Afro Headquarters

This week is really intense, there are about 14 students from Istanbul and Mersin (both cities in Turkey) here at Malmö Högskola, and for this week we are doing a workshop in critical design and exhibiting our work at Malmö Högskola and Krets gallery tomorrow (friday). The name of the over all project is City and Art and it involves three schools from the EU and three schools from Turkey, it is sponsored by the EU and its purpose is to strengthen EU/Turkey relations as Turkey moves closer to becoming a member of the EU. This is a really awesome project and best projects from the six different schools will go on display in Turkey from October 15 to November 15 I believe. Even though the 7 other international students and myself in the Interaction Design program won’t be there to see which ideas go through to be presented in Turkey, this one week of working in a team with two Turkish students is turning out to be the best week of the semester so far. I will take lots of the photos of the exhibitions tomorrow and will put them up here for your viewing pleasure.

On another note Gordon “the wall” Brown was on top of his game sunday as he made save after save after save to lead his team to two victories, the first match up was won 9 - 7 and the second 3 - 1. I wish I had a picture to show of the stop I made on a french guy by the name of Fabio, he was in on a break away and I came out to challenge him, he kicked the ball aiming for the right (my left) corner pocket, and i kicked my left foot out to make the save.

Saturday night was a very interesting night, we played a drinking game at uni island and I finished off more than 2 litres apple juice. by the end of the game we had some very crazy for how we were to drink our drinks, all the guys had to stand up, twirl around and say “wahoo” before drinking. All in all a very entertaining night. Sunday morning Niels and myself were up and getting ready to go to play football. We had to wake Thomas up and drag him to the bus stop. It was a great day for football yesterday. It was overcast but no sign of rain and during the game the sun made an occasional appearance. I made some pretty awesome saves in goal and about two thirds of the way into the game I switched out for some striking action, I had some chances in close on the opposing goal keeper but i couldn’t find the back of the net (stop me if i’m starting to sound like John Shorthouse). At the end of the game the score was 18 - 13 for the other team. The three of us headed back to uni island to go shopping for the sunday dinner. We had peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, lettuce and enough feta to sink a ship! We made four large bowls of greek salad, garlic bread, and peppered chicken strips. The 12 of us only managed to eat 1 and a half bowls of salad so we are all meeting again tonight for dinner to finish off the salad. So delicious.

February 14 was a saturday and it was a month ago so don’t get angry that i can’t remember what happened oh way back when. But that sunday was very eventful, Thomas, Niels and myself made our way to Rönnen to play football. We arrived at what we thought to be the football pitch where we were playing but no one was around. A little worried that we had been bamboozled I called my buddy Laurens to find out what is up and it turns out we were at the wrong pitch. A short little walk back towards Värnhem and we arrived to find 10 - 15 people ready to play some football! We broke up into 3 teams and played a round-robin, I don’t think my team did to well in the round-robin, but that was not the highlight of the game, as after the round-robin we formed two teams (some people left, so now we could play two teams with substitutes) and I was the goal keeper for my team. It was such an intense game, about 60% of the people playing that day had played football in leagues back in their home countries and when they kicked the ball on net it was as if someone was firing a bullet at me, and they were making these shots from in close too. The final score in that game: 9 - 6 for my team, and i earned the nick-name “the wall” for my play as the goal keeper. That evening it was Sunday dinner at Uni island and guess who was cooking……..Thomas, Niels and myself!! Thomas made schnitzel and Niels and I prepared garlic bread, potato salad, and veggies. Everyone loved the potato salad and was curious how I made it. The following three weeks consisted of non-stop work for Place Specific Computing as our final presentation for the class was March 6, so I won’t bore you with the details and just stick to the good stuff. On Saturday the 21st, Oliver, Thomas, Verena, Niels and I went on a road trip through the Skåne region of Sweden. We headed south east towards Ystad, looking for a stone formation that is believed to be a burial ground. We saw a parking lot and a bunch of parked cars and thought we had arrived but once out of the car we read the sign telling us that the to our left was a Swedish Army training area. But right in front of us was a sledding hill, we climbed to the top to check it out. There was a few people taking in the snow and kicking up powder, I borrowed a sled from one of the kids and took my chances on the hill, the hill won 1-0. But I didn’t break the sled as Niels proclaims from the top of the hill.


We got back in Oli’s car and headed on towards Ystad, we parked the car in the small fishing town and followed the path towards the rock formation. It was really awesome, these huge rocks in the shape of a ship in the middle of a field. The 5 of us posed for some pictures on the rocks before heading back to the car and getting back on the road towards Simrishamn. Our goal was to visit a National Park at Simrishamn but once there all the shops were closed, the touristbyrå was closed. We ended up in a restaurant for a late afternoon lunch and ended up staying and talking in the restaurant until 17:00. We didn’t make it to the park but the couple people we did talk to in Simrishamn told us to come back in the summer. Hopefully we got another road trip on our horizon! On Friday and saturday it snowed and snowed and snowed only to accumulate to about 12cm sunday morning. But rain sleet or snow nothing was stopping Thomas, Niels and myself from traveling to the Malmö Arena to watch the Malmö Redhawks take on Troja. We were in row 22 in the lower bowl right behind the net at one end of the arena. It was the last row so we didn’t have to worry about anybody behind us not being able to see over my hair. The first period we are cheering for the redhawks and one section beside us is a group of people cheering as well, so the three of us clap when the group claps and so-on only to find out about 5 mins into the game that that group of people are Troja supporters. A little bit awkward but two swedish guys sitting beside us steered us in the right direction. the teams traded goals in the first and the period ended in a 1-1 tie.


