to walk to Knivsta and take the bus back. Don't worry, I'll post pictures!
http://www.upplandsstiftelsen.se/eng/hike-the-upland-trail__448
of course the english page is tiny compared to the Swedish page, but it gives an idea. We're going to walk to Knivsta and take the bus back. Don't worry, I'll post pictures!
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Cykel (bike)
My new (old) bike! Practically the last used bike in the city. 800kr, but no basket or lights yet.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Regnig dag (rainy day)
Today I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I just took the bus out to Boländerna. The COOP really is just like one of those gigantic American Wal-Marts, minus all the American products of course. Swedes seem to love those carbonation machines, they had an aisle full of the machines and an aisle for the flavourings! Also an aisle just for knäckebröd, and an aisle just for korv (sausage/hotdog/wiener). Hot grillkorv (med bröd/with bread) seem to be sold at every store for 5-12kr and are better than our cheap hotdogs. Anyway some of the more awesome/strange grocery products are in the pictures, like the row upon row of miscellaneous tubes, no clue what they are, but they have flavours like "Chorizo" and various other meats. Other highlights include "americansk" hamburger dressing, in flavours like "bacon", and MAPLE SYRUP! Although none of my flatmates knew what it was when I brought it back (because I had to buy it), and I haven't seen it anywhere else, must be pretty rare. It wasn't even very expensive, about $9!
Other awesome things I bought were apple cider 'soup' with bits of apples in it, Billy's Pan Pizza (from the dragon tattoo books), and Billy's also seems to sell frozen filled pancakes! Num.
I am also convinced Sweden is designed for tall people. I can't reach down far enough into the freezers to get my frozen corn (Matthew). They also sell frozen corn on the cob??
Boländerna is a somewhat industrial/shopping area, so it's hard to get around without a car or bike. Lots of car dealerships, mattress stores, etc. MediaMarkt, though, was so neat. I guess it could be compared to a Future Shop. Huge, with computers, fridges, hairdryers, playstations, etc. But. THREE ENORMOUS AISLES of coffee makers. !!!! I ended up with a waffle iron and a ridiculously expensive alarm clock (but the cheapest they had...) both at 180kr each ($30).
This evening we managed to get everyone together in our corridor for a meeting. The fridges and freezers and cupboards were all full but none of us had much at all in there, so we made several trips to the garbage shed and split the stuff that was still good. It was nice to get to know Frida, Marin, and Rebecca a bit.
Well, tomorrow is my first day of class at SLU! ttfn.
If don't see pictures below, click the link to the Google Web Album. It has a handy full screen option: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/August292011?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Other awesome things I bought were apple cider 'soup' with bits of apples in it, Billy's Pan Pizza (from the dragon tattoo books), and Billy's also seems to sell frozen filled pancakes! Num.
I am also convinced Sweden is designed for tall people. I can't reach down far enough into the freezers to get my frozen corn (Matthew). They also sell frozen corn on the cob??
Boländerna is a somewhat industrial/shopping area, so it's hard to get around without a car or bike. Lots of car dealerships, mattress stores, etc. MediaMarkt, though, was so neat. I guess it could be compared to a Future Shop. Huge, with computers, fridges, hairdryers, playstations, etc. But. THREE ENORMOUS AISLES of coffee makers. !!!! I ended up with a waffle iron and a ridiculously expensive alarm clock (but the cheapest they had...) both at 180kr each ($30).
This evening we managed to get everyone together in our corridor for a meeting. The fridges and freezers and cupboards were all full but none of us had much at all in there, so we made several trips to the garbage shed and split the stuff that was still good. It was nice to get to know Frida, Marin, and Rebecca a bit.
Well, tomorrow is my first day of class at SLU! ttfn.
If don't see pictures below, click the link to the Google Web Album. It has a handy full screen option: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/August292011?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Kolsyrat vatten (sparkling water)
Hej!
I have been VERY busy these last few days. I've done a LOT of walking around Uppsala, it really does seem like an European city. Cobblestones, old buildings, universities that started before anyone ever thought of Canada.
