October 5, 2009
Sweden, Really Old Rocks, Birthdays, Olympics, and Fall!
The past two(um..let’s make that three-ish) weeks have been quite eventful! Once again this update was supposed to be posted back on Monday or Tuesday but…this just takes awhile and I’m a busy girl. So now I will just add to it…
Two(now three..) weekends ago I went with Bri and Caitlin to Stockholm, Sweden! It was fantastic. I really can’t even find the words to adequately describe the city. It was so beautiful, with some spectacular scenery. Stockholm is built around water, with several islands making up the city. I had heard great things about Stockholm from my Aunt Kris, who spent a year studying there after high school, but I wasn’t even prepared for what a gorgeous city it was. Ok moving on, but really – it is a beautiful city and everyone should go there.
We took a night train on Thursday, and arrived on Friday at about 6am. We realized that no one had thought to write down the address of our hostel (well, I thought about it, just did not execute) but we knew that it was on Gamla Stan, the island that is the oldest part of the city. So we made our way there as the sun came up, and literally just happened upon our hostel. Well, we thought it might be on this street, so we went there, and luckily for us it was. It was in a great location actually, close to many of the sights in the old part of the city. We spent the first day walking, a lot. We visited Kungliga Slottet (the royal palace) and Storkyrkan (the Royal Cathedral), which were both pretty much around the corner from our hostel. We paid to go in and see the cathedral, which was quite beautiful. We walked around Södermalm, a pretty and trendy neighborhood. There we climbed up to get an aerial view of the city from Katarinahissen, an old lift/tower. We had a picnic lunch in a nearby park, and ended up taking a short nap in the sun. We were fortunate enough to have absolutely beautiful weather while there. It was in the upper 60’s (F) with not a cloud in the sky, all weekend! Each day we took full advantage of that with a lovely nap in the sun 
. For dinner, our hostel provided a kitchen and free pasta for all guests, so we bought a few accompaniments and had a nice, cheap dinner. We went out to the streets of Södermalm that night, and had a beer in a quiet-ish bar we found. But we were disheartened by the hefty prices on everything, and we were pretty exhausted from our travels and extensive walking, so we called it a night fairly early.
On Saturday we headed over the island Djurgården, which besides having several attractions, we heard was a very scenic place to go. And whoever told us that was correct! We walked through the gorgeous island on our mission to find Skansen, an open-air museum my guidebook recommended. Along the way we happened upon Rosendals Slott. It wasn’t much of a castle in my opinion, but the gardens were nice and we had another picnic and sunny nap there. Finally we found Skansen, and spent the next few hours there. They have taken old buildings (farmhouses, schoolhouses, town halls, manors, etc.) from all over Sweden and put them here to create a “Sweden in miniature”. It’s like a Jamestown type place, where people are dressed up like Swedes from back in the day, and they’re just going about their lives. There was also a mini-zoo displaying the native farm and exotic animals of Scandinavia. No need to say that that was my favorite part. But don’t worry, I will spare you all the pictures I took of the ponies, wolves, bears, mooses, seals, etc. So we spent a lovely day in Djurgården, then went out to have a grand time that night. Originally we planned to go to the famous Absolut Ice Bar, or this well-known jazz club near our hostel, but they were too expensive. So after walking around for forever looking for a suitable place we ended up at O’Connelly’s Irish Pub. A little blues band was playing, it was free entry, and the bartenders were young and friendly, so we had a great time.
On Sunday we were exhausted and sore from walking (we did not take public transportation once while there, mostly for money reasons - we walked everywhere!) but we dragged ourselves out of bed and to the island of Skeppsholmen, on which resides Stockholm’s Moderna Museet (Modern Museum of Art). They were having a Salvador Dali exhibition that we all wanted to see, and it was pretty cool. After that we walked up to Central Stockholm again, to see it in daylight and also to go to a flea market we heard about. It was closed, but we walked around, had delicious shawarmas for lunch, and took another sunny nap in a park. After that we of course had to…go souvenir shopping. I just had to buy a Dalecarlian Horse, one of the wooden horse statuettes, painted red and decorated with a harness. They are icons of Sweden, and I love horses, so I had to buy one. Even though the little one I got was waaaay too expensive. After our urge to buy things had been satisfied, we just hung out around Stockholm for a few more hours until it was time to catch our night train back to Copenhagen. We were tired but happy, and the trip was a big success. The three of us traveled really well together, thankfully. Now for some pictures. These represent about 1/100000 of the ones I took, but I’ll try to provide some of the highlights:
Me, and my backpack, as we walked from Central Station to find our hostel at 6am
As we searched for our hostel
A pretty church
Early morning in Stockholm
Part of Kungliga Slott
Storkyrkan, the Royal Cathedral, which is pretty much right next door to the palace
Inside Storkyrkan. It was consecrated in 1306! Beautiful cathedral.