The second period Malmö was trying to score on the net right in front of the three of us and as such the Redhawks scored 4 goals in the second frame. Such an awesome experience watching the Redhawks, the fans are very different from Canada and are very awesome in there own way. The second period ended 5-1 for the Redhawks. The third period saw only a lone goal from the hometown team and the game ended 6-1 for Malmö. There was so much singing and cheering from the crowd and one of the coolest cheers I’ve ever heard. A large of people on one side of the arena yells “ni på andra sidan ar ni klara?!!!!” and then the side of the arena where I was sitting replies “jajjamänsam fattas bara!!!” which means “you on the other side are you ready to bring some noise? Yes yes yes *swedish jibberish*” And I should mention this it was only 150SEK for one of these tickets in the lower bowl so only 25CAD, if only it was that cheap to see the Canucks! For the next hockey game we are going to see Sweden take on Switzerland and we have more people coming this time so April 2 is going to be a great day!! That week I called the Hotel in the UK where Greg and Jon were staying, they weren’t in at the time and the receptionist asked if I wanted to leave a message. The conversation went something like this: receptionist “would you like to leave a message?” me “yes, i would, could you tell them that I called” receptionist “yes, what is your name?” me “Gordon” receptionist “last name?” me (being hesitant) “…brown” receptionist “Gordon Brown? is this a prank call?” me “no it isn’t.” On the weekend (Sunday March 1st) Thomas, Niels and myself ventured to Rönnen to play football again, we were waiting at the pitch and a few more people show up and we are wondering where the guy with the football is. We know he lives in the accommodations at Rönnen so we go check it out and turns out the person who owns the football is in the UK, we didn’t get to play football that day and we headed back to uni island. Back at uni island we were getting ready for Sunday dinner and what were we having? Schnitzel for the third week in a row! It was Natalia’s turn to cook and we all thought she was making a soup and salad but when we went over to help her prepare the food she was preparing schnitzel. I’m now a schnitzel making machine and will teach the recipe to anyone willing to learn! The ensuing week was crunch time at K3, we had our presentation friday and all 4 groups were working overtime hammering out the kinks. Friday was presentation time and all 4 groups blew the teachers away. They were very impressed and the guests from RGRA also enjoyed the presentations. That Friday it was time to relax after working non-stop for so long, I headed to København with Verena, Oliver and Verena’s boyfriend Nils. It was raining in the capital city of Denmark, and we were there an hour early to meet up with the Oli’s and Verena’s friends. We walked around the city and made our way to the hotel where the people were staying that we were to meet up with. When we left the hotel there was 8 of us in total and we went for a walk looking for a place to eat, we ended up at a Indian Restaurant and enjoyed a meal of currie and pita bread. After the restaurant we ended up in a small bar sharing drinks and talking about football mostly, which led to a best of 3 tournament in foosball. It was two on two foosball, and after loosing the first game, my team came back to win 2 straight over Oli’s team. We headed back to Malmö and were home and in bed by 2am. Saturday I slept and took things easy. Sunday it was football again at Rönnen and this time we had a ball and enough people to play two teams with substitutes. It was raining slightly and the wind was cold, “the wall” was in goal and I had a few good saves but they opposing team was too strong for us as they would go on to win 9-4. Hopefully it won’t be three weeks between football games, and I look forward to playing again tomorrow. That night was Sunday dinner and the Germans prepared Hamburgers and French fries for the uni island gang. It was the perfect weekend to relax after finishing my first course. It hasn’t been a very eventful week, thursday we had class for Critical Design, each person presented three examples of critical design and then in the afternoon we formed our groups for the next week and received our assignment that is due this coming friday. Thursday night at uni island was poker night! at first I wasn’t doing very well, but I managed to take out the first person, then Niels took out Thomas and Natalia. After a wicked hand I had the chip lead and Sarah was in the middle and Niels was down on chips, next hand I took out Niels, to play heads up poker with Sarah, she went all-in and won, but only doubled up from 340 to 680 with the small blind being 100 and big blind 200 she was forced quickly to go all in again and that time I cleaned house. Yesterday, a group of us headed to St. Gertrud’s for the dinner buffet. It’s almost a friday tradition, similar to the sunday dinner, but the menu at St. Gertrud’s doesn’t change much week to week, but it still delicious! After the dinner I went back to K3 and grabbed the projector from the Masters Studio and took it back to uni island, we set it up in the kitchen to mine and Niels’ flat, and hooked up my computer to speakers as well and we watched “In Bruges” and “The Transporter.” Today I’m catching up with a couple of Canucks games, I just finished the Anahiem game about 30 mins ago and now I’m listening to LA kings game. Tonight there is a small party at uni island and then tomorrow is Football and Sunday dinner, and for it is Thomas’, Niels’, and mine turn to cook again, we’ve done a bit of planning and we looked up a recipe we are going to attempt “greek steak salad” with pita bread. I’m on the second period of the LA game now, GO CANUCKS GO!P.S. All high res photos are in the same folder, the link to that folder is in the previous post, enjoy!