What A Week! And so it continues...

So as I write this, the sun is starting to go down. It is like a quarter past 4 and impressively it is still a little light! There are people playing in the snow outside my window. As I am on the 2nd level - I am high enough that I can get quite a nice view and they are sliding on their arses down the slopes, having snow ball fights, building snow men... rather impressive ones and getting lots of photos! It has been a great day. After finishing writing that last blog I popped out for a bit of a venture to a nation and exploration and basically soaked up the snow! It was wonderful :D

But as always, we must backtrack again to the continuation of the mad week that was Orientation Week.

So the Scavenger Hunt was a hoot and after that, a friend and I went for a wander over to the Gastrike-Halsinge Nation to check out the Beer Tasting night which was offered there according to the Orientation program. However, it looked like we were too late and it was full. So where could we go? There was Karaoke happening at Goteburgs Nation but.... we were fair hungry having not eaten before the hunt so instead - we all ended up at MAX. Damn right, we are just that awesome. Awesomely fat and unhealthy.

The next day was my day to begin to finally start unpacking. Yeah, I know I am terrible to have not unpacked yet but hey! It's done now. Progress is slow though, and I am still trying to get my room to the state I like it. More photos have been put up since but here was my effort from the hour or so I had free :) Hint hint - Feel free to send me stuff to pop on the walls of my room! ... (unless you are Dylan.)

So Tuesday evening, was the Snerikes Nation Official International Welcome Dinner. An event I was looking forward to going to as we assumed we would be fed quite well. Alas, that was not to happen. It turned out that we actually needed to book a place ahead of time, but we had not been told. Great organisation, folks! Haha, nah it's ok - the place was awesome. It had a spiral staircase with really awesome wooden hand rails and a DJ stand made of ice (fake ice). We were going to go somewhere else to find something to eat but were told that tonight was a big clubbing night here at this nation and if we left, we most probably would not be able to get back in. It was true - it was getting quite crowded in there and everyone was coming in dressed up in costumes... pirates, starwars, monsters, etc. It was pretty wicked.

But we were really very hungry and so we asked if there was anything we could eat. The restaurant in the nation was completely booked out and the pub said they could only serve us food if we had a table. In the end, we nabbed a table in the corner in the clubbing area which had no seats and stood around it waiting. Our options were really quite simple: Nacho Chips and Dip or... Antipasto but we have run out. We chose to have Nacho Chips and Dip. It took an hour to come but we got it in the end! What a great dinner!

Well, to forget our hunger we decided to get our drinkies on and Mina was well and truly ready for that!

The clubbing was crazy and had a great atmosphere, people were chanting and waving their light sabers and it just was really kinda fun! I took a quick video...turn your speakers down!

As we left, we realised that we were really smart to have stayed - the line really was massive around the corner and noone was being let in until people left. So I bet 4-6 people were quite happy when we left haha

Taking a photo as we go past the awesome sparkly trees along the river, I'll get a better one soon

Wednesday was my first day of class from 10am to 12pm. I took a photo of the rather sunny morning before leaving for class.... 

Now compare that with the photo I took today (which is Sunday)

So rocking up to class, involved getting stupidly lost in the very different navigational system but in the end, with some help from the reception desk I managed to make my way to class right on time at 10:00! I walked in to find that basically the entire class was already there which I thought was quite punctual of them. I sat down next to Mitch, a guy who also comes from Uni of Wollongong and he let me know that we needed to form groups as we had an assignment due on Friday. FRIDAY? I said. But today is... Wednesday! Whattt?!?!?!

It took me probably about 10 minutes before it began to dawn on me that something was wrong. I eventually said to Mitch, "dude - I feel really confused. Have I missed some of this class?" He gives me this look and is like - "yeah... this class started at 9!" CRAP! hahaha what a start, right? So anyway, the class is in English and is more or less so far exactly like in Australia except that it was super overwhelming because it was like BANG! No introductions, no spending 2 hours reading through the subject outline. It was straight into the course work with assignments and group work and everything going over my head. Faaar out. I was definitely feeling just a bit like I was unprepared for it.

After the class, I went for a search with Mitch for the course textbook only to find that it was completely sold out of every book store and the library had only one copy which was not able to be taken out of the library! Could the book stores order it in for us? No... apparently the publisher was also out of stock. Greeat~! 

As there was a meeting and tour of the grand Uni hall (as seen in the photos in the previous blog) at 2 - I sat in a cafe next to the Uni Hall for some lunch and to try and process everything that had happened that morning. I think that this meal helped calm me down quite a bit =] YUMMMY! and yes that is "exotic" fanta!

During the tour, we also got to see a room at the top of a tower which was where people used to watch autopsy's of criminals for entertainment and education. It was actually a room which had been contracted to be in the Harry Potter film (like the trial scenes) but never got used unfortunately.. still Awesome!

That night, we decided to skew away from the Orientation Program and take a stab and check out the Stockholm nation. It was meant to be a posh place and we wanted to check it out. It was actually quite a strange place, as it wasn't the popular night to go we got some weird groups coming to do, what I can only call, their rituals? There were groups of people coming in with shower caps on their heads with a cross on it made of tape. They then started chanting in Swedish interesting chants and doing actions and clapping in sync. They did a series of strange things and we just sat there and watched, confused, but intrigued. They stood in two rows facing each other with the feet touching as someone ran across everyone's feet while holding two glasses of water. Then they carried each other around the room in an orderly fashion while holding the glasses of water and chanting. There was chugging songs and just a lot of craziness. We sat quietly and ate our dinner.

After we had filled our bellies with delicious food and entertainment from the Stockholm nation, we ventured over to Vastgota Nation for a PingPong Pub night with a Live Music Quiz. I can tell you it was pretty awesome and a lot of fun! Oh Also it was snowing when we walked there!

At the pub quiz night, there was both a girl's choir and a boy's choir who sang acopella songs for us which was really cool to hear. They were so talented. The guys especially were super entertaining as they marched in singing and holding this like animal skull which they gave to Kaitlin with great grandeur and later on plucked a random girl from the crowd up to be sung to.

There was then some other games like eating crackers the fastest and whisting and sucking up long string lollies without your hands. Then at the end, an epic round the table game with me representing my team - we didn't win lol.

After that, we explored the nation and found a cellar pub which was really quite cool. You have to open the doors which are in the floor like in the movies, and walk down the stone steps and into the cellar where there is a pub and dim lighting.

As we walked to the bus stop that night - I was just stupidly happy it was snowing and yet annoyed because it was so hard to get on camera. Flash makes snow look like cartoon snow balls!

But hey - It's SNOOOOW!!!!!