I moved to Berlin beginning of last week. My apartment looks more and more like a "real" apartment now. But I still don't have a bed.  I hope they're hurrying up at IKEA a little! Last weekend my parents came (because my Dad was flying back to China) and they brought me most of the rest of my things. So now I can also watch TV and have an internet connection. It was quite boring the first couple of days here without TV or internet. But luckily I still had enough things to do, like seeing the doctor and physio therapist... If you want to see my apartment, here you go :

As you can see, it's quite far from being perfect, but I don't have everything yet and I am not absolutely healthy, so to say.

Yesterday we had some kind of "welcome meeting" for my master's program. They gave us tons of information!  I think it'll take me a couple of days to figure everything out and sort out the most important things I still have to do. But I hope I'll be all set for the first semester by next week when it starts.  I think I have all the courses I want/have to take this semester and hope everything works out fine. What I thought was "really nice" yesterday at the meeting was that they warned the people who never studied in Germany before (like me) that one has to get used to studying in Germany... Oh thank you...

Today I will go home. It's my Mum's birthday on Saturday. But she doesn't know yet that I'll come home.  I'm really looking forward to her face when I ring the doorbell tonight.  My sister will come home tomorrow, so it's gonna be a little family gathering.
Today the train drivers were supposed to go on strike, but I am REALLY, REALLY happy that they don't. Otherwise it would have been written in the stars if I would have ever made it home today. I hope my sister doesn't get any problems when she's coming home tomorrow because they said they want to go on strike tomorrow...  Well, we'll see.

It's me again, after quite a while... But this time I have some plausible excuses.  I was quite busy. I was on the road for more than a week and it all started Wednesday the 12th. That day I went to Berlin to see Josh Ritter again. As much as I was looking forward to see him again, I have to admit that the concert was not as good as the last one I attended.  I think there were several reasons why. First of all, the venue was quite crappy; there was no air conditioning at all and after a while the air got really bad and it got really hot. Then also the lighting for the stage (which was tiny) could not be changed, so the whole thing was some kind of red-light-district.  Another thing was that the concert was broadcasted live on the radio. That might have been a reason why he didn't tell us as many stories in between songs. But I love those stories! And what disappointed me most was that he didn't sing a song totally a capella.  That is always making me shiver. However, he was still fun to watch on stage. The happiness and excitement he shows on stage is so contagious! It's so much fun to watch him play his songs. he is always smiling and giggling like a little kid.  And he said he'll be back in January. I am really hoping for that because I will be there again for sure!

Josh Ritter performing in the "red-light-district" of Festsaal Kreuzberg

I then stayed in Berlin in my new apartment. I got the keys before the concert, so I had a place to say. However, there was nothing, really nothing in there. That was kind of adventurous  I stayed there until Friday and my parents came. We then spent the night with some my Dad's old friends and went to Halle the next morning. That day it was my Dad's and my aunt's (they're twins) birthday. So we had a fun day wit our relatives, but left the next morning again to go to Münster to see my sister. There I had another concert on Monday. Seems like I couldn't get enough that week.  Kristofer Åström was playing there. That was really cool, too. I just love him.  The support act was not the best but still they came back out for an encore. That was weird, but seemingly other people really liked them.  Anyway, Kristofer rocked and only finished after midnight.

Kristofer looking directly into my camera when I took the picture with flash.  Sorry Kris!

But that he finished that late was actually not really good for me because I had to catch a train at 4.26 the next morning to go to Hamburg because on Tuesday I had my knee surgery... Well, I somehow got out of bed and onto the train.  The surgery went well but when I woke up from the anesthesia, I almost got a shock: I had a HUGE brace on my knee. At first I didn't really know why but then the doc came into my room and explained everything. Since they punched little, tiny holes in my knee to force the growth of new cartilage, they had to protect the knee from being bent. So the thing is that I have to wear this brace for the next four weeks.  Until the beginning of next week I can bend my knee only 40° and believe me, that's really nothing! But next week they will change it to 60° and I hope that I will be able to walk a little better than.
But my knee is giving me some trouble now. It is still really swollen and today the doctor said that there is an effusion or something like that inside my knee.  That's really not good, I can feel that because it is putting pressure on my knee and that hurts. So now I have to see a different doctor on Monday (since I will be in Berlin) and today I got some pretty colorful tape on my knee. It looks really cool and is supposed to drain the fluid. I hope it works at least a little!

