The cold Swedish winter

Hej!

Having spent the last seven days (yes that includes saturday, and last night, sunday until midnight!) in a row in the alpha building studying and writing papers, I have decided to take the morning off and catch up on the things I haven't had time to do. Aside from this blog, it includes removing the plates on my desk from the last 5 breakfasts and doing the weekly redistribution of clothes from floor to cubourd (maybe some in the wash too).

The weather here has seen fit to change from a pleasant 5 degrees (i wore thongs to class to celebrate!) one day, to snowing a foot of snow, the biggest snow fall of the year, the next. I quite enjoyed trudging through the snow to class, but this part of Sweden is definately not prepared for that kind of snowfall. Trains were cutoff for the day, and a couple of friends had a flight booked to france for the day of the snow, and couldn't actually get out to the airport due to the snow, so had to miss their flight! It has also been fun to watch people try to cycle in a foot of snow......I would for sure be one of those stupid people, but my beloved bike got stolen last week, so from now on I shall experience Lund by foot.







snow angels out my window








Yesterday in a break from writting a social policy paper on health insurance, I went to a handball game. The friend I was studing with is really into handball and said it is one of the biggest games of the year in Lund, and aparently handball is the biggest sport in Lund, so a perfect introduction to spectator sport in europe. It was the local derby between the two teams in Lund who play in the top division in Sweden, aparently it was even broadcast live on national TV. I was certainly not dissapointed, handball is a really fast and physical game with a lot of scoring. And the game ended up being quite close, which added a nice amount of tension, enough for a string of Swedish expletives to come out Davids mouth, which lead to some startled looks back at us from the people in front. People are a little more reserved here than at the average aussie rules game!! Unfortunately the team I was going for (that David coaches a junior team for) lost by 3 goals......still a fun experience, and a nice warmup for the ice hockey match i'm going to see in Malmö this week!





This picture pretty much sums up where my last week has gone........hours spent in the alpha building studying with two swedes from class. David and Johanna. They are really fun and introducing me to many swedish delights such pork pancakes, and the like.....





So anyway now im off to a seminar to discuss health insurance.......exciting times ahead!

The artic circle

Hej hej to all my faithful readers back in Aus (eliza that may just be you at this stage???) I hope you are all enjoying the sun and the holidays that come with it.
So last week Tegan (friend from school and college for those who dont know her) came up to Sweden as part of her month long european adventure. I thought that this was good cause to leave Lund and actually go somewhere else in Sweden for pretty much the first time since being here. So where better to go that inside the arctic circle to Swedens northernmost town Kiruna.

Kiruna is actually a really interesting place. The whole city's population is in someway related to the LKAB iron ore mine that dominates the town. The first thing you see as you enter is this huge basically man made mountain where they dump all the shit that comes out of the mine. There was recently a decision made to move the whole town a few miles away so that the area under the town can be minned. It seems that everyone in Kiruna are more than happy to move, which i guess is more than reasonable given that unlike the rest of Europe the city is only 100 years old and without moving the town it would essentially die anyway due to the fact that nearly everyone works for a mine related job.


The Kiruna LKAB mine experience. This was a nice break from the cold. Underground it was 8 degrees, better than the -20 above ground!












So anyway Kiruna being in the artic circle was cold.....damn cold! Poor tegan coming from a summer of 35 degrees was like a walking michellen man in her 6 layers that included a very sexy pair of leg warmers. We went to ice hotel.....it is crazy, see the photos. We also went on a train ride to Abisko National Park, and went down 500m into the mine, and saw the northern lights and perfectly geometrically shaped snow flakes! Definately a unique experience and worth putting up with the coldness and rudeness of our hostels manager Klaus......he did his best to live up to all the stereotypes that southern swedes have about the people from up north! Oh and we also ate raindeer kebab! DElicious!!!




A bed room in the ice hotel, they were all indivisually designed













The ice bar in the ice hotel, where you could drink absolut vodka out of ice cups.......for a mere $20AUD a shot.








What the??

















Itchy Mooooooose and a very satisfied tegan!














