Rock and roll all night and party every day

Another week gone by in the happening Lund. This week was full of clubs, bars, BBQ’s Copenhagen, and an exam.

Yep an exam for my introductory Swedish course. They said it’d be easy, but it really wasn’t for most of us. Though I’m glad I learned a fair bit of conversational Swedish. I met some Swedish locals now as well from my first classes of the semester and I’m now able to practice my language with abit more ease (instead of being an assessment).

Speaking of first classes of semester, yes they’ve started now, and I think I’m going to really enjoy them. Lund has weird semesters.. they have half semesters. 2 subjects per half semester usually and it’s basically from September until some time in October; Then from November until December/January.

This half-semester I’m doing “International Marketing and Strategy” & “Strategic Brand Management”. In the latter of the two the lecturer played a video from ABBA’s dancing queen – surely it had some relevance though I don’t think any of us quite got it.

FYI - my classes are a mix (60% international 40% Swedish).

Anyways, back on the parties. Also, on Saturday I went with a group to Copenhagen. From the afternoon until about 6:30am we stayed out. Sightseeing abit but mainly hitting up the many bars and clubs. Copenhagen is a big city and very beautiful. Seems to be quite an international hub as well. We met many people out, including local danes, UK tourists, an aspiring movie director from Los Angeles. We also saw how the hippie population lived by visiting Christiania park. A notoriously drug-laden park in Copenhagen, home to the famous “Green Light District”.

Finally, having a bike is proving to be invaluable. The other night I had a BBQ at one end of Lund, then cycled to the other side to meet up with some others who were on their way out, and then together we headed to a Nation. I may have mentioned this before, but Nations here are like Fraternities and they have everything you need on a daily basis; be it a club (yes inside they have dancefloors, bars, basically the full club setup; food; trivia; etc. All on separate days. Each day of the week is a different nation’s main night. So there’s always one main nation you should hit up depending on what day of the week it is.

Jag är Full

I’m finally in Sweden!! After an amazing Eurotrip filled with drinking, partying, meeting new people, and new experiences.. I’m ready for more of the same - but in Lund!

I live in a studio apartment just north east of the university. It is brand new (from January this year) and I am the first to live in it ever. It has all the fixings – Kitchen (filled with most things you’d expect), toilet and shower, desk and chair, bed and wardrobe. Being a studio apartment, most of those things are in the same room as each other, but the place is very close to my faculty.

However it’s about a 15 minute ride to centre of university & the town. Yes that’s right, I bought a bike; When in Lund… do as the Lund-ians do (I’m sure that’s not the right word there, but who knows maybe I’ll introduce it and it’ll take off and the standard way of referring to Lund people, and you all would’ve been part of the introduction. Legends will write tales of this day.

Ok snap back to reality.

So Lund is a melting pot of cultures – SO many international students and very few Swedes (so far – most are still on uni holidays, but nevertheless there are PLENTY of other cultures represented). Everyone is here to meet others and have a good time.

The only way I can describe the first week gone by is “Hectic”! Lots of running around for registrations, for class (introductory Swedish course), and a fair amount of drinking – hence the title of this blog post; in English it means “I am Drunk”. Which by the way isn’t cheap to do – alcohol is fairly expensive – more so than Australia (and that’s saying something!). Liquor stores have strict and limited opening hours, and they need Passport ID for non-EU people.. pain in the ass.

It’s also the first time I’m living by myself so talk about a bit of a throw in the deep end, especially since it’s in a foreign country – I’m on google translate all the time in the supermarket (took me like 15 minutes to find and buy a steak).

Aside from that, I’m starting to find my way around without having to use a map.

Today I am going to Malmö in order to get my biometrics done for my residence permit (basically so I can live and study in Sweden, and I’m taking the opportunity to check out guitar stores with the intention to buy an acoustic guitar. For the 5 months that I’ll be living here, I need a guitar for a stroke of creativity late at night in my apartment or for a campfire sing-along with the gang.

