Saturday, February 12, 2011

Just a little Update

Well, a week has gone by so I figured I should probably update you all on my life.

Not a ton has happened since the superbowl celebrations, but let me tell you, the weather here in Marburg?  Phenomenal!  We are averaging currently at about 50 degrees for temperatures, even though some days our expected highs are only around 37.  It truly feels like spring here, which I am completely content with.  I feel like dealing with winter here makes the time pass more slowly and make me more aggitated since I don't want to go out and explore as much.. so yay! Spring!  I've been going on walks every day, and I swear I got sunburnt one day this week.  It wasn't that hard to accomplish after walking around for about 5 miles under the clear blue skies.  I could definitely get used to this.

In other news, it just hit me today that I really only have about 4 months left here.  That sounds like soooo long to some of you I'm sure, but oh my gosh.  That is like, nothing!!  Where has this year gone?! I am trying to plan my final little trips, and I'm coming to the conclusion I just don't have enough time to do everything that I want to do! ahhh!! When I left the states after Christmas I was like oh, no big deal, I've got 5 months to do all this stuff I want to do.  Well, a month has gone by, and tomorrow I'm leaving for Portugal, then to Hamburg for my birthday, then Berlin for culture class, then language class/culture class for six weeks, then normal class, and then... home.  Oh my god.  I am so not ready for this whirl wind of a tour to be over.  I guess I'll just have to come back and do another study abroad! haha I think my dad just had a heart attack.  But yeah.  It's ending waaaay too fast!!


Lisbon tomorrow! 4 am train to the airport! I'm pumped!!

Monday, February 7, 2011

Superbowl... Monday?

Well folks, I gotta say it.

WEEEEEEEEEEE ARE THE CHAAAAMPIONS MY FRIEEEEENDS!!!
(cue Queen- We are the Champions)

The Packers won the Superbowl! We are world champions! MY HOME TEAM!  Oh my goodness, was I excited.  I woke up this afternoon with a sore throat due to excessive screaming, wearing green and gold from head to toe and the biggest smile on my face.  Today, folks, is a great day to be a Packers fan.  Especially a Packer fan with their hometown roots in none other than the almighty Green Bay, Wisconsin. 

The Suerbowl started at 5:30 PM Standard Central time Sunday evening, which put the start time here in Germany at 12:30 AM on Monday morning.  Superbowl Monday anyone?  Many were surprised to hear I was going to stay awake into the early morning hours over a sporting event (Especially those who  have known me to sleep through a variety of games in my past.. I must admit, sometimes my fan qualities are quite embarassing.. ) But you had to be kidding yourself if you thought I wouldn't go through thick and thin to watch this game live.  THIS IS MY TEAM. MY CITY. MY PEOPLE. MY LOVES.  I was wide awake, twitching actually, by the beginning of the game. 

 

For the festivities, my friends and I found ourselves at a local Mexican bar here in Marburg.  I know, it's kind of a boggling thought, but whatever works, right?  They had a mexican food buffet for the game which we all took advantage of (German Beer and Nachos.. sounds like the ultimate Superbowl package to me..) and settled in for the game.   By the beginning of the game we discovered that Carissa (From Waukesha, WI) and I were probably some of the most die-hards in our section of the bar quite quickly, but hey.  There were some good sports in there willing to scream with us.  Tense moments in the game has us freaking out, I mean it was 3 am our time, the time alone had our emotions all over the place.  But it was an amazing game.  When it came down to the final moments of the game, with about 1 minute left on the clock and the other team only 6 points, one touch down, away from beating us, I don't think Carissa and I even breathed.  And then they thew the interception.  We took a sigh, a momentary calculation to realize we had won, and then flew out of our chairs screaming, shaking, and celebrating loud enough to make sure our team heard us all the way from our little Marburg.  It was a crazy evening.  The late night partiers at the bar (who I am quite sure had no idea how the game worked or who the packers even were) were celebrating with us, taking shots on their own, screaming PACKERS BABY PACKERS *add German accent* and dancing.  It was amazing.  I felt such a strong pull towards home, it was unreal.  I almost cried at one point, but ehmm well, didn't I guess?  Watching everyone in Green Bay celebrate the win on the news sites this morning made me feel a slight tinge of homesickness, but it may just be the envy of them being there in the amazing atmosphere of the epic win.  Here are some photos of the night.. and congrats Green Bay.  Home is where the heart is, and my heart is DEFINITELY home with my team today <3

"Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another. " - Vince Lombardi

Welcome Home Lombardi Trophy, Welcome Home. 