This week I was busily travelling again. On Tuesday me and my parents went to Berlin to furnish my apartment. That were two quite stressful but also fun days. On Tuesday we got (almost) all the furniture from IKEA and started setting some of it up. Wednesday almost all day we were busily puzzling the furniture together. Of course not everything worked/works absolutely properly but that's IKEA I guess... Well, still my apartment is really cool and I am excited to move in on Monday.  I still don't have a bed, though. They are having delivery problems everywhere in Germany with that bed, so I have to wait about 6 weeks for it and will sleep on only a mattress until then... Can't wait until Monday though!!!

But damn... I just realized that all my earlier pictures won't show up anymore...  I now also figured out why. Some time ago I cancelled my homepage because I only use my blog anyways. However, I didn't know that I have to have a homepage set up in order to be able to upload pictures onto my blog. Hmpf...  I don't think I will have the time and mood to edit all my older entries and put the pictures back up, so it'll stay like that...

or am I wrong?  My parents did a hot air balloon ride a couple of days ago and the pictures they took turned out really pretty. I will share some of them so you can see how beautiful it is here.

The following two are obviously not from the balloon ride but still I really like them. And yes, this castle is in my hometown.

The upcoming week (starting tomorrow) will be busy, exciting and (most likely) painful. But I can't wait for tomorrow!  I will leave home tomorrow morning to go to Berlin. There I will first pick up the key to my new apartment. Then, tomorrow night, I will go to the Josh Ritter concert. Yieppie!!!  I am really excited for that concert. I've seen Josh last year for the first time and he is so much fun on stage! You can basically see how he is enjoying himself. And his stories always crack me up.
Thursday night my Dad will come back from China for another vacation but I don't think I will see him then. I will wait until Friday. Then my Mum is also coming to Berlin and we will see some relatives at night. On Saturday morning we will go to Halle, where my aunt lives. It'll be my aunt's and my Dad's birthday on Saturday, so we will have something to celebrate.  I'm looking forward to go to Halle because I haven't seen my aunt and my two cousins in a really loooooong time. I guess it's not always good to always be abroad.  On Sunday we will continue our trip and go to Münster to see my sister. That'll be the third time I'll visit my sister in quite a short time. I'm sure she'll get sick of me pretty soon!
There I will go to the Kristofer Åström concert on Monday. Another thing to be excited about! I've seen him only in May but I think you can never get enough of good concerts. And moreover, the tickets was not that expensive because he is quite unknown here.
Right after the concert I will get a couple of hours of sleep and then catch the train at 4.26 am (!!!) to go to Hamburg for my knee surgery.  I am actually supposed to be there at 7.15 but that's impossible since I depend on public transportation. So I called them and told them I will be a little late and they said it's ok. On that day I will have my knee surgery and if everything will be fine, I can leave the hospital one day later (*knockonwood*). But since my parents will stay with my sister until Thursday, I will stay with a friend Wednesday night. Nothing beats good friends.
And yes, Thursday I will come home again. Man, that's pretty much happening for just a week...  But at least I will have something to do and won't be bored to death. So you can imagine that I am really looking forward to tomorrow.

I also received my Ryan Adams ticket today. Wohoo!  The concert is only in November but I thought it's better to be on the safe side and get the ticket early. I'm not sure how famous he is here (I was already mistaken with Damien Rice...), so I didn't want to gamble... I already can't wait for that concert! I've never seen him live but always wanted to. I almost freaked out when I saw he's coming to Berlin, that's how excited I was!

