room sweet room

the hall

the loo

bed before

desk before

desk after

shelf before

shelf after + reading corner

bed before

bed after

(note girly sheets!)

turns out i do have wireless in the room! albeit not mine :) it's relatively spacious by university housing standards. it even has a hall! and plenty of storage space. whew! and my fears of having to cart mattress, duvet and pillow back to room went unfounded because while the inventory was only bedframe, desk, shelf and chair, the previous tenant left the bedding too! just needed to buy sheets for oh hallowed shopping mecca and tada! good to go (to sleep). made the pilgrimage to ikea as planned with lovely danish girl in tow.

had fun scouring the many many floors of ikea for solutions for better living and managed to more or less get everything i needed. went on a rampage and bought 3 pots, 2 plates, 2 bowls, 2 drinking tumblers, 2 coffee mugs, 2 forkspoonknifeteaspoon sets, floormat, sheets, toilet brush. and to reward ourselves at the end of the ordeal, there were kr.5 hot dogs! yummy :) i also finally succumbed and bought a 30day transport pass. for the longest time i'd been holding out and walking everywhere but having moved out of the hotel (central) to the room (ulu) there's a limit to how far my little legs can carry me now.

and i made new friends today! met a greek girl, V, from athens, at the housing office and M from copenhagen just outside our building. she very kindly let me in and we spent the next five minutes discussing which key was for what and she joined us at ikea and then lidl (cheap supermarket) and coop konsum (expensive supermarket). i bought detergent but to our horror there are no washing mashines in the building! we've to lug our laundry and washing stuff to another block. but use of the machines are included in our rent so thank goodness no additional charge there.

nothing particularly exciting happened today, save ikea. settling in is good though! need to stock up on groceries next, not had the chance to yet so i've yet to cook for myself. can't wait to break in my new pots :)

more photos when the patchy not-mine wireless cooperates!

moving!

hello hello last post till friday or later because i'm finally moving to my permanent accommodation no more pokey hotel yaY! the only problem is i'll only get internet in my room on friday at earliest so i won't be able to update fo awhile. met the other two singaporean girls at the housing office this morning turns out we're all staying at the sam place, albeit in different blocks. M, our male counterpart too but he's too cool for school and only arriving next week. in the meanwhile though i do have his keys and have half a mind to sublet his room to renumerate myself for my key-collecting services (M! i hope you're reading this!!!). but i kid :) and while i largely disagree with racial stereotypes, the three girls are doing the most singaporean thing possible later. once we've cleaned our respective rooms, we're meeting up to go to ikea to indulge in perfect solutions for living or solutions for perfect living i forget which but is fun to mock them swedes and their odd slogans.

and i found the university! huff puff huff puff 30min brisk walk from the hotel with my trusty googlemap annd then brisk walk back after collecting my keys. going to call a cab then head to my new home soon! foresee it being a busy few days settling in buying groceries and detergents etc. how exciting i get to play house :)

bye for now!

the dutch guys

with S and T on their last night

(T is actually 6"9 but was trying to make me feel like less of a dwarf in comparison)

have mentioned them a fair bit in the more recent posts and figured i'd post a photo of the dutch guys i met in the hotel! but for S, i woudn't have known that there was an unsecured wireless network within reach (gasps!) and but for T, i wouldn't know that kids receive a very holistic education in the netherlands. but more than that, they were my first spontaneous friends in stockholm and we spent a lot of time chatting over breakfast on the sundeck and later while they were sexiled (hehe) engaging in improvisional theatre in the hotel lobby. it sounds crazy but we were hamming it up so bad with T as the sofa iron-er and me as the job interviewer, much to S' chargrin that we were acting like such kids.

S works at a gas station in a red light district in the netherlands and i was in stitches as he regaled us with tales of his regular clientel. i was very interested to hear of him time in the congo, first as a child and later when he revisited his childhood home two years ago. he was telling me about a precious ore that is refined for use in electronics by the chinese and how the chinese build infrastructure in the congo in exchange for this ore that is surreptiously removed by the plane-load to evade the wanderig warlords. he was surprised to hear of compulsory national service and the annual dreaded ippt. then he said that it must be harder for singaporean men to run 2.4km in whatever the stipulated timing than he because they've shorter legs.HAHA. S also chided me for reading LP (a first!) because it robbed me of the joy of independent discovery. i've never thought of it that way but the context of this admonition is my aghast exclamation that there are (supposedly) only three acceptable colours in stocks every season, in addition to black. and then i foolishly lamented that i was probably not decked in any of the 'right' colours. to which S scoffed me to my face and told me not to be so conscious of what people wear. this was right after his opening line, 'the dutch aren't nice people. they're too direct.' truer words... and after thinking about it, he's absolutely right. project: assimilation is all well and good if i was in a jungle and required camouflage to ensure survival. but i'm not in a jungle and i'm not prey of any sort. so looking different isn't necessarily a bad thing. lesson learnt and i've thrown my meagre fashion sense to the wind and am determined to wear whatever i want :) time to break out the boho patchwork pants lurking in the deep recesses of my suitcase!

