London Calling!

So much has happened in the past week! And as promised, I took plenty of pictures. They can also be viewed on my Facebook.

Our plane!

So London. Signe and I arrived in London surprisingly smoothly. We had five legs to our trip to London. Train, train, taxi, airplane, bus. Once we got to London we had even more. But the airport, Stockholm Vasteras was interesting. Now I knew that when we bought a ticket for Ryanair, you pay for what you get. The flights are super cheap but the carry on requirements are very strict. It can't be too big or too heavy otherwise you have to pay. You also have to pay if you don't print your boarding pass. Like 50 Euros. Security was just 3 ladies. And the gate/waiting area was a giant room with a tiny little cafe. You also walk on the runway to board the plane so that was a fun new experience. Once we landed, we got cash, struggled with the currency but we were so grateful that everything was in English. We also bought a fantastically girly bottle of pink wine that came in a bottle that looked like perfume. It was our Valentine's Day gift to ourselves. More on that later. Another thing about Ryanair, the airports are extremely out of the way. So we landed at London Stansted but we then took a 45 minute bus ride into London. But we made it no problem! 

Signe and me at the airport in Sweden

Seeing my fellow Gustie, Kelsey in London

We became masters of the tube. By the end of this trip I will be so good at transportation. 

 We meet up with my Gustavus friends Hanna and Kelsey. It was so great to talk with friends from home and see a familiar face. We checked out the Victoria's Secret in the mall (it was overpriced) and took the tube to Chipotle. Kelsey and Hanna had a lot of homework so they sent us alone to Chipotle. It was semi-frightening but extremely liberating. The most difficult thing was crossing the street. It goes against everything I have ever learned about crossing the street and looking both ways. In England, you have to look right first. It was so hard. But we found Chipotle and even made some friends while we were eating it. Well maybe not friends, but stalkers that tried to get off a double decker bus to meet up with us. No. Thank goodness they didn't. We found our way back to Kelsey's and only ran into one problem with my phone. I thought I figured out how to call internationally from it but I guess not so we ended up calling her from a pay phone.

That brings us to February 14th. Ick. But we saw London in a day! Well not all of it, but as much as I could remember seeing when I visited back in 2005. It was also what we could get to using the maps and such we found. It actually worked out nicely. So we saw Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the London Eye, Parliament, King's Cross, Big Ben, Green Park, Harrod's, and of course, some red telephone boxes. We spent the day snacking on chocolate and baked goods from Harrod's. We checked our bags there for the day so we didn't look too touristy wandering around the city with a backpack and suitcase. But we definitely had our tourist moments. Too bad I forgot the waist purse. I won't go into detail for each place but here are some pictures from the day in London! 

Off to Hogwarts!

Green Park actually lives up to its name!

Buckingham Palace

Phone Box and Double Decker bus? Ultra British. 

Trafalgar Square

Super cool Chinese New Year's Decorations at Harrod's. The dragon is made out of plates!

The River Thames

Big Ben and Houses of Parliament

We then headed to Waterloo station to catch the train out to Oxshott, where my good family friends live, Lyn and Ian Baldwin. Lyn has two daughters, Charlotte and Alice Turton, and they used to live down Humboldt Ave from me. Charlotte and Alice were part of the Humboldt Ave. Crew. Once again, we ran into problems calling from my Swedish phone so we used Signe's phone since she still has an international plan. Lyn picked us up from the train station and we headed back to their house for the evening. It was so fantastic to have a home cooked meal. We had British Cider with our chicken and vegetables for dinner. Yum. And sleep. Sleeping in a comfortable bed was simply marvelous. I slept so comfortably that night.

Friday, the 15th, we took a train to visit Charlotte at Uni. She goes to school in Exeter (pronounced exit-er)which is about a 3 hour train ride from Esher, a town near Oxshott. It's very southwest in England. It just so happened that Alice was also down there visiting her boyfriend so we got to hang out with both Turton girls. Fun fact time. J.K. Rowling went to school at Exeter University so there are quite a few things in the Harry Potter books based on actual places in Exeter. There was a creepy little shack behind a residence hall that has since been torn down but was the basis for the Shrieking Shack. Diagon Alley was based on Gandy Street in Exeter which is a narrow, cobblestone street with tons of shops and things. The Old Firehouse is a quaint little bar on which the Leaky Cauldron is based. We enjoyed dinner at an Italian restaurant called Ask. It was good. Standard Italian food, nothing too exciting.

