Fun Facts

 

Oh and I just updated the "Fun Facts" ;)

An empty stage, books, weather, swedish and an old ship

 

Before I start, just a few things I forgot in the last post:

I will have my german phone turned off most of the time, so in case you want to contact me just write an Email, use Facebook, ask for my swedish number or write a letter ;) But, just to make sure, please tell me in case you want to send anything bigger than a letter, because I heard that sometimes they forget to put a note in the mailbox when a parcel could not be delivered and then it's lying in the next supermarket without anyone knowing… ;)

So, I start where I ended, as usual ;) On saturday night we went to the culture festival as mentioned. Well, it was fun, but not really my type of music ;) But it was really cool since there were different stages and you could just walk through the city, listen to the music, dance or do whatever you like, since it was all for free. So we were at a stage where a DJ just played that usual music you get in clubs. But I was wondering, WHY they needed a huge stage with all the light and everything, if the DJ is sitting in his little cabin NEXT TO that stage!? Well, I thought that was pretty wierd, but most people there seemed to like it ;)

On sunday then Aileen and I went to "the world's longest book stall", which really was pretty long (along one complete street). It was so cool, but I was lucky most books were in swedish and I always had to think that I'd have to carry all of them home, otherwise I would have bought so many books…^^ But I only got three – among them 2 original Astrid Lindgren books (in swedish, of course!), which actually were the reason I wanted to go there, so I was successful ;)

                         

After spending more than three hours looking at books we were pretty exhausted so both of us went home to change into some warm clothes and decided to talk about where to meet later on the phone. So when I got home I turned on my computer in order to find out where the outside movie (Lord of the Rings, you remember) would take place and how to get there – and after talking to Aileen I found out, that I'd have to leave 10 Minutes after that! So I changed quickly and left, went on my train and when I got into the subway I looked at the sky and was very glad, that there was barely a cloud to be seen – so the weather would be nice for the movie :) – Or so I thought… Once I got out of the subway again, I saw this:

So this, in case you cannot see on the picture, is rain – lots of rain! Yeah, that's what the weather here is like – it changes from one minute to the next and from one subway station to the next from the nicest sunshine into pouring rain.

Once I had found Aileen we decided, that that was not really the right weather for an outside movie, so we went to her place in order to watch a movie there. And once we got out of the subway again, we saw what you see on the following picture…

So, weather here seems to be like a box of candy – you never know what you get once you leave the subway xD

Today, tuesday, we then had our first swedish exam – it was a listening comprehension and we had to write down telephone numbers and dates and decide whether sentences about a text she read to us were right or wrong. It was not too hard and since it was only pass or fail I suppose I should have passed.

After class then there was a tour to the Vasa museum and Skansen. The Vasa was a ship that, in 1628 on her maiden voyage, sunk. It's a really cool museum and I wanted to go there since I had been there when I was about 4 or 5 or something like that and couldn't really remember it, only that I thought it was pretty awesome ;) And it still is! Such a huge ship! And all the Details they reconstructed and all those small things they found, like shoes or plates. Well, I think it was awesome! :)

So in the museum we had a little tour which took about half an hour. After that we went to watch the movie they showed there because the guide recommended that. It was really interesting! After the movie we looked for the guy from the student union who was with us in order to ask how much time we had until we'd leave for Skansen (that's some kind of outdoor exhibition with swedish animals aswell – I can tell more about it once I have been there). But we couldn't find him, so we thought we might have some more time to look around. Well, some time later then (I went with two other girls) we were wondering, how long we were supposed to be staying and then after Ela had found out the guy's phone number he told us, that they had left long ago and we didn't notice… Yay, what a great organization! So we asked whether we could just go to Skansen now, but he said we wouldn't get in anymore – great! But the good thing was, that this way we had more time at the Vasa museum and were able to look at all the cool stuff they had there, since we didn't even see half of it during the tour! In the end we spent more than three hours there! Considering that the others must have left after one hour we were happy that we had more time! And maybe we will be able to go to Skansen on friday, when there is another tour like the one today.

Yeah, so that was it for now, I still have to do some homework for swedish class! And on Saturday we will have our final exam – already! And next week then the regular classes will start.

My second first week in Stockholm

 

Well, and maybe a little bit about the first first week aswell ;)

So, my last real post was on the 8th of august – not so positive. But by now a lot has happened, so I’ll just start where I ended last time.

