Norrlands Guld is a beer brewed by Spendrups. It’s very popular here in northern Sweden (“Norrland”) – especially with the hoi polloi and us international students. They offer – as many Swedish breweries – the “supermarket versions” with 2.8/3.5% alc. and the good old Systembolaget brew with 5.3%.

This year, Norrlands Guld celebrated its 40th anniversary (is it just a coincidence that the university has the same jubilee?) and launched its Jubileumsbutik. Of course we ordered some shirts and towels. This is how the stuff looks:

International Norrlands Guld resources:

• Micha about Norrlands Guld & its branding
• Rolf was our trend-setter

BTW: Our team for this year’s Brännbollscupen is called Golden Girls. Guess what! More details will be published soon…

There hasn’t been much activity on my blog during the last days. And this doesn’t mean that there is nothing to tell. In fact, a lot of interesting events took place and some new projects just started.

I haven’t told you about the first home match of Umeå IK’s women soccer team which they successfully won 7:0.
I haven’t told you about the beach volley contest with my mentor group last Monday where my team perfectly sucked.
I haven’t told you about the pleasure of sunbathing at 13°C after experiencing months of snow.
I haven’t told you about some really nice BBQ sessions at Nydala and in good old Mariehem.
I haven’t told you about the Valborg (Walpurgis Night) where I was camping out in the woods close to the freezing point.
I haven’t told you about the official world championships in Brännboll, for which I formed a team to defeat the world elite.
And I still haven’t told you about holy Norrlands Guld and Umea’s plan to apply for being the European Capital of Culture 2014 (*sic*).

The reason for not writing about all these wonderful topics is my incredibly poor time management: I have to hand in one assignment per week for my Speech and Language Processing class. I normally write that stuff some hours before the due date. Last time, I didn’t even meet the deadline. I haven’t been in Swedish class for 2 weeks now. I asked my teacher in Academic Presentations to postpone my final presentation, because I was running out of time.

So what do I actually do all the time? Well, besides doing all that fun stuff stated above, I spend many hours reading blogs and listening podcasts. It’s a weird contradiction that I was speaking about saving time by managing blogs using RSS in my final presentation, but I myself spend more and more time in the blogosphere. One can discover fantastic things every single day: People who understand the net as a social setting. People who think ahead. People who share and spread knowledge. The web is people, not just dusty documents.

But maybe this is just an excuse for my continuing laziness… Shit.

Once again, we had a nice party weekend here in Umea. On Friday, Michael invited in the “Mariehem-Party-Room” to celebrate his 25th birthday (well, he didn’t state this explicitly, but every party needs an occasion and his real birthday was only 8 days ago). Hey, so it was only 30 meters to go home! Ergo, I drank a little bit too much and made heavy usage of Kirsi’s camera. I ran around like a lunatic and made tons of crappy pics. See a selection of 6 impressions which show me and [Fabio; Rolf + Kirsi; Elena; Steffi; Sarah; Nils], being not sober at all…

On Saturday, I had a nice party in the Spanish Corridor©. I’m a little bit too shy to publish that picture showing me wearing pink gloves…

Yesterday I visited the last performance of this year’s Spexet from Umesperxarna. Spexet refers to a troupe of non-professional student actors who normally rehearse and stage one self-written play per year. These performances are very popular in Sweden; they combine the passion of an amateur theater with the hilarious improvisational performance of a stand-up-comedian.

This year, Umespexarna staged “Franksa Revolutionen” – the French Revolution:

Tänk er ett land kontrollerat av en envåldshärskare, vars ätt styrt över riket så länge någon kan minnas och som regerar med dekret från ett slott en bra bit utanför huvudstaden. Nej, det är inte Sverige vi talar om utan Frankrike anno 1789 och en tid då revolutionen låg i luften.
(Umespexarna)

Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and Maximilien Robespierre are the well-known characters of the historical event. The re-written story introduces the Swedish king as a wild Viking and opens with a concatenation of the Marseillaise and ABBA’s Waterloo. Can this be a good sign?

The audience has the power: Interjections provoke the actors to speak higher, “drunker” or even in German, to act faster or backwards.
I understood probably less than 10 percent, but I had great fun anyway. The play lives on the various songs and dances. I especially want to highlight the fabulous quintet which their clear voices and sophisticated arrangements and lyrics (well, as far as I can assess them).

