i have wanted to come to iceland for about 5 years... i don't know why but it has always been on my list, and now i am finally here! given that icelandair had the cheapest flights to and from stockholm my way home seemed like the perfect place to come.
i arrived in kef yesterday afternoon, now many people fly through kef to other destinations in europe - but clearly not too many get off in iceland... after the transfer area which was quite large i got to the baggage claim area which was smaller than the one at the good old manch-vegas airport... i was shocked - this was supposed to be a capital of a country!!! the size shocks just kept coming...
for those of you unaware here are some iceland facts. the population of the country is 317,000 and 2/3s of the population lives in reykjavik... so that means that the population of reykjavik is about 200,000 but downtown reykjavik is about the size of downtown concord (a town with 40,000 in population) with fewer large buildings... CRAZY!
anyhow, so last night i walked around reykjavik and got myself some dinner... although iceland's currency has been greatly devalued it seems to have had little effect on prices here... although hotels are incredibly reasonable food is even more expensive than it was in stockholm!
the city is beautiful, i can see the ocean from my hotel and there are all sorts of little brightly colored houses. this morning i did some blogging and emailing and then got up had breakfast and walked around the downtown, i bought my customary print and found the 66 north hat that i had been wanting since stockholm... otherwise no shopping for me...
this afternoon i went on a horseback riding trip. icelandic horses have been bred in complete isolation so they look really different kinda short and stout and very furry and when they run they go kinda sideways. anyhow it is quite cold in iceland and VERY windy but the horseback riding across the lava field was quite fun... however the pics are pretty bad, it is not easy to shoot with a slr while riding a horse- sorry :(
there is currently a volcano erupting in iceland - it started on march 21st and is apparently quite a big deal... i guess everytime this small volcano has erupted in the past it has triggered a HUGE volcano next door... so people are thinking that might happen again soon the last time it happened in 1783 BAD THINGS happened... so obviously i wanted to go see it - but also obviously since i didn't know about this until yesterday all the tours were booked... oh well
so tonight i am going to go get myself some icelandic fish and chips - repack my bags and tomorrow i am going to go to the blue lagoon before the airport back to boston!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
thoughts on trip as a whole
so not that i haven't written enough about the past ten days - but it was a really fun trip :) first it was nice to not travel by myself but also not to travel with a HUGE group, which business school seems to lend itself to. i think 4 people is the perfect number and we had a great group... we all seemed to be interested in pretty much the same schedule, getting up early, seeing lots of stuff, having a drink or two in the afternoon, having great dinners and heading to bed at a very tame hour.
so yay! the girls were lots of fun and we had MANY laughs along the way... in terms of cities i think that vienna was my favorite, it was so beautiful and especially at eastertime the markets and the eggs were amazing. budapest we had a great time but it was not at all what i was expecting - it is still very european whereas i guess i thought it would be more similar to turkey? or just more eastern?
prague was the only city i had been to before and it was great to go back... my family oftentimes travels in the winter and it is amazing what a difference a few months can make - prague was packed! and it was warm and just sitting out in the square with a drink was great. i remember on my last trip which was in december we were all FREEZING the entire time... this also makes me want to go back to scandinavia in the summer, i think that traveling during the winter is just more difficult, you can't pack as much in during the day. i certainly don't want to join the hoards of tourists in july in august but i think in the future i will try to take more trips in the april-may and sept-oct ranges.
so yay! the girls were lots of fun and we had MANY laughs along the way... in terms of cities i think that vienna was my favorite, it was so beautiful and especially at eastertime the markets and the eggs were amazing. budapest we had a great time but it was not at all what i was expecting - it is still very european whereas i guess i thought it would be more similar to turkey? or just more eastern?
prague was the only city i had been to before and it was great to go back... my family oftentimes travels in the winter and it is amazing what a difference a few months can make - prague was packed! and it was warm and just sitting out in the square with a drink was great. i remember on my last trip which was in december we were all FREEZING the entire time... this also makes me want to go back to scandinavia in the summer, i think that traveling during the winter is just more difficult, you can't pack as much in during the day. i certainly don't want to join the hoards of tourists in july in august but i think in the future i will try to take more trips in the april-may and sept-oct ranges.
