Adjö and thanks for all the fish...

Hejsan allihopa. Eftersom min chef tycker att min svenska är 'åt skogen', tänkte jag att skriva resten på Engelska (som vanlig).

It's been a very *very* long time since my previous post and I've thought about  leaving this blog behind as it is. After reading the first lines of my little brothers' Blog (tetsgotochattanooga.blogspot.com) I have decided to bring this Blog to full closure with one more post. 
As the interested reader or even follower may have noticed, this Blog was originally designed to keep track of my one year experience as an exchange student in Uppsala about 70 km north of Stockholm.
Since this its start out gradually became more and more personal and in retrospect that was not a very smart move.
It's now my 6th year in Sweden and I am still here, huh - writing it like this makes me feel really old all of a sudden.
I am still living in Uppsala (although ive moved 4 times since my last post) but I've graduated in the meantime and am now in pursuit of a PhD in astroparticle physics, searching for gamma rays from Galaxy clusters (the largest virialized structures in our universe). Suffice to say it's actually a lot of fun but very demanding and pretty intense - who would have guessed...
This is partially the reason for not blogging and/or little presence in 'da bloggosphere'. The other being a change in my private life which I will keep to myself and those that are close to me.
Since this blog was about the North and its fascinations I will bring closure with my most recent picture of the Northern lights - as seen in Uppsala last Sunday. Thanks for reading/commenting and/or following. So long and thanks for all the fish!
Perhaps see you on some other Blog some other time - some other place...

no real title - but something personal...

Hi everyone,

as I've told you yesterday, I'm done with my studies. My future is however, everything but clear to me. The new gained time, after having such a stressful period, dominated by thesis writing and working is somewhat odd; although I was looking forward to it, I feel a bit lost without having definite plans. Thus I started thinking about how everything started "once upon a time"...

I want to use this opportunity to thank some people in my life supporting me over the years and never doubting my decisions. This post is dedicated to my parents, Claudia & Erhard. I know there are many people outside who never were as lucky as I am with having such a caring mom and dad. They have never let me or one of my brothers down, regardless of what mess we just had created. I am extremely thankful for them - Danke, dass es euch gibt.

A little update

Hi everyone,

wow - it's been ages since I've written my last post, but there is a good excuse for it:

as of yesterday, I'm done with my master's studies here at Uppsala University. I still have no clue what the future holds. In the meantime you can have a look at my thesis (the cloud above).

Summarizing the content: I have looked at charged Higgs bosons with masses in GeV (Giga-Electronvolt, energy and mass unit in particle physics, 1 eV=1.609x10E-19 J, 1GeV=1.609x10E-10 J) and looked for possibilities of reconstructing the signal for different samples and prospects with the ATLAS experiment. :)... hmm... I should probably update my key words based on this wordle cloud.

Anyways, stay tuned for updates about what happens next.

Cheers.

Catching up with the Past

Hi friends,
I realized too late that it has been 3 months now since my last post and I have to apologize for not updating this blog more recently. Meanwhile a lot of things have happened such that I've done a number of crap standardized tests to qualify for a PhD program in the States - one possibility among others for Hannah and me to make our dreams come true and be together in the future. Besides this I've been working on my thesis project - where I've recently presented some stuff in a monthly meeting within the collaboration... well, I am finally an ATLAS member and for those of you who haven't heard yet - the experiment is running and taking data. So maybe next year we'll be able to answer some of our most fundamental questions - hopefully we won't find the Higgs boson - the Standard model one :). You may ask why I would say something like that - well, erm - simply just discovering the Standard model Higgs would leave us Physicists with a lot of questions and a not so nice theory with 27! free parameters. But only nature will show us what is wrong and what is right...
Today was probably my second last performance with Kalmar nation choir - which recently changed to "Kalmar och Gotlands" nation choir. We are regularly performing both at Kalmar as well as at the strange nation with the sheep on the wrong side of the river. Ah yes-- happy Lucia to you all outside of Sweden. Lucia means singing a lot of songs and dressing up in white night dresses as well as wearing sort of funny hats... a very traditional thing here in Sweden. Stay tuned for some pictures of this years' Lucia. And we've performed okay - taking into account that the number of singers has doubled or tripled and we're now one of the *big* choirs in Uppsala. For those of you reading my blog and still being in Sweden - come to Kalmar tomorrow 2 p.m. and enjoy an awesome performance of our choir. For those of you who are not any longer in the country - check out youtube: 

Happy Anniversary - 6 months - a lifetime - no doubts

Hey friends,

today 6 months ago, a time which I nowadays call the best time of my life, started. Hannah came into my life. I first met her on Kalmar nations treasure hunt - one reason for me being grateful to be a member of Kalmar because otherwise I would never have found my angel. When Hannah is around, the world lights up around me - all the cloudy future becomes clear and sharp. She is inspiring me - makes me stand any doubts and continue fighting for being together once and for all.

If you have a partner and you believe that you love him or her, then you know exactly how this feels. 6 months ago she gave me the feeling of being beloved - and making a sense out of life. Hannah used to explain the world to me in simple rational words - using science as we both believe in. However, there is more beyond just chemical reaction. It is attraction - I am trying not to use too many expressions from my field of studies - but it is as strong as the electromagnetic force and even over such a long distance we are bound together. I truly love Hannah. She is my sunlight and my breath - my future - my life.

Thank you for everything you have given me already and thank you for every moment you are sharing with me. I praise the past 6 months and I am hoping for more to come, because you simply cannot feed me up.

I hope you, the readers of my blog, don't mind if I take the chance to use this opportunity to express all this in words. I'll get back to you guys as soon as I've finished a few other things I need to keep track of.

You and me. Together forever. And never apart!

A kingdom for a debugger

Hej friends,
to those of you who don't know what I am doing here in Sweden I am going to answer this question in this post. Currently I am doing my master's thesis and as it is in the field of Particle Physics it involves a lot of computing. Debugging my analysis code to look for a particle that is predicted but has yet to be discovered took the past 2 days. Meanwhile I was participating in yet another collaboration meeting that is held here in Uppsala on a fairly regular basis. During those "stategy sessions" we give status reports and discuss further plans of the research group associated with the experiment I'm working with. By today our group leader signed my official affiliation and I hope to contribute to this ASAP. That's why I am killing my time debugging...
Debugging is a highly time consuming issue and takes usually whole days. However, living needs such as food and drinks need to be satisfied and I just recently went to my nearest ICA. Yes, I hate the ICA because of the very limited overpriced variety of products. Moreover, I just figured out the ICA's with the shortest and with the longest opening hours. So my closest ICA opens at 9 and closes around 7 - way too early for me to get there. Hence I went to the next-to-nearest ICA, close to Rackarberget... and I saw this:

This poster annouces the store with Uppsala's best opening hours. Absolutely ridiculous and worth mentioning in my blog. So is the information paper for swedish TOEFL test takers. One might think that people who are in charge of offering the TOEFL are aware of the peculiarities of (Sw)english... those of you are proven wrong. After taking my test in a remote village outside of Stockholm (this is at least how it looked on a map) which turned out to be well connected via the T-bana, I realized that the test-center hand-outs contained 3 to 5 major flaws which were mainly related to (Sw)english, f.e. - what does this mean you may ask? f. e. is t. ex. or "till exempel", so for an example... just to give you one little example. But who dare I to criticize the Swedish people while still making stupid mistakes. Anyhow it was worth to mention here either.
Finally I have to admit that my corridor mates are really disgusting pigs. Not that I had to clean my part of the fridge and freeing it from 3 year-old overly disgusting mildew but when I came home two days ago, my whole stuff in the fridge was covered with a yeast-water-oil-something... yucks... Hopefully I won't stay here very long.
Recently friends from Humboldt University were here to visit Uppsala and I had offered to show them some of the town and the university. As a result I've been to "Taket", the V-Dala summer restaurant 3 times in less than 2 weeks and got some nice burger at both places, at Taket and at the summer-restaurant from Snerikes. Yeah for that! And yeah for the american-car festival being over. The grand finale was last saturday where plenty of old fuel-consuming vintage cars were holding a parade at Fyris. But look for yourself:

