Countdown to Christmas

Hello all. Counting down the days now until I get back to the states. I've had a busy week trying to see all the sights that I haven't seen here yet. After Kiruna, I studied for a few days and took my exams. The great thing about exams here is if you fear you're going to fail, all you have to do is not take the final, then its just an incomplete class, and Iowa State will never know that you took nuclear chemistry and didn't start studying until the night before only to realize you didn't understand half the material...not that that happened or anything. You know me, straight A student. I can pass any test (that I take)

Anywho, after exams were over, I celebrated a Swedish holiday, called St Lucia Day. On this day (December 13th) a girl from every town/church/school is selected to be that year's Lucia. From what I hear, its pretty much a beauty pageant. You don't see too many Lucias without blond hair and blue eyes. So this girl wears a crown of candles on her head and sings with a bunch of other girls all these traditional Lucia songs. I went to Skansen (the open air museum) to see their Lucia concert. How very Swedish of me. That night, our corridor threw a "White Wonderland" party and lots of people came (and we got into a lot of trouble with KTH housing...) But it was fun, and everyone wore white like they were suppose to. I woke up early the next morning, cleaned up, and headed over to the bus station around 1 to pick up my friend Brent, who has been working in Germany this semester. So I waited, and waited, and finally I texted him to see where he was. "I'm in Germany," he said, "My flight gets in at 11:30 PM." So I felt stupid and went back home. So again that night, I went to the bus station, and this time I found Brent (with much longer hair than I recalled) and we had an exciting adventure that very night. The tunnelbana stops running at 1 am, so instead we decided to take the night bus back to my apartment (which I had never taken before) So we got on the bus alright and rode around for awhile. At one point the bus stopped, opened the door briefly, then closed it again, and drove off. This is when I realized that we had just missed our stop. Then the bus got on the highway, drove a bit, and got off again, and we exited at the next stop, Vastra Skogen. I didn't think it wise to walk back along the highway, so we just crossed the street, and waited for the bus to come back the other way. So we stood at the bus stopthere, next to a puddle of vomit might I add, for 40 minutes, and finally the bus came and took us to my apartment. We were back by 2:30. A great first impression of Stockholm from a very knowledgeable guide...

Drottningholms Slott

So I played tourist for the next 3 days. We visited the library (more fun than it sounds), my school, gamla stan, drottningholms slott (the royal castle), the nobel museum, stadshuset, the vasa museum, and the nordiska museum. Ate lots of lasagna (I'll leave it to Brent to describe the food in detail) and hung out with some of my friends. I told him all of the history and interesting facts about Stockholm I had learned over my time here. I'm surprised how much I actually did learn. We had a good time and it was nice to talk to an American... although I suppose I'll be able to talk to plenty of Americans in just a few days. He left on Thursday morning (at 3 am...Ryan Air doesn't always fly at convenient times) and since then, I've been to the Absolut Ice Bar (a bar made entirely of ice) and centralbadet (a spa) and started the difficult task of buying Christmas gifts...(grandparents, dad, and mom- done. chrissy, you don't get a gift, you still own me for all those clothes I bought you!)

Even the glasses are made of ice at the ice bar

Back in November, I was excited to think that in 6 short weeks I would be returning home and seeing my family and friends. Now, with only 4 days to go, I'm feeling really sad. For most of people on my floor, it is relatively easy to visit each other. Europe is small and flights are cheap. But for me, it is very likely that I'll never see these people again. I've had to say goodbye to 7 of my friends already. On Sunday, most of my friends will be leaving, including some of my close ones, and its going to be really hard. I've made Stockholm my home, and I've become really close with the people on my floor. However, I certainly haven't forgotten about all my fantastic friends in Ames, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, and annoying you with pictures and stories from Sweden for the next year of so. See you soon!

