Picturetime

Well, this entry is totally useless, but some months ago I found this new tool and I wanted to try it out...but I always forgot about it. So, here it is, a slide show for my blog :P
Some recent pictures of BBQs and parties...enjoy and let me know what you think of the slideshow...I'm not sure if it's that good/useful or if the flickr link is better...

Grillfest

Hi everybody :)

Well, as I wrote in my last entry, spring arrived in Karlstad. Spring means - the days are getting longer and swedish people come out of their houses, wear summer clothes (IF they wear any clothes), lie in the sun...and make BBQs!

Alex, a Swede in my corridor, invited some working colleagues over for a huge grilling party. Of course our corridor was invited too - everybody prepared something, they bought the meat and in the end there were about 30-40 people outside our kitchen, eating, talking and having fun. It was a relaxed and nice atmosphere, the food was delicious - some mexican starters, salad, meat-on-sticks (no idea what the english word for that is?!), potatoes casserole...and brownies, chocolate cake, ice cream and cookies for dessert. It was de-li-cious!
Afterwards we played SingStar, talked, danced,...and had a good time. It was really nice. I hope we'll do something like that again. Sofia and I decided to have at least 1 more corridor-dinner before everyone's leaving. It was some kind of tradition last term - we cooked together at least once 1 month, but this term it's different.

Anyway, today I have to do some reading for a course, drive downtown to check if I can find the new Portishead CD..and in the evening we'll probably have another BBQ at Jonathan's place.
The interesting thing is that I totally adapted to the swedish temperatures. Although it's just about 10 - 15 degrees it feels warm enough to run around in a t-shirt. I love it :)

On Wednesday Jonathan had his birthday-party - well, kind of. Hong, Sofia and I went to his place to hang out and afterwards we met some more people in a sports bar downtown. We watched the Manchester United game there (Jonathan is a huge supporter ;) ). It was nice, though football is not my favourite thing. The Liverpool match in tuesday, ManU on wednesday...it was a football overdose, really ;)

So, maybe I'll write again tomorrow...
manuel

PS: pictures can be found HERE

That's life...

Hej :)

Wow, the 3rd entry in 7 days - that's a new record for me ;)
Anyway, my week/weekend wasn't that exciting, but I'm in the mood for writing something. It's shocking how much I got used to everything here. I started to realize that I will go home soon (in 1,5 months...) and it's really weird. Last term, everything was new and exciting, I did a lot of trips and didn't really settle down here. Of course I arranged and decorated my room, but it seems that I never really lay my heart into settling down. This term it's different. When I came back after christmas, I felt "at home". I knew all the people, knew the area/Karlstad...it wasn't exciting anymore. It really was like coming back home after a short vacation. I got so used to everything, especially the people here. I know that I will be very sad when I have to go back to Austria.
Don't misunderstand me, of course I'm looking forward to seeing all of my friends/family again, but it's sad to leave friends back in Karlstad.
Anyway, I don't want to start thinking about it now...

This weekend was a very lazy weekend, full of very sophisticated TV programs ;)
Sofia and I (and, well, Hong and John) watched "A shot at love with Tila Tequila" - a MTV show about a bisexual bachelorette (Tila Tequila...sounds like a porn star name, doesn't it? ;) ) and 16 blokes and 16 girls are competing against each other to win hear heart. In the end she has to choose for a guy or a girl... It's the "ultimate war of the sexes" as one contestant put it. Yes, it is a very freaky show and yes, it's a very cheap way to attract attention - but it's fun to watch. Hong enjoyed it a lot, especially the kissing girls ;) It was weird to watch it - on the one hand it's so cheap and silly but on the other hand it's fun to watch. Especially with some chocolate cake and ice cream ;)

Other than that I did some editing for a birthday-video and went to the swimming pool - and I will never go there again on a SUNDAY. I forgot that Sunday is "family day" and it's really awkward swimming next to all those families with yelling little kids.
All in all the last week was a real "sporty week" - I went to the gym 3 times (as usual), swimming and I walked a lot...as a result I felt every single muscle on Sunday. Nice feeling ;)

So, what's up next? On Wednesday it's Jonathan's birthday, I guess we will watch some football game in the evening and celebrate a bit. The first weekend in may I plan to go to Gothenburg (finally!) and Malmö with Jonathan and the second weekend in May I'll go to Stockholm again, probably the last time for a long time :(
Anyway, I'm looking forward to visiting Gothenburg - some friends told me that there are two kind of people - either you like Stockholm and hate Gothenburg, or you love Gothenburg but hate Stockholm...

