More news!

Hello!

First of all, I heard that there were some problems about posting a message, not everybody was able to do it. That has been changed, so all of you can start commenting from now on!

We've found an apartment!!! We've been looking for an apartment somewhere from april and onwards, since Lianne is coming over then as well. It's not that easy to find something in the largest city of Sweden. Much demand but only few apartments available. As soon as you see an advertisement you should call immediately, and preferentially 2 hours earlier, or it will be gone already. But..... now we have one!! It's a perfect location for us, it's close to shops and supermarkets, it's close to nature with a large lake, and not less important: it's only 3 kilometers from the Karolinska!! Absolutely perfect. The apartment has a nice Swedish appearance: the Swedes are crazy about creating space in small spaces. In every place where it is possible, they create a closet or a cupboard, or any other space where you can store all of your stuff. I will move in already mid-march, and then Lianne will come over together with "den Hollander moving and co" with all our stuff (I would just like to say: thank you already!!!).

Then finally something that I would like to put down regularly: Sweden trivia! What defines the Swedish people and what is so typical about Swedish culture. Today: recycling! Swedish people are recycling maniacs. At the lab alone, there is a special box for tin foil, plastic, paper, tin cans, and then everything that does not fit the rest. Another nice example is to be found at the pendeltågstations (kind of subways). Here there are many people giving out the small newspapers, like Metro, Punkt SE, Stockholm city, etc. Very nice of course. And what you then get, is that many of these papers end up in the regular wastebin at these stations. That's of course unexceptable!! So what do you do then? Simple enough! Just hire someone to get all these papers from the regular bin, so they can be put together where they belong: in the paper bin... Logical huh?
I must say, in defence of the country where we will be living for quite some time: at some stations they also have a standard paper-bin expecially for these papers, which brings me to another trivia that applies to many Swedes: they can be very practical! But that's maybe something for next time. Until then ...
Cya!
jeroen

Hi!

So, here's my first update of my very first week here in Stockholm. I would have arrived last week on thursday, were it not for the massive snowfall in Holland and Germany. Luckily I could easily change my booking to the next day (never expected that from Ryanair!).
So there I was, sitting in the comfortable and warm bus from the airport to Stockholm centre, reading the temperature from digital thermometers along the road: - 8 C. Oops, I guess I should have brought my long underwear ... Balancing my way over the trampled snow (=ice) I manage to get into Stockholm central station, where I should catch the subway to Brommaplan, close to the room where I will be staying in the beginning. The room is quite ok with some nice classic furniture, although it's in the basement area of the house of the people where I am staying. I don't have too much to do with them, and I have got my own kitchen-like area, shower and toilet, which makes me pretty much the Ruler of my own Dungeon (which you have to admit sounds already much cooler than living in a basement :-)).

So, last monday was then my very first day at 'work', or of being a PhD student (which still sounds kind of strange to me :-)) at the Cancer Center Karolinska (CCK), which is part of the Karolinska Institutet, but is also partially privately funded. There are mostly swedish people at the lab, 5 Phd students, and then also one German postdoc and master student, and a PhD student from Servia. For the time being I will work together with a Swedish PhD student, Markus, on a project that has also got much to do with my own (I will explain that some time later), so I can get used to the lab and can learn some experimental techniques from him that I will apply in my own project as well. He's a realy funny guy this Markus, with some really great stories of things that he did wrong during his time as a student at the lab. I've already done quite a bit in the lab already, and I think I am going to have a real good time here at the lab. Well, more news will follow later. Here are then some picture of my room: