24

woo.

...as my friend alex used to say. 24 is exceptionally not the name of the famous tv-series but my new age. Yesterday we had a very nice and cosy birthday lunch with about 15 people from Austria, Spain, France, Sweden, Canada and Germany here. Annina was a great housewife (she will kill me, hehe) and girlfriend and prepared an excellent applecake and a fantastic blueberry-tart.

Thank you all for the calls, packages, postcards, greeting cards, GruXkarte(danke Uschi!), icq-messages or whatever. It's very nice to have the feeling someone thinks of you, even if you are 1500km away!

The last week we had awesome weather. It was sunny and warm every day and it seems to last for this week too. Unfortunately I did not have too much time for enjoying the sun, since I am pretty busy during the week by doing my work for university. Since I haven't written too much about univesity so far I will shortly summarize, what's going on here. In Sweden the semester is divided into two "studyperiods", each lasting for about 8 weeks. Since the courses are more work than those at home (and you get more credits, of course) I only have 2 courses each studyperiod - wich means 4 courses each term. The coures I take this term are: "Mobile Computer Graphics" and "Language Processing and Computational Linguistics". The first one is really awesome, the lecturer damn motivated (and motivating!), the structure very good, as well as the teaching materials and the lectures. The course is dealing with 3D-graphics in general with a strong focus on mobile devices, like mobiles or the playstation portable. Mobile devices means very, very limited ressources and so very strong care has to be taken to make the implementation efficient and fast enough to run on a mobile. We had two assignments so far, the first one dealing with some nice 3D-scenes on a mobile, ending in writing a small screensaver very similar to the starfield screensaver existing on many windows-pc's. Some screenshots of what we have done:



To finish the course we need to set work on a project, and we have choosen to make a cute 3D-game for a mobile. The plan(!) is to make a little, cosy bomberman game in pseudo 3D (view from above, but 3-dimensional objects). The only problem the time pressure, we have only 2 weeks left to finish the project which is way to short to make a really cool game, but we hope to get the basic bomberman features into it with some nice graphics. We will see how the result will look like in two weeks.

Über den anderen Kurs schreib ich lieber in Deutsch, dann kann ich bissi schimpfen (von Antschgi abgeschaut ;)). Der Kurs ist wirklich nicht gut, der Vortrag einschläfernd und mehr verwirrend als nützlich über die Assignments kann man sich mithilfe des Lehrers, der durchaus bemüht ist, aber leider halt keinen guten Vortrag/gute Struktur zusammenbringt, ohne größere Probleme drüberretten. Die gute Seite: Es gibt keine Endprüfung. Die schlechte Seite: Wir müssen stattdessen ein Projekt im Umfang von ca. 2 Wochen durchführen. Is aber erst in der zweiten Study-period, also wir haben noch Zeit.

So das wars wieder mal aus Schweden. Annina wird in den nächsten Tagen noch eine Zusammefassung unseres wirklich geilen Wochenendes schreiben. Stay tuned...

