An ode to public transport

I ride public transport everyday and there are some days that I love it and some days that I hate it. I thought I would just give you a taste of my up and down emotions! 


Why do I love it? I get to look out the window all the time. I get to people watch. I get to read. I am not polluting as much. I can get to a lot of places from my house. It's like a puzzle to figure out how to get places which is kind of fun sometimes! 


Why do I hate it? The buses are late. I often don't time it right and stand outside and wait for a while. It take a lot longer to ride public transport because it's not the most direct route. I get lost. 


Yes, that's that. It is both good and bad but it's what I've got. I have been fortunate enough to snag a couple rides home the past couple nights so I didn't have to deal with the public transport! That was pretty great! :) 


You might be wondering what this public transport is like. Well, I take the bus (buss) and the subway (tunnelbana) mostly. I took the train (pendeltåg) for the first time yesterday. There is also a nice tram downtown. They are all pretty clean most of the time which is really great. 


My most favorite thing might have to be the decor in some of the t-stops. I have pictures from the Kungsträgården stop here. My other favorite is Thordinsplan which has tile pictures of pac-man and mario. I will have pictures later. I was busy catching the bus today so I couldn't take a picture...

The ceiling of the Kungstagarden stop

Some random "ruins" on the side of the bridge

For now, I will continue to enjoy the public transport because there is no other way for me to get around! I know I really will be a master of it by the time I leave here! In fact, I'll probably master it right when I leave. Isn't that how it always goes? 

I should also make a mention to the Vasa Museum and the Royal Armoury. These have been two of my favorite museums so far. I will be blogging about them later (either tonight or tomorrow I promise!). 

Thanks for reading. I hope you all enjoy your weekends. This is the start of my first break so I will be heading up north to Lapland on Wednesday for a long weekend. We are going to view the northern lights (hopefully by dog sled), maybe learn about ice sculpting, and enjoy the beauty of northern Sweden! It is going to be great! You'll hear all about it for sure! 

I wouldn't want to be anywhere else

I would have to say that homesickness is probably one of the worst things ever. You feel very alone and just want something familiar. It's not really a feeling I'd wish on someone! Aside from all the homesickness I had been feeling coming here, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

I love my family here! We are all in school (as my host mom is a teacher) and so we talk about school all the time. We are actually all doing homework (sort of) right now while getting ready for dinner! Yep, it's great! :) We always have delicious food for dinner. Lots of potatoes and fish! My new favorite thing is mashed potatoes with carrots mashed right in! It's delish! I spend time with my host siblings usually watching One Tree Hill or helping Kevin pick out cars to race on the Xbox. It's enjoyable just to hang out! It is weird for me to have so much time to do things other than study but it's so nice to get to know some other people as well.

I have been making some friends here too! Swedish and American ones. It is a different kind of friendship than I'm used to. The people in the program with me didn't have any more in common than coming to Sweden when we first arrived. Now that we have figured out each other a little more we are all getting along quite nicely. It's nice to have friends here! I have met some Swedish people through the Lindy-hop group I found. They are really nice and it's interesting to hear about life from their perspective! I think I'll be able to go to some more dances and meet even more people! You'll hear all about it don't worry!

While riding the bus home from school, I was struck (once again) by how cool all of the buildings look here! They all have similar looks and that look is cool! It is quite a different experience living in a big city versus Peoria but it is a good one to have. I am able to get around on public transportation every day. Compared to the first day, I never thought I would learn! I have come pretty far which is a good feeling to have.

I feel like I have learned something about myself after being here for almost 4 weeks. The first 2 weeks of any new thing are incredibly difficult for me! I have a hard time dealing with big changes I suppose. Being someplace or doing something so different than what I am used to really throws me off my rocker. I just don't know how to act so I kind of freak out. I'm not able to act how I normally would because I'm so shocked. Next time I go somewhere completely new I will know this and maybe I'll be able to handle it better. The key is to see if I really learn something from my experiences. I guess we'll know when I go to grad school in a year or so! :)

There was a moment a few weeks ago when I thought I shouldn't have come. The next thought I had was that I wouldn't know these people or this city. That thought made me really sad. This semester in Stockholm is going to be quite an experience that no one else will have. I am going to take it all in and learn something about this planet I live on, the country I never cared about before, and what kind of person I am! I think it will be good.

VÄLKOMMEN TILL STOCKHOLM! (Welcome to Stockholm!) 

Uppsala

My Saturday was a fun filled adventure to the town of Uppsala - a 40 minute train ride north of Stockholm. Myself and 2 friends from the program got on a train bright and early in the morning to enjoy the sights and sounds of the 4th largest city in Sweden. The weather couldn't have been better for us. It had just snowed and the sun was out and it was in the mid twenties (in F). Basically, it was a perfect winter day! :) 


The first part of our trip was in Gamla Uppsala (Old Uppsala). Here there are old burial mounds from the 1600s. There is also an old church and a museum that wasn't open. We took a hike around the mounds since it was so nice out. A few pictures are below. 

The mounds

Yep, lots of snow but there was still a path to walk in.

We went to the top of one and got covered in snow up to our thighs!

