En Student i Sverige

V-Dala LandskapPosten article (November 2011)

2011-11-13T16:09:00.001+01:00

The days are getting colder and shorter and in November the snow will most probably cover the streets of Uppsala. While that may seem daunting for those coming from warmer countries, where this kind of weather is inexistent, it can actually be quite enjoyable. You will find nations are especially cozy places to hang out with your friends during this time.

Pepparkakor, a type of cookie made of ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves, will soon fill every supermarket as part of both the winter arrival and Christmas preparations. A word of warning though: you may start hating these cookies after so many weeks eating them and when you see them everywhere you go! If you prefer drinks, check out the julmust, a Christmas drink you can only find on this time of the year, also in any supermarket close to you. Here in Sweden, Christmas celebrations occur on the 4 weekends before the day itself, which in Swedish is referred to as “Adventsljusstake”, meaning “Advent wreath” in English. In those weekends you will have the chance to visit one of many Christmas markets, hear Saint Lucia sing (a singing procession headed by one girl wearing a crown of candles) or see the many decorations all over town. Closer to the date itself do not miss the opportunity of trying the traditional Swedish julbord, the standard Christmas dinner in Scandinavian countries. Of course, glögg (comforting Swedish wine), together with a nice fika, should always be present in our lives.

Getting involved in a nation is a unique experience that solely Uppsala can offer. If you can afford it, you should attend one of the many gasks, such as the very popular julgask at V-Dala on the 17th of December. It is guaranteed you will get considerable amounts of drinks, alcoholic or not, have a nice three course meal and enjoy the company of those sitting beside you, while singing Swedish songs.

The V-Dala International Committee is always looking for people who would like to help with the organization of its diverse events. We are, for example, organizing a game night, in which you can play a big variety of board games with your friends. Also, there will be a snowman competition, probably one of the highlights of the semester, with prizes for the teams building the best snowman. Moreover, preparations for the ski trip next semester are already taking place. If you want to take part in this active group please send an e-mail to iu@v-dala.se.

Looking forward to see you all in our future activities!

Tiago Pinheiro

International Secretary

V-Dala LandskapPosten article (October 2011)

2011-10-22T19:41:00.001+02:00

It doesn’t matter if we are Swedish students or international students. It doesn’t matter if we are from an energetic & vibrant city or, from a small village full of untouched natural beauty. We don’t care which corner of the world we come from because these corners are part of the same room.

When you live in Uppsala, you know in your heart that we are all equal... and at the same time we are all unique, we all have something to share, something to say, something that will enrich our views and perspectives.

There is no absolute truth, although we tend to believe so. There is no path to follow, although we feel the need to check a map or draw a plan. But one thing is certain: we are all in Uppsala, we are all in Sweden and we all have the opportunity of playing a role in one of the most uniquely fulfilling student town in the world, let alone Europe! Whether you like to dance, do some sport, go clubbing, travel, meet new people, you will find Uppsala has something to offer you.

The leaves have already started falling, each in its turn, creating a new path for the new students to experience. This started with the truly diverse orientation week and many took part in trips to IKEA with the same excitement one goes travelling. As it gets colder you will meet new friends with whom you will look forward to share a bottle of glögg (comforting Swedish wine), have fika with or have a laugh after a busy day studying. Some of you will also experience a gasque for the first time and realize how singing brings people together. And how great it is going to be to build the first snowman! The V-Dala International Committee will make sure your weeks are filled with activities, allowing you to try new things and interact with different cultures. Among our many plans are origami workshops, to teach you the Japanese art of paper folding, international cuisine nights, to try food from all countries in the world, a ski trip, turning your winter into an adrenaline slope, etc… Game nights and winter fika will also play its role in warming up the cold winter.

In my humble opinion I should say each person will experience this new life differently but all will certainly make lifetime memories.

Welcome to Uppsala.

Welcome home!

Tiago Pinheiro

International Secretary

Ski trip at Romme Alpin, Sweden

2011-02-05T01:00:00.003+01:00

Not many people know but I've long had a list of things I want to do in life. One of those things is skiing. I went on a ski trip last weekend with the Chinese-Swedish association (SKS) to Romme Alpin, Börlange. It took 2h30min by bus and I had to wake up at 6 AM after going partying the night before. However, I managed to sleep on the bus and soon found out I had not been the only one on the bus that had been to the same corridor party.

The weather was perfect during the two days of the trip: sunny and between -3 and 0 degrees. When arriving I got amazed with the hight of the slopes and wondered how I would manage to ski all that downhill! The ski resort wakes up very early (9 AM) and soon becomes crowded, as it was when we arrived. We got the equipment and I soon discovered that ski boots are not at all comfortable, maybe in order to prevent you from injuries.

