Planning for a Russia trip!

Wednesday, January 26 -

This evening I went to Uplands Nation for the Russian Night.  It began with generous helpings of borsch (борщ), prepared by Uplands students who had gone to Russia the previous semester - or at least my Russian training tells me it was борщ, they just identified it as Russian soup.  I quite liked it, although as the Uplanders said they had just got the recipe off the Internet and had never made it before, it may not have been the most authentic борщ ever.  Afterwards, they gave a presentation on their trip to Russia the previous semester.  Not the most professional presentation ever, but it still had some useful information.  The trips involve taking a boat to Finland, and then a bus into Russia.  There are three trip options, all involving St. Petersburg, two involving Moscow as well, and the last adding Helsinki.  Not surprisingly, the St. Petersburg-only option is the least expensive.  I've yet to decide which I will take.  Considering that Moscow will add travel time, I'm not sure the 7-day Moscow + St. Petersburg trip is really worth it over the 6-day St. Petersburg trip, given the noticeable added expense (480 euros vs. 325 euros, not including visa application fees).  The trip with Helsinki is 9 days, and we'd probably be going by Helsinki on bus anyway, so it may make more sense  than the Moscow + St. Petersburg one (560 euros, also without visa fees).  Regardless, it's less expensive than the flight alone would be if I were traveling from the States, so I might as well visit Russia while I'm this close.

In addition to борщ-identifying skills, my Russian came in handy yesterday after the reception with the vice chancellor.  Inside the entrance to the main building, several students and I noticed there were tourist maps, highlighting main sites in Uppsala as well as providing another map, which is always a good thing.  But it was entirely in Russian!  We didn't know why it was in Russian until one of the professors came by and explained that the main university building received approximately 300 Russian visitors per day (presumably when the weather is better, I haven't seen many tourists at all this time of year), and many of them didn't speak English or Swedish.  My Russian isn't good enough to read the entire map, but I can read part of it, and knowing how Cyrillic is pronounced further helps identify landmarks whose Swedish name I recognize.  The list contains 14 locations:

• The Cathedral of Uppsala
  
• Uppsala University
  
• The University's Museum Gustavianum
  
• Uplands Museum
  
• The Carolina Rediviva Library
  
• Uppsala Castle
  
• The Botanical Gardens (best to see when it's warmer)
  
• The House of Bror Hjorth (a Swedish artist)
  
• The Museum of Evolution
  
• The Museum of Linnaeus
  
• The Concert and Conference House of Uppsala
  
• The Biotope?  Not really sure about this one
  
• The Sports Complex "Fyrishov"
  
• Old Uppsala
  

So the next time I wonder what to see around Uppsala, I have a list!  I've already made a start on the list, but there's certainly more to see, which is good since I've been here less than a fortnight.  Old Uppsala is one item that deserves a greater description.  Originally, Uppsala was located north of here.  However, over time, the river shifted and the ships got bigger, and it's long not been feasible for ships to reach the location of the original settlement.  Thus the settlement moved downstream, which is to the south as it worked out.  Old Uppsala is where the original settlement, from Viking times, is.  Many people have highly recommended that I visit it, so at some point I will be. After the Russian Night, I went to the Kalmar Nation pub, where I socialized with some other internationals (two Americans and a German, and for awhile a Finn), and we came to talking with some very friendly Swedes at the same table.  I have now met a Swede named Bjorn, which is thus far the coolest name for a Swede I have met, besting Magnus.  I have also met someone with a "Viva la Revolucion" tattoo - not to be alarmed, she isn't anarchist or anything else likely to land me in a Swedish prison.  It's interesting to hear the Swedish perspective on the world (America being world police isn't the most popular thing ever), and the Swedes seemed genuinely interested in the conversation as well.  I also have a new item to add to my very-quickly-growing list of things to do at some point in my life - take the Trans-Siberian Railroad all the way across Russia to Beijing or Vladivostok.  That one might have to wait until next year, though - I'd certainly miss too much class if I did that during this term! On the way back to Flogsta, I barely missed the bus at Skolgaten, so I walked on to Götgaten so as to not be waiting for 10 minutes in one place.  Along the way I realized that the building at the corner that I went by on the bus so often was the police station, and quite possibly also the jail.  Now I know where I'll go if I do get arrested for anarchist activity or something of that sort!  Not that that's likely, but it's always good to know where a police station is if you need one.  While I was there I took some pictures of the big blue/green/red/yellow picture things they have out front (cell phone quality - my camera was recharging after being in the cold).  I'm not really sure what they are or what their purpose is - maybe just to look pretty - but here's a picture of the green one:

In the short time I was there, I didn't see the image change.  Maybe someday I'll learn what these images mean.

Fika! and, crazy Swedish medical students

Thursday, January 20th -

There were two fikas this afternoon, but I had to do some laundry today (there's a post about laundry in Sweden), so I wasn't in time for the first one.  But I was in time for the second one, which was a "winter fika" at V-Dala Nation.  The full description reads,

"Winter-"fika" at V-Dala Nation.  Nothing is better than a nice "fika" (candles, friends cookies, "glögg") to warm you up during these dark times."

Well, it is dark times if you go the amount of sunlight.  I can't help thinking of the "dark times" like "Dark Ages" or "grim times" when reading that description, but that made me want to go more rather than less, even though it's been quite cheerful times so far.

