In January 2011 Marita arrived in Uppsala, Sweden, for a semester of exchange. She enjoyed it. She enjoyed it a lot. She enjoyed it so much she's here for a year now. This is what she gets up to.
Summaaaaaaaaahhhhhh, shit, it’s gone.
I thought August in Sweden was going to be like February in Australia. Y’know, when the real heat arrives, but it’s still holidays, so everything’s lazy and awesome. I thought wrong. For me, August was 4 weeks of doing a lot, yet not much at all, largely mediocre to shitty weather, being frustrated with the noobs (please don’t make me write ‘n00bs’), getting my uni shit sorted, some nuggets of awesomeness and, as always, much bitching about not having my residency permit extension (stiiiiiiiillllll!!!). For a further breakdown of my August, read on. Otherwise, here’s something else.
Göteborg. I already told you about that. Here’s another photo, though.
Yes, I totally want to go to a disco on a boat named after a neural development disorder. Or do I?
Kräftskiva
Alrighty, so this was awesome. A kräftskiva is a traditional Swedish crayfish party, held at any point in August, involving, you guessed it, crayfish, booze and associated merriment. Over the summer I hung out a bit with the remaining Swedes in my corridor and some of their friends, so they invited me to their kräftskiva on the roof of building 1. It was pretty much the most Swedish thing I’ve done all summer, if not all year.
Come at me, bro!
The weather was beautiful, eating the crayfish was hilariously challenging, I got to wear a matching hat and bib, we sung Swedish songs and drank schnapps, and all the newbies coming up on the roof mistook me as Swedish. Awesome. Just on 10pm the sun set, Lloyd arrived straight from Amsterdam, we partook in a sizeable scream and pumped the tunes. I thought I saw one or two shooting stars out of the corner of my eye and we soon realised we were witnessing a meteor shower. In true eloquent style, I think the most we were able to say was, “duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude!” File under: what is this life I’m living?
These kids. These kids right here.
New Kids on the Block
Sooooo, as I’ve mentioned to my mother quite a lot, it’s been a summer of a hell of a lot of sweet f.a., kicking around in largely empty housing estate. But the past few weeks Flogsta has been slowly but surely filling up again and there’s a whole new crop of Internationals to meet. Which should be totally awesome. And it can be. But… but… but… Ughhhhhhhhh. I remember O-week in January. It was crazy. And busy. And fun. And I met so many people. I was so excited because everything was new and unknown and so paranoid about being lonely that making friends was pretty much my number one priority, but now going through that whole process again is a little draining. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met some really cool people the past couple of weeks, but I’m not as bothered about trying to meet EVERYBODY. I am making an effort to not come across as an arsehole, though.
I have no photos of me meeting noobs. Instead here’s a photo of the amazing peach melba/death buckets deal at Upplands. Marita uses these to enjoy a Tuesday evening out and about in Uppsala. It’s super effective.
Klubbverk
I’ve discussed nations before and last semester I mentioned a couple of times that I’d been working a bit in the kitchen at my nation, Kalmar. It was occasionally hard work, tiring, long and the pay was shit, but I kept doing it because the people at my nation are awesome. There was a lot of love, mainly due to a bunch of people known as klubbverkare (I thiiink. I never know how to use that word correctly). Basically, club workers. As there was short of new club workers for this semester, I am now one. I’m supposed to work a couple of times a week, running either the bar or the kitchen at the pub, plus find people to work in the kitchen every night, which scares the shit out of me because I have to use the phone. I’m a bit worried about how much work this is going to involve, as there’s a fair amount of responsibility, but I have to do something with my spare time. Plus I’m learning some vaguely useful skills. Plus it’s actually quite fun. Ohhhhh and I get a KK card, which is this beautiful piece of laminated card that lets me into any nation club for free, ahead of the line, with a friend. So that’s nice.
…and if anyone asks me for coffee whilst I’m in the bar, I’ll get employ a little of this.
Popaganda
Or: how to massively emphasise how Australian and Swedish music festivals are ridiculously dissimilar in just two days.
Swimming pool at a festival. Does not compute.
