Blake- the biggest patriot I know- had been planning a 4th of July celebration for months. Unfortunately, the weather did not RSVP. First off, weather forecasting apparently does not exist in Stockholm. I mean, they have it, but you can check 3 different websites and get 3 different forecasts. And all of them somehow all manage to be wrong. Anyways, back to the story- the weather had been fantastic for the past week and a half right up until the day before our big 4th of July picnic- which was planned to be outside. So Blake kept an eye on the weather (as best as he could) and sure enough- 2 hours before the big party- it started downpouring. So we made an executive decision to nix the bar-b-q part, host the party at our place, and hopefully move to a park around 10 to watch the show. That was fun, but we were all ready to watch the big show: So we rounded everyone up and hopped on the bus to go to a park where we thought it may be possible to set off fireworks. We were a little worried that it wouldnt be dark enough since this is what the sky looked like at 10:30: Luckily it was dark-ish by the time we got to the park: We had asked around and tried to look online to see if setting off fireworks in the middle of the city was actually legal. We still arent exactly sure what the ruling is. Some people said no- it is only legal on New Year's Eve. Some would say no- because it is a fire hazard. Some would say no- since it was in the city. Hmmm... I just now realized that most people said no- it was not legal.
Well Swedish laws were not about to stop us, but we were a little worried when someone informed us that the Police station was 2 block away, and then even more so when a fire truck drove by: But the show must go on! Well, that is until the police did actually show up. They drove by once, slowed down, but didnt stop. Then drove back past us, then finally backed up and got out of the car. We charmed them over though and it was cool. Ha- actually we just said we were Americans and that it was the 4th of July. He said, "Well, I'm not going to tell you to set them off, but, um, just think about the fire-hazard." To which I replied, "Well it just rained a few hours ago, so we are good! Thanks!" But we did promise that it was the last one. So here is our last one (well last big one):
After the show, we were just standing around in the park when some random drunk guy came up and started chatting with Blake and Henning. He was weird. And racist. And then the rave started. Well actually, Oskar (now known as the Firestarter) was lighting some mini-fireworks that were very strobe-lightish, and it got funnier and funnier:
So the moral of the story is- Dont mess with America! Take that Sweden! Courtney out.
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 (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.
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!
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!
Address: 1748 56th St NW Apt 202 Seattle, WA 98107
Mobile Number: (206) 388-6144
Skype Name: courtney.oneill
Where was I?
I was in Stockholm, Sweden.
What was I doing?
I was working for a Swedish environmental engineering firm, IVL. I received a fellowship (Valle) from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at University of Washington that pays me to work there, so I was still considered a student, even though I am essentially done with everything.
