This weekend I went to a 3-man tournament with my friends from PBA-factory. It was the season final of the OPBL (paintball-liga.at) just outside of Graz, in a town called Oberdorf. Martin picked me up at 6.45, then we went to get some breakfest at a Cafe. Thirty minutes later we arrived at the site, belonging to Paintball-Paradise.

Saturday went awful before lunch, we lost 3 games, and I felt a bit ill. I dont know if it was lack of sleep or a lousy breakfest, probobly a combination. I got a plate of bolognése at lunch and then after the break, we started playing really well. We went through to the finals, but lost the deciding game against a team called Zupano, which meant we would end up in second place. We were satisfied considering the lousy games we had before lunch.

After the price ceremony, I got home, made some fried eggs with meat and cottage cheese and went to sleep early, because I was guestplaying with a team called United Inc, and they had to place well because the ranking was important.

Met up with my friends from PBA 6.45 PM, and came to the site 7.15. The guys from the team were really friendly, one of the actually works as a chief chef and nutrition advisor(i think) for the swiss ski-team. Today everything went great from the start. We won all games but 2 in the prelims. I got to play snake today, which was alot of fun, until they started to pinpointing me of the break, so after 7-8 games , I had trouble getting to my starting bunker. In the finals, we won against a Slovakian team called vipers, after this we lost against Paradise Connection ( the home team) and won against destroyers which meant that we finished in first place!

Felt really nice to step up to the podium, but I've kind of realised, that it is not the same to win as a guestplayer, as with your regular team. I suppose it is because you have shared blood sweat and tears with eachother in the same way. But it's always nice to win none the less!

Courtesy of Michael Skolnik from Vienna united for the pictures!

Did not take long to fall asleep Sunday evening..

Monday meant first day of school! Was there at 9 PM to meet one of the teachers and to ask about which courses I was supposed to take. Erik is studying with the 7th semester students, and went on a Excursion to Ingelstadt, because their project was in collaboration with Audi, where they had their design HQ.

I myself went downtown to find a new schoolbag, and to try to find a place to fill my laundrycard with money. I still have loads of dirty laundry so I suppose you can guess which of the plans that succeded.

At 14 AM we had our first German language course, and It seems that my grammar was so lousy that I was put in the beginners group. A little bit bummed about the class, because the level was extremely low. Hopefully the difficulty level increases swiftly, otherwise I will probobly have to study more on my own, instead of going to class.

After this me and Tanja ( a Finnish exchange student) went to Hoefer to buy some grocerys. It's like LIDL but cheaper. Still haven't found a good grocery store. Seems like I have to go to several different ones to get everything I need. No Willys here.. (boho)

Then at 17.30 there was a class called APC (Austrian people and Culture), which is a 2 point course. It was actually really interesting, because until now I thought Austrian culture was really similar to Sweden. I have noticed a couple of differences, but hopefully I will get alot more insight now.

Right now I am in the studio at school (some new pics in the Gallery). I have met a couple of the 3rd semester students that I will be studying with, and been to a Cafe with them to have some coffe. I do not really know what will happened in the afternoon, because the class they have is called Visual communication, and it will be held in german, so i will probobly go talk to the 1st semester students and see whats on their schedule. I really need to find out which courses that are worth taking and then try to puzzle my own schedule together.

Oh yeah, did you notice how this page seems to get wider and wider everytime i post something new? need to figure out a good system..

So since last time, I've got alot of paperwork done for example the apartment contract and a "meldzetteln", which means that they now officially know that Im in the country.

Other than that, yesterday I signed up for the german intensive course, which to my surprise is a ECTS course. So I will get 5 universitypoints for just studying german! After this me and Erik went to buy some art supplies, and after this to get something to eat at an awesome bar/cafe.

I met a brittish friend in the stairway who told me there was a party in our cellar, and invited us upstairs for some warmup beers. Well, so after beeing at his place for a couple of hours with the Finns and Brits, we went to the cellar, and holy moly, It was totally packed with students!

After this, me and the other exchangestudents went to the same Irish bar as usual, and later to a kebap restaurant which was a pitstop before the nightclub district. After listening to some Kareoke at a club called Tree Monkeys, me and Erik went home, and fell asleep at about 4.30 AM, and slept until 13 PM..

Today (Thursday), both of us were mighty tired, so we just took it slow. We went to BILLA to get som grocerys etc. Found real bread (austrians seems to eat mainly supersweet toast bread) and cottage cheese. At 17 Martin (who plays in the team I practice with) picked me up outside the studenthome, and I was finally on my way to see the huge indoor paintball arena they have down here. Schweet!