Meanwhile, choir has started again and it is good to have some known friends around. That was particularly true for Simon who managed to motivate me during my very first (sad) days in Sweden. We (=the rest of the choir and me) are going to perform during the "reccemotagning", the freshmen gathering next thursday and tuesday afterwards. I'll see how much I will get involved with choir activities. It is among with other things on my list but highest priority I give to my thesis and planning the future.
So now I have to go to bed...
hejdå

The mystical swedish bank system

Hey friends,
today I want to leave a note about a particular helpful thing I've just figured out. In the guide for new International / Exchange students it is strongly recommended to open a bank account here in Sweden. This argument is however rather flawed. First of all, the following information mostly apply to those of you who are citizen of a EU country. As a fresh new student arriving in Sweden you don't have anything but your passport and probably the letter of acceptance. Additionally you don't want to pay stupid money conversion fees when getting some swedish crowns. One of your first things would then be to open a bank account at one of the major banks such as Nordea or Swedbank. You cannot go to any bank of your choice since you usually need your Swedisch Personnumber in order to open an account.
However, those banks together with SEB offer "good deals" for you as a non-Swedish citizen. Last year for instance, I got a basic account with Swedbank, including a debit card (required to get money from the ATM and to pay without cash) and had to pay 130 SEK per 3 months for the use. You may now argue that this is not much for this service. But honestly, when do you really need a swedish bank account? Usually when you have to pay your rent, the student union fee or when you receive money for working here. For the first two things there exists an easier solution.
Since lately the conversion rate between Euro and SEK changes frequently and it is therefore not really wise to transfer money from a non-swedish Euro account to a new swedish account. Instead you should use the SEPA transaction. SEPA is the fee-free wiring of money withing countries of the European Union. It is widespreaded and as secure as other systems. However, to use this system, you need two numbers: the International Bank Account Number (IBAN) and and the Bank Identification Code (BIC / SWIFT) in order to place your transaction. Usually your bills only contain the Postgiro or Autogiro number which is used here in Sweden. You cannot use this number for your SEPA transaction. You will need instead to ask the landlord or the student union to tell you those numbers. I did this with Uppsala Studentkår and here is the result:

Dear Stephan,

Here are the numbers that you requested.

Iban-number: SE6050000000053681024782

Bic/Swift-code: ESSESESS

Best regards

Uppsala Student Union

Sometimes asking perhaps stupid questions helps a lot.

Finally for all of you who may plan on coming to Sweden to stay there for a while I have one suggestion to avoid those payment issues. The SEB ("Svenska Enskilda Banken") operates beyond the borders of Sweden and allows you to use either swedish crowns or Euro without paying fees. Particularly this means that you can pay with your VISA card any bill in SEK and you won't be charged for the conversion. You just should be careful with getting money from the ATM and if so, use your Debit card at an SEB-ATM. For example I just opened an account when I was in Germany back in December 2008. For students this account is free of charge. I got a VISA/EC card together with it and I can use it here in Sweden without any additional costs. But finally, it's up to you on how you spend your money while being here: whether it is in a pub or for stupid non-necessary fees is your own responsibility.
Hejdå,

A troublesome start...

Hi friends,
This is now yet another post which i'm writing during a flight. This time it's the announced flight back to Sweden and back to work. The preparation this time was rather short-handed and not as i expected it. After domen nice barbecue at my parents place I had some serious stomach problems, which caused an almost two hours long delay of packing all my stuff. To make things worse I had yet another time to pay overweight... As a result my cheap SAS flight doubled it's price. But now I'm on the plane and hope that I manage the flight without any further major issues.
Yesterday i've received an email from my supervisor at Uppsala which contained new instructions for my thesis work. My master thesis will probably keep me quite busy during the next four months. This is the approximate plan for the rest of 2009. Although I perhaps won't post as much I'll try to keep you guys up-to-date.
Hejdå, Stephan

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

Preparing for Leave

Hi friends,

it's kind of incredible. In about 11 hours I will be on the plane again. Back to Sweden, back to work, back to reality and probably back to a colder climate. During my stay over the summer I managed thanks to the help of my Hannah to do the GRE test which should give me admission to Graduate School in the U.S. However, this is more a backup plan. Our ultimate goal is to get into Copenhagen, not just because of being in Scandinavia again but mainly since it fits pretty good with my future plans and it seems to be the best choice for Hannah for doing her research with medicinal chemistry. How things will turn out we have to wait for this - but until then we'll try as hard as possible knowing that one day we will be together forever.

Stay tuned for more news from Sweden again.


Hejdå

Print option now without waste of paper

Hi friends,
those of you who asked me about a print out possibility of my blog including the pictures but without all the fancy (but useless) stuff at the left column I can finally tell that it's possible. Thanks to "www.printwhatyoulike.com" I added a snippet which allows you to simply click on the "Print"-button below the "about me" passage. Then you will get a nicely formatted version of my blog. See you later guys!
/Stephan

My blog in different languages

Hi guys.
Thanks to all of you sending me birthday greetings and special thanks to those of you attending my little "party". Since I'm back in Germany over the Summer, friends and relatives were frequently asking or better complaining that I did not call often enough. Usually I would refer to my blog and say: look at my blog that's where I put all my updates - online and accessible for everybody. However, since most of them are not fluent in English nor native speakers they are usually complaining about the language issue. I don't really want to switch to German or some other language and rather prefer to continue writing my blog in plain English. Therefore I had to look for a possible workaround. And there is a solution: it's called "Google translator" and it does exactly this: when you click on "My blog in other languages" (right below the field about me) with the nice google-gadget and select the language you want to read my blog you will be redirected to a translated version. It works for most of the posts although the result is obviously different from a real "german-written" blog. I hope you still enjoy reading my blog and I'll try to update the 2nd America post ASAP.
Have fun.
/Stephan

Amazing America (3/3)

Unfortunately every great time has to come to an end. After two weeks full of amazing trips with Hannah and her family the time has come to say good bye. I'm writing this entry while I am sitting at Paris, Charles de Gaulle, Int'l airport in France waiting for my connection back to Berlin. Previously I had two flights. One from Indy to Chicago and then non-stopp Chicago-Paris. Eventhough we had a kind of last-minute arrival at Indianapolis Int'l airport everything worked out quite well. This time TSA was not so in favour of putting me through their full-body scan. Hence the whole way to the gate was pretty smoth and fast. The same could be stated for the flight to Chicago. Eventhough Hannah told me in advance that O'Hare is a very big airport I was not aware of the fact how big it really is - until I got there. During my flight I was writing a last letter send on U.S. soil. Writing was not as much a problem as the actual sending.

After arriving at the airport I asked several times whether there is a possibility to send standard U.S. mail in the airport. Based on statistics I should have been fine. Several times people assured me that there is something in the international terminal. So I went there - through security check, which was extremely overcrowded, passed it and found a mail box - but no stamps. Asking at several points people apologized and explained that they don't use mail any longer. Stupid... on this point you might ask how far you would go for a simple letter to be delivered. I thought it might be a bright idea to search for stamps outside the security area - I had about 3 hours to my boarding sequence and it was okay to go back... until I arrived there: the number of people standing in a more or less ordered line had doubled, tripled or whatever... It was really not fun. Despite the extreme crowded lines I had no stamp by this time. After asking at every counter I ended up with an Asian girl working at one of the many duty-free stores offering her help. She will deliver this mail. I'm sure. And yes, sometimes you get lucky sometimes you don't.

