A Weekend in Berlin

With things winding down in Europe for not just me, but Blake's sister, Giselle, who is finishing up her dance career in Dresden- Blake and Giselle's mom, Priscilla, flew over to help Giselle move and to visit Blake. Priscilla was flying into Berlin, which I had been wanting to check out, so we decided to meet her there for a couple of days.

Blake and I flew down on late Friday night and were ready to explore Berlin the next morning. We started off at the Brandenburg Gate to catch a free 3 1/2 hour walking tour of the city.

The tour was great- there is a lot to take in and see. After the wall was torn down, they marked its location with bricks all across the city:

Next on the tour we stopped by the Holocaust Memorial, which was really interesting. It is hard to describe, and the pictures only partly capture the atmosphere:

The tour then stopped at the place where Hitler’s bunker was, but there is obviously no memorial. In fact, besides a small bulletin board, they built some apartment complexes on top of it and now there is a little piece of grass where the residents take their dogs to do their business. Our tour guide pointed out that this probably was the most appropriate memorial to him.

After that we walked (we did a lot of walking) to a place where they left a large chunk of the wall standing. As with most things in this city- you feel weird being a tourist. I mean, on one hand- there a lot of really cool things to see, and some really well done memorials. On the other hand- a lot of shit went down in this city to say the least and it doesn’t seem right to be happy about them. So here I am in front of the old wall with my most normal seeming expression:

We passed Checkpoint Charlie, and the Deutscher Dom (German Cathedral) and the Französischer Dom (French Cathedral) which are identical churches because they didn’t want to offend anyone, which I find amusing and think they should do more of in this world. Seriously… it is like Berlin had a little French kid who wanted a red hot wheel, so they got him one, and then his little German brother started to whimper and to shut him up they bought him a red hot wheel too. Exactly like that.

Next we went to the book-burning memorial in Bebelplatz. Again, another cool memorial- there were empty bookcases that you looked down at through a small Plexiglas window.

The tour ended at the Berliner Dome where we heard the great story of how the wall finally fell, which turns out was sort of accidental. Wiki it.. it’s good.

After the tour, Blake, Priscilla and I went back to the Holocaust memorial to explore it some more and we were greeted by thousands of gay men and woman at the gay pride festival. It definitely added a fun spirit to the normally sobering holocaust memorial. There is something about shirtless men with pink feather boas in a party bus that can always make me smile.
After wandering around the city on our own some more, we met up for ice cream with mine and Blake’s friend from Lund- Raphael, who lives in Berlin. We must have been pictured out, because no pictures were taken here, which is weird since the 3 of us are pretty camera-happy.

I was pretty tuckered out at this point, so I went back to take a nap, while Blake and Priscilla met up for dinner with Blake’s old roommate from Lund- Ralf, who also lives in Berlin. Their dinner went a little late, so I met up with Kelly Clark- a fellow Valle fellow who just finished up her fellowship in Copenhagen. Kelly visited us in Stockholm this winter, and it was great to see her again. She was traveling with some friends she met through couch surfing- Oskar (a Dane) and Sara (a Swede living in Denmark). Both of them were also a lot of fun, and Oskar knew about a cool bar in East Berlin that served some excellent beer.

Blake eventually met up with us, but unluckily for him it was after we ate our Kinder Surprises (delish chocolate candies with toys in them… and yes- I am 26 years old).

The next day we started out at the Reichstag- the German Parliament Building. They recently added a really cool glass dome to the top. The idea of the glass dome is that any citizen can look down on the parliament which symbolizes Berlin's attempt to move away from a past of Nazism and Communism and instead towards a future with a heavier emphasis on a united, democratic Germany.




After the Reichstag, we meandered our way over to the Berlin Zoo, which I was super-duper excited to see. We stopped at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church:

And last but not least- we finally made it to the zoo! I have wanted to go to the Berlin Zoo ever since learning about it in my Zoo and Aquarium Science class- yes I am a dork like that. It was awesome.


The funniest part was the Sea Lions. There was this obnoxious huge male who would not stop barking, and who was extremely territorial over his ladies and his rock. Check out the videos:




Unfortunately, we started to run out of time, so we had to run through a lot of it, but we did get to see Knut! (The famous Polar Bear)

That was the end of Berlin, but all of my pics (as well as some of Blake’s and Priscilla’s pics) can be found here. After that the 3 of us headed to the airport to catch a lovely Ryanair flight (ha- for those of you following along, Ryanair flights are never lovely) back to Stockholm.

Priscilla hung out with us the next couple of days before making her way to Paris and the to Dresden to see Giselle. We did some Stockholm touristy things and relaxed and enjoyed the wonderful weather. Here are a few highlights, but all of the pics can be found here.

Midsommar!!!

Midsommar (Midsummer), for those of you who have never celebrated it before (dont worry, this was my first time too) is like the superbowl of Swedish holidays- except less greasy food and beer and more pickled herring and snaps. Our friends Pär and Ylva invited us (ok, there was some begging on our part) to spend midsommar with Ylva's family (The Schnürer's) at her family's adorable summer cabin in Åskersund (a few hours outside of Stockholm).