Training for the Iditarod

Sometimes I regret my decision to come to Sweden in the winter. Its cold therefore a lot of attractions are closed. My guide book is always telling me the best time to visit this city or that region is the summer. But finally, I have visited a place in Sweden that is best experienced in the winter. I left on Wednesday night for my 19 hour train journey north, past the arctic circle to the land of the northern lights and unimaginable cold. I traveled with the girls I usually travel with- Titia and Rose from my floor, along with 7 others, some of which I sorta knew, and others that I didn't know at all. We were a diverse bunch- french, australian, brazilian, german, spanish, netherlandsian (thats probably not right), and of course american. The train was not as bad as I expected and before we knew it, we arrived at our destination, Kiruna, a mining town in the north of Sweden, in the region called Lappland. In the summer, the sun never sets, in the winter, the sun never rises. Luckily we got there before the darkness set in. Although I never really saw the sun, there was about 4 hours of sunrise/sunset everyday.

We stayed at a place called Camp Alta, in the middle of the wilderness next to a big (frozen) lake. The cottage was nice and there was lots to do around the camp. The first night, we took a snowmobile tour around the lake and to the ice hotel (a hotel made entirely of ice) Unfortunately for us, the hotel was not yet finished (we were a few days to early) so we were unable to take a tour of the inside, but we did see the outside, and it looked pretty cool. Snowmobiling was also very fun. The fact that it was dark outside added to the excitement. The next day we decided to take a train to Narvik, Norway. We had heard that the view from the train was really something, and it certainly was. We spent the entire trip taking pictures out the window. I was happy to finally see a fjord. Once we arrived in Narvik, we didn't have much time until the train went back to Kiruna, so we wandered around some parks and down by the harbor. Again, there were many weird baby statues...but then again, we were in Norway...

View from the train to Narvik

The following day was our dog sled tour. We were suppose to have 2 people per sled, then take turns driving, but for some reason, they gave us each our own sled. The dogs weren't huskies like I thought they would be. Huskies are for longer expeditions I learned. We had racing dogs. I'm not sure what breed they were, but they certainly were fast. All I had to do was stand with a foot on each side of the sled and step on a brake, which dug down in the snow, when I wanted to slow down. The tricky part was braking with one foot while maintaining balance on the other, especially if the dogs were turning at the same time, or decided to cut corners sending you flying off a snow ramp. I didn't fall though. The only bad thing about the experience was the temperature. That day it was 25 C (in Kiruna they don't bother saying negative in front of the temperature, this is understood) and at one point got as low as 30. We stopped for lunch in a Sami tent (the Sami are the indigenous people of Sweden that herd reindeer in Lappland) and attempted to warm up, with out much success. Thankfully, we took the short way home after lunch and once we were back we played with the dogs and puppies for awhile and went back to our cabin. That night it was very clear and we saw what we thought were the northern lights, although it was not very bright, but at least it was something. The stars were also bright, so I looked for the only constellation I know and located the northern star. I had to look up much higher than I'm used to.

Sunrise over the lake

The last day, we spent the day enjoying the free activities at the camp. We woke up early to see the sunrise (early = 10:30) and then went cross country skiing around the lake. Afterwards we had a camp fire, and I showed them how to make smores (I had my sister bring graham crackers from home because I plan ahead like that) Would you believe these people have never heard of smores? Everyone liked them though. Our train back to Stockholm left that evening and 16 hours later we were back home. All in all, I had a really great time. This was probably my favorite trip of my time here. I made lots of new friends, a little too late though. I'm starting to get really sad about leaving Stockholm. I was trying to remember my cell phone number from back home the other day and I couldn't do it. I hope I at least remember how to drive. 2 weeks left...

I'm thankful for multiple kitchens

My sister, Chrissy, arrived in Stockholm on Wednesday morning, and proceeded to sleep several hours. I eventually had to wake her up cuz you see the funny thing about living up north...the sun sets at 3:30, and its getting earlier everyday. So we did the tourist thing, walked around Gamla Stan, went to the National Museum where we saw lots of modern furniture (its like IKEA in museum form). That night I thought I'd give her a taste of the European night life, so we put on our best clubbing attire and went to Cafe Opera. So we danced and drank expensive beer and listened to Swedish rap and left in time to take the last tunnelbana home.