Alrighty... that's all for now... Gotta finish packing! That won't be easy, because I can't pack too heavily because I have to carry everything around a lot. Damn, a car is soooo comfortable!

I've been home from my vacation in Budapest and I had a really nice time. Time just flew by. Me and my sister wished we could have stayed a little longer. It was so much fun to see our relatives again!  And of course meeting Laci again!  We also had a good weather there! It was super hot and the sun was shining a lot. When I came back, I almost froze to death because it was only like 15°C and raining. Yeah... so much about the German summer...

Alright, of course we took a lot of pictures.  And here are some of them:

The first night we did some kind of a city tour with our relatives. As you can see, the view up from the Gellert mountain was really amazing!

This was taken at one of the many bridges crossing the Danube. They were working on it, and we crossed it because that way we could get some shade for a little while.

Before we went up to the castle and Fisherman's Bastion. Yes, we could still smile, but soon we started sweating like hell...

View from the Fisherman's Bastion. This is the parliament, one of the prettiest buildings in Budapest I think.

Me again on the Fisherman's Bastion

The Fisherman's Bastion in the windows of the Budapest Hilton. Looks kinda cool I think.

A pretty building downtown Budapest

Me and my sister in front on the Heroe's Square. For some reason I think I look really short... But maybe that's because my sister is just way too tall...

Laci and me on the Heroe's Square

One night we did a boat tour on the Danube. It was really pretty even though I am not sure these pictures will make you think the same...

The Parliament... and full moon

the chain bridge

Once again me and my sister

Another very hot day... at the castle or fortress or whatever it is called in English.

So... those were the pictures... I have some other news as well. Yesterday I booked my ticket for the Ryan Adams concert in Berlin! Wohoo!  I am already really, really excited because he is so amazing and I have never seen him live.

I am really sorry that I haven't upgraded my blog in so long. It's not that nothing at all happened but somehow I wasn't in the mood to do it... But now, i'm trying to catch up with everything... Might become quite a long entry but who knows.

As you probably know, my wonderful time in Sweden is over. Actually, I've been back for two months now. And the semester in Sweden already seems years ago. That's a little sad but I think I have exciting times ahead of me.  I got accepted for a master program in Berlin! Yeah!  I really didn't expect it because I kind of messed up the application a little bit. And then more than 300 people applied and only 30 got accepted. Well, one of them is me!  It's gonna be the MA in International Relations and a really good program. It'll start in October and then I will live in Berlin. That's even better!  I really, really like Berlin, it's such an exciting city!
I was in Berlin with my Mum yesterday and we were looking for an apartment for me. We also found a really good one. It's on the Kurfürstendamm, so it's a really exclusive address.  Well, it's not where the all the expensive shops and the tourists are but in a little quieter part of it. I really hope I will get that apartment! Wish me luck.

At the moment I am having some kind of concert marathon. *hihi* In July I was at the Damien Rice concert in Hamburg. It was sooooo nice!  I really enjoyed it even though I had to go by myself once again...  It was an open air concert and I didn't think the venue would get filled up but surprise, surprise, there were quite a lot of people there. I didn't know that he was that popular here.  Actually, for my taste, there were a little too many people... I would have liked it better if he played in a tiny venue in front of only a couple hundred people. But well, I still loved it. He is live at least as good as on CD and he is some little comedian and actor as well. He was really funny at times with his stories and stuff!

Damien Rice (and most of his band )

In September I will go to at least two more concerts. On the 12th Josh Ritter will be in Berlin. I saw hiim once before and that was so much fun. He is so exciting and entertaining!  Then, only on the 17th I will go to see Kristofer Åström in Münster. I will visit my sister at the same time, so it's just perfect. I've seen Kristofer just in May, but you can't never see enough good music live.  And moreover, the tickets to both of the concert are quite cheap because they are really not very popular in Germany. Good for me!  On the 14th Reamonn is playing in Münster as well, and I might go and see them as well. I really like them and the last time I've seen them was a couple of years ago. However, I don't know if it'll work out yet...
And then... on November 23rd, Ryan Adams is coming to Berlin. Yippie!!!  He is one of the artists I've been longing to see live in ages! I was so surprised when I saw it and couldn't believe it at first because I couldn't find this concert on his website or most of the ticket sale websites. But it seems to be confirmed because a lot of people are already talking about it on various websites.  This is so exciting! Unfortunately the tickets are quite expensive, but hey, it's Ryan Adams!  This guy is a genius!

