After the Norway trip (previous post) Georg, Michi, Sebastian, Johannes (the two crazy germs), Virre (our local resident) and me spent Midsommar (end of June) on an island outside of Götheborg named Hönö. It's a rather small island.. The kind of "everyone knows everyone"-island. We went there for 3 days and had a lovely bed and breakfast (http://www.holmstrom.ws/b&bs.htm). Midsommar is everything you imagine it to be. Although I thought that Swedish people would be slightly more drunk than what we saw. But it was in the middle of the day. We watched the rising of the tree-thing and had a good laugh with all the Swedish of all ages jumping around that thing. It's not my video, but that's pretty much what happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on9PLzlY0Ww

After that festive thing we went bathing in the atlantic, bbqing, drinking and spending both nights on the cliffs of the island. The walk back was rather dangerous... I think traveling to Sweden just because of Midsommar might be not such a good idea. But if you're there at that time, make sure you're not in a city and enjoy the day. Apparently we had a lot of luck because the weather was awesome. It's the same like "will we have white christmas in austria".

After midsommar Georg and me drove towards Austria with his, still more or less intact, car. We spent two nights in Kopenhagen (Scandic hotel, once again) were a deviantart-friend of mine showed us the city. The next sleeping-stop we had was Bamberg were we visited another germ who's name is also Johannes. It was nice to be back. Using the Euro and getting a lot of beer and food for almost no money (compared to Swedish standards).

On the 30th of June 2010 I was back home in Vorarlberg, Austria. 11 months have passed and somehow everything was still the same. It was like I had never left Austria. But still I felt completely different. Still do. I don't even know if I'm "home" yet. The more I think about it, the more I want to live out of suitcases again. Does not need to be Sweden. Can be anything... But I really have to go abroad again.

Thanks for reading, enjoy the photos.

Even if Sweden is expensive compared to Austria (although only the alcohol), Norway is ridiculously expensive. Let's say you buy a can of beer in Austria. You pay around 0.8 Euro while in Norway for the same import-can (Pilsner Urquell) you pay 3.5 Euro. And I'm not talking about restaurant prices... that's grocery store. Needless to say our only consumptions in Norway were Gas and Coffee.

So there we were, Swedish rental car, Swedish food, Swedish drinks,... driving through Norway. The first day it was really sunny and we said "Let's drive till half an hour before sundown, then putting up tent and sleeping". We got so far north in the first day, that it was not getting really dark. At around half past eleven in the night we stopped, put up the tent and realized that we will never need the tent-lantern in Norway in summer (See gallery for reference photos taken in the middle of the night). The next day it was rather cloudy and rainy... Still we managed to drive through a few high plateaus, being alone on the street for hours and hours. No traffic at all. It was almost zen-like, driving on a 80km/h road that's completely straight and the only thing going by is time. On said second day we arrived at the coast in Molde... We saw the first fjords, we drove the atlantic route (voted to be the most beautiful man-made road on this planet we call earth). We drove and drove... I think we spent like 12 hours in the car. Driving and looking around.

We visited the "must see" tourist stuff in that area (Trollstigen,...) and I've got the exact route we took somewhere here. But since I'm still working on a norway-video I'll give the exact route with said video. What pretty much is stuck in my head is the empty roads. And the differences in height. Driving from a fjord at 0m sealevel where people are bathing and fishing to a mountain at 1500m sealevel, coverend in meter-high snow and ice in less than 45 minutes. Our car was a simple, no-power-at-all renault clio eco-green whatever shit-thing and going up these steep roads was not that easy. But having a small car has it's advantages. Especially when you're driving narrow, curvy coast roads and trucks come towards you without slowing down.

For now let's just say: The weather report sucked... The first day was sun. Afterwards it was only rain, clouds, wind and snow. So we cancelled the trip after 3 days and drove in a marathon back to Sweden (via Oslo). All in all we had around 2700km in 4 days... And all I can say is: I'm going back there, doing the exact same thing. But with more sunshine if possible. You're not getting rid of me so easily Norway. I think I saw more things in 4 days Norway than I saw in one month of Sweden... So if you want to talk to me about Norway, please contact me.

For now I want to show you these 32 images of Norway. Listening tip while clicking through the photos is this song: Mumford & Sons - The cave

The next and last post will be about Midsommar and the way home.

In April some friends from Austria visited. We stayed a few days in Stockholm, headed over to Smögen (the Monacco of Sweden) and rented ourselves a nice little island called "Utpost Hållö". After 3 nights there we went to Götheborg and then back again to studying a little bit in Skövde.

night painting on Hållö

Stockholm:

gamla stan pub

gamla stan pub

guinness

outdoor beer in stockholm

skärgården boat ride

skärgården boatride (on the way back)

glenfiddich pub stockholm

April and still ice in Stockholm

Smögen / Utpost Hållö:

Götheborg:

"fika" time

In April or May the Iceland man Gunnz and me went to "Heavenly Ink" in Stockholm for some tattoos:

font selection in the train

"Heavenly Ink": This old lady wanted a penguin tattoo... or cat... she was not really sure.

