Dear Lab Life...

Oops, so clearly I'm starting to slack off with this blogging thing. Just one of the many things I seem to not be getting done now that I'm working in the lab. 3 weeks in and I can already feel my life slowly slipping away. I guess that's when you know you're properly researching. I don't want to be so ignorant as to compare it to being a doctor starting out as a medical intern (I'm going through a major Grey's Anatomy stage at the moment, sorry) as I know that's definitely a lot tougher, but when 9 hours is the average amount of time you spend in the lab every day and you start thinking 7pm is the normal time to head home, then I feel I have some right to say that medical research is fairly intense- and I haven't even started working with the parasite yet!

I won't bore you with the details of my day to day life, but I will say that there are two kinds of days in the lab...

Office days, when I spend the day sitting in the shared office space, reading journal articles, making flow charts, drinking ridiculous amounts of coffee, and continually checking facebook.

... And lab days, when I hang out in the lab the whole time, growing cells, running assays, watching mice being murdered, doing copious amounts of pipetting, watching FACS analyses run for hours, and being aware of every second that exists in a 5 minute timeframe whilst cells are being centrifuged. You will never be more aware of how long 5 minutes can last than when you're waiting for a centrifuge to run.

Reason #218 why I shouldn't be left alone in the lab

Now I wouldn't say medical research is particularly difficult. It's not rocket science and it's not saving lives (well what you're doing could potentially save lives down the track... but you get what I mean). Pipetting and balancing a centrifuge is not that hard, but what's a bit more tricky is understanding why you're running this particular assay, how this relates to a bigger picture of the immune system, and what greater things can come from this (the answer is always 'a potential cancer vaccine', I swear). And studying immunology papers is no case of light reading- it takes a lot of concentration to actually take in and process all those words and ideas your eyes are presenting to you. Yet every day I look forward to going into the lab (crazy, I know).

Hours spent pipetting definitely isn't everyone's cup of tea, and to be honest, it doesn't even sound that fun to me, but for some reason I enjoy it. Yes it sucks working Good Friday, Good Monday, and being told that "oh yeah, by the way, you'll need to come in this Saturday and Sunday to sort and infect cells for a couple of hours", but I still like it. I'm not sure why this is, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that I simply just really enjoy pretending to be a scientist. On Monday I was left alone in the lab for most of the day for the first time, and even though I wouldn't necessarily classify it as 'fun', I really enjoyed hooking my laptop up to the speakers in the lab and blaring Josh Pyke and Lykke Li while I washed bone marrow out of mice femurs.

But maybe what I really like best is wearing my MTC (mikrobiologi, tumör- och cellbiologi) department ID card all day and swiping and coding my way into the entry-restricted labs. Entry cards make me feel super special, and seriously, there's nothing I love more than feeling special.

Too excited about getting my entry ID card after a week of jumping through admin loops

Dear Pippi and Parasites...

This week I started my lab research project. The first thing my supervisor, Benedict, said to me was "You better not be Australian. And from the University of Sydney? They're the worst sort." It's been all fun and jokes since then. We spend the day pipetting and singing along to classic hits in the lab, and on Friday he let me leave early so I could go buy socks to dress as Pippi Longstocking for the Paxparty that night. Before I left he warned me that I better not get pregnant at this party, because then I'd have to leave the research group as the parasite that we're working with can be fatal to foetuses. Toxoplasma gondii is serious stuff, guys. Nah, not really. If you've ever had a cat or been to France, you're probably positive for it. I can say yes to both these things, so hello parasites!

The research group that I'm working in is studying the interaction between NK (natural killer) cells and Toxoplasma gondii, so it's my two favourite areas- immunology and medical microbiology. I've only been in the lab since Thursday, but I already think it's going to be a really useful experience. The project is fare less structured than I imagined it to be, and it seems I'm expected to help out with the overall research like a Masters or PhD student would, which is pretty crazy. The most independent experiment I've ever done was in micro when we had to isolate a certain bacteria over a number of weeks. The idea was that we did it all ourselves, but when you're provided with the materials required for tests you "might" need to do, and instructions for experiments which you "might" want to conduct, it's far from actually being a self designed and performed experiment. This research project, on the other hand, seems like it will be an amazing opportunity to do proper research, but at the same time I feel completely overwhelmed by what I think is expected of me. Hopefully I rise to the challenge and don't make (more of) a complete idiot of myself. Fingers crossed!