On Thursday I will go to Budapest for a week with my sister. That is going to be fun! My first "real" vacation this summer.  I was travelling a lot in Sweden and thus couldn't afford a big vacation. But once week Budapest should be fun. I will visit relatives and a friend I met in Sweden. I am excited. And with my sister it can only be fun.

Summer is here!!! Finally!!!  Since Saturday we've been having the best weather ever! But this sunshine all day long has one "negative" side: it's absolutely not getting dark at night! The sun sets about 10 pm and rises again before 4 am. And in between it is not getting dark. That is really confusing! Las Friday we went out to the club here on campus and that's how dark it was when we left, around 2.30 am:

Just don't pay too much attention to the picture itself because it's a little blurry.  But that's about how dark it gets. I think it's really cool but it is still weird when the sun is shining into my room at four in the morning...

Even though summer is finally here and it should make me happy, this time of my stay here is actually the saddest and most depressive. One after the other everybody is leaving...  I never thought that it would be so hard to say goodbye to all of them but it really is not easy. I miss you!!! I mean, all the people I hung out with and spent most of my time with are from Europe and it shouldn't be too hard to visit or meet them again but still you never know. And it will never be the same. And that thought is really sad. I came to the conclusion that an exchange semester is only making your life more complicated. So: never ever do it!!!  No, honestly, it is about one of the best experiences one can ever have. The end of it is just very sad. Maybe I should have left earlier. Then I wouldn't have to say goodbye to someone everyday but would have done it all at once... But anyway, now I am still here, a couple of my best friends are as well and we still have lots of fun!
And tomorrow my parents are coming. Yay!  I am really looking forward to their visit. We will do a lot and I will show them around town, make some trips and all that. I really hope the weather will stay as nice as it is right now. That would be perfect!

From Monday until Wednesday I was in Stockholm and Uppsala. Stockholm is only two and a half hours away but still it was my first "real" time there. I loved it! I think Stockholm is one of the prettiest and nicest cities ever!  I didn't take that many pictures but Luise has taken a lot and probably a lot nicer ones but I will have to wait to get them. For now, these should do:

This is the Parliament. But the main focus of this picture is the people sunbathing in front of it.  You could see people sunbathing everywhere. I guess that's what the Swedes during the summer. They enjoy every day of it!

Gamla Stan. One of the hundreds of pictures we have of little cute alleys.

Gamla Stan - again  We spent most of our time there in the evening and that turned out to be really smart because it was not crowded anymore and when the street light went on, everything looked even more mysterious.

All in all I was surprised how many Germans we saw there. It was incredible! You could hear a lot more German than Swedish there! And it was so weird for me to hear German again. I felt so strange that I always wanted to go away when I heard German people around me. I'm so not used to it anymore! I wonder what it will feel like when I'm back home...

The next day we went to Uppsala and Jule was coming there, too. Uppsala has the oldest university in Sweden and the oldest cathedral (not absolutely sure about the latter). The weather was still incredibly like summer and again it was really nice.

Jule and Luise taking a break on the cannons in front of the castle in Uppsala.

The cathedral in the evening sun.

Since it was so sunny all the time, we got really tanned. At least I feel a lot more tanned than I was before.  And we absolutely underestimated how exhausting it is to walk around a town for an entire day. Our feet really hurting every night! But nevertheless our last trip was super nice!

Last week's trip to Norway was absolutely amazing! I loved it and had loads of fun. It would take ages if I talked about everything now, so I decided to just post some pictures and then say something about them. Besides, a picture says more than a thousand words.

