Ellen's Semester at Lund

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Birthday Party!

...was a blast!
I was afraid it was going to be too crowded in our little korridor kök, but only about 14 people came, which made it perfect! We played a lot of flippy cup, a few games of beer pong, and thought about playing quarters (with authentic American quarters, whoa!) but never got around to it. Everyone has been telling me how great it was, for a Monday night. I learned a few things.

Spilling beer is a sign that people are having fun.
Portuguese men are competitive to the point of cheating(Franciscooooo....)
I should not be afraid to speak Spanish even if it completely sucks.
Birthday presents are good (Thanks Sascha!)
And if you think you bought enough beer, go back and buy that much again, cause it is never enough...

haha. Just kidding on that last one, but I thought I would have some left at the end of the night and I totally didn't. I forgot how much flip cup makes you go through, I guess. I also encouraged everyone to come to the states for the Indy 500. Just to show them American drinking spirit...and probably terrify them. Haha.

Ireland!

Ireland was incredible. I really want to go back and see more of the countryside and do more touristy things, but being a part of the whole environment was so great. The Irish people are very very different from Swedes. The Swedes have this idea that if people need help they will ask, or if they want to tell you about themselves, they will tell you. The Swedes are very good listeners once a conversation is started, but they probably won't offer help if you're standing in the middle of town holding out a map. They'll assume you have it figured out and will ask if you need to. The Irish on the other hand, have no boundaries. Everyone will ask about the scratch on your forehead or where you're from and what you're doing here and they genuinely want to know. You can become good friends with an Irish person in a night. They will get your information and contact you again, even just to say hello...but almost always they have talked long enough to find something in common with you and a need to bring it up later.

I got to the airport Thursday around 6pm, and Casey's friend Damian didn't get off work until 7, and Cole's flight wasn't in until 9pm. So, I sat around and read and ate the Bagel Factory --- OMG SO GOOD. I'm going to attempt to make an eggworks sandwich soon --- and waited for Casey and Damo. I went to the pub in the airport and got a Guinness (cliche, but delicious), and then Casey and Damo were there! We sat around and talked and I was already having a magnificent time, and then Cole got there which made it all even better! We went back to Damian's house where Megan and Melinda were (also SMC girls) and we got cleaned up, pre-gamed and went out to the Roost in Maynooth. It was a Halloween party so a lot of people were dressed up. One girl was even H1N1. I can't say that I remember this in the first person, but I'm told I met these guys that were amazed it was my first night in Ireland and kept buying me drinks. Ireland has Bulmer's, which is delicious yummy cider. The rest of the night is either a blur or completely gone. I woke up in bed with Meg and Mel, though, so the night turned out alright.

Friday we went into Maynooth again and ate at the Bagel Factory for breakfast (again it was delicious) and walked around the town and campus. The church there is really neat and the grass really is greener in Ireland. I don't know how or why, but it is. Then we caught the train to Dublin and checked into our hotel room. Damian works at a hotel, so he got a really good deal on this AWESOME apartment-hotel room. We were right on the Liffey and on the fifth or sixth floor. It was incredible. We hung out there for a while to try to recover a bit more and take in the amazing view. The rest of the day went something like this--Karl, Stephen, and Gavin were around here and there, we bought frozen pizzas and ate them. We drank some disgusting 6 euro wine and went to a place called the Porter House Brewery. There was a guitar man playing there who was pretty awesome. He played covers from all the good songs that you want to hear. It was weird hearing songs I actually knew. Needless to say, the rest of the night was just amazing. It was so great to be hanging out with old friends and new friends and just...being alive. We stayed up until 5 am...but every minute was worth it. We moved one of the couches so it sat right up next to the window-wall and just talked and looked out at the river for hours.

Saturday we got up and had the most AMAZING breakfast at the hotel. It was really amazing just because we were so hungry, I think. Scrambled eggs, Irish sausage, toast, fruit, and coffee. I did try a white pudding and a black pudding --which is no dessert. It's basically oatmeal and, as Damo put it, "pig bits" all kind of wadded together. The black pudding contains pig's blood, too. It was completely edible, but not very good or flavorful when you get right down to it.

We thought about going to the Jameson factory, but after staying up that long, I don't think anyone (except Cole) was really in the mood to walk that far and then drink whiskey. So we walked along Grafton street, which is a pedestrian street that has a ton of shopping and street performers -- musicians and statue-men. And these street performers are crazy-good. Like, insanely. I could have stayed and watched the string quartet for probably an hour or more. But we made our way to the end and laid around in St. Stephen's Green the rest of the day until we caught the train to Clonsilla, where Stephen lives. His mother made us the best dinner and it was so nice being in a home and having home cooked food that isn't made to feed just one. And they have a 4 month old golden lab named Lucy who was freaking adorable.

