Alex's Trip to Sweden

Hej från Danmark!

2009-06-02T03:56:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

Just a brief update from the Roskilde Public Library: I'm having a great time in Denmark, meeting friends and family, seeing lots of cool historic sights, neat museums, and doing some really sweet things (like a Glider ride with Eric Jul, one of the family). My birthday was awesome, and now I look ahead to my parents and sister joining me next week back up in Stockholm.

Hopefully, someday, my broken computer will be fixed. With any luck, that will be fixed around the time I get back, and I have lots of pictures and stories to tell, so come back in a month and hopefully I'll have some fun things to look at. thanks!

Oh No!

2009-05-18T00:16:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!

We just got back from a week studying Geology (the Middle Swedish End Moraines in particular) with former Gustavus Professor Mark Johnsson and his group of geology students from a university in Göteborg. It was actually a whole lot more fun than I originally thought it would be (because, as some of us like to think, Geology seems to be the study of looking at rocks) and we got to see some really unique sites, enjoy some great views, and better understand what was going on around here during the last period of glaciation. I have some great pictures from the trip, but alas, a very sad thing has happened:

My computer is in a coma.

It's broken like this two times before, and both times required intensive factory reconstruction. Now that I'm in Sweden, that is going to be a lot harder to get for my computer. There's a good chance I will not be uploading any more pictures during my time here, nor will I have any kind of reliable access to anything with a keyboard until I leave for the US.

But all is not lost. The trip is coming to a close for many of us here, and over half the group departs for the US on Wednesday. It's been a life-changing experience for all of us, and I think it will be nice to pry myself away from a computer screen so I have time to read, write, and reflect about the time I've spent abroad.

I travel to Denmark this week to stay with my very generous family in Roskilde, and look forward to exploring the land of my ancestors (well, half of them). I plan on spending those weeks finding out more about my family history, as well as the history and culture of Denmark, and maybe find a beach some time in there. I meet my family in Stockholm June 8th, and from there we plan on seeing places in both Sweden and Denmark. I really look forward to it. June 19th I plan on setting foot on American soil once again, and thereafter getting Chipotle, and reutiting with spicy food, fried food, and grilled food.

Hopefully I will have at least one more post with pictures, but no guarentees. My best wishes to all of you as we enter summer. It's probably warmer and sunnier where you are now than were I am (today the high is 42F and it's going to rain. Except for one day a few weeks back, we have yet to go over 65F), so enjoy it for me!

Long time no blog

2009-05-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

It's not that I don't love you, I just haven't blogged in a few weeks. My apologies. The reason I haven't been is that little worth photographing has come up in our first weeks here at SVF. We're getting involved a little with some of the classes (English, Political Science, Environmental Studies, International Relations, History, The Bible... quite a few classes, actually) but our days aren't quite as filled as they used to be back in March.

But now the days are longer, the trees are greener, and the air is almost warm enough for shorts and t-shirts. We've just been driving all around Southeastern Sweden, Roland's old stomping grounds; this past extended weekend we visited more cities and cites than I think I can remember, meeting some of Roland's old companions and family along the way. Even though I spent the better part of four days crammed into a Ford Fiesta, we did some pretty fun and remarkable things.

Even though our adventure officially disembarked on Thursday, we had dinner Wednesday night at the home of two faculty members here who happen to also be sheep farmers. Apparently in Sweden, you can be a teacher and still have time to keep over a hundred sheep. Either that, or teachers are so poorly paid that they need to keep animals to make end's meat. The whole experience was very Swedish looking: people laying out on the green grass, red barns and a yellow farm house set in an open field with animals grazing where they please, and enjoying an outdoor dinner set on IKEA dishware. And we had beef, not lamb, on the table. Here's a video of one of the students getting a sheep to baah at us:

Thursday morning we set out north, initially visiting the town where arctic explorer Solomon August Andree was born and stopping in at the museum dedicated to the history of him and the surrounding area. Although his name might not ring any bells, he is remarkable in that he attempted in 1897 to get to the north pole by hot air balloon, failed, crashed on North Island, took lots of pictures, then died. He's most remarkable for the pictures part of it, because when he was found 30 years later by some Norwegians, the negatives were still mostly intact. It was fairly interesting, but the fake polar bear mats to sit on, along with the odd looking models (we saw a Yoda look-alike making candy) were amusing.

That afternoon we spent with a man Roland met when he first got to America and studied in Seattle named Brian. He's an assistant professor at two universities, one in Seattle and the other in Stockholm, and is a veritable font of information about basically anything related to Scandinavian historical anthropology, along with geology, history, and art (among many other things as well). He first took us around his farm, which is part of and on an EU historical cite, so it had all the traditional elements of Swedish farm houses, and there were many other interesting things just lying about. When they built a deck a few decades back, they found pottery shards from the 17th century, axe head blanks from the stone age, and lice combs from the 19th century, just to name a few. There were also rock carin graves all around next to the lake, and a road that was so widely used over the centuries that not only were the wagon wheel treads still barren, but also the lane which horses would trot down. We stood on the spot where Danes would marshal troops on during invasions, many a famous Swede have transversed between Stockholm and continental Europe, and that is one of the few roads left from the pre-industrial era.

He also took us around what could easily be mistaken for Iowa to show us a lot of the local history, which included stops at different kinds of folk churches (endearingly referred to as barn churches because of the style) as well as some iron age pre-viking historical cites, and we even got to see what was designed to be a castle, moat and all, to defend against... the Danes? It's on the north end of Lake Vätten, and is really isolated from any kind of conflict, but at one time Denmark used to control what is now southern Sweden, so at one point in history it may have seemed like building a castle there was a good idea. In fact, a lot of the churches are designed to be miniature fortifications, with armories and defensive structures like walls and towers. Who knew Sweden was once so warlike even the churches were designed for battle?

Thursday was also Valborg, celebrated by some as the coming of spring, shedding of winter, and brought in with a big fire. Others choose to celebrate with excessive amounts of alcohol and fireworks, since the next day is European Labour day, hence a day off of work and school. We spent ours doing the former with the parents of a faculty member at Gustavus, who prepared a lovely dinner for us, and then took us to see a choir perform overlooking a still lake with the setting sun the only fire around us (burning was banned because of the dry spell that has been plaguing the region) and a little church service afterward. It was a very nice end to a very big day.

Friday we went to Kosta, a glass blowing workshop, but unfortunately did not get to see any artists at their trade, since it was Labour day after all. It was still cool to see a lot of their work, which has recently been at ASI as well as other places around the world. It was a beautiful day, so we tanned a little as well. We also went to the Emigrants Museum in Växjö, which surrounded the Swedish migratory population and the author Villheim Moberg and his four-book series called the Emigrants. It was cool to see the Minneapolis skyline in the middle of Sweden, as well as find out a little more about where else lots of Swedes moved to, and why they did it. Not only was there a great economic insentive to move, but many also chose to move because of their religious beliefs, which they couldn't express back in Sweden due to the strict dominance of the Church of Sweden (you couldn't even host a public meeting in your house because people thought you were trying to subvert the church). Finally we ended up in Tingsryd after looking at a couple more historical cites, where we stayed in cabins on a lake.

Saturday was probably the most fun of the whole adventure, because Roland's cousin Gunnar led us around the region that Roland grew up in. To Roland's surprise, about 10 of his relatives also showed up, and Gunnar was dressed in the traditional Urshult garb. So not only did we get some really interesting insights to the local area, we also got to schmooze with the family if we wanted to flex our swedish language muscles. In that area of Sweden, the trees can be so thick the forest is dark at midday, and the traditional ways of farming are still very much alive. We went to an apple orchard and later saw a video about the local apple farmers, and they have to use a schythe to cut the grass, and can't use manure on the trees themselves. We saw a lot of things, ranging from the cite of an old medieval wooden church in which only the cross, stone arch, and altar remained, to Roland's old farm, to the rock that folklore says a giant threw at a church but missed, and so much more. In the evening Roland treated us to a great dinner, where we got to meet his family a little better, and also eat meat and potatoes, which was a delicious alternative to my typical Saturday night dinner of plain noodles and a baguette.

Being familiar with the Swedish chef, I had expected to encounter a lot of Swedes who reminded me of that kind him. I had been surprised at how inaccurate that stereotype of Swedes was, until that is, I went far south on this trip. Skåne, the historically Danish part of Sweden (taken by the Sweden in the late 1600s), is known for its distinctive dialect, and I can't tell you how many Swedish chefs I thought I heard during our time near there. I think I can speak Swedish, and I think I can understand it, but any time someone was talking with that accent, I just stood dumbfounded with the image of pots, pans, and vegetables flying about.

That experience was had some on Saturday, but Sunday we made it down to Karlshamn and dipped into Skåne a little as well. We saw the famous sculpture of The Emigrants (the same as in the books and museum) looking out to the Baltic Sea, which lay right next to the school Roland attended before he came to Seattle. We couldn't get in to see any of the classrooms, but it was neat to be standing on the very stones Roland used to sit out and play hookie on. After a brief tour of Lenneaus's house that he was born in and the farm there, we stopped next to the original IKEA, and made our way back. After four days of cramped travel, some people not showering, and having to listen to really bad Swedish radio, we were all itching to get back. Still, it was really fun to see so much and make a lot of connections to not only the things we've learned about Sweden during our time here, but also placing things Roland has mentioned about his life in Sweden and being a Swede together with a picture and feel of the land he was raised on.

Being back here now reminds me of how much free time I have, and also how short of a time I have left here in Sweden. There's only 16 days left for some people here, which means I have a month and a half left. It still seems like a long time, but now I can break it up and see the time disappearing before me faster than before. I'm also realizing home is nearer now than ever, which makes me both excited and sad, since I've loved my time here and want to stay, but also am beginning to want to see friends and once again feel the pleasures of home. Like an xbox controller ;) or food with some kind of spice.

Next week we spend in Göteborg and the surrounding area, with Mark Johnson and a group of other students as we study the local geology and learn about climatology and other equally interesting things. Until then, it's back to reading books and looking at youtube videos.

The view from the hill...

2009-04-16T06:12:00.000-07:00

So, it looks like to matter where I go, I always end up going to a school with a view. Södra Vätterbygdens Folkhögskola, our home here in Jönköping, is located on a hill that overlooks the town, and is also right next to a nice park. I've already encountered the inherent hardships with living with such a nice view, like staring off into space for long periods of time, and the physical hardships of having to climb up it every time I get back from town. Even breakfast makes some of us winded, because there is a rather large hill from our dorm to the main dining hall. But at least we sleep well at night.

It seems like just yesterday I was out on the streets of famous West London, exploring Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, and the many parks and museums which are west of Westminster. Although I did experience a cold wet 'typical' London day on Saturday, I still was able to enjoy myself in spite of the added Easter break crowds.

I think the best day from the second half of my time in London has to be Friday, because I got to do two things I haven't done before. Firstly, I took a ride on one of London's famous double-decker buses and sat on top, which is totally worth it, despite the inherent mundane nature of riding on a bus. Although I also went to the amazing National Gallery on Friday, in the evening I went to the musical Wicked, which I had never seen before. Some people may know I'm not usually one for musicals, even after having been in a few, because the point of (most) musicals is just to flash bright lights at you with big sets and place cliched plots into new, but just as predictable settings. Well, Wicked may have been entertaining because of its bright lights, big sets, and flashy costumes, but I also really enjoyed the story, and was really taken by the acting and singing quality of the cast. I don't want to spoil the musical for anyone, but even though they have quite a few lines we've all heard before, and even though you knew what was going to happen, I was still finding myself drawn in and liked the show for what it was.

So after going to many a museum, historical landmark, and doing so many of those things you 'have to do' in London (and walking to each and every one of them mind you), I flew back to Sweden on Sunday. After meeting some new friends while waiting five hours for the bus, and while on the bus meeting a Somali woman who has family in Minneapolis, I arrived in Jönköping at 3:45am on Monday. Luckily for me, I have an amazing professor with his sister's car who came and picked me up. It was great to see a familiar and friendly face again.

Since Monday, we've been getting used to the town here, planning what were going to do for the rest of the time, and slowly coming to terms with the fact that this is going to be our final destination here in Sweden as a group. We're going to be making a few extended field trips, but come May 19th, which is a month and three days from now, the group will depart from here and leave me to be on their merry way home.

While here, we'll resume our Swedish lessons, but on top of that, we'll also be going up with a few of the classes taught here. There's a history class, a Swedish class, a sport club, but I believe I will enjoy the Political Science/International Relations course the most over the coming weeks. Although we have yet to take part in the class itself, since there are other international students here from places like Russia, China, and India, I'm sure the discussions will be both interesting and, at times, heated.

I'll leave you today with the view from the lake here in Jönköping. It's so long, you can't see the other side because of the curvature of the earth. We're all looking forward to warmer weather soon, and hopefully I'll have more things to say next time.