One of the nice observations you can make when standing in a line is how different people react on new situations. In the line next to me there was a guy - from Italy according to his passport. He was surrounded by a family from Greece trying to stay together. He was super stubborn insisting on his position in the queue. A man accompanying the family asked him whether he wants to stay in the end of the line and threatened him to let the family pass. You may argue that this is considered to be rude - but honestly it was the guys behaviour which was rude. After offering several times that he might go ahead and pass the family to the front he disappeared. Later I saw him again. He was standing in front of security, an Indian girl in behind him. Somehow he had changed his mind and offered the girl to go first. Sometimes people need a bit pressure to change :)

After being screened and checked twice I made my way to the gate. Air France is my carrier and they are supposed to offer great service. Thanks to SkyTeam - paying Delta getting Air France. I just hope that my luggage makes it way back to Germany. On the plane I met Patricia, from Chile, but working in Madison, WI. She graduated at UW so it was a quite interesting talk and a very short flight. After a few hours talking I'm certain that Madison is a possible option for Grad School at a later stage. She was going to visit friends and do vacation in Europe. Much nicer and smarter conversation about the different prejudices and differences between Europe and the States. Just the time was too short to sleep or rest for more than one hour, but the service was close to perfect. The dinner was either a pollock or a beef something french - very nice and almost healthy - together with champaign and white wine... classy :)

Hannah warned me about the huge size of Charles de Gaulle where I'm currently sitting and waiting for my plane to board. It took me about an hour to come from one terminal to another. On my way I had to leave Patricia without saying good-bye. I might send her an email later but I had to follow a complete different path from my terminal to my final gate. My body is feeling like 5 am - which is the time in Indi.

I will get back to you later, completing my previous posts, adding pictures and telling you how the story continues.

Amazing America (2/3)

This post is intended to report about the events during my two weeks stay in the U.S. with my girlfriend. :)

Update: 15/08/2009

Hey folks,

before I'm flying back to Sweden in less than 12 hours I want to use a bit of my spare time to report about the events happened at the other part of the world (about a month ago). I have to apologize for not writing earlier, but I was really busy preparing for a joint future with my Hannah. But that's yet another story.

So in a nutshell:

I arrived in Chicago where my angel picked me up from O'Hare after an overall flight time of 12 hours. I was exhausted and since I had taken my flu from Sweden to the States my overall feeling was not so good. However, the appearance of Hannah at the airport even before I picked up my luggage was a bit like a drug. And yes, I am addicted to her. After a welcome-hug we took my bags and left for the subway together with her friend Anna. After the arrival at our hotel, the Wit in the theatre district in Chicago, I just changed and I probably would have fallen asleep, though we were hungry and so we decided to get some dinner first. After having some nice and quite exclusive food: steak tartar, baked mushrooms and salmon in addition to two desserts which we got for only one payment, we fell asleep and tried to recover from our long journey. The next day was devoted to the exploration of Chicago; after a power brunch at some pastery we went to see the Sears Tower, Millenium Park and Navy Pier. The latter however we just saw from the lakeside since I was not really in favour of doing some attractions such as giant wheel, car scooter or rollercoaster. Instead we decided to take a nice and very calm walk along the waterfront before leaving to pay the museum of science and industry a visit. It was amazing, though the display of U-505, the Nazi uboot which has been captured by the Allied during WW2 was kind of strange for me. It was a bit overwhelming and presenting America as the white angel fighting against black devil Nazi-Germany was a bit too exaggerated. I will probably upload some of my pictures to Flickr or something else, so stay tuned to see the photos I have taken while being in the States. Later this day we started our 3 hours drive to Indie. On our way down there we stopped in West Lafayette, close to Purdue, Hannah's university and got some nice sandwhiches for dinner. We got a bit distracted and bond by a nearby thunderstorm: one of the architypes in the Midwest. Unfortunately I failed miserably trying to capture the lightning, so there are no pictures from that event. Later this night we finally made our way to Hannah's parents house in Indianapolis. They live in a suburb about 30 minutes from downtown but her dad is working directly in downtown. After some short small-talk we went to bed and immediately passed out.

After a two-day intermission in order to recover from the flight, we were about to take of for Washington D.C. Hannah's family was planning to go on vacation and they took me with them. Unfortunately her dad had to work during vacation, thus only the two of us, Hannahs mom and her brother, Brian went to see D.C.. It is simply too much to write about every little detail of our trip to Washington. So, briefly spoken we explored the area around our hotel in old town Alexandria, 30 minutes train ride from downtown, but part of Virginia during the first day. On our exploration we encountered some glass-musicians, visited the torpedo-factory, a artists centre and attended to a little ghost-story tour of ancient Alexandria. On the second day we checked out four of the Smithonian museums, visited the National Archives after staying in line for 2 hours and had some nice lunch in a food-corner in the American-Indian museum. Later we went to visit Hannah's aunt Debbie and uncle Mike (her dad's brother). There we had the first time a true American barbecue. It was very nice especially since Debbie revealed that she has German ancestors. It was a great sign of Virginia hospitality and we spent almost all night there before Debbie took us back to our hotel. Early the next morning Debbie picked us up yet another time to take us to Mt. Vernon, the former residence of George Washington. Visiting Washington-Mannor was quite impressive and after my trip my overall opinion about American polititians has significantly changed. Afterwards Debbie dropped us at Arlington national cemetary, where we paid a visit to the JFK tomb and the tomb of the unknown soldier (including a change of guards, impressive but a bit too much for me as a European who never had to serve in the army nor that I have ever seen that much display of the military. ). We topped all our previous visits and trips in D.C. with an overall ride along all important monuments, including the Washington Memorial, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, the FDR-Memorial and many more. Close to exhaustion we made our way back to the hotel where we passed out yet another time.

After flying back to Indie, we had another short break. On the first day Hannah and me prepared some German Schnitzel with some really nice green beans and impressed her family with our cooking skills. On the second day, we visited her grandparents in West Lafayette and Hannah showed me her university. The first American university I've ever been so far. Finally she showed me her new residence area where she is counting every day backwards until we meet again.

On Saturday morning we left for the big family reunion in a state park in Kentucky. The way down there was a bit similar to our roadtrip to Dalarna and the landscape was as forrestry and hilly as in Sweden, just a bit bigger. We shared our cabin together with Hannah's aunt Sharon and her two sons and in a result Hannah and me slept on an air-mattress in the living room. However, since we had the room for ourselves, we had more privacy than it would have been when sleeping in the same room as her parents. During a one and a half-day intercourse I got introduced to all of Hannah's living cousins, aunts, uncles and other relatives which brought me to the conclusion that I'm aiming to do the same with her when she is coming to visit me over Christmas. Besides talking to a lot of very charming people, we encountered a severe thunderstorm and tornado warning toghether with a spate of rain pouring down while we were sitting under a shelter and trying to celebrate the reunion. Prior to the sitting we went tubing and I literally passed out on the boat after being on the tube for about 5 minutes but Hannah did much better than me. Additionally we showed her relatives how to play KUUB, a game we learned back in Sweden. One of the final events on the reunion was the horse-race. A game where children play jockeys and the adults place bets on the participants and I was a jockey too... Surprisingly I won the run when I was a jockey. On our way back to Indie we stopped on sunday afternoon at a restaurant where you can get a 1-inch thick steak together with a lot of other food and a delicious pie desert. Fed up from this lunch we made our way back to Indianapolis and after arriving there we realized that the fireworks intended to be fired on 4th of July had been postponed because of severe rain on the 4th of July, to sunday evening. After a quick decision we drove into town, got some dinner at a pasta-place and watched a very nice fireworks (although without sound) from the office of Hannah's dad, the second tallest skyscraper in downtown area.

