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Family & Friends & Party & Sweden — 5 comments
23Aug

Around one big table

Yeah yeah yeah, I’ll admit it’s true, you can get used to most things rather quickly – and maybe even start to appreciate them. After taking my first real shower here yesterday and having spent some quality time at Ikea with my room mate as well as at a traditional Moroccan dinner she made for us, I’m slowly starting to realize what a gem this little red house is (so far). Let me tell you what happened.

Today was the first day of the intro week at uni. The different schools (not called faculties here) organized different things, there were welcome lectures and campus tours. Now, everyone in The Little Red House is at the international business school. Except me. I’m at the school of education and communication, or HLK – which is the Swedish name. Over the weekend I had grown pretty close already to everyone in my accommodation so I was sad that not one of them came with me today. And, as I feared, it was difficult to make new friends – if that’s what you want to call it – at HLK. After only two days, there are already certain groups that aren’t as open to welcoming new people as everyone was when they just arrived. Add to that my general shyness, and you have something between high school and tragedy. I basically just followed around two of the people I had met at the airport – and I could tell that they were thinking to themselves, What’s the deal with this kid? Doesn’t she belong to anyone?

And then, a handful of people from the Little Red House that I tried to stick with whenever our different schedules would overlap kept talking about how much they were looking forward to the first epic party at the university’s own night club tonight and- yeah- seriously- most of the information lectures were about HOW LIFE-CHANGING THESE PARTIES WILL BE.

I felt completely out of place. I do think that this experience will change my attitude towards personal space and solitude and all of that – but I will probably always hate clubbing. With a passion. It’s the least thing I want to do in my free time. I’m a homebody, and I like relaxed gatherings; bonfires, movie nights, eating at a nice place. — And when they kept mentioning tonight’s party – there will be official parties every night during the intro week – I suddenly remembered that, YES, this is what people are like, these are the kind of people I always have trouble connecting with on any level.

So I took the bus home around 4pm.

Shortly after I arrived home, a girl from across the hall asked me to come to the cocktail reception that would happen as a sort of pre-party at the business school tonight. I didn’t want to go because I didn’t have anything to wear and I feared everyone would end up staying until the early morning – but I knew I needed to not say no for once. So I went, in my jeans and boots, a gray sweater, nice ear rings. The other three girls that came were dressed fancy fancy. Two guys also came, by the way, one from France that I already knew – and a new guy who, as it turned out, usually studies in Maastricht as well! WHAT! REPRESENT! But so- I felt under-dressed and insecure and dead tired.

The cocktail reception had a red carpet, fire, a view of the lake, red wine, and way too many girls in short skirts and guys in ties. It was extremely high profile and luxurious and… not my kind of thing. My room mate and the girl from across the hall agreed. We left after 45 minutes.

And I know that maybe I should have stayed longer or checked out the actual party afterward but- I was so glad to have found people who agreed with me, who despised these kinds of things as much as I did. And then: when we got home, we all went down to the kitchen and almost immediately a girl from the Czech Republic, one from India, one from Russia, one guy from Pakistan and one from Tanzania joined us. And we talked forever about how ridiculous we thought the entrance fees for these supposedly epic parties were and WHY WOULD PEOPLE EVER GO TO THESE THINGS, and- I don’t know. It was awesome. Yeah, we were the ones left behind, the not-cool people who ended up at home, not drunk, in bed before midnight.

But we cooked together, talked, laughed, sat around the big kitchen table – and it felt good. Like home. Like a family.

Sweden & Traveling — 4 comments
22Aug

Sweden

Creative title, I know.

So I’ve been here since Friday afternoon, and since then I have actually gotten used to some of the things that shocked me in the very beginning. But first things first.

I left Germany at 6.30am on Friday. My dad took me to the airport, and everything worked out fine. My suitcase was 3 kilos too heavy but the Lufthansa lady just waved me through. It’s important to have a feeling of success as early as possible on a trip like this! Heh.