prague
so unlike the train from vienna to budapest which was only 5 hours and where we could play bananagrams the entire time the train from budapest to prague was 7 hours and cramped and our car had a heating issue in that although it was 65 degrees outside the heat could not be turned off... i had a total heat attack and had to leave the car... but otherwise we got there safe and sound
so by the time we found and checked into our hotel it was definitely time for some food. we headed to pivovarsky klub where we had awesome beers and some great czech food... we sat for quite a while and soaked up the ambiance as well as the beer. on the way home from restaurant to the hotel we faced quite the conundrum, we got to the train station at 8:55 apparently the stands that sold tickets closed at 9, however, at the station we were at they were already closed. so having no way to buy a ticket we just got on the train anyways, they had a similar systems in vienna and budapest and although we had always purchased tickets we had never seen anyone get caught for not purchasing them. well when we got off at our stop we were busted. now i would have been fine being busted if i had the opportunity to purchase a ticket but we didn't! initially the cop wanted to fine us each $35 when a ticket costs $1, we talked him down to just fining us $35 for all four of us... but still pretty annoying. we headed back to the hotel and played more bananagrams... it was starting to become a theme.
the next day we set out early for the jewish quarter. prague has a great jewish history and the 7 buildings that comprise the museum are definitely a must see. i had been to all of them when i visited prague with my family in 2003 but it was nice to see them again when it was a bit warmer. we had lunch at kolkovna good old schnitzel and our first of many $2 .5L pilsner urquells YUM - nothing like cheap beer and fried meat! after lunch we walked back through both the old town square which had a crazy crowed easter market and made our way over to wenceslas square and the mucha museum. i had really enjoyed this museum the last time i was in prague and this time it was no different. mucha is a very interesting figure and had a huge impact on prague and the entire czech independence movement. we ended the day with drinks outside of the astronomical clock where we got to see the clock chime twice and then had a cute dinner followed by bananagrams, hearts and some european candy :)
saturday we decided that we didn't have enough left to do in prague for the two whole days that we had left and it was supposed to rain so we needed some indoor activities... we took the train about an hour and a half away to the pilsner urquell brewery in plzen. although plzen is a sprawling industrial town it has a cute old town area where both the brewery museum and the museum restaurant are. the brewery museum wins hands down for best audio tour they had hysterical characters that constantly talked about how disgusting the beer in the town used to be. the museum restaurant where we had lunch was fabulous, they serve unfiltered unpasturized pilsner urquell which cannot be bought anywhere else that was fabulous. we all had yummy czech treats including marinated camenbert and i had some great pork with deep friend potato pancakes - YUM! we walked around the town quickly and went on the brewery tour in the afternoon then headed back to prague and grabbed dinner... followed by even more bananagrams and cards :)
sunday we got up and walked over toward the charles bridge... we walked up the hill to the castle and saw all the major sights up there as well as the changing of the guard. then we had our only truly terrible meal - we asked for hamburgers and instead got this weird mystery meat that NONE of us could eat it was pretty hysterical. after that we walked around got some food to eat on the train and once on the train we celebrated carol's 29th birthday with some warm grocery store champagne :)
so by the time we found and checked into our hotel it was definitely time for some food. we headed to pivovarsky klub where we had awesome beers and some great czech food... we sat for quite a while and soaked up the ambiance as well as the beer. on the way home from restaurant to the hotel we faced quite the conundrum, we got to the train station at 8:55 apparently the stands that sold tickets closed at 9, however, at the station we were at they were already closed. so having no way to buy a ticket we just got on the train anyways, they had a similar systems in vienna and budapest and although we had always purchased tickets we had never seen anyone get caught for not purchasing them. well when we got off at our stop we were busted. now i would have been fine being busted if i had the opportunity to purchase a ticket but we didn't! initially the cop wanted to fine us each $35 when a ticket costs $1, we talked him down to just fining us $35 for all four of us... but still pretty annoying. we headed back to the hotel and played more bananagrams... it was starting to become a theme.