Anyway, this is the closest I've come to actually writing a proper blog post, so I feel like I should deviate into some random nonsense and menial chatter... Like that apart from buying colourful socks on Friday, I also bought a super lovely dress from a store called Beyond Retro, in Södermalm. It's hard to see the pattern in the picture, but it's of roses and hydrangeas and other nice flowers. It's a particularly grandma-looking pattern, but in the words of my Swedish friend, Carol: "I am old people". (She was saying that she was like an old person because she liked things like gerberas, old people chocolate, and old clothes. I agreed. Being old people when you're young is the best.)

Oh and my Pippi costume last night was amazing, if I do say so myself. Check out that hair!

Dream Story Sharing Time

I just woke up from a 2 hour nap (it's 5.30pm) after spending a hard day in bed catching up on Grey's Anatomy episodes and battling a serious hangover. I rarely get hangovers and when I do, I feel well and truly sorry for people that wake up most Saturdays and/or Sundays like this. It would be the worst.

Anyway. I'm breaking from my usual writing patterns and just to make this blog even more ridiculously pointless, I'm going to share what fragments of my dream I can remember. (This is your last chance to close this page if you don't enjoy random pointless Tessa Stories. Consider yourself warned.)

... In my dream I was at a supermarket. I can't remember who I was with but it had an 'exchange-y' vibe, so it was probably some exchange friends. Half way through the dream I had a parallel dream that Jane tagged a bunch of travel photos on Facebook. (Heads up Jane, it looks like you have a really good time in Fez!) Does anyone else have parallel dreams? It's like a parallel story in a book or tv show- a separate plot to the main story, but with a common link. Well I do.

Back to the dream. I remember walking back and forth along the same aisles because I kept forgetting something and then going back to get it, but then leaving something at the other end, etc etc. The aisles weren't like normal supermarket aisles. They were kind of IKEA maze-like and involved lots of manoeuvring to get around. There was even a drawbridge / trapdoor that you had to climb through and pull out stairs to go down.

I remember I had three shopping bags. One definitely had kale in it, and another had alcohol, including a bottle of wine that had been bent out of shape. Even in the dream I was curious about how a glass bottle can be bent.

At some point the supermarket started closing (this is the good bit), and so the whole store started sinking into a lake. It was kind of like the roof just came off and everything slowly sank away into the water. And even though you were in water, you didn't really feel like you were wet or swimming even. It was like being in air, but you were in water, if that makes any sense. Probably not.

I remember I'd left my grocery bags further away in another aisle, but most of that part of the store had disappeared into the lake so I headed to leave. By now this top part of the store was almost completely gone and I had to grab onto the trapdoor as it starting sinking to hoist myself out.

I'm not sure what happened after that, but I remember I spoke to a supermarket assistant at some point and told her that I'd left my groceries in the store, but she assured me that tomorrow when the supermarket rose from the lake, I'd be able to get them back. This seemed like a reasonable answer to a reasonable problem- such is the world of dreams.


Anywho, you've just lost a good couple of minutes of your life reading this pointless story. On the upside, now that it's written down, I'm probably less likely to try and tell people this story in person, so you can feel good in yourself for having saved someone from going through that.

And now I'm off to clean up the mess of broken pottery and spilt dirt in my room. Apparently I knocked over my pot of gerberas when I got home last night. Nice one, drunk Tess.

Dear Books and Sunshine...

Before I left Australia everyone warned me about buying too many clothes in Europe, lest my baggage be overweight when flying home. So following the warning, I haven't bought too many things so far, but my real problem is going to be all the books I've collected. I rationalised that the textbooks being half the price here (why so expensive, Australia?) validated buying two large heavy ones. And my dream to one day own a huge library means I don't want to leave them behind.

