Between the years

So that was Germany. I've been here for 10 days. The first two days I already made everything on my TODO-list. I've been in Aachen for registering my diploma thesis. That's a neverending story. This time I had to proof that I made a semester abroad, although they already accepted the courses I passed in Sweden. I am lucky with my German supervisor. Like me he is really annoyed by the narrowminded bureaucracy at my home university (they tell you to go abroad, but they are unable to mail a document, so you have to come to Germany to pick it up yourself). I fixed that now. Let's see what they complain next.

Christmas was as expected. Really quiet. Visiting relatives, going out with the dogs etc. Yesterday I've been out with my brother Thomas. We went to a big club of the area. We knew it was announced as Singleparty from 16years-old upwards, but we wanted to go out definitely. I did not really understand the planning for that party. It opened at 10pm and we had to wait more than one hour until we could enter. The queue at the wardrobe took also more than half an hour. After exactly 2 hours (quarter past twelve) we had our first beer. Incredible. But the beer was just 50 cent. Not even 5 SEK. So cool. For the kids it did not make much sense. They had to leave at 12 anyway, but of course they did not. Anyway, it was far too full. On the way to my first beer one kid puked almost on my shoes. We were wondering where he got all the alcohol from if everybody had to stand so long in the queue. But maybe he was waiting since 8. Who knows. After one hour we left already, because it was so crowded. Impossible to find a spot for dancing. So we went to the pub of our village, where we spent the evening during highschool. That was cool.
Today was the last day. I have a slight headache and I hope it is the weather. So I will stay at home, think about if I have everything packed. Tomorrow 13:20 goes the plane. I hope this time, I will reach the terminal in time (read the almost-disaster from August). I should be in Sundsvall at half past 8 in the evening. Looking forward. Although I just come from it feels like coming home.

Moviestar

Last night I did not sleep that much. Maybe 3 hours. This morning I found out, that I counted too less working hours over the past three months, so I earned far less money than I deserved. Well, now I know it better.
At 9 had to be at university, for an advertisment for the university's master programs. Haukes was there as well. He slept as much as I, but he still suffered from a hangover. But this movie was fun. We had to dress up in costumes and walked around in the clean room. It was the perfect job for that moment. We got told what to do and had just to follow orders. Very easy. Next Tuesday is the next and last movieday. I am looking forward to the result. When I arrived, Kevin, the director and teacher for the media-courses, looked at me and asked "Are you Markus? I remember your face". The he listed a movie and a salsa-interview I had particpiated in. I am impressed. Either he does not look so many movies or he has an excellent memory for statists whose biggest role last 5 seconds.

Kiruna - Mine

Tuesday 11th December

As the Sunday morning the alarm clocks did not really trigger us to stand up. I slept in the living room again and as on Sunday I heard in two minutes several alarm clocks from different rooms, but no movement for half an hour. We ate a big breakfast, cleaned the appartment in shortest time and delievered the keys in time. Afterwards we walked to town, visited the church, ate at Sibylla and booked the bus into the mine of Kiruna. It is the world biggest iron mine.



The tour through the mine was like expected. I do not like tours. You have to follow three hours a guide and the only thing you can do is listen to listing of dates, facts, and specifications. I was extremely bored and took us two and a half hours. But nevertheless: although I could have imagined a better ending, Kiruna was worth all effort.

Our train left in early evening from Kiruna and this time we did not have to change the train. We arrived at Wednesday at half past 7 in the morning. And this time I did even sleep although it did not feel like sleep afterwards. I must have slept 6 hours, but it felt like 1 and I still was very tired. We booked taxis back to Nacksta, but I had only time to leave my luggage there, because I had an exercise at university at 10. But my students gave me free after one hour, so I could go back catching the sleep.
The trip has been amazing and was worth every cold minute. It was different to those trips I heard of before. It wasn't impressive because of the activities. Dog-sledges and snow mobiles were nice. But all alone it would not have been the fun. The group we have been there made it to a trip that I will remember very often.
Pictures: Jens, Marta, Ward.

