Kulturnatten i Uppsala

Hejsan,
these of you who have visited my blog more than once, might have noticed the slideshow on the top right. It is about the "Kulturnatten i Uppsala". It was one of the biggest events in the year. At almost each road downtown there was either a stage or at least a performance. I have had the opportunity to listen to a concert in Carolina Rediviva - the big library and it was really impressive. Due to the fact that i have commented on the certain pictures I don't want to give here more than that summary. So feel free to visit the slideshow by clicking on it.

Gunnar Ingelman - Advanced Quantum Mechanics

Hejsan,
Sorry but this post is almost about physics, too. It is dedicated to my present lecturer in Advanced Quantum Mechanics. He has received the F-price for excellent lectures last year and yes, he is the best lecturer I have ever met. I will never forgot the Bells inequalities because Gunnar presented it with socks and has explained it with socks. I don't want to go more into details but it was really impressive. As well as the later talk of the "godfather himself", the leading theorist at CERN - Prof. John Ellis, who gave a talk about the future of science at LHC.
And he gave also a guess, that he dislikes a fourth fermion family and Supersymmetry is better to explain and is the nicer theory (this might be an insider, but the recipient will know what I want to express). Ah ja. and another picture which is an insider too...

LHC-Start

Hejsan,
I have had promised not to write too much stuff about physics - but this is one thing I have at least to comment a bit. On Friday, 10th of September the Large Hadron Collider has started. Unfortunately there was an incident one week later that we have to wait until scientific operations start in spring 2009. But at Uppsala there was a live videoconference about that happening and I was beside this :D

Everybody was watching and after the champaign event I met to Richard Brenner, who is the local ATLAS-head at Uppsala. We have talked a bit about a project work and it seems really interesting - the scientific goals, that Uppsalas group is looking for.

Kalmar - Best nation in Uppsala

Hej,
sorry, but the time was running really fast. Now I'm almost one month here in Uppsala. As i told you in my last post, I have decided to join Kalmar. (www.kalmarnation.se). One reason was that I know some people from Kalmar, the other was the internationality of that nation. But before I'm going to write about my experiences within the nation, I should write a bit about the nations itselves. So first of all, what is a nation? Since the University was found in 1477, it was a privilege for the students to study there. To unite the students from the different regions they found the nations. Each nation belongs to one region / county in Sweden. The nations were responsible for the whole student-life. So as today... it is really hard to express, what a nation is, when you have nothing to compare with. They are more then just activities, parties, common sense.
As international student you are free to choose which nation you want to belong to. Normally the swedes choose there nation depending on their origin. That is one reason, why Norrlands is one of the biggest nations - Norrlands is the biggest county in Sweden. Each nation has a certain kind of profile. One is more a party nation, the other is more interested in cultural activities - so it might be hard to choose depending on your personal wishes and attitudes. But this is not a real problem. As member of one nation, you are free to join almost all activities (excepting reccentiors-activities) of the others as well.
Kalmar stands for musicious and cultural as well as for international for me. They have a really nice little pub downstairs there nations-building where even ABBA has played before there became famous. Beside the parties and other activities there are some other things which are important to know about. First of all the gasques and especially "Reccentiorsgasquen". A gasque is a kind of formal dinner, where you chat a lot, drink a lot and SING a lot. At Reccegasquen you get your personal song-book, because that gasque is the welcomes event for the new members. It was really incredible. Dressed in suits and smokings we meet all together at the nationsbuilding and then march up to the main universities building. There was then a certain speech from the chancellor of the university inside the main building and from other important people as well. After that we've walked downwards to our nations-building and have taken our prepared seats. I've been seated next to very nice chatting-partners and it was a really great evening. Normally you have not enough time to really enjoy the food due to the fact that whenever there is a speech or something like this, you have to sing and thank for the speaker - and of course to skål for the speaker as well.
Ah, ja the girls on that picture from left to right: Judith (Swizerland), Miriam (Germany), and Liza (France) (some of my friends at Kalmar :D).
After that dinner there is an afterparty where we went to Göteborgs. That afterparty was indeed nothing in comparison to the previous. So no further comments. I disliked the music as well as the place. It was more like a party at "Tegeler See-Terrassen" in a bad way... :)

Presently I have joined the choir as well as the fotogroup. But I think i can only do one of these things and singing is A LOT of fun.

