Long Blog Q+A!!!!

It seems a shame that I can't get everything I wanna talk about into this blog! I'm trying hard but things get forgotten and I forget to explain things properly. I want to make this blog as detailed as I can so I don't forget a second of it. Hopefully it's somewhat entertaining. I wish I could put more time into the blog ay! Either way though,  It helps if people ask me questions because then I can answer them. I've been trying to keep replies coming in the comments as quickly as I can! Here are some questions submitted by the one and only Katie which I thought I'd use as the catalyst for this blog. I have rather abandoned talking about some of the finer details of my accomodation, haven't I?

What are you room/flat mates like over there?

Coming to Flogsta, I was looking forward to living in a corridor making friends with people, having family dinners together and corridor parties! I was imagining that we'd be cooking together sometimes and there might be one or two people in my corridor who would become my close friends who I could hang out with and go places together. It turns out this is not so much the case here in Sweden.

You see, Swedish people are quite reserved and shy. I had already known this but I didn't realise the extent of it. They really do like their privacy. The way the buildings work are that there are about 12 large high rise buildings in which I live in Building 3. You enter the door and there are like 7 or 8 levels and on each level there is 2 doors, one on either side. You walk in and there is a small lounge room to the right and a kitchen to the left. In front is a rather long corridor with 6 doors on either side which are our rooms. The doors to these rooms are always kept closed.

My first few days moving into Flogsta, in a hope to meet people, I tried to keep my door open so as to seem approachable but nobody else ever did that. Talking to other people who moved into Flogsta, they also did the same thing but found that this was not really acceptable. We are meant to keep our doors closed. Therefore, it makes it quite hard to meet the people in your dorm. They basically stay in their rooms and come out to the kitchen quite briefly exchanging just a quick hi and a quick bye. Swedish people are not fond of the Small Talk which they call "Cold Talk". This is because they think it is unnecessary and fake, you aren't actually interested in this stranger, you are simply talking for no reason. For them, this is rude. However, once you get to know somebody, the relationships you form usually tend to be much deeper and you will find that Swedish people are actually super friendly and super helpful!

In the few weeks I have been here, I believe I have slowly managed to meet all of the people in my corridor. There are about 4 Indian guys, three Swedish guys who seem quite nice but shy, a Finnish guy who is very friendly, another guy who has lived here for over 3 years and is in charge of the corridor who is Swedish but of Middle-Eastern background, a Swedish girl who has also been here nearly as long as the other guy and they are friends, a very shy but nice girl from Israel and a New Zealand girl who is an exchange student like me who I unfortunately never see. I can't complain too much though. Everyone is fine - I have not had any problems with anyone and everyone seems to keep the kitchen to a relatively clean level. It definitely isn't clean but that's what you get when you live with 12 people, the majority being guys. There are like 3 fridges and 2 freezers, 2 sinks and 2 stoves in the kitchen. I'll take a photo of that soon! And as I said before, our bathroom is in our rooms as like an ensuite which is awesome!

My friends and I did randomly one time end up going out with the Finnish guy from my dorm cause he was heading out and we ended up clubbing with him which was fun! He's a really friendly guy :D This photo was taken at Varmlands nation on Friday night. The guy from my dorm is the blonde one in the blue shirt and yes,.. the girl on the guys shoulder is my friend. That was a fun night haha!

My corridor circumstances were echoed by all the other international students who also found that actually, they never saw the people who lived in their corridor or if they did it was mainly awkward small talk. Things are getting a little better, some people are lucky enough to have a friend who is an international student in their dorm to buddy up with and others have corridors where a few people are more friendly and they sometimes cook together. I sometimes wish I had been lucky enough to have a friend in my dorm but I feel it is a chance for me to really become more independent. I have friends who live in other corridors and other buildings and we plan to start doing some dinner parties together. 

What is your dorm room like? It looks decent sized in the photos but you can never tell...

My dorm room is massive. I think I said before that it is bigger than my room at home. It is big enough that there are two single beds, a few shelves, a giant table and a bedside table and I have heaps of room still! I guess you could say my dorm room has three rooms in total. There is a little sorta front room when I first enter the room which is where my wardrobe and cupboards are as well as a mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Then there are 2 doors, one to the bathroom and one to my bedroom. I have been trying to get stuff to put on the walls of my bedroom and things are starting to pick up! It looks much better now than it did before.

I took these photos of my room a few days ago. Now there is also a new addition of a big map of the world seeing as my geography still sucks but otherwise it looks about like this!

I also recently opened Katie's letter for "When I settle into my New Home" and found some much needed photos to cheer my room up even more! WOOT SCORE! Cheers Katie!

The biggest addition to my place I think would have to be my new shower curtain! Let me explain. When I arrived at my dorm, I was pretty much stoked with the place. The only thing that grossed me out a bit was the shower curtain which honestly just was gross. It was sorta mouldy on the bottom and it was starting to move up and so it made showering quite uncomfortable as I needed to try and stay as far away from it as I could. I'm a very cheap person and refused to purchase a new one despite that being the advice of my friends. I feel it should be replaced by my landlord! Either way, eventually I sucked it up and bought one. The only one I could find and I can't say it is the best shower curtain but it is a bigger improvement and now I love my shower!

