Yes, jag ska stanna i Sverige för en bestämd tid (jag vet inte precis), men mist till sommer, tycker jag. Tyvärr ska det inte vara i Stockholm men i Sverige finns också andra städer än Stockholm. Jag flytter till Sundsvall för att göra en andra voluntärstjänst där. I´m looking forward, men samtidigt ser jag tillbaka på mit tid i Stockholm och jag realisera det var ingen lång tid här och jag ska sakna Ni alla.

Sista Veckor

I was last week on an EVS- midterm seminar. Actually it should have taken place in the middle of my voluntary service but there were some problems with my name there and so I got no invitation. However, it was a good seminar where I had the possibility to meet new people from other countries and socialize with them. We where about 10-12 people and everyone came from another country… that leads  inevitably to interesting talks and discussions. And I had the possibility to talk with a Muslim. I can strongly recommend this to all people who think Muslims and Terrorists are the same… En vecka arbet är alltså kvar. Jag tycker det ska vara en vecka av farväl.

Nu finns mer bilder:

på helgen var jag på Teologiefestivalen i Uppsala. Först jag tyckte det ska vara jätte jobbit, darför Teologie är en jätte svart tema för mig (och för flesta andra människor ochså). Men jag var överraskad, eftersom det tema jag välde var jätte intressant. Det har handlart om “Kairos Palestine”. Det fanns 2 personer från Palestina som har pratad om hur är situationen i Palestina och vad kan vi göra för att förankring människor från Palestine och deras situation.

I also met people from Skåne (a southern part of Sweden) where the people speak a pretty funny dialect.

I expected the journey to Göteborg shorter, it is about 450 km (so 45 swedisch mil) from Stockholm. A friend and I took the long distance bus and it took us 7 hours to come there. But still the bus journey was surprisingly cheap (around 400 kr for both ways) and the bus was also surprisingly full with people. More than one time was every seat in the bus taken. An important detail, there is always free (and slow, but so what) Wifi in the long distance coaches… that´s Sweden….

Göteborg…

itself seems to be a very cosy place to be. Old buildings, new buildings, nice bars, nice people, nice places for fika. For sure there was not that much people and public transportation as in Stockholm, but it was cheaper (at least public transportation) and Göteborg seems to be more “alternative”, what I really like. And it also seems to be a very young city. If I would have to choose between Stockholm and Göteborg I don’t know how my choice would be…

Snow

it snowed pretty much in Göteborg and this was the first snow which stayed for a while. Now, back in Stockholm, I had to notice, that here is even more snow and it seems to be even colder.

Snow, snow, snow…

And even more snow…

We were hosted by an Portuguese guy. And I found out, that people from southern Europe put a lot more effort to there food than I do. We had for example very good sandwiches in the morning, delicious crepes for lunch (on the picture) and a pasta salad in the evening. Awesome!
Furthermore I got to know some card tricks, which seemed to me like magic…

It´s said that Göteborg is a bit more a “Swedish city” than Stockholm (but i don’t really know what that means, maybe the people walk even slower and make even more Fika…?).

Jag få se vilen stad ja tycker mer om. Stockholm eller Göteborg.

But however, he went out of the train and I was left with conflicting feelings. The really weird situation came then after he left the train. A girl was coming over to the place were I was sitting and said: “He I became Christian some months ago and I listened to your conversation.”. She then also offered me something (some little book, with Christian content) but I thought I cannot take this with me as well and went off because the train arrived at my station.

What do I take from this? Well, at first a really strange experience (I felt very happy after this two “meetings”), a Metal Bibeln, and the encouragement that my tactic of starting talks with random people (which is not a very Swedish thing, I found out) is still a good thing.

Det är en lång tid, när jag hade skrivit sista gången. I min andra Blog (här: www.martinisverige.wordpress.com) har jag publicerat en rådgivning hur man kan äta Surströming (på tyska, men jag tycker man kan forstår, anyway). Dessutom jag firade Jul med min Värdfamilj. Det var jätte gemytlig och jag behövde inte sakna en jätte bra jul stämning. Min egen familj besökte mej i veckan innan Jul och dom har tagit med mycket julklappar för min värdfamilj och mej. So, nog svenska för idag.

Languages are like trees, the closer you come the more branches you can see.

I will try to extend the Swedish parts in my blog. But now you have to read English again, förlåt… ; -)

The time around New Year, I went to an event called Nyårslägret (New Years “Camp”). It took place in the good old “Folkhögskola” in Lidingö (I published some pictures before, already) and was an event for young people who are interested to celebrate New Year together. I was there as a youth leader (and also as a participant : -) and had a lot of fun. Every day there were different things to do like seminars, workshops, bible studies, outdoor activities  and a lot more. On New Years Evening we had a Band playing music and a dance floor and after this even a “disco” with a (ore more) DJ.

