the adventures continue

Don't have a great deal of interest to report but the weather is still not the best so I figure it best to stay inside and do some more typing.

Slept much better last night, though goodness knows how I did it given the scene that awaited me when I got up. Having breakfast with some of my corridor mates, we were puzzled at the numerous glasses (including many shot glasses) on the sink, given that they weren't there last night. Even stranger that they had been washed. After eating breakfast and having a chat, one of the guys from the next corridor over came and asked if we knew about the mess that our corridor was responsible for. Intrigued, I followed him to our balcony only to be met by the corpses of a number of chairs and other random objects which had been obviously thrown from balconies. What a mess. Hope I'm not around when the shit hits the fan. I was woken at around 5am with lots of yelling and merriment so perhaps thats when this happened. Who knows? At least I didn't have to feign ignorance.

The pub crawl the other night was lots of fun. We were meant to make it to the pubs of the 13 different nations but only made it to about 9 or 10. I have now tried a selection of beverages! One was particularly funny. I ordered a Hoegaarden, which gained me amazed looks from others at the bar. Upon looking at the barman, I realised why. The glass he was holding could only be described as huge. Or perhaps enormous. I must have looked startled because he explained that although it looked like you could bath a small child in it, it was actually only a pint. So I took it back to my table, much to the amusement of my friends.

A lot of the bars have Australian beers, but I certainly wasn't going to spend more on a stubby of VB than it cost for a pint of something nicer.

The bars varied greatly in both size and style. One of the nations is known to Preethi and myself as the New Zealand of the nations. Its symbol is a sheep, and they have a 'sheep-head gasque' every year where they serve you half a sheep head to eat (don't click on this link if you are feeling queasy). Mmmm offal. They didn't redeem themselves with their bar, where they were playing Robbie Williams' greatest hits and the toilet had no toilet paper. We didn't stay long.

The funniest nation was the one where we ended the crawl - Stockholm Nation. It was just like an enormous nightclub, with various rooms playing different styles of music. Full of people who had obviously put a lot of effort into their appearance, and needed to return to the toilet at regular intervals to maintain it. Preethi and I likened it to first years at steves or club bay view or something similar. Passing through a few of the rooms, we made our way down to the room that was playing Swedish pop music. Quite funny. They even played a Swedish version of 'hey mickey'. Not sure how often I will be returning to this nation, but it was certainly good for a laugh and a dance. A great place for people watching, that's for sure.

We left in time to catch the last bus home, but of course walked off in the wrong direction and by the time we got to the bus stop we had just missed the bus. Luckily some more friends were walking by coincidently and so we all walked home together in the rain. On the path home we saw the biggest snails I have ever seen, and also a few frogs which were quite cute. No cane toads here!

We also saw a posse of police, whose uniforms make them look ready for war at any second. They were stopping students riding home to check they had lights on their bikes. The fine is quite high if you don't, and apparently the fine for riding drunk is very expensive too.

I paid my rent for the first time the other day. We aren't able to use internet banking as our swedish isn't nearly good enough so we have to pay it at the kassaservice for a fee of 45 kroner. What a ripoff but it can't be helped.

Not sure what today holds. Am thinking of making it down to the systembolaget to buy some alcohol. Still haven't ventured in yet but have heard that you can't buy cartons or six packs but only single cans/stubbies. Well you can buy a carton but you need to select 24 single cans/stubbies at no discount so there doesn't seem much point. At any rate I wouldn't be able to cycle/walk home carrying a carton so I guess it doesn't really matter!

Well I wrote a lot for someone who didn't have much to say, I think I shall sign off now. Until next time..

Conor
xx