Monday, January 17th -
I slept in late on Monday (10 AM seems late when it gets dark at 4 PM) in hopes of getting better from the illness, and although it would take until Wednesday that I was feeling fully better, I was more or less better on Monday. First priority was getting an unlimited bus pass - the last thing I wanted was to be stranded and lost because I ran out of bus fare. I took the bus to Centralstation, and not surprisingly there was a long line for the bus passes as it was the first day students could get the month-long bus pass at student rates. The process was organized, though, and I did eventually receive my bus pass. I then decided to head down to the Information Technologiskt Centrum to meet with my exchange coordinator. Unfortunately I didn't know what bus to take, and bus maps are pretty much nonexistant in Uppsala. So I went over to Vastgota Nation, to ask there, as exchange student registration was still open there. While there, I encountered my international buddy and Vanessa (the Vancouverite) again, and we decided to meet for dinner at the pub at Smälands Nation.
I left armed with a list of bus routes to take, the closest to Vastgota Nation being the 20 on Drottningatan. So I went down to Drottningatan, and caught the bus, which was quite late according to the timetables at the stop. After about 20 minutes, I figured I had to be pretty close, but the bus kept going without reaching my stop. Eventually I pulled out the route listing (which included the station names, but contained no map) and started comparing the stops we'd gone by to the ones listed. I realized I'd taken the bus in the wrong direction, and if the route were circular, would have gone to about 4/5 of the stations instead of 1/5 to get to my destination. Unfortunate, but a tour of the countryside. Or so I thought until we got to the last stop listed in the direction we were going, and the bus driver said something in Swedish that I presume meant "last stop". Great. The route wasn't circular, and I was somewhere way out in the countryside with no idea how to get back, except a general sense of which way north (back to Uppsala) was. Even better, the bus stop's time table indicated no more busses were coming that day. There was a pizzeria right by the stop, in an otherwise residential area, so I tried asking if I could use a phone to call a taxi, but the man at the counter was the first Swede I'd met who didn't speak any English. So I began walking back in the direction the bus had come in the first place, and eventually reached the second-to-last-stop, and then the third-to-last. At the third-to-last stop, I saw a bus approaching in the direction of the end of the line. Thrilled that a bus might be coming after all, I jogged across the street to the stop in the direction of the end of the line, and when the bus pulled up, I got on, asked if I could take the bus back to Uppsala, and scanned my bus pass when the driver indicated I could. I'd get back before midnight after all! It was a long ride back to Pollacksbacken, where I was supposed to meet my international advisor, and by the time I arrived it was about 5:00 (an hour and a half after the bus originally left Drottningatan), and she'd already left for the day. The building was actually a bit of a ghost town. A nice building, in good condition, but hardly anyone there. The trip wasn't a total loss, however. Purely by chance, I met a French full-year exchange student who was in one of my classes, and said he'd e-mail me my schedule. So, 1/3 on knowing my classes. At least I was making progress.
Smälands Nation was good and not-quite-so-good. The menu was basically burgers and quesadillas, and everyone at my table got quesadillas. Mexican food here is a bit different than what I've heard about other parts of Europe. It does exist. There are Mexican restaurants, and there is a Mexican section at the grocery store. By Mexican, however, is usually meant "tacos". Tacos are very popular, other Mexican food, not as much. Quesadillas, obviously, exist at times as well. Spiciness is also different in Sweden, from what I've been told by long-term American residents. Even when something is called spicy here, it apparently is not. I'm going to see if I agree with this later, but there was no spiciness option for the quesadillas. They were good, but certainly not spicy. The bigger issue that the lack of spiciness was the slow service. Smälands was clearly not prepared for the volume of traffic they received. The girl working the bar was apparently on her first day at the job, but she actually kept up decently well. The kitchen was another story. We arrived at 6:00, and it took perhaps 20 minutes for Elaine, who ordered first, to get her food. Not bad. Those of us who ordered a bit later, 30 minutes. A bit long, but it's a student pub, so not a big deal. Elaine's fiancé arrived about 7:30. At 8:30, he still didn't have his food. He's a native Swede, so he'd know if this was standard, but it wasn't, so he did inquire just to make sure they hadn't completely forgotten his order - they hadn't. At this point I left with a couple other exchange students for the game night at V-Dala, and there still were quite a few people at our table. But Smälands certainly could have done with a couple more cooks in the kitchen.
No comments:
Post a Comment