January 26, 2011

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Stayed up late last night listening to the SENS game, unfortunately the website I usually stream games from wasn't working so I had to listen to the Team 1200 broadcast. It's better than nothing but Dave Schreiber and Gord Wilson aren't exactly the best commentators to say the least; they always make it sound like the SENS are getting screwed by the refs/have an excuse for every bad play but it generally isn't the case. Also ran out of Reese PBC's last night while watching the game, which sucks cause you can't buy them over here. My mom and dad stashed two 4 packs in my suitcase when I wasn't looking as well as gave me a 4 pack as part of a farewell present but for those who know me well you know I def made quick work of them haha. I'll have to ask for some in a care package when skyping home tonight.

On a more positive note I purchased some tickets to the SENS Habs game in April last night (as those for those who don't know I was able to find a cheap flight home between classes for just over 2 weeks so I'll be back in Kanata from March 24th to April 10th for a quick visit). I was feeling a bit homesick at first so I figured I might as well go home and see friends/family between classes to break up the 5 1/2 months. You can only buy 4 tix at a time online but I was on skype with my brother and we were able to get 8 seats in a row by buying them simultaneously so it should be pretty sick, last SENS home game of the year so it will be nice to get out to one last game this season. Hopefully they'll have shipped all the dead weight out of town by the deadline and we'll get a look at some prospects that will compete for a roster spot next season.

Anyways, it was a late night so I got up around 1 today and went into town to buy my train ticket to Kiruna. It was a bit more than expected at 1300 SEK but I guess for a 15 hour train ride your bound to pay quite a bit. It leaves tomorrow at 10PM and arrives in Kiruna around 1:30PM on Friday, unfortunately I waited a little too long to get the ticket so I won't be able to sit with the people I'm going with (it's assigned seating) but hey, at least I'm going. Seeing as it leaves at 10 at night I'll try and sleep most of the way so that I'm not totally exhausted the next day when we arrive. The plan seems to be to settle into our lodging, do some dog sledding and snow mobiling (not sure which days they'll take place) and drink of course. We leave Kiruna at 12PM on the Sunday and arrive back in Uppsala at 5:30 AM on the Monday; we're stopping in a place called Boden for a couple of hours so it will take a bit longer, again the plan is to sleep most of the way. I'm going to miss both the NHL all-star game and the Super bowl but there is always next year for that; don't see the opportunity for venturing into the arctic circle coming along too often so I might as well make the most of it.

As for the rest of today, I didn't get skates or a hockey stick, figured it could wait since the next scheduled ODR game is on Sunday and I will be in the middle of nowhere at that point so no rush really; I'll keep it on the to do list for next week. After getting the train ticket I walked around the town for a bit and headed to my last class for the week at the Ekonomikum building. I got there a bit early but ran into some other exchange students to chill with until class started. Met my 2 dutch friends in class and we sat together for the 2 hour lecture which was for the most part pointless. This was my entrepreneurship class and the prof is a nice guy but the lectures are pretty boring; found myself dozing off doing the old head bob but luckily my friends were there to nudge me and keep me awake haha. We were expected to read some articles before class but I didn't because I haven't gotten my "student portalen" password yet so I couldn't access them.

After class I headed back to residence with a few other exchange students who are also living at Kantorsgatan and took about 15 minutes to make a quick snack before heading over to my Spanish friend Joan's corridor to quickly mix a water bottle full of juice and vodka before getting on the bus to join the international student pubcrawl (or pubrunda as its called in Swedish) that was taking place tonight. We went down to a few of the nations, got a beer, and I the left shortly after to join some other friends at another nation. Being a pubcrawl, everyone was scattered so you'd run into someone you know at pretty much any nation you went to. Afterwards took a quick detour to McD's (too hard to resist after a few beers) and grabbed some food. That's about it for today, I don't have class again until next Tuesday so the plan for tomorrow is to do some laundry for the weekend, get some groceries/snacks for the trip and pretty much just chill all day until the train leaves for Kiruna at 10 tomorrow night.

My power adapter/converter isn't working very well right now so I'm unsure if I'll bring my laptop up north with me or not; my battery won't charge for longer than 2 minutes and the AC power adapter I bought here won't charge my battery but will keep my laptop running if it's on. So if I don't post for a few days it's because I didn't bring my laptop or they don't have wifi where we are staying. Either way, I figure at the latest my next post will be Monday and it will hopefully contain pictures from Kiruna and if lucky the northern lights. Well, if I am lucky enough to get a view of them it will be both pictures and video.

That's about all for now, going to skype my family and then get to bed early so that I'm tired for the long train ride ahead tomorrow.

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