The last two days we managed to spend together, just the two of us. We paid a visit to the Indianapolis Zoo, visited the King-Tut-exhibit in the children's museum and did a bit of shopping (thanks to the strong conversion-rate of the Euro). Sadly on wednesday I had to say goodbye and we had one last hug and kiss which now have to last for quite a bit - until Christmas, until we will be together again.

Amazing America (1/3)

Hi folks. It's time for a short update of my most recent adventure on the other part of the world. Since Wednesday 24th I am back together with the most precious thing im my life - my lovely Hannah.
Keeping the long story short, I booked a flight from TXL to OCA via JFK. For those of you who never been to the US, OCA stands for Chicago O'Hare airport. And yes, my journey to the North turned out to become more mindblowing than I ever thought and influences my life more than everything else. Before I leave one half of my heart with my greatest love and take her half with me, we decided that I am going to visit her in her home country during the summer.

The flight took about 9 hours from Berlin to NY and it was quite good. Despite that I sat next to a simple minded girl from Baltimore, the showed movies were crap and that I lost my feeling for time and space, the jetlag have hit me only the next day. On my way to Chicago I met a few very interesting people: the vice president of the Berlin historical association, who was a pilot on one of the Rosinenbomber back in the time of the Berlin blockade visiting relatives im the Strats, an US-army officer on vacation with his Polish! wife and his deaf daughter, a prosecutor from Miami visiting his girlfriend in NY and finally the curator of the Chicago Bonzai collection in the botanical garden. I had some really interesting conversations with them and bottom line everybody said that it will work out with my Hannah. As far as I can tell they were right...
Since this blog entry is now rather long already and I don't want to bother you with endless posts, I have decided to split it - right here...

A last trip together with Hannah in Sweden - the High Coast

Hej folks,

Today I'm going to beat my girlfriend in terms of having an updated blog. Before the two of us left Sweden (she is finally returning back to the States and I'm going to stay in Germany over the summer) we managed to make a last short vacation in Sweden. From last thursday to sunday we spent the time on a road trip to Swedens highcoast - an area as amazing and wonderful as my girlfriend... We have connected the trip with my moving-out from Kantorn to Döbeln - my new residence after the summer. Hence we spent thursday until the late evening with cleaning, moving furniture, packing and other things and finally left Uppsala to the North again at 7 pm.

Going North on the E4 we decided to have dinner at Dragon's Gate near Gävle, which is a Chinese Health Center with a restaurant. Although everything was chinese/asian it was more or less a wanna-be chinese buffet: of course, Köttbullar med Lingonsylt needs to be on every buffet - regardless which kind of food you are serving :) After eating a lot in a short time we got back on the road by 9 pm. Our destination then was Skuleskogen Nationalpark, 130 km north of Härnosand in the High Coast area.

We approached the High Coast bridge which marks the southern border of the region around 1 am and enjoyed the sunrise. Yes, sunrise at 1 am but certainly no real night. It is worth mentioning that we were travelling under the midnight sun, therefore we changed our complete sleeping pattern. After taking some wonderful pictures of the sunrise we arrived at Skuleskogen Nationalpark around 3.30 am and instead of placing the tent we got from Hannahs polish friend Pavel we decided to spend the night in the car - our nice and sportive Volvo S40. Waking up around noon the next day we were originally planning on entering the national park but after reconsidering our equipment we decided that we don't have everything we need for this adventure. Thus we were planning on going shopping but got distracted by a moose in the wildlife crossing the road. Hannah saved our lifes, the car and our day. Afterwards she took a picture of the moose - enjoy!

Going further North on the E4 we found an outlet store from Fjällraven, Swedens biggest out-door company. Getting some very good deals we completed our equipment, got some lunch and got back into the national park at 3 pm.

After the first 20 minutes in the park we were appreciating that we decided to go shopping beforehand. The area was rather steep, stoney and not easy to hike. But after hiking for about 4 hours we arrived at Tärnettvattnet were we took a nap in one of the stuga's - public huts where people can spend a night for free without having a tent. The nature was simply fantastic - however we had not yet arrived at our final destination - Slåttsdalskrevan, the big canyon in the heart of the nationalpark. So we continued to hike eventhough the passage became more and more complicated. As a reward we arrived at the canyon around 9 pm and the view from the top was the best reward for the effort we made to get on top of the canyon. The canyon top was rather small so we had to get back downhill - even harder than the way uphill earlier - and finally close to exhaustion we arrived at a camping place at the coast were we made a fire (thanks to Hannah) and spent the night. We continued walking the next day with visiting some graves from the bronze time, a little village were you can rent cabins and more beautiful nature around us. By 3 pm on saturday we left Skuleskogen Nationalpark.

When planning this trip Hannah looked into a few guides of the high coast and figured out a number of very nice places like fishing villages, a hostel in an old lighthouse and other nice activities to do during our time there. By this time we simply did not know that the summer (which began in Uppsala about 3 weeks ago) officially starts in Norrlands the week after midsummer. As a result everything - even an entire fishing village - was closed. We finally made it to a restaurant but they had the warm kitchen closed already and we had just some starter and kladdkaka - but better than nothing - especially since it was our anniversary. A little bit disappointed by the fact that everything was closed we decided to follow our original plans - going to Dalarna, 6 hours south-west from our place and visit the world's biggest polar bear park "polar-world". We have seen some adverts and on the web it looks really amazing - however in reality they just opened this part of the bears park in Orsa about a month ago. Hence there were just two polar bears - laying around, sleeping - not really interesting. However the rest of the park was quite amazing. We saw bears with little cubs and big Kodjak-bears as well as Hannahs favourites - tigers. Check out the pictures on her flickr-account. Just click on her blog (alchemyabroad) and then "Pictures on Flickr". The high-coast set includes all pictures. Since she missed to charge her battery almost 90 % of the pictures presented there are taken with my camera. But we shared the moments and this time even the camera. Unfortunately the weather was quite bad: 5 degree, rain and very windy in the bear park. These conditions accelerated our departure. However we stopped in Mora and had some dinner at a Cajun food restaurant before getting back on the road to Uppsala where we arrived at 9 pm on sunday. The weather we had in Mora was almost worse in Uppsala - 72 hours of rain. As a bad side-effect we had an ant-invasion in Hannahs room where I had to play the exterminator. Somehow we managed to deal with it. Then Elisenda, a friend from the Netherlands who is living at Eklundshof gave us a ride after we dropped our car.

The following days were dominated by last requests from the professors at Uppsala - I finally got a B for my research report on Charged Higgs Searches with Dileptons and packing. Unfortunately the bad weather conditions left some traces - the two of us got a cold which I'm still suffering a bit of. We finished packing on wednesday and again - thanks to the lovely Eklundshof-people who gave us two rides (thanks to Fides, Johann and Elisenda) we had not to walk all my stuff to my new place. Falling asleep around 1.30 am on thursday we overslept our clock the next morning and got up only 8.30 - her cleaning inspection was scheduled for 10.30 and we had a lot of stuff to do. Anyways together we managed to do everything and the cleaning inspector was late and very superficial - too bad that we did not know in advance - we could have saved a bit of time. Exhausted, hungry and tired we finally left Uppsala to Arlanda in the afternoon. We arrived at the airport hotel and fell asleep immediately. The next morning we took our planes back to our home countries and I wrote the previous blog-entry on the plane back to germany.

So, now I'm separated from my beloved girlfriend but only for another 24 hours. On wednesday I'm going to fly to the U.S. and spend some more time with her. But this is another story.

Hejdå allihoppas, trevligt midsommaren, trevligt semestern!

