Autumn Leaves

As a stereotypical Brit I shall start by talking about the weather. It is getting colder, the Aussies are complaining and so are some of the Europeans, the Swedes are starting to wear coats and gloves, however I am still walking round with just my hoodie for warmth. I must have really good circulation. The temperature ranges from about 10C during the day to 3C at night, the other night it was supposed to have reached 0C. To me it just feels like the end of November for me, the cars start to mist up at night and in the early morning. The trees are either losing their leaves or they’re changing colour, living out here in Huskvarna surrounded by forests is actually quite beautiful and with the lake in the distance it makes for a wonderful view. I don’t think I could ever get sick of that view on my way to the bus/train stop especially on a day like today where it was clear blue sky, ice blue lake and the golden tree covered hills with the houses dotted about. If it weren’t so autumnal it would look like a Greek Island or something to that effect.




Any who as I haven’t written in a while I have a lot to fill you in on. I say a lot probably isn’t actually that much. Let’s think back:

Tallin Cruise

Well I woke up at probably half past 5 to get the train in to go and queue for tickets on this Scandinavian University’s cruise to Estonia. It was the first time I had used my Skiing coat and winter boots. Standing for over three hours in what can only be described as a free for all huddle rather than a queue (Moaning again!) by the time our part of the queue had actually managed to get into the warmth of Student House we were informed the tickets had all gone, I have to say that due to the lack of order in the queue some people who were behind us ended up getting tickets by pushing their way through, we weren’t happy. So that little trip is out of the window, lucky for me they repeat it again next semester!

Diploma in Trading

I took a two day crash course in Financial Trading, from GCMS in association with Copenhagen Business School. It was a 9-4 course for the two days covering the important parts of financial trading such as foreign exchanges and EFDs on shares etc. This was quite good as I do get a qualification out of it. During the second day we were set to work on the simulation, with a budget of 1,000,000 I made 70,000 in one day! Pretty good, When it came to the group trading this is where it went wrong. My team mates seemed to forget that the value can go up as well as down, due to some bad moves made by team mates were were down on luck, however I stepped in and made a few risky trades which managed to reduce our losses by a significant amount. We then came 2nd out of 5 groups and only lost by $30, had the group listened to me and kept our other trades for longer we would have won by $160. So there is a future in trading for me!

JSA Election Committee

Well this email looks interesting ‘Click’ “Apply now to become a member of the JSA Election Committee. You will be responsible for interviewing potential candidates to face the vote.” Now before I go further I shall explain what JSA is. Jönköping University has the main Student Union then each individual school has its own union. JSA stands for JIBS Student Association and is for the Business school. Anyway I submitted my application and have been successful in gaining a seat on the committee so looks like I will be involved in Swedish Student Politics.

Sport

Nope that isn’t a typo. I have finally joined the Student Sport Association (Its quite big here in Sweden to belong to an association) anyway I have played some badminton though there weren’t many people there. However I do intend to go back. Anyway the big news is I have finally managed to track down the Rowing squad and shall be returning to the water almost one year after my knee injury which ruled me out of last season. I can’t wait to get back into it, all be it my knee will be strapped up, I’m not risking anything this time. Lake Vättern will be really nice to row in. It goes right passed the uni.

Health and Immigration

Two areas I have recently had experience with so I thought I’d blog it. Firstly Health: Although Swedes are taxed up to their eyeballs here Healthcare still isn’t free. You have to pay the first £100 to see a Dr so that is 10 trips at £10, after that your Dr Visits are free. Prescriptions are also not cheap. You have to pay the first £9 then if you have a Swedish Identity number you pay half the remaining cost of the drugs, up to a certain level. As I am waiting on my Swedish number I had to pay full wack, not fun at all. With regards to immigration I am now registered as an EU student living in Sweden. I had to go to the immigration office across town and into the office. The set up was really weird. You got out of the lift into the office where the forms were on the wall to fill in and then a waiting area. You take a ticket and wait for your number. When your number is called this what looked like a bomb proof door opens electronically then gets shut behind you and locks itself. Interesting if that weren’t enough the office workers are behind glass screens also. Now to register as a student living here (Which you must do if you are in the country for more than 3 months) then you need your Passport, University acceptance letter and proof that you have medical insurance (in my case the EU medical card) then you need your address and to sign forms saying you can support yourself financially. I am currently waiting on my Swedish personal number to be sent through to me.

