I love Parmigiano Reggiano Corridor!

Everybody is going back home for Xmas... for some it's also the end of their exchange here: David, Pascal, Fabi, Mike,... It's been a wonderful semester I must say, thanx ORI for the mistake during the asigning procedure :P For my closest friends, most of us will be coming back after Xmas so tragedy is still to come... although Ali has been deeply missed ever since she left early December :( Anyway... our Parmigiano Reggiano Corridor (wonderful lasagne, amazing arrosto, delicious risotto and those "Family" Sunday lunches) would have never had existed if it wasn't for you....

Now we know where bullshit city lies on the Worldwide map,

now we now who Kings of Party (should I say farting??) are,

now we understand most of the things we had never understood (before we had listened to ur coherent explanations...),

now we know the meaning of "eres más puta que las gallinas [thx Alex!] (porque aprendieron a nadar para fol..... a los patos...)",

now we know that our Erasmus without u would had NEVER been the same ;)

GRACIAS POR TODOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GIULIOOOOOOOOOO!!

p.s.- ((((pero qué feo que eres!!!! """noooooooo, soy muy bonitooooooooooooo!!!"""))))

this is coming to an end---- THX TO ALL!!

it's all about bullars...

Kötbullar, kanelbullar, luciabullar,... here in Sweden it seems as if everything has to do with "buns, cakes, rolls" or at least that's how the Svenska-Engelska online dictionary translates it...
I remember my first supermarket experience back in August- kötbullar all over the place! I already knew from our GREAT IW's about this meatball-smashed potatoes-"marmalade" dish but I just couldn't imagine it was really that popular. Really shocking... This is the pic I took with my cellphone on that day, I had to! :P


Then came kanelbullars... look tasty, smell nice though in my opinion they turn out to be not that nice- the texture of the pastry, the amount of cinnamon... certainly not for me! for those who'd like to try, here u r: the original Swedish recipe in Swedish...


And now luciabullars... haven't tasted them yet and I don't think I will have the opportunity as traditions here in Sweden are strictly respected and Santa Lucia is over :( They look like "little tits" (they really do!) and surprisingly! they aren't made with cinnamon! hehe This is how they look like...
In Sweden, Santa Lucia is one of the big events: according to what I have read, Santa Lucia was said to be the first wife of Adan but she had some kind of special thing going on with the devil... Anyway, in the old calendar, Santa Lucia's day the 13th of December was the one with the longest night of the year. The tradition also says that day u have to take a plentiful breakfast :)
More about the Santa Lucia Festen: girls dress up in a white dress, boys as stars and everybody sings songs dedicated to this special event and, of course, get drunk! otherwise it wouldn't be Sweden :P
Lovely Sweden, cute tradition,... I didn't miss the stupid karaballen ( I never wan to go to one of those ever again) but I did miss this... s***!!

Laurita and the MiniMeal...

Today I had my first almost "cocido" soup ;) Spanish will probably agree that whenever it's cold outside, there's nothing better than having a warm home made cocido! To prepare a proper cocido takes way more time than I did but at least I had something which resembled to what my father usually cooks back home... Anyway, I had invited Laura to enjoy lunch with me but she finally couldn't come cause she's too into her studies :P but I will forgive her... This post is dedicated to her, for the lovely time we spent together during our trip last week and because of being a true friend ;) but when speaking about laura u just CAN'T miss talking about her passion! MINIMEAL! This yoghurt+cereal thing drives Laura crazy, I think it can only be found in Sweden and Finland so Laura will be taking a truck full of minimeals to Germany for Xmas!! :P










But the thing is that she probably said no to my cocido soup and had a minimeallllllllllllllllllll
Te quiero mucho Laurita ;)

Se acerca la Navidad!

I know... my frequency of updates is soooooooo terrible!!!! In my defense I can just say I've had a lot to do in the last month and PLUS! I haven't been in Linköping that much! Making a brief review this is how my last month went along...
from the 1st-6th November my parents visited me :) 4 days here in Linköping and then the MUST in Sweden: visiting beautiful Stockholm (my third time there btw...)
On the 9th we had the first big snow, so exciting!


Laura turned 21 on the next day... we had a wonderful party with special guests: her mother and her sister. A couple of Spanish omelettes and two delicious quiches as starters and then...
risotto!!! yummmmmmmmmyyyyyy!!! :D



Just 2days after, that's on the 9th, we departured to... Russiaaaaaaaaa!! a 9-day- road trip which lead us to Moscow droping by in Helsinki and St. Petesburg, amazing!

