Tales from the borderlands

I reached a new low. I started playing Pokemon Emerald on my PC.

Jesus tapdancing Christ the landlord is leaving some sort of hiss one floor down like she is doing heavy lifting and she is exhaling.

Also i am becoming a hydrochemistry expert it seems, as i finally managed to complete a full assignment all by myself. It involves constructing a pe-pH diagram for Chromium and water for anyone that cares. There is no guide how to do that in the internet so i might as well perform public service by posting it sometime.

Yesterday i tried to cook rice. Let's just say i want to put hot needles in Uncle Ben's eyes while praising the lord, throwing curses and scavenging like a hyena or a raging bull. Just stick with any basmati rice from any other manufacturer.

Now it's time to do the news.

We had sun for the first time this november for a few hours. Wow let's do poledancing and cheer like little girls. I don't really care i prefer the darkness because i am a sadistic vampire. Or i just manage to study better at night.

My results of the application regarding the spring semester courses came out. I got disqualified for the Evolution of Life from paleobiology because nobody mentioned it to me that i have to have a background...idiots.

This post has actually been a work in progress. I find myself writing a paragraph and stop, wanting to continue from that point the next time, but i end up writing new things that i notice or happen.

For example after returning from university (at the time of writing - November 26) i wanted to rename this post to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Why? Because the bus is a playground and humans are monkeys. Confused? Of course. I am also baffled. Let me explain.

Since i have been a terrible person lately making fun of everything i try to pay attention to the little details everywhere. From clothes to shoes, to hair, to dirt, to posters, to body language and expressions. Today when i was in the bus there was a man in his late 20's, with a trimmed beard, black pants worn out by time, a black jacket with silver buttons and a shirt that looked like a carpet. He had an oblivious look on his face and along with his blank gaze came  those round glasses that Harry Potter used to wear. I will call him Harry for convenience.

Harry was sitting on one of those retractable seats where usually mothers sit with a big space for their baby carriers. I can't forget his expression, it was like he was struck by a spell. It must have been one of these: petrificus totalus (petrify) , confundo (dafuq is going on?) or obliviate (memory loss, turns into a plant).

While he was staring at the floor he was fidgeting and nervously cracking his fingers, while his posture was ready bad, slouching and leaning forward. He was short on confidence,success and it showed. He was also an ape. More of a primeape or a Homo Erectus.

Ape. Not Kill. Ape.

We stop at Sommaro and a woman with her baby comes in. Harry is a gentle-ape so he stands up and goes to sit next to a man that looked at him as Bilbo Baggins did in the first lord of the rings after Frodo refused to let him hold it one last time.

IN SWEDEN WE DON'T SIT WITH OTHERS!

All good until now. I actually found a seat myself, which is rare at that time. I sad on the opposite side of Harry and everything was good. I was listening to pathetic greek songs and i sent a text to my sweetheart.

You know the corner vision humans have right? That you can be looking straight but with the corner of your eye can understand what goes around. I pick up some strange images with my corner sight and when i look around i see Harry pulling his tongue out and using his lower lip like a monkey. He went bananas and that continued for 5 minutes. Whenever he put his tongue back in he started smiling like the devil and then did it again. I am very proud of myself that i managed to keep my composure.

Other terrible stuff? I will tell you a story. It is terrible, like most of my content nowadays but i don't care! Yay for honesty! Back in high school we had 2 girls that hanged out together. We were 14-15 at the time and they were two years older. They were really skinny and very tall for their age, like 1.75 or so. Me and my friends used to call them Reinforced Cement and Beton arme because they put up so much make up that they looked like fake barbie dolls thrown into a bag of poo.

Everyday they came to school just like these, trying to hide their imperfections and shallow personalities with their looks. Which frankly were terrible, i think they wanted to attract those bulky lifeless rich baboons in my town. They also dressed fancy like going to the miss pageant whore contest and they topped it up with high heels, taking their total height to 1.90 and looking like giraffes walking with rollers. Oh they were also stuck on the same class for 2 years.

What does Reinforced Cement and Beton arme have to do with my story then? Well i remembered them because every day i take the bus i see 2 girls around their 15's, pretty tall, fancy dressed with a ton of cement on their faces that if i touched it with a little hammer probably a goblin or a leprechaun would come out from there.

I think my teachers hate me too, i ask so many questions its unreal. But i don't care because i actually learn by that. Mistakes are good, welcome them. You can also find out that the teacher makes so many mistakes, especially in calculations that you want to gouge your eyes out with a pitchfork and feed the remainders of your testicles to the dogs like in Odyssey. I remember one's ass looks like a bag of potato shit.

Wow this is an endless rant isn't it. Wait i am not over yet. I still haven't told you about why dogs defecate while aligning themselves to the north or the south, why the fat lady likes to eat apples or what happened during my latest visit to the Norrlands pub.

