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

Update

Hello World ;)

Just a quick update on what's going on in K-Town ;)
Well, yesterday the booksale started - Books are quite expensive in Sweden, but on one day in February every bookstore has a huge sale and opens earlier than usual (some open even at midnight). I took this chance and bought some Swedish books (children's books - not that hard to read ;) ) and some English books.
What else is there to say...well, tomorrow I'm going to a Hockey game - Karlstad Färjestad [see Logo] against Mora. As far as I know, Färjestad are quite good, Mora is bad and second last in the League, anyway, I'm looking forward to the game. On Friday there MIGHT be a small "Pre-Birthday-Party" to celebrate into my Birthday - but nothing is fixed yet. In fact, Jonathan said he'd like to organize something and since I can't party on Saturday (->Kent concert) Friday is the only day a party makes sense.
Well, I'll write some (hopefully interesting) stuff on Sunday - after the Hockey Match, Kent and my birthday - many stories ;)

cu
manuel

Tjänare :) [Hi!, Servus!]

Once again, sorry for the lack of stories... It's really strange, because I always do something, but it's never exciting enough for a new entry.
The last 2 weeks were not boring at all but I have the feeling as if I didn't do much. I went out, went to the gym (which is why I had a terrible muscle ache on muscles I didn't even know I had), studied, went to University, read a lot, met friends,... I was (and still am) really motivated to improve my Swedish - I started buying and reading Swedish magazines (a gossip magazines, one movie magazine and a Swedish comic book). Although I don't know that much Swedish yet, I understand quite a lot. Even if it's just about Posh Spice being jealous of the other Spice Girls, or Hollywood's male bitches (see picture) ;)
I chose the gossip mag because I thought it's not that hard to understand, especially because of the catchy headlines which are - although they are really silly - full of useful words that are easy to remember. I also started watching more Swedish TV - with that I mean Swedish Productions (since all foreign productions are in the original language with subtitles...so e.g House M.D is in English, with Swedish subtitles). I started watching "Melodifestivalen", which is a huge competition to elect the Swedish participant in this year's Eurovision Song Contest. In contrast to Austria, where the competition isn't regarded as being serious, Swedes really take it seriously and have a quite complicated system to elect the participant: First, there are several shows (I think around 4) - in each show, 2 Singers or Bands will come to the final, 2 other participants will get another chance in a show called "Andra Chansen", which will be one week before the final. The winners of this show will come to the final...and eventually there will be just 1 winner, who will represent Sweden in Serbia. Learning Swedish is the perfect excuse to watch this show ;)

Well, on Sunday I went to see Tim Burton's new movie "Sweeney Todd" and I must say, that I enjoyed it. As always, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are amazing and Tim Burton did a really good job. The music is not that special, in my opinion. Especially compared to other musicals, but well, the acting and the pictures compensate for that. So, if you have the chance to see it - do it! Watch the Trailer.

Oh and here's a picture...another sunset, because it's been a while since I posted the last "oh so romantic" sunset picture. I took it yesterday, because the sky looked so amazing. I was in my room, that's why the detail isn't the best.
Talking of sunsets brings me to the next topic - traveling (you can figure out the complex and philosophical background of that [very weird] association yourself ;) )
The next big trip I will (certainly) do is in April - I'll see Rufus Wainwright in Stockholm (wohoo...again!), so I'll be in Stockholm for 3 days. I hope that the weather will be nice, because I really want to see Stockholm with sunlight - and I want to make a boat tour to the archipelago (gosh, that's a hard word to spell).
Other than that - Jonathan and I were thinking about going to Manchester in March, but it doesn't look like it will happen (it's a loooong story. Never trust an "English bloke" who wants to sell you football tickets.). But we'll go to Gothenburg and hopefully Malmö in the near future.
So, that's it for now...
cu
manuel

PS: I forgot...I'm heading to the big 30...in 1,5 weeks is my 22nd birthday, then I'm in my early late 20s (quote from Hedwig) and I will celebrate my birthday with a concert - I'll see KENT live - a Swedish group that's really successful here. Since they give a concert here in Karlstad, I thought I should take the chance and see them.
here's a video to one of their newer songs "Ingenting"...

Jag talar lite svenska...!

Hello again...or should I say "Hej!"?
It's really strange if you live in a country where you don't understand the language. At first I thought it was an interesting experience, but by now I'm quite annoyed, because it's not funny at all, if you don't understand a word (or, let's say, you don't understand any important words. Just basic smalltalk stuff like "how are you"). If I go somewhere, my first question is "Hej! Talar du engelska?" (Hi! Do you speak english?). Of course most people here speak english (quite well, too) but I really hope that I can speak at least some swedish soon. I try to remember all the swedish words I read somewhere (on the street, supermarket,...) but I forget most of them...I hope this will change soon.

Well, yesterday we had our first day of orientation - some interesting informations about the University, Sweden, Karlstad...and of course lots and lots of new people. All in all there are about 190 exchange students, most of them from Germany...some US-Americans, Canadians, Italians, also some people from Thailand and many many other countries. And - so far I've met 5 other Austrians. But I try NOT to stick together with german-speaking people, because I want to speak english (and swedish ;) ) and so far it really works well.
I've also met Jonathan, a Canadian guy - we had some contact before, through Facebook and met yesterday for the first time. He's really nice and he has a girlfriend in Gothenburg. He's a "free-mover", which means that he doesn't have the support of an exchange program, so he has to organize everything by himself, but I think he's doing fine so far.
So, as you can imagine, I met a lot of people, heard a lot of different names and spoke a lot. Gladly, I spoke in english, most of the time. In the evening we went to a student's Pub called "K6" and had some drinks (all the international students and some host students were invited to join). It was really nice, everyone was talking to everyone and I met some nice people from Sweden and Norway.

The people who live in my corridor are quite nice, too. More about them a bit later, when I know them better (I think you can't really judge someone after a few days...especially if everything is new and overwhelming).

Today we had a guided tour through the town and some swedish games, like "Brännboll" (it's similar to Baseball) and "Kubb" (a very strange game where you have to throw wooden sticks on other wooden sticks and...well, let's not get started with that). It was really funny, but now I'm really exhausted and tired.
By the way - the picture you can see above shows the Monument on the "Stora Torget" (Main Square) of Karlstad...but nobody here likes it and it was voted for the "ugliest place in Sweden" twice.

And - I'm really proud of that - I managed to make a bank account, finally. If anyone wants to give me some money - just ask for my account number ;)
So one more thing I can delete from my "Thing's to do" list. No news on the internet problem, though. I hope this will change soon.

So, that's it so far - I promise that I'll upload some pictures and make a flickr-diashow, but I forgot my camera yesterday, so I haven't taken a lot of photos yet (stupid me, I know ;) ).
Hej då!

Hej Sverige...

Hur har du det?
In a few months I'm in Sweden and I'm already so excited... In the last few weeks I had some Swedish lessons - at least I can speak some Swedish yet. The funny thing is, that some words are really like "vorarlbergerisch" (my austrian dialekt), so it's not hard for me to remember the words ;) If I forget something, I'll just start speaking dialekt*lol*
I still can't believe that I'll spend 1 year in Sweden...I think I'll start believe it when I'm in Karlstad, sitting in my Swedish room (on my Swedish IKEA Bed), looking at the swedish forest outside and smelling Swedish air. Probably I'll listen to ABBA while during that ;)
I've already started listening to some Swedish bands, such as KENT - they sing in Swedish, so I can learn something from listening their music...;)
Hej då,
Manuel