Midsommar is an old pagan holiday and is celebrated as a sacrifice time in the sign of the fertility. Nowadays, little kids sing and dance around a midsommar pole and then there is a traditional dinner with pickled herring, snaps and new potatoes. We went to a small village near their cabin, Lerbäck to check out the traditional festivities:



It started to thunderstorm half-way through, so we took a break:

You can see Ylva and I made the traditional head wreaths too. Normally only the little kids make the head wreaths and dance around the maypole, but I figured as a tourist, I could get away with it. After the rain stopped, we went back to dancing:


After taking in all of the traditional celebrations, we headed back to the Schnürer's to hang out in the sun and play some kubb:


One of the funniest things was that they had this cat who was enourmous- I dubbed him Fat Cat:

Later that evening we settled in for a traditional dinner with Ylva, Pär, Ylva's brother, Björn, and Ylva's parents- Sonja and Leif.

Dinner was great- lots of singing and snaps. I still think we need tradtional drinking songs in America! They are so fun!

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, playing board games (particulary Robo Rally- best game ever- even though Pär always wins) and kubb, enjoying the sun when it wasnt raining and eating a lot of really really good food.

Check out the slideshow of the weekend here.

Yeah Life

Should I start with the good news or the bad news? You know me, I like to shake things up, so I will start with the good news.

The good news is that I am officially have a Masters of Science in Engineering! Hooray! I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to get final approval on my thesis in time from my advisor at UW who now lives in Massachusetts, but he came through, said it was good, and allowed me to submit it. (And by me, I mean my former roommate in Seattle, Lisa- who wins the most awesome ever award. Seriously- she rocks and I owe her big time.) I had defended it last June a few days before I left for Sweden, but I still had to finish the written part, but then I couldn’t submit until I was done with my fellowship, since I still needed student status. Which brings me to the bad news....

... my fellowship is over. Well, that isn’t really the bad news- I knew that was going to happen- it was only for 9 months. The bad news is that I was hoping to turn my work from my fellowship into a full-time job at IVL, but things didn’t turn out as planned. There is a lot of BS involved about lack of funding, wocka, wocka, wocka, but I am trying to be pc about the whole thing, so I am going to leave it at that. It was a bad way to end my fellowship, and I have to keep reminding myself how lucky I was to get an opportunity like this in the first place, and that I did have a good time while it lasted. Yep- that is all I am saying about this.

So the real question is.... what does this all mean for me? Well, Blake and I had planned on staying in Sweden until at least December (he has a full time job that he can keep for as long as he likes), but since I do not have a job, I cannot obtain a work permit, which means I cannot obtain a residence permit. So, I have to leave Sweden. My student permit has thus far expired, but I am pretty sure I can stay around here for 3 months before they really try and kick me out. Pretty sure (fingers crossed!). I will be flying back to Detroit in August (12th) for my cousin Zach's wedding and to see family, and then I will be flying to Minneapolis for my best friend Steph's wedding, and then ????? Yeah, I have no idea. Blake is going to stay in Stockholm for a few more months (since again, he has a job and with this economy he isn’t taking it for granted), and I will get a job (aaackk! I know!) somewhere. I don't know where yet, but I have a few leads.

In the mean time, I am relaxing and enjoying not working or going to school (or both) for the first time in my life. Blake has 3 weeks off in July (give it up for the 5 weeks of Swedish vacation per year! What what!!!), and so we are planning a big ole' adventure. Stay tuned for details!

Laura and Chad come to Stockholm!

So Chad arrived a few hours before Laura and the first thing we did was go have an American breakfast. He had been gone from the states for a good 10 hours at this point. But seriously though, these pancakes were amazing. I think they somehow deep fried them.

Chad immediately tried to learn the language (he is half Swedish afterall), and started with the word Sverige (which means Sweden). Correctly pronounced, it is Svear-ee-uh. Chad insisted that his Swedish blood over-rules our Swedish lessons, so Sverr-gee it was. For the rest of the week. Yeah.

Later that afternoon, Chad and I went to meet Laura at the bus terminal, and we had to wait awhile, and while we were waiting we noticed that every large group that came through the revolving doors got stuck. Which is of course hilarious when you aren’t one of those people actually getting stuck in the door. So I started to try and get video of this, which was funny too until a blind guy came through and held up the door. Chad tried to look away and pretend he didn’t know me, but when you think about it, it wasn’t like the guy could see us taping him!

Laura finally made it to Stockholm (she flew in from Prague where she had been working the week before) and we celebrated the way we always celebrate- with Pink Champagne! (Except that it was weird Swedish Hot Pink Wild Strawberry or something, but we do what we can in these cruel times over here in Sweden. :P)


On Monday, Laura, Chad and I went to Skansen, an old fashioned open-air museum where we saw some traditional Swedish things, and ate some traditional Swedish food (or not):

The best part was by far the baby goats. Blake had gone to Skansen a few weeks ago when Byron and Abby were in town, and they had raved about the adorable goats, so I was glad to see them be adorable as well.

After seeing all of the adorable animals, Laura and I were inspired (but lacking in the adorableness):


After Skansen, we went to Moosebacke, which is a famous outdoor bar with a great view of the city where we waited for Blake to get off of work (poor thing!).