I spend 70+20 SEK for a funny and cultural Sunday afternoon. So what?

Last week we had several opportunities to marvel at Northern Lights. We had a couple of cold and almost cloudless nights which set the stage for that fantastic play of nature. On Tuesday night, we (Judith, Sarah, Markus and me) went to the wide sports field next to Nydalasjön where we enjoyed the illuminated sky. Of course I tried to make some pictures:

On the way back we met Timo and Christoph, who did much better pics than I did. He was kind enough to let me put some of his fruits online. Thank you, Christoph!

Wanna know more about Northern Lights? Read on at Wikipedia.

Yesterday I received a note to pick up a package at the neighborhood post station. It turned out that is was a huge Easter gift parcel from my parents in Germany. Thank you so much!

This posting is a good opportunity to wish you some nice holidays. Relax, calm down and chill out. Once again, I will be off for about a week – I’m going to celebrate Easter in Norway. We will travel to the picturesque Lofoten Islands and spend 3 nights in Stamsund. Then, we go on up north to Swedish Abisko, staying another two nights. Start is tomorrow morning at a quarter to five. That’s gonna be great!

So far, Happy Easter…

The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself.
Traue keiner Statistik, die du nicht selbst gefälscht hast.

Yesterday I wrote the final exam in Analysis of Financial Data. The course confirmed my uncertainty about statistics. Some topics seemed really obvious and straightforward, while others failed to enlighten my mind. Anyway, the course offered a good opportunity to refresh and extend my statistical knowledge in general and my SPSS skills in particular. Who knows, maybe I need that stuff later on. Did you know that log returns have better statistical properties than normal close prices?

But actually I wanted to write about the exams here in Umea in general. I just realised that I have never been pressed for time here. In Germany it is quite normal that you have to work extremely fast to meet the deadline. This can of course affect the quality of your answers, but on the other hand you are forced to fulfil tasks in a given time – the way you have to work in the real world… Sweden’s attitude towards time seems to be a bit different (no, I won’t write about permanent Fikas here). I still don’t know if I should call it equal opportunities or rather naivety…

• Yesterday’s exam: 5 hours – I went home after 2.
• Swedish language exams: 3 hours, you normally don’t even need half of them.
• Some last term’s exams: Work as long as you want!

Something really cool about exams in Umea is Östra Paviljongen: A whole building just for the exams! Separate toilets for each room, a “glassy box” for smokers, single tables for every student. Der Kommissar published an excellent photo story about that topic last semester. Still worth reading!

BTW: There are some rumours about the introducing quotation of this post. Wanna read about Winston Churchill and the Nazis?

I still can’t believe it: For the first time since my arrival in Umea seven month ago my corridor was arranging a corridor party – and I went to bed one hour before midnight! What happened?

Well, I still don’t know if I have caught these mean bacteria in Russia, Finland or Sweden. Anyway, I was rather peaky and didn’t manage to kill the virus with alcohol (which normally works out pretty well). I could only participate in the fabulous Indian dinner, prepared by (almost) the whole corridor and managed by chef de cuisine Kattis. I’m unable to name the dishes, but they tasted delicious! Find below some of the few pictures I was able to shoot before I fell asleep…

I’ve heard that some people have been in my corridor and couldn’t find me. Now you know why. Fortunately you found some other international parties to go. At least only one or two times somebody knocked on my door, thus hampering my attempts to sleep…

I’m still pretty sad that I missed the whole mess; I hope you guys had a nice time!

Just a short announcement: We will have a corridor party tomorrow, March 19th, in our corridor Mariehemsvägen 19B (second floor). Feel free to drop by from – let’s say – 8pm on.

Saturday’s alternatives: Mariehemsvägen 19C + 15E, Pedagoggränd 9A …

Did you visit Umeå universitetet web page during the last days? Maybe you recognized some well-known people: On behalf of the university, a photo shooting with some international students was carried out last semester. And right now you can gaze at a nice eye-catcher for today’s information day on the university’s home page. I didn’t expect that Kees, Matthieu, Nils and co. become famous so fast…

More pictures of the shooting are used in the current utbildningskatalogen (education catalogue) which can be ordered online. It’s for free and maybe it’s a nice souvenir for you.