Well, that's it for now...sorry, no pics just text. Next time I'll post some pics, I promise :)

Spring is in the air... :)

Well, kind of ;)
At least I pretend that it's spring. The sun is shining, I'm listening to Belle&Sebastian (perfect spring music) and imagine how it would feel like to wear just shorts and a T-Shirt... but it's still a bit too cold for that...Anyway, yesterday we (Jonathan, Hong, Maria, Lenka) went to the lake to have a small bonfire and grill some sausages (and a frozen chicken in Hong's case :P as you can see in the picture).
When we walked to the lake it was really sunny and warm - but as soon as we managed to light a fire it started to rain! Our luck... But we didn't leave, we went to a small cottage nearby and waited under a small roof for the rain to stop. Around 15 minutes later the rain stopped and we went back to our fire - which was extinguished by now. So we tried to collect some dry wood/grass and started all over again. Luckily the sun decided to honor us with her company and we had a really nice time at the lake.
I'm really looking forward to doing that again when the weather is warmer...
Apart from that the last few days weren't that exciting....

anyway, that was just a quick update on what's going on right now... Comments and stuff like that are always welcome :)
manuel

Short entry

Well, just to let you know - I had a calm weekend. I watched some movies, went for a coffee with Anders, was invited for dinner at Hong's and watched another Disney movie with Sofia...that's all I did. Exciting, eh?
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to that:

It's Portishead, for the people who don't know the logo ;) Their first album in 10 years...now, THAT'S exciting :))

Var nöjd med allt som livet ger :)

Hej!

Well, it's friday - finally weekend!! But compared to last weekend, when I was in Stockholm, this one is going to be quite boring. Everybody is away (trips to somewhere) - at least the people I usually hang out with. Looks like this will be a very calm and relaxing (boring?) weekend ;) but I'm looking forward to it, in a weird way. I haven't had time for myself in the last few weeks. Somehow there was always something happening, which is nice, but it can be a bit exhausting sometimes. Tonight I'll watch a movie - completely on my own, something I haven't done for a long time (and usually I enjoy watching something on my own). Of course I'd rather be in Stockholm and repeat last weekend, but that's not possible ;)

Anyway, this week I found a new way of learning swedish - DISNEY MOVIES! YAY! As you might now, movies in Sweden are in the original language - except children's movies, they are translated into Swedish. Sofia and I watched "The Jungle Book" and "The Little Mermaid" - in Swedish with English subtitles. So funny to hear those songs in Swedish! I grew up with the German versions, know some of them by heart...but the Swedish songs sound not too bad. I understood quite a lot of the dialogues between the songs, since they spoke a very nice&clear Swedish. I think I'll buy some Swedish Disney movies before I go back to Austria :D
Other than that, my week was quite normal, nothing too exciting happened.
Maybe I'll write again on sunday - in the meantime Var nöjd med allt som livet ger :)



ps - my "band of the moment" - Hercules and Love Affair - genius album! With Antony Hegarty (from Antony and the Johnsons) singing on some songs... Check their single "Blind" out

The ultimate experience...

Hej everbody :)
I'll excuse in advance for a very Rufus-related entry. I'm sure I'll write something like "it was so great" for about 30 times in this entry.
However, for all the people who are not interested in reading a loooong breakdown of my weekend in Stockholm (which had more to offer than just Rufus [though Rufus was the main thing ;) ]) here are the hard facts:
it was great; I met a lot of nice people; I had fun (in every sense); Rufus was amazing-both times!;

So, let's start..with thursday, because that was when my weekend started. You could call it the "Pre-weekend-Party". We had a very tasty Schnitzel-dinner in our corridor (Dominik, an exchange student from last term was here to visit us..and he made the Schnitzel) and afterwards Martin, Lukas, Maria and I went downtown to see a concert. The Swedish band "Johnossi" played at a local club and since I really enjoy their first CD I didn't want to miss them. However, the concert was nice but not too special. Actually, it was quite "loud", but I enjoyed it anyway. The small picture shows the band.