It was SO nice!

A huge arena with recball, speedball and reball field. There was also a Gokart track just next to the Field, which made quite alot of noise.

The practice session consists of:

- Warmup - running around the field a couple of laps, pushups, situps, crunches.

- Drills - today we did some 2on2, Running and gunning, mainly running and shooting drills today.

- Games - 5on5 for a couple of matches.

Then we cleaned the field, and did the warmup excersizes again, with an additional excersize we call "idioten" in Sweden. It's when you run back and forth across the field, touching lines.

And boy am I out of shape! I decided to go buy runningshoes some day soon and start running up and down the stairs of Schlossberg. The guys from the team take REALLY well care of me, which I am so thankfull for. On saturday we will go to a 3-man competition in a nearby village. Hopefully I can play better this time..

I put up a Gallery on http://gallery.iddqd.se so you can see some additional pics and not just the ones i put up on this page.

The orientation programme for incoming exchange students started yesterday, so we got to meet alot of the other foreigners and get some help with all the paperwork that is required. We also took a German placement test to determine our language skills, so that we end up in a suitable class. Feels kind of odd when I have'nt taken a german test since 2001.. So it will be really interesting to see where I end up. (probobly the beginners class)

After this we went to a pub/restaurant close by the school. It was some kind of latino bar, and I guess it was'nt all that fun, but I got to talk with some students from Finland, which we later went together with to another bar. Some south American, Brittish, Finnish students and two Swedes sitting in a bar, most of us were really tired to one by one started to drop off and go home. Me and Erik went came home at about 2 AM and crashed in to bed, just to get up at 9 AM to go to school in order to learn the system with schedules, e-mail, Wlan etc. Afterwards we went to the Swedish embassy, aka IKEA, to buy some necessities which include:

- Bed Sheets

- Towels

- Extension chords

- Dinner, Meatballs

When going home, me and Erik picked up a sixpack of beer and snacks, and to my surprise, Austrias technologic advancement and extensive studyprogrammes made alot more sense.

I can now confirm that Austria is aproximately twice as far ahead Sweden in the field of culinary science.

Behold, the salty stick of the future!!

We also went to look for some new schoolbags, and found a 3 story surf&snow shop calle 'Blue Tomato'. Prices are almost the same as at home, so I think i will just have to wait until I find something I really like. Other than that I need to acquire a pair of jogging shoes and most definately a new CAMERA..

Until then, the cellphone will have to make due.

Wienerschnitzels since arrival: 2

After the long visit at Vienna Airport, I met up with a couple of guys from Graz that were going to Budapest for a PB-tourney. They were in the need of an extra player and I got to play some PB before school starts, aka a perfect match!

This was the second time I would go to Budapest for some paintball action, and last time was a blast, so expectations were high.

The team I was supposed to play with is called PBA-Factory, and was a friendly group which made it really easy for me to gel with the group. During the weekend I got to practice some of my german language skills, but mainly I just tried to listen to the conversations, and get accustomed with the Austrian "dialect".

The tourney as such did not turn out to be a great success for the team, worthless paint causing major gun-malfunction and alot of frustration made us end up at 6th place in the Open X-ball division. I did certainly not live up to my own expectations and I hope it was just a small "hickup" on my part.

I got to do some very useful networking this weekend, which I hope will pay off in the future. It also seems like i have a team to practice with on wednesdays and thursdays.

Another bonus of the trip was that I actually got a ride all the way to the front door of the studenthome, where i was greeted by Erik, my new roomate. After sitting around talking, catching up on the internet, and getting myself settled, I went to bed. Really tired after todays activitys I fell asleep pretty fast. However, I woke up a couple of times during the night, because of the crappy isolation between the rooms, and the fact that the doors seems to be made of papirmaché. I guess I'll just have to get used to doors slamming in the middle of the night.

As far as school goes right about now, today is the day when the Orientation Programme starts, which means that we will be guided through the city, assisted with paperwork, and I imagine a beer or two.

My special mission for today - WienerSchnitzel!

Im not really sure what to write here in the news section so until then ill just improvise.

So, the site news "system" is up and running, crippled, but running.

At the moment I'm at Vienna Airport, waiting for a paintballteam Brian Ravanel hooked me up with, to play the last leg in Budapest of the ECS series. 1.5 Hours before they are supposed to pick me up, and Im telling you, this airport-arrivalhall is extreeeeemely boring. Atleast the internet is slow.. I mean free..

Ill try to update this site as often as I can, and hopefully get a nice layout going sometime soon, but until then this will have to make due..

Auf wiedersehen!