Norwegian Weekend!

This weekend was a trip to Oslo but before that, a little trouble in paradise. Another nice sunny yet cold morning in Gothenburg on Friday, I walk out to get my bike with plenty of time for a meeting with someone from my class to work on a presentation of comparing politics from Israel to Sweden and I think "Oh, where did I park my bike?"...then not too far from where I did park it, I find this:

It was locked, from the front wheel, through the frame and around the back wheel. These guys had obviously come with a nice little tool and cleaned a nice and precise slit in the chain and these things are not easy to cut off. Now I know why these Swedes have these giant steel locks that weight more than the bike itself does. God, it upset me so much...I was almost furious! Not just that my bike was stolen but that it happened at the student accommodation. I mean lets face it, we are all exchange students here and 95% of us come from countries that are not as well off as people living in Sweden. Luckily it didn't ruin the day completely. Still managed to have a good study session and was able to not be an asshole to anyone which sadly is very easy to give in to doing when you are mad.

On to the good stuff though. A lovely 5.15am alarm rings and I scurry to pack and organise myself for a 6am meet in the carpark to get on the road to Oslo. So let's do this!

Thanks to Nik's Autobahn skills we were in Oslo just after 10am. We stayed in a student apartment in this rather ghetto area thanks to Matthieu's connection from back in his home University in France. It was a good thing too, because DAMN, Norway is expensive. I mean Sweden in comparison is to the rest of the world is an expensive country but even still I felt I had crossed the Mexican border into the USA with a handful of Peso. I mean seriously, a bottle of coca-cola was literally double! The guys paid around 11Euros or AU$15 for one pint in a pub, just a regular pub, nothing special about it.

Even with Norway being the Qatar of Scandinavia with all it's oil money and expensive costs of living, it really doesn't seem to be much better off than Sweden is. If anything I think Sweden is just a little bit cleaner, a little bit nicer. Gothenburg is much more relaxed too but I guess it's unfair to compare Norway's capital city with the World's largest town. I much preferred Stockholm too, that city is amazing. 

One of the coolest structures I have seen is the Oslo Opera House. The roof is slanted and is designed for you to walk over it all the way up to the top and you get a pretty good view all over Oslo and at night, it was simply breathtaking. If it wasn't so damn cold I could have stayed there from sunset to sunrise with the good company that I had. 

There was also a large park on an outer side of the city full of sculptures. I'm not really sure what to think of it to be honest, is it art or is it just weird? Lots of naked sculptures but a lot of them were children, it made me a bit uncomfortable and some of the positions they were in...I just didn't understand.

Overall it was a great weekend trip. I think though if you are going to travel to Norway it is better to go into the north in the Summer for the stunning nature and countryside. However, the sheer cost of Norway would probably stop me from going back again, which is a shame. It was a really good way to forget about the loss of my bike too! :-D

Until next time!

Update + Swedish Course

What's up everyone? It seems here that every single day something is going on in terms of parties or events. I've not even been going to half of these things and still it is exhausting. There was a joint birthday party going on last night and I just had to sit this one out and have a quite night in as I heard everyone partying from outside my door. My limit of being around large groups of people is not too high I guess.

The weather here is getting progressively colder. Had a few nasty rainy days but as it does in Gothenburg, the day does a complete 180 and brings the sunshine out again. There is seriously never any point in looking at the weather forecast here. I don't even bother with a weather app on my phone anymore (just so you know I'm serious :-P ).

Student Kick-Off Gothenburg was on the other night at Trädgård'n. There were apparently some pretty big names playing (big 'Swedish' names). The only one I had actually heard of before was Iconica Pop who didn't even bother to show up, so that was nice. They know students like to come to these sort of things quite late so they really tried to get people there by 7pm indicating that people that come much later wouldn't get in and it kind of ruins the night doing things that way. By 11pm the club had cleared half of itself out from people who had gotten there earlier.

Even late at night it feels safe in Gothenburg. Even at around 2am I've never felt unsafe at a tram stop waiting to get home. There is no drunk people spilling out onto the streets, shouting or violence it seems. I'm sure there are dodgey spots over here but it's nice to be able to feel safe in the city centre and on public transport where you often can't avoid being.

