So, I just realized, that I have not been very good with keeping this updated lately. If you compare, in August I wrote 7 posts, in September 4 (including one for pictures) and in October 2 (including one for pictures), well, 3 if you count this one in. The reason for that is probably for one thing, that in August everything was new and there was just so much to tell, but also that the everyday-life is keeping me busy by now.
So I will try to tell about a few things that happened in chronological order.
Right after my last post Saskia was here to visit. She arrived on a Thursday and stayed until Tuesday, so we had a few great days exploring Stockholm – sometimes together, sometimes she had to go on her own because I had to be at the university. That was great for me, because finally I got to to some of the touristy-stuff I had not had the chance to do yet. But first, on Friday night, we were at the "Octo-beer-fest" from the Student Union. That was fun! Well, at first it mainly consisted of cheap beer and "German" music – including Lena Meyer-Landruth, Nena (yay!!! :)), Blümchen and others. Some Swedes even sag "Ein Prosit", which was repeated properly by a few German guys from Bavaria. Later we found out who was responsible for the music and started wishing for things like "Das rote Pferd", "Cowboy und Indianer" and, of course the "Fliegerlied". Of course we went to the middle of the room and started the matching dances, and at that point we found out how many Germans there really were. It was lots of fun! On Saturday and Sunday we then did a quite intense tourist-tour through Stockholm, including the change of guards, the old town, the "Stadshuset" (City Hall), the castle and Skansen (and outdoor-museum showing houses from all over Sweden through the centuries as well as typically Swedish animals). A few pictures:
Having breakfast at the "Café String" ( a great weekend-breakfast-buffet, not too expensive and in a nice atmosphere :)
Change of the guards and around the castle:
Riddarholmen church, the Stortorget (big square) in Gamla Stan and "af Chapman", the ship that hosts a youth hostel:
The City Hall:
This last picture shows the hall where the banquet for the nobel prize winners and guests is held. Those stairs you can see there actually have a nice story. The architect who planned the whole thing (a funny man by the way, he kept changing the plans – that's what engineers don't like about architects at all by the way…)), wanted to have the perfect stairs for the people at the banquet, and especially the women walking down those stairs into the "Blue hall" (it was supposed to be blue, but then he decided he liked the bricks better) were supposed to look great, and also be comfortable walking. So he had his wife test all the stairs in question and decide, which one is best to walk down when wearing a long dress and high heels. (at some point she divorced him due to things like this…)
Behind the city hall and on the boat ride to Skansen:
Skansen:
A view on the Nordic Museum and Östermalm from Skansen and a view on Gamla Stan by night from Södermalm:
Well, I know those are loooots of pictures, but I just cannot decide on less and I guess this way I don't have write that much ;) In some of those you can also see, why this post is called "Fall". The fall really arrived here – and I love it! The trees are so beautifully colorful! :) I took a few more pictures but did not sort through them all yet, so I'll upload them later. But now slowly fall is already over again and winter is coming – we've had the first snow already, even though it was really not that much and was already gone again the next day. Right now it's even getting warmer again! Well, Stockholm really does not get too much snow anyways, but I'm really hoping for some…
So after Saskia had left the first period of classes was already almost over and everyone started studying like crazy for the exams. I only had one exam, so I was not studying that much, but still there was not too much going on.
Except for the Qualification-Soccer-Game Germany against Sweden. Ela and I watched it in a student pub. I have to say, I never really watch soccer and I really am not that interested in it, 
So we were at the pub quite early, had a beer and met some French theatre-students and had a good time. By the time the game was about to start the small room was totally crowded, with lots of Germans, but also a few swedes. Good thing we were there early, because if we had not had a place to sit we would have probably left and not watched the game. So the first half time was pretty much as expected by everyone and at the end Germany was leading 3:0 (or something alike).
But then everything turned around and the swedes started playing and the Germans stopped (at least that's what it looked like for people not interested in soccer so much). And when in the last seconds the swedes made the 4:4 the atmosphere in that small pub was amazing!! I think there were a lot less swedes than Germans, but those that were there managed to make me feel as if I were in a room with only swedes! I thought it was great, and not like many other soccer games, where you see 3 goals max this was not that boring at all ;) And the next day the article in the newspaper looked like this (picture on the right), I cannot translate it exactly, but it means something like "Legendary catch up against Germany".
Then I had my exam, which was not too hard and the Saturday at the end of exam week there was the big "after-exam-party" at Nymble, the Student Union house. That was awesome! it was a huge party and it was really crowded (some swedes told us it's good to get there early, so we were there right when they opened at 8, which was good, because there were already lots of people there, we did not have to wait in line for our first beer and later on many people could not get in because it was too full!). It was a really fun night and I love the concept here to start parties rather early and then they close around 3 or so, but that's enough if you start so early, and you can actually do something the next day except sleep ;)
So then the second period started, with a new course called "Road- and Railway-Track-Engineering". I guess for me it's just right, since it gives the basics and does not seem to be too difficult. Especially the first workshop was ridiculous, we had to use a given formula, put given values into the calculator and compare the results to another given value. But yeah, we have to hand them all in, so whatever. But it is getting better now, right now we are working on designing a road through a landscape, that's alright. At least we'll not have to work at home/outside of the classes so much like in my last course ;)
This last weekend then I was in Berlin for a workshop for YFU (for those of you who don't know what that is, see here: www.yfu.de, in English: http://www.yfu.de/english/about-yfu). That was lots of fun and we got a lot done. It's always great to spend time with YFU-people. But I actually realized, why we always tell students and families not to visit/go home during their exchange year! I mean, I am in a different situation of course, not living with a host family and so on, but still the first hours back felt a little weird. But not in a really bad way! Actually, when I was getting on the plane, hearing all those people talking Swedish was a great feeling!
This was a short (and still quite long) description of what I've been up to, I always love to hear from all of you, wherever you are, so feel free to write me ;) I'll be busy with Uni, Halloween Parties and stuff like this these days and hope to be able to write the next post sometime not too far away!
