Watch out for the poo!

Preethi and I had a great time on Saturday, helped in part by the reliable public transport system in this country. We caught the train to Stockholm, which has seats similar to those in a plane (though much more roomy than economy class!) and arrived in Stockholm 40 minutes later. There was a strange fellow on the train for a while, dressed up as some sort of animal and appeared to be collecting money for something (in a plastic bag which seemed a bit dodgy) and he had another person following behind him with a stereo playing strange noises. Not quite sure what that was all about but you seem to see a lot of strange things round these parts. I think it's due to the large proportion of students. Strange people, these students. Got nothing better to do that dress up as unidentifiable animals and wander around trains.

The Stockholm train station is enormous. Seemed more like an airport to us! We jumped on another plane to head up to where the viking markets were held. After catching a bus we arrived around 11am and followed the signs up to Gunnes Gard which is a reconstruction of Viking homesteads in the early years of the 11th century. It was great! You had to watch out for the poo though, as they evidently keep a number of animals there.


We wandered around the market stalls, checking out the goods made of leather and iron and wool. There was also a great collection of wood instruments and I would have loved to buy some for gifts but they were very pricy. There were what appeared to be some sort of homemade jams or sauce or something, and some homemade soaps too. We even found some eucalyptus soap!

I was particularly pleased at being able to try on some chain mail, regardless of the look on my face in the photo. Apparently this type of chain isn't what they used to wear in battle though. That stuff had rivets joining all the links securely, while these were just closed around each other. The leatherworker who it belonged to said that they had hung up a similar one in a tree and shot an arrow at it, and the links just popped open. Just as well there wasn't a battle on Saturday then I guess.

I couldn't help but think of the people at UWA that you see on Oak Lawn somedays with their wooden swords and shields, fighting whilst the damsels look on in their hot dresses. These people looked much more authentic! They staged some fights but we always seemed to be in the wrong part of the market.

We had a look inside the houses, and I was instantly taken back to Rick and Sandie's house at the farm, as it smelt just the same with the wood and the fire. We couldn't seem to find the animals that had left presents for us everywhere but did find some chickens and chicks.
I have put more photos up on my flickr page if you're interested...

After catching the bus and train back into Stockholm, we made it to a cheap pizzeria for enormous pizzas. Looking out the window we saw a horde of people wearing signs over their shirts, and carrying papers and bags. Preethi thought the signs on their shirts looked like some sort of meat, and so we thought maybe they were meat inspectors or something. Strange logic I know. I thought that maybe it looked like tomato and mushrooms. Every time another lot of them walked past we said "oh look, more meat inspectors". After we finished our pizzas and escaped from the pizzaman who seemed like he would be happy to talk to us for the rest of the afternoon, we made it out into the street to check out the shops! It didn't take long before we were met by the 'meat inspectors' who were actually people promoting some sort of boxing match. The picture on their shirts was a pair of boxing gloves! Too funny.

Stockholm was full of people everywhere. I whinge about the number of people you have to battle with in Perth but that is nothing compared to this. There was also rubbish everywhere, which we weren't expecting. I've later heard that they are having some sort of problem with that - perhaps a strike or something.

It was quite a cold day but all the shops had the heating cranked up so we were forever taking off and putting on our jackets. I should get used to it I guess! After wandering around for a few hours we decided to head back to the train station, and passed by a souvenir shop on the way to pick up a few cheesy items for pressies. A common item you can buy which is a typical Swedish souvenir is a painted horse. I'd like to buy some but they're so damn expensive. Am considering taking up whittling as a hobby while I'm here.

Still no headway on how I'm going to watch the grand final this Saturday, but seeing as it starts about 6.30am and I will be spending Friday night at my first gasque, perhaps this won't be such a dilemna after all. Heard that Ben Cousins got the Brownlow. I think they may have to give him a new guernsey to fit his head through.

I'm now used to the traffic travelling on the right (wrong) side of the road, but it's still quite disconcerting to see a car driving down the road with what I consider to be the driver's seat empty! The number of people that you see driving or riding their bike whilst talking on a mobile is also quite worrying. Particularly when they're driving and you're wanting to walk across the pedestrian crossing.