Dodgeball

Right firstly I should explain how this came about. One of the many modules here is based on Enterprise, and the students taking this course are split into groups and given 200Kr (£20) they then have to come up with an idea that will make them profit. Ideas such as jewellery, patches for overalls, Iphone covers, plenty of thermos flasks for coffees, Swedish to English shopping guide etc etc. One of the groups came up with the idea of a dogdeball tournament. 16 teams of 6 at 120Kr (£12) per team to partake. Fancy dress obviously. This was great fun to watch with all sorts of costumes, the biggest looser (which is apparently quite big here) Old Grannies, Tiger Woods and his mistresses etc. Great laugh to watch, sadly the team I threw my support behind (Team Aussie) didn’t make it through the first round. My god there was a lot of cheating going on luckily the audience wasn’t having any of it.

Exams

Yes exam season is upon us I’ve already had my first one which was Swedish and it was on a Saturday morning at 9am!!! Honestly, outrageous. Anyway I’m not sure how it went I think I did well in the reading section and the word order etc, but as per usual the grammar section threw me. I find it hard to learn grammar in this sort of scientific way, I don’t even know what some of the words are grouped into in English let alone Swedish. We shall see when the results come in. I have however had my Creative Writing test for Swedish, which is where we were given a picture and had to write about it. I was given a picture of people in a bar, so I created a dialogue between two of the characters. This got me 90% which I was chuffed to bits with.

Well I think you’re all up to date now.

Cheerio for now

A sporting first

That’s right I did something sporty, well I went to watch an Ice Hockey match. It was Jönköping’s local team of HV71 against Frölunda from Göteborg. Now if you’re like me and have no prior knowledge of Ice Hockey I’ll fill you in. 3 thirds of 20 minutes if it’s a draw after the thirds then it goes to a sudden death which is 5 mins long, still failing to find a winner it then goes into shoot outs, best of 5, if it’s a draw after that it’s next one to score. Well anyway that’s what I worked out from watching. Almost anything goes, so yeah it can get rough, even for the 3 referees, who are as much an obstacle as the opposing team.

You may think that this game is incredibly rough, and its true injuries are incredibly common however there is an elegance to it I feel, watching the players glide around the arena chasing after the puck can be quite mesmerising, especially when they are skating backwards.

Anyway back to the game in hand. In the first third Frölunda took the lead halfway through. The atmosphere inside the arena was great, obvious support for the teams but with respect for the others, applauding ood efforts on both sides. Chants almost constantly. During the second third a goal from HV71 was disallowed, I’m not completely sure why. This is when the mild fights started, the sin bid was used an awful lot. The final third was when HV finally came back to draw. 2 of the opposing players were in the sin bin and thus that left Frölong with three players on the ice. They still cut it fine though as the players were only in the sin bin for a max of 2 mins. Then it went into sudden death hugely tense time with 2 fights emerging in this time alone. Then it went into penalties. In the initial 5 it was a draw so then it came down to the next goal wins. Luckily HV’s Goalkeeper was at the top of their game and held out. Finally the goal was scored and ended the game.

One month in Sveirge

What a month it has been, I couldn’t have foreseen such an amazing time, from my first night in Stockholm I could tell I would enjoy it here, It’s so fresh here, so pleasant (I’ll go into detail in just a sec.) Having been here a month means that I am no longer a tourist, I am a resident of Sweden, even sounds impressive. Mention this to people back home, even before I arrived you’d get similar responses, “It’s expensive there, you might not be able to afford it.” And on the other side of the scale ”Aren’t you lucky, think of the good looking Swedes you will meet” So this blog will be a reflection on what I have experienced in Sweden in the last month.
Let’s start with the important stuff, money. I grant you it is expensive here, tax on food and a fat tax. For example a litre of soy milk costs about £1.20 compared to the 55p I would spend back home. If you were to have a McDonalds meal you would expect to pay about £6.50 for a meal there, around double the UK price. Store brand items haven’t really made it in Swedish supermarkets, there’s no ICA value range, so living on a student budget can be tough, I’ve been living off Pasta, and sandwiches. There is a Lidl nearby however still not that much difference in price. No bottom price reductions, if something’s on its sell by then the reduction is likely to be between 30% and 50%, so no 10p bargains. So we’ve done food, mum will be happy to read about my o so stable diet! I’ll save the bit on alcohol prices for a bit! When it comes to items such as clothing and household stuff there isn’t really that much of a difference in price, just don’t expect to find a Primark styled shop here for clothes. (I’ve lasted one month on my small wardrobe I brought over from the UK!) One thing that does seem expensive is stationary, my god you’d be hard pushed to find a pad of A4 (70 pages or so) for under £1, this hurts I’m so used to big pads of paper (nice paper) for under £1, don’t get me started on the cost of a Bic ballpoint pen! £1 each!! My advice bring plenty of stationary with you. The paper price is ironic, all you see round Sweden are trees, a surplus of supply. Now to the expensive bit, the alcohol. The cost of alcohol is hugely expensive here, even more so in bars. In the System Blogat it’s about £1-1.50 per can. In a bar that isn’t the student bar you can expect to pay £5 for a pint. With this huge price you’d think my student nights out would cost well double that of a night out back home with the £1 drink offers and the £1.95 trebles (which I miss greatly btw) but no on the contrary, I will spend about £5 on pre-drinks then prob only buy 1 drink in the student bar for a similar price to the SU back home, so no biggy. So Nights here are cheaper in practice (I would also like to point out the Swedish taste in music, awesome. Not been to the student bar once and not heard a Eurovision song, and the Swedes love them) There is one part of Swedish culture you have to love and that is the after work buffets on a Friday. (Not seen many business people there though mainly students) Now for the price of a ready meal you get an all you can eat buffet and an alcoholic drink, now the drink normally costs more than that anyway so it’s a very happy night.