I picked up Dimitris and Spyros and we decided to light up the pub for some beers. In the end we ended up eating nachos and burgers and drinking pepsi like pro's but it doesn't matter. We find some place to sit and i try to grab a free chair from the table next to us. Then all hell breaks loose. A blonde goose girl that was 25 grabs the chair like the Golum and takes it back shouting "Nej nej". My god she looked like a turkey with a massive nose that needed a hammer and a chin that screamed too many burgers. She was around 22, but if i had to guess by her teeth, i'd say 53.

My god she was like Cerberus protecting the empty chairs for 2 hours until finally her female friend arrived. They were drinking so much and she was surrounded by two cocks, one with a cap that probably said "retarded" on his forehead and the other one with the hair like a wig and a shirt like a tablecloth. One of those morons drank some beer or cider after dropping ketchup inside.

There was also a redhead in the back sitting with the most unfuckable dude ever. I think she had strabismus because she was not looking at him at any moment, so i had fun eyeballing her all night and talking dirty in greek to the poor waitress. I also witness a failed pickup of some swedes in the other table to a blonde girl and another one with black leather pants that screamed ass explosion.

We had some fun, shared some stories, they witnessed me being terrible once more and we moved on to the other pub in V-Dala. I wonder why they call it a pub as it's just a bar with restaurant tables, no music and empty Jack Daniels bottles that had melted candles that looked like splattered semen. Good grief.

I should wrap this up because it's already huge and terrible and i can make so many bad comments about everything. One day we are going to talk about what i don't like in Sweden (hint: like the university so far..) and probably i will make a fake woman profile to make fun of people online.

Goodnight Sweden. Yu Niu we could do it.

PS. I am not sure if i should make these large posts or just a daily shorter one. Leave your comment below. Crucify or love me. hyvää yötä!

PS. "I am unhappy because i got threatened by a midget". Holger bromancing with Jaime.

How NOT to get scammed - and have fun in the process

Today we are going to perform public service. 

I am talking to you, Forever Aloners that are so easily tricked through the exterior of a woman so you give your life's work for some satisfaction that ends up in misery, pain and money bleeding from your pockets.

I was supposed to write about having dinner with Jaime's family yesterday that was a farcical comedy (in a great way, we had an amazing time!) and that will have to wait.

Here we are today, Thursday 20th of November 2014 and i am sitting on the couch like liquid paint listening to some music and watching a blonde girl dying in the couch next to me from tiredness. I was talking to my dear friend Mary around 10:43 waiting for the hydrochemistry lecture @ 13:15.

I fire up my tablet and i see that i received a message from a "Jennifer Anderson". Pretty good looking, the kind of woman that anno 2014 doesn't initiate conversation to men as she can just snap her fingers and 2 people will start blowing air to her paint her nails and cook her food. Let's call our sweet girl Jen for convenience shall we?

So let's skip the introduction which involves those generic "hi" and get to the meat. Jen is 22, lives in Stockholm, is from Quebec, has a degree of a fashionista from Calgary and has a swedish name and she talked to me first. Wow, this looks perfectly normal, i must be really hot!

So Jen is pretty happy with me asking questions only and asks me why i don't add her as friend in facebook. Moving on, we have already established  that something illogical is going on. So to fish Jen out we need to first create rapport and pretend to hook on the bait. The key here is to simply reply the way you would as if this was a real situation. While you do that you look for clues that contradict her origins. For example in this pic you can see the way she talks like a 12 year old child while also asking for permission to ask questions. Women don't talk like this. Therefore as usual we are dealing with a man. Let's call him Dick!

After some chitchat Dick is bored and has to step it up. So out of the blue Dick turns to be a Bikini Porn model! Fantastic, the average chump will think! Wake up you moron, snap back to reality they are probably outsourced in India or Pakistan, called Al muhammad Safir Mastour and they want your money. So let's waste their time and trick them in the end. Pretend you are joking, that you like them and want to meet, joking that everything is alright unless they want your money or kill you. That will force Dick to go defensive and make mistakes.

"I am not gonna ask money to you".

Yes Dick, i know you will not ask me to money you. Also they always have great incomes, such as professional footballers. It's a needy way to prove value, the same way men try to conquer women by saying they have money and a boat. Dick is not here for bullshit right?

Here i try to set up an invitation for a meeting. Dick is clueless and tries to conjure up phrases in English while under the effect of magic mushrooms. Oh he also has a dog, Spudgy, that i think he will have to cook for dinner soon since with his understanding of how women talk and his level of English, he won't scam anyone soon. So here we set up our final step and we are ready to go for the killing blow.

Wow Dick is really stepping on it! Let's recap. Dick pretends to be Jen, is from Canada, talks like an uneducated mongol, lives in Sweden, has a dog, is a porn bikini model and he likes me! Wow i must be very special! WAKE UP  YOU IDIOTS BEFORE I CHASE YOU AND HIT YOU WITH A CLUB ON THE HEAD.

