Disclaimer: moving into my new home was really quite stressful and busy so this blog may not have very good quality or many photos at all but I do want to talk about it because it was quite a crazy day for me!
Leaving Stockholm to go back to Uppsala was quite a disappointing feeling because I had met some great people there and wanted to just stay for a bit longer but the worry of my luggage being stolen and being without clothes, and having to go through all the stuff that woulda come with that, was enough for me to go hurrying back to Uppsala in haste!
I felt I had been quite careful, using a bicycle lock to lock my luggage to the bed and then padlocking the zippers of my luggage but I also had a few stray shopping bags of clothes I'd bought which I figured should be ok.
When I came back home, I found my card to my room was no longer working and had a semi freakout thinking maybe the hostel had noticed my absence and assumed I was gone and checked me out and stolen my luggage but I went to the reception desk and they simply just re-activated it and said nothing. I went into my room and found that my luggage was indeed still there and that the other beds were empty with no bags and no linen. Noone had been in my room for the 3 days that I had been in Stockholm! I also had the room to myself for the night! EPIC SCORE!
As I settled down to use my computer and make myself at home, laying all my crap on the other bunk bed, the door suddenly was opened by an older lady who looked quite surprised to see me in there. Actually, it turned out that she was more surprised because she had been staying in that room the ENTIRE TIME I was in Stockholm and had left that morning and now her linen was gone and her bed made as if noone had lived there. So much for that. She had just taken all her luggage with her too so it was all kinda silly, if you ask me.
Uppsala was still pretty much a quiet town. Funnily enough, I had been playing Supersnap with my hostel roommate the day before leaving Stockholm in the common room with a guy from Finland and I managed to find him still at the hostel. I had heard some good things about Swedish Pizza (reportedly meant to be better than anywhere else?) and so we had that for dinner. I got a Ham and Cheese Calzone and it was massive and quite delicious and it came with a salad buffet with this very tasty sorta vinegar-pepper cabbage which is apparently the norm to go with pizza here.
The next day it was time for me to check out and begin my "orientation week" and the morning started by snowing and that usually is quite good but when you are needing to lug a lot of stuff and go to a lot of places, it actually can get to be a little bit annoying! This is a photo I took of the outside of the International Office, one of my many stops that morning.
I was lucky because I was able to keep my big luggage in their luggage room. What was not so lucky was that when I opened up the luggage room... it was completely full of stuff and there was nowhere to put it! There was no one around so again, this was a, gee what should I do moment? In the end, I just started tetris-ing all the bags and then had to lift my quite heavy bag up and squeeze it in. Hard work I can tell you!
I made my way to a place called Vastgota Nation to pick up more stuff I needed with a friend I met at the International Office who was from Norway and while it was snowing, the ground was still ice-y as it had been horribly raining the day before. So it was snowing, and somehow raining a little too, and also the ground was ice-y and it was quite a bit of a walk (on the other side of the cathedral you can maybe see in that picture I have outside the international office). There was quite a bit of slippage involved! So that's something to keep in mind, and so everywhere we go we need to walk with our hands out of our pockets even though it is freezing because at any time you could slip. You never expect it either.. and I'll just find that even though I'm being super careful, I'll still just slip a bit.
We had some soup and bread at the nation which was pretty awesome cause it was cheap! About 5 bucks or something, which is a much better improvement to the 18 bucks I woulda paid in a normal store. I then lugged my luggage over to the nation (which was again, really tough work!) and hopped on a mini bus which was going to Flogsta - my new home for the next 6 months. I was pretty excited, and wet from the rain, but all the same excited to see who would be in my dorm and what my room would be like.
I can tell you, moving in was just a big day of confusion! I had been given at the Housing Office that morning a key card, and 2 keys and 2 lots of codes and I had no idea where I was meant to be using what. I got to the building that was mine (there are 15 giant buildings in total laid out in two loops joined by a straight bit) and found I had no idea how to open the door. The keys didn't work and there was a number pad but that didn't accept my numbers and I had no idea where I was meant to swipe my card! Phew. Luckily after a while, somebody was on their way out and they opened the door and let me in. I then wheeled my luggage, my giant backpack, my 2 shopping bags and giant handbag in and ushered it all into the Lift. The most ancient lift. You had to open and close your own door and it was just weird. After finally finding my corridor, I went out at each level and checked the numbers cause I was room 219 and had no idea which that would be, I found I also couldn't open this door with my key. What the heck? And again, no idea. I could hear a lot of people behind the door though and so I started knocking. They were incredibly loud and laughing and didn't hear me so it was a good 5 minutes of knocking, steadily getting louder before anybody came to open the door for me.