Language of this blog

Hej,
jag skulle fråga var, på vilken språk jag skå skriva bloggen. Därför jag fråga var på allt språk jag kan skriva. Tak så mycket.

So, as i asked, I'm thinking about switching the language of that blog. There are two facts which are important. I can either write in my mother tongue (more recently) or i can write in english or maybe sometimes in swedish (but this will take longer times). So please feel free to contribute yourselves, which language of this blog you would prefer. Or even more precisely which language you would prefer for the new posts. Thank you for your audience.

Und nun in meiner Muttersprache:
Nachdem ich nun bisher noch nicht so viel Feedback zu diesem Blog erhalten habe und meine Zeit zur Blog-Pflege doch eher "begrenzt" ist, möchte ich um eine Meinung bitten, in welcher Sprache die Blogs in Zukunft verfasst werden sollen. Entweder in deutsch (wäre dann sicherlich häufiger aber eher kuerzere, dafuer aktueller) oder aber in englisch bzw. schwedisch (das dauert logischerweise länger, aber da ist dann auch eine Herausforderung dabei :). In diesem Sinne bitte ich um eine Meldung dazu. Vielen Dank,

Stephan

the new semester at UU

Hej,

on Monday, first of sebtember my study programme at UU (the akronym for Uppsala Universitet) began. Before listening to quantum mechanics I should have remembered to meet to Antia. We have met each other downtown later on and have checked out the bike stores a second time. Unfortunately the same answer as last week. Finally I gave Eric (the stranger with the bikes) a call but he didn't answered. So Antia decided to went alone to Stáhlens Cykel while I went to my lecture. I have explained her the way to that bike store and thereafter we have been visited the cathedral - the biggest and oldest (protestantic) church of Scandinavia. After visiting and taking some photos we went for some fika into a cafe supported by the church (so not so expensive) and have had a nice talk about some things). She studies computer sciences esp. the interaction between human and machines. Later on I have to leave her and went for myself to Ångströmlaboratoriet, to listen to my first lecture...

Ångström is a very, very modern building with many departments. Here you can find not only physics but also chemistry as well as astronomy or material-sciences. I have found the lectures room soon and after entering I have realized that the main part of my course were german guys. Very well :(. Nevertheless the lecture was really great and impressive. Okay I have to work for that course, but it is not so complicate as first guessed. Unfortunately I have to buy a very expensive book to follow the course. Later on I will do that, but now I have other things to do. One more word to the lecturer. He is a theoretical physicist from the department of particle and nuclear physics who works on the field of QCD and Phenomenology (like MMP at HU) and have spent a lot of his time at CERN and at DESY-HH. I relly like him, he allways explain you everything and he invented the "Räknastuga", some additional times, when you sit in a room doing your exercises and he is also inside that room - so you can allways ask him for advice. This is a really suitable method. Even much more better than our german systems with the exercise-sessions (once in a week). After that course I have visited the library, really small in comparison to Erwin-Schrödinger-Zentrum but quite nice and thereafter I went to Carlos de los Heros, the head of the local IceCube group, where I have asked him for any project work. At the moment I cannot take the astro-courses in that period because I haven't fullfilled the prerequisites yet. Therefore I just take Advanced Quantum Mechanics, Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos and hopefully some project work at Ångström. I'm still waiting for some replies... And I have realized that for the diagnostic test for learners with previous knowledge of swedish I only have two days left. So I got to hurry up myself. Unfortunately I haven't brought each material with me so I have had asked my brother to scan it and send it to me. By the way. Great job you did there, thank you very much!!!

I decided not to go to the lecture on wednesday because I have had to prepare myself for the exam. I went there and the first people there were german guys as well. There I met Maja, she comes from Berlin as well but has studied yet with his friend at Würzburg. We just talked together until the test started. For me the test has sounded quite easy. After a c-test there was a really little grammar section and thereafter two texts, one about Visby, Gotland with some questions and another about the drink-habits of the swedes. For the last text we have to write something about our home-countries drink-habits and has to compare them to the swedes. The second text we have to write was about ourselves. Which drink we like to drink when and why. It was really a bit annoying, but on the other hand I succeeded and written down enough words. Hopefully enough for the second or even the third swedish course as well. But therefore I have to wait until friday. Maja told me some more about nations. On my way home I met Wassilij once more, a guy I have known from my first laundry-session. There we have played some geeky game named Fluxx. After he told me many many things about nations I checked out the webpages and evaluate them for myself and finally made a decision. I will be a member of KALMAR NATION!

