Bugging Out Early

I feel kind of bad posting this now, because I guess my blog has missed so many exciting and wonderful events, but I need to write it somewhere and it’s not really a Facebook or Twitter kind of thing, you know? So, disclaimer: if you want happy stuff, go the hell away and look at Facebook photos.

Basically, I’m going home almost a month earlier than planned – June 29 instead of July 20. This has forced me to upset a lot of plans and a lot of people, but you’d better believe I have my reasons, and it wasn’t a decision made lightly.

First of all, after I made plans for July to catch up with Steve in Iceland and go to the wonderful-sounding Latitude Festival (seriously, Belle and Sebastian are playing, you think it’s easy to skip that opportunity?) in England, I found out that after my student visa expires on June 30 and I’m not allowed in the Schengen Area – that is, most of Europe – for either 90 or 180 days (can’t remember which). That means no Sweden, no Iceland, no Czech, no whatever. Just the UK, Ireland, and Croatia and stuff. So, scratch one trip to Iceland.

I found out the information about my visa along with an American friend, Breanne, in the exact same situation. So what do we do? Plan a road trip around the UK, ending up at Latitude, where we would meet up with Steve and enjoy the music. I booked (and paid for most of) the hire car, we paid for flights, and even reserved some accommodation.

However, as the time got closer, I started stressing about time constraints for when I go home. Uni starts back at the very start of August, which left me with less than two weeks to get over jetlag, catch up with family and friends in Victoria, move my stuff to Sydney, find a place to live, find a job, and get ready for school. Doable? Maybe. While remaining sane? Hell no.

I guess I should admit that it started a bit before this, though. Already I could see that I had almost a month and a half of straight travelling – from June 11, when I head off with friends from my Spanish class, to my flight home on July 20. One of the things that has surprised me about myself over the last while is the discovery that I don’t actually like travelling all that much. I mean, I loved coming to Sweden, and it’s seriously one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life, but it’s hardly travelling. It’s relocating and living in a new, interesting place for 5 months. I spent a week in both Munich and Paris since I’ve been here, doing all the proper touristy things, and while both were great, with fantastic company, I was incredibly glad to be back in Sweden again afterwards, and couldn’t have survived too much more.

Oh yeah, I hate touristy things. Really, I went to Munich to see Andreas and Barbara, I went to Paris to have a nice time with Anna, and I was going to the UK because, well… Because I got kicked out of Sweden, really. Basically, I like always having somewhere to call home, and I don’t like to be away from that place for too long. 19 days at the end of June is going to be pushing it enough, and I’m really only doing it because I want to see my Spanish friends at least once during the year (they’re all over here until December / January). Although thankfully the last week or so will be just Anna and I, and Anna is kinda like home.

Then there’s the whole thing about money. Usually I’m pretty carefree about money, and I don’t like stressing about it, but the month and a half of having nowhere to go ‘home’ to was going to put a serious strain on my finances. I probably could do it, but would be going home broke or even a bit in debt, which is not nice when homeless and possibly jobless. I still have to pay for mine and Breanne’s cancelled flights (hate you British Airways), and some cancellation fees for other stuff, but overall I’ll have a lot more left over than I otherwise would.

Some of these problems might be solved if I can organise what I want and am able to do my last semester of school in Melbourne, as I can just stay at home in Ballarat until I find somewhere to live, but it’s not really something to fall back on, especially as I’m not sure I’ll be able to get permission from UTS.

Anyway, I just wanted to get that out there. It was indeed triggered by something / someone, but I’ve been meaning to write something like it for a while, even just to re-convince myself that I’m doing the right thing. Some of the flak has made me rethink, but I guess that’s how it goes, and if my reasoning comes out unscathed, then I guess I can feel better, right?

So that’s that. I’ll miss you, Sweden, although not as much as I’ll miss my darling Anna, but I’m sure I’ll be back with you both in the future.