I managed to get some more groceries, although it's a 15 min walk and I forgot this while loading up my cart... ouch. Most food is about the same price as at home, it's the appliances that cost way more. There are 4 types of quinoa, dozens of kinds of rice, both cheaper than at home, but the cheapest kettle I could find was about $40 for 0.9 L.
EVERYONE seems to drink sparkling water. I keep accidentally buying it. "Peachy Peach LOKA LIKES L.A!" just sounds so delicious, yet once even slightly warm is completely undrinkable. For me anyway. I have seen Anton chug a big bottle he keeps in the fridge.
Our kitchen is finally cleaned out! No more rainforest on the kitchen table. Everyone moved in today. Anton, Frieda, and Rebecca from Sweden, and Mark from somewhere in eastern Europe. So, our fridge is of course full of tubes of fish eggs and filmjölk, and the cupboards are full of knäckebröd.
Yesterday we had a walking tour of Uppsala put on by the student union, so we saw the castle, cathedral, oldest building, liquor store, etc. Most of us then tried to make our way to Lilla Sunnestra, a lake just south of campus (about 45 minutes from the town centre). We sad things without bikes took the bus, but we got off too early, and ended up walking for over an hour to meet everyone. Must get a bike ASAP.
Friday night we had our 'nations pub crawl.' Student nations are a fairly big deal. They are more than a student club, more like a home base. If you are from Sweden, you are assigned to whichever of the 13 nations corresponds to your region. If you are an international student, you can choose whichever one you want. so we did a bit of a tour. They usually own a large house, often with a professional kitchen, bar, and dancefloor. Some are huge, some are maybe 4 rooms. Each one has different activities, cafe days, club nights, etc but most pubs are open every night. The only opportunity for international students (who don't speak Swedish) to work is at the nations, clearing tables or serving, but the pay is minimal. It's really just to meet people and help out.
University students here party louder than at home...
I was woken up at 6am by singing and clapping and music from a party that hadn't ended yet. Eventually someone shut them down... Swedes DO love to sing. It is absolutely true.
Today was more of trying to sort things out before class starts on Tuesday. Bus card is loaded, new curtains are up, six garbage bags full of the last resident's old bedding and junk are in the bin (this took a long time, I'm 4 floors up, no elevator, and the garbage is not right next to my building). Same deal with laundry... two loads in a broken machine (the sign fell off... I didn't see it til after). Up and down the stairs and over two blocks to the laundry room, checking every half hour to see if my clothes are dry...
The laundry system seems so unnecessarily complicated, but useful. There is a screen next to the door with a card slot, and you swipe your key card to 'log in'. Then you can book one of the 10 washing machines for a 2hr period, anytime within the next month. You choose the day, the time, and the machine.
I returned from another IKEA trip with new curtains and a new chair, so I don't keep getting ejected from the unstable rolling chair that came with the room. The walls in my room are an ugly yellow-beige colour with some stains and chips... new curtains help a lot!! I will post a picture of my room once I actually have time to organize my clothes, and once someone deals with my mattress (the cloth-eathing bugs).
I have successfully bought a hair dryer and straightener, toothpaste, garbage bags, and contact lens solution. Sound easy? Think again. Toothpaste isn't sold at smaller grocery stores, you have to go to the pharmacies. Garbage bags are sold in little rolls, and always seem to be hidden at floor-level on the shelves. Contact lens solution is only sold... in optical stores. It's a behind the counter thing. This took me a VERY long time to figure out.
Weird things about my apartment:
- the lights in the bathroom and hallway are motion activated
- I have two doors into my room
- you have to scrape the drain everytime you wash something out in the kitchen sink, the holes are super small
- my storage area is filled with old mattress foamies that I have no idea what to do with
- the stove doesn't work unless the oven knob is turned on
- the microwave has only two knobs, one like a kitchen timer and one to choose the wattage
Important words:
ta kort - take your card (this makes shopping less embarassing)
kolsyrat vatten - sparkling water (do not buy this! especially if it is not cold!)
dl - deciliter, or 100mL. Cups don't seem to exist.
krm - pinch, as in a pinch of salt
somserby - delicious super sweet pear cider
coop - the Walmart of Sweden
If don't see pictures below, click the link to the Google Web Album. It has a handy full screen option: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/August282011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLW4keS879eubA&feat=directlink
I have been VERY busy these last few days. I've done a LOT of walking around Uppsala, it really does seem like an European city. Cobblestones, old buildings, universities that started before anyone ever thought of Canada.
