Sverige!

From Sweden 1

Alright, so this has been a long time coming (I’ve been here nearly a month now), but as you’re about to read, I’ve been somewhat busy. What follows is the beginning of my journal for the first part of my year abroad – the Autumn Semester (Hösttermin), spent at Mälardalens Högskola in Västerås, Sweden. Each week will be posted separately for ease of navigation (and so my more recent adventures don’t and up at the bottom of the page). After I’ve got this lot up and running, updates will be fairly regular. Enjoy!

Week 1

Monday 14th August

In keeping with tradition, this was the day I spent doing some mad last-minute packing. Due to the recent terror scares in the UK, and the fact I flatly refused to go away for over 4 months without a guitar, this was quite an interesting experience. Eventually, and with much squeezing and removal of “non-essential” items, I managed (with help from my parents) to get my case shut and down to a weight not too much over the limit allowed by the airline. This done, we went out for a farewell meal to the Blundell Arms. It’s changed hands since I last ate there and gone upmarket a bit, but the food was delicious, (I even had a dessert!). Then paid a quick visit to Shirezy to return some things to him and give him the remainder of my Eternal Recurrence albums to distribute as he saw necessary, before getting an early night in preparation for the long day ahead…

Tuesday 15th August.

The Big Day began at 5 in the morning. We eventually met my travelling companion Jane (big shout to Jane!) at Manchester Airport, and after a little (not entirely unexpected) hassle checking in our baggage we took a last coffee with our parents (sob) before boarding the plane. The flight was relatively without incident, as was the bus from Stockholm Arlanda airport to Västerås, and after picking up our keys and introduction packs at the University we parted ways to be taken to our different accommodations. Upon arriving, I met two of my flatmates – Lideep from Ghana and Jorgé from Spain (my halls are entirely international, but I’ll get to that later, probably). I also took a brief wander round my immediate surroundings, as I’m pretty much in the city centre, unpacked and crashed for the night.

Wednesday 16th

In a pattern soon to become disturbingly familiar, I was in university at 9 in the morning. Most of the day consisted of introductory lectures and registration stuff, the highlight of which was a policeman accidentally informing us that pretty much anything is legal as long as you’re on a bike at the time (I have since seen said law enforcer in a popular student nightclub here, looking slightly on the wrong side of sober).

After the lectures, we met the international committee properly for the first time and were introduced to our fadders and fadder groups. A fadder is a student who helps run a society/committee, and all the new international students have been assigned groups with 2 fadders each. Mine, Sofia and Tina, are nice and friendly, even if they do disappear into their own mad world every now and then. Our fadders proceeded to take us on a tour of the university and the city, ending in one of the numerous coffee shops on offer. Here I was thrilled to purchase my first Köttbullar baguette, an experience marred only by two things: the neon pink beetroot salad on it and the fact the Swedish clearly don’t know how to make a sandwich. It’s nice to have a lot of filling, but you’re not meant to need a knife and fork to eat it…

Upon my arrival home, I was mildly surprised to discover another Spanish chap, Mikel (not Miguel) had moved into the room next door the kitchen. But he’s cool, so it’s alright.


Thursday 17th

The break of dawn on Thursday heralded more early lectures, so I staggered into uni to rendezvous with Jane and some of the Americans we’d met at 9 again. At lunchtime I discovered that the 42 Kr. I’d paid the previous day for Dagens Rätt (dish of the day) in the restaurant could in fact get me at least twice as much, as you’re pretty much allowed as much as you can fit on your plate, plus salad and bread. This was a most hearty (and spherical) meal.

The evening was the first real social event of the international calendar. We were all invited to a most excellent meal at Kåren (the students’ union) which later transformed into a club night. My first experience of Swedish drinking, the drinks were actually fairly reasonably priced, if smaller than the measures I’m used to, and we all had a good night meeting new people :)


Friday 18th

From Sweden 1

Finally being allowed a lie-in after the first night of festivities, I trundled into uni at about 3 to join the international trip to IKEA (well, when in Sweden…). Actually, this was much needed, as my room was pretty much completely bare, and being quite a big affair with no carpet, it was muchly useful to get things to make it look more like a home. Even if the patterns do hurt my eyes…

In the evening we met back up with our fadders for the ceremonial “Pub Tour”. Yes, tour. Much more civilised than a crawl…Actually, it did turn out to be rather low-key, encompassing all of 3 (albeit quite good) pubs then a bar/club thing at the end. I was mightily impressed with Sky Bar, Sweden’s highest bar at 24 floors up the skyscraper (“Skrapan”) at the end of my road, with a fantastic view over the city (which will be in my photos at some point). I was, however, mightily unimpressed with the “Traditional English Pub” Oliver Twist, where I was served my beer in a vessel which resembled the English pint glass in neither shape nor capacity. Also, in the club I was rather unimpressed with the Swedish people’s inability to acknowledge the presence of another person in their intended path when walking. They really do try to go straight through you. How rude! Despite all this it a pretty good night, good to get to know some places and people better.


Saturday 19th August

Today we went to an island. You see, Västerås borders a rather large lake, which extends some 100km away all the way to Stockholm. And in this lake are islands. We went to a rather lovely one called Björnö with the International Committee. There we played a few of what the President, Johanna, referred to as “fun games”, an idea which reeked to me of the phrase “team building exercise” (what? I’m English, I’m meant to be critical of everything). They were a bit of a laugh, although completely pointless when I’d rather have just explored the island a bit…either way, it’s a nice place so it was good. And after our packed lunches (bless!) some of us went for a swim in the lake. Which was cold. I merrily jumped straight in off the pier and couldn’t actually breathe! Once I’d got used to it, it was ok though, especially as the weather was so clement.

After we’d caught the bus back we met a couple of hours later for what the Swedish call a “pre-party”, which basically consists of drinking before you go out because alcohol’s so damn expensive. Not that it’s cheap in the shops (or shop. Only the state-owned shop Systembolaget can sell alcohol above 3.5% here); it translates as about English pub prices in Systembolaget for many things, most clubs and pubs are about twice that). But anyway, we had this pre-party, learned some American drinking games then went to Kåren, which was a larf.


Sunday 20th August

Today I decided to take a day off from the IC activities, as a) I didn’t feel like bowling, b) (possibly related) I was fed up of being treated like a child and c) I wanted to put the strings back on my guitar. Don’t get me wrong, the international committee are all lovely, it’s just that their idea of fun doesn’t always translate as mine, and they seem to have an inability to realise this. Societies at universities often function the same way in England. And anyway, going 5 days without having strings on my guitar was quite long enough. I also took the liberty of having a wander round the town for a bit and getting a couple of posters for my room, which made me happy and a little less surrounded by off-white. Then I played my guitar a lot. This was a much needed relaxing day :)