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.

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Back to the places you will be from

The last day in Sweden went pretty well. After the morning I was finished with everything I had to fix. I brought back all my books to the library, picked up my copies of my diploma thesis, picked up the last stuff from my office, said good bye to Aron, changed my address at the Skatteverket, canceled my bank account and was back at Nacksta before 2pm. At 7pm I've been at Norrmalms and helped Marlies and Annemiek baking appelflappen . But I was rather useless than an effective support. Especially at half past 7 when my last Friends episode in Sweden started. The last for me. Since 8 I was sitting in the basement waiting for people. I do not know exactly when, but I think the first arrived at 9. And it was really nice. And I got the nicest present I could imagine. Well, I could not imagine it before! It is a memory game with pictures of all student from last semester. No picture is twice, so the game is about finding two different pictures of the same person. It even has a box title

Holidays

More and more students arrive at Nacksta. Now I know from 5 new students. There are likely more, but we do not know them, yet. Yesterday evening we made a short trip to the Irish Pub in Sundsvall for it was Ulrich last Wednesday in Sundsvall and for it was the first Wednesday for the new students. At the moment I have no daily routine. If am not out in this beautiful weather I try to work on my thesis. Somehow, I only find in the afternoon and in the evening the "flow". But tomorrow I will make a brake, because I go to holidays! Holidays? "What does HE wants with holidays?" you likely think. Well, it is a difference if you just have limited time and a bunch of amazing opportunities or if you just don't have to think about anything. Tomorrow, my train will leave at 12am from Sundsvall. On Sunday evening I will come back. In the meanwhile I will meet my family in Orsa and stay with them for 3 days. The picture is from my brother and his girlfriend yesterday eveni

Masked party and first time in Tornvillan

The last week was passing quickly. During the days I worked on my thesis. In the end it even made some fun. I am only rewriting it at the moment trying to get a link between all chapters and finish ideas that I had in early chapters but never mentioned later again. The evenings became a lot quieter than they have been only two weeks before. I already start thinking about what I pack into my luggage in a week and what I leave here. That is fun. However, imagine to leave this room in two days is sad somehow. During the week Peppo had the great idea for having a mask-party. Because our neighbours have small children we moved the party to the old party flat (former italian flat), since we never had any problems with the neighbours. Until now. Already after 11 the police aksed us to calm down, since the drunken old lady from 18b had complained about the noise. Strange. The party was really cool, but not as loud as the partys before, since nobody was singing. So, we moved already before midn

Markus i Sverige

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