the next day we set out early for the jewish quarter. prague has a great jewish history and the 7 buildings that comprise the museum are definitely a must see. i had been to all of them when i visited prague with my family in 2003 but it was nice to see them again when it was a bit warmer. we had lunch at kolkovna good old schnitzel and our first of many $2 .5L pilsner urquells YUM - nothing like cheap beer and fried meat! after lunch we walked back through both the old town square which had a crazy crowed easter market and made our way over to wenceslas square and the mucha museum. i had really enjoyed this museum the last time i was in prague and this time it was no different. mucha is a very interesting figure and had a huge impact on prague and the entire czech independence movement. we ended the day with drinks outside of the astronomical clock where we got to see the clock chime twice and then had a cute dinner followed by bananagrams, hearts and some european candy :)
saturday we decided that we didn't have enough left to do in prague for the two whole days that we had left and it was supposed to rain so we needed some indoor activities... we took the train about an hour and a half away to the pilsner urquell brewery in plzen. although plzen is a sprawling industrial town it has a cute old town area where both the brewery museum and the museum restaurant are. the brewery museum wins hands down for best audio tour they had hysterical characters that constantly talked about how disgusting the beer in the town used to be. the museum restaurant where we had lunch was fabulous, they serve unfiltered unpasturized pilsner urquell which cannot be bought anywhere else that was fabulous. we all had yummy czech treats including marinated camenbert and i had some great pork with deep friend potato pancakes - YUM! we walked around the town quickly and went on the brewery tour in the afternoon then headed back to prague and grabbed dinner... followed by even more bananagrams and cards :)
sunday we got up and walked over toward the charles bridge... we walked up the hill to the castle and saw all the major sights up there as well as the changing of the guard. then we had our only truly terrible meal - we asked for hamburgers and instead got this weird mystery meat that NONE of us could eat it was pretty hysterical. after that we walked around got some food to eat on the train and once on the train we celebrated carol's 29th birthday with some warm grocery store champagne :)
budapest
so budapest was probably the city that i was most excited for prior to this trip i had already been to prague and i was guessing that vienna was just similar to the rest of europe so budapest was a real draw for me...
we got to budapest in the rain which was too bad but we went down and walked around the market and had some lunch, we were staying on the pest side just a couple of blogs from the main tourist drag... the pest side definitely had more going on than the buda side so i was glad that we stayed there. we walked down the tourist drag and found pest's easter market which was fun, we also stopped at at h&m, one of our books told us that the schezenyi (totally butchered that spelling) baths were a must see... after cobbeling some pretty ghetto bathing suits together we walked through pest's easter market where one of the major dishes being sold was rooster balls - ICK... we had coffee at gerbeaud caffe mia and alexis had some drink with a ton of caramel in it that they were talking about for the rest of the week.
we found a cheap pizza joint for dinner and went back to the hotel. the next morning we headed out to the baths... this is when the real fun starts. there was a huge line for the baths so we waited for a little more than a half hour, during which we got to watch this video that told us all about the electronic bracelet system that they use that lets you in and out of the baths and unlocks your locker... so i purchased our tickets and after some delay we went to go into the baths... well then the shit hit the fan, apparently their entire system completely crashed in between them running my credit card and us walking over to the turnstile with our bracelets. no one could get in or OUT of the baths, no one could open lockers, EVERYONE was freaking out. this lead to old fat naked local men screaming that they just wanted to get out, but employees couldn't let them, we couldn't be let in but because the system was down they also couldn't give us our money back - it was hysterical.
obviously we didn't want to waste our entire day in pest sitting at the baths waiting until they got their system back up so after about 45 min we left, taking our bracelets with us and telling them we would be back in an hour or so to get our money back. as we walked out the door a man came up to us and was like please don't steal our bracelets - it was insane. we walked over to a little fake castle and saw some statues and came back upon our return they refused to give us our money back... even though they were the same people who had said they would give us our money back an hour earlier... but they had a huge sign that said "Get refunded for time not used" so i pointed to it and said that we hadn't used any time therefore we should get a FULL refund... finally it worked and we were on our way.
we took the train down to the terror house which was a great museum and definitely a must see for anyone in budapest. it goes through both the nazi and communist occupation of hungary in a very cool very modern art inspired way. definitely my favorite museum of the trip. then we went to lunch at a fabulous restaurant we all had the lunch special which was incredibly cheap and wonderful (menza) afterward we walked down toward the basilica and walked around inside and then sat and enjoyed some warmth on the steps then headed over to the great synagogue which is the second largest in the world, we walked back over to the basilica area where we found a really cute old wine bar that only served hungarian wines, we initially just ordered a bottle for the four of us but then they offered us a six wine tasting so we left quite tipsy :) then we had what i think was the best meal of the trip in a little restaurant behind the synagogue, i can't remember the name and am too lazy to look it up right now but i had the most amazing pear and gorgonzola risotto YUM.