On top of that, today I bought another novel (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer - looks like a really good read by the way!) to add to the haul of novels I bought away with me. I was drawn in by the 'Bokrea!' (Book Sale!) signs, but I'm pretty sure my book wasn't actually discounted. Some people have impulse shoe shopping problems, but I have impulse book buying issues.

On a completely separate note, it's really starting to warm up in Stockholm now! On Friday night we went outside Pax to let off some birthday celebration lanterns into the night sky, and I really noticed how much warmer it is. The last time we lit lanterns it was freezing cold, and wearing a coat and scarf barely kept out the cold. This time I was (although a little bit shivery) wearing just a long sleeve top. Almost exactly a month ago we survived the crazy night of walking through the snow for half an hour to the tunnelbana station when it was -18ºC, but today it was a pleasant +11ºC! Talk about a quick turn around.

Most people (both Australian and Swedish) have at some point questioned my sanity in choosing to leave summer for winter, a number of them emphasising how depressing the never-ending cold of Swedish winters are. Well to that I say, winter wasn't long enough. Although I'm looking forward to it getting warmer and seeing everything become green and sunshiny, I really didn't think winter was that bad, and I definitely wouldn't have complained about a bit more snow and cold for a little while longer. So there.

Sunday was so sunny I felt it was time to get out the sunnies AND have the window open for the day

(Also note: I finally got material from IKEA to cover the super white wall I'd been planning to decorate for ages! Yay!)

Dear Lost Things...

I'm starting to become notorious for losing things, and based off how many possessions I've lost in only the last 10 days, I can kind of understand why...

1. My key necklace
You know that key necklace I always wear? The one that my brother found for me in Holland and I absolutely loved? Yeah, well, I lost it. Massive sadface. If you're going to lose something though, it's best to do it somewhere memorable, like way up north in Kiruna, a couple of hours before you witness the Northern Lights. Someone said to think of it as the North taking my necklace, but I see it more as a black hole opening up to a parallel universe which sucked my key in, because I searched that room head to toe, upside down and inside out, and it had definitely vanished into thin air.

2. A jar of nutella
How you lose a jar of nutella is a mystery to me. On Saturday morning I had a delicious brunch feast with some friends, which included me running out to buy a jar of nutella (French people love their chocolate and cheese). I swear when I headed back to my room I was carrying that nutella jar but when I went to bring it to afternoon tea later that day it was nowhere to be found. Determined that it was somewhere in my room, I was thus prompted to finally give my room the tidy it had needed since we got back from Kiruna. But despite having a spotless room now, I'm still nutella-less.

3. My golden bracelet
This lost thing I take full responsibility for. My golden bracelet from the Sydney Uni Wednesday markets has a bad habit of coming unclasped, so why I thought it was a good idea to wear it to the paxparty on Saturday night is beyond me. Not surprisingly after a night of dancing on tables, moving through crowded kitchens and corridors, and generally being drunk, I found myself in the early hours of the morning in my room ready for bed but without my bracelet. And sadly it still hasn't turned up.

4. My SL card
In Stockholm, your SL card is the key to life. It lets you get any metro, train, bus, tram, or ferry you want, as much as you want, as often as you want, for as long as your card lasts. And on Sunday when I was at Kungsträdgården watching a busking group of drummers (after attempting ice skating), my SL card dropped out of my wallet. Fortunately the person behind me, as well as my friend, both spotted the card, which makes me think that I should hire someone to follow me around, picking up all the things I lose.

5. My glasses
Losing my glasses yesterday was definitely the worst of the lot. Heading to lunch after a morning's lectures, I suddenly found that my glasses were no longer in my pocket. I desperately retraced my steps- the irony being that I really needed my glasses to search the ground properly. Unlike almost everything else I've lost recently, I fortunately found my glasses at last, sitting on a table in the microwave room. Some lovely person must have found them on the ground and put them up there out of harm's way. Thank you, whoever you were!

