Death By Technology

It is barely lunchtime, but today so far I have been to see a lady about volunteering as a Language Assistant, which I begin tomorrow, and have received the parcel containing my Kindle.  The Kindle and I have been staring at one another for about an hour now, and I am still unable to quite believe that I sold my soul and bought one; it feels like the hangover of reading.  Anyway, I will write about both of these things in more detail tomorrow, but for now here is some evidence that I'm not just holed up in my Northamptonshire bedroom, making up stories about life in far away Scandinavian city.  (Due to my prehistoric camera now being completely broken, none of these pictures are mine.)

One Out Of Three Ain't Bad.

To anybody I even vaguely know, it should come as no surprise if I tell you that right now, as we speak (/I type) I am procrastinating.  Even less of a surprise, the thing from which I am procrastinating is academic and comes in the form of a book.  I’m not sure why I am quite so incapable of reading prescribed course materials, as at all other times I am a self-confessed, unashamed and obsessively opinionated bookworm.  However, put the title on a reading list and hand it to me in a classroom and you’d think I was illiterate.  Having already tidied my room, scrubbed my kitchen cupboards and washed my hair today, and being without iPlayer etc for the foreseeable future (damn you Sweden, damn you), I am left with little distraction except to warble away on here for a while.  Lucky you, aye.

In the past week (maybe I should just write Sundays off and call them blogging days, as that seems to be the way that this is going) one thing has changed, somewhat significantly, and that is that I am now officially enrolled in some classes at Göteborgs Universitet.  Perhaps also significant, and definitely hypocritical, after two weeks of moaning to anybody with ears about how god damn impossible it was to subscribe to any classes, I managed to miss my first two.  Oops.  The first was a very ambitious 10am Speculative Fiction (i.e. Sci Fi.  Uh huh.) class after a night out.  True to the general story of my life, I got drunk and slept through it (and, as Oscar asked me to clarify, yes I do mean overslept, not slept with the entire group, just in case you were wondering).  After this hiccup, I dragged myself to McDonald’s for a hangover cure and stumbled to my 1pm class.  After a bit of trouble locating the room, I arrived and sat there for a while thinking they were just engaging in pre-class chatter in Swedish.  However, when notes began to appear on the board in Swedish I established that no, this was the actual seminar in full swing and, more to the point, it was not the one I was meant to be in.  After a pretty awkward explanation on my part, I shuffled red-faced from the room, too late to find my actual class.  And another one bites the dust.

I did eventually make a class though, at 6pm that evening (which, in case you were wondering, is absolutely, definitely, completely, 100% too late for a class to start).  It was also unfortunate that the required reading for this was Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes.  I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, that reading a book of poetry written by a man to his dead wife is not ever going to help a miserable hangover day.  I think I would have really enjoyed the collection too, had it not been for the circumstances, so I shall attempt a rereading at another point, preferably when I’m located in my bed, wearing my cat t shirt, with a gallon of tea and a vast supply of biscuits for company.  The class went fairly well but as it was a night class, the other people were all mature students, which made it a bit different.  Another negative was that when it finished at 8pm, a severe downpour had begun, and I was wearing sandals and a summer dress, which meant that the long tram journey home in the dark was even less enjoyable than it might have been otherwise. However, the rest of the reading list looks interesting and I am strangely excited to begin my proper classes with other people my age, equipped with a raincoat and not suffering from what my dad likes to refer to as ‘the wages of sin’ (i.e. a hangover).

After returning home on Thursday evening to the welcoming arms of my duvet, and recovering with a Skype from Beth, enough pasta to feed the whole of China and ogling over Ed Westick in a re-watch of Chalet Girls, things looked up.  On Friday evening I reluctantly opened another bottle of wine and had a strangely fun evening of classic 90s music, singing into washing up brushes and developing a dangerous new dance that from here on in I shall simply name ‘The Rug Slide’.  Yesterday, we visited the Botanic Gardens and despite feeling that this was perhaps a daytrip better suited to my grandma, discovered they were actually very nice.  I especially enjoyed the table and chair with flowers planted into the seat and top and a cactus for a lightbulb.  When I have my own house, with its high ceilinged library and secret garden, I shall kindly let my dad (who by this point is of course going to have retired and be on hand to be my personal gardener at all times) attempt to recreate this for me.  Lucky him.