Are you enjoying the food over there? 

Well the food here is of course, awesome! I haven't found too much that I don't like. Although today, while I was in a store, I took one of those complimentary lollies and honestly, I have never had any lolly that tasted more putrid! I don't even understand how it could be so bad. It was certainly an experience. First the colour of it was half baby pink and half black. I should have thought more carefully before putting anything that looked like that in my mouth. It tasted half like strawberry and half like liquorice. Then, it slowly began to taste like mould and vomit... then it evolved to tasting kinda ok. As the lolly began to disintegrate, some gross goo came out of it that was the worst taste I had ever had... wow! I dunno what it was but it was awful. And I couldn't believe it... I couldn't spit it out on the bus. I had nothing to spit it into so I had to suck it all the way home on the bus. Wow BAD BAD BAD!

In terms of traditional swedish food, I have had meatballs of course which are great, I have also tried pickled herring which was suprisingly tasty and very vinegary. They also have this salad pizza which seems to be pickled cabbage with a lot of pepper which I really do enjoy! Today at Stockholm nation for lunch I had a traditional Swedish thing which is like Swedish Hash with a Fried Egg. Random... it was just basically diced potatoes, meat, and a fried egg on top.

Otherwise, mostly the food I have been eating is normal food. Last night at Stockholm Nation for dinner we had chicken, creamed potatoes and some salad. I've also made pizza once with a friend who lives in a different corridor. That is interesting because we buy this premade dough from ICA (our local supermarket) and it honestly... you rip a thing and it POPS OUT! Scared the Beeebus out of me! So yeah, it pops and the dough sticks out and then you unravel the foil and you unroll the dough and it turns into this square pizza base and yep TOPPING IT and wala!  A PIZZA!

The other day, I also tried a traditional Swedish SEMLA! Which is something people here eat all the time. I was having a FIKA in Stockholm city (yes I went to Stockholm on the weekend more on that later) and I had a chai and a Semla which is like... a bun with so so much cream and almond paste. I don't like cream. I'm scared of cream. But this was actually really quite tasty!!!

Um otherwise, the produce here is all quite good. Some things don't taste the same but I can't think of anything specific at the top of my head. The mangos are not ripe, they are green and people eat it like that. The bread looks different too. I think actually, bread is something very different here in Europe. It looks and is just different! They are of course a fan of the crispy bread with the soft centre. The eggs here look different too. The yolk is more yellow and the eggs seem to always be white shell ones. It cooks a little differently in my opinion but that could just be me. I made Nachos recently and that tasted about the same. So all in all - food here is fine! I'm liking it. In the supermarket, it is definitely an experience because the things that are more commonly stocked are so strange to me. I need to get my head around it because when I go shopping for grocery supplies I usually get so confused not only because I can't read anything but also because I don't understand what I can make...

For example: When I buy milk, I always need to walk up to someone and ask "Excuse me, is this milk?" because sometimes it is not! You might buy fermented yoghurt milk... or something even worse!

How are the classes going? Does your professor/lecturer have a really strong accent making he/she difficult to understand?

So far my impression of class isn't a great one. I find that the classes are not well organised, the subject outline always changes and isn't even very cohesive in the first place. The times of the class always change each week and he gives us an assignment the day before it is due and expects it to be done even though we don't have a sheet explaining the assignment. It is simply a verbal assignment where he goes, "so hey, tomorrow please give a presentation on this..." That is all! FAR OUT. The lecturer is Swedish but can speak English quite well. He runs the lectures in English and all of my class speaks English.

I heard from the other international students that this is not the case and I'm quite lucky. They are in classes of only Swedish people. The class began in Swedish until someone worked out here was an English person in the class, to which everybody groaned because now they needed to learn in English. The classrooms are pretty stock standard, at least in my building which is a very new one called EKONOMIKUM which is the economics building. There are about 22 people maybe in my class? We do a lot of group work and a lot od presentations in my class. I pay not much attention at all which I feel quite guilty about.

How often do you actually have class? Because I'm downloading skype tomorrow and would love to have a chat. Or even facebook chat? Whatever works.
 

At the moment, I have class about 3-4 times a week for 2 hours a day from 10am to 12pm and that is all. That is a lot less than others but also not the least. I know a girl who has class 2 hours a week and that is all! I wish my classes were not on Friday and Monday but they are which sucks so no long weekend for me. The classes in the mid-week chop and change depending on what my lecturer feels like haha but it is always 10am to 12pm. I'd love to chat with you on Skype. I don't really sign into FB Chat so that may not work. But gmail is something I use and if you have chat I can chat there as well. Otherwise I find the best way is to get Skype and when I'm on I'm on or else pre-arranging a time to chat works too! I've found so far that the time difference makes it really hard because the best time to chat is my morning, Australia's late afternoon but now I have class then. BOO.