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!

Paris- Take 2 (well technically 3)

First off, sorry about not updating my blog in awhile- you are about to get bombarded with a bunch of posts in the next week or so which will explain why I havent had any time whatsoever to post. The chaos was started with a short trip down to Paris. My friend Meghan from Seattle emailed me towards the end of April and informed me that she was going to be renting an apartment for a week in Paris and asked if there was any chance that I could possibly join her for a few days. The answer was yes. The answer will ALWAYS be yes when the question is, hey- I'm in (insert pretty much anyplace in Europe that is easy for me to get to while I am over here)- want to join?

I found a cheap flight with Ryanair (even though they SUCK! Ugh, I really really hate flying Ryanair, but they are so darn cheap they make it imposible to not fly them. Stupid ryanair.) and since I am still on the Valle where I get paid by UW and work at a company in Sweden for free, I can take off pretty much whenever. I know it may not seem like it, but I honestly haven't taken much time off this year, mostly because I travel with Blake and he has a real job, so we only take a day off from time to time and plan our vacations around the ridiculous amounts of Swedish holidays. So I was looking forward to taking advantage of my fellowship status and taking a trip with a girlfriend (translation = shopping).

I arrived mid Wednesday afternoon, and found the amazing apartment that Meghan had booked via craigslist on Île Saint-Louis. It was a really small studio up 5 very steep flights of stairs, but it was so nice to stay somewhere more personal than a hotel room. It was rather warm, so we stepped out without a jacket and an umbrella to go grab a bite to eat. Bad idea. We were eating and catching up in a cute park (after getting yelled at in French for sitting at a table in Häagen-Dazs even after Meghan ordered from there. Psshhh, Freaking French.) when all of a sudden a huge thunderstorm rolled in. We had to just wait it out for over a half hour under an awning while being pelted with hail. It was crazy. This picture doesnt even begin to capture it:

Later that night we met up with my friend Lori, who went to MSU, but who I know through her brother, Jason, who was in my program at MSU, and who ended up dating my best friend Laura when they (Lori, Jason and Laura) all lived in Phoenix. Did you get that? Anyways, Lori is doing her post-doc in neuro science in Paris right now, and I didnt get a chance to meet up with her when I was in Paris in January, but this time I made sure it happened. She took Meghan and I to a great Gypsy Jazz place on the outskirts of town and we had a great dinner and listened to some great music.

The next morning, Meghan and I were drinking coffee when we noticed a bunch of bubbles in a seemingly normal street. I mean, how awesome is that? So we of course followed them until we found the source and I danced around in the bubbles until Meghan couldnt stand to be seen with me in public any longer.

After I calmed down from the sensory overload, we made our way over to the Pompidou, which was a pretty good modern art museum.

After the museum we walked around to find this restaurant that Meghan had read about on some blog- Hotel Costes. When we finally found it, we knew right away that it was going to be expensive and that we did not belong, but we decided to go for it anyways. I caught the waiter laughing at us with other waiters after Meghan tried to order off of the kids menu- it was that type of place. However, it was nothing compared to us getting in a fit of laughter while over-hearing part of the conversation from the table next to us. Let's just say that we both heard some guy say the worst word you can think of outloud and very casually and it took us both by suprise, especially since we were in this absurdly nice place. After we somehow controlled our laughter we were somehow able to embrace the obvious unworthiness of ourselves and had a great time in the end.

The next day we went up to Montmarte to see the beautiful Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, which was nice because when I went to go see this in 2004 the first time I was in Paris with my parents, I decided it would be a good idea to run all the way up the hill to the church. By the time I got there, I was so dizzy that I just had to sit down and didnt get to enjoy any of it. So this time I paced myself and enjoyed it a lot more.

We wandered around some more in the crappy weather, but found a random little boutique where we both found some cute things, and then made our way over the the Eifel Tower. So I mentioned that I had been to Paris twice before, right? Well I have never seen the Eifel Tower close up. I didnt think I would be that excited to see it, but I definately was:


And, to make it even better, the sun finally came out! It didnt seem worth it to go up in the tower, but it was nice to walk around the parks in the area and get some sun.


Later that evening, we met up with Lori again, who took us to this great restaurant called Chez Janou (it has amazing all you can eat chocolate mousse).

We were joined by a Swedish co-worker of mine, Annika, and her husband, Anders, who happened to be in Paris that weekend too.

After dinner we went to Lori's favorite bar, (where they are nice to americans), and ended up hanging out there until waaaay after closing time. Lori knows the bartenders, so around 2 am, one of the bartenders told us to cover our ears. We were confused, but covered our ears anyways, as he yelled, "Closing time- everyone out of here!" It was awesome.

We had a blast, but I definately should have gone to bed earlier since I had an early flight to catch the next morning and had to be ready to go as soon as I got to Stockholm, since Blake's brother Byron and his girlfriend Abby were already in town. I'm not going to blog about that by the way, because Blake already did a good job on his post.

The Other Side of the Wall

On May Day (May 1st for all of you following along) Blake and I flew down to Prague for the start of a whirlwind tour of Prague, Dresden, and even a little bit of Berlin.

The first day we just walked around a LOT, got lost in the city, explored the Jewish Quarter, enjoyed the wonderful, and acted like, well, tourists. Here I am in Old Towne Square:

Blake thinks long and hard about converting:

The lilacs were lovely this time of year. Just like Blake all year (awwww...):

For dinner we went to this really cool beer garden that we could hear when we walked outside the hotel, so we knew it would be fun. It was fun, except for the worst service we have ever had. But it was cute:

After we were finally served dinner we walked around some more in good ole safe Prague.