Without even time to go back to lessons, Tyler came over for a long w/e ;) by chance it was the same w/e as Kings of Party (Italy). We spent altoghether a couple of days here- incredible dinner at Stefano's!- and then to Stockholm once again ;)

On the 27th I had the exam of my last full-time course (Entrepreneurship and new Business development) but without any hope to pass it of course... but miracles sometimes exist and I did pass it! :) (just got to know 2days ago)...


Time goes by very quickly and farewells already started... the first to leave were Alice and Paolo. As we were going to Bratislava-Prague and Vienna for a 6-day-trip we decided to make the big party on the 28th... Strange feelings that night I must say...
(Stephanie Good also left pretty early, only two days ago- back in the US!)

So now... coming closer to today... our trip to Eastern Europe! Erasmus religion ihas very much to do with travelling around all of the countries that are close your host country but with Ryanair everything seems to be so close! & so cheap! :D Nobody said a trip with 9 ppl would be easy but it was nice to travel around (specially b/c of u Lauri) and discover new cities! The experience of taking a night train of 5h30 between Bratislava and Prague: highly advisable specially if ur suitcase is full of still not dryed clothes from last nights laundry! :P





Prague: amazingly beautiful- we had a wonderful bright sun the two days we spent there so we were able to enjoy all of the beauty of the city (and it's beer!). Don't miss the restaurant-pub "Il Provaznice" if u ever go...
Vienna: full of Xmas markets, we only missed the snow. I've never had so much warm wine in my life (Punsch!)
Bratislava: Small but nevertheless charming- mandatory visit to the Slovak pub! delicious pirogis!

Now back home... all the snow melt away... soon ppl who will not be here on the 2nd semester will have their farewell parties... can't imagine how this will be like without some of them in January... :S

TONIGHT! LUCIAKRABALLEN! said to be the best one though I've never been a great fan of them... looking foward to a good party!

Fields of Gold

Hej hej!
back from Poland, whenever you hear the word Sea Battle believe they mean there will be a battle... I'll be posting some pics when I get them ;)
just posting the vid of Michele Kwan's exhibition performance in 2003, it made me fall in love with this song: Fields of Gold

Andreilla que te como la orejilla and Paul

In this video appear Andrea (Italy) and Paul (France). They are two of my very special friends here... We had a terrible fright with Paul's accident in Goteborg but now it's obvious that he's recovering perfectly (we're going to Poland Paul!!!!!!)
I'm uploading our private foam party... hehe Everybody went to Platª except for us three, Ali and Lena and this is what we got :P despite it has no sound, I believe it is a very cute vid... enjoy!!
leyre from the library... I have my Project Management exam on Saturday...

CiAO GUAPO!!!!

Saturday held one of the biggest parties ever in Linköping: Luca Dotti's Farewell party, most commonly known as "Last Party (here)". We had so much fun!
I must admit that despite not having been a close friend here, the goodbye to Luca was very moving... he certainly embodies the true Erasmus in all senses. Sweden and Linköping will deeply miss him, we will miss u too!
Ciao Guapo! and for sure we will be visiting u in Modena ;)
btw... today we had the first frost of the year, everything was covered by a light ice layer this morning although right now he have a wonderful sunshine and almost 8ºC ;)

ciaoooooooooooooooooooooooooo

cazzo! qué frío!!!

Today we went downtown (Lena, Laurita, Giulio and me) to buy somethings for Luca's farewell party (if u want to join, u'r still on time and very welcomed! 3rd floor above Flamman tonight). I visited System Bolaget for the first time despite having been here for more than two months... For foreigners: in Sweden, normal supermarkets aren't allowed to sell alcoholic drinks so if you want some, even if it's just some wine of normal beer (over 3.2º...?¿?¿?¿) you must go to System Bolaget. I don't really know how many of them there are here in Linköping but we've been in the one next to the White Church (I still don't know the name!!). Some Cava and some wine, for tonight's dinner at as a gift for Luca.
Btw, the town looked really nice today: all of the shops were opened, there were many ppl in the streets, it was a very sunny day but... it was amazingly cold! right now we're just over 6ºC but it feels pretty cold... In order to make my room seem warmer I decided to change my desktop photo from the one of the Absolut Icebar in Stockholm to the lovely landscape of Tuscany... I love this pic sooooooooo much!!!

bumping into Happiness...

