Kim in Stockholm

Catching up on the summer

2007-09-10T15:04:00.000-04:00

I've fallen so far behind on blogging! But, I haven't given up! There's been plenty to write about over the past few months but not much time to do so. I finally have the time to go through my pictures and I've started back posting about my July vacation and will continue to bring you up to speed on what I've been up to this summer over the next few weeks.

Scroll down and start with My family comes to Stockholm..... to read things in order.

Barcelona

2007-07-23T16:00:00.001-04:00

Up next on the trip was Barcelona. Barcelona was a place that I have always wanted to visit, probably influenced by 10 years of Spanish classes. I wasn't disappointed. This was my favorite city on the trip and I hope to make it back for another weekend (or two) while I'm in Stockholm.As you'll see in the pictures, we had great weather in Barcelona. It was warm (but not too hot, except for in the un-air conditioned aquarium) and sunny.

Barcelona harbor

We stayed in a hotel off of Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas is a main road with a large pedestrian area in the center. The road is lined with shops and restaurants. The pedestrian path is lined with newstands and street performers. Most of the street performer were dressed as interesting, often colorful, statues. People bunched around them to see how (if and when) the would move and interact with people getting their pictures taken with them or dropping money in their baskets.

Church of the Sacred Family

We saw a lot of tourist attractions in 3 days. We probably spent the most time at the Church of the Sacred Family and Guell Park. The church was beautiful, although far from finished. It is still under construction, which began in the late 1880s. Construction crews were working in the middle of the tourists. We spent a while in Gaudi's Guell Park -a good part of the time there, we were lost. We climbed up a huge, steep hill to get there. And, gradually worked our way down to the other side of the park, taking in the art as we went (we should have done this the other way around!).

house in Guell Park

Other than the attractions, we wandered through the streets in different areas of the city and enjoyed lots of Spanish tapas, paellas, and sangria.

Barcelona harbor

The boys headed back to NY from Barcelona and the girls moved on to Rome......

Running of the Bulls

2007-07-22T07:47:00.000-04:00

The second stop on the family vacation was to see the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain.

For whatever reason, I expected Pamplona to be a small, remote town but it was much larger and more populated than I thought it would be. Of course, the city was super crowded for the festival. During the evening, the city reminded me of Bourbon Street - wall to wall people, most of them pretty intoxicated, and cheap alcohol being sold out of store windows (ie. a 1.5 liter bottle of sangria was 3 euro). There were spontaneous parades popping up and blocking off streets. There was even a fake bull with fireworks shooting off of it that pushed through the crowd at one point. Every place was crowded with people dressed in white with red bandannas and sashes.

Mom and Dad in the spirit.

(Both realized what I was capturing on film just as I snapped the picture.)

We actually watched the running of the bulls on the morning of the 12th. My mom had secured us balcony spots. Basically, those that live on the street the bulls run down get their rent money for the year by charging tourists to watch from their balconies. However, it's the only way to get a good view. Runners (including my uncle) started lining the streets a bit before the run. The cops came through and pulled the intoxicated, shoe-less, bag or camera carrying, and women off the course. We were watching near the beginning so we saw the bulls go by (my picture above) pretty quickly and then watched the rest on television. They held nothing back on the video footage. Seven people got gored and several others were injured that day. The problem was that one of the bulls got separated from the pack. That was the bull that caused the trouble.

Uncle John getting gored the night before he ran.

We left Pamplona that afternoon for Barcelona. My suitcase arrived to Pamplona (from Stockholm) just in time for me to check it in for my Barcelona flight. (I did get to use my Spanish immediately on arrival in Pamplona - mi maleta no esta aqui!)

Anyway, I found the video of the Running of the Bulls from the day we were there on You Tube. Here it is, if you are interested......

My family comes to Stockholm....

2007-07-21T11:49:00.001-04:00

My parents, sister, and uncle came to visit me in Stockholm in early July - the first stop on the family European vacation. The weather was pretty horrible (rainy and chilly) over the 3 days they were here. We still trucked around anyway. We did a lot of wandering to see as much of the city as possible in a few days.

Uncle John in Old Town with his new penguin umbrella.

(The lady in the background of the picture wasn't the only one staring - jealous, I'm sure.)

Unfortunately, seeing Gamla Stan (Old Town), the parks, an outdoor photo exhibit, and the boat tour of the city weren't quite as nice as they would have been in better weather but we had a good time anyway.

Courtney on the wooden horse outside City Hall.

(There are several pictures in this series of her trying to climb onto the horse.)

We did do plenty of indoor things, like the Vasa (famous ship that sank) Museum and the City Hall (where the Nobel banquet is held). The Absolute Ice Bar was one of the big hits of this portion of the trip.

Mom, Dad, Uncle John, and Courtney in the Ice Bar.
(I believe this is round #3.)

July Vacations

2007-07-09T17:06:00.000-04:00

My building (and most of the city, for that matter) is a ghost town. It seems that the entire country takes the month of July off for vacations. I'm heading off to do some traveling myself. I have some catch-up blogging to do when I get back (ie. Midsummer, my family's visit to Stockholm, etc.) and then I'll post about my vacation too, of course.

I haven't forgotten about blogging. I've just been busy.
Check back later this month!

Summer of sequels

2007-06-10T15:36:00.000-04:00

I saw the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie during the week. I liked it much better than the second one - mainly because it actually had an ending.

Until I saw this movie, I didn't realize just how many sequels are out or coming soon. Spiderman 3 is out here too. Then, all of the previews they showed (for American movies) were for sequels - Ocean's 13, Shrek 3, Die Hard 4, Harry Potter 4(?). The Bourne Ultimatum is also coming out this summer. The Bourne movie is the one in the only one in the list here that I'll definitely make it to the theater for but I'll probably catch Ocean's and Spidey when they're out on video.

I've recently read that Indiana Jones 4 is in production (I'd see this too!) and there will be a new Terminator trilogy.

Clearly, I'm missing many since a quick google search turned up 42 sequels released (or scheduled to be released) in 2007!

Stockholm Marathon

2007-06-09T16:14:00.000-04:00

I went to watch the Stockholm Marathon today. This whole week has been unusually warm for Stockholm and today was the hottest day we've had so far. It hit 29C (mid-80s F) and the usual high should be around 20C (high 60s F). So, the 2pm start time was just plain cruel to the runners!

We had a picnic near the side of the road at the 13k and 35k markers. Since the marathon was 2 laps, we got to see the runners pass twice. We saw many runners get lapped by the front runners, which really can't help morale. I tried to get a picture with both some of our group and the runners in the background but I guess there was a lull.After we saw the front runners (both male and female) pass our location, we moved into the park, near the water, to continue our picnic/lazy summer day.

I walked home from the park around 10pm and here are some pictures I took on the bridge connecting the island we picnicked on with where I live.

Short nights

2007-05-27T05:54:00.000-04:00

I was at a party at a friend's place last night. I took these pictures from her 4th floor balcony.

10pm last night:

3am this morning:The longest day of the year is still a month away!

Pay Day Weekend

2007-05-26T08:58:00.001-04:00

Everyone in Sweden gets paid on the 25th of the month. I guess this makes sense since all bills, rent, etc are due by the 1st.

Since everyone gets paid on the same day, it's actually something that you have to think about when making weekend plans. Restaurants, bars, clubs, movie theaters, and so on are all much more crowded on the weekend right after pay day than any other weekend. This weekend is a pay day weekend so plans to fight the crowds to see the Pirate movie and to stand in a long line to get into a club have been scrapped - I'll be at parties at friends' apartments instead.

Local wildlife

2007-05-24T14:12:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, it was really swampy out - super humid, raining on and off and cool enough that the humidity made it chilly. Monday morning as I was leaving my apartment, there was a loud crunch under my foot. I looked down and there were a bunch of little snails (or pieces of little snails). Watching where I was stepping more closely, as I cut through a park to get to the trolley, I saw a really big snail with a beautiful shell. I didn't have my camera with me then. But, this is the one I saw outside of my apartment when I got home.

Then, on Wednesday, when I was coming home from work, I saw a deer in my neighbor's front yard. Now, keep in mind, I don't live in back woods Sweden, I live in the Stockholm suburbs. It would be like seeing a wild deer in any place I've lived before this (in the suburbs of NY, Boston, or Atlanta) but the houses here are on smaller plots of land and so they are closer together. There are no wooded areas around where I live so I have no idea where this deer came from. It was one of those cartoon moments where I walked right past it (it was no further than 10 feet away from me) and I had to take a few steps backwards after it registered, to see if I did see what I think I saw.

Swedish Schlager

2007-05-13T06:17:00.000-04:00

The Swedes are big into schlager music. I would describe schlager as overdone pop songs that almost seem like they were made more for a musical than for radio. After I gave this explanation to someone, a friend laughed and pointed out that the most famous Swedish schlager group is ABBA.

Last night was the Eurovision song contest. I'll explain this in a minute but first I'm going to back up.

Leading up to last night, Sweden had Melodifestivalen. Basically, a person or group performs an original song on live television and then viewers vote for their favorites, American Idol style. Actually several of the entries were from former Swedish Idol contestants. I don't know how many entries they started with but it went on for a couple of months - with first rounds, quarter finals, semifinals, etc. I caught bits and pieces of some of these. Most of the songs were schlager - and super catchy in that you only need to hear the chorus once or twice and it's stuck in your head. The ones that made the final round are also continuously played on the radio, in commericals, in shopping malls, everywhere. I could sing the chorus to at least a dozen of these (and parts of verses of some of the ones in English) right now, if I had to. The winner of the Swedish Melodifestivalen was a song called "The Worrying Kind" by The Ark. Here's a YouTube video of it, if you're interested.

This song was Sweden's entry into Eurovision. I think there are somewhere around 50 countries that have entries. Over the past week this has been cut down to 24 finalists, which performed last night. This is huge here - it's the longest running tv show (over 50 years) and it draws the largest tv audience (excluding sporting events) in Europe. Previous winners include ABBA (Sweden; mid-70s) and Celine Dion (Switzerland; late 80s). It was interesting to watch. Some the acts were just horrible - whether it be lack of talent or really cheese factor. Others were entertaining. Sweden was picked to be a favorite but ended up finishing in 18th place. Serbia won - and, in my opinion, deserved to. The Ukranian song came in 2nd and it was one of the most entertaining, in a weird sort of way.

Science Update

2007-05-12T15:07:00.001-04:00

I've been a posting slacker again but I've had an eventful two weeks lab/science-wise so that's kept me pretty busy.

Last week, I did a ton of experiments. My transgenic mice haven't really been cooperating for the past few months (see Mendel was wrong post). However, last week 7 out of 9 of my mice had the genes I need. The odds are 1 in 4 so Mendel was wrong, again, but at least it was in my favor this time! The electrophys was also going really well so I got a lot of nice recordings.

