The first five weeks in a ''nutshell''

In early July I decided to keep a blog about my ''adventures'' in Sweden. As you can see, I did not really succeed yet. But today seems to be the perfect day to start. Or not, because I should actually be reading 125 pages about mainly ancient politics. Definitely my favourite topic ever. It was so boring I almost fell asleep and I couldn't really summarize what I'd just read. To be honest, I didn't really remember that much in general.

The main problem for you guys would be that I like to talk about the most random things forever, preferably in detail. And seen the fact I've been in Sweden for almost 5 weeks now, I'll try to keep it ''short''. Let's say you're lucky I don't remember everything by now.

One of the most horrible things was the move itself. Loading everything in the truck. And then we had to sit in this empty house all Sunday because nearly everything (except the couch. in the end it was a real plus it didn't fit in the truck anymore) had been put in the truck. Fortunately we could borrow some essential things from our Polish neighbour and we were even able to sleep there. The nicest thing about Saturday was that, after spending the whole day loading our stuff into the truck, our neighbourhood had organized a goodbye party. That was really sweet. My mum and I both got baskets filled with all kinds of typical Dutch stuff (and some Coca Cola and 7-Up. yeah, very essential, thanks). We drove off around 9 on Sunday evening (an odd time, I know, but trucks aren't allowed to drive on the highway in Germany during weekends) which made us arrive in Germany around midnight. Brilliant timing. Please note that the drive to Sweden was part of the move as well, obviously, so also that part was horrible. It took us ages - around 24 hours - until we arrived in our final destination Håcksvik, where my mum moved. Way before that, we were just in time to pick up the keys of my apartment in Malmö. The office was open until 5 and we arrived at 4:50. What can I say, what can I say...

I stayed with my mum for a few days and then we went back to Malmö. These days were mainly about trying to tidy my room and coping with the grocery store. One of Sweden's biggest grocery stores is located near my apartment and to be honest, it's a bit too big (for the Dutch people reading this: you could best compare it to the Makro). I was checking some toothpaste and there were about 15 different types I could pick from. They even sell clothes, bike necessities and whatnot - basically everything. But the fact that my cooking knowledge is not very well developed and I hadn't ever done any serious grocery shopping myself didn't really help me with finding stuff I needed. I couldn't even decide what I needed. And everything is in Swedish (though I must say some products have some Dutch and otherwise German added on it, thank god). I think we wandered around the grocery store for about 2 hours. I'm not kidding. Afterwards we were too tired to even cook something, so we went to eat something just outside my apartment. No one spoke English there and when we started to speak English, one of the guys looked at us as if we were some kind of aliens from a planet far, far away.

I'll be really honest and tell you that the first two days after my mum left were really hard. I've never lived on my own and basically everything was new - from cooking till my living area. There was so much to arrange in the first few weeks. Like a social security number. All kinds of things you never really thought about before, because when you're a native citizen, you just have all those things automatically. Things have settled down now, I arranged some things, got used to things, got to know the area better. I also met a lot of people from all around the world because the university organized a 3-week-long introduction program for the international students. It was a lot of fun. They organized social activities but also informative sessions. There were different kind of parties (like one where we went to eat crayfish. which basically means you get really dirty and eat very few, because a crayfish just doesn't contain that much meat), they organized boat and walking tours, dairy product tasting (Swedes are crazy about a shitload of different dairy products, preferably with as much salt as possible) and then there were the more informative things like how to use the library, the computer, how to cope with stress, the Swedish academic system, etc. There were some lunches, diners, pub crawls and Malmöfestivalen was hot and happening during one week. It's about pretty much everything. Food, culture, theatre, music, little theme parks, you name it. We also made a bus trip to the southeastern coast, which was really nice. The only downside of the introduction program was that most students were exchange students (thus staying for only about 6 months) and the degree students I met weren't going to do the same degree as me. So when classes started this Monday, it kinda felt like starting all over again, because most of the people I had hung out with weren't even in the same building as me. Nevertheless, I had so much fun! And on Monday I discovered why I didn't meet anyone from my degree before; about 50% of the students in my class are from Scandinavia and they all arrived pretty recent. The other 50%, well, there were so many international students at the introduction weeks that I maybe only met about half of them.

So, like I said, classes started this Monday. A lot of new information being thrown out at us once again. We didn't even have real classes yet, everything was mainly an introduction. This week and next week I only had/have classes for 2 hours, 3 days a week (and it doesn't really change in the near future. sometimes I have 4 days of classes. wow). It's extremely university-based and I have to get used to it. My main challenge is to learn how to read in a right way. We have to read a lot, and we have to take notes, write papers based on the literature we read, all that kind of stuff. All the kind of stuff I'm not used to now. Often I simply don't know what kind of notes I should make and pretty much all the books are written in academic English, which is not always too easy to understand and it can get extremely boring. Apart from all these challenges, my degree (Peace and Conflict Studies, for those who might forgot or didn't know at all) seems to be really interesting and I'm looking forward to the upcoming 3 years. I just hope I don't have to buy so many books every semester. Luckily I was able to buy 14 books second hand for only 800 SEK (which is about 95 Euro). I was extremely lucky. And the books are in such a good condition! I don't understand why he sold them for such a cheap price. The only thing that popped into my mind was very stereotypical: his parents probably bought the books for him. He lives in Västra Hamnen, which is the most expensive neighbourhood you can live in in Malmö. I still don't understand how students can afford living there without relying on somebody else. Many students I know would really like to live over there, but it's the last neighbourhood I'd move to. I don't like it. At all. It doesn't have a soul at all and everything seems so.. posh. But the guy was kind enough to sell me his books for an extremely cheap price and he even gave me some books for free, so I'll be forever grateful! Yesterday I bought two other books second hand (paid 250 SEK this time. so imagine how cheap 800 for 14 books is...) and now there are only two books I bought new. I'm so proud of myself.

So far I've really enjoyed Malmö as a city. It's Sweden's third largest city which is just perfect. Not too small, not too big. And life is not really more expensive compared to the Netherlands. Some things are a bit more expensive, others are even cheaper. Hairdressers are very expensive though. The average price for a simple haircut is about 300 SEK, which is about 35 Euro. It's ridiculous. Unfortunately I have to go to the hairdresser every 4-5 weeks or so, or else it'll turn out horrible. This weekend I must face up to the hairdresser. I'm quite nervous, because I had the same hairdresser for nearly 10 years and I'm someone who's not easily pleased when it comes to hair. At least I'll get a cheap haircut (around 50 SEK, which is only about 6 Euro. that's even cheaper than in the Netherlands, haha), so when they screw up I can use all the saved money on a different hairdresser.

I can keep on typing forever, but I think this is enough for now. Next time I'll talk about some things I find rather odd about Sweden/Malmö, and plenty of other stuff as well probably. But I'll try to update more often, so I don't always have to type these huge messages...