I managed to get some more groceries, although it's a 15 min walk and I forgot this while loading up my cart... ouch. Most food is about the same price as at home, it's the appliances that cost way more. There are 4 types of quinoa, dozens of kinds of rice, both cheaper than at home, but the cheapest kettle I could find was about $40 for 0.9 L.
EVERYONE seems to drink sparkling water. I keep accidentally buying it. "Peachy Peach LOKA LIKES L.A!" just sounds so delicious, yet once even slightly warm is completely undrinkable. For me anyway. I have seen Anton chug a big bottle he keeps in the fridge.
Our kitchen is finally cleaned out! No more rainforest on the kitchen table. Everyone moved in today. Anton, Frieda, and Rebecca from Sweden, and Mark from somewhere in eastern Europe. So, our fridge is of course full of tubes of fish eggs and filmjölk, and the cupboards are full of knäckebröd.
Yesterday we had a walking tour of Uppsala put on by the student union, so we saw the castle, cathedral, oldest building, liquor store, etc. Most of us then tried to make our way to Lilla Sunnestra, a lake just south of campus (about 45 minutes from the town centre). We sad things without bikes took the bus, but we got off too early, and ended up walking for over an hour to meet everyone. Must get a bike ASAP.
Friday night we had our 'nations pub crawl.' Student nations are a fairly big deal. They are more than a student club, more like a home base. If you are from Sweden, you are assigned to whichever of the 13 nations corresponds to your region. If you are an international student, you can choose whichever one you want. so we did a bit of a tour. They usually own a large house, often with a professional kitchen, bar, and dancefloor. Some are huge, some are maybe 4 rooms. Each one has different activities, cafe days, club nights, etc but most pubs are open every night. The only opportunity for international students (who don't speak Swedish) to work is at the nations, clearing tables or serving, but the pay is minimal. It's really just to meet people and help out.
University students here party louder than at home...
I was woken up at 6am by singing and clapping and music from a party that hadn't ended yet. Eventually someone shut them down... Swedes DO love to sing. It is absolutely true.
Today was more of trying to sort things out before class starts on Tuesday. Bus card is loaded, new curtains are up, six garbage bags full of the last resident's old bedding and junk are in the bin (this took a long time, I'm 4 floors up, no elevator, and the garbage is not right next to my building). Same deal with laundry... two loads in a broken machine (the sign fell off... I didn't see it til after). Up and down the stairs and over two blocks to the laundry room, checking every half hour to see if my clothes are dry...
The laundry system seems so unnecessarily complicated, but useful. There is a screen next to the door with a card slot, and you swipe your key card to 'log in'. Then you can book one of the 10 washing machines for a 2hr period, anytime within the next month. You choose the day, the time, and the machine.
I returned from another IKEA trip with new curtains and a new chair, so I don't keep getting ejected from the unstable rolling chair that came with the room. The walls in my room are an ugly yellow-beige colour with some stains and chips... new curtains help a lot!! I will post a picture of my room once I actually have time to organize my clothes, and once someone deals with my mattress (the cloth-eathing bugs).
I have successfully bought a hair dryer and straightener, toothpaste, garbage bags, and contact lens solution. Sound easy? Think again. Toothpaste isn't sold at smaller grocery stores, you have to go to the pharmacies. Garbage bags are sold in little rolls, and always seem to be hidden at floor-level on the shelves. Contact lens solution is only sold... in optical stores. It's a behind the counter thing. This took me a VERY long time to figure out.
Weird things about my apartment:
- the lights in the bathroom and hallway are motion activated
- I have two doors into my room
- you have to scrape the drain everytime you wash something out in the kitchen sink, the holes are super small
- my storage area is filled with old mattress foamies that I have no idea what to do with
- the stove doesn't work unless the oven knob is turned on
- the microwave has only two knobs, one like a kitchen timer and one to choose the wattage
Important words:
ta kort - take your card (this makes shopping less embarassing)
kolsyrat vatten - sparkling water (do not buy this! especially if it is not cold!)
dl - deciliter, or 100mL. Cups don't seem to exist.
krm - pinch, as in a pinch of salt
somserby - delicious super sweet pear cider
coop - the Walmart of Sweden
If don't see pictures below, click the link to the Google Web Album. It has a handy full screen option: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/August282011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLW4keS879eubA&feat=directlink
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Usch (yikes)
I made it alive... sort of.