T is waiting to go into university and he very kindly explained the different academic paths available to students in the netherlands. i was impressed by how there's a suitable route for everyone regardless of academic ability. personally feel in singers the very bright and the not-so-bright are well catered for but the middle is somewhat marginalised and not given the same opportunities the other two demographs are. not so in the netherlands! and there are cross-over opportunities from one stream to the next so late developers are not condemned to a life of serfdom. T knew an awful lot about singers and it turns out that he'd watched a video of her history during economics class. wow! i never knew we were interesting enough to make it to the small screen. he definitely knew more about singers than i know about the netherlands and it made me both proud and mildly ashamed at the same time. here i am, smug in my little world thinking that i'm well-traveled and well-read but here is this lovely dutch boy who knows more about my country than i do about his. and i've been to amsterdam twice while he's yet to visit singapore!

T posed an unusual question. he asked if singaporeans had 'hobbies' and i found myself struggling to answer that. i, for one, don't have a hobby per se. i used to swim competitively, not because i like the sport but because it got me where i wanted to go (i.e it boosted my c.v.) similarly, i don't know whether many singaporean students like what they're doing for co-curricular activity or are in for similarly practical purposes. we were talking about part time jobs and T used to work in the back of a supermarket packaging the produce. when i told him that i gave tuition for some pocket money, he couldn't grasp the concept of parents sending their kids for extra class. and to think it's de rigeur back home :)

definitely an eye-opener and mind-broadener and i'm really glad to have met S and T, albeit briefly. chances are we might not meet again but that's the beauty of travel. to establish fleeting connections when your orbits overlap temporarily and leave the better for it.

hotel discoveries

took me four (!!!) days to realise that the hotel has a lovely roof garden with seats. i knew it had a disused pool (the dutch guys told me) but i didn't know that i could sit on the roof top and enjoy the sunset with a book in hand and steaming hot coffee in the other :( but better late than never.

sunday brunch

finally had my first hot meal since lunch soon after i landed in stocks! it was a sunny sunny sunday and as i meandered aimlessly around town my hunger got the better of me and i decided to look for a quaint brunch place. found this little gem just off my street and relatively reasonably priced too! sat on a cushioned bench against the glass window on the side walk and watched the world go by as i nibbled my brunch. it might not look like much but by the time i was 2/3 through i was stuffed and it was glorious washing everything down with cold, sweet freshly squeezed oj (i watched the proprietor push the orlengs through the press!) and then hot black coffee. mhmmmm :)

water

my bottle collection thus far! every plastic bottle recycled is money! then again, i think i'm going to look for a hobo later and give my bottles to him. but speaking of bottles, i'm most upset that i've not managed to buy still water yet. and i'm too shy to ask at the store so i just grab the cheapest bottle(s) and so far they've all been sparkling. plus these babies are not just sparkling but also flavoured. the green label is pear and the purple one grape. what does a girl have to do to score some regular, still water?! and while i enjoy sparkling with a meal, it's not the most pleasant of things to put sparkling into a dry morning mouth. or into hot drinks to cool them.

so what i've taken to doing is pouring the sparkling into my tumbler and leaving it to flatten over night. and in the morning, tada! still water :) is pleased with show of creativity. see? not a bubble in sight! as for the flavour, i made do by using the grape flavoured water to cool the berry tea (there is an extensive tea selection at breakfast) and the pear flavoured for regular day-time drinking.

ok. sorry for boring you with the mundane. i will post more intelligently after i get out more.

sandwich stealer

edit: the early bird does not get the worm! the sandwich on the left obviously has more cheese! and that's the 9am sandwich!

