Åker ’till Stockholm

Hello UCSB! everyone writing blogs from abroad right now are delivering great, insightful pieces of work on culture and change and experiences, and I’ll get to that next time, I promise. I’m currently in Lund, the southern tip of Sweden. Lund is the Swedish equivalent of Isla Vista: students are the majority, there is out of control partying (we’re one of the few cities in the country that can drink in the streets!), and there are lots of bikes. Like I said, I’ll get into that in my next post, but now is story time. Okay, I’ll add some history.

Two weekends ago, my friends and I went on a student-led trip to Stockholm for the weekend. (“Aker till“ means “traveling to.”) Eight hours of bus ride to the capital and largest city of Sweden.

Our first stop upon arriving was the Vasa museum. We were a little cranky because the stop at the Moose Safari on the way up had been canceled due to bad weather (I thought the Swedes were used to snow?), but the Vasa was a nice beginning. The Vasa is a giant Swedish warship that sank in 1628 on its maiden voyage. Apparently, the ship was three feet narrower than it should have been and twenty minutes after they launched it to sea, a gust of wind caught the sails, flipping it over. Adding to the irony, it was considered bad luck to have sailors who knew how to swim. Luckily, only thirty or so people were killed.

Anyway, in the 1950s marine archeologists found it and pulled it up—in great condition. So the Swedes took one of the greatest flops (literally) of their history and built a museum around it. They have a very dry sense of humor here.

Look it up and you’ll see that Stockholm is a beautiful city. They call it the Venice of Sweden—canals, promenades, castles, churches, three-storey H&Ms scattered like Starbucks. The old city, Gamla Stan, is especially quaint. It was unfortunately just very difficult to see through the -5° F temperature and snowstorm—and our collective hangovers. So after a few hours of aimless wandering we headed home to pregame.

Stockholm is crawling with bars and nightclubs, all of which are easily accessible via the tunnelbana (Stockholm’s metro system). It’s also one of the most expensive cities in Sweden: 100 kroner cover charge, 20 to check your coats, and between 60 and 100 to buy drinks. Student budgets dictate that we do our drinking at home. Inside, though, when an older Swedish guy waves my friends Sophie and Sarah and I over to the VIP section, the prospect of free booze says we gotta go.

In Stockholm, people get really dressed up when they go out and we were, shall we say, unprepared. In California, great jeans and a nice top will fly, but they go all out here. So immediately, we felt awkward. Sarah and I are scrawny Americans (I believe I was wearing—out of lack of anything better—Keds with my dress and leggings). Sophie, our beautiful Dutch friend, was more popular, but for the most part we were ignored by the group of rich older Swedish men and women who populated the club, especially after the fake-tan-bleached-blonde Swedish girls appeared. It’s true that Swedes can be hard to get to know, but just as I’m thinking “this sucks,” someone hands me a flute of nice champagne and the motto for the night becomes “We’ll never see these people again, so lets dance like fools and drink free champagne. And ask them take pictures of us doing it.”

So, uh, it all worked out.  We even got to go to the Absolut Ice Bar the next night (fun for the one time, but I thought the ceiling and floors would be made of ice too? No.) After that, we went to another club, this time with music so bad we almost left. But the nice thing about being an exchange student is that everyone wants to make friends, so that’s what you do. We became pretty close with these British and Canadian guys.

This weekend was really about making the most of bad weather, canceled Moose Safaris, bad music, and rich people’s champagne. We all took care of each other and made sure everyone was having fun, even helping Sarah get her flower headband back from the Canadian guy. (Really, weren’t the Olympics enough?)

Going abroad makes you adjust because you want to have a good time, and as long as everyone else does too—well, det är bra! (That is good!)

3 Responses to “Åker ’till Stockholm”

1. wilson lubangah says:

   March 19, 2010 at 4:24 am

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2. wilson lubangah says:

   March 19, 2010 at 4:34 am

   I am serving the Lord in Northern Kenya among one of the most unpreveldged communities who rely on fresh blood and milk.Some times they loose every thing during dry seasons.They depent on relief which takes long time to be delivered.
   I am trusting God to join SOS MISSION BIBLE COLLEGE In STOCKHOLM though currently I have no money as Iserve as a volunteer missionary.The comes to 7000.00 Us dollars and can be paid direct to;

   SOS MISSION BIBLE COLLEGE,

   BOX 3007,

   S-104 25 STOCKHOLM,

   SWEDEN.

   I am to report on 23rd August,2010 and graduate in June,2010
   My desire is to come back after training to continue serving them.
   Whoever is willing to help me raise the fee can vie my work as a missionary on the face book.
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   July 27, 2010 at 12:45 pm

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