Julmust

Julmust is a Swedish soft drink, traditionally consumed around Christmas ('jul' meaning 'Christmas' in Swedish).  My local ICA still had some, so I bought a bottle.

Those of you who know me will know that I usually dislike soft drinks, in no small part due to the carbonation, with rare exceptions such as Fitz's cream soda in St. Louis.  Well, pleasingly, Julmust was another exception.  It's not dissimilar to a cola, but is sweeter and more of its kick is from flavorings and spices than carbonation.  I might actually buy another.

But it won't be long before Julmust disappears from shelves, and is replaced by påskmust, for Easter.  Påskmust and Julmust are exactly the same, but with different labels (påsk meaning Easter in Swedish).  Even so, Julmust is by far the most popular, with three-quarters of all Julmust (including Påskmust) being sold in December, and Julmust being the most popular soft drink in Sweden in December (sorry, Coca-Cola).  So perhaps I should stock up soon if I still want to have some in May or June.

Blog Updates...

I've actually looked through the settings in some detail for a change, and in addition to a few formatting changes (there's no longer two dates on retroactive posts, for example), have made comments more accessible.  Now anyone can make comments, including robots.  As a precaution against swarms of robots, I've changed it so that comments don't appear right away, but I plan to approve all comments unless they're obviously from automated systems.

I also discovered that there is an auto-notification feature of Blogger from the author's end, so I can enable automatic notification by e-mail of new posts for whoever wants that.  Apparently it doesn't always work for followers (maybe it depends on which ID type you used to follow?), so if you want notifications of new posts, just e-mail me or leave a comment and I can add you.  For some reason there's a limit of 10 e-mail addresses, though, so if there's dozens of people reading this by the end of the semester it'll have to become first-come first-serve.

Weekday lunch at Vastgöta

Last Friday, February 11th, I had class all day, at Pollacksbacken.  It's too far to make a round trip to Flogsta from Pollacksbacken in 75 minutes, at least if you're going to eat anything at Flogsta, so that necessitated getting lunch at Pollacksbacken.  This was actually the third time this had occured, but the previous two times I had packed a lunch.  Last Friday I didn't get up early enough to do so, so a quest was on to find somewhere to eat.  I remembered that my international buddy had recommended Vastgöta Nation's lunch as a good place to eat on weekdays, so I took bus 20 there.  Almost at least - I went one stop too far, but was able to find my way back easily enough.

It was a good choice.  The lunch is only 35 kronor (about five dollars), and included a good helping of soup, some tasty bread, and a side dish, which I believe was red cabbage and onions on Friday.  The soup was a carrot soup, and was appetizing as well, and the whole lunch was vegetarian.  There was a decent crowd there, perhaps 2-3 dozen students at any one time, and there seemed to be a good stock of foodstuffs - there was no wait for the food, which was important with class at 1:15.

The settings was also interesting - it was in the room to the right of the entryway of Vastgöta's building, which I'd been through once before, but had never really looked at.  Along the walls were about a dozen paintings, all of towns from the Vastgöta region.  Nearly all of them featured a cathedral not unlike the one in Uppsala stylistically.  The building has belonged to Vastgöta since the early 1800s, and I would guess that the paintings have been there for most of that time.  The architecture in the room was excellent as well, which is not surprising considering I was at Vastgöta Nation.  In my estimation, Vastgöta has the best building architecturally, although some say Norrlands does.  I shall have to photograph it.

The lunch expedition was a success, and I returned a partial minute late only because the bus was running behind schedule due to the new snowfall.  With better road conditions, it certainly would be possible to go to Vastgöta for lunch and return on time.  I recommend going there at least once as an exchange student to try it out, and may well return myself.

Chinese New Year at Uplands

On Sunday, February 6th, I went to a Chinese New Year celebration at Uplands Nation.  The schedule included performances of (mostly) traditional Chinese arts, authentic Chinese food for dinner, and a Chinese (or at least Hong Kong) movie afterwards.  I arrived promptly at 4:00 when it was supposed to begin, but it didn't begin promptly at 4, nor did most people arrive at 4.  However, I was able to get a table by arriving early - if you were one of the last ones to arrive that was difficult.  At first I was with an SLU exchange student from Germany I had met before, and later several Uppsala students we were acquainted with arrived.  SLU is another university in Uppsala, but it is an agricultural university, and to the west of the city.  While SLU students aren't students at Uppsala, they are still able to join the Nations.

