Markus i Sverige

After the amazing weekend I slowed down at the beginning of the week. Today I did nothing more than reading in the living room and repairing Solenes computer. And I collected some pictures from Philipp and Sebastian and updated the blog entries of the past days with a few of them. I also added some to the Medelpaddeln-with-Gema and NorraBerget-gallery of last week. Still amazed by the last weekend I face the next revival tomorrow. Short before midnight is Basti going to arrive at the train station in Sundsvall! He will travel further to Östersund on Thursday, but we will meet again there at Saturday for Malgosia's birthday. This month was definitely the best of this semester. It started with a few Up-and-Downs followed by a lot of beautiful activities and experiences. No month of my blog has more entries than May. A bit statistics: this is the 131st post since the 10th of august 2006. Nice that there are after 10 month still new experiences to be made. I am wondering how the 3rd s

At saturday we stood up at 10 and went to the university for booking the train tickets for Gema which she needed on sunday. We wanted to go to university anyway because there happened this years Medelpaddeln. The task at Medelpaddeln is for two team to canoe approximatly 100 meters upstream to the lower bridge, climb a latter, handshake with a person on the bridge and get back as first team to the starting point. It was great fun. A lot of canoes keeled over. Ulrich's team even won the first competition. I took so many pictures that I had to make two galleries in Picasa. One only about the race and one about race and audience. Click on the pictures below. After the race Gema and I went home while Philipp worked further at the university. As well as Gema I took a nap for being prepared for the evening. First we had a preparty at Ulrich's flat and went to the student house afterwards. It was even full. A pitty we missed the cover band in the first floor. Somehow in the upper flo

The waiting on Thursday had an end at 6pm. A familiar voice shouting "Markuuus" and "Philiiip" outside instead of ringing the door bell indicated that our little Gema had arrived. We spend the whole evening with talking and being happy she made this incredible trip to Sundsvall. I stood up today at half past 9. I woke up Gema when I tried to close the door to the living room, because I wanted to make tea in the kitchen. We spent half of the day talking about old an new times in the kitchen. I learned for example that the spanish "j" is not spoken as in English, German or Swedish. Good to know after ten month. It gives totally new aspects to the MSN-conversations we had. Later we studied for a while. I wrote my last critic about one of the articles. And in the evening Gema, Ata, Solene and I went for a walk to the lake upstream the river. It was beautiful weather and Gema has never been at the lake during her erasmus time before, so it was even nicer for he

I stayed at home on wednesday. It was my tactic to respond to the weather I mentioned before. At home I could read and see the sun at the same time. I read a part of the second article which I have to criticize. According to the feedback from Love who is the professor of this course I shall focus more on the content. The last time I criticized mainly the structure. In the evening I went out with Solene and Sebastian, again. After we walked to the lower lake on Monday and Tuesday we headed this time to Norra Berget. We climbed up the rocks, made a small fire and enjoyed the view. Afterwards we went to the museum and Solene and Sebastian played at the play yard. Our walk took again 5 hours and it was fun as always. Today I began to clean the flat. Our vacuum cleaner needed a new bag for the dust, so I went to StuBo, because I hoped they would offer the bags of their vacuum cleaners. But it turned out, that the vacuum cleaner belong to a different organization which also provides the furn

Weather in Sundsvall is very strange. Since 2am you have a bright blue sky. At 5am you wake up because the sun shines directly on your bed you you feel far to warm. During the day it is sunny so you can lie next to the river and enjoy it during your lunch break. After lunch more and more clouds appear and when you finish work at university in the afternoon the clouds are heavy, dark and deep und you have to fear rain. And it is colder than the cosy 20 degrees during the day. Plans like barbecues or picnics become less attractive although you were looking forward to it all the day long. During the early night hours the clouds disappear and around midnight to 2am you have a blue sky again and everything starts from the beginning. On Monday I've been to university to fix some bureaucracy stuff. Since the printer did not work it took a while. In the evening I had a walk with Solene and Sebastian to the small lake (I know, it is not that small, but now everybody knows what I mean). We s

On saturday I read a little bit about knowledge acquisition and in the evening I went to cinema with Philipp and Pet(t)er watching Spiderman3. For my taste, an acceptable movie, but I like part 1 and especially part 2 more, for their dramatic background story appear less constructed. At the third part you have too much of everything. To many evil guys, to much patriotism and to much "oh-lets-forgive-each-other-for-we-are-friends". Today I read further in my literature about knowledge acquisition and worked on my article, because today is the deadline. I wrote the conclusion and thought it is a nice piece of work although it is artificial and not really useful. Then I decided to implement the knowledge acquisition which I had underestimated. I only introduced decision trees and it resulted in a mess of formulas. I wonder, if the others will understand that. The next task is to write critics in 5 days about the articles for the other students. I checked that on the course page.

