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...
Posts mit dem Label Stockholm werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label Stockholm werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Mittwoch, 1. Oktober 2008
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!
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!
Freitag, 16. Mai 2008
Donnerstag, 15. Mai 2008
Donnerstag, 8. Mai 2008
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!
PS: Here are some pictures from the last 2 weeks including a much too rainy Valborg and my two birthday parties!
Montag, 21. April 2008
How sweet it is...
...to go outside and enjoy spring on a sunny weekend in Stockholm and its archipelago! (It's like honey to the bee babe!;-)
Donnerstag, 6. März 2008
Daily cinema performance...
No, unfortunately the title doesn't mean that it is the filmfestival again and I can go to the cinema every day. I am rather referring to the view from my window when sitting in front of my desk (which I now do daily from afternoon until late at night)! The highlight of every afternoon (prime time so to say) is the sunset which takes place later and later from day to day. At the moment we're winning 5 minutes of daylight every day so that the days will very soon be longer again here than in Germany.
I will also use this occasion (and prolongen my study break...) to give a brief comparison of the Swedish and German university systems. I have to stress that this is only the opinion formed from my experiences as a student in Stockholm and Passau and doesn't have to hold true for all universities/subjects/courses.
Here are the biggest differences:
1. The courses don't run parallel throughout the whole semester, but students are rather expected to take one (max. two) 5-week course(s) at a time and start the next one after the former one has been finished with an exam/paper. This implies that the work load is spread more evenly over the semester; one has to study more every week (including lectures of the same subject almost every day), but the exhausting German "Klausurenphase" with up to 7 exams a week at the end of the semester doesn't exist. In my opinion highly positive, unless (as in my case) the required courses are scheduled in the same period...
2. Studying at Swedish universities is in my opinion a lot more "active" (compared to the passive German system of mass lectures with the professor lecturing monotonously in the front and 300-800 students scribbling down every word he says to learn it by heart afterwards). The majority of the courses I took here were limited to an average of 30 students (about 15 in Geography, 50 in Politics, 7 in French Litterature and 30 in Swedish culture) and consisted mostly of discussions about texts/articles/books we had to read preliminary to the course or papers we had to write and then pass on to other course mates to judge them. In Markting we have big lectures (about 600 students), but additionally there are 2 seminars where we are about 30 students who have to prepare and present our marketing project in groups of 4. Same holds true for Accounting, where we are about 80 students in the lectures and have to prepare balance sheets for the seminars in groups of three. I have to admit that I remember more from the courses I did here than from any course I did in Germany!
Ojojoj, this should do for a start ... by the way, that is what it looks like outside now:
I will also use this occasion (and prolongen my study break...) to give a brief comparison of the Swedish and German university systems. I have to stress that this is only the opinion formed from my experiences as a student in Stockholm and Passau and doesn't have to hold true for all universities/subjects/courses.Here are the biggest differences:
1. The courses don't run parallel throughout the whole semester, but students are rather expected to take one (max. two) 5-week course(s) at a time and start the next one after the former one has been finished with an exam/paper. This implies that the work load is spread more evenly over the semester; one has to study more every week (including lectures of the same subject almost every day), but the exhausting German "Klausurenphase" with up to 7 exams a week at the end of the semester doesn't exist. In my opinion highly positive, unless (as in my case) the required courses are scheduled in the same period...
2. Studying at Swedish universities is in my opinion a lot more "active" (compared to the passive German system of mass lectures with the professor lecturing monotonously in the front and 300-800 students scribbling down every word he says to learn it by heart afterwards). The majority of the courses I took here were limited to an average of 30 students (about 15 in Geography, 50 in Politics, 7 in French Litterature and 30 in Swedish culture) and consisted mostly of discussions about texts/articles/books we had to read preliminary to the course or papers we had to write and then pass on to other course mates to judge them. In Markting we have big lectures (about 600 students), but additionally there are 2 seminars where we are about 30 students who have to prepare and present our marketing project in groups of 4. Same holds true for Accounting, where we are about 80 students in the lectures and have to prepare balance sheets for the seminars in groups of three. I have to admit that I remember more from the courses I did here than from any course I did in Germany!
Ojojoj, this should do for a start ... by the way, that is what it looks like outside now:
Samstag, 1. März 2008
Update
As the calendar is changing from February to March (and obviously from winter to spring (whereof the former didn't really exist)) I'm once again hurling myself into work. Finally I found some courses which will actually be recognized by my home university, meaning that I don't have to do them again back in Germany if I'll manage to pass them here (with an acceptable grade!). The only problem is that two of them are in Swedish and one even in French, so the dictionaries (both the old style printed ones as well as leo.org, pauker.at and lexin) are my bibles!! (actually I use them by far more than I've ever read in my bible ;-). It's an interesting mixture: Marketing (Marknadsföring), Intermediate Accounting (Affärsredovisning) and French literature outside France (Fransk litteratur utanför Frankrike). Especially Affärsredovisning is killing me, because it would already be hard to understand it in German! Well, I'll do my best and try to be a good student for the next weeks.
Fortunately, my life here in Stockholm still also consists of more agreeable activities! I'm especially enjoying my new flat, including being able to invite friends over for dinner and going to the cinema/ watching TV/ chatting with Ann. I'm actually discovering my qualities/ambitions as a cook, inventing new recipes and preparing apple crumble as dessert (if my inventions went wrong I'm on the safe side with the latter as it erases all memories of the former :-) ...so far no one has died, but quite the contrary (tvärtom, Ann?!) we spent some funny evenings in the kitchen.