After perhaps an hour the food was prepared in adequate quantity for consumption to begin.  It wasn't bad, but I'm not sure authentic Chinese food is my favorite, either.  Granted, it was prepared by students, not professional chefs, but most of the students who were helping with cooking were actually Chinese.  The SLU student with whom I was eating said she thought there was too much oil in the rice, whereas a vegan student at our table noticed the dearth of vegetarian options.  Similar to at the Smorgasbord at Uplands, none of the food was labeled, which was unfortunate.  Maybe some more of it actually was vegetarian but it wasn't clear to westerners that it was?  The food was restocked a few times, and there was enough in the end.  There also was Chinese tea, but it was depleted when I went to get some, and being thirsty, I settled for water.

The performances were a mixed bag - the auditory ones were mired at first by a speakermaster who wasn't particularly good - I think the main problem was the sound was too loud, both for the audience and the speakers, but the transitions in volume were not smooth, either.  The recorded music tracks were also too loud relative to the live singing.  Fortunately it did get a bit better as time went on, and by the time there was a performance on a traditional Chinese string instrument (whose name escapes me now), it was enjoyable to listen to.  There was one performance that seemed decidedly non-traditional, a dance to decidedly modern, club-style music.  While it may well be common in China (my guess would be Hong Kong in particular, but by now it may be throughout China), it didn't seem to mesh with the general theme.

I didn't stay for the movie, as I'd already been there awhile and it hadn't gone as smoothly as might have been hoped.  I left with the SLU student and an Uppsala student, and after some debate we decided to go to the Hemkop grocery store in the center of the city.  It was the first time I'd been to a non-Ica grocery store, and they did indeed have some different inventory.  I tried a new vegetable, Jerusalem artichokes, which I found to taste similar to a potato but with the texture of a carrot, as well as some traditional Swedish pastries.  Probably the most traditionally Swedish is the Punsche-rolle, or vacuum cleaner.  All the pastries were to my liking, which probably isn't surprising.

The Flogsta Kitchen

It may be of interest to potential Uppsala students to know more about the buildings themselves.  I basically looked at a summary of each potential and made a decision in about 10 minutes.  It worked out well enough, but some people may prefer other buildings.  Or prefer a building closer to their classes (reminder to myself to make a post with a map of classes and residences, once I learn where more residences are).  Today I'll include some pictures of the kitchen.

This is the kitchen as viewed to the left from the entrance.  Twelve people share the kitchen, but the two stoves are usually enough to keep up with demand.  Everyone has two cabinets, one above and one of the half-height ones below (the full-height ones contain communal skillets, pots, and other cooking utensils.  The two drawers in the middle contain small cooking utensils (paring knives, butcher knives, etc.), and dining utensils.  The spices and anything on top of the oven fans (such as the olive oil) are free for anyone to use.  The logic is that most people don't use a whole jar of one spice in a semester, so why not share it?  Not visible in this picture is the second drying rack.

 Here we see the dining area.  The table comfortably seats seven, and you can fit in a few more than that on special occasions.  Included on the windowsill, in addition to the plant, are some KPMG playing cards, which are entirely in Swedish.  On the bulletin board are pictures of past residents.  There is a box in the common room with pictures of residents dating back to the '70s, and a select few are present on the bulletin board in the kitchen.  In most cases the picture features a silly action of some sort, although not always - one is up there purely because the person in it radiates '80's-ness.  There is a sole picture with a current resident in it.  Often present on the table, but not in this picture, is the Guestbook.  It's actually a resident book.  Started around 2003, it includes a page for each resident who decided to make an entry, telling what they studied, what their favorite food was, where they lived, and a few more things, in Swedish.  Two current residents have already made entries, and I found the entry for the Spanish exchange student who lived in my room a few semesters back fairly easily.  It was kind of neat to look through even though I couldn't understand a whole lot, but probably will be more so in the future with a greater knowledge of Swedish.