Thoughts

Hej again after a long time of not blogging. I could post now all the
reasons of not having blogged (and there are many of them, but i won't
do so. Instead i will use my time to write a bit about things that
have happened in my life - here in sweden and in general.
Right now i'm sitting in an airplane back home to spend the summer in
my hometown and hopefully to cut expenses. However, as i wrote 'to
spend the summer' you may wonder, how this works. This blog was
intended to be about my erasmus year in sweden. Time has changed and
with time i have changed my plans too: Right now I am applying to
become a fully accepted international student at Uppsala. Hence I have
started to write my masters thesis two weeks ago. I will finish this
hopefully by the end of this year but this depends also on how the
burocracy im Sweden works. Another almost more important change is the
following: for almost 4 months i'm now together with the girl of my
life. Since we have spent the past four month and she was more active
with blogging I refer to her blog: alchemy abroad. There you can find
a very extensive report about our beautiful easter vacations and about
spring here in Uppsala.
It would be rather boring just to repeat everything Hannah wrote,
therefore I will just post here some additional thoughts from my point
of view:
1) Our amazing trip through europe
Erasmus-life is hard especially in Sweden where living expenses are
about 1. 5 times higher than home. However, apparently we managed to
settle a trip to 5 different places in europe in less than two weeks.
Thanks to ryanair we had to skip Oslo. As a consequence I will never
fly with this airline again - except that there is no other available
for my destination. Beside, the trip was awesome- and Venice was
amazing. Think about that- a trip to Venice after being together for
just two month... Now you can imagine how wonderful my sweetheart is.

One can argue wheter it is a bit too early to make plans to live
together, or one can accept my answer: we are different. In my
mothertongue there exist an expression which i like to quote "zu jedem
Topf gibt es einen passenden Deckel". Friends who saw our pictures
said that we were looking happy. Yes, I asm the happiest man on earth-
and graceful to met my angel.

Back in Sweden I had to catch up with class and exercises which kept
me busy until the most important event during the summer term- Valborg.

2) Valborg
Although we might not have been drunk enough to be considered as 'successful', we had a great time. Sad that we have overslept the speech but we would not have understood it anyways. Additionally, sleeping in sun is really tempting. All in all we took rather the old traditional than the flat modern way of celebrating Valborg - including the breakfast with your love. The time after Valborg wss rather tight and dominated by studying. I managed however on my infinite amount of time to work at Kalmar during the prom or varbalen as a waiter. After 12 hours and maybe 200 SEK I have regretted my decision. Here comes now an important advice - if you want to work at a nation in Uppsala to socialise, feel free to do so, but if you want to earn money, never work there. During the past year I worked about 40 hours and my final loan was 600 SEK. Additionally they reduced this amount by 25%- the local tax here in Sweden. At the prom we had some choir performance which some of my friends believe was our best in the year. Honestly, I don't think so. The final cncert in june was much better - at least for me... Ah and there was the night before the prom.

An old tradition in Uppsala is the singing of serenades by the men to the choir's women. In return you should get some unsch. Firstly, less and less people remember this tradition, secondly you should not sing lovesongs not to the girl you love and thirdly guys in Uppsala remember this tradition rather than girls. However, when we finally got to Annas place we were welcomed with cookies, punsch and a red latern. Worth mentioning that the girls at kalmar recognized the tradition and we got our first punsch there. Unfortunately my girl was feeling really bad and a few days after we had to go to the ER of the hospital. As a non-eu citizen, Hannah had to pay 6000 SEK for a full treatment. In the result the medics did a cat-scan. Found nothing and sent her home, encouraging her to come back if her pain gets worse or is accompanied by other inconveniences. At this day i found out that we can be proud of our health care system. eventhough in Sweden it is almost for free the treatment is rather sloppy and you have to pass three pre-nurses
before you see a doctor and, get treatment. Now i'm back home and i will continue blogging later. Vi ses, kram!

1000 Miles – a poem about the trip to the North

for my beloved Hannah

Sun is shining sky is blue
I can´t believe it, but its true
Leaving spring for quite a while
Heading North with a bright smile

Looking forward for the next few days
Hope to encounter Auroras someone says
Northern Lights – bridges to the stars
And no one here – no men no cars

Endless landscapes covered full with snow
And the rain does like a river flow
As do my thoughts they´re flying too
Apart from here a 1000 miles to you.

A trip to awesomeness

When writing this blog entry I´m sitting in the train back from my real journey to the North. Together with some friends we spent 5 days all together on a trip to Abisko, 1 hour by train from Narvik in Norway and in the “capital” of Lappland, Kiruna. The trip was planned by my friends which was really nice since I had nothing to prepare for or to be responsible for. Although I was not involved in the preparation at all I had a few problems to deal with before leaving. I had to finish off a bit of work for my project which I did exactly 3 minutes ahead of my scheduled departure. Then we meet altogether at Uppsala Central and get on to our train... Luleå, Narvik – a trip to awesomeness. We= that are Kaisa from Norway, Maja from Berlin (as I am from), Ramon and Miguel from Venezuela, Jennifer from Glasgow and finally Gorka from Mozambique.
We left Uppsala on Wednesday, 25th of March and took the night-train to Abisko. There we spent 3 days with different winter-activities. Although we had only seats in the nighttrain it was not too occupied so the night in the train was overall not too bad. We arrived in Abisko at noon and went to our hostel – the nice and well recommended “Absisko Fjällturen”, where we were introduced to Thomas, a nice guy to whom I spoke a bit (in Swedish, since the trip was mostly in English and I´m here to practice my Swedish of course ;) and who told us about routes with the skies and stuff we should keep in mind. When trying to check in, we “encountered” Oljander (if I remember his name correctly) – a guy who pretended to live on the 2nd floor and who was not in charge for the hostel- although it turned out that he was running it for some breaktime of the landlord. I don´t remember his name really therefore I refer to him as “grandpa” 
After getting our stuff in one of the rooms (no room in this hostel is locked at all and there is only one toilet for each floor) we had lunch and afterwards we went skiing – awesomeness no. 1 ;) Nobody of us was really used to ski except Kaisa who did this a long long time ago (so as I did when I was little). Of course we fell down but it was funny for everybody I would say. We walked a while and find luckily our way onto Kungsleden – the far-distance walking-passage through the mountains from the far north down to the south of Sweden. It started to darken around 5 pm so we get back to the hostel. Since we booked the dogsledge tour we had the unique opportunity to get all the equipment for skiing, ice-walking, and so forth for free. After a nice dinner, Maja and myself (since the others were either sick or too shy to get into the sauna naked and Kaisa as well as Jennifer were still too sick to take the sauna) – Honestly, I never have seen/ visited a sauna where you are allowed to have more than a towel with you – simply due to hygienic reasons. However this was awesomeness no. 2  The Nordic mountain sauna – sitting in one single room – two small tubes as “shower”, an oven heated by wood a tap of boiling hot water, people with beer in the sauna (uh oh)  and a lot of fun. During the “break”, we ran out into the snow and throw ourselves into the frozen snow – you notice too late that you have hurt yourself :p Afterwards we had a nice footwalk onto the frozen lake in Abisko to have a look at the Northern Lights – we haven´t seen them since it was too cloudy, although the weather was beautiful during the whole time. Getting back around 1am we fell asleep suddenly and had to get up early the next day for awesomeness no. 3 – dogsledging. People who know me, know as well that I don´t really like dogs so much. But I loved “my dogs” after meeting at the cages we were told how to harness them and get them ready in front of the sledge. And then it began. Kaisa was unfortunately not able to attend at this on a sledge but she was on a snowmobile which gave her the unique opportunity to take pictures from that. Thank you very very much Kaisa.
After 2 hours this was over and we were middly exhausted. We had then some lunch to go skiing and having a look to the Abisko-nationalpark direct afterwards. We started around 4 to get to the park and see some unique sites such as a frozen waterfall (awesomeness no. 4) and deep valleys covered with snow – including downhill skiing with cross-road skies. Getting home Maja decided not to join the sauna and I had to go alone – it was a kind of lame since there were only some “warmduscher”-sauna-people – but it was okay in general. Afterwards since the sky was clear and the chances were pretty good we prepared ourselves (Ramon, Gorka, Jennifer, Miguel and myself) to get to the lake again – and then suddenly – out of nowhere – we saw them – the NORTHERN LIGHTS!!! - Awesomeness no. 5. Beautiful – majestic, untouchable and hard to take pictures of without a decent tripod but not impossible .
On the third day in the North we left Abisko by bus to go to Kiruna, the “capital” of Lappland – to see the worlds biggest mine and the famous Icehotel. Arriving at 1pm we discovered that we can only check in from 4-8pm. Since we desperately wanted to see the Icehotel (located 15km out of Kiruna) we decided to rent a car – which I was responsible for. Maybe I was a bit stressed and maybe a bit rude but it was my name and my signature – so what ;) From the nice people at the tourist information desk we got all necessary informations and the tickets for the LKAB-tour – the Luossovaara – Kirunavaara – Aktiebolaget. The biggest mine in the world, where they dig for magnetite ore which is of a uniquely high quality – and the trip for just 180 sek – awesomeness no. 6. Getting back around 6pm we checked finally in and had Wifi for the first time during the trip – an opportunity you have to take. After having dinner we travelled by car just out of Kiruna – to see the worlds most expensive and probably most incredible hotel – Jukkasjärvi – Ishotellet – the Icehotel. In the icebar we had “Vodka IN the rocks” and it was simply awesome  - awesomeness no. 7.The church was closed but it was definitely worth to go to and to take the car. Since Maja was desperately tired the day before when we saw the Aurora we decided to go further in the darkness and she had the possibility to drive long time after she got her license. Hope this favour was nice for you Maja ;). Unfortunately we saw not really clear Northern Lights although I believe that some of the remnants on the pictures I took were an evidence- but the sky was clear – the stars beautiful and around it was totally dark – ah and I saw a reindeer during the way (feeding on the ground next to the road – little awesomeness no. 8). Getting back we fell asleep immediately highly impressed a bit cold but happy 
Today (Sunday) the only remaining was Kiruna itself which was basically visiting the church and taking some pictures after getting something for the trip to eat. They had a service in the church and some guys looked at us really badly when I took some pictures from the inner – stupid tourists – haha. After this we (Ramon and myself) had to get our luggage to the station and the others as well. The plan was simple and easy. Leaving them at the central station heading to the gasstation and then taking the cars back to the hotel where we got them. But… Ramon was confused. While I was already at the gasstation (only one in sight) he was missing me and driving further. He took off the car without filling it – hopefully we have not to pay too much for it… As I passed by the hotel and getting back the keys to the reception the time was tight which yields to a short-run down to the station – crossing the landscape, freestyle –riding downhill – little (nonscheduled) awesomeness no 9. Finally we made it and now I´m finished writing this entry. We are at some station in the North waiting to go further. In Boden, next to Luleå we will get onto our night-train to Uppsala where we will be around 6am on Monday – and I have class from 10am to 5pm 
I´ll get back to you later ;)

