Kira Looks For Extra Colors: I actually did stuff today!

Decoration explaining scientific processes on the station walls

When trying to transport a large group of people to a specific place by a specific time on a rail line none of them have used before, it is generally a good idea to put in some backup plans to assure that everyone will be able to direct themselves to that location by themselves to that location by themselves should they get lost. That said, I'm glad the group who got lost on the rail lines when we were all traveling to the University of Stockholm today managed to catch up with the rest of us before things really got started.
The morning at the University was fairly interesting because two lecturers talked to us about their research into Drosophila immunity, viruses, and the genetics of these systems. Hannah was very excited about these researchers and I was glad to see that she was lucky enough to have lectures that related to her favorite topic (viruses), just as I was at the Sanger Institute.

University of Stockholm, Central Quad

Lunch was fairly expensive, but we got to eat in the student restaurant and talk to some of the post docs working in the labs involved in our day. Hannah and I had a very interesting conversation with a woman from Germany who had studied in Texas at one point. It was really interesting to talk to her about languages, the perceptions of different cultures with regard to travel during and after schooling, movies, and other minor topics. I was impressed that she spoke four different languages. I'm finding fewer and fewer excuses for me to speak just one language with smatterings of Spanish. I need to fix this soon.

Drosophila and microscope with CO2 apparatus

I got really excited in the afternoon when we split our large class up into smaller groups of eight and got to tour the laboratories at the University. Not only did we get to tour a Drosophila lab, a mosquito lab, and a nematode lab, we got to interact with the model organisms and play with the equipment used to observe them! We looked at live Drosophila through microscopes by knocking them out with CO2 and compared their phenotypes to a wild type strain! I got to push down on the CO2 petal when the little guys started waking up and moving around. Its really surprising how fast the carbon dioxide knocks them out. You turn on the flow and they drop to a surface in under a second. It seems unnaturally fast!
Touring the rest of the campus, I talked for a long time with Anne, a graduate student about to get her PhD and planning to go to New York for a postdoc. She is very cool and I am really glad I got to talk to her. What stood out to me in our conversation was her analogy describing her thesis. She said that the party she was planning for achieving her PhD kept reminding her of a wedding, except that instead of two people, this party was celebrating her relationship with her thesis, so therefore, getting your PhD is like marrying your thesis. I find this absolutely hilarious because of this comic:
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1414
and this
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1296

Norwegian band in front of the Opera House

We got back home with no trouble (other than trying to remember where we had gotten on in the first place) and spent a few hours studying, journaling, and eating before picking back up again to go to the Kulturfestival! We were going with the intention of watching a Dance performance on the program, but arrived in the main square a little early. There was a Norwegian band playing (Rickard Wolff?) and although we didn't understand a single word he said, I actually liked their music quite a bit! Hannah and I decided to continue wandering through some of the areas of the festival while we were waiting for the dance program to start. The festival covers a large area in just above Gamla Stan, in central Stockholm. We saw another stage with a techno band and a large crowd of people from 20 to 13 years old, a dancing policeman, a large number of teen-centered booths advertising things in Swedish, comfy bean bag chairs piled around trees on the sidewalk, a soccer game in the middle of a square whose players were drawn from the crowd, and a giant chess board.

Mike, The Awesome Swede

There were two Swedish men playing and a family of three Swedes (?) watching the game when we walked past. Hannah stopped to see what was going on and one of the players, Mike (who was awesome as you will shortly see), started talking to us immediately. The best part about Mike was that he naturally drew people in from the sidewalk and made them interact with each other. He managed to get a girl named Angela ( who was from Italy and was translating for her brother), Mikhail (Angela's 13-14 year old brother), Carter (a Swedish guy my age I think…), and Hannah and me to play a game of chess together, guys against girls.
It was really fun to play and we stayed longer than we had anticipated we would, even missing the beginning of the dance show to finish our game. At one point, a crew with a video camera (they looked like they were walking around the festival filming) came over and started interviewing some of the spectators and players. It was really hard to avoid looking at the camera with the bright light shining at you in the dark!
We finished the game when the boys checkmated our king. Mikhail and his sister didn't know how to play chess before tonight. Mikhail was really excited that he won and had a look of joy on his face when he got to tip our king over (boom!).

Mike and our Italian friends

Modern Dancing

None of it could have happened without Mike. He got us all into the game, overcame our shyness for us, and kept reminding us to talk to our "new friends". It was an awesome experience and Mike did a great job setting up an internationally representative game of chess!
When we finished the game, we finally made it back to the dance performance. It was interesting to watch, but it was also very modern, which means there was a bit of flailing, a bit of Lady Gaga influence, and some sort of metaphor going on in everything we saw. We stayed for about two and a half dances before we each picked up a Stockholm Kulturfest shirt and then headed back to the hostel together.
I am so happy with how the day turned out. I'm really grateful to everyone who reached out to us today and introduced us to the heart of Stockholm.