View from Katarinahissen, looking just across the street from it.
Looking toward the island of Gamla Stan
Looking toward the island of Djurgarden (I'm too lazy to put the special characters in again)
On our way to Djurgarden, a view of Kungliga Slot as a whole.
Officially over on Djurgarden. This is the Nordisk Museum, which is, as you can see, a very impressive building.
Djurgarden, a very scenic island.
Rosendals Slott? Hmm...I feel bad for whatever important family had to call this their palace.
But the "palace"'s gardens were lovely, and we had a scrumptious picnic of nutella/banana sandwiches there, followed by a fantastic nap!
Inside Skansen (a very cool place) we found this. Yes, a life-size Dalecarlian horse. Unfortunately we could not get Caitlin up for a trio picture. And I am not ashamed to say that this was the highlight of my second day in Stockholm.
Entry to a street that connects Gamla Stan to Central Stockholm
A pretty church we passed on our way to the Moderna Museet on Sunday
Seriously, Stockholm? Seriously?
A street in Central Stockholm
Near the end of our last day in the city we found ourselves hanging out on a dock on the street our hostel was on. This was one of my favorite scenes in all of Stockholm
And looking in the other direction on the dock, one of my other favorite scenes in Stockholm.
Because I feel that I haven't quite done Stockholm justice, here's just a few more pictures of places/views I loved. This is the Opera House, and behind it a red church we unfortunately didn't go to.
A view from our journey to Djurgarden
:)
On the right is the city hall I believe.
Storkyrkan, and the building to the right is part of the palace
I will wrap up Stockholm by reiterating what a great city it was. I wish I could put all of my pictures up, but I’m thinking about making an online photo album somewhere else, for anyone who is interested in seeing more. I’ll let you know.
The week after we got back from Sweden was busy. There were three 21st birthdays! First Ed had his party on Tuesday. Then Bri’s on Wednesday, which was spent at the international night at Studenterhuset. Then, mine on Friday! 21st birthdays aren’t such a big deal here in Europe. But I had a great time!
Last Saturday (Sept. 26) my Nordic Mythology class had an expedition to Skåne (pronounced like scone) in southern Sweden. We went to three stone formations from the Viking Age. First we saw a stone formation in the shape of a ship, in the middle of which is buried someone who, obviously, was quite important. Next we went to a burial ground for more common people, but it had several smaller stone formations. Last we visited some runic stones. All of these were from the Viking age, so like 500-1000AD. I thought it was so so so cool! I mean, vikings put those rocks there!Definitely the oldest things I’ve ever seen. Really neat. One of the best parts was also riding the bus through Sweden. It’s a beautiful country, full of hills and quaint, picturesque towns.
The impressive Swedish coastline, which my camera does not do justice.
The first site, a burial ground with a rock formation in the shape of a ship. Obviously ships were very important to the Vikings, and although this has never been excavated, others like it have been and it is safe to say that someone very important is buried here.
The bow of the ship
Our second stop, a burial ground for those poor folks who weren't important enough to have a whole ship to themselves
Our final stop, at some runic stones. This says "Fader, let these runes be hewn after Asser, his brother, who found death northwards, in Viking (i.e. in viking activities)"
The second rock: "Fader let this stone be hewn after Björn, who owned ships with him"
On the reverse side of the second stone there is this forbidding face mask. It is facing to the north, where it was thought the evil spirits came from, so it is perhaps meant to ward off evil spirits.
The final thing on my list of exciting things to talk about occurred yesterday, Friday Oct. 2. As everyone probably knows, there are many exciting things happening in Copenhagen right now. Soon some of the foremost leaders in the world will be here for the climate conference. But yesterday it was the 2016 Olympics location announcement that had everyone’s attention. Michelle Obama arrived in Copenhagen on Wednesday, and Oprah and Michael Jordan were also in town to support Chicago. I’m pretty sure I passed Michelle’s motorcade as I biked home from class on Thursday. At least, it was a very big motorcade with many police, so that is what I choose to believe. On Friday President Barack Obama himself came to Copenhagen, for a whopping 4 hours or something like that. On Friday morning the presentations of all the cities were made to the IOC in the Bella Center. Bri and I planned to go, either to the Bella Center to try to catch a glimpse of him outside, or to the City Hall Square where they set up a stage and screen to watch the proceedings on. Turns out we didn’t make it to either, but that’s what we get for staying out a bit too late on Thursday…Later in the afternoon we went to the Square to partake in some of the Olympic festivities. There were a ton of people there, and representatives for each of the candidate cities. Although, Tokyo, Rio, and Madrid had far more supporters than did Chicago. After finding out that Chicago and Tokyo were out, Aqua came on stage to play. You know, Aqua – the international music sensation, hailing from Denmark, who brought us such timeless classics as “I’m A Barbie Girl”. I must say, they were pretty great. And I’m just so happy to be able to say that I have seen Aqua live. Also, we randomly met a guy in the crowd from the US, who won the Olympic gold medal last year in wrestling. He showed us his ring and pictures from his win and stuff, it was pretty cool. His name was Henry Something. He was pretty bummed about Chicago’s loss because he was going to get to be a spokesperson had it won. But all of us were rooting for Rio, so when the announcement came we were pretty excited. But not as excited as the Rio contigent, who went wild! I actually saw one man crying. After the announcement, Denmark’s most famous rock band, D A D, came up to play. Highly entertaining. It was a great party!