OMGOMGOMG

2009-04-08T15:17:00.000-07:00

So, I just got back from a great walk. The sky is perfectly clear, the stars are out, the night is warm... and I just walked back from seeing Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett here in Norwich, UK. I also had pictures of them both with myself on my camera, and their autographs on my playbill. Jealous yet?

It was way more than awesome. The play is notorious for being both indecipherable and over-interpreted. I've read it many times, studied it at least twice, and knew some ways this play can be interpreted, but I think I never truly understood what it meant. This performance, albeit with my two favorite actors alive today, provided clarity and a precise interpretation of what the performance meant to this show.

Many of us in the US say guh-dough, but in this performance, there was a definite GOD-ot, which really set the tone of the play to what I believe is its strongest meaning, that is, a reflection of God/Religion, Action/Morality, and basically telling a story in the context of a completely farcical one. I loved everything about the execution- except for maybe the set- but to see wonderfully developed characters playing with each other on stage, communication, dynamicism, I mean, this performance embodies what good theater is all about. What I loved is that their star power did not diminish from the actual performance, and I wasn't ever expecting Vladimir to say 'two to beam up' or Estragon to tell Lucky "You shall not pass!"

Of course, this is not the only thing I've been doing. Since it's late here in Norwich, I'll be brief. I've been to the Tate Modern, and of that I have a few short things to say. A) I really liked it when painters used paint on their canvases. At least some paint. B) Art should be artistic, not blatantly not artistic to try and be not artistic, because then it's not art by definition. C) Abstraction needs something to abstract from. D) I would say that minimalism is not in itself a style, but rather specific artists' minimizations of their own style, which is why artists who start as minimalists need to stop. Finally E) Modern Art is good so long as it is both serving a purpose and is expressive. Please don't just say "then what is art, Alex?" because we both know that no one can answer that question well.

I've also been to the Imperial War museum, which wasn't actually about wars of empire per se, but rather WWI-present. With great detail in retelling all viewpoints of all major wars Britian has been a part of, it was really interesting to examine from an American point of view, seeing as we hardly hear about the grimy details of the battle of Britian, or get to see an outside view on the Vietnam conflict, or the wars in the Middle East. An equally interesting part of this museum, however, was the massive sections devoted to both the Holocaust and Human Rights violations. Not wanting to get into details, some pretty grim comparisons could be made between the paintings and photography of the concentration camps, and the horribly gratuitous and self-deprecating 'art' at the Tate. There was a lot of thinking that went on.

I also made a stop into Westminster, where I saw Big Ben, the Abbey, and (unintentionally) a protest against the violence in Sri Lanka and also in general around the Arab world. The Abbey hosts an evening service (called Evensong) every day at 5pm, and it's the one thing I would recommend to anyone who goes to London. The choir, which is men and boys, are highly professional, and it may have been because of how long it has been since I played music myself, or maybe how long it has been since I heard professionals perform, but I know that it's a rare experience when music makes me tear up a little, and it did in the Abbey. Not many people hear that kind of choir often, but the blend of the choir, matched with the medieval style of music, in the cavernous Westminster Abbey all added up to be one of the most splendid musical moments I have bore witness to. In particular, I showed up right at 5pm, and the choir was just about to start, but they were behind the partition in the hall, meaning that they were actually facing me and about 4 other people who had just walked in as well, and as they sang their first song it felt like they were singing to just us. Having just stepped out of police sirens and political demonstrations, it was all too fitting. Beautiful moment.

Tomorrow I hop on to the train and ride back to London, where I begin the second half of my time there. Who knows what's actually going to happen. I love exploring.

London's finally here!

2009-04-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

So, after a few bumps in the road, I finally made it to London. After two pretty rough travel days, night flights, and breathing in the fresh air of Frankfurt, Germany, I have two feet firmly planted on British Soil. At least, they all speak with British accents here. I've already screwed that up once; last night as I was ordering my train ticket from the airport to downtown London, I said, "Jag vill åka från här till Liverpool Station. Vilken tåg skulle jag ta?" To which the guy gives me a really odd look, says in a thick British accent, "Come Again?" and I think about how weird it will be, especially once I get back to the states, not having to talk to everyone in public places in Swedish. Over the past few days, Hegel and The Aeneid have kept be great company, but I think Virgil can take little more beating (both covers have fallen off, and the pages are quite loose too. Worth saving though, and thanks Grandpa for letting me take them before I left). Now, however, I have five random strangers to keep me company in my room, and the whole of London to occupy my time with for the next week.

I've already been doing my thing today, that is, walking around. My hostel (YHA St Pauls on Carter if you're trying to follow on Google maps) is right in between St. Pauls Cathedral and the River Thames, so I decided to walk the river in a big loop from where I am to what I thought was London Bridge and back. Turns out, London bridge is rather boring, so I blame American media for portraying Tower bridge as London bridge, and I ended up going all the way east to Tower Bridge (and, more importantly, the Tower of London). On my way though, I saw some cool things. For one, I crossed the Millennium bridge to the Tate Museum, but to my surprise, right next to it is Shakespeare's Globe Theater! It looked totally out of place, at least to me.

The tower bridge was pretty sweet to see up close- I didn't realize how big it was from all those Austin Powers movies or something. I was inadvertently corrected by a Brit who was complaining about all the Americans that confuse Tower bridge with London bridge, but that made me wonder, what does London bridge actually look like? Well, for all of you who are now wondering, it looks like this (the photo before the Globe), and it probably won't be falling down anytime soon either since they stopped building shops and houses on it (like the nursery rhyme).

After a quick stop back at the hostel, and listening to all the church bells go off around London for Palm Sunday (see video), I made my way back to the Tower of London. To me, that's kind of a misnomer. If I conceptualize tower of London, I think of the big radio tower here since it's basically the only skyscraper, but this Tower is far more like a fortress than anything else. So much like a fortress, in fact, that the only successful campaign launched against it was done by peasants in the 1300s, and it's also the storage place for the crown jewels. Yes, I have gazed upon the crown jewels of the throne, amongst other things. I've seen the biggest diamond in the world (impressive, but hard to believe it isn't a Claire's knockoff) as well as some pretty sweet swords, gilded maces, and purple crowns.

Among the many towers in the Tower of London, there are a few that the average tourist can enter. One exclusively features carvings prisoners have made into the walls during the 16th century. These are not the typical 'Alex 2009' which may or may not be inscribed in a certain church or residence in Sweden, but fully developed crests, lions, latin phrases, mottos, and other very detailed markings. Frankly, I was impressed by the artistry, even if they were inscribed with knives and other basic tools. Now, you also have to consider that these weren't your average prisoner, but could basically do everything they could at their own residence, except for leave, that is. Some of the most well-affiliated prisoners had their wives brought in, and a kid or two, and on top of that wrote a book (Sir Walter Raleigh), but most were afforded the luxuries of the nobility.

There was also an exhibit called Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill, a collection of his arms, armour, and war collections during his reign. As some of us know, Henry VIII was as violent hunting game as he could be to his wives, and although he sucked at collecting sons, he collected everything war-related very well. I saw full suits of armor for both man, child, and horse, more pikes and broadswords than I would know what to do with, Mace-guns, Pike-guns, Halberd-guns, guns, bigger guns, artillery, bigger artillery, multi-barreled artillery that had exploded, plunder, and oh so much more. It got kind of overwhelming when we gazed upon his codpieces, or had a laugh over the suit of armour made for his exceedingly overweight body.

There were a lot of interesting and nice things to do within the castle walls, but I think two will stand out to me most. The runner up is how well kept everything was; from the grasses, to the flowers, to the location in general, it really helps force the recent memory of winter out of me. The video below is of the grounds and the view from one of the battlements, which also looks out over the Thames. The most memorable thing was the guided tour by the Yeomen, however. These old and distinguished army personnel get to live in the Tower if they serve over 22 years with good conduct to even be considered, but on top of that they (usually) have a very good sense of humor. Our guide today was cracking jokes left and right, and apparently thought I was Swedish, or at least nordic, because not only had a totally spaced out when he asked who the Americans were (he was making fun of their slow sense of humor), I was wearing my Gustavus Adolphus sweatshirt, and I stand a full head taller than most people in this country (he said something about not even the vikings attacking this part of England; again, I had spaced out, but 'awoke' to the whole crowd looking at me and some people chuckling). Still, I really enjoyed myself and was happy to find out a little bit more about just the kind of people who get executed here, and what kind of prisoners lived in the halls, and other cool bits of information. (Note that this picture is from the inner wall, looking at the clothesline and car parked inside the outer wall of the castle.)

Today was really tiring. I love to walk everywhere, but that gets a little wearing. Tomorrow, I plan to see the Tate Museum of Modern Art, and maybe the London Museum as well, and get my tickets for Norwich in advance. Only three days until I'll be slobbering over what I've heard is a stunning rendition of Waiting for Godot with Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart. I can't wait. If you have any suggestions as to what I can't leave London without seeing, please e-mail them to me at Alexlegeros@gmail.com. There's certainly plenty to do here, but I'm looking to suggestions to help make a priority list so I know I'm getting the most out of this week.

My how time flies

2009-04-04T01:24:00.001-07:00

I apologize if this sounds a little 'journal-y.' I wrote most of this in different locations yesterday, so I didn't realize how long it got. I promise, I won't mind if you just look at the pictures on this one. Here's a funny one, just to give perspective on how large and small cars can get here in Sweden:

How should one capture a week on a blog? There’s so much to say, so many details, so many people, places, new experiences, the occasional struggle… too overwhelming to try to enumerate in its entirety. Then again, that seems to be the theme of this trip, so I will do the best I can.

Right now, in this little café in Jönköping that overlooks a lake, I’m already asking myself where these last two weeks in Stockholm have gone. Just last Satuday I was looking around the Modern Art Museum, trying to find as many H&M’s as I could find, and taking in as many churches and buildings as I could. Sunday is pretty easy to remember- outside of getting of the boat to find lunch, I worked a lot on a presentation about Sweden’s military from the Cold War to the present. You’ll see that our ‘findings’ are quite bold; when I had this picture up at a fast food restaurant that evening, I apparently was turning heads of those in line and around me.

Monday I presented those findings to our group. They too found it pretty interesting, or at least that picture was. The afternoon was spent in Santa Clara Church in downtown Stockholm, where we met with Kolleg, the vicar there. His story was quite unique: he started as a pastor in a small town when he was 23, brought a lot of vibrancy to his congregation through different youth and other activities, and eventually worked his way to becoming a missionary in Tanzania. After preaching to packed churches and studying and writing about how to grow congregations, he came back and began preaching at Santa Clara. On his first Sunday in 1989, in this massive church, he turned to the congregation only to see three old women looking back at him, none younger than 80. Since then, he has been commended by the King for the social work he has done in the area, known for its high crime rate and prostitution. Today, he says that the church is filled on Sundays, and it thanks coffee for bringing everyone in from the cold (well, they are Swedes, what would you expect when you offer free coffee?). It’s odd to me that for a country that up until recently had a state church that worked so closely with the government, almost no one goes to church with any sort of regularity. Not just in Stockholm either, but even in traditionally religious regions of Sweden church attendance is at best 15% of the baptized population (which is almost everybody).

Tuesday we got to see two of the biggest attractions in Stockholm: Dramaten, and the Vasa Museum. In the morning we got a tour of Dramaten, the royal dramatic theater here in Sweden, founded by Gustav III in the late 1700s. The original purpose of the theater was to educate Swedes about the Swedish language through theater, and so everything that’s performed on that stage is translated into Swedish. Last week at the Swedish Academy, also founded by Gustav III, we learned that the opera house and the academy itself were supposed to take foreign work and perform it in Swedish, to educate and culture the people as well. Dramaten itself is huge; one main stage, a dance studio, a black box, highly ornamented all over in the ‘Gustavian’ or Empire style, and they even had a marble room with busts of important Swedish directors and actors and a giant portrait of (guess who?) Gustav III. Backstage was really interesting too; we got to see the costume shop, one of their two huge costume storage areas, walk the skyway (a little less wide and a lot farther up than in Minneapolis), and see what goes on under the stage as well. Of there over 10,000 costumes which they keep, there were a few really cool ones that we got to see. I think my favorite was the baby troll costume from Peter Gynt that Ingmar Bergman directed in the 1990s, but there was also a cool Queen Elizabeth dress that weighed a lot and a jacket that would appear soaking wet on stage but just looked covered in white and black paint up close. We also learned a little about wig making at Dramaten, which is done using real human hair and, at least in the front, stitching in one hair at a time.