So his sentences are becoming canned and really unpolished. You can see that where he "explains" things. Just try to look at this logically. A bikini porn model wants to meet with you but you need a Special ID from her sponsor because she feels unsafe and she almost got raped. You mongrels, tell her to bring a friend then, does any of this makes sense to you? If you fall for this you deserve punishment and eternal damnation.

I sadly forgot to take a picture of my last answer, but i remember what it was. It contains foul and racial abuse for the purpose of intimidation, i don't really mean it.

"So here's the thing. For a scam to work you need to work on your English. That can be taught, even if you are a dirty banana throwing monkey like yourself. You dirty mongrel though, there is no way you can pass for a woman, even a brainless blonde model with the way you talk and reply. Get ready to eat Spudgy (if you havent already) because you are not scamming anyone's money soon with those skills. All this time you wasted i have been tracking your IP down and sent it to the cybercriminal department. So run, because if they find you they will put you down like the animal you are and let you die in a fire. If they don't i will find you and i will crack your skull open and fill it in with monkey shit while Holger does the windmill in your spine. Run."

And this concludes our friendly lesson for today. This blog is deteriorating like the Premier League and it will probably go viral at some point.

What is more sad is the fact that there are countless people falling for these scams. Amazing what the need for female company can do to a mans brain, if he has one. Someone said that men have 2 brains but enough blood for only one to work in the same time. How true.

I will be back soon with details from Randomville and dinner extraordinaire with Jaime and his amazing family.

Goodnight Sweden. 

You feel a shaking on the ground, a billion candles burn around, is it your birthday?

"Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes the known" Antoine De Saint-Exupery.

Fuck you Antoine. Fuck you for being right. And thanks in the same time.

When i walked through that dirty old gate of the army base camp i could not have imagined what was about to follow. I was being plunged into the unknown for 9 months. Yet i was not afraid. I was confident. Over-confident. And that would be my downfall because i underestimated things. I underestimated the fragility of the human soul and the patience one person can have for somebody, even for his/her loved ones.

I left that morning from my home around 6 am with the first bus. I was not afraid, because i would be close to the person i loved. Because no matter what happened, no matter what was thrown at me, i would not bulge, i would not be afraid, i would stand up and keep moving forward.

It was my birthday, 16/11/2012. And 2 years ago in this time of writing, it was the last night i ever slept happy again for a really long time until recently.

I was on the phone with Alexandra all the time until i got to Athens. From there i took the suburban train to the army camp of Avlona, a place where people got their initial training and ended up being tank specialists, marines and scumbags.

During my ride in the train i sat alongside another recruit. We didn't talk because i didn't care. In the next stop a 60 year old lady sat next to us and started talking. She asked us if we are new and about our lives and everything. I told her i love my girl and that i am joining the special forces army so i can be close to her.

Then i asked her where is she going. With a soothing calm voice she replied, but i could sense something is wrong. She was going to the cemetery to visit her older daughter, that died 5 years ago. She died from leukemia. She was very close to her younger sister, who could not withstand the loss of her beloved sister and had a heart failure 1 year later. She was 24 years old.

Her husband died 15 years ago from a stroke. So her daily life was to visit 2 cemeteries every day to pay her respects to everyone she ever loved. That is how i actually felt when my relationship ended. Like black death enveloped me and shrouded me for a long time. I will never forget this woman.

So i entered the army camp, where hundreds of new recruits were being enlisted by low-life thugs pretending to be of service to this glorious country. 75% of them were uneducated nobody's that managed to crawl their ways into that position and pretend they are men of importance while they are a hair of my left testicle.

We entered a ridiculously dirty room where they divided us in lines and they took our basic information as well as our civilian identities. I would not see it again for 9 months.

When my turn arrived the officer looked at my id, then at me. He actually used to date my cousin some years ago. She said he was an asshole. Well at least he treated me well. Fuck you nonetheless.

Then they gathered us like cattle in the yard where we had the chance to meet other recruits. I met a very feminine hairstylist without hair and a colossal tall man that smoked 37 cigarettes in 2 hours. The only thing i remember from him is a horrible imitation of "Gangam Style".

During that time i was on the phone with Alexandra, try to keep my cool, saying that it doesn't look so bad, that i will be alright. 2 hours in the sun later they sent us for tests. Blood tests, eyesight, any injuries etc.

They told us they would go in very soon so i kept calling her every 5 minutes. It must have been frustrating but i was oblivious to that fact. Silly me, ungrateful her.

Then they gave us uniforms and those horrible boots that have destroyed my ankles, feet and knees.

Finally around 22:00 we got sent to our bunkers, those filthy disgusting places with another 19 idiots to share the place for 24 days. We are talking of assholes of every quality. From farting, burping idiots, to pathological liars, to super-Mario looking plumbers, to golden dawn shaved head supporters and backstabbers.

I didn't care, because i had my girl right on the palm of my hand. Or so i thought so. Then i went to sleep. For the last time happy until i met Carita.