the next day we got up and went over to buda, we took the tram up the hill to the castle area... we walked through the underground caves... honestly skip these they were bad and gave us cave hair. we then walked over to the matthias church which was beautiful and took some pictures of pest from up on the hill. we walked to the palace and looked around and mistakenly went into the city museum which was also bad... i would not recommend going into either of the museums in the palace they both look not so great. so we decided to go back to pest and take a tour of the parliament we knew that they last tour started at 4 so we got there around 1 to buy tickets... but they were already sold out! so we took some pictures found a sandwich place for lunch and then walked back to the basilica area to sit out in the sun and eat some yummy rose shaped ice cream cones we had seen the previous day.
that night we went to the ballet at the hungarian state opera. we saw anna karenina and although we basically had no idea what was going on the entire time it was great and very pretty and the theater itself was very beautiful too! we went out and got dinner and beer and headed back to our hotel for the night
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
vienna
alright so no uploading pictures because it turns out that the internet connection in my hotel in iceland is SUPER slow... but luckily i uploaded to picasa before i left stockholm this morning so there are little slideshow thingys at the bottom...
anyhow, i met carol, alexis and mia late friday night in vienna... our hotel was ok a bit outside of the city center but vienna is expensive so that was fine with all of us :) we were pretty good about getting up in the morning most days i think that we left our hotel at 9 at the latest quite a few days we left earlier :) our first stop was the hofburg to try and buy tickets for the lippanzaner horses, my dad lived in austria for a bit when he was growing up and gave me a list of must see things - the lippanzaner horses and the boys choir were obviously on that list. well the horses were the start of a series of complete fails on this trip - don't get me wrong we had a REALLY great time but a number of things that we specifically had been interested in seeing ended up being cancelled etc.
so we got to the hofburg the line for horse tickets was super long we get to the front and we are told that the horses are sick and will not be doing a performance but we can see them practice... so we went in and saw the practice which mostly involved horses walking around in a circle and not really doing too much interesting - but it was still packed as a result of the cancelled performance. the rest of the day we took a tour of the state opera house, walked through a crypt or two, and went to stephansdom... plus demels and a few other cute vienna stores, we also walked through a bunch of easter markets... the easter markets were amazing - so many beautiful painted blown eggs... we all wanted to buy them to bring home, but only alexis was brave enough, i knew with all my upcoming travels that they would be broken in no time... we ended the day with some great austrian wine and then ate dinner out in the square outside of the synagogue, during dinner we watched the kids play what seemed to be some austrian version of red rover - it was quite cute!
the second day we got up early again to go see the boys choir... however after waiting in line a bit again at the hofburg we were told that this was one of 2 sundays during their season (from sept to june) that they do not perform - UGH again! neither of our guide books mentioned this of course... anyhow, we hung out and waited for the hofburg to open and toured the imperial apartments, the silver collection, the treasury and the sissi museum... the austrians seem to looooooooooove sissi and franz joseph... we heard A LOT about them, including the fact that she was 5'10" 90lbs and ate only raw meat juice - GROSS... then we got giant sausages on the street and went to hotel sacher for sacher torte... another one of the things on my dad's list... the torte was definitely good but not quite what i was expecting... i was thinking it would be some SUPER chocolately thing, but it was more apricot-y... still very good and a fun experience...in the afternoon we went out to the summer palace and heard even more about sissi and franzy... they were pretty much our best friends at that point... afterwards we came back into the city and had some wine at another restaurant near the jewish museum, probably our favorite place of the whole trip, it was tiny and adorable and had great austrian wine
we finished off our last night in vienna with dinner at a diner - we tried a million other places but people there don't seem to eat terribly late and places were already sold out of food!
we got up early monday morning and headed to the train station for budapest...
