welcome to the world of...

Hej!

Once again - sorry for not writing. But as always - not much has happened.
I went to university, met friends,...the usual stuff.
The two most exciting things that happened since my last entry - Jonathan, Ilana, Sofia and I made chocolate fondue. Very tasty and very improvised, since we don't have a real "fondue dishes" here. We melted the chocolate in a bowl, put the bowl in a hot water bath and put it on the table. It was delicious :P I hope we'll do it again soon.
Next time we'll try to make cheese-fondue, which will be a bit harder to do, since the cheese shouldn't get cold.
Anyway...the second exciting thing that happened - I did something, that I never wanted to do. Or let's say - now I'm the kind of person I never wanted to be. An "Apple Guy"... I never had or wanted an iPod. In fact, I was quite happy with my Creative Zen MP3 Player...but then, on a boring afternoon Jonathan and I went to the Apple Store in Karlstad. Just to look at some programms and check if they have the iPhone. But we ended up playing with the iPod Touch - for more than 1 hour.
Jonathan wanted to buy one - and in the end I wanted to have one too. We went back home and thought about it. I checked my money (I had enough) and read some reviews on the internet (all of them were positive). I slept - and dreamed of the iPod Touch. I know, it's a weird thing to do, but well...I imagined how nice it would be to move my fingertips over the touchscreen and watch videos/hear music with it.
Well...as you can guess - I bought one. Now I'm in the oh-so-cool circle of Apple-iPod users. Welcome to the world of Apple.
I still think that the earphones are bad (really bad) quality and it was one of the first things I changed (so now I'm an Apple Guy without the stylish [and bad] white earphones...). But everything else is just amazing. The built-in browser (Safari), the player, videos,...and after the software update I even have Google Maps (so cool!) and e-mail on it...(and some other programms). Really cool. I'm impressed.

Anyway - that's it. The most exciting things that have happened since my last entry. I hope that Easter will be more exciting ;)
Bye
m.

Födelsedag

Hi everybody!
First of all - thanks for all the congratulations via phone, facebook, studiVZ, mail,... I really appreciate it and it made me really happy :)
I had a great birthday here in Sweden and in fact, the whole birthday celebrations started on thursday, when I went to my first Hockeymatch. Färjestad (wearing black) played against Mora and it was quite good. The first 40 minutes were a bit boring, but in the final 20 minutes it got really exciting.
We had standing tickets, so we were standing in the centrum of the die-hard Färjestad fans (Färjestad is Karlstad's team) and the crowed was really into it and never stopped singing and cheering - although Färjestad lost - which was quite surprising, since Mora is second last in the League and Färjestad is a really good team which has won the championship several time.
However, after the match I went to Arena, which was really cool. There were quite a lot of people, the music was...OK (Arena music, so what do you expect? ;) ) but I had a good time there.
On Friday afternoon I bought some stuff for the Party in the evening. As I wrote in my last entry, Jonathan decided to make a small Party at his place. It was my "official" Birthday-Party to celebrate into my 22nd year on this planet. The party was really cool, everybody seemed to have a good time. It wasn't a huge party, just a small get-together with some friends. Talking, playing SingStar, eating the delicious snacks Jonathan had prepared,...and at 12 o'clock we celebrated my birthday. Shortly before 12 o'clock the police showed up - it was the real police, no strippers or so ;) - apparently we had been to loud (while playing SingStar ;) ), so that someone called them. But gladly it wasn't a big deal, they just told us to keep it a bit quiet and went away. Afterwards everybody sang/whispered "Happy Birthday" ;)
I had fun at the party - thanks everyone for coming :)

Yesterday afternoon I went to a football match with some friends (it seems this week has been my "Sports week" - first hockey, than football...) and afterwards some people came over for some birthday-apple-pie. In the evening I went to see the kent-concert, which was really cool. I must admit - I was a bit surprised that their concerts are that good. I enjoy their CDs, but they are even better live. The crowed was wild and jumping, screaming, singing...that's how it should be on a concert ;) The stage, the visuals and the lights were great..I was really impressed and I'll definitely go to another kent concert if they play somewhere near again.

So, that was a short summary of the past few days/my birthday...I kept it short, because I don't want to bore anyone ;)
Last but not least - some pictures of the past few days:
Hockey and football - if you want to see some Swedes doing sports ;)
Birthdayparty & Arena - if you want to see some embarrassing pictures of people (incl. me) singing.
KENT - if you want to see some nice concert pictures.
CU & thanks for reading :) I'll write again next weekend, hopefully.

PS - one of my favourite Kent songs which they played yesterday:

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"...

Art, Football, Party and Bolibompa

Tjena!

