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.

Corridor Dinner Party

Saturday, January 22nd -

The past couple nights I've stayed in and eaten here, rather than going out to one of the Nations.  It's inevitable that this would occur eventually, or else my bank account may have forced it to happen.  But it's been good, as I've started to get to know my corridormates better.

Tonight we had a corridor dinner party.  The main course was lasagna - but it was Swedish lasagna.  Googling for "Swedish lasanga" doesn't really bring up what this Swedish lasagna was.  Basically, instead of a tomato sauce, there was a milk/butter/cream sauce, and the sauce also had some flour in it so it would expand a bit (there was no ricotta cheese).  There was a meat-and-tomato sauce as well, but the milk/butter/cream sauce was the more prominent one.  The entire lasagna was covered with cheese on top.  It was quite good, well worth a try.  There also was a spinach salad (so much better than lettuce salads), and Spanish wine.  For dessert, we had pineapple pie.  Which, I should mention, is not a traditional Swedish food, although it is quite tasty.  One of the girls in our hall had pineapple pie a week or so ago with a friend, and was looking for an occasion to have it again.  Considering how often we eat pineapple and pie separately in America, I'm surprised no one ever thought to combine them - the result is very good.

The dinner was enjoyable, lasting about three and a half hours.  We talked for most of the time, on many different subjects.  There were many good stories, such as that of Markus the one-time philosophy student, who, along with his other flatmates at his old residence, bought a Bonsai tree for 1000 kronor (about $150) because they thought it was awesome, looking like a big tree but being small.  Little did they realize it required much care to survive, and despite their best efforts, by the time they moved out it had three leaves.

Turnout was good, too - nine out of the twelve residents showed up.  I'm going to have to keep a list to remember the other three, but I'm getting to know those who showed up tonight - also the ones I'd seen the most before - decently well.  It's certainly proving to be a good corridor to be in.

Regularly scheduled maintenance

I had a pleasant surprise during lunch on Wednesday when someone came into the corridor, walked by the kitchen, then came back and asked if I lived in room 442.  He was here to replace the fire alarm.  I can only figure it was regularly scheduled maintenance, as I hadn't been aware of anything not working.  Kind of reassuring that the owners of Flogsta do some maintenance on a regular schedule rather than just waiting until the residents reported that the building was falling apart.

Pictures...

So what does it look like over here, after all?  Here's part of the answer!

  

 This is one of the buildings at Flogsta, where I live.  It's building 5, I'm in building 6.  Kind of Soviet-like in appearance if you ask me, especially since all 11 buildings look mostly identical, but it's pretty nice inside.  More pictures of the inside will be coming at some point.

 This is one angle of the cathedral in Uppsala.  It is the largest cathedral in Scandinavia.  I was unable to get one picture of the front of it due to its height.  It's open to tours, so I'll visit it at some point.

 

This is the Museum Gustavianum.  Right across from the cathedral, I've read it's one of the sights to see in Uppsala, so I'm sure I'll be there at some point, too.

And this is the main university building.  The inscription over the building reads, "Universitas Regia Upsaliensas", which is Latin for "Royal University of Uppsala", unless someone knows Latin better than I do, which is somewhat likely.  I've been inside once, and shall have to photograph the inside as well.