My 25th

Yes, on the 11^th of September I had my 25^th birthday – a quarter of a century, oh my god! ;)

Due to different circumstances my family left on exactly that day and Maria, my girlfriend, arrived on the same day 5 hours later. Hence I have spent half of my birthday at the airport of Arlanda/Stockholm. But at the end, I have to confess, it was one of the best birthdays in my life! After getting my best birthday present (my girlfriend) we went to Stockholm by the car I had rented in Stockholm before to travel around with my family and to get to the airport.

Oh, by the way, it’s time for another “the universe hates me” – story: There was a horrible traffic jam. But that bothered me not as much as the fact that I have received a parking ticket on the airport (if you’ve read the last post you know how much it bothered me). There was a big blue “P” next to the terminal and beyond it “3 tim” (tim = hour). When I came back with a police officer, who was afraid I would kill him, he explained me the meaning of a word, that he showed me on a little sign next to the parking place and that I will never forget again in my entire life. “Beskickning” means “embassy”, hence only diplomats with special blue license plates were allowed to park there, but just for 3 hours (!). Funny! It hurt so much, because I have received another parking ticket the day before in Linköping! Oh yes! In Germany we are used to a Sign Post Forest, e.g. there are 10 signs that you’re not allowed to park here and there but in Sweden it is the other way round! If there aren’t 10 “P” signs (without “Beskickning”!) don’t park there! Oh I digress! Just realized how much I love complaining! :)

So after finally arriving in the city and fighting a little bit with the navigation system we decided to go to our hotel and get rid of the (useless and expensive) car. Well, maybe “hotel” is not the right word for our place to stay, but they call it like that. We had a double room on a boat called “Rygerfjord”. Well, “double room” is not the right word either. The cabin was as small as, er…a cabin on a boat! But we had a very nice view from our window and the location was just perfect! So after relaxing a little bit and getting some very special presents we made a walk through the city and have found a wonderful restaurant called “August” where we had a real good time. Too tired to go out we decided to end the evening on drinking champagne on the deck of our boat and enjoying the wonderful view on Stockholm in the night.

On the weekend we organized a little BBQ to celebrate my birthday and went to Flamman, “my” club here. :) At this evening I was very glad it’s so near to my place...

Pictures

• Stockholm
• Birthday

Trip to Stockholm

It’s been two weeks now since my family and my girlfriend were here and we have visited Stockholm. So it’s time to share some impressions. First of all: Stockholm is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve seen in my life and it’s definitely worth it to visit it. But it’s also – like Sweden – one of the most expensive cities. For our accommodation we have chosen Bed & Breakfast, e.g. we stayed at a private apartment during the landlord was on holidays as well. And I would very recommend it. The location was perfect. It was a very nice and clean apartment with everything in it you need. And if you are not only hardly focused on sightseeing but want to get know how people live here, this is really a great opportunity. And by the way it is much less expensive than a hotel! But let’s focus a little bit on sightseeing! :)

Stockholm has a wonderful old town (“Gamla Stan”) and has the highest density of museums in the world! One of them, the Vasa museum, is the most visited museum in Europe. So if you are here you should go there – very impressive. The Vasa is an old warship that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628 only after 15 minutes. The funny thing: they had known that the Vasa had some “balance problems”. But nobody dared to tell the king! 300 years later the ship was rescued from the ground and was completely restored. They said 95% of the ship, which is standing in the big museum now, is original! The Vasa even hadn’t made it to reach the sea (saltwater). And as fresh water is not that aggressive to the wood, it was in a very good condition. We listened to some English, Swedish, German and Russian guides there. Everybody was telling something different. Very amusing! So the Russian guide believed the ship was build in 3 years, the Swedish guide told us it were 2 years. The German guide told us it would be so dark in the museum because it’s necessary to create a safety atmosphere for the ship. And I was wondering since when wood is sensitive to some artificial light! Then the Swedish guide told me, it’s so dark in it just because the designers have decided to create a dramatic light ambiance there! Well, very amusing! Don’t ever trust guides!

Then we have made some boat trips, walked around it the old city and enjoyed the time in the “Venice of the North”. To make a long story short, it was a very nice trip. And it was real family vacation. Somehow the trip brought our family closer together again as we all don’t see each other so often anymore.

Can you show us how?