(Partly) via: Nils (who did – as always – this nice picture of the catalogue above)

My plan was to write a little bit more about that extraordinary event, but unfortunately I’m running out of time. However, last evening I was invited by Bernie “Rolf” Ecclestone himself (Umea Beach Tour mogul) and the German National Team interim leader Jakob (water drinker) to take part in a memorable game:

Switzerland – Germany

Rolf did a perfect job as organiser, spokesman, motivator, and of course player and team captain. He played together with Finnish import Rikka and the two professionals Marc and Daniel. My team consisted of “The Rock” Stefan, our team captain Jakob, Belgium import Stein and myself:

In the second set, Germany got better and German high-flyer Ralf confused the Swiss players with his unconventional way to play. Ralf himself interpreted it like this “well, I learned to play on the streets, that explains probably my unusual style". [Rolf Leu, official reporter]

Unfortunately, that was not enough. My German team lost 0 - 3 (15-21, 16-21, 19-21), but we are proud and honest losers:

the setting was satisfactory, our team motivated, maybe not fully prepared, but there was no chance to beat the swiss precision. 0-3 does indeed not reflect the work, our beloved friends from the south had to accomplish. we resisted as long as we could, because we love the game! and we love the challenge! [me, commenting on Rolf’s blog]

All official statements including unofficial comments can be found at Rolf’s blog:

• Short announcement and lively German speculations
• Official press release
• Detailed game report
  

So, fellows, I will be off for about a week. I’m going to travel to St. Petersburg tomorrow. I’m really glad to have the possibility to visit this wonderful town; it’s the second time for me in Russia after a trip to Moscow in 2001. Of course you will find a travelogue and lots of photos at this place. Have a nice weekend!

In the picture above you can see how to use a Swedish dryer (torktumlare). In the pictures below you can see how manuals can be misunderstood. Finnish laundry specialist Kirsi shows that Boris Becker is not the only one having fun in the broom closet. Imitations are strictly prohibited!

These pictures were made at Emmy’s costume/ugly/animal party on Saturday. Rolf put a lot of effort into producing his costume, but as you can see, it was totally worth it… Thank you guys for that nice evening!

Merci beaucoup à Sandra et le Nils pour les images spectaculaires! Sorry narrowband internet users for this picturesque post.

I was definitely not the only one who was quite surprised when I cycled from Mariehem down to university on Thursday. I was used to enjoy the nice wood right and left of our beloved cycle path. And now I could see a scene of destruction. The trees were cut; trunks and scrubs were seaming the way. What happened?

In yesterday’s Västerbottens Kuriren I found the answer. And because it’s weekend and I have time to improve my Swedish, I translated the article just for you! Anyway, it’s is a good example for the insignificance of the local newspapers here. Their style is matchless! Thank you for this masterpiece of journalism, Anders Broden!

Deforestation for small apartments
Umeå

The first stage has started. The forest is stubbed. Bostaden will build 276 small apartments at Strömbergs väg close to university, what makes them interesting for students.

The construction itself starts in April and after about one year it’s time to move in.
- We started logging on Tuesday and have almost finished. The scrub will be cleared, and on Friday we pack up and go ahead, explains Leif Strinnholm.
He comes from Näsland in Örträsk and drives the forestry machine - normally in the loneliness of the woods.
- It’s indeed really nice to see people and traffic sometimes, says Leif Strinnholm and laughs.
The last trunks are lifted with both speed and precision.
- That must go quite easy, he says.
Bostaden’s management will decide next year if they go on building stage 2 in that area.
- If this happens, we will probably come back, laughs Leif Strinnholm.

It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m currently performing my second presentation in Academic Presentations. As I did in the first presentation, I decided to give a deeper insight into blogs. This time I focus on software selection and article publishing using WordPress.