On Friday I finally drove to STOCKHOLM, something I had been looking forward to for more than 2 months... I arrived there around 4 o'clock, went to the Hostel, grabbed something to eat, strolled around the city and looked at expensive, but perfectly fitting jeans - but I didn't buy them (now I wish I did...). Then I went back to the hostel, had a shower and went to a Party I was invited to.
The Party was on Södermalm (an island that's part of Stockholm) and started around 7 p.m. I was quite nervous, because I just (kind of) knew the host (Niklas) and nobody else. But it turned out to be really good, because I met a lot of really nice people (Swedes only ;) ). Since it was a swedish Party it (obviously) was a "Pre-Party" and around half past 11 we went to a Nightclub nearby. And well, what can I say? It was great, I had a real blast there - dancing, talking,...and so on ;) (this is the wrong place for more details)

The next day I met some people from the night before. We had brunch at a nice cafe (String) and afterwars we strolled around Södermalm and Djurgården. At 4 o'clock I met Linda - I know her from the last Rufus concert and she bought my ticket for this Rufus concert. We walked around (you see, I walked a lot in Stockholm) and waited for the concert to begin. We were really nervous and looking forward to it...The concert was at "Dramaten", the Royal Theater, a really beautiful place with a very nice flair.
It's hard to describe the concert itself, because it's something that you have to experience yourself to believe it. It was amazing and really special - and we had tickets for the second row! Rufus came without his band, so he sang and played the piano or the guitar himself and although his music is quite opera-like with a lot of orchestration and instruments, his songs worked really well "stripped down" like that. And once again, he proofed that he is a great entertainer. He really rocked the place with his witty comments about Sweden/Stockholm, Sylvester Stallone and other things. He's just so authentic when he is on stage. He makes mistakes and laughs about it - and the audience laughs with him and he means every single word he says. He doesn't have a script with jokes he tells every night, because he tells something different every single time.
After the concert Linda and I went to the backentrance to wait for Rufus to come out. We met some other Rufus fans (mostly people from the off. Rufus Messageboard) and together we waited for him. He came out and was really nice - he tried to talk to everybody and signed CDs, tickets, pictures... Since there were so many people we couldn't take a picture WITH him but I took plenty of pictures OF him. It was really nice meeting him - finally. Though I was quite nervous and I didn't know what to say...but he told me that he loves Austria and that it's so beautiful there :D *faint* Obviously I needed some time to calm down afterwards..I was really tired and just went Downtown to meet a friend at a bar but I left quite quickly because I was so sleepy...

The second concert on Sunday was even better, although the first concert was really hard to top. Rufus played different songs, talked a lot and told many funny stories - and he recognized some people in the audience who were there on the night before. It was really special and amazing...I had goosebumps on both evenings, especially during "Ready to Love", "The art teacher" and "This love affair"...AMAZING!

On Sunday (before the concert) I met Niklas again, for a trip through Stockholm. We went to the TV tower (but the weather wasn't that nice, so the view wasn't as impressive as it should be ;) ) and afterwards we went shopping. His boyfriend came back from work and we went to have lunch at a wok restaurant and shopped some more...But I didn't buy anything, because I really should save some money. It was hard, but I resisted buying some really good looking and perfectly fitting clothes - I didn't even buy a CD! Nothing! I spend my money on food (and the entrance to the nightclub) and nothing else. I'm surprised of myself, though I wish I had bought some clothes...hopefully next time.

It was a perfect weekend in Stockholm...and I really want to go there at least one more time before I leave Sweden...
More pictures of Stockholm
More pictures of RUFUS
Anyway, here's a Video of Rufus - not from Stockholm though. Listen to the song - or at least the awesome piano part around minute 2.45...

Farewells...

Hej!

Sooner than I planned to - my new entry.
Ilana and Carl have left :( They had a big Goodbye Party on Tuesday and yesterday we had a big "fika" (coffee/tea time) in our kitchen and a lot of people showed up to say goodbye to them.
It's really sad... It's hard to realize that they are not here anymore. I got so used to seeing them nearly every day, hanging out with them, going out, laughing,..just having a good time.
But I hope we'll meet again. Maybe not this year, but hopefully next year - I really want to go to South Africa. The picture shows me, Ilana, Sofia, Carl and Jonathan - hopefully there will be a re-union :)

What else is there to say... something went wrong with my course registration and I missed the first class yesterday, because I didn't know about it (haven't got any information). It was just a 20 minutes class to get some basic information about the course, but still, I hate the feeling of having missed something. Anyway, the next class is on Tuesday and I'll be there - with or without registration.
I'm heading to Stockholm tomorrow - Party on Friday, concert on Saturday (and maybe even on Sunday...) :) And hopefully the weather will be nice...Last time I went there, it was cold, dark and rainy. At least it won't be dark this time (sunset around 7.30 p.m) :)

Nice weekend, everyone!