This is where I live

Check it.

http://www.thelocal.se/23568/20091130/

Stesssssss

Yesterday I baked chocolate chip cookies and brought them to my Swedish chem friends today. It was sooo good to see them again! I really hope I can take more classes with them in the future. And I have no clue what classes I'm going to be taking next semester since the one chemistry class I wanted to take was cancelled! And it was worth 15 credits (you are supposed to take 30 each semester), so now I have to figure out what I want to do with this half a semster. I want to take a harder chem class during the winter so that during the last half I can travel a bit more (when it's nicer out).

I am a little bit stressed right now because I am missing my final seminar for my Comparative Welfare States which means again, I have to write 3 more essays instead of 1 more...and I'm not really sure when I am going to do this because I am going to Copenhagen this weekend, then coming back and taking the first part of my Swedish final, then Sara is coming to visit on Wednesday, my last part of Swedish is on that Friday and right after the final we have to catch a train to Abisko...we then return Tuesday the 8th and I leave for home on Wednesday the 9th. Sooo...I don't think I will be sleeping very much. I guess I could do it on the train since it's 16 hours up to Abisko. Ick.

Despite the stress I am SO excited for Copenhagen. I think it will help me relax a lot. I'm glad I'm not going with anyone from Uppsala either. I need a break from all of them. But Ahh when am I going study?!? On the bright side, you are allowed to take the final as many times as you need to to pass! I love that about Uppsala.

Jag måste plugga nu, jag älskar svenska!
hej då!

bright yellow globe in the sky

Today there was this bright globe in the sky that tried to blind us for the whole three hours it was up.

It's funny because I never really appreciated the sun so much. But today I was so surprised to see a hint of blue sky through my blinds that I went outside and just stood there and looked. Like I forgot what it was like to not have clouds covering every inch of the sky. All my international friends here instantly changed their facebook status' to "SUN!" or something of that sort.

So yes today I am very happy! The sun gave me a little bit of Vitamin D and just that bright shiny happy feeling! I even went for a run. Annnd it hasn't rained today (yet...it rains everyday...at least for 20 minutes).

Look below!

Norway blog is up, but since I started it awhile ago you have to look past these last two! Hope you enjoy!

Higgs boson

Check out this article! So crazy...two physicists believe that a bird traveled through time to stop us from making this particle.

Mad scientists blame time travelers for collider failure

I don't know if I believe it...but it's quite the coincidence!

PS- All is well in Sweden! My class is going well and I can't wait for November to end so I can go to Denmark and up to Laplands! I'm crossing my fingers for the northen lights to make an appearance.

Norwegian Adventures

Sorry it took so long! Just blame the others for taking so long to post pictures!

We didn't arrive into Oslo until about 10pm on Friday. Although the plane ride was a short quick flight (less than an hour), we had to take many trains and buses to get to the airport and to our hostel. Annd I found out i REALLY don't like taking trains and buses. (picture of me an Juhani from Finland on one of the many trains)
Picture of us waiting for another bus:
Even though we were exhausted we went out and explored the town. Tons of people were out and about and we found this cute little pub to hang out in for the night. (night view of Oslo)
People were a lot more out going here than they are in Sweden, so we ended up having a few conversations with some Norwegians. We didn't stay out very late and headed back to our hostel where I slept better than I do in my own bed!

The next day we woke up early so we could explore Oslo by light before we caught our train to Bergen. We were able to explore the city and hit a few attractions with our time. The Vigeland Sculpture Park and the opera house. Pictures of beautiful Autumn Oslo...
Then we hit the Vigeland Sculpture Park which is a compilation of Gustave Vigelands life work. He designed the park. I think he focused on human form, here are some of my favorite pictures from the park. during the summer this is a functioning fountain...

the top of the park...kind of like the grand finale. Those are all statues of humans on and around the center piece. Really amazing. Can you imagine trying to polish that? looking over the park from the top...it was pretty much foggy and gray and wet like this the entire time. Yay Scandinavia.
Here are some of my favorite statues....crazy hair lady

This one is for my lovely sister...
Playing with statue babiesFinally a group picture. from left top to bottom: Juhani (Finland), French guy whose name I could never pronounce right, Mathilde (France), Other french guy whose name I couldn't pronounce, (bottom left) Katja (Croatia), Claire (California), Me!, Celine (France), and Gautheir (France). We had a lot of ze french with us!

After that we ended up splitting up, because a group of 9 is not a happy group that agrees on everything (such as walking pace). Soooo a few of us went to the opera house and the others disappeared somewhere else.

The best part of the opera house was the roof. Not many people actually go inside, its just fun architecture that lets you walk all over the outside of it. Here's a picture of me and a big white wall that didn't really seem to have much purpose. See? Cool architecture.
At about 2pm we caught the train (more trians!) to Bergen. 7 wonderful hours. And of course the sunsets at 3pm so it was dark the whole time and verrry dark by the time we got there. But since we were going to miss ever seeing Bergen in the daylight because of our trip to the Fjords, we decided it was the best time to explore the city. It definitely seems like it would be even more beautiful during the daylight. It was really pretty and lively. It also felt very safe. I think Bergen is a city I would really enjoy to spend more time in. Here are some pictures, all dark though :(

Finally to the Fjords! The most beautiful part of Norway. Norway definitely is a lot more about nature than Sweden, which is one thing I really found I liked about Norway. Here is our boat: annnnd our first stop:I dont really feel like putting captions to every picture, but in short, here are some pictures of the Fjords. It was amazing and so beautiful!

oooh...
ahhh...
oooh....
norwegian flag! We got lucky at saw a little blue sky! That bright thing in the sky even tried to blind me for a whole three minutes. It was strange. Then we took a train back to Bergen: Where we did a lot of this: and also saw some of this: (just a lot of really pretty scenery...snow, trees, clouds, red houses, plain feilds...)
Then we took more trains and buses back to the airport. Overall it was a really great trip. Norway is unfortunately EXTREMELY expensive, so we didn't eat anywhere nice (in fact we just bought sandwich stuff and made sandwiches for every meal and snack and I never want a sandwich again...).