Goodnight Sweden, happy birthday to me.

I'm sexy and i nose it

I think i know how it feels to die and resurrect now.

I dropped dead on my bed for 10 hours with tiny garlic bread leftovers all over me after the last day. My biological cycle has been obliterated lately. I don't sleep well and i definitely don't sleep on time. I end up pulling off all-nighters only to crash in my bed the next morning or afternoon.

Well at least i am making some progress with hydrochemistry and statistics, which is encouraging seeing that i had a panic attack last week from the difficulty.

I am not sure where should i begin now. Should i write about the impending doom of my 26th birthday this Sunday? Or for the boring stuff i did last week? My hallucinations in the bus today? Or simply the wonderful things about my relationship with Carita?

Maybe i should start with the freshest memories. Which, at the time of writing are not so fresh even if they happened this morning. After such deep sleep my memory seems fragmented and i am like in Assassin's Creed trying to gather the fragments and piece them together. But in the end it's like Assassin's Creed Unity on PC. That is, full of bugs.

Fresh from calculating the total concentration of lead in sea water (Pb2+) at 5am and with a 7 hour lecture/lab cycle incoming in 3 hours i decided not to sleep again. So i ended up killing people in CS:GO with slower reflexes than my grandpa, watching 3 episodes of Psych season 2, failing in clan wars in Clash of Clans and then messaging good morning to my little Finnish angel.

The alarm clocked rang like a drum in my ears. It was 7:30 and i had to ride the bus to class. I had 4 hours of statistics lab. Oh dear...

When i got in the bus the hallucinations started. Almost everyone that came in looked strange to me and i was making weird comparisons and thoughts in my head. I was in total limbo and i think i was giggling inside with a devious smile all along the way. 

Asshole alert incoming. This is about to get heavy, i just settled all my lawsuits.

There was this little asian girl around 12 years old that was sitting near the window and next to her there was a slim black man around his 30's with a leather bag and an over-sized blue jacket. He also wore glasses and he had his left hand lifted up touching his mouth all the time like he was pretending to think or look serious and philosophical. It was so funny i thought he was a failed marathon runner turned into the philosoraptor with a touch of Doctor evil.

It reminded me of this.

The little girl looked so scared when that man sat next to her and she literally ran towards the exit when it was time.

Then there was Ron Wesley. My god i kept what's left of my dignity and tried not to laugh. It was a man with different shocks and a jean around his 40's with 2 little kids, ginger fire-red hair and a resemblance to the famous character wearing a knitted reindeer woolen shirt. And of course to make things worse he stood right next to me.

Christmas mood.

What else? There was a girl around her 15's that in other circumstances would look cute to me. But no sir, her nose was like a potato today. And she was driving a potato with a burned out fuse. Does it make sense? Of course not.

Pun intended.

Then as i was about to get off the bus there was this woman around her 50's, really tall and robust with a Hagrid like body type and short hair. She was standing above a woman that was sitting in front of her with her back turned playing on her smartphone. Extra sauce, in front of her was an old lady around her 75's playing tetris in a smartphone the size of my fist. So the poor woman was writing a message somewhere and Hagrid was standing like a vulture above her, watching totally discreetly what she was typing with such an evil smile carved into her cheeks like the joker. And she was doing it for 2-3 minutes straight.

"I am spying on people...and everyone can see it!"

I needed coffee. Black like the plague. I rush in the university. The cafeteria is not open yet. Kill me now please. I enter the computer room and we start the exercise. 4 hours of pain ensue with me trying to understand matlab. I did manage to finish up first again around 12. I had a one hour break until hydrochemistry lecture though.

So i just tried to sleep on the couch like Holger used to do it. No way. Time passed and i had to go to class. My eyes were so red like i was punctured by a thousand hot needles while i had to dance argentinian tango with 2000 people watching, a lake of crocodiles underneath and me having to incorporate chemistry into this mayhem.

I remember that girl in class that was assigned one of the homework exercises going to the white board to explain it. She did it in a horrible way and i looked lost with an expression of total oblivion. Eyes still, mouth wide open like the cow when it's staring at the passing train.

It is 13:00. I rush outside to take the bus. This time i end up in the mall near home to make a final effort and buy a pizza, a Pepsi and garlic bread for a quick snack before i die. After all what can go wrong, it would take me 5 minutes right?

Wrong. It was Lisa in the counter again. She is cute but she is slow like a snail on a highway. She was killing my brain cells, one cell at a time. And there was this guy in front of me. I wish he twists his penis today. It took him 10 minutes to get his stuff out of the basket, 10 more minutes for Lisa to process them and 5 minutes for him to pay. Good grief. But the funny thing is in his basket he had like 50 kilos of potatoes, diapers for old people with bowel problems and canned squids. He bought 27 cans of squids. I actually counted them.

