As I sit here typing this post, I should actually be typing my two 5 page essays for my Business Ethics take home exam. However, I'm having so much trouble writing them that I seem to be finding any excuse not to. So here I am typing this blog.
As not much new and all together interesting has happened this past week I have decided to try something a little different for this post. In the spirit of exams I would like every body who reads this blog to ask me a question in the form of a comment. Then I will answer the question as a comment and maybe we can get a little dialog going of questions and answers. This way you can find out all you want to know about life in Sweden and I won't feel bad about not having written a blog in awhile. It's a win-win situation for all.
So please feel free to comment and I look forward to answering your questions.
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PS: I hope someone actually asks something otherwise I'm going to feel just a little foolish!
Week 42
I know this might seem like a strange title for a post, but so much has happened in the past week I really wanted to talk about it altogether. Plus counting weeks is a very Swedish thing to do especially at university where each weeks timetables are completely different. It really helps keep track of what is going on. Anyway after this little piece of information let me tell you about week 42.
I had hardly recovered from Intervallen when I was on my way to Stockholm (the capital of Sweden) for the first time. I say first time because I'm definitely going back! What an amazing city full of history, beauty and water, oh my word so much water! It was so hard not to take hundreds of photos of the buildings and landscape because I had the words of Aldo, my brother, ringing in my head, "...stop taking photos of the stupid old buildings, we already have enough of those in South Africa!" I really had fun exploring the city and I was spoiled rotten when I went to Emma's house. Emma is a Swedish girl who lives on an island in the Stockholm archipelago. I spent the night there with her family and was treated to Swedish pea soup, fillet steak on the braai and of course kanebulle and coffee! We also watched Sweden loose to Norway in the World Cup Qualifier and now they won't be coming to South Africa in 2010, which kind of stinks!
I also had a lot of class work this week where I worked on a group presentation about nature and business ethics. We presented it today in a seminar and I think it went well. (Just had to mention this because I really want to give a complete overview of a typical week in Sweden.)
Rotary was also a very big part of the past week. Apart from my Rotaract meeting on Monday night and the Linkoping: Aurora breakfast meeting on Tuesday, I went to dinner with some Rotarians and a GSE (Group Study Exchange) team from the Netherlands, who I'd met at the District Conference, on Wednesday. On Thursday I went to my first Ice Hockey game, also with the GSE team and Rotarians. It was fantastic and I really had a good time. Such a good time that I'm going again this Thursday with some friends. LHC, the local team, winning made it even better! GO LIONS! Ice Hockey is really big here and one can't help, but get caught up in the vibe, even the buses fly little flags to support the team. For Friday lunch I went to Linkoping: Filbyter Rotary Club where I once again met the District Governor, the GSE team and a local youth exchange student from Australia, Meg. It was a really nice meeting and I even got the opportunity to introduce myself to the club.
After the lunch I went to town with the GSE team and Meg. Of course we ended up having a fika as the weather was a little sour. Just a quick note on the weather. It is Autum and it is so beautiful. The leaves are changing color from green to yellow to red, sometimes all three colors are on the same tree...its really quiet breathtaking! The weatherman even says there is a chance of snow soon, but still no luck!
There is a little Thai restaurant in Ryd and my friends and I thought it would be fun to eat out on Friday night instead of making our own food. Talking about food I just remembered that I even cooked South African this week. It was a last minute decision, but on Tuesday night I made some Bobotie with Bread and Butter Pudding! It was really nice and the mixture of smells, red wine and SA music made me feel at home. Going to have to plan another dinner like that soon!
As it had been so long since I'd been at home, I decided that Saturday would be a good day to do my grocery shopping and luckily Henning and his car were going and I was able to tag along and really stock up. That was only after having a really nice, small and cheap breakfast at IKEA. (I really like that shop!)
Reading back through this post it does seem to be a little random, but I think it really illustrates a feeling I've been having the last couple of weeks; I'm no longer on holiday in Sweden, I actually live here now! Thinking about why it has taken me so long to realize this I came to the conclusion that it's because of all the wonderfull people I've met. Every single one of them is the reason why I feel so at home in Sweden...and for that I'm extremely grateful.
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PS: I think I'm a little home sick ?!?!
Intervallen 2009
The idea of Intervallen is that those exchange students who volunteer to help are divided up into 7 bars according to what country they are from and sell food and drinks from that country. So of course there was; the German Bar (Jagermeister and Curry Wors), Asian bar (Sushi and Sake), French bar (These mini cheese, french loaf things! If anybody can tell me the name please let me know? and of course wine), Spanish bar (tequila and sangria, I have no idea if they sold food?). When we started running out of people to represent one country we started making combinations like the Alpine bar who were the Austrian and Bavarian exchange students (Wheat beer and beer wors) and the Milk bar with a few Germans and Koreans (a non-alcoholic bar that sold milkshakes and cakes). But when you are left with 2 Dutch, 4 German, an Australian and a South African and put them together what do you think you get? Why the Waikiki Beach Bar of course or just Best Bar Ever for short!!!
Thats right we decided it would be fun to just to have a crazy party themed bar where people could come buy a drink and have a good time. So we sold a very special secret recipe cocktail, a funky blue shot and candy necklaces!
Thursday night is party night in Linköping. Every Thursday one of the many university committees organizes a party in Kårallen (the student building) and the students come in their overalls and party the night away. The parties usually start at 10pm and last until 3am. The big organisational nightmare is that until 6pm Kårallen houses a coffee shop, bar and restaurant. So you have to wait for them to close before you can start moving all the tables, chairs and couches out of the way to make place for the 2 dance floors, 7 bars and the wardrobe (an esential part of any Swedish party because no one wants to dance wearing their heavy snow jackets!)