Then we went back to Maynooth to someone's else place...Sean's I think. And watched some X-factor before going back to Damo's to drop off our stuff and change and shower. We were planning on going to Mantra, which is a new club in Maynooth, but apparently it's pretty upscale. As in, they didn't let John in with vans on. So we went to another bar/pub called Brady's, which was pleasantly not packed, due to Mantra, for the most part. After having an absolute ball and getting thrown around by this guy in a South Carolina shirt, we went to Supermacs and I got my first curry chips (fries). Absolutely delicious. American's are too narrow-minded about fries. Branch out from ketchup!!! It's so worth it!

So it was absolutely wonderful, the next morning we all went to the airport, except Cole, who stayed til Monday, and flew to our respective homes. It made me really sad that Casey and Meg and Mel were all going to the States. But I don't know if it was like a jealous sadness or if I will be sad to leave when I go home. Time will tell.


Me, Cole, Damian and Sean Thursday night at the Roost


The Church on NUI-Maynooth's campus


View of the River Liffey and mountains in the background from our hotel in Dublin.

Monday, October 12, 2009

In the cold and dark...

Sorry it's been so long. Nothing really exciting has happened, so I've put off blogging about it. My Biostatistics class is pretty labor-intensive. We have three homeworks and 4 computer labs and a computer project. I know that may not sound like a lot, but keep in mind that this course is only 4 weeks long. It's SO much material for that amount of time. I'm afraid of the exam, but so far I think we(my partner Jochen and I) have gotten all the points on the hw and labs. So that'll help. I only have to get 50% to pass, 85% is more than satisfactory, but it doesn't matter because I only get transfer credit anyway. So, I hate being the underachiever, but I only need to pass.

Sarah Dews and I went to Sarah Moyneur's birthday party on Friday. After some shuffling of locations, we ended up at Sparta, where we met an absolutely completely drunk 27 year old (28 this month) Swede named Erik Johanssen. That's like the most Swedish name you can have. On top of that, he could barely stand, let alone speak proper English. Every time he couldn't think of a word, he just growl/roared instead. We then went on to call him Fun Time Erik, or FTE, for short, for the rest of the night, which didn't last very long. The party was good, but it had come about in such a round about way, I was exhausted by the time everyone was getting into it and Sarah Dews and I went home.

I have new boots! I got them when Kara was here, but I'd like to note how awesome they are. Boots and tights are like the Swedish girl's uniform. And I love it. Kristen Krueger, tights can be worn as pants, and under dresses, tunics, or skirts. And it's good and warm and cute.

This weekend, I'm going to do SOMETHING. I don't care whether it's by myself or someone comes along, I just don't want to party in Lund and grocery shop and clean my room for another weekend. So my plan is to go to Copenhagen or Gothenburg, or both, for that matter. Gothenburg is like two hours away by train, but it's Sweden's second largest city and seems cool. But of course I also want to do Copenhagen, too.

And then, I leave for Ireland the week after that! My first big trip! And after I get back, I take an exam, turn in a film essay, send my Russian visa application off to the Finnish travel agency, and then I'm free! Monika and I are going to Stockholm for Halloween weekend, and the weekend after that I'm going to Prague to see Kara. And the next weekend is free, but I am going to book a flight to Krakow in the next couple days so I can do the Poland thing. Then RUSSIA for a week. And after that, class starts again :-( but Christmas break is in the middle there somewhere and I still want to go to Berlin and Amsterdam and Brussels. It'll be awesome.

Friday, October 2, 2009

I am bad at clever blog titles.


First things first, Daisy came today (and Tom's letter)! So I'm listening to it right now. I bleed Brand New. They are inside my soul somehow. It's crazy. I know.

The rest of Kara's stay was really fun, it was just unfortunate that she came
a.) the few days before my exam
b.) from Sunday to Wednesday, instead of the fun part of the week. Which is Wednesday - Saturday.
We walked around Lund on Monday and shopped and checked a bunch of stuff out. The Domkyrkan really is way awesome. I bought some boots! They are short and black and I love them. Having Kara ride around on the back of my bike was an interesting experience. All the Swedes make it look really easy, but it's no small feat to have two people balancing at the same time, but we did it.


Also, my mom's package came this week and I had to bike all the way to Nöbbelövsvägen...through the suburban area of Lund and also there was a potato field and horse pasture and a cool park, in which I discovered the BEST sledding hill. So if it even does snow and stay for a while, I'm going to figure out a way to make that happen. But anyway, I eventually got my package so I could upload pictures finally. You can see all of them on facebook...162 so far and I took more last night.