Well, another week has passed - and it was a quite exciting one!
First of all, I had my first class in "The moving image in the expanded field of audivisuality" - and it was quite different from what I expected. The description said that it's about the history and development of cinema - but in fact it was just about the history of AVANT-GARDE Cinema. We watched some "movies" of artists and discussed the meaning of them. Although we didn't really "discuss" them, nobody understood the films better than before. One film, for example, just showed people opening and closing curtains - over and over again. Wow. Absolutely no idea what I shall learn from this, but who cares.
I hope the next lesson will be better. Don't get me wrong - I like art and I like art movies - but I want to watch them in a museum with additional information - or I want to discuss them afterwards - what we didn't do. The teacher explained nothing about the background or the meaning of the movies. Probably he didn't understand them himself ;)
However, on Wednesday the craziness went on - I watched (and I still can't believe it) my first football match on TV (this means -without making funny comments or switching the channel after a few seconds). Unbelievable, isn't it? (people who know me surely know that I am definitely not a football fan...) Jonathan, Hong and I went downtown to a billiard bar to watch the game. It was fun, but I have to admit, that I was more excited about the music that was playing in the bar then about the match. Oh yeah, by the way, it was Manchester United against Portsmouth. Manchester was the team that wore red dresses - at least something I know about them ;)

However, after this very exciting trip to the world of football I had a very calm and quiet evening in front of the TV on Friday. Sofia and I watched Flashdance, Let's Dance (swedish version of "Dancing Stars") and Billy Elliot - I know, very nerdy, but it was fun.
To compensate for the "nerdy-ness" I went to a Campus Party on Saturday - it was really cool, because this time there was a good DJ, a lot of nice Swedes and Exchange Students and everybody was in a good mood and dancing. The picture is Sofia's, so all the credits belong to her ;)
Sunday - well, was a boring day with boring weather. I met a swedish friend for a coffee and a walk; In the evening I watched some TV with Sofia and the others. There I found my new favourite word - "Bolibompa"!! Well, it's a name, but who cares ;) It's the name of a swedish kids program and I watched parts of it yesterday. It's a nice children's show, but I had so much fun just laughing about the name *lol* it sounds really funny (you pronounce it like "buli-bummpa").
Totally random, I know :D

Before I start listing all my favourite swedish words and bore you to death, I should better stop now.

So, that's it, that's what happened last week. Exciting, eh?
Feel free to comment or write to me (even if it's just something like "that last entry sucked" ;) ). Or if you have any facts about Manchester United that help me to show off and cover my lack-of-interest - write me!

See you soon,
Manuel

Hej :)

Hi again...sorry for the long absence, but since I'm back in Karlstad, nothing too exciting has happened. Well, of course I met a lot of new people (exchange Students) and had a good time, but nothing seemed worthy for a new entry.
However, the new people who moved to my corridor are really nice - a Mexican, an Austrian and a french guy. Sofia is the only girl left in our corridor but I think she doesn't dislike it too much ;)

On Wednesday we had our first "traditional" dinner in our corridor - we decided to make Pizza, since everybody likes it and it's easy to prepare. I mixed the dough and nearly set the kitchen on fire when I put it in the stove to rest for 30 minutes (yeast dough, you know ;) )- apparently the stove was too hot. Fortunately John (a swedish guy from my corridor) noticed the strange smell early enough, so nothing happened (the towel on top of the dough caught fire and the plastic bowl melted a bit..other than that everything was ok. And most important - the dough survived! :) )
It was a nice dinner and I'm sure we'll do it again soon.

Then there was the usual "welcome week" stuff like the Welcome Dinner, Welcome Party etc. which was a lot of fun, like last term. I met many new people - this term a lot of Austrians are here - one of them is even from Vorarlberg. Finally somebody who understands my Dialect ;)

The courses I took this term are: "Swedish as a foreign language 3", "Media, Culture, Technology", "Media & Communication Studies" (the master course) and "The Moving Image in the Expanded Field of Audiovisuality" (could it sound more complicated? I don't think so). So far everything's ok, I just hope that it stays like that. I just had Swedish and the Media course yet, tomorrow evening I'll have my first lesson of the other one (don't make me write it again...the moving image in expanded something course). I hope the course will be interesting and not as difficult as the title ;)

So, that's it for now. Nothing too exciting, I know, but well - I've already been here for half a year, so my life got quite normal in Karlstad. Of course I still like it here, but I stopped being overwhelmed by every tree or lake. I have my routines, my friends and stuff to deal with, and I think writing about that is not that interesting for you. However, I'll write again as soon as something exciting happens ;)
bye

PS: here are some random pictures I took in in January

Welcome Back

Hi everybody!

Yesterday I came back to Karlstad...after some beautiful weeks at home. I really enjoyed being back home, seeing everybody again, going out, meeting some old friends...it almost felt like I've been away for more than 4 months.
However, now I'm looking forward to the next few months here in Karlstad. Right now I'm busy writing an essay for a course and looking for an internship (in autumn)...
And I thought - a new year and a new term - why not re-design the blog. As you can see, I have new colours and a new head-picture - which doesn't look that good, but for now it's all that you get ;)
(and if you wonder about the sun...it's the logo of Karlstad).

Well, I'll write to you as soon I have something to tell...I guess it will start, when the new exchange students will arrive (end of the week/beginning of next week).
Manuel

Btw - Greetings to Reinmar ;)