and now, for the next act...

I used to scorn my sister Leah for her love of Latin phrases, especially the ones you could drop into conversation to sound learned and superior. But it's Sunday evening at the end of a rocky week and I find that i've caved, too - the words "Tempis Fugit" are staring back at me from a post-it above my desk. Time flies. Lesson of the week.

Most times I feel so invincible in life, as in, what could happen? We gallivant around irresponsibly, drinking like fish, riding our bikes without helmets and without lights (me), eating food prepared in my kitchen - practically courting death at every turn. But that it could happen to someone like me seems so unlikely, and when it does it sure as heck shakes things up.

So this is what happened. Frances got word on Tuesday that her best friend had been killed in a car crash. The friend was on exchange in Ghana, a place that sounds as opposite to Lund, Sweden as any place in the world could be. Frances had another month left in Sweden, but for her there simply wasn't a choice - she had to go home to be with the family. So two hectic days later, filled with closing bank accounts, ending housing contracts, finalizing course details with her faculty, and a farewell dinner of traditional Swedish fare - meatballs, lingonberry jam and mashed potatos - we were standing at the check-in for her flight at the Copenhagen Airport, sobbing, being watched by the entire queue of passengers for the 11.30 British Airways Flight to London.

It's so weird. Bear with me here, I'll get back to the lighthearted stuff soon! No-one was prepared for this. Of couse what we're feeling isn't as bad as what Frances is, but it's the same thing - the loss that comes with having someone ripped from you without being prepared. I've been getting tears in my eyes at the smallest thing - sitting around at our pre-sparty with my closest peeps and wondering why she's running late again; walking into a packed Sydskanska dancefloor and being struck by the fact that no-one on earth has the same exotic, arousing (yes i said it) dancestyle as her and no-one ever will; when Nikki speaks in her "Swedish" accent about her glory days in Stockholm. Most of all it's the fact that we'll have to leave Lund soon, go our seperate ways and go back to reality. We knew that exchange in Sweden was coming to an end; we just didn't realise it would be ending so soon.

But Frances isn't dead. She's still around in all her insane glory, just on the other side of the world. And I'm going to see her in July 2007. California. I don't care if i have to scam the Government for extra dosh or play covers of Powderfinger to the Swanston Street rush hour to get some coinage, I'm going. Nikki, Frances, me and and the United States of America.

I had Eva from the Russia trip come and stay with me for the last three days. Being a host is hard work, especially when you're used to being selfish with your time. But it was good - kept me occupied. I gave her a taste of student life of Lund. This included a toga party. Now, the last time I attended one of these excuses-to-wear-barely-nothing-and-get-sloppily-drunk events was back in 2004, when I was a fresher at St Mary's College (holla!). I tried the toga arrangement I wore then, and found that there was no way I could wear such an outfit in Lund. Increases in modesty/decreases in skankiness is always a good thing for youth of today.

Anyway. Of course it was shambles, with about 300 people packed into a tiny studentkorridor, noisy, crowded, and scandalous in some parts. I will put some pics up soon so you can see it in all its multicolour glory. Everyone was a bit on the sloppy side, having polished off Frances' abandoned bottle of Absolut Vodka in her honour. We had to walk for about half an hour through the industrial suburbs of Lund to get to Delphi, wearing, in most cases, the only sheet we own wrapped strategically around our svelte bodies, covered up with our winter coats. It was probably the first time in three months my bare legs have seen the light of day/night. The residents of our town wouldn't have known what hit them, what with all the betogaed people running around striking Roman poses and then subsequently vomiting and falling face first into it, as a certain Australian I know did.

Drinking ain't cool, kids.

