Moin Moin!

As usual when you are enjoying life time is like a rocket that shoots you forward at the speed of light and before you know it you are 25 and 2/3 of your stay in Germany is up....what happened?! Well I guess you can't know, I have not written much in this blog....

Now I have 2h on a train to Cologne to kill so I figure it was time for an update. Rhein is floating on my right and the train passes by scenic German landscape with wine-yards decorating the mountain sides and the cites showing off their old churches and castles, it is really nice :)

I will try to remember at least some of what I have done, probably completely out of order though...

A few weekends ago I went to Frankfurt. It takes only about 40min with the train from Mannheim to Frankfurt. It was a cold cloudy day (like every day...hehe) but if I'm gonna wait for the nice sunny days to discover my surroundings I would only see Mannheim...however this was probably the WORST day to go sightseeing but how was I to know? At first the weather was ok, but just when I decided to take a stroll down to look at the area around Rhein it started to rain, then it rained some more, and even more...You can imagine, at least I had an umbrella but I was far from the rescue of a roof...But as a child I have learned not to let the weather stop me so I keep on walking, thinking it could not get much worse, then it started to hail, A LOT!! Now I was really thinking IT CAN NOT get any worse...then it also started to THUNDER! All I could do was laugh, it was crazy! But now I was really wet and could, what to do I hade to go inside and lucky for me I found a big mall, I was almost forced to also do some shopping hehe :D. To finish my visit I went up in "Main tower" to look at the view, the clouds started to disappear and from the tower I there was a very nice view of a very beautiful sunset, my reward for conquering the weather!

After returning to Mannheim I met up with Jens and his friends for some sightseeing of the night life in Mannheim :D think this was the night we went to a club that had a 90's theme, no words needed it was a great night :) Been out a few times i Mannheim now and every night has been great, much thanks to the very nice friends I have found here who takes very good care of me!

Last weekend I went to Weinheim which is another city in the Rhein-Neckar area where Mannheim also is located. i liked Weinheim very much and if I have time I will go back :)

For my 25th bday Jens had prepared a nice dinner with some more of the friends that I have met here, Sarah (who I am meeting in köln today) Dani, Nici, Edgar humm hope I have not forgotten anyone :). They don't know me that much yet at leat not then so I thought it was vey nice of them to celebrate my bday with me, it was a fun evening even if I had to get up to work the next day, Thank you! From Sarah I also got a German book that I am now working my way through :)

My German is getting better but it is still hard! Every week me and Jens meet especially to practise my German (and some Swedish for Jens :), last week we made tacos and this week we made Pizza, do I need to say that these german lessons are much more fun than the once I had in Sweden!

If you have lasted this long BRAVO!

Maybe I will update soon again, now I'm gonna enjoy the last of my train ride, when I have better internet I will posts some pics!

E.

 

 

 

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Time flies!

I have already been here ¼ of the internship!! Crazy! Anyway so much has happened and I will write about it tonight I think, but here is me in Heidelberg 2 weeks ago J note the castle in the background in the second  pic! I am such a tourist, love it! 

E.

Heidelberg

Hellooou!

Last weekend I went to a very nice city only 30min from Mannheim called Heidelberg. It is a very old city and it has a big university and lots of cute little restaurants and cafes. I took som pictures with my big camera that I thought I could show you :). I also took some pics with me in them, with the iPhone but I can't get them to the ipad without wifi so that will have to wait (important right?! haha)

Well otherwise things are great, I would just really like to find some friends, at least to hang with on weekends. After work I am usually tired and are really working hard with my german, well well it will probably work it self out! :)

 

 

 

 

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Schönes Wochenende!

Hallo!

Okay it has been about one week since my last post, but it feels like at least a month!

So much has happened, unfortunately it is not things that are fun to write or read about, mostly work...

I think that a key word that would describe my day would be "learning". Where ever I go I constantly need to "learn", and I do, I learn new things with almost every breath and I love it! At work this week has mostly gone to learning about the products which to me is like Chinese, it is a whole new world, and very interesting! I like my work very much and I like the fact that it is cohesive with my education ( which is the point with this internship, but still, you never know!)

