Vecka 34

week 34. exams, exams, exams.

This time, I have almost no photos and hardly anything else to fill it with! But I have a few interesting stories I'll share.

I just want to mention that the fresh sushi/sashimi from the Thai restaurant near my dorm is actually really good, and at an affordable price. Plus, the free make-your-own miso soup station is always worth it.

On Monday after class, I decided to go hunting for printer ink again. Someone recommended I check Kjell & Co., so I went to the one in Solna C. The bus I took was, of course, a bit caught in rush hour- and so, it took longer than it should have to arrive there.

I got off at a stop that definitely wasn't right where the shopping mall was, but I figured I could walk it. After a while of confusion in terms of whether I should take the underpass/overpass to head in the right direction, I followed what I thought was the correct path, and arrived. It's much larger than it looks from the outside, with a huge Clas Ohlson on the upper floor, and a toy store on the lower floor. Ground floor had everything from restaurants and food stands to bookstores and clothing shops.

Kjell & Co. had no printer ink, so I went to check Clas Ohlson, but also to no avail. They didn't have the type I was looking for. So I bought an alarm clock there, an air mattress and sleeping bag for my friend who would arrive later this week, stayed a while longer at the mall, and browsed around some of the other stores to see what they had.

I stopped for food at the Taco Bar there. One taco for 25 crowns, and it was actually a well-filled taco. All in all, pretty happy with it.

I lugged my cargo into the bookstore, picked up a Swedish dictionary, a planner book and some miscellaneous items, and was pleasantly surprised at the price when I went to the register to pay. It didn't seem as high as I thought it was, and so I paid and left (and the cashier went on leave after I had finished).

On the other end of the mall, I saw an Asian restaurant, and gravitated toward it. Upon closer inspection of the menu items, I snapped a quick photo and hastened away, since I couldn't stop laughing.

"Sexy Little Chick", anyone? Or perhaps "Hot Lips Beef"?

When I got home, I happened to check the receipt from the bookstore- and found that the cashier had forgotten entirely to charge me for a Swedish grammar book. I resolved to return later when I had time, and pay for the item.

The next day, I groggily arose from my bed and casually glanced at the time on my phone (since it turned out that the alarm clock was quite broken, and didn't even so much as turn on to show the time).

9:04, the cheery display greeted me.

And then, the panic set in. It was oral exam day, and class began at 9. I may never have overslept more than half an hour in my life, and certainly never enough to make me late for something. And this, of all days! I rushed through my morning routine and barged out the door, and eventually arrived to class at about 45 minutes past the hour. Nobody asked any questions, fortunately (likely because I'd never been late before), and the lesson drew to a close as we reached break. The oral exam groups were assembled after we got back from coffee break, and mine was the last to go (four of us total, while the other two groups were three and three). I think the oral exam may have gone much better than either the listening or the written exam later in the week, in fact. Då håller jag tummarna. ("So I'm holding my thumbs"... an expression that's the equivalent of the English, "I'm crossing my fingers" or "knock on wood".)

My lunch of the day was from the KTH library again, this time the vegetarian option with couscous, falafel and dolmas. I'm still so impressed by their (affordable) food selection.

Still have no idea what that pink worm-shaped thing is below- it's one of the departments within the KTH Student Union (Tekniska Högskolan Studentkår (THS)) that made it, but I can't tell what it's supposed to be...
They have been active throughout the past week and a half, for the arrival of the Swedish freshman. Everywhere I turned, there were groups from each department under THS with different coloured coveralls and signs directing each field of study. "Hej nollar!" was the typical greeting the newbies received, referring once again to their status as virtual 'zeroes' in the university.

On Wednesday, our teacher taught us to play a card game... in Swedish, of course. The problem was that four of the most crucial cards for the game were missing from the deck. The rules were already confusing enough, without the missing cards (I counted a total of 48).

Perhaps she was a bit tired, because she found some of the missing cards inside the deck box when we cleaned up at the end of class. But I promised to bring my full decks to class on Friday, after the listening exam.

We also got locked out of the classroom during break, and had to wait for an administrator to open the door.