 And looking back.  Here we see that the other side of the table has a couch rather than chairs.  I actually find the chairs more comfortable, as they are a better height for the table, but the couch is not bad either.  The microwave is dial-based, which I hadn't been used to but I know is common at American colleges that provide microwaves for resident students.  There are three refrigerators, shared amongst four people each.  The third one is...

 ... in the common room!  The common room is directly across the hallway from the kitchen.  Three refrigerators just didn't fit in the kitchen.  If you go out the door in the picture, you go onto the balcony.  I've gone out there a few times to take in the view, but it's been too cold to go out there a lot.  To the left of that door (but inside) is another door that leads to the freezers.  There are two freezers for the hall.

There are enough communal utensils that you really don't need to purchase your own.  I was fine the first week before I got to IKEA and bought some, but even then I didn't buy a whole lot.  Buying your own plates is a good idea as there aren't that many communal plates, and you'll need your own containers for leftovers.  Otherwise, though, the custom of leaving cutlery and utensils for future residents has left a good stock.  Occasionally they're a bit old - we have two of the heaviest skillets I've ever lifted, probably real cast iron - but they tend to do the job fairly well.

I should note that the kitchen condition as well as inventory may differ significantly in different corridors within Flogsta.  The kitchen in my corridor tends to be fairly clean, but I've heard that isn't the case in some other corridors.  The general layout and stock of large appliances should be more or less the same, though.

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.

V-Dala Welcome Reception

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 -

On Tuesday I went to V-Dala's welcome reception for new students (both Swedish and international) who had joined V-Dala.  It began at 6 PM with an organization fair of sorts, with dinner following at 7:00.  The organization fair seemed a bit odd.  I'm used to organizations advertising themselves and actively trying to convince you to join at such events, but that was not the case here.  Instead, you had to ask the questions about the organization, or the people staffing the organization's table would, in many cases, just look at you and not say anything.  It didn't seem very friendly, and the Canadian, Germans, and Austrian I was with most of the evening agreed (I'd met the Germans and Austrian the week before at the pub crawl, as well as a Turk whom I also ate with at the welcome reception - it just so happened we had all joined V-Dala).  But I signed up for notifications about events from several V-Dala organizations, including the international committee, cultural club, games club, and sports committee.

Though we were a bit disconcerted after the fairly unfriendly, impersonal events fair, the dinner was much better.  It was semi-candlelight, with only sparse electric lighting, although no one was formally dressed.  The food was good, rice and either chicken, carrot and (I think) mushroom soup, or a tomato-based chunky vegetable sauce, and wine was dispersed at a bottle per three people.  Around nine-o-clock dessert came, a very good chocolate cake/brownie (kind of in between), as well as coffee and sugar cubes (for the coffee, not to eat in the manner of horses).  I still don't like coffee, but it was better with milk than without as I had it my first day at Göteborgs.  But the food was not the main event.  That was the stage performances by several V-Dala organizations.  The choir performed first, performing a few pieces in primarily A Capella style, followed by the band.  The band said it was hard to describe exactly what type of music they perform, but to listen, and I agree that I can't put it easily in a common category.  It was a brass band, with dancers, and the music reminded me of what I might expect with a '20s or '30s theme more than once, although perhaps it was actually more reminiscent of 1800s style - the dancers did perform the can-can at one point.  But at other points the music had a midcentury Latin American feel to it.  It certainly wasn't the more common jazz music.

The theatrical group, Spex, also performed at several points, including an act with multiple Julius Caesars with low lifespans, and a group of two penguins and one other bird.  The latter was in Swedish, and while I was laughing watching the actors walk around birdlike and converse both in Swedish and bird sounds, with the non-penguin always seeming rather sad, the Swedes were really laughing, so it must have been even funnier knowing the Swedish.  Once again I found myself wishing I knew Swedish - a fairly common thought.  There were a few speakers as well, including the chaplain and V-Dala's inspector, who is an adult, V-Dala alum, and employee in charge of finances and generally keeping order.  The latter had an especially good sense of humor, poking fun both at the tendencies of college students as well as himself and eliciting many laughs.  Good news, though - for some reason he doesn't understand, the business world thinks it's good to have an Uppsala Universitet degree!