Kiruna - Out in the woods

Monday 10th December

After breakfast we went back to the river watching the southern horizon were sun passed somewhere without rising enough to be visible. Stefan and Jens tried crosscountry skiing, but the equipment was so bad that they gave it up after half an hour. Therefore we went into the woods instead. It was such a fun! We played children in deep pouder snow like. We wrote "ERASMUS" in huge letters into the snow and Stefan, Jens and Ralf lifted Christian on their shoulders for giving him a better shot with his camera on the sign. We raced on hand and feet through deep snow and made funny group pictures realizing afterwards we are not playing on a snow covered field but a frozen lake. To get back before darkness we turned after a while arriving back at the camp in time for lunch. Like the dinner of the day before it was reindeer with pasta, but this time the meat wasn't smoked.



Afterwards we cleaned the cottage as good as possible and waited for our scout. He drank first some sprit with his fellows of the camp. The fellows were all a little bit strange. Nice, funny, but really strange. We guess, that you become crazy if you live in the wilderness like this, seeing every day new people telling them everyday the same storys. They even repeated themselves after a few minutes, not realizing we heard the story already moments before. They were living stereotypes of guys who live in the woods. They had a rugh humor more loud and rude, but for a day amazing to listen.


Our guide brought us back over the river and it took an eternitiy until he lined all the dogs in front of the sledges. It was so cold and everybody was running, jumping, and dancing somewhere to procude some heat. The way back I sat only on a sledge behind a snow mobile. Only the last kilometers I sat on a dog sledge. It was so cold. Although everything was amazing to experience I was already looking forward to the warm hotel. But our scout miscalculated our departure. He ordered only two taxis (one less than the day before) although we were two more people. Jens, Christian, Anne and I had to wait with a few others until our guide brought us to our hotels.

For dinner we had pancakes. Delicious. Again 1kg bacong has been eaten and from the 30 eggs only a few remained. The whole night we drank, played card and drinking games and talked about the past days. At one point Marta discovered northern lights and we went out again. And this time it was almost like in last year in Sundsvall. Less and still slower, but right above us with moving pulses weeping over a half cloudy sky.
We played on until 4 in the morning before we finally went to bed.

Kiruna - dogsledge

Sunday 9th December

After breakfast two taxis picked us up and brought us to our dogsledges outside of Kiruna. On our way we saw two mooses. One male with big impressive horns. He will certainly not die a natural death. Arrived at our starting point we had to wait for our guide. It was already cold. Together with us were also Erasmus students from Luleå and Västerå. All together we ere 25 people seperated on three dogsledges and two snow mobiles each with a big sledge behind. First we had to line the dogs in bushes were they immidiately start to shit and pi. You can't imagine what a smell 15 dogs can produce. Looking at the faces of the others was really funny, but I avoided to laugh with opened mouth, because the air felt so heavy.

Finally we started with our tour. Dogsledges are a crasy thing. The dogs just run. The only thing you can do is breaking. They run always following the track not careing for the sledge behind them. If they want to take a curve sharply then you slide for a few second just on one ski. After a while we reached a river. It sides were frozen. We were told that we were driving on a lake all the time. We lined to dogs and went to a boat that did not look very good. It had not much air and was covered with snow. Our guide brought us to the other side of the river in two shifts. I do not know how deep the river was. Maybe not that deep. But if it was deeper than a man can stand it was really dangerous. Somebody who would fall into the water would freeze for sure.
I had the feeling to freeze already in air. The weatherforecast proclaimed -1 degrees for the weekend. But as usual it came different: -10 in Kiruna. And what we did not know: Kiruna lies geographical special, so it is usuallz 10 degrees warmer than the surroundings. So we faced constantly -21 degrees while I was prepared for -1. From time to time fingers and toes hurt a lot.



Before complete darkness we finally arrived in the camp. It consists of small cottages. All heating with wood and gas expect a lappish cottage which only had a stove for heating. That lappish cottage was ours. The first task was to cut enough wood for all cottages, the kitchen cottage and the sauna. That took a while and brought fingers and toes back to life. Afterwards we had barbeque as lunch in a small cottage. It was really hard. We were all sitting next to the fire. The faces were hot, but the backs shaked since we sat next to the wall to the outside where it were -20 degrees. We had to grill chicken and the food was tasty. Afterwards we sat in the cottage and played cards and took naps.
In the early evening Ward and I were sent with a sledge down to the river for filling canisters with water for our cottage and the kitchen. At the northern horizon we could see bright clouds but we could not tell if it were clouds or northern lights. Half an hour later Jens and I went to the river again, because the view was better there than in the camp in the wood. And definitely: northern lights spread over the complete northern sky. It did not really reach us and was not as quick and intensive like in Sundsvall last December. But they were impressive northern lights. We all stand for a long time at the river and watched the sky.
At night we heated the sauna. And we did what is so famous for northern saunas: we ran out rolling in the snow and walked back into the sauna again. I can advise it to everybody. It is amazing. You do not really feel the cold. Only the feet begin to hurt after a two minutes. But knowing there is a hot sauna you can return to soon makes it easy to stand. Because a shower is missing there we had to shower with selfboiled water out of a water can.