I then met the students who were on the way out of the dorm moving out who were having a big sorta farewell party. They were super friendly and one of the girls was actually the girl who had just moved out of my room so she showed me to that room and explained a few things like how to use my keys. Helpful really. Turns out the way to swipe the card is where the number pad is but it doesn't look like a swiper. And the keys are for my post box, my food cupboard and my room door. The numbers are meant to be used in conjunction with the key card. Got it!
As I walked into my room, I was like WOW - IT'S HUUUUGE! It really was huge! Bigger than my room in Australia, I reckon. You open the door, and you are in like a little alcove room thing, like a front coat room or something with cupboards and hooks for my jackets. To the left is the door to my own personal bathroom and in front is another door to my bedroom which was like I said BIG! There was also two beds inside, a generous sized desk (nearly comparable to the one I have back at home... well... maybe 70% the size) and a few shelves and stuff. I liked it! The walls were going to need to be decorated but I was pretty happy! I asked if there were any other new people who had moved in and the people all said that I was the first..
I did a bit of unpacking then went to meet a girl, Mina, who I had met on the bus as we had both realised we didn't have linen and would need to head back into town to get some. We had planned to meet at 3 but I was worried that seeing as we both didn't have phones we might have issues. Either way, I went to the "meeting spot" we had arranged, trekking through the snow, and eventually I could see a figure trekking towards me and it was her! So far so good! However, things were not so good for her. It turned out that she had had the same problems as me getting into her room but worse. When she did finally get to her room, her dorm was pretty much empty and her room had somebody still living in it! As in, their stuff was still there but they were not there and so she couldn't "move in." CRAZYY!!!!! It was just my luck that right before I had met up with Mina, I had been talking to a Flogsta Inspector who was inspecting my room while I was there because he hadn't yet got to it and it needed to be cleaned properly or something and so while I was waiting for Mina, I had seen him leaving my building and could still see him in the distance walking.
There was no one else we knew who we could ask so we chased him and called and yelled at him through the snow and ice and eventually he turned around and came to us. We went back to Mina's room and waited as he tried to fix things and kept coming back in and leaving but eventually he said there was nothing he could do and we would need to go back to the Housing Office where we picked up our key and ask them to fix it.
So two reasons to go back to the City. Now, we had been told that we should catch a bus back to the city but we would not be able to buy bus tickets on the bus and we also could not buy bus tickets here at Flogsta. So that was a problem.
We walked around not sure where the bus stop was and not sure how to buy a bus ticket. In the end, I found what I thought was a ticket machine and we set about trying to purchase a bus ticket. It wasn't working cause it was in Swedish and eventually we found a passer-by and asked them how to buy a bus ticket from the machine. She gave us a funny look and explained to us that that was a parking meter. DOH!
She told us we can't pay with cash for bus tickets but we could use our credit cards but it was expensive so we should get bus cards asap and kindly pointed us towards the bus stop. We hopped on the bus, paid and we were on our way feeling quite proud of ourselves that we had achieved something! As you can imagine, Mina wasn't feeling particularly impressed about the fact she didn't have a place to stay in but there wasn't much we could do until we got to the housing office. We made it there, after a detour to a kebab store and there was a long line of people waiting to pick up their keys. This was also where you could pick up cheap second hand linen so I set about picking that up as she waited to speak to the ladies. I managed to get a pretty interestingly rad bed spread, sheets, pillow case and a big white towel for about 10 bucks in total so I was stoked! They didn't match that well but it was still kinda cool.
In the end, Mina had to stay at a hotel in town so we shopped for sim cards and then I went back home and unpacked a little more and opened up a letter from Dylan who had kindly thought about the fact my room would need decorating and pointed at that this is what most people have on their walls and I would probably want the same.
Yeah! So anyway, that was my first day officially as a student at Uppsala University. Flogsta is an interesting place, they have a crazy tradition where at 10pm every night - people go out on the balcony, or open their windows and start screaming. Every Night. On my first night in Flogsta, I was lucky enough to hear what was the most epic one I have heard so far - it lasted for 7 minutes straight and was so so loud. It was awesome and looking out my window, I look directly into the building next to me and I could see everyone at their rooms and balconies yelling and all around me. So cool! There's lots of nice people who live in my dorm but noone really who is new. But either way, I made it to Flogsta finally!