Overall it was a very good evening, and definitely worth coming to.  There was enough time between the events on stage both to get to know the people around us better, and consume the food, and the event was clearly well-planned and well-executed.  The quality of both the musical groups and the theatre group was high, and they'd be worth seeing perform in the future.  The actual dinner part went without issue, as well.  The overall feel was rather like that of a cabaret, with the dual focus on both stage performers, and dining and socializing.  I didn't stay for the party after dinner, but I can say that V-Dala certainly knows how to put on a semi-formal dinner with onstage entertainment.

Visiting the Cathedral

Monday, January 31st, 2011

Today it was necessary to head in to town, as my rent had to be paid before February 1st. As I had plenty of time, I decided to walk. They say that you can see the cathedral for miles out - sure enough, I could see the cathedral not long after I left Flogsta.

That's the cathedral in the center of the picture.  Sure enough, it's dusk, too.  At 3:38 PM.  Which is no longer at all surprising.

The cathedral served as a good guide to make sure I kept going in the right direction, although it wasn't difficult.  Not much later, I came across a sight that not many Americans would like:

Cheap gasoline!  Usually it's about 13.40 kronor per litre.  12.93 is low!  The 9.74 is for 85% ethanol.  The price works out to about $2/litre, or a bit below $8 per gallon.

When I was more or less in town, I came across a truck with a familiar brand:

Polarbröd!  Polarbröd is a yummy flat bread that's a traditional northern Swedish bread.  I eat it often for open-faced sandwiches.  It's the third of fourth largest bread brand in Sweden.

I made it into town and paid my rent, then went east across the river to the Uppsala Konsert & Kongress building to buy a ticket to a classical concert occurring in May.  I decided to walk back as well.  I found myself near the cathedral, so I decided to take a walk around it and see what its open hours were.

It was still open!  It's open until 6 PM.  So I went on in.  It wasn't crowded, but it wasn't the ideal time to visit either, as it was dusk, so there wasn't much light coming in through the stained glass windows.  I plan to visit again, but during daylight hours.  Even so, it was impressive.  It's just as tall and decorated as the French cathedrals I saw several years ago.  The exterior style is quite different, red brick instead of stone, but it is all stone inside.  My pictures aren't great due to the lack of light, but I'll include some nevertheless.

 This is the memorial to Dag Hammarskjöld, who grew up in Uppsala and was the second secretary-general of the UN.  It seemed to be one of the most recent displays in the cathedral; the relics of Saint Eric of Sweden (who was never actually made a saint by the Pope, but is considered one here anyway) from the 1100s seemed to be the oldest.

 The chandeliers made this a difficult picture to take, but this is the view from near the back of the church, looking forward.  All the chandeliers are electric, except the one above the altar, which has candles but was not lit.  The electric cabling seems to be attached to the sides of cathedral with a sticky substance, rather than actually going through the stone.

 The pipe organ at the back of the cathedral.  There are two pipe organs.  The white cloth is covering construction work - the cathedral is undergoing renovations.

 

 The second organ, at the left side of the church (when facing the altar), and one of the stained glass windows.

 One of the tombs on the right side of the church.  It's much more impressive with real, rather than photographed, light.  The two tombs in this area dated from the 1600s or early 1700s.

 One of the paintings on the wall.  The styling seems a bit more northern European than what I remember from the French cathedrals, and definitely medieval (the cathedral was begun in the late 1200s).  The scene on the left is peaceful, but the one partly visible on the right is warlike, as were several of the other scenes in this room.

There were a few worshippers present, saying their own prayers, but I did not see any priests while I was there.  I thought I saw a nun near the room where Gustav Vasa I, King of Sweden, was entombed, but later learned that it was actually an incredibly realistic statue.  I hadn't approached too close to be polite!

