Australians

Last weekend myself and four other Australians travelled to Stockholm for no other reason other than four months ago, Ryanair was having a sale. But despite this inauspicious beginning, a fantastic time was had by all. Every aspect of Stockholm is beautiful: the people, the various old things, the boats, the dogs and the parks. It was also fun to spend time with a group of home-grown Aussies: your humour is understood and your cultural references recognised. And so this is an opportune time to write about a topic that’s been bothering me for a while: Australians.

Meeting Australians is the last reason that any Australian travels overseas, but it’s inevitable that you will - despite your best efforts to avoid them. We dominate the backpacker trail – thanks to the culturally encouraged rite-of-passage that is Overseas Travel, we are a permanent fixture in hostels across Europe. You can find us by following the trail of spirit bottles, loud voices and Havaianas.

There are Australians lurking around every corner in Berlin. Leaving wine-cork hats, ug boots and flannel back in the homeland, they’ve managed to blend into the environment so their presence is mostly unfelt. But once an Australian says anything in English anywhere in public, if another Australian is in the vicinity odds are they’ll come and introduce themselves. This has happened in nightclubs and bars, in every one of my law classes, after a phone conversation on the street. Even in yoga class, where silence is mandatory!

Sometimes, I really hate Australians. With the broad, lazy, nasal accent, it seems impossible that anyone could take us seriously. Entire conversations are sometimes spent locked in a cultural cringe. When Australians get drunk the talk becomes parochial and they carry on with little regard to the fact that Australia is actually both insignificant and boring. Sometimes we forget that no-one outside the citizenry cares about Australian politics, university structure or whether Home and Away or Neighbours has superior plot development.

So every time I meet a new Australian, I have this double feeling of happiness and guilt/shame. Mostly, good things happen. The last time I met new Australians it was on the U-Bahn home from uni and we ended up having dinner that night of pizza and house red streetside near Nollendorfplatz. It’s easy to become friends with someone when you share a background. Bluntly, you have things to talk about.

But I dread ending up cocooned by ‘Strine. It’s comfortable, sure, but it’s silly and it’s not what I want. And (with respect to all concerned) I don’t want to become like the Americans. I know the university is lousy with them, but I haven’t met any kids from the US yet. Apparently they hang out always together and don’t mix much.

Yet some of my closest friends are Australians I have met overseas. And some Australians here I can do without. As time goes on people become friends simply because they’re awesome, rather than due to relationships of nationality or convenience or obligation. Being “Australian” doesn’t matter. I guess Stockholm provides a weird illustration of this: we spent ANZAC day - one of the most patriotic days on our calendar - on a pirate-themed gay bar on a ship in the middle of the harbour.

Hitting the books

Before I left for Berlin, the man at the international exchange office informed me that if I didn’t speak much German I would find university impossible. He recommended that I go somewhere easier, perhaps Scandinavia? Smirking inwardly, I politely told him the decision was made. He rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders and, turning back to his computer, said ‘Well, if you phone our office in tears, don’t say that I didn’t warn you’.

It’s now the second week of the German summer semester and my apparently imminent breakdown has yet to appear. But the cobwebs have been well and truly shaken from my neurons and I am thinking again. After five months in the wilderness, there’s something oddly comforting about having something academic to bitch about, sifting through poorly-structured and woefully lengthy cases and fronting up to class plus hangover and große Kaffee but minus pens, paper and a shower.

As it turns out, I’m going to be studying at two universities. Humboldt University was my original first preference. Located right on Unter Den Linden, the main Straße in the city, lovingly decorated with statues, columns and the odd touch of gold; producer of almost 30 Nobel Prize winners – it’s a postcard-perfect dreamboat institution.

However, things aren’t so pretty beneath its reconstructed façade. Humboldt’s ranking has been slipping for quite some time - it seems like they’re relying on their prestige (much like another well-known institution dear to my heart) to keep attendance up. The Law Faculty’s financial situation appears so dire that during the summer break the building is covered by a tennis-court sized advertisement for Mercedes-Benz. Inside, lecture theaters are filled with wooden desks which come with inkpot holes. It seems that things just haven’t been the same since the infamous book burning incident of 1933.

I considered Freie University to be the ‘Monash’ of Berlin and originally I wasn’t too happy to have to enroll here instead of Humboldt. However, I have been pleasantly surprised. While it’s located far, far away from everything (except perhaps a lake, a conservative suburb and a French restaurant) once you get here things are quite good. It’s spread-out and lush – when the weather is fine you can take a spot on the grass and do your homework amongst the students eating icecreams. The buildings are modern, the classrooms are light and the cafeteria is adequate. While it’s slim on law classes in English, they offer free language classes for everyone. My 12 free hours of German a week has convinced me that I should never judge a university by its website, nor following a Google Maps search.