anyhow, i met carol, alexis and mia late friday night in vienna... our hotel was ok a bit outside of the city center but vienna is expensive so that was fine with all of us :) we were pretty good about getting up in the morning most days i think that we left our hotel at 9 at the latest quite a few days we left earlier :) our first stop was the hofburg to try and buy tickets for the lippanzaner horses, my dad lived in austria for a bit when he was growing up and gave me a list of must see things - the lippanzaner horses and the boys choir were obviously on that list. well the horses were the start of a series of complete fails on this trip - don't get me wrong we had a REALLY great time but a number of things that we specifically had been interested in seeing ended up being cancelled etc.
so we got to the hofburg the line for horse tickets was super long we get to the front and we are told that the horses are sick and will not be doing a performance but we can see them practice... so we went in and saw the practice which mostly involved horses walking around in a circle and not really doing too much interesting - but it was still packed as a result of the cancelled performance. the rest of the day we took a tour of the state opera house, walked through a crypt or two, and went to stephansdom... plus demels and a few other cute vienna stores, we also walked through a bunch of easter markets... the easter markets were amazing - so many beautiful painted blown eggs... we all wanted to buy them to bring home, but only alexis was brave enough, i knew with all my upcoming travels that they would be broken in no time... we ended the day with some great austrian wine and then ate dinner out in the square outside of the synagogue, during dinner we watched the kids play what seemed to be some austrian version of red rover - it was quite cute!
the second day we got up early again to go see the boys choir... however after waiting in line a bit again at the hofburg we were told that this was one of 2 sundays during their season (from sept to june) that they do not perform - UGH again! neither of our guide books mentioned this of course... anyhow, we hung out and waited for the hofburg to open and toured the imperial apartments, the silver collection, the treasury and the sissi museum... the austrians seem to looooooooooove sissi and franz joseph... we heard A LOT about them, including the fact that she was 5'10" 90lbs and ate only raw meat juice - GROSS... then we got giant sausages on the street and went to hotel sacher for sacher torte... another one of the things on my dad's list... the torte was definitely good but not quite what i was expecting... i was thinking it would be some SUPER chocolately thing, but it was more apricot-y... still very good and a fun experience...in the afternoon we went out to the summer palace and heard even more about sissi and franzy... they were pretty much our best friends at that point... afterwards we came back into the city and had some wine at another restaurant near the jewish museum, probably our favorite place of the whole trip, it was tiny and adorable and had great austrian wine
we finished off our last night in vienna with dinner at a diner - we tried a million other places but people there don't seem to eat terribly late and places were already sold out of food!
we got up early monday morning and headed to the train station for budapest...
catching up
so i have been away for the past ten days... i spent the 19th-22nd in vienna, then 22nd-25th in budapest, 25th-28th in prague then back to vienna for a day, got into stockholm late late last night and am currently in iceland for two days... the good news is i am iceland by myself so i am sure that i will have plenty of time to catch up on my blog tonight :)
Friday, March 19, 2010
last day in stockholm
yesterday i got done all my last day in stockholm stuff... went to school to take a couple more pictures, bought a SSE sweatshirt, paid my last internet bill, walked from sveavagen through the palace all the way through gamla stan. i have a little tradition that i buy a print in each country i visit so i got my print yesterday too. it was a nice day but it was quite gloomy - not shocking given that it is still winter in stockholm :)
anyhow today is full of packing and cleaning i will certainly miss stockholm but i am excited to leave for vienna tonight!!
anyhow today is full of packing and cleaning i will certainly miss stockholm but i am excited to leave for vienna tonight!!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
xc skiing with the king
yesterday i met andrea for lunch at un momento a place next to the student palace behind school... it is quickly becoming one of my favorite lunch places - it is cheap and they have an amazing chicken bulgar salad with tatziki... i don't know if i have mentioned this here before or not but the swedes are totally obsessed with tatziki - they have it everywhere!!!
after lunch we went back to the big dorm near school to meet anna and jana our two czech friends to go watch a xc ski race that was taking place at the palace. it was a world cup sprint race just over a kilometer and they had built a track around the palace in stockholm... the swedes were quite into the race all the commentary was in swedish so of course i didn't understand what they were saying - but it was really fun... we even got to see the king who came out to open the race... it was quite cold in the shade of the stands and so afterward we went to cafe mistlen in gamla stan for some yummy hot chocolate!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
oh the sun
so when i first arrived in sweden it was quite dark, all the time... as in the sun would come up around 10 and then set around 2 and in between those hours it wouldn't be "sunny" it would be hazy and just kinda blah
well because sweden is so far north things regarding the sun change QUICKLY here... now the sun comes up before six and sets after six which is great... but the unfortunate thing is that my bedroom faces east and i have no curtains - so while in january i had a hard time waking up before 10 or 11 now i wake up at 6:30 every morning without fail...
