City Hall Reception

Tonight the City of Stockholm invited all international students and visiting researchers, who have come to Stockholm in the past year (all 1200 of us!), to a reception at Stadshuset (City Hall). For a Swedish event, it wasn't very well organized (even the Germans make fun of the rules, promptness, and organization of the Swedes) but it was a pleasant evening and really nice of the City of Stockholm.

The reception was in the Blue Hall, which is where the Nobel Prize dinner is held. The Blue Hall was never painted blue. It's all brick. Eventually, when they let us into the Blue Hall, they gave us each a glass of wine. Then, the "Lord Mayor of Stockholm" welcomed us to the city and offered a toast. Next, some seemingly random college student on university exchange from Stanford spoke (we don't know why and couldn't really hear her because there was so much talking). Then, we had a buffet dinner.

They also let us wander into the Gold Room. This is a huge hall with mosaics made with tiny gold tiles. It's super gaudy but impressive. I found a little piece of home on the wall.
Other random notes:
- I've had a bit of blogger's/writer's block lately. I guess that's because I've fallen into more of a normal routine. Everything I do and every place I go isn't new anymore. Where going to a friend's place for dinner or meeting people out at a bar is fun, it's not too interesting to read about (especially over and over again!). However, I've come up with several topics in the past few days so my blogging will pick back up again. Keep checking back.
- My parents got me a new camera for my birthday. The lens of my current camera retracts for no reason, even when the lens cap is open - it's a real pain. I did all of the model and pricing research for the new camera and went to pick it up last weekend but it was out of stock. Hopefully, I'll get it this weekend - and then there will be more pictures on the blog too!
- As of this past Monday, I am no longer able to send or receive emails from my emory.edu or learnlink accounts. I guess they have finally cut me off! I'm frantically downloading my messages off of learnlink while I can still access them (since I'm guess it won't be long before I can't log in at all). If you don't have my new address, it's the same as the old, except through gmail.