Today while reading the blog of an old friend I met some lovely lines about "la felicidad", which is actually the same as happiness, but in Spanish sounds so much nicer ;) After having read it, I couldn't help it looking up in wikipedia.com (it's becoming one of my daily tools here) the definition of "felicidad"... situación involuntaria en la que los factores internos y externos interactuan activando el sistema límbico (does anybody know what this means?), que estimulado adecuadamente, informará de este estado anímico. I found this too technical so I kept on searching. I didn't actually find the definition but something rather more interesting: Satisfaction with Life Index: the average self-reported happiness in different nations, using direct measures of happiness as an alternative to traditional measures of policy success. Surprinsingly (or maybe not so surprinsingly) Sweden is amongst the list of the most "happy" countries in the World...

from the most happy to the less happy: green>blue>purple>orange>red

I'm finishing this brief thought about "la felicidad" with an interesting sentence from Henry Van Dyke: "La felicidad es interior, no exterior; por lo tanto, no depende de lo que tenemos, sino de lo que somos." TOTALLY AGREE. Happiness is born in our minds...

What makes me happy right now? To think about sunny lovely weather, just as the one we're having here this week despite the low temperatures (2.3ºC right now in Ryd, 23.44)...

Looking foward to tomorrow,

Have a good night ;)

de la polenta to panna cotta y from pastone erasmus al pastone erasmus vegetariano...

partying, partying, partying... but also a lot of work! I am currently taking two courses: Project Management which is full-time and Linear Statistical Models. I must say I am quite happy with my work groups, on one side Thai, Derya and Bastien, and on the other Bilal. Keep it up pals!
Yesterday we (Laurita, Lena, Steffi and Ali) visited Uppsala for the day though we actually only spent 5 hours there... Sigtuna will have to wait for a future trip!
Days are getting not gradually but actually quite fast colder and colder as well as shorter... it's totally dark by 7pm.... Välkommen till Sverige!

Notes: Planned trips coming up soon...
1/ Poland: 28th-30th October
2/ Russia: 12th-21st November
3/ Bratislava-Prague-Vienna: 29th Novermber- 4th December

Football match (clasificatoria para Eurocopa): SPAIN vs SVERIGE 17th October!

Courses, exams, preparting and partying!

Last night, of course, HG... ended in Nacho's corridor in a kind of after party (?¿) thought I'd lost my cell phone but I was finally at Mike's corridor, SOOOOOOOOO HAPPY TO HAVE FOUND IT! Laura and I are planing to visit Uppsala on Saturday, maybe visiting Gavle too but we still have to decide...
I'm posting a photo from Giulio's bday on Friday evening (auguri caro!), enjoy!

UPDATING!

After not having writen anything at all ever since I got here, I have finally decided to make a new post.. It's not that I've been lazy but I've had soooooooooooo many things to do! From now onwards, I'll try to post a photo every 3-4 days and tell how things are going here... Promise!
Right now... well today we've had a really sunny day! the weather here has been like a cold February in Madrid so I can say that I haven't had any Summertime this year... Swedes say it's been the worst Summer in the past 50 years so I guess the Winter that's coming will be just as bad... but anyway, it's also part of the experience!
Yesterday I had my first exam here... not my best I must tell, not great expectations about it... but at least it's done! Tomorrow I'll be starting my next course, promise to work harder from the begining for this one! ;)

Hej Linköping!

Right now I’m in my own room J Ryd Allé 15.115. For those of you who have heard they call the Ryd Allé “Beverly Ryd”, I must say there’s not much difference between my room and Ivan’s ( a Spanish guy I met at the airport in Copenhagen, actually, he found me and he’s helping me a lot! Cause he knows all the stuff we have to here the 1st days… and plus! Last night I slept in the sofa of his corridor cause when we arrived here in Linköping at 21h55 the renting company office was already closed… so, thx Iván!). He lives in Rydsvaggen, 2 minutes away from where I live.
Btw, I didn’t get my suitcase L I hope they lost it in Copenhagen, otherwise I think it’s going to take a while to get here to Linköping…
My room, well… it’s on the ground floor so that means less intimacy, that means much less: from my window I can even touch the bikes which are parked outside my building! Anyway… we’ve been doing some academical stuff such as getting our coordinators here to sign our arrival, paying the student fee (240kr ≈ 25€),… Today we’re having lovely weather! It’s approximately 25ºC and veeeeeeeeeeery sunny. Whenever Ivan comes, we’re going to set up the Internet connection and we’ll be going to the centre of town to buy a bike and some clothes for me, he loss of my suitcase is the perfect excuse to go shopping J

Hasta pronto Madrid...

