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Published: November 10th 2012
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Way too lazy to edit this so please excuse my poor grammar or sentence structure in certain areas! As I write this I am enjoying a cup of Tim Horton's coffee, compliments my parents.
Lots of things have been happening since I returned from my trip to St. Petersburg in Sweden. The first quarter of classes finished up and I wrote my Swedish History final exam. The exchange students had an international food festival where over 180 students came out and prepared dishes from their country. It was unreal good. I kind of copped out and made pancakes and bought maple syrup (like what else is authentically Canadian? Bannock?) but people demolished it in like fifteen minutes so I figure it must have been okay. A group of us exchange students explored the Luleå "nightlife" a bit more by going to a popular sports bar O'Leary's where we also went bowling. Then after exams I flew down to Stockholm to meet up with my parents who visited for ten days!
Mom, dad and I stayed in a nice hostel that was about a ten minute walk from the main downtown area in Stockholm. Stockholm is known for its museums
so we hit up a few of those while we were visiting. We went to the Nordic Museum of Culture which was architecturally really neat, however dad and I got bored pretty quick so we let mom explore the Swedish textiles and Swedish homes displays in depth while we had a coffee. Another museum we visited was the Vasa, which was by far my favorite attraction. The Vasa Museum is home to a restored Swedish navy ship from 1628. The ship sunk on its maiden voyage right in Stockholm's Harbour due to poor design (genius job to the ship architects) and remained on the sea bed until it was rediscovered and brought out of the water in 1961 (333 years later!). Since the water in the Baltic has low salt content the ship was pretty much in tact. It took the restorers over 20 years of constantly spraying the wood with this preserving chemical so that the wood would not shrink and crack. The ship is now on display, 95% original and the only one of its kind in the world. I hugely nerded it up at this museum as I found the conservation techniques and the history behind the
ship really interesting. It was chilly inside as they have a temperature and light control system in place. There was also a display with the skeletons of humans that were found inside of the ship that was very interesting to see as people during this time period were much shorter than now (average was definintely below 5'5''😉.
We also made the trip out to see Drottningholm Palace, which is the Royal palace and gardens originally built in the 17th century. We took a nice walk through the gardens and enjoyed the tiny bit of sun and nice fall weather. The royal family of Sweden lives here now but obviously we did not see them.
On the Sunday we did a city tour which was nice as it allowed us to learn a bit more about the history of Stockholm and Sweden. The guide talked a bit about the origins of H & M (an accessory store and hunting store merged in 1947), the history of IKEA (they are apparently creating IKEA restaurants now, no furniture, only food), history of the Nobel Prize, where the Prime minister was assassinated in 1986 and where the recent Royal wedding was (2010
maybe) and the gym where the two met. It was kind of a big deal because the husband was the princess' personal trainer and they dated for around 8 years before the King finally approved... nice career change for the husband.
I also got to see a bit of Stockholm nightlife on the Saturday we were there as I met up with a friend. We ended up going to a club called Laroy that is adjacent to Spy, one of the most fancy clubs in the city where you will often see celebs. We didn't realize until after the fact that Laroy was popular amongst the 18 year olds (there are clubs that are 20, 23 or even 30+) so we danced like we were in high school after paying way too much for cover and drinks. It was still a fun time though. Side note: I ordered a vodka, cran and club soda at one lounge in the club district and it costed 100 SEK, or $15! Cover to get into Laroy was 150 SEK, or roughly $20 and if we had went to Spy I believe cover was upwards of 250 SEK, or about $40.
Our
last couple days of Stockholm involved us touring "old town" on foot, which I think mom and dad really enjoyed. I took them to see the outside of the Nobel Prize museum (closed that day) and the narrowest street in Stockholm. Tuesday morning involved a nice train ride South to Gothenburg that took about 3 hours. Mom and dad really enjoyed this as they were able to see the countryside. Gothenburg was an awesome city and I wish we would have been able to spend more time there! The architecture of the buildings was really pretty. We had limited time so we did some touring around on the tram lines and then stopped in to the "Universium" which is Scandinavia's largest Science Center. The aquarium inside here was really cool as there was one tank (is that what you call it?) that had 5 sharks and I just sat on the viewing bench in awe for 15 minutes. We also visited the Gothenburg fish market, which overall was just really stinky but kind of neat, and the downtown area where the shopping was at. We were only in Gothenburg for just over 24 hours so the next day meant we
were already on a plane up to our last stop, my town Luleå. Side note: found my first Starbucks in Sweden - it was great.
Luleå actually turned out to be a great time, although I was worried we would be a bit bored as there wasn't as much to see and do as in Stockholm. I took mom and dad for lunch to the "B-Building" where my group of friends always grabbed lunch. Then they spent the afternoon in class with me which they really enjoyed! Mom said she felt like she was in university again (she even took notes haha). We also celebrated mom and dad's 32nd wedding anniversary with a nice meal with salmon (yum!), and saw a movie at the theatre. Speaking of which, we saw Skyfall (James Bond) before it even came out in North America when we were in Stockholm, which I thought was pretty cool. We saw the women's professional basketball team play as well - the level of play seems pretty good but I think the Cougars would have beat them handily. I also made sure that mom and dad tried Max, the Swedish hamburger chain. They found it
really delicious, but then again how could you not? It really is the bees knees.
A fun part of the trip was introducing mom and dad to
Fika, a Swedish custom that is basically taking a break in the afternoon for coffee and a dessert. I think I tried about 6 different kinds of carrot cake over our ten day trip as I was craving it like crazy for some random reason and we really embraced the whole fika thing (really healthy I know!).
Other highlights include mom's first time on the Stockholm metro, underestimating the necessity to hold on to the bar when the metro is stopping (love you mom). Also, dad and I were cracking up as mom was befriending random people on the tram in Gothenburg and asking them questions about pension, minimum wage, holidays, and other general questions about Sweden. Sometimes she lucked out and made new friends, other times the poor elderly couldn't speak English so it was kind of awkward. But I guess it was pretty smart of her as she ended up learning more than I even knew about Swedish culture. Minimum wage here is about $15 by the way!
Now that my parents have headed back to Canada, I have a few weeks of classes here in Lulea before I head to Germany for a weekend in December. Then I will be back in Sweden for only a few days to finish up classes and pack before I stop over in London for four days to tour the city. Then I will be home for Christmas on December 19! I can't wait to see family and friends.
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Meagan
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:)
Great photo - lookin good!