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Published: September 11th 2007
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Hello everyone,
I'm currently in Linköping, Sweden. I came here to visit my old friend from Sudbury - Fredrik. I am leaving tomorrow for Copenhagen, Denmark. I only stayed here for a week, which is a fair amount of time, and I have to let Fred do his school work - we don't want him to fail do we!
I arrived in Stockholm, Sweden on September 4th. Unfortunately, after a decent plane ride, my ears didn't pop, I really don't like that, it annoys the hell out of me. I took the Arlanda Express to Stockholm, it takes about 20min from the airport. Then I had to find this damn hostel, which is on a boat. After walking around (with all of my shit) for an hour, I finally spotted it - thank god it's red.
I finally settled in my room, which was a 4 male dorm room. I met two Japanese guys (one from Kyoto and the other from Osaka), and we hit it off pretty well. We spoke about our respected countries, our political leaders, but we did stick with Japan, since they come from there, and I studied Japanese history in university - so
it went well. I wasn't the ignorant Canadian that night. One is actually studing Swedish in Sweden, and the other was studying French in France - which was very interesting - two Japanese who spoke about 3 languages, cultured people, not just ignorant tourists, it was satisfying.
After an hour or so, a French-American stepped into the room (he was the other roommate) - his name was Adrien (unfortunately I forgot the names of my Japanese roommates - sorry!) He told us if we wanted to play some cards, and naturally we went up, and I met even more people. I met two other Belgian girls, and two other Americans (one from Minnesota, and the other from Brazil - they were married). They weren't only well educated, but they are also very cultured themselves, and they even knew more languages! The three Americans knew English, French, Spanish, Japanese, and Mandarin - I was overwhelmed. I hung out with the Americans for the rest of my stay in Stockholm. I also kept contact with the Belgians - since I'll be going there in about a week.
Stockholm is a very nice city, it's clean, safe, organized, and very well
maintained (especially the subway system - which was built in the 1950s or 60s from what Fred told me). It's roughly the size of Ottawa, but obviously with all the tourists, the infrastructure (like the trains and subways) is much more developed than any Canadian city for that matter, not just Ottawa. We went to two very good restaurants, one was very old, it was established in 1421 by German monks (it's the oldest rest. in Stockholm), and there we delighted ourselves with traditional Swedish food. We also went to the living quarters of the Swedish royal family, and I was really satisfied with the place, it was very nice. On the second night, we went to a regular Stockholm clud, and there we had a few beers, and chatted - it was a good stay.
Then on the 6th, I went to Linköping, to see Fred. He met me at the train station, and then we walked all the way to the university. It was a good 45min walk, but it was enjoyable, since I had Fred on my side, and I hadn't seen him for roughly a year - so time passed quickly. We didn't do much
on the first night, we just went to the common kitchen, so Ulf (one of Fred's friends) and Fred made me some lasagna - it was actually really delicious.
Then we just hung out basically for the rest of the time. On Saturday night, we went to the local student club here, and it was enjoyable. We just had a few drinks, lingered around the dance floor, and tried to talk to some people. Unfortunately for me, it was quite difficult, because everyone spoke Swedish. Before the club, I went to one of Fred's friends place, and we watched a soccer game - Sweden vs. Denmark. It was a tense game, it finished at 0-0, but Sweden should have had that one, since they had the most shots on goal, and very stylish ones I might add. It was fun, because I watched the games with 6-7 Swedish guys, they were singing traditional Swedish songs, it really felt like I was part of something, but they were really with it- I should add that they were also drinking quite heavily :P
So yes, today is my last day in Linköping, I'm going out to see the city center, one of the Churches, it's quite nice and big, so I'll go check that out.
The rest of my trip consist of me going to Copenhagen for a couple of days, then I'm heading to Hamburg, Germany. I'm not too sure what I'm doing next, but I'll be going to Belgium, the Netherlands, and most likely France.
Talk to all of you soon.
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