Umeå Normality

I've been back for almost two weeks now and everything seems to be back to normal. This means class once or twice a week for 2-5 hours at a time, IKSU everyday, going out or finding something to do most nights, and lots of movies and tv shows to fill in the gaps.

After coming back to cold and rain, I'll be honest, I kind of missed the shorts, sandals, and t-shirt weather. But I'll be back to it soon enough, no worries. The weird thing was my sleep schedule. For whatever reason, I couldn't sleep after I got back. The first night back was an all-nighter. You never realize what kind of an effect the sun has on you until you go somewhere that's just not normal. It never really gets dark here anymore and I blame my lack of sleep on that. I haven't slept past 8:00am until just yesterday (due to a really late night). To give you an idea of this sunlight nonsense, at about 1:00am there was more light with no moon than the brightest full moon nights back home. Current sunrise: 4:02am, sunset: 9:11pm with 19h 34m of visible light.
I took a 5:00am run to the lake last week and I've decided it may just be my new favorite place in Umeå, probably because it reminds me so much of picnic point but without the awesome nighttime view. I liked it so much though that I dragged Lauren out there at 5:00am the next morning. Of course getting up that early needs a bit more incentive than just a good view so I threw in breakfast - bacon and eggs cooked over a wood fire (though sadly not my best work).
I always wondered what they did with the crap load of gravel they threw on the roads and sidewalks over winter. Turns out they mount massive street sweeper things to a front loader and literally sweep up everything. It then goes to a massive pile where more front loaders fill up dump trucks and ship it off. They even sweep the grass, weird.

We had a bbq one day, the day it decided to turn cold actually. When I say cold I mean colder, 50 degrees to 35 degrees. On the bright side, the hot dogs were pretty good and I've learned french hot dog buns are the worst idea ever. Their only redeeming quality was that they don't make a mess when you hold them - though that thought was quickly thrown out the window when I was attacked by the hot dog and subsequently covered in ketchup. There are a lot of bbq pits around, and by a lot I mean 3 or 4 to every courtyard - I'll wait until it gets warm to enjoy them I think.

On the topic of food, I've decided that Tetrapaks are starting to grow on me (yes, those stupid milk cartons I've been complaining about since getting to Sweden). Turns out they're the best thing to use if you drink out of the carton, nice little pour spout and you never have to open them (on account of they don't actually close). They are also really easy to break down flat so you can put them in the usually overflowing cardboard bin under the counter (we have 4 different recycling bins and a can collection area in the kitchen, Swedes and their recycling).

Brittany and I got a little crazy one night when everyone else went to a fashion show/concert/dance hall thing at Universum, the student union (we didn't want to pay the 125sek to get in). We ended the night with a total of 1 couch on a car, 1 bike in a tree, 1 street sign (and I still don't actually know what it says), 1 toy tractor on a roof, and 1 bead necklace.

There was a big Valborg celebration around the campus pond on the last day in April. It was basically Jokkmokk but without the culture and snow. Vendors had set up shops and a big bonfire was built (some would say massive, but given that I grew up with bonfires the size of small houses I still say big) to celebrate the start of Spring (still not exactly sure how that works either). There was also live bands playing most of the night which was pretty cool, but the best part was all of the small fires set up around the entire pond. They made for good gathering spots.
As I said before, everything is getting back to normal, that means time for another trip. Trevor, Lauren, and I all wanted to go to Prague. What originally started out as a trip to Prague then became Berlin, Prague, and Athens and now stretches just over a week. We'll be back just in time for the brännbol tournament (baseball but with less rules I'm told) and the massive Ålidhem party that accompanies it. It will sadly also be time for plenty of good bye parties as people are already starting to leave.

Anyway, I suppose I've been procrastinating on my readings long enough. Time to write a paper. Vi ses senare!