i've not had a hot meal since lunch on the first day with my lone swedish friend. and according to my grandmother, this lack of hot food borders on self-harm. there's a method to the madness though. the hotel provides breakfast. i am already paying an inordinate amount of money to stay in the hotel. food is generally extremely expensive. try sgd30 for a simple main (something basic like fried minced meats with pickles. eww) . and that's without sides! so obviously i'm not about to spring that sort of money every day for lunch and even more for dinner. the breakfast the hotel provides is really nothing to scream about either. it's cling wrapped sandwiches in a bowl and i'm really too paiseh to grab too many at a time, ostensibly for eating through the day. so in a face-saving attempt, i take two bright and early at 7am from the night guy and then another two at 9am from the morning girl. because the sandwiches are sitting pretty in a bowl on the reception counter top. and unless they can be bothered to discuss the lone asian girl who plods around in her pjs, nobody's none the wiser that i'm a sandwich thief! (yes, there probably are cheap eats that i've yet to stumble upon but i'm refusing to eat fast food so that too limits my cheap choices.)

can't wait till i move to the university accommodation and have access to a kitchen. not like i'm a culinary genius within the furthest stretch of imagination but i've my hot pot whose manual i've read (and therefore should know how to cook with!). and i've a mountain of prima food mixes that i'm excited to break into. so just two more days of dry brown bread with ham and cheese and i'm off to the gastronomic promised land.

be still my stomach

note to self: when you've not had a hot meal in four days, do not 'accidentally' look at photos of food in singers.

crab cakes

just in case you couldn't see their crispy yet juicy goodness from the outside

bratwurst

tenderloin

sauteed mushrooms

my favourite fly lice

sigh.

daddy's girl

really like this photo i took of a father and daugther at the zebra crossing on my street. it was a thursday morning and i was wondering why i saw a disproportionate number of fathers with their children. i later found out that fathers have to spend three months with their children during the first few years of its (ok, his or her) life before the company pays for the mothers' maternity leave. that, combined with the supreme level of gender equality, sees many fathers ending up the primary care-giver. it's an interesting phenomenom but social policy and high-minded ideas of equality aside, it was just heart-warming to watch these two enjoy their morning stroll.

grinda

(the following photos are unedited. the sky is really that blue. my camera was not on vivid mode. in fact, it does not have a vivid mode. the sky is really just that blue.)

after spending the first few days exploring the city centre, i figured it was high to do what i'd come to stockholm early to do. i.e visit the archipelago. my initial plan was to arrive a fortnight early and spend some time at the islands as a mini retreat of sorts. but i got my act together too late and the hostels on every island were fully booked. so i settled for five nights in the city centre and in retrospect, it's a good thing i didn't stay the few days at the islands like i wanted to!

there are countless islands in the archipelago but being the student on a budget, i chose the island that was the best 'value'. that happened to be grinda because it's a 90min ferry ride away (so it's not accessible by bus like vaxholm, the closest island) but not too far for a day trip. but grinda is so small and uninteresting that it did not qualify for inclusion in LP stockholm haha.

that said, it was just as i'd imagined it to be. before leaving for stockholm and before my island life plans were foiled, i'd entertained visions of myself sitting on a rocky outcrop plugged into my ipod and journal-ing furiously. i quickly found said rocky perch about thirty minutes after first setting foot on the island and happily camped there for a few hours overlooking the harbour. it was beautiful. the sea calm, the sky a brilliant blue and the neighbouring smaller islands like emerald drops in the sea. the seaside cafe was playing summer hits and i felt like queen of the hill atop my little rock. after the sun moved and started shining in my face, i too migrated to (literally) greener pastures. walked around the island a little more and discovered the south jetty and next to the south jetty was a big green field. i sprawled onto an unused picnic table (very glamorous, i know) and watched the sea breeze blow the clouds across the sky. the afternoon passed so fast and before i knew it i'd to catch the second last ferry back.

had a lovely day on the island but think i'm just about island-ed out now. beautiful as it is, i'm quite happy back in the city smack in the middle of all my creature comforts. but i enjoyed being alone on the rock and later in the field, at peace with the world and loving life.

teeth, interrupted

the funniest thing happened while i was brushing my teeth just now. and it's got nothing to do with my teeth. there's a huge vintage car rally going on outside and while i'm guessing it's vintage car, i'm not entirely sure. it could be some white supremacist protest, for all i know. so there were two leader clad women in the washroom with me. they might be hotel guest or they might be rally-ers who snuck in to use the loo from outside. anyhoos they see me start brushing my teeth and decide it's a perfect time to make conversation.

they begin by asking me if i speak english. and because i am annoyed that someone is talking to me while i'm very obviously brushing my teeth, i say grunt, "mandarin." back. which comes out, like, 'mah-in' because i can't ennunciate through toothpaste. they look puzzled and continue in english and i grunt again. thinking they'd leave me alone. this time, i try, "chinese", which they miraculously understand! but no! they persist! only this time they ask me questions in english, slowly. the first question they ask is "what are you doing?" to which i just about resist rolling my eyes and answer, "bwuh-ing teef!" the lady then takes umbrage at my obvious answer to her equally obvious question.

