Stlm by day

Last week end was the occasion to spend more time in Stockholm, capital of Sweden, a town that I would recommend to anybody! It is one of these big towns - an urban population of around 1,200,000 - that has kept its tradition and charm while being very modern at the same time. No skyscrapers but some very high churches, the architecture is very nice! Nevertheless, I noticed this sort of American side of Sweden, that might just be the consequence of a country that lacks a strong culture in domains like gastronomy or entertainment, in the invasion of so many foreign fast foods downtown, or the fashion of girls that reminds me of New York! These are assumptions as I don't know the country enough, and the restaurant where I ate dinner was a really good quality-price ratio!

Stockholm was also for me the occasion to visit the Vasa Museum and Skansen, two great places! The Vasa Museum is in a sort of island which looks very nice and seems dedicated to entertainment. I was amused by the story of the ship and fascinated by the museum, which was much more interesting that museum I usually visit. Skansen was also amazing with so many different animals and a funny site that is convenient to visit. It has also been a while I didn't see any "exotic" animal! I recommend both of them!

It is hard to be researcher

T-H-E-S-I-S.

One word to rule them all.

One word that summarizes where 90% of my energy goes!

The thesis work is brand new for me, and I wasn't expecting such a workload! Whereas a normal course is much simplified by the teacher's explanations, here you have to build your own knowledge by collecting data in the infinitely vast universe of the web, or the more condensed world of libraries and books. In one of them, it's all about finding the few precious stones among the multitude of rocks; in the other one, it's more about being patient enough to follow the path to the goldmine.

Per and I were very motivated about writing a thesis on the financial field, but I think we might have been to ambitious from the start. Being interested in the subprime crisis led us to try to study the limits of risk management tools in monitoring and coping with the crisis. But then further research of the theoretical field of risk management in the banking system showed us how much it is developed, and therefore how hard it is to break it down. Everytime we think we are on the right tracks, then meeting with Emeric makes us understand that our research questions have purpose or constraints issues. It gets very confusing and we struggle making the trade-off between interesting thesis and manageable thesis.

It is a hard task, but it is very interesting. I really enjoy the researches, the only problem comes from the frustration of having an idea that suits your interest. Anyway it is also funny to see how one's own discipline changes from the early days to the following weeks. The first week was about enjoying more freetime or freedom of scheduling, but then one quickly realizes that in order to be research effectively one need to wake up at 7:30 and starts studying around 8:30 till the end of the evening, while averaging 10 coffees a day. We usually meet at 9 with Per and stay all day long at the university with a confortable lunch break to rest our brains, and the study rooms of the A building are just great. The only problem is that after 9AM there is no room left! In general the A building is a very good place to study, I really enjoy it.

This week end will be about releasing some pressure as I go back to Bordeaux for 3 days in order to pick up my passeport at the townhall and do some administrative tasks. A sligthly warmer weather, some good food and then seeing my family and friends (in this order of satisfaction, ahah just kidding) are the perfect recipe to come back 100% up and about! (I feel kind of sick though... that would really be too bad !!)

Please anyone interested in some french products let me know, I will unload my winter stuff there and bring back some food in my bags !! ;)

Atlantis BBQ!

What a great day! After the coldest week end of the year when the temperature reached -10°C, the weather became fine here in Linköping. Very surprising to find oneself in t shirt in the streets! The temperature was so "warm" someday that biking without mittens was possible, thing that is IMPOSSIBLE usually. The sun brings a wonderful atmosphere here, at a time when many of us felt kind of bored of the Ryd and its awful landscape, and outside activities are not possible.

We have therefore been celebrating Johan's birthday today by having an "Atlantis BBQ party" and later on go out downtown. This was a great feeling! Almost everyone was there, playing american football for the american while we french played "pétanque", and of course grilling some. The "BBQ spirit" was so nice, making us forget for an afternoon the last 4 months of freeziness that we've been experiencing in Lyon and especially in Sweden.
Even if it was still not really warm, I appreciated that day very much and found some motivation for the thesis work and the few weeks left in Sweden.