Jag cyklar överallt

Today the weather was amazingly lovely, and a crashed my bike for the first time, into a pile of snow. Because of the sun it was a bit slushy, and I was riding a bit too fast, and there were too many people on the path and I had to swerve to avoid them, got stuck in a rut and ran into a pile of snow. It was okay though, I laughed and so did the lady on the bike going the other way (in a nice way). Then I was riding near Värmlands nation and skidded on some ice. Again, my own fault; I saw it, but couldn’t be bothered going around it.

I accidentally missed class this morning because I was distracted and didn’t want to leave, but my project group skipped it anyway so we met up to work on our project instead. Then we didn’t feel like doing our project so we went home.

Last night I went out for Greek dinner and sat on the warm naked man statue; it was very nice.

Also, I am completely addicted to knäckebröd (Swedish hard/crisp bread), it is amazingly delicious.

You’re the Storm

Every time I think I’m having the best time of my life over here, it just seems to get better. I don’t know how, but it seems to manage. I’m just being much more myself and having so much fun, it’s amazing. I think it’s not even the fact that it’s Sweden so much (although I do love it here), just that I needed a bit of a fresh start. When I go back to Sydney, I assume it will be better, too.

I guess I will start where I left off and talk about fika! Kalmar fika goes for four hours, and I was there for all four. Breanne and I met at 12 and ate some delicious sandwiches. We were meeting up because we were going to see Florence + the Machine on Tuesday night, and wanted to vet each other to make sure it would be okay. It was! She’s really nice, and before we knew it, 2 o’clock had come around and some other friends turned up for fika and the language café. I didn’t learn much Swedish, but I’m getting there, and my Swedish this week is definitely much better than my Swedish last week.

On Tuesday, going to see Florence, Breanne and I had the best of luck for most of the night. Our bus ride to Stockholm was free (saved 80kr) because the cash machine was broken and we didn’t have time to go to the Pressbyrån, and I guess the bus driver was nice. I think it helped a lot that Breanne speaks Swedish fairly fluently, as opposed to me who would’ve probably just gone straight to English.

On the way to Debaser we went up Katarinahissen, which I also did last time I was in Stockholm (Breanne didn’t know about it though). It was a lovely view, but oh my gosh so cold. There are photos on Facebook and you can tell just from our expressions. Then we checked out Fiskargatan, which is where Lisbeth lives later on in the Millenium trilogy, which we had both read. Pretty nice place.

We found Debaser a lot earlier than expected, so we went for a walk and sat in a café for a few hours with coffee and food. Surprisingly cheap coffee and food for Stockholm, actually. When it was finally time to head to Debaser, we got there early enough so that the line wasn’t too bad, and waited around some more for the support.

Support (I have no idea who they were) were pretty good, but I hardly remember them because Florence was pretty much the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, or close to it. Easily top five gigs. Breanne has a thing for standing right at the front against the fence, and I was so glad for it. I really can’t describe what Florence was like, except for lovely and amazing and just yeah amazing. Whew.

The trouble started on the way back to the Centralstation.  It took us a long time to get out of Debaser because of the coat checking line, but we still had plenty of time to catch the last train. Except when we got to the station… There was no train. No buses, either. No cancellation messages, just… Gone. Breanne rang a friend back in Uppsala, and everything was still timetabled online, but they just didn’t exist in real life. We were stuck without a way to get home!

I tried calling Bella, the only person I know in Stockholm, but her phone was off, so it was not much help. We were just sitting around wondering what to do when the Centralstation closed down and the police kicked us out into the cold. Argh! We ended up catching a taxi all the way back to Uppsala, which set us back about $75 each (total was 966kr). Eek. And I still had to walk back home to Flogsta from Uppsala Centralstation, but that wasn’t so bad. I think it was worth it for the excellent night, though.

The next day I met with Anna for lunch at Stockholms Nation, and lunch evolved into fika which evolved into dinner. I guess she’s pretty nice? I also hung out with her the next two days. Last night we planned to go to Kalmar for Smaka (the vegetarian restaurant), but it was not open so instead we rode to get a bottle of wine and I cooked kumara dal. It was delicious, and the best I’ve cooked it so far. It’s so much nicer cooking for more than one, I think. I need to do it more often.