Apparently Condor is a totally legitimate airline. The safety videos featured Marilyn Monroe, Lance Armstrong, Charlie Chaplin, and the Queen of England, complete with queenly wave, but no English subtitles. In the Frankfurt airport, the first restaurant I come across was... you will never guess. Hooters. There was a grocery store nearby, so I bought some Teekanne (yay) and paid 3 euros to check my email, and get Stina's (my buddy) phone number.
The 2-hour flight to Arlanda also had no English translations, except for something incomprehensible involving ladies and yentelmon, and turbulence.
I step off the plane and what do I smell? IKEA cinnamon rolls. I almost burst out laughing. Also, 4 in 5 young adult women are wearing white converse shoes. And everyone wears leather jackets and/or cardigans.
I found the train station pretty quickly, and I was the only one in it. Then I was the only one in the cabin. Between Knivsta and Uppsala, the train stopped... for 45 minutes. There were a few announcements, but nobody to translate them for me... anyway I got there eventually. Turns out there are no payphones in Uppsala Centralstation, so I had to ask someone (at 11pm) to borrow their cellphone. Stina turned up with my key, and we took the bus to Rackarbergsgatan. I never would have found it without her, the bus stop was 3 blocks away from the bus station. She helped me bring my bags up the 4 flights of stairs and figure out how to open the 3 sets of doors to get into my room. By the time I unrolled my blanket on the mattress it was midnight and I had been awake for 33 hours... so, logically, I barely slept...
This morning I managed to remember there is a tiny ICA grocery store in the same block as my apartment building. Apparently it's one of the most expensive ICA's in Uppsala. The chain doesn't have standard pricing, so you have to go out of town (to the ICA Maxi) to get the cheap food.
I have discovered that Swedes like to hide the regular water where it is impossible to find. After I realized we had no cups, I had to explore for water. If you want pear, grapefruit, passionfruit, vitamin, or sparkling water, no problem. I had to go to a Pressbyran and pay about $4 for a bottle of Evian to get plain bottled water!! Also I managed to pay $5 for a loaf of bread.
Then I went on a hunt (enabled by my GPS) for Nordea bank. It turns out only one branch can set up an account, obviously it's the one on the other side of town. On my walk over there I found The Phone House and got a SIM card, which is supposed to get me free internet but my phone can't seem to figure that out. It also thinks that it's 7:12am... which it isn't. Here it's 10:10pm and in Vancouver it's 1:10pm... I may have to buy a Swedish phone after all. At least it can make phone calls.
I headed out to SLU for my free orientation lunch, and waited in line for half an hour to get my internet password (which is why I finally have internet!!) The campus is AMAZING. It's like a little farm village with lakes and trees and little paths, but then you have a giant brand new glass building, then a red barn, then a 17th century style building. Most of campus seems to be under construction... all universities seem to be.
I managed to get back to centralstation, and realizing I still had no sheets, pillows, or towels, I waited an hour at two wrong stops for the bus to IKEA. I paid 5kr ($0.78) for coffee and a cinnamon bun (NOM) and sat on a couch! They have couches in the restaurant! Swedish coffee is served in a small cup, not as small as an espresso cup, but just the right size, 'lagom'. And the cinnamon roll was toasty and HOT, and it wasn't even under lights. Everything else in the store seemed to be somewhere around the same price as home, maybe a little bit more. Most things that are $1 at home are 9kr here (**). They sell EVERYTHING at IKEA. Fire extinguishers. Bathrobes. Sunscreen. Soap. First aid kits. Backpacks. I got a bed set and some kitchen basics, and lugged it back home on the bus. According to everybody, "Nobody takes the bus in Uppsala." That is not true, I do. How else am I going to get three giant bags home? Not on a crappy old road bike that everybody takes everywhere. Apparently, if you leave your bike unlocked downtown, people will push it into the river. Later they are dragged up, cleaned, and put up for sale in the bike shops...