After class, I headed back to Solna C to pay for the book (they were very appreciative that I'd returned to pay), and also to exchange the alarm clock for a functional one. The cashier who processed the item exchange was nice enough to put a new set of batteries in the new clock, and set the time as well to ensure it worked.

I also tried the Asian restaurant to see what the racy dishes were all about. Not top-notch food, but if you're after inexpensive curry, the restaurant does nicely. Staff were friendly, too, and a good number of customers seem to usually sit there.

A lot of political advertisement is continuing, with some ten or so parties all advertising and campaigning outside of Solna C, between the tunnelbana station and the mall.

Found a bicycle seat warmer with a humorous sticker on it. It's actually a practical idea.

I went home afterward to study for the listening exam. I wasn't exactly sure what I should do to prepare, so I went through some of the audio files that came with the textbook. I also stopped at the grocery to return some empty bottles and redeem them for cash. It's not much (1 kr), but it's more than what we get for them in the US. There's even an option to donate the refunds to African trees.

And so, the girl in line before me managed to fill the machine until it refused to take more. So we waited for the grocery worker to clear it, and then the girl finished, and it was my turn after that. I got 3 kr in refunds, and printed out the receipt with the barcode to redeem the amount.

It occurred to me that it would be a nice idea to buy a full deck of cards for the Swedish teacher, to replace her faulty one, and so I picked one up. Then, I decided to find a cleaning product to unclog my skitäckligt shower drain, and managed to spill something like organic kitchen spray onto myself, the deck of cards, and the bottle receipt. Which, of course, entirely wiped the barcode off the refund receipt, and I took it as a sign that I should donate to Africa next time.

The listening exam on Friday turned out to be a radio broadcast on the views of various Swedish political parties on EU energy policy and the view of the Christian Democrats on non-EU farmers' selling their goods in the EU. I don't know if any of us understood the småländsk dialect that the one politician spoke, which is definitely something I need to work on. That, and skånska, because I don't do particularly well with either dialect (although I've listened to Skåne's radio broadcasts a number of times).

We were all too wiped out by coffee break to particularly want to play cards. Everyone wanted to go home instead, but we were too polite (or timid) to say anything to the teacher (who had forgotten the prize that she was going to give to the winner- she'd left it at home). So we played cards anyhow, and it was fun once we fully understood the rules, and then we took some group photos and parted. I also gave the teacher the new deck of cards for her to use with her students in the future, and she was very appreciative.

I wasn't motivated in the least to study for the written exam directly after having taken the listening exam, so I went out to Östermalmstorg and walked between the tunnelbana station there, and the Stadion station for an hour or two. It was lovely weather for being outdoors.

There's an Asian restaurant there, called Rice as I recall. They served a tasty miso soup and some well-prepared dumplings, so I think it's on my list of places to return to. The servers were friendly, but spoke Swenglish to me and Cantonese to each other (from what I understood).

I was confused about where to pay the bill, as I hadn't gotten it yet, so I went to talk to them once I had finished (they were, by then, sitting down and taking their late lunch break to chat and eat). So they directed me to the counter, where they found they didn't have change to give me, and had to rummage around a bit before producing the right amount.

But I won't hold it against them, since the food was good, and at least the service was friendly.

Above: the inside of Rice, where the bar stood near to the entrance. I didn't check to see what specifically they served there, but they had a decently extensive list on their menu, from what I saw.

I went home, met one of the new residents of my corridor, and studied for a while into the night until I decided sleep was the best option.

The last exam fell on Saturday morning, when I walked with some of the other students and my corridor mates to the group examination room. We were split into rows according to our classes, and so we spread ourselves out in the auditorium (it was one of several testing rooms in use). The exam, to me, felt like a blowout. The fill-in-the-blanks at least had a word bank, although there were only around 20 blanks and 40 word choices. I was completely stumped on some of them, and so I took guesses. Prepositional phrases have never been my thing. (Stumped on them? Stumped for answers? Stumped with the questions? -See what I mean?)