Preethi, Kate, Niels and I went to the Hans Blix lecture held at the university Monday night. He was a great speaker and had lots of interesting things to say, discussing UN reform and world disarmament. After the lecture, questions, and performances however we were quite famished and quickly headed off to V-Dala nation for dinner. This is the third nation I have tried the vege burger at, and I must say it was the best I've had so far! Cost me about $8-9 for a burger, wedges, corn chips and salad, and $4-5 for a pint of beer. V-Dala is the nation that the international gasque is held at this Friday, so hopefully the food will be as good for that. Am a little concerned as the gasque starts at 5.30pm and I've heard that dinner doesn't finish until 10pm. Given the amount of singing that this Swedes fit into a meal I can't say I'm too surprised. At the SNerikes dinner we had the pleasure (hmm) of attending, it seemed that every time you tried to get a spoonful of soup in your mouth you had to put your cutlery down and sing a song.

Anyway best get off to bed...have lots of uni work to get done tomorrow.

Love Conor

P.S. Had my first Cherry Ripe yesterday since I got here. Mmmmmmmmmm thanks mum!

brrrrrrrr

They don't mess around with autumn round these parts. Right, summer's officially over is it? Then bring in the rain and freezing temperatures! Take this, unprepared Aussies! Not quite so much fun hooning around on your pushy when your jeans are soaking through. I am on a mission in the next couple of days to buy myself some waterproof pants! Daggy yet necessary. Plus a nice waterproof jacket to see me through the winter. I have a nice warm jacket that Tim gave me but it's not waterproof I'm afraid so I gotta spend some more money.

Preethi and I are going to check out the shops in Stockholm on Saturday before heading to a viking market! Hopefully the weather won't be too nasty..my trusty forecastfox tells me it'll be a balmy 12 degrees, with sunshine and patchy clouds.

'twas very cold on Saturday night, when we ventured out to see some of the kulturnatten. Firstly we made our way to the botanical gardens where we caught the end of a fire show. Unfortunately the ground was pretty level and there were quite a few people there so it was hard to see much but what we could see was good! We then wandered into the centrum (city centre) to see what else was going on, and there were people everywhere! Lots of police too. By this stage it was about 10pm, and the city mainly consisted of drunk teenagers. It also seems that no matter the country, it you have this sort of public event then crappy street vendors will come out of the woodwork. Want a Metallica bandanna? Or a battery powered puppy? What about some cheap nasty candy? I can only assume that the more cultural stalls had done their dash earlier in the day and left before the teenagers descended. After a bit more of a wander we decided it was too cold to stay out any longer so we caught the bus home.

There was a massive korridor festen (corridor party) on the 7th floor of our building that night, still in full swing when we got home, but we just had a cup of tea and some toast and went to bed! Not sure how I got to sleep given the noise filtering down from above but I think I was so buggered it didn't matter.

Preethi and I have started our Swedish lessons, and not doing too badly! They actually have 9 vowels, which makes things a bit tricky. The Germans seem to have an easy time of it, as the two languages are pretty similar. We learnt how to ask people what languages they speak yesterday, and everyone else seems to know at least 2 languages. Well I guess that makes sense at most of the other people come from non-English speaking countries, but it still makes me feel pretty ignorant. Ah well, at least by the end of this course I shall know a lite Svenska.

That's it for now..

Conor

That's not a crayfish..._this_ is a crayfish!

Although I didn't have time to make a comical hat, our crayfish party was a roaring success! Most of the people from my corridor, plus a few friends crowded around some tables in our lounge, to feast upon crayfish, prawns, freshly baked bread, salad, and a selection of cheeses. Fine fare indeed! The crayfish here are quite cute, in comparison to the huge monsters I am accustomed to. I have always said that you seem to burn more energy getting the meat out of crayfish than you ingest, and I think that certainly applies to these little ones. You buy them at the supermarket already cooked, and frozen, so you just defrost them and they're ready to eat. Same applies with the prawns, though everyone else called them shrimp.

You are meant to drink lots of schnapps whilst all of this is going on, but I drank some nice Australian chardonnay :)

One of the guys in my corridor, Tomas, made his hat out of balloons. It was amazing! He actually made a little red crayfish. Once I get the photos on Flickr you'll be able to see what I mean. I did my usual trick of taking a couple of photos then forgetting to take any more, so I'll be getting the photos from one of the other guys in my corridor, Anders.

The singing of Swedish songs continued throughout the evening too, and although I couldn't join in it was quite amusing. They have little books of songs, as it is a tradition at such events, and at gasques, to sing many songs. Some of the songs have tunes that I recognised, such as 'the bare necessities' and 'how much is that doggy in the window'.

So all in all it was a great night and now I feel as though I know my corridor mates better too :)

Last night Preethi and myself went out for dinner with Stella, an Italian girl in my corridor, and Kate and Niels. Kate is a law student from UWA who has helped us out with various things since our arrival, and Niels is her Swedish boyfriend. We managed to get in a tour of the city before dinner, as the first nation we went to was very full so we moved on to the next one. This was shut, so we went to another, which was also very full! So on to another, which was shut. Hmmm. We ended up going back to the first one we started at, to be told that dinner would take about 1 1/2 hours. After all our traversing of the city however we decided to stay, and only had to wait about 15-20 minutes for a table. Another good night.

