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Published: September 19th 2009
I arrived in Stockholm airport at about 3pm in the afternoon still reeling from a hangover and feeling woefully underprepared. Discovering that duty-free within the EU was a thing of the past only worsened my mood to the point where I considered getting my head down for the night at the airport.
Things began to pick up when my mobile phone magically came to life long enough to contact my 'peer student' Pontus. He picked up my flat keys and arranged to pick me up at the trainstation in Linkoping. My train arrived bang on time as expected. I wasn't expecting it to have 2 decks though (as in floors, not turntables) - my horizons were expanding only an hour into the trip.
Pontus took me by bus to my room. Not what I was expecting at all. Unlike the student rooms in Wales where if you had 4 arms you can touch all the walls at once, my room is bigger than my bedroom at home (and warmer- Ken!), with an en-suite 'wetroom' and seperate wardrobe area. There's about 18 students on the corridor in all. I share a kitchen with 5 others and a big common room with about 10. Its like being in Butlins and I loves it.
We grabbed a cracking take-away from the local vietnamese and Pontus grabbed a 4-pack of lagers from the shop. Then we sat there drinking them as all my new flat-mates looked at me as if I was an alcoholic because it was a school night (well not for me is wasn't). They are all really nice though and made feel welcome from the start. Most of them are Swedish and there're some other exchange students from Holland, France and Germany. My fears about them being noons were allayed on the Friday evening when they all came home from uni thirsty as hell. The guitars were out for a big sing a long and to my suprise they love playing the 'rizzla' game. Altough in more innocent Sweden where no one in the whole corridor smokes its called the 'post-it-note' game.
Most of the Saturday was spent with the resident computer expert trying to figure out how to connect Uncle mike's ancient laptop to the internet (I think he was suppressing his disgust all the while). Eventually, we gave up and I decided to go and buy a new one, which finished any ideas I had of a big Saturday night out. Instead, the Gin and tonic was back out and we played another version of the post it note game that is even better. Can't wait to show everyone when I get home. That night, there was a physiotherapists party in the house. One of them was the most easily pleased person I've ever come across. All he wanted me to do was tell him cockney rhyming slang pahrases and say 'alright governor' and he'd be laughing for 5 mins while is mates winked at me as if to say he like that all the time.
The rest of the week, I've been settling in and getting know the area. Been to visit the hospital where I'll be working and it seems great. Sweden is exactly how I expected it to be. The streets are always clean, there's beautiful parks and green areas around all the buildings. The people are dead helpful and all speak English if they are under 50. The unexpected part was how flat it is. I think in my head I always associate Northern areas as 'hilly areas' but its really flat. Therefore everyone - or lots of people - get around by bike. I'm off to buy one today! Also unexpected is the lovely weather, its been blue skies everyday.
Thats enough for now. More to follow, with photos.
Hej Da.
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Fisher
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Sounds epic any room for me he he xx