This was at the harbor in Oslo. Many people I talked to before we went to Norway said that Oslo is not so special but we really liked it. The weather was great and Oslo is a really beautiful city.

This was in Vigelandsparken in Oslo. It is a park full of human sculptures and some of them are really cute.

Here's another cute sculpture

Luise, me and Leandra in the park

On our way to Bergen we stopped at a nice lake. It was beautiful but nothing compared to what we would see the next couple of days!

'
Later that day when we were looking for a crater. But of course you had to pay to see it and it was already closed. Not that we would have paid, though

Still the same day. The guy in the tourist office in Oslo told us that after Geilo there still was snow and that we should try to find a camping spot before that. Of course we didn't really take him seriously and that's what we got for doing it: 3m of snow!  We got a little worried because it got quite late and the snow did not seem to end, but then...

... we found this spot. It was not that high up anymore but still it got really cold. I wasn't freezing because my sleeping bag was really warm but I woke up a couple of times because my nose was cold.  However, this was one of the most beautiful places where I had ever spent a night! We even had a river close by where we could clean our dishes and brush our teeth and stuff. It was probably also the coldest water I had ever cleaned my dishes in!

The first fjord we saw!  The water was so calm and the weather was so nice that it just looked like a postcard, really beautiful!

Bryggen in Bergen. It was National Day when we were there and everyone was either really dressed up or wearing traditional costumes. It was really pretty!
And Bergen is a really beautiful city, very cute. It is said to be one of the rainiest cities in the world but once again there was no cloud in the sky when I went there.

me in Bryggen

Then we went up the mountain Ulriken. On top a marching band was playing. They just looked like British soldiers and we couldn't figure out why...

Me up on the moutain.  The view over Bergen was really amazing!

Up there was a troll with whom we HAD to take a picture.

Before we left Bergen, we bought some candy. Everybody had it that day, so we had to try it. And let me tell you, it was really yummy!

That night we slept on "troll island". It was so pretty but didn't really look typically Norwegian. But if we had seen a troll there, I would not have been surprised at all!

The next day the weather was not that good anymore, it was quite rainy. But the nature was still very beautiful and impressive!

We stopped at the fjord to eat lunch and then had to clean our dishes somehow... Since it was quite windy it was not easy at all. But it was fun.

Same place, now it was picture session time.

That night it was impossible to sleep in a tent because it was pouring down... So we stayed in a little cabin on a tiny camping site. What you can see on the picture is the attempt to try our tent a little bit.
The owner of that place must have thought that we are a little weird or something: First we didn't have enough Norwegian money to pay, then we overslept (about 3 hours!!!) and last but not least we forgot some of our food in the fridge... *lol*

That's what people are doing when they are in a car for almost a week...

The weather still wasn't any better but the view was still amazing

That was on the last ferry we took to get across the fjords. In the beginning we were planning on doing the ferry trip through the Naeroyfjord but then the weather was really bad and it is also super expensive.

Saturday during the day the weather cleared up again. We then took a small road beside the big one and came across this beautiful stave church. It is almost 900 years old! Unfortunately you had to pay to see it from the inside but the girl who tears the tickets told us that there is nothing really special inside; just wood

This is what E-roads look like in Norway... Everywhere else they are one of the roads with the most traffic ever but in Norway it's sometimes even only one lane...

The Valdres valley. It was really beautiful with all its lakes and the mountains with the snow in the background.

That's where we spent our last night. We thought this land belonged to no one but all of a sudden there was a guy coming up to us and asked what we were doing. He said it was ok but we had to promise not to litter or to make a fire. Later on that evening his dad also came and we talked a little. Before he left, he invited us to his house for coffee the next morning!  That was definitely my favorite part of all our Norway trip!

The next morning before we went to that family's house for coffee. We had to enjoy the sun!