I get back home and start unpacking, and I move the mattress pad onto the bed only to discover BUGS. I call the Dombron (rental company) "emergency line" but of course nobody answers. After several phone calls to buddies, the mattress pad is out in the hallway and I took a $30 cab back to IKEA (it was closing in 15 minutes) and bought a $55 mattress pad that I can sleep on tonight... I discovered our vacuum doesn't work, and after several frustrating minutes, found that even the broom couldn't stay on the handle. Shopping is needed.
Rackarberget (the apartment complex) is old. No elevators, ooold heaters, funny old doorknobs, and some chipping paint. It seems to be a thing here that when you move out, you leave behind whatever you don't want or are too lazy to throw out. I found a duvet, pillow, candles, bug spray, a photo-CD, and a pile of maps and textbooks in my room... I guess I'll keep them for a week or so, see if he comes back for them? But I am definitely going to use his bus card.
My room seems to be the biggest of the 5, but the one with the crappiest furniture. I have a window that overlooks the green 'party area' in the centre of the complex. People are singing out there right now. Hmm.
The shower is typically swedish, a tiny tiled room with a showerhead and a towel warmer. The bathroom is smaller than your average public toilet stall, and the kitchen just barely fits a table and chairs. The table is covered in gigantic potted plants, me and Rebecka (room mate) have no idea where they came from... nobody else has moved in (or returned from summer holidays) yet.
It's not as easy as I expected to get along with mostly English. Bus drivers can't understand me, and I can't read any instructions on anything, which is more frustrating than expected.
Important words learned today:
nästa - next (go up to the counter now!! it's your turn!!)
vänta - wait (as in DO NOT pull out your card and accidentally cancel the transaction again, silly person)
tvål - soap (not two... that is två)
mellan - between/medium... my milk is called Mellanmjölk... medium milk?
Rabiez - seems to be a clothing store.
Turn captions ON by mousing over the slideshow and clicking the speech bubble.
If you see a white box below, or don't see pictures, click the link to the Google Web Album. It has a handy full screen option: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/August242011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPa_x8nBs8DBrgE&feat=directlink
Apparently Condor is a totally legitimate airline. The safety videos featured Marilyn Monroe, Lance Armstrong, Charlie Chaplin, and the Queen of England, complete with queenly wave, but no English subtitles. In the Frankfurt airport, the first restaurant I come across was... you will never guess. Hooters. There was a grocery store nearby, so I bought some Teekanne (yay) and paid 3 euros to check my email, and get Stina's (my buddy) phone number.
The 2-hour flight to Arlanda also had no English translations, except for something incomprehensible involving ladies and yentelmon, and turbulence.
I step off the plane and what do I smell? IKEA cinnamon rolls. I almost burst out laughing. Also, 4 in 5 young adult women are wearing white converse shoes. And everyone wears leather jackets and/or cardigans.
I found the train station pretty quickly, and I was the only one in it. Then I was the only one in the cabin. Between Knivsta and Uppsala, the train stopped... for 45 minutes. There were a few announcements, but nobody to translate them for me... anyway I got there eventually. Turns out there are no payphones in Uppsala Centralstation, so I had to ask someone (at 11pm) to borrow their cellphone. Stina turned up with my key, and we took the bus to Rackarbergsgatan. I never would have found it without her, the bus stop was 3 blocks away from the bus station. She helped me bring my bags up the 4 flights of stairs and figure out how to open the 3 sets of doors to get into my room. By the time I unrolled my blanket on the mattress it was midnight and I had been awake for 33 hours... so, logically, I barely slept...
This morning I managed to remember there is a tiny ICA grocery store in the same block as my apartment building. Apparently it's one of the most expensive ICA's in Uppsala. The chain doesn't have standard pricing, so you have to go out of town (to the ICA Maxi) to get the cheap food.