The day after that was Thanksgiving, and I woke up in a panic. I don't know why I thought it would be a fun idea to share "American culture" and cook Thanksgiving dinner for my floor, but I did, and there was no backing out at that point. I scoured the city weeks before for a turkey, which I eventually found, although it cost quite a bit of money. We cooked all day for the 16 other people I had invited. After the turkeys were actually in the oven, I calmed down a bit and tried to enjoy the day. In addition to the turkey we made stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. There was only one other American there besides my sister, and he thought I did a good job, so it must have been ok. The others wouldn't have known any better if I messed it up- The turkey is raw? Yeah umm, thats how we eat it in America. It also helped that each apartment on the floor has its own kitchen. At one point I had something in 5 different ovens. So the day was stressful, but I was also very proud of myself. All those hours of watching the food network back home must have paid off....

On Friday we spent a considerable amount of time shopping. Chrissy didn't bring any money, and her credit card didn't work over here, but that didn't stop her from buying a new coat, a scarf, a sweater, shoes, tights, ice scrapers that look like tiger paws...and guess who paid for it all. But I suppose you're only in Sweden once. That night we went out to dinner at a nice Swedish restaurant and I got a moose burger. Moose is better than reindeer in case you were wondering. We went to another club, this one was called Medusa, and it was a rock club on Gamla Stan. It was two levels, the basement looked like a cave, and that is where all the dancing took place. DJ in a cage, fog machines, laser lights- you know, typical Ames, Iowa. We sang along with all our favorite System of a Down and Disturbed songs. They even played a rock version of Rihanna's Umbrella. I think the hard core head banger types there were not happy about this. We were forced to go home early because Chrissy's new shoes were hurting too much. "I wouldn't have worn them if I knew we were going out dancing" she said. Always expect dancing, Chrissy.

Saturday we went to the open air museum, Skansen. Its like one of those old timey villages we used to go to for field trips in elementary school. There are lots of old houses and shops, like the glassblowing shop, pottery shop, blacksmith, bakery, hardwear store. And everyone was in traditional costumes. It was the first day of the Christmas market (oh boy!) so we bought lots and ate lots. I tried glögg, which is a warm spiced wine-my new favorite. That night we went to a hockey game but Djurgården (the team I assume we were suppose to be cheering for) lost, so the Swedes were sad.

Chrissy, looking like she's having a fun time, at Skansen

On Sunday morning, Chrissy and I took a bus out to our relative's house, the same ones I had visited before- Björn, Kajsa, and Jerker. They had really wanted to meet my entire family, but my parents were not in Sweden long enough to see them, so my younger sister was all they got. Again, we ate and drank lots. More glögg, more traditional Swedish food. We did a smörgåsbord, a buffet with lots of food but no main course, and had christmas porridge, called risgrynsgröt. Supposedly you have to leave out a bowl of porridge for the christmas gnomes if you dont want to have bad luck fall upon your family. I never knew. The next day we drove around the area and looked at some places having to do with our family history- the train station from which our great grandfather used to transport people to town, the inn where out family would sell milk and butter, the old school my great grandfather went to, the lake my great great grandfather would fish in, my great great grandmothers gravestone, which is still there. We also visited the town of Loka where my great grandfather once worked. The town is known for its water, which is the cleanest in Sweden I'm told, and has special healing powers. This was extra exciting for me, because there is also this bubbley water they sell everywhere here, called Loka, which is made from the water at Loka supposedly. Anyways, I like the citrus flavored Loka water, and I buy it here a lot. I found all of this very interesting, although I think my sister is less enthusiastic about family history.

The family farm (photomerge!)

My sister left this morning, so I have a day and a half of free time before I leave for Kiruna, up north. Maybe one day I'll have some time to study for my exams. Perhaps that what I'll do on my 16 hour train ride tomorrow....ugh.

my first real visitor (parents don't count)

Hey guys. Long time no see. I'm sad to say I haven't been doing anything terribly exciting here lately. I haven't been traveling anywhere, in an effort to save money and avoid going outside (its cold). So I go to class, I hang out with my floormates, I try new recipes...Very exciting stuff. Over the past 3 weekends I have gone to various erasmus parties (erasmus = what europeans call studying abroad) I went to an Irish pub and watched a rugby match. What an odd game. Being in a bar, watching sports on a big screen with lots of people really made me miss football (the american kind) That is one thing that people here definitely don't understand.

This past weekend things were a little more exciting than usual because I had a visitor! Lillian, a friend from high school, is studying in Vienna this semester, and decided to pay me a visit. She was here Thursday until today (Tuesday) and we did all the touristy stuff. We went shopping all over the place- Sodermalm (the trendy south island), Drottningsgatan (the main shopping street near the central station), and Gamla Stan (the old part of the city). We must have spotted at least 15 H&M's along the way. There is a big H&M on Drottningsgatan, with one across the street, and one 2 doors down... Not sure why that one street needs 3 H&M's, but whatever. I admit that I have gone to all 3 on a single shopping trip. For those that don't know what H&M is, shame on you! Its only the best store ever. And its Swedish. Lillian was very excited to shop in an authentic, Swedish H&M (although they really are no different than the ones back in the US)

Lillian on the south end of Kungsholmen (the island I live on)

On Sunday, we got lost on the way to a Christmas market and nearly froze to death. We wanted to get to this Steninge Slott market that we had read about in a guide. We checked out the website and the instructions seemed simple enough...take the train to Marsta, then the bus to a certain stop, and follow the signs to the market...So we took the train 30 km out of the city and found our bus. The bus stop we wanted was in the middle of a residential neighborhood, but there were signs, so we followed them. So we started walking, but somehow along the way we became lost. We ended up on a path in a forest, which didn't seem quite right. Eventually, we encountered a man walking his dog and I asked if he knew where the christmas market was. We had taken a wrong turn, so we backtracked, and finally found this place after about 45 minutes of walking...in the snow. Anyways the market was nice. I bought a julbocken....a christmas goat. I'm not sure what the significance of these are, but you see them everywhere now. It is this horse like thing made of straw and ribbon. It looks way cool on my table next to my new IKEA candle.

Julbocken är kul!

So I had a fun time with Lillian, but now I'm going to have to do all the tourist stuff all over again because my sister will be here tomorrow morning! But I'm a way good hostess, I think I convinced Lillian to move to Stockholm. I was nice to speak to an American again, at a normal speed without having to explain what different words mean. I think you will find when I return that my english has gotten worse. Oh well, I'm an engineer, I suppose it works.

No need to tell people I'm from Canada anymore

So, I hear there was some sort of election in the US on Tuesday. How'd that go for you? Actually I should know the answer to that...as its all anyone's been talking to me about for the past 2 days. The people in my hall start chanting O-BAM-A when they pass my room. I've been congratulated even. Well gosh that's nice, but I didn't do anything. I didn't even vote (I know, I'm a bad American) Since I haven't been doing anything too exciting this week, I figure I'd share with you some of the things I've noticed regarding people's attitudes towards America and the election.

First, on the subject of America in general, only two cities seem to matter to the students here. When I ask if they've been to the states, they've either been to New York or LA, or want to go to New York or LA. Most people have heard of Chicago, but believe it to be on the east coast, somewhere warm with no snow. People have heard the name Iowa before but don't know anything about it. Probably a good thing, as the few who do know are relentless with the comments on corn and barn dances (I swear, I've never been to one!) In one of my lectures last week, the professor was talking about genetically engineered corn. He said- Believe it or not, in America, there are entire states devoted to growing corn!- I think I may know a little something about those. No one seems to know how many states there are either. Sometimes I'll ask, usually the answer I get is 48. Then I correct them and go on to recite all of the states alphabetically in song form. Europeans are impressed by this.

Now onto the election, because I'm sure you haven't read enough about that on the internet already.... For the past 3 months, I have been asked time and time again what I think about the election. For the most part, the Europeans tend to be in support of Obama. And although I'm not that well informed, I managed to stay more informed than all of them. So I could answer most of their questions, like "So is McCain a Democrat or Republican?" After awhile, the constant talks about the election started to get on my nerves. I'd be at a party, having a good time, when someone would come up to me and say- You're American right? What do you think of Obama's plan to blah blah blah- and I'd answer, because I'm nice like that, but secretly I just wanted to get away. At one such party, I was talking to a student from Iran, who asked what I thought about Bush. I gave my standard answer of saying something he's not my favorite, a lot of Americans disagree with his policies, and so on, and then he responded telling me that he and a lot of people in Iran, especially young ones, like George Bush. I was surprised by this. He said it was because he puts a lot of pressure on the Iranian government so they can still have a few liberties. It was his dream to go study in America. It seems to be a lot of people's dream here. "Just to see what's so great about it."