This afternoon I’ve got Recent Cases in Public International Law and European Law, a subject sorely lacking a memorable acronym. The next hurdle is to try and get these subjects approved by my home university so I can receive a full semester’s worth of credits so I can be free and clear of my law degree forever. I’m going to leave all that until after the weekend though, to resolve on my victorious return from Stockholm. Sweden again, you ask? Well, as those in the know will tell you, too much Svensk is never enough.

Down and dirty

During my first month in Berlin, the strongest impression I got about the character of the city was that it was unhinged: unpredictable, weird, and a little on the violent side. Guidebooks say that Berlin is “gritty” which also reads as “real” which then becomes a marketable tourist attraction in itself.

Admittedly, my view of the city has been skewed by location (Kreuzberg) commitments (spending a lot of time on the public transport to get everywhere) and circumstance (being unable to communicate and fresh to a country makes you notice a lot more, especially the freaky stuff). Here’s a few notable occurrences that have led me to believe that things here are a bit, well – perhaps “gritty” is the best word? Suggestions?

• The ever-present ‘Securitas’ security staff at Kottbusser Tor station with their buzz-cuts, navy jumpsuits and muzzled Alsatians.

• An aggressive, soot-stained Berlin magpie (a bigger, meaner and morally questionable version of the Australian variety) picking through the carcass of a sparrow on the U-Bahn platform.

• An extraordinary brawl in Kaisers Supermarket checkout queue between a babyfaced teenager on crutches and a rough-looking bleached blonde woman buying two litres of beer. I tried to disappear into the cigarette counter as words turned to fists and other braver shoppers stepped in to intervene.

• Becoming well acquainted with the Doppler effect as a procession of firetrucks, ambulances and police cars speed around Kreuzberg at all hours of the day/night.

• The pool of blood on the faux-marble footpath on Tauentzien Str. (the slick franchise strip near where I had my German lessons) which darkened from bright red to maroon in the time it took us to learn about the past perfect tense.

• The prostitutes prowling around on Oranienburger Str. on Monday morning, singularly clad in white thigh-high boots, lace-up corsets and super-duper-wonderbras.

• The sedate-looking man at the bus station with a large grey African parrot swinging from his shoulder.

• Men snorting amphetamines off their fists on the top floor of Kunsthaus Tacheles, eyeballing the other patrons and crashing into everyone on the dancefloor.
  

But that was during March and the dregs of winter. It’s now April and spring, and it seems like the genetic makeup of Berlin has changed entirely. Trees are blossoming, birds are singing, people are sunbathing nude, love is in the air. Perhaps the dirtier Berlin has gone into hibernation.

Glad Påsk!

On Wednesday, Penny and I took the bus up to Gothenburg to see our friend Brooke. Brooke's another survivor from exchange to Lund in 2006. Like Penny, she found a Swede to love and decided to stick around in Sweden. She's now doing her PhD in anthropology at Gothenburg University. That's right, PhD. With her own self-directed research, her own office, and best of all, with her own name on the wall outside her door.

I've only spent one traumatic night in Gothenburg before so it was great to see the better side of it (or see it at all, really - last time I was partially blind because I'd left my contact lenses at home and got woefully lost). We avoided the tourist trail and focussed instead on eating, drinking, looking at wildlife (specifically moose/elk) finding Penny some jeans that weren't indecent in the crutch area, walking around the old town and ferrying around the archipelago to isolated hamlets. But the best part was catching up with Brooke in her natural habitat. We all came back to Lund on Friday afternoon together.

Linus and Penny took me to Smålands nation ("Socialist Since 1976") to get a guestcard, my entry pass to the nations of Lund. Nations can be loosely described as a type of student union crossed with a club and a residential college: nations own their own buildings, provide student accommodation, cultural events and community, and most have a pub/bar/club that serves cheap food and (relatively) cheap beer.

Hallands Nation was our Friday night destination. After pre-drinking in a student corridor (vodka and gin & tonic, spirits proudly imported from Berlin by moi) we turned up at 11.30 and instantly doubled the number of patrons. Things improved after midnight, when all the foreign students with no homes to go to over the Easter break arrived. But it still wasn't like I remembered it - I guess nothing beats practically living in nations, knowing nearly everyone and dominating the dancefloor like we did in 2006.

Linus is quite politically active and he introduced me to the wonderful world of Swedish student protest. Last month, a group of students and other concerned citizens managed to boycott a Davis Cup qualifying match in Malmo between Sweden and Israel. Malmo is now banned from hosting any more matches for the next five years. The big event in April is the Occupation Festival, where anarchists and lefties from all over Sweden will converge on Lund to occupy abandoned houses to protest against expensive rent. There are stickers all over Lund advertising the event, which it touted to include live music at some venues.