We returned to Charlotte's to get ready for the evening. We drank our deliciously pink yet surprisingly strong girly fru fru liqueur. One of her football (soccer) friends was having a birthday party so we stopped by there for a bit. From there we headed to Timepiece Nightclub. It was really similar to the Nations we have here in Uppsala. There was lots of loud music and people dancing and cheap drinks. We continued to struggle with the money. To check our coats, which cost one pound, we both just held a handful of change out to Charlotte asking her to sort out the proper change. The coolest thing was the fact that at Exeter, being American was much more of a novelty. Uppsala has so many exchange students that being American is no big deal but down there people thought it was the coolest thing in the world. However, they were also unaware of geography in America. We were asked multiple times if Minnesota was in the south. Not even close, but good try. It was so much fun to be somewhere where everyone spoke English as a first language. We also ordered Dominos once we got back to Charlotte's. It wasn't sliced. Who delivers a pizza that has not been sliced? Dumb.

Fancy pink liqueur in a perfume bottle.
So pink. So strong.

At Timepiece. So many photo bombs. 

The next morning we headed back to Oxshott. The train went through gorgeous English country side. Unlucky for you, my camera is not the best quality so I could not capture any good pictures of it. Just imagine it. Green rolling hills with sheep and creeks. Lyn and Ian took us to see the Hampton Court Palace on the River Thames. It was built in the 16th century and is ginormous as are all palaces in Europe. It was originally built for a Cardinal but King Henry VIII ended up with it and made it even bigger. At that time, the more chimneys you had, the wealthier you were. More chimneys = more rooms = rich. So Hampton Court has something over 200 chimneys. It was worked on again by King William and Queen Mary about a hundred years later which is why the back side has a completely different look and facade. There is also a fantastic garden along the back and apparently in the summer, Hampton Court is used for garden shows. We then headed back to their home, cleaned up, rested a bit, and headed to dinner. They took us to The Queen's Head by the White Brasserie which is a restaurant by a well known French chef. It was so good. I had snails! I think I only enjoy them because they are soaking in a butter garlic sauce. And slow cooked beef in a red wine sauce with mashed potatoes. So so so good. We tried our first British Pear Cider and dessert wine!

Snails for a starter while at the Queen's Head

Zerts! I had the Winter Pavlova and Ian had the waffles.

We returned home to the Queen! She was waiting for us once we returned from dinner so we seized the photo opportunity and snapped some pics with royalty. 

Oh, hello Liz.

We made it back to Uppsala in only 4 legs. Car, bus, plane, bus and everything went smoothly again. So maybe on our journey to Sweden we were just unlucky. It was so fantastic to spend time in London with friends, eat Chipotle one last time until June, catch up with Charlotte, and enjoy a home cooked meal with my second family. Everything about the weekend was wonderful. We made it home just in time for dinner! Busy week and another busy one ahead. I have my first exam! But that's all for now!

Cheerio!

Things that are less than awesome.

Now that it's sinking in that I live here and am not on vacation, I have started to see some negatives of Sweden. It's hard to admit that my native country has flaws but it does. I would like to share them with you. None of these are to imply that I am not enjoying myself here. I love it here. Actually love it. I just thought I would share some things that are not totally awesome when it comes to Sweden.

Expensive. Now I knew that when I signed up for coming here but still. Not my favorite thing about Sweden.

Google, my homepage, is now Google Sverige so all the results are in Swedish so that's always fun. Along with that, I believe that hanging signs is an effective way to spread information. However, they are zero percent effective for me here unless they include detailed pictures that illustrate the information on the sign or if they're in English. But I'm in Sweden so it's not.

The laundry room closes at 10PM. Who does laundry before 10? If you have clothes in the washer past 10, the machine will actually lock so you can't remove them until 7 the next morning. Not that that happened to me or anything.

Come to the library! Check your backpacks at the door! What? That makes no sense. You're not allowed to bring any bags or jackets into the school library so you have to check your things at the coat check and take all your books, notebooks, pencils, and computer out to carry into the library. I have checked my jacket and bags more frequently in the 3 weeks I have been here than I did in my whole 20 years in America. So. Many. Coat Checks.

Once you check your coat and bag at the door, you can use the printers. But wait! They only print on one side of the paper. Ring ring, Hello? 1998 called. It wants its printer back.

Swedes have not mastered the ability to properly plow sidewalks. It's not for lack of plows. I see people driving around tiny Bobcat sized plows every time it snows. They just don't actually remove all the snow.

The whole decimal/comma situation is a strugglefest for me. It's 0 point 5 so it should be a period. If I wanted 0,5 I would say 0 comma 5. Luckily I only have 3 classes left of math and I've already finished 2 of the 3 assignments.