University life

Well I am here to study, so to prove that I’m not just having fun all the time! How am I coping with lectures? Answer; fine, one annoying thing is that if you have a clash of lectures the only way to catch up is to read the chapters in the book relating to the lectures. Luckily the economics lectures are at A Level standard so I prioritise Swedish then E-commerce (due to that involving a group assignment) One annoying thing is that the courses only run for about two months then you start the next set, So you pay out a lot of money for books that you only use for a few weeks. Lectures can go on for up to four hours, I hear of people starting as early as 8 in the morning! If you’re lucky you will only have one subject a day otherwise it’s a long day ending as late as 6.

Swedish life

I have to say I enjoy it, It’s not that big a culture shock. Pleasantly I have to say I’ve not seen one chav here yet, bliss. In Jönköping I haven’t seen any beggars however there were quite a few in Göteborg. It’s a bit strange getting used to the Swedish control on alcohol, after 2 on a Saturday you can’t alcohol until Monday, you can however get what’s been deemed ´emergency alcohol´ which has a small percentage as little as 0.5% to 3.5%. With regards to the Swedish language I am picking it up rather quickly, clearly I still have the British accent which I need to lose. We’ve just started looking at the grammar, this is incredibly confusing, you aren’t taught grammar in this theoretical way of imperatives etc, I have no idea what those are in English let alone in a foreign language. I now have Swedish radio on my ipod constantly to try and submerge myself in the language, the radio stations also have a camp taste in music, Lady Gaga is constantly played, Shakira’s Waka waka to name a few. So my advice to you if you don’t like a bit of cheesy music that can be as old as 10 years, then avoid Swedish radio. Huskvarna is a really nice place to live however I would say it’s more of a family town, however it is near the Kinnarps Arena (the home of the local Ice Hockey team, still yet to see a game but My allegiances are already aligned to HV71) Sweden has given new opportunities, the best if this so far being the forest party, wouldn’t be possible back home.

Well one month down and the next one has a fair amount lined up including the famous student cruise to Tallin with Students from all over Scandinavia not just Jönköping.

Göteborg

I left for Göteborg with six other people, Nick, Jakob, Brit, Max, Arpad and Doug. We left by coach on Saturday afternoon. On arrival we could see the city was a lot bigger than Jönköping. Tall buildings everywhere. We got off the bus and tried to find our way to our accommodation for the night. Once settled in Max called his friend who was on exchange to Göteborg University, he was able to show us around the city. We went to the city centre, the Mayor’s office, to the theme park with the biggest wooden rollercoaster within Europe. Also here we saw people walking round with giant Toblorone, Daim bars and other sorts of chocolate bars. Sadly not for sale, you had to gamble to win them. Yes that´s how bad the fat tax is here people will gable for a huge three kilo bar of chocolate.
The city is Sweden´s second city and is a harbour city. It was incredibly windy in the city and a lot colder than Jönköping. That night we went out on the town after a few pre drinks we went to try and find a ´pink bar´ sadly we couldn´t find them so we ended up in a student bar where the drinks were cheaper than the bars in Jönköping.

The next day the group split into two half of us went shopping and the other half decided to go round a few sites. My group went down to the harbour front where there was a naval ship to look round and a submarine (sadly no chance to look round that though). Walking along the harbour we came to the Göteborg Wheel, (Their version of the London eye). You get a great view of the city and the harbour however after the fourth rotation you run out of things to look at, with the London eye it goes round slowly so you can take in everything at a nice pace, however the Göteborg Wheel went round quickly so we had about ten rotations in fifteen minutes, Kind of got boring after a while.

In the city´s shopping centre we found the polling station for the general election. A massive area with three huge circles where people went to vote and at the other end were representatives from all the party’s last minute campaigning. (More on the election in another blog). It´s quite hard to find a Swedish flag in Göteborg, the only one we could find was a two foot one for a flagpole for a house.
One night in Göteborg wasn´t enough to get around all the tourist sites. We didn´t have time to visit the Islands off Göteborg or the museums etc but the good news is I am here for the whole year, I don’t have to rush things, I can always go back with other people during the second semester.

Great weekend with a great bunch of people, what more could you ask for?

Letter responses

Well folks, I have received some letters and cards from family back home So Thank you for them, I shall now reply to some of the points made.
In response to where is Jönköping located, It is to the south of Lake Vättan. Jönköping isn’t near any sea so the water shown in the blog pictures are that of the lake. Jönköping has got canals flowing through also (one of which I jumped in during kick off week) I will post a picture of a map for you. Sadly now there aren´t really any reduced things in the supermarkets, not to bottom price like back in the UK but I intend to cover this matter in a blog at a later date. Yes the newly married royal couple are constantly on the front of the glossy mags here too. The merchandise has been quick to come out and there is plenty of it, especially in Stockholm. Banners were still up in Stockholm. Yes now a month has passed and I have settled in more and have most of my admin out of the way now I will start to look for a job, however there is a government funded service here to help you set up and run a business and I have a few ideas if I choose to go down that route, which is a possibility. The Mitchell Empire could start in Sweden! The trip to the artic circle and to the Northern lights I think is about six days. Still waiting for details to be published, I think I may have to queue early morning for this one though. People were queuing for the Norway trip as early as 6am. With regards to my room, yes my room mates bed is across the room from me however we have put up a sheet to give each other privacy and now it feels like a single room. Yes we are all getting along in the house really well. We have had ´cultural evenings´ Where food has been cooked from our home nations, two weeks ago we had Chinese and last week Austrian. When everyone gets back from Norway I will be doing a full English for the house and some others I have invited to join in.
I hope this answers your letters and cards, thanks again.

Forest Party

Forest Party:
This was the highlight of the week and a great experience. Under Swedish law we have the right to roam round the countryside etc, so a party was organised in the forest near Råslätt. We got together and headed in, stupidly I left my Nokia (with a good torch on it) at home. We found an area where we could set up a campfire, wood was gathered, the issue was that it had been raining (well Mizzle) so the surrounding wood was dam and impossible to light. Ironically in the city where matches are made, matches can’t be found in shops, we had to rely on a smoker for a lighter. After a while trying to set fire to wet branches, someone had thought to go back and get some wooden pallets. One was thrown on and the fire was going, then another and another. At this point I questioned the legality of the fire. The fire was burning, people were cooking sausages and marshmallows, others were drinking, only one log to sit on so most were standing but the banter was great. Sadly guitars were left at home so no campfire songs. Definitely a great experience, note to self bring marshmallows next time.

Now obviously I’m here to ‘study’ This week we had a ‘webcam’ lecture. We went to a lecture room and on the screen was a webcam link form the lecturer in his office, he was delivering the lecture to four Universities across Sweden. JIBS is apparently the number two business school in Sweden. In Swedish we learnt how to tell the time, and started on some verbs. Tried texting a Swedish friend in Swedish about evening plans, made a few mistakes but it’s the only way I will learn.

A downside of University here is that you have to pay Student Union fees, here it’s over £20 for the year. Failure to pay means you can’t take your exams. However the university is still amazing.

A note about the accommodation here. The ones that I have visited have a certain character. Match House is accommodation that houses 25 students, walking down the corridor puts me in mind of the corridor of a mental hospital (as did the hostel I stayed in come to think of it, even more so with people randomly walking round, some with mops not cleaning I might add, put me in mind of One flew over the cuckoo’s nest) Long hospital styled flooring in the corridor, so homely. Luckily home is what you make of it. Anyway onto Råslätt. This is based in what can only be described as a huge council estate. Also known as ‘the project’ These estates apparently appear in most of the big cities but recently they have all been renovated except Råslätt. However they do offer a communal building with pool table etc, there are sports facilities and the residents get a discount on the monthly bus passes, something which my landlord refused to comment on when I brought up this issue. Now onto Delta. This is probably the nicest of the two city residencies. Clearly they used to be offices and one assumes they were offices for the school attached because some of the windows in the rooms look into the schools canteen. Sadly these rooms won’t be available next semester so my chances of getting city centre accommodation are based on match house.

