Mmmm lamingtons

I spent Friday evening surrounded by Aussie accents, people and food, and it was great. The Australian Ambassador to Sweden extended an invite to all Australian students currently studying in Sweden to come to his residence in Stockholm for a 'Tea and Coffee Function'. I was secretly hoping that this was code for 'Yummy Australian Food, plus tea and coffee, Function', and I wasn't disappointed.We were treated to lamingtons, anzac biccies, vegemite sandwiches, pies, sausage rolls, and a few other not-particularly Aussie goodies. The beer wasn't VB (which is quite easy to find in Sweden, though sadly no actual good Aussie beers are) but it flowed freely.

His apartment was really very nice. I think I'd like to be an ambassador if you get to live in such a swanky pad. The piano of course had a photo of the King and Queen on it, and the elevator was one of those ones that you have to open the little concertina door on to get in. Nice. The ambassador's wife is Swedish, and I'm sure she said that their daughter was working in Stockholm's Aussie bar that night.

Although it got me a little homesick, I had a good time. When else will I get an opportunity to hang out at the Ambassador's house? I did some research before I left about how to address an Ambassador, and apparently you are meant to say "Your Excellency". He was shaking everyone's hand as we entered, and it seemed quite casual so I thought it might seem a bit strange if I called him that so I didn't.

He told us there are currently over 100 Australian students studying in Sweden, which impressed us all until he said that there are 1000-2000 Swedes currently studying in Australia. At least I'm doing my bit to redress the balance.

He was telling us this while standing up the front of the room we were all in, and of course everyone stopped eating and listened to what he had to say. Everyone also moved back to allow some room around him and to let everyone see him. Except for one guy who stood smack bang in front of him, and kept fidgeting to keep getting in our way. You can see him in this photo, with what appears to be a flame emerging from his arse.I was also lucky enough to have the girl with the pink hat standing in front of me, who moved back and forth every few moments, forcing us behind her to also move back and forth to be able to peek past her stupid hat and see the Ambassador. Why are some people so socially inept? I know I'm whinging but this went on for maybe 10-15 minutes and was incredibly annoying. The stupid hat girl and flame-arse guy should get together - they'd make a great couple.

Last night (Sunday) there was much excitement in town, as there was the annual fireworks show to mark the first Advent Sunday. We met up in town at around 4pm, surrounded by thousands of people all making their way up to the Castle. We followed them up there, and found a spot to look down on the Botanical Gardens which were lit up with lights, and listen to the Christmas songs being sung.The fireworks started around 4:30, and were quite good (though nothing on the Australia Day show!) and of course had the soundtrack of oohs and aahs from the crowd (and also a song from the Lion King playing over the sound system...not sure why but perhaps to get our minds off the freezing cold). We contemplated going to get something to eat/drink in town afterward, but seeing as there were likely thousands of other people thinking the same thing we went home (via ICA) to have martinis and fika (ie. lots of biscuits and bullar and muffins). By the time we got home my hands and feet were like ice, which makes me think I probably need to get some more heavy duty gloves seeing as the temperatures were nothing like what they will be like (as everyone continues to tell me).

Peter's girlfriend Helen (she's on the right of the above photo) goes back to Cyprus today which is very sad. She's been staying in his room for a good few weeks now and I'm used to spending a lot of time with her. We have a new temporary visitor at the moment though - he lived in this corridor last semester and is back for a visit, seemingly to party party party. He's the one that made the martinis last night, along with many other drinks I didn't partake in. One of the drinks that got brought out was some sort of Latvian brew. Everyone got a shot poured for them, and we all sat around looking afraid. I smelt it, and it smelt exactly like Betadine. What's worse, it tasted just like how I am sure Betadine would taste. I didn't finish it. I'm sure the Betadine bottle says not for internal use!

Well I best get back to the study - I have no classes today and should put my time to good use by finishing a project I've had hanging over my head for a while now. Bye :)

I survived Russia - Part 3

Ok, sorry for taking my time getting around to this but I've been busy shivering lately.

Day 4 of our road trip started as usual with stale bread and bad coffee, (though I must admit they did have nice green tea...well, nice green tea bags), and then it was back onto the trusty bus to head to Pushkin to visit Catherine's Palace. We had our guide again travelling with us, and she used every last moment driving there to tell us more about the city and its landmarks, getting us to whip our heads back and forth to look at the monuments she was discussing.

Pushkin (a suburb out of the city) was actually behind the enemy line during WW2, and so Catherine's palace was looted and badly destroyed. It has been reconstructed though, and looks quite impressive today.

