Wake me up when september ends

New month, same trouble :D

This is more like a 4 day recap since i was falling behind and now with the start of my lectures it's becoming increasingly difficult to do it every night with only 4 hours rest.

Friday was the last exciting day actually, since i rested on saturday (more on that later), i casually went out on sunday and today was my first experience in my new university.

I had an invite to go to Varmlands for clubbing but i guessed the queue would be big, so i decided to crash into Snerikes for their last "summer" party. The area was big, the music was meh and when i got there at approx 9:20 there were not many people yet. I paid 80 kronor for the entrance fee and 20 kronor to let them keep my coat safe because i am a rich idiot. I had my extra peacock belt with me anyways.

So i did not see anyone i knew. Strangely. Oh wait, there was Despoina from Thessaloniki. We talked and talked and talked and complained, made fun of some fail dancers and after 20 minutes she introduced me to her company, 3 italians, an irish girl and a german dude. Don't ask me their names, all i know is that they made fun of gay people.

Then Ridhima came, with her trusty Pleb in her bag. I teased her about her humongous mouth. She looked very pretty too. Then we went a bit inside, where i got a shitty Heineken beer from New York for 33 crowns. It was crowded, with many dancing monkeys and unheard music that everyone seemed to know but me.

I went to the bathroom. It was intimidating. It was like being in the "Blue Lagoon" bar from the Police Academy series. 10 men with their tiny junks out pissing on the ground, the wall and occasionally in the right hole. So i said to my self "You will piss in 5 hours Kostas, it's ok!" and i washed my face. Half a meter on my left there were two black people, one with a black vest and a fedora hat.

"Al muhajir toulseman mastur", he seemed to say. Twice towards me.

"English??", i replied casually.

He laughs.

"Pissing is like fucking", he says.

"Whatever makes your day dude. You can piss, i can fuck".

"NOoo" he says.

And i left.

Went back, picked Ridhima, and Wacko Kevin from Illinois joined us. I taught him some stuff about women and pick up, he started shaking my hand, asked my friend if she is bisexual and then started saying "Fuck the cops, fuck the government". I got a nice picture of him too.

Atomic mustache on the right.

More people join us. It's Gregor, Amy (luv u!), King Harmeet, Danika, Alice, Natalie, Raymon, Phoebe, Kevin Falafel, Cecilia, Laura. It screamed like fun. We went to the upper floor where they had 2 separate rooms each with wannabe hip hop rnb and electro music.It was so hot we were dancing for a bit then went outside for some air every 5 minutes. It smelled like sweat and really bad cheesy lines. Some of our friends got some action, good joooob :D

Guess the Swede....hint, she is on the left.

Took Kev and we went downstairs to diffuse some sort of situation, he ordered one beer, he got two, we drank a bit and went back up. Alice danced her ass off, i danced a bit with Danika before i broke her heart (sorry love) and we took approximately 25 thousand selfies.

Everyone's here! I told you the King is the coolest dude ever.

As i was dancing a woman approached me and told me "I am so hot right now".

"Go boil an egg", i tell her.

Finally we went down for some air and we decided to get foooood :D I grabbed my coat, number 116, and the guys said let's go to McDonalds. They had bikes. Bastards.

So me and Natalie ran, yes ran at 1am with Phoeb's as support until she gave her bike to Nat.

We reached McDonald's, people ordered and we sat there on a big table messing around. I am on a diet and Danika started feeding me potatoes from what was like whale oil and chicken something. On the table there was some leftover rat-burger that i called 7-week-old guacamole and Kevin almost choked from laughter.

German Engineering.

I threw some potatoes to the flat-ass "seemybracozmyasssucks" swedish lady then asked 2 swedish girls on the table to take photos of us.

"No" she says.

"You suck, let me buy you a glass of bitch" i tell her and move with a smile.

Without the mustache.

We made a tower out of leftovers, took more photos, we tried to guess how many times everyone had sex and we also made Gregor uncomfortable. Bad Danika.

I went for the last bus. There was none. I followed Nat, Raymon, Danika with bus number 11 for the first time. It said Gottsunda central. I hoped.

I sat with Danika, we chatted about our past lives. Raymon slept. Twice. Like 15 more people. A guy actually shook him to see if he was breathing.

So they eventually go down and we continue. It's me and a swedish girl with big headsets sleeping. Suddenly, in the vast nothingness of space the driver stops, asks me to wake her up, which took me 1 minute and tells us it's the last stop.

