I will beat the information out of you

Every time i go out it's the same. I have a better time than the previous one.

This town is crazy. It is occupied by lunatics. And i am the biggest one of them.

I am picking off from my last post, which was when i was about to meet Fabian @ 6:30 to visit the Systembolaget (only place where you can buy booze). I get in the center 6:30 sharp and i see even more weirdly dressed people climbing the lamps in the middle of the street. Smile for the camera!

Let's just casually climb on the lamp.

Right out of the H&M magazine people dressed as witches, kings, queens, archers, goblins. I approached them sneakily.

"Can you give me a good smile for my blog?"

"Sure, if you give us 10 crowns!"

"Whhhhat? What for?"

"We are in a competition!"

"Ok but you have to give me a really great smile!"

They cheer like they won the lottery and get together in a semi-circle, singing something i have no idea or recollection of. I take two photos and i wink at the sexy lady in the grey dress. Oh i actually gave them 20 crowns.

They sang a song for me!

I turn around and Fabian is staring at me. Haha. We greet and we gps our way to the closest alcohol shop. I buy 3 Newcastle beers, he gets 4 and i have some fun eyeballing the swedish blonde staring at me on the next counter. I pay 47 crowns for the beers and 1 crown for the bag. Eco-friendly.

We get his bike and move to the local ICA to get some food for our hosts. Chips and a nice dip sauce, hand made by Fabian.

He gets his bike, texts me the location of the Flogsta party and i m on my way to the bus. Number 2. I greet Jose in a beer shop and i reach the bus stop where i find sam and stephanie, which is a relief because i have no clue where to stop.

Weird super-cool asian guy from canada studying pharmacy talks to us. His voice is not very manly, but he has loads of humor. Good luck with your studies man.

We stop at the Flogsta ICA and we head towards Evelina's apartment. The building number sequence does not make sense. The door is unlocked. We get in. The apartment door is unlocked. We get in. Try that in Greece, it will be fun they said.

Get the party started on a Wednesday night.

We greet each other swedish hug style, which i am beginning to love because i miss the physical contact in Greece. And to bust a myth, it feels genuine and warm when they do it. Or maybe i just happened to bump into the right people, because all the girls and Evelina's boyfriend and Holger are amazing and i  feel lucky i will be part of their team for 2 years. Thank you for hosting us!

Which reminds me i sucked and did not remove my shoes. Did i wear new socks? The horror comes in my mind. Nah i always do i smell great.

I enter the house and there is this sooooo cute old black labrador like doggie staring at me. Thank you Sarah for bringing her! I eat chips and try Fabian's sauce while i drink my shitty warm beer. I entertain most people for a while telling them about the cultural differences of greece, what i like, swedish words i know and utilizing my ridiculous humor to the maximum. +5 points for Greece! Fabian had a nice streak of laughter at then too and i was pretty amazed by the level of swedish he was speaking in only 3 months here. Pity he had to leave early around 21:30 because he lives in stockholm and he had to get the train.

Doggieeeee <3

More photos, time for a game, while Sarah shows us how to lift up dogs like cattle and more people arrive. We get Kate, Erik, Tom, Lena, DJ, Sanna (who is not blonde!), Cecilia, Isabelle who is like an incredible blonde angel, Kostas, Ingrid and a thousand people i forgot about probably. Hey, let's give an honorable mention to our always smiling beautiful host Evelina.

We played a game, King's Cup. It was a drinking game and we choked thirty times during the waterfall phase. Erik, don't pick up whiskey as your weapon of choice next time for a drinking game. But you are a Viking so it's alright.

I also met Eve's boyfriend Olivier and he is thai boxing so i told him i will beat him up one day.

Game ends, it's time to start packing up, more fun, more discussions, more swedish phrases. I think i will not forget Skål easily! I drank some liquor from the FC Barcelona boutique and we got ready to go to the club at Norrlands. Which i am a member so free entrance bitchesss.

I am alone at the bus stop, most will bike their way to town. I casually take the bus and pick up Holger, Tom, Stephanie and Sam because they also have no bikes from the next bus stop. They think i am a magician because they did not see the bus stop 200 meters before the one they went for.

We gps our way to the center and walk towards the club making fun of the English national team. We meet up and there is a massive queue. We ninja our way to the front like proper greeks while i take 30000 more photos.