Now that the dust is starting to settle (in the context of initial admin issues and teething problems with settling into a new country, new accommodation, new uni), I’m looking forward to many more weeks like this one.

Until then Skål! (Cheers!)

Dancing in the Dark

We continue our journey throughout the Greek islands, and since I’m running a little behind on my posts I’ll keep it short.

First important thing to note – we ate Gyros EVERYDAY.. I mean EVERYDAY. Not even just once, I’m talking like every meal was gyros. It was crazy – I’m surprised we didn’t have a coronary right then and there. Every pain in my chest I felt I was like “awwww shit here we go..”.

In Paros, the second island we visited we were living really smack bang in the centre of the town Naousa (a nightlife hub). So much so that we would go out round 9ish for a Gyros, wander the streets and meet afew people, then head back to the room to snooze for a bit and to come back out at around 3am to hit the bars and clubs. Some nights we’d go out, come back and sleep abit, go out again, come back and sleep abit again, then go out AGAIN.

THAT’s how close we were to the action. By comparison, in Naxos we had to walk 20 mins to catch a bus which would take about another 20 mins to get to the nightlife. That’s why we mainly did quad bike exploration, beach-ing, etc.

My favourite island from the 3 was Paros; had most fun there.

We also were abit creative on the islands and were composing tunes and lyrics. We had one song ready to go on Naxos, we went to record it in Paros. We found an awesome deserted old castle which was about 30 meters out in the sea. Accessible only when the tide is out be a slowly eroding stone crossing. Anyways, unfortunately we lost track of time (as you do on holidays) and we actually found this place around 5ish in the afternoon. We crossed over, began recording and then realised the tide was coming back in pretty fast. Anyways, had to bolt on out of there (Some of us made it dryly, others not – see pictures below).

And finally Ios – full of Australians.. absolutely FULL of Australians. But one good thing was 1 euro shots!! 5 euro got you topsy and turvy in no time! Add predrinks to the equation and you got yourself a recipe for good night out.

Run through the Jungle

Quad bikes on Naxos continued:

Since we’d paid for petrol ourselves we wanted to run the tank dry before returning it the next day. We go exploring the island, through every neighbouring village, over every mountain, through every dirt track. And therein lies our next adventure. We went in the very rural parts of the island. Fields of crop surrounding us on every side. Two way dirt road tracks barely big enough for one way traffic. Deserted.

Oh what’s down there? Let’s check it out. Oh what if we take this turn? Let’s go. Such was the nature of this journey.

The great thing about quads is that we can go wherever we want, stop whenever, and discover some amazing hidden gems and beautiful landscapes the general tourists wouldn’t ever see. That we did. We brought along the guitar and had a recorded afew early versions of original songs, looking over rolling hills and meadows.

We also found abandoned caves and houses, wells, fields, etc. That actually was abit creepy, particularly in the setting sun. And that’s when we realised that we were lost.

No doubt, after so many random turns it was bound to happen. Problem was, there was no view beyond the road we were on. Surrounded on either side by fields of crop taller than 2.5 meters. A labyrinth of vegetation. With the sun setting, and the fuel tank running nearly dry, prospects didn’t look so good in terms of finding our way back home that night.

That’s when disaster struck. The Quad broke down on us – the gear stick came loose and no gear would engage. From the many bumps on these roads, clearly the quad had had enough. We get down, in the middle of a deserted and rapidly darkening dirt road, and check out the damage. Proud to say, I inspected the engine, saw where the problem was and managed to hook back on the gear stick. Surely enough, the gears engaged and on our way we went. Unfortunately it kept getting unhinged with severe bumps on the road so each time I drove over one too many we had to get off and fix the thing again.

Thank God my cousin remembered a particular road we’d come from, because to me they all looked exactly the same.

We found our way back to the main road and got home safe. In time for a quick nap and headed back out on the highway ready to party the night away at a local watering hole.

