On days that it actually snows the snowplows can be seen in front of my apartment three times a day.

Actually, the snow is not everywhere.. In the city they have a heating system for the sidewalks. Sometimes in the city you tend to forget that there is actually a lot of snow. You get reminded of that when the heating system is absent.. resulting in interesting pictures :)

In above video, due to numerous requests in Dutch – I hear you Maaike :) – I tell about how the Swedes don’t like winter or the snow that much as I do. They don’t like to go out when it is cold or snowing. So I have to go to other people for meetings, they won’t come to me. Not that I mind that, I like the snow :)

This Saturday I went walking (or ‘hiking’) on Björnö, an island near Västerås. I joined a hiking club with people from the university. I think about 20% was Swedish, so this is like a new kind of hiking, intercultural hiking :)

We had nice views on the forests, walked on the Mälardalen lake, saw a number of deers and – as the guy from the outdoor shop in Eskilstuna said – a lot of good talks about life :)

One girl from Iran, who was here already for a longer time, told that the ‘multicultural improvisation’ course was in the second part of this semester. This is really nice because I might be able to follow it then! It is a course in which a group from the different cultures of the international students gather and prepare a play about cultures.

At Friday I was looking around at Wikipedia to see what this ‘hiking’ was about. I learned about the ‘Ten Essentials’; a list of items you should always bring with you when hiking. Most of it I didn’t have but that wouldn’t be so much of a problem. The path we would be walking was 10km long. Still it kind of got me and when packing I took more than I would really need. Typically me again, worrying a bit too much :) So I got rid of must of the stuff and got rid of more stuff.. (lagom anyone?) And still I got more food than I really needed. But that came in handy when another vegetarian didn’t brought that much food for the barbecue and when the train back to Eskilstuna had a delay of “en timme och åtta minuter”, lasting a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Added to the great feeling after decorating my apartment, came a good day for diner too! So, here is my recipe.

Ingredients:

• Full corn rice
• Snow peas (peultjes)
• Vegetarian balls
• other stuff in the kitchen as the ingredients change while cooking (building the car while driving it)
• other stuff in your home and outside, as inspiration and decoration

Step-by-step:

1. Put some the rice in a pan. Use more rice than you thing you’ll need, notice that you might eat rice tomorrow too.
2. Add twice the amount of water, it should cook for about 20 minutes.
3. Notice that you have to start to prepare the balls 10 minutes later.
4. Already prepare the snow peas.
5. Go and check your e-mail.
6. After 8 minutes, lo0k outside the window and see something nice you want to photograph.
7. Grab your camera, blow out the candles, put on your shoes and run outside.
8. Make the photo

Car tire love

1. You’ve spent 5 minutes, but thats ok.
2. Put some olive oil in a frying pan, put the vegetarian balls in it too and add a pinch (een snufje :)) of oregano to it.
3. Remember that you should add herb salt to the rice, and do so.
4. Add some water to the rice as it is low on water.
5. Also put on the snow peas with some water.
6. Look in the fridge.
7. Think of a nice Japanese bowl of rice with fried vegetables.
8. Take a carrot and the tomato sauce out.
9. Scrape the carrot and cut it into pieces.
10. Add the carrot to the snow peas (that is not fried, correct).
11. Turn around the vegetarian balls.
12. Turn up the heat for the snow peas and carrots as you remember that you’ve put them on way too late.
13. Put the tomato sauce in the largest pan – the only one left.
14. Get the balls from the heater as they are going too fast.
15. Try to manage everything.
16. Check if the rice, snow peas and carrots are getting soft enough.
17. Put on the vegetarian balls for a moment to make them warm again.
18. Pour of the rice and put them in a large bowl. As you took a lot of rice indeed it fills up nicely.
19. Add the balls and slice them into pieces.
20. Pour off the vegetables and add them too.
21. Add the tomato sauce and mix everything.
22. Serve with a wooden spoon from the Wagamama.

Almost done :)

1. Light on the candles again.
2. Put on some ambient music, like dolphins music.
3. Enjoy.
4. When you’ve had enough and there is still some left, continue. Enjoy the good diner and you won’t need anything else this evening.