"nono, i mean, in stockholm! what are you doing in stockholm?"

"bwuh-ing teef!!!"

"of course you are! i understand. please continue your brushing. we can talk in awhile."

and to my absolute horror, she casually leans against the sink as i continue to brush and then gargle. i couldn't believe she was actually waiting!

to cut a long story short, she asked (again) why i was in stockholm and by this time i was irritated and said i was traveling. she expressed her surprise that i was travelling in stockholm. why, i don't understand. she asked if my parents were with me. at this point i got really annoyed and told her i was thirty years old and well capable of looking after myself (both statements made with plenty of literary license). all the while i'd to keep up my little lie of not speaking english so i spoke funny. "i is thirty year. parents no must come, no?" and "stockholm safe city for girl thirty year, yes?" but i did feel bad when she asked if i knew anyone here and when i said i didn't, she very welcomingly said, "well, now you know me! enjoy your stay!", patted me on the back and walked out. so maybe i was too quick to get annoyed with yet another friendly local but come on, there's a time and place for everything and interrogating someone while she's brushing her teeth will not achieve any desired outcome.

that said, i sort of regret being a retard and wish i could've reciprocated her warmth somehow. maybe she was tipsy and hence oblivious to common courtesy.

(and because i'd to keep up the guise, i smiled and said "thank you and have a pleasant flight!" when she left the toilet.)

iphone captures

cafe i sought refuge in during the afternoon storm

grand hotel by the waterfront

the bridge to gamla stan, the old town

open air orchestra concert during the cultural fair

park just outside my hotel (it has rats)

thoughts

it took me two days and a helpful dutch boy to figure out that there's wireless in my room. the hotel only offered free wired internet (i.e. from the sad communal computer in the lobby) and there was an exorbitant charge for wireless internet access. so for two days i've been circling the communal computer like a vulture, swooping down on it to email / text home whenever i could. but yesterday, the dutch boy told me there was an unsecured network that you could access from the deck! so this morning i brought my laptop onto the deck in hope of sponging off someone else's internet but alas, it was too bright and i couldn't see anything. disheartened, i came back to my room and tada! there was still connection! and then i realised that my room is on the right side of the hotel and that side miraculously has wireless access. if only i'd checked sooner! which explains why i'm able to update proper now.

the first two days in stockholm have been nothing short of wonderful. i used to think that the cariocas (people of rio de janeiro) were the friendliest on earth, after multiple positive encounters in rio this summer. but the stockites (?) give them a run for their money! since i hit the ground running two mornings ago, i've met kind locals. when i first surfaced from the metro and was looking at the map, a passerby stopped and asked in english if i needed any help. and random strangers helped me lift my blue house of a suitcase on and off the bus. and when i was seeking refuge in the rain at a cafe in the old town, a photographer at the next table saw my valiant attempt to balance my tiny camera on the rickety wooden ledge to take a self-portrait and offered to help me. which led to pleasant tea-time conversation about the city. they were most helpful, telling me which areas to explore and how to get about. interestingly, they'd noticed that i'd looked at the menu but not ordered anything (other than coffee) and they asked if i found the city expensive, which i have. and then they gave me this whole list of cheap eats and i was touched that complete strangers were genuinely concerned about my caloric intake! i mentioned in passing that i was looking for a card reader and this first thing this morning i receive an email with a photo of the cheapest available model and directions to the store, which happens to be right on my street! little things like that make me feel very welcomed in stocks. and yes, while i agree that you can never completely trust anyone, this short time away has ironically taught me to trust people.

i've been brought up to play my cards close to my heart, hold everyone at arms length and never divulge personal details about myself. my parents have my best interest at heart and after they watched taken (WHY PARENTS WHY WHY WHY???) they were even more convinced that lone female travellers are just asking to be sold to sex slavery. so they sent me off with horror stories and many a 'don't talk to strangers! not even the cabby! in fact, just don't take a taxi!' and i'm subconsciously second guessing everyone and wondering if they've a hidden agenda. which, as you might imagine, is incredibly tiring. doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that such paranoia will rob me of the full experience of living away by myself. so i'm trying to temper the caution with wisdom and taking it as it comes. if i meet friendly people, i'll be friendly back. i won't tell them where i'm staying but i don't see any harm in making small talk and learning from the patriotic locals who are only too happy to share their lovely city. i even had fun talking to a retired lyonnaise couple in the same cafe yesterday! in french! and i love how i'm speaking french in stockholm and i could tell them i've tried a bouchon in lyon and it was unpalatable because the calf stomach was bitter! the world is so small and stockholm so cosmolitan and i feel invincible and glad that i'm singaporean and able to take on the world, one nationality at a time :)

