44 days of adventures: Part 1

A very good, cold and freezing afternoon to you all!

It has been a while since I wrote my last blog. To be more exact 44 days! I know it’s too long ago and that’s than again the reason why I’m now writing. I don’t know where to start… Sooo many things happened the last month! I’ll try to do my best to write a short summary. I already know that that’s not going to happen and I think you guys know that as well. The people who know me know that I’m bad in writing summaries and writing down conclusions. But let’s give it a try.

A miracle has happened! On the 10th of October I went by bike, sporty as I am, to the Stadium Outlet (what is about 10 km from my house). What is the Stadium Outlet and what was I going to do there? Well, the Stadium Outlet is a shop what sells a lot of stuff what has something to do with sport for a reduced price. I wouldn’t be a real Dutch if I didn’t go there. Reduced price means DISCOUNT! I didn’t actually go there because of the discount, but for another reason. As I already said in my second blog the university offers kind of sport classes in the Campus Arena. I already played floorball, or better said ‘innebandy’ for a few times, but on the 10th of October I then finally bought my own stick! And I’m proud about that. People who know me, know that I’m not a fan of doing sports and that’s why I wanted to share this miracle with you. I’m finally motivated for doing sports! :-D

The 20th of October was again a really nice day! On that day Arianne and Elsa, two of my lovely Dutch friends, came to visit me for five, yes FIIIIVE fucking days. It was soooo super nice to see them again and to spend time together! We did a lot of stuff together and although it was nice, sometimes it was a little bit too much for me. I’m not used to be with people around me all the time anymore. And now they were around me all the time and I needed time to get used to it again. They wouldn’t be two of my best friends if they didn’t understand me and so everything turned out well.

Okay, I said we did a lot of stuff together and maybe you would like to know what we actually did.

On Tuesday we went to the Language Café at university. Language Café is held in Books & Coffee and it’s all about languages. You can for example play games, talk with people in another language, learn words in a new language, etc. It was really nice. Of course we were sitting at the Dutch table. Afterwards we went together to the Kinnarps Arena to see an ice hockey game. Jönköping’s team ‘HV71’ was playing against ‘Leksands IF’ from Leksand. It was a-ma-zing! I’ve never seen a live game in my life, except the soccer games of my brother, so everything was kind of new to me. It went soo fast and although Chris, my Canadian roommate who knows how to play ice hockey, was trying to explain all the rules to me a several times, I still don’t get it…

On Wednesday the three of us went to Göteborg. I haven’t been there since I arrived here, so it was a nice opportunity for me as well to meet a new city. For some reason I think it is kind of weird that I haven’t been there until then, because a lot of people are first going to visit Göteborg before they are going to Stockholm. Hmm, never mind. The weather was not that good when we arrived there, so we decided to get a fika. Arianne and Elsa by the way loooooved the fika tradition! Since we were used to meet for drinking coffee back home, it kind of felt like home. Except the Swedish waiter and the Swedish name of the shop instead of ‘De Gribus’. We did some shopping, walked around and were looking for the main goal of our trip: Seeing moose! I’ve heard from my roommates that there was a huge park somewhere in the city centre so we decided to go there. It was gorgeous! Autumn had arrived in Göteborg as well. By walking through Slottsskogen I was amazed by the beauty of nature. Sometimes I really can love autumn (when it’s not raining of course). After walking around for one hour we finally found the mini zoo in the middle of the park. We found out that we entered the park from the wrong side. Silly? Yes. After half an hour of searching on the map (what was not our fault, because the makers of the map turned the map upside down) we finally found the moose! I have to admit: Moose are really ugly animals and that’s the reason I like them so much! I mean, if you look at them you see a combination between a cow and a horse. I cannot explain it that well. It’s just that they have something typical what other animals don’t have and that is amazing. By walking back I noticed that my body was kind of having the feeling that it was hypothermic… The battery of my phone was dying with me, so we decided to walk into a Apple store to charge our body’s and my battery while we were playing games on the iPad. At moments like this I really want to buy an iPad myself, but when I then look at the price tag I’m completely cured.

Around 6 o’clock we went back to Jönköping to be on time for the party at Akademien. It was a long way back and that reminded me again about the fact that when I go to Lapland I have to sit in the bus for 22 hours… I hate busses. When we arrived in Jönköping we had a short time to change and get ready for the party and at 9 o’clock the party started! It was funny to see how Arianne and Elsa were getting used to the crazy dances in the club. It was fun except the part with the fire alarm then. My roommates asked me if I was the one who started it. Shall I ever get rid of this? All in all it was a good night and I was happy that I took my friends there.

Thursday and Friday were lazy days. Arianne and Elsa went their own way by going to Ikea and Gränna and I went to school to have lectures. On Friday evening we went to Iris (another Dutch friend) her place to have a typical Swedish taco night with the girls. It was super nice and if we watched the Swedish Idols as well, we were official integrated in the Swedish society! On Saturday morning Arianne and Elsa went back to The Netherlands and I was on my own again. We spent so much time together and that was at first strange for me, but that morning it felt even more strange to be alone again. It was super nice that they came to visit me and when I think back about it I still feel very special. There is a Dutch saying for that kind of feelings: ‘Uit het oog, maar niet uit het hart’. It means that if you don’t see each other that often, you’re still in each other’s hearts and when you see each other again it feels that nothing has changed. That was exactly how I felt when they were going and I appreciate the time we spent together even more.

Okay, that was the emotional part of the Saturday. Let’s get down to earth! Saturday and Sunday I studied all day long. I namely had my Swedish exam on Sunday… It was the last exam of the first period here and I was one of the few here in Cyklamen who still had to study. It sucked. Sunday was then judgement day! Yay. Sometimes I think that the human brain is really awesome. It functions 24 hours a day from the day when we are born. But on the other hand it stops when we are taking an exam or fall in love. And that was exactly how I felt: nervous, scared, insecure and with no knowledge in my brain anymore. Yuck! After two and a half hour of writing I felt relieved and again scared for my grade. Let's hope for the best! :-)

Oh gosh. I have a lot more stories to tell, but I’m running out of time now. I have to cook myself dinner and get ready for another Aka-night. Stay tuned and I hope I’ll publish the second part of this blog this weekend! You don’t want to miss that, because it’s included a lot of funny, crazy and nice pictures!

Hejdå!