So the next few days are filled with frantic essay writing, for Swedish Film and Global Environmental Justice. I'm doing a short essay on a contemporary Swedish film. I've chosen one called "Fröken Sverige" (Miss Sweden). It's the most poorly scripted, flaky, stereotypical teen movie with all the attendent teenage angst and search-for-love-and-identity plot (Girl Comes Out On Top!), but it's a Swedish teen movie, goddamn, so that makes it special. I have to put myself through the pain of watching it again later tonight. Will spend next few hours steeling myself. But first, it's Sydskankska Film Cafe to finish off the week. They're showing "Boys Don't Cry" and hopefully serving brownie and coffee. My stomach is singing already.

kören

Bad news guys - i've joined a choir. That's right, a choir (I never said I was cool). I've been eager to expand my Swedish experience culturally, and this seemed right on the money, especially since I am not singing in any way, not even in the shower these days. We meet every Monday evening in the basement of Wermlands nation at 6pm. This is straight after my Role of Religion In The Middle East class - i have to fang it as fast as I can down the main street on my crappy bike to get there in time. The songs are all in Swedish, with a few in Latin and German for good measure. There's about 4 other international girls in the Alto section and apparently you can hear our accents mangling the Swedish.

We're preparing for a concert in December in honour of Sankt Lucia. Here's a brief rundown on the festival of Sankt Lucia: from what I can tell, it's to celebrate the darkest day of the year by bringing light into it. So you find yourself a young swedish lass (in plentiful supply in Lund) dress her all in white, strap some candles on her head and send her off walking down a darkened corridor. I'm not sure how we're going to celebrate it in my completely international corridor, but i'm sure there'll be plenty of vodka and broken crockery no matter what happens.

Me and my friends are continuing to party like it's 1999 - two nights on and one night off seems to be the norm. I think a lot of other exchange students have settled down into a more healthy and responsible lifestyle. The thing is, I'm starting to recognise almost everyone who is out. For example, Kalmar nation on Tuesday night. It's our traditional "after Enviro movie" pub sit-down-and-catch-up evening. I knew almost everyone who walked through the door. It's good in a "this is where i belong" kind of way, but i'm wondering, where are the rest of the 1500 exchange students? Show yourselves!

That aside, I had a great night last night at Smålands nation. Smålands is the only nation in Lund with a political platform, kind of like the Socialist Alternative in Melbourne but not as rabid (no offence guys). That's right - dirty commies with great big red and black liberation posters and post-feminist quotes scrawled in the toilets. I love them. Dup was working, which meant illegally free beers for all his closest friends (or at least the ones who were waiting patiently at the bar for his shift to start!) . The band came on and played like it was their last show on earth. Afterwards I managed to chat with the lead singer who, despite being drop dead gorgeous in a very indie way, was all about himself and the record contract they signed the week before. Yeah whatever.

So I think it's high time I post some more thoughts on Swedish loving. Relationships amongst people my age back home are, for the most part, awkward creatures, fraught with anxiety and almost falling over every time your phone beeps. First, you nurse a crush on someone for a few weeks, months, or in extreme cases, several years . Then maybe someone makes a move and you'll go for coffee. Then maybe a group date somewhere. Then maybe there's some touching on the hand or other neutral area and so on. Baby steps. That's the Australian way to build a functional relationship. When you DO sleep with someone straight off the bat, it's never quite the same.

Here, in liberal Sweden where the average age for losing virginity is 14 (a statistic that is more rumour than cold hard facts, fyi) step one is having 8 beers, approaching a person of same or opposite sex, taking them home and having rampant drunken sex. The clincher is the morning after - if they're still there when you wake up, it's more than likely that you're seeing each other. Now I'm not complaining. For many people, this setup works perfectly (e.g. Australian men....hmmm...) It would just be better, from a female point of view, that Swedish menfolk were interested in you even if sex wasn't on the cards.

Anyway this post is long enough. I will just finish with this thought - I wish I hadn't ostracised my parents when, three years ago, they told me that I should listen to Neil Young's "Harvest". I believe my words were something along the lines of "washed up hippies". I was wrong and I take it back. He's perfect for a swedish autumn and these days when the sun sets at 4.30pm.

high culture

Things went a bit weird after my last blog entry. It’s been tricky for me to settle back into life as “normal” (whatever that means) after such an intense experience. I’ve had this weird sense of emptiness for the last few days, even though things have been brilliant with my friends. I’ve never been particularly good at navigating this lull. But I’m keeping myself distracted through an array of expensive frivolities, including, amongst eating obscene amounts of SuperBrownieCake, seeing my first live band and movie – BORAT - in yonks.