On top of losing everything, I'm also really bad at directions. The other day I got lost trying to get from Karlberg station to KI Solna (apparently a very simple walk), even when my friend had drawn me a map. And last week on my first day at the KI Huddinge campus I spent an hour walking around the university/hospital trying to find my lecture room. Despite 3 different people messaging me where to go, and asking numerous hospital staff and med students for directions, I eventually only found the place when everyone came out for the break and my friend started to come find me.

I really am hopeless at life.

P.S. Emma, this is my "hectic" life in Sweden. Hectically full of searching for my lost things.
P.P.S. I almost got through a post without mentioning food, but then I lost the jar of nutella. Sorry.

Dear Soy Yoghurt...

Look what I found! Soy yoghurt! I assume we have this back home, and I've just never noticed it, but I'm still pretty excited by my discovery. And it's blåbär (blueberry) flavour!

Did anyone else ever do this as a child? My Dad and I always used to put spoons on our noses and pretend to be koalas... I don't know if that's an Australian thing, or a Tessa thing, but I still think it's cool.

As you can probably tell, this post has very little direction and is mainly just a form of procrastination to postpone studying for my neuro exam on Tuesday. The best way to avoid studying however, is to go on a weekend trip to Kiruna with a bunch of other exchange students to see the northern lights and go husky sledding. So obviously that's where I'll be until Monday!

Dear Sweden...

Yesterday my residence permit card arrived in the mail.

Although all it does is allow me to legally live in Sweden until July, I feel like I can claim I'm officially Swedish. And having been here for over a month now (deary me that went quick), the anthropologist in me has been running wild analysing Swedish people in their natural habitat.

One thing I've noticed so far regards stranger etiquette. Let's start with this image my Swedish friend posted on Facebook the other day. I found it an amusing exaggeration of how Swedes deal with others.

However, only the next day, I found myself standing at the bus stop and essentially acting out the above scene. I drew a picture to give a fairly accurate account of the situation (snow included).

I'm not joking. When I arrived at the bus stop, the other two ladies were literally standing at least 4 metres apart from each other, and we only all came together when the bus finally arrived. Oh Sweden.

Now some people (mostly Australians) would find this highly bizarre. I mean, how can you have friendly chats with strangers if they stand that far away from you, right? Well in Sweden you actually follow the rule your parents taught you- 'don't talk to strangers'. Swedish people aren't interested in having menial conversations about the weather (we ALL know it's cold), and although some people might find this lack of conversational interest rude, I quite like it. Yes you miss out on the odd good conversation you may strike up with a stranger, but you also avoid all the awkward half conversations you are forced to constantly go through on a daily basis. But don't get me wrong- all the Swedish people I've met at uni or through friends so far have been incredibly nice. Truly. In many ways they're even more friendly than Australians (but let's save that explanation for another day). Once you've been here for a while, you start seeing how this whole thing works.

The second difference I wanted to point out is Swedish people in relationships. I think this one is my favourite, and it is well and truly the polar opposite to home. In Australia young people often flaunt their relationship like it won't exist unless it's right in your face, all the time, in every situation, without fail. However in Sweden, you can't even tell if two people are going out or not. The don't sit next to each other, they don't hold hands in public, they don't kiss, hey they don't even talk to each other that much if they're with others. Many people would say this is unnatural. That Swedish people must simply be uncomfortable with showing their personal feelings so openly, but that's not it. The typical behaviour of being inseparable and all over each other like most couples back home are, is considered childish and immature- something you did when you were 12 or 14. I know this is a big generalisation on both sides, but based on personal experience, the differences are astounding. You really can't tell if people are dating or just friends. Now I'm just curious to see how Swedish flirting works.

Dear Marabou Mjölk Choklad...

"The best chocolate in the world" is a big call to make, but I thoroughly believe that the Swedish brand, Marabou, definitely take the cake (or chocolate in this case). You may think that Cadbury or Milka or Lindt or some other chocolate brand make the best chocolate- and you're entitled to your own opinion- but I'm sorry to tell you that your opinion is wrong. Unless you also love Marabou, nu är du ute och cyklar (you are now outside riding a bike). See my very first post if you don't understand this Swedish saying.

