Well, and maybe a little bit about the first first week aswell ;)
So, my last real post was on the 8th of august – not so positive. But by now a lot has happened, so I’ll just start where I ended last time.
Last week on friday I looked at two rooms. Both of them were… well, not exactly what you’d call “nice”. But oh well, better than nothing I thought. But there was one more to come on Saturday so I didn’t want to decide before that (which turned out to be a good decision!). But friday was not over yet. There was supposed to be a Party at Lappis, which is one very big student dormitory with many big houses standing together. Since I had an appointment at one of the rooms around 8 I went there right away to meet some friends. When I arrived they had just bought some “beer” (well, maybe you could call it water with a little beer taste, that’s the only thing you get in a supermarket here, for real alcohol you need to go into a “systembolaget”, a special store) so we took it and joined some people some of us knew from the language courses who live at Lappis and were having a barbecue. Later then we went to the “party”, which was in a rather small party room on the area of the student dorms. At first there were not that many people but soon it was pretty crowded in there (and, of course, got really warm). Well, it was probably exactly what you think of when someone talks about an exchange students party. There were almost only exchange students, the music was really bad, the smell was awful and most people were drunk (drunk exchange students are something special…^^). But we had some fun anyways! We didn’t stay that long though, I for my part because I knew I had to pack up my stuff before leaving to look at the next room the next morning.
So on saturday I woke up on that couch I had gotten used to for the last time. I started packing (it’s always amazing how quickly you can make a mess out of that nicely packed backpack…) and felt a little helpless – what if I didn’t find a place to stay? But first I left all my stuff where it was and left for an island called “Lidingö”, on the other side of Stockholm. The woman on the phone sounded pretty nice – maybe this would be a little nicer than the rooms before? On my way there I went the wrong way twice, but finally I was sitting on the train called “Lidingöbana” – it only goes back and forth on the island. I loved this traing right away – it’s old and loud, but it has style! Here’s a picture of it:
When I arrived at the apartment the lady living there welcomed me very nicely and showed me the room – after the ones I had seen before I was prepared for almost anything – except that! It was really nice! With a biiiiiig bed, an old and awesome desk, a bookshelf, a beautiful lamp on the ceiling and even curtains! The rest of the apartment was also quite nice! So then we sat and talked for a little bit – and it was probably what you’d call a match ;) The best thing was yet to come – the room was free and I could move in any time! We got a long really well, talked for a little bit and I was just overwhelmed! That’s probably why I didn’t say yes right away but asked for a little time to think. On my way back I had to call my mum, told her everything and she encouraged me to just take it – I wouldn’t find anything better! The only small negative thing about it was, that it’s not really close, neither to KTH nor the city center (takes about 40 Minutes), but first of all that is not really that much compared to some others here and second the beautiful area and the cool train can compensate that ;) So I declined the other two rooms and wrote Anne, that I’d love to take the room! Since she was working that night and I had an activity organized by the student union I didn’t move in that same day but spent the night in a hostel and we agreed that I’d move in on sunday.
