So after doing my online training, I set off for my first assignment as a live sports reporter.  I took the train and headed down to Örnsköldsvik, a city about 100km south of Umeå.  Luckily there is a high speed train between the two cities, and this being Sweden it had free WiFi on it and was just generally a nice train.  No shitty intercity style train here like from back in Ireland.

On arriving I was greeted by a snow storm and I had one of those “what the hell am I doing moments”.  My father has installed this prepartion mentality which means I am always extremely early for important events, however contrastingly as my girlfriend will note, I’m exceptionally slow when I classify the event as not so important.

I get to the stadium a full hour and fifteen minutes before kick off and think to myself, “that pitch doesn’t look playable”.  I make a quick call to my Swedish girlfriend who assures me that the Swedes always play football on snow covered pitches, and that she had even done so herself.  Relieved I go for a walk to the city to find out where I will get the bus from. I was getting strange looks just standing around the pitch which happened to be beside a children’s sports club.  You know it’s best to go for a walk when people start to inquisitively point at you.

Snow covered Skyttis IP

Anyway after my walk I get back and see a few members of each team on the pitch and the referee in a suit.  The Sherlock Holmes in me knew something was up.  I went over and investigated and yep, the match had been postponed.  I headed back to get the train when a car pulled up beside me.  It was the home team’s goalkeeper, TS. He told me that I looked miserable and offered me a lift to where I was going.

People say you should be wary of getting into cars of people you don’t know, I think in Sweden this doesn’t apply as its just too cold not to!  Being a gobshite and not knowing where I was going, we ended up driving around for 20 minutes where I learned all about TS’s journey from Louisiana to a small city in Sweden.  Eventually we got to the train station where I waited an hour (in the elevator) for the next train.

A pissed off me on the way back to Umeå

6 hours after I left, I returned home.  Unpaid.  But the rescheduled fixture is on next Wednesday so at least I get to do it all over again, but this time I have a car, wooo!

So surprise, surprise… I’m back blogging again! I just noticed it’s been a year since I started the blog and so much has changed, yet so little also.  I’m still in Northern Sweden but I’m no longer full time in studies.  I’ve gone the traditional route of foreigners to Sweden and have been tricked by a clever Swedish blond into staying here with her, but i’m not complaining!

So it’s St Patrick’s Day, or Paddy’s day to give it is proper name!  A year ago we were all stuck in my little room in my student corridor drinking and singing Irish songs, I feel this year will be quite similar except that we will be in a friend’s corridor, drinking and singing Irish songs.

Sarah, Me and Axel

The above was taken in a pub called Harry’s downtown last year, which hopefully we will be frequenting tonight.

So happy St. Patrick’s day to you all, hope you have a great one and its not six more months before I update this again!

B

I didn’t leave Umea till quite late this summer.  You have to love this place in the summer with the 24 hours of sunshine.  There’s no better feeling than leaving a nightclub at 3am and heading to a beach to sunbath!

One of the last days of the summer

The photo there was taken at 1am… mental!   I had a bit of strange summer, I ended up working in a Thai restaurant as you do.  It was good to be home again but I just never feel settled in Dublin any more.  So I arrived back in Umea at the end of August, quite weird coming back to place where basically you no nobody anymore!  But it wasn’t long till I meet my fellow country folk, and it turns out they’re not a bad lot at all.

Ze Irish, a Swiss, a French and a Swede

And now its started snowing already here!  But it’s not the same when you don’t have a big french man to fall on!

Bromance

I promise to update this more often

B

But today was different!  As I said yesterday I have made it along with my group to the regional final of the Venture Cup. We have a presentation in front of a panel of judges on Wednesday next week, but today we took some promotional photographs:

Nixon, Me and Long

Our Business Idea

The weather has now become warm enough that I can finally start jogging outdoors again, which I’ve managed to do the last couple of nights.  The weather is actual just perfect for it!

I also decided to make a banoffee pie, which I kinda failed miserably at.  Too much biscuit and not enough carmel, story of my life!