Studies commence

Well folks the studying has begun here in Jönköping. The academic year consist of 2 semesters each split into 2 quarters each, (A1 & A2, S1 & S2) So normally you pick to modules to take per quarter, (However I have 3 due to taking Swedish as an extra). One thing I have noticed here in Sweden is organisation is not at its best, I’m going to sound terribly British and say these people don’t know how to queue unless there is a numbered ticket system which in quite a few places there are, but not at the uni. You will be in huddles making your way to the front, the Swedes don’t like you pushing in front we were told however in practice you do get the odd few pushing in. Anyway rant over) I say it’s not organised because at Uni at home we are given an individual timetable for lectures and seminars which requires big organisation to avoid clashes, in Jönköping you are told when the lectures are and if you have any clashes you have to prioritise which lecture to go to. Seems a bit strange to me.

Anyway this quarter I am Studying Macroeconomic theory, Developing electronic capabilities for commerce (E-Commerce) and Swedish 1. What dry subjects you probably think, well I enjoy economics and I want to learn Swedish, I’m doing the E-Commerce module because of the law section but when lectures can last up to 4 hours it can become very dull, for example my second economics lecture was 3 hours of what was called ‘Mathematics for economics’ 3 hours of Algebra etc only to be told it was unlikely we would need it for the exam. Yes it was bad. E-Commerce was just an intro lecture but we already have our assignment. Yes these courses appear to be very quick, finishing in mid October.

Swedish 1: Now this subject I do enjoy, only had one lesson due to a clash with another module. The only downside to this module is you learn new stuff in class and then you go out into the big world of Sweden and then you hear people or someone asks you something and you don’t understand it. Now for me I have a fear of not being able to understand/be understood, it is why I have obsessed with learning languages, just the basics even if it’s hello and numbers. Lack of Swedish I can find to be quite isolating. You may call me nosey but when I sit on a bus at home the background noise of chatter is almost calming because you recognise if someone is going to kick off etc. On a Swedish bus people will ask you something, you can guess at what they are saying, is anyone sitting there? Etc etc but I just get this sense of isolation. You rely on your own company more. However I do listen hard to try and pick up any vocabulary.
Sweden week 3

What can I say it’s week 3 and I’m falling in love with the place. Of course there are downsides such as living so far away from campus, however the upside is Huskvarna is in a beautiful location, I just have to walk to the top of my road to see the lake and the hills, When there is a train running in the morning it only takes 8 minutes to get into the city, otherwise it’s a 20 min bus ride. Jönköping is a lovely city. The University is top quality and the central location is brilliant for after morning lectures you can just go to the city etc.
This week saw the end of the kick off week parties with our captain Ronnie Cau winning Fadder of the year, so congrats to him. With all the activity stopping it’s nice to get back to a normal routine. However Wednesdays are the big nights out here, We went to the first one this week. The dress code is the overalls we got during kick off week, so they will get some use out of them this year. Akademia is the Student Bar open every Wednesday, it’s a good night out, however restricted by bus times because taxis are incredibly expensive!!!! I have to say I miss Newcastle for it’s cheap drinks and it’s cheap taxis home.

The International Association has launched its first few trips, it’s big one going to the Fjords in Norway, people were queuing as early as 6am to get onto the trip. I however will save this one for Semester 2 if I chose to go. I am saving my money for the trip to the Northern Lights and the Ice hotel in late December. So whilst half my group of friends go to Norway I plan to go with the other half for a weekend in another Swedish city, either Göthenberg or Malmo, (details to follow)
Friday I watched a game of Australian Football with my new found Aussie friends, Can’t for the life of me remember the two teams, both from Melbourne but apparently most of them are! Later that night It was Sweden vs Hungry in the European Qualifier, Sweden winning 2-0, National allegiance changing slowly. It has been recommended to me to go to a Finland vs Sweden Ice Hockey game, this however is in the next few weeks and thus will be incredibly expensive, however the local team of HV71 will be starting their season soon as the reigning champions. With the stadium about 5 minutes away from me a game is a must whilst I’m here, it even has a curling ring so maybe I shall sign up for that. Look at me, watching Sports! Who knew it!
Anyway after a rather quiet week (In comparison to the other 2) I have run out of things to fill you in on. So I shall sign out for tonight

P.S Can’t for the life of me find Blue tack in this place!!!!

Cheerio