And the 2016 Olympics will be held in......
Rio de Janeiro! Yay! After seeing the city's video presentation, I will be there.
Yesterday (Sunday) I made my first visit to Christiania, the “free city” within Copenhagen. In 1971 a group of young/homeless/hippies/whatevers moved into this area of Christianshavn that used to hold barracks for soldiers. They declared themselves free of the rules and regulations of the Danish government, and surprisingly, the Danish government let them be (mostly…from what I understand they’re not free from the rules, but they’re at least mostly exempt from them). People live there, in communal style, and I heard they even have schools and stuff. And yes, when you walk down the main road there are plenty of drugs to be bought. But from what I saw, nothing hard – just marijuana/hash. Although, I didn’t exactly check it out so for all I know you can get anything. But that’s just part of Christiania, and it’s not the only reason people like to go. It’s a very “chill” place I would say. There’s a jazz bar, a few nice cafes, and Sunshine Bakery, which is very famous for its cakes (I didn’t try one yesterday but you better believe I will be returning there…). It’s just an overall interesting place, and I’m not exactly sure how to describe it better since I’ve only been once. But the whole area has brick walls around it, and when you leave, the sign above the exit says “You are now re-entering the EU” Haha. Unfortunately I have no pictures, because they don’t allow photos inside, but I’ll make another visit eventually and maybe work up the courage to sneak one.
Besides all of that…Classes are going well. I like my Danish culture class, and I really really like my Nordic Mythology class. And the Danish language is HARD! These Danes, they are self-proclaimed lazy speakers. They pronounce about half of the letters in their words it seems! And they run words together, and combine them, but only sometimes, and once in awhile two d’s together sound like an impossible cross between an l and a y, and two t’s at the end of a word can sound like an l. What? Not to mention, they make sounds that my mouth just refuses to produce. It’s exhausting! But I think I’m actually making some progress. I can distinguish some words and phrases in conversations I hear out and about. And I haven’t tried out some of the phrases I’ve learned, but soon I will muster the courage to order a sandwich in danish (Jeg vil gerne have en sandwich med…ost/tun/skinke/etc). Or ask how much a beer costs in a corner store (”Hvad koster en Carlsberg?”) The grammer is easy, it’s actually quite similar to English – but the pronounciation!!! I’m still too self-concious, but I’m working on it.
And fall is definitely here. I AM COLD! It seems that one day it was nice, bright, sunny, mid-70’s, and the next I was biking home from class at 7pm in the dark, wearing a heavy coat, scarf, and with my hands and ears numb because I haven’t found a reasonably priced hat or pair of gloves yet (update: found hat, very cute and cozy. Still working on gloves). Meanwhile, as I trot around in my eskimo get-up, the Danes all seem rather unaffected in their medium-warmth coats, bare heads, bare hands, and light scarves. Perhaps this is a bad sign, seeing as how it’s only the first week in October. But really I enjoy the cold. I like walking out into the crisp chilly fall air. I just like to be warm too.
And biking is going well, except for THE WIND. My God, the wind! I loathe it. I hate it with a fiery passion and I’m convinced now that it was created by the devil to make cycling unbearable. The wind can blow so hard here that you pretty much stop moving forward, despite your desperate pedaling. And it’s not just me. The other day I was biking, and a man was a few feet in front of me. We were going along alright when a monster gust of wind happened along, and suddenly it’s like time stops for a second, for both of us. One second we were moving, the next we were simply struggling. It was so funny to see him in front of me, motion suspended, bent down over his bike and pedaling for his life, just like me, that when it was over and I was done cussing the evil wind, I had to laugh to myself. I wish someone could get a video of some bikers hit in the face by a gust of wind. It would be pretty hilarious. Except I hate it. So much. It really makes life (aka biking) difficult.
To wrap this up: big news! Next Monday, a week from now, I will be heading off to Italy and Austria! Bri and I are spending our autumn break in Milan, Rome, Venice, and Vienna. I can’t wait!!! I just hope I come back with some money left
I think it’s time to stop pretending that I will get any better at updating this thing. You will just have to settle for my extra long updates that cover long expanses of time. So, until next time…you know, probably a month from now…
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