On the Run

The Greek Islands – as beautiful as they are eventful. Always something to do, especially in peak season. Two weeks on the islands of Naxos, Paros and Ios.

Naxos:

We hired a quad bike – which sounds like a dangerous idea.. and it was. Keep in mind I’ve never driven on the streets of Greece before, and my cousin hasn’t even got his licence at all, nor has he ever driven a quad bike before. So we go to a nearby field to practice on the bike before taking it out on the road. I go him a crash course (no pun intended) on quad bikes and off we went.

I’m driving first. We drive straight into town; a 25minute journey. Road signs in Greece/Europe are different from Australia. So as we passed each one significant to us, he was explaining to me the road rules on the run: “This means this, go there. That means this, do this”. Very interesting experience – throw in the fact that Greeks drive like.. well.. Greeks. Dangerous overtaking, illegal turns, speeding, just to name a few.

Anyways, we make it to town in one piece, park the quad and scope out the bars and clubs in the day time to see where we’ll go that night. Naturally we grab a pita gyros (which by the way we lived off of for 10 days. Breakfast lunch and dinner, this is all we ate and I wish I was exaggerating.. but I’m not).

As we’re heading back to the quad, I see a police woman near the bike writing us a ticket (apparently we couldn’t park there). We run over and she’s already written down the number plate and afew other particulars. My cousin does the talking. Basically, “This is Greece” he says to me as we drive away from her without a parking fine. He talked his way out of it, luckily, as the bike in front of us had indeed gotten a ticket. So off we go home to relax ready for our afternoon adventures. To be continued..

Thunder Road

I’ve decided I don’t really like tourist hot spots. Across my travels so far I have touched some tourist hotspots and other places that barely any tourists go to. It’s those “off the beaten path” places that I really feel better in. I like to meet the locals, go to places tourists rarely find out about, learn abit of the local language and immerse myself in their routines. I ask what’s typical of people in the place I’m visiting.

This is a little hard to do when almost every person you meet is visiting from somewhere else. Worse still, in places such as Prague or Amsterdam where so many tourists flock, get high/drunk and become obnoxious and ignore local road laws or just generally become boisterous, they give other tourists a bad name. The locals just learn to blacklist all incoming tourists. But I digress.

Having said all the above, we did meet some interesting folk.

For example – Miss Rachel Lynn Sebastian. A self-proclaimed modern day rockstar on tour from California. We got talking about how she started in the music business, where her favourite performances have been, where she’s performed, tips on song writing. For a music enthusiast such as myself, this was quite a nice meeting. Check her out – she’s pretty talented. http://www.reverbnation.com/rachellynnsebastian

And on the last night in Amsterdam we walked randomly into a bar in the red light district from which we heard some good music. Had a pint, met some English guys just fresh from a stag party. Intended to stay for one drink, then stayed for several more, listening (and singing) to the likes of creedence, rolling stones, springsteen, nirvana, guns n roses, pink floyd, INXS, etc. with our new mates from Newcastle.

While I’m on the red light district topic.. it’s.. interesting there. Rows and rows of windows with women each more beautiful than the last. Perfect strangers knocking on glass and beckoning you to come in, flashing a beaming and all-knowing smile. The second they see you pass, that expression changes to a deadpan faster than anything, and you see them locking eyes with the next passerbys. A little bit of haunting imagery for you, sometimes they open the doors at you, as if to remove one of the barriers between you bringing you one step closer to walking in. Opened so many times each night, the doors become squeaky, and all you hear as you pass is creaking doors opening and shutting for each new eligible bachelor (or not in some cases unfortunately!). The streets flooded with intense red light which adds another dimension to the already intense experience. Some girls are more into their work than others though. By which I mean some are dancing about, some making eye contact with you as you pass, others are having a smoke or on their phones (probably updating facebook statuses, texting, etc.).