We also got to see the Vasa Museum (the ship, not the guy like in Mora) on Tuesday. The ship is huge. Hugely huge. If you know anything about the history of the ship itself, you know that its size is probably the cause of its downfall: Gustavus II Adolph (the Gustavus we’re most familiar with) ordered this ship to have a second row of cannons and to enhance the officer’s quarters, and that made the ship super unstable. As the story goes, it sailed for about a kilometer before a gust of wind came and it sank right in the deepest part of Stockholm harbor. Although they didn’t salvage the ship, divers using these giant bell-shaped things as an underwater air reservoir were able to salvage over 50 of the bronze cannons, which is astounding if you consider they had basically no light and were using mid-17^th century diving equipment. After it was pulled up and preserved (1950s-70s) and after using various methods to make sure the wood doesn’t rot or fall apart, it looks like a giant work of art today. There are so many things to look at on the ship itself, so much symbolism (a typical Polish nobleman stuck behind bars, for instance), and so much detail that it’s hard to take it all in. On top of this, it was once painted, so it’s fun to see what artist’s conceptions look like as well. Tons of exhibits, thousands of artifacts, some re-created faces from skeletons they found when they brought up the ship, and a lot more- definitely worth going to the next time you’re in Stockholm.

Wednesday was another busy day. We met with the Swedish Institute in the morning, and I was really surprised by how well received we were. SI is responsible for a lot of things, but is primarily concerned with the teaching of Swedish as a language abroad. It had focused on different regions of the worth throughout time, like Eastern Europe after the Cold War, and Asian nations today, but was originally founded in 1945 because “Sweden had an image problem.” Sweden was worried that its ‘neutrality’ during WWII may be misconstrued due to the transport of Nazi troops from Norway to Denmark through Sweden and the other troops movements the Nazis did to get a better hold on Norway. The people at the institute were very interested in our trip, and have asked us to write it up for their publication, which is a great honor considering they look at programs all around the world for that. They also were very generous, and outside of coffee, tea, and coffee cake, they gave us SI bags and some really cool books to choose from. Since Roland has used some of them in his classes before, many of us just picked them up then and there. I had a much more interesting time than I thought we would.

After that, we met with Amy Leval, a Gustavus grad, working as a researcher at the Karolinska Institute. She gave us a presentation on healthcare and the HPV vaccine, focusing a lot on Sweden and how it has been received here. The HPV vaccine has become standard now in the list of vaccinations students receive at school, and some women are worried about it and its effects. We did a comparative study question that asked why instances of Type II diabetes might be less prevalent in Sweden than it is in the US, to which we were very active in accusing all the bad things the typical American does, and how great Sweden is at encouraging good lifestyles. Call us biased, but we discussed huge differences between the two cultures: universal health care, exercise habits, diets and the lack of super processed foods, natural cane sugars… the list can go on for a while. It made us feel like all the walking we’ve been doing for the last few months has been worth it.

The afternoon featured a visit to two Gustavus grads at Vattenfall, the largest energy company in Sweden, and now the 5^th largest energy company in Europe. Annika Ramsköld and Lena Hovland, both Gustauvs grads and also memebers of the upper administration in Vattenfall, led us to the top of the building, which had a great view of the big Library in Stockholm and its park, and we fikaed and went over a lot fo Vattenfalls's environmental vision for the future. It hopes to be carbon neutral by 2050, which is a huge deal for a power company that still operates plenty of coal plants. They also powerate hydro and nuclear power plants, and have small scale offshore windfarms, biomass plants, and are experimenting with wave power too. Since they're a state company, the dividens go back to the people of Sweden. Green and making money for the country? If only Excel could do the same.

Thursday is by far the easiest to describe. Studying. It was a beautiful day, but many of us spent it in the cabin, studing to Lennart's final test, which was from 4:30-7:00pm. Many of us thought it was really hard, but the best part about tests is that once they're done, they're done. And now it's done. No more worries!

Friday, yesterday for me now, was the day of traveling- or at least was supposed to be. I left af Chapman for Jönköping by bus early in the morning, and met with the people from the next youth hostel we'll be staying with after Easter. Johan, our contact person there, was really gracious to us and extended an offer to store our extra baggage over break. I think I'm the only one that took him up on it, but not only is my luggage safe there, it's in the room I'll be staying in. The sky was beautiful, the view is gorgeous, but I'm saving those pictures for another post.

After a bus ride to Göteborg, and almost getting on a bus to the wrong airport, I finally got the Göteborg City Airport. I also got there two hours earlier than the suggested two hours early, so I had a lot of free time to brood over the small details that weren't going quite to plan. Then, after I finally got my passport stamped and went through security and stood in line for an hour, it was announced that our flight was canceled due to weather. At this point, I had been awake for about 20 hours, and was at my wits end. After re-booking a flight today (I get a layover in Frankfurt) I made my way back to the bus station, and then to the Robinson hotel. Although it's more than I would have paid for my night in London by four-fold, it was nice to sleep in my own room and have breakfast taken care of. Plus, I found another copy of a really cheap poster my mom got me when I went to college before my freshman year framed and hanging in the hallway. Although I'm down to my last kronor, I hope I won't be delayed again on my journey to London. As Buddha says, it's not the destination, but the journey that's importaint. Wish me luck! Hopefully I will be updating my blog more than weekly so this doesn't happen again. Thanks for reading-

First Week in Stockholm

2009-03-28T07:21:00.000-07:00

*Videos Added!

We knew coming into Stockholm that it would be our busiest time in the whole tour, but I didn't expect to not only be seeing lots of things, but seeing really interesting things and meeting really important people as well. In my last blog we had just arrived at af Chapman, and I had taken a little walk around the city center. Since then, not only have I done a little more than walk around, I've been able to see some great historic museums and landmarks, meet some very important people, and experience some unique activities.

Wednesday was probably our most planned out day yet. After breakfast, we strolled over to Riksdagen, the Swedish national parliament. Unlike the United States, Sweden is a unicameral parliamentary system, meaning that they have proportionally elected representatives from all over Sweden that is headed by a prime minister in the governing collation (or party, if the party is big enough), and all the legislation is passed by one body of legislators (unlike the House of Representatives and Senate in the United States). We got to see the taxation committee in session on the floor when we got there. Lennart Sacredeus, our professor and MP for the Christian Democratic party here in Sweden, spoke at the meeting that was held in the main chamber, and I took a video of a section below. Also, with only 17 members present out of 347, you can see how many vacant chairs there were around Lennart as he was preparing his speech. the subject of the day was tax levels and civic registration numbers. Needless to say, the most interesting part was that Lennart was talking.

After that, we had a short lesson with Lennart in a building down the street in Gamla Stan, and ten we were off to a meeting with the major donor for this trip, Anders Wall. His organization gives to cultural and scientific organizations and scholars throughout Sweden, and his generous donation to our program made it financially possible for many of us to come to Sweden, and has let us see some of the more interesting things we would otherwise not be able to. He has a wikipedia article, if you wish to learn more about his self-made business and philanthropic life. Unfortunately, he was not feeling very well, and since he is up in his years, he didn't want to risk not being able to travel this weekend and we didn't get to meet him. However, we did get to talk with Tom Young from Gustavus and Anders Wall's partner for his philanthropic exploits, which was a rewarding time. As a group we talked about what this program has become to mean to us over the past two months, and it was fascinating how much even our notions of this trip have changed since we first started talking about it a few months back. I would not have expected the kind of newness and excitement every day brings here, nor how exotic traveling in a country like Sweden can be.

After that we made a trip to the Nobel Museum (I told you Wednesday was packed). Talk about interesting information! There were two rooms for features on laureates and their accomplishments, everything from trinkets to papers and other artifacts from virtually every winner, lovely little factoids about how the prize has developed over the years and the controversies surrounding it, and there was also a really informative exhibit about freedom of speech. Having written a few editorials in the Gustavian Weekly this past fall about freedom of speech and its place in a college environment (which developed as so called 'bias incidents' occurred with greater number and force--but this is a whole different discussion), I had fresh in my mind much the the theory and practice behind both the freedoms and restrictions on speech. The exhibit itself featured historical dissenters, people who have stood against their country or society to publish the truth, to modern events concerning the 'leaking' of government information in the US, and even the publishing of video games like Grand Theift Auto that have made us question to what extent does a game become a reality, especially for the young and/or impressionable. With a brief introduction from the president of the organization (a great honor to hear his, as he called it, lecture), it was a great intellectually-stimulating experience for all of us.

Thursday, we had the morning to ourselves, and an afternoon with the Parliament. Not to be outdone by Wednesday, Thursday proved to be an equally awesome day. Dr. Lisa Heldke, my philosophy advisor at Gustavus, thought it would be a good idea to see the National Museum that morning, and I joined her. After a walk around Kungsplats and the national library, and a brief stop at Berzeleus park, (apparently the museum opened an hour later than we thought) we got to see the national collection on display just 100 meters from af Chapman. The exhibit showing was a collection of Pre-Raphelites, both paintings and early photographs from 1840-1870. In itself the exhibit was interesting- Preraphelite art usually has vibrant color and meticulous detail, if not a little fictionalized/ idealized in subject- the information with the exhibit made it feel like we were both discovering more about the artists and the artwork. One artist painted a lot of another artist, they got married, he started cheating on her with one of his models, the wife got TB, she died, then (almost) all he painted was different versions of her... and this was just one of the storylines. One of the most interesting works was a photograph that had a 2.5 hour exposure, which made the image itself both so clear it seemed to move, yet also quite stark and forboding. Of course, the museum had other work- from a collections of Rembrant, Monet, Manet, Ceanne, and Renoir, to Swedish and other nordic artists were interesting in their own right. The Greek-Orthodox child in me went nuts over the Icon exhibit, and my Russian skills came in use when reading them. There was also a design exhibit and a textile exhibit... if I write about this any more I wont write about Friday so I will just continue now, but know I had a great time.

The other really interesting part of Thursday was our time spent at the Parliament. There was a voting session, and we were to see Lennart and 300 other delegates vote. We all got special security badges and sat in the Riksdag chamber, and something really weird happened: they voted. Not just once, not just twice, but at least 6 times. Every time, it was by the same majority (185-180), and each bill only took about a minute. We sat there while the speaker would tell the specifics about the bill, PM Friedrich Reinfelt would say a few words, the speaker would say something again, and she'd open the voting, two committees would stand up and sit down quickly, and then the board would light up in about 2 seconds. All in all, there was no debate, no stalling, no yelling, no asking for the floor- it was like watching a well-informed machine make ikea products. I have a video of one entire bill being passed, it's not quite entertaining, but the novelty was worth recording. Do you think we'd actually see change from Washington if our congress worked like this?

After that, Lennart took us on a tour of the Riksdag and the building he works in. We saw the chambers for the tax committee, the actual Riksdag floor, paintings of the king as the 4 old classes of Swedish Parliament (Religious, Farmer, Noblility, Merchant) that all reside in the old treasury building, and we also got to see an old legislative chamber, central hall, social hall, portraits of former PMs, which are in the Riksdag building itself. After touring the grand meeting room and library, it made me feel like I should consider move here and become a MP (because under Swedish law, I could).

Friday, probably upset with how cool Thursday turned out to be, switched to high gear and really pulled out all the stops. We began our day with a private tour of the castle here in Stockholm. That alone should be cool enough, but we got a one-hour orientation by the Master of the Realm, who's official duty is to manage the crown's bureaucracy. Basically anything that goes through the castle has to pass through or under him; in Ron Burgundy's words, he's a pretty big deal. As a side note, even technical difficulties still occur in the castle: his PowerPoint wasn't loaded on the computer login he was using, so we had a brief delay before he began. After learning all about what the king actually does, and the function he actually serves in the constitutional monarchy, we got a guided tour of the grand King and Queen's apartment. The rooms were astounding. The castle, originally built in the early 1100s, but has since been burned down and re-built, has a Versailles style to it, that is to say that it's basically symmetrical down to the detail, and guilded down to the last detail. Big reception rooms, guard rooms, dining halls, even rooms where the King used to change in front of an audience; the opulence and quality of it all was overwhelming. All of the decoration told a story too; for instance, the king's bedroom featured a spring theme, following the story of Alexander the Great's exploits and life, with things adorning the walls and ceiling frame that 'fell out' of the painting. Although mostly unused for official royal affairs, it was interesting to hear that the dancing room had been used during the millennium celebration and was transformed into a modern dance club. Again, there is so much more to tell, but the time is not with me to do so. Following the changing of the guard (see movie below), we had a break for lunch.

Following lunch, we got quite an amazing tour of the Swedish academy. Only a maximum of 18 people can be members of the Swedish academy, and their responsibilities are many: preserving and developing the Swedish language, translating literature into Swedish, but probably most notably, awarding the Nobel prize in Literature. We were explained the long and complicated process for selecting a winner, but I was blown away by the continual nature of it. Apparently, as soon as the winner is announced, they begin to send out letters seeking recommendations for the next year's winner. Don't think you can send your own in though- only a select few can get the Academy's authorization to present a nomination. Not even Venezuela's parliament has been successful in nominating an author. We got to see the famous door through which the permanent secretary announces the winner each year, sit in the chairs the academy sits in when they make decisions, and also walk through the library, which featured many pictures of past winners (which is where those pictures of random people have been coming from).