To demonstrate this process, I publish this post during my presentation! Hopefully everything works…

Finally, the cold reached Umea. Last night my thermometer displayed the coldest temperature of this winter so far: -21.8°C. (I like these recordings of absolute min/max-values to “track” the cold.) But the temperatures here in Umea still can’t compete with good old Germany. My sister reported on -24°C in Augsburg on Monday morning. Brrrrrrrrrr. But I won’t give up the challenge – I think we are facing a couple of cold nights and days…

Btw: Yes, Ralf, 2005 is no leap year! So you can write your name as often as you want into the laundry room registration list, but you won’t be able to use it on February 29th! You can’t! You just can’t! Got it? Arrrrgh!

Just 4 pictures from NH and following sauna on Friday, before I go to bed… Thx to Nils & Kathi!

BTW: Happy Birthday, Schwesterherz!

As already announced, I can now proudly present the pictures of yesterday’s event Experience Winter Campus.

Watch out the gallery! Many thanks to Kathi and Daniel for additional pictures.

This year, Umea University celebrates its 40th anniversary with a number of activities. Today’s event was called Experience Winter Campus and was primarily set up for the students (who should always be the most important people at universities).

The sun was shining, a band was playing, and Hot Dogs were served. And of course you could try these typical Nordic outdoor activities like dog sledge, snow cross and snow mobile. Wow! These scooters have enormous power! Although there was only a short circuit to drive, I had a lot of fun. And it proves that queuing up in the cold is not always “an extremely weird form of fetish”.

The beautiful weather and surrounding gave the opportunity to do some nice pictures. I will upload a gallery within the next days.

In connection to the 40th anniversary, the university has produced a movie which can be seen online (English versions: high quality | low quality). It’s designed in the style of the official Umea presentation, so some of you might feel familiar with it. And of course you can also find an according festschrift (yes, Germans, it’s true!).

Yes, it was snowing a lot during the last days in Umea. And snow offers various opportunities to express creativity. Timo and Christoph used the chance and created their masterpiece out of Philipp’s window. What a nice surprise when you just came back from Germany…

Via: Timo’s pseudo weblog

Just a few notes about the last days…

Wednesday
Beach volley with my fabulous mentor group. We’re getting better and better!

Thursday
Finally the first International Pub for this semester. NH opened for Karaoke. What a great night! Micha published some pictures: see a tall girl, smiling people, the Austrian connection and my sensational Viagra lighter. Rolf wrote a little bit more about thoughts and expectations of the Swiss Karaoke professionals.
Before NH, we were invited by Marika (our Ice Queen from the Lappland-trip) for a dinner. We were served traditional Swedish food, a “composition” of mashed potatoes and minced meat, supplemented by delicious self-made buns. Tacka!

Friday
The week’s highlight! After shopping at ICA Maxi (I like the Swedish verb “storhandla”) we were well-equipped for the Schnitzel-Session. Thanks a lot to the Austrian connection Kathi and Micha and all the other assistants who helped to produce this tasty speciality. Micha reports more about this evening and provides some interesting statistics. See the raw material, the sophisticated Supply Chain Management, the Kitchen Crew 1, the Kitchen Crew 2, our most favourite French and the Gourmets altogether.

Saturday
It was snowing all day long. No chance to go to IKSU. So I had to spend the night at Mariehem’s corridor parties… Nothing spectacular but the usual drunk + stoned Swedes.
BTW: Once again I was troubleshooting international computers. This time I recovered deleted data from a USB stick using PC INSPECTOR File Recovery. Very easy freeware tool!

Sunday
Swimming at IKSU was this time much more pleasant than 4 weeks before. In the evening we cultivated the Austrian-German-Friendship with Kathi, Micha und Sarah. It’s incredible how much we can learn about each other, and how many differences we find about our neighbouring countries (besides the language, LOL).

Kulinarische Selbsterzeugnisse des Wochenendes (gesteigertes Mitteilungsbedürfnis): ein kalter Hund, eine ganze Armada an Hackeklößchen sowie ein fabelhafter Salat unter Benutzung meines Gemüses des Jahres (doppelter Genitiv?): Zucchini.

What the fuck?!
 
The author of this blog received top-secret material from a monitoring camera, which was active in the very early hours of February 13th. Do these pictures really show the honest author himself - having fun in the snow?!
To anticipate any bad surprises I decided to publish these pics by myself. I appeal for further investigations – feel free to publish your testimony by using the comment function!