Lastly, a quick note on the Swedish postal system.  As mentioned in my previous post, within just minutes of arriving at Kviberg, I somehow managed to break my laptop charger.  Luckily, somebody let me borrow their computer to order a replacement.  I arrived home one day last week to discover what I assumed was a missed post slip in my mail box.  I groaned outwardly, imagining that a UK style postal goose chase was to follow.  In fact, despite the fact that I didn’t understand a single word on the slip except a vaguely recognisable shop name, I had hopped on a tram, signed for and received my package and got a tram home again within the space of about twenty minutes.  This is particularly reassuring as in the next week or so I’m hoping to receive a parcel from home including a Kindle (Yes I caved, although that’s a story for another day.  Don’t judge me; I’m not proud of myself.) and my jewellery, which I am feeling naked without, and some boots from ASOS because I imagine my feet are going to be getting cold quite soon.  So yes, just another simple system that Britain has somehow managed to overcomplicate and completely cock up.  Well done England, well done.

An Evening With The Mayor

It was Sunday afternoon, around 2pm, and after spending twenty minutes wrestling with four keys, three doors and a touch-sensor-key-pad-lock-thing (the technical term, of course) I was finally able to open my new front door.  I did so without a moment’s hesitation and, if I remember correctly, a little dance of excitement followed.  Anybody who knows me will know that dancing is not something that comes naturally, so I think that says everything.  It was clean and beautiful and big.  I hopped about, flinging open doors and discovering walk in wardrobes, en suites, sofas, heated window benches. 

As there was nobody around, I eagerly scrambled around in my suitcase for my laptop in order to share my excitement with, failing all else, the world.  I was so enthusiastic in this endeavour that as I pulled my charger from the case, I somehow managed to snap one of the plug pins off in the process.  Had it been a cartoon sketch, there would have been a loud ‘duh’ sound shortly followed by a light bulb image appearing as I frantically attempted some dodgy electrical work involving the broken charger and an adaptor.  Perhaps needless to say, this did not work, and I was left with a broken adaptor too.  Wonderful.

Things have, however, looked up from there.  That evening, I met four girls living in my building and we ate pizza.  That in itself was an experience as when Suzanne asked for pizza and chips, she received this:

The next day was, no word of a lie, about on par with all my Christmasses coming at once as I got to fulfil a lifelong dream and go to Ikea in its homeland.  There isn’t really much to tell of this experience of this except: it was great.  Great.  And I stole all of the little pencils, which is standard procedure.  Later that evening, we went to visit somebody in another block of halls, which ended slightly terrifyingly.  We knew that the trams ran all night but had not yet discovered at this point that they stop before you reach our accommodation.  As everybody got off the tram, we sat looking dazed for a while before a Swedish woman pointed to the bus which apparently took up the journey from there.  We boarded this bus and had gone a few stops before it occurred to us that the bus obviously was not following the tram track and therefore would not go to the same stop.  A bit more panic followed before we decided to just get off the bus and walk back.  We had gone a little way on the bus by this point though and as we began walking the deserted streets on the outskirts of Gothenburg, it struck us that we had no idea where to go or how long it would take.  It was 1am at this point and we had to be up again at 7.30am; a long night looked to be ahead of us.

We had been going for a little while when we looked to the right and noticed that we were walking alongside a graveyard.  Being the erratic and ridiculous girls that we are, at this discovery we immediately began a full speed sprint, arms flailing and screaming.  In fact, this was the best thing that could have happened as an approaching bus thought that we were running for it and stopped to let us on.  Hallelujah.  When we finally got back, I rushed into my room and double locked the door, continuing along the path of illogical fear.

