Markus i Sverige

This year of erasmus leads to its end. In Östersund as well as in Sundsvall. Some already have left Sundsvall, a lot will follow during this week and until in two weeks, I will be almost the only one who looks everyday at a white tower out of his window. Östersund faces the same. Only a few of the first semester had remained at all. Phil, Ulrich and I arrived at Saturday around 1pm and walked to the town for sightseeing. I showed them the loppis I visited with Nicola at my first day in Östersund and bought an ice at Hemköp. And we accidentally met already Julia, Seppel and Malgosia in town. At the camping area where the students live we spend the whole day in front of Conny's house on a bench. In the afternoon we visited the barbecue of the local international committee and joined afterwards Malgosia's birthday party . But I could not stay long outside. It was warm enough, the atmosphere was bright, funny... and full of mosquitoes. In August I brought some spray against them ...

A week has passed since the last post appeared. Since last friday a week of skiing has passed. A week of joy, a week of celebtrating and the last days with a few of my closest friends. But first of all, it were holidays. Friday, 2007-01-19 In the evening we had Basti's Good Bye Dinner with the EILC people. Dennis cooked very tasty fish. As always, very deligious. Later in the evening Marlena arrived. She is Ulrich's fellow-student and just arrived at Sundsvall. As far as I know she was the first of the new students. The remaining night Basti and I worked on our assignments for Decision analysis. We were not able to complete it, but we hoped for receiving a "passed" for our already done work. Saturday, 2007-01-20 This was the first very cold day at Sundsvall since my arrival. Philipp phoned me, telling me, I should take very warm clothes, because it were -15°C. During the ski-week it were every morning that cold. So, early in the morning Basti and I started our last c...

Saturday morning the last EILCs from Sundsvall, Phil, Dennis and I, started our trip to Östersund. At the centralstation of Sundsvall we met the remaining Härnösand fraction Klara, Jana and Katarina. All others already went to Östersund on friday or even thursday. The train takes 2.5 hours to Östersund. At the centralstation in Östersund the czech girls went into the city while Phil, Dennis and I went by bus to the camping zone, where our remaining friends live. First we visited Malgosia, before the coffee part y at Conny's cottage started. We had a lot of cake, tea and coffee and for some of the participants it was the first time I saw them again since the accomodation desaster in the beginning of september. It was very nice to start the revival. After the coffee I slept a while. Because of the movie night on friday in Sundsvall I still had a lack of sleep. Thanks to Nico, I found again a fine accomodation in Östersund. And the evening became an event, too. It was an EILC-party...

Yesterday, Basti and I had just swedish lesson at 10:15. But we both slept until 9:55. Don't ask me how this could happen. We switched our alarmclocks off at 9:00 and forgot about it. No, we don't sleep in the same bed or room. But it was possible to reach the lesson at 10:20. At swedish we watched the movie "Kopps". It is almost with the same actor group like in "Jalla, Jalla!" which we had watched during the EILC. But "Kopps" is absurd. The crew must have had a lot of crazy ideas, appending them to a movie. Some were funny, but most the time it was absurd. Well, it was our fault. We wished this movie, because we heard from it. After the lessen we made an exkursion to Subway. Everytime when I am at Subway I try to order in swedish. Everything is alright until I reach the guy with the sauces and the guy at the cash desk. They always recognize me as "not-swedish" and talk english with me. Because of this, I asked Ella for practicing Subwa...

Today, a woke up early. Far to early, feeling the party from last night in my head. I walked into the city to get a ticket to Östersund, because the stupid organisation for my accomodation was a total mess, because i can only enter my flat at monday. Totaly stupid. But our friends from Östersund have each one own stuga at the campingzone, each stuga with 4 beds, so four of the Sundsvall-people agreed to the invitation to Östersund. The 300km cost 189 SEK. One night at a youth-hostel are 200 SEK. The trip back to Sundsvall will cost 114 SEK. So, i will have some fine days with my friends here until i have to stay in Sundsvall. But if you ever have to travel from Härnösand to Sundsvall by bus, be aware that there are two busses, traveling the same way, to the same time. The one is just 10 SEK more expensive, because for buisiness-people. I was sitting at the buisiness-bus having paid for the other. I promised to take the other one next time, and everything went right. The trip by train w...