This past week, I've been analyzing data and processing tissue. I had filled the cells I was recording from so that I could see their morphology. A few of them came out very well and were beautiful. I'd post a picture of mine if I could but the scopes I was using this week didn't have cameras on them. (The pic above isn't mine. I think it's actually a hippocampal neuron.)

To top off the past two weeks, on Friday, I found out that I got my grant! This means, among other things, that I'll be in Stockholm through the summer of 2009. Also, I'll be in San Diego in November for the conference, where I hope to catch up with most of the Atlanta neuro crowd.

Valborg

2007-05-02T15:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was Valborg. But, like all Swedish holidays, the celebration was the night before. Valborg night is celebrated in a bunch of different European countries. It's named after a saint but the Swedish traditions all relate to the pagan celebrations. It celebrates the beginning of spring and getting rid of evil (witches, in particular).

We had a barbecue with leftovers from Kathy's party on Monday. It was really cold out - about 5 Celsius (which is low 40s F) - but we grilled outside anyway. Here are some of the girls (freezing!).After the barbecue, a large group of us went to a bonfire in a park (see picture above). There were choirs singing songs and a guy telling traditional stories. We were warming ourselves by the fire.Yesterday was Labor Day in Sweden. I think every political party (there are 8 or 9 of them) has a rally and/or parade. I didn't check any of these out. I had labwork to do and it was too cold out to spend the entire afternoon outside.

Weekend Parties

2007-05-01T14:50:00.000-04:00

Kathy, the other American postdoc in my lab, is leaving Sweden this week to start a new postdoc in Chicago. She threw herself a big going away party Friday night. She had it in the lunchroom at work so the location was really convenient. The weather was nice so she barbecued at the area right outside the lunchroom. There were probably about 50-60 people there. It was great time.

I stayed at the party until the end and then helped put things away. I ended up getting home around 5:30am (well after sunrise). I haven’t done that in a long time and I did pay the next day! I wish I had party pictures but I forgot to bring my camera. One of Kathy’s friends set up a video camera so that people could leave her messages throughout the evening. I’m sure it’s hilarious! And I’ll post clips, if possible.

I had another party to go to on Saturday. I woke up sometime mid-afternoon on Saturday and felt pretty lame and useless. However, I did tell Chus that I’d go to his party so I went. Chus’ party was smaller but I think everyone there was at Kathy’s the night before. He came around offering drinks as we were arriving. Just about everyone took water or Coke. So, I wasn’t the only person feeling old and lame. And, we had a good time laughing at how pathetic we all are.

Back to Kathy’s party…I was eating lunch with Kathy and a few others yesterday and one of the professors came up to Kathy to thank her for the party and to tell her that it was a great night that ended horribly. Why ended horribly? Well, apparently, he went to his office to take a nap (or pass out as he was last seen doing tequila shots and demonstrating the Finnish tango). He woke up and went to the bathroom, however, he left his wallet with his ID card in his office. [Note: Every corridor in our building locks down on both sides. The bathrooms (and stairs/elevators) are between corridors.] There was a couch in on of the lobbies upstairs that he slept for a few hours on. When he woke up at 7am, he decided that he needed to go home. So, he took his socks off (I guess his shoes were in his office) and walked home (how far? I don’t know). We’ve been laughing about that since we heard the story.

Diversity in Swedish

2007-04-22T16:00:00.000-04:00

I’ve been pretty busy lately so I’ve fallen behind in blogging. I was going to take it easy tonight (and possibly blog). But, then we lost electricity, for no apparent reason – and my computer battery is fully charged. So, here we go - this is the first of the catch-up posts.

Tuesday night a big group of people from my department went to an event that was suppose to be celebrating diversity at the KI. They advertised a talent show, dinner, drinks, and live music for 100 kronor (which is about $15) – a bargain.

The event was at a place called Cirkus (celebrate diversity at the circus – hehe!). When we arrived, we were given a hotdog and juice box outside the place – which was kind of funny but we were also worried that was the extent of the dinner and drinks.

Then, onto the show. There were several acts that we’d expect to see – flamenco dancers, a capella groups, singer and pianist pairs, a street dance group, a guy who swallowed a sword etc. Unfortunately, that made up only about 20% of the show. The rest of the three hours was all talk (panels on diversity, politicians, etc) – in Swedish! Now, I understand that I’m in Sweden and I don’t expect everything to be in English. But, the invitation was in English and it’s about diversity! Only 10 million people in the entire world speak Swedish. Only 2 of our group of 15 or so understood what was going on. They were bored too so we all scooted out early.

Luckily, they were serving dinner and drinks already so we were rewarded with no lines and plenty of places to sit. The after party was a lot of fun. Alexandros (one of the grad students in my department) was the DJ for the evening. There was also a live band. We had fun dancing for the rest of the night.

For Boston, for Boston.....

2007-04-17T02:11:00.001-04:00

Saturday night, I met up with friends at an "American-style" sports bar to watch the Swedish hockey finals.

Sure the bar looked like a generic sports bar/restaurant but the prices were a bit more steep then in the US. I thought this menu was a good example since it's mostly in English (med kyckling is with chicken). One USD is equivalent to about 7 Swedish krona. (So, yes, that cheeseburger is $17! This is pretty typical.)Apparently, at sports bars here, you can't sit at a table unless you are ordering food. Since we were just having a few drinks, we stood in the bar for the game. Look what I saw on the wall across from where we were standing........which was only a small part of the Doug Flutie shrine.....It was a good hockey game - relatively high scoring and close all the way through. It was game six in the series, which ended up being the final game. There was only one person who was a fan of one of the two teams playing and his team lost. A few groups around us supporting the winning team ordered bottles of champagne at the end of the game. I've seen people order celebratory shots before but champagne seemed a bit much!

It's like April in Stockholm

2007-04-15T15:24:00.000-04:00

The Swedish expression "like April" is used to describe things that are unpredictable. Now I understand the expression. After snow on Monday, the weather warmed up quite a bit. By the weekend, it was like summer. It was nice and sunny, with temperatures in the low 70s. Keep in mind that the average high for April is 47 and in July it's 71. Also, snow is in the forecast again for Thursday.

Anyway, back to fun in the sun.....Both Saturday and Sunday I went to afternoon barbeques with friends.

Saturday we went to a park on a lake that has bbq setups. This park was in the suburbs not to far from where I live. Here are some pictures:On Sunday, we went to a park by the KI. They didn't have bbqs there but the grocery stores sell little one-use bbqs. As you'll see from the pictures below, we weren't the only ones with the idea to bbq in the park. I went to the grocery store on my way home. It was really crowded and EVERYONE there had a bit of sunburn. Pictures from Sunday:

Uto - part 2

2007-04-10T15:13:00.001-04:00

We woke up Easter Sunday to another sunny day. Again, it was really warm in the sun but chilly in the shade and just plain cold when the wind picked up.After a big breakfast and a lazy morning, we headed out by bike to explore the southern part of the island. The island has a lot of iron mines and the southern part is used for military training. The signs said that there was no shooting that day so we rode our bikes around the uninhabited part of the island. We saw the big attraction - the iron mines.
We weren't impressed either. They are all flooded out and there isn't much to see. It became a joke. We also say another historical site which was even less impressive - a place where there use to be a house that some guy lived in and he had a cow. (We had a Swede with us so the significance wasn't lost in translation. It wasn't really there to start with.) There was also a huge Dutch windmill - the most impressive "tourist attraction".
We had a nice picnic lunch on the beach on the south shore.
After lunch, we played in the barracks and shelters, climbed on the rocky shore, and collected bullets and grenade parts. Then, we biked back. In just a day and a half, we biked the entire island.Back in the cottages, we had a few cocktails and played a lot of cards. Eventually, we had a curry dinner. I attempted to make a bunny cake. It failed for many reasons but this is what it looked like in the end. It tasted ok but not much better than it looked.Monday morning we woke up to snow! Seriously! This is what the stuga looked like when we were leaving.

Easter Adventure in Uto

2007-04-09T12:28:00.000-04:00

For Easter weekend I went to Uto with a group of people from my department. The trip was kind of thrown together last minute. Since it seems that most people here leave town for Easter, those of us left behind went out to Uto, which is part of the Stockholm archipelago, for 3 days. There ended up being 9 of us, with 8 countries represented (US, Canada, Sweden, Columbia, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, and Australia).It takes about 3 hours to get to Uto using public transportation on a holiday weekend, the last hour of which is by boat. We all ended up getting up really early on Saturday to make the morning boat (there are only 2 a day).We stayed in stugas (little cottages) that were behind a main house. This was one of our 2 stugas.
When we arrived, Don, the owner of the house (and the stugas), invited all nine of us to his yard for a "welcome drink". He was very impressed at how multi-national our group was. He was a talker so he told us all about his island while asking us about our home countries.Next, we went into the town center - which consisted of a grocery store, a bakery, a clothing and knickknack store, and a bicycle shop. We found the bakery amazing. There was a rack of different breads with prices and a box of money. No one was working there! You picked up your bread and left your money. There was actually a good amount of money in the box. We were feeling kind of silly here.We rented bicycles for the weekend so that we could see the entire island. (This was the first time I've rode a bicycle since I could drive.) On Saturday, we biked around the northern part of the island for a couple of hours. The scenery was beautiful. Here's just one example.After that, we relaxed on the porch and enjoyed the rest of the sunshine. After salmon and potatoes for dinner, we played cards and chatted for a while. We were all exhausted so we were all in bed by 10:30. To be continued......

Easter Witches

2007-04-05T14:53:00.000-04:00

Today (the Thursday before Easter) is fabled to be the day that the witches fly on their brooms to meet Satan. To celebrate this, Swedish kids dress like witches and go door-to-door exchanging pictures they have drawn for candy. I guess it's kind of like trick-or-treating.

I didn't actually see any of these witches since I was either at work or busy preparing for my last minute weekend trip.

I'm back-posting to stall while I collect pictures from Easter weekend. More back-posting to come. (I've been inserting place holders.)

Flowers?

2007-04-02T14:38:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if this is an Easter thing or an early spring thing but these sticks with colored feathers are EVERYWHERE! I'm guessing it's because, although it feels like it should be spring, there aren't many real flowers around. Anyway, it's kind of weird. Even stranger is that people actually buy these. The picture above is from in front of a florist.

Early Easter

2007-03-31T08:50:00.001-04:00

On Friday, our group of 4 labs had an Easter lunch. In the morning, we painted eggs so that they would be dry for the pre-lunch competitions. Usually, they use water colors to paint the eggs. I brought back a few egg dying kits (the "magic" crayon and color tablets that you put in water and vinegar) so we did both. Here are a couple of pictures of people (sometimes very seriously) creating their masterpieces.