The one thing we didn't experience in Kiruna that we wanted was the sighting of moose or elk or whatever you want to call them. So on our day in Stockholm we went to Skansen park and managed to avoid taking in any of the many cultural activities and old buildings that the park contained and devoted our day to the viewing of Scandenavian animals! They were cute.....and we found and even got to pat our itchy moose. He did only have one horn, but was 100% moose none the less.



The otta was cute too! he is alive also.











So now I'm back in Lund about to say bye to my last australian friend from last semester. It is sad but at least we all will meet up again in the not to distant future:)

Happy New Year

Time to fulfill eliza regular blogging requests and distract myself from gender and development exam study!
Yesterday was the arrival day for the new exchange students. It's kinda weird, i am in the same place but a lot is different. Victor (he was my swedish international mentor, but now since i am a mentor with him, i guess we have risen to the ranks of friends) and I stod at the train station for 6hrs welcoming the new exchange students and getting them on a bus to the student union building. 500 new exchange students, many potential friends. But also lots of old friends no longer here. Still despite good friends no longer here and the rainy darkness that has prevailed since my return to Lund, I think this semester looks bright. My remaining lund friends and I have vowed explore the non-alcaholic activities Lund has to offer more, and also get fit. Innebandy (Swedish version of indoor hockey), gerdehallen (the gym) and lunds indoor rock climbing gym are going to be regular events on my calender. Also im gloing to work at Nations, not only does bartendering look fun, it has benefits such as free drinks all night (Resposible service alcohol is a bit different here!), free entry into that nation on other nights and maybe a free meal. Also am hoping to see some more live bands....there is loads of great music in sweden. For a taste of it go to Triple J's website and listen to the Swedish Mixtape, or go watch Peter, Bjorn and John play when they come to melbourne in Feb! ANyways enough of new years resolutions!

I just got back a few days ago from Val Thorens in the French Alps. I think it was one of if not the best week ive had in Europe. European mountians kick but over aussie ones! When we first arrived, there was not a lot of snow, and the thought of having travelled 26hrs on a bus to go skiing in snow that is similar to Mt hotham in a bad year was kinda depressing.....but on our second day, we got the best new years eve gift you could ask for, 2 days of non-stop snow! I will never forget the feeling of skiing in real powder, its like how you would imagine floating on clouds would be!



This is how deep the powder snow was! Victor is proving that in this much snow, you can take a descrete piss in a very public area!













We went to "after ski" in a swedish bar (yes a bar full of swedes in France! perhaps the only time knowing how to order a beer in Swedish will be useful outside Scandenavia) each day, and drank beer and boogied in our ski gear to a Swedish cover band. Then in our not so sober state Sez squezed into my ski boots and i got into her snowbarding ones and we merily skied/snowboarded home in the darkness, respectively on snow devices we had very little practices on! Luckily (definately not skillfully!) no accidents!

Other highlights included getting sez bogged in waist deep snow in a closed run after ensuring her that it would be fine to go down there, and seeing her genuine concern that she may be stuck there until the snow melts in spring, Alex constant "you guys are crazy!" to mine and victors mostly stupid and slightly dangerous ski plans and general snow filled sillyness, and lastly the fact that our sillyness never ended in injury. Also loosing my ski in deep powder and victor taking off his board to help dig in a meter of snow to help try to find it, only to watch his board fly off into the distance down the hill, luckily avoiding all alive obsticles in its path, was fun!



















Me, Victor and Sez in Val Thorens (Alex is taking the photo)







Regarding the last post, christmas day was a great success. We all enjoyed the activities of our first christmukkah! The pepperkaka domkyrkan (ginger bread model of Lunds Cathedral), and eliza's brilliant turkey were amazing! And our Justin Timberlake candels burning in the background certainly added a certain type of ambiance! Ok time to actually get some work done. Hope you are all enjoying the silly season, wherever you are!






Lunds Cathedral 1:100 000








Eliza, I hope this was long enough for you! Perhaps my last new years resolution is to update this weekly.....