This was the hardest day of the whole course. I would have liked to eat one year surströmming instead of seeing the course ending. But the day started with an "Top of the pops" på svenska, where we voted for our most beloved swedish songs. But first Hans song "Weine nicht kleine Eva" from the german "Flippers", because we told him a week before "Sommaren är kort" would sound like a Flippers-Song. For lunch we got some real good swedish food, far better than surströmming. And after the lunch, the highlight of the program started: our suprise for Ella, Hans and Björn. First the song "Zehn nackte Friseusen" was teached and song in EILC-style, followed by a funny sock-thearter. Second, an usual day at the course was adapted. Third, Seb covered Chuck Berry's "Dingeling" gratly to "Learning"! After that, Martin and Nicola had a grate sketch with teaching Ella, Hans and Björn the Muppet song "Mana-Mana". The ...

Almost the half has left the hostel over weekend for making a special trip. Most of them went out for camping in the nature. I stayed here in Härnösand. Today Nicola, Phil and i decided to walk an the top of the near hill to have a view over Härnösand and enviroment. At was a quite nice walk and we stayed the whole afternoon out of the hostel. From the top of the hill you have an amazing view over Härnösand. To north you can see small kind of fjords. To the west just endless woods without signs of civilization. To the south you see the highway to Sundsvall and some fields. And finally to the east: there is the baltic sea. It is so beautiful that we stayed over an hour at the viewpoint. But before we went back, we visited a near felsenmeer (funny, the english word seemes to be the same in german). You can look for our trip at Phil's homepage . When we arrived back at our hostel, we heard our new neighbors celebrating at the cellar. It seems that the U-18 soccer team of sverige was ...

This was the day i was waiting for all the EILC. Today we went canoeing. I love it . When ever we had time for paddling (before and after lunch) i stayed on the water. All together i canoed 4 times out on the sea. Well, actually it was the sea, but no open sea. It was the part of sea between island and mainland (perhaps 300 meter from coast to coast). If i can believe GoogleEarth, it were ~4km i canoed this day. But i really enjoyed it and would like to have paddled even more. Even no canoe capsized... except Kai & Elia, but they forced it to keel over. We even had luck concerning the weather. It did not rain and except from the wind it was even warm (with enough action on the water). The place were we stayed is called "Nickebo" and is a 4 km walk away from Härnösand. I hope i will have additional opportunities for canoeing before the winter comes.

Wow. I did it! I survived surströmming! At least it tastes better than it smells, but that's not difficult. I don't need that taste again in my life. Bäh.... But from the beginning: they day started with practicing for the surströmming-party. My group trained a pantomimic performance. Every group had to present their results from their surströmming-investigation. The first group presented a Talk-Show, the second was my own group, the third had a very funny surströming-commercial performance, the fourth has covered the beautiful song " Vem vet " (engl.: Who knows) to " Vem äter " (engl.: Who eats) and the last made a TV-Show. It was a great fun. After the introduction we were seperated into groups again to prepare the party. I decided to help the entertainmentgroup. We exercised a song, almost one hour. After that, Nicola and i decided to make a few scetches as serving couple. Because of this we went back to the hostel to change our dress, but when we returne...

Yesterday evening we had a great party! Nicola has her birthday today and we also celebrated Phil's and Denis' birthday from last week. There is a funny story for Seppel's guitar d-string: The d-string broke yesterday morning. And Härnösand does not have a music shop! But we would have needed a guitar for atmosphere in the evening! He asked a lot of people, but nobody could help. Just the last. He had no d-string, but is gave him his guitar! At 5 o'clock in the afternoon the guz brought his noble western guitar even to our hostel. All he wanted as assurance was Seppel's email-adress and his mobile phone number. Amazing! He will take his guitar back in a few days, nobody knows when. Sweden is great. At half past 11 we started for the disco in Härnösand. We needed a lot of time to reach the disco, because we saw our first northern lights! They look light clouds, but the move! I could not see when they move, but they do, because the sky looks different every few second...

This is it. The weekend. THE weekend! This evening the big birthday celebration for Phil, Dennis and Nicola will happen. Nodody thinks, that we will stand up sunday earlier than 12 o'clock. I certanly not. I stayed up only till half past 1 last night and i slept already till almost 12 o'clock this today. Also i slept that long, i walked to the city with Karo, Julia, Katerina and Sebastian who wants to be called Seppel. Our homework for this weekend is in investigation about the inhabitants and "surströmming". If you don't know surströmming , you have to learn to be sure you won't try to eat it one day! I have not tried it, but all i know i guess it is very disgusting. The fish is headless (but with all his organs!) and and brews in a tin for several months. You need to open under water for two circumstances: First it smells like hell and second the tin is under month of brewing under pressure! Hans told us NOT to buy a tin by ourselves. The last year EILC-grou...

