Christmas Lights

Right on time for the first advent someone put up Christmas lights on the oil tank of the power plant.

Alcohol in Sweden

The Swedes (or at least the Swedish government) have a quite peculiar attitude towards alcohol. Alcoholic beverages (with more than 3.5 ‰ of alcohol) are only sold in special state-owned shops called Systembolaget (and of course in Pubs/Restaurants with a special license).

Although this is very annoying if you are not used to it, most of the Swedes think it's a good thing (the others go on boat trips to the Baltic states, Finland or Denmark where alcohol is much cheaper). In fact, the alcohol monopoly has a long tradition in Sweden.

This year the Systembolaget turned 50 years old and therefore an open letter was written to José Manuel Barroso (the President of the European Commission), which was published in several European newspapers.

Additionally the Systembolaget created a short and funny movie where the Swedish system is explained (and propagated).

I recommend watching this movie as it makes many things much clearer.

Common Misuse of Train Furniture

The following photo shows a handle bar in the pendeltåg. Once, its original purpose was to grab hold on it.

Now, Stockholm's commuters have converted these handle bars into a "storage" for newspapers.

This misuse is so common that nobody seems to think of these handles as handles anymore. I make a case that there are even some (younger) people who don't know that the original purpose of these handles has been something else than hanging up a newspaper.

This should perhaps be analysed by some sociologists: "Creating new products by misusing existing ones"

Yesterday, Ten Past Three

It's time to switch on the lights ...

Dreaming in Flemingsberg

People living in this house still have dreams—although sometimes very different ones.

The mail slot of a guy who lives on the thirteenth floor has a sticker with the text "Endast Ferrari reklam" ("Ferrari advertisement only").

Whereas the sticker on our mail slot says: "Ingen reklam, tack! Men gärna IKEA katalogen." ("No advertisement please, but IKEA catalogues are welcome.")

Another dream (shared by most of the exchange students) is "moving to Lappis as fast as possible".

Thanks for the Enlightenment

I just got an email from my international coordinator Torkel Werge in which he called the exchange students on to hand in their study plan for the spring term (this request doesn't apply to me as I will already be back in Germany at Christmas).

But apart from that he also wrote us the following enlightening sentence:

Some of you may have noticed it is dark outside when you get up in the morning. It is quite normal. It should be like that.

A Very Special Crispbread

Brungräddat, a Wasa Rundbröd, is 28 cm in diameters and very crunchy. The downside of it is that it crumbles a lot when it is broken into pieces.