So anyways the election is over now, so maybe all the questions will be over too, we'll see. Some of the Swiss boys on the floor stayed up until 4 am and watched the results on election night, while the American (me) slept. I wish I could have been back in Ames to watch with all my American friends. It would have been even cooler to be in Chicago. But its also an interesting perspective to see people's reactions here. And I've seen how excited people are about America, and even in the subjects I'm studying, the US seems to set the bar for everyone else. So I guess I'm lucky. Even if I have a lame accent or overweight friends, the US is pretty sweet. (Totally kidding about you being overweight btw, you look great!)

I read that newspapers announcing Obama's victory are selling out quickly all over the world. So here's a little something from Sweden. The newspaper I usually read (or attempt to read)

Wait? So George Bush was Obama all along? I knew it!

Oslo: not enough fjords

It's been a very eventful week here in Scandinavia. It began with two exams, one of which I didn't realize I had until the day before because I didn't bother to look at my schedule. But don't worry, I aim only to pass, and that I am sure (or pretty sure) I did. After my two days of actual work, things went back to normal and I decided to go on a little trip to another one of my many homelands.

The destination was Oslo, Norway. I went with Karoline, a funny German girl who I did my dental implant paper with for biomedical materials. We left on Tuesday night for the 8 hour bus ride to Oslo. The plan was the sleep on the bus. I brought my pillow and my sleeping pills, but alas, I could not sleep. We arrived around 5:30 am and couldn't check into the hostel until 1 pm. A fun morning ensued. We sat in a Burger King for a few hours until stuff started opening. (More Burger Kings in Oslo than McDonalds, a first in any of the European cities I've visited) We went to the National Gallery and saw The Scream (Edvard Munch = Norwegian) and ate at Peppe's Pizza, the best American pizza chain in Norway I'm told. And I have no doubt that is true...Norway is a very small country after all. After a morning of walking around half asleep, we finally were able to check into the hostel and proceeded to take a nap. Afterwards, we visited the newly opened opera house. Its quite a unique building. We walked up the roof (see picture to understand how this is possible) and took lots of pictures. We continued the sightseeing the rest of the evening, probably had dinner at some point, and went out for a drink to my favorite Scandinavian chain of Irish pubs, The Dubliner. I had one beer for 75 Norwegian kroner (11 dollars) and decided I would never drink in Norway again, especially if I wanted enough money to get home.

The Norwegian Opera & Ballet

Day two in Norway was rainy and cold, what the Germans call "dog weather" I was told, but we were still out there, seeing what else Oslo had to offer. We visited the viking ship museum in the morning. The museum had 3 viking ships, later used as burial ships, for sailing around in the afterlife I suppose, from around the year 900. They were in very good condition considering the age. You must now be thinking that I have a weird obsession with old ship museums, but its not my fault, its what the Swedes and Norwegians like to display in their countries. So after that museum we went to the Gustav Vigeland sculpture garden consisting of over 200 statues by the same guy of humans at different stages of life displaying a variety of emotions. My favorite one was of a man kicking a baby. I guess its ok to kick babies in Norway. Perhaps its my Norwegian blood that makes me not so crazy about babies. Its only those darn kittens that reduce me to a girly mess. That night we took a trip up into the hills to visit a restaurant I had read about in my guide book, Frognerseteren. Getting there was a bit sketchy though. We took the tunnelbana (subway) to the last stop on the line, this too was called Frognerseteren. The stop was outside with nothing and nobody around except the forest. We eventually found a sign leading down a hill that said 'restaurant' and figured this was what we wanted. The path was dark. I kept tripping on rocks, keeping an eye out for rapists and murderers hiding in the woods. Very scary. But I suppose my fears are misplaced in somewhere like Norway. The food was good and the view was nice. So on your next trip to Oslo, I highly recommend it. Well this is getting a bit long so I'll speed things up here. The third day in Oslo was spent walking and shopping and trying to spend the rest of my money. We took the bus home on Saturday, another 8 hours of fun, and arrived in time for the big end of exams party at the student union.