Now, the days are getting routine. Stand up, breakfast, go to school, go home, lunch, go to school, go home, go buying somethin, make homework, sleep... This day was special, because it is the entran ce to weekend!!! After school we drove to the beach at the other side of the island by car. It was beautiful. The water was not that cold and the weather was great all the time! Look at the picture, would you believe me, the this is the swedish baltic sea?! At the picture you can see Malgorzata and Julia swimming and Joana walking at the beach. I was swimming two times. It was great! You can walk perhaps more than 100 meter before you lose floor beneath your feet. We also palyed Kubb, a famous swedish outdoor game and some frisby. The stayed at the beach till 7 o'clock.

Yesterday we could imagine why this is could an "intensive" language course. Our homework took up to three hours and we very working on it until past 10 o'clock in the evening. Some even past midnight. Today nothing happend, we had just our lessons. Just Hans interrupted the lessons for making photos of each from us, but he didn't mention why. Tomorrow afternoon we will go to the cinema looking a swedish movie - with swedish subtitles. Because of the soccer-match Germany against Sweden we will already meet at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. But now, i will look for my homework...

Today, our lesson started with a conference of a degree. Our group from "Boda Borg" got a diploma for winning the competition! It's the first diploma of my life! Yes!!! After this short interruption we started a journey to the city. Karin told us a lot about Härnösand, but most of us were too tired to follow. Did you expect that Härnösand is the capital of this county " Västernorrland "? I ever thought Sundsvall would be, because it is much bigger than Härnösand . We also visit the dome from Härnösand. Although it is very beautiful it just have the size of an ordinary church in Germany. Our following lessons was till "klockan fyra på dag" (4 o'clock at the day). And we have a lot of homework! Because of this i won't see much of sweden today. Funny aspect: today all the swedes seemed to have ended their holidays, because suddenly the city was no longer a "ghostcity" as Elia mentioned. Perhaps they just run out of food in their tourist...

This was used to be our free day. Somehow the sunday passed by quicker than the days before. After the party at night i left already at 11 o'clock i walked to the universitiy for internet. But when i arrived, the internet was down. I have waited for 2 hours, but it didn't come back. So i had to walk 15 minutes back to the hostel without having done anything usefull. When i arrived i heard the internet was up again. Arg, why didn' stay in bed before?! After my second visit at the u niversity (internet was realy online), it was afternoon and Jana, Klara, Katerina, Denis and i decided to walk to the east coast of the island to see the open sea. On our way we met Phil who joined our trip. We walked about an our until we arrived at a small village "Gånsvik" at the east coast. We climbed on several rocks. The landscape was great. After four hours at all we were back at the hostel. Nothing more happend and i was realy tired from walking so went to bed early again.

This day was very wired. We knew we would drive to a place called "Boda Borg" (speak: "buda borje"). Hans welcomed us with the words "Now, we are taking you to the right place for you: a mental hospital!". Boda Borg was once a mental hospital, but was closed years ago. A few years ago unemployed people invented an adventure track. It is very crazy! The three l evels: Green, Red and Black. Green for thinking, red for thinking and sports and black for a lot of sports. Every track has several rooms. If you enter a room, you have to find out what the inventors want you to do. You you find out, the green light above the door to the next room lightens. If you fail, a red light lightens and you have to exit and begin again. If you fail in the second, third or what-ever room you always have to begin at the first one. This is very hard! First we started the track called "Cave". There was a gollum from "Lord of the rings" painted at the wall, se...

Again i slept very well ("wie ein Stein" as to say in german). Perhaps it's the sea that makes me sleep that well. In our lessons, we have learnd vegetables & fruits and the use of a strong e-learning program for swedish. The program was totally designed for the EILC. We also learned, that swedish has some traps like there are lots of in german. If you say "an apple" in englisch you say "ett applet" in swedish, but "en appelsine". We have to learn by hard when to use "ett" or "en". I don't know yet what to do with the rest of the day. Perhaps shortly swimming in the sea. Eventually i will go to the "city"-centre, too. Tomorrow, we will go for some kind of adventure castle. I am very excited about it. Hans told us that are we going to climb and crouch... we will see.

At the end of my first day of the EILC 2006, i have found a place where WLAN works. After my long travel to Härnösand the day before i slept very well till 7:30. The course began at 9:00. Hans who's one of the teachers told us, that we don't write a word swedish during the first two days. So we learn like a child just by imitating the teachers Ella and Hans. Björn assists Ella translating her exercises. Hans has the philosphy that everybody connects a language to a person he knows, so if we would talk english to Ella it would be hard to switch to swedish. First we learned "Här kommar Pippi Longstrump" (or something like that, as i said, we have not written a single word). At the end of the day i can count to thousand and make my opposite believe i cannot speak swedish i n several ways: "Jag tallar inte svenska" (i don't speak swedish), "Iag verstor inte" (i don't understand)... At the evening i spend some time with friends at the "beac...