At noon, the egg competitions began. The first was to see who could get their egg to travel the farthest after going down a ramp. I came in second.
In the second round, Jesper (the winner of the first round), rolled his egg down the ramp again. Then, the goal was to get as close to his egg as possible. Ernesto won this one. The prizes were a pineapple and a cantaloupe. Here are the winners in action.Our eggs got pretty smashed up - good thing they were hard-boiled. Easter lunch was the usual Swedish holiday fare - herring in several different sauces, potatoes, flat bread/crackers, cheese, ham, and, of course, our eggs.

Daylight savings time should be all year

2007-03-29T15:39:00.000-04:00

I’m sure there are a number of rational reasons why we don’t keep the clocks an hour ahead year round. However, I can’t think of any this week. We just set our clocks an hour ahead last weekend. Where I’d much rather gain an hour than lose an hour, it’s been well worth it so far.

Swedes actually smile! The mood of the entire country has seemed to change overnight. The sidewalks and bike lanes are much more crowded than usual. This past week I’ve seen people hold doors for others, give up their seats on the subway, help people with baby strollers onto the bus, pick up newspapers that someone else dropped, etc. You would think this is normal but it is not at all – I thought Swedes were pretty rude. Apparently, they are just rude in the winter!

I should also mention that since we’ve advanced the clocks, it’s been bright, sunny, and (relatively) warm. I’m sure this has something to do with it too.

Sunset this week has been between 7:30 and 8pm. With the exception of today, I’ve actually left work in the daylight every day this week. We’ve even been eating lunch outside. According to the online weather, it’s only hit 55 degrees. However, I was outside sitting in the sun for lunch today for about 45 minutes and I was comfortable in short sleeves. (I’m still a cold weather wimp, though, so it was warm!) My boss was sitting with us for lunch yesterday and he bought our whole table ice cream.

Swedes really take advantage of the sun and warm weather. It’s fun to see. I’m looking forward to another 5 or 6 months like this week.

Våffeldagen

2007-03-28T15:41:00.000-04:00

Sunday was Våffeldagen, or Waffle Day, but I missed it because I didn't find out about it until Monday. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who missed out on eating waffles last weekend so I think we may celebrate this coming weekend.

Waffle Day is international but it started in Sweden. This is a great example of how a Catholic holiday got changed to a non-religious holiday (since Sweden gave up Catholicism long ago but will not give up any holidays). Waffle Day is on March 25th every year which is the feast of the Annunciation. This is when the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that she was going to give birth to Jesus exactly 9 months later on Christmas day.

So, how does the announcement of the birth of Jesus have anything to do with waffles? In Sweden, the Annunciation was also called Our Lady's Day, which is Vårfrudagen. Now, not knowing any Swedish but channeling the Swedish chef, you try to say "Vårfrudagen" out loud and now try Våffeldagen. Now, I'm sure it's crystal clear how the Annunciation became International Waffle Day. Pretty hilarious, isn't it?

And.....I'm back!

2007-03-25T14:14:00.000-04:00

Like many of my blogger friends, I've fallen behind recently. As Wendy pointed out, the farther you fall behind, the more time you want to leave to post, the less likely you are to do so.....etc. So, now I'm back!

I made an unexpected trip home last week. Surprisingly, I had the cheapest Sweden to US roundtrip airfare that I've ever had. Why surprising? Because I bought the tickets less than 12 hours before I left for the airport! Despite the circumstances, I had a nice visit. I had the opportunity to spend time with my family and a few of my friends. I also got to eat home cooked food (that I didn't cook!), watch the BC games (and some others) in the NCAA tourney, shop for things that I either can't get in Sweden (ie. pants that aren't 5 inches too long) or that are ridiculously expensive in Sweden (ie. sneakers), experience a true Northeast winter storm (not that I miss this!), and hack at the ice on my sister's windshield with a hammer (yes, the ice and snow was THAT thick - and it was kinda fun because I'd never taken a hammer to a car before).

I got back to Stockholm Wednesday afternoon. Jet lag wasn't too bad this time around because I actually got some sleep on the plane (thanks to antihistamines and the fact that I took an 11pm flight so I was actually kind of tired, which isn't the case when I take a 5pm flight) and the time difference was 5 hours, rather than the usual 6.

More is soon to come.....

Winter's over?

2007-03-12T16:08:00.000-04:00

Everyone has been saying for the past week or two that it "feels like spring". I haven't been buying it. Just because it's 0 or slightly over (Celsius) doesn't make it spring. However, this weekend was very spring like. It was 10 Celsius (50 F).

The thermometer in the little downtown area near my apartment on Sunday.

Friday night, Carolina had a party because her first paper was accepted and she finished building her Ikea bar. Saturday, Lotta invited the lab over for a Hungarian dinner. Her Hungarian husband made yummy goulash.

Carolina, Ann-Charlotte, me, and Kathy

Sunday, a group of us got one last ice skating trip in for the season - on a man made rink, of course. Only half the rink was frozen when we got there. The frozen part of the ice rapidly shrank over the hour or so we were there.

Me, Marcus, and Henrike

Princess Camping

2007-03-07T14:42:00.000-05:00

I read an article on CNN.com today about "glamping" (or glamorous camping). It's taking "princess camping" to a whole new level. Were not just talking beds and electricity - it includes saunas, hot tubs, food served on china, etc. Anyway, I saw this article and remembered our trip and the 3 million silly emails back and forth about it.

Check it out: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/03/06/bi.glamping.ap/index.htmlFor those wondering what I mean by "princess camping", it's a long story......

Our neuroscience program retreat (Emory) several years back was being held at a place that had a lodge and camping onsite and a hotel nearby. For the student party the night before the official start of the retreat, we were given the options of paying a decent amount of cash for a hotel, paying something like $10 for a room in a lodge, or paying $5 to camp out Friday night. I said that I'd prefer the lodge but I would go regardless of what we ended up doing. Apparently, Cary and I were the ONLY two people who didn't choose camping. (I still don't understand why!) For whatever reason, one room couldn't be canceled from the reservation so Sonia (the person who takes care of the program) told Cary and me that we could have the room in the lodge. Only a small group of people knew about this and they gave us such a hard time! Turns out that Friday night, it was POURING rain all night long. Who was knocking at the door shortly after the campsite curfew? Oh, all of the "hardcore" campers!

A group of friends organized a camping trip that took place at least once a year. The trip was dubbed "nerds in the woods" by Leah's sister, I think. I went (tent camping) with the nerds in the woods group once. I did have a good time but camping is just not my thing. So, the last camping trip involved cabins, beds, electricity, a bathroom, etc. (We actually had one cabin that slept 8 and there were 15-20 of us on the trip.) The email announcing the trip said that we would be going cabin-camping this time, for the princesses in the group. Cary and I knew we were the ones being called out. So, we did stop and pick up purple glittery tiaras (with feathers) on our way and wore them for part of the weekend. The picture above is from the princess camping weekend - with our castle in the background.

Lunar Eclipse

2007-03-04T11:43:00.000-05:00

While waiting for the local train late last night, I got to watch the total lunar eclipse. By the time I got back to my apartment, the peak of the eclipse was well over with but the moon looked red. I tried to take a picture but none of my pictures do it justice. (I put one below anyway.) The ones on CNN -probably taken through a telescope- are much more impressive.

Swenglish

2007-03-03T08:11:00.000-05:00

I've been in Sweden for just about four months now and I've picked up enough Swedish to get myself into trouble. Most people here speak English better than I do and those who don't speak English, understand it pretty well. So, where I definitely don't need to know Swedish, since I see and hear it everyday, I like to know what's going on.

I can start off a conversation by asking a question or by replying to a question (as long as it's in context). Basically, I'm good for one back and forth and then I loose it. Either I don't understand what the other person says or I understand but I can't formulate a reply in Swedish. When I know what was said, I just reply in English (and depending on how comfortable the person is with English, they will either flip to English or stay in Swedish and speak basic and slow - and I continue replying in English). If I don't know, usually I apologize (in English) that my Swedish is not very good and ask them to repeat in English. Occasionally, I just smile and nod (particularly if it's just small talk while waiting in line for something). This works about 50% of the time and the other 50% of the time, the person thinks I'm a complete idiot.

I get stopped on the street and in the subway pretty frequently (I'd say at least once a week) by someone asking for directions or the time. Last weekend, a couple asked me something in the subway but I had no idea what they said. So, I said that I'm sorry but I don't speak Swedish (thinking that they'd re-ask in English or smile and ask someone else). Instead, I got the dirtiest look and they walked away. I thought it was weird how rude they were. Then, I looked back down at the Swedish newspaper I was flipping through while waiting for the train. Oops! They must have thought I didn't want to help them.

Sports week

2007-02-28T15:20:00.000-05:00

This week is Sports Week in Stockholm (and maybe all of Sweden?). Kids have off from school to go skiing, skating, hiking, etc.

No sports for me until the weekend, unless patch clamping is a sport.

Actually, I did go to the gym today. The gym is pretty small so most people go to the classes. The music at the classes cracks me up. Today, for example, some Swedish song, followed by Big Pimpin', immediately followed by It's Gonna Be Me (NSYNC) - strange mix! Some of the aerobics classes play a lot of hip hop songs - definitely not the US radio edits. The lyrics aren't censored at all (and they aren't for the Swedish radio either). I think it's kind of funny, especially because no one else seems to notice.

Skating in Hellasgården

2007-02-25T12:37:00.000-05:00

I tested out my new ice skates on a lake today in Hellasgården. I went with a group that ended up being all Australians and Italians (except for me, of course).

The weather today is what I thought winters in Stockholm would be like - cold (-10 to -5 degrees C), windy, and snowy. Not the type of weather that I really like to be outside in. But, if I'm going to be outside in it, I may as well be skating.

Hellasgården is really nice. They had a 3 kilometer track cleared on the ice for skating. There were also a lot of people cross-country skiing and kids being dragged on sleds. This is me skating (well holding still for the picture) on the lake.Most people were skating with Nordic long distance skates. They have thinner blades than figure skates, are much longer in the front, and don't have a toe pick. Only 5 of us ended up skating and no one else brought skates. You could only rent Nordic skates. I was a bit worried about being able to keep up with the others using my figure skates. But, I managed just fine. Here's Alison and Matteo on Nordic skates. (They were actually trying to push each other over so one would be on the ground when the picture was snapped - but neither succeeded.)
After one lap, half of the group had had enough. The rest of us continued skating for a while. We had worked up an appetite. They were selling hot dogs on stick so that you could cook your own. We warmed up by the fire while warming up our late lunch.