Burger King; Centralstation

In May I flew back to Austria for a week. With Norwegian Air or something like that... Can't remember... But they had nice flight attendants.

...on a jetplane...

One day we brought Gunnz' bike to the airport... on the way back we ate Döner at a nice lake in the middle of nowhere (like everywhere in middle-Sweden):

Some lake in nowhere

When it was time for the master defense the two germs (Sebastian and Johannes) came back from Linköping. Also Johannes from Bamberg came back from Germany to have his defense. And we rocked... Pretty much. The next image is from one of the many afternoons we spent outside in the sun, drinking beer and enjoying our accomplished studies. Sometimes being happy is not enough and you demand euphoria.

euphoria

For my portrait-photography I only had one photoshoot in Sweden. This is an outtake from the shoot.

kat

The next post will be about Georg's and my trip through Norway. stay tuned

Kiruna Trainstation

inside kiruna church

our fridge in the hostel

michelin-guys

For the skidoo tour we did from Camp Alta to Jukkasjärvi [the ice hotel] we had to wear several layers of clothing. If i remember correctly everyone had around 4 to 5 layers. It really gets cold when going 90km/h on a frozen lake with -25°C.

the icehotel

After the tour Leif cooked us some ren med potatis (reindeer and potatoes).

That night we did not sleep in Camp Alta yet. But the next morning we made ourselves comfortable in our own huts at Camp Alta. First things first: coffee

After some coffee the women went cross-country skiing and Georg and me made hole in the lake. We realized that drilling through one meter of ice is not that easy.

our view from the hut

In the evening we were treated to a snow-dog hike through the night. With a short stop to drink some salmon-vegetables-soup-

next time: The visit of some Austrian friends with photos from Stockholm, Göteborg, Smögen and some crazy utpost

billingen

frozen lake

We prepared a birthday present for one of our friends that already finished her studies in Sweden.

Nicole, KC, Yvi, Georg, Michi and me

Some of our shenanigans were snowball fights after the consumption of a few brews and in the middle of the night (meaning around 2 or 3 am).

mid-night snowball-fight

snowed in bikes

iceland man gunnz

courtyard of my residence

At the beginning of March my girlfriend visited me again in Skövde... And we went to Kiruna (in the most northern north part of Sweden). But that's another post.

The whole experience was planned and organized together with a friend of mine. Georg and me had it all planned out: Driving with the car to Sweden, passing a few courses, seeing Sweden, getting to know shitloads of other exchange students, having fun and coming back as better and completely changed people. And that's what we did... Someway or another.

It all started in mid August 2009 when we drove the 1600km to Skövde, Sweden. Our luggage was mostly beer, liquor and some clothes. After the first 1000km we stopped at a friend's home in northern Germany where we spent two days at the baltic sea.

Anne, me and the baltic sea

When we arrived in Skövde after our 3 day roadtrip, we met Michi, an Austrian girl from our own university that we never met before. We decided to go check on the lake "Vättern". The second largest lake in Sweden. It was already chilly but we still managed to throw ourselves into the lake.

After a few days all the other exchange students for the winter term arrived. I think we were about 60 or 80. Some of them we never saw again after the introduction week, others were with us all the time. In an attempt to use the last few sunrays we went swimming again. We found a wonderful lake called Simsjön... Translated it means "swimming lake".

Johannes, one of the two crazy germs we met there.

Simsjön

campus

At the end of August the IC (International Committee) organized a trip to Götheborg for all of us. Paddan boat tour, Universeum, Lisseberg,...

At the beginning of September my parents came to visit me and Sweden. Trips: Läckö, Kinnekulle, ... and on the trips we realized that the cities around Skövde are pretty much ghost towns.

Läckö

Suddenly it was autumn, the days were getting incredibly short and the weather was cold (not rainy though).

With "the two germs" Johannes & Sebastian we had a lot of fun. We did not know that biology students can be something else than boring.

I guess it was November when we went to Seabattle. A ferry cruise with 2000 students from Stockholm to Tallinn (Estonia). We were pretty much knocked out but we managed to spend around 2 hours in Estonia. Felt like 8 though. Been there, done that...

Some other time around October / November Virre, our Swedish guide and friend, took us to a hockey match. Both teams sucked. But we were in the section with the better fans.

In December I was visited by my girlfriend. We met in Stockholm,

Camouflage Petra

went to Götheborg,

View from "The lipstick"

and then we headed home... Christmas in Austria, Snowboarding in the alps, ...

This covers the first 5 months of Sweden a little bit. I'll update soon again with the other few months. If you have questions or want to add something, feel free to do so.

hejdå,
igy antonsson