Oh I also tried some tea on Wednesday, and really enjoyed it. It was Lady Grey, and very strong. I think that is the key – I strongly dislike weak tea, but if it’s strong enough it’s pretty delicious.

Now, tonight I’m either going to see Sambassadeur at V-Dala, or joining the FIFA competition with my flatmates. Hrmmm I will let you know, maybe.

The International Gasque

Ah, so no exciting trips to another country this blog, but it’s still fun, right? To be honest I’m starting to wonder how many people, if any, actually read my entire blogs; I mean, I can’t even be bothered to grammar-check them, they’re so long. So I’ll try to keep this one short, yeah?

My first Swedish class was pretty scary, because as I said, I missed the first three, but I did okay, and I should be able to catch up fairly easily.

The food and atmosphere were better at the Kalmar Reccegasque than the International Gasque, but it was still good fun; I got to sit at the VIP table! Actually I have no idea why I was there; the people around me kept getting up to make speeches and stuff, it was kind of weird. They were all super nice, though. Oh, actually they weren’t all VIPs. The girl opposite me was in exactly the same boat as I, so we kind of sat around confused a fair bit.

Afterwards, when the tables were cleared, they started up the music and whatnot for the afterparty. The music, quite frankly, was terrible. I found Anna, though, and we spent the evening chatting instead.

After everything closed up, I went to Max (Swedish McJack’s, with whatever else thrown in) for some food with Scott et al., which was pretty tasty at 3am. Then we got lazy and caught a cab home, although it was surprisingly cheap, considering what I’d heard.

Today I slept in, got up for a bit, put on some nice music, went back to bed to listen to Oh, Inverted World, and generally didn’t do much. Oh, but I cooked a surprisingly delicious and easy dinner (chicken satay stirfry) and bought some toothpaste. And walked in the super-big, super-slow snowflakes, which was amazing. It’s so nice at the moment – not cold (hanging around zero) and no wind, either.

Tomorrow is fika with Breanne and then more fika with the Kalmar language cafe. Cool. Okay I really should do some homework, eh.

Man, this was supposed to be a short post. Sorry…

München

So as I mentioned last time, I just spend a week in Munich visiting Andreas and Barbara, and it was pretty awesome. On the flight there I got to see the Alps from a pretty low altitude, because the flight from Zürich to Munich is only 40 minutes or so, and the plane doesn’t go up very high. So pretty!

Arriving in Munich, Andreas and Barbara picked me up from the airport and we zoomed along the Autobahn to Germering, where they both live. I was staying with Barbara and her family, and got a whole bedroom and bathroom to myself! Pretty nice.

Andreas had an exam to study for, so Barbara and I met a friend of theirs, Michael (which I can’t pronounce, because ‘ch’s are horrible in German), and we went to the Olympic Tower and BMW World. Olympic Tower was pretty cool, although we couldn’t see too far because of the fog. BMW Welt was okay, and there were lots of pretty BMWs, but I was pretty tired at that point.

Okay so I’m already forgetting the timeline, so I’m just gonna list things in random order.

One night we went out to Hofbräuhaus with Markus, who is Austrian and has a funny accent, apparently (I wouldn’t know…). He was the only other one that drank beer, but we did a pretty good job of it and consumed a few litres between us. I also had pretty good food for dinner, but I can’t remember what it was called. Bavarian food in general was delicious, though, and I can understand why a lot of people eat a fair bit of meat there. Mmm. Over my time there I got two home-cooked proper Bavarian meals, too, one from Barbara’s family and one from Andreas’.

Oh and also the night of Hofbräuhaus we went to a nice cocktail bar where I forgot about tipping regulations again, then went to apologise to the waitress. She appreciated my apology but refused my tip, and then proceeded to bring out shots of something for all of us, free. It just made me feel even worse! But also better, you know? Anyway, it was pretty fun.

Another night we went to their friend Martin’s birthday party, which was nice except nobody was very talkative. Not just to me, but in general. So I mostly talked to Andreas and destroyed a candle. Andreas and I turned up a bit late to it, because we got distracted drinking cocktails at another bar. Oh! I remember why we were out before now. We went to Allianz Arena with Christine (Barbara’s mum), but it was closed so we only saw the outside. Afterwards we went for dinner at Tapa Tapa, a nice Spanish restaurant with nice German bier, and then headed to the aforementioned bars and party.

After Martin’s party we went out to a club which nobody had been to before. It wasn’t brilliant, but kind of cool at the same time. We stayed out until 3am, which was pretty late for me, but I didn’t notice too much because of all the dancing and whatnot.

One night a bunch of friends came over to play board games, which was excellent fun. I already knew Michael, and also got to meet Melanie and Julia and someone whose name I forget who left early anyway. My train fell off into the ocean first (so I lost), but I did well in UNO and beat everyone at the game where you have to list words in categories for a certain letter that I can’t remember the name of. This was mainly because we played in English though, so I kind of had an advantage.

Also Andreas took us on a tour of Munich. He printed out notes from Wikipedia and was a pretty excellent guide. I got to see the city centre, Schloss Nymphenberg, the Residenz, Bavaria and a few dudes on horses. All were pretty amazing, and you should mostly just look at Facebook photos to save me explaining it badly here.

On my final day I went with Barbara, Christine and a friend of Christine’s to Starnberger See, a lake south-west of Munich. It was so pretty, and you could see the Alps across the other side. We had coffee and cake and a generally lovely time, except for the evil swans.

That night, we went out with a few people for my ‘farewell’ (I refused to call it this, it seemed embarrassing). I didn’t know anybody except Martin and his girlfriend (and Barbara, of course – Andreas was sick), but got chatting to Benny, who was really cool. Oh and then Miche turned up, so I knew him too (he is really nice). The only detractor was that they haven’t banned smoking in German bars yet, so I came out smelling a bit ugh. I didn’t really notice it anywhere else, though (maybe they had better ventilation, or individual places ban it).

So! Now I’m back in Sweden, swamped with assignments and other commitments to do over the next week or two. I have my first Swedish class tomorrow, after missing the first three, and I realised that I’m going to miss one next week, too, because of Florence + the Machine. Oh my gosh! I feel like a terrible student.

But I do at least have company for Florence in Breanne, who I don’t know yet but we’re going for fika on Sunday to meet up beforehand. We both know the same person on Tumblr, and didn’t really feel like going to Stockholm alone, so it works well! She is from Oregon and likes Jens Lekman, so I think we should get along okay?

Also I am yet to call Anna to organise fika with her, partly because I have no idea when I’m free and partly because I am a little bit afraid. I think I will do it tomorrow, though. Wish me luck?

A Snack and a Bottle of Wine

So it’s been a week since I last blogged, and I won’t have another chance for a while, so here goes! Last time I mentioned we were going on a bike ride, and we did! After fika Scott, Natalia and I slowly worked our way down the river bike path to the lake. By the time we got there it was dark and cold, but the journey was amazingly fun and pretty. Scott took some great photos, the best of which are on Facebook. All in all, I think we rode over 20km, which is quite an effort for three people who haven’t ridden in quite a long time!

Monday I went to Stockholm to meet Craig and Rob (my bosses from emotum) for lunch. I got there a bit early, so spent a couple of hours wandering around Södermalm (mostly Slussen). On the way there, though, I walked across Gamla Stan, and found myself in what I think was pretty much the most tourist-centric street in all of Sweden. I was glad to be rid of it. Stockholm is so amazingly pretty though, it’s just a shame it was so cold and all I wanted to do was get inside.

