Christmastime and more...

Hejhej :)

Well, Christmas is approaching quite fast...and I still need to buy all the christmas presents - which I will do this weekend, in Stockholm :) I'm going there to see Rufus Wainwright live (on Sunday...I can't wait!!).
However, today the university invited us to the museum to watch an exhibition about swedish Christmas traditions and to eat lussebulle and drink glögg (similar to the austrian "Glühwein"). It was really nice :)
Afterwards we (Lena, Claudia, Elisabeth, Hong, David) went to a small caffee to have some coffee/hot chocolate and cake. It was really cosy sitting there and talking... We might go out tonight, but I guess everyone is quite tired, but since it's the last weekend everybody is here, we should take the chance and do something.
Well, that's it for now...I'll write again on monday - when I'm back from Stockholm and I'm sure I will have a lot to tell about the concert ;) For now, a short video of Rufus performing "I don't know what it is"...enjoy :)
CU

Westcoast :)

Hejhej :)

Well, a lot has happened since last week...but let's start from the beginning.
First of all - I passed my Digital Imaging Exam...! I'm so relieved, because I thought I had failed ...but thank god, I didn't - which is quite surprising, considering that 10 of 17 students failed...(as you can see, Exchange Students HAVE to study to pass an exam...).
What else happened...last Sunday we baked christmas cookies, which was really cool and fun - in the end we had 6 different kinds of cookies - all of them taste great. (both pictures (c) by Elisabeth).
However, on thursday we had a huge international dinner at the university - every nation (well, almost) prepared some typical dish and we - the Austrians - made an "Apfelstrudel" with Vanilla Cream. It was really cool to taste all the meals - my favourite was the swiss "Käsefundue" - finally something that reminded me of Vorarlberg ;)
Speaking of which - I'm really looking forward to going home over Christmas. The closer it gets, the more I think about all the things I miss (well, kind of). Small things, like eating Austrian sausages (I don't like swedish sausages...believe it or not, they taste totally different), seeing mountains (although I already know that I will be annoyed by them after 1 day). And of course to see my family and friends again :)
Let's not get too sentimental...I'd rather tell you about the amazing trip to the westcoast.

On Friday Harry, Claudia, Elisabeth, Lena and I drove to the Westcoast - once again we started at 7 o'clock and drove to Fjällbacka, which is a small town at the coast. Ingrid Bergman used to go there regularly (it was her favourite town), that's why the main square is named after her. (some random information...in case you ever have to know it). The weather wasn't that nice, so we had to imagine how lovely the town must be in summer. We climbed on a rocky hill where we had a great view to over the town, the sea and many archipelagos...
Afterwards we drove to Smögen, another small town on an archipelago. We stayed in a cosy Hostel, directly by the sea. We even went to the sauna (small red building on the pic), which was next to the hostel - and afterwards we (well, Harry and I) sprang into the swedish sea to get a refreshment ;). It was really cool (*lol* notice the wordplay ;) )...
The next day we went to Lysekil, which is located at the Gullmarsfjord. The town itself wasn't that impressive, but the Fjord was quite nice, in my opinion. We drove on to Håverud to watch the aqueduct. We saw some amazing pictures of it in a travel guide but when we came to the Bridge of the aqueduct, we weren't impressed at all. There was a small sign saying that they open the sluices once a day - for five minutes - and only during summer. So our timing was really bad... Nevertheless, it was nice seeing it - and I learned what an aqueduct is, because I had never heard of it before...
The trip to the wecstcoast was really beautiful - Smögen and Fjällbaka are the typical swedish postcard motives with the sea, archipelagos, narrow red houses,... If I ever have enough money, I'll buy a summer residence there ;)
As always - you can watch some pictures on Flickr.

Today (Sunday) we'll go to a small christmas market in Karlstad - I'm already looking forward to that.
Next weekend I'm heading to Stockholm (again) to see Rufus Wainwright live (finally :) ) and buy some christmas presents... On the 7th of december we go to Kiruna (in the far north) and 11 days later I'm heading home...time goes by so fast....

Bye
Manuel

Stockholm...