A few words about the events from the past few months.

I hate it but I have to admit that I was not able to keep my blog here as updated as I tried to. The latest post was about a short interruption of my studies in order to attend at some assessment meeting in Bonn hosted by DAAD. After coming back I had to catch up with courses on the one, my project (which is still not done yet) on the second and with the choir on the third side. This was one cause of my inability to publish new posts on my blog.
Right after I was done with the courses I was back at work within the Icecube employment I was on since January and after 3 days of hard work the supervisor eventually showed up and told me that they replaced us students by a full-time worker in order to hold the deadline. This was really bad to hear but honestly I tried to take care for too many things besides my study – and now there is a new things…
February marked the ending point for the ERASMUS & exchange students staying only for autumn and has indicated also the starting point for the new people arriving from all over the world. Therefore this time was dominated by welcome and good-bye parties – I attended at a few but not really regularly. And I have not been to Värmlands at Friday YET… but this is going to change.
The choir kept me also kind of busy during the last weeks since although I haven’t been accepted for the third Swedish course I had to face negotiating in Swedish – a real hard situation. Summing up everything regarding those issues we had to get money back from the nation since It does not belong to them but the relation between us (the choir) and them (the nation) was never officially stated and so things went terribly wrong during that time. I don’t want to reveal any classified informations here but finally we managed to get our money back and the relation is much better those days. Anyways – this thing took 3 additional meetings (one at Annas place, where I had the unique opportunity to try the Wii  something really exciting.
After singing the famous german “Ode an die Freude” to the strange Kroppkaka in a completely weird Swedish text (about the way the cake tastes) I learned also a few really traditional songs and they are really fancy….
Things have finally settled now to the state that I am trying to stay in Sweden for the next year in order to finish my master-degree. After having a closer look it could be done after the next term already… but I have to figure things out.
My project in which I am involved in latest research in order to find the the magic and not yet seen Higgs-particle came very recently now to a point, where I just need to produce a few more plots and can then start to put everything together into a final report. I should be done right before the meeting in beginning of May. My master-thesis has also been proposed very recently which will be definitely very interesting and worth to invest a lot of time in it – without bothering you with the details.
Ah ya… my bike was working, then it broke, I repair and its broken again. When you ever consider to come to Sweden, don’t be afraid about paying much more for a decent bike than for a crappy one. Which reminds me that I should have send my report about my ERASMUS stay as soon as possible- I prepared everything yesterday and now I wait for a bit more money from HU.
And finally… since Friday 13th (which also was the day of my exam – which took me the full 5 hours – crazy Swedes) I had my really first date… After a hard time of nights and days without sleep, getting hungry and completely screwing other issues I will not talk much longer about “me” but more about “us”. Her name is Hannah and she comes from Uninversity of Purdue in Indianapolis where she studies chemistry with drama as minor. Since she dominates my life from this time, I will dedicate the next post to her.
Hejda allihoppas

Back to Sweden - Back to business - a short note...

Hejsan en gång till,

I'm back in Uppsala, sitting in front of my pc, waiting for a process to finish off and writing this little note. I will add some photos later but keeping my blog up to date is the "primary concern" - primary concern reminds me to my flight earlier today. Due to the strike at SXF we had our take off 5 minutes to 10 am - therefore too late to take the train which would have been departed 11:55 from Skavsta. So I had to take another option - however the ticket has been purchased and paid already. Since the time frames are very rare for trains from Skavsta to Uppsala I decided to take the Flygbuss from the airport to Stockholm (again) and later the Express-Bus to Uppsala. Unfortunately we arrived at Stockholm city terminal just a few minutes after bus departure- probably the luckiest day in my life ;( - "we" means myself and a friend, Andreas which is originally from Sweden but he studies architecture at Berlin, TU. I had a very pleasant trip with him so this was a kind of excuse for the inconveniences. And just before sunset I arrived in Uppsala. Back to Uppsala means primarily back to business and therefore I will focus myself on this issues for the next days. How the story continues - who knows -

Cheers,

Tillbaka i Sverige - Back to Sweden

Hejsan allihoppas,

As time goes by, my attempts to extend my stay in lovely Sweden might be successful. After application for a DAAD-scholarship in Nov 2008 I have been invited to the final assessment test in their office in Bonn. This assessment was last tuesday which was one reason for a short trip to my hometown in Germany. Beforehand my parents were visiting me and we spent together a few very nice days in Uppsala, Stockholm and surrounding.

