On Sunday 29th August at 6.30am I left my home in Finland with my mum who dropped me off to the train station and my journay to Malmö began. After an hour on a train I took the ferry from Turku to Stockholm (8.45am - 8.00pm) and despite having a whole cabin for myself as no one else turned up I failed to fall asleep and decided to write into my diary instead, read some magazines and listen to some crap from the radio. There really weren't any decent channels!
After arriving in Stockholm I strolled slowly towards the Central Station trying to remember the last time I was wandering around Old Town and got terribly lost. This time I made it there without any stress and even managed to get some odd looks from Swedes who saw me dragging my gigantic suitcase, big backbag, big carrier bag and a jacket while I was taking pictures of some cute houses. At the train station I had to wait for 3 hours for the departure of the night train towards Malmö. It was a cheap ticket and the seat was just as comfortable as it could be for that price. I had only men sitting around me and they seemed to be sleeping pretty well but I having them all snoring there loudly couldn't so when I finally arrived in Malmö I was drop dead tired!
The first sight of Malmö didn't take my breath away as Edinburgh, Scotland at 2006 and Luzern, Switzerland at 2009 did but during the week I've spent here now I've learned to like (and even love some parts of) the city in a different ways.
(The train station and "Centralen" bus stop)
Despite being absolutely exhausted I managed to drag myself with all the bags to the University to check it out and just to kill some time as I arrived in Malmö 6:40 when nothing had opened yet. The tourist information office opened their doors at 9am and they helped me to find the right bus in a right direction to find the office where I could get the keys to my apartment. And I also needed to get the signed copy of my rent contract as soon as possible to be able to send it to the Finnish Social Insurance Intitution so they could start sending me money ;)
So the journey from Finland to Malmö, Sweden cost me 20€+ 14,50€+ 380kr, 24 precious hours and lot of patience.
THE APARTMENT
I had scheduled the time to collect the keys at 10:45 but as a eager beaver as I am I was there already at 9:45 and luckily they were able to take care of the paperwork right away and after signing million copies of all sorts of papers I got the keys!
(I'm aware of the fact that the keys look like hotel keys but believe me - living here is nothing like in a hotel)
My apartment is 21 sqm with a balcony on 7th floor (and yes, there is a working lift!) and it's unfurnished. And I've been too busy to buy furniture! I really have to find something next week...
(Looking left from the balcony)
(And looking right...)
I've done some basic cleaning here, cooked some simple dishes although I hate cooking and I've even washed the dishes every day (luckily I have just one pot, two plates and a mug) despite that being my least favorite chore. And I also keep dreaming about a hoover as I really love hoovering just like I love doing laundry (some of you already know my obsession with clean laundry). Altogether life in my very first apartment isn't that bad at all. And it will be much better when I'll get a lamp, a bed, a fork...
THE UNIVERSITY
The first official school day was on Tuesday (31st August) and then we all queued in 7 different queues from 10am to 4pm. We registered ourselves into school and School Union, got our computer IDs, signed up for the Swedish course, got a free pre-paid phone number so we students could call each other for free and lots of other things that seemed to be so important.
On Wednesday we had a roll-call where we signed up for the semester and then I did some more queueing (3 hours for the multi-card that works as a library card and is useful for stuff I have no idea about yet), got some more information about Swedish social number we all desperately need etc and in the end we went for a guided bus tour around Malmö for an hour and ended up at the Opera house where we had a really nice reception with lovely food (students love free food). A piano player was playing while we ate and several opera singers sang to us. The atmophere was wonderful.
On Thursday I ran some errands in town before heading to the library where we international students met up for a city safari. It was a fun day, we had to perform different tasks like speaking in Swedish to the strangers, ask odd questions and dance with strangers. And we took a lot of group pictures that should soon be up on mah.se.
Friday was the second proper school day. We had "Why is IR fun?" themed introduction where some of our teachers told us some of the reasons why IR isn't really fun. But it's certainly interesting.
And today I went to try out Bugg dancing with a classmate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6VSbNMQvwo)! I love the fact that there is so much to do here in Malmö.
THE CITY
Like I mentioned earlier I've only spent a week here by now and you can't see much in a week. Although I've done my best to wander around the city center and make sure I stare outside of bus window as much as I can but it's a big city compared to my hometown in Finland and there is so much to see. Something that you'll notice instantly here are the bicycles. Commuters seem to love them! And the city is also very bicycle friendly so no wonder everyone seems to favor them. There are also a LOT of buses and it seems to be part of the "green" image Malmö tries to great here.
(Möllevångstorget)
The city is very multicultural, you can meet a lot of different nationalities, eat a lot of different food (falafel seems to be the most popural dish here as there seems to be a falafel shop around every corner) and just enjoy the diverse and culturally rich atmosphere. It's nice to see so many different people living alongside each other although it's clear it also causes lot of problems.
I will keep wandering around the streets and taking photos and hopefully I can share my experiences with you very soon.
Good night,
LP
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