 

One additional note- the last time the Packers won the Superbowl? I was in Kindergarten.  It's definitely their turn to shine :)

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Stockholm Syndrome Part 2

Well, I was supposed to get around to finishing this post yesterday, but a strong headache kind of prevented me from doing anything.  But today is a new day.. so here we go! 

So... I think you all got the idea that Nichola and I spent the majority of our time wandering around the city without a real destination on the first day.  We managed to stumble upon the palace and parliament building, but also other awesome places like the National Cathedral and well.. tons of other buildings.  Here are some of those pictures.. The National Cathedral is the huge red chuch you'll see. 

 
 
 

These were all generally taken in the main downtown square of Stockholm.  In the summer there is a beautiful garden covering the main little center square, but clearly, we weren't there in Summer.  Oh well.  As you can see from the one advertisment, Sweden bears no shame or restrictions in advertisement.  Another example of this :
Yep.  Granted, I have no idea what the sign is saying, but I kind of have a general idea?  I find it so strange that they're so open about things like advertisement when there are SO many small children living in the city.  Seriously, they're everywhere.  Then again, I guess it is just part of their culture; I guess it may not always be bad to hide things from your kids? Eh.  Speaking of Children though, Stockholm has an extremely young age base.  There were small children all over!  There were tons of schools, parks, childrens shops and playgrounds.  Nichola and I saw a lot of them out on ice rinks during what appeared to be their recess.  Imagine that.. in Sweden, instead of playing on a playground for recess, you go ice skating.  No wonder they're so good at Ice sports. 

 
Awww.  The two boys actually laid there arguing over what I presumed to be who's fault it was for about 5 minutes.  At least they were wearing helmets? 

While staying with our host, I learned quite a bit from him about the Swedish culture... Here are some bullet points for you..
  • Recently, 10 seats in the Swedish Parliament have been awarded to the racist party of Sweden.  They are racist against immigration into their country and to other cultures influencing their traidtional Swedish culture.  This is quite the controversy in the nation at the moment, and is also making other nations in Europe nervous, since it is one of the first European nation's to have a racist party active in government since World War II.  Ahh!
  • Swedes love their coffee and cafe's; there are at least 10 per street.  However, there is only one Starbucks in the entire country, and it's located in their Stockholm International Airport. 
  • Sweden, in general, is quite lifeless after dark.  Their people tend to just go home from work and hibernate in their apartments; they are not big on a night life. 
  • Swedish people, when they see a friend on the street, will generally ignore them or pretend they don't know them.  (This is information from my host, so I can't be 100% positive on that one, but ehmm sure?)  They don't accept friendships easily, they generally just have friendships since they were little and then stick to them.  They make acquaintances, but not deep friendships.  Again, this is just what our host told us. 
  • There are not that many homeless/beggars in Sweden.  I'm guessing the artic cold has held an effect on this, but Nichola and I did not see a single one during our entire visit.  It was strange since here in Germany, even in the smallest of cities, you will find them with their cup and tolken dog asking for money.
That's the majority of random Swedish culture facts for you... I must admit, I can't think of any others right now. 

Also while I was in Stockholm, we managed to hit up the original IKEA store.  I am a huge fan of IKEA in general, however, in my home state, we don't even have one since we don't have a city large enough for one.  Our closest IKEA stores are in Chicago and Minneapolis.  Tragic.  But anyways.  Nichola and I went there with the knowledge of cheap Swedish meatballs and the intent to visit the original store.  It was actually a nice little get away from the downtown; IKEA is located just outside of the city, and offers a bus (With FREE wifi!!) to the store every hour.  We caught the bus, got to the store, ate some meatballs (for only $3 .. the cheapest thing in their entire country, I swear..) ran around the store, bought a cinnamon roll, and then headed back to the apartment.  Good times, good times.

 
 
 
 
 
IKEA basically is exactly the same as in the states, though.  So don't get too excited if you someday make it to Stockholm.  But hey, it's worth saying you made it there!