Last week on friday I looked at two rooms. Both of them were… well, not exactly what you’d call “nice”. But oh well, better than nothing I thought. But there was one more to come on Saturday so I didn’t want to decide before that (which turned out to be a good decision!). But friday was not over yet. There was supposed to be a Party at Lappis, which is one very big student dormitory with many big houses standing together. Since I had an appointment at one of the rooms around 8 I went there right away to meet some friends. When I arrived they had just bought some “beer” (well, maybe you could call it water with a little beer taste, that’s the only thing you get in a supermarket here, for real alcohol you need to go into a “systembolaget”, a special store) so we took it and joined some people some of us knew from the language courses who live at Lappis and were having a barbecue. Later then we went to the “party”, which was in a rather small party room on the area of the student dorms. At first there were not that many people but soon it was pretty crowded in there (and, of course, got really warm). Well, it was probably exactly what you think of when someone talks about an exchange students party. There were almost only exchange students, the music was really bad, the smell was awful and most people were drunk (drunk exchange students are something special…^^). But we had some fun anyways! We didn’t stay that long though, I for my part because I knew I had to pack up my stuff before leaving to look at the next room the next morning.

So on saturday I woke up on that couch I had gotten used to for the last time. I started packing (it’s always amazing how quickly you can make a mess out of that nicely packed backpack…) and felt a little helpless – what if I didn’t find a place to stay? But first I left all my stuff where it was and left for an island called “Lidingö”, on the other side of Stockholm. The woman on the phone sounded pretty nice – maybe this would be a little nicer than the rooms before? On my way there I went the wrong way twice, but finally I was sitting on the train called “Lidingöbana” – it only goes back and forth on the island. I loved this traing right away – it’s old and loud, but it has style! Here’s a picture of it:

When I arrived at the apartment the lady living there welcomed me very nicely and showed me the room – after the ones I had seen before I was prepared for almost anything – except that! It was really nice! With a biiiiiig bed, an old and awesome desk, a bookshelf, a beautiful lamp on the ceiling and even curtains! The rest of the apartment was also quite nice! So then we sat and talked for a little bit – and it was probably what you’d call a match ;) The best thing was yet to come – the room was free and I could move in any time! We got a long really well, talked for a little bit and I was just overwhelmed! That’s probably why I didn’t say yes right away but asked for a little time to think. On my way back I had to call my mum, told her everything and she encouraged me to just take it – I wouldn’t find anything better! The only small negative thing about it was, that it’s not really close, neither to KTH nor the city center (takes about 40 Minutes), but first of all that is not really that much compared to some others here and second the beautiful area and the cool train can compensate that ;) So I declined the other two rooms and wrote Anne, that I’d love to take the room! Since she was working that night and I had an activity organized by the student union I didn’t move in that same day but spent the night in a hostel and we agreed that I’d move in on sunday.

But the saturday was not over yet. The student union, which is an organization on campus, that stands up for student rights and organizes most of the student activities had organized a “Swedish dinner” for the exchange students. Since most of the other activities had been booked out by the time I had arrived and this was one of the few ones they had tickets left for I had decided to go there, and it sounded really good!  But before I could go there I had to find a hostel for the night. You’d think that would not be too difficult for one person for one night – yeah, that’s what I thought, too! Before I left I checked on the internet and found one hostel not too far from the campus (where the dinner would take place) which had still free beds. So I took all my stuff and wend there (of course, I got out the wrong side of the tunnelbana (metro/underground) and then had to walk up a hill for quite a long time… So I got there, sweaty and tired and my arms and back hurting from all my luggage and asked for a bed for the night. And the lady at the reception? She just said “Sorry, we’re full.” I was like “What????”. That moment I just crashed down from the cloud I had been on since I had accepted the room. When I had found my voice again I asked her whether she knew any other place close I could got to. – “No, sorry.” – And she closed the reception. Fortunately the had computers in the hall there, so I looked for other hostels. I found one, not really close but better than nothing. So I grabbed all my stuff once more and went back down the hill, into the metro, to the next hostel. Good thing that one was not on a hill! When I got there and asked for a place to spend the night I must have looked quite desperate. But when the lady at the reception answered “Yeah, you’re lucky, we have one free bed left!" I was pretty relieved.  Of course I was late for the swedish dinner then, so I just went there, without changing or even taking a shower as I had planned to. Luckily they had left the first course on the free place I sat down at ;) And it had been cold anyways^^ I sat at a table with a few guys and they were really funny. We had quite a good time and the food was not bad – but the portions were SOOOO small!!! I had been starving and so much looking forward to some good food, so I was a little disappointed, just as everyone else. But yeah, can’t change that. It was good anyways. And I even tried shrimps! (Usually I don’t eat seafood – fish is okay, but seafood….) It wasn’t as bad as I had expected, but I guess I was just hungry and the sauce that was on them was good ;)