My first exam for Sequence Analysis was on Wednesday morning. I'm pretty sure I passed, or I'm close. But if I failed, I get another chance to pass, so all is well. After my exam, I came home to sleep a little to make up for my late night of studying and then went to meet Sarah D. at Matteannexet (Math annex bldg) to buy tickets for the Sea Battle. The Sea Battle is put on by ESN (Erasmus Student Network) for students on exchange in Estonia, Finland, and Sweden. It's an overnight cruise from Stockholm to Tallinn and then back. The tickets include food and drinks (except hard liquor) for 1000 kr...which is less than $200. Tickets were going on sale at 4pm, so to be 'safe', we got there at klocka 15.30 (as they say in Swedish). Well, turns out there were people waiting since like 10 am and Lund only has 124 tickets available. So we didn't even wait and gave up. So not worth six hours of waiting. Then I went on the big journey of picking up my package. I saw the cutest tiger-tuxedo cat along the way. I wanted to take her home. She looked mischievous. Then, my class planned to go the sports pub at Hallands nation at 7pm. It was fun, and a bunch of the Germans(Lisa, Jonas, Andy and Markus(they count as one), Bianka, and Antonia) and Simon and Camilla were there as well planning their weekend trip to Stockholm. I really wanted to join, but my Biostatistics class has homework due on Monday and they weren't coming back till Monday night. Oh well, some other time. Simon and Jonas went to VGs after, and I thought about it, but decided against spending the 50 kr cover.

Last night I went to Sarah M.'s corridor and then we went to ÖGs club. It was not crowded at all, but there were a lot of fun people there, and it was a great time. Completely worth the 50 kr that night. And today, I've been in class and need to make a run to the Systembolaget before it closes at 6...stupid government controlled alcohol sales. I'm going to Monika's flat to pre-party and then, this is the time that Sarah D., Monika and I will ACTUALLY get in to Hallands club...lol. I hope.

I'm trying to think if there is anything else...does anyone have any specific questions? LOL. Here are some pictures...









Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Helsingborg and Helsingör, Malmö and Kara!

I don't really have time to blog right now, but I wanted to put just a few things in here to remind myself to finish it out later. On Friday, I studied and was generally boring. On Saturday, Eric and I took a train to Helsingborg, which is a medieval coastal city half an hour north or so. It's also only a twenty minute ferry ride to Helsingör, Denmark, which was the city of Elsinore in Shakespeare's Hamlet. We climbed up the castle/fortress in Helsingborg first...it was a long spiral staircase to the top, but worth it for the view. Then we bought a ticket for the ferry to Denmark. We ate a kebab on the main street, and walked around a little bit. The city of Helsingör is really nice, because most of the streets are pedestrian streets. It was very quaint. We walked around to Kronborg (Hamlet's Castle), which is just insanely beautiful and baroque. We bought tickets to be able to walk around the Royal Apartments (King & Queens quarters, banquet halls, and lots and lots of 16th century tapestries) and the Casemates, which was essentially the storerooms and dungeon. That was the coolest part, because it was kind of creepy too.

Eric also pointed out that you can rent the castle for events. So when I win the lottery and can afford to fly everyone to Denmark and pay for the castle, I'm so getting married there. The courtyard is just amazing, the perfect atmosphere for a party. It's hard to see in pictures, but I'll put some up soon.

We got back home at like 7:30 or 8 and went out to ög's with Andrew and Christian and Christian and Fabio. I didn't have too much fun, because well, a girl out with a bunch of guys just isn't as cool as a guy out with a bunch of girls. I went home shortly after midnight and woke up early to go meet Kara at Malmö C! I'll post on Malmö and Lund w/ Kara later. Today, I'm studying while she went to Copenhagen. I also have Swedish Film Class later, so I have to keep moving.

And I have the last-minute exam dread feeling about tomorrow...ughhghgh.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Korridorfest

"We can't do it better, but longer." - Simon Winterberg on the people of Switzerland, and no, I'm not sure what he was referring to.