I finally got home. I bake the bread, eat it in 30 seconds and die in bed. from 15:00 to 23:00. Which is sad again because i have class tomorrow at 10 am. I hope i can sleep again.

Other than that two things happened.

Last Sunday i went with senorita Maria in a "Greek" event in a house that looked like an Amish church. Until she arrived i went in with 3 other Greeks, George, Iliana Tripidaki (literally means "full of holes") and Katerina Poulou (which literally means "cock taker"). The names are fictional to preserve their anonymity. I am going to fuck them up in Facebook anyways :D

To give you an idea, Katerina thought a green light from a projector in the sky was some sort of northern light, while we had fantastic conversations with Iliana about her beige bra that was damaged and she couldn't wear it.

And then we arrived at the house. Absolutely hilarious. Old classic Swedish house. We can see disco lights inside and really distasteful music coming from the depths of that dungeon. We get greeted by a guy that speaks with an accent from the mountains of Mount Doom. In English. In a greek only event. Get where I am getting at??

So he gets us to our table, which has a traditional cover made from white paper like we are in a tavern ready to eat. And then the genius understands that we are greeks. Good job sherlock!

We sit there and we survey the room and the people. It was SO funny. Let me give you an idea. Apparently the sponsor was the local greek football team and the actual footballers seemed to work as DJ, staff and waiters there.

Right next to us sat what looked like the manager of that team, the scouter, the president, the bouncer and the most depressing cheerleader i have ever seen. She looked swedish with an expression of "why do i exist i have no purpose in this world" wearing a white woolen jacket probably made from sheep.

Then there was the toilet signs that said "do not throw paper in the toilet". And the world's loneliest DJ playing tunes from the 80's. And the disco lights almost gave me epilepsy. People came and we saw classic greek women. In heels, going to the hairdresser before they came and those diva fake blondes that put cement in their face to hide the craters in their faces, the ones that you don't want to wake up next to in the morning and are accompanied by a mindless baboon with muscles the size of my head and creatine coming out of their nose and eyeballs, screaming "I TAKE STEROID SHOTS IN MY ASS, EVERY DAY!".

Kill me now.

 Then i left around midnight to catch the bus. Before i left i was scarred for life from this.

I'm (NOT) sexy and i know it :D

Enough with being horrible. Let's add a couple of pretty Uppsala pictures from the botanical garden and the duck pond to pretend to be nice.

View from the botanical garden.

And some ducks.

Yay i feel like a better person now.

I am done for now. There is only one thing left to write before i try to sleep again. I came to a conclusion these days after my adventure in Finland. I know completely understand the difference between being in love, which happened recently and loving someone.

The first involved too much enthusiasm, lack of self-control, stress and it wears out fast. It was unnecessary and it brought with it lack of judgement. I am grateful i escaped.

The second one, the one I am going through right now with Carita is the real deal and the one to look for. It involves dreaming, caring for the other person, thinking about him all day as well, the future. It's like sleeping with a box of kittens right next to you. And she is so wonderful, like a little diamond. My diamond. It also involves enthusiasm in a healthy dose and I catch myself smiling alone when i think about her during my sleep, my rest or simply when I am day dreaming. Thank you for this. Olet rakkain.

Time to wrap this up. It was a pretty big post. As usual, comments, bashing, sharing is always welcome!

Goodnight Sweden, goodnight world!

The Death of Marley

I suffer from insomnia lately.

Since i came back from Finland. Damn you Finnish woman i want to be your radiator again.

I also feel like cooking. At 3:40am. It must have to do with studying the basics of chemistry for 10 hours a day with a short break of Angry Birds, Clash of Clans and headshotting innocent Halloween themed humans in CS:GO. I have brief conversations with the other night owl - Olka.

To give you an idea of our discussion it involves vampires, gothic underwear and shitburgers. Reaching a new low in my already low IQ. I also saw the new trailer for the Hobbit: Battle of The Five Armies which starts to look like an expendables crossover with over 9000 star characters from the lore.

Please don't destroy my favorite book.

I think i died during Thursday. I woke up briefly for 1 hour to meet with Despoina to do some stuff. I shopped the basics from the super expensive ICA centrum then rode the bus home. I almost wrote bike there. Speaking about bikes, that was the last you will hear about Marley. He got stolen or was thrown in the river Fyrisan.

"1 moment of silence for Marley. Rest in pieces."

Please leave some supportive comments for Marley down in the comment box.

Today we had Hydrochemistry lab. By saying lab i mean sitting on a computer for 2 hours listening to the professor trying to explain how a program works. Let's not talk about the resolution of 800x600 from the 2000's that made my eyes bleed more. More like the XBOX One resolution. Ok ok you fanboys it was a joke.

Parenthesis: Olka almost whipped me and set me on fire for saying i don't like Frozen just now.

I am almost always wearing my cap inside the house so the information i try to remember in chemistry does not degass out of my head like methane does from the permafrost when conditions turn unstable. See what i did there???