The day was not nearly done: we still had the tour of the old church to go. Probably the most recognizable person we met all day (at Gustavus especially), Åke Bonnier, Dean of the Cathedral, gave us the grand tour. Now, if that name is familiar, it might be because Åke Bonnier has recently joined the board at Gustavus. He is currently being considered for the Bishop of the Church of Sweden. The church itself is a historical one, with records showing its existence for over 700 years. The art on the inside comes from the 15th-18th century, and includes some two-story tall depictions of heaven and hell saved from the burning castle in 1697. Their are various tombstones, some as historic as Gustav II Adolf, and a massive organ to boot. After the tour of the inside, we bravely climbed the steeple with stairs of brick and wood from a very long time ago. We passed under the huge church bells (they rang while we were at the top of the tower) and through a rather odd scene from a smithy that used to reside at the top of the church spire. Once we climbed out at the top, the icy wind hit us hard. While I was taking the video below, my hard hat flies off, almost off the roof. Still, the view was amazing, one I expect almost no Swedes have seen. We could see out over the river to our boat, the Riksdag proper, basically any and all historical buildings and monuments around the center of Stockholm. It truly was a sight to behold.

That evening, we made our way to Åke Bonnier's house, where he and his wife had prepared quite the fancy meal for us. We had salmon, couscous salad, chicken, pasta salad, home made bread, brie... too many things to remember! And for dessert, we had the most spectacular chocolate cake ever- it tasted like fudge, tort, moose, chocolaty goodness... yummy! It's been so long since I had food like that, especially chocolate! Coffee featured some family cookies, which were also delicious. Beyond the marvelous dinner, the conversation and stories were really entertaining. The Bonnier family has a very rich history here in Sweden, with historical notables going far back in the family line. The house was also something wonderful in itself, with whimsical paintings from the post-impressionist period, a bronze of Åke's father, and other paintings and pictures from Stockholm and Sweden in general. I'm glad I asked so many questions about the art, because I got to learn a lot about the family's history as well. Today, when I was at the museum of modern art, I looked for the Bonnier name, and found some cubist paintings that had been donated by the family, which were a treat to look at and know a little more behind how they ended up in their current home. After a great night, we all headed back together on the subway, throwing snowballs down at each other made from the newly fallen wet snow.

Well, I'd write about today, but I'm getting quite tired of having to listen to these French men behind me, saying 'look at these stupid americans... Nip-Tuck!' while they are draining a bottle of Jack Daniels. Maybe if they didn't have Marlboro Cigarettes sticking out of their jackets, I'd think of them as making a silly generalization, instead of embodying the stereotypical frenchman (not to mention the irony). You should see their clothes. I went to the Modern Museum of art today, as well as the Nordiska Museum (for only a little while- too much museum-ing, even for me) and I'm looking forward to dinner. Hello to everyone back home! I can tell you, you're lucky to have even a day over 40, even if you're just as cold as we are now. Spring will come soon! Yay!

Woah! That was a fast week...

2009-03-24T08:06:00.000-07:00

Back in the land of the internet! Woo-hoo!

After a week of spotty, shotty, expensive internet, I'm back to a free and reliable (if a little slow) connection. That means I can keep updating my blog and responding to e-mails! Isn't that cool?

Today we arrived in Stockholm via train from Uppsala. Our past week at Uppsala has just blown by. Since day one we have been on our feet (and the occasional bus) and in classes, learning about Swedish culinary cuisine, the environment, railroad microbiology, famous Swedish scientists, and other chemistry-related activities. We also spent time at the Gamla Uppsala museum, where this fragment of gold was found inside one of the old queen's burial mounds. It's so tiny, and the level of detail is truly amazing. They say that the goldsmiths who have seen it do not have the capability or expertise to recreate it using methods known to them today, and these mounds were constructed between 400 and 600AD.

Uppsala is a great town with a vibrant city center. This past week was the Bandy tournament finals, so 20,000 extra people were flooding the streets on top of the usual college-aged crowd. However, on the outskirts of the town can take on a distinctly more Iowan flavor. Flat lands with greening fields- it seems exactly like we're back in southern Minnesota. In fact, there have been a few days where I forget entirely that I'm in a foreign country, and it is only after I hear people speaking Swedish that I realize I'm here. Now that I'm in Stockholm, however, I don't think I'll encounter that difficulty.

Yesterday we went to the Linneaus Botanical Gardens in downtown Uppsala, as well as toured the greenhouse and castle nearby. A lot of these flower pictures have been from that visit, as well as some of the more peculiar pictures. Daniel and Julia, our teachers here in Uppsala, did the Titanic pose near the castle, we saw a borg cube that had landed in town, and I directed the cannons to commence fire, only to realize later that they pointed directly at the old church.

One of the coolest parts of the trip to the botanical gardens was seeing a tree that has a very interesting history. Buddha was said to have achieved enlightenment from underneath a tree after sitting there for seven weeks. This tree was well documented and preserved for many generations, until a famous queen took a branch to Sri Lanka in roughly 150BC, the first transplantation of the original tree from India. This branch eventually became it's own tree, which was well documented for thousands of years. A splicing of this tree was taken, and given to the Linneaus Botanical Garden as a gift some years ago, and has now been growing there. It was cool to see the tree, and part of me just wanted to sit under it for the remainder of this trip. If enlightenment is capable for me to achieve, then I doubt me spending the next weeks traveling would interfere too much.

Now that we're in Stockholm, life is going to pick up pace again. We left Uppsala at the same temperature we arrived at, and we also were welcomed into Stockholm by a dramatic shift in weather from sunny to snowy in less than two hours. However, I was able to snap some pictures of things I found interesting before it changed. I found a driftwood bench just sitting there, and I also saw some Swans on the same lake as Af Chapman (the boat we're all sleeping on right in the middle of town). Af Chapman should be a really great place for us to stay; it's in the center of town, and it's really easy to get to the Riksdag and the other interesting places here. So much to do and see, I just want to get out there and search for a place to have dinner!

I took this video just a few minutes ago after it started snowing. Apparently, it's going to be right below freezing for the rest of the week. Good thing I didn't ship my winter things home! I saw an advertisement for Aruba yesterday, and I had second thoughts about spending my spring break in the only more cloudy, hectic, and generally chilly place than here. Only kidding- wishfully I hope I'll be blogging about my surprise dinner with Sir Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart in two weeks.

Uppsala!

2009-03-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we arrived at Uppsala, and I can't tell you how nice it is to get a change in scenery. Mora has its stunning points, but Uppsala is an historic town with beautiful architecture and more than a few thousand people. I'll intersperse pictures from our tour of the city center today while I blog.
We came to this place, Sunnersta Herrgård, yesterday around noon after yet another hectic train ride. 14 travelers, each has at least three bags, and somehow we all have to get on, store our luggage, and deboard trains within a reasonable amount of time. We managed to cram us, two extra people, and our baggage into three vans, which in itself in an accomplishment. This place we're staying at is a converted mansion right on the river, which looks remarkably like a plantation. Although it can be kind of creepy at night, we here it's rather beautiful in the summer. The area around here, which I got to explore a little yesterday, is south of the city itself, but is very quaintly Swedish. With walking and biking paths everywhere around here, I think that in the little free time I will have over the next few days, I will be able to see a lot of the surronding area.

Today we got to go to an Innebandie game, and cheered on our professor here, Daniel. He and his wife Julia ment us in Mora, and now are leading our science course while we're here in Uppsala and when we visit Jonköping. He usually doesn't play goalie, but he drew the short stick today when their goalie didn't show. I took about 10 minutes of video, but here's a clip of Daniel saving a goal, and a little bit of the action afterward. Sorry if the camera angle is a little choppy!

Afterwards, we took the bus down to the city center and Daniel and Julia took us on a little tour of the city. Uppsala itself is fairly easily navagateable; there is the Cathedral that you can see from basically anywhere, and then the river that runs straight through the city. The buildings are very European, in stark contrast to the little Swedish cottages that speckled the countryside all across Darlana.

Probably the most stunning building in Uppsala is the Domkyrka, the cathedral. Construction ofthe cathedral began in the mid-13th century, but wasn't completed until 1435. The most stunning feature of the inside is probably the massive ceiling, which I've tried to capture on camera. It's very ornate and detailed, with various depections of Saints and biblical scenes throught the entire Cathedral. there are two large organs (and one 'smaller' organ as well) and plenty of pews. Around the edge of the cathedral there are many smaller rooms, some of which house little chapels, others house remains, and some contain huge monuments to various famous people. The largest, in the back of the Cathedral, houses Gustav Vasa's remains, as well as some of his closest cohorts, in a stone tomb. Portraits from critical moments in his life were painted around it; one of them was his speech to the people at Mora, which I thought was pretty sweet to see having just come from that very sight myself. There were many people interred at the church as well, including many saints, but most notably, Carl Linneaus, the famous botanist who is also the same Carl Linneaus that the arboretum at Gustavus is named after. The same bust that resides in the Arb of Linneaus has a second copy at the botanical gardens here in Uppsala, which we will go see next Monday. The whole area is quite historical, with science building right across the street from the Uppsala university, as well as rune stones they keep digging up from under the Cathedral. We also saw Uppala University's Old Main, which looks quite Venician in style and overlooks the center of the city.

I also have a couple other pictures I should explain here. Firstly, as in Umeå, bikes seem to be the preferred method of commuting here. Around the train station there were literally acres of bikes in parking lots and streets. People do bike, even if the streets are a mix of ice and slush this time of year. Also, I was hiking around the river at dusk yesterday and found my new gym set.

We have rather spotty internet here, and on top of that, we have to pay for it, so I won't be online as much as I would otherwise be. It's a slow connection too, so although I want to upload more videos and pictures, the time is not quite available to do so. I think we're going to have a really fun week, and I'm so excited to be here.

More More Mora

2009-03-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

I've been told to update my blog, so here I go...

This past week, we've done a lot of interesting things, but perhaps they were not all interesting from a photographic perspective. I can't take a picture of a politics lecture, or of an interesting Swedish conversation, or friendships and expect the picture to convey what the moment felt to me. However, I have done some fairly interesting things you can take pictures of as well this week. Also, I apologize in advance; my 'v' key is quite unresponsive and I can tell now I might get annoyed of jamming it down every time.

We've gotten to know a lot more of the school this week, as well as the people that take classes here. The folk school system is not really that present in the US, and very expensive where it is. Here, the education is free to Swedish citizens, and is far less structured than in universities or high schools. They study things like writing, crafting, woodworking, and even skiing, but do so without grades. I got to widdle myself a knife this week (not worth taking a picture of), but the cooler part was watching the instructor and students make table legs, boxes, and long pine horns (an instrument). There were also sewing crafts where some people make pillows, and someone even made a belt. We also got to sit in on an advanced English class and have some good discussions about 'hot-button' issues here in Sweden. We talked about Sweden legalizing gay marriage on May 1st, the role of the Church of Sweden in both historical and contemporary contexts, religion in general, the environment, money and success--you can probably tell that this was a really advanced English class. Usually students begin when they are 6 or 7 years old, so they have been exposed to the language for over 10 years, but still I was impressed by not only their command of the English language but also their grasp of global and local issues.

We also had some excursions off campus this week. On Thursday we went tracking with a few faculty members about 20km outside Mora. We first stopped at a village that is mostly deserted in the winter, which is historically used to graze animals for people living in Mora during the summer. Some of the houses are 500 to 600 years old, and there are still elements of Pagan religion incorporated in some of the architecture. We got to ski as well using some of the forest skis, built to 'blaze your own trail.' An older man asked me in Swedish if I was already training for the next Vasaloppet, to which I tried to respond with "I'm just coming back a week late" but may have accidentally said "I came (to Mora) a week late," meaning that I had missed it, because he stopped chuckling after my attempt at humor. All the houses and sheds were still very well kept and decorated, even though basically no one lives there in the winter. We even made hot dogs over an open flame, and a little snowball fight broke out.

Wednesday we went to Nusnas, where all the Darlana horses are constructed. You may recognize them as the Swedish horse- a red-orange horse with blue or green pattern saddle and bridle with lots of colors and a distinctively Swedish painting style using two colors on one brush. We got to take a tour of the whole factory: the band saws, the carvers, the sanders, and the painters all in one complex. We also got to see and learn a lot about older Darlana horses. This picture is of different horses from different eras, one from the late 1700s (the one with no front legs). They say they chose the horse because that was the animal used on the farms and for getting around, and originally (and still sometimes are) they were built as toys for children. Apparently, they're referenced in texts back to the mid-17th century. This particular factory had this wonderful picture of Bill Clinton with a Darlana horse on his desk, which I thought was great. You can even see the folders of 'requires Presidential action' on Clinton's desk. There were plently of horses in the gift shop, some black, blue, white, large, small, larger, smaller... but there were also moose, cows, and many other animals painted in the traditional Darlana style. Outside of these animals, they had shirts, handicraft items, Mora knives, baskets, and even some more 'inappropriate' gifts that you can only probably find in Sweden. The translation for this particular one means 'his/her best feature':

Friday, outside of having our English class, we also got invited to a street dancing class, taught by one of the students at the folk school. It was really fun and brought me back to my time learning dances back in high school for theater, and I was really thanking my years at Danish folk school camp for teaching me how to remember dance steps, because we were doing some very challenging stuff.