Fettisdagen

2007-02-20T15:56:00.000-05:00

Today is Fettisdagen (or Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday). We had semla at our department coffee break today. That's a semla (or fettisdagbulle) in the picture. It's a rather plain bun with whipped cream and almond paste or marzipan in the middle, and sugar on top. Some people put it in a dish of warm milk. Traditionally, semla was eaten only on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. However, Sweden hasn't been Catholic for a really long time so now they eat semla every Tuesday between today and Easter. Like anything else that has been commercialized, you can buy semla starting over a month before Fettisdagen. The Swedes eat a lot of these today. They are pretty good but, in my opinion, one a week is more than enough.

Ice skates

2007-02-18T14:18:00.000-05:00

I finally got ice skates! I originally wanted traditional white figure skates. However, they were tough to find this late in the season. Where the traditional figure skates are nice for rink skating, I decided my new "boot" skates make more sense for skating on lakes and the sea. They'll keep my feet much warmer! They are figure skates, although they more closely resemble hockey skates.

It's been above freezing since Friday so I didn't get to try my new skates out today. I'm too paranoid about falling through the ice, even if I had a "Nordic ice safety kit" (which includes 2 spikes with handles, a whistle, and a rope, all worn around one's neck). Maybe next weekend!

Mendel may be right, after all

2007-02-17T11:06:00.001-05:00

I've been struggling with transgenic mice since after Christmas. I should have a 1 in 4 chance of getting my desired mouse, which will have a green fluorescent protein (GFP) in the cells I'm interested in. For those who this will mean anything to, I'm crossing a floxed stop GFP heterozygote with a het for my gene of interest driving cre. Right now, I can't use homozygotes to up my odds, for a variety of reasons. For those who the last two sentences were lost on, I need two different genes to be expressed at the same time to see green cells. Each gene has a 1 in 2 chance of being expressed and the genes are independently regulated, so the probability of having both is 1/4.

Anyway, the first 2 weeks I was 0 for 13 in being able to see GFP in my cells. I didn't believe it, my advisor didn't believe it, my collaborator who created the cre mouse didn't believe it - clearly, I was doing something wrong. Nope, PCR confirmed, I'm just that unlucky! (PCR is a way to amplify specific pieces of DNA. I'm using to see whether or not my genes are actually present in the DNA of each of my mice. As I said before, I need 2 genes to be present at the same time and not 1 of my 13 had both.) A guy in the lab next door overheard me talking to someone in my lab about my PCR results and he said that he was convinced that Mendel was wrong when he was starting his project. So, that became my explanation - Mendel was wrong.

This past week, my luck changed - 4 out of 8 of my mice had green cells! So, for those counting at home, that means I'm 4/21 overall, so far. You can't get much closer to 1/4 than that. So, I guess Mendel was right after all!

City Hall Reception

2007-02-14T14:39:00.000-05:00

Tonight the City of Stockholm invited all international students and visiting researchers, who have come to Stockholm in the past year (all 1200 of us!), to a reception at Stadshuset (City Hall). For a Swedish event, it wasn't very well organized (even the Germans make fun of the rules, promptness, and organization of the Swedes) but it was a pleasant evening and really nice of the City of Stockholm.

The reception was in the Blue Hall, which is where the Nobel Prize dinner is held. The Blue Hall was never painted blue. It's all brick. Eventually, when they let us into the Blue Hall, they gave us each a glass of wine. Then, the "Lord Mayor of Stockholm" welcomed us to the city and offered a toast. Next, some seemingly random college student on university exchange from Stanford spoke (we don't know why and couldn't really hear her because there was so much talking). Then, we had a buffet dinner.

They also let us wander into the Gold Room. This is a huge hall with mosaics made with tiny gold tiles. It's super gaudy but impressive. I found a little piece of home on the wall.
Other random notes:
- I've had a bit of blogger's/writer's block lately. I guess that's because I've fallen into more of a normal routine. Everything I do and every place I go isn't new anymore. Where going to a friend's place for dinner or meeting people out at a bar is fun, it's not too interesting to read about (especially over and over again!). However, I've come up with several topics in the past few days so my blogging will pick back up again. Keep checking back.
- My parents got me a new camera for my birthday. The lens of my current camera retracts for no reason, even when the lens cap is open - it's a real pain. I did all of the model and pricing research for the new camera and went to pick it up last weekend but it was out of stock. Hopefully, I'll get it this weekend - and then there will be more pictures on the blog too!
- As of this past Monday, I am no longer able to send or receive emails from my emory.edu or learnlink accounts. I guess they have finally cut me off! I'm frantically downloading my messages off of learnlink while I can still access them (since I'm guess it won't be long before I can't log in at all). If you don't have my new address, it's the same as the old, except through gmail.

Deep Freeze

2007-02-11T14:53:00.000-05:00

This week has been the coldest since I've been here. Highs have been between -5 and -10 Celcius (mid-teens to mid-20s Farenheit). I've even been wearing a hat and gloves. (I hate wearing hats and gloves but I hate not being able to feel my ears and fingers more.) It has been really sunny, though, which is a change from how grey it has been.

I went out walking around my neighborhood for a bit today. I went down by the water, which is finally frozen. I've been told about how, in the winter, you can walk/skate/ski on the ice to go from one island to another. However, this winter has been unusually warm. I saw a few people skating today. (I'm not sure how they decide how far they can go out and be sure it's frozen enough.) It looked like fun so I went in search of ice skates. They are on sale everywhere (for ~$30 which is ridiculously cheap by Swedish standards; a regular pair of Nike or Adidas women's sneakers costs $150-$200). I went to 4 stores and then called 3 and they only had really small and really big sizes left. Oh well. My hunt continues!

Friday Curry and Saturday Jazz and Soul

2007-02-04T15:55:00.000-05:00

The first Friday of every month, Jesper (from my lab) organizes Friday Curry. He picks a restaurant and invites everyone that works around us. This Friday, 24 of us went to a Jamacian restaurant called Back A Yard. It was a small place that only seats 40 people so we basically took over. We were at 3 tables of 8, which was nice for conversation. We filled the tables up in the order we arrived (more or less) so I had the opportunity to talk to a few people who I don't know that well. It was nice and the food was good. I had lamb curry and banana cake with rum raisin ice cream.

Last night I went to Jazzclub Fasching with a bunch of people from my department. The jazz trio was pretty famous in Stockholm so the place was crowded. I'm not a huge jazz fan but I enjoyed the show. After the jazz show, the place converts to a club that opens at midnight. I actually went to this club when I was here in August for a conference and I know I described the club with the weird, unexpected music to many of you. It was the same music this Saturday but it made more sense this time - because I knew ahead of time that it was "50s-60s Soul Music". I wouldn't classify all of the songs played in that category but there was definitely no unz-unz-unz or techo versions of top 40 songs. Anyway, it was kinda funny to be in a club super crowded with 20- and 30-somethings dancing to songs like Heat Wave, Hit the Road Jack, Disco Inferno (which I thought was 70s disco?), Do You Love Me, Mustang Sally, etc.

One hour in Finland

2007-01-28T14:28:00.000-05:00

On Friday/Saturday, I went to Finland with Ann-Charlotte and Kathy from my lab. I never actually stepped foot in Finland, though. Ann-Charlotte is Finnish and was going to visit friends for the weekend. She was taking the overnight ferry and had booked a cabin so she invited Kathy and me along for the ride.

We boarded the boat Friday night and booked a table at the smorgasbord for dinner. We had unlimited beer and wine with our meal so we hung out there until they kicked us out for the next seating (but we asked them to take our picture first). After dinner, we went tax-free shopping. Alcohol is very heavily taxed in Sweden so we were able to buy some liquor and wine for about half the price we would pay at the liquor store on land. The tax-free shopping is one of the main draws to this Stockholm-to-Finland boat trip. Also, "tax-free" is "tax-free" in English, Swedish, and Finnish. (It was hilarious to hear these little kids in the elevator yapping away in Swedish....tax-free....more Swedish.) After shopping, we went to the bar and then the club (partying being the other main draw of the boat). We made a lot of interesting Swedish friends.

We docked in Finland around 6am. Not having had much sleep until that point, I pretty much slept right through it (other than mumbling goodbye to Ann-Charlotte) and woke up when we were well on our way back to Stockholm. Kathy and I had some brunch at a table over looking the water. It looked so cold and uninviting - grey skies, white-capped waters. and large pieces of ice crashing on the deck from the top of the boat. We decided there was nothing to see and we should go back to bed. We watched Napoleon Dynamite, read, and napped until we arrived back in Stockholm Saturday night.

It was a fun little, relatively last minute, trip. The water was a bit to rough for my liking for a few hours both ways - but I got over it. I'd like to go on the same trip again in the summer when I can actually walk out onto the deck and enjoy the scenery.

Indoor shoes

2007-01-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

These are my "indoor shoes". A lot of people here leave clogs or sandles (which they wear with socks) or something similar in the office so they can wear their boots to lab and comfortable shoes during the day. I'm sure this isn't unique to Sweden and happens most places that get snow. However, it seemed weird to me after being in Atlanta for 6 years - but it makes complete sense. I bought my indoor shoes two weeks ago - just in time for the snow.

I was looking for a more neutral color but they were sold out of grey and brown. The green is growing on me.

22 hours ahead

2007-01-23T15:21:00.000-05:00

I’ve been in Sweden for over 2 months now and I’ve gotten use to most things but time still gets me every now and then.

Everyone here uses 24 hour time. I agree that 24 hour time makes more sense than 12 hour, but only in a world with only digital clocks and digital watches. Anyway, regardless, it’s still not automatic for me. We get an email announcement for something at “kl. 14.30”, I read it fast and think 4:30pm. Hence, I’m two hours behind. Also, I should mention here that I’m glad time is straight-up in the morning. If time started at noon instead of midnight, I’d be so confused when my digital (24 hour) alarm clock went off in the morning.

It’s not only time that throws me off but dates too. Calendars start with Monday on the left going through Sunday on the right (as opposed to Sunday thru Saturday). I never realized how little I look up at the day column in a calendar. If there’s something marked in the second square of a given week, it’s happening on Monday, right? So, that puts me a day ahead. I suppose it doesn’t help that I have my Long Island calendar (that I got as a gift from friends at home) posted at my desk, which is different from everyone else’s monthly calendars and my lab-issued weekly calendar, but at least I can read it without thinking twice (and it has prettier pictures).

I use to be so good at keeping dates and times straight, knowing where I should be and when. Not so much anymore! At least I’m usually a day in advance and 2 hours behind - which still leaves me 22 hours ahead.

Winter has arrived

2007-01-21T13:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I experienced my first real Stockholm snowstorm. It has snowed a bit a few times here so far, but just a dusting to an inch. Several inches (6-ish?) fell yesterday.

The snow was coming down hard all night. It was Kathy's birthday so she cooked dinner for a few of us and then we went out to two bar/clubs.

