Very Eventful Week Part II !!!!!!

Dear readers,

As you probably already know from my last blog, I was on the frozen Mälaren lake with a Swedish rowing buddy of mine.

Now I would like to tell you about the rest of my week. Of course I spent lots of time working on my Master's Thesis. I did some thorough literature research, found 11 new and relevant researchpapers and now I have lots of new reading material! :-)

Otherwise, towards the end of the week I began partying. Again with some rowing buddies and some other buddies of mine that studied together with me in Copenhagen. They are in the same European Environmental Science Master's Program. Friday night we went to the student nations. It really was a good time. They had great music, cheap beer and many interesting people to meet! Friday night we all stayed to party and dance for quite a long time. After that I went home with my buddy Erik and spent the night there, as it was a smarter idea to do so than attempting to ride the bike home to campus.

The next morning Erik and I got up and took a walk around town. The sun was shining and it was a really nice day! The great thing about Sweden at this time is that it still is cold and snowy, but the sun really warms things up. I know this may sound ridiculous, but after a winter with an average of -12°C or so, -3°C is a heat wave! :-D

We walked along the head of the Fyris river, which runs through the town of Uppsala. We then approached the Uppsala Ice Artwork Exhibit. If you would like to see pictures of the ice sculptures, please look at Rami's SLU blog for some excellent images of Uppsala's ice statues!

http://www.slubiotechnology.blogspot.com/

Now the unexpected part of the day began. Another rowing friend and an old friend from Berlin, Helena called us to meet up. This was great, as we were beginning to get a little bored and our company lacked some estrogen hormones :-). Erik and I met Helena and we decided to go to a student nation to grab some great and affordable breakfast sandwiches.

After criticising the student nations so much, I would like to change my opinion on them. Since I've been engaging myself in more social activities and meeting more people at the nations and buddies of mine, I've really started to enjoy the student nations. One thing about living on campus is that it's somewhat far away from the city. It's easy to stay at home and become a little bit of a hermit. The distance to the city and the cold weather make staying home a really lucrative choice nearly all the time.

If you live on campus make sure you get out of here! You will go crazy if you stay on campus and don't do anything in the city!!! Listen to this, this is a word of wisdom!!!

Long story short, we had lunch, walked around, I went home to have dinner with Helena and then I returned home to take a shower and relax a little. As soon as I got home, my other buddies from Copenhagen called me: "Hey Julian, feel like going to the nations tonight? There's a great party going on!"

Well, I had to reflect a little. Should I go out or not? Well I had taken a shower and then thought, "what the hell, why not? You only live once!" :-) That was a good choice! The party at the nations was good and I met quite a few interesting people that night. (Some of you may ask what interesting people are. In my vocabulary they are girls!) :-)

Overall it was an amazing weekend here in Uppsala. In fact, it was the best weekend that I've had so far in Sweden! Believe it or not, a small town called Uppsala in Central Sweden can actually be quite a bit of fun. It's just important to find the right people, parties and locations to have fun at!

That was the end of my last and very eventful week. Take care my readers and you'll hear from me soon again!

Julian