Orientation? OMG IT'S SNOWING!

Far Out! I really do have a lot of catch up to do don't I? It's been a week since I've been in Flogsta and Orientation Week is now over. Today, I need to choose a nation to join and this is quite the important decision as it will dictate how I will live my next 6 months as a student in Uppsala!

So what is a "Nation" you ask? Well, if you would like the explanation on the internet given to us - here it is - but otherwise, it is basically like Harry Potter where you get a house except there is no sorting hat and we have to choose a nation to join. There are in total 13 and all of them have quite a long history and are situated in really old, awesome buildings with ancient paintings of old people. I mean, I don't know if you realise but the University I am attending - Uppsala University - is actually quite special. It is a very ancient old University in which all of the Swedish Royal Family have attended for University. It was founded in like 1477 and some of the buildings really do look just amazing! Here are some photos I took in the "Main Hall" of the University and another room where the "board" sits and judges people who do bad things.

The 13 nations, similarly, were all founded in 1600, in a period of about 20 or 30 years and have had members since then holding activities, clubs, parties, gasques (which are balls), singing and dancing, and of course eating and drinking. So these buildings are just awesome and I haven't yet found a building which I don't like. They are all so similar and yet so unique. All of them have such a different style, some have crazy ornamentation and chandeliers, some are super cosy and are just walls of book shelves, others are like an old manor house. This is where we spend our time, and party!

So anyway - Orientation Week started with a historical bus tour to Gamla Uppsala, the original place where Uppsala started as I believe the capital of Sweden - a Viking town, place of sacrificing bodies, and lots of religious activity with popes and that. We learnt quite a bit of history about Uppsala which actually was super fascinating and really gives me some appreciation of where I am now! We got to look at these rather important hills which you can probably read about on Wikipedia.

Also viking helmets which were dug up in this historical ground prove that Vikings did not in fact wear horns on their helmet!

The bus tour ended at IKEA where we went on a little shopping spree where I invested in important things such as the same red IKEA bin that I have back in Australia ("Bin" is by the way, perhaps an Australian word because no one here knows what it means!), a good brown mug for my tea, extra pillows, and a blanket to take the place of my Snuggie. Yay SNUGGIE! I ate some meatballs as well which can be seen in this blog. I am happy to report that IKEA is the same in Australia as it is in Sweden except that I cannot understand what I am buying because the signs are not in English.

So that night, Saturday night, I went to the Orientation event at Kalmar Nation, which was "Sweden Quiz" - a hang out at the pub testing our knowledge on the Swedes and their culture. It was actually quite a small nation, having only 1300 members, and the pub room was quite small but super cosy. I liked it a lot. However, the problem was that the place was not equipped for the some 400 exchange students who had rocked up. Seriously, you give 400 exchange students an Orientation Program with events and where to go and they expect that we won't turn up or something? I think the place was set up for maybe like 100 people. So that was fun. We couldn't hear any of the questions and we couldn't see. Everyone was on everyone but all in all - it was still a good night.

Sunday I had a fika with my friend who I met at the Uppsala Hostel - FIKA is basically to go out for coffee or tea and eat something sweet. Yes, eating the dessert is mandatory. I had a giant chocolate brownie! The cafes here in Uppsala are really kinda awesome. Oh my, there is so much snow outside....actually snow flakes! It's going berserk out there! And I'm in here writing to you guys. You had better appreciate this guys! Haha. Anywho the cafes are great, super cosy, old houses turned into cafes, so there are lots of different rooms with vintage couches and dim lighting and old tea cups and it just rocks! I didn't take any photos unfortunately except this one..

Sunday night, I went to Uplands Nation, for a movie night and fika. Again, the same problem, everyone rocks up and there is simply not enough room for everyone. It is TINIER in here than the night before. They had set up seats for the movie and again, it would fit maybe I dunno about 80 seats or something? There were no seats left, so we went to the very back and sat on a table that was there but found that when the movie started, it was in Swedish and had English subtitles but the way things were, we could only see the top right corner of the screen and so couldn't see any of the subtitles and hardly any of the movie. EPIC FAIL. So after about 15 minutes, after we had finished our cookies and soda, we busted a move, and went over to Norrlands Nation for a night at the pub. It was an awesome pub! I liked it there.

So onwards to Monday. It started with getting up early to go and enrol personally for my subjects in the Ekonomikum building. That's ma building, yo! There I discovered that I had been missing out on the online student server system and that I would need to go for a 45 minute wander down to the IT building to get that fixed so I could use the "Student Portalen" (like E-learning and SOLS). I went to see my International Officer and there I met a couple of other Australians in a similar boat. After a quick visit to listen to some presentations at the Ostgota Nation - starving, me and another Australian ventured into the city to find food. We found ourselves gorging on a PIZZA AND SALAD BUFFET with free tea and coffee and a soft drink. It does not get better than that!

That night, I managed to find some buddies and we left to go to Snerikes Nation for a Scavenger Hunt (another orientation event). It was a pretty funny time and we ended up building a human pyramid in the Library!

We then wanted to get a group photo on the bridge which goes over the Uppsala River. I daringly balanced my SLR camera on a railing, clicked the timer and ran for my life across the black ice...around the railing and over to the other side to get in the photo!

That grey bag on the right is me running to get in the photo

Attempt 2: I made it but a bicyclist got in the way

Attempt 3: PICTURE PERFECT!!!!!

Oh my! I have to dash and it is snowing so heavily... like you have no idea. I have never seen so much snow. GIANT SNOWFLAKES! And far out, it's so hard to get on camera! But yay! Snow!

I'll finish the rest of this later :D