Decent Last Week, Good Weekend

Dear readers,

I hope that you are all doing well as usual and are having the best day of your life! (I really mean this!) :-)

Again, last week I worked on my Master's Thesis doing more literature research. Now I'm done doing literature research, and during this week I will begin my data analysis. I'm really excited about everything and also the progress of my Thesis.

I quickly want to update you on what my past weekend was like. Friday night I went out to the nations again. This time my buddies and I went to Kalmar Nation. It was pretty cool. They had a live rock band and after that they played Balkan and Eastern Dance music. It was lots of fun. I got home pretty late and around noon the next day my buddy Erik called me to go ice skating on the lake. That was a great idea!

We took the bus to Fjällnora Lake where the city had plowed the ice sheet free from snow. One loop was 11 Kilometres and we skated around it twice. I had to rent ice skates as I don't own any. At 50 SEK per hour, I think they were cheap to rent. It was tons of fun and it felt so good to be back on ice skates. While I was younger I used to ice skate pretty often, but since attending college and working in the USA I haven't been skating since. This experience was really great and the weather was awesome. Cold but really sunny.

 Pic. 1: After skating for a while, I took a little break to take some photos of other people skating. Here you can see the plowed skating ways.

  Pic. 2: My buddy Erik on ice skates. As you can see Nordic skates are longer and slimmer than regular ice hockey skates. I think he was a little pissed off at the fact that I was slow and couldn't skate as well and as quickly as he could. But we both had a good time and he took off after a while, speed skating a round by himself.

  Pic. 3: At this point I was pretty tired after skating for nearly two hours. Still a great day though!

While you are on your international stay here in Uppsala, I DEFINITELY recommend that you go ice skating during the winter. It's a great workout and way to get out into some sun and get some fresh air!

Well, that's it for now. Take care everyone and enjoy your week!

Julian

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

Very Eventful Week Part I !!!!!!!

Dear readers,

As promised, I'm writing another blog about my experiences that I had during the past week here at Uppsala. It was really a great and also somewhat of a sad week. My buddy Carl from my rowing club and a really great guy to train with left Sweden for an exchange program to New Zealand. I hope he has a good time there. So during the first part of last week we hung out and of course trained together at the rowing house here at the SLU campus. The reason why I enjoy training together with Carl is that we really push each other. His splits are close to mine and vice versa. Often we are neck to neck during a rowing piece, while some times he's better, sometimes I'm a little better.

Anyways, what did we do besides training? Carl introduced me to something that I was unfortunately pretty ignorant about. We biked from the SLU campus where I live onto Lake Mälaren, which is completely frozen over. According to some ice reports the ice sheet on Lake Mälaren is between 15 and 35 centimetres thick. That's a ridiculous amount of ice. It makes sense though because it has been below -10°C practically since the end of October or the middle of November. So it's not surprising.

We began our bike trip across the frozen lake on a relatively thin sheet of snow until we approached something that I've never seen in my life! The ice on lake Mälaren was ACTUALLY plowed!!!! Now this was something totally new to me. The ice was perfect in the plowed areas and according to Carl leads all the way down to Stockholm, which is 80 Kilometres from Uppsala (not to forget).

Below are some pictures that I took which show the plowed ice sheet. Notice how the plowed ways lead to different parts of the lake and Uppsala's surrounding areas.

 Pic 1: This picture faces North towards Uppsala

  Pic 2: This picture faces South Southeast from Uppsala

Pic 3: This picture faces South, so away from Uppsala

Can you notice the ice skating marks on the ice? Many people do recreational ice skating here with nordic skates. Nordic skates have longer and sharper blades than regular hockey or figure skates. This allows for more speed. Unfortunately I don't have any picture of Nordic skates, but here is a link where you can see what they look like. 

http://freizeitalpin.at/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/lundhags-studio-091020-19699-ok_new.jpg 

Pic 4: My rowing buddy Carl and I taking a short break from our bike rides. Notice how our faces reveal how cold it was that day? As the snow pack was hard to bike on and hence I got a little warm, I took my jacket off.