Leaving Stockholm to go back to Uppsala was quite a disappointing feeling because I had met some great people there and wanted to just stay for a bit longer but the worry of my luggage being stolen and being without clothes, and having to go through all the stuff that woulda come with that, was enough for me to go hurrying back to Uppsala in haste!
I felt I had been quite careful, using a bicycle lock to lock my luggage to the bed and then padlocking the zippers of my luggage but I also had a few stray shopping bags of clothes I'd bought which I figured should be ok.
When I came back home, I found my card to my room was no longer working and had a semi freakout thinking maybe the hostel had noticed my absence and assumed I was gone and checked me out and stolen my luggage but I went to the reception desk and they simply just re-activated it and said nothing. I went into my room and found that my luggage was indeed still there and that the other beds were empty with no bags and no linen. Noone had been in my room for the 3 days that I had been in Stockholm! I also had the room to myself for the night! EPIC SCORE!
As I settled down to use my computer and make myself at home, laying all my crap on the other bunk bed, the door suddenly was opened by an older lady who looked quite surprised to see me in there. Actually, it turned out that she was more surprised because she had been staying in that room the ENTIRE TIME I was in Stockholm and had left that morning and now her linen was gone and her bed made as if noone had lived there. So much for that. She had just taken all her luggage with her too so it was all kinda silly, if you ask me.
Uppsala was still pretty much a quiet town. Funnily enough, I had been playing Supersnap with my hostel roommate the day before leaving Stockholm in the common room with a guy from Finland and I managed to find him still at the hostel. I had heard some good things about Swedish Pizza (reportedly meant to be better than anywhere else?) and so we had that for dinner. I got a Ham and Cheese Calzone and it was massive and quite delicious and it came with a salad buffet with this very tasty sorta vinegar-pepper cabbage which is apparently the norm to go with pizza here.
The next day it was time for me to check out and begin my "orientation week" and the morning started by snowing and that usually is quite good but when you are needing to lug a lot of stuff and go to a lot of places, it actually can get to be a little bit annoying! This is a photo I took of the outside of the International Office, one of my many stops that morning.
I was lucky because I was able to keep my big luggage in their luggage room. What was not so lucky was that when I opened up the luggage room... it was completely full of stuff and there was nowhere to put it! There was no one around so again, this was a, gee what should I do moment? In the end, I just started tetris-ing all the bags and then had to lift my quite heavy bag up and squeeze it in. Hard work I can tell you!
I made my way to a place called Vastgota Nation to pick up more stuff I needed with a friend I met at the International Office who was from Norway and while it was snowing, the ground was still ice-y as it had been horribly raining the day before. So it was snowing, and somehow raining a little too, and also the ground was ice-y and it was quite a bit of a walk (on the other side of the cathedral you can maybe see in that picture I have outside the international office). There was quite a bit of slippage involved! So that's something to keep in mind, and so everywhere we go we need to walk with our hands out of our pockets even though it is freezing because at any time you could slip. You never expect it either.. and I'll just find that even though I'm being super careful, I'll still just slip a bit.
We had some soup and bread at the nation which was pretty awesome cause it was cheap! About 5 bucks or something, which is a much better improvement to the 18 bucks I woulda paid in a normal store. I then lugged my luggage over to the nation (which was again, really tough work!) and hopped on a mini bus which was going to Flogsta - my new home for the next 6 months. I was pretty excited, and wet from the rain, but all the same excited to see who would be in my dorm and what my room would be like.
I can tell you, moving in was just a big day of confusion! I had been given at the Housing Office that morning a key card, and 2 keys and 2 lots of codes and I had no idea where I was meant to be using what. I got to the building that was mine (there are 15 giant buildings in total laid out in two loops joined by a straight bit) and found I had no idea how to open the door. The keys didn't work and there was a number pad but that didn't accept my numbers and I had no idea where I was meant to swipe my card! Phew. Luckily after a while, somebody was on their way out and they opened the door and let me in. I then wheeled my luggage, my giant backpack, my 2 shopping bags and giant handbag in and ushered it all into the Lift. The most ancient lift. You had to open and close your own door and it was just weird. After finally finding my corridor, I went out at each level and checked the numbers cause I was room 219 and had no idea which that would be, I found I also couldn't open this door with my key. What the heck? And again, no idea. I could hear a lot of people behind the door though and so I started knocking. They were incredibly loud and laughing and didn't hear me so it was a good 5 minutes of knocking, steadily getting louder before anybody came to open the door for me.