Not to mention, the articles in the exam- much like on the listening exam- were on practical and useful matters that we hadn't studied much at all in class. In fact, at least we'd studied politics in class, but we had never learnt anything on sustainable energy or technological innovations. The true/false/not enough information section on the exam wasn't as bad as the fill-in-the-blanks section, but it still wasn't great. And then came the essay portion, where I managed to formulate my arguments well enough, but couldn't always find the right words I sought. In addition, I realise I made quite a number of mistakes on it, in grammatical syntax or agreement. Worst of all was that I'd made the same error multiple times down the two pages I wrote, so I can only hope the points aren't taken off more than once.

But it was over after two hours (I finished an hour early and looked it over once before deciding that changing my answers was a terrible idea), and so I headed early to the train station to wait for my friend from Denmark. :)

I bought a train ticket there to Sala for my next nyckelharpa lesson, since the online system was rejecting any and every method of payment I tried. Then, I wandered around between the shops out of curiosity, since I hadn't gone into any of them before. Found some interesting things...

Above: This keyring quote made me laugh. There was an interesting assortment that was offered there.

I also went to the bookstore there and found an affordable book in Swedish to read, which I wanted for practice purposes. Oddly enough, I had problems finding Swedish crime fiction in Swedish at a cheap price, so I settled for the Norwegian author Jo Nesbø's latest book in the Harry Hole series, Polis. (And no, that's not pronounced "hole" as in English. It's two syllables. :P)

The toilets, of course, charge 10 kr for entrance. The one where the airport train arrived was pretty strange, since there was a bright blue light inside that made one wonder if they'd wandered into a nightclub bathroom by mistake. (Yes, I had to take a photo.)

Once my friend arrived, it was a happy reunion. I hadn't seen him since last year, when he studied at my home university for a semester abroad, and so it's been about a year since I first met him there. We had a not-so-fancy meal at the McDonalds in the station and then proceeded to my dorm, where he dropped off his things and set up the air mattress (which turned out to be an actual camping mattress, about a centimetre and a half thick at the most) and sleeping bag.

My (prescription) sunglasses fell on the floor and broke today, so I had to buy a new pair to at least suffice for the rest of my stay here. I don't actually need a prescription in them unless I'm driving, which I'm not doing here.

I finally got an actual air mattress from someone moving out of the complex today, so my friend should be happy now :P We went out to buy a pump to inflate it, as well, but stopped for food first at a café around Östermalmstorg. Food took an abnormally long time to be delivered, however, and despite the small number of servers/staff, I wasn't impressed with the speed of the service.

Still a nice café, however. But the nachos that I'd ordered were of mixed quality- the mango smoothie was good, and the meat/vegetables in the nacho dish were fine. The salsa was all right, but the avocado lacked some flavour, and the cheese was nowhere near acceptable.

When we arrived back at my dorm, I met another newcomer who had just moved in. Seems the corridor might actually be filling up now. And now, we have a week of vacation before classes resume next Monday :)

Anyhow, I shall end the post for now. Hejdå!

Mvh
/The Swedish Fish

Vecka 33

week 33, 11 aug - 17 aug. my (and my penguin's) second full week in sweden.

I apologise for the long wait on postings! I'm back, and I will cram the entire past week into this post. My penguin is, in fact, quite happy here :) Since some of you were asking for more photos of him, I brought him along on Sunday when I went on a group trip to Skansen.

I've found that the KTH library serves actually good food at its café, and at a student-affordable price. Quite pleased with the salads there, but I have yet to try some of the hot food.

On Monday, I went to the Boulebar along Rålambshovsparken. I was a bit confused, apparently, since the KTH internationals went the week before (and I had been misinformed that the group would meet every week). However, I was pretty impressed by what I saw, and one can enjoy a legitimate French game of boules there (a type of pétanque, which is a French version of Bacci ball, for those of you who know what that is).

 Above: photo of the bouledrome with instructors teaching customers how to play, as well as what seemed to be several competition teams.

The "inside" area (with a roof over it, is what I mean) was pretty nice, too. And I would definitely recommend the food. Sure, it's a bit pricey, and I'm not entirely sure it can be classified as "French". But it was well-prepared, and for a relaxing evening along the lakeside, I'd give it a high rating.