But we made it! :)

After our very tiring but exhilarating walk through the snow, we went back to Uppsala - the current town. We visited the University's museum which included the Anatomical Amphitheater, a spectacular cabinet full of lots of trinkets from a king that included a nut from New Zealand, a fantastic Chemistry exhibit for the year of Chemistry, and lots of excitement for me! My favorite part (which probably comes as no surprise to all of you) was the Chemistry exhibit. They had collected a lot of old instruments and other lab equipment from the department at the university to put on display. My favorite was the apparatus they used to use for PAGE (pictured below). This is a technique that is used to separate proteins based on their size. It is near and dear to my heart because I did this a lot my first summer of research. It doesn't look like that now but the idea is still the same! My friends who were with me really got a kick out of my excitement about the exhibit! It was so cool! 

The Anatomical Amphitheater where they performed dissections in the sunlight. There is only standing room where those panels are. 

Old/strange shaped glassware - always interesting! 

PAGE apparatus that I talked about above. That is HUGE in comparison to what I use!  Hooray for innovation!

The Periodic Table of Elements made up of, well, the Elements!

The (Theodore) Svedberg was a scientist who determined that proteins were made of macromolecules. :)

We then got a late lunch and rested our feet before meeting with a relative of my friend's host family. She is a student at Uppsala University and she gave us a tour of the town - mostly the university side of the town. There is no official "campus" in the city, but there are lots of different university buildings in the same area. The oldest university building was built in 1480 something. That is correct; it was built BEFORE Columbus! The yellow building next to it was supposed to be shorter than the old building but it is not. Now it is known as the "scandalous building!" The city is also famous for this humongo church that stands proudly in the middle of the town. We didn't really venture inside because there was a concert going on but the outside was still beautiful! There is also a huge pink castle on the high part of the town. It is literally a big pink castle! We didn't go inside but just saw the outside. 

The Oldest University building and the yellow "scandalous" one behind it.

The old university building....

Inside of the oldest building...this is where they have graduation. Wouldn't that be nice?!

The church

My friends, Marie and Alex, in front of the pink castle.

 We were pretty tired after all of that exploring so we got some delicious desserts from a cafe (a tradition known as fika here) to rest our feet. We decided to take the train home early since we were so tired but it was a lovely day in Uppsala...and who knows, we still have a bus ticket valid for 30 days so we might go back!


I should also mention that Sunday was equally as beautiful and I got to go cross country skiing! It was so fun. Alex's host family lives near a lake where people ski all the time. I borrowed some skis and hit the snow! I only fell once which I consider quite an accomplishment. 

Yea, be jealous of the awesome place I got to ski at! :) 

Well, that's all for now. My week has started up again and I've got plenty of reading to keep me busy once again. 


Let me know if there is anything you want me to blog about. Any burning questions you have about Sweden! I'll keep posting away! :) 


Tack för läsning! I hope you enjoyed the pictures!! 

Snow and sun!

I have been quite busy this past week in the wonderful city of Stockholm. I explored Kungsträdgården which is downtown Stockholm. It was lovely! 


I first went to the opera house and saw the most beautiful chandeliers ever! The opera house only have one stage but it has multiple productions. They change the stage 3 times in 24 hours! That takes some serious skill. The picture below is of the grand foyer which looks a lot like the Palace of Versailles. Mom, you would have loved it!

The Opera House -Kungliga Operan

The ceiling above the stage. Nice chandelier right?

The Grand Foyer! 

There were busts in the grand foyer of famous people including Jenny Lind who sang many operas in the late 1700s I believe. There is an award in her name now for singers and she is on the 50 kr bill. 

Photo taken on the bridge between Kungsträdgården and Gamla Stan. This is when the sun came out...

I then walked around downtown. It is just beautiful plus the weather was a bit overcast so it was perfect picture taking weather. I had a few freakout moments when the sun came out! I just had to take more pictures of the same buildings. Aunt Kathy, you would have been proud! I then went to the Medelhavsmuseet (Mediterranean Cultures Museum). They had collects of artifacts from Cyprus, Egypt, and throughout the Mediterranean. It was really neat. Apparently Sweden sent some expeditions to Cyprus in the late 20s, early 30s to do some exploring. It was really neat to see. My friend who was exploring with me, Marie, and I decided to get some dinner. And we splurged a little bit. We went to Bakfickan which is a small restaurant right by the opera house that serves home style Swedish food. I, of course, ordered the Swedish meatballs which were to die for! It was really fun. We then ended our evening in a typical Swedish way with fica - coffee and some yummy food. We had cocoa from a small cafe in Gamla Stan and some apple pie. It was really nice! 

Swedish meatballs for dinner from Bakfickan! Yummy in my tummy! 

My week of classes was pretty crazy! I will be updating you all about those soon. I spent most of the week reading piles of books which is a lot different from what I am used to! I think by the time I get done with these classes I will have read enough books to match the amount of reading I have had to do in the past 2 1/2 years of undergrad. Ok, that might be an exaggeration but it certainly feels that way!! My classes are interesting though. I am learning a lot of neat things about Sweden so it's really interesting. I think the most interesting thing has been how culture dramatically impacted the movies that were being made in Sweden. And since I'm in a film class, we get to watch some of these fantastic Swedish movies...with English subtitles no worries! 


I am in the process of helping make dinner. I get to cook pretty often here which is awesome! We have some yummy food..lots of fish and chicken...oh and potatoes! :) Don't worry all of you, I am getting plenty to eat! 


We also had a blizzard last night. We have about 5 inches of snow on the ground so I plan on doing some cross country skiing with friends on Sunday!! It was beautiful here this morning! :) 


Tack för läsning! (thanks for reading!) 


I hope you all enjoy and I promise to update this sooner next time! I am going to Uppsala tomorrow so I will be glad to report on all of those adventures!