The sun was just coming up when the plane left Hannover Airport. I hadn’t flown anyplace since my trip to Kentucky in 2007 so I was stoked about seeing the planet from above. (By the way: my parents simply decided not to drive me up here after all because they had trouble finding a hotel up here and my mom actually hates driving – so they canceled our 12-hour road trip and had me fly up here instead.) The flight to Kopenhagen only took one hour, and approaching the Danish coast at 7.30 on a sunny August morning has to be among the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

Also: Kopenhagen airport. So pretty. So worthy of a 4-hour layover. So much glass and wooden floors and fancy stores like Prada and Burberry and hip cafés and, most importantly, Starbucks. I bought a mocca frappuccino in exchange for half the content of my wallet (their prices are criminal, honestly) and sat on the second floor, with a great view of a busy air field. I sat there for about an hour, and I swear that at least sixty planes must have taken off during that time.

My flight from Copenhagen to my final destination took another hour, the plane was tiny but only half full. Sweden from above is all forests and lakes and tiny red houses, and approaching the coast was just as pretty as Denmark earlier on:

There were about fifteen international students on the plane, and so while we were waiting for the university’s pick-up service, I talked to two people from Vancouver – which is where I originally wanted to go, if you recall, so that was pretty awesome. There were also two students from Southern Germany and one from Spain. — The airport was very scenic as well, just a small wooden building next to a single landing strip surrounded by forests. — We then crowded into the pick-up van and drove through what I can only describe as a very “Nordic” landscape: so much forest, so many lakes, hills, narrow roads carved through dark gray rock, the typical elk crossing signs. We exchanged names, home country, stories; right there I was so glad not to have my parents with me. I would’ve missed out on that first connection to others in my same position.

We arrived at the university where a ton of other students from all over the world who had arrived earlier that day were already waiting for the keys to be handed out. I think there were easily two hundred people there, probably much more. We waited forever and ever and more people kept arriving – until we finally made it to the top of the line. I think this was around 5pm or something. I found out that I was to stay in a shared room 15km outside of the city – which is basically the opposite of what I’m used to and the opposite of what I stated I wanted for accommodation when I applied. I WAS THRILLED, as you can imagine. OR NOT. — Another van drove about eight of us out to the tiny town we were going to stay. Luckily, one of the German girls I had met – Sarah – had gotten the same placing so I had someone to share my bewilderment with. Shared room? 15km away? I’M SORRY WHAT NOW?

We finally arrived at our new home for the next few months, and it actually looked really charming and beautiful:

Sadly, I soon learned my first lesson of this whole experience: one should not judge a house by its exterior. Just trust me on this. The house looks so cute and idyllic and perfect when you stand outside it; there are tall trees and cats in the surrounding yards, old windows and greens crawling up the facade. But the facilities inside are just… horrific, ancient, dirty, terrible, disgusting. And small. On the plus side, all of us students quickly bonded over this. After all, a problem shared is a problem halved, right?

CUT TO TODAY, SUNDAY. I feel better about a lot of things that bothered me at first. Right now, the distance to uni and the city and the showers are my biggest issue that I don’t know how to deal with yet. I absolutely love the people I live with. I don’t necessarily think any of us have the same interests and certainly not the same backgrounds – but everyone is so friendly and open-minded. Since I’ve been here, I’ve talked to students from Canada, the US, Ghana, Tanzania, Australia, India, Russia, China, South Korea, Morocco, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, and France. Where else could you possibly share a kitchen table with that many different people? And there are more people arriving today and uni hasn’t even started yet! My floor is all girls and there’s a group of us that were the first to arrive here so we’ve grown pretty close already because of that.

A whole group of us went to Ikea yesterday which took all day because it’s so difficult to figure out public transport around here – we spent a good two hours just trying to figure out how to get out of here. I didn’t eat all day, I forgot my Swedish money in my room, and my feet were killing me – but it was so. much. fun. to walk around Ikea for hours with people I had only known for a couple hours in some cases, and feel so… in the right place. Everyone is so different because of the different backgrounds and so no matter who you are, it’s easy to be yourself and be accepted for it. Most people I have met so far are studying at the international business school; I’m not. So I think I will meet even more interesting people during the introduction week and once school starts.
__________

My room mate – a girl from Morocco who’s doing her master’s degree in international logistics here – and I are currently waiting for the next train to drive through this tiny hamlet so we can get more stuff at Ikea. The two of us are not really on the same wavelength, I don’t think, not in the same way I have connected with others – but we get along.