And so I left a tip for them- 10%, which is pretty much the absolute maximum here. There's no need to tip for regular or mediocre service, but the servers were extremely helpful when I asked them about the KTH group, and they checked several weeks' worth of reservations to confirm that there was indeed no group. I left a little sketch, too, from the viewpoint where I was seated.

 

The next afternoon, sometime after Swedish class, I went with a friend to Gamla Stan for fika. We ended up ordering hot chocolate instead of coffee with kanelbullar (those cinnamon rolls that Swedes are so fond of), but it was still nice. It's a quiet little place that's in something like a dungeon- not really where you'd expect a café to be, but it's there at any rate.

Some of the rooms were larger, while others were quite small (more like cells, and thus really only suitable for a single person to squeeze inside). This was the back room where we sat.

And this is the front of the café. It's set back a bit from the street on which it lies, so it's not the easiest to find. Plus, it's underground. But overall, I quite liked the place!

On Wednesday, I had nyckelharpa lessons again, and learnt a few more songs. My teacher happened to be in Stockholm, so I had the lessons here rather than up north. I took an audio recording of myself this time with one of the new songs, so I'll post it here out of interest for you guys.

Ut i Gröna Lunden

The next day after class, I went for lunch with a relative. We hadn't seen each other since I was a kid, so it's been forever. I took the tunnelbana to Östermalmstorg and walked from the station to our agreed meeting place to wait for her. While I was outside NK, I saw a Swedish woman waiting out there for someone, as well. She didn't seem to be who I was looking for, but she looked over at me, and I went over. "Are you Anneli?" she asked in Swedish. I figured perhaps she was just pronouncing my name as it would be in Swedish (Anna Lee), so I said yes, and then she asked if I wanted to go inside to do something. But I was completely baffled, and then she became confused as well, and we stared at each other in awkward misunderstanding for half a minute before my relative came out from the store. "Anna Lee?" she greeted me, and hugged me and kissed me on the cheeks in the French fashion we're both so accustomed to. I apologised to the other woman and went inside for lunch, but we discussed the funny situation over the meal. There must be some other Asian woman named Anneli who lives in Stockholm. Could be my doppelganger, perhaps, and I may never find out.

For those of you who don't know, I'm adopted. :) My parents went to China and adopted me when I was four months old, so I don't remember anything from that age. But the group that went for adoption just before the American group my parents were in, had come from a Scandinavian country, ironically- either Norway or Sweden.

And for all I know, I really could have a twin in Stockholm. It will be interesting to see if I'll ever meet her.

The sunset was lovely that night, although my phone-quality pictures hardly ever do the skies justice when I take photos. I should carry my camera with me more often, else I should simply edit the colours in the photo until they actually resemble what the real scenery looks like.

Later in the day, I did a bit of exploring around Central Stockholm, around T-Centralen station where all the big shops are. I went into two of the H&M shops there, as well as the Clas Ohlson shop in search of printer ink. I ended up buying the wrong type of printer ink- and as such, I still don't have any.

It poured buckets on Friday. It had only begun to rain as I was headed out for the night, again with a friend to explore some of the bars and restaurants in Södermalm.

It wasn't completely wet on the ground yet, which is good, as my shoes are not at all waterproof in the least- and as I may have said before, when the square where I live begins to flood around the subway station... That's when my shoes turn into real fishbowls.

The people getting on the tunnelbana at the stops in between where I got on and off were drenched from head to toe, and I suppose I lucked out. It was only moderately raining by the time I arrived in Slussen, and from there, we went to explore the bars. The first one was entirely full, with a line of slightly soggy people queueing outside as they anxiously awaited seats.

And so we ended up at an entirely different bar, something in a street corner with a restaurant part to it. But it was surprisingly large inside, and the red mood lighting was pretty cool. The sofas and chairs were all well-placed, and the atmosphere vibrant with the Stockholm nightlife.

The next place we went to was in Gamla Stan. We wandered for a bit down the damp cobblestones as we searched for another bar (and there weren't very many where we walked), so we decided to try the next one we happened upon, excluding the noisy Irish pub.