My parents in Uppsala

Almost three weeks ago my parents were visiting me at my current living place in Uppsala. This was the first visit of firends and relatives but hopefully not the last. Beside very nice impressions from Uppsala one main event was our/my first visit of Stockholm - the Venice of the North. Located on 13 isles it has more than 750 bridges and with approximately 600.000 inhabitants it is the biggest city in Sweden - real city feelings for me :) We paid his majesty a visit, had a look on the castle, the "riksdag" and other famous buildings and last not least we visited the Skansen.

Skansen, located on the island of "Djurgården" is a miniature version of the whole country. On 800 ha you can find both Flora & Fauna as well as typical buildings from different sites in Sweden. And my first moose :)

A unexpected visit

One day after my parents arrival I had received my invitation to the final assessment of the german academic service. There I have applied earlier last year for a scholarship to extend my stay. After my final confirmations of courses I have done 45+x credits in the previous term- Out of the approximately 75 credits only 45 will be accepted from my home university - one reason for my attempts to extend my stay. Due to the loacl fares for travelling with Deutsche Bahn I decided to go by plane to Bonn - the typical business flights with the "penguins" in kavaj (suit) every morning from Berlin to Cologne/Bonn. In Bonn I paid a visit to some friends from the "Fachschaft" and have had a chat concerning university-politics with friends of mine which I met first on the ZaPF in Konstanz 2008. After the assessment which went rather good (from my opinion) I had a few more hours until my plane took me back to Berlin. Meanwhile Katha, a friend of mine from Bonn as well has shown me the center of Bonn and after a nice fika (I have to be careful - i got used to the price levels in Sweden) it was time to say goodbye. Hopefully in 3 weeks I will know whether the story continues or not.

Back in Berlin

Since it was a rather unexpected / unscheduled trip to Germany NOBODY except my parents, Martin (in Japan) and Katha in Bonn have known that I would stay for a week in Germany neither my reasons for that. Beside the assessment which was of course the main reason the other one was the birthday of my little brother. So it was a real surprise when I knocked at his door sunday late night one week ago. All in all this was a great time - he really enjoyed my visit as I did too ;)

At the moment I'm sitting in front of the gate doors at Schönefeld Airport (SXF). Due to local strikes from Ver.di no flight will be proceeded until 9.30 am (my flight back was scheduled at 8.35 am). Assuming a flight time of 1 hour and 20 minutes I have to go out latest 10:35 am to arrive at Stockholm/ Nyköping before my train to Uppsala (which has been paid already) leaves. Whether I have arrived in time or not I'll tell you later. :)

Cheers,

/Stephan

Busy days and my first visit...

Hejsan allihoppas,

In 3 hours my parents are leaving Germany for a few days and come to visit me. Beforehand it was a quite busy time the last days. But one thing after another. On last week tuesday my project in the local ATLAS group died eventually due to scientific reasons. It turned out to be not really promising to keep track on the approach I was facing. However it took numerous hours to get the code and the analysis finally proceeded and in Science a result providing no further investigations is also at least a result. Since this I am standing by for new orders by my project leader. Meanwhile the new semester started with rather busy courses I take. One of them is relativistic quantum mechanics and I have to admit, I don't like residual calculus really much... However I need to catch up with the content of the course - and I'm convinced that I will do this. The last results from my previous courses are still pending thus i don't really know at present how the last term was in total. Eventually I can see it was too busy. :)

Here in Uppsala new students arived now, friends are leaving or have left - I met again to a close friend of mine - finally we had fika as promised to each other last year and now a lot of new students are introducing themselves here in Uppsala during nice parties. :) Back in Uppsala I continue with my new "Uppsala-only" hobby - fixing my bike - no matter how cold it is (less than -4 °C during the night) and I'm still repairing friend's bikes as well.

Back in Uppsala means also back to the choir. Since I'm member of the choirboard this produces nice sideeffects from time to time such as "syrelsemöter", (formal) meetings at someone's place where we eat together and discuss about the plans for this term. During the last styrelse we did some advertisement for our choir - surprisingly I had the chance to took brush and colours out and "paint" a poster... A nice way to spend the saturday evening ;) But afterwards I have been to a party as well.

Since the future is rather unclear I appreciate to know at least about the next few days. At 8.20 local time my parents will arive at Arlanda, passing through the Sky City of the airport - a surreal place where you could believe that you took some drugs - as I did half a year ago. Then we will have some nice fika, talk a lot and visit some nice places - such as Gamla Uppsala as well as Uppsala itself but a planned destination is the capital, Stockholm (hopefully the weather remains nice) and probably a silver-mine not far away from Uppsala.

In preparation for the visit I had to deal with a problem of a special kind... Since I changed all my bank accounts before I came back in january I had no longer any access to my accounts neither could I took any money off using my card. However I wanted to present some nice dishes to my parents as well as I was supposed to buy some bedclothes. And I had 500 SEK to do this- however I did it! :) Hope they like it...

Stay in touch / kramar och puss från Sverige!

The Asshole in Chief (A.i.C.) has Gone - or - A Devil less in the World

Dear friends and fellows. It's time to celebrate. It has been 8 years of insane politics, mad explanations, reasonless wars and fear - spreading all over the world. But this is over now! The asshole in Chief is going to be replaced soon. But what is the remaining for his successor. A country with a deeply wounded soul, a world which is fighting against the terrorism- terrorism which has been partly created by the government itself. I don't know what the future will bring us with Barack Obama, but I'm convinced that it can't be worse than until now. But i think it's time to watch the dumbass once again... a last time... Enjoy it [1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[8] and finally my favourite: [9],[10] and keep in mind that everybody of us has the responsibility to say and do whatever is in his or her power to prevent countries from guys like him.

Milky Way and Andromeda vs. me... or finishing with cosmology... finally...

Hejsan allihoppas.

It's almost 5 am and I'm finally done. Yeah - really I'm done with the "upgifterna" (exercises and tasks) for my cosmology course. The last one pending before the next semester starts on monday. Eventually I wanted recovering my project work which has been freezed since beginning of december - but this work had to be finished before. Well I can now proudly present my first real paper, submitted only to the professor but I like it and hopefully he does it too... and after eating a complete box of "Gefüllte Spitzen" I'm happy but completely exhausted. Besides work the choir has been started already and it was nice to meet each other again after such a long time. Unfortunately due to a lack of organisation and since my travel-partners could not decide yet if they want to join me travelling up to the polar circle namely Kiruna or not. Now the prices for the flight are more than doubled so I don't think I can manage travelling there. However- We'll see... and first of all in the first week of february my parents are coming to visit me here at Uppsala where the winter has returned since yesterday.

Vi ses senare!

Ett klick för gamla skogen...

I recently found that video on a very interesting webpage. They are trying to recover the old Verle's forrest from getting destroyed. Hopefully I can visit this lovely place somedays in the near future. Here you'll find the link to it. Click once each day and pretend the forrest from getting destroyed.

Vi ses senare.

Tillbaka i Sverige

Hej ni alla vilka läser mitt blog... Unfortunately my Ipod blogging application has been crashed and I need to recover the content of the latest blog from my mind...

God Jul och Gott Nytt År

Hejsan och Hello and I hope you all had enjoyed your christmas and new-year as i did... Thanks to my friends, relatives and family it was a great time. Chatting a lot - meeting friends, cooking together... I made my famous swedish chocolate cake though - having fun together. Unfortunately it's over now but you remember, after christmas is before easter... :)

Thank you to my family and my friends for being there!!!

God Jul, Gott Nytt År and a short summary about the last weeks in 2008

Hejsan allihoppas.

