Chinese food and nice weather

I attended lab animal course at Karolinska Institute for 3 weeks to get a FELASA C certificate. This allows me to do animal experimentation including injections, surgeries and sacrifizes all over Europe.
At first I was a bit excited cause I never studied abroad before, but the course was not that hard and I met some nice people there.

After the final exam (which I hopefully passed) me and some of my group members prepared Hot Pot together. This was really great cause I hadn't had Hot Pot since my time in Taiwan... soooo good! And not to forget that the evening was quite nice also! :)



Now the weather here is finally getting warmer. Not as nice as at home in Heidelberg, but also quite warm. So yesterday Jing and me decided to go out for a picnic and we prepared some sushi. It was the first time for me to make it myself and the roles look really nice and also tasted great:

My parents visiting Stockholm

The next April weekend my parents came to visit me here in Stockholm.

On Saturday, we just went on a general tour around the city and we didn't visit something in particular. It was still quite cold and windy and I think I should have worn the winter coat instead of a light jacket. :)


On Sunday we went to visit the district Djurgarden, which is mainly a big green park and used to be the royal hunting ground.
First, we payed a visit to the Vasamuseum. There you can see an intact ship which sunk after only 1500m journey in the harbour of Stockholm sometime during 1600. It was recovered some 300 years later and preserved for everybody to visit. I think it's quite amazing and I really enjoyed this museum!





Afterwards we visited a zoo on Djurgarden which showed Skandinavian animals. I was really interested in the wolf, but they seemed a bit exhausted:



The bears however gave quite a show:



There were also Elks and Reindeers but I didn't get that nice pictures.

Anyway, I really enjoyed my parent's visit and we already planed to go to a Jazzclub for my Dads birthday when they visit me the next time! :)

Castle Gripsholm

The next day we went on a one hour drive to visit castle Gripsholm. Unfortunately, the castle was still closed for visitors but it was a nice trip anyway.
The castle looks quite nice but it is definitely a bit patchworky. Expecially the windows seem to be distributed randomly...





Here is Dominik trying to look magical:


No swimming, huh?

Tyresta NP

In the beginning of April, Dominik was here for a visit and we rented a car to go out for some hiking. Unfortunately, the whole weekend was kind of gray, but we still had lots of fun.

We went to Tyresta National Park which is located just 20km outside of Stockholm. Kind of surprising that it was still covered in lots of snow even though the snow in and around the city was nearly gone.

Anyway, we went on a 3 hours hike to a frozen lake and had to walk through knee high snow sometimes.

Campus and Stockholm

Yesterday I went to Stockholm just to explore a bit. On my way to tunnelbana I took pictures of my everyday walk to the lab and the lab building. The first picture shows Campus Lappis where I live.


This is the building where I am working. Covered by the tree are balconies which are part of the kitchens. I'm on the second floor but currently I'm not sure which of the windows is the one to my office...


This shows just some part of the campus:


So now about Stockholm: I didn't do that much, walked around Gamla Stan and found a great science fiction bookstore which has loooooots of English books. And I also found some places where the water was still covered in ice or ice blocks. Looks pretty impressive.
When my parents come to visit there will be more pictures about sightseeing and the royal palace, so I am saving that up.

Arrival in Sweden

As some of you might know I decided to go to Sweden for my masterthesis and on Saturday I arrived at Stockholm. At first there were some internet connection problems but I'm very glad that everything works now and that I am back online. Being in another country again is a good reason to revive this blog, so now I have some pictures of my apartment for you as a starter. It's a single room apartment with kitchen and bathroom and I have to say that I was positively surprised when I first came in because it is really really nice. I am especially happy that I have a decent kitchen and there is a well equipped supermarket only 2 minutes walk away.





This is the view out of the window. Everything is still very white but it's only around 0°C right now. Still, I wouldn't mind some more snow followed by a nice spring start... There is also a lake here and you can see that there are some trees around. I took a short walk along the lake shore and it is still completely frozen (forgot to bring the camera).




I hope at the weekend I get some time to go to Stockholm city and do some sightseeing or maybe visit some pubs! ;)

Music

http://www.myspace.com/gravityfailuretrip