Say hi to Dimitris Blaster!

Rawrrrrrr

We get in i pay two crowns for Ingrid's coat and 11 for mine. That was so Colombian Coffee Kelly.

What the hell? Everyone is dressed! I get with Tom to the dance floor and we pick beers. Tuborg beers for 30 crowns or so. We pick a spot and dance to tunes i have no clue about. More photos. I need action. I pick up Holger and we talk to strangers. Each picks a target an the other one has to approach and take photos. Wow at the swedish greek goddess. If you give me her name i will cook you greek food. Holger picked up some really weird targets. But we had so much fun.

Name please?

Holger has the mooooves :D

My confidence is ridiculous but when i am in the mood it's sky high. Holger says "this girl". I point my finger at her and tell her "Come here NOW".

She obliges and gives me the world's cutest smile. Thank you.

Hello there!

Ingrid is amused from what i do and tells me the girl behind me is checking me out. Hey there Madle :D More photos! I find her a swedish dude that dances a bit with her and they exchange numbers. I am an asshole and i see her less interested so i go pick her up from the shoulders and take her with me to dance. The poor Swede is shouting "Call me ok?????". Beta male sorry.

Smile for the camera!

We have some more fun, we dance a bit more, Tom's and Holger's moves are the bomb. We go outside and i walk my new friend towards her bike while my friends bike home because i am a proper gentleman. And an idiot it seems you will see why.

We get there, we share a moment and i let her bike home safely because she is a bit tipsy and i am not like these assholes that take advantage of women. And i am F@cking proud of that.

I wait 20 minutes in the bus stop. I feel a disturbance in the force. I smell adventure and pain in my feet.

Three swedish boys come and tell me that there is no bus but they live close to my place so we start walking 6.4km at 2:00 am. They are supposed to know the way. I establish some authority and tell them i box so they are intimidated. A lot actually. They ask me random stuff about greece and one tells me he has 2 sisters and that i should not touch them. Funny. We share some stories and even more stupid stuff about turkish yogurt.

We are in a forest and i keep my finger ring tightened and my keychain wrapped in my hands. I am having fun but i am always alert of something fishy. I come from Greece bro.

"I hope you know the way" i tell them.

"What if we told you we don't or try to take you to the wrong place", one of the says.

"I will beat the information out of everyone of you", i stamp my authority.

After 1 hour of walking i can see the Gottsunda mall. Wow. I practically run home. I get in my bed. I see 13 facebook messages and 15 notifications. Snap back to reality rabbit.

Goodnight and Goodmorning Uppsala. With some more weird photos.

Besties!

Θελω τη μαμα μουυυυυυ!

Tom's got the moves brodah.

Pleb me I'm famous - Adventures in Uppsala

Monday 25 August 2014

 

You know when you have those really amazing days when everything goes great, then something occurs and you know it is going to end up in misery pain and agony yet you still do it only to regret it in the end?

Tipsy, slightly dizzy, with vomit leftovers in my mouth from my old friend Captain Morgan i just sat there in the freezing cold of the abyss in Stora Torget in Uppsala waiting for the first bus at 04:17 sharp.

Vomiting on the plants behind the bus station was not my proudest moment, but i promised to share all the moments with you, good and bad, so maybe you will get a lesson from this too.

But let's start from the beginning.

So i woke up casually, took my medicines and contacted Jim, a Greek friend from Thessaloniki. We went in one of the nations that had a pancake breakfast with coffee for 39 Kronor. You stood in the line, you got a ticket and they called your number. There i was eyeballing a cute German woman and we started socializing around. We met Raymon from Canada, Elizabeth from Germany (taking a master's and having two children with her, wow), Alice from Wonderland (well Australia), Esmee from Holland, Celine from Austria and well i made my move and asked the German girl her name, she was Anne from Berlin. Good times.

Alice, Raymon, Celine, Esmee.

So my number was 68 and the line was on 15. That meant i would eat in 512 hours so we went outside, sat on the wooden floor because all the tables were taken and talked a bit. I focused more on teasing Esmee and then with Anne a bit too.

Is Paok going to sign anyone new??

