Spring back with Valborg

An event that almost every person waits during the year is Valborg (30th Apr, Saturday the last). Its a festival celebrated in Uppsala to mark the end of winter and the onset of spring and man is it something to blog about!

Its a cold country, Sweden. Sunlight is a real treasure round here cos the winter is harsh and biting, with almost no sunlight. So, when winter dims out and the sunlight gets louder, people have arranged a day to celebrate the onset with a great big bash. Basically, the entire town turns to one big party hall. No one stays home, the old and the toddlers alike. Individuals from the inbetween age group are the most active and creative and reckless. Adds to the fun. This event is so popular around here that two days prior to the event, the Nations organise handing out guest passes for students from outside of Uppsala to have entry to the student clubs and bars.

The day starts at 9 AM where people get together by the river line that runs through the heart of the town centre. People grab juicy spots to witness a raft parade. What this is, students handcraft rafts made of thermo bead boards and plywood to shapes of their interest with a theme. These rafts start at a point upstream of the river and run along the gathered crowds. The vikings on their crafts flash their attire while the crowd roars with either laughter or encouragment depending on the theme. An array of pictures that follow will show you how myriad the themes were:

 A capsized raft with a killer message. Atleast the guys had a great sense of humour. The phallus however makes this picture unsuitable for underaged lot.

 A Scoop Crane raft.

 Pulverised by the little rapid fall.

 A bit of drama showing his sense of pride

 Unbalanced rafters trying to gain new balance.

 Some just wanted to cool off.

 Duracell bunnies and their charge at the turbulence.

 My personal favourite- Lloyds and Harrys from 'Dumb and dumber' on their Mutt Cutts

 .. needless to say, they were too dumb to handle the drift.

 The Royal flush.

 Couchsurfing dudes

 Lego land

 The Flintstone craftsmanship seemed Jurassic for our time.

 The radical TMNT.

After that it goes numb for a while, when all public goes scattered looking for a picnic spot in the parks around to open their packed baskets of grub. It was a day of Champagne and relaxing. I was hoping that it would be bright and warm and was in my shorts. The forecast was cloudy and windy and it went cold at times.
From then on it was the consumption of beverages. Beer mostly. The nations had their versions of entertainment, most with music. Vastgota nations had a band going on. Some pictures from there:

 With an entry fee of 150 sek, one could have been a part of this madness. Champagne fizz being showered everywhere, it was a day like no other.

A mad band on a rooftop just next to the stage. This reminded me of the Woodstock look

Raving music also at the well packed Stockholms nation. The music was reverberating the whole place up. There was a perpetual shower of Champagne.

 The best part was at Norrlands nation. They had a swing band ready with gifted singers who played classic American swing and Jazz music. Thats my kinda music and the crowd had a small but dedicated fans. Nothing like good music for drifting souls.

 People couldnt help but dance along on the sides of the street. Happy feet all over.

When they got to the song 'I'm a Gigolo' by Frank Sinatra, the crowd went mental. I must say, the singers had a spark.

 The singers did a lil' bit of a jive and twist themselves.

One girl in the crowd got possessed by the music.

The very much spic'n'span Uppsala was covered in litter. Anything went that day. And then I saw something interesting.

 I saw these two kids on the left who had large bin bags with them. While under the supervision of an elderdly, most likely their mom, collected tin cans and bottles with value from the litter. For people who dont know- there is individual value assigned to recyclable packaging of beverages. They can use the recycling machines by any supermarket and get cash in return.

I quickly asked them, "Is this for your pocket money?". The guys said, " Park gets clean and we get money to buy candy".

I was much impressed by the response. Shows a great deal of civic sense encouraged by their parents.





So looking forward to proper summer.

The Stork delivery

A blog for Indian students who  are so fussy about food that they need their home-made 'masalas' shipped to your Swedish dwelling.

I love cooking. I have my three meals at home and very rarely the MAX burgers on a night out on weekends, mainly blame it on the boogie that stimulates aggressive hunger. I did try to find out how much the spice powders cost if I had to buy some from local Iranian shops that fulfill all the asian culinary needs- from rolling pins for 'Chapathis' to imported Basmati rice for people who jack up on starch. The masalas are spicefully pricy here compared to the prices I remember in British Asian shops. I did buy some during times of emergency and found out that the spices didn't quite pack a punch. Yes, I am truly a fuss ball. So, I had a word with my aunt in India and told her my peril. She then immediately tool took a list of masalas that I needed and shipped it to me.

Heres the informative part- In Sweden, you don't get boxes delivered to you at your doorstep. It doesn't matter how large or small they are, as far as I know. You get a letter with all the details of where you have to collect your packet from. Willys, ICA and branches of these supermarkets have a special area that manage Swedish postal system in regard to boxes. You can send and recieve boxes from this point. Taking a photographic Id with you is a no-brainer really. They operate even on weekends. For some its inconvenient or confusing so as to why the system is like this where you have to pick you package(even if its a small one) from these point. The way I see it is that it ensures no misplaced or stolen deliveries and its not cos the Stork doesn't work out.

If it can deliver new born babies as the folklore goes, its neck is strong enough to deliver my 2.4 kg packet





The box when handed to me had such potent fragrance that brought a wicked smile on my face. A surprise addition to the list was a packet of home made sweet called 'Kare Undos'. They are hand made balls of oatmeal, dill, grated coconut, puffed rice, jaggery(crude syrup), cashew nuts and wee balls of fried gram flour.

This is what Kare Undos look like on a plate
;)
The texture is grainy with a resistant gooey feel in the palate. Love my aunt for the surprise. Usually, I share my bounty but this is too good to be shared.

