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.