So Jim got us a table and we ninja'd some chairs (like 10) from the other tables and we sat down there, where more unknown people joined us! Harmeet from Hong Kong, a guy that was introduced as Bastian Schweinsteiger (Gregor), and two other people that kept talking about Mr. and Dr. Falafel. I guess the difference is just a PhD (derp xD).

Harmeet is half Indian too and he was pretty big and loud for an Asian, so i instantly liked him, he reminds me of Greece a lot. Good guy and we also shared a passion for football. He was amazed that i am a friend of Sokratis Papastathopoulos. We will play Fifa and real football soon. 

Finally the pancakes arrived and they were delicious, mine had pancake syrup but most preferred berries and ice cream.

We exchanged with most people Facebook pages, Jim left for Stockholm to pick up a packet that was sent from Greece and i went home with my trusty Gottsunda bus (number 7).

Back at home i just chatted a bit randomly and watched another episode of Psych (i find it hilarious) before i got dressed to go to the V-Dala Nation pub quiz about Sweden.

This town never ceases to amaze me.

I found it after asking around, got in the Nation and saw everyone sitting on a big long table with red covers. Most of the people i knew were there, so i took a seat at the end and we divided into groups of 4. I was with 3 people from Jordan, one woman and two men. The woman was incredibly beautiful and her name in Greek was Chara, but in her language that translates into sh$t.

10 questions, crap non-alcoholic reward.

The quiz spanned 15 minutes with 10 really hard questions about Sweden and Uppsala, like how many faculties does the university have or at what point water boils (spoiler, it's not 100 Celsius).

We got 3/10 like most of the teams so we left for Upplands Nation right at the corner in a big garden party. It was nice, we sat down and we went for beers with Kevin from Canada and Alice. She got some cherry beer, i got a local Uppsala lager and Kevin got one, then another, then a jug of beer.

We met more people, like Teresa from London, Amy from Canada, Ridhima from India/Australia and another loud Kevin :D I went with Kevin across the street and he got some Falafel and it was hilarious.

Let the Fallafel hit the floor.

Ridhima and the crazy cat dude!

Having fun at the table.

Attack of the zogglers.

Oh my god, what am i doing in Sweden?

 And this was Pleb. You can follow him in his own instagram page! He is so awesome and you can witness all of his greatness!

Nick Fury was outside.

So coming back in i saw a blonde angel next to the welcome desk, she started laughing at my ID photo. Her name is Vitalina from Russia and she is so funny and sweet. I invited her over to our table and we had a blast. We all stayed there until like 10pm and then two more girls i met and were about to adventurously shape my night dragged me to their house and then to Flogsta for a party in block 6, floor 4, apartment 4. Good stuff.

Oh don't we look extra cute together?

Here enters Nette from Finland and Lovisa from Sweden. Oh and their friend Leyla that works in a Greek restaurant that nobody speaks greek.

So we get bus 2, we go to Flogsta and we try to GPS our way to block 6. We got to number 15, we went through a fence, climber over some wood and a playground, Lovisa fell down, i powerlifted her up the fence, we made a circle and found our way with 2 asian people in the elevator. We pee'd in some unknown guy's toilet and we played a game i still don't get called "in my pants". We drunk crap and Cap Morgans, i lost the last bus and i was semi dizzy.

Amy's tongue win the day.

Raymon Nette and Lovisa.

So here i am dizzy with vomit coming through my throat, walking like a headless chicken down the road from Flogsta. It must have been like a 1 hour walk. The girls left me near the center and i went to the bus station. I just died there for a bit until i wanted to puke. Taxi's in front of me, the sound of their tired petrol engines echoing in my head like drums. So i went behind in the flowers and gave my best self. Don't go there.

I felt so heavy, my legs like a steel trap ready to swallow me in the endless abyss of the swedish night. It was so cold, i was tucked in my coat trying to breath heavily to exploit any inch of warmth i could get. I was hovering between a state of sleep and insomnia, trying to keep my eyes closed and waking up every 5 minutes watching the clock on my digital camera because i don't have a phone yet. Then an Indian dude came around at 3:30 and started playing Texas Hold'em.

I started to lose hope when i saw the time. The clock said 4:14. The bus was about to come. I felt a burning desire to get home. I knew i would make it. I felt the warmth of the bus penetrating my bones and my entire body. It was so good.