I am also CONSTANTLY trying to learn german, it is sehr schwer! In the morning I watch the news (in german of course) at work I try to follow the conversations, then at lunch I try to speak, when I get home I write down a recap of the words and phrases I have learns during the day, to remember them...my favorite word of today is "Gebäude" which means building, nothing special but it is fun to say haha :P In the evening I try to watch some TV, but the TV in my room is very old and makes a weird noise that I cant get rid of (and it is not the german language I am referring to...hehe). Last night I watched Pearl Harbor, it went quite good, mostly because they don't say much in that movie haha!

Another phrase I have learned is "Malzeit" which kind of means "meal time" but at ABB it is used as a greeting like "good morning" but at lunch time, form what I have understood it is very typical "german workplace greeting" and not used outside of work. So from 11:30 until 14 or so, there basically isan eco of "malzeit" where every you go in the office.

Lunch at work is quite nice, which is good cause I'm not doing much cooking in my small apartment, so far it has been free for me which is even nicer :). Yesterday was "sexy Gemüse"- day, it is some type of vegetarian dish, I had goulash but I loved the name "sexy Gemüse" haha (gemüse means vegetable, or if you are from the Mårtensson family it can also meen that some thing is cosy or nice, that meaning would actually work better with "sexy Gemüse" but maybe not as a meal hehe)

Well now it is weekend, I have not decided what to do yet, maybe I will go to Heidelberg tomorrow if the weather is nice :)

Schönes Wochenende!

Marktplatz - lots of nice "Gebäuden" in this city :)

STAU!! On our way home from Düsseldorf on wednesday, looked very nice though :)

My street, my house is the mint green to the right :)

 

 

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Some pics

Here is just a few pictures from Mannheim, I almost managed to get internet to my iPad yesterday...almost...today all stores are closed so I will have to wait until tomorrow after work to fix it...Unless I can find some one with an iPhone 4 to help me out hehe..long story...Today I took a walk in to centrum it is about 5km and actually quite nice :)

This is Mannheimer wasserturm (right next to starbucks btw hehe)

This is one of the main streets, today all empty, but yesterday it was crowded :) (I think it is called breiter straße but I am not sure... :)

Well lets cross our fingers that I somehow can figure out internet on my iPad and wish me luck at work tomorrow :)

E.

Update: found a friendly american with an iPhone 4 at starbucks and internet now works on my iPad :D

 

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Back at Starbucks...

...but their coffee machine is broken!! OMG, I can't believe it hehe ;)

Today I have bought som stuff for my apartment/room, went for a run and then I went in to the city and here I am!

This is what I have learned today:

• The area where I live is very nice, calm and quiet
• The germans must love smoking, in every corner of my neighborhood there is a cigarette machine hehe ( will show you a pic, very fascinating)
• There is a lot of germans here...
• The dogs are EVERYWHERE, at the cafe, in the stores, restaurants, you name it and the dogs are there!
• The germans do their grocery shop-packing in the car or at least after they have paid and then put everything BACK in the cart (not in bags yet) very strange! And they think you are very annoying if you doit the swedish way because then the next customers items have nowhere to go...
• Mannheim is a very nice city, reminds me of Göteborg a bit.
• The people in Mannheim is very friendly (if you do the grocery shopping "their way"...)

Well I think that is most of it, now I am going home. Tomorrow sunday everything is closed, even the grocery store...

 

Take care!

E.

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Mannheim

I'm here! Tired after getting up at 3am (not kidding I did get up at 3am!), but feeling good!

The flight went great and I think Germany overall really likes me. First when I got of the flight I went to the restroom (yes the information about my restroom visit is important to the story!) and then I was going to get my bags, everybody was standing around waiting, and only two bags was circling around, guess what? That was my two bags, fantastic haha :D. Everybody has been so nice to me, and the sun is even shining, which everybody keen pointing out, since it has been a very grey couple of weeks before :)

Now I'm at starbucks, then I will go to the grocery store and tomorrow I will investigate the city of Mannheim!

Take care everybody!

E.

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