Class in Sweden, and, International Pub Crawl

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

I couldn't come up with much more divergent topics if I tried, I know. But that's what is entailed by a day in Sweden. Today I had four hours of one class, which really was not bad at all. I had class from 10:15 - 11:00, then a 15-minute break, then class until noon, then a 75-minute break, then class until 2:00, another 15-minute break, and class until 3:00. 3 hours of class in total, 180 minutes, but because of the breaks it didn't feel overwhelming, as even 75-minute lectures could at Richmond. And I felt like I really learned something in one day. So yes, you will learn something academically while in Sweden, even if it seems like you have loads of free time.

Then tonight was the International Pub Crawl. I'd seen firsthand how crazy pub crawls could get (see Fika! and, crazy Swedish medical students), so I was a bit apprehensive, as this was clearly an activity that had the potential to end poorly. But I took up the recommended lower apprehension to new events for exchange students, and went anyways, albeit arriving a bit late due to dinner running later than expected and just missing a bus. As it turns out, I was not to be disappointed. In all, I visited seven different nations, and some people visited more. I don't know if anyone made it to all thirteen - thirteen in seven hours is a bit of a stretch.

The first Nation was the familiar Kalmar. Tonight they had a live band playing, and I learned later that the head of the University's International Committee was one of the band members. I tried the final cider available at Kalmar, Strongbow, but it did not best my personal favorite, Magners Paron.

Upon leaving Kalmar I was with a different group than I had entered with, but that probably was for the better, as it was a good group, and primarily European rather than North American/Australian. We proceeded to Goteborgs Nation, which I had not been to since my first day in Sweden. Their pub was better than their fika had been, although that was a pretty low bar to reach.

The next Nation was V-Dala. Unfortunately, seeing as it was the Nation I joined, V-Dala was my least favorite Nation of the evening. They simply didn't seem as friendly as the other Nations. Ah, well - I joined primarily because of their International Committee, not their pub, which I had never been to before tonight. They did have a good pear cider, Birka, but I don't have a particular desire to go back to their pub. Their wardrobe line was atrocious, too. Some of the Nations require you to hang up your coat in the wardrobe before entering the pub, to cut down on clutter I guess. But V-Dala's was terribly inefficient, and we ended up spending 10-15 minutes just collecting our coats before leaving. I'd much rather have to put up with not knocking other people's coats off their chairs, and risking having mine knocked off my chair, than spend so much time in line for the coat rack.

We next went to Varmlands, which was quite enjoyable. I hadn't really known what to expect as they had made basically zero effort to recruit international students. It was not crowded at all, so there was plenty of space to spread out. The atmosphere was pleasant as well, with a disco ball providing quirky lighting patterns, but not at all overwhelming, and many old oil paintings on the wall. It really fit the bill of a place where you could go to converse with someone in an enjoyable, peaceful environment. Their drink selection was good, too, allowing for a Cuba Libre with legitimate Cuban rum. Not to be too political, but it was nice to be able to get around the outdated American embargo, and the drink did not disappoint.

Next on the list was Stockholms, the Nation where the guides for our group were members. Far from abstaining, our tour guides were having quite a good time themselves - for one, almost too good to know the way to her own Nation. Fortunately the other, who is, as it turns out, the sister of Uppsala's International Secretary (the same one who was in the band at Kalmar) was better with directions. I'd heard before that Stockholms was a bit proud, but I enjoyed it. It was more luxurious than most Nations, which could help purvey that image, and unlike Varmlands the luxury wasn't just because it had a lot of nice historical items. It was not particularly crowded either. It was the only Nation at which ID's were checked at the counter, rather than at the door. At least I think it was - my beverage was compliments of one of our tour guides (the one good with directions), so I wasn't ID'ed at all there.

From there we went on to Ostgota Nation. I'd never been there, either, but its environment was pleasant as well, and not too crowded. They had a coat-rack system as well, but it was self-service and much, much quicker than V-Dala's. My group split up as we departed Ostgota. The first to depart went on to Club Norrlandica, at Norrlands Nation. I stayed behind with the Finns, who were finishing the bottle of wine they had bought. We went on to Norland's pub (not the club) five minutes or so later.

