One of the key ingredients of most pasta dishes is köttfärs, or minced meat in English. So clever as I am I bought a full 1,2 kilo’s of minced meat and decided to put it into the freezer. So today was pasta day again and when I got the meat out of the freezer I realised what those little pieces of plastic foil where for that where between the pieces of meat when I bought it. Some things you have to learn the hard way I suppose.
So I found the only official Star Wars merchandising shop in all of Scandinavia, and it is right in Malmö in Kungsgatan 2! The owner is a really nice fellow, and he updated me on Star Wars trivia and some upcoming games and tv series. I guess I’ll drop by some day again.
Wow, the past week has been like a rollercoaster ride. I’ve met so many people and have been so many place. Where to start..
I’ll try to give a brief overview of what I’ve been up to lately.
So last wednesday we had a lecture by Mariah Larsson about Swedish cinema. It was very interesting (Did you know that in the ’70’s 1/5 of all Swedish movies produced can be considered pornography?) She mentioned lot’s of interesting stuff like the Pilsnerfilms from the ’30’s which where basically the Swedish answer to the slapstick movie, just with more booze in them. After the lecture we watched Fucking Åmål (or Show Me Love as it is called in English) in the college room. I already saw the movie twice but I decided to stay because I think it is such a great movie. Interact brought some drinks and popcorn so we had a great time.
On thursday I went on a bus tour in Österlen, Skåne. We visited Glimmingehus, the oldest preserved medieval castle in all of Scandinavia and Kåseberga where the Ales Stenar are located. Ales Stenar are basically a configuration of ancient rune stones in the country side placed in the shape of a ship. It sort of resembles Stone Henge.
Friday was the first day of Malmöfestivalen, which is basically a giant party that lasts for a week. On the first day the Kräftskiva, or Crayfish party is celebrated. On this party everybody wears funny hats and sings Swedish drinking songs. My highscore that evening was 12 when I asked people if they either thought my hat looked cute or ridiculous, well, that was 12x ridiculous 
. This party was a lot like carnaval which we celebrate in the Netherlands.
On Saturday I went to visit some other second hand shops in town which I heard about. I found Myrorna, which is the biggest second hand store chain in Sweden in Södra Förstadsgatan and another one called Humana close by. Myrorna is so nice, they sell everything from clothes to records to furniture and paintings.
Last Friday we had a sort of ’speeddating’ set up in the morning. Everyone was given one half of a playing card with the assignment to find his/her partner. We then sat down in groups and played a Swedish quiz. Unfortunately we didn’t win (nobody in our group was really a soccer aficionado so we got some questions wrong). Eventually it was a draw between two teams, they both won and everyone on their team received a Malmö Högskola umbrella. I’m guessing this prize was chosen very consciously since it started raining really bad the next day.
Later that day we played some brännboll game at the beach. Brännboll is the Swedish equivalent of common baseball or softball. The biggest differences are that the person hitting the ball has to throw it in the air himself and that multiple people can occupy a base opposed to baseball where at any time only one person can be at a base. We had a lot of fun and I ruined my pants with a huge sliding.
I also met a lot of new people. The guy on the right is Joscha Geers, he’s from Osnabrück, Germany and I’ve been hanging out with him. He’s a cool guy I guess. The other guy with the baseball cap is Adriano from Northern Italy. He struck a lot of home runs and he’s also very kind. The other people are people from Malmö Interact, they organised the get-together. The guy in the middle is Staffan, he drove me to my apartment on the arrival day.
In the evening there was a big dorm party in Rönnen (a student home managed by Malmö Högskola) There was this guy called Simon who wore a kilt. He organised the party. It was a lot of fun. I had some shots with the Polish people. They also thought me the phrase ‘Nazdrowie’ which is cheers in Polish. They can sure hold there liquor I know now. I also talked to a lot of people, like Edyta from Poland who studies Computer Sciences. She told me a lot about life in Poland and Polish history. Joscha brought a bottle of Jägermeister and he was handing out shots as well. Yeah, we had a lot of fun.
