Proof that Swedes are crazy

Ice cream truck driving around in the last days of November...

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...

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.

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!

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!

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!

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