The first bar we went to (I don't know what it was called) had the feel of sitting out on the streets. It's a weird setup, surrounded by stores (ie. H&M), all of which were closed at that hour. The seating at the bar was on stone steps, but they provided cushions. All of the walls and (most of) the roof were glass. Three of the walls, were the store front windows of the clothing stores. Regardless, you could see the snow.

Then, we went to a club called Musenbache (I'm sure the spelling isn't even close!). I believe we were on the third floor of a building and the room with the DJ and dancefloor had several floor-to-ceiling windows. It was strange to be so warm (it was crowded and everyone was dancing) and watching the cold weather outside. At this club, the music was really weird but everyone was into it. It was Baltic music, apparently. It sounded like a cross between Russian (including many "hey"s) and polka.

(To be honest, I'm back posting - catching up! I wanted a winter picture. I took the picture on my way to work on Tuesday.)

Sick days

2007-01-20T06:25:00.000-05:00

There was an article in "The Local", Swedish online news in English, yesterday about sick leave. Rather than describe the article I'll just directly quote the beginning of it here:

"Sweden is notorious for its high rate of sick leave, but figures released on Friday show the problem easing.

Swedes aged between 16 and 64 claimed they could not work due to ill health for an average of 39.9 days in 2006, according to figures from the Swedish Social Insurance Administration (Försäkringskassan), which controls state payments to the sick."

40 sick days/year! That's 8 weeks! (Keep in mind that I believe that everyone in Sweden starts off with 6 weeks of vacation per year.) And, the problem is easing?!?! According to the article, last year, the average was 41.3 days/year.

So, this can't be right! At this rate, if I were an average person, I would have taken -40 divided by 12 times 2- SEVEN sick days already since I've been here about two months! Clearly, I'm missing something - or just unusually healthy by Swedish standards. The only catch I could find was that the stats include Swedes who are on health-related early retirement. Ok, so that'll offset the number some but isn't that still really high?

Friskis & Svettis

2007-01-18T14:20:00.000-05:00

I joined the gym on campus today. It's actually a regular gym, called Friskis & Svettis (frisk = healthy or well, svett = sweat; I don't know what the "is" makes them, though; regardless, we make fun of it), that has space at the KI. It would kind of be like having an LA Fitness or Gold's Gym on a college campus. The memberships for KI students and staff are discounted (big time), but other people can join too.

After joining, I went to a step aerobics class with most of the girls from my lab. I was regularly going to step classes in Atlanta so I knew the "steps". It was a good thing because the classes are called out in Swedish! Unless the Swedish name was the same as the English (ie. "step touch"), I had no idea what the step was until everyone started doing it so I was always a bit behind. I don't think I picked up any new words (I was too busy trying to catch up!) but it was good reinforcement of höger and vänster (right and left). I'm told that the cardio boxing classes are easier to follow since they use the same terms (hook, jab, roundhouse, etc).

Tacky Christmas

2007-01-15T14:09:00.000-05:00

Before Christmas, I was talking to one of the guys I share an office with about Christmas decorations. He said that he thought the way Americans decorate their houses for Christmas is tacky. (He's Danish.) The Swedes (and I guess most Scandinavians) definitely decorate their houses much more conservatively (candles, stars, and the occasional string of white lights).

Friday, I went out to a bar called Pepper with some of my labmates. The pictures below don't even do the place justice! It seriously looked like Santa threw up Christmas inside the bar. We were all hysterically laughing right when we walked in the door. Unfortunately, Jesper wasn't with us but Ann-Charlotte took some pictures for me to show him. In the second picture (which I had no idea I was in), the red lights on the left are little santas climbing up a ladder.

The Departed

2007-01-13T18:57:00.000-05:00

I just got back from seeing The Departed. I really enjoyed the movie. It was one that I wanted to see in Atlanta. But it opened a week or two before I moved so I didn't have the time. I found out today that The Departed just opened in Sweden this past Friday. I figured it had been in theaters for a while.

This was my first movie theather experience in Sweden. There were many things that were different.
- Just about everyone buys tickets ahead of time online. (Then, you swipe the credit card used to buy the tickets at a machine in the theater and you get your tickets from the machine.)
- It's assigned seating. You choose your seats when you buy your tickets online.
- The movie theater actually looks like a theater (stage, curtain, balcony seating, etc), which I'm told is typical. They pull the curtain back when the commercials and previews start (no trivia questions or local ads on screen before that).
- The tickets cost different prices depending on the movie you go to see. This is standardized throughout Stockholm (at least) so it doesn't vary from theater to theater. I have no idea how this is decided. However, I think The Departed was the most expensive one running at 100SEK (~$15).
- There also Swedish subtitles, of course. Those were kind of distracting at first because I felt like I should be reading them.

Changing topics almost completely....I'm disappointed that I'll be missing the 24 premiere tomorrow and Monday. Not only will I miss the premiere, but the 24 parties that we had in Atlanta almost every Monday night during the season. However, I suppose my fellow 24 watchers are all scattered now. I read an article (well, it was in Swedish, so I should say I picked up a few key words from an article) about 24 in a paper here. Apparently, one of the three channels I get on my tv will be showing 24 (yay!). I don't know when it starts, though. Hopefully, it'll be like Lost and I'll only be 3-4 weeks behind.

Fika

2007-01-11T14:10:00.000-05:00

Swedes are very serious about coffee. Scandinavians are number one in world coffee consumption per capita, averaging 4-6 cups per day. There’s even a Swedish word for having coffee and conversation with friends – fika.

Our group (4 spinal cord research labs) has fika twice a day, at 9:30 and 2:30. There’s a table on our floor that is in the corner of the corridor with floor to ceiling windows on two walls. The timing and location is perfect to see sun, even though it’s really close to sunrise and sunset this time of year.

Everyone in the group is assigned a week to make coffee. On Thursday mornings, the person responsible for coffee that week also has to bring in cake (usually 2 or 3 so there’s enough for everyone). Frequently, one of the cakes is a “princess cake”, which is white cake with cream and raspberry that is coated with a hard, light green, sugary icing. That’s it in the picture. (If you’re really curious, you can get it from the Ikea food section in the US.) Occasionally, the coffee person for the week forgets to bring the cake on Thursday morning (this happened today) and some people get really upset, even when cake is promised for the afternoon. (It’s actually pretty funny to watch the reactions when people find out that there’s no cake.) On your birthday, you have to bring in cake for the morning fika. With somewhere around 50-60 people in our group, there’s an average of about a birthday a week.

Tuesday afternoons our entire department has fika (coffee and cookies) in the lunchroom at 2pm and the chairman makes announcements, if there are any.

I’d say that at least 2/3 of our group (including the professors) attends most coffee breaks – and 99% of the group if there’s cake. They last anywhere from a grab and go (talking to people on line) to 30 minutes-ish.

I really like the concept. You get to take a break from what you’re doing to socialize with other people doing similar research on your floor – whether it be about science or current events or weekend plans or whatever. Additionally, I think it helps build a sense of community. Even though I’ve only been here 2 months, I know most (if not all) of the people in the group.

Back in Stockholm

2007-01-09T16:01:00.000-05:00

I got back to Stockholm on Saturday. Amazingly, I made all of my flights (although, I had 2 close calls in Heathrow) - and so did my luggage!

I won't start with the airport complaints because I'm sure I could go on for pages! However, I will advise anyone who comes to visit me to leave more than 2 hours in between flights if connecting in Heathrow. Also, security rules in the US, EU, and UK are all different so make sure you know the strictest ones (currently, that would be the UK) before heading to the airport.

I had a good New York trip. It was good to see my family and some of my friends. Christgiving (or Thanksmas) was nice and relaxing. My family had Christmas (presents and brunch) followed by Thanksgiving (football and turkey dinner) on the 25th. I missed Thanksgiving so we made up for it. I went into NYC a couple of times with my family - saw the tree, looked at the store windows, went to Chelsea Piers, and saw Mama Mia. I saw the Good Shepard (which I thought was really good but a little too long). I went to the holiday light show at Jones Beach. I went to the Jets game on New Years Eve. And, I know I'm leaving out a bunch of other things.

Anyway, jetlag hit me hard on the back end of this trip so I haven't done much of anything in the past few days. Blogger was down earlier today when I was ready to post. But, I'll be back to posting more regularly later this week when I fall back into routine.

God Jul

2006-12-22T02:31:00.000-05:00

It’s tradition in both Sweden and Denmark to watch Donald Duck cartoons on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, or so I’m told. Christmas is celebrated here on the 24^th.

I’m off to New York tomorrow for two weeks to visit my family for the holidays. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone. I'm flying through Heathrow so keep your fingers crossed that I make it through the fog.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
God Jul och Gott Nytt År!

Shortest Day of the Year

2006-12-21T14:18:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is the shortest day of the year - with 6 hours, 3 minutes, and 40 seconds of daylight. Sunrise is at 8:45am and sunset is at 2:48pm.

The darkness really doesn't bother me that much during the week. However, it messes me up on the weekends, especially on Sundays. I have been going into Stockholm every weekend so far. I've been out most Saturday nights so I usually sleep in, have breakfast, and I don't make it out until 11 or 12 (leaving only a few hours of daylight). On Sundays, everything closes at 4pm. I get back to my apartment and make dinner (because I didn't have lunch and am hungry). Then, I start to figure out what I'm going to do before I go to bed. But, then I realize, it's only 5:30! (It only feels like 11:30.) I think this has happened every Sunday so far!

I got a DVD player (for Christmas) last weekend (country code specificity on laptops is lame!) and the movie rental store 10 min away is open until 10pm. Now, Sunday night is movie night. If you rent any good movies, let me know. If you know what the Swedish title is (or can tell me what the jacket looks like), that would help too!

Let It Snow!

2006-12-19T16:29:00.000-05:00

Everyone around here (except for me and a handful of others who have lived in warm places) has been complaining that it doesn't feel like Christmas because there's no snow. It's been the warmest December in Stockholm, since they've been keeping records. It did finally snow today for the first time since I've been here. (Stockholm had it's first snowfall the week before I arrived.) I didn't realize it snowed today until I left work. And, no pictures because I didn't have my camera with me. Don't worry, you're not missing anything! We didn't get much. It's only about an inch deep, enough to coat the pavement and partially cover the grass. I'm sure you'll be sick of snow in Stockholm pictures by March! It's a good thing I got boots for Christmas this past weekend!

Stockholm Lights

2006-12-17T15:12:00.000-05:00

Both Friday and Saturday nights I was at "spontaneous" parties and dinners with people from my department. Carolina and Henrick had invited a few people to their place for dinner after work, before going out Friday night. However, the invite got spread to more like a few dozen people. So, we picked up some party supplies on our way over to their apartment - and we ended up partying there, rather than going out. Fairly late on Friday night, Kathy told those of us that were left at the party that she wanted to cook dinner for all of us on Saturday. Line and Leif offered their house for the dinner. Although Kathy didn't remember her dinner plan, she, along with Line and Leif, made the dinner party happen.