For proof of how great Marabou mjölk choklad (milk chocolate) is, today I bought a block of ridiculously cheap IKEA chocolate for 5 krona (70c in Australia), which I'd tried my first week in Stockholm and found pretty good. But now having eaten Marabou, IKEA chocolate doesn't even taste half decent, so I'm stuck with chocolate I don't even want to eat. Talk about first world problems.

P.S. I plan on literally lining my entire suitcase with Marabou mjölk choklad when I leave Sweden. How much chocolate does one need for a 'life time supply'?

Dear Ugly...

Hey there cutie,

Today in our Neuroscience lecture on the self we learnt a pretty interesting fact about personal image. Apparently if an average person is asked to rate themselves in intelligence, looks, appeal, etc. they tend to give themselves a higher rating than how the rest of the group perceives them.

Now that's nice. A little bit of self confidence is always good for the ego.

What was interesting about these social experiments though, was when people with depression were assessed. As my Swedish lecturer put it nicely, 'Depressed people rate themselves lower than a typical person would. They're actually much closer to the common ranking others assign them.'

How happy is that? A "depressed" image of yourself is just how everybody else sees you. Basically you're never as good as you think you are. Or perhaps you are, but no one else agrees with you.

I thought this cheery post was a nice one to do the day before Valentine's Day. I know I for one, will be pulling all the guys tomorrow with my charming looks.

Dear Jumper...

A while ago I said I bought a cool jumper for only 75,- (AU$10) and that I would put up a photo of it, so here it is finally.

That is the smile of someone content with having spent a good couple of hours researching cute little cafes and alternative music bars in Stockholm. And now that I'm armed with a list of goodness, I plan to check out each and every place while I'm here.

But for now I'm off to the coolest bar in Stockholm (much sarcasm)- Västra Skogen Pub. The exciting part is that we're finally starting to convert other exchange students into hitting up this happening joint.

Dear Music...

You know it's reached a point of desperation when you find yourself dancing like a crazy person to your ipod for over an hour and a half, alone in your room after getting back from a night of 'dancing' at a club. I know in movies people always seem to dance in their rooms, and I'm not sure how much that happens in other people's real lives, but it certainly never happens in mine. I hadn't realised how reliant on good live music I'd become, but now I'm concerned for my sanity (or what sanity that existed in the first place). I know 90% (insert correct percentage here) of the youth population enjoy the music that's played in clubs, or at least pretend to enjoy it, but honestly it's the worst. Take me home to New Moon Blues, The Smallest Gig, FBi Socials, MUM at The World Bar, gigs at the Metro, Enmore, Oxford Art Factory, Manning, Hermann's, The Annandale Hotel, Good God, the Vanguard, Summer gigs like Garden Music, and the Surry Hills Festival, gigs on a train, in a backyard, in Hibernian House, sing-a-longs to a guitar/ukulele/piano with friends on a balcony, in a lounge room, in a tent, on a beach, on the grass, in the sun, at night, in a bar, in an alley way, music through an ipod while you bounce on a trampoline in the darkness looking at the stars.

P.S. Sober Tessa, don't delete this.

Dear Australian Sense of Humour...

If someone has a great sandwich that they specifically say not to touch when they leave, you obviously hide it as soon as they're out of sight, right? Wrong. Well, wrong if you're in Europe.

Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Australia any more.

I broached this potential joke at lunch with some Swedish friends the other day, and I got back a mixture of confusion regarding why you would do it, and how it was funny. One guy even went so far as to say, "He said not to take his sandwich. Why would you?", to which I answered, "Because it's funny." Obviously not. I tried to explain the humour in the situation, but to be honest it's hard to make stealing people's sandwiches sound funny unless you're used to such things. I gave up on the reasoning and concluded with what is fast becoming a common saying of mine now, '... it must be an Australian thing'.

To further test the uniqueness of Australian humour, I asked a selection of exchange students what they thought of the "joke" after dinner last night, and sadly received a similar response. Although the copious amounts of cheese and white wine helped lessen the confusion this time (the Swiss guys had cooked fondue for 15 of us), still no one really understood the joke. I had no idea that this style of humour wasn't shared by the French, Swiss, Germans, or Finnish. I feel so alone in my amusement.

On a side note, apparently I'm also alone in drinking alcohol in coffee mugs. I don't know if that's an Australian thing, or just something my friends and I do, but it makes me miss weekends at the Hickie Household, drinking from coffee mugs late into the night and waking up to sunshine mornings and the sounds of a guitar drifting in from the balcony. Summer nostalgia at its finest.

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Completely irrelevant, but I promised to put these up, plus I can't do a post without photos.

(The sad thing is that we didn't even coordinate to swap facial expressions)

P.S. if you'd like to know more about the blue marshmallow above, you can find him on his blog here.

Dear Stockholm Night Clubs...

Never have I ever felt young when going out. I was the first of my friends to turn 18, and when you turn 18 in Australia, you're legal to do everything. So not being able to get into the club tonight because I wasn't 25 was the oddest experience imaginable. I wasn't even close to getting in! And I'm also the youngest person (as far as I know) among the exchange students, and among my Swedish classmates in biomedicine. So weird!

But what do you do when you can't get into the club? Go home and watch Kung Fu Panda at 2am, with four French people, a Hungarian, a Finn, a German, and an American. And when everyone goes back to their rooms to sleep, you write a blog post instead. Obviously.

Obligatory Photo Booth photo- note the Sydney Uni jumper. Someone has to represent USYD and Australia over here, right?

P.S. Sorry for any spelling / grammatical mistakes. It's the vodka's fault if they slip through.

Dear Bus Drivers of Stockholm...

Bus drivers in Stockholm are great. Every day I catch the bus, and I solemnly swear that I have never seen a bus driver not wait for someone running to make the bus. While in Sydney the doors will literally close in your face, here the bus drivers will open the doors again for late people once, twice, and sometimes even thrice (even after we've started pulling away from the curb!). And while a Sydney bus driver will give you the 'Sorry I wish I could open the doors for you, but we're on a time schedule and I just can't do it' shoulder shrug, Stockholm drivers smile and wink. It feels like they're saying 'Hey, I know you've had a long day / rushed morning. Sometimes that happens to me too and that's ok'. In Sweden, bus drivers can be nice AND always be on time. Sadly, Sydney can do neither.

And while I'm at it, buses in general in Stockholm are great. Anyone back home could tell you that I actively hate buses. I only ever seem to have to catch them when I'm going somewhere I don't know, and if I want to avoid getting off at the wrong spot and walking for an extra half an hour, I instead have to spend half an hour on google maps familiarising myself with the area so I can recognise where to get off. I find the whole thing really stressful, and almost always opt for catching trains and walking.

But in Stockholm every bus stop has a name- be it the train station that's across the road, the name of the street, or a Swedish word you don't understand the meaning of. And not only does each stop have a name, but every bus has a screen that flashes up the name of the next stop, so you always know when to get off. The extra great thing about naming each stop is that you can look at the bus timetable and know exactly which bus goes where, instead of looking at a map with coloured lines and complicated coding systems for 15 minutes trying to figure out how you can possibly get where you want to go.

Get your act together, Sydney. Stockholm is judging you (silently, of course. It's not very Swedish to cause a noisy confrontation).

'YOU could ride a bus with friendly drivers too if you lived in Stockholm'

(P.S. I swear I actually wear different clothes and not just my Swedish cow jumper all the time...)

Dear Tuesday...

Today, on Tuesday 31st January 2012, I:
- Spent 10 hours studying the eye and made really great notes
- Tried to say 'en bukett tulpaner' ('a bunch of tulips') far too many times, and I still can't get it right
- Pondered the existence of consciousness with my Swedish lecturer and some class mates for an hour after the lecture
- Jumped through the snow as much as possible on my trips to get coffee between lectures
- Learnt about what Carina really did on Saturday night
- Had dinner with many, many Swedish people and exchange students at the Global Friends welcome 'seating'
- Sang a Swedish song about foxes, and dropping beer but that's ok because your liver will be happy
- Did a shot of weird Swedish liqueur that was ridiculously sweet
- Learnt about 'Midsommar' and how Swedes celebrate it by getting drunk and jumping like frogs around a maypole resembling a penis covered in flowers... only in Sweden
- Performed a thorough study of Swedish T-bana (train station) escalators (they stop moving when no one's on them)
- Discussed how to pronounce vowels in Swedish with a random guy on the T-bana
- Wore a Swedish flag in my hair all night

Typical Tuesday.