Good job Kostas. Welcome to adventureland. I ask the driver, he points me to a direction. The woman follows me and i hear her coughing on way. I asked her if she is ok. She says yes but she is cold. I offer her my coat and we have some small talk. I accompany her because i am a proper gentleman. But another gorgeous woman occupies my mind so i don't care. I keep walking. For 20 minutes in the woods in an empty road purely by instinct. I want to pee but i would probably set things on fire.

I finally see something resembling a mall. I am there. I am so tired. I make it home. I pee 25 litters of beer and drop dead on my bed. Goodnight Sweden.

It's saturday. I am trying to set up a meeting with my angel. Time passes and i am eager to see her for a movie. I got Need for Speed. I get dressed with a smile on my face. We cancel. I am a sad panda. It's ok, i will survive..

So i take it out all on the Colombian Coffee. Σε μισώ. I make Kelly lose 35 pounds from laughter and i sleep.

It's Sunday. I do nothing until 5. I talk with my angel. I set up a meeting with Dimitris to fix my phone and find the BMC faculty. He is 15 minutes late so i fix my phone and call my sweetie and tell her not to read so much and come for a walk.

Me and Mitsos go in a park, we walk for 3km back and forth and we are lost. We suck. We go back to Norrlands pub and we get beers and a nice burger. I am so hungry here i ate it with tomatoes and eggs. Yes it was my first time eating eggs. I actually video called my mother and told her there, i was that proud.

Vita's coming and we sit there for 40-50 minutes. Dimitris goes home and i walk her back to her place. I am never washing my right cheek again!

Monday babies. I wake up at 6:30, get out of bed in 6:48. I am ready by 7:27 and i got to pick up the bus that leaves at 7:39.

Intro class with info in the Geocentrum. Easy stuff, cool professor, straightforward class. We finish at 09:00. I manipulate the printing room guy (nah he was so helpful, thanks!), i get my student card, my student account id, my library card. I meet more Greek's, i ate a sandwich for 16 crowns and a classic fika cake for 20 crowns. I download my pdf's and lectures and i decide to go home at 10:54. I pick up the bus, i am at home by 10:18. I start studying at 12:12 after entertaining Kelly. I finish at 14:24. I am dressed and back to the Evolutionsmuseet for my first lecture. We find the room after some trouble. I sit with the video-game addicted french girl. Colombian coffee is absent.

I type all of my notes and then we got a movie called "Sun". It was not so sunny because the professor's netbook made the movie get stuck and out of sync. So we used mine. I was so sleepy.

It's over. I get home. I go to the nearest ICA, buy bread, yogurt, redbull, and some liquid death because i am tired. I am at home. The landlady has Alzheimer's because she double booked the same room to two guys. Davide will be homeless. I am tired.

Goodnight Sweden. Goodnight Uppsala.

Indiana skinny and the lost silvemine

Thursday 28 August 2014

It feels like impossible to express within a few pages what is actually going on here in Uppsala. And even more impossible to post all 474 photos that i have taken in the span of a week. Wow a week? I am already here for 7 days. I feel like i just returned home, let alone moved to a new country.

I will keep things more compact for now since i need to cover 2-3 days of partying and resting. Photo wise...i will think along the way.

Waking up at 7:08 i wanted to gouge my eyes out with a fork. But no, we had to make a field trip. I still didn't know where we would go but they said to be outside the faculty at 8:50. So as usual i managed to crawl outside the bed, wore my isothermic pants and shirt, got a nice warm sweater and my sneakers and i just ran to the bus stop. Oh i forgot to take food, money, my mind. Good job Kostas. Also the day was hot for my clothing so i said i will probably die somewhere from heat or a stroke or epilepsia.

With no clue what to expect i arrive at the Geocentrum and i see some collegues, we chat a bit and some more arrive. We find out we are taking a bus trip to the Sala Silvergruva, an old silver mine around 1 hour away from Uppsala.

I sat down in the front with Fabian, a guy from Chile, who is very polite and a really nice guy. He also sent me some of the first lecture material since i don't have my student account yet. Tack Fabian!

It was SO hot. I could not sleep so i took some photos and talked to Abi and Fabian and listened to some music. Phoebe was next to me sitting with the other Kostas casually talking. The Colombian coffee was somewhere behind under a skirt. Behind me i think there was Ezre who is a very kind and polite guy from Ethiopia.