When we had a organizing meeting for this New Years “Camp” I was full of hope that we could do a mighty snowball-fight (with 60 people, I would call this kinda mighty) but my hopes failed.

Another important event was, that a friend of mine from Berlin was dropping by and we spent a very good (and packed…) Weekend together (Stadsmuseet, Gamla Stan, Fotografiska Museet och so vidare).

Well, enough for today.

PS: I know I use to many brackets (but I just can’t stop it …).

Umeå is the name of the place and the goal of this trip. In the early morning at 6:30 was the departure of the train. After a night without sleep (well, I thought these times are over, but this is one of the problems when you start meeting friends at 12 …). The X2000 was the first transportation means we took and so we came to Sundsvall. A short thought: when I came from out the train I thought “I should have taken my warmers with me”. I guess about minus 2 degrees, so not that cold, but still too warm for the north. From Sundsvall we continued with the bus and this took another 4 hours, lucky me that I was able to sleep all the time. After the bus trip we came to a cute little vandrarhem. During the meeting with the international Stag we talked about the different goals the Stag has and how we could reach them, or how we could improve. Another topic was a little seminar about “how-to-handle” violence, how to prevent it and so on. In the evening we went through Umeå and saw some fire-games and some light-plays as well. In the Sunday service we played two songs and had a lot of fun with it. The instruments has been: guitar (no, not me), drums, Conga, Base, and 3 singers. I played kind of the first time base and it was awesome, and I don´t mean my play as such, I mean the fun I had. Playing Base is very casual even though one feels a bit unheard. My conclusion: Honor to the Base players!

Sundsvall 

The way back to Sundsvall was very exhausting, we had to change the bus three times and it was … well, not pleasant. But once again I could feel the Swedish mentality, so was the atmosphere in the group really good even after the last change… Swedish calmness.

In Sundsvall I visited some friends, I got to know on the EVS – seminar. For sure they come out of different countries like: Montenegro, Lithuania and Italy and have interesting projects too, like working with a youth-club for disabled youngsters or a “get-rid-of-your-prejudice”-course. Later on we made a little sightseeing tour through Sundsvall and went to the lake, the museum … Sundsvall is a lovely little Town with approximately 50 000 inhabitants and a university. It was a very good time to relax and to talk about our different projects and experiences we made in Sweden.

The way back to Stockholm was (fortunately) without complications (maybe except from all the ringing mobile phones which robbed me of my sleep).

Sundsvall at night.

At a lake, a ton filled with bread for the dugs, I was quite suprised.

Dugs, eating bread.

A root that I thought could be a good motive.

A picture from out the train.

Streets of Umeå.

Candles in Umeå in a park.

Other light plays in Umeå.

… back in Skövde.

My friend the “King of Tibro”

… and his crazy band “Hobbytransorna och Tysken”.

Martin

The Stockholm Film-Festival has begun. To celebrate this some friends and I went to a Horror-Movie-Film-Night . The first movie, a german one, was presented in the original language, which was German and an English Subtitle. Somehow I felt like being back in Germany, seems to be a bit weird what the German language is able to do with my brain. The first movie started at 23:30 (called “Hell”, that´s the German word for light, but of course it´s a little pun with the English word) and was a very straight one, it was not difficult to follow the plot and it was more a “survivor-movie” than a real horror-movie, I would say. The last movie ended at 5:00. The second film (called kill list) was a British production and in the beginning it pretended to be very profoundly but it was definitely not. I still can´t find any explanation why the main character killed his beloved son (who is somehow fixed on the back of his wife) in the end with a knife. Of course his wife was hidden under a cape which was made by a sect. Sounds weird? Yes it was, but there was not so much time to think about this because after a short break it went on. The next and last film was a American production, but I forgot the name. But doesn’t this already say something about the movie? It was a very simple plot, the topics: an old hotel -opened the last week, a young woman with asthma, a man who believes in ghosts, a dark basement and so on. What? This sounds full of horror-stereotypes and a bit cheap too? I agree, the production appeared to be a teenage-horror-movie. Even in the very beginning it was possible to know how the main character will die. After watching the last one, the second one appeared to seem good again. That´s how opinions can change.

höstmarknad …

After three long hours of sleep I went to the “Höstmarknad” a little flea market in Abra. There were different things one could buy or win, like: cloths for children, flowers, textiles, rummage, books, goodies, even more rummage, food and rummage.
I found out the books were quite interesting, because I found a swedish comic called: “Bamse” and was able to understand about 95% of it. These comics were quite old and Anna (you are mentioned now, satisfied :p?) told me I can find socialistic propaganda in it (I think that´s not that bad).

