Två Veckor Kvar

The fact that I have two weeks left in Stockholm just hit me this morning…and that is not a time frame that one can ignore anymore, sadly. We can’t just say “shhhh!” and laugh it off whenever there is a mention made of our eventual departure.

And to be honest, as excited as I am to go home, I’m also extremely frustrated at the fact that I have to go home at this point in time. I’ve finally gotten the city mapped out in my head. I know where I can buy everything I might need. I can understand when the barista asks me if I want whipped cream on my hot chocolate. And I’m not ready to leave this behind, really. Not that I don’t want to go home—I just wish that I could return to Sweden after Christmas. But I suppose life must go on…

Anyway, enough melancholy whining on my part. Time to get to what I’ve been up to in the past two weeks.

Making tasty pizzas from scratch:

Visiting the world’s biggest IKEA—500,000 square feet of IKEA design can get a bit overwhelming:

Attending a ballet at the royal opera house:

I apologize for the dust in the above picture…it’s kind of hard to clean off a camera lens without proper optics cleaners.

Further, we celebrated our own Thanksgiving in Stockholm (the picture is not mine, but rather is Jayme’s):

And have been enjoying the Christmas markets of Stockholm:

Finally, Stockholm at night is gorgeous. Since it is dark starting at three pm, they really make sure to put up a lot of lights, especially for jul (Christmas–photos courtesy of Jayme):

And so are my friends! Ha, so cliched, but they are pretty cute (photo stolen from Charlotte):

So even though it’s sad that this experience is coming to an end, we’re really trying to make the most of it. And I’ve made a promise to myself to start taking more pictures again–I don’t know why, but I have only taken about 15 pictures in the past month. Maybe it is just because everything seems familiar now? It’s hard to say, but enough blogging. Time to get back to homework so that I can spend tomorrow out and about 🙂

A Long-Overdue Update

It’s been well over a month since my last post, and I must say that letting this blog go untouched for such a long period of time was never my intention.

Well, my apologies.

I believe the ground that I have to cover from my last post includes the following:

• Fall Break: Trips to Brussels…

• …Prague…

• …and Berlin.

• Weekend trip to Copenhagen

These are literally the three pictures I took in Copenhagen…of the delicious pastry that I ate and the goats that lived outside my hostel. Yeah, I know, where are my priorities?

• Having mom visit!
• Trip to Växjö to trace some of the family history

Unfortunately, mom took most of the exciting pictures there, so I don’t have any. *hint hint send me your pictures mom*

• Strep throat/ear infection of doom
• Winter Break: Exploring Stockholm, Shopping, and Cooking

Spending the past week wandering the city on foot and interacting with more and more Swedes has made me start to feel (finally!) like I belong in this city. I’ve been asked for directions, to help figure out the train schedule, and to talk about the US. All in Swedish. And I’ve mostly been able to respond in Swedish—albeit, halting and broken Swedish with English occasionally mixed in. But still. It’s a start.

Honestly, I think this is the best update I can offer everybody. Summing up the past month-and-a-half in just a few paragraphs? I’m not sure that I could—or would even want to.

Jag är inte en Viking

Last weekend the program organized a trip to Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea that has a rich medieval history.

Because of its strategic position, Gotland has been host to many different ethnic groups and ruling nations. I’m not certain of the exact order, but Gotlandic culture has been influenced by the Romans, Greeks, Arabs (through trade), Estonians, Russians, Germans, French, Finns, and of course the VIKINGS. Gotland is famous for having the highest concentration of stored Viking treasure, houses, graves, and so on. However, and this part was kind of disappointing, the Vikings on Gotland were mostly the peaceful, matriarchal, agrarian, trading types.

Even if the Gotlanders were pretty bad at winning battles, it was amazing to be standing on land that had such a rich history.

For the trip, we stayed inside the city walls (pictured above) of Visby. These walls were first constructed in 1200! They’ve grown since then, but still. Inside the walls we were greeted by a charming and very Germanic little city. It’s touristy but adorable.

But of course we didn’t just stay in Visby. On Saturday we went to the east coast of the island. We tramped through a bog in order to see sixth-century grave sites:

clambered across the natural architecture of the Baltic seashore:

learned about the history of Christianity on Gotland:

and generally enjoyed the pastoral Gotlandic landscape:

which was filled with:

GOTLAND SHEEP. They’re pretty adorable and have inspired my desire to join Jayme and become a goat/sheep farmer in rural Sweden.