God jul till allt

God jul! Thats merry christmas for the weird people back in melb who don't learn swedish. I thought it was time for a quick blog entry before heading to my friends for the christmas turkey! Eliza's life is potentially at stake as to how our $50 turkey turns out.......we thought it was a bargain as it said 68 krona ($13) however when the shopping bill skyrocketed we discovered it was actually 250 krona. We also thought it would take an hour or two to cook until some internet research enlightened us that not only do we need to massage our turkey skin, we also need to cook it for 5hrs. Still it is a worthy investment given our lack of meat consumption lately and also the fact that due to the substantial St Lars 15 bottle collection left behind by the exchange students and the Swedish method of recycling bottles and cans meaning that you recieve between 10-80 cents per item, our turkey was free. So thankyou to all those who contributed to our bottle collection....most notably clemen's coke addiction! SO anyway hopefully all goes well with our parentless christmas cooking! I will let you know. Hope that all you's back in Aus had a lovely christmas and all in Europe are enjoying it right now. Vi ses!

the pen-ultimate report

hey all penny's faithful readers, it's Eliza, penny's kompis (that's friend in swedish, for all you monolingual people back in Australia). I'm guest posting because Penny is both lazy at keeping us informed about her life, and also exercises self-censorship thar rivals the press freedom in the People's Republic of China. you want GOSS, doncha? Well, let's see... what's REALLY been happening in the Life Of Pen?

penny is quite successfully navigating her life in Sweden without major problems. She's a pretty fit young woman, so she's been staying healthy when the rest of us fall by the wayside with the latest disease. She has this unfortunate way of attracting young men from Bangladesh. Sometimes the swarm surrounding her is so thick that you have to elbow through. Unfortunately, she also has the affliction of being too damn nice to tell them to take their clinginess elsewhere, so she is stuck with them - for the time being, until she grows a pair (gender impossibilities aside). With her red hair and happily freckly skin, she is often mistaken for a homegrown Swede which causes much amusement amongst her immature friends.

Penny's love life can only be described as torrid. She has seen the good, the bad and the Neo Nazi of the Swedish boyscene. The neo nazi is now decidedly off the scene, by the way. There have been quite a few cultural differences along the way which again Penny has navigated with grace, calm and a few hasty early-morning departures out the window. She has had the good fortune to remain friends with at least half of the people she's had encounters with - a talent which shows promise for the establishment of a functional, mature relationship in the future.

Snow!

This has been an interesting week. The clocks went back an hour, and so its now getting dark around 4:30pm. Everyday is the shortest day of my life at the moment. Im not sure how I feel about that. But I certainly feel like I have to get out of bed as soon as its light and go out side whenever the sun is out even though it freezing. The new exchange student fad at the moment is to go to the sun beds, maybe I need to get into that. But I think the fact that I had a sun spot cut out of my skin last week may be a sign that I shouldnt.
We also had the first snow of the year....it wasn't much but enough to make every southern hemispehere exchange student happy in their pants (i miss you eliza!), and every swede.....well less excited and kinda bemused at our excitment. Something about riding bikes on frozen roads, with snow flakes flying into your eyes and stinging like little shards of ice, doesn't appeal to them......i'm still excited about it!
In other news, I am starting new classes this week, and finished my too old ones. Gender and Development should be interesting, but I'm not looking forward to my masters level econometrics class...it may put quite a dampener on my social life. However that will in turn help my bank account and my kidney....could be a good thing!
I hope that you are all having fun back in Australia or wherever you are in the World.....and enjoy the sun.



Snow out my window!













A short bike ride outside Lund.......so not much is going on in this photo. But it is sunny, that is enough reason to put it up.

In Lund till June

Sorry for my poor blogging record......I am ashamed, but make no promises of getting more regular in the future.

This has been a good week. I thought I was going to be really stressed spending the week trying to learn a whole masters subject worth of international macroeconomics (read: maths) for an exam next week and writting and essay and preparing for a class presentation. That was until I found out a couple of days ago that I can just do the exam in November instead......I Love Sweden!!! I also got conformation that I can stay here for one more semester, so looks like Lund will be my home until June next year. I'm really excited about that, one semester is way too short! Only problem with it is that almost all of my friends are going home at the end of this semester, I will miss them a lot. But im on a friend hunt for people who will be here next semester.... i'm confident I can catch a few!