Now I can't wait to go on my next adventure (to Copenhagen this weekend)!

PS-FYI Norway loves trolls. They are everywhere. I really regret not taking a picture with every troll I saw, but here are a couple that we did stop to taking pictures for.

Norway teaser

Norway was sooooo beautiful. I definitely need to see it during the summer time though. 4 days was not enough time to really get to see each city. The landscape is one of the most beautiful things about Norway, but it's really only light about 6 hours each day so we missed a lot of it. I'll talk more about it once I get pictures from everyone. One thing I am excited about is what i've decided to collect. At first I wanted flags from each country, then magnets, then...those little measuring cups from ounces. But then I saw these babies....


thats right. I am going to collect underwear from each country I go to. I can't wait for my collection to grow.

And to answer the Kidd's question from awhile ago, the sun rises here in Sweden around 8...i think anyways. Now that I don't have class early anymore I usually sleep in ;-). But it's usually about 6-7 hours of light each day and its pitch black by 4pm.

Will talk more about Norway next time! I have to read an entire book now (and I thought this class was going to be easy...)

Norway!

I'm off to Norway for the weekend! We are going to Oslo and Bergen and to the Fjords until Monday night and I'm soooooo excited. Since my camera is MIA, I will make sure everyone else takes lots of pictures.

Wish me luck in the most expensive city in the Europe! (so I've heard anyways...)

Pomegranate

One of the best pomegranates i've ever had. Thank you thank you thank you mom and brit!

They said this would happen...

I would just like to comment on the fact that it is completely dark by 4:00pm now! Here's a picture that I took of a sunset at 3:30!
It's strange because it just feels like I should be sleeping all the time. When I went downtown the other day at 4:00 we were kept thinking everything was closed, and then would be like...oh right it's only 5:00. I hope I get used to it soon, there are only so many movies I can watch!

I start class today. I'm hoping that I'll be able to find the building okay...and that I'll be able to get Friday off so I can go to Oslo!

Roadtrip!

Here are some pictures from the road trip I took with my German friends around Sweden on Friday :) Our main destinations were just two of the castles around the area, but we stopped off when we saw something pretty so we could take pictures and look around :)

Please excuse any terrible looking pictures of me--I only got 1.5 hours of sleep before the trip...what can I say, Thursdays are big nights here in Uppsala.

First stop was in Enköping, Sweden. Just a little north of Uppsala (I think anyways...I was really tired). We stopped to admire this little church and some carved stones. Here's a picture of the five of us. We just loved that tree, it was really brighter than it looks there.
There are a ton of these little red houses all over Sweden and I love them and one day I am going to own one that is right by a lake! Next we pulled off to this little barn area. There was an electric fence that we decided would be fun to play with. So three of us decided we wanted to test science to see if the shock would go through all of us.It did.
I thought this next town was really pretty. Looked abandoned though. All the houses were really nice, but empty. I think it was more of a place you visit during the summer. And there was an awesome windmill. Finally we made it to one of the first castle! So awesome! Right by this lake too. I really like lakes. I think more than oceans. There is just something really calming about them. However I may change my mind when all the lakes around here freeze over. We got pretty lost on our way to the next castle. Took us awhile to get there, but it was actually fun hanging out with everybody in the car.

We were able to tour the inside of this castle which was just outstanding. The whole time I kept thinking, "wow, what a waste of money." It was really beautiful though :) No pictures allowed inside...sorry!I got to take a picture with the cute gaurd too! And the night ended with a trip to McDonalds. It's funny how much my international friends like McDonalds. I can't remember the last time I had it at home, but its quite a hit here. Maybe because everything else is so expensive!

Overall I learned that sleep is unnecessary and I need to travel Sweden more often!

Halloween in Sweden

Well mostly we tried to make it as American as possible. I spent the entire day with my American friends James and Steve. They are from Chicago. We just got our outfits ready and watched scary movies and ate pizza like true Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We got dressed up and then realized we needed something from the grocery store, so we headed out all dressed up. It was funny because at home if people are dressed up...on Halloween day...it's not really a big deal. It's expected. But here, when we walked into that store people were looking at us like they had never seen someone dress up before. It was really entertaining. Here's me with a pizza box...

And here are me and the boys in our outfits. Our favorite thing was to chant "Go Ninja Go Ninja GO!" and dance around the room. Unfortunately our fourth TMNT bailed out, so we had to stay strong at 3.

We also had the lovely Claire to accompany us. She is Sandy from Grease.

From there we took it to club Kalas. I've never been to a real club before, so it was a lot of fun. Here's a pictures I stole from someone via facebook. See us? We're standing on the thing in the back. Too much fun!

Claire was holding on to my coat check number, and when we left she couldn't find it. My coat had my keys and everything in it. So I ended up having to bunk up with Claire for the night and was luckily able to get it this morning. I also met a very cute Swedish boy when I went back to get it :-) Hopefully I'll run into him again soon!