 Pic 5: Me posing on the ice. Notice our bikes in the background and the sign on the ice? The sign showed the directions to places one could acces via the plowed routes. ULTRACOOL!!!! Swedes know how to make the best of a long and cold winter!

Biking on Lake Mälaren was really fun. I asked my parents to send me my ice skates from Berlin, so I can also do some ice skating on the lake. Can't wait to get them and integrate ice skating into two days of my training for rowing. Ice skating is a great cardio workout and tons of fun!

That evening Carl, a couple of his other buddies and I all got together for some dinner and a small beer cruise to the Student Nations. Overall it was a really great beginning of the week!

Of course I also worked on my Master's thesis. I had some meetings with my professors, finally have my hypotheses set and am actively conducting literature research. I've really been having lots of fun here in Uppsala during this past week. Some new experiences and slowly I'm finally really feeling like I'm integrating with some Swedish people. I really enjoy it!

In my next blog I will talk about my second part of last week. As mentioned before, last week was really packed with experiences and tons of fun! 

Farewell my fellow readers and until next time! Have a great Tuesday!!

Julian

Sweden Has Decided: More Winter! But that's good!

Dear readers,


I hope that all of you are doing well and, as usual, are having a great week. So, my last blog calls for Sweden to decide between winter and spring. That decision has clearly been made: winter. Over the past week we had 20 cm of new snow and more cold temperatures.

Actually I'm beginning to like the winter here. Right now it's really beautiful here. Days are getting much longer and the sun is actually beginning to feel warm again. The new white and fluffy snow reflects the sun really well. Despite the cold temperatures, the sun makes the air feel alot warmer.

Last week has been quite an eventful one. Over the next few posts (beginning tomorrow) I will explain what I did over the past week and write comments. Until tomorrow my friends!

Julian

Pretty Relaxed and Uneventful Week, Sweden decide: Spring or Winter!

Dear readers,

As always, I hope that all of you have been having a pleasant week with little stress and much success. All's well here. This week was pretty relaxed for me. Almost every day I worked on my Master's Thesis for a couple of hours. Right now I'm developing hypotheses, looking at my data sets and deciding what I would like to statistically test. This means lots of reading, and that's what I've been doing plenty of this week.

Also, I now have my own work room at the SLU Ecology Building and my own computer to use in the room. It's quite a nice setup. I have 24 hour access to the ecology building. Today I met with my professor to discuss our progress. All went well and we're making good progress.

One thing that is currently not so pleasant about Sweden is the weather and the slipperiness that is associated with the current snowmelt. During the day the temperatures are around +1°C - +4°C and during the night around 0°C - -5°C. That means the snow melts during the day, becomes a puddle and freezes at night again. I've fallen twice from my bike now because I slipped. I REALLY LOOK FORWARD TO SPRING. I know this is a terrible thing to say, but WE NEED SOME GLOBAL WARMING HERE!!! :-)

That's what's happened this week. Pretty relaxed, not too much going on.

I know that the time to apply to Universities and exchange programs is here. If you have any questions regarding student life here in Uppsala or my experiences as an ERASMUS exchange student, PLEASE ASK!!!! I'M HERE TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS!!!

Have a GREAT weekend people and you'll hear from me next week again! Have fun over the weekend!

Julian

One Critique of the Swedish Train Service, SJ

Dear readers,

It's the end of the week!!! Whooooo!! Do you have plans for the weekend yet? Tonight I will hang out with one of my room mates and relax and Saturday night it looks as though I will be attending a party that I was invited to with some friends.

I have one point of critique towards the Swedish train service, SJ.

Why are we not allowed to bring bikes aboard the X2000 trains? I understand that they are new and look good and everything, but why isn't there a place for bikes?

Every time I travel to Copenhagen I prefer to bring my wonderful bicycle with me. I can ride around the city and I save quite a bit of money by not having to buy expensive public transportation tickets, and also time by not having to wait for slow busses. The last time I brought by bike onboard the X2000, of course the bike frame with the wheels taken off, the SJ staff gave me soooooooo much stress! Totally uncool.