Lunch with Craig and Rob was really nice; it was great to catch up with them again, and a jolly time was had. On the walk back to the Bredbandsbolaget offices (they had meetings for the day), Craig pointed out lots of interesting places around Stockholm (you can see a lot from Katarinavägen!), and also offered me a job of sorts. So I’m testing out the 3G network (and how our software interacts with it) in Sweden in return for 3G Internet. And, you know, lunch, and accommodation in Oslo, and a summer tour of the fjords. The usual. (I’m pretty excited).

After lunch, I was still cold so I found a museum in Gamla Stan near the palace thing. Turned out I picked the most boring museum in the entire world – the National Museum of Economy. It was a bunch of coins and medals. There were only a couple of things that were mildly interesting, the best being a thing about Sven Svensson, who I took a photo of, to send to my old manager back home. He appreciated the joke.

After that I still had a few hours to kill, so I sat in a cafe with some varm choklad, morotskaka (hot chocolate and carrot cake, which I totally ordered in Swedish) and read my book. Maybe a bit of a lame way to spend my first day in Stockholm, but I really enjoyed it. Afterwards I headed out to Stockholm Universitet to meet Bella and see a Cinema Politica documentary about Coca-Cola and paramilitaries in Colombia. The documentary was pretty badly made, but it was interesting, and good to catch up with Bella again.

Then I’ll skip to this weekend, because I’m pretty sure that although I had a nice week, not much happened worth writing about. Friday night I went to Smaka, the vegetarian restaurant at Kalmar, with Julika, where we met up with Axel and his friend Madeleine. The food was pretty delicious, and afterwards we (well, not Julika) went back to Madeleine’s for a while, where I got to try glögg, a traditional mulled wine mixed with spices and served hot (I’m assuming at least part of that description would be unnecessary if I knew the meaning of ‘mulled’, but eh). It was so delicious! I want more and more and more, forever. I also managed to score myself an offer for a Spotify invitation (haven’t got it yet, though… getting worried), which would be pretty cool.

Due to this diversion, though, I missed out on pretty much all of Markus Krunegård, who I had a ticket to see at Katalin. I figured there would be a support, but apparently not, so I only saw the last song. Scott and I were thinking of going to a festival in Umeå, though, so we would get another opportunity to see him there, too.

Last night (Saturday) was the Reccegasque – the gasque for all the new students – which was amazingly good, due to a great number of factors. The first bit – speeches by random University people, all in Swedish – was kind of boring, mostly because I generally had no idea what was going on, but the rest was good. Dinner was delicious, and I met some lovely new tablemates. We sang lots of Swedish songs (I got a songbook for this purpose) and generally had a good time. Oh, and I mixed at least 5 kinds of drinks over the course of the evening (not my fault, they were given to us!). Surprisingly okay this morning, though.

After dinner we went to the afterparty at Smålands, which had a pretty terrible cover band playing. Good fun though, and I finally ran into Anna again, and we danced the night away. Very extravagantly, mostly, making fun of the band. Afterwards we were chatting, and we’re having coffee when I get back from Munich. That alone made the night a win.

Oh yeah, Munich! I was looking through my diary the other day, trying to figure out when I have some free time to travel, and it turned out I had quite a bit next week. So I got chatting to Andreas, and I’m going to stay with him (actually, I’m going to stay with his girlfriend’s parents, but same thing?) from Tuesday until next Tuesday. I’m pretty excited; a whole week in Germany with excellent company and bier!

And that pretty much sums up the week. I don’t know what my Internet access will be like in Munich, but I’m sure it won’t be terrible. So maybe you’ll hear from me, or maybe you won’t. Until next time!

This and That

Wow, this weekend has been pretty exciting so far! I can call it my ’scott7′ weekend if you like, because I’ve hung out with scott7 (aka Scott) both nights so far.

Last night we went to a ‘gig’ at Kalmar, but we got there before 9 and the band (Liminals) didn’t start until like 11 or 11.30 and then they were not very good anyway. I mean, I’m sure they were good for what they are, but I’m not a big fan of techno electro stuff. Fun night though, with good conversation had over a few beers. Also! On our way home we stopped at the restaurant in building 9 for some food, and while ordering got chatting to a couple of Swedish girls, who we sat with to eat. They proceeded to tell us about how much they love sauce, and food they can eat with spoons. Seriously, one of them ate all our combined tubs of sauce with just the leftover lettuce! I have a feeling it’s more a them thing rather than a Swedish thing, but I could be wrong.