Friday morning I went to Kulturmagasinet by bicycle, because I had a role in Sorana's movie. My designation was "Fan #2" and I had to get a signature in my favorite book from my favorite author while he was presenting them in the library. But first, I had to stand in a queue. But in contrast to Mathieu's movie two weeks ago, I had to look excited. It was interesting to see how the film crew worked. Their effort seemed to be pretty efficient and professional. I do not know how many times the shot Fan #1 (Raya) and Fan #2 from how many angles. Even if they will have determined which compilation of shots they will use in the end, I can hardly imagine they will keep the whole storyline of waiting queue, Fan #1 and Fan #2. At the movie I witnessed last year they just took three shots always from the same angle. And the shots this year were much shorter. I am looking forward to see it. Could be a lively movie (although it is a thriller). Another difference to the movies of

I am becoming better. Yesterday I felt like in slow-motion. I made a walk to the town with Julia and in deed some fresh air made me feel better. And what do you do, if you are at home? Schoolwork? Homework? No. Somehow, the time vanishes and all you have done is cooking. And because cooking just enough for yourself is never easy you cook more for freezing it. You can do it like Philipp who usually cooks a huge pot at once with the result, that you have to eat every second day the same. I did it the same, but last time one meal was not that tasty. And I had to eat it every second day. Now, I cook for two. One for me and one for the future. The disadvantage is, that I have to cook more often, but since I am more at home now, it is not that difficult (I just have to do it...). The advantage is that I now have four different meals in the freezer. One of them is still the ugly one. Perhaps I should have eaten it while my sense of taste was knocked out. A pitty straight thinking was knocked

Second day that I staid at home. My headache is gone, but my throat hurts. Something seems to travel around. Everybody is infected with something. I converted my article to OpenOffice for I have no MS Word at home. I am not very sad about that. The result in Word looks better, but OO is better to control. At least those parts I know. Nothing more happened today. Ah yes, I had some thoughts about my diploma thesis. Diploma thesis? Ah, yes right. I am still student in Aachen who should write a diploma thesis one day. Some much has changed for I am so busy with the opportunities here that I almost forget why I came here once. Ever wanted to see a flying dutchman? Here you go. I guess if I will stay my third day at home, I will find an idea to make something funny out of him. Suggestions are welcomed!

I slept long today. When I woke up, Sundsvall looked like my head feels: foggy. I think, I could not see the tower at the Norra berget once this day. Heavy clouds are hanging deep and I can just watch until ICA. Everything is wet and it rains from time to time. This is how I know Sweden from holidays. But I felt a little bit better today, but not well enough. I just blogged my entry about Stockholm (which took me somehow 2 hours?!) and went to ICA to buy some stuff. Worst of all: Philipp is sick now. He has the same as I have. He came home earlier cycling through heavy rain, just came in, took a tea and went to bed for several hours. In the meanwhile I prepared a Picasa-album with my pictures from Stockholm. Stockholmt rip with Philipp For I am convinced you would have seen a dozen of better pictures of Stockholm than those which I could have made, I made less pictures of the town itself. You should look forward to Philipps gallery, but its release could be delayed by his disease for a

Friday was a wasted day. I felt sick and was not able to follow my article. Not a good sign for the weekend I was waiting for since more than 2 month. Saturday we started to Stockholm. Because our train would be back just at midnight of Sunday, we went to the train station by bicycle at half past 7 in the morning and chained them on a fence. Arrived at Stockholm we brought our luggage to the ship we were going to sleep at night and went back to town to the Aquamarine-museum. It consists of several aquariums and was quite nice to explore. Afterwards we went back to town, because I needed some rest. Philipp took the opportunity to make in these two hours amazing pictures from above the town. Check his gallery later! In the early evening we went to Gamla Stan drinking a tea/coffee and eating a pizza. The pizzeria at the Nobel Museum is recommendable! The pizza is twice expensive as at the pizzeria in Sundsvall, but it tastes much better having the same (huge) size and you receive free br

