Hi again! In this entry I will talk some more about the accommodation in Stockholm, the senior buddy program and some information on how the educational part of this semester is put together.
The room I’m currently living in is assigned to me by the university. When I was signing my contract at the University housing office, they told me that I was a very lucky guy; apparently there are a lot of foreign students that weren’t assigned accommodation for the semester! They had/have to find rooms by themselves, something that isn’t easy as a foreigner in a completely unknown city. Also Stockholm is already having a big shortage in student accommodation. Consequential, there are a lot of foreign students that are currently living in youth hostels or staying with friends, hoping to find a room soon. This is extremely expensive, especially in Stockholm! So I was very glad to find out I was one of the lucky few that got an accommodation!
My accommodation, Armègatan 32 Strix, is about 30 minutes from the university campus and 15 minutes away from the central Stockholm. It is very accessible by metro and busses. The building lies next to a nice little forest and it’s a 5 minute walk to the nearest metro station. The room itself is better than I could ever imagine: it is fully furnished, and includes a private toilet and shower! I don’t have those kinds of luxuries in my little room in Tilburg! Unfortunately the kitchen is shared, and it is by far the nastiest kitchen I’ve ever seen in my life! My student house in Tilburg has a kitchen that’s quite dirty, but I was not prepared for what I found here! Luckily, I don’t mind cooking in a dirty kitchen. Also the price isn’t too bad, as I’m paying around 3000 crones (which is around 320 euros) a month. This may not sound as a bargain, but most of the student rooms in and around Stockholm are 4000+ crones!
Stockholm is a very expensive city in general, as most of you undoubtedly know. You´ll easily pay 1.5 to 2 times the prices here than in the Netherlands. With alcoholic beverages the prices are even worse! You´ll easily pay 50 crones (around 5.50 euros) for a beer in a bar! And those are the relatively cheap places. When you get groceries for diner, you won’t have to pick anything fancy to pay more than 8 euros ! However, last week we went to a giant Ikea (one of the biggest in the world lays in Stockholm) and you could get pretty nice food there for only 19 crones. We ate the traditional Swedish meatballs, and they were scrumptious!
I’ve met some pretty interesting people along the trip. Making friends is no problem on an Erasmus exchange! Everyone is very outgoing and wants to do fun stuff, so that’s the first thing you’ll have in common! During the welcoming days I’ve made some friends already, and my group in the senior buddy program is very nice. My group consists of my senior buddy Jennie, who’s from Sweden and knows all the ins and outs about the university. Then there is Urban, a very funny guy from Slovenia. And finally there’s Johannes, a very nice guy who’s born in Finland but lives in Glasgow. They are very nice people and are probably going to be the ones I will be spending a lot of time with! The activities with the senior buddy program are also mostly with this group. These activities include an awesome boat trip Finland, a 3 day trip on a yacht and several activities concerning the Nobel price. Most of them will be somewhere in the upcoming months, so they will be reported extensively when I’ve experienced them!
Other than in Tilburg University, you do not follow your courses simultaneously. The semester here is divided into 4 segments, each of about one month, and you’ll follow one or two courses at a time. This is a lot less stressful than in Tilburg, since you can focus on one subject instead of having to divide your attention over 5 or 6 of them. Another advantage is that if you dislike a subject, you won’t stick with it for the rest of the semester, but you will be done in a couple of weeks! The subject I’m following at this moment is Real estate management. It´s a very interesting course about...well, real estate management! Because you take only one course at a time, you´ll only have around 8 to 10 contact hours a week. Something I do not mind at all!
Stockholm is a very expensive city in general, as most of you undoubtedly know. You´ll easily pay 1.5 to 2 times the prices here than in the Netherlands. With alcoholic beverages the prices are even worse! You´ll easily pay 50 crones (around 5.50 euros) for a beer in a bar! And those are the relatively cheap places. When you get groceries for diner, you won’t have to pick anything fancy to pay more than 8 euros ! However, last week we went to a giant Ikea (one of the biggest in the world lays in Stockholm) and you could get pretty nice food there for only 19 crones. We ate the traditional Swedish meatballs, and they were scrumptious!
I’ve met some pretty interesting people along the trip. Making friends is no problem on an Erasmus exchange! Everyone is very outgoing and wants to do fun stuff, so that’s the first thing you’ll have in common! During the welcoming days I’ve made some friends already, and my group in the senior buddy program is very nice. My group consists of my senior buddy Jennie, who’s from Sweden and knows all the ins and outs about the university. Then there is Urban, a very funny guy from Slovenia. And finally there’s Johannes, a very nice guy who’s born in Finland but lives in Glasgow. They are very nice people and are probably going to be the ones I will be spending a lot of time with! The activities with the senior buddy program are also mostly with this group. These activities include an awesome boat trip Finland, a 3 day trip on a yacht and several activities concerning the Nobel price. Most of them will be somewhere in the upcoming months, so they will be reported extensively when I’ve experienced them!
Other than in Tilburg University, you do not follow your courses simultaneously. The semester here is divided into 4 segments, each of about one month, and you’ll follow one or two courses at a time. This is a lot less stressful than in Tilburg, since you can focus on one subject instead of having to divide your attention over 5 or 6 of them. Another advantage is that if you dislike a subject, you won’t stick with it for the rest of the semester, but you will be done in a couple of weeks! The subject I’m following at this moment is Real estate management. It´s a very interesting course about...well, real estate management! Because you take only one course at a time, you´ll only have around 8 to 10 contact hours a week. Something I do not mind at all!
last Saturday I went to the city with Urban. Since Stockholm is surrounded by water (it has been called ‘The Venice of the north’), we took a hop-on-hop-off boat tour to get around. First we went to Skansen, an open air museum. Skansen includes a lot of typical Swedish traditions and nature, as well as some of the animals that are common in Sweden, such as moose, bears, reindeers and so on. It was a very nice place to walk around and hang out. After this, we went to some of the other highlights of the city, as well as catching a first glimpse of Gamla Stan, the old part of Stockholm. This is considered as the most beautiful part of the city, and I can only confirm this! When going to Stockholm, Gamla Stan is a definite must-see! The beautiful architecture is very iconic for Sweden, and there are some very nice (but again, expensive) fish restaurants there. You’ll easily pay around 500 crones (55 euro) pp if you want to have dinner in one of these restaurants. Of course this was not a possibility for us, so we went to a big hall in the city where you can get practically every kind of food for the ‘Very cheap’ price of 85 crones. But I guess that’s just one of the things we’ll have to get used to when living in Stockholm.
Dear Robin,
ReplyDeleteStockholm sounds very expensive... I hope you've got a lot of money saved up! ;D
Kind regards,
Maaike