But the saturday was not over yet. The student union, which is an organization on campus, that stands up for student rights and organizes most of the student activities had organized a “Swedish dinner” for the exchange students. Since most of the other activities had been booked out by the time I had arrived and this was one of the few ones they had tickets left for I had decided to go there, and it sounded really good! But before I could go there I had to find a hostel for the night. You’d think that would not be too difficult for one person for one night – yeah, that’s what I thought, too! Before I left I checked on the internet and found one hostel not too far from the campus (where the dinner would take place) which had still free beds. So I took all my stuff and wend there (of course, I got out the wrong side of the tunnelbana (metro/underground) and then had to walk up a hill for quite a long time… So I got there, sweaty and tired and my arms and back hurting from all my luggage and asked for a bed for the night. And the lady at the reception? She just said “Sorry, we’re full.” I was like “What????”. That moment I just crashed down from the cloud I had been on since I had accepted the room. When I had found my voice again I asked her whether she knew any other place close I could got to. – “No, sorry.” – And she closed the reception. Fortunately the had computers in the hall there, so I looked for other hostels. I found one, not really close but better than nothing. So I grabbed all my stuff once more and went back down the hill, into the metro, to the next hostel. Good thing that one was not on a hill! When I got there and asked for a place to spend the night I must have looked quite desperate. But when the lady at the reception answered “Yeah, you’re lucky, we have one free bed left!" I was pretty relieved. Of course I was late for the swedish dinner then, so I just went there, without changing or even taking a shower as I had planned to. Luckily they had left the first course on the free place I sat down at ;) And it had been cold anyways^^ I sat at a table with a few guys and they were really funny. We had quite a good time and the food was not bad – but the portions were SOOOO small!!! I had been starving and so much looking forward to some good food, so I was a little disappointed, just as everyone else. But yeah, can’t change that. It was good anyways. And I even tried shrimps! (Usually I don’t eat seafood – fish is okay, but seafood….) It wasn’t as bad as I had expected, but I guess I was just hungry and the sauce that was on them was good ;)
After the dinner we talked for a little more and then I went back to the hostel – I was sooo tired from the day and the others were planning a trip to the archipelago the next day so we didn’t stay at the afterparty for that long. I would have gone with them on the trip, but since I had to move in I couldn’t. I hope I will make it there some time soon while the weather is still nice, since it’s supposed to be awesome! Back at the hostel I went to bed quite soon and slept not too well – all night people went in and out of the room without caring about the door, which was really loud, and somebody was snoring… But I was too lazy to get my earplugs out xD The next morning then I left the hostel and made my way towards my new home!!! So at that point my second first week started! I arrived at around 11 am, carried all the stuff one by one up the spiral stairs into the 3rd floor and was, once again, welcomed warmly. First we dealt with all the practical stuff – signed the contract, she showed me where everything is, and so on. After that I started unpacking. That took quite a while, but in the end everything was where it was supposed to be and for the first time since I had arrived in Stockholm I could sit down and feel as if I had arrived! :) And this is the view out of my window:
This last week then went by without too many exciting things. In the morning I left around 8 to get to the language course, after that we usually ate lunch somewhere on campus (either I took some bread or whatever was left from the night before, since there are microwaves in the student union house where you can heat up your food) and after that we either went around the city, had some activity or whatever. I’ll just tell you about some highlights here ;)
On wednesday night we went to an artistic show in the city. There is an event called “Stockholms culture festival” taking place all around the city this week and there are several thing to look at, do or go to, all for free. So that show was just amazing! It’s hard to describe so I’ll just show you some pictures (sorry they’re not the best^^). There was a band playing at the same time, they were not bad either :)
On wednesday then we tokk a tour through some metro station, since most of them have some art in them. That's pretty cool and when you just walk by you don't even notice most of it! For example, the station "tekniska Högskolan" (Technical University) has all kinds of scientific stuff in it, for example an apple (Newton) or something like this:
And there is also one station, that has the human rights written all over the walls, but without any komma, fullstop, space, capital letters or the special characters you have in swedish, like the dots over the a or o and things like that, so it's really hard to read them, even for swedish people. Maybe I'll try once I know a little more swedish ;)
Yesterday, on friday, we went kayaking. That was awesome! We were four people and rented two double kayaks for four hours. Maybe you can see on that map which way we went ;)
Alright so that was my last week. Tonight we'll have a barbecue and afterwards go to the culture festival and tomorrow there is "the largest book store" in the city, along a really long street, where they sell used books – of course we're going there ;) And later they show the Lord of the Rings in a free outdoor cinema :)
Oh and of course I have some more "fun facts", but I guess this post is long enough already, so I will not put them in here but only add them to the list ;) (Not right now though…) And there will be a "Clouds" page soon ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment