| From Stockholm |
A lovely sunny day in Västerås, perfect for our trip to Stockholm! About 20 of us met at uni and trundled down to the train station, frolicking merrily at our luck with the weather. This luck changed immediately as we arrived in Stockholm, where it was raining. Proper raining. Like in Germany (see day 1 of “Wacken”). After slackening off for about 10 minutes, the rain then turned back on full blast for about 2 hours, an experience which prompted me to comment that while English rain merely loiters and gets you wet if you walk into it, Swedish rain actively and viciously seeks you out in order to mug you and murder your family. However, being tourists, we didn’t let this put us off (although we did shelter in a shopping centre and an eatery for a while, and we did get to see quite a bit of the city, including much of the gamla stan, or old town. Stockholm’s a nice place, and we had a good time in spite of the weather, generally seeing sights and taking coffee in dungeons. Though why they have a statue of St. George and the Dragon I’m still not sure…I think the sign said it had something to do with wiccans…
Tuesday 22nd
Being in possession of one more free day before my lectures officially started, I decided to sort out another part of my routine – exercise. After a brief bit of arithmetic at the counter, I decided that for the amount I was likely to be swimming, my cheapest option was to actually join the gym. This is good, because it means I’ve already spent the money and want to go as much as I can to get good value for it, as opposed to not going as often because I want to spend the money elsewhere. My aim is to swim 2-3 times a week, starting at a kilometre (40 lengths) and going up 5 or ten lengths a week. This way I should stay fairly healthy :) At the moment this is all going quite well, surprisingly! The pool’s quite nice too, and unless there’s a school party in, it’s usually very quiet during the week, which is good and relaxing.
In the evening it transpired that our flat was now full, with a Turkish chap, Faruk, and a Georgian lady, Katuna making up the full complement.
Wednesday
Not a great deal happened today, but for one thing of note – rollcall for our course, Svensk språk och kultur för utlandiska studenter (Swedish language and culture for foreign students). This lasted a couple of hours, we met our teachers then did a couple of quick tests for them to get an idea of our level. There’s quite a few complete beginners, but some people who’ve done a fair bit before like me too, so there’s quite a range in the class, but it’s meant to progress quite quickly, so it should start to challenge me sometime soonish.
Thursday 24th August
The official opening of Kåren! Although us international types had already naughtily been in, the real live Swedish students didn’t arrive until this week, so this was the official opening. Starting mid-afternoon, it consisted of more silly games (which many of us wisely abstained from), some pizza, a bit of a pre-party at Jane and Zubin’s halls and then the disco night at Kåren. Had much more fun in Kåren this time, with lots of Swedish students there it was very busy, and I mainly amused myself outside speaking to Swedes, Germans, Danes, Finns and whoever else crossed my path, including Werner, real life Austrian and my sole metal friend here, who spent a lot of the night trying to convince me to go to a gig in Stockholm with him, which I’m not actually that fussed about. But shh.
Friday 25th August
Being as proper lectures didn’t start until next week, this was quite a relaxing day. Myself, Jane and Zubin (one of the Americans) had a day wandering about town, getting to know it a bit better, then a few of us went to Sky Bar in the evening, as many people hadn’t experienced it yet, so that was fun.
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| From Västerås sights |
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| From Västerås sights |
Saturday 26th August
The day of the big party at our halls, Timmermannen. Actually, although many people were there, this proved to be something of an anticlimax, and most people left to go to a club at one point or another. The younger ones amongst us (English, Americans and Estonian, mainly) found this to be something of a problem, as it turns out that although by law, 18 is the drinking age in Sweden, most clubs and bars choose to raise the age of entry to 23 (sometimes 25) on a Saturday, and sometimes on a Friday. So after a rather unsuccessful trip out, some of us returned to the party to eat some spiffingly spicy fish the Africans had baked, and some moved on to Kåren. I was one of the former, and after a short time in a large room with 4 other people, opted to call it a night.
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