And then i overslept and lost the bus stop that i had to take. Cry me a river. But i told the driver and he was so kind that he let me get down in the middle of the street. Thank you strange guy. Tack.

When i walked through the door of my house, almost running with my last breath, i just crawled my way up the stairs in my cozy bed. And i died. The time was 5:02.

Learn from me. Don't lose your buses. Have a home. Have a bike. Have a phone.

Welcome in Uppsala.

Destination Uppsala - The journey begins

Pack your things and move here.

Like seriously.

The weather is crap. I admit. But i expected it to be worse actually. It's the 23rd of August and i'm sitting here in my cozy new house preparing for a beer in the Norrlands Nation. And i am reflecting on what i saw so far today. Let's make a recap of what to expect.

I sat there on the single-gate terminal of Kalamata, waiting for flight 438 to commence boarding. Around me there were mostly swedish people, exactly what i expected of them too. Polite, low-profile but very loving with their children. There was also a guy that looked like the last samurai making changes in a 3d house in some sort of program. Blondes, blue eyes, generally skinny and tall.

I chatted a bit with some greek people i met there and i did not even think that the moment i stepped my foot outside i was an immigrant, that there was the point of no return.

The aircraft was an Airbus 319 with around 138 passengers and was like 99% full. Pretty impressive for a town of 60000 people like Kalamata.

I sat next to a swedish couple that were cuddling during the whole flight while i was watching outside the window, watching half of the Avengers movie, eating some half-baked wannabe bread with strawberry, listening to some music.

When i heard about the upcoming landing i dropped everything i was doing and was staggered from what i witnessed from the window.

Breathtaking landscapes, vast forests with tall trees, a lung of fresh air and escape from normality, so wild yet so tamed and peaceful. There were no wolves in this picture, apart from a few ravaged pieces of land attacked by mankind.

Then we landed at Arlanda Airport. It reminded me of an older version of Eleutherios Venizelos airport of Greece. I saw a big Ethiopian airliner and thought i would be scared to fly with it. Our aircraft actually made a very annoying noise from the left engine, but the flight was one of the smoothest i have been in. Thanks Cap.

I went at terminal 5 to pick up my luggage, they arrived around 10 minutes in and i was the only one left since i had to exchange my money into SEK from Euros. The old lady in the cashier seemed annoyed and confounded that i had only an ID card and not a passport.

I took the wrong turn, fired up my trusty tablet, sent a few messages and went outside to the welcome committee. Two girls, one swedish and one German, joined later by an Australian one. I took the necessary info, got to the cafe next and picked up my first Swedish filter coffee for 35 SEK. Quite cheap for an airport compared to our prices if you want my opinion.

My first fika!

So i met two exchange students, Phillip from Singapore and Maddie from Midlands in England. We had some friendly banter and then proceeded to the van that would take us to one of the nations to get started. They call the vans shuttles actually.

We got in and there we were, like 10 greeks, waiting in line for an internet account (which i did not need), a temporary ID student card, some information, a welcome package and a telephone sim card.

I signed up for the shuttle to take me home, then went a small walk into town to pick up a bus refillable card. You cant buy tickets here, nor pay with cash. So buy a ticket!

The town was staggering, the architecture of the buildings, giving a medieval look to the town. The streets were clean, bike lanes in both ways, a couple of beggars a stark contrast to the misery of Athens.

The whole town is like this. Breathtaking.

I bought my ticket, went back to the nation, and got in with some people into the shuttle to drive us home. All but me disembarked in Flogsta. I only remember one Bulgarian woman and one from Australia, Perth, where my favorite band, Pendulum resides. A dude called Alexander was driving us around, he is originated from a small swedish town of 5000 people, but he also has greek roots, from his uncles side methinks.

He told me some stories about the Flogsta scream and how it was used to relieve stress from the exams every Wednesday at 10 pm, but now they do it every night, while he also made fun of the stress factor since everything is way too "xalara" here.

So he dropped me at my new house, where an old lady with memory issues opened the door and had no recollection of my impending arrival. She was polite and nice, i showed her an email that confirmed my room and started unpacking. A nice room, a clean house.

Now i m all set, about to go for a beer. Because i can.

Laters! Welcome to Uppsala!