Dear Jonas...

Dear Jonas,

I'm sorry that I will never send you a text message in order to give you my number. I know I seemed happy to meet up sometime after we met at a swing* dance class, but I am actually very eager to avoid what I anticipate would be an extremely awkward situation. You are 40-50 years old, and I'm 20. You're a tax auditor and I'm a university student. You aggressively ordered me to "breathe" and concentrate on the dance steps, and I laughed awkwardly and continued to mess it up. You're old enough to be my dad, and my Swedish friends confirm that this is not a normal Swedish friendship to strike up.

So somehow I just don't see us having coffee or going for a walk in a park any time soon, like you suggested. (But seriously, it's always past freezing cold outside and the last thing I want to do with anyone is amble through a park for the fun of it.) And past discussing swing dancing, what did you imagine we'd talk about?

I'm sure you are a lovely guy, but I just don't think this is going to work out. I will always keep your business card as a memento of the first Swedish guy to ask me out, and I hope you find a better match at the next swing class.

Sincerely,
Tessa

*For those people who don't know what swing dancing is, I provide this educational youtube clip:

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On a side note, I cut my fringe for the first time EVER today and it didn't end in a horrific disaster. I am actually beyond amazed!

Dear Overalls...

Overalls are pretty great. Even if you look like an eleven year old French kid when you wear them.

Paloma - from the film 'Le Hérisson'

(a must see movie, but only possible if you have a friend called Leyla to scout all of Sydney to find you a copy)

Dear Cold...

I'm 13 days into my exchange and I've finally gotten sick. Spending all Sunday walking around outside while it snowed probably didn't help. But on the upside, I definitely thought this would have come sooner. So today I decided to stay home, and had I not booked to do my laundry at 3pm I probably would have stayed asleep all day. Armed with a giant bowl of Mum's delicious recipe of lentil, tomato, carrot and mushroom soup, I spent the rest of the afternoon watching episodes of Downton Abbey. I could be back home as far as this day was concerned, so I've promised myself to go out tomorrow and explore as I have the day off uni.

Aside from getting sick, I've had a pretty good weekend though. I can't believe it's only my second weekend here, but there you go. Friday night was the Rubik's cube party, which was lots of fun wearing ridiculous coloured clothes and dancing in a kitchen to really bad music. And by 'bad music' I just mean popular club-type music. I will never again take for granted having friends with good music taste. It must also be pointed out that being able to just get the elevator down to your room when you want to go home is going to make coming back to the hour long train trip home each weekend hard.

Saturday was spent recovering from Friday and doing pretty much nothing, but Sunday was a day well spent. We started with a Frukostbuffé (breakfast buffet) at Café String in Södermalm (the Newtown / Surry Hills of Stockholm), and meet two very lovely Swedish girls through the Global Friends exchange organisation. Then we wandered around for a while, finding lots of beautiful churches and old buildings on cobblestone streets, with snow covering everything. Stockholm is so beautiful! We finished up the day looking at the shops in the centre of Stockholm, and chanced upon the oddest vintage shop. It was a part of a brand store called Weekday, and the building had three floors- the first being normal clothes, the second all jeans, and the third a collection of vintage clothes, with a whole bunch being 75% off! Win! So for a total of 150kr ($20) I bought a new dress and another jumper to compliment the cow jumper I bought the other day!

Now as I'm pretty sure this is reaching a very limited audience, I'm going to go ahead and put up the ridiculously narcissistic picture I took of me in my new dress. There's no one here to judge me anyway.

And another one for good measure.