… a classical concert …

Saturday in the afternoon there was a classical concert in “Historiska Museet” (the historical museum). A friend of mine is playing in this orchestra (she is one of the second violins) and moved to Göteborg a few days ago. A little story concerning the concert. To the concert we (a Finish girl was with me) came -what else?- to late. But not five minutes, as usual, this time it was about 15 (probably more) minutes. After realizing that the concert hall was already closed we went to the backstage entrance (leaded by a guy who also knew one of the orchestra players and was also to late) and came surprisingly in (for free!) and nobody was bothering about this.

… and the darkness

The Swedish weather is at the moment a bit quirky. It´s cold and cloudy and dark. All the Swedes and Finns I know, don’t seem to bother about this, all just stand the cold very easily (this seems to be inborn…). When you look out for it, you can see first signs of darkness not long after three o´clock.
Welcome to Sweden

library

This week I was in the library in Stockholm. It´s a cool designed building and inside there is a big round room, where one can choose the books he want (and to my pleasure there is a part with “international” books and there are languages like: Icelandic, Finnish, English, German … but I took an English one). Registration is (as a matter of course in Sweden) for free, and when you are registered in one, you can use all the libraries in Stockholm and free Wifi in the libraries. Sounds good? Indeed, would be a good suggestion for Germany too.

 
Free Knowledge For All!

it´s a long time since my last blogentry.

Face-to-Face

On the second to last weekend there was the so called Face-to-Face Conference (well, yes, in Sweden there are anglicisms and weird connections between English and Swedish words too, but here it´s called svengelska or svenglish). This youth conference was manly about Christian issues (surprise it was a Christian conference). There have been workshops with discussions about different topics or sport workshops. In addition there have been small groups (about 15-30 people, I guess) and in them we got to know each other or talked and evaluated the program or the food or the accommodation. We had about 450 regular participants and at most we had about 900 people being there. One evening the organizers rent a big water park and all the young people could go and enjoy what your heart desires (like water slides, Sauna … ).
Later on there was a talk show with Johan (one of the very fast talking Swedes) and there they discussed the common future of the 3 free churches. For that purpose, Equmenia is a common youth organization of 3 Swedish free churches which want to unite.
Other things on this evening were: open Stage with: a Rapper, a Beat-Box a choir and so on.

Parallel Universe

After the Face-to-Face Conference I went to a German immigrant in Sweden. There I found a parallel universe. I waited in the train station in Skövde and from there we went on to a room where his band can practice. In this room was an old drum set, a punky guitarist (I tuned his guitar) and a singer who was totally crazy and screamed all the time in his microphone. There has been intelligent songs like: “Rape the children” (I was allowed to participate (growling, you know)). All the time the drums seemed to play as fast as possible and sounded nearly the same, but it´s for the message not for the music, isn’t it?
All in all I would say this was a rather good experience and sometimes there was a really catchy song too. And by the way, I felt a bit Rock´n´Roll, or at least I think I know now how the people felt when R´n´Roll came up. Insane musicians, bad equipment and music that seems to be more brutality than skills, but anyway, a good feeling. Grindcore (or whatever this kind of noise is called) seems to be the new R´n´R, it won´t ever be that popular but interesting in any case.
After this band practice I came in a world full of Swedish TV (it´s not better than the German TV), computer games, potatoes, pasta, dirt, laziness and a good old “don’t give a fuck”-attitude, which is very unusual for the typical Swedes. This world continued three days and after this I felt a bit parallelized. By the way, I met the king of Tibro.

Plans and Deeds

Do you know this feeling when you have a lot of plans and in the end you only do the same? At least I know it. My actual plan was to visit three different people in Skövde and surroundings. But to visit one was all I was able to. … well, so far to my plans and deeds…

I will publish some pictures later on.

pictures

the time for new pictures has come:

At very first some pictures about a bluesjam – evening I has been on friday. All people who are interested in blues are allowed to come there and to bring there own instrument and play. Most of the blues lovers were about 45-60 years, so a rather old generation …

Here you can see a picture made with my camera. The people appearing blurry, that´s why I made a picture without flash, to catch the atmosphere a bit better… I think it worked. As you can see the moving things are very blurry but the fixed things are very sharp (look at the speakers in the background). However, the music was the most important part of the evening.
One of the most interesting (or weird?) thing in this bar was, behind the bar-table were two Bavarian – dressed girls and they had German beer (Paulaner) AND the music on the bar was “Anton aus Tirol” (DJ Ötzi) -a terrible song in german … I was totally shocked.

Yes, I was on a mushroom foray. There were millions of mushrooms (most of them eatable). We (Robert and me) found millions of chanterelle (kantareller), some bay boletus and a few black ones. In general there seem to be less different kinds of mushrooms in Sweden (at least I know) but very much of them. The problem with chanterelles is, that one need very long to clean them, because they are so small. I´m sure some persons of my family are really glad to hear that I was on a mushroom foray .

Here you can see some (probably) toxic mushrooms.

Nice countryside.

Very smooth and comfortable moss.

The result of about two hours mushroom foray.

Martin