Fairy tales in Uppsala - how to get a second hand bike

Hej,

as I have written in my blog, I have been on every bike-store in Uppsala to ask for second hand bikes. Unfortunately at each store the same answer - out of stock! Of course, here in Uppsala are numbers of bikes. I guess here are 5-6 times more bikes than cars. That's why cardrivers are oppressed- at each road there are special traffic lights with even more specialized switches. Whenever you push the button than it becomes IMMEDIATELY green for the foot-walkers. Nevertheless the buses are allways overcrowded - despite to the really high fares you have to pay for a single trip, 30 SEK. 

On friday Agnieta told us to go to the second hand market at Vaksalatorget. Alex went there at half past 8 and I was there much more later. Due to the fact that I haven't brought any pillow as well as bed clothes with me I have decided to rest on the matress covered only by two cotton-blankets. The end was that I have became ill - head cold as well sore throat have been the results. Or maybe it was Rickard, who was even ill when he met us on wednesday morning. Nevertheless after sleeping long time i have decided to went to Vaksalatorget although. I don't like markets - just as a comment... There it was really strange. Here there were some guys selling self maded cotton stuff, at another corner some people sold there chinaware and at some places there were some old men who were selling bikes to asian people. After asking one of them he has shown me a really bad bike. At that moment i was really disappointed and already on my way back to Kantorn as a asian guy have been asking me if I was looking for a bike. He said that he just want to sell this mens-bike. I was really happy and have tried out it and yeah, I liked it from the first moment. So I decided to pay for that bike 350 SEK. One moment after paying - while I was looking for a lock, which I finally bought from one of the old guys the asian has just been vanished. Of course, that bike might have been stolen, but at that time I didn't taken any care about that. I was just happy to have a bike. Okay I have to admit, it is just a really bad bike in comparison to german standards. But you have to be decent here in sweden. Later on I met Alex and another guy, Thanh in down-town. We decided to went to "Clas Ohlson AB" a kombination of OBI, Conrad-Electronics and METRO. There they have fair prices and a big assortment. After getting some additional stuff from Clas Ohlson we went home once again and at home I have repaired my bike - with Gaffer-Tape which I have gotten at Clas Ohlson :D

Later on that day I met to Enno and we have decided to look after the special places here at Kantorn. There should be a music-room as well as a sauna. But we haven't seen any sauna yet. But we have seen another thing. Just after realizing that we were too late to visit the special places I have been noticing a guy in the twilight. He stands in the darkness and went to sell some second hand bike to a asian girl. We went closer and after introducing ourselves I have asked him whether he sells second hand bikes and - as a surprise he has replied that he only sells second hand bikes. Unfortunately the girl has purchased the bike of that evening but we get the phone number of that guy or, better we gave him our number and he has promised to call us on sunday afternoon. He used to say well we have some bikes at some places here in Uppsala. I guess that that guy steals the bikes from the one corner to sell it at the next one... Finally I got my bike and we know a strange guy who sells other second hand bikes. So we decided to wait for his call.

On sunday we have first decided to visit the "Swede", namely we went to IKEA. As I mentioned, I really need some better bed-coverage. I slept so badly terrible the last nights, it was really bad! We mailed each other and decided at 3 p.m. to went to IKEA. There we bought everything necessary and have aten some swedish food. From this moment on I really like IKEA. Especially here in Sweden it is the biggest accomodationsstuff store all around. Next to IKEA there was also a large mall, the coop forum where we went there after to complete our list of "must haves". Right on that way we just joked to each other whether that guy from yesterday will phone or not. And he did. On our way home I got a phone call and he has to rescedule hiself for the first time. We made an apointment and went home as soon as possible. But we have had waited for a long long long time. The appointment was for 8.15 p.m. and the guy has appeared almost half past 10. Appears is the right phrase. He cames with the worst bike you may imagine. Only 3 gears no brakes but light (ragged off from bikes he went next to). But Enno really needed a bike so he decided to buy it. For about 400 SEK he finally has gotten his bike. That method I should introduce to Antia later on. After doing that she was a bit scared- i guess so we both made an appointment to meet each other in the city-centre before my lessons - a first "date" :D