I was lucky enough to be in Sweden over easter, or "Påsk" as it is known to the Swedes, or "Glad PåSK!!!" as it is known to Penny and I (said as a chirrup, quite loudly, at random). Sweden celebrates Easter strangely. This is most clearly demonstrated by the predominant Easter decoration - fluorescent fake feathers glued to sticks, placed in pots. There's also the inexplicable "easter witch" tradition, where little girls dress up and go trick-or-treating. WTF? It seems that any religious element has long left this event: now it's just an excuse to get together with family and eat. And eat we did.

Our easter feast was spectacular. We decorated with daffodils, stolen from a roundabout on the way to the supermarket. Our table was covered in Swedish delicacies, almost entirely composed of smoked salmon, shrimp, egg, creme frasche, dill, cheese and potatoes. On top of that, we had jars of pickled sill, meatballs, flatbread and sausages, as well as Lindt chocolate eggs and apple crumble for dessert. To drink, we had påskmust (an Easter-flavoured soft drink, must be tasted to be believed) and Australian cask wine. Vegetables would have been blasphemy. It was wonderful. A pity that it only comes once a year.

When I left, Berlin was a grey city, full of bare trees and frowning citizens. But during my absence it's been entirely transformed. It looks like someone's decided to flick the switch to spring, as quick and as simple as that. The trees have got fully-grown leaves all up and down my street. The nature strip is covered in blossoms. Pale yet optimistic Berliners sport t-shirts and shorts. Even the homeless people in the park across the road look cheerier. I'm finally seeing the side of Berlin that people rave and sigh about - summertime in the city.

Skånish

Waking up one seedy morning in the last week at Deutsche Akademie, I realised that I had a full 12 days between my "graduation" (complete with certificate) and the commencement of the Freie Universitat academic semester. So, despite only arriving a month ago, I decided my plan of action was to leave Germany altogether. Destination: Sweden. A pleasant nine hour voyage on U-Bahn, bus, ferry and train. Flying is quicker, more comfortable and probably cheaper, but as I'm very time-rich recently - and rich too, thanks to K-Rudd's stimulus package - I decided the slow-food equivalent was the way to go.

So now I'm here in Lund, a beautiful university village in Skåne, southern Sweden. It's closer to Copenhagen than to Stockholm -here it's not uncommon to receive Danish TV and be light-heartedly racist towards the Danish. It's also the location of my first exchange experience, those fateful, crazy months between August 2006 and January 2007. But most importantly, it's now the home town of my friend Penny.

I met Penny on my second day in Lund. I was hunting around the second-hand bikes that a few Turkish men were selling out of the back of a truck, trying and failing to find something that was priced at what it was worth. I heard the unmistakable twang of an Australian accent and saw a flash of red hair. I went across and introduced myself to her and her companion, a dreadlocked, op-shop clothed man called Google.

Dougal (as it turned out to be) and Penny became some of my best friends on exchange. After I returned to Australia Penny stayed on and learnt Swedish, found love, wrangled a Personnummer from the Swedish bureaucracy and enrolled in an attractive postgraduate program. She's now living the Scandinavian life in Lund with her Swedish boyfriend Linus.

Linus and Penny live in a beautiful bedsit very close to the central station. They share their kitchen and bathroom with a bunch of hippies who fail to clean the common areas, play trance loudly and leave the kitchen smelling of Govindas. But despite the tension this causes and the occasional stressful exam periods it seems to me that their life here is pretty idyllic.

During the last few days things have been blissfully low-key - Linus is writing his thesis, Penny is applying for jobs in the APS and I've been reading, recovering from my cold and being dutiful with the German. At the moment I'm alone in the bedsit sipping tea and catching up on some administration. Hopefully today we'll go to the Kalbadhuset in Bjarred for a Swedish sauna and a skinny dip in the Baltic Sea.

On Sunday I went for a stroll around to visit the old stomping grounds, burial sites and battle grounds from my first exchange. I didn't need a map - despite Lund's layout being far less than intuitive, I doubt I'm ever going to forget my way here. There's all these names that dredge up memories that I forgot I'd kept - Sparta, Ulrikedal, Sporletorp, Vildanden, Ostratorn, Mormors, Systembolaget, Martinstorget, Kalmars, Sydskånska, ICA. It may look like Swedish gibberish to most people but for the veterans these words are heavy with meaning. All of this to a soundtrack of Justin Timberlake, a musician who featured prominently during our time here.

My first exchange was a heady time, spent mostly within the pressure-cooker of the international student community. On this second visit of Lund I'm realising how insular that community was, and how much I must have missed. I have a feeling that my time in Berlin is going to be completely different - it's bigger, less organised and slightly off-the-rails but it gives you so much more choice.

I have another day in Lund before Penny and I take the bus up to Gothenburg to see our friend Brooke. Then we're all coming back to Lund for an Easter weekend feast where we will paint eggs and glue feathers on sticks (don't ask me, it's Swedish). In the meantime I'm going to try to stop speaking German to shop assistants, eating so many Stor Felafels and visibly wincing when I pay $10AUS for a beer at a restaurant.