Markus efter Sverige

Tuesday 24th - 28th of June Our train was meant to leave at quarter past 6. But our alarm did not work and 10 to 6 Hauke phoned us with the words "Do you want to go?". This was the quickest leaving ever. We had no time to check, if we forgot something. I even wore my pyjama shirt the whole day. The trip back was easy and took of course a while, but at 6 in the evening we were back in Den Haag. Maritha had to write and hand in a report on Wednesday, because Netherlands did not have holidays, yet. So she worked on it Tuesday evening and whole Wednesday and I helped a bit with the spelling, because the report had to be in German. I never thought, that my old social science magazines from highschool would be valuable again one day. Everything went fine, she handed in at exactly deadline time. After so many days without sufficient sleep we slept as long as we wanted on Thursday and drove back to Friesland. Because we had to sit in front of the computer for almost two days, we made

Sunday 22nd - 23rd of June After my unwanted long sleep I walked to "my flat" and took a shower. After that we had brunch like in old times in the flat of Ole and Hauke. With pancakes, of course. Since we only had two days in Sweden, and only this one with all together, we planned a bbq at a beach next to the sea. We bought a huge amount of meat and drove with two cars a few kilometer south of Sundsvall. The beach we chose was nice and empty. You could walk very far into the sea there. Like in my old holidays. It was an amazing feeling to stand that far in sea only hearing the sound of the water and the birds. Although it started to rain a little bit in between, the weather remained reliable and dry most of the time, but we did not really see sun anymore. So we grilled the (a lot!) meat, played frisbee and had funny time. After the meat was eaten, we made a big camp fire in the sand and waited until all the wood has been burned. That was a Midsommar event like I had imagined

Friday 20th -21st of June I arrived in the late evening in Den Haag. On my way Germany won surprisingly against Protugal at the European soccer championship. But I do not really care. Anyway, I had some most amazing plans. After a short night Maritha and I traveled to Friesland, where I attended the first wedding of my life (as audience, of course). It was in Dutch and I did not get even the half of the speeches, but it was very entertaining. Entering the church was surprising. I am used that Dutchs are tall, but I was really almost the smallest person in the room. I guess, only the kids from primary school whose teacher got married made me look a little bit better. The evening I spent with watching the match between Turkey and Croatia, printing flight tickets and practicing my Dutch in a cosy talking round. The next morning we had to start early. Since Maritha had attended a party until early morning, I was allowed to drive. Although thought I would never see airport Weeze again, we h

Thursday 19th of June 2008 For my first serious meeting and my first time to France ever I had to stand up very very early. Although I set the alarm to early half past 4 in the morning I was awake before as usual. I beat my alarm by 10 or 15 minutes every morning. No matter how early. So I stood up, and went first to Liège by car and after that to Paris by train. I guess, if I do not count a tank stop in Belgium in 2001, this also was my first visit in Belgium. From Liege we drove by train to Brussels and took the famous Thalys to Paris. Once I have been there, it was only rushing through the metro and getting to the conference building. I saw some things of Paris, but hardly anything to tell about. At the meeting itself I felt rather useless. I had a very annoying cold, so my nose kept me busy the whole day. In the end it even rained on the way back we almost missed our train back to Germany. I even get stucked in one of the metro doors, because it closed while I was jumping in. I was

I finally got a supervisor from Mittuniversitetet. After three months I at least got a guide, but still did not have a real topic. Atos wants me to be productive in the project, of course. The drawback for me until now was, that being productive meant: straight forward programming. There was not really room for an investigation or anything academical and I cannot just make a protocol about what I work. But since today I think I have a topic. It serves thesis' requirements and Atos' requirements. The next step will be, to get enough time for the thesis work, since I could easily work all day long on the project without doing anything for thesis. Then I got to know a big surprise today. Next week on Thursday, I will travel to Paris for Atos. Of course not alone, but it is my first trip for Atos. Besides that it will be my first journey to France, but I do not expect to see anything more then metro and office. I will have to be before 6am at Atos in the morning and I will travel b