Today a group of us went out and did some cross-country skiing. I took some video of me going down a hill, and I apologize but I don't know how to right the camera angle so this one might get a little confusing to watch. I invented some of my own skiing styles, like sitting down on your skis while going down steep hills that turn to quickly, how not to enter tracks while going quicly downhill, and how to walk up steep slopes when your skis have iced up. I had a lot of fun. I'll probably go back tonight because the tracks are lit at night, and maybe tomorrow again. That's all for this week; I'll try to take some good pictures again this last week in Mora!

A big post for a big race

2009-03-01T05:38:00.000-08:00

Today was the Vasaloppet race here in Mora! There have been other races and events all week long, but today is the big one: 90km of classical cross country skiing. I have seen a few of the races this week (at least, the finish) but none remotely compare to the size of today's crowds and media coverage. With three helicopters buzzing above, TV cameras at every turn, and even little GPS chips for each racer, it was quite the experience to be a part of. The first place finisher (Daniel Thynell, 4:10:55, Swedish) came in right after noon, and there was a lot of cheering and clapping as they flew through town and under the arch at the end of the race. People didn't immediately thin out, however. The first woman finisher came only about 30 minutes later, and everyone cheered her on loudly as well. Gustav Vasa was there too (left)! I'm thinking about going back before dinner tonight to cheer on the people who have been racing since 8:00, because I know I couldn't finish this race before the sun went down myself. Still, after seeing so many skiers today, it really makes me want to try it, even though I have basically no experience.

But, as I said, the big Vasaloppet isn't the only race that goes on here during Vasaloppsveckan. Our professor Roland has completed two races in Mora, one last friday, and the halv-vasa (45km) two days ago. When he was coming into town, we all cheered him on, and as he approached us had a little 'spill.' He was fine; it was quite the memorable moment for all of us watching. My video below starts just as he's getting up, and then we give him a wreath, and he finishes the race. Two other things were funny at this point too: firstly, we had gotten everyone around us to cheer for Roland (even the Danes across the way) but also we realized that our 63-year old professor raced two long distance ski races this week, while we young college kids probably couldn't without hurting ourselves.

Yesterday, one of the students on this trip who has been to Darlana before scored us some innebandy tickets for a group of us to watch the Mora woman's team. They have some of the best professional clubs in Sweden around here, and it was great to see the game we've been playing with students in both Jokkmokk and Mora played by people who actually know what they're doing. The game is like a cross between hockey and soccer, and has 3 20-minute periods. It's hard to follow on video because the ball is small and is passed around quickly,but I tried my best to show a little clip of the action. Final score: 9-5; Mora lost.

On Wednesday, we had a huge trip around Darlana to learn more about the art culture and history of the region. Jordi Arko, a local artist, gave us a tour of Falun's copper mine, Darlanas museum (also in Falun), and his "The Red Orm" tapestry, which is the longest tapestry in the world that depicts the titled folk story. The mine, which funded the town for many hundreds of years, was what Falun was originally founded upon, but has since moved to be the cultural and industrial hub of Darlana. It was interesting to see the big pit where most of the copper was originally taken from (movie below).

Next we went to the museum, where there were many examples of Darlana's unique clothing and artwork. Many people think of Darlana as the "heart of Sweden," meaning that this region is the most traditional. The dress is very 'Swedish,' and who hasn't ever heard of or at least seen the Darlana Horses. We even saw an example of Southern Sami dress from the region, which was pretty sweet to know more about than our guide. Outside of clothing and jewelry, there was a large historical exhibition with artifacts from the late 1400s all the way up to today of things produced in Darlana, including big printing presses, photographs, an old car, wardrobes, and yes, Darlana horses. There was also some more 'modern' things there, like an artist's creative interpretation of the Darlana-horse style extrapolated to the whole animal kingdom, which was cute. There was also some older artifacts of the Norse language, like that stone with carved markings. I don't know what they say, but they're old. There was also an art gallery attached to the museum, and it featured works of both printers and a new show by 11 local female artists. Personally, I don't quite like the contemporary style, so I wasn't taken away by frosted-glass portraits and paintings, nor large tapestries with colorful designs but without pattern, but the printing exhibit was really interesting because not only were the prints nice on their own, you could also see how someone changes their template to achieve a more detailed/ accurate/ styled final product.

After Darlanas museum, we went to a warehouse where "The Red Orm" tapestry is held these days (it's resided all over the world since it's completion in 1991). Jordi Arko worked on it with a team of seamstresses to design a representation of a folk tale basically every Swede knows in a more abstract fashion, so as to not ruin the 'mental images' for them. He also made an accompanying illustration for the book itself: a hefty two-part boxed item that is filled with double- and tri- (and the occasional quad-) fold pictures in varying styles. Usually I don't think that artists can represent well other styles of art, but I was really surprised by the quality of his work. One in particular, the Viking longboat at sea, done in a Japanese style, really caught my eye. He said he put some of his old professors and friends in there as Vikings, which I thought was funny. I really enjoyed his talk and he certainly knew his stuff; he seemed to know plenty not only about the arts and culture of Darlana, but how to relate it to other places and times.

We also had an opportunity to meet a Nobel Laureate from Minnesota, Peter Agre, who won the prise for chemistry in 2003. Although we could understand only the basics of his discovery, he was a very interesting person outside of the strictly scientific sense. He runs a malaria lab in Zambia, works with a few universities, but focuses his time mostly on human rights activities throughout the world. His brother, Jim, was the house father for one of the students on this trip when he came to Sweden a few years ago, and both Jim and Peter skied the Vasaloppet today, even though both are over 60.

This clock was at the museum, and until they can but all this on a watch (year, month, temperature, hours, minutes, seconds, and some things I can't understand) I will never be satisfied.

One last thing to mention- I dyed my hair black the other day, just to do it. Now it's time to do some Sunday cleaning and washing! Happy March!

Looking in both directions

2009-02-24T10:36:00.000-08:00

Greetings everyone! These past few days have been eventful, but since I don't have a ton of pictures from them I have been hesitant to write anything. However, as I said, we have been doing quite a bit here in Mora. Three days ago, I took another one of my long walks around town in order to get to know Mora better. There's actually a whole lot of town here, even if my initial impression was to say it was a little on the small side of 'city.' Outside of the main city center with the ski races, church, and shops there are interesting things to see, some more unusual than others. For instance, I found a goth club housed in the middle of an old brick building (didn't go in), lots of quintessentially Swedish houses (yellow or red-brown, wood houses with painted shudders and a stick fence) and this really out of place cement pagoda (at least, that's what I call it). I watched some of the racers come in, but I think I'll wait to post videos and pictures of that until the big Vasaloppet race on March 1st. There are other races going on this week, like the half-loppet, and tjejoppet (all-womens' vasaloppet), but the big one is the 90k vasaloppet race. Personally, the only skiing I will be doing is on long skates on the big lake next week, once the crowds leave.

Yesterday, the entire group took a trip to Mora Sjukhuset- the Mora hospital- to learn about the Swedish health care system. Outside of the introductory information given to us by the General Practitioner Doctor friend of our main contact here in Mora, we got to learn about the Atkins diet for an hour. Although it was interesting to learn that in Sweden doctors can now recommend this diet to patients without reprimand, it's not interesting to learn about a diet that we all learned about 6 years ago in the US as if it's a cure to all health problems, and has since been debunked by actual science. The view was nice from the 8th floor, and there was an odd mural depicting the path one takes in life from spinning the thread of life to facing life's demons to the cutting of the thread. After that, we went back to Anna's house (she's our main contact here) who lives in a little village just outside of Mora. The village is in the old Daralana Style; that is, the houses are arranged around one big street, and would have been one self-sustaining community. Anna's house is built right over the old steel smelting place, and still had a lot of the original wood construction and furnishings as it would have 100 years ago. She told us a lot about the area, served us some traditional Swedish cooking (a stew), had an impromptu Swedish lesson, and then we left back home via a Maxi store (which is like a super target, and not at all related to feminine hygiene products).

Today we had a trip to the Mora town hall, where we met a woman named Ulla Israelsson who was the director of education and quality control for primary school and preschool throughout the district. We learned a lot about the Swedish school system from preschool through 9th grade, and the philosophy behind it. Every 6-year old has the 'right' in Sweden to go to preschool, as well as 'play-school,' or after-school activity places while their parents are still working. Some of the more interesting points of the discussion was that basically it's impossible to home-school children in Sweden unless they have disabilities, and that unlike the USA, Sweden has a standardized ciricullum for preschools. Also, children don't being to recieve grades until 8th grade, although they are tested on a national system in 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th grade. Apparently who we would call the Secretary of Education has three words in his vocabulary right now: read, write, count. Ulla was telling us all the reasons why just these three standards have lowered achievement in Sweden; as many of my friends, advisors, and family who work in education would tell you, there needs to be some sort of meta-learning going on as well, that is, children also need to be able to relate one subject to another and ask questions like "what does zero mean?" and "Why does a one and a zero represent 10?" The philosophy major in me really enjoyed the conversation.

Afterwords, we went to the Zorn manor and museum, where we saw and learned a lot about Anders Zorn and his work. For those like me who are not familiar with Anders Zorn, I can tell you that he was a prolific artist during the beginning of the 20th and early 19th centuries who did the presidential portraits of Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, and Cleveland, as well as numerous watercolor paintings and bronze sculptures thought Europe, but predominately in Sweden. He established his estate in Mora (his hometown) after gaining fame in his 30s, and also founded the folk school I am staying at in the 1910s. His wife (not a looker by any standards, even with the 'artistic lisence' he was known to take with younger women models) dedicated the estate they built together to become a museum following her death (26 years after Anders; he was an avid smoker and alcoholic) and is still furnished with the same objects that occupied their house in 1946. Some of the most interesting objects in the house were the 'Gustavian' or Empire furnishings shipped in from Stockholm, as well as the rather large collection of Medieval stained glass and tapestries. Personally, I thought some of the best artwork on the manor was outside, which is why the pictures of the ice hanging down from the roofs are featured in this blog post. There were also stone sculptures from the Roman Empire and numerous gifts and paintings from the Renaissance that decorated the vaulted Viking-style rooms and hallways throughout the residence.

In the Museum, we were able to see more of Zorn's work (his house was filled with other artist's work he had collected in his lifetime) as well as get entertained by Anna, who, among her many professions and interests, is a very well accomplished folk musician. She played the cow horn, a long pine horn, a Darlana recorder-like instrument, and also fiddled with a colleague from her local folk group. They were all nice to her, and I was impressed by the wide sound of the cow horn she was able to produce, as well as the traditional folk styles of Mora. Traditionally the cow horn was used to call your cattle towards you, and many families had their own melodies that they taught to their cows. The long pine horn was used to scare animails like bears, elk, and wolves away from cattle, and the fiddle was used mostly for social dances. Unlike the Norwegian fiddle, there isn't a particular instrument or physically different playing style than the common violin, but the music itself is particular to every town. I noticed that music typically played in the 3-1 style, or that the music is played in 3/4 time, but that the 3rd and 1st beat gets the emphasis. Once they played their first song, I just wanted to hambo around the gallery, but I''m fairly sure I was they only one in the gallery that knew how to, so I had to confine myself to tapping my foot.

In other news, I have booked my spring break trip: London, here I come! With the Kronor hitting 9kr-1USD today, I decided to book all my flight and rooming information. I will be staying in a youth hostel that's also a castle for the first four days, then traveling north to Norwich to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan in Waiting for Godot in Norwich, then staying the last 3 days of spring break in South Kensington in the heart of the Museum district in London. For anyone that is thinking about traveling, now is definitley the time to book flights to anywhere in Sweden or London because both the Pound and the Kronor have been falling like rocks and have just about hit 'ocean' bottom: my flight from Gothenburg to London cost me $82, and the return flight cost me $71. All in all, I expect this excursion to cost me less than $700, even after factoring in food, lodging, and travel through both London, Norwich, and Sweden during the spring break time, which is great considering that most people anticipate spending almost double that in their travels to places like Oslo, Norway. Hopefully I will update again soon- we're going to Falun tomorrow, and then the races really begin!

Testing

2009-02-17T05:29:00.001-08:00

Hopefully things will appear on the page now...