That basically wraps it up for this trip.  Granted, there were other stories and such I've forgotten, but maybe they'll show up randomly in my blog at a different time.  Lisbon, Portugal is next on the destination list; Sunday the 13th, here I come!  I'm pretty excited for that trip- I've never really experienced a Spanish-type culture before (I know Portugal isn't Spanish, but, well, close enough!).

Also, I would just like to note.  My mom is reading this book, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson, and aparently it's pretty hilarious.  She keeps reading me exerpts from the book, and basically it's all about his adventures in Europe.  We laugh our butts of reading it, so I figured I would share it with you guys, since, well, why not?  Especially if you enjoy reading about European cultures and norms.. he has quite the commical way of explaining them.  Although he is kind of harsh on the German culture.  But it was written 20 years ago, so ehm, I guess things have changed a little.  However some is till relevant.  Nevertheless, still recommend it :)


Adios folks!  Oh, and before I completely end with Sweden, side note, don't depend on them for a sense of direction :)

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Stockholm Syndrome Part 1

As of yesterday I am now home from my Stockholm adventure, fingers unthawed, wallet empty, and brain boggled.  But it was definitely quite the adventure.

My friend Nichola and I left for the airport around 3:30 pm on Sunday for our flight at 9 pm.  We had to take a train and then a bus to the airport, then our flight, and then another bus from the Skavsta airport to the main train station in Stockholm, and then a Taxi to our host's apartment.  It was quite the ordeal and we didn't actually reach the apartment until around 1 am on Monday, but oh well.  We were ready for an adventure!

Starting at 8 am on Monday we began the ultimate walking tour of Stockholm, guided by none other than ourselves.  Stockholm is actually comprised of 14 separate islands, of which we managed to hit five.  Here is a map to show you how it looks.

Ok so now that we covered that, Stockholm is a really really really Old city.  I mean parts of it were Medieval.  So there is tons of history to be absorbed there, and the sights are gorgeous.   The Swedish people are truly a kind and welcoming culture (probably the most welcoming of my trips thus far) and are extremely skilled in English.  Although, side note, don't ask them for directions to the tourism office, because they'll send you in circles for about three hours no matter how many of them you ask, and eventually you'll just have to give up and wander to the City hall for tourist information.  Anyways.  Back to the city.  The streets are kind of a mixture of cobblestone and almost brick-like things, but you can't really tell the difference between cobblestone and ice..  so.. oh well.  They don't actually salt their sidewalks and such during the winter months; they accumulate far too much snow and ice to have a stable salt supply on hand.  Instead, they use sand.  There are sandboxes outside of all the shops, and at moments you feel like you're walking on a beach instead of the streets of Stockholm (granted that feeling only lasts a milisecond until you realize you are no where near warm and can't feel your face).  The temperatures while I was there were around 35, and we had two days of sun which apparently is just unreal.  Their headlines of their newspapers will be "It will be sunny today!!" if the sun is expected to even show for merely than 10 minutes.  I guess in the winter it is only true blue, sunny skies about one day out of the month.  The rest is just cloudy and dreary.  So yay for us, we somehow got two!  Talk about luck.  The sunshine was great, but the wind could be brutal since we were right on the water throughout the entire city, which lead to major glove and hat usage.  Here are some photos from the old medieval island of the city (now mostly cute little shops and restaurants) called Gamlastan.  It was the halfway point to a lot of our destinations, so I actually spent quite a bit of time there..
 

The National Parliament Building and Royal Palace are both also located on that island, not too far from most of the shops.  My friend and I basically just stumbled upon them without really trying to locate them.  According to our host for the weekend, the Swedish people aren't really a fan of their Royal Family, because they aren't really truly Swedish (The queen is Brazilian and German, the Prince, who just married the Princess, was a commoner and just a mere fitness trainer) so it is quite the controversy.  But apparently Norway's monarchy is apparently in more of a scandal, however, beacuse their crowned prince just married a stripper.  Anywho.  The palace isn't all that stunning from the outside, but it suffices.  The parliament building is then directly across the street from it.  How convenient.  The royal family has no real official power over the country, they are just more a symbol of tradition and something to make their postage stamps adequate.  Here are what the buildings look like..

National Parliament Buildings..
 

Royal Palace

 


Yep.  As I said, not the most impressive looking Palace, but I guess it gets the job done.  They give their guard a nice little heating pad to stand on during the cold winter months.  How sweet.