Blake took a cool pic of the castle that we were going to the next day:

The next day we went to visit the big ole castle that looms mysteriously over the city:

We played the tourist card again and got the audioguide. Blake gets his learn on:


We took an evening train (2 hours) from there to Dresden to meet up with Blake's sister Giselle. She meet us at the train station and took us to have dinner with her friend, Hano, who cooked an absolutely amazing meal. It was awesome.
The next morning Giselle had to go to practice, so Blake and I explored Dresden on her own. Dresden was suprisingly really cute and there was quite a bit to see. The city was flattened in WW2, and they have rebuilt a lot of the important buildings. They tried to use a lot of the original bricks, which makes for a cool effect:

We went up to the top of the Residenzschloss to get a great view of the city. We could see the Semperoper where Giselle was going to be performing that night:

We spent some time at the Zwinger Schloss where we were able to get a nice, memorable picture of the 2 of us:

No, but really, Zwinger Palace was quite pretty:

After a hard day of sight-seeing, we went back to Giselle's apartment to get all gussied up so that we wouldnt embarrass her at the show.

The show was awesome, but unfortunately we couldnt get any great photos of her dancing, but here she is getting an applause:

While we were waiting for Giselle after the show, I snapped a few cool pics of the Semperoper and the surrounding area:


Since it was a Premiere of the show, they had a huge after-party that we were able to attend. They are sponsored by a German beer company, so it was all the beer you could drink, which is funny considering most of the dancers dont drink beer.

The next day we had brunch, and then Blake and I had to catch a bus to Berlin (about 3 hours) to catch our plane back to Stockholm. It was great though, because some of our old friend's from Lund, Ralf and Rapheal, who live in Berlin were able to meet up with us for a couple beers. It was probably the perfect way to end our trip!

Valborgsmässoafton

May Day (the 1st of May) is a pretty big holiday here in Europe, and associated with it in some countries is Walpurgis Night, which occurs on the last of April. In Sweden, it is known as Valborgsmässoafton and is mainly celebrated by University students, and the largest traditions are at the 2 largest universities in Sweden: Lund and Uppsala. Blake celebrated Valborgsdag last year in Lund, and so this year, since we live quite close to Uppsala, and since one of my good friends, Ida, happens to be a student at Uppsala, we made plans to go celebrate a traditional Valborgsmässoafton there. During the day people gather in parks, drink alcoholic beverages, grill and generally enjoy the weather (which luckily for us, turned out to be a great day).

If you are a student, then the day traditionally starts off with a healthy breakfast of champagne and strawberries. Well, I'm not a student, and as much as I hate to admit it- I'm not as young as I used to be, so we started our day off with an awesome pancake breakfast (made by Ida, who may be the only Swede who truely knows how to make a pancake) and a small glass of champagne. After that we walked to the river and tried to find a spot for the boat race. By 10 am, most of the students were quite drunk, and there were masses of people crowded along the river to see the boats.

In Uppsala different student groups go rafting in on home-made and often humorously decorated rafts, such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme above. Some of them were pretty funny. You can click here to see all the pics I took of the random boats and of the whole day. We sat just above the first mini-waterfall, so we got to see most of them before they were destroyed. You can see one of the boats about to go over the fall:


The crowd is pretty funny- the students sometimes throw stuff at the boats, and they only cheer when the boats crash at the bottom of the falls. Here is a video I took of one of the unsuccessfull boats. Look at the divers who jump in at the end to help them out:

It was too crowded to find a place where we could see the falls, so here is a youtube video from someone who got there much much earlier to claim a spot than we did:

After the race, around noon, everyone walks up to this huge castle and has a picnic of pickled herring and more champagne on the lawn. Yummy. (No really though, turns out I like pickled herring!)

If you are a student and wasted by this point, you run to a Nation (which is sort of like a frat, but co-ed and anyone can join), where they have "Champagne Races" where students go to drink and spray champagne on each other. We decided to stay in the sun and drink our champagne and beer and relax instead. And I am not complaining.

At 3, an enormous crowd gathers near the castle to wave their summer caps (they look like sailor hats) around. Ida and I walked over there to check it out:


That was the end of the festivities that we took part in for the day. After that we just enjoyed the sun, hung out with friends, played some (american) football, and watched all the craziness around us. Like for instance, how clothing became optional:

Some people didnt quite make it through the day, like my co-workers Tony's friend:

Later that evening, some left-over pagan rituals took place all over Sweden, like for instance, having huge bonfires, but we all headed back to Stockholm for some dinner and some sleep after a long, hard day of drinking and picnicing in the sun. :)

The Archipalego

Quite a few weeks back (since I have been a slacker about blogging) Blake and I decided to take a Sunday excursion outside the city. We took a ferry out to Vaxholm island, one of the more touristy of the 30,000 some odd islands in the archipalego. The weather was pretty nice (for Stockholm) and we didnt do much besides have a picnic, drink some boxed wine (or as they say here, "Bag in the Box"), walk around, and play putt-putt golf (I won, naturally). In retrospect, the day wasnt very blog-worthy in terms of it being interesting for you to read, but Blake and I had a great time. Check it out: