The Russian trip

Dear friends,

I just arrived here in Stockholm and - of course - the first thing I do is telling you some stories about our Russia trip. In a relatively large group of nearly 50 students we started the trip last Monday with a boat cruise to Estonia. We spent a day in Tallinn and then took the night train (16h) to Moskow where we stayed two days in a hotel. Compared to the Estonian capital, which is a beautiful little town with a lovely old part (insider tip for everyone who plans to do a Baltic tour), Moskow was really a shock for me. All began when we had to cross the boarder in the middle of the night and the Russian military minutiously checked the train. The atmosphere in this situation reminded me of movies from the second world war and I really didn't feel very comfortable in this situation. Later in Moskow we made a nice experience with the Russian police when they stopped us in a small group of students at about two in the morning. Trying to find weapons and drugs (no joke, that was their excuse!!!) they scanned us greedily for money. Fortunately, there were some English speaking Russians who got us free.

Again by night train we continued our trip to St.Petersburg. We spent two nights there. Putingrad, as the Russian people sometimes call erstwhile Leningrad, is an impressive city with a breeze Western Europe and you should definitely visit this place. Unfortunately, the weather was rainy with an unpleasant cold wind. Thus, we had to focus on the Russian night life ;-)

On Sunday we left Russia and went, again by train, to Helsinki. The only problem is/was that two Canadian students were missing. We still don’t know where exactly they are because we only received a strange text message that they are still in St.Petersburg. Mobile communication with these two guys is not working properly. Considering the fact, that their visa expired yesterday they could get into serious problems with the Russian authorities. We really hope that they will make their way back to Stockholm as soon as possible.

Warm regards from cold Sweden, Christoph

Here some pics from...

Tallinn:









St.Petersburg:














Moskau:












Helsinki:










In the boat - shopping mall:

Normal course of life

Dear friends, hope you're all well. I'm well too, but there's not much to tell you at the moment. My life is quite normal these days. In the morning I go to the school's PC Lab write my papers and then in the evening we play poker in our corridor, go out for a beer, or have an event with other exchange students. During the next two weeks, I have to hand-in four more papers. Then I go to a Russian trip for ten days (23 to 30 October), via Tallinn, Helsinki, St. Petersburg to Moscow. I really look forward to this trip becaus I'm already fed up with all the papers. My new courses start in the end of October (when I'm in Russia).

Here some pictures which give you a some impressions of what I did during the past weeks...



Meeting Christine when she came for a weekend to Stockholm (she is studying in Gothenburg, but grew up here)
Dinner with the Frensh girls (friends of Latifa, my corridor mate)
Crayfish Party at School (only a few fishes and lots of wine)

A normal evening (drinks & poker)









Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you that it's getting winter here, f... cold! And I still don't have a winter jacket. No money, no time... But this weekend I don't get around it, I need to go shopping.

Meeting Carro and Yuki

Last Thursday Yuki, a student from St.Gallen came to visit Carro here in Stockholm. Carro has been to St.Gallen last semester, some of you probably can remember her. On Friday, Valéry (another HSG exchange student) and me were invited to have dinner with the two girls. They prepared a delicious dinner for us and we spent a good evening.

On Sunday we decided to have brunch together with Yuki, Carro, three friends of her and her boyfriend. By car, a Volvo of course, we went up to the north of Stockholm. Close to a beautiful harbour we enjoyed the huge buffet of the restaurant there. Unfortunately I had to go back at three p.m because of a paper which had to be handed in today. But still, it was nice to meet those people and have lunch with them.

Interesting pics

To all the horny bastards pushing me to post some nice pix of gorgeous looking Swedish ladies!!!

Schwander and Hermi took the opportunity this weekend and went out with their cams to satisfy their bored friends at home. Their destination was the Karolinska Institutet, a University department for Swedish medical students. Here we go...

A sign of life

Hi everybody, I feel so sorry that I didn’t post any news for more than two weeks. The problem is just that I never found the time to write anything. I am extremely busy at the moment. Firstly, I have to hand in a paper every week. Secondly, I want to enjoy my time in Stockholm – in other words, if I have time I go out or attend a trip. And lastly, if there is free time I hardly spend it on writing anything because after five minutes I fall asleep.Let me tell you something about the last two weeks here in Stockholm. The highlights were a visit of my parents who are travelling around northern Europe at the moment. So I took the chance and had some excellent dinners with them ;-). Furthermore, we went by boat to Vaxholm, a small island about one hour north of Stockholm. Unfortunately it was raining. But nevertheless, I was quite happy to see them here in Sweden and we spent a good time.At the weekend we went to one of those well-known boat trips to Finland. To be a bit more specific, I’m writing about a 22-hours-alcohol-cruise from Stockholm to Mariehamn and back. The downside of this trip is that we arrived at 5 p.m. here in Lappis and I had to finish my parts for two different group works until midnight. This was not as difficult as it actually seems to be. There were several reasons (Ballantine's, Absolut, etc.) why my efficiency was rather low that night.

the cruise:


...after 20 hours (is Pablo enjoying the beautiful view?)




meeting my parents:

Dietschi, thank you for your efforts concerning my room. I hope you and Petra will have a good time with your future mate. Unfortunately, your last comment got lost because I had to post a new blog (the site is not properly working at the moment).

My first week is over

My first week here in Stockholm is already over now. I had my orientation days together with all the exchange students from SSE. We are about 80 students in the master programm, including five Swiss guys from my home university. The exchange committee organised lots of interesting events in an around the school as welcome cocktail, some Swedish lessons, sightseeing and evening programs. I'm totally shattered after these first days because I went out nearly every night and couldn't sleep late in the mornigs. Now I'm looking forward to my first classes starting on Monday together with all the regular students.

Here some impressions of the city:

Living in Lappkärrsberget (Lappis)

Lappis is situated just next to Stockholm University. You can see the student's accommodation buildings from the campus as in the above picture. There live between 2,000 and 3,000 students from all over the world, mainly studying at Stockholm University or KTH (comparable to ETH). Every Corridor (10 to 12 bedrooms) shares a kitchen and a living room. At the moment we are six students, a Swede, a Frensh, a Malaysian, a Kurd, Palestinian and a crazy Swiss. Swedish people are currently moving from their home towns to their accommodations and our 'city' is constantly growing. You can see people carrying furniture up to their rooms all day long. At night there are dozent's of corridor parties which you can't ignore to remark. One of my corridor mates told me: if you can hear music, you're welcome to the party.

my room










kitchen

University

Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) was founded in 1909 by royal statute and enjoys aprestigious position in todays Swedish economic life. Approximately 1,800 students are enrolled in the SSE's Master of Sience Program. Competition for admittance (for Swedish students) to the program is very high. Nearly 3,500 applicants apply for the 300 places available each year. About 150 visiting students get the opportunity to study at SSE each year. I look forward to a great time at Handelshögskolan i Stockholm.