Fortunately, my life here in Stockholm still also consists of more agreeable activities! I'm especially enjoying my new flat, including being able to invite friends over for dinner and going to the cinema/ watching TV/ chatting with Ann. I'm actually discovering my qualities/ambitions as a cook, inventing new recipes and preparing apple crumble as dessert (if my inventions went wrong I'm on the safe side with the latter as it erases all memories of the former :-) ...so far no one has died, but quite the contrary (tvärtom, Ann?!) we spent some funny evenings in the kitchen.
Samstag, 16. Februar 2008
All good things come in threes...
...which is why I moved again - moved to my third flat in Stockholm within 6 months! :-) I'm kind of getting used to and starting to like it. New places, new people, new living conditions every time. From today, I'm living even further north of Stockholm City, in a suburb (and municipality) called Täby. It's said to be one of the richer and more secure ones (which might explain why you can also find Stockholm's biggest shopping centre (Täby Centrum) and Sweden's largest horseracing track (Täby Galopp) here. Furthermore, I'm neither living in a detached house nor in a students room anymore, but sharing a 2-room-flat on the 9th floor of a biiiig tower block of slightly futuristic shape (handiwork of the Swedish planners and architects of the 60s) with Ann, a really nice Swedish woman. Big windows and great view from the balcony!
Fortunately, Annika (who has a car) and Maria helped me moving all my stuff today which I wouldn't have managed without their support! After the physical strains we indulged ourselves to a little housewarming with nice dinner (including pancakes and ice cream as desert!) and a movie. The least I could do!
Fortunately, Annika (who has a car) and Maria helped me moving all my stuff today which I wouldn't have managed without their support! After the physical strains we indulged ourselves to a little housewarming with nice dinner (including pancakes and ice cream as desert!) and a movie. The least I could do!
Freitag, 18. Januar 2008
Better not get sjuk!
This holds true in two ways.
Firstly, to avoid visiting a Swedish vårdcentral. I don't want to hear one single German person complain about the German health care system anymore - otherwise I'll send them to a Swedish medical centre! If it had only been the waiting time, I wouldn't have complained, that is usual in every country I guess. Maybe I was even lucky with the three hours I spent in waiting rooms to be able to get a climpse at a real Swedish doctor for 10 minutes! A friend of mine had spent the same night waiting for 5 hours at the Närakuten (emergency ward) because of a stomach ache and for an operation Swedish people sometimes have to wait for years! Vårdcentralen even has a very informative homepage where you can look up the waiting times for different operations at different hospitals! No, it's also the complicated system with having to call for a telephone appointment (telfontid) first, being called back an hour later to get an appointment at the medical centre (läkartid), when at the medical centre having to go to the Kassa first to pay 140kr just to be treated, then going to the reception, to the Kassa again, to the laboratory and back to the reception before they finally decide that you really have to see a doctor, because the nurses (at the reception and in the laboratory) weren't able to define your disease yet. Not to mention the procedure at Apoteket! When entering I was smiling about the little benches they had built in front of each counter - when it was my turn I was more than happy they were there!
But finally I got the antibiotics I had wanted because of the second reason why better not to get sick - the skiing trip to Åre which I was supposed to go to 3 days after getting fever and a sore throat! I was really afraid of not being able to join the trip, especially because the doctor couldn't really say what my disease was and so I terrorized my mum and my friend Maria with my horror scenarios of diseases I could have and protract if I went skiing. The night before we finally went I still didn't feel a lot healthier, but on the other hand I was longing too much for the snow! If I would die anyway ;-) it should at least be on the slope! :-)
In any case, I could have done without that little intermezzo...
Firstly, to avoid visiting a Swedish vårdcentral. I don't want to hear one single German person complain about the German health care system anymore - otherwise I'll send them to a Swedish medical centre! If it had only been the waiting time, I wouldn't have complained, that is usual in every country I guess. Maybe I was even lucky with the three hours I spent in waiting rooms to be able to get a climpse at a real Swedish doctor for 10 minutes! A friend of mine had spent the same night waiting for 5 hours at the Närakuten (emergency ward) because of a stomach ache and for an operation Swedish people sometimes have to wait for years! Vårdcentralen even has a very informative homepage where you can look up the waiting times for different operations at different hospitals! No, it's also the complicated system with having to call for a telephone appointment (telfontid) first, being called back an hour later to get an appointment at the medical centre (läkartid), when at the medical centre having to go to the Kassa first to pay 140kr just to be treated, then going to the reception, to the Kassa again, to the laboratory and back to the reception before they finally decide that you really have to see a doctor, because the nurses (at the reception and in the laboratory) weren't able to define your disease yet. Not to mention the procedure at Apoteket! When entering I was smiling about the little benches they had built in front of each counter - when it was my turn I was more than happy they were there!
But finally I got the antibiotics I had wanted because of the second reason why better not to get sick - the skiing trip to Åre which I was supposed to go to 3 days after getting fever and a sore throat! I was really afraid of not being able to join the trip, especially because the doctor couldn't really say what my disease was and so I terrorized my mum and my friend Maria with my horror scenarios of diseases I could have and protract if I went skiing. The night before we finally went I still didn't feel a lot healthier, but on the other hand I was longing too much for the snow! If I would die anyway ;-) it should at least be on the slope! :-)
In any case, I could have done without that little intermezzo...
Donnerstag, 10. Januar 2008
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:
Some impressions:
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