And it turned out I liked this fika much better than the previous one.  Both the food and the drink were better.  Rather than rather hard, not-all-that-flavorful cookies, there were thinner,  and more flavorful - unfortunately I don't really know that much more about them.  Glögg is actually hot, spiced, red wine.  Much more palatable than coffee to me, with my one-point-makes-a-trend experience with both.  I also met the head of the V-Dala International Committee while I was there, a friendly French PhD student.  I think she's actually the head of the entire university's International Committee as well, although I didn't realize it at the time.  Probably a good thing, as it's always more difficult to be star-struck and easier to be natural when you don't realize someone is as important as they are.  At any rate, the event went well, and I've since received two more invitations from V-Dala's International Committee (ice skating and skiing).  I'm impressed by their International Committee and they seem quite friendly, so they are certainly one of the Nations I'll be considering joining.

After fika a large group of us went to Kalmar Nation's pub for dinner.  Amongst the group were Americans, Germans, Spaniards, Australians, and Austrians.  The menu was entirely in Swedish, but for the most part wasn't actually that difficult to figure out - a decent number of cognates with English in food areas plus one with French, and we could tell what most of the dishes basically were.  I ended up getting a pork and potatoes dish, which was tasty.  Many of us also got Swedish Rekorderlig cider, which I'd recommend.  It's apparently much more affordable in Sweden than Australia as well.

The conversation was good, but the real memorable entertainment were the Swedes.  There are a good number of new Swedish students here this week as well (called "nulls", translated to "zeros" during their first week due to their newness), and on this particular night the new Swedish medical students were doing a pub crawl.  By the end of the night, none of us had any doubt that Swedes weren't always reserved.  Very much the opposite in this case.  The Swedes were playing a game where they were all in a circle, with one person in the middle.  That person had to make romantic advances towards people in the circle until someone started laughing, and then that person was in the middle.  To be clear, these were not casual, formal romantic advances.  There was much physical contact, and while everyone remained clothed, it certainly would not have been permissible in a public places in the states.  Four or five groups of nulls came through, all playing this game.  It was a site to behold, and several times a particularly determined player-in-the-middle distracted us from our conversation.  The Europeans weren't quite as surprised as the Americans or Australians, but they certainly weren't expecting that, either.  Now when we come back in 10 years and have to go to the doctor's, we can tell the doctor we know what they did during their orientation week...

But all said, certainly another good evening, if eye-opening.  Kalmar is enjoyable as well.  I'm glad we won't be cut out from other Nations' events by joining one.

More Positive Swedish Food Experiences

Tuesday, January 21 -

Almost forgot this! So putting it in its chronological place, despite the fact that the rest of this entry will sound less continguous. Tuesday was the day I tried Swedish yogurt. Swedish yogurt is not the same as American yogurt. Generally, Swedish yogurt is more liquid and less solid, and is sold in cartons similar to (cardboard) milk cartons. Buying milk is thus hazardous if you don't know what you're doing, as you're liable to end up getting yogurt or sour milk (another Swedish food) instead. But anyway, I was having cereal for breakfast, and decided I might as well add some of the yogurt I'd bought. It tasted all right, but left my stomach feeling not so well until dinner. Maybe I'll try it again in a few days when I'm more accustomed to Swedish cuisine.

On Tuesday I did make it down to my exchange coordinator in time, and talked both with her and with a professor who could tell me more about the particular classes I was interested in taking. As it turns out, there were time conflicts between at least two of my classes. But don't worry, the professor advised me, as long as they don't overlap all the time. Just go to whichever one is more important. An elegantly simple solution to not having time-turners, even if there is a downside. Now armed with my schedule for at least the next few weeks, I knew I had class the next day at 8:15 in the morning. All these years of going to a school with a coffee shop named after its 8:15 classes, and it takes until I go abroad the last semester of my senior year to actually have a class at 8:15.

Schedules are interesting here. Interesting in that they aren't really predictable. You'll have a completely different schedule for the same class from week to week. My parallel programming class meets anywhere from 1 to 3 days per week, and anywhere from 2-6 hours per day that it meets. It seems that they are based on when the professor decides would be a good time to have class, rather than on predictability. That's why every so often you get conflicts if you have more than one class at a time. In most disciplines you do only take one at a time, but computer science is one of the area where you often take two at a time. I'll get to experience that in February.

After getting my schedule I made my way to the International Student Fairs, where most of the nations were advertising themselves. It's probably about time I explain in more detail what the Nations are. Basically, they are big student social organizations, ranging in size from about 600 to about 6000 students. They
date back to the 1600s, and originally you had to be from the geographic area that each one represented - Uplands being the area around here, Stockholms being the are around Stockholm, etc. Today students are free to join whichever one they feel best suits their interest, although as I understand it it's still common to
join the one representing your home region. As exchange students we have one week to join a Nation, which really doesn't seem like enough time to make an informed decision, but that's how it is. Fortunately it doesn't actually matter a whole lot which Nation you join - you can still go to any of the other nations' events, but you won't get the discounted admission to some events that being a member brings. As I'm writing this, I still don't know which Nation I'll join.

There was about an hour after the International Student Fairs before the Swedish Food Night that I planned to attend at Kalmar Nation. I was both hungry and uncertain how the Swedish food would get along with me after the smörgasbord on Sunday, so I went with another exchange student to a good Asian restaurant first (not all Asian restaurants specialize in one particular country's food here as they tend to in the States). After getting an appetizer there I went to Kalmar Nation, and was quite pleased by the food. The main course was Swedish meatballs, with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce on the side as well as a salad. Yes, they do eat Swedish meatballs in Sweden. They aren't that dissimilar from what we have, either, although they aren't always served on pasta or noodles here. After the meal I stayed and talked with some Americans, some Australians (the first I'd met to that point I believe), and an Italian at our table until we noticed there was no one else in the room. All in all another good evening.