Real World: Sweden

April 22nd

2009-04-22T23:39:00.001+02:00

Hej Blog Buddies,

Part Deux

Tuesday, April 7th (Uppsala):

So when I last wrote, Shawn and I had just gone back to the hotel. When we finally were all packed up, we “checked out” of the hotel, which consisted of locking the door, and leaving the key on the electrical box in the hallway, just outside our door, and walked to the subway station, this was around 3:30 or 4:00 PM. This however, was much harder than before, because we each had more things than we were used to, to carry.
We finally made it to the station, from where it was a simple matter to go to the central station, where we were able to catch a train to Uppsala. Although, I think that the train ride needs a bit of describing. We were two of the first people to the train, so we boarded, stored away our stuff, and found two comfortable seats facing each other with extra legroom and a table between them. It was only to be a 45-minute ride, but even still, we hoped to be comfortable throughout the duration of it. After about 20 minutes, a woman boarded the train with he three young children and giant stroller, and we willingly gave up our seats to her, so she could have a place for the stroller, and moved across the aisle. Where for the entire duration of the train ride, one of the three children was screaming his head off. It was nearly impossible to sleep, or even listen to music, for that matter. Several other people/families boarded the train with their kids, and it seemed like they all stayed in our car. I don’t know if we were in the designated kids car, but that’s what it sounded like; luckily it was only a short ride.
When we arrived in Uppsala, we needed to find our hostel, so we started in the direction that I remember it being in. The walk, which should have been no more than 10 minutes, took more like 25 minutes, with all of our stuff. It was really simple to check into the hostel, which was a short walk to the very center of town and to the major shopping road. The hostel was pretty nice; in fact, it was nicer than the one we stayed at as a group in Uppsala. We had a large room with two single beds, and free, high quality wireless Internet (something that I hadn’t had since Mora).
After getting settled into our room, I took Shawn on a brief walking tour of the town, or at least the area that surrounded the hostel. I pointed out all of the major sites, including the cathedral, the castle, the big university library, and the Gustavanium museum.
We both had a craving for the delicious lösgodis (candy) that Sweden has, so we went to what I already knew to be the best candy shop in town and bought, perhaps, a bit too much. So as not to spoil our dinner, we agreed not to eat any of it until after dinner. Like I think I’ve written about in the past, no matter where you go in Sweden, you will surely find a really cheap restaurant with kebab/gyros, in Uppsala, we came across a place that had the same things, except in a much nicer, fancier way. We decided to eat there. It was a Greek restaurant that tasted quite good, even though I had a stomach ache afterwards : \

Wednesday, April 8th:

This was our first full day in Uppsala, so we had to do the major attractions that the city has to offer. After getting an early lunch, we went out to the cathedral, the largest church in the city, which is nearly 900 years old. At the church, there are a lot of beautifully stained-glass windows, paintings (my favorite one was a mural of St. Erik’s life), sculptures, and interestingly enough, tombs. Many famous royalty of Sweden are housed in the church, the most famous of which was Gustav Erik Vasa, considered by many to be the father of Sweden (kind of like George Washington).
When we had finished at the church, we went across the street and looked at the Gustavanium Museum, where they have exhibits dedicated to physics, medicine, chemistry, anatomy and physiology, and astronomy within Sweden and at the University of Uppsala. Technically, I think we were supposed to have paid, but we walked around for ten minutes before we realized we weren’t terrible interested in the things there unless we had a guided tour to explain a lot of the things we were seeing.
After the museum, we walked up to the castle, which lies on a hill overlooking the city. One interesting observation from the castle, was that the canons, presumably once used to defend the building, were pointed directly at the cathedral, something we both found odd. This spot was a beautiful place to see over the city and to take pictures of the church. We went inside the castle, hoping to get a tour, only to discover that it had been turned into an art gallery, run by the University of Uppsala, and that the actual residence quarters were not able to be viewed, because the provincial governor currently lives in that wing of the building.
By this time, it was mid-afternoon, and we decided that we should take fika at a place I had heard had really good snacks, especially around Easter time. Once we found it, we went inside, and were truly amazed by the selection they had. They had the most intricate and ornate animals made out of marzipan, including alligators, chicks hatching out of eggs, elephants, ducks, frogs, and hens, among others. Each was painted brightly to create an amazing snack - - almost too impressive to eat… almost but not quite. The selection of cakes they had was equally stunning; princess tårta, cakes covers with exotic fruits and glaze, all ornamented by delicate-looking chocolate sculptures.
After taking fika, we went onto the major shopping street, and walked around going in and out of shops and looking at the selection of items they had for sale. We continued walking around until dinnertime, when we found some random restaurant with outdoor seating, in a nice area, (although it was too cold to sit outside). I can’t actually remember the name of the restaurant right now, but it was very good.
We didn’t really have much else to do/there isn’t much to do in Uppsala at night, so we ended up going to a bar that I had been at twice before, O’Connor’s. When we arrived, for reasons unknown to us, the bar was packed. There ended up being some important(?) soccer game between two important(?) teams(?). I had no idea what was happening, but cheered when everyone else did, nonetheless.

Thursday, April 9th:

This day happened to be “Mauday-Thursday,” and we quickly became aware of a Swedish tradition, which was that parents had dressed their young kids, 10 and under, as peasants. They then went around from business to business, collecting candy and other Easter goodies. I don’t exactly know what this symbolizes, or why they do it, but I know that it happens.
After an alarm clock malfunction, we got up a little before lunch, and by the time we were ready for the day, we were both so hungry. We got lunch at some little café right near out hostel. When we were finished with lunch, we returned to the bakery from the previous day, so Shawn could purchase some chocolates and marzipan animals to bring home to her family for Easter, which we brought back to the hostel.
Next, we did something that I had already done, but thought it was cool enough to do again, and that was to go out to Gamla Uppsala, where there are burial mounds of old Viking kings and queens, as well as a church that is more than 1,000 years old. We took the bus there, which was a journey in itself, in the fact that I couldn’t remember which bus to take or which stop to get off at, but we eventually made it there.
After having visited Gamla Uppsala, we went back to town, where we had fika at a café directly across from the old house of famous botanist, Carl Linné. Because this was the start of Easter and ‘holy week,’ many places were either closed or had limited hours so the employees could be with their families. So, we ended up going to the train station to buy tickets for the following morning so we would have transportation to the airport.
For dinner, we were both very hungry, and I was craving Mexican food (something extremely lacking in Sweden), so we found a place called “Longhorns TexMex cuisine.” Like any good American restaurant, their slogan was, “You’ll never leave hungry!” I was very very satisfied after the meal. I had fajitas and they were everything I could have asked for.

After our meal, we went back and faced the daunting task of trying to pack up all of our things, which we met successfully.

Friday, April 10th:

Shawn’s flight left at 9:30am, which meant we had to be at the airport by 7:15, which meant we left Uppsala at 6:35, which means we were up wayyyyy toooooo early. Anyway, we took a train to the airport, and got her bags checked, before we said our goodbyes at the security check point.

It was really good to see someone (new) from home. Although, for a while, it made me miss home more than I had expected. However, we had a really fun time.

After Shawn left, I stayed at the airport for two more hours to kill time before I was going to be able to check into my hostel in Stockholm. I ended up taking a bus back to Stockholm, found my hostel and checked in. It was in a pretty boring part of town, so as soon as I was settled I went and found a café, where I sat for close to six hours, reading several different books, including The Great Gatsby, and This Side of Paradise.

Saturday, April 11th:

70ºF in Stockholm!! Found a nice spot outside near the water and remained there, in the sun, all day, and read.

Sunday, April 12th (Easter Sunday):

I think this was my first Easter not spent with family, which was kind of weird. But at 11:30 I went to the central station and bought a bus ticket that would get me to Jönköping.

That is where the next blog will pick up!

Hejdå,

Andrew

Tuesday, April 20th

2009-04-21T00:54:00.000+02:00

“… Spring break brings people back together with friends and family from home. Will the brave voyagers be able to enjoy their time away from the group, and then return to it and still co-exist? …”

Hej Blog Buddies,

This blog entry will at least detail the time from when Shawn came to Sweden, and our time in Stockholm.

Friday, April 3rd:

The night before was the night of our final exam in Nordic Politics – and Aaron and I had gone to the Opera, if you’ll recall - Friday morning was our final time together as a group. After waking up too late for breakfast (like 8:30) I began to pack up all of my things from our tiny room. You’d be surprised how quickly stuff spreads out, even in a small room like ours. It took me a good hour and a half to pack up all of my things, although I must say it was great to know I was packing my winter jacket, boots, snow pants, etc., for the last time.
After getting everything ready, I went to the front desk of the af Chapman (our boat hostel) to figure out where my next destination was. They told me it should easily be reached by bus and subway, and told me how to get there. After buying a bus ticket from them, I dragged all of my stuff about 6 blocks to the nearest bust station, where I waited for about five minutes, before the bus came. When it arrived, I climbed aboard, not knowing exactly where I was headed. When the stop called “Slussen” came up, I quickly got off the bus, at which point I was supposed to find the subway and go two more stops. (This was an area I had not yet been to)… After going down the wrong set of stairs, which actually led to a grocery store and bakery, I went back to the street level and found the appropriate entrance and after seeking some assistance, I figured out where I was to go.
After taking the subway the five or so minutes from my previous location, I was at the correct stop. I exited the subway and made my up to the street only to find that the escalator was out of order (I didn’t see the elevator…) I had to haul my luggage up several flights of stairs, which was not easy. Then I had the daunting task of trying to find the address of the hotel I that Shawn and I were to stay at, something that should have only taken less than five minutes, but ended up being a twenty minute ordeal. When I finally found the place, called Noréns Malmgård, I had time to check in, drop off my stuff before I needed to go.
In retrospect, it would have been a good idea to seek out my destination before I had to find it with two giant suitcases and a backpack. I think I’ve learned my lesson…
I had to get to the airport, so I could meet Shawn when her flight landed. I got back on the subway and headed towards the Central Station, where I could buy and board a bus that would take me to the airport. After riding on the subway about three or four times, I started to understand how they worked, and in fact, they are laid out in a quite logical way (imagine that!!). From the Central Station, there are busses that leave every 15-20 minutes for the airport, which by bus is about a 45-minute ride out of the city, but quite easily reached.
When I arrived at the airport, it was a simple matter of waiting by the only door passengers could come out, until Shawn showed up. I had to wait a little less than an hour before her flight landed and she was able to pick up her (and my) luggage. Before I left for Sweden, I had packed a bag with spring/summer clothes in it that I could exchange out for my winter things. [I am now very happy that I did this – It is so nice to have ‘new’ things, rather than the same clothes I’ve had for the past three months.] With all of her/my things, we got back onto a bus that took us right to the Central Station in Stockholm again, where we got back onto a subway (this time with me knowing how to get to the hotel).
After a long morning/early afternoon, I finally had retrieved my friend from the airport, and we were to the hotel. The hotel was at one point a private residence that has since (I think the woman said about 50 years ago) been turned into a hotel, with 16 rooms. It came suggested by a woman we met in Mora. It was in a quiet neighborhood on a very lively island, named Södermalm. Our room/complex had a small kitchen, a breakfast/eating area, and two rooms one with a double bed and one with a twin bed, however, the bathroom and shower were in a room just down the hallway. It was a nice place, for a great price, and even had breakfast included in the price!
Shawn was suffering from a little big a jetlag, so after a short nap, we went and explored Södermalm (an area, which I had not been to). After walking down one of the major roads of the island for quite some time (and finding some unique little restaurants) we eventually stopped at a little Italian place and had dinner, after which we returned to the hotel.
It was really good to finally see someone from home; not that the group isn’t from home, but it was so great to see a friend who wasn’t in the group. After about three months, a little change of pace was well received.