Right now I’m on my flight, destination Copenhagen J The time is 3:55pm and the temperature in Madrid was 20ºC J I’ll be posting this whenever I get to Linköping. Leaving Madrid wasn’t actually too sad, I mean I didn’t cry I guess it’s because I know I’ll be back in September to take a couple of exams and plus, my cousins have their tickets already booked for the 13th of September, even before I come back for my exams. Closing the suitcase was a total odyssey basically because of the fear of the overweight fee :S In the end I managed to have a suitcase of only 26 kg but I’m also taking a very heavy hand luggage despite last night I took many things from the big suitcase… I hope it will arrive to Linköping at the same time as me! It seems as if most of the ppl on the flight are Scandinavian, well they certainly are, they’re more tanned than I am!!!!!!! This is REALLY depressing… anyway, can’t wait to get to Linköping! I’ll watch the movie they’re playing right now, didn’t get to hear the title :P
Good bye Madrid!
Ps.- I hope that nice Miguel Adrian, one of the Mexicans who’s already in Linköping will have got my key from the Studentbostader office, otherwise I hope some nice student will lend me their sofa to sleep on it tonight… fingers crossed!

It’s now 6:20 pm, just about to reach Copenhagen! We’re 1946km away from Madrid and the temperature outside the plane is -36ºC!! That’s the temperature expected in Linköping in Winter-time… :S Now I’ll have to board for the flight to Linköping (at 8:20pm) from Copenhagen… I hope I won’t get lost in the airport… I’ll be writing again on the final flight! :D

Arrival to Copenhagen: 18h55, 20ºC… I’ll be boarding to Linköping in about an hour and a half, at 20h25 J I think I’m going to eat the lovely Spanish ham chapatti my mother prepared for me and then just wait at the boarding gate. Btw! Nice airport the one here in Copenhagen!

Mi casa en Linköping

In Sweden, the most common thing for University students is to live in corridor rooms. In Linköping the biggest reantal company is Studentbostader. If you want to get an accomodation what u should do is apply through their website. Anyway, the procces is more or less easy but despite having been on their list for almost 3 months, I just got their response in mid-July. You can imagine the wiating wasn't precisely calm :S

You can decide in which area of Linköping you want to live. Amongst the exchange students, the most popular area is Ryd. My peer student, Daniel, advice me to take Ryd Allé cause it's just next to Ryd, well it's actually Ryd, but it's the newest part. I finally got Ryd Allé! So I'm actually quite happy about it :)

Here u'll see where I'll be living ( Google Earth): http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=58.409952,15.563207&spn=0.005200,0.015044&t=k&hl=en

The Stereotypes...

This is not the 1st time I stop to think about stereotypes... Actually, I thought quite a lot about it before going to the IW Milan in April this year cause the topic of the week was "Fight against stereotypes". I guess it's something that always comes up to you whenever meeting foreign ppl, what's the idea they have aboutSpanish ppl? About Sweden... I believe it to be a very cold place, I thought the ppl were cold too but having had the opportunity to meet quite a few Swedes this year (wonderful IW's!), I think the stereotype I had was wrong. At first they can seem closed and distant but give them the chance and u'll see they are very nice ppl :D A fact: in Spain it is said that ALL Swedish girls are hot. True or false?
I've been speaking lately to 3 young nice Swedish guys (who will from now onwards be Mr. X, Mr. Y and Mr. Z) about the Spanish stereotype. I'll base this post on what they said. Hope the conclusions will be positive!
Well, according to Mr. X ( I promised to keep his identity hidden), Spanish ppl are darked haired and loud. Mmm, yes, that's true, we're quite loud, I should say noisy... but how are u supposed to be heared in a crowded bar plus high volume of music if u don't shout?
Mr. Z spoke about the warm character of Spaniards: "u like partying and drinking". Is that positive? The partying definitively,though the drinking not so sure if it's in terms of alcoholism. Anyway, who doesn't enjoy a lovely warm afternoon drinking a couple of beers with some friends or even better, with some tasty sangria? Come on! Nobody could ever resist! But he added somthing else, he believes Spanish ppl to be very friendly. That's nice Mr. Z! Thanks!
Mr. X added some other facts such as the language. He answered "yes" whenever I asked him if Spanish sounded sweet to him. :D Does Swedish sound sweet too?
Mr. Y knows too much about Spain. And more he'll get to know whenever his Erasmus here starts ;) To sum up all of his information, he thinks Spanish girls are nice.
So... I feel they didn't have a negative view on Spanish ppl, hope that all Swedes think the same!

I just found this pic in Google images... will we love Linköping at the end of the semester?

Countdown to Linköping!

Hola a todos!
Primera entrada en mi blog Erasmus... todavia estoy ultimando los papeles de la universidad, la Carlos III no es muy eficiente que digamos... tengo hasta el día 13 para asegurarme de que todo está bien! Fingers crossed!!