Swedish metro, Swedish President, Swedish hors d'oeuvres, but no Swedish meatballs.

ILPC Conference - Day 1


Today. was. awesome.


7:30AM: Breakfast, a delicious ham, cheese, and lettuce sandwich with a glass of orange juice, barefoot in the most adorable trendy hostel cafe.


8-9:40AM: Chillin' in the hostel, reading some Weber, updating the blog, etc.


10:15AM: Meet Lair at Cityterminalen (the main bus station) and (SUCCESSFULLY) navigate Stockholm's super easy metro (woo hoo!). Observations: Swedes seem to be quiet, reserved people and dogs are allowed on the metro. Also "upp" seems to mean "up" and "under" seems to mean "under." 


10:45AM: Arrive at Stockholm University and on the way to the Aula Magna meet Joan Greenbaum from CUNY, one of the keynote speakers. She's sort of lost too, so you bond over that (cool). Here are some pics of the campus:

several of the buildings on this part of the campus were done in this same kind of lodgy-lots of windows style

the next two photos are of the hall where the opening reception and key note speeches were held, very rustic feeling!

11:30AM - 4:45PM: Listen to a couple of keynote speeches, be really lost when they start talking about theory; thankfully Prof. Lair the theorist is there to fill me in! (THANK YOU!) Attend some really cool presentations about work life balance (more on those later, I left my notes with Professor Lair), learn a new (British?) term: banana time (google it!), and pal around with some real life sociologists. Turns out there are delegates here from 26 different countries, 6 of us are Americans! Eat a small cheese, lettuce, and red pepper sandwich, the cheese here is SO GOOD. Start to get really excited about the presentation tomorrow.


5-6PM: Work feverishly on calculations for the presentation tomorrow. 


6:30: Reception at the Stockholm City Hall (complete with wine and interesting hors d'oeuvres) in the Golden Room where they hold the Nobel prize ball every year, nbd. Learn there are "over 18 millions of mosaics" tiles and 10 kilos of gold in the room, cool. Be welcomed by Margareta Björk, Madam President of Stockholm city council, super cool. (Fun facts: of the 12 city council members, 6 of them are women and of the 101 city council members, 54 of them are women!) Get your picture taken with Madam President of the city council, NBD. This day: boom, roasted. 

 Stockholm city hall from a distance

 some other cool building (perhaps the congress hall?) across the road from city hall

 inside the Golden Hall, this is the goddess of the lake who holds Stockholm (the center of the world) in her lap

 Professor Lair and I with Madam President!!

 view from the back of city hall. you can see the old town to the left of the photo. 

 more city hall. it was finished in 1923 but a lot of the architecture is strangely Arabic/moorish looking. 

the old town

8:30PM: End the day with an apple and a giant chocolate chip cookie from the 7/11 down the street? Feels just like I'm back in Gettysburg. 


Presentation tomorrow morning at 9, wish us luck! 


katie