In class the day before yesterday I learned that 67% of all students at Malmö University are female! One could be easily tempted to deduce from that fact to think that the average male Malmean is somewhat less intelligent. Anyhow, I also learned that the average age of students at Malmö University is 32 which also came as a surprise to me. Adding to that the fact that over 55% of the local residents are not indigenous Swedes, Malmö makes for an interesting cultural melting pot.
The day before yesterday when I came back from Orkanen I drove past a peculiar looking second hand store called ‘Erikshjälpen‘.
So yesterday on my way back I decided to pay them a visit. The store looked really nice, and all the items for sale seemed to have their unique story. For instance there was this extravagant pink gown on display. Who would have worn it and to which occasion, and why was she fed up with it to begin with? They also sell a lot of second hand electronics, printers, tv’s, microwave’s, you name it. Then there’s also the books section with mostly books in Swedish but there was one section with books in ‘Engelska’ (English) There where a lot of curious books, like ‘A Learner’s Grammer of English’ which the previous owner presumably mastered or gave up on and ‘Rebuild Your Vision – Better Eyesight Without Glasses, Contacts or Surgery’ which had apparently paid off to the previous reader or had cost him enough money to put in the effort to get at least a bit of his/her money back. This is also where I found my copy of ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ for 12 SEK (Around 1 euro 25) I’m hoping it will be a good read . Take a look at the other pictures I took HERE.
Hey guys, so finally I’m back in Malmö, ready for the big adventure. It was a very smooth trip coming here. My parents drove me to the airport in Düsseldorf yesterday morning. I then flew from Düsseldorf to Copenhagen which took a little over an hour. At Copenhagen Airport I purchased a train ticket and went by train to Malmö Central which was only 2 stops away. I met John from Melbourne on the platform and I talked to him during the train trip. He was going to study accounting in Lund.
When I arrived in Malmö at the central station I went to Orkanen, the main school building which is just a stone’s throw away. There was a full-fledged welcoming party there, including people from the International Office, the Student Union and Malmö Interact. They gave me a welcoming package after which they drove me to my apartment! I did some unpacking, bought some groceries and took a long nap. Yeah, it’s good to be in Sweden.
Today I went to Orkanen for the introductionary seminar. We got a lot of information about living in Sweden and academic stuff. There was also a big lunch buffet, and in the afternoon there was a Swedish Dairy Tasting workshop which was arranged by Interact Malmö which was really nice. I tried some Swedish cheese, yoghurt, milk and most importantly: chocolate! I also met a lot of nice people, Heith and Darren from Australia, Tessa from the Netherlands, Marco and Markus from Germany and a lot of people from France, Germany and Turkey. Too much names to remember in one day really!
Tomorrow we’ll go on a two hour long sight seeing stroll through Malmö and we’ll be introducted to a group project which we will have to work on for the next few weeks and which has been shrouded in secrecy. Yeah, quite the agenda for me. Oh yeah, I wanted to say that you can react on my stories by clicking the title of the post and then filling in the comment form. I’d love to hear from you!
In a few days I will be leaving the Netherlands to return to Sweden. A few weeks ago I was in Malmö for the holidays to scout the city and to find accommodation. Frankly I had quite high expectations of Sweden, I’ve wanted to travel there for several years now. Well, I can say that at least Malmö is everything I could have hoped it to be. There is so much space compared to the Netherlands. I mean Malmö is the third largest city in Sweden and in a lot of place in the city center it is even more spacious than the little town where I grew up. The people are also very kind and hospital. Malmö is dotted with parks which are really tidy and beautiful. Yeah, it was quite the experience, I’m really looking forward to my studying there. I also visited the Malmö Högskola buildings and Orkanen with the gargantuan library which overlooks the dock side of Malmö. I also went to some of the summer festival events like the Världens Snabbaste Allsång (world’s fastest sing-along) and Thorbjörn Risager (jazz ensemble) Below is a recording of the sing-along in Pildammsteatern, an amphitheatre in Pildamms park.
Just 4 more days until I catch my plane. Malmö here I come!