A baby being kicked at the Vigeland sculpture park

I fear that my posts from now on may be less interesting, as I think I might cut back on the ridiculous amount of travelling. Although I have excellent news. 1 dollar now equals 7.9 kroner (up from 5.8 in August) Yay global economic crisis! So until next time guys, Happy Halloween!

Part II: Janet and Marty explore their Scandanavian roots

When I last left you, I had a full box of Reeses Puffs and I had just returned from London with my parents in tow. Well I ran out of milk, so I still have plenty of cereal. Skim milk in Sweden is called minimjolk- I was very confused the first time I went to the grocery store. Oh but you want to hear less about food and more about what I've been up to this past week? Well alright, if you insist...

So I finally got around to seeing Stockholm this week. We went to all the big tourist attractions. Skansen, the open air museum, has been open since the late 19th century. It features old buildings from all over Sweden. There are people dressed up in traditional costumes who hang out in the houses or shops or churches and tell you about what life would be like in that time and place. There is also a zoo, with animals found in Sweden. Moose, seals, and bears, oh my! Oh and there were just peacocks wandering around the paths. The bears and foxes were put in the same habitat for some reason. I was very nervous for the poor foxes. There was a bit of an issue regarding some kind of dead animal. The foxes had it, but the bear wanted it, so when the foxes noticed that the bear was approaching them, one of them took the food behind a bush along the fence and the other fox stood between the bear and the fox with the food. Gutsy. But no one died. Darn.

After a long afternoon at Skansen, we walked over to the Vasa museum. The Vasa is a warship that sunk in the Stockholm harbor on its maiden voyage back in 1628. 333 years later, the wreckage was found. It had been preserved under clay or silt or whatever was at the bottom of the harbor. The ship was salvaged and treated with some sort of polymer (yay materials) to replace the water in the wood and put on display. I hadn't been that excited about seeing the ship. My thoughts were, oh great, a ship, but it actually was very impressive. The place kinda smelled weird though.

The Vasa Warship

After 3 days in Stockholm, we left for Copenhagen, Denmark. We stayed at a bed and breakfast. The lady who owned it seemed very nice, but she kept talking to me in Danish, even though I never responded in this language. Fortunately, I could understand a little of what she said because Danish is pretty similar to Swedish. Not that I can speak Swedish all that well. We saw all the important sights. Went of a canal tour and saw the harbor, visited Tivoli, the amusement park in the middle of the city all decked out in Halloween decorations, and ate Danishes (sorry, no more food). My favorite part of the trip was probably the visit to the Carlsberg brewery. I think Carlsberg isn't as popular in the US, but you've heard of it right? Its my beer of choice here, as it was during my summer in London. I didn't learn anything on the tour that I didn't already know, as I've already been on many brewery tours. I just like free beer (well I still had to pay for the tour), and I tried some interesting Carlsberg varieties that I hadn't heard of before. I would have stolen some glasses too if it wasn't for my parents storing their stolen glasses in my bag. Good influences, those two.

My parents flight left several hours before mine, so on Sunday afternoon I went to the Louisiana modern art museum 30 km outside the city. It was a good museum, but god was it crowded. I've never seen so many people at an art museum. And so many children. It was a bit annoying. The museum itself was a bit of a maze. Lots of stuff was outside as well. I found a narrow path/work of art called journey of self discovery or something like that, so I followed it, and I wound up at some other building with other artwork. It was all a very confusing adventure. I returned to Stockholm that night, and over the last few days I've been recovering from all the sightseeing and walking. I don't see how I managed those 2.5 weeks spent backpacking through Europe. Maybe I've grown lazy in my old age. And now finals are approaching (quarter system, how silly) so I might actually have to do some work this week! lame.

Art museums in Denmark

Check out pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30355022@N06/sets/72157608020735470/
and sorry for switching between flickr and facebook all the time. People are going to have to put a little more effort into their stalking if they want to see pictures of my parents.