Our accomodation reminded more of a cave than of a cottage. We had three rooms. One living room with the stove and two sleeping rooms. One bed was at a height of at least 2,20 meters, with space lower than half a meter to enter. That was my place. And it was so hot. I slept only in shorts without sleeping bag and I sweat the whole night. The people in the middle floor slept comfortable while people at the lowest beds had to close their sleeping bags to keep themselves warm. Maritha and Ralf were freezing the night in the living room. They even had to wake up every 90 minutes to put new wood on the fire.

Kiruna - Hotels

Saturday 8th December

We arrived half past ten in Kiruna. And it was already amazing when we left the train. Poudersnow everywhere. Stefan called us a taxi and as usual for him, it did not even take 20 seconds until the taxi arrived for picking us up. A few minutes later we arrived at our hotel-complex. Our accomodation was amazing. It was an appartment in a house. How the other appartments look like, I don't know, but ours was equivilant to a Nacksta flat. Big and everything you need. 3 bedrooms (3,2,2 person), a big kitchen, a big living room, 2 bathrooms, and a storage room.

The first we did was cooking lunch: Christian's pasta was tasty as always and just a start to several eating-session as tasty as unhealthy. Eating statistics by now: 2 kg pasta, several eggs and some bacon. Afterwards we booked taxis to the Icehotel. It was not really finished yet, but you could well imagine how it will look like. The finished rooms were already impressive. Back in our accomodation we cooked again. In shifts. Everybody did not have slept a lot during the train. I myself just an hour. We were lying in shifts on the sofas, taking a nap. And everytime somebody stood up another one took his place falling to sleep immidiately.



The dinner consisted of 5 kg potatoes. Potatoe salad and Spanish omlett, 1 kg bacon and 1 kg mayonaisse. So tasty. After dinner Christian, Jens and I made a walk having a lot of fun while diving through deep pouder snow. The evening we spend with playing cards and went to bed early. The next morning we were supposed to be picked up to the dogsledges at 9 and we had to catch up some sleep from the train.

Starting to Kiruna

The last weekend Ralf, Steve, Marta, Ward, Martiha, Christian, Jens, Stefan, Anne and I made our trip to Kiruna. Because there is so much to tell, I will make several blog entries about it.

Friday 7th December

Friday was a little bit stressy. I had still to read the master thesis for the master-defense I would participate in. I read the whole morning without really knowing what expectations I would have to fulfill. But I thought, my part would not be that important. The more I've been surprised when Aron opened the master defense very formal ending with the words "... the oponent will be Markus Stahl". Oj, that sounded very official. Until that I thought, Aron and I would act as equal testers, now I feard to be in a competition with the two students who defend their thesis against me. But it was not as difficult, as I had expected. I followed the presentations, got some clues and some new questions and asked them afterwards. As usual I did not get any feedback, so I have no idea, if it was ok or not.

Afterwards I headed back to Nacksta and packed my stuff. The weatherforcast announced -1 degrees in Kiruna for the weekend. That should not be that cold, I thought and left my ski trousers and ski socks at home. But as I write since one year: never trust the Swedish weatherforecast.

In the evening our train left rainy Sundsvall heading first to Östersund until it turned after Ånge to north crossing Umeå and Luleå. 13 hours train ride is not only fun. After a while you get tired and when everybody sleeps and even your eyes close automatically without giving your mind free for a relaxed sleep passing strangers are the only entertainment you have. And our strangers were very scary. We called it the freak-show. One most impressive freak was a guy at least 2 meters tall sitting next to us. He made disgusting noises while sleeping and read newspaper and mobilephone with a distance of less than 10 centimeters between script and eyes. The second was a drunken Swede searching the whole night for seat number 64.

Before midnight we were told that our train is broken and we would have to change the train in Luleå... that would be 7 hours later. So we drove further with a broken train for 7 hours. And still after changing we arrived in time in Kiruna. I have no clue, what was that broken, that we had to change the train, but still arrived in time.