At the end of the day, it’s just women standing behind glass windows.. you can spot the pimps as well.

Danger – Keep Away

I said in a facebook status the following words: “Welcome to the European equivalent of Vegas. What happens here stays here... Unless it's hilarious in which case I'm telling everybody.”

So remaining true to the above statement, I will report on the appropriate experiences.

First of all a special thankyou to my Dutch friend Mitch who let me stay with him for the week and showed me round. Always good to have a local on your side.

But when you think Amsterdam, you imagine city centre, immersed in the party life 24/7. Nope; whilst we spent a lot of our time in the city, Mitch lived outside the city by about 30-40 mins. Not only that, the suburb he lives in isn’t exactly on the DFAT’s safest travel destinations. How do I know? Some houses had electric fencing around their property. Low socio-economic status, a lot of flats, and crime rates. Needless to say I was a little nervous about staying there let alone commuting to and from the city alone (which I rarely did).

But I made it through alright, although I didn’t think I would when this happened:

We’re walking through the city streets in the wee hours of the morning on our way to another cool square full of bars and clubs and people.

Background: In Amsterdam you can legally buy and smoke marijuana and hashish, and may have truffles (which contain shrooms). Ecstacy, heroin, cocaine, MDMA, etc are illegal. However street vendors exist and if you want some (and quality isn’t your primary concern) you can get your hands on it relatively easily (also if you don’t mind diesel laced drugs).

Back to the story: I spot some vendors on the street corner – they’re not hard to spot. I say to Mitch “hey there’s more drug dealers again” (they hassle you as you walk by to buy some of their fine quality baked fresh today produce).

So I’m expecting us to walk straight on past them. Instead, as we walk past Mitch goes up to one of them and asks “Hey do you want to buy some drugs”. In other words, offering the drug dealers some drugs.. as a joke. Now I’m all up for fun and pranks, but when it’s 3am on a deserted street in a foreign country, and 

you’re messing around with people already on edge because of their illegal drug dealing activities, you can’t blame me to think “wait a minute.. this could end badly”.

There’s afew of them now, telling us to piss off. While the rest of their buddies are closing in around us. Some even call out for the police (which is ironic since they’re the ones with the drugs, not us). So as they’re circling around, I just pull Mitch to the side and say as calmly and politely as I can “let’s get the F&*# out of here”.

And we hauled ass out of there.

A love song in every language

So you’re in Cologne, Germany for one more day; what’s the logical thing to do? Mini golf. Yep good, we’re on the same wave length. We’re bike riding to this mini golf place and then disaster strikes – Police helicopters circling above and flying low. Police cars parked about and police inspecting the area. Turns out someone jumped from this bridge we were riding across. Ambulances, choppers and police all around the Rheine searching for the jumper. He was fine. Just thought he’d go for a dip. Kidding, we think we actually tried to kill himself or he was just drunk/high.

Anyways, he came out pretty much physically unscathed and slapped with a hefty fine from the Fuzz, and we got to our game of mini golf.

Surprisingly I came 2^nd (you might be assuming here that there were only two players – to which I say firstly “screw you”, and secondly, no there were 5 of us so this is truly a great feat for me who rarely ever plays mini golf or normal golf).

This was followed by a very chilled out evening of sitting out on the balcony, listening to Radiohead and pink Floyd by candlelight and having an extremely deep philosophical conversation til the early hours of the morning. Got up the next morning pretty tired and had to pack to head to Amsterdam.

** EDIT - Forgot to add that whilst playing our intense mini golf game, there was a movie being filmed in the area. We were getting very much into our game especially when we sunk hole in ones. We went CRAZY. We were told off several times by the set crew. See picture below. We were also included in the background of some scenes so if all of a sudden my acting career takes off, you'll know why.