Other events of the past week have included a welcome reception with the mayor, during which we took full advantage of the free wine and drank her out of house and home, an accidental visit to a death metal club, a tram stop called Elisedal, a very hungover bus tour, being shunned for wearing shorts and lots of Fika (coffee and cinnamon buns, basically).  Hervee, a Belgian friend who lives in my flat, also introduced me to the utter joy that is a tequila slammer with orange and cinnamon in place of salt and lime, which is something I thoroughly recommend. 

Despite having only been here a week, it’s safe to say that Gothenburg feels like home already.  From my very earliest memories, I’ve been saying to anybody who will listen that I want to live everywhere, absolutely everywhere, and for the first time I’ve moved away and am living in a very certain somewhere.  As I prize myself from my bed each morning and stagger to the kettle (and by kettle, I am really referring to a small saucepan of water on the hob), it all feels so normal that it’s hard to believe that I’ve finally done it and left and that this morning cup of tea is happening somewhere non-English speaking and non-Tetley drinking.  But it is, and thank God for that.

A Lack of Cold Feet (a.k.a Indifference)

As I type, it is almost exactly twenty four hours until I depart for Heathrow and begin my Swedish adventure.  This evening, I have been for a farewell meal with my parents, grandparents and two of my cousins.  The result of this was me being the biggest sponge, as my family kindly all chipped in for my meal, gave me the £5 change (which we laughingly decided will probably equate to about half a pint/a small tube of cheese in the notoriously expensive Scandinavian country for which I am bound) and my grandparents presented me with a generous financial contribution in the twee-est of envelopes.  I feel that I should be at least a little emotional after these most generous of goodbyes yet I am not upset in the slightest because, quite simply, I don’t yet really believe that I am actually going.

This disbelief is perhaps rooted in the fact that I have not yet even begun to pack, that I’ve not sorted any insurance/finances/medical details and that it has been less than twelve hours since I returned from a fairly raucous fortnight in Zante.  I am exhausted and, in all honesty, all I want is a day in bed to catch up on the two weeks of sleep and trash TV that I have missed.  I do, however, realise that this mindset is both completely ungrateful and unhelpful so I have scoured the internet for things to get excited about.  (This is the kind of great prioritising you’ll get used to – despite an endless ‘To Do’ list of administrative nightmares, here I am blogging and Googling.  It doesn’t bode well.)

1)       Friday Nights.  Apparently on the fifth night of the week, when you buy a drink, many bars provide free food.  Firstly, as an avid eater and a terrible financial manager, I am never going to turn down free food.  Secondly, this uncannily resembles ones of my favourite Plymouth institutions which was, of course, the free barbeque at Ride on a Friday evening.  And thirdly, well, I don’t need a third:  Free.  Food.

2)     The Röhsska Museum of Fashion, Design and Decorative Arts.  As a self-confessed, and probably slightly pretentious, lover of fashion and novelty kitchen items in equal measure, I am very keen to visit this place, which sounds like utter heaven.  My slightly dubious online information source also promises a vast collection of restored knitwear.  Shoes and food gadgets and textile creation all under one roof?  Please, just get me there now. 

3)    Christmas.  I love the festive season even at the very worst of times, yet I have high hopes that yuletide in Gothenburg will be amongst the most magical I experience.  It’ll be properly cold, meaning the opportunity for proper festive knitwear, the lights are apparently spectacular  and then there’s  the famous Liseberg Christmas market, offering up large glasses of glögg (mulled wine) all round, or so I hear.  Goteborg.com also refers to itself as The Christmas City and, I promise, that is more than enough for me.

There are, I'm sure, many other attractions and traditions lurking within Sweden’s second largest city which I cannot wait to discover but, for now, simply the promise of food, fashion and festivity has stirred some excitement and that is all I need.  Now, it is time for goodnight and soon for goodbye, to England at least.