After the dinner we talked for a little more and then I went back to the hostel – I was sooo tired from the day and the others were planning a trip to the archipelago the next day so we didn’t stay at the afterparty for that long. I would have gone with them on the trip, but since I had to move in I couldn’t. I hope I will make it there some time soon while the weather is still nice, since it’s supposed to be awesome! Back at the hostel I went to bed quite soon and slept not too well – all night people went in and out of the room without caring about the door, which was really loud, and somebody was snoring… But I was too lazy to get my earplugs out xD The next morning then I left the hostel and made my way towards my new home!!! So at that point my second first week started! I arrived at around 11 am, carried all the stuff one by one up the spiral stairs into the 3rd floor and was, once again, welcomed warmly. First we dealt with all the practical stuff – signed the contract, she showed me where everything is, and so on. After that I started unpacking. That took quite a while, but in the end everything was where it was supposed to be and for the first time since I had arrived in Stockholm I could sit down and feel as if I had arrived! :) And this is the view out of my window:

This last week then went by without too many exciting things. In the morning I left around 8 to get to the language course, after that we usually ate lunch somewhere on campus (either I took some bread or whatever was left from the night before, since there are microwaves in the student union house where you can heat up your food) and after that we either went around the city, had some activity or whatever. I’ll just tell you about some highlights here ;)

On wednesday night we went to an artistic show in the city. There is an event called “Stockholms culture festival” taking place all around the city this week and there are several thing to look at, do or go to, all for free. So that show was just amazing! It’s hard to describe so I’ll just show you some pictures (sorry they’re not the best^^). There was a band playing at the same time, they were not bad either :)

On wednesday then we tokk a tour through some metro station, since most of them have some art in them. That's pretty cool and when you just walk by you don't even notice most of it! For example, the station "tekniska Högskolan" (Technical University) has all kinds of scientific stuff in it, for example an apple (Newton) or something like this:

And there is also one station, that has the human rights written all over the walls, but without any komma, fullstop, space, capital letters or the special characters you have in swedish, like the dots over the a or o and things like that, so it's really hard to read them, even for swedish people. Maybe I'll try once I know a little more swedish ;)

Yesterday, on friday, we went kayaking. That was awesome! We were four people and rented two double kayaks for four hours. Maybe you can see on that map which way we went ;)

Alright so that was my last week. Tonight we'll have a barbecue and afterwards go to the culture festival and tomorrow there is "the largest book store" in the city, along a really long street, where they sell used books – of course we're going there ;) And later they show the Lord of the Rings in a free outdoor cinema :)

Oh and of course I have some more "fun facts", but I guess this post is long enough already, so I will not put them in here but only add them to the list ;) (Not right now though…) And there will be a "Clouds" page soon ;)

I GOT A ROOM!!!!

 

Just wanted to let you know ;) I’ll write more details soon once I’m settled in and everything. I just had to sleep in a hostel for one night now and moving in today! I’m so glad it all worked out…!!! :)

A rough start…

 

So yeah, last time all was good, this time nothing is :D Well, maybe that’s a little too dramatic, but there are some difficulties right now. So I’ll just start this post off with the stuff that’s not going so good and end with the good/fun/interesting stuff, so you don’t think it’s really bad for me here (which it really isn’t!) and I feel better afterwards, too!

First of all found out that I won’t be able to live here after Saturday, since my host will get a flat mate then – we actually did not agree that I’d stay here really long but still I’m a little taken by surprise. But oh well, it’s just a shorter period of time now. But today and on Friday I already have appointments to look at rooms and another guy who’s also doing Erasmus offered me that I can sleep at his place for a few days if I don’t find anything, so I don’t even have to go to a hostel. So it could be worse!

Another thing is that my phone doesn’t like the Swedish SIM card I got, because I need to enter some code which I don’t know so I can’t use it… But the guy I’m staying with right now gave me an old phone he still had, which is okay (even though the battery is reeeeaaaally bad) but I’ll have to give it back to him so I’ll have to get mine to work soon. Just another thing on my mind right now.

But the Swedish course is going pretty well, it’s fun to learn the language and to understand more and more of the stuff people around me are saying! :) Swedish is a pretty cool language I think, it sounds really cute and – lucky me – is not far from German. The order of words in a sentence is the same actually, which confused me completely, since in every other language I learned so far it’s different! :D Yeah and most words are not too hard to understand either, because they are similar either to German or English. So now I can say things like “Jag studerar svenska på KTH.” (I study Swedish at KTH. [KTH is the school I study at]) and things like that. And I know the numbers, which is cool because with that and the usual Hello (“Hej”), Thanks (“Tack”) and Good Bye (“Hej då”) I can even buy something without being a foreigner too obviously ;)

And then there are a few other things about the Swedes that I got to know (I will mention them here but also make a new post where I will collect those).