I actually like how Gamla Stan looks at night. It's still got people (just not in this photo) wandering the streets, but the lighting is nice, in the way that it reflects off the stones.

It was called the "Corner Bar".... an odd name for an even stranger place. It literally was a corner, and it's quite small inside (if not a bit squished toward the back end). But besides the high beer prices, it wasn't bad at all. The bartender gave me a lollipop for free, for whatever reason. :P

We only had a minute each to sprint down the escalator to our trains once we arrived at the subway stop, so we chose to wait it out for half an hour until the next lot arrived. Sat down on a wet bench and enjoyed the view instead.

The square was full of political advocates on Saturday. Swedish elections are on 14 September, so all the parties are handing out papers and brochures with (biased) information left and right. I ended up with some things from Vänsterpartiet (the Left Party) and Centerpartiet (the Center Party). Thought about bringing them into Swedish class, since all we've discussed for the last week has been politics, but then again- all we've discussed for the last week has been politics. By the time I return to the US, I'll sadly know more on Swedish politics than on our own system.

And so, I headed out to Östermalmstorg to watch the Zombie Walk by the Armémuseum. I was only there at the start, when people were still arriving and police cars were beginning to block off the streets. Some people had outdone themselves with superb costuming and makeup.

This pair got quite a bit of attention. I thought they did a great job with it, actually.

There were plenty of humans waiting inside the gates, as well, to watch the zombies mill around before the walk began.

 This is the back view of the pair whose picture I posted above. I can't get over the zombie Teletubby, though.

This zombie wandered around outside the gates, holding a head in his hand (I didn't get the front side of the mask, but it was a good prop). He got quite a lot of attention.

This was probably the scariest costume of all- everyone began to laugh as she sashayed out of the gates and away with her posse. Not really sure if she was there to participate, or if she had intended to watch.

I headed back toward the tunnelbana early on, and got Swedish "fast food"... which consisted of köttbullar (meatballs), mos (mashed potatoes), and a side salad with a good ol' can of sparkling water. It was pretty good, for a foodstand.

There was a family in line with two young boys, and one of them jumped around a bit and knocked over a table with glass jars of condiments. He broke one of the jars and spilt sugar onto the ground, as well as knocking all the plasticware and napkins out of their bins. I'm proud to say it wasn't me this time, since I'm the publicly humiliating klutz more often than not!

 

After I'd finished eating, I went back into the tunnelbana station to wait for the subway

 .

 The accordionist came to sit on the bench, so I got up to give him room. I think he maybe thought I was moving away from him for not-so-nice reasons, and I felt a bit bad afterward. But I wanted him to have enough space to set down his instrument, too. It can't be easy, going from train to train playing an accordion and making no money.

Ran into friends from KTH on the way back, who had been out to buy beer at Systembolaget (the government-controlled store where Swedes go to buy alcohol- and the reason it's nearly impossible to get drunk here unless one is rich).

Tbh, I like the idea of the alcohol control, but I doubt anyone else agrees with me. And the prices are high, with a hefty tax of 25%.


On Sunday, the KTH internationals went by boat to Djurgården, where the ABBA Museum, Vasamuseum and Tivoli, among others, are all located. But we were there for Skansen, the oldest open-air museum in the world (if I recall correctly). It's where a lot of historical Swedish houses and structures have been moved from various parts of the country, so that they're all in one place. A bit like a large time capsule, in a sense.

We walked from the Slussen station to the boat port, and got onboard toward Djurgården.

Tivoli could easily be seen from the water, since we docked there. It's a decently large amusement park, although we didn't go in.

 Above: The Tivoli Gröna Lund sign.

Above: Circus building. Don't really know what's there, but we walked by.

The map of Skansen shows how extensive it actually is. One of the girls said her friend took nearly a day to see everything.

I ended up grouping with some really nice girls, and so we're in contact with each other for some future activities around the area. But we walked together for close to five hours at Skansen, and took a ton of photos!

Above: A 3D model of Skansen.

And so, the adventure began! I won't caption every single photo here, since this comprises pretty much the entirety of the rest of my blog post. But I'll leave an occasional note between photos.