Norlands also had a coat-rack system, and it wasn't self-serve, but it was quicker than V-Dala's. Still not sure it was worth it, but at least you didn't spend lots of time waiting for your coat. It was also a fairly large, non-crowded pub. It was quite enjoyable being there with the Finns, who were quite sociable. I asked one of the Finns (earlier) whether there was truth to the reputation that Finns were fairly heavy drinkers, and she confirmed that it was indeed true. And they more or less proved it as well, although I wouldn't be surprised if they really prove it at Valborg (which will be covered in a future post for sure). I'm pretty sure all the Finns I was with had been to all eight Nations our group went to (including the first one, Vastgota, which I missed), and they partook more than everyone else at Ostgota. Still quite interesting to be around, although the effects were noticeable on one by the end. We left at closing time, and went back to our residences, mostly at Flogsta.

So was it worth it? I'd have to say yes. It certainly isn't something that can be done every night, or even every week. The Finn who had an 8 AM class had decided there was no way she was going to be there, and the Finn with a 10 AM class surprised us by being determined to be in attendance. And it wasn't inexpensive, although as we went only to student pubs it certainly did not bankrupt us. Most of all, though, it was an excellent opportunity to meet new people, as well as sample many of the nations in one night. And we did not make fools of ourselves like the Swedish medical students did. Okay, maybe the French students who thought it a good idea to dance on the table at Goteborgs (still fairly early on in the evening, too!) did, but other than them, we didn't.

It was also interesting to learn more about the Finnish education system. It is similar to the Swedish system in that students receive a stipend for studying at university, although there is a limit of seven years of study (not including study abroad) in Finland, so you can't just study philosophy ad naseum because it is interesting. However, in lower education, Swedish is required in at least some parts of Finland, so the Finns were by far the best Swedish speakers of any of the internationals, although they didn't consider themselves fluent. Russian is not required, even near the border with Russia, although one of the Finns I talked with thought it should be in some areas for practical reasons.

Swedish Milk Cartons (and, sour milk!)

Swedish milk cartons have perplexed me for awhile now. Thanks to a helpful warning from my international buddy, I avoided the typical foreigner mistake of buying sour milk instead of regular milk, unlike at least two of the exchange students I know, but that didn't help with actually opening the milk. Instead of jugs, milk comes in cardboard cartons here. It doesn't open quite as easily as the small cartons we had in middle school, though. It clearly has a dotted line along which to tear, and instructions saying to do so, but just following the directions yields no results. The first time I was struggling with it one of the Swedes entered the kitchen, and I asked her how to open the carton, and she did it for me, but tonight I had another carton, and I didn't remember how exactly she did it, if I ever knew to begin with.

So instead I had water with dinner, and then turned to the Internet for help. Fortunately I found a post explaining exactly how to open the cartons. At least I hadn't tried opening the cartons with a knife like the author of that post, although I had considered scissors. Following these more complete instructions, I was successful! It does seem kind of like the carton might explode while opening it, but I lost little milk when the carton did open. Hopefully by the end of the semester I'll be a pro!

I'd imagine you're probably wondering why they sell sour milk in the store, so I'll explain that. Basically, it's not just that they sell spoiled regular milk as sour milk. I had sour milk at brunch a week and a half ago, and it's not the same thing. I don't know quite what is different, though. It isn't meant to be drank by itself, though - I had it with cereal at V-Dala's brunch, and I've heard it's also not bad with cinnamon and brown sugar, and I'm sure there are more uses. Unfortunately for foreigners, it's sold right alongside the regular milk in the stores, in the same sized cardboard cartons, and with "mjölk" in the name, just like regular milk. But sour milk is "fillmjölk". I buy "mellanmjölk", which is 1.5% milk. So it's not hard to see why someone who doesn't know Swedish might think "fillmjölk" is fat-free milk, or something like that. At any rate, it wasn't that bad with cereal - much better than spoiled milk would have been, but I don't plan to drink it by itself anytime soon.