Markus i Sverige

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

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 rol

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

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

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

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 co

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

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 p

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 h

Wednesday was the coldest day so far. During the whole day we did not have more than -6 degrees. In the morning it were even -11. But it began to snow during last night when the temperatures became near 0. Now we have a nice pouder-snow everywhere. This night Stefan and I went by car to Sidsjön for sledging down the skislope. It was so fun. After days in office and room at home this was an awesome joke at night.

The week was not so interesting. On monday I've been a little bit sick and did not go to badminton. The preperations for our Kårhuset party went well until we heard that Kåren is unhappy about our topic. That was an accident. For attracting at least some Swedish for our party we announced our erasmus-party as a Black&White party which accidentely is also the topic of an incredible huge and famous Kårhuset-party in spring. Announcing a small Black&White-party in Kårhuset would violate the reputation of the big party in spring, so Kåren. I guess, all of you, who have been in Kåren in the last 10 months how big partys are. Esspecially those in spring. I remember "huge and famous" Apre Ski party, Reeperbahn party and Pyjama-party. But maybe this party is really huge. But however, it is too late anyway. We tried to fix the advertisments on Wednesday. So cool that some of the "old" students attend "in mind". In the evening was a goodbye-party for our

On 5th of December 2007 Kåren has been so kind to offer us a place to party in Kårhuset. The initial idea was to play our own music there. Jens will be the DJ, so we can be sure to have a good collection of songs beyong the usual club-stuff. Since the party is so late in the semester it turned out that this will also be a kind of Goodbye-Party for the exchange students. Of course, we can have fun among ourselves, but with more (Swedish) people its more fun, so we spread the news. To give the party some style we decided to anounce it as a black&white party. This has nothing to do with the famous (???) Black&White party from Kårhuset. We never heard about it before otherwise we would have skipped that topic for avoiding confusion. The single drawback: the party takes place on a Wednesday.

Thursday has everybody been busy. The whole day. Except of me. For not starring at the walls I spent the evening in the wood and starred at the sauna-walls afterwards. Friday was a quite successful workday. The evening happend a cool sit-in-party at our flat and it last until 4am. Saturday itself has been therefore very relaxing. Jens and I went two hours through the wood and around Sidsjön. In the evening has been the vodka-party. Cool thing. The common 4 of us went to Kårhuset at 11 for joining the 60-70's party. But due to the soccer-match between Spain and Sweden which Sweden lost heroical with 0:3 the Swedes had left the place after the match. We were almost the only people in the house. But that did not matter. We had the dance floor for our own and got not tired to use it. Definitely a cool evening. Sunday morning Christian made breakfast at our flat. So tasty and climax of a weekend which I felt like eating all the time. Preparing tomorrows lesson bridged the time between l

It is constantly cold here. Actually -5 degress at 8am. Sometimes it snows a little bit, but usually it is not worth to mention. Snow on the sidewalks is by now that compressed that you might be able to skate to university without a problem. Looking back at the past three days nothing specific has happened. From monday I remember badminton and sauna. Tuesday was a staying-home day. Yesterday I got my first feedback about my thesis. In 3 months. But it seems things are rolling now. The thesis is "method vodoo" but not a hopeless case. That's more than I have expected. Todays tasks: writing CV, writing applications , and writing thesis, of course. At the weekend there is a vodka-party announced at Norrmalms. We all shall share vodka. To "get wasted like one big family". Yeah, right... seems like I've been to long away from home. Yesterday the skiweek has also been booked. We are one week too late for getting the accomodation I prefered. Damnit. But at least w

Short week. Last salsa evenings. Finally. Although it was fun, I am looking forward to two free evenings in the week. What else... haircut and Glühwein on Friday, swimming on saturday and finishing the day with an ABBA party as classic as weird. Definitely an experience. I do not know what was in that Polish bowl, but my slight headache and the sickness of several guests tell their own story. Pictures by Marta and Maritha . Sunday was relaxed. Long sleep and a long walk through the wood. Over the night and during the morning we got real good snow.

Old sins always come back, they say. One of them caught me now. My own course. Today started the new quarter for me with a new course: decision analysis 1, a course that I visited myself last year. At least from time to time. I remember the laborations were pretty cool, because I worked with Basti. But the lessons I can hardly remember. I think, I remember slides I did not really understand, but the satisfaction always followed during the laborations when a given problem brought sense to theories. But now I have to hold those lessons by myself. Hardly content to tell. As far as I remember, the first 10 minutes in the last year courses (not only decision analysis) were necessary for getting a projector working with a laptop. Because I am annoyed by wasting time with computer problems, I am using the whiteboard since the first lecture. The students have to suffer from my handwriting, but at least they only get what's necessary - I think. So today started a power-course with 3 student

So that was it. Halloween. After a preparty at Norrmalms all started similar to last year with snow, a huge queue in front of Kårhuset and Swedes who are already unable to walk straight before entering the party. After we entered they closed the doors, because Kårhuset was already full. With 200 hundred people as I heard. 200? On bartömmning they have usually 500 to 600. Why closing when the queue is still so long? But it got even worse. Instead of having opened the big dancing room at the upper floor they had just three small dancing rooms: the usual dancefloor that was owned by awful electro beats, the smoker room almost playing the same crap and the billiard room playing the same crap sometimes mixed with garbled classics from Offspring and Green Day. Stefan and I left the disappointment 15 minutes before its official end for avoiding at least the final queue at the wardrobe. On the way back we met a funny Swed. He asked us for the Ibiz-hotel. We could not really help him further ev