Today is kulturnatten, the 'Night of Culture' which is the biggest cultural event in Uppsala. The program is huge but in Swedish so we're not sure where we'll end up, but should be good wherever we go.

Well I best go do some laundry so I have something to wear. Best wishes to you all.

Conor
xx

It's raining men....hallelujah

No it's not really raining men. But I do seem to have heard that song a few too many times in the short time that I've been here. Perhaps it's enjoying a resurgence in popularity. Or perhaps I unwittingly wandered into a certain part of town.

It is however raining rain at the moment. Well, it is threatening to quite a lot but then not delivering. Not that I'm complaining about that, as I am now a bmx bandit.

I'm sure you'll all be thrilled to know that my cold seems to be very slowly going away ("they're going to the old mill!""no we're not""well let's go to the old mill anyway and get some cider").

Preethi and I finally chose which nation to join. We pored over the booklet we were given, tossing up the pros and cons of each one, and finally settled on SNerikes Nation. After going to the Freshman Reception on Monday however, it seems that we made a terrible, terrible mistake. It started off quite nicely, in our 'buddy''s room, meeting some other new students and having a drink or two. We then moved on to the main university building where we had to listen to some speeches about the nation and its history.

We started to get a little concerned when we saw the other international students that had also joined SNerikes. Now we haven't been here for that long, and haven't gone out that much, but we have come across a few people that we find so amusing/annoying/unfriendly that we have created our own codenames for them. Some examples are 'granny pearls', 'greek goddess', and 'puss in boots'. There are also some others that just stuck in my mind because they were doing things like constantly chewing gum through a whole speach, or being loud and obnoxious. Needless to say, the bulk of these pillars of society had also joined SNerikes. Alarm bells also started to ring when people would ask us why we joined the nation and we would say 'oh because of the free movie nights and the invited speakers on thursdays' and everyone else seemed to say it was because of the awesome parties.

After the speeches we moved on to the nation building where we were given small glasses of the most vile drink I have ever had the misfortune of drinking. It had an aftertaste reminiscent of liquid panadol. It was some sort of schnapps, apparently the worst kind there is as we later found out. After milling around for an eternity we were told to find a partner as we had to enter the dining hall in pairs. Preethi and I decided to form a pair but a very small man approached Preethi and asked to be her partner. We told him we planned to be each other's partner but he quickly told us that it wasn't allowed. So Preethi walked in with her Austrian and I walked in with a Swedish girl. Apparently the ratio of girls to boys is 6:4 here so boys find themselves being invited to gasques a-plenty!

By this stage we were starving, as we had to meet at 3.30pm and the activities so far had taken a few hours. Expecting a nice Swedish meal, we were very disappointed with the small bowls of soup that had gone cold, and hard bread. Deciphering the menu, we discovered that that was the meal, apart from pancakes for dessert. I was still pretty sick so I decided I'd had enough and Preethi was kind enough to escort me home. Strangely enough I started to feel much better after we had left.

Well we've realised that SNerikes is clearly not our scene. However, it's not the end of the world as we can still get free admission at all the other nations before 9pm. Plus we can still go to the movie nights and invited speakers, and I doubt that granny pearls will be there! Plus as Tim put it, the crappy night gave me something to write about. Preethi and I thought it was quite amazing how we could have chosen such an inappropriate nation but oh well! These things happen!

Ooh I'm famous! I just wrote an email to Trevor Chappell at the ABC (which I'm listening to at the moment) as he asked for people overseas to write in with song requests. About 5 minutes after I sent the email he read it out and will play my song soon! I'll overlook the fact that he referred to me as a 'he'. I requested 'the sounds of then' by gangajang :)

I've been trying to make mental notes of the little things that are different here. For instance, the public toilets at uni are all self-contained little rooms. That is, each toilet has its own basin and mirror and even cup dispenser so that you can have a drink of water if you like. Actually, speaking of water, you have to be careful with the water fountains they have at uni. The one in the foyer of my department has two taps, one which is still water and one which is carbonated water. Unfortunately I realised this too late. I won't be making that mistake again.

We are having a crayfish party here tonight! In fact, I have to go make a comical hat for it....didn't realise how late it was!

Until next time..