Yes I do eat big portions!

…and I didn’t go out tonight, just so that I could get up early again tomorrow!!  Let’s see how that goes!

I first came here in 2006, when I spent a year on Erasmus:

Performing at a "Sittning"

It’s crazy to think that was nearly 3 and a half years ago!!  But I’m back here now since August of last year, yet I still don’t feel at home.   I guess you’ll never feel at home living in student accommodation where I am now.  But I’m lucky becauseI have some great corridor mates:

Helena, Emma and Max

Cleaning up after our "Taco Buffet"

However the plan is to move to Stockholm and attempt to start a company.  It’s always been the answer to the “what do you want to do when you grow up” question for me, and I’m excited to start that chapter of my life.

My other amazing news is that my parents sent me 24 Cadbury’s Creme Eggs in the post:

Thank you photo for the parents

My mother did warn me to “take it easy” with them after the last time I was given such a large amount of Creme eggs, I ended up having to see a doctor as it turns out I am allergic to one of the colourings in the eggs… but only in high dosages.  So just one or two a day then!!

Also I found out today that  my group will be presenting in the Regional Final of the Venture Cup.  I’ll probably go into to this in a bit more detail in a later post as the final approaches!

But let the blogging begin… again!!

We had to make him leave before he ordered more!

 So just in case you didn’t get that, that’s

7 Cheesburgers, 1 McChicken Sandwich and Fries and I’d say if we weren’t in a hurry he still would of kept going.  Let’s be honest, he has worms!  Oh and if you find yourself asking, “hmmm I wonder what his personal record for cheeseburgers is?”, it’s 13.    The strange thing is that he doesn’t like to buy all 7 in one go.  No he’s a simple man.  Two to start off, followed by two more, then number five “which was the best”.  He just ate number 6 because “they had it made already”.  He initially didn’t get number 7 because he couldn’t see any behind the counter, but was like a child on Christmas morning when he saw them making one for somebody else.  As you can tell he’s not too familiar with the basic concept of McDonalds.  This is how we started off our Thursday night. 

We were downtown to see one off our Swedish friend’s Emelie play bass in her band.  It reminded me so much of been 15 again and hanging out at this types of events.  I’m also still disturbed that these kids can grow considerably more facial hair than me!

Misplaced

Tonight should be good, it’s Club Sockerbeat, which means one thing… messiness!!

After that we headed to a student pub to watch the Champions league match between Real Madrid and Lyon.  Two of my very close friends here are from Madrid and Lyon respectively so it was pretty cool to watch the match with them.  It was definitely a frustrating match to watch if you’re a Madrid fan, but I couldn’t help feel happy for Tiphaine, my French friend when Lyon scored and knocked Madrid out of the competition.  It’s OK Miguel there’s always next year to try make it to the quarter finals!

Once the match was over, nearly everybody went home except me and the only other Irish man of worth left in Umeå, Kyle.  We’d been shittin’ on for 7 months about how we were going to go drink some Irish cider in one of the student pubs, and it was only last night that we finally did it.

I honestly believed I could make it to Friday without getting drunk, but you know how it goes, one drink leads to another and the next thing you know you’re convincing a Swede that you’re from Zurich, complete with a horrendous Swiss/German/Jamaican accent.  Also, did you know that the won’t let you smuggle out the bottle of Bulmers you have bought in Sweden, shockin’ stuff altogether!

Tonight the battle not to got drunk continues, lets see who wins!

I’ve lived in Sweden now in total for nearly a year and half, and the vast majority of Swedes I know have blogs.  Again this is weird for me, because if you’ve meet a Swede, you’ll know they tend to be quite shy and reserved unless they’re quite comfortable around you.  So the idea that they publish their thoughts for public consumption is a bit odd.

I’ve always liked the idea of a blog as away to communicate, basically because I’m shite at staying in touch and it’s kinda like an acceptable way of talking to yourself without people thinking your a fucking nut job.

So enjoy my ramblings!