In the meantime I am looking to see if i can get an exchange/erasmus going. I want to move to Turku in Finland and be with Carita and Ippu.

I am thinking of pizza or fish sticks. Must. Resist. I am 71 kg now down from 78 when i arrived. The running and the biking took its toll on me. But it's getting better. Though the future looks bleak as i have 4-5 exams incoming in January, to go to Lapplands and the tickets to Greece cost over 400 euros. Which means i will most likely spend Christmas in Finland.

Goodnight Sweden. I am going to raid the kitchen.

A greek fossil in Sweden

“I'm too old for this shit”

I remember watching Danny Glover trying to convince Mel Gibson that they are too old to be gun wielding Rambo cops anymore in Lethal Weapon. I laughed at that line when I was a kid. I am turning 26 years old in 10 days, something that does not make me old as a human, but I feel like that sometimes during class. It is unthinkable for me sometimes to tackle subjects such as hydrochemistry or data analysis and statistics after 4 years of absence. So here I was today sitting in my PC in class, talking to myself nonstop and probably irritating Paulo a lot. How was I supposed to complete an assignment with a completely strange program? Chinese should be easier.

But I am known for my stubbornness and never give up attitude so after a LOT of questions directed to the teacher, who was trying to keep herself busy in her laptop, looking guilty like she was playing candy crush saga I cracked the code. I finished the exercise. I even helped others and since you can’t beat a classic, Marie stole half my code.

The lab was at 8:15 in the morning. But I slept at 5 am and I when I opened my eyes anxiety crept in.

“What’s the time?”

Holly molly it was 7:55. The next bus left at 8:07. I jumped off the bed like a rocket, like a cat being thrown into water and got dressed. At least I managed to wear the same pair of shoes. Yay. Hell I did not even brush my teeth, I felt like my breath was as foul as a komodo dragon’s. But I wore my hat and scarf, put on my ridiculously cheap and horrid looking Logitech headset, fired up Eminem’s “Without Me” and raced to the bus stop ignoring everything. Towards the final 150 meters I ran out of breath and I tried to look as cool as possible while my heart was about to burst as if I was sprinting 200 meters for the gold medal. I enter the bus and sit on my usual spot. After relaxing a bit I look around and come to a conclusion. There seem to be rules/musts when you enter a bus in Sweden.

1. Greet the driver with a fake smile
2. Find the most quiet and remote place to sit
3. Never talk to anyone
4. Sit by yourself
5. If the seat next to you is empty put a bag or anything you have so nobody sits
6. Use your smartphone like a social zombie
7. Think about fika
8. Keep quiet (shhhhh!)
9. Avoid physical contact like it is a deadly virus
10. Never look anyone in the eye

I make it to the Geocentrum fast as it is already 8:27 and I am late. I resist the urge to buy 8 bullars and enter the computer room. You know the story from there. But why did I get up early? How did I spend the previous day? How was Halloween?

It is difficult to explain but the Uppsala hangover is over and the honeymoon period as well. I got tired of the relentless partying, the plastic friends, the master program is firing up on all cylinders, I went through a period of fierce passion and now finally I have someone to rely on even if she lives in a country nearby.

I spent 9 wonderful days in Finland. And what did I do? I was in a warm home environment, with a dog, food, a person I really like, going out in restaurants, watching movies, hitting more quiet pubs. It is wonderful and I want to build my life along the lines of this. I am already planning to visit northern Finland for Christmas. It will be phenomenal.

Regarding Halloween I didn’t really bother. I went to a small house party where people were married, newlyweds or in long term relationships. It was ok and I thank them for inviting me. I also took my friend Maria out in the O’Connor’s pub downtown. They still had their Halloween decorations up and we drank expensive cider and beer. Apparently Maria looks like a Spanish woman which means she is hot and has a terrible accent because the bartender talk to her in Spanish. Rico suave. Also she thought cider would be hot for some reason like a tea or chocolate. Too much time in the laboratory!

Which reminds me of this: I casually walk in my bathroom today and I see a shampoo of some sorts that the landlord that rents me the house uses. It looks like a strange liquid. She is old and I am guessing it could be formaldehyde so she preserves herself from decaying :D

That looks so weird.

Other than that I have the new courses starting this week. Hydrochemistry seems to be the toughest, as I want to gouge my eyes out with a pitchfork and feed them to the rabid dogs of hell. But I will manage I am sure, I started studying extensively the basics and I am getting there thanks to Dr Fus in iTunes U and the Ohio State University. The other is Data Analysis and Statistics. The lecture was more understandable. Also today we had the lab and I was completely unfamiliar with MatLab and that complicated things. However with some team effort, a lot of questions and perseverance I managed to complete the exercise first. Wow!  The last course is Presentation and Publication, a course directed to guess what: present PowerPoint and write essays. I had 5 topics in mind. And I had to team up with Ingrid because she was left alone for some reason.