I spent most of Saturday and Sunday afternoons shopping. I exchanged my broken red star (new one in the picture - you can't tell because of the flash, but it's lit up). These stars are popular Christmas decorations in Sweden. I like them so I bought two (the other one is with the first paragraph). They brighten up my apartment. I'll probably leave them up year round (or until I get tired of them). The other common decoration in Sweden is the electric candles that I have a picture of below. Every house has at least one of these (my landlady has one) and many business and our lab have these in every window. I'm told that they are displayed during Advent. In addition to these, a lot of shops and restaurants have real candles outside, on either side of their doorway (not on the crowded city streets but those off the main roads and those around my place). I'm not sure whether all of these lights/candles are for Christmas or because of the darkness. I guess I'll see in January.

Another Christmas Party

2006-12-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

Our department's Christmas party was on Tuesday. A different group/lab organizes the festivities every year. This year's group put a lot of work into it.

The evening began at 5:30 with a "welcoming drink". Then we were divided up into teams (about a dozen teams of 10-12 people) - by picking random neuro-diseases out of a bucket and grouping with others "having the same disease". We were then sent to different competition stations. At the first one we went to, there was a plastic bag containing mouse pellets. After holding the bag, we had to guess how much the mouse chow weighed. At the second station, we were timed to see how fast we could fill in a box of yellow pipet tips. Third was the "rat race". We were each given a windup rat that we placed on a starting line. The distance of the rat that went the furthest from the starting line was recorded. (This wasn't very far since they basically went in circles.) Lastly, each person on the team blew up a balloon and stood in a line. The first person turned and hugged the second person with the balloon between them until the balloon popped. This continued down the line and they kept track of how long it took for all the balloons to pop.

Next up was the dinner, which was a Julbord, in the lunchroom. (The picture above is from the dinner.) We were seated at the tables by team. Each table had a bottle of snaps, a box of wine, and cans of beer. Additionally, there was a song booklet with the Swedish snaps songs. Since there were ~125 people in the room, the singing (and, therefore, snaps drinking) was initiated quite often. Throughout the dinner, there were other competitions. In one, we had to match a list of fun facts to the corresponding person on the party organizing committee. In another, they showed powerpoint slides of the department administrators' legs - and we had to guess who they belonged to. The last and most painful competition was held while we were eating dessert - the kareoke competition!

For the kareoke competition, each team had to get up an perform a song. My team was first and we chose Take a Chance on Me because we felt an ABBA song would be appropriate. It was horrible! It would have been hilarious had the song been 1 minute long but it was just cruel to make everyone suffer through the entire thing! I thought that it couldn't get any worse - but I was wrong! Other songs included Satisfaction, Dancing Queen, Come Fly with Me, Yellow Submarine, Viva Las Vegas, a current Swedish pop song (that's really bad but really catchy), a couple of traditional Swedish songs, and a few others that I can't remember.

The dinner and singing were finished around 10-10:30ish. A good portion of the group stayed to continue the party. I left around 1am and there was still a group going strong (including a few who were limbo-ing). I didn't make it to work until around 10am the next day. However, people were still drifting in as late as 1pm - all in time for the Lucia celebration at 3pm, of course!

I apologize for the lack of pictures from the evening. I was too involved in the competitions to stand back and take pictures in the beginning. My camera also took a nasty fall at some point, relatively early on, in the night and ended up in a few pieces. (I was able to put it -mostly- back together the next day, though.)

Sankta Lucia Fest

2006-12-13T14:44:00.000-05:00

Today is St. Lucy's Day. I explained some of the history of this in a previous post (Typical Tuesday) so I'm not going to repeat it - especially since the story still isn't exactly clear to me.

All of the new people in the department are required to be in the Luciatorg (literally = Lucia train) which we've been practicing for weeks now. The picture to the right is the beginning of the procession, with our Lucia on the right and her maids behind her. I was also one of the maids (see pic below). In addition to Lucia and her maids, there were starboys, gingerbread men, and Santa's helpers (all can be seen in pictures below). As we processed in, we sang the Sankta Lucia song. Then we sang a "welcome song" (not only in Swedish but we repeated it in the languages of everyone in the torg - English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Catalan, Italian, and I'm probably missing one or 2). After that we sang a song about gingerbread men and a serious Christmas carol. The 3 guys in the train, who are all serious singers, did another song in 3 part harmony (it was hardcore and impressive). We finished the show with a song about Santa's helpers and then exited singing the Lucia song again. All of the songs were in Swedish so the papers we're holding in the pictures are the lyrics.

I have no idea what I'm looking at. I think I was looking for my lab because I gave them my camera. Clearly, I was totally off!

These are the starboys. Yes, their cone hats are actually meeting posters! They were hilarious because 2/3 are very tall and with the cones, they couldn't go through doorways and they kept getting stuck on the ceiling.

the gingerbread man and women

While we did this, everyone else in the department enjoyed Luciabulle (saffron and raisin buns - pic below), pepperkakor (gingersnaps), and glogg (mulled wine).

The major twist to this year's Luciatorg was that most of the torg and audience was hungover from the department Christmas party last night. This is getting long and the party last night was eventful enough for it's own post. To be continued........

Science Sunday

2006-12-10T11:56:00.000-05:00

Today has been relatively science-free for me. However, there's been a lot of science around Stockholm today. First, the Nobel Prizes are being awarded today. I did just watch the ceremony (on TV) but, aside from the introductions, it was all in Swedish - and my Swedish isn't that good! Second, many have been following the current NASA mission very closely. I don't think Swedes normally pay much attention to NASA but that all changed recently. This morning, the spaceship Discovery included astronaut Christer Fuglesang, the first Swede to be launched into space. The picture I have above I took in front of the Culture Museum today. Every newscast I've seen over the past week or two has included something about NASA, the Discovery, and/or Fuglesang. The news media was very upset when the mission was scrapped earlier in the week. They have been building up to it for so long. However, they were able to come through today with coverage of the actual launch.

Nobel Week

2006-12-08T17:43:00.000-05:00

This week is Nobel Week. Every year, the Nobel prizes are awarded on December 10th. All of the Nobel prizes, with the exception of the Nobel Peace Prize are given out in Stockholm. The Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded by a committee at the Karolinska Institute (members of which include profs in my department). So, needless to say, this is a pretty big deal here.

Andrew Fire and Craig Mello received (or will receive on Sunday) the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of siRNA. I have to admit that I'm not all that knowledgable on the topic. The groundbreaking paper only came out 8 years ago (in 1998). Small interference RNA (siRNA) is double stranded RNA that can be introduced to interfere with the transcription/translation so that DNA never becomes protein. (I'm sure Lisa will correct me on this!) In the furture, siRNA may be used to silence certain DNA sequences to prevent diseases, tumors, etc. This is a long way off, but is possible.

Okay, back to today......Most of the Nobel lectures were today. The Physiology/Medicine lectures were held two buildings away. So, with most of my lab, I lined up over an hour ahead of time to get into the lecture. Believe it or not, we were not early enough! We were about 15 people behind the last people admiitted into the lecture hall! Members of the Mello family were behind us and said something when they closed it off. People around us commented that clearly, they were family since they were American (as judged by their accents). Kathy (the other American postdoc in my lab) and I joked that we should claim to be family too. But, we didn't. Most of my lab left at that point but a few of us went to watch in another lecture hall, where the audio/video was piped in.

I have to admit that I expected a bit more - and I was looking forward to this post, all about the awesome Nobel lectures. Unfortunately, I wasn't nearly as impressed as I expected to be. [Let me precede my commentary by saying that I don't think that my opinions of the lectures should mitigate the importance of the work they performed.] The lectures started off with the president of the KI. The grad student sitting next to me was reciting the beginning of the president's intro line by line before she said it. Apparently, she's given the same EXACT intro for at least the past 3 years! The Nobel lectures themselves received mixed reviews. Andy Fire gave the first lecture, which I thought was pretty good. I thought he did a good job of giving the background to his field and the previous work leading up to the discovery - and, of course, his work. (I also thought his acknowledgements were cute. After giving all of the normal ones, he put up a slide of ~6-8 pt font, that you couldn't really read, of all of the people he felt, in some way, contributed to his successes.) Craig Mello's lecture was next and I felt his was more of a lesson of how not to give a Nobel lecture. Maybe my opinion is a bit harsh but most people in my lecture hall left in the middle of his lecture (and you can judge for yourself at www.nobelprize.org).

From my experience today, I've come up with the do NOTs -and some dos so it's not all negative- of giving a Nobel lecture (if applicable, thank me at the end of your Nobel lecture - or better yet, invite me to the ceremony and gala banquet!):
1. Don't try too hard to be funny - your effort will show more than the humor you intend.
2. Don't reference American pop culture. And, even worse, if you do, don't spend 5 minutes explaining it! Those who don't know, won't get it. Those (especially, those non-Americans) who understand the reference, will resent the explanation.
3. If you are given 45 minutes, don't talk for 75 minutes (no joke, this really happened today!). Even the scientists expecting a 45 min lecture aren't paying attention after 40 min, forget the non-scientists.
4. Make your slides simple and, more importantly, read-able.
5. Make your talk coherent, make it logical, and tell a story.
6. Know which slide is next. Don't make it look like you made the talk on the plane.
7. Focus your talk on your groundbreaking, Nobel-winning experiments.
8. If you must use a cutesy analogy, make sure it works and keep referencing it through your entire talk. Don't mention it at the beginning, with no explanation, and then refer back to it an hour later.
9. Don't reference the chemistry and physics Nobel lectures (presented earlier in the day) 2 million times because most of the audience missed them.
10. Thank your family. I saw at least 20-30 of them, spanning 3 generations, go into the lecture hall. Stockholm is very far from the US. If they took the time to travel that far, they deserve an acknowledgement.

Again, if you think my assessment is harsh or unfair, you can judge for yourself. You can get the lectures on the site I mentioned above and others. Also, people's expectations (mine included) were high, given that both lecturers are Americans (English is their native language) and they are both young - and, hello, it's the Nobel Prize.

Julbord

2006-12-05T16:59:00.000-05:00

I just got back from Christmas party #2 (and yes, it's only 12/5!). Tonight was the spinal cord group's Christmas party. We went to a nice restaurant for a Swedish Julbord (literal translation = Christmas table). I'm assuming it's the Christmas version of the smorgasbord - because that's what it looked like.

