Anecdotes: 2017: ¡Uno!

Zzzz.... oh hello. I guess it's long overdue.

Right after the Christmas party, I took a totally unspontaneous trip to the Scandinavian land of Sverige. It's not like I'm going for an exchange or anything! Baka! I took Air Canada and my goodness, the in-flight dinner was pretty nasty. There wasn't much choice on the in-flight entertainment system too, but it was an overnight flight, so I guess I just slept through majority of it.

Figure 16.1: Airplane food!

I first arrived in Denmark, before transiting to Sweden. The immigration was surprisingly chill. When they asked me what is the purpose of my travel, I told them I here for an exchange. They then ask me for the documents, I told them I don't have them, but I'm gonna collect them once I'm in. They said okay, and let me in. I was pretty shocked, it is definitely a huge difference compared to the time when I first entered Canada to study.

Many people constantly tell me, "But Jerry, why are you going to another place which is snowy and cold? Don't you wanna avoid the lousy Newfoundland weather?". Well, I am here to fulfill a promise I made, and also unless I go to Siberia or the South Pole, I don't think anywhere else has as lousy of a weather as Newfoundland. Yeah sure, Sweden might have snow and is also, well, cold, but it's not NEWFOUNDLAND COLD and NEWFOUNDLAND SNOW. I don't have to climb hills just to go to university or to do my groceries. Now imagine it with knee high snow, that's St. John's.

The Friendly Giantess picked me up from the train station at the dead of night. Being Asian, I picked up on Asian-related things more easily. Unfortunately, she is not. So when I told her: "Hey! I am right opposite this Thai restaurant: XYZ", she has no idea where that is. Can't blame her, train station Thai food isn't exactly the most trustworthy of places.

Even though I'm supposed to be here for an exchange, I still have to collect the documents, as I promised to the Danish immigration officer. So, I have to get to London, because they don't allow you to pick up the documents in Sweden itself. Kind of makes sense I guess, they expected you to have the documents first, then enter, and not the other way round, so off I went!

The Swedish immigration officers are much more strict and suspicious. They were super dubious of my story, of wanting to go the UK to collect my student visa, and then back. It doesn't help that my passport photo then looks like an inmate. I think I was the last one to board the plane, because they asked me to step aside, served everyone else, while they got additional officers to vet my passport and me. It was a very stressful situation. The officer at London however, is very friendly. When he saw my photo, he just laughed, and said something around the lines of: "Boy! Your hair grew!"

I have some friends in London at the time (still do, but fewer), so I rang them up to hang out. One of em came all the way from Warwick, it's one of the bros of Liga. We killed some time in some weapon museum, had ramen, watched Les Misérables, and them some bubble tea (in this exact order) before sending him off back to Warwick. The next day, I hung out with my other friend whom I met in one of the Model United Nation I chaired back in 2016. She brought me around Chinatown, and then we visited the Sherlock museum. Also somewhere in between, I picked up my documents, and off I'm back to Sweden!

Figure 16.2: Friend looking at cannon in some weapons museum.

So I guess my Swedish journey officially starts! The trip back from the airport is also the first time I met the Giantess' friends. Unfortunately, I was tired (and also a tad bit intimidated, heh). So we went home and slept.

The University helps us exchangees to look for residence. The place I was provided was pretty far from the Giantess (before I got a bike). The previous tenant was a mess, he left all his junk and trash in the room. Not cool. The room was dimly lit, the wifi was a labyrinth to access (which means I didn't have wifi for the first few days in my room), and the place was just... not worth the price tag. It was extremely expensive for such a room. At the end of the month, I simply moved in with the Giantess, while I return the keys to the lady in charge of the lodging. I made some other exchange student very happy, as that someone was said to not have a place to stay, and had to pay out of their own pockets at some hostel or something (maybe, I don't know).

I guess this is enough for part uno, I'll post some pictures with some captions on them, describing them.