fABBAlous in Sweden: Busy busy!

Hej!

It's been forever since I last wrote about what I have been doing! I've been busy here with school. I had my exam for my second class just last week, and I did quite a bit work in March to prepare for that. The actual exam was exhausting because I wrote over 20 pages and stayed for the full 5 hours! I have recently started a new class which is all about genocide. It is, of course, a pretty somber class, but I've really appreciated the different perspectives I have gotten. My professor is from Croatia and was an aid worker in the Bosnian conflict, and there are a few of my classmates who have actually been volunteers in Darfur. This class will actually end in the last part of April, and then I will be done with my studies here. I will stay in Sweden until the middle of May, though.

In terms of adventures, I've had some good ones this past month! A week after my trip to Paris, I went on a ski trip to the town of Romme in Sweden, which is just a couple hours north of Uppsala. I was so nervous to go on the trip because I hadn't been skiing in ages, and even then I was very much a beginner! I decided to just do it anyway! Sure enough, I felt like quite the beginner. The bunny hill was higher than the advanced hills I had seen in my Ohio ski trips! It was also intimidating to watch the Swedish children. There were 2 and 3 year olds flying down the very advanced hills!! Even though I was clearly out of my league, I had a great time! I worked my way up to the intermediate hills by the end of the day. Once, by accident, I even went down an advanced hill because I took the wrong lift! Yikes, that was scary!!

The next weekend, Jeff came to visit me. He stayed for a week, and I was able to show him around Uppsala and introduce him to some of my friends here. We also went to Copenhagen for two days! While we were in Copenhagen we walked around to see all of the important tourist sites such as the Little Mermaid statue (in the picture), the Round Tower, the Tivoli Gardens, etc. We also went to see a part of town called Christiana. I had remembered it from watching the Scandinavia Globe Trekker with Mom and Dad. It's this area in Copenhagen that is considered to be an independent community of "hippies". Now it's really more of a tourist destination than anything, but it's really interesting. They have their own currency and everything!

I felt pretty at home in Denmark because it was so similar to Sweden. The language was very similar (I could recognize a lot of the key phrases), and I had to remind myself not to say "hello" or "thank you" in Swedish! The buildings in Denmark also remind me of the buildings in Stockholm ( many different colors and a lot of older buildings, too). Even the setting of the city was familiar! Just like Stockholm, Copenhagen is situated right next to the water. I think Scandinavian cities are really underrated as tourist destinations. From what I've seen, they are all very clean, safe, well-organized, vibrant and interesting cities!

Later in the week, I took Jeff to Stockholm. Unfortunately we didn't have very much time because I had class that day. However, we were able to walk around what I consider "the important parts" of Stockholm such as the main shopping and walking area and Gamla Stan, which is the old and very charming part of the city. We also went to the most famous museum in Scandinavia, which is the Vasa museum. Inside this museum there is the "the" Swedish warship from the 17th century that sunk on its maiden voyage. Later in the 1950's the ship was found and they pulled it out of the sea. It was incredible to see how intact this huge ship is after all those years under the water!

Besides the adventures, I've just been having a good time in Uppsala. We have had a couple of birthday parties for people recently. This week we said goodbye to our friend Nappe, who played bandy (it's like hockey) here. It was a really sad goodbye for all of us! The good news is that a few of us will be traveling to Helsinki (where he lives) over Easter weekend, and we will get to see him!

This weekend has been particularly nice! On Friday, I got to meet my friend Wojtek's brother and friend who were in for the weekend. We met up with our Swedish friend Emelie who had friends visiting from France. On Saturday, we all had a picnic by the river because the weather was so lovely (it was over 60 degrees)! Later that day, I went on another excursion to Gamla Uppsala (old Uppsala) with Wojtek and his guests. Gamla Uppsala was the main center of the Vikings in Sweden. Because I have just taken the Viking history class, I was the resident expert on Gamla Uppsala. I felt like Laura!!