Saturday, April 4th:

This day was Shawn’s first full day in Stockholm. I thought it would be appropriate to start with my favorite part of town, Gamla Stan (the old city). So we took the subway to Slussen, (which lies right between Södermalm and Gamla Stan) and walked from there into the old town, where we walked around and looked at many of the little shops, and saw most of the main sights in that area, including the Royal Palace and the changing of the guard, two of the large churches in the area, and the house of the nobility. From the water, we could see our hotel/house and the bluff that it sits on overlooking the city.
It was really weird to play tour guide, and to be responsible for showing someone around it. It really put a lot of pressure on me to make sure that we were both having fun and doing things that we both enjoyed.
After walking around Gamla Stan, we made our way over to Östermalm, where we had lunch at some random café in a shopping mall. After lunch, we went to the Opera House and bought tickets for a performance of “Ringaren i Norte-Dame,” which, was a ballet performance of The Hunchback in Notre-Dame. After purchasing tickets, we went across the street to the Dance Museum. Apparently, Stockholm’s dance museum has one of the best collections in the world.
I don’t know much about dance, but they had a lot of old historical costumes from famous dances throughout history, and traditional dance clothing from different cultures around the world. Shawn is a Dance major at Gustavus, so I think she really enjoyed the museum. I was able to appreciate a lot of it, but probably not to the extent she did.
After the dance museum, we continued to explore the Östermalm area, where there are a lot of little tacky gift shops, an open-air market with really cheap/fresh fruit and vegetables. This was a very interesting place. There were probably close to 50 booths, each trying to sell the same items, fruits, vegetables, or fresh flowers, and their way to attract you to their booth, is by yelling at you. We were very surprised to walk through and have “SPARRIS [Asparagus] 17 KRONOR!!!! JORDGUBBE [strawberry] 20 KRONOR!!!” shouted at us from every different direction. It was like nothing I would have ever expected to experience in Sweden. Although we didn’t buy anything, it was really interesting to see.
The ballet performance was set to begin at 6:30, so to give ourselves enough time, we headed back to the hotel around 5:00 or so. We got back and were getting ready, when we realized it was nearly six already. We had to hurry to get ready and get to the Opera House, where the performance was to take place. We got on the subway, and knew we were going to be late. We speed walked/ran from the subway station to the theatre, where we were probably the last to arrive to a performance that had begun five to ten minute prior to our arrival. Normally the ushers wouldn’t let anyone in, but they were nice enough to make an exception for us, although they couldn’t put us in the seats we were assigned to, they just put us where we wouldn’t disturb anyone getting situated. These seats were almost right where Aaron and I had sat two nights before at the performance of MacBeth. Part of the stage was slightly obstructed by a large pillar, so we were unable to see what was happening on the far right part of the stage, but after the first (and only) intermission we moved to our assigned seats, which were much better.
Unlike the opera two nights before, the ballet was much easier to understand, probably because there was no language barrier. If you’re going to see a ballet, I recommend doing it with someone who has studied dance, and is able to interpret it; this really helped when I was lost and trying to figure out what was happening. The performance was pretty long, so when it got out, we were both quite hungry.
We decided that we would walk from the opera house to Gamla Stan and find somewhere to eat. On the water between Östermalm and Gamla Stan there is usually a large collection of birds - - namely ducks, swans, and seagulls - - on this particular night there was some child with a large bucket of dead fish trying to feed the birds. As we walked through the area the birds - there were literally hundreds of birds, flying around, swarming the area, trying to get some of the fish - we were nearly attacked several times by the hungry birds. Once we made it past the area, fearing for our lives (and clothes) we went to one of the first places we found called, Michelangelo. As you can probably guess, it was Italian food again, but it was really good Italian food.
After a nice diner, we both were craving dessert, so we went to this bar/restaurant called Vapiano, and had some dessert and a few drinks. It was a really interesting set up, when you walk in they give each person a card. You can go to the counter and order any drink or food you want, they then register your order on this card, which records what you bought and the price. Before you leave, you hand your card to the cashier and he or she presents you with your bill. It was, however, a really fun atmosphere with a lot of mid-20-somethings year old people, comfortable chairs, and good food and drinks. I have decided my new favorite drink (even though I don’t like coffee) is an espresso with Bailey’s.

Sunday, April 5th:

Like most Sundays in Sweden, the hours of a lot of stores are significantly reduced. Because we had had such a fun time at Valpiano’s the night before, we wanted to return there in the daytime to actually try their food. We both had different types of pizza, both of which quite tasty.
After lunch we went back to Östermalm, again to walk around the various shops and explore a little more. We ended up taking fika at some bakery (well, fika minus the whole coffee part..) Around Easter, there are a lot of “limited time” things in the bakeries, such as Semla, a special pastry filled with cream, a lot of different marzipan creations and other things. We had a marzipan egg dipped in chocolate. I’m sure it was terribly unhealthy, but it was so good that it didn’t even matter.
After exploring this part of Stockholm, we went back to Södermalm in search of something to occupy the time and somewhere to eat. At Slussen, we went to the top of the tram that overlooks the city. Shawn is terrified of heights. Needless to say, we weren’t up there for very long. We then found a street that had a lot of artsy-type shops, much like the uptown area of Minneapolis. Though, by this point, it was already 6:30 or so, and all of the shops were closed; so we could only window shop, we found a few places that we wanted to return to the following day when they’d be open. But after walking a considerable distance, we found a restaurant that reminded us of Gustavus, and that was a restaurant named Patrick’s (there is a bar/restaurant in St. Peter with the same name…). We decided that was reason enough to eat there. It was an Irish bar, with good food. I, for some reason, was craving a hamburger (even though I avoid beef, mostly) so I got the biggest hamburger they had (I wasn’t disappointed).
After Patrick’s, we didn’t know what to do, so we went to some random bar across the street and had a few drinks, before returning back to the hotel.

Monday, April 6th:

This was our last full day in Stockholm. So we decided that after visiting the shops we had seen on the previous day, that we were going to go to an area of Stockholm known as Djurgården, where there is an open-air museum called Skansen. Its pretty much the whole country of Sweden condensed onto a large island. What I mean is that there are houses, farms, traditional shops from all parts of Sweden, north to south. So there were traditional Sami houses, farms that you can find in northern and southern Sweden, a glass blowing factory (really cool), an old fashioned general store, cafés, restaurants, gift shops, and a zoo, featuring animals found in Sweden (and throughout Europe). We spent most of our time there looking at the animals (and watching the glass blower..). The animals they had, were, bears, European bison, foxes, reindeer, wolves, badgers, owls, and elk, among others.
After spending several hours there, our feet were tiring (mine mostly…), so we returned to Gamla Stan, where Shawn wanted to buy some gifts for friends and family. But before we took care of those errands, we stopped at a café to get a drink and relax before continuing on with our day. When we had finished the brief refresher, we scoured Gamla Stan looking for what she wanted to get. She ended up getting herself and her mom matching Norwegian sweaters, hand painted wooden clogs (painted in the same style as a Dalahorse), and a few polo shirts for her father and grandfather.
Once we had sufficient time for shopping, we were quite understandably hungry from a full day of activity, so we found a restaurant, again on Gamla Stan, to eat at. At the restaurant, we had the most interesting waiter either of us had ever had. He was from Italy but now lives in Sweden. But what made him so interesting was his language. He was fluent in Italian, English, Swedish, French, and Spanish… but it was almost like he couldn’t separate the languages so when he would speak, we would get a mixture of all five in the same sentence. We often were confused by what he was saying, because of his language fluctuations. After eating, we wanted dessert again, so we went to this random place and ate there.

Tuesday, April 7th:

On this day, we had hoped to take a cruise around the Stockholm archipelago, so we specifically got up early and went to the terminal where the boat leaves from only to find out the only ship of the day had left about 45 minutes before our arrival. So unfortunately we were unable to do that, so instead we went to the city hall of Stockholm, the place where they hold the Nobel dinner each December, only to find that the last English tour had left less than ten minutes before our arrival. So we had to walk around the facilities on our own.
Funny side note, when we were in the gift shop, I was playing with this candle-mobile, and was blowing on it, to make it spin, when the mobile went crashing to the floor. Shawn, being the great friend she is, immediately walked away from me and left me to fend for myself. Thanks Shawn.Then we went to the largest department store in Sweden, Åhléns.
After this we returned to the hotel to gather our things to get ready to go to Uppsala.

Unfortunately, I am going to have to leave it here, I will write the next part of the entry within the next two days, I promise!!

Hejdå,

Andrew

2009-04-15T23:14:00.001+02:00

I was intending on doing a post of all pictures, dating back a while - but again, it won't let me upload them. How frustrating.

Be sure to check for a new post soon!

-A

April 10th: Stockholm

2009-04-10T23:57:00.002+02:00

I have lots of great pics, but it wont let me upload them, so be sure to check back for those, and another long blog entry!

“… Our brave voyagers have finished their time in Stockholm and now depart for all corners of Europe. The break comes at a critical time; will this help them last the remainder of the trip or will they come back more independent than before they left?…”

Hej Blog Buddies,

I feel like this section has just become a perpetual apology, and each time I have a different excuse. So why should this time be any different? Since arriving in Stockholm, our schedule has been extremely busy, so I haven’t really had the time to write one of these. Hopefully you’ll forgive me!