Thesis time

April just started and so did our thesis work! Even if I feel really excited about writing a thesis, this is a lot of stress. Luckily I had no trouble to find the perfect co-worker, and Mr. Hilling and myself are teamed up for this enterprise. I am very interested in research and writing, nevertheless this represents a task that is time-constrained, and totally new in a way, which makes me feel kind of lost. Defining a field of research is much harder than I expected and it is hard to think about a topic that would not be too ambitious.

Our coordinator seem involved in this work to make us organize our time, be careful and help us in the thinking process. I appreciate Mr. Solymossy's energy and think he is going to make sure we keep on track the all time. It still looks like a challenge to me, but with a good teacher and a good teammate, it should be just fine. I am confident in this work.

Visiting Tallinn

Capital of Estonia, Tallinn is now known as a sort of "Silicon Valley of the Baltic Sea" after many IT start up where born there, the most famous of them being "Skype" (!). Consequences of my limited culture, I used to think that Estonia would only a sort of small Russia, but actually this country has some historical influence of the danish, german and especially swedish cultures.

We learned that some cruises were regularly connecting Stockholm to Tallinn for a very reasonable price - unfortunately because people could buy duty-free alcohol and cigarettes, and some of us showed a strong interest in visiting one of Eastern Europe countries. And I think that none of us regreted this journey!

11 of the Atlantis students took part in this experience, and Johan drove some of us to Stockholm with his van, which reminded me the feeling of going on holidays to some summer camps, when everybody is very excited about keeps talking, joking or singing in the bus! The way to Stockholm was a lot of fun! Then after some visiting of Stockholm, let's go to the boat. The principle of the trip is this: we get into the boat at 6PM, the travel time is about 15hours so we sleep on the boat, arrive at Tallinn around 10AM, spend the day in Tallinn and then go back to the boat at 5PM the same day to go back to Stockholm. It seems like a short time period - actually it is, but Tallinn is still not a big town and it is the cheapest way to visit but still enjoy it.

The boat is a curious thing. It is nice, but ugly at the same time. The nice part was the entire sauna - steamer - jacuzzi thing for 4euros, it makes you feel like business men talking about their successful investments and a luxurious boat, some thesis proposal were born during this moment! The ugly thing is to realize that the boat is just meant to buy the all the duty-free stuff, watch some sort of shows, gamble at the slot machine or play blackjack. Moreover you are stuck on the boat so are obliged to eat at 200% retail mark-up restaurants, so let's say that this boat is for a certain kind of people. Anyway, we had a lot of fun, it was a good time to relax, think about something else that classes, get to know each other even more.... and a wonderful karaoke night!! (there are some serious compromising files in some cameras!!).

Arrived at Tallinn, I really felt that "russian" feeling. The town is really nice, it kept a very medieval style, and some building really reminds you pictures of Moscow or St Petersburg. The street covered of snow were also very nice, and I expected more snow in Sweden so it really made me feel abroad! This was the occasion to buy a really nice Chapka, and finally have my ears covered from the icy wind. All day long we have been wandering in the town, discovering some new architecture. It thought that you can still see consequences of the soviet era by the way people don't show any emotion in the street. They keep being very serious even if the people we talked to in the shops were nice! We also visited the oldest pharmacy in the world and saw the tallest building of the world... or at least it was the tallest in the 15th century I think. We decided to have lunch in a medieval restaurant where the menu looked attractive. The decoration was very funny, and the waiter very nice if we just forget that he was trying to sell us more and more drinks all the time, being not clear if it was for free or charged!! That was a nice gastronomic experience, it was good! (Despite the cockroach that wandered in the table, but my experience as waiter immunized me of these type of fear (sic)).

Finally, we had to rush to the boat after of course being some "souvenirs", and we were back for some 15hours of karaoke and shows. Even if the trip only lasted 3 days, it was really nice and I keep a good memory of Tallinn, plus that I had this "back from holiday" feeling that motivates you to get back to work (or not sometimes...). Tallinn, you and me it's just a matter of time before we see each other again!