After getting into the palace, we had to put little booties over our shoes, to protect the floors I assume. They did little to protect us however, as it made walking on the polished floors quite hazardous to our collective health. It was very slippery, and one person managed to slip down some stairs. I think that Russia is hardly a place to sue anyone for falling and hurting yourself however, given the state of many of the footpaths of St Petersburg.We split up into two groups, and as there were so many German speakers in our party, one group had a tour in German while the rest of us had it is English. The palace was full of gilded surfaces, but the most impressive room was the famous Amber Room. This room has an interesting history, as its whereabouts were a mystery following its looting by the Nazis. Exactly where those pesky Nazis hid it is still unknown, though there are many theories flying about. The Amber Room that we saw was a reconstruction, but impressive nonetheless. It was also (of course) the only place within the palace that we were not allowed to take photos. The following is a picture that I found on the net.One of my favourite things in the palace was a pair of cupid statues, one of which is shown below. The first is placed on the west side of the building (where the sun sets), and shows cupid sleeping, while the cupid on the east is waking up.After checking out the gift shops inside the palace, we then headed out to the market stalls to try and find some bargains before getting back onto the bus. On the trip back into St Petersburg our guide pointed out a woman whose heel had come off her shoe while crossing the road. I hope that if that ever happens to me there won't be a busload of people watching me.

Back in St Petersburg we were dropped off near St Isaacs Cathedral to head into the centre and do some more shopping. After having some lunch, we checked out a Russian supermarket, and I was amazed at the prices. The range was quite limited, but you could feed a small country for about $5. It was incredibly cheap. You could buy a bottle of vodka for around $3. We then headed off to Nevsky Prospect, the main shopping road in St Petersburg, but as we walked past more supermarkets, and saw no foreigners anywhere, we thought perhaps that we were not walking in the right direction. After a bit of investigation (there was a handy map on the back of our hotel guest card) we got there in the end and spent some more rubles on souvenirs.

Speaking of the hotel guest card, we were expecting to be stopped in the street and asked for our papers by police at every turn, and weren't stopped once. When you get into Russia, you actually hand your passport over to your hotel, and they give you a hotel guest card which you must keep on you at all times to show to police if they ask you. We were given the impression that this would be a common occurence and were quite disappointed to not be stopped by a man in a furry hat.

The evening of day 4 was spent at the Nikolayevski Palace, enjoying Russian folk singing and dancing, which included Cossack dancing.The final act, shown above was two Russian 'people', who embraced all over the stage, before falling off the stage and writhing all over the people in the front row. It got quite, uh, lewd, and was very funny, particularly as we were nowhere near the front row. This went on for some time, before the man inside the costume stood up to show us that it was only one person inside. He looked very hot and sweaty, so I guess you wouldn't want to share the costume with someone else anyway.

Day 5 was our last day in St Petersburg, and we had to get up early to have our breaky and get on the bus with enough time to get to Turku for our ferry. The trip was fairly uneventful.

We spent the bulk of the night of the ferry trip again in the 'Fun Club', and this time there was some sort of dance contest. We could only watch on in amazement (mixed with horror) at the couples in their 70s who were getting down and dirty on the dancefloor. One woman actually wrapped her legs around her partner and was leaning backwards while he clung to her, looking quite pleased with himself. They really wanted to win, and I think they did. The prize was probably a free shandy. We amused ourselves by playing cards.I had a much more pleasant journey this time, due primarily to not sharing a cabin with people who came home at 5am, then had showers and washed their hair, all the while talking and laughing (though very considerately saying "shhh" to each other every now and then).

We were all very tired getting off the ferry and I spent much of the bus trip back to Uppsala sleeping. Getting back at Flogsta, I was totally exhausted, and looking forward so much to having a shower in clean water. As I staggered up to my building, I bumped into one of the girls from the trip out going for a run!

Well my trip to Russia was certainly an adventure! I'm so glad that I went, and really enjoyed myself, even with the fart water and urine blankets. I'm also glad that we went when we did, as there are some girls from my corridor in Russia at the moment on a similar trip, and apparently they had a blizzard when they were in St Petersburg. They get back tomorrow so I can get more goss from them then. Well, once they've had showers and naps.

It's been snowing in Uppsala, finally, but still hasn't gotten bitterly cold. Sure, I've had to start wearing my thermal pants under my jeans, but I haven't been in fear of any body parts (including my hair) snapping off. Such fun is yet to come, as everyone keeps telling me with a gleam in their eye. At least the council has put down small stones on the roads and footpaths now to prevent slipping. I've seen two people come off their bikes already, and hope that I don't do the same. I've been turning corners at rediculously low speeds to try and prevent this from happening. I really must stop listening to the weather on the ABC news as the Perth temperature has been making me sign with longing lately. Oh well, I'll get to ski soon I hope!

