[ Fridaynight, 00:23 ]

Seriously, I think I’m cursed when it comes down to persons visiting me here in Stockholm by plane. Not only did Isabel almost missed her flight – they rescheduled her flight to leaving two hours earlier without noticing her -, I am now at the airport waiting for Celso arrive. His flight is two and a half hours delayed… And no, I’m not online at the airport but I’m writing my blog the old fashioned way – on paper – so I can put it online tomorrow. And yes, I am indeed bored!

So a long time without a blog… guess I spoiled you too much with a weekly update so hope you are all not too disappointed =) Anyway, here’s a short impression of my great great last week here.

On the 4^th of January Isabel arrived here, and after enjoying the ‘Stockholm at night’ view, we went to the Unterbarabar, together with the other Dutchies, to celebrate my birthday at 12 ‘o clock. The DJ played a funky happy birthday song so that night I already started to feel like a birthday girl!

But the real feeling came the next morning. After waking up and preparing breakfast in the kitchen, I returned to my room and found a lot of presents and postcards lying on my bed that Isabel brought from Holland. There was also a happy birthday ‘slinger’ hanging from one wall to the other plus to complete my birthday feeling, I found in one of the presents a birthday brownie plus some candles!

At 3 'o clock we went to Disney on Ice in Globen, where we had a really nice afternoon. Fun to see hear all the famous Disney songs in Swedish and to recognize certain scenes from Disney movies.

At night I ended my birthday with a nice Dutch pancake dinner, and a small party afterwards.

On Sunday I and Isabel simply walked all day long in a white and beautiful Stockholm.

Tuesday I could luckily take a day off from the lab, so we went to Sigtuna (a.k.a. SickTuna). A cute small city in the North of Stockholm, where you can find a lot of ruins and rune stones. Unfortunately we were not that well prepared for the cold in Sigtuna, but we kept ourselves warm by walking on the rhythm of the elephant song from Jungle Book =) Yep, I started my 23rd year in a Disney mood.

After Sigtuna we continued our daytrip by going to ‘the Steninger Castle’. And wow that was exciting! (please note the sarcastic tone here). After taking the bus, getting out at the wrong stop but still managing to get on the right road again because we walked through somebody’s back and front yard, we kinda ice-skated to the castle cause the road was very very slippy. And the castle… oh well, it was nice, but to be honest the walk to get there was more exciting!

So on Wednesday Isabel flew back to Holland again and for the rest of the week I had to work in the lab on my presentation to finish my course here. I presented it this morning and it all went fine so I guess I passed and thus I am now holidays till I will start my project.

And I actually got the feeling that it’s all gonna work out just fine. Not only am I now more than happy that I hadn’t already booked my flight to Kenya – really don’t want to be there right now -, but I also got some new, interesting, possibilities for a project.

A Swedish guy, working on setting up a virtual archive of AIDS in Africa, invited me to have a meeting next week, and in Leiden I also got some interesting things going on. For example a project at the RIVM and one at the ministry of VWS. But the most exciting email I got today.

This Monday I will make a phone call to Denmark, to the head office of WHO. Because at the department of tuberculosis they were enthousiastic after reading my email and they might be able to offer me something! I’ll keep you updated!

For now, enough writing. I just discovered a lounge room where they are playing Pippi Langstocken so that’s probably where I’ll spend my last hours. Waiting for Celso to finally arrive after 2 months…!

Kram, Yoline