Things have been quite wild lately, Orientation week started and i made a bunch of close friends on my first day, gosh im loving all my new classmates already! Kehoe, Lise, Norran and I bonded almost immediately and we have been inseparable ever since, hanging out from morning till night, cooking and drinking together, it's been great fun!

the rest of the class seem like a cool bunch too, ive got my eyes set on a few that i know will definitely strike the same chord as me.

Summer is coming to an end and we have been busy soaking up the last of sunshine like a sponge, trying to get as tanned as possible for winter. Ive found myself a room in town and will move in come 1st of September, it's 1.5km to the campus and ive got myself a bike too!

will sign up for a swedish course when i can and hopefully i will be fluent in a new language when im done here. Here's to more cheerful days to come!

Uppsala, Sweden



So i got on the train and traveled along the Oresund Bridge connecting Copenhagen to Malmo. Things were pretty happening in Malmo, the sun's up high and everyone was in the mood for parties and sunbathing. August and i joined the festival in support of the Gaza plight and there were awesome musicians performing various gigs which lasted for hours!

we baked some bread (people do that alot in europe) with olives and sundried tomatoes and had some vegan food for dinner. I seem to be hanging out with lotsa vegans these days and havent eaten meat in days! No not even dairy products! And studying a course of Sustainable Development doesnt help, because people who do this program are very Environmental conscious, well one has to practise what one preaches right? And eating meat isnt very sustainable! We all know how much CO2 is released in farming. We'll talk more of that when i know more...

At night Janus suggested we should head to the ocean for a quick dip, and i was like: isnt it freazing in the water? and he went: well that's the whole point! apparently it helps him sleep better. So we got on the bike and rode to the coast, stripped and jumped into the dark water from the platform. The water was deep and icy cold and you have to get up quickly lest you develop hypothermia. We did few more jumps and it got better with each dip, you dont really feel the cold as much when your body temperature adjusts accordingly.

From Malmo i got a ride from three swedish girls headed to Goteborg to attend Madonna's Sticky and Sweet tour. It was a lucky day for me as i waited no more than 10 minutes, whereas the couple who were hitchhiking ahead of me had been there for more than an hour! The girls were awesome, we stopped midway for some fresh air and sunshine and food. And quite obviously money comes easy for them too, a ticket for the concert cost them €100 and they just attended AC/DC the month before where a ticket fetched around €130.

I stayed with Nick for two nights in Goteborg in which time the weather changed for the worse. I followed him on the job the next day where i experienced 'a day of trucker's life', from goods collection at the warehouse to deliveries all about town. He cooked an awesome pasta meal and also a big fan of Japanese food, that's why we went to the same jap restaurant two days in a row for lunch.

and then things didnt turn out so well but more of a series of unfortunate events. I was supposed to be headed for Mariestad where a friend was expecting me. Turned out i got on some wrong rides, headed for the wrong direction in the wrong motorway than ive intended. Well to sum it up, i got to Stockholm some 500km from Goteborg and spent the night there.

And then yesterday i took a train from Stockholm to my final destination here in Uppsala where my University is, a mere 60km away. I take it as a blessing in disguise that i get here one week in advance, even though i missed out visiting my friends in Mariestad, Orebro and Vasteras. I can always visit them some other time but my early arrival here means that i can sort out my housing in Uppsala quicker before the term commences.

Thing is, finding housing here is a tricky business. Hopefully i can find a place of my own before long and get settled down comfortably, afterall this is where i call home for the next 2 years at least. And thank goodness for having friends here too, which means i dont have to spend a fortune on hostels like some other international students do, and some for weeks! oh how could i live without them?



Visa större karta

Copenhagen, Denmark


So i left London in a haste and didnt have time to meet up with everybody, but that's ok, it's only a stone's throw away from the Scandinavia and a return ticket cost you next to nothing.

Got in to Aarhus before noon and quickly realised how expensive it is to live in Denmark, in recent years it has become one of the most expensive countries in Europe, on par with the UK and Russia.

I jumped on the bus headed to the city to meet with Joe and Louisa, and their new born cute as a pie baby Marius. When i got there, they have already prepared a nice little room up in the attic for me, with a million dollar view and an en suite bathroom. What more can u ask for?

for the next couple of days we were just cycling around town doing what a dane does best, having danish pastry in the park, went to the woods and the beach, having dinner parties, and getting to know people.

I then moved on to Odense, a city where Hans Christian Andersen was born. Deniz and Lars hosted me, and we also have visitors Emilia and Andrew from France and Canada respectively. They say the more the merrier, we cooked, we dined, we drank, we had long walks in the countriside and we slept in. Isnt summer just great?

Today i hitched two rides to Copenhagen and im staying with Jan. He's a vegan so we had lotsa vegetables and tofu, and we talked about sustainability, a subject in which he's really passionate about. It suits me since i'll soon be taking up that discipline but i doubt i'll be able to live without heating and to reuse my shower water. Again, thank God it's Summer!

Will be getting to Sweden this weekend.