I survived Russia - Part 2

After stuffing ourselves on the buffet breakfast (complete with lots of stale bread - it seems that Russians haven't quite got the hang of fresh bread) we all got back on the bus for a city sightseeing tour, complete with Russian guide up the front of the bus with a microphone. She was a sweet older woman, who had a habit of saying things like "Look to the left, ok to the right you'll see....". She really knew her stuff, and I wondered how many times she had told the stories and history she was telling us. We drove around, seeing all the famous landmarks and stopping every so often to get out and take photos. I quickly perfected my polite yet firm "No" as at almost every stop there were men trying to sell one thing or another. Not quite as bad as Bali though!

I think my favourite building would have to be "Our Saviour on the Spilt Blood" cathedral, shown above. There is also a closer up shot on my photos page. Apparently this is similar to a lot of the architecture in Moscow, so it's a shame we couldn't go. It was built around the site where the Emperor Alexander II was assasinated, and actually juts into the water of a canal on one side as it was built so that the pavement where his blood was spilt is inside the cathedral.

We were then dropped off in the city for some free time, and after Preethi and I tried the local pizza (luckily the woman behind the counter knew 'tomato' and 'cheese' in english), we did some souvenir buying before heading to the Winter Palace, which is where the State Hermitage Museum is. The queue was substantial, but moving quickly so we joined it, only to have it stop when we were about 20 people away. Waiting, waiting, and eventually a policeman turned up to try and sort out the situation. Not sure what the hold-up was, but after maybe 15 minutes we got inside and out of the cold. Entry was free for students, but we had to pay 100 rubles (about $5) to take our cameras in. Here is where I first learnt the Russian's dislike of giving change. It is a huge museum with thousands of people paying each day to enter, and yet I could not give her a 500 ruble note. She needed 100 exactly. This was a continuing theme throughout the trip, with people getting quite upset if you tried to give them anything rather than exact change.It was quite amazing looking at artwork from such famous artists as Picasso (above), Monet, Renoir, Rodin (below), Kandinsky, and many others I can't remember right now. They also had prehistoric pieces, though by the time we made it to them we wer pretty buggered and I had lost interest.Upon using the toilets in the museum, I realised that it is common (before I just thought it bad luck) for the toilets to not have any seats. I guess this was not so bad, as it was so cold in the toiles I probably wouldn't have like sitting down anyway.

The bus took us back to the hotel to get changed for our river cruise. I was looking forward to this, as they told us it would involve Champanski - Russian champagne! While we were waiting to board the boat, something happened with the mechanics and an enormous jet of water flew from the side, drenching everyone who was about to board. This was quite amusing as this included some people who had thus far proved to be very irritating. The cruise itself was good, and although the Champanski was disappointing there was plenty of BODKA to wash it down with. Food consisted of half a slice of bread each (with some sort of cheese spread, and caviar), and a bucket of fruit for each table.The entertainment was really good, including folk singing and dancing, and of course this involved people being pulled from the crowd to join in. I had to play a Russian game which involves a man and woman sitting on chairs with their backs to each other. I think the rules are that after the count of three, the two people turn their heads around, and if they turn the same way then the man kisses the woman on the cheek. If they turn opposite ways then a new man has to try his luck. Photos of the entertainment are on my photos page.

Well I seem to have run out of steam again - I think this will have to be a 3 part series.

I survived Russia - Part I

It's taken me a few days to recover from my trip to Russia - endless hours spent on buses and ferries can really take it out of you! I think I need to invest in one of those neck pillows if I ever do something like it again.

Preethi and I set off for the ferry on Thursday arvo, catching a bus into Stockholm and then a train to a station which we were told was 300m from the ferry terminal. We started to worry after walking for about a kilometre, but eventually reached a sign which informed us the terminal was 400m away. Along the way we spied a boat on the water which looked quite small and rundown, and thought that perhaps it was what we were about to cross the Baltic Sea in, but as we got closer it seemed to be some sort of Harley Davidson hang-out boat with blackened windows and we breathed a sigh of relief.

The ferry trip was interesting, with Preethi and I spending most of the night hanging out in the 'Fun Club' and watching all the oldies having a boogy to the cheesy band.

The next day was quite dull, as the majority of it was spend sitting on a bus being forced to listen to the loud americans up the back telling the whole world their life stories. Well, we were able to leave once one of them actually turned up on the bus. Apparently he was very drunk and naked in one of the cabins, and the girls in there had to call security when he locked himself in the bathroom for 2 hours. He looked quite worse for wear when he finally rocked up.