Yesterday night I came back from Stockholm - I finally managed to go there. After 3 months in Sweden it was about time to go to the capital city.
We - Elisabeth, Harry (both from Austria) and Heidi (Finland) arrived in Stockholm on friday morning around 11 a.m. Since it's getting dark around half past 3 now and all the museums close at 4 we had to hurry to see something of Stockholm. We went on a boat-sightseeing tour and to the Astrid Lindgreen Museum "Junibacken". It's a really nice place, especially for Lindgren Fans and - of course - for children. Sitting in a small train you drive through the stories of Astrid Lindgren, and although it's mainly for children, we really enjoyed it there. In the evening we walked around the Gamla Stan (the Old Town), bought some souvenirs and went to a really cosy Pub.
The next day we got up quite early to go shopping and to see the Royal Palace. The palace looks quite interesting and nice, though you can't compare it to the Schloss Schönbrunn or any other Palace in Austria. We didn't go inside, because they had some technical problems (whatever) when we wanted to go inside and since we wanted to go to "Skansen" we didn't have much time to wait. Skansen is a huge open air museum/park/zoo on one of Stockholms islands. It was the world's first open air museum and shows a lot of old swedish houses. There are also a lot of nordic plants and animals, which makes the park really interesting. You could spend a whole day there, looking at the animals, the houses, the old shops or just walking around.
We had a good time there - and finally I saw a living elk ;) and reindeer.
All in all I have to say that Stockholm is a very beautiful city and definitely worth to visit. All the small Islands, the old buildings, fashionable (and mostly good looking) people, a very lively bar/pub scene and interesting museums make it to a very unique and cool city.
In 2 weeks (1st weekend in december) I'll go there again - on my own. I'm really looking forward to explore more of this amazing city. :)
To see some pictures - click here.

Walk to the lake

Well, just a short entry - I uploaded some new pics. Click here to see them.
I walked to the Vänernlake today - finally. I planned to do that for quite a while, but never had enough time to do it. But today I got up and thought that I should do it, since I don't have to study or work on a project. It's quite a long walk, so it takes some time to get there (all in all it took me 3 hours to go there and back home). It was really beautiful and I took many pictures.
!!! - you won't see any human being on the pictures! Only trees, water, more trees and sometimes even stones ;)

Well, that's it for now - I've written everything else in my last entry (Halloween and stuff...)
Cu
Manuel

Halloween and stuff...

Hejhej :)
It's me - again ;) The last few days were really busy and stressful - learning for the exam, preparing the project,...enough stuff to do. But finally I have some spare time and nothing to learn.
First of all I had my swedish exam last friday (not yesterday) - it went OK, i guess. The exams in Sweden are totally different than in Austria - there are special rooms for the exams, and when you enter the room you have to show your ID and a person checks your name on a list. Then you get a number - and you have to sit on the table that has the same number. So you can't choose where to sit and who's sitting next to you... You're only allowed to have a pen and something to drink/eat on the table - no clothes, no papers, nothing. Everything must be put in the back of the room. During the exam some guards walk around (!) and check the student IDs. Of course they also make sure that nobody's cheating. Totally different than in Austria.
However, yesterday I had my second exam (WebDesign and Digital Imaging) and it was OK - we were allowed to use computers to write the HTML Code, so the WebDesign part was quite easy (at least for me). The Digital Imaging Part, however, was quite hard - we weren't allowed to use a computer and had to know all the photoshop functions by heart. Honestly, who knows where to find which tool and how it's called without actually sitting in front of photoshop?
Well, time will show if I answered enough questions correctly.
On Tuesday we had the presentation of our Homepage and thank god, it went really well. Jelka, Doreen and I did a very good presentation, in my opinion. We did a Homepage for a swedish Trash Metal Band called "gotma". You can find the Homepage here (ONLY for Firefox).

On Wednesday there was a Halloweenparty (of course) and since I really was in the mood for dressing up, I decided to put some effort in my costume. Yeah, this should be a Freddy-Krueger dress up. Too bad I couldn't find some good gloves/hands with knifes ;) But I was quite satisfied with my bloody face with the scars and the burned skin.
The Party was not very special, which was a shame, because I was really looking forward to that. Quite a lot of people were dressed up - but the most shocking thing of all - most of the americans didn't dress up at all.

Well, yesterday there was another party at the campus but I didn't stay too long. Before the party, Jonathan, Elisabeth and her brother (he's visiting her) came to me and we were sitting together talking in my room - it was really nice and interesting because we had a really good conversation. Around 11 p.m we went to the party, decided that it's not good, and went home around 12. I met Sofia and Andreas in the kitchen - what really surprised me, because usually both of them party all night long. Not this time. They didn't like it at the party (so I wasn't the only one ;) ). We ended up talking and eating for quite a while. It was the perfect ending of the day, in my opinion :)


So, basically that's everything that has happened in the last few days. Boring, isn't it ;)
Oh, some random information - I booked my flight home (so everybody who wants to meet me or go on holidays to avoid meeting me ;) - I'll be back home on the 19th of December, but will most likely go to Salzburg on the 20th - just for 1 day ).
More random stuff - I started baking again! (I used to bake quite a lot when I was younger)
I baked bread last week - why? Well, I made some "Kaiserschmarrn" for an international dinner we had - 16 people from 9 nations - everybody prepared a meal from his/her country - it was delicious ;) However, making the Kaiserschmarrn got me in the mood for baking. So I baked bread some days later...and today I baked even more bread and muffins. Probably I quit studying and become a Baker instead ;) just kidding.

That's it for now...feel free to contact me if you want to share some stories or some recipes ;)
Manuel