swedish bureaucracy

Coming from a country like Austria usually means hating bureaucracy because it is as it is. But living in Sweden demonstrates that we should be VERY(and I mean VERY-VERY-VERY-VERY) happy to have our bureaucracy as it is. In my opinion it sucks 10 times more than the Austrian. It seems that the Swedes follow every law, no mather how stupid it is. Of course I am a little bit angry right now and not that kind of objectiv, as I should be, but I don't care about this right now :). I just tried getting into a nation-club and they don't let me in, because I only had my LTH(university)-card and not my nation-card with me.
The nation card is something you(should) get, when you join a nation and it is the key to all nation-activities(which are way-cheaper than the normal pubs/clubs/whatever) and the only(!) valid identity card to proof you are a student. I already have joined one nation, but I guess my card has been lost by the post, because I haven't received it during the last 3 weeks. If you don't have this card you need your letter of acceptance with you every time you wanna get into a nation. In my opinion, wearing the letter of acceptance with you all the time is the stupiest thing you could do because it is the only official document that you are allowed to study in Lund. If you lose it you have a problem. So this is as if you would wear your passport with you all the time. Anyway, the security didn't let me in, with my LTH-card and even my Austrian student card has not convinced them that I am a student.
But of course that's not the only example. When I tried to get a swedish banking account I had to visit 5 different banks to get one. First I was told I need a swedish personal number to open a bank account. After I found out what to do, to get one I went to the tax-office and applied for it. I had to lie and tell them I will stay for one full year (allthough it is almost 1 year - 11 month) to get it. After this, happy like a little boy, I went back to the same bank to open a swedish bank account. I told them my personal number and guess what?! She asked me about my swedish identity card. What the hell is this, I asked her. She told me that if you have a swedish personal number you need a swedish identity card too, otherwise they can't accept you. I showed her my passport, the most international and most secure document in the whole world, to prove one's identity. But no way, you need those identity card too. After carefully asking her how to get her, she told me I have to apply at the post-office. After saying the word "post", the rest of the sentence was cut of by my inner filter. Considering the fact how the post works in Austria I don't want to make the experience of a Swedish-post-officer in action. I am sure this would drain even my last vital force. At this point I was short before exploision. I can't see why they don't accept a passport as a valid legitimation to open a bank account. I could understand if they would not allow me to overdraw my account, this would reduce the risk of loosing money to 0.
But having a no bank account and no personal number is a vicious circle, without personal-number you can't order an internet access or anything else. And if you have your personal number as I have right now you can order it but then you need to have a swedish bank account otherwise you pay(for example):
50SEK(5.5 euro) for the internet
25SEK(3 euro) if you have no bank-account for sending the bill
75SEK(8 euro) for paying the bill in the bank! ->unbelievable

So as you can see, if you don't have one you are fucked :). Well, finally I found a bank that accepts me as I am, with my passport as legitimation but charges me for every service like there is no tomorrow(for example, I paid about 25 euro to get my money to my swedish bank-account).

Well as you see Sweden is a very rule/law-based country :). Next time there will be some more positive posts, the overall experience is very good right now, even still there are some drawbacks which I don't wanna hide from you.

eating habits

At the beginning of my stay, I was a bit helpless by the fact I have to cook for my own and only for my own. I am used to cook together with Aaron, Morschi or Annina for let's say at least 2 persons but rather 3 or 4 persons. So at the very beginning I didn't even know how much food I should buy for myself. Cooking for only 1 person is less fun and more work. Back at home I tended toward making a froozen pizza, toast or just eating bread. But doing this all the time does not work.

But during the last few weeks I became a professional 1-person cook and tend to buy the right amount of food so that the food doesn't rot in my refrigerator. I mainly cook pasta with different kind of sauces or meat/fish with potatoes. Potatoes are a very, very traditional swedish food since it is one of the very few vegetables that grow in a cold enviroment like here in Sweden. The fact that the can be preserved during the whole year makes them even more important for the swedish history. Due all those facts, potatoes are one of the cheapest things you can eat in Sweden. One kilogram costs only about 0.5 euro. Although I didn't like potatoes that much at home and hardly ever cooked one by myself, I really enjoy eating them here. They fit very good to salmon, which I eat a lot up here :). And preparing a creme-fraiche sauce with a lot of spices as a side dish to the potatoes makes them even better.

Yesterday I had maybe the best food since I was here. At my local supermarket I have seen some pepper-steaks for a few times right now but I always was a bit frightened by the price. But yesterday i just bought them and hmmmmm ->peppersteaks with potatoes and some vegetables. Do I need to add anything here???

The only drawback is that I haven't managed to cook the right servings so far. We have no balance and therefore I tend to cook too much for me. The good thing is that I cook about 2 times a week together with my corridor-mate Brice and hopefully will cook more often together with Annina in the future.

one-legged climbers and the climbing club Crux

On the last Saturday, the day after the Pirate-party I went climbing to a region called Kullaberg which is about 80km away from Lund. The trip was organised by a the climbing club called Crux. Since this trip I am a member of this climbing club. Kullaberg is the biggest climbing-area in southern Sweden and located in a national-park - but since there is a golf course too, I don't take this too serious :).
The climbing place itself was very beautiful, almost on the water-front, many different routes, but unfortunately no bolts. For the non-climbers among you: Bolts are the devices used for your own safety. If there are bolts in the wall and you fall into the rope nothing can happen, because they are firmely detached with the wall. If there are no bolts you have to use your own security devices namely friends, nuts and some other things. This is less secure and you need to know exactly how to use them. You can find more infos about bolts here or here. But anyway, since Crux is a climbing club it was no problem because they had the required knowledge and equipment to make climbing secure.
The most fascinating thing for me was seeing the first one-legged climber in my life. He lost one leg during a motorbike accident and is wearing a prosthesis. And the point is: He started climbing AFTER he had his accident. This is a good example what modern medicin makes possible. The fact that he was climbing at least as good as I do impressed me even more.
As usual I will add some photos :)

Pirates!