Eskilstuna is a nice small city, the same size as Alkmaar, but with two third of the people. Lots of parks.You see litter (the bedding material for cats) on the streets everywhere, to stop you from slipping away on the ice. Oh, and they love red neon lights here.

I’ve joined Nikki in his apartment as the appointment I had with the rental unit didn’t work out, so I’ll have to wait until Monday (måndag) untill I have access to my apartment (Jong MenS: I drew Lady Lobelie afterwards). The apartment looks pretty good – from the outside anyway. We’ve done some shopping, I still have to find a good place for ecological and vegetarian food.

Saturday (Lördag) we went to Västerås, somewhat larger than Eskilstuna. More something like Nijmegen, again, with about two third of its population. First to the IKEA of course :) Afterwards we went to the student reception at Mälardalen in Västerås. The school building is very nice, with a lot of wood and nice lanterns, also made of wood. A show of their image as a environmentally consciousness university?

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This Sunday (söndag) was an easy day, we’re planing to go to the university (with a card from another student) to do some internet work (Jong MenS: I drew Lazuli for this day).

I did some shopping and had another walk through the city. I tried to get a bike. But although almost every shop is open on Sunday, the bike shop wasn’t. We’ll try it next week.

Then we got a household from Nikki to get us inside the university. I did some online IKEA shopping, checked my school scheme, and got to blog my first posts from Sweden.

I said goodbye to the cats and my mother. Then my two little brothers went with me to Amsterdam. We ate something, my father joined and we drank the favorite station beverage, chocolate with whipped cream. My father told about how his parents influenced his choice to work or study when he finished high school. As both his parents tried but couldn’t go to study they both encouraged him to study, so he did.

The day before I had a drink with two colleagues at Mediamatic about this topic. One of them was told by her parents to go work at the farm. Then I realised I didn’t know how my parents were influenced by their parents.

Two friends from HKU joined and all waved me out as I left with the night train to Copenhagen. It was funny to notice the large ammounts of snow as we went more to the east. The last week there had been some snow in Alkmaar but in Amsterdam for example you didn’t see any snow. I thought of these people living and working in Amsterdam didn’t know that there was snow in the rest of the country. And I heared that it was minus 19 degrees in Maastricht. Together with the snow we saw when we past Arnhem I realized I didn’t know that the rest of the country had that much snow :)

At Emmerich we got the first customs check. Later at the border of Denmark (at 6.45 a.m….) we got the second. And somewhere half in Denmark we got a third, narcotics this time.

I talked with my roommates and neighbours, we played with the chopstick mikado. Very interesting to play mikado on a train.

One girl was going to study in Sweden as well, now for one week and later for three months. Another guy – Emil, yes as Emil from Astrid Lindgren ;) – from Sweden just came back from a tour through Europe. He planned on traveling to 50 countries before he turned 50. He was at 37 (countries) now, Belgium being the latest addition, Latin America probably being the next.

A guy from Århus, Denmark, joined in Düsseldorf. He was working at energy labels for almost every electrical machine, work for which he traveled to Brussels every month. In Denmark we had a lot of fun with two little girls from Thailand. One was busy with asking us “what are you doing?”, “why are you there?” all the time. With Emil I told them the story of the Rumpnissar in Ronja Rövardotter, saying “Voffor gör di på detta viset?” until it drives you crazy.

And then came Sweden..

Sidestep; yes, a temporary bed. The apartment I rent is without any furniture. So the plan is to buy all new stuff in the first week and sell it again in the last week. Luckily they have something called IKEA there :) Especially as I arrive there on Friday evening, I need something to sleep on the first night, and probably the first (few) week(s).

Today my new camera came in, I’ll make some pictures of the snow tomorrow. And tomorrow a t-shirt will be delivered, and I need to go back to the Bever to complain about my shoe which is already broken (bought it two weeks ago).. Very nice things to happens two days before departure.

I just finished the cake for my farewell party at Mediamatic, now, the bed calls.