Then tonight we went out again, this time to V-Dala to see Daniel Gilbert, who were actually pretty cool. Also they were a proper band, which helped. V-Dala is really nice and has good taste in music (Jens Lekman, Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, Peter Bjorn & John, Bloc Party and more!), although I’m still glad I chose to join Kalmar; it seems a lot more friendly and cosy.

We also got chatting to some American/Canadian/Mexican girls that Scott knew, who we are going bike riding with tomorrow, after fika. They were very nice! Also a random girl came up to me, grabbed my arm and said something in Swedish, then walked off. I was very confused, so when she walked past again I asked her what she said, and she told me, although I still don’t know what it actually was. Then she walked off again and I got chatting to her friend, who is absolutely obsessed with Australia. Then the original girl came back and I chatted to her while Scott chatted to the friend and then she kissed me on the cheek and then apologised a lot (she was pretty drunk). Then when we went outside for a bit (I was in my t-shirt and very cold) she kissed me for real (fo’ shiz, even) and then apologised even more (it didn’t occur to her that I didn’t actually mind). Weird times! But also fun times.

Then Scott and I rode our bikes home and I took some video before my hand got too cold, and I will post it asap and link to it on my twitter and/or tumblr but for now my phone’s bluetooth is being a bitch (as always) so I’ll have to wait and connect via a cable.

Anyway yeah that is my last two nights. It’s 2.30am right now! Oh I have more though. On Monday I’m going to Stockholm to have lunch with Craig and Rob, my (old?) bosses from Emotum, which should be really nice! I’m very much looking forward to it. Then I have the option of either heading back to Uppsala to go speed dating, or sticking around in Stockholm and going to see some political movie with Bella. Speed dating on Facebook has like 11 attendees, most of which are guys and most of which I already know (therefore defeating the main aim of meeting new people, rather than actually trying to find a date, although it makes the date thing hard too), whereas the political film is supposed to have had legal threats trying to stop it from screening, so it’s pretty dramatic. Also I’d have more time in Stockholm.

Okay so I should actually stop writing now, I’m struggling to type properly (combination of alcohol and tiredness, although I think it’s mostly alcohol as I’m not actually very tired). Okay bye!

Protected: Seems To Be On My Mind

Riding in the Snow

Thought I’d blogged enough for the time being? Well, so did I, but then I left class. The reason (or ‘inspiration’) for my last post was because it was snowing pretty heavily outside (also because it was a hella boring lecture, basically ISDM rehashed), and once it was time to go home, I discovered what snow can really do.

I had to (well, more or less had to) ride home while it was snowing, after it had already dumped a few inches of fresh powder (oh yeah I am up with the lingo) while I was in class. This is not an easy task! So glad I bought a mountain bike, even though I still haven’t fixed the upper 14 gears (they were not necessary today).

I guess riding in snow is a lot like riding in sand, except snow has icy ruts and is cold. Entertaining, though. I probably didn’t even fall off more than twenty times!

Sverige – Snön

I thought I’d just post a quick note about the weather and stuff here, because it’s rather interesting how it works. I was talking to my flatmates Emil and Javier a while back, and they were saying I’m actually really lucky to be here this semester (even though it’s so cold to start off with); it’s much nicer than autumn.

You’ve probably heard me mention by now that it’s generally dark by about 4pm here, but during the day it’s surprisingly light, despite the fact that I’ve only seen the sun a couple of times. Apparently this is because the snow reflects all the light, so everything is bright. In autumn, before it snows, it’s all dark and depressing and miserable. It will probably be like that for a while during spring, but nowhere near as long. And then I get beautiful summer!

Anyway, yeah, snow-climate weather observations. Cool (in both senses).