• Supermarkets in Sweden are just the same as everywhere else (Lidl for example even has the very same products), except that here they have a whole wall just for crispbread (Knäckebrot)!
• Everywhere you go, if it’s the tram/bus, a park, a supermarket or whatever, people are walking around with their smartphones!! Seriously, it’s worse than in Germany! In a bus more than 50% of the people are having their phone in their hands! And those who don’t are either listening to music (so using their phone anyways) or really old people xD
• Meeting all those other exchange students reminds me of traveling and living in hostels – the first thing you ask is always “Where are you from?”, then “How long are you staying?” and then things like what they study, name or whatever.
• When there is a ticket inspection in the underground tram there are 5 people walking though the train!
• Swedish clouds are just awesome! They look really cool and change so quickly! I’ll post some pictures soon.
• … more to come

SO this is it for today, I’ll keep searching and hopefully my next post will contain the message that I found a room! :)

A train on the ferry and other curiosities

 

So I did it – I arrived on the couch of a really nice couchsurfer who agreed to host me for the first time until I found a place to live. And, of course, I got sick… Probably the worst time for that, but nobody seems to care about this fact But I guess my body just tells me to slow down a bit, so that’s what I’m doing. I decided to just stay on the couch today, relax and maybe look for rooms on the internet.

But I still have to tell a few things about my travels yesterday. So I got to Hamburg just fine, had enough time to change the platform there (even though I got up on the wrong side so I could not get down again from there without using stairs so I went all the way around ). Then the big travels began. It was a very comfortable seat, even though this time the train was not empty at all, I think pretty much every seat in the whole train was taken (even in first class) and there were many people sitting in the hallways. That was probably because the train was very short. Now you might wonder why, usually those ICEs are unbelievably long! Well yes, but this one had to fit onto a ferry boat! Yes, right, the train just went onto the ferry. I found that quite interesting, and for all of you who don’t believe me, here’s the proof:

So then everyone had to get out of the train and I went onto the outside deck. I was wondering around there a little in order to find a place to stand with a good view – and suddenly a woman in front of me turns around and – it’s Clara!!! She’s a good friend of mine and she, her husband and two others (among them Marius, also a friend), were on their way to a vacation in Sweden! I knew that before, but never would have thought that we might meet on the ferry, since I didn’t know that before and they were going by car. Such a huge coincidence! But it was really nice to see them and we had lots of fun during those 45 minutes of crossing to Denmark.

Then everyone had to get back on the train and in their cars and off the ferry and I went on to Copenhagen where I had to change the train again. But my train was a little delayed, so I had about 2 minutes time to get out of the train, up and down over the tracks and onto the next train. And I would have missed it, if there hadn’t been that nice lady with the whistle who still had her door open and I had to run towards her and could still get on the train. But unfortunately that was pretty much on the opposite end of the train from where I had my seat… And with all my stuff I would never have made it through the whole train! So I had to wait until Malmö, where the train stopped for ten minutes, in order to get out and into the right car. Finally!

The rest of the way was pretty relaxed, even though I had some difficulties finding the “green line”, which is the underground line, but after asking some nice people it was all good and my host picked me up from the station and we arrived at his apartment. We just sat and talked for a little while and then he wanted to go out and I went to bed, since I was really exhausted from the day and already felt a little sick.

Oh, here’s one more picture, that’s all the stuff I had with me:

On the train

 

So, now I’m on the train, off to Stockholm. That’s a wierd feeling, just wrote my last exam yesterday, packed all my stuff up in boxes, that will be stored, one big suitcase and one small and one big backpack. And now I’m on the way. How I’m going to carry all of that? Don’t ask me My dad advised me just to find some strong, good-looking man who for some reason has no luggage and travels just the same route I do who can carry some of it for me. Why  do I have the feeling that this is not gonna happen?

Oh by the way, I’m traveling first class today! I think that’s hilarious, I never traveled first class on a train before, but when I booked that was almost the same price as second class, so why not!? Most seats around me are empty, which is not only due to the fact, that it is Saturday, 8 in the morning (waaaaay too early by the way)… But it is quite comfortable, lots of space and nice seats. But usually I don’t really think it’s worth the extra price (if it is more than the usual). The only good thing probably is that it’s quiet and there are not so many people!

Once I arrive in Stockholm I will spend the first days on the couch of a nice guy who I contacted via Couchsurfing. He seems really nice and offered me help with finding a place to stay, so I just hope that will work out. But right now I can’t really think of that yet, I suppose I just still have to realize it all! Those last weeks were just crazy with studying for the exams, writing the exams and so on and I did not really have any time to mentally prepare for what’s coming. But maybe that will happen sometime during this day I’m spending on trains Or at least once I started my language course and found a place.

But now I first of all need sleep!!! Last night was not too relaxing (was home late, had to get up at 5:30, did not sleep very well…) so I’ll have to do that now, at least until Hamburg, my first transition point.