23:38 Sun.
22 Dec, 2013

Time to say goodbye

Day 136 , 11 remain
Lulea , Sweden
-6 °C
Light Snow
9:53 am
1:03 pm

Last Friday we had our last dinner together before everyone left. This was organized by us in our apartment and is not to be mistaken with farewell dinner from previous post. =)

As usually each of us prepared his own dish. I finally got a chance to taste paella from Mikel. I must say I was looking forward to this for a long time and it was worth the wait. Besides paella I got a tried salmon with cream, some French dish I forgot the name of, chicken, really spicy Chinese soup, wheat and last but not least my dumplings (Štruklji).

Another broth made by Chinese pals, this one even hotter than the previous one.
Another broth made by Chinese pals, this one even hotter than the previous one.

As usually, food was good except my dumplings, which have merged into one gigantic dumpling when I left them in a pot for too long. =)

Time to eat some delicious food.
Time to eat some delicious food.

At the end someone actually brought up real champagne. It must have cost a fortune up here. This was the first time I’ve tried it and it was good, appropriate for the occasion.

It wouldn't be true dinner without genuine French Champagne.
It wouldn’t be true dinner without genuine French Champagne.

Despite burst of laughter between intense chatter you could feel that sad sub-tone where everyone knew this is the last time we will be together. At the end we took our final picture together and that was the last time I saw most of them. Now they are already thousands km away… hopefully I’ll be able to visit some in the future.

I will miss you!
I will miss you!
12:44 Sun.
22 Dec, 2013

Last time together

Day 136 , 11 remain
Lulea , Sweden
-8 °C
Foggy
9:38 am
1:27 pm

After coming home from Christmas market I only had 1 hour to defrost and get ready for a farewell dinner. Even though, I put hair dryer into my shoes as soon as I came home, I didn’t manage to get them dry in time so I had to wear my summer shoes. It look really weird and felt extremely cold, since they are below ankles, not to mention that evening was record low -19 degrees.

This time the dinner was in STUK not central restaurant, so it was half the price of welcome dinner. When we arrived we had a chance to mingle a bit with people and then we were seated. The program was fun again, this time a lot of students volunteered to do sketch shows so everything was almost 4 hours long.

Again we heard women choir singing us some Christmas songs, but we all agreed the best part was when the slide show with pictures from our stay here started rolling. Whole room was full of emotion, you could feel everyone being a bit sad since the end of our adventure was near. I don’t know anyone that is happy to go home and everyone would love to extend their stay for at least one semester if they could.

The food was ok. The fun part was with waitresses. Since STUK is student’s bar/club/restaurant it is managed by students. All the waitresses were students but for some reason, they were all acting like a professional restaurant. And by that I mean at the beginning of each course they all (around 10 waitresses) came out at the same time. Then they waited at the beginning of the tables until one of them gave signal to start. Even later on when they took our dishes back they always came from the right side etc… Really interesting to see.

Desert
Desert

After the dinner and shows we had party at STUK. How was it I don’t know, since I went home to defrost some more. Besides I don’t like clubbing that much.

Daft punk show during the farewell dinner
Daft punk show during the farewell dinner

This dinner was beginning of the end, it was the last time we all got together and it is sad that I won’t see some many of them ever again.

Mikel, Allen and Jean
Mikel, Allen and Jean