Last weekend we went to Malmö. I went to the Kristofer Åström and Tom McRae concert on Friday night, so we made an entire weekend trip out of it. Very nice.
To get to the point, the concert was amazing! I loved it!  It started at 9 o'clock and I was kind of surprised that about ten till nine there still only a very people there. That was strange. Even in Germany, were both them are not really popular, would have been more people at that time. But luckily the place filled up a little bit later on.
After the support act Kevin Devine (who was really good as well) Tom McRae came on stage. It was the first time I saw him live and he is really, really good! I think his live stuff might even be better than his CDs. His voice is really powerful, so I loved it that he didn't have a full band, but only a keyboard, guitar and cello to support him. The cello was different but it fit perfectly to his songs! He sang songs from all his albums and in the end he even asked us what we wanted to hear. Super cool!

After Tom, Kristofer Åström hit the stage. Yay!  Of course he was really good as well! He sang a lot of songs from his new album. Thank God he also sang my favorite song "All Lovers' Hell".  There were a couple of drunk guys (they were not totally wasted but REALLY happy drunk ) standing quite close to me and they were always yelling for Kristofer to play that song. When he finally did so, it took them a while to realize and then they went crazy. That was funny!
But I also have to say that Kristofer looked really, really skinny... He was skinny the last time I saw him but I can't remember if he was THAT skinny. Kristofer, eat some more!!!
On his website it says that he will be touring Europe (and of course Germany) in June. I hope I will be home when he is in Germany. I would love to see him again!

On Saturday we walked around Malmö basically all day. The weather was sooo nice! We all felt like summer and also got our first sunburn. In Sweden at the beginning of May!!!  
First we went to the park which was really pretty! Everything is green by now and all the trees are blossoming. Also, the grass was full of daisies and looked completely white. From there we kept walking to the beach. Jule read in her guide that the beach was supposed to be really nice and all that but when we got there, I was quite disappointed... It was nothing special. Even in Sweden I had seen much prettier beaches. After that we went back downtown and had ice cream!  Yummy!  Then Luise had the brilliand idea to get sunglasses. So I joined her in the search for some. I forgot mine at home (like her) but really needed some as well. So we hit some stores and finally found some in H&M. However, we only found one design we both liked, so we both got the same... But I think that is actually quite funny.  At night we were thinking of going out but then were too tired. So we just went back to the park and had some ciders there. It is not allowed to drink alcohol in public in Sweden, so we kind of hid ourselves in a corner of the park and sat on a park bench like a bunch of alcoholics  After that we went to a pub downtown for a little while.
The next morning we had breakfast at the beach.  The weather was still awesome, so it was really nice! After that we started going back home but stopped in Lund first. It is a really nice little town with cozy streets and lots of cafés and restaurants. We walked around for one, maybe two hours, had coffee and then went back home. All in all it was a super nice and funny trip.

And now it's time for some pictures.

Pildamsparken with all the blossoms and daisies.

Laci, Jule and me in the park

in the park later that night... like alcoholics...

breakfast on the beach the next morning

There was an old castle ruin next to the Vättern lake where to took a break. It was sooo pretty!

group picture at the castle ruin

view over the lake from the ruin

And guess what!?! The next trip is already planned!  We will be going to Norway next Tuesday! Wohoo, I am so excited!  But since we are only three people doing the whole trip to Bergen and the fjords, we will be camping. That makes it even more exciting for me!  I hope the weather will be quite nice and above all dry! It would suck to build up and break down the tent when it is raining... Now I can't wait for next Tuesday.

Here are just a couple of Valborg pictures. They are quite pretty, so I thought I could share them with you.

Us downtown at the castle to watch the Valborg festivities.

The bonfire on the water in front of the castle. They ignited it with bow and arrow. That was pretty cool!

The firework at the end of everything, really cool!

And last but not least a picture of my beautiful bike! haha

Isn't that the most beautiful bike you have ever seen? Believe me, it feels as crappy to ride it as it looks like.  But most of the exchange students have bikes like this, so it is funny to go around the town with them.