There was a very good view across the waters from the restaurant near the Skansen entrance. The winds were blowing enough to see the Swedish flags in the foreground.

The food was generally rather expensive here (not surprisingly), but the meatballs were cheap. Especially the kid's portion! But they were good quality meatballs, served with mashed potatoes and lingonberries, so I had no complaints.

Some of you have asked me to take more photos with my penguin, so... Here he is! :D

He had a fun time, too. He stayed in my backpack for most of the time, except occasionally when I took him out for a photoshoot.

 I must say, the bread here is delicious. They make fresh knäckebröd here, the Swedish thin crispy sort of bread that goes well with butter or cheese, and is a bit more like a cracker than actual bread.

For those of you who don't know what this is, these are Norse runes (Fornnordiska). The specific ones shown here seem to be written in Yngrefutharken (Younger Futhark), from what I can tell, or at least not Elder.

There were quite a few children's events here, too. It was nice to see that there's a lot of interaction that goes on here, where some people tell stories and others explain how the architecture was structured, and so forth. There's a lot of culture ingrained into the museum that is Skansen, and it's really a great thing in my opinion.

All of the Skansen employees are dressed in traditional to modern clothes, depending on which era of Swedish history they represent. I saw some children wandering by, as well, but I couldn't tell if they worked there, or had simply dressed for the occasion of being at Skansen.

My penguin enjoyed seeing the Scandinavian/Nordic animals, too. And that's another thing I liked about Skansen- that it had a lot of nature, including species native to the land. The lynx had had kittens earlier this year, but all of them were out of sight when we looked.

There was an old film reel in the theatre there, as well. My penguin wanted to take a photo there, so I set him on the edge of the table :P Photos are well encouraged at Skansen, although without the flash (since photodamage can occur from too much bright light, and the exhibits are best intact).

We thought we could cross here to the entrance, but it seemed to only be a cow crossing.

There was fresh honey made here, as well, on the small bee farm that stood at a booth along the pathway. Along with the honey were other products made of beeswax.

Toward the end, we decided to head back to the glassblowing house. It had been reserved earlier in the day, but was open after lunch break to the public again. I took a video and can't seem to find it, or else I just can't upload it. But here are some of the photos! It reminded me a lot of Biot in France, the small French village in the south where glassblowing is the main product.

 

 

Above: The store outside the workshop, which of course sold blown glass products. All very gorgeous, but unfortunately from experience, I know that these things don't pack very well to bring back from overseas.

We stopped to buy pastries from the bakery, and I also bought saltlakrits ice cream (salted liquorice flavour), which is a very popular flavour in candy and ice cream among Nordics, but not so much among other people. It's an acquired taste, but I like it for some reason. Although it's a little strange when it's in the form of cold ice cream, it's good if one likes salted liquorice, and it's even better if one has been standing for a while in a boiling room where glass is blown in an oven.

 

I'm happy to say, I actually snapped a photo of a seagull in flight. I often miss them when they're soaring overhead, since it takes me a few seconds to turn on my camera and focus it!

We exited the museum portion at 16.30, and I wanted to check out the aquarium. Unfortunately, it seemed you either had to pay, or have a Stockholm card (and I haven't yet figured out what that is, unless it simply meant the SL transport card, which seems unlikely). So we only got as far as the gift shop, but we could see this hungry little guy on the floor of his habitat, as well as a few others running around from tree to tree above him (I'm not sure if these are tamarins... I'm not so good with identifying primates).

The trams run between Djurgården and Central Stockholm, as well, so we decided to take one back instead of the boat. This one, pictured above, was an extremely old-looking one. We got on the next one, since this one went in a different direction.

The tram took us directly to where T-Centralen is, and we went shopping for groceries before heading back on the trains to our dorms. All in all, it was a great day!

I found out that the Thai restaurant makes excellent fresh sushi at a very affordable price. Not to mention that it comes with free make-your-own miso soup! I'm very fond of this place.

Once my exams are over this week, I'll catch up on the missing days! I've been quite slow at posting, although I'm taking enough photos to remind me what I owe.

Mvh,
/The Swedish Fish