Das Geht Ab

Lots of bike riding – pretty sure I got my exercise quota for the year here in Cologne. Saturday night we headed to this local beerhouse (Cologne’s full of them) and we were running late taking a scenic route so we hauled ass to get there and was so exhausted that I downed the first beer super fast. I think when the body is exerted it’s also a factor influencing how fast you get drunk.. or maybe I’m just a lightweight.. but we had afew beers there and a sausage with bread. Anyways, we took the bikes to get to the next bar and there I was again slightly drunk and riding a bike – never a good mix especially on people-filled streets. Don’t try to outdrink Germans… ever. We had a great night though, played pool, foosball, had a cocktail, plenty of beer, and ended up at some student club playing such classics as Mambo no. 5, Get Lucky, and everything in between. Even got into some German pop music.

Yesterday’s activities was probably one of my many favourites though – we took the bikes out for a 30 min ride to a popular Lake where many people go and where festivals are held as well. It was packed! A huge lake, filled with locals, since not many tourists know about the place. It was great to have a swim, relax in the sun and listening to pink Floyd and daft punk (sprinkled with some dubstep) since we had brought speakers like many others. Truly worth the bike ride over there… though I didn’t think so when we had to ride back home.

That night we also went to see the cathedral light up in moonlight, and had a relaxing night ride by the Rheine. My legs are aching from this trip. Holiday? Nah, weight loss regime. All the walking and now the intense bike riding.. I’ll be fit as a fiddle soon enough.

I still have today left in Köln, going to Amsterdam tomorrow by train. My favourite cities so far though have got to be tied between Prague and Köln.

Until next time, stay warm in Melbourne, and stay cool in Europe.

Life in the fast lane

First of all, being greeted with this sign should say it all! (see below).

I met three crazy Germans in a strange aligning of the stars situation. I went camping in Torquay earlier this year in January. There I was with my friends minding my own business in the camping ground kitchen, and in walk these guys – Max, Simon and Anthony. Well, we gets-a-talking and we play afew drinking games with them, next thing we know they’re on their way to Melbourne in a weeks time after the camp. We had a great time, took them out to bars and clubs round Melbourne town and really wreaked havoc. Long story short, they were from Köln in Germany, so here I am now. Visiting this beautiful city cos I met these crazy guys back in Torquay.

And they’re definitely returning the favour – showing me round the local hotspots, keeping me slightly inebriated or “socially lubricated”.

As soon as I get in the car from the airport they hand me a bottle of Kölsch, local Cologne beer (delicious stuff). We had plans to go to this party in the park at some dedicated party house. Sounds good right? Oh right, I didn’t say that I flew in at 10:45pm! We rushed home, dumped the suitcases, had another beer at home, finished a bottle of cheap but delicious vodka on the walk over to this place and needless to say by the time we got to the party, I was as “socially lubricated” as can be.. “socially drenched” if I may..

We moved around abit throughout the night – started at that party then moved on to other bars and clubs, afew more drinks and there may or may not have been tequila involved. We got home at about 6am. You know when you look up at the sky at some point in the night and realize it’s very light to still be night? Yeah that definitely happened..

So what’s the logical thing to do after such a night out? (besides doing it all again the next night) Sleep in and have a quiet day… no chance. We got up at about 12, had breakfast and pulled out the bikes and rode into the city. Keep in mind, I haven’t ridden a bike seriously since 2006. And here I was, riding on the road in another country driving on the opposite side of the road and still slightly drunk from the night before. Needless to say I wasn’t in the best state. I may have even gone up the wrong side of the road when turning at intersections.. oops.

We went for a nice bike ride along the Rhein river and into the city centre. Went to the Cologne Cathedral. Keep in mind, I’m still not feeling the best at this point, regardless we climbed the cathedral in sweltering heat and epic dehydration. Apparently the Köln Dom has the second-tallest spires and largest facade of any church in the world, so you can imagine how many spiral steps there were to get to the top.

Still, was a great sight to see, and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a refreshing milkshake as much as I did after coming back down and sitting down at a café nearby.

Köln to be continued in the next post..