Uplands' Welcome Reception

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011 -

The Uplands Welcome Reception was on Thursday.  I thought I remembered seeing something about everyone being welcome even if they weren't a member, but I wasn't sure and wasn't sure I wanted to crash the party in case it was only for members.  But when I got back from class Thursday afternoon (a long day compared to what I'm used to, six hours of class), I checked the Uplands International Students group and saw that one of their international secretaries had posted that everyone was welcome, even if they hadn't joined Uplands.  So I decided I was going to attend, meet some more people, and get to know Uplands better, despite being somewhat fatigued after the long and early day.  I had almost joined Uplands, so I was curious to see what I might be missing out on.

If the V-Dala reception seemed large and impersonal at times, the Uplands one was much smaller scale and more personal.  There weren't all that many students, perhaps three dozen, less than half of whom were internationals (compared to V-Dala's about 200, also less than half of whom were internationals).  We split into two tours groups, one the internationals (in English) and one the Swedes and those who spoke Swedish, and started going around meeting the leaders of various Uplands organizations.  Unlike at V-Dala, they were expecting us (well, I guess the V-Dala people probably were too) and told us about the organization when we arrived, rather than just looking at us.  Our tour guide helpfully asked questions that she probably knew the answer to, but we probably didn't know the answer to and probably wouldn't have thought to ask.  You could say it was staged, but it was very helpful both at getting more information for us, and for making sure all the group members told us about their part in the organization.  Most memorable of the groups, despite the fact that I don't plan to join it, was the band, who were all wearing somewhat dirty sailors' uniforms.  The story goes, back 40 years ago or so when the band was founded, they needed some sort of uniform so they looked alike, but they had a small budget.  Sailors' uniforms were the cheapest ones they could find, so they went with that.  Now, they aren't allowed to wash the uniforms, because of superstitions as well as all the medals affixed that would take some time to take off.  The exception is that they are allowed to wash them in the river if they are kept on while in the river, but the one member who had done so said her uniform ended up more dirty after being washed than before.

The tour went well I thought, and the whole time we had been accompanied by a friendly rodent, the rat Oops.  Most of the time Oops rode along on our tour guide's shoulders (not stationary, of course, but walking all around as feasible), although she occasionally gave Oops to someone else to hold for awhile.  Oops belonged to one of the students who had housing through Uplands, and who also happened to be one of the band members.  He owns three rats, Oops, Toxic, and Trouble.  They are all named after Britney Spears songs.  Oops is about six months old, and is a very soft rat in addition to being very friendly.  I know the general impression people in the U.S. have is, why would you want to have a rat as a pet when they are generally seen as pests, but after spending time with Oops you could see why you might want to have a rat as a pet - they can be very friendly and sociable indeed.  It would never work back at home for me, having three cats, but for someone who didn't already have pets who might mistake Oops for prey, a rat could be a pretty good pet.

 I did learn on the tour that there is a rivalry between Uplands and V-Dala.  Apparently it began back when V-Dala built their current building, which is both right next to Uplands and taller.  In effect, they stole Uplands' sun, so once a year Uplands has a gasque where they go around V-Dala's building and hope it falls down.  I don't know if V-Dala considers it a rivalry, as they didn't mention anything during their welcome ceremony, but Uplands does at least.  I didn't mention that I was in V-Dala upon hearing this, for fear of being tossed out or worse, but during dinner it inevitably came up, as some of the internationals already knew I was in V-Dala (one of the other internationals was in Snerikes, so I wasn't the only non-Uplander at least).  It brought about the requisite "how dare you!"s, and, "oh, you're in that nation"s, but fortunately it wasn't too difficult to convince them that I really hadn't been aware of the rivalry and wasn't actually acting as a spy.

Dinner was good, consisting of pea soup and Swedish pancakes.  Our tour group started out eating downstairs in the main dining area that anyone could come into for Uplands' dinner, but moved up to the banquet hall (the same place we'd eaten on the Russian night) upon learning that was where we were actually supposed to be.  Pea soup is more exciting than is sounds, unlike American tomato soup, and is tasty as well.  While peas are of course the main vegetable, there are other vegetables as well, and their was even a version with meat in it, although we pretty much all went for the vegetarian version as there was more of it when we arrived to eat.  Swedish pancakes are not similar to American pancakes, although they did remind me of crepes.  They are thicker than crepes, but it is traditional to put some sort of jam in them and fold them over, not dissimilar to how crepes are often filled.  I'd actually had them once before, at GH Nation's Sunday brunch my second day here.  There were a few short speeches during the dinner, but not nearly as many as there had been at V-Dala, and the dinner was significantly shorter as a result.

After the dinner, several of us went down to Uplands Nation's pub, Svantes Källare, including the international secretary who had been our tour guide, to socialize and get to know each other some more.  We were in the back room of Svantes Källare, which is one of the neatest single rooms I've been in in Uppsala.  It looks like it could date back to medieval times with its stone, brick, and concrete walls in the shape of a long arch, but the most credible version of its history seems to be that it originated as a bomb shelter back in the '40s or '50s.  Now it's been somewhat refurbished into an additional seating area, and it has a pretty good atmosphere for such a history.  It's a bit loud, with the walls pretty much directing the sound to the table across the archway and not absorbing hardly any sound, but still definitely a neat area to hang out.  We stayed there for a couple hours.  The international secretary was going to give a (hopefully-funny) speech at the reccegasque (the gasque for new students) at Uplands, and as such she asked us what 'weird' tendencies we had noticed in Swedes, as well as what stereotypes or tendencies we had heard or noticed about Swedes (good or bad) and whether we thought the stereotypes had some basis.  It made for an interesting topic of discussion, and of course we also discussed what the Swedes' stereotypes about internationals (particularly international students) were, and what stereotypes the Swedes thought might be prevalent about themselves.  As it turns out, American international students are perceived as not stylish, while international students in general tend to either be very hard working and academically focused, or focused mostly on partying and living it up.  International students also need to learn to say when they agree or disagree with a Swede's suggestions, rather than saying they agree with suggestions when they really don't.  Swedes tend to be polite, but sometimes seem to not be very friendly at first (the V-Dala organization fair being one example).  Many of the other things the internationals noticed were more about items in life in Sweden, such as IKEA being much more confusing than was expected, rather than about the Swedes themselves.

The biggest difference between V-Dala's and Uplands' welcome receptions was that Uplands felt much more personal - it's what people are talking about when they talk about the difference between a large nation and a small one.  Technically Uplands is a medium-sized nation (2000 students), but you could tell the difference between it and V-Dala (5000 students).  V-Dala was able to put on an impressive show, which Uplands didn't attempt, but there's something to be said for actually getting to know the international secretary over the course of several hours at a welcome reception.  To be fair, I did meet and talk to the international secretary at V-Dala a bit during the winter fika (see the first part of this post), but the chances of getting to meet her at the welcome reception was pretty slim due to the number of people in attendance.  There's advantages to both large and small nations, and I see why some internationals said they were considering joining both a large and a small nation.