Hej once more!

As you might have noticed, I had no time/motivation during the whole last week to write a summary into my blog. But now motivation is back and so you can enjoy some new experiences. I will start with the last weekend which opened with a great party!

Pirates-Party
I didn't expect the party to be so much pirates-like. If you try to make a costume-party in Austria this does not work that good because normally the people don't like it that much and spend no effort to design their costume. But this was different here! Everybody put a lot of creative energy to create the perfect costume and yield fruits (Früchte tragen-don't know if you can use it this way, but anyway...). In my mind this was the first real Erasmus-party since it was organised by exchange students with the help of no one. The party was located in a dormitory called St. Lars which is one of the most fancy ones in Lund. It earlier times it was a mental hospital and has been altered to a dormitory. But allthough it has been renovated it still has the air of a hospital. When I came in the first thing that came in my mind was one scene in Terminator 2. Sarah Conner in her white dress freaking out and running away from the Terminator who is trying to kill her. The white floor, the doors, allmost the same as in St. Lars. I can still see the heades of the madmen striking against the walls :)
But anyway the location is a good place to live, because they still have the huge social rooms and the kitchen from those times. They are designed to have space for about 60 people eating there, maybe more, and now only 20 live there. And the corridor and the toilets are big enough to have a football match :)
That is one of the reasons why the party was that great, I estimate about 200 students there, most of them were exchange students. Now a few photos:








Stay tuned, I will release a few more articles in the next days!

Blog-Design

I just discussed the design of the blog with Annina. It seems that some people don't like the black background with the white font, because of the bad readability. I choose it because I liked the simple flourishless design. But of course you are the reader of our blog, so please don't hesitate to give me some positiv or negativ feedback about the readability of the blog. If there is a majority who thinks the readability is bad then I may change it.

Hiking and one more kräftskiva

After a busy week (university started quite fast) with no special events at the evening finally the weekend entered. On Friday night Annina's mentor group was invited by one of their tutors for another kräftskiva (crayfish-party). Since I had no special plans for this day I decided to join them which was a great idea. Magnus (the tutor) prepared a delicious meal at his home with grayfish, bread and mayonnaise and of course some schnapps. This meal was in a much smaller(about 20 people) and cosier enviroment than the other party with alot of very nice people from all over the world (Chinese, Canadian, German, Poland...). I am sorry but this time were no stupid fotos taken from me ;). The most interesting thing for me at this eveneing was a conversation with two Chinese girls about their cultural shock when they came to Europe/Sweden. They went home very early because they are not used to stay out longer than eleven. For me it was very fascinating to talk about their views and tell them a bit about how things work in Europe. I am sure they will alter a lot during their stay in Sweden but hopefully they are not too scared of all the things happening here.

The party was also the place were we finally decided to go on a hiking trip this weekend. We were invited by Marie(France), Peter(Belgium) and Kristina(Germany) to join them at their trip to a national park. The national park is called Söderåsen and located 50km north of Lund. On our way their I had a dejavu - we passed a place where we were looking for a sleeping-place two years ago. As you see the world is really small :).

The hiking trip itself was gorgeous. There are no moutains in the southern part of Sweden but a lot of wood, lakes, grassland. For me the trip was like a "Best of Sweden" in a small scale. We walked for about 3 hours through the forest, passed two small lakes, a hut you can use for ree and finally arrived at another hut which was our sleeping place for this day. There we spend the evening together with two Danish guys and a Swedish family sitting on a campfire, drinking wine, eating cookies and roasting marshmallows. When it finally began to rain we backed out into a roofed spleeping place and spend the rest of the night talking and of course... sleeping. The second day we finished our turn back to the car. It's hard to describe the beauty of this place with words, so maybe I just post some pictures. Hope you'll enjoy them!


Actually, I would like to have those "Read more" button as in the lesspixel.com blog, but I haven't found out how this works at blogger.com. If somebody knows, please let me know!