The Swedish train service portrays themselves as environmentally friendly, but bikes are NOT allowed on the long-distance trains! Even in the USA where very few people use bikes as a means of transportation, AMTRAK (the U.S. train service) allows you to bring a bike onboard! C'mon SJ pick it up, and allow us people that are trying to be even more environmentally friendly to bring a bike onboard (or have a place to store the bikes) and promote bikes as a means of transportation! I love the Swedish train service, and I've never had a problem with them.

I would love them even more if bikes were allowed aboard the long distance trains. In Denmark, Germany and in the USA (the countries that I've lived in for a while) you can take bikes aboard long distance trains without any problems.


SJ, bikes on trains are cool and environmentally friendly!!!!

Anyways, that's my rant. 

Have a great weekend everyone, and I look forward to a new week of working on my Master's and blogging!

Julian

Part 2 of My Weekend a.k.a. You Will NOT Believe This!!!

Dear readers,

I hope that you are all doing well and today has been a pleasant day so far. My day has been pretty productive. I woke up, had breakfast, wrote some e-mails and this blog, and will be going to read background information for my Master's shortly.

As promised, I want to tell you, my fellow readers, what happened on Monday night on my well planned trip back from Copenhagen. A small but crucial mistake that I made, turned my well-planned trip into an adventure and a little bit of compromising and a loooooong (but nice) bike ride home! :-)

So it all began at Stockholm Central Station. My itinerary was the following:

Copenhagen -> Stockholm Central Station
Stockholm Central Station -> Upplands Väsby
Upplands Väsby -> Uppsala.

I know that this itinerary seems a little inconvenient as I had to switch trains three times, but it was a cheap ticket and late at night, that's why I booked it. I prefer to travel later during the evening as the trains are emptier and there is more space to spread out.

I got off my train from Copenhagen at Stockholm Central Station. I had to walk to another track to catch the 00:20 train to Upplands Väsby. I had my travel bag with me and my bike.

I walked to the right track where I was supposed to catch my train. It was around 00:12 and a train pulled in. Of course not knowing which train I should take, and my train also leaving the same track at 00:20, I got on the train. NOOOOOO!!!! I didn't realise that instead of going to Upplands Väsby, the station that I had to go to, I was on my way to the more western town of Bålsta. Of course before my litte excursion, I had never heard of Bålsta. Not like this town is really large or really apparent on maps! :-) (No offense to people from Bålsta). 


Anyways, I got off the train and realised that I was not in Upplands Väsby. I then asked security guards where I was. They were extremely friendly and really helped me alot. Long story short, it was the last train and I ultimately had three options:

1. Wait in the cold for 4.5 hours for the first morning train
2. Take a taxi home for around €80 (waaayyy to expensive for a student!!!)
3. Build my bike together, pump up the tires and ride the 40 Km home!!!! :-)

I weighed my options. Clearly a taxi and waiting out in the cold were the worst solutions. So I did it! Built the bike together, pumped up the tires and decided to bike the 40 Km home. The security guards (I'm sure thinking I was absolutely crazy) were really friendly and escorted me with their car to the right road home. Otherwise, it was easy and simply followed the signs back to Uppsala. It wasn't that cold (only around -1°C) and it was snowing ever so lightly. I had water and an apple. Ate the apple, drank some water and headed home. I wasn't worried about my training level, as I am in good physical condition from all the rowing training that I do.


In the end, I think biking was the best idea. I got home in less than two hours, the roads were good and it being 02:00, I met about 5 cars along the entire 40 Km of riding. It was cheaper than taking the taxi and warmer and faster than waiting for the next train in the morning. Below is my route:


http://maps.google.de/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Ultuna,+Uppsala,+Schweden&daddr=Ulleviv%C3%A4gen&geocode=FRTKkAMdlWQNASnHT19xZslfRjERDs9V3WYvgQ%3BFTr1jAMdJn8LAQ&hl=de&mra=ltm&sll=59.69009,17.629885&sspn=0.355543,0.874786&ie=UTF8&ll=59.568419,17.560272&spn=0.356832,0.874786&z=10


So, a little word of advice, PLEASE TAKE THE RIGHT TRAIN!!!! :-D I thought it was the right train, but it wasn't. TAKE THE RIGHT TRAIN!!!!


Anyways, have a pleasant day and take care!


Julian