Remember, remember the fifth of December

The week was not so successful for studies. My diploma thesis stucks in bureaucracy. Now my home university claims that I would not have done my semester abroad yet. Funny guys. It's not the first time they forget me. And I really do not get it. All they have to do is to check their computer system or a folder. Or phone the coordinator for semester abroads. He knows me. This whole stuff is so annoying. German service. That's one of those things why I do not want to go back. I think, a German civil servant is a person you can easiest replace with a machine.

Yesterday was the 5th of December. That's one day before St.Nikolaus in Germany. But it is exactly the day for the Dutch equivalent called Sinterklaas. The Dutch version equals the German "Wichteln" or Secret Santa. But it has some specialities. The present must be packed in a "surprise". I thought, a present itself would be a surprise. Tuesday night I learned that it is a selfmade package for the present. And to the present belongs a poem. So my schedule for Wednesday morning was quite full, although I did not create the surprise by myself (thanks here to Madelon and Maritha). In the morning I went to town buying new winterboots. I quickly found some. At university I thought until lunchtime about the poem. Afterwards I prepared a master-defense for Friday. Straight from university I went on to Norrmalms where Sinterklaas was celebrated. And it was so funny. The presents were funny and the surprises awesome.
Afterwards we went to Kåren. To our own party. The first pure exchange-party at Kårhuset. Although we had announced it a lot no Swedish showed up. But that did not matter. Almost everybody from the exchangers has been there. For me one of the best partys ever. Jens did a really great job on his first evening as DJ. The music was good. Most rock, but also a lot of requests from different genres. And everbody was singing and dancing! I am looking forward to the pictures: Stefan, Ward.
We arrived home at 3am. It became really slippery outside. It is warm, and water runs down the Nacksta hill everywhere and washed the compressed snow to a slippery track. On my way home I fell down. Between 3 an 4am Jens, Christian and I ate pasta at Christian's flat. At 4am I was finally in my bed. Long planned I took today free in order to recover from the party. And I did not much more. Sliding to ICA and back. And cooking with the three in the afternoon.
Tomorrow will be the big day. In the afternoon will be the master-defense I have to attack. But the highlight comes in the evening: at half past nine our train to Kiruna will start. 13 hours later we will arrive there and we will come back on Wednesday morning. We can hardly wait for it.

Ankle parade

What a weekend. Friday I watched "The Ring" with Christian and Maritha. And for getting down after the movie we watched Scream3. Saturday was a soccer-tournament in the Nacksta sportshall. When we entered the hall and watched the other teams we realzied immediately "Damn, they know how to play". So we started straight away we tactical plans. "Ok, first, with which foot do you shoot" - "Right" - "I as well right" - "Right, too" - "Don't know, I never kicked a ball before"... We were definitely the team with the most fun. We laughed so much. More and more werid tactics arised. From playing in a circle, so everybody can shot with the right foot, to Eileen's scare-tactic which should not explained in detail here. After three matches we were out, but we won at least the second. During the second game in injured somehow my ankle. I have no idea when and how, but I skipped for that reason the last match. The girls helped out in other teams as well, because other teams did not have enough members. And of course: in the last game Maritha injured her ankle badly. *Knack* - *ouch* - hospital. The procedure in the hospital was surprisingly easy. I always had heard how bad the Swedish health-care system works and how unqualified the medical personal is educated. But everything went well. After two hours the ankle has been checked and x-rayed. If it was sufficient, we will see, but at least it went faster than expected and without big discussions. My own ankle got worse during the evening. At the Feuerzangenbowle in the evening Christian and I figured out that we both had the same problem with our ankles. How ironic. We both brought Maritha with Ole to the hospital. 3 injured ankles, but we only checked hers and tried not show that we have pain as well. But at least ours are (almost) right on Monday again. And I forgot my winter boots in the dressing room. Now they are lost. 4 days before Kiruna. Maritha is walking on Anna's crutches now. With spikes, what is absolutely necessary. Because two nights after the amazing pouder-snow it began to rain and stayed constantly above 0 degrees. All the snow became to water-mudd. High enough to keep the water, but not hard enough to carry your foot, so you have wet feet after one step. It is quite slippery. Winter boors would be handy.

At the Feuerzangenbowle evening we watched the same-called German movie, drank a few cups of the taste wine and played Singstar afterwards. I think the last hour I must have slept. Otherwise I cannot explain, why I cannot recall some of the pictures.