I then met the students who were on the way out of the dorm moving out who were having a big sorta farewell party. They were super friendly and one of the girls was actually the girl who had just moved out of my room so she showed me to that room and explained a few things like how to use my keys. Helpful really. Turns out the way to swipe the card is where the number pad is but it doesn't look like a swiper. And the keys are for my post box, my food cupboard and my room door. The numbers are meant to be used in conjunction with the key card. Got it!
As I walked into my room, I was like WOW - IT'S HUUUUGE! It really was huge! Bigger than my room in Australia, I reckon. You open the door, and you are in like a little alcove room thing, like a front coat room or something with cupboards and hooks for my jackets. To the left is the door to my own personal bathroom and in front is another door to my bedroom which was like I said BIG! There was also two beds inside, a generous sized desk (nearly comparable to the one I have back at home... well... maybe 70% the size) and a few shelves and stuff. I liked it! The walls were going to need to be decorated but I was pretty happy! I asked if there were any other new people who had moved in and the people all said that I was the first..
I did a bit of unpacking then went to meet a girl, Mina, who I had met on the bus as we had both realised we didn't have linen and would need to head back into town to get some. We had planned to meet at 3 but I was worried that seeing as we both didn't have phones we might have issues. Either way, I went to the "meeting spot" we had arranged, trekking through the snow, and eventually I could see a figure trekking towards me and it was her! So far so good! However, things were not so good for her. It turned out that she had had the same problems as me getting into her room but worse. When she did finally get to her room, her dorm was pretty much empty and her room had somebody still living in it! As in, their stuff was still there but they were not there and so she couldn't "move in." CRAZYY!!!!! It was just my luck that right before I had met up with Mina, I had been talking to a Flogsta Inspector who was inspecting my room while I was there because he hadn't yet got to it and it needed to be cleaned properly or something and so while I was waiting for Mina, I had seen him leaving my building and could still see him in the distance walking.
There was no one else we knew who we could ask so we chased him and called and yelled at him through the snow and ice and eventually he turned around and came to us. We went back to Mina's room and waited as he tried to fix things and kept coming back in and leaving but eventually he said there was nothing he could do and we would need to go back to the Housing Office where we picked up our key and ask them to fix it.
So two reasons to go back to the City. Now, we had been told that we should catch a bus back to the city but we would not be able to buy bus tickets on the bus and we also could not buy bus tickets here at Flogsta. So that was a problem.
We walked around not sure where the bus stop was and not sure how to buy a bus ticket. In the end, I found what I thought was a ticket machine and we set about trying to purchase a bus ticket. It wasn't working cause it was in Swedish and eventually we found a passer-by and asked them how to buy a bus ticket from the machine. She gave us a funny look and explained to us that that was a parking meter. DOH!
She told us we can't pay with cash for bus tickets but we could use our credit cards but it was expensive so we should get bus cards asap and kindly pointed us towards the bus stop. We hopped on the bus, paid and we were on our way feeling quite proud of ourselves that we had achieved something! As you can imagine, Mina wasn't feeling particularly impressed about the fact she didn't have a place to stay in but there wasn't much we could do until we got to the housing office. We made it there, after a detour to a kebab store and there was a long line of people waiting to pick up their keys. This was also where you could pick up cheap second hand linen so I set about picking that up as she waited to speak to the ladies. I managed to get a pretty interestingly rad bed spread, sheets, pillow case and a big white towel for about 10 bucks in total so I was stoked! They didn't match that well but it was still kinda cool.
In the end, Mina had to stay at a hotel in town so we shopped for sim cards and then I went back home and unpacked a little more and opened up a letter from Dylan who had kindly thought about the fact my room would need decorating and pointed at that this is what most people have on their walls and I would probably want the same.
All I can say is....WOW. I can't believe you made me carry this all the way to Sweden! LOL
Some photos of my room still in a stage of unpacking
Yeah! So anyway, that was my first day officially as a student at Uppsala University. Flogsta is an interesting place, they have a crazy tradition where at 10pm every night - people go out on the balcony, or open their windows and start screaming. Every Night. On my first night in Flogsta, I was lucky enough to hear what was the most epic one I have heard so far - it lasted for 7 minutes straight and was so so loud. It was awesome and looking out my window, I look directly into the building next to me and I could see everyone at their rooms and balconies yelling and all around me. So cool! There's lots of nice people who live in my dorm but noone really who is new. But either way, I made it to Flogsta finally!
