Tillbaka i Sverige (25.-28. September)

How nice to come back to that place where I spent a good portion of the last year. It's autumn again, the trees have the same intensive red-yellowish colour as one year ago and contrast to the blue of the lakes and the sky. Good feeling to see everyone again. My good friends Ken and Maria, the Erasmus "veterans" living in Stockholm now, my flatmate Ann and Annika who was also visiting Stockholm that same weekend. Feels a bit like coming home and yet I'm aware of being only a visitor - will that be the case of any place I'm coming back to?

Additionally, we were invited to the big birthday party of our good friend Claes. It was great fun including crawfish and a lot of Swedish singing. Tack för festen!

And of course I hope to be able to come back soon...

Fête de la musique! (21. Juni)

Last weekend Toulouse was one big music festival! When the Swedish celebrate Midsommar it is "la fête de la musique" in France! Already during the day there are concerts all around town, but in the evening Toulouse (and all the other big French cities) are one big party! Bands at every corner of the street, people dancing all around the place - a crazy atmosphere!
At the same time, it was the worldmusic festival Rio Loco which presents every year music of a different part of the world, this year the Balkans! So on Sunday evening we could get to know a part of the culture from the regions between Bucharest and Budapest - very interesting! At first we listened to a Romanian brass band called Fanfare Ciocarlia supported by the singer Esma Redzepova and afterwards the clarinetist David Krakauer played Klezmer at its finest! Genau mein Ding!

Alles neu macht der Mai

Jösses! You never remember how nice springtime actually is! Especially here, after a long grey winter, it is just amazing to see the nature awake and flourish. We already had such warm and sunny days and together with the deep blue Swedish sky it just feels wonderful to go outside and simply enjoy. For me it is also high time as I'll be leaving beautiful Sweden much too soon! But I guess it's not yet today that I become melancholic and start to resume the 10 last months - now it's time to go outside!
PS: Here are some pictures from the last 2 weeks including a much too rainy Valborg and my two birthday parties!

Visitors!

Long time no see. This does not only hold true for this blog, but also for the people who came to visit me here in Stockholm at the dawn of 2008: first my friend Axel came to celebrate New Year's Eve with us and straight after he had left I welcomed my cousin Max and his friend Peter. It was really nice to see all of them again (well, Peter I hadn't met before, but it was nice to see him anyway :-) and show them Sweden's capital as I got to know it over the last months including not only sights, parks and museums but of course also bars, clubs, cafes and my university.
Some impressions:

New Year's Eve in Lappis

Welcoming the New Year with view over the town

Axel exploring Stockholm

Max and Peter in Stockholm

A veeeeeeery funny night in Debaser

Someone afraid of hights?!

a walk through winterly white (and cold) Djurgården

It's all about Nobel!

Nobel Nobel Nobel, the last days have been all about this one topic! Last week the Swedish media portrayed this year's nobel prize winners and gave plenty of useful (as well as unuseful) background information - from the "male" history of the famous prize to Astrid Lindgren's rememberance and Mario Capecchi's "horrible childhood". On Saturday, the laureates of the physics, chemistry and economy prizes held public lectures in Aula Magna (I attended the one of Eric Maskin on "mechanism design theory").

On Monday (Nobeldagen) Swedish TV broadcast and commented the Award Ceremony (Prisutdelningen) and the famous Banquet (Nobelfesten i Stadshuset) - but one thing wasn't part of the media coverage: the inofficial after party (Nobel NightCap) which is every year hosted by one of Stockholms universities! This year it was Stockholm University's turn - and of course jag var med!
Together with about 80 other Swedish and exchange students I volunteered to help at the party - which included preparations in advance as well as cleaning afterwards. Our first big task was to build the decorations last weekend. We had big fun stamping bricks and attaching them to the bar in Allhuset for one whole day!

We had also been looking forward to trying on the dresses we would wear - as the party's theme was "The roaring 1920s" they were especially lent for this event. Many were really nice although most of them were quite big and the materials where not the most comfortable to wear.

After many hours of building, dressing up and waiting the after party eventually started at midnight when the first guests arrived straight from Stadshuset. And our efforts had been worth it! The atmosphere was amazing: a big dancing hall with big band, fashion and dance show, a lounge with coktail bar and piano music and the Moulin Rouge with more music, casino tables and a burlesque dance show at an advanced hour.

I myself served hors d'oeuvres in the dancing hall (which was quite fun thanks to my waitressing experience) - I now know the incredients of "cobbsallad" by heart (to be sure that no one allergic to gluten or nuts deceases on my account)! Roquefort, chicken, bacon, red onions etc etc...just ask me for more information...
All in all, it was an exhausting but one-time experience and I hope you agree with me after my report and don't juge the party by Aftonbladet's very limited coverage (which is the only newspaper article I could find)!