Sverige!

It has been now a few weeks that I am in Sweden, so I think its high time to talk about this singular country. We actually live in the university housing area, the Ryd, where most people live in what is called a "corridor". Basically, this is a big flat shared by up to 8 people, where you have your personal room but share a living room and a kitchen with 7 other people. My room is very convenient, large and practical, with a decent shower. Sharing with many people has a big advantage: a huge kitchen! There is plenty of kitchen furniture and we have toasters and ovens! Unfortunately, it can become a nightmare for some corridors when people are a little dirty, I have seen some really disguting corridors!! But my roommates are very nice and clean.

There are 5 swedes and 1 german in my corridor, and the 5 swede are very close friends cooking and living together. It is sometimes annoying to feel like I am not at home as these swedes have been living there for several years and therefore make the rules, but it was fine and I have a lot of fun so far.

About the swedes, they are usually very nice even if they can seem cold. It is so surprising to see how EVERYONE speaks english... From 8 year-old kids to supermarket's cashiers! It is very frustrating to consider oneself a good english speaker and realize that you just have the average level of another country. Another interesting point is how they are super-organized, you always know how to do, or where to go, there is almost no uncertainty. It is sometimes a bad thing because when you have to take a ticket online to play basketball at the gym two days in advance, it becomes really insane! Queuing is part of the culture... you have to queue, everytime, - horrible!

Anyway, I make my way through, it is a pretty fascinating country and if you get used to the very bad weather then its perfectly fine! (but it is NOT easy). I now have a fancy bike, a swedish one that says "world-best bike" or something like this in Sweden ahah!

Livin' it up the Ryd

This is "Ryd". This strange term that I have no idea what it stands for or mean, is the name of the residential area where we all live. The least we can say about it is that it's very....... interesting!

First of all, the Ryd is not really part of the town as it is separated from it by a sort of wood, and to go to the center you will need at least a 15-minutes bikeride. The university is closer, with an average bike ride of 7 minutes and 35 seconds. The area shown in the picture is the university housing part of the Ryd, the one dedicated to LiU students, but it is surrounded by other habitations where other people live. The big red spot on the map is where I live, Rydsvagen 262 appt C30. The two red squares are pretty much the barycenters of the Ryd. The one on the left, Ryd Centrum is where Hemköp is at and the other one is the Herrgarn' a.k.a. "HG". Hemköp is the one and only supermarket in the Ryd, therefore we can use the term of monopoly situation and inexistence of competition to put pressure on prices. The HG is the student bar of the Ryd, so this is where main parties end, mainly because of the wind/cold/bike/laziness/price of drinks factors that occurs when trying to go out downtown. It is funny to notice that the entrance of the bars, where many drunk students are queuing and still drinking and being drunk, is adjacent to a kindergarten... Only in Sweden.

As I said before, the Ryd is very "interesting". The most confusing thing is that it is the antichrist of what you could think about Swedes obsession of organization. As all the building look the same, it is first very hard to find one's way, so your first reflex when you look for somewhere is to refer to the streets names and numbers. But here, there seems to be an absence or logic, or maybe a logic way too complicated for my simple french mind. It's a total MESS. You could be in a street that is called Alsättergattan, walk straight in the same street and then realized that now you are in Björnkarrsgatan... then you see a perpendicular street and go to the left, you are in Rydsvagen, and then the next street on the right is also called Björnkarrsgatan. And If you go straight you are in Alsättergattan again. It's so confusing, I'm still working on breaking down the mystery of Ryd.

Ryd is also like a "Little Amsterdam". Not talking about people using illicit drugs, even if it would be a relevant comparison, my focus is more on the use of bikes. An estimation of the number of bikes in the Ryd is 10,000 (Source: Myself newspaper) of which approximately 7,000 are broken ones. This therefore became the paradise of the of a gang of 12-year old kids that just hang out in the Ryd all day long looking for bikes they could "lend". A very common picture of the Ryd is to see tires or even entire bike stuck in some trees, roofs, or wherever it can be thrown.. consequences of the HG!