I went to amsterdam a couple of weekends ago.....it was tops catching up with sez, shell, emily and Nu. We went to art galleries, ann frank house, rode bikes around the canels, ate lots, saw more prostitutes in windows than I ever hope to ever again in the red light district, got offered cocaine in the street, experienceed what it feels like to be a bottle at the heineken experience (for the record being a bottle is rather unexciting, but amusing none the less) and more. A highlight was going and staying out at Nu's (a school friend) place in Utrecht.....she is on exchange there like me. Its a cute little city and most importantly sells some amazing waffles at the market! Thanks for introducing me to the waffle Nu!!

hanging out in a pub (emily, me, shell & sez)













and on a canel (me, sez, nu & emily)













I went to Denmark for the night a couple of weekends ago to celebrate shells b'day....It was a really lovely night......and it was also fun being able to get on a train for an hour, go on a bridge/tunnel over the ocean and end up in another country for the night!

Mum, emily, shell and lisha and others out the front of my favourite cafe in Lund....its kinda like a funky brunswick st kinda place. It was great to have mum and dad here for the week...... im guessing they wont be back to visit me or on any kind of international flight after their interesting plane experiences that included missing a flight, their baggage being lost for 5 days and nearly getting deported from India for not having a visa.....not cool!! They are finally home now.





Brad (from the US) and Dave (from Adelaide), getting free condoms and having the "where did I come from" talk from a swedish social worker....good times!

Weekend away

The loverly mentors from my mentor group and another decided that they would take us to the swedish countryside for the weekend....it was great!! Mostly we just ate all weekend, but we also played some weird swedish game that involved throwing pieces of wood at other bits of wood, and went for a bit of a walk.




The Swiss guys, and the scout hut.....scout hut in sweden is code word for nice house in the countryside...not like you would get in Aus!














An old building on farm we walked to

















Being patriotic!












A guitar jam around the campfire....does life get much better? Nearly as good as waking everyone up with midnight U2 jams at whitley!!!











Mentor victor...displaying the typical swedish method of sleeping!

a few random words

Time is passing so quickly, that i feel like i need to stay here another semester.....I only have 3 months left in sweden!! So i thought i'd put a picture of something that i miss from home....Lester the Lab...to try to make me excited about coming back to Aus in the not to distant future.... I also miss all my friends.....but non of you are as cute as lester!













I LOVE MY BIKE
This is my trusty, no geared, pedal braked (i hadnt ridden a bike with a pedal brake since i was 10) bike...I got totally ripped off, it cost 850 Krona ($150) for a bike that you could not pay someone to take from you in Australia.....but at least i got a free smaland sticker on my mudgard! Smalands is the socialist nation (nation= something like a student society)...its kinda like having the equivalant of socialist alliance sticker in Aus.
My trusty bike is actually not so trusty though....it has had 3 flat tyres, one of them happening with a very loud pop!

Lund is great for biking, there are bike paths everywhere, the cars actually look out for bikes instead of yell abuse at them and everything is within riding distance.....its a nice change to riding in melbourne!!!



The Lund cathedral. Its quite amazing.....my photo definately doesnt do it justice...its really cool inside as well!


















Brad from Oregan, and his pedophile beard that he has recently taken to growing! WHY brad why??...we love him even though he's American.....
















Im heading somewhere into the swedish countryside this weekend, with my mentor group, im looking forward to seeing more of sweden than just Lund. The next weekend im going to Amsterdam to smuggle some drugs into sweden.....and to watch the grandfinal! Sez (school friend), Shell (whitley friend) and Emily (an awesome aussie who studies with shell, and came to norway with us) are coming too and we are meeting up with Nuala (school friend) there....so it will be a big aussie fest. I can't wait to see all of them!

hedgehogs are riddled with fleas

It seems there is a reason that swedish people don't play with hedgehogs.....Ludvig a swedish friend tells me they are covered in fleas....oh well i feel fine, and dougal probs has so many things living in his dreadlocks anyway. Heres some photos from last night and yesterday from Lund!






Harry Potter (Gustav) from sweden, Eliza from Melbourne and Dup from Maine, USA....pulling there best photo faces








Ludvig, modeling traditional swedish wear ..... a tight t-shirt and a blazer....although unlike 80% of swedish guys he isnt wearing tight leg jeans. Seriously you will never see so many straight guys in tight jeans as you do here!!!



















Nikki (melb too) and Eliza, at a nation lunch. I think the vegetarian mince meat turned eliza a bit crazy!









Mareike from Holland and a guy from Finland



Ludvig and Me. We had an armwrestle....I didn't win




My big empty room!



Ludvig teaching Eliza Swedish for nation parties 101. Translation "you are cute". So far we haven't pulled out our party swedish....but just wait till we do!

Hedgehog hunting

Inspired by Nicola and Roses dedication to possum hunting last semester and in need of a new sport, since I can't play hockey here......has led to hedgehog hunting becoming a popular past time!

Walking home from a pirate party at a friends corridoor, Eliza, Dougal (2 melb uni friends) and I had a succesful catch of 3 hedgehogs in half an hour. The trick is to pick them up before they curl into an entire ball of needles!



Catch number 3! he was a freindly chap, who seemed to enjoy dougals drunken chat about the meaning of life!














Catch number 2
He was a Prick of a thing! He turned into an entire ball of spikes before we could get him!

Pocketpower @ Flickr for your viewing pleasure

Dougal and hedgehog 2......in love perhaps

Europe

Before arriving in Lund, Sweden I traveled for 6 weeks mostly with Sarah (housemate and friend from school), Loz (sarahs freind from another school), ben (loz's cousin). We had many great times together and many many adventures!!!

This is basically where what we did:

Germany
Got over jet lag and enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of sarahs host family from year 10 exchange
We also learnt the hard way that Frankfurt (hahn) airport is not actually anywhere near frankfurt 5mins before we got to the main frankfurt airport where we thought our flight was from. We did make it the 100Km to Hahn before our flight took off thankfully!



Morocco
Hot, ancient and exciting!! You could spend months exploring this very colourful country. Highlights included having tangine on the rooftop of some moroccan we mets house, and sleeping up there under the stars...Infact all food in morocco was a highlight, especially the fact that we could afford it!








The medina walls in Rabat









I just wanted to get a horse onto the blog!




Spain
We went to Algeceris, Tarifa, Granda, Valencia, Alicante and Barcelona

Gaudi Achitecture in Barcelona









Switzerland
Such a beautiful country and a much needed break from the heat and the cities. Sez and I met up with Shell here and traveled around with SHells dads friend. He showed us amazing hospitality, and it was great to have local insight into the places we were seeing. Most of our time was spent walking around the Zermatt region (up in the mountians). Highlights were being so high that it was hard to get enough oxygen, getting snowed on in the middle of summer and eating fondou (a.k.a Bread dipped into a masive pot of melted cheese) yummy!!!!!

on top of the world!


If only Mt Buller had this much snow in the middle of winter, let alone the middle of summer like it is here!

Croatia
I only had about 5 days so just saw debrovnic. Highlights included sea kyaking and snorkling in the clearist blue sea you can imagine. The actual city is also very spectacular. The old centre is walled and has marble roads...and the cheapest most delicious icecream! Lowlights included a plumbing problem in our apartment that led to the contents of the toilet coming up through and all over the floor when it was flushed! not cool!!!

Mountains, love boats and smack dens

Just returned from a week in Norway before I start uni.......it was awesome, if not a little weird! Four days were spent in the mountains hiking in the Jonterhium National Park. Such a beautiful area! Mountains (real ones not like Australias) with glaciers, lakes and rivers....absolutely everywhere! And although during the days hike you feel like it is very remote, at the end of each day there are lodges with heaters and showers. A good thing considering that it is freezing, even though it is just the end of summer. Although the hikes were quite long days we managed to find time to stop constantly to pick the blueberries growing wild absolutely everywhere in the mountains, and even swim in a glacier river! Shell and I have never screamed so loud. It was cold...very cold, and the swim must have lasted a good 2 seconds!

After our hike we returned to Oslo. We had a very bizare time in Oslo. We stayed in a bed and breakfast that turned out to be in a boat docked on the wharf. It was quite an adventure...the whole boat was booked out for a "Love Boat" festival. Whatever thats supposed to be!!!! It was full of ageing hippies doing weird weird performances late into the night. Meanwhile just outside our loveboat was Oslos biggest smack den!!!!! Everytime we left the boat there were people shooting up, or an ambulance taking away an overdose and even people trying to sell shell some undisclosed white powder from his pocket. Very sad and very unexpected in Oslo, what is supposed to be the worlds most expensive city!