Conor

Wahhhh *sniff*

I'm sick. A full-on, no holds barred head cold. One of those ones that people solemnly tell you took them weeks to get over. And wouldn't you know, buying a box of tissues in this country is about as difficult as buying well, cold and flu tablets. Someone knows someone who buys them, but they can't remember where they buy them from. A box of tissues! What do they do when they're sick?! This cold goes way beyond the bounds of a hanky or two.

To buy any sort of medicinal product, you have to go to Apoteket, which is similar to Systembolaget in that you cannot buy pharmaceuticals from anywhere else. And of course they aren't open on sundays, as people don't get sick on sundays. So I had to cycle to the hospital, a round trip of an hour, to go to the apoteket there as it's the only one open on sunday. They don't sell cold & flu medication, so I have to make do with some sort of natural sinus relief stuff that I don't know what consists of as it is all written in swedish.

I have to admit that I'm feeling pretty homesick at the moment. Being sick will do it to you I'm sure.

On a happier note, I received an email yesterday detailing the trips to Russia that are organised each year for exchange students in Sweden. There are three trips, going to either St Petersburg, St Petersburg and Moscow, or St Petersberg, Moscow and Helsinki. I would love to go to Moscow but that those trips take longer, obviously, and as these are during semester I'm a bit nervous about missing too many classes. Plus they are more expensive. So I think I will put my name down for the St Petersburg trip. Every time I think of the trip I picture those big furry Russian hats. I'll be most disappointed if I don't see one when I'm there.

Happy Father's Day!

Sunny Sweden

The fine weather has been back for a few days now - I'm soaking it up while I can. People continue to remind me that winter is just around the corner and that surviving November here will takes a lot of strength (and schnapps).

I have a bike! He is called Rex and he is red and shiny and lovely but I must admit my bottom isn't quite used to this daily riding. I kept thinking to myself before I left for Sweden that I must go into training for the riding I knew I would be doing but I always seemed to have something better to do with my time. Well it's upon me now and I am surviving quite well. I have sussed out the bikepaths to get to my part of the university - Geocentrum - and it really is a very nice journey. The bikepaths here are wide and plentiful so riding is much less stressful than in Perth. I'm getting used to traffic going the opposite way to what I'm used to - Preethi and I keep saying that we are going to get cleaned up when we come home. This is also due to the fact that there are HEAPS of pedestrian crossings here, and the cars actually stop for you! Amazing.

I started university today. There are four people in my class, including me, which is a lot smaller than I was anticipating! There are two Swedes, a German and myself, and the lecturer is South African. I think I will need to do quite a lot of work but it definitely seems 'doable'. The exam goes for 5 HOURS. Yes, I have to write that in capitals. 5 HOURS! Think I'll need to take a packed lunch.

Have had some dramas with the postal service. Having opened a bank account last week, I was told that my card would be sent, and then the PIN would come a day or two later. However only the PIN arrived. Handy. After going into the bank I was told that the card had been returned to them as I was unknown at my address. Strange that all my other mail had found its way to me if that was the case. I saw the postie today as I had a parcel that wouldn't fit through the hole (so he rang my doorbell and I went and collected it from him) and he is an aging gent who looks not unlike the doc from 'back to the future'. Perhaps his eyesight is failing him. Or perhaps Marty had got himself in another scrape and delivering my bankcard wasn't as important. I'll never know.

Have been to systembolaget twice now since my last entry. I made the mistake of going in 15 minutes before closing on a Saturday (it is shut on Sunday) and don't plan on doing that again! 'twas quite hectic. We are certainly spoilt for choice and price in Australia with wine. Everything is more expensive than in Australia, but if you look around then you don't need to spend too much more. You just need to watch out for the old dears taking up the whole aisle with their zimmerframe whilst perusing the brandy section.

Thank goodness for the ABC - it's been keeping me up to date with with current affairs while I've been away. All the newspapers here seem to be in Swedish, and the only trashy mag I could find in english was filled with gossip of the big brother UK 'stars' which obviously wasn't terribly entertaining. I'm now relying on the internet to keep me informed on useless entertainment news, and ABC ListenLive to keep me informed with what's going on in the world.

Haven't yet sussed out how I'll be able to watch the AFL grand final. I know I can listen to Roy & HG over the net, but as for the visual I just don't know. I'm certainly not prepared to sign up to Bigpond, so if anyone knows how I can watch it for free, please let me know. Perhaps I need to befriend someone with payTV. Someone told me there is a pizzeria in town with it but I'm a tad reluctant to hang out at this pizzeria for a couple of hours, probably having to arm wrestle Italians who would rather the TV be tuned to the soccer or moto gp.

Am thinking of you all!

Conor
xx