As you may have guessed from the title, Stockholm was EXTREMELY cold!!! I just looked up the weather, it was -14 Cecilius while we are there, however it felt MUCH colder with the windchill (Stockholm is actually a series of islands so think Michigan Ave. in February type winds...). So, needless to say, we pretty much stayed inside as much as possible! We went to the Nordic Museum and the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was an extremely ornate, beautiful ship that was built to be the pride of the Swedish Navy under King Gustav around 1650. However, they screwed up with the amount of water in the ballast vs. ship weight and it sunk before it made it out of the Stockholm harbor! They found in in the 1950's, brought it up from the bottom, and have now preserved it and made an entire museum out of it! It was soooooo cool to see, I think like 94% of the ship is original which is really cool because not only is it from the 17th century, but it was also under water for 300 years!
The next day we went to Gamla Stan which is the old village in Stockholm. We went to the former Royal Palace (still a palace with guards and all that, but the Royal family has since moved to a different palace). At the palace we saw the changing of the guards and the royal jewels! We also went to a bunch of little shops and cafes in the village which was really nice. In Sweden, they have this thing called "Fika" which is like a coffee break. Fika can happen at any time and you have to go to a cafe and drink coffee and eat pastries. I won't tell you how many times we had Fika the first day, but it was more than 2...
The food in Sweden was really good! According to my best friend and secret lover Rick Steves, lunch is the meal to eat out in Stockholm and just do a picnic for dinner. So, we did just that! The first day my friend and I both had a traditional Swedish sandwich which was interesting, it was a big roll with lettuce, tomato, some kind of butter/shmear, and cheese. It sounds weird I know but it was actually very good! The second day I had of course, Swedish meatballs!!!! I cannot express in words how good they were, served with boiled potatoes, some sort of berry that starts with an L, and sweet pickled cucumbers (which I guess would just be a pickle, but they called them pickled cucumbers...). For dinner we did a baguette/cheese/fruit deal, quite good! For Fika we got to sample lots of pastries, including a Swedish bun that is kind of like a cinnamon roll but not, carrot cake, and muffins! Oh, and let us not forget the embarrassing amount of Swedish candy we ate too, cavity city here I come!
Our hostel in Sweden was very nice too, not right in the center of things but pretty close, nice little neighborhood too. We went to a bakery next to our hostel and the guy was so nice he was like a grandpa and gave us free cookies with our sandwiches! But ya, the hostel was clean, no creepers, secure lockers to put your stuff in, not too bad!
On my way back from the airport my train broke down so I actually had to take 4 different trains home. But, after a hectic night, I got home and CRASHED! Monday I got up early because I had to bake cookies for my host family, shovel the driveway and sidewalk, write a paper, and study for a philosophy midterm! Needless to say, Monday was a super stressful/busy day! Tuesday I went to all but 1 of my classes (I skipped the one right before philosophy so I could study) then took my midterm. It went pretty okay, he only gave us an hour and the test was waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too long (as in, everyone wrote 1 paragraph for the 3-4 pages essays) so I think he will be pretty lenient in grading. After the exam a bunch of people went out for dinner and then to a bar so that was a good time!
Today I was able to sleep in and then I had a field trip to Roskilde Cathedral. This is the most famous church in Denmark, built originally by Harold Bluetooth but redone throughout the years. The building standing today is over 800 years old. This is where all of the royals are buried. It was a really beautiful church however they are doing some construction/decorating so we really didn't get to see it in all of its splendor :-( After my field study I went home because I literally haven't seen my family since they got back from Egypt! Unfortunately my host brother has the flu so he has been in bed all day but I cooked/ate/caught up with my host parents which was really nice!
Tomorrow I only have 1 class so I'm looking forward to catching up on homework and sleep!
Food log:
Breakfast: muesli and yogurt and a banana
Lunch: pizza bread from 1 bakery, and then our Danish teacher bought us pastries from another bakery!
Dinner: pasta with a garlic/butter/mussel sauce (we have this dish quite often because it is really good and super easy/quick to make!
Pictures coming soonish!
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