We had our last meeting with Ella on Wednesday. Since I will come back to Sweden in August our good-bye was not as final as for the others. This last happening was served with cake and coffee. Afterwards we watched two movies: "Livet är en schlager" and "Mupparna i rymden". Because of this long cinema session I was not able to work sufficient at my report. But I got my bicycle repaired! The tools of the man who did it were quite unconventional but sufficient. With a hammer and a chisel he fixed the pedals. Afterwards he fixed the second wheel, oiled the chain, shook my hand and said "Thank you". I: "Pengar?" - "No money!" - "Tack ska du ha!". I love Sweden. And now I am free! Next week we will go to Alnö by bicycle! In the evening Anna and I cycled to Karhuset for our weekly workout. But because my mind is a mess at the moment (which seems to last since 24 years...) I mixed up the time and we were too late, so Svea had already

At the moment everybody has trouble to sleep. We are tired the whole day and during the night we cannot sleep for long. The brightness is likely the reason. But there exist these days where everything happens just perfect. Not really perfect. But very good with a touch of life's chaos. And such a day was today. After yesterday was a usual always-tired Monday I went to bed still at half past 1am after having phoned with Basti the first time again since weeks. And I still stood up at 8. I had forgotten to defrost my lunch the evening before, so I had to take a small peace of pizza instead. But my article went very fine. I wrote more than one page. That's a lot! And I discovered a pattern for my article how I can achieve the amount of 20 pages, present something we have not learned and understand and am interested what I am writing. After I will have finished general explanation I will focus on knowledge acquisition. Very interesting. Yesterday we discovered an advertising at the

Salsa party was good. Since a long time, Philipp and I made an own trip during a night again. Therefore, since a long time again: a gallery on his site ! The band "Calle Real" was great and we enjoyed the music until the official end of 2am. Philipp and I skipped the afterparty, because we were already tired, although the afterparty promised to become special for Calle Real joined it. However, we made our way home. The sky becomes bright now at already 2am and we did not feel like late at night. More than short before coming out of bed. I also have problems to determine the time according to light brightness. I cannot distinguish 4pm and 7pm. It is all the time bright. In one month we are even supposed to have no darkness at all. I am looking forward to it - although it confuses the biological clock.

Week past by more quickly than I wished. No wonder. It were only three days. On Wednesday I went out around 8pm searching for the beaver. And indeed, as I had assumed it swam downstream at this time coming from the lake. I waited at the bridge again and took a lot of pictures, but not even one was acceptable. The light has been already to dark. But I made a movie of it and it is quite good visible on it. Perhaps I can make a crappy screenshot from the movie. But because, I reinstalled my computer I struggle with some difficulties. Windows does not recognize the network interfaces and Linux has first to be taught to play quicktime-movies. I lost a lot of nerves at this machine this week. But I think, now it is working. My work at university does not progress as fast I want it to. The book I am reading does not go as deep as I would like to know expert systems, but on the other hand it gives a good survey. But it leaves me with a few questions which I cover in my article with brave assum

Since one or two weeks have we discovered some strange things at the river. Loud splash-sounds at the water when we go late along the river, strange cutted trees, branches without bark, even next to the university, and something big diving at night close beneath the water surface. Of course, that sounds like a beaver, but for receiving an evidence for the connection between these discoveries, I started last night an expedition to the river during sunset. I walked upstream and discovered several trees which were cutted. But they were so many (around a dozen in 50 meters) that I thought, that the trees would probably be the work of some humans collecting wood for the may-fires last monday. But I was wrong. A few minutes later a big animal left next to me the bank and swam parallel to me upstream. It was to dark, so I could not figure out if this animal has a box-like head or not. But it was at least half a meter what I could see on the surface and it switched to the opposite bank still s

I woke up with a neck as made out of concrete. It hurts and I do not know how do get rid of it. My computer has a problem, too. All my mail-profiles gone, programs do not start anymore, firefox lost all his personal data, folders unaccessable and neither a foreign process nor a virus found. I will have to reinstall the system. After 2 years it is more than necessary. Nevertheless, this is not enough for a "not my day award"-application. It could be worse. Let's see what wednesday will look like.

Nacksta is empty in these days. Most of the students have left to Uppsala where they celebrate a huge 3-days-student party. Although I like party, this is not what I want. Anyway, I tried this weekend my luck at Sundsvall. Last night I stayed at home, because I thought nobody would go to the salsa-party. Instead I watched a movie at 18a. Today was the 30th of April. At this day the swedish seem to say good bye to the winter. They have fires at several places of the town and fireworks everywhere. We went to Norra Berget for watching a fire. Afterwards I prepared for Kårhuset. Believing the advertising, I believed a full house as at the last party of december where people would have to beg for getting inside. It was not as full as last december, but there were far more people than usual. It was almost as last semester. The music was even great. Once they opend the old dance floor they played very good music, i.e. 80's remixes. We danced until the end which was already at 2am - as u