Adjusting to a new town: Mora

2009-02-17T04:59:00.000-08:00

Greetings, everyone! Today is Tuesday, and also my third day here in Mora. We left Jokkmokk Friday night, took a bus to Boden, and then hitched a night train down to Gavle. The train car we were staying in didn't have any room for our luggage, so we had quite the tetris experience in trying to get all 14 people's luggage into 2 sleeper rooms and a ski closet. We ended up with luggage under tables, on the floor, stacked to the celing, and shoved in nooks not even Madam Conductor had known of. De-boarding was a totally different issue...

When we got to Mora via a train from Bolinger we had a 5-minute walk to our Folkhogskolan, Skeriol. The school has three dormitories, one main building with library, classrooms, gym, ceramics department, library, auditorium, and a labyrinth of underground tunnels (among other things I have yet to discover) and other outlying buildings that house other 'profiles' like the textile building that was one a nunnery. It's a great place, and the food is delicious. Three meals a day, plus a few fikas here and there; even if we have to get up at 7 to make sure we get breakfast and eat dinner at 4:30pm, the quality is worth it. Of course, we have already started classes too: Lennart Sacredeus is teaching his Nordic/European Politics class Mondays and Fridays, and we have many meetings and lectures to attend daily and also our regular Swedish lessons. The politics class is really interesting, even though I have taken a similar version of the course before. A few of us are more familiar with the political and historical traditions in Sweden, but the setting allows us to ask questions that expand upon our previous knowledge while incorporating much of what we have learned in the past few weeks about Swedish and Sami politics in order to get a more complete picture of how the government and politics functions here. I also look forward to the field trips we will be making to the local seat of power in Mora as well as local hospitals, and in March, trips to the Riksdag in Stockholm.

As you have been seeing in these pictures, Mora is a very beautiful town in itself. Whereas Jokkmokk had a lot of hilly woods to go hiking through, Mora has a larger downtown area, and lies next to a large lake where people ski, walk, and skate. They have these giant river skis here, which have very long blades and boots that attach to them that people use to skate along the really long lake. The town has more than two resturants, which is a welcome change. It has many shops and lots of outdoor art. This is St. George slaying the dragon right outside the largest church in Mora, built in the late 1600s. The Zorn house and museum are right downtown, which we will be touring later during our 1-month stay here in Mora. Gustav Vasa on the rock was sculpted by Zorn, and is on the spot where Gustav Vasa gave a speech to rally the local farmers against Danish King Christopher following the Stockholm bloodbath (The King invited all the nobility to a party in Stockholm, and then beheaded everyone who came). Although he was initially unsuccessful, the people of Mora sent two of their fastest skiers after him, on the route that is now the Vasaloppet. The Vasaloppet will be held here on the first of March, and the picture below is of the arch under which the skiers will breach at the finish. Hopefully we will be able to watch that, as well as some of the qualifing that begins next Friday. Roland is going to race as well- not in the 90km race, but one of the other races that goes on here. I hope all of us can get out of class to go cheer him on.

The past few days I have been making excursions out to Mora, as well as to the gym, playing innebandie and getting exercise indoors and out. One of these days I hope to walk around the other parts of the city accross the lake, and mabe explore a little on the lake with xc skis that we can rent for pretty cheap. Outside of the temporarily cramped conditions inside the dorms here, everything is great here in Mora!

Roadtrip!

2009-02-11T11:46:00.000-08:00

For the past two days, I have been on a road trip throughout northern Sweden, and even sauntered into Finland for about 10 minutes. Our trip took us about 600km, from Jokkmokk to Porjus, then to Gallevarje, Pajala, Jukkasjarvie, Kiruna, and back home. I'll have pictures from the Ice Hotel throught the post, but don't be confused by them. I'll try to explain that later. But let us begin at the beginning!

Yesterday, we left Jokkmokk early in the morning, and saw the hydroelectric dam built right outside of Jokkmokk that has been painted over by Sami artists. I didn't take a picture because snow was covering most of it, and really, although it was cool to see, I just wasn't quite awake enough to enjoy standing in the cold.

After the dam, we made our way north to Porjus, to see the Northern Lights Museum/ observatory. A photographer had given a talk at Ajtte museum last week, and a few of our group made contact with her and told her we'd be very interested in seeing her home/museum in Porjus. She had marvelous still photos, slide shows, and time lapse photography of the northern lights, nature, and what she calls 'polar atmospheric clouds,' which she said have only been observed in the last 50 years due to ozone erosion. They are quite beautiful- exteremly high clouds that reflect the full spectrum of light- but are a sign of global warming and pollution. The most interesting thing she told us was that you can see live videos outside her house from 5 cameras, as well as their archived footage from 2005, online. Since she takes most of her photographs outside of her house, it seems like they'd be worth checking out some time. The web address is: http://www.arctic-color.com/frame-eng.htm

From there we drove right to Pajala, the setting of the novel "Popular Music from Vittula," a novel that we all had to read for the class, and see the movie of. It's a town of about 5,000 located right near the border with Finland, which we also had to go to. Outside of the fossilized chicken most of us had for lunch, we found the town to be pleasnt, but it's also hard to appreciate a town when you're only there for one day/night and it's too cold to go explore the town. I did get to start driving the new Volvo XC70 that we had rented, and was the only person who can say they drove in Finland on the trip. It's a nice car... but I shouldn't get started about it.

We spent the night together in a nice apartment-style lodging in Pajala, and made our way to Jukkasjarvie this morning. The drive was absoloutely gorgeous: wide brush stroke clouds against a blue-pastel sky with feet of snow on both sides and only 1 car every 10 minutes or so. It was about 200km, so we certainly saw a lot of it. We got to the Ice Hotel around lunchtime (which, in retrospect, was a mistake) and most of us purchased passes to go inside the main building, while others chose to stay outside and look around the visitor's center and shop. I personally went in, and it was absolutely worth the money (about $20 for students). We had a guided tour in English around the ice chapel and the ice hotel itself. The chapel weds approx. 150 couples per week and also does baptisms and confessions, but all end up being fairly short because, as the guide said, they don't like the babies turning too blue. The chapel was Sami-inspired, with antlers inside the chapel as column spport and other Sami symbols and artwork inside.

Oh! Did I mention we got to wear the really warm blue jumpsuits? They were free with the tour, but I opted out of the facemask and hat because it wasn't that cold, and if we weren't able to take them home, why bother? The inside of the hotel was amazing. They don't lie when they say the whole thing is made of ice (and sn-ice that they get from the lake and spray on giant forms to make the hallways and rooms). Every year they hire artists to make about 40 gallery rooms and 30 'master art bedrooms' from a pool of a couple hundred. The rooms themselves are truely amazing. The variety of subjects and themes is really astounding: we were in ice-tree houses, zen gardens, submarines chasing penguins, space ships, artillery shells, meteors... I think some of my favorite were the geometrical rooms that had crystal-palace inspired beds and cool cube designs running through the room (think orchestra hall).

There were also the main hallway, giant ice tabel, and of course, the Absolut Ice Bar. Did you know that the ice bar was rated one of the top ten coolest bars in the world by the NY Times before the ice bar had served its first drink? Apparently, Absolut initially denied sponsorship, but then the Ice Hotel told a few media sources about it, and a week after the article was published, Absolut signed on. I didn't drink though- the bar doesn't open until 1pm, and even so, didn't eat breakfast. The grand hallway was really cool, "literally!" as a Finnish tourist told us. There were massive ice-block columns that had been spiraled up to give the optical impression of a concave space. The grand table was also really really cool, especially since the sun was out today and illuminated the whole thing (it was just one giant ice table with one circular bench around it, about 20 feet in diameter). The theme of the whole place was the roaring 20s, which we found to be ironic initically because of the predominance of the cubist style, and then realizing that it was prohibition and most of that artwork was located in the Ice Bar.

After we got the suits off, we looked for lunch in town, but only found a nice old church and a reindeer pen, so we drove to Kiruna. We saw the sign for the ESA Spaceport (ES-Range) that was only 18km away, but our stomachs spoke louder than the three people who wanted to go. Once we got to Kiruna, I was driving the car that got to choose where we eat, and I couldn't for the life of me find any place, so I just parked outside the historic church, and then realized it was next to a resturant. The other van told me I had missed 3 resturants on the way, but they probably sucked anyways. Besides, we would have missed yet another Iranian-run resturant, which was connected to a swimming pool/gym and had awkwardly placed windows into it right next to the tables.

That church I mentioned was really cool too- I posted a video of it below, just so you could get the magnitude of it. The smell of an all-wood church was really nice, and the architecture wasn't that shabby either. It was a huge space, and get this- they want to chop it up and move it 5km NE because they have to move the whole town of 28,000. Wait, what? Yeah, the largest Iron deposit in the world runs right below the town, and it's going to be a problem soon, so the company, LKAB, and the Swedish government, are trying to move what they can and rebuild a little NE of their current location by 2030. The company has been mining there for 70 years, but they still don't know how big the vein of Iron is, but know it's big enough to have it be economically sound to move the whole town. After seeing the church, I drove back to Jokkmokk (another 200k) at night on lovely Swedish one-lane highways. I'm safe now, and looking ahead to moving on Friday to Mora (staying in a folk school) and finishing our final essay about the Sami.

"The Cultural Tasting Experience of a Lifetime"

2009-02-08T04:37:00.000-08:00

Apparently, I have had it.

The Museum Ajtte here in Jokkmokk hosted this all-night dinner party with the above name, and, although it was expensive, I had probably the best assortment of foods this side of the Arctic Circle. A friend and I went last night with probably 75 seats at candle-lit tables and got to meet some very interesting people (although everyone except for us were probably above 40) and practice our Swedish. It was quite the lavish get up (but only three sets of silverware) and we had a three course dinner with coffee and a little appitizer. As we walked in, we got to try a drink called Jokk made with lingon berrys and some excellent Reindeer meet served out of a traditional Sami hand-crafted bowl.

After we got seated, we were served our first course: a Salmon with sikrom & gahkko, which are made from fish eggs. It was quite a delicate fish, a little on the salty side, but very delicious. We also had traditional flat bread that was also quite good.

The main course came next, and I apologize for the picture quality on some of these but I didn't want to distract people with flashes, but this was the reindeer meat. It was actually the reindeer thigh, which is the most delictable part of the meat (or so I hear from the people who don't like to eat the liver, heart, and eyes) with a root Purée and red wine sauce. It was from everyone sitting around us the best reindeer they ever had, and they would know, because they were all over 60 and have had it before. It was rare, but the flavors were amazing. We had thought we were eating mashed potatoes with it, but the root Purée was lighter and better paired with the stronger flavors of the reindeer and red wine sauce. I think the best part was that the reindeer didn't taste like 'reindeer' in that it didn't have that blood taste that can overpower the meat nor the greasy-fatty taste that comes with other parts of the reindeer.

After the reindeer we were entertained by two yoikers. They sang some melodic yoiks, which was a nice compliment to the yoiks we heard last night at the big church in Jokkmokk, sang by three men. The yoik can be syncopated, and most of the performers last night sung in a less melodic, more repetitive style, which is the more traditional style. Christor Stoor, in the video below, was the one who helped us back in Umea get in touch with a lot of the university people, and gave us a shout out at the concert Friday night. But the dinner was not over, and I digress.

The dessert course was amazing. Hjorton, or what we would call cloudberrys, only grow in northern scandinavia and are some of the most delicious berrys, and they're orange. We had great vanilla ice cream with cloudberry sauce and chocolate sprinked over it- absolutely to die for. Lingonberry can be sweet but it also can have a tartness to it, but the cloudbeery doesn't ever have a bitterness or tartness to it. The flavor was very intense, very sweet, but oh so delicious.

Then the evening finshed up with an after dinner drink and coffee- good coffee too- and we realized that we had made a lot of work for whomever had to do dishes over the course of the evening. It was well worth the expense to experience a great dinner, and I'm glad it wasn't too traditional with reindeer bone marrow and blood pancakes or anything like that, because I would try them, but I'm sure my stomach wouldn't have felt as good afterward.

I had a few other interesting things happen during the end of the Winter Market. Looking back this week has been super busy and filled with a lot of things, and it's been kind of a sensory overload. My conversational Swedish has been getting better, mostly because of all the people I met this week and all the interactions with the shops and sellers around town. One of the most fun things happened yesterday when a friend and I went to the reindeer race out on the lake. I posted a little video of it just so you can see what I'm talking about. The track is shaped like a horseshoe, and the reindeer pull sleds with people desperately hanging on to them around it once. Basically, the race is decided in the first 10 feet and then you get to laugh at the people as they come taring around the turn. It was great to see the huge reindeer too and how tired they get.