As written in my first post I really work hard on improving my English. So I thought visiting an English course here won't be a bad idea. Last week our teacher (a very amusing lady) asked us to write a short essay on the topic "crime and punishment", what in fact is interesting for me here because Sweden seems to have very strict rules and hard civil penalties! By the way, if you look at the comments of the last post, Sweden is supposed to have very high assault rates! And after looking at the police work, the regulations and the penalties here, I have a little theory: In Sweden they really try hard to prevent incidents or crimes. No matter what you do there is always a lot of security around you. When you go home from the club they almost convoy you to your place. And when there is some trouble or little silly fight (actually quite unusual here) the police is always around immediately. So maybe some people just collect criminal energy. There is no way to let of steam! And somedays these people just explode commiting some serious assaults not caring about any punishment! And the punishment is hard even for very absurd things! When you park your car at the wrong place - just like happened to me - you have to pay 700 SEK (75 Euro!), but that's another story...If you know me well, you also might know that I like to wander from the subject ;). And if you know me better, you might know that I haven't done my homework, e.g. not have written this essay about crime and punishment (only this time, i promise!). And as the English teacher wanted to analyze our language skills I didn't want to miss the chance to be analyzed, I just handed in my blog (the first post). "Very informal!", that was one of the comments on it. But this one I liked most: Instead of "bag" i wrote: "I discover that I have exactly one kilogram of excess baggage, so I open my back and put the first thing I see in my hand luggage." LOL! And she wrote: "Can you show us how?". I'll better not! And yes, I already have meticulously corrected all the mistakes in my first post! This time I've done my homework!

FAQ

Hello again! Today I would like to relate to my original motivation for starting that blog, namely not to answer the same questions five times. So here's a little FQA ;)

How are you?

I'm really fine! THX! Or as we're used to say here: "Tack!". After a somehow unlucky start I feel great and look forward to a good time here - I just hope my studies will be good, too!

Where is your baggage?

After exactly one week and endless disscussions and calls with the airport ground company and the airline in Germany (while it was easier and cheaper (!) to call the Hotline in Germany) I got my baggage back - delivered directly to my room. And that just 2 hours after I moved into my new home. Sure, I had to buy towels, underwear and so on (except the things that were left in my whashing bag :) and allready was preapered to buy new clothes but the good think was, that I have not carried my bag any single meter since my check-in in Munich. Nevertheless I will try to get some compensation... ;)

Where do you live?

The area is called Flamman - just like the very nice club here. But sometimes it's not nice at all that this club lies only 30 meters in front of my big window. And it's even less nice when some drunk bastards are still "overmotivated" after the party is over and sing - em bawl - in front of my window on the grond floor: some impressions to come soon...

How are the swedish girls?

Em, that's in fact a hot question... Generally they seem to fit the prejudices quite well: blond, blond and (sometimes faked) blond

How is Sweden?

Actually I didn't get around in Sweden that much (shame on me) because of the numerious events and ERASMUS parties here. But somewho it seemed more important to me to get to know some people and there are allready big road trips planed...

Why there are no pictures on your blog?

Well, some photos would definitely make this blog much more pretty. Unfortunatelly I dont't have a cam yet. But good news: Today I ordered a new mobilephone with a quite good camera. It took me quite long to choose one - I just love playing around with all the useless gimmicks :) Actually I wanted to buy just a simple cam, but have some bad experience with my digital cameras (but that's another story). Besides I needed WiFi so I prefered a phone...

How do you communicate with the people there?

All people I met here speak english - so that's not really a problem to get along here!

What are you doing all the time there?

No matter what you want to do, you almost always have to take a number and to queue! (sometimes you even must take a number to take a number!) - "Welcome to Queueland!" Hense I defenetly spend a lot of time in the queues here! Swedish people are crazy about queueing! My second hobby is paying! Yes! Sweden is very expensive! Sometimes we make some sports here, go the the sauna or have a good time in the clubs here. But in the moment I spend almost all my time to plan a big trip to Stockholm and Göteborg with my family who is arriving in Stockholm this week...

How is the University?

I would say quite well organized though there are are these never-ending queues. Of course! They just love them! A little difference to the german system but in my opinion one with a big impact on communication is the 15 minutes break between the two 45min-lectures. Generally the level of education is similar to Germany but I think that the tempo in classes is faster at TU Munich (elite university ;). A very strange thing here are the "gangs". Every faculty here has a special dress. It's an overall that they wear on partys and that is supposed never to be washed! On each event there are special buttons that you glue or stitsh on your overall. And there is even a special overall for the ERASMUS-Students! (Please wait for the cam ;)

To be continued...

Business as usuall

I just wanted to continue to describe my little adventures here during the first two weeks but I realized that it's too much for the moment and by the way, writing in english takes much more time than I expected...

So I will focus on things that are more up-to-date and more interesting for me now. And while I'am at it I'll try to complete some stories here and there.

For the moment I'm glad that there is something like "Business as usuall" going on after some difficulties in the beginning. The last thing that bothered me was the internet connection in my room. After subscribing for one of the two providers here it worked perfecty for one day. On the next day I had no connection. Then very stange things happened: my notebook was working in my neighbours' rooms, their PCs were working in my place but my computer was not working at my place!? Somehow the provider seem to recognize which PC is pluged-in. After endless talkes with the hotline and two visits by a helpless technician I finally have found myself back in the 21th century (the internet) by hacking around and using my neighbour's IP address (I hope he doesn't read this blog :)