although it would be lovely to be here in june for midsummer i would definitely need some blackout curtains!
well because sweden is so far north things regarding the sun change QUICKLY here... now the sun comes up before six and sets after six which is great... but the unfortunate thing is that my bedroom faces east and i have no curtains - so while in january i had a hard time waking up before 10 or 11 now i wake up at 6:30 every morning without fail...
although it would be lovely to be here in june for midsummer i would definitely need some blackout curtains!
LAST DAY of class in SWEDEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
woooooohooooo i am done... yesterday i had my presentation in psychology of financial markets and today we had our presentation in entrepreneurship in developing countries... which means i am done done done done done with class in sweden... and i can't say that i am too sad about it
tonight after class ankur, paula, andrea and i went to a bar called pet sounds in sodermalm for a drink and some food... it was quite cute and reminded me of a slightly classier garlic & shots, one of the restaurants i went to while my parents were here
i basically only have 2 days left in sweden which is pretty crazy... tomorrow a bunch of us are planning on going to watch a world cup x-c skiing race that is finishing around the palace in stockholm... should be pretty cool
tonight after class ankur, paula, andrea and i went to a bar called pet sounds in sodermalm for a drink and some food... it was quite cute and reminded me of a slightly classier garlic & shots, one of the restaurants i went to while my parents were here
i basically only have 2 days left in sweden which is pretty crazy... tomorrow a bunch of us are planning on going to watch a world cup x-c skiing race that is finishing around the palace in stockholm... should be pretty cool
Saturday, March 13, 2010
nice saturday and lovikka mittens
today for some reason i woke up at 7am... so i watched up in the air, i had just finished reading the book last week and i have to say after the book i was pretty disappointed in the movie, but i guess that is pretty much always the case, i don't think that i have ever seen a movie that i thought was better than the book it was based on.
so i started my day at the wayne's in liljeholmen, which is basically the swedish equivalent of starbucks. i sat there with all the dads having fika with each other and their toddlers which is definitely one of the cuter things about daily life in sweden - you always see men out with their children - at least as much as you see women if not more. i stayed at wayne's for quite a while... my mom was reading game change when she came to visit and left it with me - i started it a couple of days ago and just haven't been able to put it down!
then i did some shopping in sodermalm, gamla stan and hotorget... it was a beautiful sunny day and then out of nowhere it started snowing or maybe it was hail - not sure it was just like snowing large snow pellets it was really weird
anyhow, last night i knit the first of my two lovikka mittens they are traditional swedish mittens that they sell everywhere here that are adorable i found the real pattern but only in swedish this is the best that i could do in english but i don't think that the pattern is quite right. anyhow because the mittens are fulled i wanted to knit one and full it before i knitted the other to make sure that i wasn't making the wrong size
the fulled mitten is on the left and the not yet fulled mitten is on the right for comparison:
i think that they are pretty cute :) in my shopping expedition today i checked out some more lovikka mittens to improve on the pattern a bit
so i started my day at the wayne's in liljeholmen, which is basically the swedish equivalent of starbucks. i sat there with all the dads having fika with each other and their toddlers which is definitely one of the cuter things about daily life in sweden - you always see men out with their children - at least as much as you see women if not more. i stayed at wayne's for quite a while... my mom was reading game change when she came to visit and left it with me - i started it a couple of days ago and just haven't been able to put it down!
then i did some shopping in sodermalm, gamla stan and hotorget... it was a beautiful sunny day and then out of nowhere it started snowing or maybe it was hail - not sure it was just like snowing large snow pellets it was really weird
anyhow, last night i knit the first of my two lovikka mittens they are traditional swedish mittens that they sell everywhere here that are adorable i found the real pattern but only in swedish this is the best that i could do in english but i don't think that the pattern is quite right. anyhow because the mittens are fulled i wanted to knit one and full it before i knitted the other to make sure that i wasn't making the wrong size
the fulled mitten is on the left and the not yet fulled mitten is on the right for comparison:
i think that they are pretty cute :) in my shopping expedition today i checked out some more lovikka mittens to improve on the pattern a bit
Friday, March 12, 2010
only one more week in stockholm
so next friday i leave for my trip to central europe with carol, mia and alexis... which means that i have one full week in stockholm and then i am pretty much done!