Lastly, this morning I went for a long walk just to get some exercise and see the trails with fresh snow on them. I met some Danes who were cross country skiing, and got to see some wildlife, but when I was walking back at noon I noticed this rather odd coincidence of time and space- I think I'd call it a sun-sicle. I just glanced over the lake and noticed it and was only able to take this picture before my camera ran out of battery. I now have to get back to real life and buy some food for the next few days at the grocery store and do my laundry, but I'm feeling really good about how much I was able to do and see during the winter market but also look forward to a regular schedule again.

Marknad/Winter Conference

2009-02-06T07:09:00.000-08:00

Greetings everyone!

Sorry I've not updated this week's activities on my blog, but I haven't been able to take pictures in a lot of the places I've been, and I've been so busy with other things that it totally slipped my mind. But enough talk...

As I said, Sunday was the beginning of the Historic Winter Market, but it also was the beginning of the annual winter conference. The title this year was "Leadership in the age of Uncertainty," and I was able to attend a few lectures on microbiology, horticulture, soil erosion, and, of course, global warming. After hearing the first speaker say the America is the "Evil Empire" and the GW Bush is "Darth Vader" because of our country's environmental policies, I wanted to show up the next day in my Sith Robe. I knew I should have brought it! Actually, the conference seemed very well put together, and it culminated in delegates from Norway, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Sapmi, and the USA discussing policies in their own country and as a collective group of nordic nations. I got to meet the head of HR at the Stockholm embassy, which was cool to do because I was going to be the alternate to work there this summer (which I turned town- long story).

The market itself is in part really interesting, but there are some parts that are not so fun. What is fun is to see these horse-drawn sleds always coming through town carrying people, goods, and whatever else. There are all kinds of things to buy from jams and breads to traditional Sami knives and crafts. Actually, today I saw some 'handicraft' that looked a lot like the birds and ibis we make at danebod...

Well, besides all the streets being crowded with vendors and people, art openings and performances every day, and more things to do than I can keep track of, I'm getting pretty tired. I've learned a lot this week- attended lectures, watched old films from the 30s and 40s, met new friends, and learned what öl tält means in Swedish, and it's starting to take it's toll. We're travelling to Kiruna and Pajala next week, so I'll be even more north than I am now seeing things like the Ice Hotel and Northern Lights Museum. If I don't write before then, it's because I'm 'recovering.'

Oops, I may have done it again.

2009-02-01T12:02:00.000-08:00

If yesterday I took a hike, today I took a hike with a climb. To the left, you can see the route I decided to 'explore' today, but had I known that this map existed when I was hiking, I wouldn't have gone the route I ended up going. Today's hike involved trudging through snow 3-4 feet deep, seeing reindeer, and stumbling upon other extremely unexpected things.

First on the hike this morning was the climb Bryan showed me. He had discovered a huge rock face, which was surprising for both of us. The terrain seemed pretty tame yesterday, but today totally changed my opinion on that. I did try to climb it outright, but after not finding footing on what would be half way up this picture on the right side, I decided to head up less-steep grades farther around the mountain. The view from the top was pretty cool, but it was only half way up the hill. Naturally, we had to climb the rest of it. I won't post all the pictures I've been taking because I have been taking a lot. If you're really itching for all the good 'Alex in Nature' pictures you'll just have to wait until I get back. After climbing this hill, we proceeded down a Snowmobile trail until we came across a herd of Reindeer, who were surprised to see us that they ran off before we could get good pictures of them. After coming to the top of another hill, Bryan decided to head back and I felt the need to charge forward. Our break point would be at the lower red path on the map, where it makes a 90-degree angle.

From there, I was being me, and blazing my own trail to what I had seen yesterday: a mast of a ship. It was some of the hardest trekking I've done yet, and I've got a short video to prove it:

Usually I can follow trails of reindeer or skis, but today I was totally on my own. I came to a much larger rock face that went up about 200 feet and had to take it apart piece by piece. I have lots of little videos from this trip that I won't upload because looking back on it, although I was doing some pretty adventureous stuff, I don't think the videos are of that good quality. I did, however, have one video that I want to upload, which shows me half way up this larger hill, right after I spotted some pretty weird stuff:

What you should be seeing is a wooden ladder, and then a shelter-like structure. I did actually end up going closer and checking it out, and it seemed to be a dumping pile, as if someone had chucked TONS of chairs, desks, garbage cans, and picnic tables off down the rock face. Kinda freaky at the time, but since there were no tracks in the snow, I wasn't worried about stumbling on anything weird. By the time I shimmied up the side of the large hill, I came across some fencing so close to this mast thing I thought it was intended to keep animals out, but thanks to Swedish common-land law I had no moral qualms about climbing over the fence and reaching my goal. When I did, however, I felt really stupid. What I had been climbing through feet of snow for is actually accessible by snowmobile trail, and is an information center in the summer. I could have done a l0t less work to get there, but I'm happy I did what I did. The result was even more spectacular:

The quality on this reduced panorama isn't that great, but I promise the full one is incredible. I ended up eating lunch here, totally isolated, yet at the same time feeling so connected to the world around me. It was after having this experience, on top of so many others on this trip, that I was truly glad I chose to go on this study abroad program. I know there are more 'exotic' places I could go on this earth, but I have had experiences I guarantee could not be replicated in those more 'exotic' places. Could I wrangle reindeer in Morocco? Feel safe on my own exploring the mountains of Vietnam or India? I don't think so. After I had those blue-marble feelings, I looked right and found another oddity:

Yep, I did pick up a broom and posed playing air-guitar in a bandstand in the arctic circle's middle-of-nowhere venue. I then turned down the Snowmobile path towards Jokkmokk, but was again led astray by the prospect of more exploring. I came across this odd grotto on top of a hill overlooking a different river valley, in which was this odd tree which had snow on it like a tree would usually have lichen. I stood upon a rock, looked out over the southern river valley, did a little yoga, had a couple 'deep thoughts' and then continued. You know, for the amount of times I've done this, it still doesn't seem any less amazing or awe-inspiring each time I reach the top of a new climb. Yep, I'm really glad I'm here.

When I got back, I saunaed, then got groceries in a sweatshirt and sandals because I was still really warm. When I was coming back, I saw that the procession for the beginning of the historic market was just about underway, and so with groceries in hand I marched towards the lake where the ceremony was to be held. I quick dashed back up to my room as we passed to get my camera, and I'm glad I did. These pictures/video is of the procession with our torches approaching this snow-built church, constructed on the site of the oldest church in Jokkmokk, which was constructed around 1600. I stayed there for a while, but we were all getting very cold. I have about a minute's worth of the beginning of the church service, but since so few of us can understand Swedish and/or Sami, and the mic level is bad, I won't post it. it was really cool to see the stained glass made of ice, and with all the torches around the exterior snow wall, it was rather beautiful. About 5 minutes in, after the first hymn, I had to go back because I was still wearing sandals and my toes were freezing off. I still got to see it though, and I'm happy I didn't miss the procession, because there were quite a few Sami in full reindeer coats, and to see the horses pulling sleds of beautiful Swedish children was worth the burning pain of warming cold feet. This next week holds lots of fun activities, and I hope I can make it around to everything I want to see. I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of Sami art exhibitions, films about Samis from both the past and present, and hearing the Joiking concert on Friday. Hopefully I will see the northern lights soon too.

Off the beaten path...

2009-01-31T05:36:00.000-08:00

Or any path, for that matter.

Today, I went for a hike. A long hike. I have been walking the trails around here, which I used to refer to as 'hiking' but those were really more of a walk. Blazing through at times waist-deep snow is now what I will call hiking. I have tried looking at Google Earth to see whether I can make a trail of where I went, but it all looks so different in summer and without altitude layers. There are ski trails that extend a few kilometers south of Jokkmokk, which I walked next to for some time, then I started finding my own way to the top of one of the more sparsely-covered hilltops. There are many around here, most have trees thickly covering them. I really wanted to get a good view of the surrounding hills and valleys, and was surprised to be able to see Jokkmokk from where I ended up. I saw a lot of really cool things on my way up, but I was not able to take many pictures because I had forgot to charge my camera battery. There was the occasional rabbit track (they look almost like rabbits, but taller with different ears), but plenty of reindeer tracks and foraging areas. To get food, reindeer must dig through the snow, and you can tell where they decide to stop and look because about a 30-foot radius of snow gets compacted (and they leave other signs of there presence, if you're smelling what I'm stepping in). Some of them were obviously old, but many I stumbled upon were made after the last snowfall, which was last week. It was very tiring to climb through the many feet of snow, but luckily I didn't get hurt or fall too much. I did end up getting the contents of my backpack wet from falling over, but nothing too valueable was in it. It was well worth the journey up, however, and I plan to do it at least one more time when I'm here. The view was spectacular- today was sunny and clear, and I could see mountains at least 25 miles away as the sun was just beginning to set that turned a spectacular shade of pink. The world is almost surreal when you know you're literally the only person within a mile of yourself. It dawned on me that this hike was probably as isolated as I've been in my life, but I wasn't in the middle of nowhere, so I wasn't worried. I saw this plane, which was really odd, but the trail behind it was the color of turquoise, which was sweet. I should probably shower soon, however- I think I smell like wet death. I took this video at the 'summit' where I just fell back into a reindeer hole and ate lunch:

Two days ago, we went to the Sami museum again, but got a guided tour. It was so much more interesting to learn about Sami dress and religion from this woman who could answer our questions rather than having to decipher what all the labels said in Swedish. We got to sit in a Sami hut, which looks like a teepee but larger, with thatching and reindeer pelts on the floor. We also learned a lot about the Sami drums, used by the shamans to predict things and find truth. The earliest drums they have are from the 1700s, when missionaries took them away from the Sami people and brought them back to Stockholm, and eventually some ended up in continental Europe and America. The clothes were interesting as well- each Sami village has it's own style of dress, but all use blue, red, green, and yellow in the design. It was interesting to hear how 'loose' the styles can be, and how there isn't a uniform Jokkmokk hat, or shirt. A lot of the jewelry is cool to see too, because you can see the influence the Catholic church had on it's design. Many M's and A's make it into the silver, which stand for the Virgin Mary and her Mother, and there are other bells that resemble incense holders, and the cross (although not as common) does appear in some of the necklaces. These pictures are mostly random- knives, and the dolls that depict the creation story of the Sami. I don't know the story, but these dolls speak for themselves. Next week is the Sami fair, so were all getting pretty excited. The prince is going to show up for 20 minutes on Monday, but between 30 and 60,000 people are expected to show up as well.

Reindeer video links

2009-01-28T00:08:00.001-08:00

Hey all-

I just posted all of the videos from yesterday on youtube. You can search Sweden 2009 and find them, look for Contracase's videos, or simply follow the links below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW1Tq_aIbzY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE_mnaj6qhQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJfr0xlTr4s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh5AIsGGi9Y

P.S. Saunaing every day feels great!

Reindeer herding like no one expected

2009-01-27T06:39:00.000-08:00

I went reindeer herding today! Since that's the cooler part, I'll start with yesterday's time spent at the Ajite museum right next to the Sami school. It tracks the Sami throughout their archiological history, as well as presents information about the local wildlife and geological history. This picture was taken in a room about sedimentary rock and continental drift, and I was so shocked to see this that I took a picture of it. There were quite a few taxidermical treats in the museum, from owls to wolverienes to rodents. We got free roam of the museum on the day it's usually closed, which is why I was able to sneak a lot of pictures. I think we're going to be taking another tour Thursday with a guide, so I might have more to say about it then and post a few more pictures.

On a much more interesting note, I took a couple of videos today that may help me explain what was going on with the Reindeer herding Samis:

(You would have seen it here, but the uploader sucks)

This first video was our first impression of the reindeer corral. There were about 400 reindeer running around, as well as a lot of herders and a few families with their kids. Some, like the reindeer pictured here, had bells around them as a marking by one woman. Most, however, are totally indistinguishable except by an individual's marking placed in the reindeer's ear. That's how the herders are able to identify their reindeer in the pack as the lasso into the group of reindeer that have crowded around. In the next video, you will see what happens when the herders being to pen the reindeer together to begin sorting them:

(You would have seen it here, but the uploader sucks)

In this picture, you should look closely and you will see the largest antlers of the day directly in the center. Although they may seem smaller at this scale, their antlers were humongous with a great amount of detailing. The reindeer make their antlers by rubbing their stubs against their back legs, which store a hormone that helps the antlers grow. Most have symmetrical antlers, but some cannot make them the same because of physical ailments, and some break their antlers off over time. Although we had a few antlers break today, they only bleed for a little time before healing.

Next is the fun part. When the herder lassoed a reindeer, it was our job to steer them into a smaller corral attached to the larger one, or out to their owner's trucks. Here's a video of Roland Thorstensson and Bryan untying one, and the following picture is them guiding, pulling, and shoving the reindeer to the pen.