I'm not going to say too much about the party itself because I think a party is a party and I'm sure the pictures will speak volumes about how great it was, but I do want to leave you thinking about how much work goes into this very short event on the night;
Arrive at 3pm to start preparing food.
4pm restaurant closes and you can start moving hundreds of tables and chairs.
5pm first few bars start to set up.
6pm normal student bar and coffee shop closes and you can start packing the couches away.
7pm started setting up and decorating our bar.
8pm start stocking bars and all the workers have supper.
9pm get given security briefing.
10pm doors open and streams of people start pouring into the student building at the same time you start running around like crazy trying to serve everyone and ensure that you don't run out of beer.
12am run out of 'cool' beer and start selling Swedish beer.
1am take a quick break to greet your friends who were clever enough not to work at the party.
2am go stand outside in the freezing cold because it's your turn on bouncer duty.
3am bars close and you chase everyone away so that you can start packing up and cleaning.
5am after everything has been mopped, the walls have been wiped and everything is packed away, the cleaning ladies arrive so that they can polish the floors with their special machines.
6am you start to pack back all the tables, chairs and couches according the pictures provided because the bar, restaurant and coffee shop want to open again.
8am you walk out of Kårallen and decide that today is just not going to be a good day to go to class.
Thank goodness I was allowed to go home at 5am because I don't think I would have made it all the way to 8am! The good thing that does come from this party is that some of the money is used to throw a "Thank you party" for all the people who worked at Intervallen and I hear that it's well worth standing on your feet for over 12 hours...I'll be sure to let you know if they are right!
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D2410 District Conference
I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, some background information is in order. This weekend I attended my host districts conference in a small town on the south east coast of Sweden called Torsås. The area is famous for an island called öland, where the king has his summer residence, and for a castle that is the most fortified castle in Sweden.
I left early on a very cold Friday morning with a Rotarian from my host club. If you don't mind, I'm going to side track a little and tell you about how quickly it got cold here! On Monday it was still an average autumn tempreture of about 12'C, but within 3 days I was waking up to frost on the grass and tempretures no higher than 3'C and its been like that ever since! Needless to say I spent most of last week shopping for my winter clothes. Now the Swedes having a saying that there is no such thing as bad weather only bad clothing. So it took me all week to buy the right clothes because I didn't want to make that mistake. I'll be sure to let you know if I was unsuccessful.
Back to the conference. We arrived at about lunch time at a beautiful historical hotel just outside the town. The hotel is an old farm surrounded by pine forest and only about 500m from the sea. As there was to be a board meeting that afternoon the husband of the conference organiser and my host family for the weekend came to fetch me for an afternoon of sightseeing. I'm not usually one to get excited about a car, but when you are sightseeing in Sweden in a gold Mercedes SLK 230 I can't help it, I felt like a little boy again with a silly grin on my face the entire time!
That evening we had supper at the hotel and I got the oppotunity to meet some of the Rotarians. I really enjoyed meeting the Swedish and Latvian (the entire Latvia is part of the district, if you were wondering) Rotarians this weekend as everyone was very friendly and really made me feel welcome and I was able to make countless contacts with clubs for me to give my speeches at! Not only did I meet Rotarians, but also the 8 Youth Exchange Students and a GSE team visiting from The Neatherlands.
I seem to have gotten sidetracked again, sorry. The Saturday was the main conference day with the usual speeches and formalities of a conference. I was able to participate in the conference as they had arranged translators for us and I enjoyed listening to the famous Swedish guests, one of whom I actually recognised as 'The Weatherman', give their talks on Health, Children and the Environment (the theme for the conference).
Saturday evening I got the oppotunity to once again enjoy a Swedish banquet and really had a lot of fun singing songs, listening to 'fly in my soup jokes', eating, drinking and of course there was snaps! The diner was followed by dancing to the music of a big band and I took the oppotunity to teach the exchange students how to 'langarm'...of course! Even though the bus came to take us home at 12, it was still an amazing night that was perfectly ended with a night cap with my hosts and their neighbours at their house.
Sunday was to once again be a more business like meeting so I joined the bus that was arranged for the the wives and husbands of the Rotarians on a tour of a local harbour where we enjoyed coffee and cinnamon buns, looked at the local handcrafts and took a tour of a sailors museum.
When we arrived back at the conference I was given the oppotunity to quickly (I was only allowed 1 minute) introduce myself to the 200 odd Rotarians.It has been a long time since there has been an Ambassadorial Scholar in the District and the DG just wanted to make the rest of the clubs aware I'm here!
After lunch was the memorial service for all the Rotarians that have passed in the last year. It was very moving service at a local historical church. I really had to keep from shedding a tear as the combination of candles, an old church and beautiful singing really tugged at my sentimental side. Afterwards it was time for the long journey home and it was while travelling home that I realized how much I still want to do in Sweden and I'm starting to think that the 10 months I have left will not be enough!
I know I started this post with talk of being inspired, but what it was exactly that inspired me I have no idea. I do however now have, what I think, is an amazing idea for a project that is really going to get heads turning not only here, but in SA as well. I can't tell you what it is yet because I still have to iron out the details, but it's going to be a real ringer! So watch this space...
I would also just like to thank all the Rotarians that helped make this weekend such an amazing one. Especially Lena and Bos (My ma and pa for the weekend) for their hospitality and putting me up for the weekend. Also to Thord for allowing me to drive with him to the conference, I hope I did not talk your ear off? I know I will be seeing you all again in the near future.
(I handed out a lot of cards this weekend so I hope that they have an opportunity to read this blog)
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