Vårbal, Comviq & Bryggan

Well, it's been a wickedly busy two weeks. Haven't found any time to blog since I've been working a LOT. Unfortunately my shifts at Bryggan summer club are very unevenly spaced... I work 18 out of 21 days in the first three weeks (two weeks in now), then only 5-6 shifts in June and July, and another 15 or so in August.

Ok, start with vårbal! My dress was tailored very nicely and my super cheap Guess heeled sandals from Army & Navy (thanks Alyse) were slightly painful but went great with the dress.
We arrived just after 16.00 and spent an hour out on the patio in the gorgeous sun, hanging around with our welcome drinks, chatting with the other guests, and listening to a few spring themed choir songs (the Swedes love to be season-appropriate). Found our seats upstairs, which were unfortunately in the far back corner of the second room... and it must have been 30 C with the windows closed. I had a sleeveless dress on and *I* was hot... Fredrik had a wool tailcoat. Yikes.

Anyway. Lots of speeches, more strange Swedish songs, some delicious Vasterbotten mousse (cheese mousse with radishes and asparagus) and nettle soup with half a boiled egg and bacon, some oxfilé and not so tasty potatoes (kitchen emergency I was told by my waitress friend... menu said endive salad. I don't know what an endive is but I know potatoes are not endives.) and pannacotta for dessert. And the typical ball drinks as experienced last time... beer, schnapps, port, wine, punsch (nothing like punch), baileys, coffee... etc.

svensk punsch

The dinner ended around 12:30am this time, as they had to inaugurate the new curators for the following year which meant a million more speeches. After that, me and Fredrik ran across the street (literally) to Göteborgs nation for their afterparty, to meet my friend Angelica who didn't get ball tickets. Angelica sang in the Lucia choir with me at Christmas, she was on exchange to UBC last year! Anyway, the dress code was strictly enforced at that nation, so everyone had tailcoats and ball gowns, and we danced until 4am. By that time the sun was shining brightly, and the streets were packed with people in fancy dress, either going home, to another afterparty, or to the train. This train is yet another special Uppsala tradition that I don't understand. The heritage train, called Lennakatten, runs only on Sundays in the summer. It runs on an old-fashioned track preserved by a special society from Uppsala to Faringe and back (50km), and for some reason or other, students ride it after the ball. It used to be run starting at 9am on the day after the spring ball, but in recent years it's been changed to 5am to accommodate students.

Lenakatten sitting at Uppsala Östra (west), next to the Centralstation

Another exciting event of that week: winning tickets!

I managed to drag Fredrik away from working on his thesis into the city centre where the phone company was having a promotional event, giving away free food and 10 sets of tickets to Summerburst, a big electronic dance music festival in Stockholm and Gothenburg. We assumed since we got there late that all the tickets had been given away, but then we discovered the tickets were hidden in envelopes around the city square, and apparently there were some left. We found an envelope within about 3 minutes of looking, and voila, each had an 800:- ($130) ticket to Summerburst Stockholm!! This was extra super wonderful because we were actually going to buy tickets, but they sold out before we had a chance. I had a bit of a panic because I was supposed to work that night, but finally NOW I can get excited about it because I finally managed to switch with someone.

happy winners.

After all that excitement it was time to start work at Södermanlands-Nerikes nation, also known as Snerikes. My first day was May 23, the day after their 'premiere' at the restaurant bar. After two evenings (18.00-01.00) at the restaurant bar, it was time for club night. Snerikes holds a restaurant everyday from 18.00-00.00, and every Tuesday and Friday they also run a nightclub until 02.00. They have two bars inside open, one big one small, and the same outside, one big one small. I was working at what they call the 'event bar,' the small shack-like bar which mainly sells beer, cider, and basic hi-ball drinks (gin tonic, rum coke...) in plastic glasses, designed to be as highly efficient as possible. 

The Event Bar

the happy bartender with her love can (kärleks burk aka tipjar)

It was very hard work... I sold around 40,000:- ($6250 CAD) mostly in $5 beers and ciders. We do sell mixed drinks here but most people don't know any drinks, so they just order a vodka-redbull (apparently one of the most popular drinks at the nations... yugh). My arms were full of scratches from the bottles and my fingers were and swollen from grabbing several bottles in one hand... we didn't have any break in the crowd from 8pm to 1:30am. I did an amazing amount of lugging cases of beer and liquor back and forth... needless to say I was a bit dead on Saturday. Since then I've worked at the event bar twice more, and it was a little easier but not much... less scratches those times around since I realized *avoid the bottlecaps*. Seems silly but there you have it. Unfortunately most people pay by card, and for some time we had only one card machine, so a lot of people were pretty grumpy... also, you can't tip by card machine, so the tips are not wonderful. And since I'm paid around $6 an hour for working 12 hours a day, I count on tips... luckily (or not) the machine broke last Tuesday club night, so we got double the tips because everybody had to pay cash :)

I'll put some pictures of the spring ball up in a few days. I've been working quite a lot and there isn't much time to be on the computer... plus it's been gorgeously sunny the last two weeks and I live next to a park! Hello frisbee.