My topics of choice were:

• Nuclear Power 
•  Cancer and Nutrition 
•  Depression in adults and kids 
•  Social Zombies
• Does technology make us more stupid?

The last two sounded really interesting. Imagine your life without your precious smartphone or internet for a week. You would go insane and you would probably have problems finding easy solutions to some things. Depression is another interesting and common theme here in Scandinavia. Cancer was my thesis and a very large one actually. So I thought:

“ Hey you have conducted an informational interview with a Nuclear Engineer! You have the knowledge and the passion!”

So I picked that topic and spent over 10 hours to build the interview and research. I added some humor and made some interesting additions in order to keep the audience interested. Great!

You can read my informational interview with Sandie Will and Sara Dolatshahi in my other posts.

The last part of my adventures involves my language learning progress. I try to practice Russian as much as I can, but I am definitely not in the level I want to be. My Swedish skills are as good as the Greek economy – nonexistent.  I don’t have time or energy to go to class so I dropped the course and I am self learning for now. I started learning Finnish now too. I really like this girl and I would love to be able to communicate in such a hard language with her. minä rakastan sinua :*

I will now go back to studying chemistry, watch a bit of Champions League and go to sleep. I have a career fair to attend tomorrow in Uppsala and I will try to network a bit and maybe schedule some informational interviews. My friend Sokratis Papastathopoulos actually scored yesterday for Dortmund and he was voted MVP. Good job there old pal.

See you soon people! Winter is coming! Keep the comments coming! In the left column you can find the most popular posts! Thank you for the love, 12500 views in such a short time is amazing. Share my content if you like it and suggestions are welcome (I get no profit nor there are any adverts in my site).

Goodnight Sweden!

Jurassic World - Helsinki

"It's 9000 miles..back to you...I still feel like home is in...your arms".

Home sweet home. Or was I already at home in Finland minun Carita?

I am back in Sweden. I just arrived this morning after a tiresome trip that involved loads of buses, sleeping on radiators and eating kanelbullars. My biological clock is disorganized totally since i slept during the day and then woke up just to eat and join a weird Halloween party for 2 hours. And i guess i want to share the other part of my adventure in Helsinki and satisfy you 4000 monthly readers that love my sarcastic tone!

Approaching home around 9 am with heavy legs and frozen hands, eyes ready to close and no real food for a day or so i found the energy to take one more picture. Every season looks to be even more beautiful in Sweden. Dress well, winter is coming.

Right outside my house..

What about Finland? Until Wednesday it involved quiet things, mostly staying inside, watching silly movies, cooking loads of different food, eating a lot of garlic bread and taking Ippu to the dog park. I like this life. I felt relaxed and not in a rush to do anything else, to go to clubs and drink until dawn. Sometimes the world needs a little old-fashioned.

Then we moved to Espoo, a fairly large area near Helsinki. It was a 1.5 hour drive and we listened to horrible music on the radio that made us want to gouge our eyes out. We stayed at her parents house since my flight was really early in the morning and the airport was about 30 minutes from there. Her parents were on vacation though and we only had the little sister in the house. Our dialogue was amazing and involved me talking about dogs and her nodding.

So we watched even more movies as i prepared for the last exciting day in Helsinki. Should i make a list of what we watched? Yea sure why not. If you are a fan of bad movies that are so bad that they are good yay!

Airplane! (1980): 10/10 They just don't make movies like these anymore. Ridiculous dialogues, epic fails, shit that hit the fan, inflatable drivers, alcoholics and idiots coupled with rotten fish. A must watch.

Bad Granpa (2013): 9/10 This made us laugh so hard sometimes that the whole building must have shook from it. Over the top farces and gags coupled with cheesy lines and ending make it a nice movie.

Shutter Island (2010): 5/10 Hmmm this movie had a decent enough concept and a lot of plot twists, but the acting was weak at some points. It seemed that they were trying too hard.

Equilibrium (2002): 3/10 A Matrix wannabe. It tackles some interesting points that were better pictured in V for Vendetta but the special effects are weak and the fighting ridiculous anno 2014.

Warrior (2011): 8.5/10 A great movie for MMA lovers and one with a strong background story regarding the importance of family, bonding and struggles.

Bruno (2009): Either 0/10 or 10/10 If you are a fun of really ridiculous movies, racist jokes, sexism, rednecks and public mayhem then this movie is for you. If not and you find that offensive...ehm better stay far far away. It does make a mockery though out of stupid concepts like gay conversion or psychics.

Jumanji (1995): 8/10 The special effects show their age but it is a pretty entertaining movie. A classic.

Jurassic Park 1 (1993): 8/10 The special effects are incredible for a movie that is 20 years old. Some of the actors were horrible and i don't think i even remember who is the lead actor. Good movie.

Jurassic Park 2 (1997): 1/10 What do you get when you have a movie with 3 of the actors i hate the most, shitty plot full of holes and a lust for money? I guess a sequel. I despise Vince Vaun, the guy that plays the dinosaur guy and Julian Moore.

