Ghetto Life

So I made it. my 27 or so hours of non-stop train, car, plane and bus rides are over. I have a home away from home, a place to rest my hat. So lets go chronologically as not to get confused. I went for a cruise down the main streets of G-burg on Saturday morning, followed by a confusing walk to G-burg Train station, which was a beautiful old vs. new building still with christmas decorations (most streets here still have xmas lights up!). but I was about to discover.. that everything was about to change.

My adventure really warmed up when i arrived in Jonkoping. It was a smooth scandinavian (on-time) train trip, and when i arrived i was finally feeling nervous, it took a while to kick in. I couldn't see any other student looking people until i was in the 7-11 buying a youghty drink.. The man behind the counter was serving up a hotdog with mashed potato and ketchup (they fucking love this stuff!) and i heard this thick Aussie accent ask him "wooow! what are yew doein'?". I looked over to see a short blonde girl questioning this respective citizen, abusing him for simple information about the clearly obvious procedure of placing mashed potatoes onto a sausage. I had had enough. i looked at her .. "excuse me" i asked.. "are you.. aussie?". "Yeh!, you too?" she replied. i was then introduced to 2 more bogans and a rally nice guy from Montreal. the 4 of them were swamped in IKEA bags. it was their second day in Jonkoping, which apparently is the day you go to IKEA, as thats what I'm planning to do today. They had spent around 500 krona each on pillows, mats etc.

But I was about to discover.. that my apartment had already been pimped... After leaving that group on students I saw a familiar face on the street, it was Perri from Swinburne. I had met her once before the trip. We got talking and she was giving me the LD on Sim-cards, accommodation and the whole happenings upon signup. It was getting to around 4:30pm, so naturally it was pitch black outside. I was then taken to my accommodation.. or my crib, as i'm calling it (MTV would love that shit). So begins another chapter, Ghetto life. In Jonkoping, as in most cities, there is an area you associate with fear, starvation, commission flats, stabbings, and rape. this my friends is the sleepy suburb of Raslatt (Rraw-slett). about 10 minutes from the main city, this place is totally the ghetto of Jonkoping, but thats what makes it great. On the bus over i was with a Canadian (Daniel) and another Aussie (Dave, yes they are everywhere). But i'll get to them in detail later. They were talking about ice-hockey, football, and other manly things with our driver. thats when I decided to look for anyone but these guys on arrival. But i was about to discover that those that you have nothing in common with, are about to change.

We hop off the bus. Its freezing, the first time i actually noticed as before i was too excited to feel cold. Raslatt has about 50 buildings, and i mean full on high-rise flats. probably even more actually. There were clumps of melting snow on the ground (i missed the snow by a few days :( ) Anyways i walk into my building (84) and i look on the board for my name. it says "Cremean, Sam : 84 67-3".. and i'm like "ok". So anyways i go up in the ol' skool lift and enter the apartment. The climax of walking into my apartment and having Lauren and Heidi squealing with joy by my side was a sick fantasy that i shouldnt have used to get my hopes up. there were 2 guys starring at me. "hey" i say. Its my roomies. A Lithuanian guy whose name i cant pronounce but now i discover its just Michael, good news is he's been here for a semester already so he was telling us the ropes, including suing the term ghetto to describe Raslatt. He explained that most of the local Swedes that live in Raslatt are migrants from Turkey and Iraq, and that young kids try to crash the University parties. Then there's Guilliem, from Paris. he's really polite and seems quite young. his parents helped him settle in the day before. His room is kitted out with all this sweet IKEA stuff, like a pimpin rug, and these shelves and stuff, nd his laptop is always, quietly, playing slim shady or some nineties stuff. So he's really just a 90's guy. then there is a Tanzanian guy who i have barely spoken to, but sexy African men keep letting themselves into the apartment. They show me my room, its the smallest in the apartment they say, but it has a walk in wardrobe!! so they knew i was coming.

Then, 6 feet of Ontario jock-trash waltz into my room after i had barley put my bag down. It was Daniel, the Canadian. "Hey buddy, i remember you said you were in 84 so i just looked for your name on the door.. I wanna go out tonight get me some broads, man." This guy thought i'd be good "broad smashing" company. Anyway, we got talking and decided to check out the supermarket. We eventually found "Willys" the local place (btw Johanna i dont know how you deal with our shitty Australian supermarkets, coz this place was amasin'). So anyway, the whole time Daniel had only spoken about pickin up girls (apparently he is a guru and please many women in Stockholm, the night before) So we buying pasta and cereal and shit and then we see Dave, the Aussie (from Canberra). We chat to him and we all decided to make some pasta at my place (which btw is notorious for being very luxurious compared to there's). We did and we looked through the IKEA catalogue sitting on the table. Daniel kept talking "aboot" going out later, even though 8:00pm feels like 1:00am. So i said to myself , fuck it, and we hit the streets. the bus fare was about a 50c (AUS) a minute to get into the city which is ridiculous, but this is without the student pass, which we get on Monday. We went to Student Haus, to talk to the guide people about where we should hit up first. They were helpful, even though Daniel was badly hitting on them. then she offered s a lift to this club called Harry's. As this place had a 100 krona cover charge we decided to go to the Pipes of Scotland, a scottish themed pub. the crowd was mixed, mainly swedes and mainly older swedes, very drunk old swedes. it was crazy. i could only really afford one beer so i made it a nice swedish one, which was very tasty, and then we head back (well i head back to sleep, but Dan and Dave continued the night on!).

oh yeah and a 60 year old drunk guy at the bus stop told me he loved me and that he was anti-racist.

Till next time.