I'm starting to realize I've collected far too much information for this trip to be merely one blog post, so hence the part one.  I'll keep writing until I have to leave to meet my new roommates for a movie at 8 pm :)

As far as Stockholm goes for a trip destination, I would say if you're out of college with a stable income and are willing to spend a little more money in an expensive city, go for it.  However, if you are a college student on a limited budget, DO NOT GO TO STOCKHOLM.  Or Sweden, or Scandinavia for that matter.  It is ungodly expensive.  Like seriously.  I could barely afford to feed myself, much less pay entry fees for museums and other things with the hope of coming back to Germany and affording to feed and clothe myself ever again.  To put it in perspective, if one wanted to eat a cheap version of Chinese food without anything special, it would be around $20 per person, minimum.  And that is just chinese.  When you try to eat at authentic Swedish restaurants, you're looking at anywhere from $30 a plate or up.  Drinks in bars and clubs are at least $10 each, so scratch out the idea of kicking a few drinks back at the end of the day.  Coffee is about $5 per cup, at a cheap cafe'.  I mean it folks, Stockholm was not cheap.  My friend Nichola and I lived off apples purchased at a grocery store and 7/11 Hotdogs.  It was not glorious. 

See what I mean? ha.  Anyways.  Although the expenses part of the trip wasn't the best, I would still say I am glad I went.  It is truly a beautiful city, probably even more beautiful in the summer, with a really interesting culture to be observed.  It is also a easy city to walk around in- a lot of things are central enough to only need a good pair of tennis shoes to reach, no bus pass needed (or suggested, they're about $4 per trip, one way..).  I guess in all, it was an adventure which I can tell my kids someday.  One of those "I walked 20 miles, uphill, in the snow, in Stockholm, just to find the Jewish Museum after only eating an apple in the last 48 hours" stories.  :) 

Speaking of the Jewish Museum, Nichola and I really couldn't afford a ton of museums, nor are all of them open during convenient times, so we chose to walk clear across town on our second day to the Jewish Museum.  It was super small, only two rooms, but they had some good information on the Jewish history in Sweden.  I was not aware that Sweden did not prosecute their Jews during the Second World War, in fact, they sent buses in to save them from concentration camps.  The buses they sent were called the "White Buses" and were sent to concentration camps throughout Germany.  They literally took back all the scandinanvian Jews from the camps to Sweden, and ended up saving approximately 8,000 lives.  Too bad they couldn't save them all :(  But on the other side of things, Sweden was the first country to fund the beginning of racial profiling research.  So I guess their slate isn't completely clean.  In total, I learned quite a bit about the Jewish history which was cool.
 

Another place we visited was the City Hall, although it truthfully wasn't one of our planned destinations.  We had tried to find the tourism office in order to buy a pass for students for the transportation and museums our entire first day in Stockholm, however all the Swedish citizens which we asked kept sending us in all different directions all over the city.  Unfortunately, we didn't find it until the last night we were in Stockholm, but on the plus side, the extra walking just let us see more of the city than we probably would have otherwise.  We found out we could buy the pass at the city hall, however, it ended up not being worth the money for the little time we had left in the city, plus we didn't need the transportation; walking was suiting us just fine.  The city hall was gorgeous though, especially the views from out front on the water. 

 
 
 
Personally, I found the views quite gorgeous.  Although, at one point, there are some steps leading down into the water with no guard rail or anything- it's quite dangerous.  Especially since there are gigantic ice chunks floating around everywhere, ensuring a freezing body of water below.  Interesting how safety standards are different in other countries.  In the USA people would freak out and write their city mayors about it I'm sure.  And this is on the front steps of their own City Hall.  It's a different world out there people, I'm telling ya. 

Well, I am going to wrap this up here for today.  I will continue on tomorrow.  As for right now, I'm going to meet my new house mates at the movies tonight to see Virgin Suicides.  I know it's a quite popular book in the States, and I think I even read it, but I seriously can't remember anything about it.  Hopefully it's not super scary or something.  Also, here is the link to the rest of my photos from the trip, if you would like to just not wait for the remainder of my post and look at them now :)


Also, I'll try and figure out how to put a youtube video of Stockholm on here tomorrow which would give you a real feel for the city. So yep. Until tomorrow!