The last Friday and Saturday in August, Lloyd and I headed into Stockholm for the music festival Popaganda. With a pretty sweet lineup, and the summer drawing to a close, it seemed like it would be a good way to wrap up the holidays. That turned out to be the understatement of the month. We arrive in the early afternoon, finally shaking off the seediness from the previous evening, just as the sun switches into warm mode. As we enter the festival site we’re pretty damn surprised to find it’s an outdoor aquatic centre, and that the smaller pools are not completely fenced off. Tick 1 in the “this is definitely not an Aussie festival” box. Moving amongst the small crowd, we grab a couple of beers, watch the first band (very average) and, once they finish, realise something else: silence between sets. There’s no music at all and the crowd chatter as people move between the two stages is eerie. “This is definitely not an Aussie festival” box receives its second tick. Dangling our legs in the pool and reading the festival info sheet (in Swedish, awww yeaaaah) we realise that you are allowed to swim in the pool. YOU ARE ALLOWED TO SWIM IN THE POOL. CAN YOU IMAGINE IF THEY HAD SOMETHING LIKE THIS AT BIG DAY OUT??!?! CAN YOU IMAGINE A FEW THOUSAND DRUNK BOGANS BEING GIVEN ACCESS TO A POOL???!? Tick 3.
Arcade Fire. For the second time in the summer. Amaaaaazing.
So yep. Other things alerting us to the fact that we were not in Kansas anymore:
- Shit crowd. Swedes, you are bad at being a crowd. Make some noise, especially between sets! Lose your shit a bit more. Polite clapping is for the golf.
- Stupidly well-dressed crowd. There were people in goddamned suits. It’s bad enough that you’re all retardedly attractive, but do you have to dress perfectly as well? And stop adding more fuel to the never ending game of GoS!
- You could come and go from the festival as you pleased. So you could go get drunk in the park, shoot up, commit random acts of violence in the streets of Stockholm, whatever, walk back into the festival and then do it again. And again and again.
- NO ONE WAS USING THE DAMN POOL. Over the two days I’d say no more than 50 people in total would have used it. Whaaaaa?!??
- A lack of ridiculously drunk/drug-fucked people.
- Synchronised swimming. Yep. On the second day, the Stockholm men’s synchronised swimming team performed. It was mind-blowing. Like, they were very, very average synchronised swimmers, but I was crying with laughter and WHY WAS THIS HAPPENING AT A MUSIC FESTIVAL???
Look at ‘em go!
Alrighty, so the music n shit? Fantastic. Cults and Is Tropical on day one were two bands I knew nothing of, but I thought they were pretty dandy. The Go! Team were just as bouncy and fun as when I saw them at Big Day Out a few years ago, but Arcade Fire, of course, took the biscuit. Hell, they took the whole packet. It sounds wanky, but it is seriously such a joy to see them live. BUT WHY WILL THEY NOT PLAY “MY BODY IS A CAGE”? Guys, give “Sprawl II” the flick (and don’t ever finish your encore with it again). Seeing them totally justified the entire festival ticket price HOWEVER my experience was slightly marred by some loser standing directly behind me getting a hard-on about two thirds of the way through the set. Seriously, “Intervention” is giving you a boner? Get help. After returning to Uppsala for the evening we headed back the next day much better prepared (read: we brought our bathers). My friend Dan, from Melbourne, is currently studying down in Malmö and decided he’d come up for day two. Once we met up with him we headed for the festival site and straight into the pool. Amazing. Remember that “what is this life I’m living?” file I referred to earlier? Yeah, this moment also goes in there. Swimming. In the sun. In the middle of a festival. I CANNOT EMPHASISE ENOUGH HOW MIND-BLOWN I WAS BY THIS. The music was pretty sweet, and I really liked Jenny Wilson and DANCING IN THE POOL TO DELOREAN. The synchronised swimming was glorious. JJ was shambolic. Walking around a festival in my bathers, dripping wet was weird. Lykke Li was pretty awesome and her band are incredible. And I got sunburnt. In all, Popaganda was a fucking awesome way to finish August.
Lloyd and I, chillin’ like villains. What this photo fails to show is alllll the people taking not only photos, but also videos of us. Hiiiiiiilarious. Cheers, Bort, for the photo.
So that’s a bit of how I August’d. Let’s see how September goes…