These reindeer are maybe smaller than you're used to seeing, but it still takes two strong people to get them to move. Bryan and I were able to steer some of the young ones by ourselves, but it was tiring work. Most of us could only do two in a row, and then had to sit down and rest for a few minutes. We had a runner with us say "I can run 13 miles easy, but I'm out of breath after taking back one," and he's in really good shape. On top of just transporting them, I got to hold one down while it was castrated (gross!) and we saw one get gutted and taken apart too. From what we gathered basically no one outside the herding group usually gets to do this, and it's an experience I know I won't soon forget. We're all going to sleep well tonight.

Lastly, on our way back, we decided to stop at the arctic circle line and take pictures. Bryan took his shirt off and stood by a sign to get photographed, but I don't have that picture (not that I would post it anyways) but I also had my picture taken. It's only know that I realize I look like a Japanese tourist (note the peace symbol, camera, and too big smile):

As a final note, I think I will upload those videos to youtube and post links next blog. I'm sorry!

The day when the sun rose!

2009-01-25T05:58:00.000-08:00

OMG! The sun still exists!

We all were beginning to worry about it. This morning, when I managed to get up at 10:45, this is what I saw from my window. Yep, 10:40 sunrise today. I was so inspired I decided to take a walk down by the lake trails. I think people here must get really excited too when the sun shows itself, because lots of people were outside enjoying it today. Down by the lake there are lots of walking and skiing trails, so I decided to go on the 5km walking trail and see what the hills to our south were like.

The trails are very well kept, and it was a gorgeous walk the entire time. I ended up passing two boys on xc skis (well, a few times, but then they would pass me going on hills, and I'd pass them again going up them, but I think I heard one say they were cold and they stopped racing me) but saw only one other person while I was out. The silence was eerie at times, but there was a great calm feeling all around the woods. I only heard one bird, otherwise just the loud crunching of snow beneath my feet. This photograph to the left was taken at about noon, so that gives you a little perspective as to how high the sun gets here during the day.

By the time I got back, the sun was just peeking out over the hills. You can see that the lake is used a lot by skiers, snowmobiles, and even cars. Last night two of the girls on our trip went with two Swedes and (apparently) drove around the lakes doing doughnuts at about 60mph. When I asked they said basically everyone does it, and it's rare to hear about accidents because of it. They're probably only safe because everyone drives a volvo here.

The past few days have been really nice. I've gotten a chance to walk around the town, meet a couple new people, and finally relax after spending so much time traveling. The town is small, but beautiful. There are a few highlights, however, like the church (left) that the locals refer to as the 'big church' or stor kyrka. I placed the camera in a snowbank to take this picture, if that grants any perspective as to how big the church actually is. There is another smaller church built in the 1600s here which Linneaus stepped into when he visted Jokkmokk in the 1730s.

What's probably the most aesthetically pleasing part of Jokkmokk are the many small stores and resturants lining the main streets. This one that I'm standing next to is a huge Swedish eatery guarded by these bear statues. One of the interesting things I've found about places in Jokkmokk is that they all seem to have growing plants in the windows, and usually have outdoor lights, which gives a little life to what would otherwise be a cold, gloomy atmosphere.

In the next few days we'll be learning more about the Sami, the Swedish language, and on Tuesday we'll be taking a field trip to a yet undiscolsed location to see another reindeer hearder. Maybe it will be cold enough by then to warrant some of the winter clothes I have brought along. As a final note, this is what I've heard can happen if you don't move your car for a week in Jokkmokk:

I'm in the arctic circle!

2009-01-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

I realize I've been writing some longer blogs, so here's the one that will compensate for it. We just arrived in Jokkmokk today, and I'm officially living in the arctic circle. However, I have found it to me far less oppressive than I was led to believe. The low for today was -8 (Celsius, mind you), there have been overcast skies for a week, and there is *only* 3 feet of snow on the ground. in fact, here is a picture of me without a hat or jacket coming back from the pizza place tonight just to prove that I'm north of Hudson Bay and am too hot with a jacket.

We did have another 8-hour bus ride today, which all of us are starting to get used to. I don't really realize it, but the distance from Umea to Jokkmokk is about the same as Chicago to Minneapolis, which is also about as far as Umea is from Uppsala, which is only a half an hour away from Stockholm, so really Sweden is much larger geographically than I had thought. But cloudier, and not as cold.

I did manage to find a few things entertaining in the midst of all my travelling. Some fun things I have learned is that the sun sets quickly, but they sky remains a dark blue for many hours as the sun spins behind the horizion. It gets BLACK at night. There are no major mountains until Norway, and the terrain here looks exactly like the Iron range, but with fewer hills. The street lights are still the red, yellow, and green we know in the US, but right before a light changes to green both the red and yellow lights turn on to signal the drivers. Swedes call moose elk, and their antlers are much smaller because they live in the dense forest. Reindeer are the same species as caribou, just a different subspecies. Double decker buses are really common in Sweden, especially in the well-used and well-kept public transit systems. So are roundabouts, which is almost sickening when you're riding on a double decker bus. These double decker buses also double as space ships- or so I think. The cabins are sealed by automatic doors that open with a button, and all the lighting is green (usually of the rope variety) but turns red when you're getting off the bus. Lastly, I found this 'monument' of sorts quite odd. I took this picture at a bus stop in the middle of knowwhere on the ride to Lulea, the last major city on the northern coast of Sweden:

That's all for today, but soon I will have some more information about the Sami fair coming up in two weeks, as well as more pictures and experiences at the Sami school in Jokkmokk. Thanks for all the correspondence! I will be able to keep up better now that I have a stable internet connection.

Umea is over...

2009-01-21T14:11:00.000-08:00

So, after a great week in Umea, I figure I should update my blog!

So far, it has not been sunny here. In fact, the weather has been pretty odd! In the mornings, it is usually cold, but mild. As the day goes on, it gets colder as the sun supposedly comes out, but then get warmer as the sun sets and evening begins. Weird, eh?

This week we have been focusing much on Sami Culture.

On Monday, we went to the University at Umea to meet with the International studies program, as well as meet with the Sami Studies faculty. They taught us much about how Swedish students choose to study abroad (mostly in English speaking countries like US, UK, Aus, and New Zealand) and how the Sami people are integrated with the Swedish gov't and culture (in their case, not well).

Tuesday, we met with a faculty memeber from the language department, originally from Norway, who introduced us to many of the language and Sami study graduate programs at Umea university. That afternoon, we had the opportunity to see both the Umea museum of Arts as well as the Sami Museum.

The Art Museum was filled with artists' interpretations of the world, ranging from upside down maps to documentaries of land use before and after the German concentration camps. One picture in particular I was not fond of- a Brit's from memeory interpretation of the world and it's major cities and features (see picture).

At the Sami musuem, we were able to meet many of the researchers and follow their work throughout Vasterbotten (the provice I'm in), from archieological digs to recreation of Sami archietecture to reclamation of Sami textiles and pelts. I also saw the oldest skis in the world (made 5,200 years ago) and was able to touch many pelts and even visit a forest Sami tent (see picture)

Today we went to a Reindeer farmer about 15 minutes outside of Umea. She was a rare female herder, which among the Sami is a new phenomenon. She and a friend are starting a tourist buisness, and we were her first 'customers.' We got to lasso reindeer, see lots of photographs of her work herding reindeer throughout the year, and coolest of all, meet some of her more domesticated reindeer. Maya was very helpful in understanding both the government and social prosecution Samis face daily: she sees herself as part of a dying breed of peoples, fighting for her way of life among encroaching private lands and public interest.

All in all, these past few days have been both educational and rewarding. Besides being able to walk the town and meet plenty of Swedes (and celebrate Barack's inaguration), I have been more connected to the social and political strife of the Swedish indegenious people than most Swedes ever are able too, while at the same time just beginning to scrape the surface of what this program has to offer.

I am looking forward to a great time in Jokkmokk, the next stop on our trip. It is a town of about 3000 people and can easily be seen on programs like Google Earth. We're staying at the Sami school, and hope to be involved in the Sami fair, starting at the beginning of February. We have an early day tomorrow with a long bus ride. Hopefully the internet will be more consistaint, so I can keep in touch with all of you better in the coming month. One week down, many more to go!

My flight/ the first few hours

2009-01-17T14:11:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!

I am writing to you from my room at the STF Vandrarhem youth hostel in Umea, Sweden. The current time is 11:14 PM, and I just finished all 32 hours of travel between when we started at 8AM on Friday (Central time) to just 15 minutes ago when I got the key to my room. I posted a picture of it.

Our trip to Sweden was not as seamless as we had hoped, however. Friday morning we got to the airport 3 hours early (because the hotel shuttle required us to) and found our plane heading to Newark, NJ. I saw Amy Sutter there and we talked for a little while- she's going to Vermont. We found out right before our departure time that another airplane was experiencing some technical issues, and the passengers from a Houston flight were taking our airplane. This was really the point at which I knew Continental was not thinking ahead, because basically all of the people traveling to Newark had connecting flights, some international, and they would have to rebook us all. Two group members got on another flight to Newark on Northwest, but the rest of us were told to wait until a 3:15pm flight to Amsterdam. As we get close to boarding, we find out we do not actually have tickets for the flight, but are just on the waiting list. Since I have a different return flight, I was not with the large group of 8 that was placed on the list but among the rest of the remaining students who were behind the big group. As the plane begins to board, only the big group has tickets, and we 5 remainders begin to panic because our faculty adviser was getting on the plane, and we would have to make our own way to Umea. Luckily, they still had many of the bulkhead seats free, so all of us ended up getting good seats interspersed throughout the plane, and we all took off for Amsterdam together.

On the flight, I sat next to two Danish women, Inger and Anna, mother and daughter (Inger, the mother, was 84). We had some polite conversation (although getting through the accents was hard at first; good thing I have had a little practice over the years) and then Anna told me she lived in Minneapolis and I brought up Danebo on the river and she recalls having met or seen Bebo either at Danebo or at St. Peder's! Small world, eh? The funniest part for me was that Megan, a student traveling with me on this program, sat next to me and she told me afterwards that she didn't have a clue what either of them said the whole time.

We arrived in Amsterdam at 6:15am their time, 11:15am our time, and the first thing we hear is "final and immediate boarding call for flight (?) leaving for Stockholm in gate D67," which was our connecting flight. We had come out at gate E32, and the gate D1 could be seen in the distance. Needless to say, we missed our flight.

We once again had to change our flight, but as we were doing so we found out our baggage had flown on our original flight to Stockholm, and we all sulked around knowing we won't see it for at least a day. Luckily, there was a morning flight to Stockholm, and we all got tickets for that one no problem.

As we landed in Stockholm at about 11:00am Stockholm time (4:00am Central) I was just starting to fall asleep for the first time. It was then I realized how long of a trip this could be.

We landed too late to catch the one connecting flight to Umea on Saturday, so we all hung out like zombies on the floor of the terminal in Stockholm waiting for our fearless leader (Roland Thorstenson) to figure something out. What we ended up doing is taking a 3-hour train to Sundsvall, and then a 4-hour bus ride to Umea. I have tried desperately not to sleep because I don't want to fall victim too badly to jet lag, but I probably fetched 3 hours worth of sleep total, making the amount of sleep I've had since getting up at 6:30am Friday to catch my original flight roughly four hours. I'm exhausted.

I had a moment right before I started writing this where I started feeling the pangs of homesickness: I think this picture explains it all:

The toilet paper is like cardboard with the top layer taken off, exposing the frayed ridges in the middle.

In all seriousness, however, I am already having a great time, making new friends, trying to speak Swedish, and not yet overwhelmed by my situation. The biggest difference between Sweden and Minnesota? Here, everyone drives Volvos and Saabs, but the sports cars have been replaced by micro cars and even the school buses are made by Volkswagen. Love you all, and I will update when I have some daytime pictures of Sweden to show off!

Leaving Details

2009-01-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

Greetings friends and family!

Just so everyone knows, I depart from MSP Airport at 11:00am Friday, Jan. 16, but will not reach Sweden until Late on Saturday, Jan. 17. The trip itinerary is as follows:
Umeå- Jan 18-21
Jokkmokk- Jan 22-Feb 13
Mora- Feb 14-Mar 14
Uppsala- Mar 14-24
Stockholm- Mar 24- April 3
???*- Spring break- April 4-14
Jönköping- April 13- May 20

*I will be hopefully flying to Norwich to see Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellan perform Beckett's Waiting for Godot during this time.

After May 20 I will hopefully be spending time with Lennart Sacredeus, a member of the Swedish Parliament. If this does not take up the whole month, I plan on visiting my relatives in Denmark and further pursuing my planned post-graduate Fulbright application on Swedish Cultural Integration and Justice.

If you wish to keep in contact with me, I will still be able to answer e-mails (alexlegeros@gmail.com), google talk and video chat, and will get Skype if people are not able to use Google video chat and still wish to talk 'face to face.' I will be keeping this blog, as well.

Hopefully I will be updating as soon as we touch down in Sweden. Thanks for visiting!