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