Irish Celebration: Skål!

"Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." -Miriam Beard

I'd say it's time for an update! Finals are quickly approaching so every time I sit down to write something, it's another paper. My official final essays aren't due until mid-April but since I'm leaving for a three-week trip to Italy, Spain, and France on March 31st, I want to get them all finished before then!

Two weekends ago, Jenni, Krissy, Scott, and I journeyed to Sweden Thursday-Sunday. We left Thursday morning so that we'd be able to take a three hour bus to Dublin, then catch our flight that afternoon. Everything went smoothly at the airport - give or take Scott's backpack getting stuck for a minute in the luggage size restriction box. It was enough to give us all a minor panic attack but he just had to aggressively yank it out and Ryanair let him through with a broken zipper. We landed around 6:30 at Skavsta Airport in Nyköping where we boarded a two-hour train to Uppsala, where our friends from Gustavus, Siana and Annalise met us at the train station. We walked through town to Annalise's apartment and by the time we arrived it was already getting late so we just chatted for a while then went to bed.

The next morning, we woke up to a wonderful surprise - Annalise, Siana, Signe, and Daralia made us breakfast! We had a delicious brunch of Swedish pancakes, brown bread, fruit, and traditional hard bread meat & cheese sandwiches. This was so much more than we were expecting and we all felt lucky to have such amazing hosts. Siana and Annalise had class for a couple of hours so their friend Daralia offered to play tour guide and show us around the city. It was so nice to have her there, she brought us all over their campus, to a few museums, and around a park in the city. Afterwards, we met Annalise and Siana for Fika (a Swedish verb/noun that pretty much means a social time to drink coffee/tea and eat pastries), something I could definitely get used to. After Fika, we went grocery shopping for a few things and got guest passes to their "nations" which are kind of like clubs that the students join. Each nation has its own building and during the week it's a good place to go to eat dinner or study, but on the weekends, there are bars/clubs in them. We ate dinner at Daralia's and went to one of the nations where we had a great time talking and trying Swedish drinks.

Saturday we left Uppsala after another wonderful brunch made by the girls and boarded our train to Stockholm. It was fun to ride a train and to get to see the landscape. It was very snowy and driving through the woods made me thing of Minnesota's winter scenery. We arrived in Stockholm around one or two and checked into our hostel. We had a six-person room but arrived to find it empty. After we changed into warmer clothes (it was pretty chilly) we set out into the city for our day o' tourism! We made a two mile trek to Skansen open-air museum. I didn't really know what to expect but it was a great museum. There were parts of the museum that were like a zoo, and others that reminded me of Fort Snelling or something - people were dressed up in traditional Swedish garb and taught us about farm life in Sweden many years ago. After walking around for a few hours, we braved the snowstorm and walked to the Vasa Museum - one of the most famous museums in Stockholm and the most visited museum in Scandinavia. The museum was constructed around the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged. When we left this museum, the sun was out and it was much warmer than it had been earlier in the day. We enjoyed our slow walk back, pausing to take pictures of the sunset and every beautiful building. When we arrived at the hostel, we were greeted by our hostel mate, a 23-year-old friendly Indian man who had lived in Australia for the past five years. He immediately struck up all kinds of conversation with us and we learned that he was embarking on a 9-week solo trip through Europe because he had just received his Master's degree. He had just come from Copenhagen and was spending a night in Stockholm. His positive attitude and love for new experiences and adventures was inspiring and we invited him to dinner with us to learn more about his travel plans. We found a cute cafe and got Swedish meatballs (a must) which were tasty. We especially appreciated the all-you-can-eat bread and salad bar, since we had been living on peanut butter sandwiches all day. We meandered around town a bit but were all pretty tired so we crashed early.

Sunday, our last day, was spent in the most beautiful city I've seen yet - Old Town in Stockholm. This city, more commonly known as Gamla Stan is on an island, is connected to the main city by bridge. We spent the afternoon walking through the cobblestone streets, visiting old churches, and meandering, awestruck, through the incredible architecture. After Gamla Stan, we shopped around in the plethora of souvenir shops surrounding the city, and went to Fika where we got a variety of pastries, chai, hot chocolate, and coffee. It was a great way to end our time in Sweden.