Friday, October 10, 2008

Vasteras - Uppsala - Stockholm - Turku

Turku, Finland


Alright, im gonna make an effort to post a blog once a week.So I left Vasteras for Uppsala for some great student parties. Uppsala is known for its city campus and the whole town is vibrant with student energy, it made me miss Varsity times! I crashed at Sebastian's place for two nights and one night at Nicklas'. It's good to have friends around as i save heaps on accommodation, an average of €20 a night. So Nicklas hosted a party because i was coming and he sent some 180 facebook invitations to his sophomore-year friends in which about half turned up. It was also to be a joint housewarming party with Daniel and Peter as the three of them moved in to the new apartments some few months earlier but didnt get around to hosting the obligatory party.

it was a huge success, people came bearing loads of booze even when there were free beers and wines offered. I got to see Mattias and Anders again and we talked bout the good old times in New Zealand. The boys have also invited me for a winter skiing trip in february in which i might consider going! I also met up with ex-uni mate Jian before i boarded the train to Stockholm, and what with him and Sebastian enticing me with the great student life in Uppsala i might actually consider taking up a free course in the Uni here! I love Sweden and living here for a coupla years doesnt sound too bad at all!

I made my way to Stockholm and stayed with Goran for three nights. This capital city is just as beautiful as advertised, albeit a little larger than my ideal size of Uppsala and are more crowded and filled with immigrants like most other capital cities that it doesnt feel very swedish anymore. Dont get me wrong though, i love Stockholm and the abundant water ways and parks and bridges are just brilliant. I love the concept that the city is built on islands and mainland and the surrounding archipelago and woods, it's like you are getting both worlds of urban lifestyle but at the same time nature is just right at your doorstep, definitely one of the most liveable cities in the world.

from here i embarked on a 12-hour ferry ride to my current location of Turku. The ride was amazing, and considering that i only paid €10 for it, it was a major bargain! i spent some time at the deck admiring the beautiful scenery and crisp sea breeze, some other time doing duty-free shopping on board, a quarter of the time napping and the rest of the time playing Wii -Supermario World!

Upon arriving at the port, Alex brought me to this remarkable rock concert in town, we met up with Reto and Julian and had an amazing time with the band. Yesterday we went to the bar for billiards and i totally sucked at the game. Was supposed to get on to Helsinki today but my host persuaded me to stay for the weekend for some parties, and since Julian invited me to hitchhike together to Helsinki on Sunday, i
said yes! no harm saving some €25 for the train ticket. That's if we're successful.

well there you go, a full record of my travel to date. Pictures later...




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2 comments:

Scandinavian Life said...

are you mmu student ? which year ?

mARCus said...

heya, yes indeed, i see that you have met jian, so there you go, you guys should hang around sometimes!

oh yeah, graduated year 2005.