We reached Sala, i took way more photos than i should and we split into teams of two, around 19-20 each. A short, skinny Indiana Jones dressed swedish man, Joel led us to grab some gear after we had a stroll in the museum, gave us some information about the mine and we started our descend to the depths of the earth, 155 meters down. With an elevator. It was fascinating seeing how old meets modern. The shaky elevator went down for 5 minutes and i felt really reassured when Indy told us that we should open the other door or we would fall to the abyss.

Indy had a torch and a nice hat and he led us through the mind, showing us the wooden reinforcements, the cracks on the wall, where people rested and ate, the tiny corridors where up to 150 people spent 12 hours a day working in hideous work conditions and 2-4 degrees Celsius.

Indiana Skinny and the lost torch.

 The guided tour was like 1 hour plus and i actually expected to feel colder. I was amazed when Indy started singing in the concert room, a place that your echo was 12 seconds long. I might upload a video of that some time. More like audio but whatever. Also i loved the rest room, where there was actually heat and i could feel my hands which were so cold from holding the flashlight. Oh funny how there was a room with a bed and a table that you could spend one night for 400 euros. Alone. In the depths of the earth. Spooky. But awesome.

We started our ascend to civilization. I was starving. We gathered around some round tables and had a great discussion with everyone, we had people from Spain, Brazil, Chile, Australia, Sweden, Greece, Netherlands, Germany. Amazing multicultural meeting. #lovesweden.

Like a picnic. Foooood!

I ate a nice wannabe-greek sandwich with wannabe-Feta again, drank a coke and felt refreshed. I changed tables with some of our swedish friends, Sanne and Evelina and afterwards we went on the bus again to complete our tour. I sat with the program coordinator Suzanne and we talked and talked until we reached our destination, which was a place in the forests we could walk in. We failed miserably since there was a no-pass sign so we turned back and took another route for like 30 minutes until the bus. In the meantime i was talking with a swedish guy, Holger, who is very cool and funny and we shared stories about football, greece, sweden, women, video games, his parents that work in China and his ankle problems.

Really atmospheric pic from the mine.

Fika time!

So we have a second round of picnic, this time with leftover sandwiches and tasty swedish cinnamon buns and cakes.

Oh i slept for 30 minutes in the bus, i was invigorated. I am an ignorant baboon so i left my ipad open and had no battery. We reached campus and some people were making a safari. Dressed and painted like cats.

Dat ass.

I managed to reach home around 5:23. I opened my laptop had a quick shower and talked to my Красивый Ангел to set up a meeting. I was dead tired. I felt i could barely move. But my desire to see her overcame my obstacles. Even if it was for one minute, i would travel to the other side of Uppsala. We set up a meeting outside Gothenburg's nation at 8:30. I am there at 8:27 like the gentleman and apparent punctual idiot that i am. I ran to the bus station, i ran to the nation so i was there in time, hoping to be greeted by that miraculous warm smile. So i stood there for 20 minutes, throwing stones and counting sheep, feeling alone and depressed thinking if i should name my next post "20 minutes in the rain". Having no phone all that kept me going were my thoughts. She finally showed up from the corner and washed all my doubts and pain away with an innocent smile and puppy eyes. Brace your self Kostas. Snap back to reality.

We decided to go to Norrlands as usual since Gothenburg was empty. She talked about her jogging today and the marathon she wants to participate. I told her outside the church there is a theater play and horses. We both love horses so she grabbed me by the hand and we raced until there. I didn't care i'd collapse later in my bed. I ceased the moment, trying to freeze it and own it (woah there eminem). We took photos with the horses, patted them and kept going to the pub.

There i was my usual crazy self and we had a blast. Everyone was so quiet and i was so loud. I started stealing people's hats. Because i can. Some girls we didn't know joined us (Alessia and Angela) and i entertained them for like 45 minutes. Then we were bored. I could get into more details about how i felt when she touched me but let's leave it at that :)

First hat i stole that night.

 Yarr, Tortuga mate, savvy?

I am a proper gentleman so i walked her home. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and walked home happy. I had a great day Uppsala.

Goodnight to you with another amazing picture taken by a black rasta man that was so impolite and angry that i asked him to take a photo of us. Thank you kind sir. Depression suits you well.

Me and my new friends.

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.