Today my new English course called Academic Presentations started. During the course, we have to do three presentations which will be videotaped and analysed. The group is very mixed: International students, PhD students, university staff and even lecturers. I think this will be an interesting experience.

Besides university :

• Hendrik’s birthday with big pizza-session on Tuesday
• Kathi’s birthday with new insights into “Austrian” language on Wednesday
• Beach volley with my incredible mentor group today

In only seven hours I’m on the way up north, beyond the polar circle. Our weekend trip will show us the ancient Sami Market in Jokkmokk, the endless wilderness of Lappland and the world’s famous Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi. We will spend the nights in Gällivare and Kiruna. Be curious about the travelogue!

Have a nice weekend!

Rolf was faster than me and added a comment to yesterday’s blog entry. So I just add some more notes:

Yesterday was Team Building Day. After the sunny version last September we had the climatic counterpart this time. Most games were outdoor games and our group totally failed. But at least our “human pyramid” at the final presentation was a literal masterpiece of international team building (got it?). Nevertheless, we had great fun.

I went to IKSU afterwards to get rid of my freezing fingers and feet. I had to buy another four-month-card and slowly but surely I’m running out of money. But who cares…

In the evening there were supposed to be 7 (seven!) corridor parties in Alidhem. I finally visited 3 of them. Anyway, it was a quite good evening and I feel pretty uncomfortable right now. Have a good night!

Wow, I really did it! I got up at half past seven yesterday. I still can’t believe. I wanted to visit a course I am not even registered for. But it was worth it: Image Analysis is a C-level course which seems to be challenging, maybe too challenging when you do not plan to read the book or deal with the assignments. Because of some scheduling conflicts I won’t write the exam anyway.

Later on I was shopping downtown and I didn’t know that it is such a sunny weather right now. Maybe I should get up before lunch more often. I bought “överdragsbyxa” and accidentally visited Systemet as well…

Back at university I picked up two old exams. When I came back to my bike I had to realise that I have a flat tire again. Damn! Seems to be a never ending story. Fortunately I still have Karsten’s bike.

Back at home I received some good news: There will probably be another bus for the trip to St. Petersburg. Jättebra!

In the evening we had a very nice mentor group dinner at Anders’ place. Everybody brought some more or less typical food from his/her home country. Vad läcker! I think that we are a “motivated” group now and that we will have a lot of fun together. The evening was completed in NH.

Yes, I survived the weekend. I drank a lot of vodka on Saturday (lost to often while playing Mario Kart). Afterwards we went to NH. I couldn’t believe that enormous queue in front of Corona. Even -10°C cannot prevent these people from waiting so long. What is so special about Corona??

It’s pretty amazing to experience the huge differences in temperature: At first, you lap in the pool at about 25°C, then you hang out in the sauna at about 90°C, and finally you have to cycle home at -12°C. I can hardly recommend the IKSU pool on a Sunday evening – 3 lanes were occupied by this funny vattengympa thingy, another one was used to show little kids how to swim. That remains two lanes for the public. Mostly people who prefer to keep their hair dry while swimming. Not really encouraging.

Yesterday I was at the farewell party of Mark, Sandra, Wiebke and Emre. This kind of corridor party I enjoy so much here in Umea. I hope you guys have a nice time back home! Trevlig resa!

After 4 weeks in Germany it was pretty nice to come back to Umea. I expected to meet Michael from Austria in Cologne, and he didn’t know that I take the same plane. Very funny.

I travelled to Cologne by ICE, the new high speed track between Frankfurt and Cologne is really amazing. You sit in the train and then you watch the display and realise that the current speed is 290 km/h. Unfortunately the train was more expensive than each flight, even though I got 50% off.

Back in Umeå we both got a lift, which was pretty comfortable.

After my English test on Thursday we had a small good-bye happening for Eric and yesterday we went to campus to have a look at the new international students. Strange feeling. There seems to be (too) many German students again. I’ve heard about a Würzburg-invasion.

Now I’m facing the GameCube Evening: Who loses, has to booze. Pretty simple …

I put some pictures of our traditional Pre-Christmas-Drinking and New Year’s Eve online. Just to show that you can also get drunk in Germany … Have a look!