I love my Stork that delivers goodies like these!

Milky way

Another story to tell today from a field trip to a dairy plant. This course I am in called 'Dairy science' had a plan to visit a Dairy plant in Gavle called Gefle. The course is to help us understand the changes that happen at a molecular level and see what milk processing actually does to one of the most important commodity in human diet. The course was intense with protein and fat chemistry and this trip made it more interesting.

We had to leave in a bus arranged by the professor incharge at 8AM last thursday. Everyone was on time and there was a stop at the city centre to pick up the lot that stayed closer to the city centre. They were on time too. Yes, we are the punctual lot.  The bus reached the destination at Gavle at 10 30 AM. The day was perfect for an outing- sunny and bright as the clouds had their day off. After the lovely drive there, we were welcomed with a small wait to get the guide ready for us. There was a massage chair at the waiting point which was brilliant.

We were then escorted to a presentation room for a small presentation about the history of the plant and what they did there. We also had a very nice breakfast arranged for us as seen in the picture to the left. A nice ham cheese sandwich, coffee, juice and an assortment of tasty yoghurts in cups. I am lactose intolerant so I traded my yoghurt for an extra sandwich ;)




The guide was comfortable in speaking Swedish so our professor did the translation to english. Pictures from here on will show the site tour best.

A quick change into site safety attire was what we did next. We resembled the tourists on 'Maid of the Mist' tourists by the Niagara Falls. We loved posing silly for pictures in them. the caps was an addition to the kinky look. Much to my surprise, we were allowed to chew gum and take pictures inside the plant. That could have been a big GMP fail, I thought to myself.

Fermentors that held copious amounts of milk substrate to make delicious youghurt. I must say the hygiene at a setup like this is practically spotless. The lustrous fermentors and the walls and floor reeked of cleanliness.

The geezer was more than happy to show the insides of a batch fermentor. The smell was suprisingly pleasant.

On the right hand side of the picture on the left is a Bactofuge that seperates spores of certain bacteria from milk to prevent latent fermentation. The noise from surrounding machines was so loud that one could shout at the top of his lungs and still sound like a crazy mute. Luckily, I am great at lip reading...NOT.

This is a homogeniser which essentially breaks large fat molecules to smaller even ones improving its taste and texture. Makes hell of a noise.

A routine sampling session for microbial and compositional analysis.

While some are engrossed in looking at machinery, Uta and Ally show off being the goofs they are.  Anton on the left can't help but look at them play silly.

The tour went on to show us packaging of the processed full fat milk. Yum! While our professor, Mr Anders ( in the back) is trying to show us the wonder of spray painting of use by dates on individual cartons, the Czech girls Adela and Martina take time to pose for the picture. Girls, eh?

Then to where they packed Creme fraiche. Over there, the machines made chronic beats that could be used in the next Gorillaz album. Renee, Anton and myself tried to think of nice drum and bass tune to the working machine beats.

That was it. Then we walked through a long passage underground to our presentation room to say our thanks and take our souvenirs with us. The souvenirs were trolley tokens, a cookbook and a mechanical pencil.


We had our fun on the busride back to Uppsala.

In all, everyone loved the Milky way

The twilight is too loud

Cant belive I missed writing a blog about the most popular topic in a students life- the nightlife. Nightlife dont mean that you are talking about wildlife after dusk, it means the lifeforms that act wild after dusk in the crudest of description.

In Uppsala I realised that having a student card wasnt enough to get to entertained on a weekend evening. Here, being a student usually doensn't mean squat. Its just another card that shows your mug shot with affiliation to a specific university. With my student card in Aberdeen I could get free entry to watering holes in town specific for students. Over there drinks were cut price ranging from a pound for any beer ( Corona to Guinnesss) and cocktails with offers like 2 for 3£ and the likes. Pool tables were on a wait list and sometimes on a 'winner stays on' basis. The music was from a jukebox with a fantastic collection of music, right from Pink Floyd to the latest Brit pop genre. I loved it then.

Entry was only to students so that no over paid professional would make better use of it and hence the entry based on student cards.





Over here, we have to be a part of the 'Nations'. A group of 12 large buildings located all over town with access to students in Uppsala. The nations are named after provinces of Sweden. To name my favourites-Norrlands, Kalmar and Vastgota. More info -
http://www.uu.se/en/node317
One could be a member of any of the 12 nations for a term fee of 250SEK. With that you could get invites to regular activities like dinner parties and 'Fika' or a get together over coffee. The also have scholarships that you can apply to. Once a member you are issued a card which along with a proof of identification can get you access to parties on weekends. You can also look for part time vacancies to serve as a barman or an assistant chef. Yes, all of nations is managed by the student lot.

Access after 9 PM is chargeable if you are going to a nation that you arent a member of. That ranges from 60SEK onwards. The drinks in general are expensive as alcohol is a heavily taxed commodity. The cheapest beer is charged 24SEK. Even hanging coats is charged. Rest assured, you can find your coat when you want to leave. No nicking seen so far. The music is a list of common songs played over and over again by a man who is dressed as a DJ. None seem to bother much about it as they dance to any tune. The brightside, a MJ fan like me is content. I must say, I dont remember ever listening to an MJ track during all of time in bars of Britain. Its ironic when his last concert was supposed to be in London.

A bit of a description about the dance of courtships. Yes, the floor is with rucks of people dancing like 'bellends' to the 'I m too good to dance' lot. When you try and get a girl to dance with you, it starts with holding hands and swirling each other a couple of times. I have seen guys getting swirled around by girls too. I cant put it any more clearly. I am more like Napoleon Dynamite on a prom night. All I can hope is that someday I can rock the crowd out like he did.