i have been back in stockholm since monday and for the first time since i came to sweden i actually feel like i kind of live here... i don't really notice that everyone around me is speaking swedish anymore, and i feel pretty at home... also this past week i actually had to do a lot of school work and i think that made me feel more at home too. i wasn't trying to take advantage of all the touristy stuff instead i was sitting in the computer lab and library all day.
but most of the work is over now and so i have one more week to enjoy myself here!
some random observations since i have been back:
-when we got to liljeholmen 2 months ago there was one grocery store... now there are three
-found a really cute new restaurant near school this week
-went to hermans again for lunch with andrea and ankur on monday
-knit my first lovikka (traditional swedish) mittens tonight... will post pics tomorrow
i have been back in stockholm since monday and for the first time since i came to sweden i actually feel like i kind of live here... i don't really notice that everyone around me is speaking swedish anymore, and i feel pretty at home... also this past week i actually had to do a lot of school work and i think that made me feel more at home too. i wasn't trying to take advantage of all the touristy stuff instead i was sitting in the computer lab and library all day.
but most of the work is over now and so i have one more week to enjoy myself here!
some random observations since i have been back:
-when we got to liljeholmen 2 months ago there was one grocery store... now there are three
-found a really cute new restaurant near school this week
-went to hermans again for lunch with andrea and ankur on monday
-knit my first lovikka (traditional swedish) mittens tonight... will post pics tomorrow
north of the arctic circle...
last thursday upon my return from turku i left about 5 hours later to head to lappland in the north of sweden the trip started with an 18 hour overnight train ride. luckily there weren't too many other people on the train so we got to spread out a bit
note that we are really really really far north of the arctic circle. luckily when we got to kiruna the weather was great - it was sunny and amazing! we started with a trip to a large iron mine in kiruna... other than tourism the mine is a major source of employment in swedish lappland. the tour was interesting and we learned that because the mine had become so deep they now are in the process of moving the entire town!
after the mine we grabbed lunch and headed for the ice hotel! i had been looking forward to the ice hotel ever since i had watched the 2 hour discovery special... now you expect it to be like arctic tundra up there but really it was just a lot of woods with snow and rivers. the ice hotel was built along the river that they harvest all the ice from... apparently real ice from a river is a lot more clear than fake ice that is just frozen still water so they prefer that for building the hotel... it was really cool! sadly the power was out at the hotel so it was hard to see in a lot of the rooms, but i still took a lot of pictures and you can get the drift :)
we then drove another two and a half hours to the forest hotel which is where we would be staying for the weekend... it was very cute - bright red building set against the pretty white snow... we had a dinner buffet and got outfitted with our awesome snowsuits and CRAZY think boots, hats and mittens
the next morning we had what i definitely viewed to be the highlight of the weekend - DOGSLEDDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we were paired up and given a 1 minute tutorial on how to break and then were sent off on our own sleds with 5 very adorable and very loud dogs... it was so amazing and serene being out on the river with the dogs and mushing them was really fun... i was the first one to drive and ended up getting to drive for basically the whole time... which was awesome - i would do another hour of that any day.
after dogsledding we went skiing - cross country skiing - with our huge snowsuits and gynormous boots on we strapped on wooden army skis that looked like they were from the 1920s it was pretty fun...
after a long day outside we had another great dinner - this time reindeer and i tuckered out early... on sunday a bunch of people went to the reindeer farm... but i decided just to stay back and got to sit by the fire read all the wonderful american magazines that my mom brought for me and talk to some of the other exchange students which i don't get to do as often as i like since i don't live in the dorm with most of them. we ended up having a really interesting chat about healthcare with a student from canada and germany who both HATE their countries' universal healthcare programs... anyhow, nothing like debating healthcare on a sunday morning :)
sunday afternoon we went ice fishing... we drilled our own holes and everything! went to bed very early sun night because we had a 6am flight monday morning and we had to leave the hotel at 2:30am to get to the airport on time!