So last night I went with Brad And Chad From Oregon (yes, I know, it’s too cute for words) to Malmo to see the Brian Jonestown Massacre. For the uninitiated, they’re the band that wasn’t The Dandy Warhols in the rock doco DIG! All I knew of them before was from this unflattering portrayal of them – a rollercoaster of drugs, fistfights, egos and temper tantrums, with the lead singer Anton in a downward spiral of hellish proportions. I was pretty convinced that they’d all died off from mutually-assured destruction in the early 2000s sometime. But they were resurfacing in Malmo, and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see a brawl (violence!) in Sweden.

The Malmo Kulturbolaget is quite the happening establishment. It’s a cross between The Prince Of Wales bandroom and the Gershwin room of the Espy (for those in the know) but packed full of stunning young indie types swivelling around laconically, buying overpriced beer and eyeing each other off. The band came on and put their foots in their mouths at every possible opportunity…giving a Hitler salute before thanking the fair citizens of Malmo for coming to watch them that night – in GERMAN; made unfavourable comparisons between Norway and Sweden – the WRONG way around! All aside they put on a good performance and when the stage was cleared, the moshpit became a dancefloor and the beautiful indie types + us danced for the next 3 hours to motown. We left when the lights came on and hung out in the felafel shop until they kicked us out, then in exhausted silence back to Lund just in time to see the sun lightening up again.

My body clock is hence all fucked up and I’ll be kicking around till the early hours of the morning, just mooching. We’ve finally finished the essay on same-sex couples in Scandinavia. I have learnt a lot about Scandinavian society (which I guess was the point) but I have also learnt that I hate group assignments. They’re crazy about them here but I don’t see the attraction. It gets done in the end - it’s just in the meantime I end up bitter because I feel like I’m doing all the work, that I’m not being understood and my very last ballpoint that I stole from the Forex in Oslo Centralen breaks into four because I threw it at the wall.

So there's the Victorian state election on that the moment. Well, soonish - 25th of November. I am thinking of boycotting the Victorian Electoral Commission for making the whole overseas voting shebang so damn tricky. Before I went to Russia it said information would be up on the website soon telling us what to do - now that I'm back it apperas that it's too late to register. It's all so confusing. And i'm so unmotivated - state politics is the furtherest thing from my mind, especially since Labor is, of course, going to romp it in again. Regardless, best of luck to them all.

Out East

Back from Russia and probably the most memorable trip of my life. Firstly, shout outs to the amazing people I met along the way. I went without knowing anyone and came back with a veritable Hotmail address book full of top-notch friends. It may have been the intensity of everything - and i'm going to attempt a clumsy metaphor here - it was like the centre of the sun which is so hot and full-on that it changes carbon into gold (my science education finished in year 9, fyi). We laughed; we cried; we oohed and aahhed; we dissed the Russians; we searched fruitlessly for muffs and amused each other for hours with muff-related puns (i'll spare you); we drank vodka at 11.30am to ward off the cold: we spent a minimun of 40 hours next to each other on the bus (Fiona, i'm talking to YOU!). It was sad saying goodbye at Stockholm central station this morning, but not so much, because i'm planning a Swedish Road Trip of Glory in early December where hopefully i'll see em all again.

I arrived back in Lund this afternoon and I'm sitting here now in my party clothes that still smell a bit like smoke from Monday night, waiting for my peeps to come around. We're watching The Return of The O.C. and then heading out to Vasgota Nation to make sure everything is still the same. Looking forward to my first sleep in more than a week that will last for more than 2 hours.

The bare bones of my trip are something like this: I took the train up to Stockholm on October 31st, spending the day there with Nikki and Frances clad in our scummy but comfortable matching tracksuits. Later that day I met up with Fiona, a Scot who I'd never met before but had decided to share a room together, in the Stockholm Central station. Caught a bus to the ferry terminal and took the ferry to Turku, Finland, where we arrived at 6.30am. Then it was a 14 hour bus ride through Finland and Russia to St Petersburg, including passing through the James Bond 007 Goldeneye-esque border checkpoint and having our passports examined three different times. Two nights in St Petersburg, then an overnight bus ride to Moscow. One night in Mosccow, then overnight AGAIN back to St Petersburg (somehow I didn't realise we would be spending so much time on a bus...maybe I should think about these things a bit more). A night again in St Petersburg, then the 14 hr bus ride back to Turku, then ferry back to Stockholm, train back to Lund, bus back to Sparta, which brings me quite aptly to where I am now, trying to ignore all my smelly travel clothes strewn around my room.

