My First Weekend at the Nations!!

It's about 8:00pm on Sunday night over here and I've survived my first full week in Sweden!! I just got done making a frozen pizza for dinner and can officially say that frozen pizza tastes the same in every country haha. Those that have lived with me know that I'm basically the queen of frozen dinners and will always choose the microwave option over actually cooking a real meal. However, as of right now, our kitchen has no microwave!! I know, shocking right?? So I've been forced to rely on the stove top and oven...such a rough life haha!

Anyways, I got my first taste of Uppsala's night life this weekend and let me tell you, it is CRAZY!! They put Colorado's clubs to shame!! The school has 13 different 'nations' that every student joins within the first week. I'd relate them to greek life in the US, with the exception that they're not exclusive, you pick which one you want to join (as opposed to them picking you), and they're all co-ed. Each nation historically relates to a nation within Sweden, so most of the Swedes will join the one that correlates with their family background. As an exchange student, your family background obviously doesn't matter so you can join whichever one 'feels' right. They all have their own building where you can go to study and hang out during the week and then a few of them have their own club night every week. 

I went to 'Varmlands' Nation on Friday night and it was such a blast!! Everyone goes out way earlier here so we got there at like 8pm and it was already packed! They have different types of music playing in every room and it's essentially one giant dance party! They play some Swedish music, but the majority of it is American music. The top played artists I've heard so far are Backstreet Boys, Rhianna, and Keisha!! On Saturday night I went to a Gossip Girl themed party (which was right up my ally haha!) at 'Sneirkes' Nation. They're way into American TV over here, so everyone went dressed up as 'Upper East Side' rich kids...all the guys in their sweater vests and bow ties and all the girls with giant bows in their hair and tons of jewelry. Overall the club atmosphere is a lot more layed back than it is in the States, at least in my opinion. When you go to the clubs in Denver you have to avoid creepers the whole night and everyone is always grindin all up on each other. I'd say it's not nearly as sexual of an atmosphere...everyone just dances however they want and guys aren't necessarily just tryin to 'get some' by the end of the night. I'm sure the fact that I can legally order DELICIOUS cocktails helps too!!

I'll also point out how big of a deal red cups are!! I've talked to several Australians and other Europeans that told me how they have 'Red Cup' themed parties back home. They're much more into drinking songs than drinking games, so they rarely play beer pong or flip cup...but when they do it's the theme of the party! Red cups are also pretty expensive over here because they're such a rare commodity...pretty crazy how something we're so used to can be such a big deal in another country. I'd say that can be applied to a lot of things in life! 

So that pretty much sums up the party life over here...definitely a blast!! I'm taking a cruise to Helsinki, Finland this week so I'll tell you all about it in my next post and will hopefully have lots of pics from the ship!! Byeeee