one of the most interesting things was at the airport no one ever checked our id - at all - ever - not when we got our tickets, not when we went through security, not when we boarded the plane... CRAZY... can't imagine that happening in the US, guess it really is much safer in sweden :)
anyhow i got back on monday EXHAUSTED and decided to cancel my trip to oslo that i was going to take this week... i have just been traveling sooo much and still have so much traveling ahead of me that i didn't feel like i really needed another trip... but lappland was great and i am very glad i went - must see for anyone who comes to sweden and has the time
turku!
well this is my much delayed post on finland... more specifically turku.
we arrived late late monday night into turku, my dad had left earlier monday to go back to stockholm and then the states so it was just me and mom on the train...
first of all, if you are ever in russia and considering a trip to finland, definitely fly! we spent about 2 of our 5 hour train ride to helsinki sitting on the border having the russian border patrol walk back and forth with their dogs... what fun.
tuesday my mom's friend megan met us at our hotel and gave us a wonderful tour of turku, we had lunch at a great restaurant called mami where we all had wonderful pumpkin soup and then went to the cathedral in town and a bunch of adorable little shops. we headed to the grocery store that afternoon to buy the ingredients for that night's dinner - REINDEER!!!
we headed over to megan's that night and had a lovely reindeer dinner with her family. wednesday my mom and i spent the day exploring the sights of turku that we hadn't seen the day before, walked to a few more cute shops and went to the finnish equivalent of a saluhall, although i can't remember the finnish word for it. we also made it to the turku castle and an interesting lecture on finnish religion with megan and her husband chris. we went to another great restaurant that night which was really fun.
the next morning mom and i headed back to stockholm. it was really fun to see finland and compare it to sweden given that they were a part of sweden for so long. lots of things looked the same, same stores, lots of similar food etc, but i think that under the surface the countries were really quite different... megan and chris were really knowledgeable about finnish culture so it was great to compare and contrast the two countries with them
thanks again megan for the great tour!!!!
we arrived late late monday night into turku, my dad had left earlier monday to go back to stockholm and then the states so it was just me and mom on the train...
first of all, if you are ever in russia and considering a trip to finland, definitely fly! we spent about 2 of our 5 hour train ride to helsinki sitting on the border having the russian border patrol walk back and forth with their dogs... what fun.
tuesday my mom's friend megan met us at our hotel and gave us a wonderful tour of turku, we had lunch at a great restaurant called mami where we all had wonderful pumpkin soup and then went to the cathedral in town and a bunch of adorable little shops. we headed to the grocery store that afternoon to buy the ingredients for that night's dinner - REINDEER!!!
we headed over to megan's that night and had a lovely reindeer dinner with her family. wednesday my mom and i spent the day exploring the sights of turku that we hadn't seen the day before, walked to a few more cute shops and went to the finnish equivalent of a saluhall, although i can't remember the finnish word for it. we also made it to the turku castle and an interesting lecture on finnish religion with megan and her husband chris. we went to another great restaurant that night which was really fun.
the next morning mom and i headed back to stockholm. it was really fun to see finland and compare it to sweden given that they were a part of sweden for so long. lots of things looked the same, same stores, lots of similar food etc, but i think that under the surface the countries were really quite different... megan and chris were really knowledgeable about finnish culture so it was great to compare and contrast the two countries with them
thanks again megan for the great tour!!!!
Friday, March 5, 2010
update from lappland
well i have been a little mia because i have been traveling so much. spent monday in st. petersburg and tuesday and wednesday in turku finland. rushed back to stockholm to do some laundry and then left thursday night for what turned out to be an 18 hour overnight train ride up to lappland more specifically kiruna.
didn't get in until around noon yesterday had a quick tour of the big iron mine here and the made our way to the ice hotel before checking into our own hotel the forest hotel right before dinner. it was a long and exhausting day but i got a great nights sleep last night and am ready to head down for breakfast and some dogsledding :)
didn't get in until around noon yesterday had a quick tour of the big iron mine here and the made our way to the ice hotel before checking into our own hotel the forest hotel right before dinner. it was a long and exhausting day but i got a great nights sleep last night and am ready to head down for breakfast and some dogsledding :)
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