Luckily, I was sitting near the Swedish and Finnish girls from my lab so they explained how to attack the buffet. You are suppose to take food in courses. Of course, the group is very international - so where most followed the traditional meal, it was followed pretty loosely. The order of courses is cold fish, hot fish, cold meat, hot meat, and then dessert. You can have more than one round of anything and you could combine rounds - but meat and fish aren't suppose to be on the same plate. Basically, rather than cramming a ridiculous amount of food onto one plate, you are expected to go up several times (in the newspaper today, there was an article on Julbords and it said 7 trips to the buffet is acceptable).

I didn't make 7 trips, only 4. I took my cold fish and hot fish together. The cold fish was mostly herring (there were around a dozen different sauces that the herring were marinated it), but there were also little shrimp and caviar served on hard-boiled eggs. The only hot fish they had was salmon but they had 3 or 4 different versions, in addition to cold salmon (marinated and smoked). Next, I had cold meats and veggies. Cold meats were basically cold cuts. Everything else was labeled except for the cold meats, which were most in need of signs. Aside from ham, I think I had reindeer, deer, elk, and a few mystery meats. Veggies included peas, asparagus, and carrots. My third round was the main dinner, which was, literally, meat and potatoes - which included Swedish meatballs and new potatoes, of course. The main course was good but I thought it was the least impressive part of the spread, probably because it was more ordinary. Lastly, I squeezed in some chocolate mouse and candies for dessert. Everything was great but I'm full even thinking about it.

I almost forgot......Before the dinner, we decorated the Christmas tree in our corridor. Actually, it was decorated by the time most of us got there. But, we got to admire the tree while eating gingersnaps and drinking glogg.

Scenery pictures for Mom

2006-12-04T14:51:00.000-05:00

My mom said that she likes seeing the scenery pictures posted on my blog. So, I took some more this weekend.Yesterday, I went to Skansen with Maaike and Remco. Skansen is "an open air museum" (but I'd call it a restoration village?) and they had a traditional Swedish Christmas market there this weekend. I didn't buy anything at the market, just "window shopped". There were a bunch of booths selling smoked meats, cheeses, gingerbread, jams, and some crafts. We wandered through the restoration village and the Scandinavian section (elks, reindeer, etc). It got cold during the day so I didn't take any pictures there (my hands were cold and I was wearing big, bulky gloves). However, I was warmed up by a cup of coffee indoors after we were done at Skansen. Rather than take the bus, I walked from Skansen to the metro and took these pictures on my way.

I took this from a high point at Skansen. So, no, the hut isn't a typical Swedish apartment.

Skansen is on an island. I took this on the bridge that connects the island to downtown.

random Christmas lights

The Opera House

'Tis the season.......

2006-12-03T12:18:00.000-05:00

......for Christmas parties. Yes, the Christmas parties have begun - already! We had our lab Christmas party on Friday. My advisor and his wife invited the lab over for a Danish/Swedish "Christmas dinner". The first course of the dinner was herring, which was put on homemade bread, with a cream-based sauce on top. Then, we had ham, potatoes, and salads for the main course. Lastly, we had cheeses with bread and crackers.

Throughout the meal, it is Swedish tradition for everyone to have a snaps glass filled in front of them at all times. A snaps glass looks like a combination of a shot glass and a cordial glass. Snaps (or aquavit) is a very strong alcohol, usually distilled from potatoes. At anytime during the dinner, someone can raise their glass and sing a Swedish drinking song - after which, everyone drinks! Luckily, only about half of the group knew Swedish drinking songs. But, they kept us drinking until the snaps was gone!After the meal, we played a gift-giving dice game. We each had to bring a gift that was a max of 20 SEK (< $3 US). So, the gifts were, um, interesting. The gift is kind of like the white elphant game so the gifts change hands many times. One of the most sought after was "the fart book". Another gift was the "cool sunglasses".
We all stuck around for a while after the dinner and gifts for some drunken conversation, some arm wrestling (I don't know how that got started!), and to sober up enough to be able to walk down several flights on a spiral staircase.

Banking woes.....

2006-11-30T14:34:00.000-05:00

I've been to the bank 5-7 times in the past three weeks in order to do two things: 1. Get a bank account. 2. Get a Swedish ID card.

After 2 unsuccessful trips to the bank to open an account and get a Swedish ID (I was told I needed different paperwork both times I went), the secretary from my department called the bank and got someone's name and list of the documents I needed (in Swedish). I went the next day with list, documents (passport, employment contract, rent contract, extra passport photo, paper with my Swedish social security number on it), and bank employee's name in hand. They didn't want to give me an account because I didn't have my ORIGINAL "offer of employment", I only had a photocopy. So, I made a bit of a scene in the bank. I was not leaving that bank without an account! By the end, I had the supervisor's supervisor up at the front of the bank dealing with me. He finally agreed that my photocopy, my KI ID card, and a phone confirmation from someone on the KI letterhead was proof enough that I worked at the KI. I walked out the door with my bank account - with no money in it! (But, no Swedish ID card because you have to be a customer for at least a month, I was told.)

I think I mentioned in a past post that I tried to get a Swedish ID before. You have to have someone with a Swedish ID card verify that you are who you are. A guy from my lab went with me but since he didn't have an account at THAT bank, he couldn't sign for me. I went again yesterday. A student in my department gave me a photocopy of her ID and bankcard AND wrote/signed a note saying she couldn't accompany me because of work....blah blah blah. That was not excepted, even after I pointed out that it's a ridiculous rule that makes no sense (I went on for quite a bit). She was able to go with me to the bank today so my application for a Swedish ID is FINALLY being processed!

I'm sure this was really boring but it has taken a ridiculous amount of my time over the past few weeks. The picture at the beginning of the post is of the "number generator" that I have to use every time I use online banking. I put my passcode into the number generator and it gives me a number that I use as my password online. I don't get how it works since it doesn't communicate with the computer or the bank. We'll see if it actually works!

Typical Tuesday

2006-11-28T15:08:00.000-05:00

I was planning to blog the continuation of my banking saga today. However, I'll save that for tomorrow after I go back to the bank and hopefully have a conclusion for the story (if not, I'll vent tomorrow!). I'll write about my day instead.......

I had St.Lucia's Day rehearsal today. All of the new people in the neuroscience department are required to perform in the St. Lucia's Day celebration on Dec 13th.

I get a different story about who St. Lucia is from every person I ask. Apparently, she was Italian (an no one's quite sure why Swedes celebrate her day - other than, according to Wikipedia, some believe she visited Sweden once). The basic story is that some guy loved her but she didn't love him. He ordered her to be burned at the stake. However, her miracle was that despite the fire that surrounded her, she was never burned. So, the guy slit her throat with a sword. I've also heard something about her eyes being gauged out (and so she's patron saint of the blind) - but I don't know where that fits in.

Anyway, on St.Lucia's day, someone dressed as Lucia (white robes and a wreath of candles on her head) leads a "train" (procession) and Lucia's maids and starboys follow behind. There are a whole bunch of tradional songs (all in Swedish, of course) that are used to celebrate. There's also some special bread and cookies that she gives out.

So, back to rehearsal.......Yes, they take this seriously (well, semi-seriously - a guy in a blonde wig will be our Lucia!) but we've already started song rehearsal in preparation for the 13th. And, we're meeting 2-3 times a week between now and then. Luckily for me, two whole labs joined the dept this year so there are 25-30 people in it this year (there are usually around 10 people).

I'll post more about this after it actually happens. I'll ask someone in my lab to take pictures. If they take video, I'll try to post a clip.

I did spend most of the day in lab (rehearsal was an hour and a half). I've been putzing around, trying different things out for the past two weeks. Things are starting to fall into place. I'm almost ready to do real experiments - probably later this week!

Party Like It's 1996

2006-11-26T13:51:00.000-05:00

My 10 year high school reunion was Friday night. Since I couldn't be in NY to party with old friends this weekend, I partied with new friends in Stockholm instead.

After work on Friday, I went out with some people I met during orientation two weeks ago. We were the ones sitting in the back, quietly commenting on what we were "learning" during the entire day of orientation. We went to the student pub which was more lively than the other campus pub that we went to after orientation. They also had really cheap beers. We stayed there until it closed at 10pm and then went in search for someplace that was still serving food.

On Saturday, the other American postdoc in my lab had a Thanksgiving dinner. I was one of 4 Americans. Finland, Greece, Australia, Turkey, and France were also represented. We feasted on chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, Swedish meatballs, appetizers, salad, bread, cheese, pastries, and ice cream. We also sampled a lot of different drinks - hot apple cider, wine, gin and juice, glogg (Swedish, really yummy, spiced, heated wine), Bailey's ice cream drinks, and tea. We ate, drank, and talked for about 8 hours. It was a lot of fun.

Today, I was in search of a gift for under 20 krona (a bit less than $3) for our lab Christmas party. This was a tough task! Everything here is more expensive than in the US to start with and 20 krona is a really low maximum! I think I was successful, though. The picture to the side is of the main pedestrian street in downtown Stockholm. The pic below is of one of the windows in the NK department store. The do up their windows with animated displays for the holiday season. This year, the theme was Pepperkaka - which is the Swedish version of gingerbread (I think!).

Happy Turkey Day!

2006-11-23T02:31:00.000-05:00

I hope that everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving! Eat a big piece of pumpkin pie (with cool whip on top, of course) for me!

Short days and Gamla Stan

2006-11-22T14:53:00.000-05:00

I took these pictures between 3pm and 4pm on Saturday. Today sunrise was at 7:58am and sunset was at 3:09pm - and we're a month off from the shortest day of the year!

On Saturday I wandered around central Stockholm and then down to Gamla Stan (Old Town). This is the "gates" crossing over the bridge to Gamla Stan. (The picture above was taken from the bridge.)

Gamla Stan is all cobblestone streets, some of which are extremely narrow. There are a lot of touristy shops, selling Sweden t-shirts and Pippi Longstocking hats/braids. There are also a bunch of coffee shops, ice cream shops, and restaurants (many of which are Italian restaurants). I'm told that there's also a good Christmas market there, so I'll have to check that out.

My apartment

2006-11-19T14:32:00.000-05:00

On my sister’s request, I took pictures of the inside of my apartment. However, rather than emailing them to her, I figured I’d post them here for all to see. (You’ll have to get in the habit of checking the blog, Courtney!)

Before I start describing the weird parts of it, I will say that it is actually a decent size for “two room” apartment and for what I pay. The way the space is set up is so strange, though. The first room is the living room/dining room/bedroom. The second room is a little kitchenette and dead space.

Okay, so the first room….Here’s a picture of my "bedroom" part of the room.

The bathroom is to the left of the bed and is the same width as the width of the bed (and the length of the bathroom is probably twice the width). You can see the edge of the “living room” couch on the close side of the bookshelf.

Here's the "living room" part of the room from one side. Note the plant in the window - I guarentee it'll be dead before I leave for Christmas.