I have trouble adjusting to the idea of a shared room. I know it’s a perfectly normal thing but I just don’t like never ever having any privacy. I dread showering tonight because the showers barely work and I don’t know where to change – all of that will take a lot of getting used to. The shared kitchen and the laundry facilities are also an outrage – but I can already feel myself accept that.

It will be interesting to see what happens once school starts because everyone will be much more stressed out and show their true colors. Heh.

Food & Sweden & Traveling — 2 comments
18Aug

Just have cake

I’ve been visiting my grandmothers, I’ve been trying to make lists of stuff to pack for Sweden (never mind getting around to the actual packing), I’m doing a ton of last-minute shopping, I miss Kentucky terribly and part of me wishes I’d go there this Friday instead of a place I have never been to or, frankly, know much about. And – to calm down my nerves, I guess, or perhaps to just do something so familiar I could do it with my eyes closed – I made German plum sheet cake.

I was driving back from my grandma’s last night when it was already dark out, and all the rain and wind made it difficult to drive, especially because head lights reflected on the flooded roads and made it impossible to see anything. I both loved and hated it; it reminded me of fall and winter and how much I love this season and driving in the rain, but on the other hand, you know, I wanted to make it home in one piece. It was this strange conflict of emotions where- I don’t know – I suddenly felt really small, like I just wanted to cuddle up at home and never have to put up with crazy ideas like leaving Germany, again, for this long a stretch of time, again. Part of me was all, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO YOURSELF, YOU IDIOT? Right there, I wanted nothing but to be thirteen years old again and get to go to high school and hang out with my buddies and come home to a family dinner and NEVER EVER LEAVE MY COMFORT ZONE EVER. FOR EVER.

And so I got home and made cake. I had bought plums earlier that day – my mom and I had actually talked about using them for cake – and so baking could be my distraction and almost-fix to the inevitable doubts about leaving. It was just so- dramatic. Like, I drove through the storm and every. single. radio station played nothing but slow rock oldies and I turned into our neighborhood where, of course, all the windows were lit up all homely and warm WHICH THEY USUALLY NEVER ARE, my mom had left the light on for me… and I sat in the driveway for a few minutes, listening to the water rush down, and figured any second now the director would yell, CRY! NOW!

I didn’t. I made cake instead. Heh.

This is very traditional German plum sheet cake, we’ve been making it for years and years, for as long as I can remember. So has my grandma. And my aunt. And her grandma. And her aunt. Ah, tradition! (TRA-DI-TION!!!)

Here’s what you need:

2kg plums
300g all-purpose flour
150g dry quark
80g sugar (and some extra)
6 tbsp. milk
6 tbsp. sunflower oil
2 tsp. baking powder
some salt
some butter

Here’s what you do:

1.) Prep. Pit the plums by butterflying them open. (That doesn’t sound like an actual English sentence. But you can probably tell what I mean from the picture above, I hope.) Then, use some butter to, um, butter your baking sheet. Or use the spray kind from the can. Make sure to also cover the edges.

2.) Make the dough. Mix the quark, milk, oil, sugar and a pinch of salt with your mixer. Then, slowly, add the flour and the baking powder. Knead on your kitchen counter until your hands bleed ache give up begin to stick to the dough.

3.) Last step! Spread the dough on your baking sheet – just use a glass bottle (if you’re me) or a real rolling pin (if you’re feeling fancy). And then you can just put the plums on top, their insides facing up. (Ew, insides.) Bake at 220°C for about 25 minutes. Once the cake is done, take it out of the oven while still hot and sprinkle some sugar on top to counteract the slight bitterness of the plums.

Make this while I try to get my act together and catch that plane to Sweden! I hope I can blog again soon (not sure yet about my internet situation in the new digs). Love y’all!

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Around one big table

Sweden

Just have cake