Unfortunately I don't have one with the jumper, but I'll take one sometime soon, I promise. It's a really great jumper, and so definitely deserves its own post.

Dear Fate...

One religion I believe strongly in is the Religion of Fate. Serendipity. Coincidence. 'It was meant to be'. And today's events are some of the best proof yet. Someone could knock on your door and tell you this story, and I can guarantee you would sign away your soul and fortunes to the Religion of Fate, were it to be a real religion and all.

So. This story begins last week on my journey here to Stockholm, where a potentially very bad situation turned into a very lovely one instead. My flight from Singapore to London (after flying Sydney to Singapore) had to make an emergency detour to Abu Dhabi, setting us 2.5 hours behind schedule, and subsequently making me miss my connecting flight to Stockholm. Fortunately I happened to be seated next to a Swedish girl coming home from a trip to Sydney, so we buddied up, had breakfast in Heathrow airport, and then caught a later flight to Stockholm together. She told me about her holiday in Australia, where she was visiting her best friend who was currently on an exchange. When we arrived in Stockholm, she and her dad very kindly took me to pick up my student accommodation keys (we made it just before the office closed!), then took me to lunch, and finally dropped me off at my new home. Not only were they super generous with their time and help, they were both absolutely lovely people, and stark contrasts to the 'quiet and reserved' Swedish nature I'd heard about. Hey the dad even gave me a hug goodbye after it all! If that isn't friendly, I don't know what is.

Now fast forward one week to today. I come home (after buying the greatest jumper ever- see pictures below) and check my computer. My Mum has sent me an email saying that they were contacted by the organisation through which my brother did an exchange to Holland last year. She says they have a Swedish girl who needs a home for the next 3 months, and would it be alright if she stays with them in my room. I read the email forwarded to me from the family she's staying with at the moment, who are going overseas soon and therefore need to find a new place for this girl. When they mention where they live in Sydney, I suddenly realise that this exchange student is the best friend of the girl I met on my flight to Stockholm! I go batshit crazy with excitement of how ridiculously coincidental this all is, and come very close to making an expensive call home (and at 6am Australia time) but manage to hold back and wait for Mum to skype me when she wakes up.

Needless to say, everyone back home was mighty shocked too, and now everything is in the works to organise for this girl to finish her exchange with my family. So you have to admit, this whole affair is absolutely packed with chance, fate, and coincidence.


I think I deserve your souls and fortunes now.

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[Jumper photos, as promised]

Dear Emma...

According to my friend, Emma, I need to be more "internet-ly organised" so that people (read: she) can utilise modern day stalking to the utmost limits. So here we are.

I should first explain that 'now you are outside riding a bike' is a literal translation of the Swedish saying 'nu är du ute och cyklar!', which is a phrase you can say to people when they're wrong about something. I haven't had a chance to use this saying yet, but I plan to put it to good use over the next 5 months that I'm here.

Where's 'here'? Sweden. Stockholm, to be exact. Let's jump through the other basics really quickly. I'm on a university exchange from Sydney, Australia. I study medical science, and I'm majoring in immunology. I live in a student accommodation building on one of the quieter corridors, but I have a really odd neighbour. I am constantly plagued by attacks of velleity (if you don't know this word, look it up. It's great.) And two things I'm really missing from home right now are:
1. Proper coffee. I mean coffee made by a barista, with fresh coffee beans and frothed milk. All they drink here is pre-made coffee in a pot. You pay 10kr ($1.40 for Australians), add your own milk, and stir it with a paddle pop stick. I miss real coffee so much.
2. Music. Back home, I go to a lot of amazing small music gigs and I'm really feeling the loss of constantly listening to great bands, playing in backyards, art warehouses, or on trains. I don't know how I'm going to get through 7 months without any of this.

Anywho, I'm going to finish this up with a snippet of conversation between me and a new Swedish friend, from uni today.
M: I don't see why people are concerned about pills that do the same as drinks.
Me: Hmm... well pills just seem more... concerning to people.
M: Ah yes, you humans are like that.

I now debate the possibility of having befriended a Swedish alien.

Hejdå!