Not an actual problem but annoying nonetheless: the clocks in the building where I have class aren't synced. In one room I get out of class 5 minutes early but in another we always go past simply because the clocks aren't correct.

Toll free numbers mean I don't have to pay for them, right? WRONG. When you're in Sweden and if you want to call Visa or Wells Fargo, it's not toll free if you're using a cell phone. Why would I have a landline if I'm only here for 5 months?

Tissues without lotion. If I wanted to wipe my face with paper, I would use paper. But no, I use tissues. But in Sweden they're not nice and soft like Puffs. They're terrible. There's the same problem with toilet paper.

Small dogs in jackets that pee everywhere. And you can tell because there is snow everywhere. Here's an idea: if you want a small dog that can't handle the cold, move. Or better yet, don't get the small dog. Alyssa, some of them were small enough that you could just kick them across the street. I'm sorry if you love small dogs and Nordic country climates.

Peanut butter. It's weird and natural looking. All I want is normal, processed creamy Skippy. I've grown to appreciate signature American foods so much. I will never take Kraft Mac and Cheese for-granted ever again. The food here is great. It's just funny that I have grown so accustomed to particular American foods that either don't exist here or are just different.

Next week, I head to London with Signe for a long weekend! For those that prefer pictures, my next post will be picture-full. Promise, promise!

Birthday Shoutout to Mom-Jann! I hope you are celebrating your birthday right, Nine Fingers!

Hej då!

Stockholm!

This Wednesday (1/30), I didn't have class so I popped down to Stockholm for the day to visit Sarah Lucht. It was so awesome. Have I said that I believe public transportation is underrated? It is. Getting to Stockholm by train was incredibly easy. I was nervous about missing my train and getting lost in the train station. Well I was just being ridiculous.

I met up with Sarah and we walked to Östermalms Saluhall for lunch. It's a market place that's fairly well known for having a wide variety of foods and restaurants. We were starving so we didn't explore all of our options fully but we made a good choice getting wraps from Planet Food. Östermalms Saluhall had delis, sushi bars, fruits and vegetable stands, and bakeries. It was all your food needs under one roof. The delis were moderately disgusting. There was so much meat, which is awesome, but the slabs were humongous and I would have no idea how to prepare any of the meats. Except maybe bacon. Goal for before I leave Sweden: Make chokladbollar. I love eating them but eating them daily will bankrupt me. Plus, I'm pretty sure they're not that hard to make. Oatmeal, chocolate, sugar, and butter. There's not too much to screw up with that.

We then wandered back toward the main downtown area and fikade (past tense of fika. Look it up.) at the cutest cafe. Thus far, I have not found a cafe in Sweden that isn't warm and cozy. After a couple lovely hours of chit chat, Sarah had to get back to work for the afternoon so I decided to wander around Stockholm for a bit.

So much shopping. There are no fewer than 7 H&M stores within a 2 mile radius each other. It was absurd. They were literally across the street from each other. They were also decent sized stores. Most were multi-level. It was bizarre to see. I also walked through Åhléns, which is like Swedish Macy's. It was huge and made more complex because all the signs were in Swedish. It also cost 10 kronor to use the bathroom in Åhléns which is like $1.75. Stupidest thing I've ever seen. 

Gus the Lion!

Stockholm is a fantastic city. It's astounding to me that there are many buildings in Gamla stan (literally translated as "the Old Town") that are older than the entire country of the US. I think of the MN State Capitol as old but really that bad boy is just over a hundred years old. It's cool that Stockholm has the modern business and shopping regions and Gamla stan which dates back to the 13th century. That's right. I read the tourist plaques around the city. Gamla stan is home to the Royal Palace, the Opera House, the National Museum, the German Church (I know, weird), Stortorget, and the Vasa Museum. I wish it wasn't so cloudy when I was there but it was four in the afternoon and the sun hadn't set so I'm not complaining!

Royal Palace. What's up, Carl and Sylv? It has more than 600 rooms. WHAT.

Swedish Parliament

Apparently, the changing of the guards at the Royal Palace is a cool spectacle in Stockholm. That will be something to check out on a nicer day this spring. I also saw a TGI Fridays in Stockholm. That was strange but it's nice to know that even Sweden has a place where it's always Friday. Next time I got to Stockholm, it's going to be a Gustie shopping day to get dresses and everything we need for the Gasque in 3 weeks! Well that's enough words and gloomy pictures for one post! Happy Super Bowl Sunday/Monday!