The border security guy at the Finnish border was very talkative, and quizzed me about my passport. He wanted to know why it said 'Northern Ireland' on it when I was a British citizen. I tried to tell him that Northern Ireland was part of the Uited Kingdom but he still seemed confused. Eventually he just told me to enjoy my trip and let me go.

It was quite different at the Russian border. I said hello to the woman who took my passport and got a glare for my troubles. We had to wait around for quite a while to get the bus through, as there was a long queue of cars and buses awaiting inspection. Once we got back on and started driving towards St Petersburg, we were amazed at the amount of rubbish on the sides of the road. There was none a few hundred metres back in Finland, but it was everywhere in Russia. I guess they have bigger problems than litter.When we got closer to St Petersburg, the bus stopped for petrol in some out-of-the-way place, and suddenly 3 guys turned up in station wagons, which they promptly opened the backs of and started displaying their wares. Apparently they turn up for every such trip, and while some people bought items, many people just wanted to get a photo of their dodgy loot.

Then it was on to St Petersburg, where we had dinner and checked out our rooms. As you can see, they were hardly 5 star. In fact, our blankets smelt of cigarette smoke mixed with perhaps a hint of urine. Mmmm. The lobby was actually really nice, and so we all got our hopes up only to have them dashed on the stained carpet when we got to our rooms. Our toilet flushed for about 2 hours every time you used it, and the seat actually fell off at one stage. But hey, it was all part of the adventure and now that I am back in Sweden I can look back on it and laugh. It was hard to laugh when bathing in water that smelt of farts, however.

I will continue the story tomorrow...time to make my dinner.

Bison and reindeer and bears oh my!

Last weekend was a long weekend due to Saturday being All Saints Day, which apparently the Swedes spend remembering dead family members and lighting candles on their graves. Preethi and I got Friday off uni so headed off to Stockholm to see some sights. Upon arrival we legged it to the Malaysia Airlines office to organise our tickets home, before heading over to Skansen, a large open-air museum. Here they have old buildings from all over Sweden which they have relocated here to display to the public as examples of what buildings were like in the good old days. They also have a zoo of Swedish animals, and also some craft shops. We had a really good day, though by the end my legs were in agony from all the walking.
On Saturday we had a big dinner in my corridor, with the theme of 'Homeland Food'. I couldn't bring myself to make some meat pies, so I figured that I was representing Asia as well as Australia and so I made sushi. We all stuffed ourselves on really good food, and then played stupid games for a few hours. I don't think I've ever had a good experience of playing charades. We got through 1 round before finding it too dull and moving on to another game. Of course I had already done my go before this was decided. The other team got me to enact "Terminator 3" which was very difficult and involved me blowing away lots of imaginary bad guys. When this didn't work I acted out the bad guy from Terminator 2 as I haven't even seen Terminator 3, and fell to the ground, falling to pieces, before the pieces came back together and I stood up again. Needless to say my team failed to guess the film before time was called. I later found out that Stella had recorded all of this, though I have yet to see the evidence.

A game we then played which was quite good, involved taking cards at the start, which decided whether you were a murderer, policeman, bitch or citizen. Everyone then 'goes to sleep', during which time the murderers kill someone, who the bitch may or may not save. It's a bit difficult to explain here, but the aim of the game is to kill the murderers and save the policeman. During the last round of the game I was a murderer, and suspected by most people, but managed to talk myself out of this situation and throw suspicion onto someone else who was then killed instead of me. Muhahaha.

I've been working hard at uni this week as Preethi and I are off to Russia on Thursday, and thus missing a few classes. Which reminds me, I finally got my result from my last unit, and got a "VG" which stands for something in Swedish, but basically means "Very Good" and is apparently the highest score you can get, so yay for me.

I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow - have to go into uni all morning, then do all my laundry for Russia in the arvo. Doing your laundry here can really be a pain in the arse. It generally involves taking all your clothes down to the laundry room only to find no machines free so you go back up to your room. This is repeated a few times before you get a machine. As you actually need 2 or 3 machines, you do one load, then come back when this is finished, put it in the dryer, and put your next load in to wash etc etc. So you get quite a lot of exercise, and need to be home for a few hours during this process. Add to this the nerves brought on by the possibility of your clothes getting stolen while you're not there, and it's a really pleasant experience.

Well next time you hear from me I'll hopefully have lots of exciting tales of my time in Russia, hopefully without having any run-ins with the scary military, and with a furry hat in hand (or on head).