Välkommer till Sverige - Välkommer till Uppsala - Välkommer till Universitetet

At thursday I met my other colleagues as well as the ERASMUS-Coord. from Uppsala. The first important thing was that Carla Puglia is not any longer responsible for ERASMUS-students and another more serious thing was that all of my previously chosen courses have been deleted. But nonetheless it was almost the same to my colleagues. We are here at Uppsala with some guys from Poland which I don't really know as well as some spanish guys and Alexandre from Strasbourg. We have all taken the "Advanced Quantum Mechanics" course and that was a reason to know each other a bit better. While Enno has had decided to go home by bus me and Alex went through the other parts of the city in search for a bike. We have had some fun and i have visited him at his appartment in Flogsta. Those of you who might me familiar with the different housing-areas. Flogsta is used to be known as the "Party-Housing-Area". There is at least one party in one corridor each night. Another interesting and really fine thing is the sauna on the roof of each building in Flogsta. But that is another story...

On Friday i was appointed with Alex at the main square in downtown. There we have opened a bank account at a counter with a (nearly) pleasant servant.- Thereafter we went to universities main building to watch the welcomes ceremony. At that time we did not recognized that this event is not only for the foreigners, no it is for all first years students. So we went to the main building and then there was the welcome-event. When the vice-chancellor has began to speak i got some "goosebumps" - it was really impressive!!!

In addition to a number of things he and other guys have been mentioned there was one sentence which I especially remember: "Welcome to Uppsala. Feel free to contribute yourself. Uppsala belongs to all of you." We (Alex and me) were sitting in the very front and I was sitting next Anna and she is a first-years student there at Uppsala. Her father is german and we exchanged email-adresses and later on I will email her - if my swedish is better than now! After that we went to Studentkår, the studentunion to collect some additional informations especially about the nations. There we met to Agnieta, a lithuanian girl from Vilnius studying swedish at Uppsala. After little bit of talking (as well some phrases in lituanian as far as I could have remembered) she gave us really good advices for getting a bike. At each saturday and sunday there is a second hand market at Vaksalatorget. The guys might be strange, but if you are looking for a cheap second hand bike you would have luck there. That advice was really great. Without that I would never have got a bike. Later on I accompany Alex to Flogsta because he is really bad in orientation and I have decided to take a bus home to Kantorn. In the bus I met to an asian girl, Antia. We have exchanged our email-adresses and I promised her to help her getting a new bike. Hopefully at saturday I will get my bike there at Vaksalatorg.

my very first days

Hej eller Tjena,

As far as you may have noticed I have had arrived here at Uppsala. In this post I will give you a kind of summary what has happened to me at my very first days. As you (already may) have read there were serious problems just at Schönefeld-Airport. For gods sake this wave of bad luck didn't continued. After arriving I have noticed that EVERYTHING of my new home is IKEA-Stuff. That was also one reason to went to IKEA (as I will write later on). 

On wednesday morning, I met Enno at his new apartment and there was a Newbie from Uppsala (Newbie means a student in the first year) who invited us to join him. That was a really good chance to see the university and our new campus. At that time nobody neither Enno nor me have bought a bike. Although we have had to went by foot. It was a distance of (let me guess) about 7 km from Kantorn to Pollacksbacken but the weather was really good (sun was shining, normal temperatures) so it was a nice walk to the new campus. While walking the Newbie, his name is Rickard introduces us to the special treatmens for the first-years students. At Uppsala they use to socialize the Newbies as soon as possible. Due to that fact in the first week they party a lot (each evening, almost) and use to say "The harder you can party the harder you can study". That was the reason why there were some "freaks" at the campus when we have arrived there. But look for yourselves...

Thereafter we have managed to get our Internet-Account. This was no common thing, because everywhere we went to and have asked for more informations there have been allways the same answer. "Well you are Exchange-Student? Then you should wait for your contact person here at Uppsala". This has happened a number of times. On wedneday in addition I met to the other apartment members. They are all swedish, in my corridor live about 2 girls, two buys, both of the girls live in couples and one of the boy is still married to an american. All of them speak a very fluent english as most of swedish people I have met to yet.  And I went to shopping. We have a small supermarket next to our housing area and they use their position as best as possible. The prices are higher than in city-center due to the fact that this one is the only supermarket in that area. Maybe later I will try out Vaksalatorget - a market is located at this large place near downtown. At this place they use to sell (stolen) bikes. Neither Enno nor me want to pay so much for the bus tickets so we went through the whole city at our first day and have checked out every bike store but unfortunately were all out of stock.

A bit frustrated we returned to home and tried to enjoy the new internet-connection.