speaking of singers, everyone knows about singers!!! gone are the days when people think it's in china. the people i've spoken to are quick to show that they know pertinent facts about singapore, like how there's an expo where they've trade fairs (this was from a sofa salesman whose boss went to singapore for a furniture road show!), chewing gum is illegal, there's a single political party and the people are hyperefficient. all stereotypes, no doubt, but there's some grain of truth. and i'm in scandinavia but even here the locals know of the cheap electronics that singers has and how it is a model of modern economic success. singapore boleh! i saw someone with a hard rock cafe singapore shirt too, and that was pretty cool :)

being alone has been awesome too. for the first time in my life i'm not in a hurry, sad but true. i've all the time in the world and the long daylight hours means i can bum around the hotel till 2pm and still go out with enough day light hours to do whatever i want to do. doing a district a day and that's the only thing i've planned for that day because if i didn't have the simplest of goals i'd just vegetate and watch movies on my laptop. so reachable goals are a good thing! and being accountable only to myself is a liberating feeling. i can go back to sleep after breakfast without feeling bad for holding anyone up or i can sleep in and not worry about my travel buddies waiting for me when they're all ready to go. it's just very different from traveling with friends and i don't miss company yet. but then again it's only been two days. i told the dutch boy this and he was appalled that i have no freedom (to him) back home. food for thought, i guess when there's always something to do and a time within which it must be done then you just get to it. but here, when i was waiting thirty minutes for the computer last night, i realised that i could wait for hours and there's no limiting factor, save my patience.

i love roaming the streets and walking everywhere in the perfect perfect weather because i know the days are only going to get shorter and in no time i'll be confined to the subway because walking on the streets will be reserved for masochists. occasionally, i feel as if i'm experiencing a delayed adolescence of sorts, having only left singers at 22 compared to people who've studied overseas since their teens. i don't regret the late exposure but in my head i sometimes wonder if it's just me or does everyone share the same wide-eyed wonder when they first experience a different country. and living in a country for a few months very different from traveling. i'm blessed to have spent a good quarter of the year away on holiday for the past few years and it's not as if i've never left singers. perhaps it's a psychological thing, like only because i know i'm going to set up home here for the next few months then i'm making an effort to interact wtih other people. and when i travel i'm usually with a bunch of friends and we're a very self-sustaining group.

ok! time to hunt down that cheap card reader, book ferry ticket to island for day trip and get some air :)

the hotel

shared bathroom

single room with stolen fan. there would be no ventilation otherwise

breakfast on the outside terrace

transparent curtains

the hotel from the outside

view from the front door

organised desk

breakfast (and lunch and dinner if you steal sandwiches :( )

spoilt computer

unimpressive, spartan but functional.

day 2

crashed embarrassingly early last night and sprung up after 12h of sleep this morning. waiting for breakfast to start then i'm off to explore the old town.

stocks is freezing cold at night and in the early morning, by the way. but maybe that's to be expeceted. apparently the sun set really late too, but i wouldn't know, would i :)

edit: turns out after breakfast i went straight back to bed and only just wke (it's noon!) maybe my jetlag is a special kind where i sleep at the right time but it affects the duration of my sleep instead haha. anything to justify my inherent sloth! well it's noon but not really because the sun still isn't at its hottest. think that happens around 4pm. odd isn't it? this whole different latitude thing takes some getting used to. but it's great because i can wake up in the afternoon and still have the whole 'day' ahead of me. i could get used to this long-term! very conducive to my natural sleep cycles. anyway i'm finally headed to old town, for real this time. great drive and determination! it is a good 4km walk away but i am too cheap to take the metro.

post-edit: 3h later i'm still in the hotel! was on the sun deck reading up before heading to gamla stan and was waylaid by three attractive dutch boys. so we ended up having a cookie party on the deck and talking about god, politics and taxes, the three topics that unite everybody. turns out that they're actually half decent, one of them even spent 6 years in the congo as a child with his missionary parents. and i didn't know that tax in holland was 60% for the highest income bracket! madness (to my singaporean mind)! even considering the welfare benefits the dutch get, i am so glad that i come from a country with low tax rates. not that i'm paying taxes yet, but still. oh and i accidentally disobeyed my father by 'talking to strangers'. oops. and after that it started raining and i've no brolly so i'm being a pansy and staying indoors. am upset that my gamla stan plans are being repeatedly thwarted!