Hmm...there's so much that I could say but I don't want to bore you The Reader with a we-did-this-then-we-did-this retelling of the trip. I'll try to keep it snappy. My first day in St Petersburg was filled with illness - after accidentally brushing my teeth with tap water I came down with a horrible nausea and fever which was probably not helped by the 2 hours wait in the snow and temperatures in the minus degrees area to get into the Hermitage, and a visit to the abnormal-foetus room in the Museum of Monstrosities. St Petersburg is a stunning city, there's something of immense cultural significance around every corner. The Hermitage was fantastic. I preferred Moscow though - we saw Raymonda the ballet at the Bolsohi, walked around the Kremlin, posed in front of St Basil's Cathedral. Only one big regret - I missed Lenin! His Mausoleum shut at 1, about the same time Fiona and I were walking around the mega department store GUM and trying to position ourselves strategically over the hideous toilets-in-the-floor. Very disappointed. Next time, Lenin, next time.

It snowed every type of snow there is. I ate stroganoff and drank vodka at 11.30am to ward off the cold. We watched traditional folk dancing and audience-participated. I fell on my arse on the ice. For once I chose function over form and bought a pair of gumboots to work as my waterproof shoes. Most importantly, I came to the realisation that Catherine the Great is my homeboy.

So the Russian people - my observations are that women and men play traditional gender roles than they do in Australia/Sweden. Everyone wears mushroom, beige and moss colours. The women wear fur and heavy, obvious makeup. There are a lot of stunners, but the men aren't as hot (with all due respect to the menfolk of Russia), there's a lot of badhaircuttage and Slavic foreheads. It seems like capitalism has found a welcoming home in post-soviet Russia. Everywhere there are high-tech light shows advertising everything, camera-flash lights flashing off every conceivable billboard to get your attention. Malls are packed with chainshops from the UK and France. All of this is set to the opulent background of all the amazing buildings of Russia. Again I was struck by how pale Australian "culture" is in comparison to everything in Europe. Strangely, I felt more Australian in the middle of Moscow than I think I ever have before.

We hit the nightlife in a hurry. Fuelled by $5 bottles of vodka, around 150 exchange students descended on the otherwise minding-their-own-business clubs of St Petersburg and Moscow and turned the establishments into hotpits of dancing and other sins and public displays of hormone-driven affection. In Moscow it was a club called Hungry Duck. Our infosheet touted it as "probably the most crazy nightclub in the world" and as we later discovered, they did it much in the same way Carlsberg makes the similar claim. What it really was was a club where more dancing was done on tables than on the floor, intemittedly interrupted by both a female and male "Strip-Off" whose quality, while exotic, was uniformely crap. Following a tip from a local, we went to a bar called Dacha (or equivalent) in St Petersberg. It was a dead ringer for the bars in Brunswick street, much more my scene, but the toilets were the most filthy i have seen in my life. I saw them in great detail, too...in sober hindsight the combination of russian vodka and beer served in pint glasses as long as my femur was not one that i would recommend to even my worst enemies.

I didn't realise how much the Russian Cyrillic alphabet would trip me out. It seems so incongurous with the spoken language - in written form it's packed full of constanant-looking characters instead of vowels, but spoken it sounds completely different. Navigating around town was a matter of trying to compare a nonsensical word on your map with another nonsensical word in front of you and if by chance they matched up somehow you were heading in the right direction. Hardly any Russians spoke English either, and with my Russian vocabulary totalling one word there were many brick-wall situations which coudln't really be solved through the use of imaginative hand gestures. On the other hand, Russians weren't deterred by the language barrier - they continued to speak it at you with increasing volume and force, as if this would somehow make things clearer. The whole experience has given me a huge appreciation of "americanised" Sweden again and more confidence in my Swedish.

So now it's back to life as usual, whatever THAT means...I've been in Sweden for almost three months and have well and truly passed the halfway mark. I turn 21 in a few weeks. Things are going good. I better go do my hair now before the people arrive and we tune into the moody stylings of Ryan from the O.C. More later. Luv youse.