Look ma! I got one! (photo cred. to Kelsey)

But despite all these sheep, “Gotland” does not actually mean “land of the goats,” as we had surmised. Instead, it means “land of the streams,” which was apparently pretty apt before the 1850s when they began draining all the wetlands. Fun trivia fact of the day, kids! Use it well.

After our adventures around Gotland, there was nothing left to do but enjoy Viking-related activities and enjoy a Viking feast. Obviously. I didn’t take any pictures of these events because they were pretty silly and/or I didn’t want pictures to exist. But let’s just say that lots of axe-throwing and yarn-spinning and eating-food-with-hands occurred. It was amusing to see the city-kids squirm, to say the least.

It was definitely an entertaining, albeit exhausting, trip. I will say that I was extraordinarily happy to return to Stockholm where my own bed was safely located near Zinkensdamm. It’s weird to think of Stockholm as home, but it finally has. I’m not a tourist anymore and for that I’m pretty happy.

P.S. – Thanks, mom, for making me bring a raincoat. Seriously. It’s my new favorite thing.

Photodump

In this post I’m just going to throw up a bunch of pictures that I want to share with everyone, but just haven’t fit into other posts. Enjoy!

PS – If you want to see larger versions, they should open up in a new window if you click on them.

Örebro, and Then Some

It’s been a hectic, hectic week here in Stockholm. Actual schoolwork is finally coming my way (though it’s not anywhere near Carleton standards and it’s not physics, so it is a bit hard to take seriously). I’ve been trying to balance exploring the city with reading, socializing, and a billion other things. So much to do!

I’ll start with our day trip to Örebro. Örebro is a city about two hours west of Stockholm by train. It is in the heart of central—and rural—Sweden. We took the bus out to the town in the morning and got to see beautiful Swedish farms along the way. The area reminded me particularly of Southern Minnesota.

The town dates back to at least the 1200s, though it received its royal charter around 1400. At the time it was an important center of commerce and government. So naturally, there is a castle!

Örebro Slott is one of the more recognized castles in Sweden. It was built at least 700 years ago, and has been rebuilt many times since then. That is why it has such a mixture of architectural styles. The tour we took was quite fascinating—we got to sit in the old prisons under the castle and explore some of the grand rooms.

After seeing the castle, we then explored the rest of the city. During our walk we saw very charming architecture and ended up at Wadköping, a sort of open air museum and traditional part of town. There was a small museum that focused on medieval life in Sweden and there were several artisanal shops.

So apparently people ate whole pike in Sweden? I’m not sure, but this exhibit looked unappetizing:

Overall, I think all five of us fell in love with Örebro. And how could we not with beautiful views like these?

The trip was a wonderful day away from urban, bustling Stockholm. So yes, Örebro is a bit touristy, but it is gorgeous and definitely worth at least a day.

We took the train home in the evening (sorry, no interesting pictures—it was getting dark out by then) and ended up having a great conversation with a young mother from Stockholm. She told us about all the exciting and non-touristy things to do in Stockholm, particularly on Söder. So I think we have plans to go to an authentic bathhouse and get Swedish massages! She also tipped us off about a huge, facebook-organized flea market that was happening on Sunday only a couple of T-stops away from me. So of course I had to go.

I’m not sure if you can tell from this picture how big this flea market was, but there were people on both sides of the street for about 2 km. I really should have bought some rainboots or something, but I was far too interested in watching the people. It seems that nothing brings Swedes together like a good sale, and really, the wares were about the same as in any Minnesotan garage sale. However, I did see this:

This woman was selling sandwiches, coffee, and kanelbulle out of her first-floor apartment’s window. And given that there was a huge line, I’m guessing it was pretty good. I also spotted this:

Apparently the Vikings even have fans in Stockholm. Ha.

I don’t have much else to say about the week, but on Tuesday I met Helene Cederberg—a distantly related cousin of mine. We had dinner, discussed our family tree, our families, and our lives. She is extraordinarily nice, and I am so excited to meet all of my Swedish relatives soon! If any of you Cederbergs have pictures of yourselves that I could send along, e-mail me pronto! That was by far the most exciting part of the week, though Jayme and I did spend Wednesday afternoon eating ice cream in a park near Odenplan, watching children playing and enjoying the weather. I will say, Swedish children get the coolest playgrounds.

This weekend I will be on the island of Gotland out in the Baltic Sea. I’m not sure if I will have internet and will probably not be able to answer e-mails, so apologies if I don’t respond until Sunday or so.