There are two kind of lifts: the ones where you sit, and the ones you grab and get pulled. The first time I tried the second one I let go too soon, almost when getting to the top of the hill, which made me slide downhill all the way backwards! Funny for the first ski experience! Learned my lesson on when to let go the lift handle! During the only lesson we took the instructor teacher how to make the snow plow (how to break when going downhill). Apart from that we didn't learned anything from him and I had to figure out how to turn and break when doing that to avoid gaining too much speed. At first I was counting the number of times I fell but soon lost count!

In the end of the first day I had done green and a blue track (which is harder than the green). During the blue I basically fell most of the times and tried to make it straight down because couldn't manage to break very well in such steep slopes.

At night we got a room in the ski lodge, which was modern and cozy. Then, we had an amazing Chinese dinner at a restaurant in the center of town (never saw so many plates I had no idea what it was in my life). I had a lot of fun asking what each thing was, what it was made from and about other Chinese customs. This is the best way to learn things, by talking to people ;-)

The next morning we had a fabulous Swedish breakfast waiting for us! I found how amazing it is to have yogurt with own-made cereals at breakfast and now do that all the time. Everything was very clean and had a home-kitchen style. Hard to explain this if you've never been here. Some people call it Stockholm style.

I soon found out that somehow I had become really good at skiing during the night. Its like if my brain consolidated all the movements and techniques I needed when sleeping. Some people had described to me that happening to them but I had never understood it before. Therefore, I managed to do all the green and blue slopes falling much less and in a very enjoyable way. I even managed to do a training similar to the competitions on TV in which you have to change direction between each color bar buried into the snow.

In red, the slopes I've skied on

One thing I haven't mentioned yet is the feeling I got when arriving to the ski resort: I arrived to paradise. However, when I got to top of the mountain I didn't know where I had arrived. I guess there is always a place better than the other, even when you don't believe it.

Last but not least, I didn't took many photos because didn't want to bring the camera with me to the slopes since falling could make me break it.

If you're wondering why I seldom post things on this blog I answer what someone once told me here in Sweden: "If you are constantly writing about your life you've no time to live it"

Photos:

Play!

2011-02-01T16:29:00.002+01:00

Which button would you press if life came with:

◄◄ REW

► PLAY

▌▌PAUSE

█▌STOP

►► FORWARD

You know you´re from Sweden when...

2011-01-24T23:38:00.003+01:00

Some of the things on the following list are so true!

21. You have different sets of clothes for different halves of the year and rotate them in your wardrobe and storage rooms . 22. The hallway of your home looks like a used shoe store. (Weather) 1. You are obsessed with weather. 2. You find it perfectly normal to ride a bike in a blizzard.3. It's only a blizzard if you can't see your car in the drive because it's covered in snow. 4. You've worn a souwester (“sydväst”) without being a fisherman. 5. The first little bit of sun is out you go to the nearest park and you put on sunscreen factor 30 and a bikini while watching old ladies walk past in furry coats. 6. You find it normal to have the headlights of the car on at the brightest and sunniest of days. 7. You and your kids are the only ones in the playground wearing clothes according to weather. 8. You always go "That's not REAL snow" whenever it snows in countries that usually don't get snow. 9. You find it adorable when people from other countries get excited about a few milimetres of snow that only stays on the ground for a few hours. 10. You find it ridiculous schools in some other countries have to close if there comes more than five cm of snow on the roads during one night. 11. You constantly whine about the rain or the cold weather. (What others say about the Swedish) 1. People ask you if you have polar bears on the streets and you try to spread the myth further by saying it is true. 2. You have been asked whether there is a “Swedish Bikini Team”. 3. You don't get why Non-swedes think it's odd that the sun stays up for about 24 hours in the summer. 4. You can't see what's so "cute" about writing 13:00 instead of 1 pm. 5. You think that Sweden is constantly in the news abroad and are surprised to find that this is not the case at all. 6. You seriously want to HURT Non-Swedes who ask 'how's life in SWITZERLAND?' 7. Non-Swedes laugh at you for wearing a bicycle helmet and you answer: "At least I won't be the one dying of a skull fracture". 8. People refuse to believe you're actually from Sweden because you're not platinum blonde with a Sven-Göran Ericsson accent. 9. You tell them your surname is Larsson and every Non-Swede automatically assumes you are related to Henrik Larsson. 10. Drunk Englishmen keep telling you how drunk Swedes usually are, in their experience, and you find it rather comforting to know that there are drunk English people keeping an eye out for us abroad! (Misanchellous) 1. You have a summer house in the countryside. It has no running water or flushing toilet, but you can't understand why none of your non-Swedish friends want to visit. 2. The law in your country says it's legal to sell sex, but illegal to buy it. 3. You go downtown during a Sunday and don't expect to meet a single soul during a thirty minute walk. 4. You thought 'Aftonbladet' and 'Expressen' were full of silly news. Then you went abroad and found that many papers include nothing but naked women and sex. 5. In desperation you think you bought the wrong item because the condoms come in square packages instead of rectangular ones. 6. You have absolutely no idea what is meant by" Swedish massage" that keeps being advertised in spas all over the world. 7. You are constantly surprised that you are the tallest one in any given situation while abroad (some countries are exceptions of course). 8. You get chills down your spine thinking about the "Flour-tant". 9. Your parents pay you every month for not eating sweets for a year (or so). 10. You instinctively spot Swedes from a distance based on looks and what they're wearing and/or by the round pale mark in the pocket of their jeans (obviously they are anomalies- Norwegians or Finns at a push…) 11. You have been or know someone who has been an exchange student 12. You are amazed to find that other countries are not familiar with winter tires and 'halkbanor'. 13. You know an entire catalogue of “Bellman”- and “Norge” jokes. 14. You own more than 5 candles and light them daily. 15. Everyone owns at least one mobile phone, but there's no longer land line phones in all homes. 16. You think that v70R is the ultimate sportscar. 17. You know the population of your hometown quite accurately. 18. At the age of ten, you knew all twenty five counties of Sweden by heart, including every town with approximately more than five people in it. In other words, you’ve have had a good geographical education. 19. You wash your face in an English bathroom and get totally annoyed about the fact that you are either burning your face or putting a layer of ice on it! Therefore you rave to Non-Swedes about the superiority of only using one tap for both hot and cold water since "In the country where I come from, we have had one tap for both hot and cold water since the Medieval days!" 20. You can type in someone’s name on the internet and find out everything about them; phone numbers, see where they live and even see a picture of their front door. 21. You go to McDonalds & the staff work as elite models in their spare time. 22. When you tell Americans that you're Swedish and get thoroughly annoyed when they say "Me too!" 23. You have seen both your parents naked more than once. 24. You secretly consider Finland a part of Sweden and can't understand why they don't. 25. Your queen is from Germany. 26. Someone in your family or someone you know has a ping-pong table in their country house. 27. You find it normal to have the kitchen lamp hanging from a cord/string over your table instead of being attached directly to the ceiling. 28. You get homesick out of reading that list 29. You actually read all of these posts. 30. You would never ever admit to anything on this list (since that would make you “too” Swedish) 31. You unfourtunately realise that everything on this list is true.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2226483923

Sweden: one or two countries?

2010-12-30T01:30:00.005+01:00

It’s amazing how the places I saw when arriving to Sweden for the first time (mid-August) changed so much after the first snowfall. Despite what I thought previously, snowfalls aren’t always the same. I have my own snow classification:

Snow storm (not good for biking, hurts your eyes);
Winter wonderland (slowly falling snow, like dust floating through the air);
Foggy snow (very little snow flakes that get your clothes all white);
Snowmen snow (good for making snowmen. The temperature has to be near zero from what I understood so far, otherwise it’s like dust and doesn’t allow for making of snowballs);
Annoying snow (when you want to get somewhere fast and its snowing like hell).

Other types of weather one can encounter in Uppsala:

Icy – falling easily guaranteed, on bike or on foot;
Cold like hell – below 20ºC (negative of course XD) becomes quite of a problem.

Several places I’ve passed by before are hardly recognizable now. I’ve made a photo comparison to show you. Is it the same place or a different place?

From Stockholm bridge near Nordiska museum

Grand Hotel – Stockholm

Stockholm channels

Stora torget – Stockholm

Nordiska museum – Stockholm

Statue in front of Nordiska museum

PUB shopping center – Stockholm

BMC landscape – Uppsala

BMC bicycle park – Uppsala

Garden near Rudbeck laboratory – Uppsala

Rudbeck laboratory exit – Uppsala

Cathedral – Uppsala

Castle bell – Uppsala

Botanical garden – Uppsala

Triangle – Uppsala

Castle – Uppsala

Street to Carolina Rediviva – Uppsala

Street in front of Carolina Rediviva – Uppsala

Carolina Rediviva library – Uppsala

Linné statue

Gustanavium museum- Uppsala

Blashuset garden – Uppsala

Uppsala river

Getting back

2010-12-21T13:45:00.003+01:00

After 4 months living in Sweden, time has come to say goodbye and spend Christmas in Portugal. Now on the bus 801 to Arlanda airport, the sun has greeted me with a shiny yellow light. I haven’t seen it for long… The huge extensions of grass and green trees I saw when coming here have been filled with white snow landscapes and dark branches scattered with falling flakes. The tops of the pine trees trace a thin line on the horizon, with the sun shining behind. As Swedes say (and hopefully me in the future) “Det är solen skiner!”. If someone told me Christmas had born here I would believe so. I leave Sweden missing my family and friends back in Portugal, but I realize I’ll also miss the friends I made here in the last few months, as well as the magic spirit of this country. The cold is a minor problem after adapting to it and can well be refreshing for the mind. I feel I belong in Sweden and I’ll be back here in 2 weeks. The bus is arriving and the check-in awaits me. A sign at the airport says:

“You haven’t seen nothing yet”

It makes sense if you haven’t been to Sweden before!

View from the airplane window – a frozen peaceful world

Arrival at Oporto – Douro river

After the American Dream… comes the Swedish dream

2010-09-06T16:39:00.007+02:00

This blog intends to present the experiences and impressions of a student in such a modern and high-quality standard country such as Sweden.

A little about me and the American experience…

I am a Portuguese student who just finished his major in Biology, two months ago, at University of Porto. I have then undertook a summer course at the University of Berkeley, California. This has been, for sure, the best experience of my life so far. I have met people from every country in the world and gained personal and professional perspectives that had never crossed my mind before. I have been in Berkeley, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hollywood, etc. The best way to describe America is just saying “It’s like a movie, all the time”. Everything is big, both the country and the thoughts and ideas of the people who live there. The campus of the University of Berkeley and Stanford couldn’t be more beautiful and organized. The weather is great most of the times, since I do not like very high temperatures. Many photos of these amazing places can be checked out at my Facebook account.

But enough about America for now… because now I am in Sweden.

I arrived at Uppsala on 23rd of August to undertake a master in Molecular Medicine. Sweden is very well-known by its organization, modern facilities, efficiency and cold weather. Already I the airplane I could sight through the small windows enormous extensions of landscapes, rivers and lakes.

After landing in the Arlanda airport I caught a bus to Uppsala. The first thing I noticed is that there are bicycle tracks everywhere, following each street and cutting through the woods. One could go from the airport to Uppsala by bicycle if feeling like it (I advice you not to do that though because it’s very far). 40 minutes after I finally arrived to Uppsala. I was greeted and helped by my International Buddy, Sanna, who helped me getting to the hotel. She was also the first to show me the city and to introduce me to the Nations concept.

The truth is the students in Uppsala Universitet almost compulsory have to become part of student nation. Although this concept exists in other University cities throughout Sweden, it has even more emphasis in Uppsala. There are 13 student nations in the city. By being a member of one you can get inside the parties and use all the wide range of facilities (library, culture groups, trips, etc) with a discount or for free. These buildings are scattered around the left side of the river that splits Uppsala in two.

I can honestly say I have never seen so many bikes as in Uppsala. There are parking sites for bikes in every place and most of the people go everywhere that way. I have bought my bicycle already and I can say it couldn’t be more useful. Every morning I pick up my bicycle and go to classes, crossing several beautiful landscapes, classical bridges over the river decorated with flowers, apple trees with bunches of red apples in its branches, etc. I see people picking apples or mushrooms in this time of the year in many places; I’ve picked some myself. Sometimes a student is passing by and just throws his bag towards the top branches, in an attempt to make the best apples fall.

Uppsala city center square

From my point a view, what makes a great country are the small details. These, when considered together, form a whole amazing picture in the case of Sweden. At Uppsala Universitet every student gets a card and a code, as part of your student identification. When I asked what was this card for I got the simple answer:

“Oh, you can use it to open doors.”

Although I did not fully understand at the time I then realized every student can enter the University buildings at any time, even when the University is closed. You just need the card and PIN code. At weekends or during the night, if you feel like going to the University to study, use the computers there or even enter the library and use all the books you may need, you can do that, and do not need anybody’s permission. So, I should say:

“If you want to study, there is anything that prevents you from doing it, you have all the facilities at your disposal at any time.”

This was detail number 1.

Others will follow when I have time. There are a lot of things I want to say but no time to describe them all. Now, I will turn off my computer and live a bit more of the Swedish dream

Where I am living now - Camping park