It has been a long time since I have had written the last post within that blog. The last two month in 2008 were rather busy for me but I hope that I can fix this in the future. I'm really hard working on that issue now :) Since I don't want to bore you with an endless posting I will write down this as a rather short summary about the most important dates and contents from Oktober until I have left Sweden for my christmas holidays in late December. (This is kind of odd... I have to look back to my calculation on google to remember the dates correctly - however):

2008/10/04: My first work as a waiter during the "Knally Goes Green" Gasque (see the older post below "min första gång").

2008/10/18: The choir day for HT 2008. A special gasque for choir members only and really nice. I have enjoyed it really really much.

2008/10/26: My first "kryssning", a short trip to Tallin. These trips are however called "booz-trips" but I did not know this before I have been there. After departure we have checked out our cabbin but afterwards I had looked for my friends and encountered lots of people coming from only one direction - the duty free shop - loaded with cans of beer and bottles of wine. To summarize, Tallin is an interesting place to visit with a cute little "hanse-like" oldtown in the innermost circle. They have some really nice churches there and the weather became better and better as long as we have been stayed there. Before going back on the ferry we checked out the local supermarket to buy some "booz" and return it to sweden. Unfortunately we were really late and arrived on the wrong pier at the harbour... It was very close but we made it - on time back on the ferry to Stockholm and afterwards a beautiful view to the "skärgården"- the tiny islands in front of Stockholm area. That trip indicated also the end of the first period here in Uppsala.

2008/11/08: Since Sarah was unable to work in the restaurant "Småka" I decided to help out there. It was nice to socialize with new people and interesting to learn new things... Especially how Swedes order their drinks and pronounce the names of the beer...

2008/11/15: Shortly before my trip to Helsinki I managed to send in all necessary papers for my application at DAAD to stay longer and finish my masters here in Uppsala. Hopefully they accept me...

2008/11/16: just a few weeks after the trip to Tallin we made a second trip - this time to the capital of Finland, Helsinki or på Svenska 'Helsingfors'. Since it were raining constantly through the day the city was not half as impressing for me as Tallin but in comparison the trip has been awesome... We enjoyed trying to fly through the wind during the tide in the night. We crossed some borders - and get finally at the very front of the ship - it was great - definitely! And during the next beautiful sunrising day we enjoyed viewing the "skärgården" once again.

2008/11/30: A journey back to ancient viking history. My first visit of "Gamla Uppsala", the ancient viking capital just 10 minutes by bus from my current living place. And we had some "snow"...

2008/11/30: After many rehearsals of Kalmar nations choir we had our first performance - on the Christmas market at Öffreslottsgatan. Eventhough we were not really placed on a certain position the people were addicted to us... And we enjoyed it giving them joy. Later on I have been walking around with friends through the various christmas markets and got some "julklappar" for christmas there. Finally the great ending was a beautiful firework performed within the botanicgarden and with music from - of course, it's Sweden - ABBA...

2008/12/05: The final exam for Svenska II för Utbytestudenter. My swedish exam. Interesting and challenging one which have been passed by me. Yupp... Now I can apply for Svenska III, the most advanced level for exchange students.

2008/12/08: The second physics exam during my stay here in Sweden. Astrophysics I, nice but boring course, which i only had followed halfways since I did too many courses then... The result was not as bad but not as good as I expected it to be- but shit happens...

2008/12/13: Lussegasken - the famous swedish Lucia-gasque but it was more a Lucia-weekend since we sung first during the official gasque, were we also performed the "luciatåg", later then we had our own lussegask and were finally invited to the after-party. After singing for the kitchen for the wonderful meal we went all together singing to Smålands and enjoyed life... On the next day, sunday we gave our concert during lucia-fika, within the pub and with except of a little mistake done by the male voices this have been a great event, too. Finally almost exhausted but joyful we did our "avslutningssittning", the final sit-together with the choir and then say Good Bye to some friends which were about to leave and God Jul to the other ones... The next rehearsal is on Jan, 14th and it will be great to see everybody again.

2008/12/18: Julgodstjänsten i Domkyrkan. The christmas service within the big cathedral. I sung there within a multi-nation choir guided by Stefan Parkman. It was somehow a great opportunity eventhough I dislike some of the social aspects and were very very tired during the service. Unfortunately none of my friends had joined me during that time, so I can't present any pictures. Later on this day we were celebrating Miriams birthday party... It was great and really nice... especially since our italian friend was completely drunken and was singing "o sole mio" the whole time... very funny!!!

2008/12/21: Busy day to buy missing christmas gifts. On sunday I will leave Sweden for Christmas. But I get some really nice stuff for everybody of my family and friends - or at least I hope so...

2008/12/22: 8.40 p.m. with 20 minutes ahead time schedule I arrived at Berlin-Schönefeld and my family picked me up for returning home. See you again in 2009!

A new hope is arising

Hejsan,
just before sleeping a few hours - damn, it is quite late :) I want to congratulate to the next President of the most powerful country in the world. Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States of America. Yes, we can! Please, show us how! Of course this would be not even easier for Europeans to decline partizipation in Afghanistan - but although We are actually acting very active in Afghanistan - especially in the rebuilding. I hope for a new better time - for America and the rest of the world.

Summary about the last few weeks

Hejsan,
I'm quite sorry but I was really busy the last few weeks, although the first period is just finished now. To catch up, i will give here a short summary about the last 3 weeks. At some later time I hope to upload some photos to that blog such you can watch as well :)

Well, after my first working time at Kalmar (the previous post in swedish) there was one really special event the next week. It was also a first time - my first time I baked a cake. Therefore I can highly recommend you http://www.arla.se where you can find a lot of very delicious recipes. I made a "svensk blåbärrulltort", which means a very fluffy cake filled with blueberrys and whipcream. This was my contribution to our famous choir day on Saturday, 18.10.2008. From the very morning 10 a.m. to the next night 3.40 a.m. I spent my time at Kalmar nation and we sung a lot, had a lot of fun, and of course we drunk something. There we had also potmeal, which means everybody has brought something with and it has been shared to everybody else. After that day (just two days before my first exam in advanced quantum mechanics) I was both, happy and sad... happy and a bit tired from the experiences of the choir-day and a bit sad due to the little time to prepare for the exam on tuesday. Therefore I had previously decided to use the beginning of Saturday (4.30 am till 8.30) to prepare a bit. It was suitable, although I've spent the whole Sunday (after sleeping too long :) ) and the rest of monday on preparation. Indeed, the exam was neither very hard nor very much. It was a fair exam but it was my first in english, thus this was a bit special and it was my first 5-hours exam. This is the usual way here in Uppsala, but you never need all the time. I was almost finished after 2 hours. But I spent a bit more time on thinking about one certain crappy problem... I passed with distinction, but as I said, it was nothing really serious. The next exams will be harder - I guess. Thereafter the first period was over.

A few days earlier I have been invited by a couple of friends of mine to make a trip to Tallin, it would exceed this post to write something about it, just one thing. It was definitely great!!! Beforehand I was in Flogsta, experiencing the all-days-scream 10 p.m. and cooking with some friends and thereafter we went together to my first corridor-party in Kantorn. We arrived at 2 and I left the party at 4.30 (or was it 5)??? Doesn't matter :) Why this is special you could ask-- well, because usually club-parties and nation-events open at 8 and close between 1 and 2... But corridorparties are quite different. Loud, nice and "unleashed". On Saturday I went to "Die Zauberflöte" or even in Swedish (as I've watched it) Trollflöjten, my first swedish opera. It was completely great. I have to do this again...

Finally on Sunday we met each other at 1 p.m. at Centralstation to start our (Booz)-Trip :) to Tallin, the capital of Estonia. But this is another story. But indeed I can post a few pictures as well (from the ferry and no, the two guys are neither twins nor gay, they are just f*** drunken)
So far for now... But i promise to write something about that trip and upcoming stuff as soon as possible. Hope you still enjoy reading that stuff.