Jurassic Park 3 (2001) We didn't finish that one but it was way better than the second one. Also why does every movie have to have an annoying screaming kid? Oh and that wife there, i wanted to punch her in the throat. Unknown lead actor from first film returns.

As you can see i spent my time as a family man. And i loved every second of it. And this is how the post switches direction and will be more of a photo-show again to better illustrate my day in Helsinki. I cannot show all the 300 pictures i took, but feel free to visit here, like, leave a comment or tell me to go to hell :D

I also had a try on the sauna. Being in 55 Celsius made me so sweaty and wanting to kill myself for a cold shower. I thought my contact lenses would melt into my eyes and crabs would eat my flesh and make me look. The cold shower after was priceless.

We took the scenic route as usual and took bus 165 from Espoo to Helsinki main station. The ride was pretty expensive at 5 euros per ticket for a 40 minute ride. It actually was cheaper than Uppsala-Arlanda which clocked at 60 crowns.

At a big central square.

The day was lovely. Sun and clear sky everywhere and around 10 Celsius which is great weather for Finnish standards. First we walked a bit towards the Finnish Museum of Natural History. If you visit Helsinki and not go there, i will hunt you down and force you to do it. The entry is 5 euros for students and 10 euros if you are a mongrel like me and brought no student ID.

Entrance to the museum. Big moose and giraffes.

Getting inside we paid the ticket, got ourselves a map and then the adventure started! We were greeted by a massive elephant that reminded me of the jumanji movie and we headed up the stairs. I wish i could show you all the pictures!

Do not poke the elephant. Wildboar cameo too.

Oh this paper guy too.

I really need a haircut.

The first floor was full of history stuff, from rocks and fossils to animals and the big bang. It was the next floor that i wanted to see!

They actually had live fossilized stuff in the jars.

We made our way to the top to see the finnish and global fauna and flora, a sight that was absolutely astounding. I was running around like a little boy taking pictures everywhere i could!

Getting ready to snap the pray.

A little boar family.

All my favorite animals in one building. I am so excited just to think about it!

Majestic creatures.

What, did you think there would not be snakes?

Not everything involved flesh eating beasts.

And then my favorite part. A childhood dream coming true. Dinosaurs!

I think i just jizzed in my pants.

I think i can die happy now!

A triceratops too!

Just look at the size of the megalodon!

Then there was a common finnish household that gave me the creeps.

No thank you.

We moved to a room full of skulls and bones.

These actually reminded me of the skeleton monkeys in The Mummy Returns.

Carita also decided to poke a man in the eye.

She actually tried to remove his jaw and brains.

Closing in a nice picture i took in the local fauna room.

Feeling foxy today?

Oh we are hungry so we try to GPS our way to a place called Fafa's that serves fallafel. We fail so hard and when we finally make it there it looks horrible. So we do the right thing to do in times like these and we enter a candy shop where i fill a bag with tons of tutti frutti.

We try to find a pizza place and we end up in Pizza Hut. For 11.40 i got the worlds most depressing pizza. Like really depressing. So small i wanted to dance and do the chacha in front of everyone. And the view was amazing as a van parked right next to the window. So i ate way too much candy.

Then we walked and walked around the city until the sky consumed the sun and the cold was penetrating our coats. We headed for an Irish pub and drank even more beer. That+candies=bad combo.

The most famous cathedral there.

It's time to go back. We run to catch the last train and we barely make it in. I am probably going to vomit candies, pizza and beer. But it's alright. We get the train ticket inside and everyone is looking at me like i am a maniac, since i keep laughing, smiling and having a good time. My friend has a blast as she is not used to this and we get off the train and walk back home. In every neighborhood apparently there was a murder and we made it to the playground where we sat on the swings like little kids.

Back home we ate more, drank more, watched the horrible Jurassic Park movies and we did not sleep. At all, because we were afraid we would miss the flight.

At around 4 am we started our journey to the airport. We arrived at 4:40 and my flight left at 6:55. Carita spent over an hour to keep me company and i was really worried for her safety when she drove back home. She is safe now :*

We made a mayhem in the airport, or better say, i did and she laughed at it. I just sat there in a seat playing Assassin's Creed: Pirates on my tablet and entered the airplane. Apparently it is also easy to leave Finland as you need just a boarding pass, no identification.

What is it with me, planes and strange people? The flight was good, the air hostess tried to ask me 3 euros for a bottle of water and when it was time to leave i turned around and saw the worlds most angry man glaring at something. I made a quick escape to the bus stop, where i took bus 801 back to the city center.

There i devoured 2 kanelbullars and rode bus 7 home. And then i died for 12 hours. And i am going to do the same now since i am so tired and bored.

Leave a comment, like, share and follow me through the widget in the right! We will talk soon as it is Halloween and something interesting will surely show up!

Goodnight Sweden! Goodnight my Carita!