The next day I went into work (boo!) while Laura and Chad took a trip to the archipelago. I suppose you are going to have to bug them if you want to see the pics.

The day after that, I took a half day and meet up with them for Fika and some more exploring.


Later that night, Pär and Ylva came over to help us eat the Pike that Blake and I caught at Ida’s cabin the week before and that I somehow managed to cook successfully. Not to brag, but I was pleasantly surprised with myself. Dinner then turned into a rousing game of caps:




The next day was a bust- it was cold and rainy outside (like it has been the past week… gross!) and Chad didn’t want to get his hair wet, so Laura and I went to the Central Badhuset (Bath house) for some relaxing hot tubs and saunas.

The next day was thankfully nice again, and the 3 of us went to sight-see some more around Stockholm.

From the great view, we went to see the famous Vasa Museum. On our way there, we came across a little fair that was handing out some authentic Swedish candy, so I grabbed some for Laura and Chad to try. Mine “accidently” fell on the ground, so they were left to try salted licorice by themselves. This pretty much sums up their feelings for this Scandinavian treat:

After the museum, we checked out city hall (we couldn’t go inside, because it was closed, which was par for the course this week):


When working hours were up, Blake and Pär met up with us for some real Swedish food- reindeer, meatballs, and pickled herring:

And some beers:

Which got us a good jump start on the rest of the evening when we started on the absinthe shots:

Laura and I then put on our Swedish costumes (also known as leggings) and had a fashion show:



Some other friends showed up, some more drinks were drank, and then next thing I know, it is 3 o’clock and it is light outside:





After some kebabs and a few hours of sleep, I woke up to see them of to the airport. It was so sad to see them go, but we definitely celebrated it right the last night. If you want to see all (and there are a lot) of the ridiculous pictures from the fun trip, check them out!

Short trip to the Archipelago

One of the best things about working in Sweden is the vacation time and the holidays. For a country that really is not religious at all (only 5% of the population consider themselves religious), they sure do take a lot of religious holidays off. And if we had known about them in advance we probably could have planned some our trips and recent guest visits a little better. For example, Byron and Abby were here May 15th-19th, and then Chad and Laura were here the 24th-30th. But we didn’t find out until the week before that we had the 21th-22th off for Ascension day.

What is Ascension day you may ask? One of Blake's co-workers described it as "The day Jesus flew away." While describing it to Grant, he translated it as, "The day Jesus donned his rocket pack and blew this mortal popsicle stand." And in case you actually wanted to know why we got a 2 day holiday for this, "The Ascension implies Jesus' humanity being taken into heaven. Ascension Day, celebrated 40 days after Easter, is one of chief feasts of the Christian year." (Thank you wiki). Anyways, the whole point of this is that we went to hang out at my friend Ida's family cabin in the archipelago. And by cabin, I really mean compound (see picture above)- her grandparents used to live here and now the whole extended family shares a whole chunk of an island. The place is adorable.

It only takes an hour bus ride and then a 15 minute boat ride to get here, so we were able to leave Stockholm in the late morning and still have time to enjoy most of the day Thursday there. And the weather was great Thursday, so we took one of the boats out to a small uninhabited island for a lovely fika (coffee break).


When we got back from our little expedition, we enlisted Ida's dad to help us put out the nets to see if we could catch some fish overnight. Throw a net in and leave it overnight? This is my kind of fishing.

The rest of the evening while we waited for innocent yummy fish to become magically entangled in our net, we passed the time with a sauna (they just love their saunas in Scandinavia!), which was followed by a jump into the ocean ( And yes, it was cold. Very, very cold.) and a lovely dinner. After some delicious food (and admittedly a lot of wine) we had fun with our cameras and exposure time:



(Editor's Note: Notice that these pictures make it look light outside? Yeah, it was about 10 or 11 pm. The sun pretty much doesnt set here anymore, which is really trippy. I am sure I will discuss this later on my blog at some point. It's crazy.)

The next morning we were ready to see what we had caught. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too great but well, umm, hmmm....I'm not sure how to finish that sentence. Anyways... we caught a lot! 3 large Pike (which are nasty looking things with teeth), and about 10 Perch.

That was the fun part. Then we had to get them out of the nets (Again, Pike have teeth, and Perch have sharp poisonous dorsal fins), and then they needed to be killed, gutted, and the Perch had to be filleted. All of this took a few hours and it was cold and rainy outside, which did not help our epic struggle vs the fish. I had to pass on the whole killing and gutting part... turns out I have a weak stomach when it comes to that sort of thing.

I was able to help filet the perch after Ida and Blake did the really gross part though, and we had enough fish left over after lunch (which was soooo good!) that Blake and I were able to bring home 2 Pike, some perch, and some roe from one of the pikes. And just last week I cooked the Pike and it was surprisingly a success! It is pretty awesome to go through the whole process of catching and killing your own food to preparing it and eating it- this is a first for moi!

After a late lunch we hoped on a boat and then a bus and we were home for at least 1 relaxing night at home before the craziness that is our life continued!