I have discovered that Swedes like to hide the regular water where it is impossible to find. After I realized we had no cups, I had to explore for water. If you want pear, grapefruit, passionfruit, vitamin, or sparkling water, no problem. I had to go to a Pressbyran and pay about $4 for a bottle of Evian to get plain bottled water!! Also I managed to pay $5 for a loaf of bread.
Then I went on a hunt (enabled by my GPS) for Nordea bank. It turns out only one branch can set up an account, obviously it's the one on the other side of town. On my walk over there I found The Phone House and got a SIM card, which is supposed to get me free internet but my phone can't seem to figure that out. It also thinks that it's 7:12am... which it isn't. Here it's 10:10pm and in Vancouver it's 1:10pm... I may have to buy a Swedish phone after all. At least it can make phone calls.
I headed out to SLU for my free orientation lunch, and waited in line for half an hour to get my internet password (which is why I finally have internet!!) The campus is AMAZING. It's like a little farm village with lakes and trees and little paths, but then you have a giant brand new glass building, then a red barn, then a 17th century style building. Most of campus seems to be under construction... all universities seem to be.
I managed to get back to centralstation, and realizing I still had no sheets, pillows, or towels, I waited an hour at two wrong stops for the bus to IKEA. I paid 5kr ($0.78) for coffee and a cinnamon bun (NOM) and sat on a couch! They have couches in the restaurant! Swedish coffee is served in a small cup, not as small as an espresso cup, but just the right size, 'lagom'. And the cinnamon roll was toasty and HOT, and it wasn't even under lights. Everything else in the store seemed to be somewhere around the same price as home, maybe a little bit more. Most things that are $1 at home are 9kr here (**). They sell EVERYTHING at IKEA. Fire extinguishers. Bathrobes. Sunscreen. Soap. First aid kits. Backpacks. I got a bed set and some kitchen basics, and lugged it back home on the bus. According to everybody, "Nobody takes the bus in Uppsala." That is not true, I do. How else am I going to get three giant bags home? Not on a crappy old road bike that everybody takes everywhere. Apparently, if you leave your bike unlocked downtown, people will push it into the river. Later they are dragged up, cleaned, and put up for sale in the bike shops...
I get back home and start unpacking, and I move the mattress pad onto the bed only to discover BUGS. I call the Dombron (rental company) "emergency line" but of course nobody answers. After several phone calls to buddies, the mattress pad is out in the hallway and I took a $30 cab back to IKEA (it was closing in 15 minutes) and bought a $55 mattress pad that I can sleep on tonight... I discovered our vacuum doesn't work, and after several frustrating minutes, found that even the broom couldn't stay on the handle. Shopping is needed.
Rackarberget (the apartment complex) is old. No elevators, ooold heaters, funny old doorknobs, and some chipping paint. It seems to be a thing here that when you move out, you leave behind whatever you don't want or are too lazy to throw out. I found a duvet, pillow, candles, bug spray, a photo-CD, and a pile of maps and textbooks in my room... I guess I'll keep them for a week or so, see if he comes back for them? But I am definitely going to use his bus card.
My room seems to be the biggest of the 5, but the one with the crappiest furniture. I have a window that overlooks the green 'party area' in the centre of the complex. People are singing out there right now. Hmm.
The shower is typically swedish, a tiny tiled room with a showerhead and a towel warmer. The bathroom is smaller than your average public toilet stall, and the kitchen just barely fits a table and chairs. The table is covered in gigantic potted plants, me and Rebecka (room mate) have no idea where they came from... nobody else has moved in (or returned from summer holidays) yet.
It's not as easy as I expected to get along with mostly English. Bus drivers can't understand me, and I can't read any instructions on anything, which is more frustrating than expected.
Important words learned today:
nästa - next (go up to the counter now!! it's your turn!!)
vänta - wait (as in DO NOT pull out your card and accidentally cancel the transaction again, silly person)
tvål - soap (not two... that is två)
mellan - between/medium... my milk is called Mellanmjölk... medium milk?
Rabiez - seems to be a clothing store.
Turn captions ON by mousing over the slideshow and clicking the speech bubble.
If you see a white box below, or don't see pictures, click the link to the Google Web Album. It has a handy full screen option: https://picasaweb.google.com/111478015196222952326/August242011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPa_x8nBs8DBrgE&feat=directlink
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