Last night was so fun! We had a Tour des Chambres just the people in the corridor, which was lovely. I made Rum & Coke, Elif bought Guinness, Tobias made White Russians and we listened to the Russian National Anthem, Theresia had wine and French music, Caroline had...I forget, oh wait it was Sangria! Vesna made Jagerbombs, Robin and Jackie made delicious, hand made, fresh mint Mojitos...oh so good. Anders had just a shot of vodka...not so good, but whatever. I think that's all of us that were there. It was so fun just sitting and talking to people in a small setting. Then we had some friends come over after we 'tour'ed all the 'chambres'. Jonas came and brought some friends, but they left for Lunds nation after just a short while. Michelle and Terry came, too, with two other people but they left shortly as well. So it was me and a bunch of Swedes, and Elif (who's Albanian) and Jackie (who is Robin's girlfriend from Australia, but she's been living in Sweden for a year and a half). And I wouldn't have had it any other way. Swedish people are so well-spoken, even if their English isn't perfect, they always have good insightful things to say. Most of the talk was about what I thought about Sweden before I came here, what are Swedish stereotypes, etc. Robin then brought up how when he was in New York with some friends, everyone thought they were gay. So then I went on the whole night trying to describe what makes someone look gay and why Swedish guys fit that profile. Personally, Robin is like the straightest looking Swedish guy I've met. He doesn't do a lot of the tight clothes and his head is shaved. All Swedish guys are just so clean and shiny and bright. It's weird, but that's how I would describe them. Plus some wear really tight jeans and t-shirts and don't have chest hair or shave it all off. Swedish girls are just more subtle about it. They wear a lot of black and grey and white. Unless it's a club or fancy party, I don't really see Swedish girls wearing colors.

Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling a bit. One more thing though. Tobias got really drunk because he kept refilling his White Russian until it was gone. So, as a result, he was talking to me in Swedish and everyone else in English. He was hilarious. I talked to one of his friends for a really long time in the kitchen, and now I don't think I even got his name...but whatever. He'll be back for my birthday party...he promised. Haha.

My package still hasn't arrived, it's been two weeks. But my corridormates reassured me there will be a slip left in my box saying where to pick it up when it arrives. I hope it's soon. And all of you should send me things. Even if it's just a letter, it's so great to get mail that I can actually read! (All of the flyers and newspapers and things are in Swedish of course.) My address is below, just in case. And now, the rest of my day will be spent studying and watching Project Runway. Tomorrow to Helsingborg!

Magistratsvagen 55 B:208
226 44 Lund
Sweden

Thursday, September 24, 2009

H&M, Postcards, and Neighbor Country Sittning

My class ended lectures on Tuesday, our exam is next Wednesday, and Kara comes on Sunday. I think Eric and I are making plans to go to Helsingborg on Saturday, and tonight is my tour des Chambres with the corridor.

And now stuff that's already happened. I had a sittning with mentorgroup 9 last night, our theme was 'Neighbor Countries', so you had to dress like one of the countries that borders yours. All the Swedes dressed as Danes, but to them, Danes must all dress like the flag, because they all wore red and white and painted their faces like the flag...hilarious. I tried to do Mexico, I wore a flower in my hair and my turquoise necklace, but it's hard to find good costume stuff. The Canadians were all Americans, clearly, they were like hilljack folk and went around talking in an accent all night, etc etc. Lisa was Swiss, she had a little green hat and a hiking stick and was soo cute. Bianka was Polish and wore red and white and leg warmers and this fur scarf thingy she bought at the flea market on Saturday. But Simon's costume was by far the best. By FAR. He's Swiss, so he dressed as an Italian guido, complete with fake chest hair and goatee. I'll put some pictures at the end of this post of everyone.

Anyway, it turns out I couldn't get into the sittning at first because I didn't have a nation stamp on my acceptance letter. That's because Sydskanska girl hadn't replied about my number, etc. So I emailed them again and she replied yesterday, but I couldn't get the stamp until today. So me and another girl went next door to Hallands, and luckily enough someone knew a forman there that could hook us up. So I signed up with Hallands nation. I don't know how it works exactly, maybe I won't pay the bill for them and will pay for Sydskanska, and it'll be ok? who knows. Anyway, the point is, I got in to the sittning. And THEN, we were sitting at the end of the last table, and they ran out of food. We still got food, it was just not as much as everyone else by far. So they gave us double dessert and an extra bottle of wine, which definitely made up for it. Then it was already time for the club to start, but some people went back with Petra to Erik's for the mellanfest (middle party), but the bar in the club was already open, so me and some others just stayed. And Eric and Mathias were there, and eventually everyone else came back too. It was a great time.

Now I must stop putting off my homework and room cleaning/decoration so I can be ready for this corridor party tonight...ack! I do have tomorrow totally free, so maybe I will take the day off. Or maybe not, Nora invited me to a pub night, so we'll see.


Heidi (Lisa) from Switzerland (Germany)


This is Will. He dressed Canadian and then someone was using his props against him.


The SweDanish look. There were probably 7 or 8 Swedes dressed like this.

And finally...

Yes. Simon is a D&G wearing, greasy, smooth talking Italian.