And, the tv (which gets 3 Swedish channels and 1 Finnish channel) is directly across from the couch. The open doorway next to the fake tree goes to the kitchen and the closed door is the bathroom again.

Here’s the part of the apartment that makes me laugh. The shower isn’t in the bathroom. The shower is a stall shower off of the living room. Literally, you step out of the shower onto a bathmat in the living room. I took this picture sitting on my living room couch. The shower door is plastic, fake frosted glass. So, basically, if two people are in the apartment, one on the couch and one in the shower, the person on the couch gets a show.To the left of the shower is the entrance way, the front door is hidden by the wall. You can see part of the “dining room” table in the close part of the picture. The doors on the right are closets.

When I said I had a little kitchenette, I did mean little! Here’s my 2-burner stove top, mini-fridge (bottom right, the bottom left is a cabinet), sink, and all of my counter space. I could barely back up enough to get this all in!

Here’s the other side of the kitchen, when I stand behind the ½ wall with the sink and stove. I don't have an oven but I do have a little microwave.

So there you have it. It's good for now but I'm on the waiting list for an apartment in a KI-associated complex. I'm sure I'll be ready to move by the time something there opens up (probably around April).

Appelviken

2006-11-19T09:52:00.000-05:00

Today was sunny and not too cold so it was the perfect day to explore my neighborhood. For those who like maps, here's a map of Stockholm and the surrounding area:

Here's a blowup of the part boxed off in the last map. Stockholm central station is circled in blue. My neighborhood is marked with a red X and where I work is marked with a green X. (Sorry the maps are so small!)

It usually takes me about 30-45 minutes to get from home to work, depending on how well the connections go - and I usually walk part of it rather than taking the bus or trolley. I take a trolley (or walk 15-20 min), the metro/tunnelbana, and a bus (or walk 15-20 min). The public transportation here is very good but there's no direct route from home to work. So, it would probably take about the same amount of time biking a more direct path - but I'm not going to get a bike until the spring.

I live in a basement apartment in a little neighborhood called Appelviken (literal translation = apple bay). This is my street. I'm in one of the many red wooden houses. Most of the houses have fruit trees (presumably apple trees? I'll let you know in the spring!) in their back yards.

I'm less than a five minute walk to the water. Here's another picture I took today.
Here's one of the many hiking trails along the water.

Here's one of the bridges connecting my island to one of the neighboring islands. I have no idea where I was when I took this so I don't know exactly which island it leads to.

I've done so much walking in the past two days! I wandered around for over 3 hours today and about 5 hours yesterday. I won't be able to move tomorrow! I'll post some of the pictures I took yesterday later this week.

Pea Soup and Pancakes

2006-11-16T14:56:00.000-05:00

There's a large lunchroom in our building with ~10-12 tables, 8 microwaves, 3 full fridges, a stove (or 2?), etc. Everyone eats around noon so the place is busy. Everyone either brings their lunch or cooks lunch in the lunch room. Eating out in Sweden is expensive - and the cafeterias at the KI are too. I'm also told that the food at the cafeterias isn't too good.

There is one exception, however. That is Thursday - pea soup and pancake day at the cafeterias. Sounds gross, right? I was really skeptical this morning. I figured I'd give it a try, especially since I had a sandwich sitting in the fridge just in case. But, it's actually good! You don't eat the soup and pancakes together (I was picturing people using pancakes to sop up the soup). Pea soup is the main course and pancakes are for dessert. The soup is actually Swedish yellow pea soup. It has ham in it and it's served with a dallop of mustard in the middle. The pancakes are thin, like crepes, and are served with berry preserves and whipped cream.

While looking for the picture of the soup for the blog, I found out that pea soup and pancakes isn't just a KI cafeteria thing on Thursdays. There's actually a history! Apparently, pea soup was popular with the poor in Sweden, since before the Vikings. Pea soup was the traditional meal for Thursday dinner when Sweden was converted to Catholicism. People ate the soup and pancakes on Thursday to prepare for fasting on Fridays. Although Sweden is no longer Catholic (since 1530), the tradition remains. (www.soupsong.com/rartsopp.html)
Picture - http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Sweden

Forms and Paperwork

2006-11-15T14:51:00.000-05:00

If I had a krona (~14 cents) for every form I've filled out in the past 10 days, I'd be rich! I've filled out a million forms for the KI (application for association, application for an email account, application for an ID card, application for a key.......you get the idea).

I even had to register as a postdoc because I will get a "postdoc diploma" before I leave (assuming I stay longer than a year). At orientation last week, someone asked what one could do with a postdoc diploma. We were told it's to account for our time between our PhD and our next job - without it, it would look like we did nothing. I wasn't the only one who laughed at the answer.

Outside of the KI.....Who knew that getting a "personal number" (Swedish version of SSN, as far as I could tell) would be easier than getting a bank account?!?!

As an aside, getting a brand new Swedish number happened faster than getting my US social security card reissued. I went to the NY DMV while I was home to get a NY license. Eventhough I had previously had a NY license and had a GA one to surrender, I couldn't get the NY one without my SS card! Who knows where that is? So, I went to the SS office before I left NY to have a card reissued. I thought they'd print it right there but no - it arrived this week. I applied for my Swedish number last Tuesday and the number was in my mailbox last Thursday.

Back to the bank.....In order to open a bank account, you need a Swedish ID card (issued by the bank). In order to get the card, you have to show your original form with your Swedish personal number (within 30 days of receiving it), your passport, your offer of employment paper, AND be accompanied by a person with a Swedish ID card to verify you are who you say you are (no one understands this part! passport isn't good enough?). One of the guys from the lab went to the bank with me earlier this week but they wouldn't let him sign for me because his ID card was issued by a different bank! When we got back, everyone said the teller was wrong but can you do? Finding someone with a particular bank ID card isn't as trival as it sounds because the post office use to issue the cards. Other people have lost theirs and didn't want to go through the hassel to replace them. So, I still have no bank account. Hopefully by the end of this week that problem will be solved.

Everyone keeps asking about where I live. Weather permitting, I'll take some pictures this weekend. Sunset is around 3:30pm so it's too dark by the time I get home and I'm not enough of a morning person to take pics before I leave for lab.

Girls Weekend in Copenhagen

2006-11-13T15:00:00.000-05:00

Now I'm going to try to keep up-to-date and I'll go back and fill in other things that have gone on in my first week here as I have the time (and after I take some pictures!).

I spent this weekend in Copenhagen with all of the girls from my new lab. Five of us went over from the lab and we met up with a recent lab alum who is currently postdoc-ing in Copenhagen. The Danish contingent of the group (2 out of 6 of us) ran the show. We didn't do too much sightseeing, which was ok by me since I had been to Copenhagen before. Instead, we went shopping, drank lots of coffee, ate lots of sweets, and had our fair share (or maybe more than our fair share?) of Danish beer and (not-so-Danish) margaritas. The weather wasn't all that great (it was raining on and off) but that didn't stop us.

We flew to Copenhagen late Friday afternoon. We split up to drop our luggage off - half of us stayed at Line's friend's apartment and the other half stayed at Ulla's apartment. We met up in downtown Copenhagen at an Irish pub for burgers and Danish (Tuborg) Christmas beer - which is really good. Most of the bars/restaurants in Denmark are not smoke free and this particular bar was super smoky so we left when we got sick of the smoke.

We spent most of Saturday shopping (mostly window shopping) in downtown Copenhagen. Of course, we took a break for coffee and Danish sweets. Saturday night we went to Norrebro Bryghus (a restaurant/brewery) for dinner. A few of us had the "beer menu" in addition to the regular menu, which meant that they brought out a different beer with each course.

Here's Ulla, Lotta, Line, me, and Kathy finishing our beers after dinner.

After the brewery, we went to Mexibar, a cocktail bar whose specialty is the strawberry margarita. So, clearly, we suffered through a few of those.

On Sunday, we wandered through the city, saw the Little Mermaid, and then had fancy hot chocolate at Le Glace. This place is known for their hot chocolate, which we appreciated after being caught in a quick hail storm.

Ann-Charlotte, Line, Kathy, and I are taking a break.

The trip was short but it was a great way to start off my time in Sweden. I really enjoyed spending time with some of the people in my new lab and it was a nice little vacation before starting my first week of work.

Halloween........2 weeks later!

2006-11-13T14:48:00.000-05:00

I was still in NY for Halloween and I got to go trick-or-treating for the first time in over 10 years. No, I didn't dress up or knock on doors! I spent the afternoon/evening with my best friend from home, Kerri, and her husband and sister - and their 4 kids. The kids were all dressed up and looking really cute. I got to watch them go door to door.

The older kids had a blast - and even my mom got in on the act (she'll kill me when she sees I posted this!):
The younger guys weren't into posing for pictures - but they were all about the candy!
You may not be able to tell from the picture, but their Chicken Little and Flounder costumes were adorable!

Vegas, baby!

2006-11-08T15:55:00.000-05:00

I'm way behind so a little catch up before I start with Sweden stories….

For my last full weekend in the US, I went to Vegas and met up with friends from college.Josh, Melinda, me, Erin, Lucy

Friday night in Vegas…..Erin, a card carrying member of the official fan club, scored us tickets to the Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds acoustic show at the MGM Grand. It was a great show. They didn’t have an opening band. They started around 8pm and played until around 11:30. I had to check my camera before I entered the stadium but Erin is more crafty (and bold) than I am.

The real reason we went to Vegas……Lucy and Guido’s wedding!

Both the ceremony and reception were conveniently located in the hotel we were all staying at. The ceremony was the first non-religious wedding I had ever attended. It was really nice. The “common link” between Lucy and Guido told the story of how they met (at her wedding!) and then both Lucy and Guido wrote their own vows. We were at the Treasure Island table at the reception. It was fun hanging out with the Boston kids again. Here we are tearing it up on the dance floor.

We spent a good amount of time people watching. We made a game (well, several games) out of it. For example, costume or wardrobe? It was Halloween weekend and it was tough to tell in a lot of cases.

I'm a Blogger!

2006-10-30T22:54:00.000-05:00

Following in the footsteps of my Emory Neuroscience PhD friends, I'm starting a blog! I guess the main reason is that I am moving to a new country and starting a new job next week. So, I should have plenty to "write home about". This will save me from writing the same email several times. Instead, everyone can check here to see what I'm up to and I can post pictures without crashing anyone's inbox.

As I mentioned above, starting a blog was definitely NOT my idea. Please check out my friends' blogs about life post-PhD - Stan (staninswitzerland), Wendy (peppersnaps), Masa (youmustrememberthis), Lisa (accidentalverbosity), and Eric (scatologicalhumor). Also, check out my friend Rich's blog (cableandtweed; recently voted Best Blog in Atlanta by Creative Loafing) to read up on the Atlanta music scene.

The first non-introductory post is soon to come..........