What I really want to start doing is a bit of travel around the rest of the continent. I'm surprised no one else here has mentioned getting away for a weekend, especially since going out here in Sweden is mega expensive compared to the rest of Europe (not compared to Australia though, it's actually a little cheaper). We did book a cruise from Stockholm to Riga, Latvia and planning a trip to Lapland but these are a bit later in the semester. I wanna go somewhere now!

17 Sept 2012 UPDATE: I thought I would just edit the above entry since there isn't much new to add and the previous entry could use a bit of bulking up of content anyway.

So I literally just got back from Swedish language for beginners and I have to say, learning this language is really fun! Yeah okay so I'm a nerd, whatever. Seriously though it's just got such a nice sound to it and I love the way you sort of jump up and down with the tone. It's a pretty simple language too in the way it is structured so I'm really gonna give it a go to get as good at this as I possibly can.

It was in another section of the University near Körsvagen (tram stop which is three stops from outside my apartment) which I had never been to before but had walked past it so many times. Really beautiful little garden outside too. I love this place more the longer I stay and the more I see. So funny how I was worried if this place was going to be any good when I first arrived.

So my first real entry in Swedish:
Hej! Jag heter Andrew. Jag kommer från Australien och jag bor i Göteborg.
(Hey! I'm called Andrew. I come from Australia and I live in Gothenburg)

Learning Swedish like a boss! Yeah! Jag gillar min språkkurs :-)

Oops! One more thing I will add is that I actually ran out of mobile data today. Got a text from Halebop saying that I can still use it, but it's just going to be slower. Haha, even on my exhausted pre-paid card this downgraded internet is still faster than Vodafone in Perth. How bad is that? Anyway, just thought I'd throw that in.

Back to School

Getting back into the swing of Uni now. It's good having to have some form of structure to the week again. So the way the schedule at Uni works here is you focus more or less on one subject at a time, so at the moment I'm doing Swedish Politics in a Comparative Society and that's it! The contact time is only like 4 hours as well so it's a really relaxed lifestyle. 

The only thing I wonder with this structure, is if it give Swedes much of an opportunity to learn how to multi-task? Or does that type of stress go against their beliefs of what a healthy lifestyle and work/life balance is? I mean I hate the crunch at Uni where you are getting attacked by all four units at the same time but I still think it is good for you to be able to really knuckle down and pull through when you can...however, this is an exchange semester, so the more cruisey it is for me, the better!

A group of us ended up checking out the archipelago on Saturday which was lucky, a lot of us planned to do it on Sunday and the weather would have been awful for it! Was a nice day out but it's the countryside, a lot of nothing to do. Then again after all the nights out it was actually a nice change.

It was quite funny how the walking paths were just rocks embedded in muddy grass and some planks of wood and the path is indicated by a little blue dot on a rock every 100meters or so. I would be sure someone would have hurt themselves here before and back in Australia that would have prompted clear signage, a proper walking path and signs saying that you stray from the path at your own risk. It makes you feel like you get treated as a bunch of retards, really.

It is quite nice that you can access the rather large boats with a small cafeteria in them with your daily tram card/ticket. I would have expected to have to pay an extra fee for that. One thing I must say about the public transport here is that they put a fair bit of trust in you to do the right thing. I haven't once been checked to see if I had a valid ticket here in Gothenburg. 

I wonder how many people take advantage of it? Then again apparently if they do catch you it's a 2,000SEK fine (roughly $350) which is pretty hefty. However I remember in Perth when security wasn't so tight, daily commuters would risk not getting the ticket and even if they were caught once per week they still ended up around $20 better off than paying the fare.

(A calm change compared to one of two pub crawls in two consecutive nights)

I really am so grateful to be living here in Helmutsrogatan. I went to someone's apartment for pre-drinks in Olofshöjd and, damn, the place was almost like a prison. Tiny rooms with no kitchens or even a little fridge in them, around 18 people have to share a kitchen which is roughly the same size as the one I have in my room here. So unless you are eating out all the time then the place is almost unlivable. I guess at least they would be grateful for a place to live? There were some students who were still looking for a place to live when we were going through the University Inductions.

It's getting pretty exciting as a few people are already talking about trips to Oslo and some to Lapland and Russia. Looks like I'd better manage my time well since there obviously is not going to be much of it left over for studying. For now though, it's Swedish National Identity to go over. 

Let's do this! Pass with Distinction style!