Wednesday, March 25th:

On this day, we had our first Stockholm meeting of our Nordic Politics class. The guy teaching the course Lennart, is a member of the Swedish parliament. When we arrived, Lennart’s political secretary, Ola, greeted us. After taking us through security, he gave us a brief tour of the Riksdag building. He eventually took us to the actual parliamentary chamber, where the committee on taxation was having a debate. Our teacher is a part of that committee; we were able to watch the ongoing debate.

After his legislative duties were completed, Lennart took us to a building a few blocks away, where his party (Christian Democrats) headquarters were located. We had a paper on the current events and happenings of Sweden due on this day, so we spent the remainder of out class time discussing the articles we wrote about. I had written about the claims of anti-Semitism in Malmö (in response to the governments decision to not allow fans to attend the David Cup tennis match against Israel), the current situation of SAAB, nuclear power in Sweden, among several other things.

After class had ended we were scheduled to go meet with Anders Wall, a wealthy Swedish philanthropist who had made a sizable donation (I think around $25,000) to the program that I am currently on, in order to make the cost significantly more reasonable and affordable. However, when we arrived at his luxury penthouse office, we learned that he was violently ill, and could therefore not meet with us. Instead, we met with the president/manager of his foundation, which gives out more than 2million Swedish kronor in scholarships every year. The guy we met was curious about several things, such as why we had chosen this program, how we will use the knowledge that we’ve gained, and our impressions of Sweden thus far. Because Anders and his foundation were instrumental in the feasibility of this trip, we thought that we should do something for him, so we each took two passages from either our blogs or our journals and compiled them to give a snapshot of our trip so far.

After lunch, we met at the Nobel Museum in Gamla Stan, which is the Old City part of Stockholm (also where we had most of our activities). At the museum, we briefly met with the director of the Nobel foundation, who told us about the history of the foundation, and the work that they do.

The museum was pretty cool, it featured a moving display of all 800-some Nobel winners throughout history and their accomplishments, two movie theatres each showing short (under 10 minute) clips that depicted the works that had won the prizes or an artistic short film about various subjects, and a display on freedom of speech, which I found to be the most interesting. It had a short description of people who have/had been censored, imprisoned, or punished because they have said something unpopular. While each story was very interesting to read about (there were close to 200 different cases) two of the more memorable ones were Jesus and Socrates.

After the museum, where I was for nearly two hours, I wandered around Gamla Stan looking at and going into the various shops, restaurants, and stores. This has probably been my favorite place in Sweden so far. The buildings are all very old and have a lot of history behind them, the architecture was very unique, the streets were all cobblestone and narrow, and there are quite a few interesting statues and sculptures in the area.

Thursday, March 26th:

On this day, we had class with Lennart on this day. However, calling it “class” might not be the most accurate description. Again, Ola met us, and took us to a conference room in the parliament building. After taking Fika, and briefly chatting with Lennart about what we were going to see, we went back into the chamber, where there was to be a full vote of the parliament.

The way the government in Sweden is set up is very different than the US, and quite unique. There is the governing coalition and the opposition. The current ruling coalition is made up of the Conservative/moderates, liberals, Christian Democrats, and the Center party, who have the majority of the 349 seats (by a margin of 7). The opposition is made up of the Social Democrats, Greens, Socialist left, and communists. Of the 349 politicians, probably only 270 were at the vote. One interesting point is that the two sides have an agreement that however many people from one side cant make it, that many will miss the vote on the other side (to keep the margin of vote difference at 7). So for example, if 30 people are gone from the governing coalition, an equal number, in this case 30, will sit out from the opposition.

Actually watching the vote was pretty impressive. The chairwoman would read what the vote was on, and the representatives had less than 10 seconds to cast their vote. They voted on probably 20 different things, and the entire process took less than 15 minutes. The chairwoman spoke faster than anyone I have ever heard. (If she is not reelected, she could double as an auctioneer…) I sat next to Roland, and asked him what she was saying, and even he, who is obviously perfectly fluent in Swedish said that he couldn’t understand her, she spoke so quickly.

After the vote, and the representatives had left the chamber, we met up with Lennart. He give us a quite long tour of the parliament building and told us about the history behind (almost everything) and showed us some interesting things that we otherwise would have never been able to see. These included, the old parliamentary chamber, various rooms, statues, and sculptures.

Friday, March 27th:

This was toted to be our “big day” in Stockholm, which it was. In the morning we went to Royal Palace, which was just across the water, about an eight-minute walk, from our hostel. We were greeted by the “Master of the Realm,” who gave us an hour-long presentation about the Swedish Monarchy, the King and Queen, and the hierarchy of the people within the Palace. The “Master of the Realm” actually ranks quite high (slightly above the title of Mistress of the Wardrobe…). After his presentation, we were given a private tour of the Palace. I guess I was slightly disappointed, our tour, like the normal tours of the Palace, only consisted of going through the former “apartment” of the king and queen. There were a lot of cool paintings, tapestries, and ornate things, but no throne or crowned jewels, which were what I had hoped to see. However, I did learn that the Palace is one of the largest in Europe at 40,000m2

After the Palace, we went to the Swedish Academy (of literature). We got a tour of the building where the winner of the Nobel prize in literature is decided and announced. This institution was founded by Gustav III Adolph, and has remained the same since the early 18th century. They are governed by very specific regulations and guidelines written by the former king himself. The board is made up of 18 of the most prominent names in Swedish literature. They perform a lot of random tasks, but the most important is the deciding of the Nobel Prize. They were located in Gamla Stan, in a very historic building the overlooked the place where the Stockholm Bloodbath occurred. (In 1520, around 120 nobility and royalty of Sweden were killed at the request of the Danish king).

When we were done at the Swedish Academy, we went to Stora Kyrkan (the big church) of Stockholm, where Åke Bonnier, a current member of the Board of Trustees at Gustavus serves as “Dean of the Cathedreal.” He gave us a tour of the church and as usually, told us the history behind many of the things we saw. But then he showed us something that very few people get to experience. After giving us all hardhats (which came in handy…especially when they saved my head from the low hanging ceilings), we climbed up over 200 old, rickety steps to the top of the steeple on the church. This is in the very center of Stockholm, and provided a great view of the city. It was extremely windy at the top and it had just started snowing, so we couldn’t see as far as we would have been able to on a clear day, but it was still a spectacular view nonetheless.

After the church, we went out to Åke’s house, outside of Stockholm, for dinner. By this point, it was near blizzard conditions, and snow was quickly accumulating. When we finally found his house, the melting snow had me soaked. But we enjoyed some very good homemade food, good conversations, and good company.

After hearing from various people, and then doing a bit of my own research, it turns out the Bonnier family is one of the wealthiest families in all of Scandinavia. (Their money comes from publishing.) It was really interesting to visit their house; it was very nice, and by Swedish standards quite large, but by U.S. standards, very modest. It was nicely decorated, but didn’t scream, “Look how much money we have!”

Saturday, March 28th:

Stockholm is made up of a bunch of small islands, all connected by bridges. Gamla Stan is its own island, our hostel is on the water just off of the island Skeppsholmen, other major islands are Östermalm, Södermalm, and Djurgården.

This was our first day off in Stockholm. We finally had a chance to explore the city on our own. I spent most of my time on Gamla Stand and Östermalm. There are a ton of little shops, restaurants, and store in these areas. It was just really fun to be out and see more of the city. There wasn’t too much to note from this day.

Sunday, March 29th:

Just like the day before, this day was used mostly as an exploration day. However, on Monday (the following day), we had our research paper due. So after spending some significant time looking around the city. Had to work hard to finish my paper comparing the educational systems of Sweden and the U.S. to each other. There actually were a lot of interesting analyses to be drawn. This project dominated most of the evening for me.

Monday, March 30th:

On this day, we had our research papers due, as well as a presentation to give on our topic of research. Each presentation was roughly 20-30 minutes. The topics included things like, “Gender questions in Sweden,” “Military Defense Policies,” and “the Criminal Justice System.” We haven’t yet received our grades for the current events paper, the presentation, the research paper, (the final test), or the class… so how it went is still up in the air, I assume it went pretty good, though.

After three hours of presentations, we went to the Saint Clara church, where we met with the pastor who talked about the social service work that he and his parishioners do in the community, specifically including outreach to prostitutes and drug addicts.

After we were done meeting with him, we had a one-hour long final test review. We had this chance to ask Lennart questions about things that were going to be on the final test and his expectations from us.

Tuesday, March 31st:

On this day, we took a tour of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, which has five different stages and performs several different shows at a time, including a children’s theatre. The theatre has been in existence and performing for over one hundred years. The woman who gave us the tour took us up to the costume department, where there were over 10,000 costumes. She showed us some of the more memorable ones, including the costume of a “just born” baby troll, of a Victorian queen, and a “soaking wet” suit.

It was really interesting to get a tour of the facilities. The top balcony, looking down on the stage, is not a place for someone with any sort of fear of heights. We were probably close to 75 feet up, and it was a completely vertical drop down to the lower areas. We also went under the stage and saw that the stage can be rotated, which allows for easier set changes.

After visiting “Dramaten,” as its known by, we went to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a huge war ship that sank in the Stockholm harbor in 1628 on its maiden voyage. It was constructed in a manner than was too heavy and the weight wasn’t counter-balanced well enough, so slightly after leaving the dock for the first time, it sank, killing ~30 people.

The ship was found in the late 1950s, and was raised in 1961 with the hull still largely in tact. In the 80s, it was moved to its current home and dedicated building, at the Vasa Museum. The ship is huge, 230 feet long and 172 feet high. And it is completely contained within one building. It is the most popular tourist destinations in all of Sweden, attracting more then 25 millions visitors since 1987. At the time, the ship was extremely ornately decorated, and even now, most of the decorations have been salvaged, restored, or recreated. There were also exhibits about how the ship was raised, the people on board, as well as the artifacts found on the ship.

It was really impressive to see this ship. I am amazed by the fact that they were able to raise it in the 1960s, as well as they did. Also by how good of condition the ship is in, after more than 300 years at the bottom of the Stockholm Harbor…

Wednesday, April 1st:

Like almost all of our days in Stockholm, this one was just as busy. We started in the morning at the Swedish Institute, which is right across from the Palace. Their tagline is “Swedish, in your language!” and features books about Sweden, by Swedish authors, or language books in more than 30 different languages. There, we also met with three women who work there, who were curious about our trip, and wanted to feature our program in an international publication that they produce. Most Swedes, including the women at SI, that I’ve met, or that have met with our group are always so intrigued as to why we chose to learn Swedish, “of all places, why Sweden?” they often ask.

At the Swedish Institute, they spoke to us about possibilities for people with knowledge of Sweden and of Swedish to work there after graduation (perhaps…)

When we had finished with the Swedish institute, we went to Karolinska Institute where we met a former Gustie, who is working on getting her Ph. D. in… I forget the specific area, but she focuses on Type I Diabetes research. She talked a lot about the specific things that she has worked on, and also a little bit about Karolinska, which is a medicine school that is consistently ranked in the top 100 universities worldwide. This school also determines who will receive the Nobel Prize in medicine each year.

After Karolinska, we took a trip to one of the headquarters of Vattenfall, one of the largest energy producers in all of Europe. We met with two former Gusties who are now quite prominent members of the corporation. They spoke a lot about Vattenfall’s commitment to renewable, green, energy sources. They said that currently they get about 50% of their electricity from nuclear and 50% from hydroelectricity (Wind power only constitutes a small majority of energy produces in Sweden).

One thing I’ve noticed from this trip, is how many ties Gustavus actually has to Sweden, and how many distinguished former Gusties there are living and working here. It seems that each day we meet several more, each more successful or accomplished than the last. Perhaps someday, future Gusties will think the same things about me… : )

Thursday, April 2nd:

TEST DAY!

On this day, we had our final examination for our Nordic Politics class. The test began at 4:30pm, so I spent the majority of the morning preparing and studying for this exam. I was a little bit nervous because the book we had been reading from was really dense and complicated, and I was worried that I wouldn’t retain the information as well as I would have hoped, but upon receiving the test, these fears were put to rest. There, in fact, wasn’t a single question on the book that we read… something very frustrating (to have spent all of that time reading it but then not be tested on it) but also very relieving, in case I didn’t have as good of comprehension as he would of liked.

The test was quite long, and required a lot of writing – my hand was sore from all of that writing – but was very manageable. I should think that I did quite well on it.

After the test was over, Aaron and I got dinner, and rushed to the Royal Opera House, where we saw an opera performance of MacBeth. The day before we had purchased tickets, student tickets were actually pretty cheap, though we were quite high up.

The show was performed in Italian, and above the stage there was a small screen that had the translation into Swedish. It was difficult, because I either had to focus intently on the translation screen to see what was being said/sung or I could just watch the show and listen to the music and appreciate it for what it was. Because the translation screen was small and far away, it was difficult to read, and even if I could have read it clearly, I would have struggled to keep up with the Swedish translation, so I opted to just enjoy the show and the music. It wasn’t that difficult to follow the plot, and I just kind of made up what I thought they might be saying to make it fit my mental idea of the show.

Well that’s all I have to write for now. On Friday, April 3rd, Shawn came to Sweden, so that will be the next blog entry, probably within a few days.

I hope all is well with everyone. I am missing you all a lot. Hopefully I’ll have internet that works well enough to make skype calls soon.

Feel free to send me an email, at anelso10@gac.edu

Allt Gott,

Andrew

...

2009-03-30T23:49:00.001+02:00

I realize I should have updated this by now... I've started writing one, but its taking a long time... it should be up tomorrow.

March 24th: Stockholm

2009-03-24T23:02:00.004+01:00

** for some reason it wont let me add more photos right now. look back for more later **

“… Tensions run high after being in tight quarters in Uppsala. After a few arguments, one of the voyagers has opted to stay apart from the group with relatives who live close by. Will this change the group dynamics, or will our adventurers be able to cope with the difference and go into spring break on a high note?…”

Hej Blog Buddies,

I know I’ve been bad at this whole blogging thing recently, but my excuse is a good one, I think… Since arriving in Uppsala, we have had class every day from 9:00am to noon and again from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. The place we’re staying at has expensive, undependable, slow, usually not working Internet. I have been going to town and sitting in the Swedish equivalent of McDonalds, called MAX and using their free wireless. However, between the blasting music and the running and screaming teenagers, its hard to concentrate or get much done. Because this past we have actually had class, we have actually had homework; so my time at MAX had been dedicated to getting that done.

Like I did for the Market week in Jokkmokk, I’m not going to write about each day, but rather events that transpired over the past week.

INTERESTING EVENTS AT MAX

After being in a fast food place in the very heart of Uppsala for hours, I was bound to see some interesting things. One of the most memorable things was on Monday, when I was sitting near the entrance; a 50-or-so man walked in picked up the mop in the entryway and began to mop the floor. It was later revealed that the man was very intoxicated. But, after mopping under my table and a few other tables, he left. Only to return about 10 minutes later.
He came up to the table that three of us were sitting at and started talking to us in unintelligible Swedish. I, not wanting to deal with him, said in English, “Sorry, we don’t speak Swedish.” At which point he changed over to unintelligible English. After telling him we were doing homework, he went up to the counter and ordered. After eating (sitting next to other people, annoying them), he returned to our table where for about 10 minutes or so, he sang one of the best renditions of any Rolling Stones songs that I’ve ever heard…or maybe it was Pink Floyd… I couldn’t tell.
What I found interesting about the situation was the restaurant allowed this to happen; not just to us, but to other customers as well. There was no attempt made by any of the employees to remove him from the situation; something I’d imagine done very quickly in the US.
Swedish people are usually know for their introverted-ness, and this was an example of that; as the guy was dancing and singing for us, (this is after I told him we didn’t speak Swedish, mind you) people who heard me made no attempt to say anything to him in Swedish. I eventually said to him, in Swedish, “The people outside want to see you play your (air) guitar and dance, and we have to do homework.” After that, and ignoring him for a few minutes, he lost interest and left.

The following night at MAX, I watched as middle-aged man brought his food back to the table with all of his things. I thought nothing of it. It was maybe 20 minutes later that I noticed him pouring over his books. The only reason I committed this to memory, was because he was sobbing uncontrollably. This went on for nearly half an hour. At which point he looked like he was studying quite intently. This pattern went on for a while. I saw many people staring at him when he let out a particularly loud sob, yet not a single person went to see if he was okay. I had a lot of sympathy for the guy, because he looked like he was really struggling, but I didn’t feel confident enough in my Swedish skills to try to talk to him about whatever was going on.

CLASS

When we came to Uppsala, our politics class took a temporary hiatus o we could begin our “Natural Science” course. Our teachers were two former Gusties named Daniel and Julia. Daniel is a chemistry researcher at the University, and Julia is just finishing up her graduate degree in environmental engineering (or something like that…). For class we met each day and talked about different issues all pertaining to the environment. Some of the topics included how the environment and economics work together/against each other, the chemistry of the problems, and the history behind the issues.
One of the other things we discussed was the contribution of various Swedes to science. This included picking a famous Swede and doing a research paper and presentation on the person. I chose Gustaf Erik Pasch, whose name might be unfamiliar, but whose contribution to the world was a significant one. He was the inventor of the common Safety match. Little known fact, his invention has saved thousands from suffering from “Phossy Jaw,” a disease that was a result of white phosphorus in pervious versions of matches. I thought my presentation went pretty well.
It was nice to begin this class and move away from the politics course. I have become more and more frustrated with the latter. The guy teaching them has been unresponsive to all attempts at communication, whether they be email or phone, no one has been able to get any response; when we have questions pertaining to the assignments that he has given us, this makes it even more frustrating.

SQQ

At the end of class every day, we did what was called “SQQ,” which stood for Swedish Qulinary Quorner (Swedish culinary corner - - don’t ask me how/why it was given this title…) For this part of the class we got to sample foods that are either unique to Sweden, or things that are not available in the US.
One of the things we got to try was “salt candy.” This is, exactly like it sounds; candy that is not sweet, but salty. We got to sample about four or five different varieties each varying in their salinity, from hardly even noticeable, to worse than ocean water. The first three weren’t actually bad – one was salty black licorice strings, which I actually enjoyed. The final one was a small sphere that tasted like pure salt. Several people spit even them out they were so bad. (if I send you some candy, be careful, it might be these!)
Another thing we got to try was “tube food,” and again, just like the name sounds, its food that comes from a aluminum tube. This included butter, caviar, dill caviar, cheese, shrimp cheese (a creamy cheese with bits of real shrimp!), and a sweet dessert-like topping called messmör. These were each served with piece of hard cracker bread. I did not like any of things we tried. I had had most of them prior to this tasting experience, but gave them all another shot; my mind didn’t change, I still didn’t like them
We also got to try five different Swedish sodas. These included Päron soda (pear soda), tacaredo, påskmust (Easter Cola), Champis (similar to ginger ale), and socker dyrcka (sugar drink – similar to 7Up). I rarely ever have soda, so none of these tasted too good to me, but if I had to choose, I’d pick Champis. It wasn’t as sweet as ginger ale, but still had a lot of flavor.
One thing of note about most Swedish foods/drinks, including soda, is that there is no High Fructose Corn Syrup in any of them. They actually use real sugar. Interestingly enough, I read an article from the New York Times recently that many US-based companies are starting to switch to real sugar and away from HFCS. Thumbs up to that!
Another thing our mouths got to experience was knäckebröd (hard bread). This is thin cracker bread, typically served with most meals in Sweden. But it comes in many different varieties. All of which are very good with either butter or jam. This “bread,” supposedly never goes bad, it can keep for years and years and maintain its “quality.”
The following day, with the bread leftover from the day before, we tried several different types of sylt (jam). This included flavors like lingon, hjörtron (cloudberries), Queen’s mix (blueberry/raspberry), and strawberry. I really liked all of them, but the hjörtron was far and away the best tasting of all of them. If you ever get a chance to taste cloudberries, don’t pass it up. They are only found in northern Sweden, Norway, and Finland.

This was a fun way to experience many things that I otherwise wouldn’t have gone out of my way to try.

FIKA

att fika, is a Swedish verb that means to meet, chat, and have coffee and desserts. This is a phenomenon only found in Sweden and the Swedes are obsessed with it. When we were in Mora, classes took a break twice everyday, once at 9:30am and at 1:40pm for fika. It usual to have Fika in the morning at least three times per day, right after lunch, mid-afternoon, and after dinner. I don’t like coffee, but for those who do, this is their favorite time of the day.
Usually right before we had SQQ, we would have fika. Everyday coffee and a different pastry or cookie was delivered to our classroom. Its amazing that with all of the fika Swedes consume, that obesity is not running rampant here.

ST. PATRICK’S DAY

As I’m sure most are aware, March 17th was St. Patrick’s Day. After spending several hours in MAX, using their free Internet in the center of town, I went to one of the several Irish bars in Uppsala, called O’Connors. I’m new to the whole bar scene, after having turned 21 just before this trip began, but there were so many people there. They were giving out emerald-green sequenced bowties to everyone (I unfortunately didn’t get one though…), they had a band playing Irish music, and (I think they’re called) clog dancers. It was a lot of fun. After two beers, we had to catch the bus back to where we were staying. But all in all, it was a fun night.
On Friday several of us returned to the bar. There were significantly less people, but the atmosphere was still very good. They had a band playing covers of American music, like the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, U2, etc. One thing I noticed on this night, was that not a single person who worked there (at least in the visible part of the bar) was from Sweden. There were quite a few from England or Ireland, but also some from New Zealand and Australia.

ROOMING

We stayed at a place called Sunnersta Herrgård. It was a 15-20 minute bus ride from the center of Uppsala. But the location was good for the purpose of our class. The classes were the SLU campus, which was only a 15-minute walk from where we were staying.
The rooms however, were quite cramped. Aaron and I shared a room. We had a single bed and bunk bed. We were fortunate, the extra bed was the only place we could put our luggage. The room had no practical storage, so there was no unpacking, which made packing much easier.

INNEBANDY

Our teacher for this portion of the class, a Swede and former Gustie, took us to play innebandy at the SLU campus. Just to remind you all, innebandy is a sport much like floor hockey. We had played several times, a few times in Jokkmokk and a few times in Mora. Daniel was far and away the best player that I’ve ever seen play.

CITY TOURS/EXCURSIONS

Throughout our time in Uppsala, we took several tours of the city. One was to the main Cathedral in the center of the city. I forgot my camera on that day, but will be returning in early-April, so I’ll write more about it then.
We also went to Gamla Uppsala, which is the old part of town, which dates back more than 1000 years. At the site, we took a tour of the museum there and learned all sorts of fascinating things about the area and burial mounds just outside the museum. There were more than 250 known-burial mounds, but three are extremely prominent (and at one time were used as skiing/sledding hills). They were all man-made. Contained within the three largest mounds are the remains of two kings, and one queen of the Swedish kingdom. At the museum, they had a bunch of medieval armor that we could try on. I will try to post some pictures of them.
On this site, there is also a church that dates back over a thousand years. It was a massive church for its time (and still is today). One interesting thing about this church (and others built during around the same time) is that it was right when Christianity was spreading through the Nordic countries, they wanted to irradiate as much of the pagan religion as they could. This included the elimination of all rune stones. What they did to get rid of these massive stones was to incorporate them into the foundation of the church. After several restorations, they have found these stones used as building material in both of the Uppsala churches.

We also took a visit to the Linnéus botanical gardens, formerly the Royal botanical gardens. Carl Lunnéus was a famous Swedish botanist from the 18th century. Obviously given the weather and climate, not much is growing right now, so we just took a tour of the greenhouses and other growing facilities. In the greenhouses that we visited (not all of them) they had over 2,500 species of plants. We went into the tropical greenhouse, and many of the plants were blooming. I got some good pictures here. I will post them as well.

So after all of that, that brings me to today.

Monday, March 24th:

Today was our last day in Uppsala and our first day in Stockholm. We took two taxis from our hostel to the train station. Where we got tickets to Stockholm. As we waited in the station, I went the bookstore at the station and found a book I’ve been searching after for more than a month now, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coehlo. After having it for less than twelve hours, I am nearly done with it. Its one of the top 10 sold books of all time, but most people haven’t heard of it.
After boarding the train, it was a short 40-minute ride to the center of Stockholm, where we boarded several taxis to take us to our new home, the af Chapman. For those who don’t know, the af Chapman is a ship from the 1800s, (still in the water) that has been converted to a youth hostel. It is about 500 yards away, and has a beautiful view of the Royal Palace and the Old Town.
Our room however, shrunk in size, and there is no longer a spare bed to put our luggage on; this has and will make for a tight 10 days. However, the location of hostel is perfect; so I think we’ll be able to survive.
We went out to dinner in the old part of town, at a nice Italian restaurant. This part of Stockholm is notoriously expensive, so dinner was definitely not cheap. But the food was good and worth it.
For the rest of the night, I have been writing this blog entry, and will be doing a little bit of homework, and finishing my new book.

The next couple days are going to be a whirlwind of activity, so I shouldn’t be bored at all!

Now that I have better and more consistent internet access, hopefully I’ll be able to call some of you more often.

Missing everyone a lot,

Andrew

March 15th: Uppsala

2009-03-15T10:06:00.001+01:00

“…The great voyagers are continuing their perilous journey, as they now move into the Swedish urban area, the distractions will likely increase. Will they be able to keep their focus on the more important things, or will they get caught up in the urban culture? …”

Hej Blog Buddies,

Monday, March 9th:

On this day we had our first formal assessment of our Nordic Politics class. It was a written test, short and mid length answers. After some last minute studying we went into the classroom to begin the test. When the professor arrived, he realized that he had forgotten the papers we were supposed to write our answers on, so we ended up using just plain printer paper. The teacher for the class, Lennart Sacradeus, is a Riksdag member (the Swedish parliament) and a former E.U. parliamentarian. He his a member of the Christian Democratic party, which is fiscally pretty liberal, but has the social policy most similar to the Republican Party. Lennart is one of the most “conservative” members of his own party, but has a very loyal following. He is even considered by his fellow party members to be too conservative.
We were given the test and 90 minutes to complete it. It consisted of ten questions, each with several parts. The topics included were about historical political figures in Scandinavia, the various political parties, and issues concerning Scandinavia and the E.U., among other various things. Besides being a lot of writing, I thought the test was, for the most part, pretty easy. However, we will not get our results back for about three weeks.
After the test, we had lunch, and then continued with lecture into the mid-afternoon. This was technically our last official day of lecture, though the course will continue when we arrive in Stockholm, with visits to the Royal Palace, Riksdag, meeting other political figures. When we are in Stockholm, we also have a paper on Swedish current events, a research paper with a partner, on a topic of our own choosing (Aaron and I are doing a comparative analysis of the Nordic model of education compared to the U.S.), a presentation on our paper, and a final exam. So, we have got a lot of things to do over the next few weeks. After the class, I went for a run to help calm my mind, and get some much needed exercise.
After waiting up for the results, I learned that unfortunately Emily and I did not win the Co-Presidents election. We took second place by like 8%. The pair that we lost to is the one who, if we had to lose to someone, I would have preferred losing to. They are both very qualified and will do a good job. I actually lived with both of them last summer, and know them pretty well. I am a bit disappointed but life goes on and I’ll just have to focus my attention elsewhere now.

Tuesday, March 10th:

On this day, we went to a former Headmaster of Mora Folkhögskola’s house for fika. It must be a large undertaking to host a group of fourteen Americans for coffee and snacks. But Mr. and Mrs. Ekström did so. The husband is now the cross-country ski teacher at the school. He also leads a fund raising program that sponsors three schools in Africa, one in Tanzania, one in Kenya, and one in Uganda. He and his wife have traveled to these schools nearly twenty times. Their house was decorated with various items that they have acquired from their many visits to Africa.
Before coffee and treats were served, he wanted to give us a quiz about various “world figures.” I don’t really know why he wanted to do this, but we agreed. We were separated into three teams. He handed out envelopes with newspaper clipped pictures of famous people, such as Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt and the French President Nicolas Sarcozy, among others. Then each group switched envelops until we had seen each of the three packets. After we met in a large group and discussed our answers and briefly talked about each person.
Several of us also decided to that the following day we were going to go skiing at a nearby place, so we planned the details of that.

Wednesday, March 11th:

On this day, three of us took a trip to ski resort about 20km away from Mora. We hopped on the bus and about half an hour later we were at the ski shop. The place we went was called Gesunda. I would compare it to anything that could be found in the greater Duluth area, in terms of quality. By the time we got our skis and lift ticket, it was about 10a.m. and we were ready to hit the slopes. This was my first time downhill skiing in nearly five years, but after the first trip down the slope, I was re-acclimated to the sport. There were some good runs, each taking anywhere from five to twenty minutes to get down.
Wednesdays must not be very busy days there, because there was never a wait to get back to the top. The runs seemed pretty deserted, but that gave me more freedom to swerve back and forth and make a fool of myself. The view from the top of the hill/mountain was really beautiful; we could see out over lake Siljan and off into larger hills in the distance. The sky was a mixture of clouds and sun, but the temperature must have been nearly 40º. It was a perfect day for skiing. One thing I thought was pretty cool, was that when looking out over one of the longer runs, I could see about ten wind turbines off in the distance.
In the past when I’ve gone skiing, I usually just stick to the main path of the runs, however, this time I went on the narrow paths that meandered through the woods; many of them had little jumps and moguls, but were really fun. I was able to get some good pictures, and I took a video while I went down one of the runs. It looks kind of cool.
The place closed at 4:00, and we turned in our rentals by 4:30. We expected the bus to go back to Mora at 4:55, but after waiting at the bus stop for about 15 minutes, it never arrived. We went into the hotel to ask when the next bus would come, after a few minutes of searching the guy working the desk told us that the last bus was at 12:30. He was as surprised by this as we were. He told us that our only option was to walk into town and wait for the bus there. So we walked for about 20 minutes into town, and caught the bus there. A slight delay and inconvenience, but it worked nonetheless.

Thursday, March 12th:

On this day we were supposed to watch the movie the “Seventh Seal,” but the DVD wasn’t working, so we impromptuly (is that even a word?) decided to hold a discussion with the Swedes about stereotypes of Sweden and U.S.
Most of the comments that were made, were based on what they had seen on television (many of the shows aired here are just reruns of shows from the U.S.), for example, the show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grade?” or the Jaywalking section of the Tonight Show. Some of the common themes about Americans are that we’re all either fat or ignorant. They also said because of many of our politicians, they think that the U.S. is this enormously religious country, where everyone goes to church, all the time.
Hopefully through our conversations, we were able to dispel some of their misconceptions about the U.S… We also talked about what we thought about Sweden, and how foreigners see Sweden. We talked about the stereotypical “Swedish look” of tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, and about the perception that Swedes are all shy and introverted. (Though, many of the Swedes I’ve met are louder than many Americans…)
After lunch I realized that I had very few pictures of the town, so I went for a run, and stopped occasionally to snap a few photos.

Friday, March 13th:

This was our last official day in Mora; we did a field visit to the Hospital again. Here, we met with the wife of our Politics teacher, who is a county-level politician. She explained more about the Healthcare system, specifically in Dalarna County, which is roughly the size of Belgium, but with only about 2% of the Belgium population. After lunch we met with an orthopedic surgeon, who really just told us about his life story and the work that he does.
When we returned back to school, it was time to start packing. So I spent the rest of the day organizing my things, packing, doing laundry, and getting ready for our travel to Uppsala the following day. I have acquired more things since coming to Mora, but not so much that I couldn’t fit everything into my bags.

Saturday, March 14th:

I woke up this morning at 6:45, so we could be ready to go at 7:30. We drove to the train station about 3km away, with our luggage and with them, piled into the cars. The trip took about three hours and ten minutes. The train was surprisingly smooth and quiet; I slept the entire way.
When we came to Uppsala, we were met by our new teacher and former Gustie, Daniel, along with his sambo, Julia. We took a 15-minute cab ride to our hostel, which is about 5 miles away from downtown. We’re only here for ten days, before we leave for Stockholm. I was hoping that we’d be more centrally located, but it is apparently a short bus ride into town. The place we’re staying seems pretty nice, but the rooms are pretty small, with little storage space for our stuff. Also, Internet is not free here, so we have to pay for it. It is kind of a mixed blessing, though. It is about $8/day to use it. I won’t buy it for the entire time we’re here, but I will for part of it, at least. So if I’m not online or calling as much as I’ve been able to, that’s why. Hopefully, this will force us to go explore and make the most of our time in Uppsala, not that we wouldn't otherwise.
After briefly getting situated, we walked to a pizzeria and had lunch. I had a chicken pesto pizza, which was pretty good. After, we went to a grocery store and bought food and snacks for the week. Some people are planning on going out tonight, but we have “games and Melody Festival” (a television program) planned… I think I’ll do the latter.

I am really happy to be out of Mora. It was just too small for me, with not enough to do. I am hoping that Uppsala will be the change I’ve needed.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Andrew

March 8th: Mora

2009-03-08T21:55:00.006+01:00

“… after some time without having any examinations, the adventurers have begun to prepare for the first test of their knowledge concerning Nordic Politics. But after a relaxed week and with unclear guidelines, how will they survive this assessment, and at what cost to their G.P.A?…”

Hej Blog Buddies,

Wednesday, March 4rd:

On this day, we visited the place where the “Swedish icon” is made. That icon, of course, would be the Dala Horse! The factory lies a few kilometers outside of Mora, in a small town called Nusnäs.

Across the street from one another, are two competing factories that were started by two brothers over 80 years ago. The woman who gave us a tour of the factory told us that the competition is good for business; it forces each store to offer competitive prices, as well as stay up to date on the current style and designs. She also said that during the tourist season the two businesses help relieve each other of the influx of people.

When the group arrived, we all were given a tour of the three-room factory where the horses are made. In the first stage, they stamp the outline of the horse on to “waste” Pinewood (apparently the wood here is a much higher quality than most pines. This is because the soil here is not as fertile is in many places, so the pine takes a long time to grow, and therefore has much better “marbling” - - I don’t know what its called…). The stamped outline goes to someone working on a band saw that cuts a rough outline of the horse in the wood. The rough product is then sent to someone working out of his or her home that hand carves the rest of the horse. This product is sent back to the factory to be sanded. The finished wooden product is dipped in a base coating of paint, allowed to dry, and the design is finally hand painted on. After a few days to let the paint dry, the horse is ready to be sold.

It was very interesting to see this process and how quickly they could produce the horses. The traditional color is red, but over the years, they have varied their decorations and colors. This horse became the “icon” of Sweden when it was a huge success at the 1939 World’s fair in New York. But the Dala horse dates back to the early 1600s.

I also finally went to rent these “long-skates” that I’ve heard are really fun. After going to the store, and finding the one pair of bindings that fit, I went down to the lake to try them out (as I may have said in an earlier post, it has finally started to warm up here…) the path to skate on was covered in three inches of standing water! I had been waiting and waiting to try out these skates, and when I finally got a pair to use, the lake was uncooperative. So I had to return the bindings to the store for a refund, literally like 20 minutes after I got them. How unfortunate!

Thursday, March 5th:

This was an… interesting??… day. We all piled into a minibus and a car after breakfast and set out to some random, “small” settlement about 30 minutes away. When we got there, we walked around this gathering of homes that actually took up a quite expansive area, but the total structures probably numbered only in the 40’s. It was a settlement of homes (some dating back to the 11th century) that historically were only inhabited in the summer months by women and children. While the men would be home on the farm growing and tending to crops, the women and children would take the cattle into the forest to graze. In the late summer/fall the women would migrate the animals back to the farm.

These houses (some of which are lived in year-round) are not much more than ten feet by ten feet rooms built with life-sized Lincoln logs. After walking around for some time, looking at the different houses, we went back to a little campground area and made hotdogs over a fire.

After lunch, we went looking for animal tracks. We drove around the area, and whenever our guide saw something, he’d pull the bus over, and we’d all get out to look at the tracks. We saw the tracks of an otter, moose, deer, lynx, “pine martin,” and rabbits/squirrels.

I was quite tired from all this exploring, so after we got back, I took a necessarily long nap. After the nap, I went back to the handicrafts building and spent a few hours finishing my project.

Friday, March 6th:

The woman who has been coordinating our time in Mora, Anna, is a teacher of English and Swedish here at the school. As everyone on the trip (except Roland) is a native English speaker, she arranged for us to meet with her Advanced English class and discuss modern contemporary issues with them.

Granted, these students have been studying English since 1st grade, but to talk about philosophical issues in a second language, I’d imagine would be quite challenging. Some of the issues we discussed were the relationships between “success and money,” “power and violence,” and “personal responsibility and the environment.”

It was really interesting to hear the perspectives of students on these issues, both Swedish and American. Two of the students were actually immigrants from the Philippines who have lived in Sweden for three years. They offered more perspective having come from another country, but having lived in Sweden for some time. This was the type of meaningful interactions I was hoping to have with students, which has, unfortunately, been rather lacking.

I went for another run today, except this time I ran in the opposite direction on a path that follows the shore of the lake. Again, it was quite slushy, so there was some hopping over puddles and such, that needed to be done.

I spent the evening catching up on some various things that I need to do. I read some more of my book (This Side of Paradise), organized my room, and watched one of my favorite movies, Into the Wild.

Saturday, March 7th:

This was a pretty relaxed day. I got up early (for a Saturday, 9:30) and finished my journals that I had neglected throughout the week.

After handing them in, several of us went on a wild goose chase, trying to find the house of a teacher from the school. We were invited over for Fika (a Swedish verb that means to drink coffee and chat). All we were told was that they lived in a yellow house on campus. But which of the four yellow houses, we didn’t know. We ended up going to all four with no luck. After consulting Roland, he encouraged us to go back to a house that we had already been at, as he thought it was the correct one.

When we went back, a woman and her daughter were just getting out of their car and told us we were in the right spot. We went in and were treated to ice cream, coffee, carrot cake, and brownies. We spoke almost exclusively Swedish, and I was able to manage quite well.

The couple has two daughters and both work at the Mora Folkhögskola. One of the daughters studied at Gustavus my freshman year (I didn’t know her though…) and the other daughter, will be studying at Gustavus next fall.

After going for another run : ) four of us were invited over to this woman named Kerstin’s house for dinner. She picked us up around 7pm and took us to her place. She has two sons who are adopted from Columbia. Her kids’ names were André (15 years old) and Gustaf (13 years old). André was the most outgoing Swedish person I’ve met so far. He instantly warmed up to us and talked to us about anything and everything. He is fluent in English Spanish and Swedish, but spoke mostly Swedish with us. He played guitar and sang for us, while Gustaf played piano.

We ate dinner, which was comprised of several different types of sandwiches (smörgåsar, in Swedish) and had dessert (ice cream with bananas, chocolate, and meringue balls). After four hours of food, getting to know each other, and Swedish conversation, Kerstin brought us back to the school

This was probably one of the most enjoyable nights that I’ve had here in Mora.

Sunday, March 8th:

I got up today with the intentions of running, only to look out my window to see that it had snowed about 2-3 inches. So that plan was scrapped.

I went to lunch with two others at a little restaurant that I’ve been to before. After returning back to our dorm, I spent the afternoon reading (I’m nearly finished with the book) and studying for my test tomorrow. As I’ve said before, the class is really frustrating because Lennart (the teacher) has not given us any details of what he is expecting from us. So I’ve been trying to study information as I can, but we’ll see how it goes.

Roland sent us an email saying that he has booked our tickets to Uppsala, which is our next stop (we leave Mora on Saturday morning).

Also, Co-Presidential elections are tomorrow. So tomorrow night, I should know the results!

Hejdå,

Andrew

March 3rd: Mora

2009-03-03T23:08:00.003+01:00

“… Now that the big race is over, our adventurers find themselves looking for things to keep them entertained; many have turned to physical activity like running, skiing, and skating; others are finding their niche in new books. But as it starts to warm up, can they avoid spring fever and the desire to not do their schoolwork that comes with it?..”

Hej Blog Buddies,

Sunday, March 1st:

It finally happened! The big ski race, Vasaloppet was today. It began at 8:00am when the skiers left a town called Sälen and began their trek to Mora, which lies 90 kilometers northwest of Mora. This year, I believe it was filled to capacity (15,800 people). The race is for both men and women over 19 years old. I think that the age restriction has been put in place so students focus on school (19 is the age that students graduate from gymnasium/high school) and not on training for the biggest (in number of people), oldest (first race was in 1923), and longest (90km) race in the world.

The school we’re staying at, the Mora Folkhögskola, houses as many of the skiers, anywhere they can put a mattress down. There are about 12 skiers sleeping on 3” thick mattresses in almost every classroom. The school also feeds the athletes. On the day (if you could call it that…) of the big race, they serve breakfast at 3am. After breakfast, the skiers board busses here in Mora that take them to the starting line. Not all of the skiers stay in Mora; others will stay in Sälen, or somewhere else along the way.

The beginning of the race is absolutely crazy, (you can watch a clip of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgociWU9sJ0). They place the skiers in a “wave” as determined by their past performances in previous Vasaloppsets and other ski races. There are 16 waves, each with around 1,000 people in them. The ‘waves,’ however, are not staggered; when the start gun is fired, it is essentially a free-for-all.

At 11:30 I made my way downtown to watch the finish of the race. I found it rather anti-climactic, as the next competitor was more than twenty seconds behind the leader, but entertaining nonetheless. Daniel Tynell, who won and finished with a time of 4hours 10minutes. I did get a clip of it with my camera, but this one is much better (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7axN4_SwP4&feature=related). After watching the clip, you’ll see a young “maiden” placing the wreath around his head, something that is customary and has been done for years. At the Vasalopp museum, there is a picture with the past winners, each with the wreath and “maiden” of that year; a young man, also in traditional Mora garb, greets the winner of the women’s race with a wreath.

After watching about an hour and a half of finishers come in, several of us got lunch at a local pizza place. I’m not sure whether I’ve written about this before, but I am going to again. There is one type of restaurant that is extremely prolific, there are probably several in every town, even in Jokkmokk there were three of them, and that is a kebab and pizzeria place. What surprises me about each of them, is that they are independent, unaffiliated, and ALL owned and staffed by first generation immigrants.

This was one thing that really surprised me when we first arrived in Sweden. Sweden is traditionally known as a homogeneous country; in my past classes, I’ve learned that Sweden is becoming more and more heterogeneous and after being here for almost eight weeks, I would have to agree with that. But what really surprises me, is that I haven’t been to a single one of these restaurants owned by a native Swedish. From talking to some of them, and based on some assumptions, most are from Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. The food is good and its cheap ($6 for a big enough for two, US-sized medium pizza, $8-$9 for heaping portion of kebab, etc..)

At about 7:30pm, Roland and I went back to the finish line and watched for about 45 minutes, as a steady stream of finishers came in. They were finishing after over 12 hours of skiing. Even when we left people were still coming in. One of our group members was there when the last three people finished, one of whom was an 88-year old woman dressed in a chicken costume. I wish I had been there to get a picture of that…

Monday, March 2nd:

This was a pretty relaxed day; we didn’t have too much going on, other than class. We had class from 2pm-5pm, with three, ten-minute breaks.

I am becoming more and more frustrated with this class. We were assigned five chapters, in a terribly long, boring, and dull book, with special instructions to “become an expert” on one of them, so we’d be able to raise questions about it in class, give well formed opinions on it, or help others who didn’t grasp it very well. (The book, might I add, is completely unrelated to what the Swedish politician lectures on…) But after spending 45-minutes talking about the ski races, a hour and a half talking about the smallest and most obvious political family in Scandinavian politics (the Anti-European Union party), and 30 minutes talking about the largest political family (Social Democrats), we never even talked about the book.

I did however borrow a book from a group-mate, “This Side of Paradise” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. After one day with it, I am about half done with it, and really enjoying it.

Tuesday, March 3rd:

Today was a beautiful day, with a high temp of about 37º F, I went for my first run of the season. I ran for about 7 kilometers. It felt really, really good, to move my body, although I had to do some side-stepping to avoid big areas of slush and puddles. I am hoping to run everyday for the rest of the week. Aaron, (Roland??) and I are considering doing a half-marathon in May in Göteborg; so I had better get in shape for that. Running around the Mora area was a good way to see other parts of the town that I otherwise wouldn’t get to see.

Mora folkhögskolan is well known for its arts and crafts/textiles. So today we got to choose a type of craft that we wanted to try, we could sew, do woodworking, learn to use a loom, or wool crafts, among other things. As I am very unskilled artistically and with my hands, I chose wool crafting. We essentially tangled wool to make objects. It is actually quite time consuming, after three hours I only finished about a quarter of my project. Not only is it time consuming, but its also painful; I pricked myself with the needle thing almost 10 times. Ouch.

Vi ses,

Andrew

March 1st: Mora

2009-03-01T01:16:00.001+01:00

“… After a busy week the brave voyagers are approaching the big event of their time in Mora. But even still, there have been mutterings of contempt for the small town of Mora. When all the skiers and tourists leave, where will that leave our adventurers, who still have two weeks in Mora?..”

Hej Blog Buddies,

I know that I haven’t been posting regularly; I need to get back into my habit of doing that, starting today.

Tuesday, February 24th:

As this week are the Vasalopp ski races, most schools (including ours) don’t have class, in order to accommodate for the events and tourism… around this time, most Swedish schools have a weeklong break called sportlov, this is Mora’s. Because of this, we have not had official lecture at all. It has been a nice chance to get caught up with readings, but we had a series of day trips to various places and to hear various people speak.

On this day, we went to the education administration building in Mora and met with a woman named Ulla Israelsson. She spoke to us for about almost two hours about the Swedish education system. It was really interesting to hear and learn about this system.

After speaking with students here and to an official representative of the schooling system, I am growing quite fond/jealous of the set up here. All schooling is free (well, outside of taxes), from the first day you arrive, to the day you graduate, and not only that, but students also get a living stipend to pay for food and books. I know many people who work a significant amount of time, while in college, in order to help support themselves; here, while some do work for the extra cash, most have no need for a job.

Ulla focused mainly on the primary school years, as she is a former 7th, 8th, and 9th grade teacher. School is mandatory and compulsory for all kids in Sweden through grade nine. She also told us that for day-care is subsidized by the government, so one parent isn’t working to simply pay for the astronomical costs of childcare (Matt, if you’re reading this, you and Carolyn should move to Sweden!)

After our time with Ulla, we went to Anders Zorn’s house, here in Mora. Anders Zorn is famous artist who lived between the 19th and 20th century. He painted the portraits of three U.S. presidents; these works are on displayed at the Whitehouse. We weren’t allowed to take photos in the house, but it was very impressive - - the great room was modeled after old Viking churches (see here: http://photos.igougo.com/images/p330484-Vik_Norway-Hopperstad_Stave_Church.jpg ).

After a guided tour of his house, we went to the Anders Zorn museum adjacent to his house. Our coordinator here in Mora, Anna (who is wonderful), talked to us about traditional Swedish folk music and played four different instruments for us, a cowhorn (made from an actual cow’s horn), a birch bark horn, something that looked and sounded like a recorder, and a fiddle. Roland made an interesting observation and said in an email “And Anna is amazing. She's taught us that bra is not just a useful Swedish adjective but also a place to store all kinds of things.” (this was after she pulled a bar of soap and the cowhorn out of her bosom…)

Wednesday, February 25th,

On this day, we took a group trip to Falun and Smedjebacken (both within the municipality of Dalarna). Falun has historically been a major copper mining town and was responsible for a lot of wealth of the Swedish monarchy.

Along the way we stopped at one of the mines and looked around for a bit from the observation deck. After the mine we went to the provincial museum of Dalarna county. We saw a lot of the traditional Swedish folk costumes, other random knick-knacks, and artwork. This area is known for its textiles, so the museum had some interesting textile displays, including the mural of the brook (see photos)…

After eating lunch at the museum, we went to the small town (~500 people) of Smedjebacken, where we saw the world’s longest tapestry. It was made to tell the story “The Red Orm” - - and it did so, in 90 meters of fabric. There were over 120 scenes sewn onto it. It is housed in a very industrial-looking workshop, which has now been converted to an art gallery. I got some good photos of it, check them out.

It was interesting how we moved from place to place… we commissioned a city bus (capacity of probably 70 people) to drive 17 total people (an hour to Falun, two hours to Smedjebacken, and two hours back to Mora). I don’t know what we paid for it, but it doesn’t seem like a very cost efficient or environmentally efficient method of travel.

Thursday, February 26th:

On this day we visited Vasaloppet museum, here in Mora. We saw a film on the history of the race… The Vasalopp is a reenactment of when Gustav Vasa came to Mora seeking help from the people in the area to help drive the Danes out of Sweden, upon their unwillingness he fled, as he was being followed by people trying to catch/kill him, the Mora folk reconsidered and sent their two fastest skiers after him, they caught up with him near the Norwegian border, 90 km away, which is why this race is 90km long. Also at the museum we learned about other historical things about the race.

Like in Jokkmokk, the large influx of people has been gradual, but obvious. It is no coincidence that there seems to be a large event everywhere we go, Roland specifically planned this trip so that we would get to experience all of these large events. Which is a good thing, otherwise, I think some people (perhaps myself…) would grow tired of these small towns.

Mixed in throughout the week, we have had Swedish language lessons [each time I try to type the word “Lesson” or “lessons” I end up typing “lesions”…]

As you may or may not know, back at Gustavus, along with Emily Thayer, I am running to be Student Senate Co-Presidents (elections are Monday, March 9th). The term is for the next academic year. In an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of our campaign, one of our challengers said that I had obtained my application illegally and that I am constitutionally ineligible because I would be unable to comply with the standards set forth for the Co-Presidents Elect… This complaint was made to the Senate Ethics committee, who held a hearing to rule in our case… As I obviously couldn’t be there, I spent quite some time, preparing a statement for Emily to read to the board; this took up a significant portion of my day. The allegations were clearly untrue, but I had to make my case regardless. After hearing both sides of the complaint, the board made the correct decision and unanimously ruled in our favor... maybe I have a future in Constitutional law.?.?.?.?. : )

Friday, February 28th:

As I said in a previous post, there are 11 races that happen prior to the big, Vasaloppet. On this day was the 45km “Skate Vasa.” In which participants use the “skate” method, as opposed to the “classic” method. Our instructor, Roland, was able to find a last minute opening in the race and took it. This is less than one week after he skied the “short” Vasa (30km).. We all went to the finish line, which is in downtown Mora, to watch him cross… It is a tradition to give one’s friends and family members a small wreath upon completion. As he skied by us, he realized that we had one for him, so he tried to stop and come over to the side where we were, but in the process fell to the ground. We were recording this, mind you. He was able to laugh it off, and finished the race with the wreath around his neck. (Sorry Roland, I had to…)

A member of our group, Aaron, knew this guy from the States, who was in Mora with his brother to ski on Sunday. His brother is a Nobel Laureate in chemistry and works for Johns Hopkins. His name is Peter Agre. I don’t really know why, but he wanted to meet with us and it turns out that he was born in Northfield, MN, where his dad was chemistry professor. (Thinking about it now, he might have taught my grandpa..) He moved out to the east coast, but returned to Augsburg for his undergraduate degree. We met with him for about an hour and he told us some great stories about his life, researching, winning the Nobel Prize, and anything else that came to mind. He seemed like the type who would talk your ear off, if you let him. It was a random connection, but one that had great results.

Saturday, February 28th:

Today was a very relaxing day for me. I was able to sleep in, only to 10:30, but still! I spent most of the day preparing my journals (which are due weekly) to be handed in. I also watched a movie that I hadn’t seen in a while, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I really enjoyed. It deals with the issue, if you could forget someone, or something, would you want to, even if forgetting meant taking the good memories as well as the bad ones? (My answer in case you’re wondering, would be “no”)

Tomorrow is the day of the big race, be sure to check for updates on that!

Missing you all, a lot,

Andrew

February 24th: Mora

2009-02-24T02:05:00.001+01:00

“…After some significant time without a computer, our favorite (and most important) adventurer now has a computer with a working internet. How challenging will it be for him to resist the temptations of the internet and a working computer and avoid becoming a recluse?..”

Hej Blog Buddies,

Well the first introductory part said it all; I finally had my computer fixed (it’s about time, right?) and it has been great to actually be able to talk/web cam/chat with my friends (some more than others…) and family without feeling like I am inconveniencing another person to use their computer. I have actually been able to read the news, and write emails, and all the other fun things that computers can do. If you can’t tell, I’m pretty excited to have it back!!

Because I haven’t been able to blog for quite some time, I would normally have a lot to write about… but because I really don’t feel like writing anything at all, you can forget about getting an eight-page entry, I’ll write about a few highlights from the past week+.

When I last wrote, we had just arrived in Mora and after initial inspection I thought I was really going to like Mora. So far, that is true, it’s a good combination of city and nature. There are actually quite a few young people that we’ve met at various times throughout the week.. although it is significantly easier to meet people at the bar (of course).

The school we’re staying at is called Morafolkhögskola, which has somewhere between 100 and 300 students… no one seems to know, not even the people who work here; something I found really odd. (Apparently all of the courses are different lengths, some might last a month, whereas others might last four months; so the number of students varies quite often). But of the 100-300 students who study here, only 25 of them actually live on campus and are spread out over three dorms… in our dorm there aren’t any Swedish students. I was hoping that there would be, but as it turns out, many students live within the area and commute to school every day. Also, this school is popular for non-traditional students, those who are returning to pursue a degree at an older age. I would say that about half of the students are more than 30 years old.

The only time we typically get to interact with the students is at meal time (which I will write about later…), weekend nights, and at “extracurricular” activities, such as choir (which I have not yet attended), Mid-Evil Dance (which I actually did attend) and innebandy (as you’ll remember, floor hockey; I’ve participated in this also).

Mid-Evil dancing was really quite fun. It was about eight Swedes, two instructors, and about eleven or so from our group.. I guess I really don’t know how to describe it… I thought it was really funny when the instructor said that we were going to do a really really modern dance… from the 16th century!

I bought an unlimited train and bus pass within the county/province of Dalarna. It is really easy, (quite handy) to catch a bus that goes anywhere within the county. I have used mine several times, to Falun twice, where I got my computer fixed, within Mora, and if we end up going skiing, the bus will take us there as well.

As far as class goes, we have begun our Nordic Politics class with Lennart Sacradeus, who is a current Swedish Riksdag (Congress) member, and a former E.U. Parliament member. We only have class two days per week, Monday and Friday, but we have it for four to five hours each time. It does get a bit long, but it nice to have a more freedom throughout the week to do other things. On Tues. Weds. and Thurs. we usually have other activities and day trips planned, as well as Swedish language lessons. The day trips include things like, going to a hospital and learning about the Universal Swedish Healthcare System, going to the local Dala-Horse factory, visiting museums in the area, etc..

The school we are staying at has a cafeteria that serves three meals per day. Though the meal times have been inconvenient (B: 7:30-7:55, L: 11:30-12:15, D: 4:30-5:15) the food here is phenomenal; they have several different types of fresh salads out each day, a lot of fresh veggies, two main dishes, a vegetarian option, home-baked bread, and delicious desserts. It has been a pleasant change from Jokkmokk where we either had to eat out or make our own food (usually settling for the simplest, cheapest food…)

Starting last Friday, the eleven Vasalopp races, spanning nine days began. The Vasalopp is a series of Cross Country ski races, that includes a “short” race (30km), a half race (45km), Women’s race (30km) and among others the regular Vasalopp (90km). Over the nine days, just under 50,000 skiers will race, and all of the races end in downtown Mora. The biggest race is the final race, which is on Sunday, March 1st and will have around 15,000 athletes participating.

Okay, well it is getting late and I need to get some sleep, but now that I have a working computer, feel free to email me (anelso10@gac.edu) and tell me to call you!

Vi hors,
Andrew

February 17th: Mora

2009-02-17T12:23:00.003+01:00

Okay, so my computer isn't THIS bad, but it seems like it is..

I am taking it to Falun today, to get it fixed. I am not sure when I'll get it back, but hopefully soon.

Until that time, I will try to borrow other people's computer to update this here blog, but if I don't, sorry!

Missing you all,
Andrew

February 15th: Jokkmokk/Mora

2009-02-15T01:40:00.010+01:00

“… After a cramped ride on the train the great journeyers have found themselves in Mora. With the loss of friends from Jokkmokk, they must start all over again. How will they cope with these changes, or will they succumb to the grief of their missing friends? …”

Hej Blog Buddies,

Again, I am sorry that this has been delayed, but the past several days have been pretty busy. I realize that this has become a common theme… get used to it… but seriously, I’ll try to continue to post more regularly.

Tuesday, February 10th:

As a part of our program, we read a book (that I actually would recommend) called “Popular Music from Vittula” (don’t worry, it’s been translated to English…) that takes place in the Swedish/Finnish border town of Pajala, which in actuality is about 20 kilometers from the border. Pajala is maybe (??)300(??) kilometers north-northeast from Jokkmokk, so Roland rented a large van and a nicely equipped Volvo wagon, and we were off to visit Pajala.

Along the way we stopped at a northern lights (museum?) display/house in a small town called Porjus (this was a necessary stop because we haven’t seen the real thing : \ but there is still hope…) Here we met the owner/curator, a middle-aged woman from England, who moved to Sweden seeking isolation from the city atmosphere (in Porjus, believe me, she found it..) At the.. place… we saw two short films that showcased pictures that she had collected of various celestial displays and bodies. (Kind of a lame substitute for the real thing, but it was more interesting to meet this woman, she had some interesting stories and perspectives…)

After Porjus, we continued on our way to Pajala; along the way, we drove through a small town, and saw the most immaculate walking bridge that I’ve ever seen. I was unfortunately unable to get a photo of it, but it was unnecessarily massive. It was like the “Bridge to Nowhere” except served (as far as I could tell) even less of a purpose; but it was worth however many million it must have cost, just for its aesthetic beauty alone, if nothing else.

When we arrived in Pajala, we were all very, very hungry (did I mention that we were very hungry?), so we stopped at deceptively good-looking restaurant. Almost everyone ordered what we all thought to be a chicken club sandwich… how wrong we were… Instead, it turned out to be a fossilized chicken wing, with undercooked, crunchy, minute rice and a cold curry sauce. Not too good. You know how bad it must have been when hungry people didn’t even like it. If you ever find yourself in Pajala, eat somewhere else. .25 stars out of 5.

In Pajala, which consists of little more than a few stoplights, a liquor store, a church, and grocery store… sounds like most small towns.. we drove around for a bit, saw the few sights, and found our hostel and checked in. As we were so close to the Finnish border, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to step foot in another country. We drove the 15 minutes it took to get to the border and crossed a bridge that spanned some river, and in doing so, entered Finland. We were disappointed to find the tourist store just across the borders closed. We drove around for, perhaps, 10 minutes, looking for any signs of civilization, seeing none, we turned around, got out of the car, took pictures with the “Finland” sign, and headed back to Pajala.

[I suppose I should mention that all borders in Scandinavia, and I believe all of Europe, are open borders; we didn’t have to go through any type of security or talk to anyone, just crossed the bridge, and that was that. It is amazing how much more convenient and easy this was than crossing the border in International Falls.]

We spent the remainder of the evening making and eating dinner and having some group bonding time.

Wednesday, February 11th:

We left Pajala at 9 a.m. and drove two and a half to a small town called Jukkusjärvi where the world famous Ice Hotel is. It was one of the most incredible things I’ve seen in Sweden. Like the name would lead you to conclude, it is made entirely out of snow and ice. Yes, it is an actual hotel that people pay several hundred dollars per person, per night, to sleep in. Everything (drinking glasses, chandeliers, bed frames, furniture, etc.) except the mattresses, blankets (reindeer hides), pillows, and electrical wiring is made from snow, ice, or snice (snow + ice = snice).

Within the Ice Hotel, there is also the original Absolut Ice Bar, where everything except the alcohol is made from ice as well. There are now 16 Ice Bars around the world that are all made of the very same ice, which is from the river just a few dozen yards away from the Hotel. The ice is crystal clear, and has been tested and proved cleaner than the drinking water of most cities.

Attached to the Ice Hotel, is the Ice Church, which is a Church of Sweden (Lutheran) denomination. So not to exclude people of other faiths, it also holds Catholic masses, and has an Ice Confessional. The church houses everything from baptisms to weddings. (How many people can say that they were married in a church made from ice? Not many, I’m guessing..)

Something I found quite interesting is that they remove the ice in April for the Ice Hotel/Bar/Church of the following winter, and store it all through the summer. This gives them time to begin the months of work it takes to prepare the structure. The Hotel is open from the beginning of January to the end of March. When the ice melts, it just drains back into the river it came from.

The hotel must have had close to 100 rooms, each with a different theme and unique artwork (made of ice, of course). These rooms were amazing; they had huge ice sculptures. It seemed each room was more impressive than the last. It was challenging to get good pictures, but I tried, they are posted on here. I hope you enjoy them. If you’re wondering about our sweet outfits, they were free, awesomely warm jump suits… mine was wayyyyy too big…

After leaving the Ice Hotel, we drove a few kilometers to the mining town of Kiruna. After 70 years of mining in Kiruna, the company claims that they have found the worlds largest reserve of Iron; they say that they have no idea how big it actually is, as they have not even approached the end of it. The only problem with this is that the deposit is directly under the city of 22,000. They think that to mine under the city would be too risky to the structures above ground. To deal with this “problem?” they are undertaking the massive job of moving each building nearly ten kilometers away.

This just seems preposterous that they can fund the moving of an entire city and still turn a profit from the iron below. Among the things to be moved, is a massive, historic church. (See attached pictures) What people will do for money, eh?

After we left Kiruna, we drove about three hours south to Jokkmokk.

I also did my laundry.

Thursday, February 12th:

Today was our final full day in Jokkmokk, and therefore the final of the class (the collection of all journals, as well as a paper about Nils-Aslak Valkeapää. I will attach a short excerpt from the paper to the end of this post, if you’re interested in reading it. The final copy, which was significantly more polished, had to be hand written…)

Friday, February 13th / Saturday, February 14th:

After doing laundry Wednesday evening, all of my clothes were nicely folded. (Mom - - I was able to fit them in my bags, it was a tight fit, but I did it. You’d have been proud of how efficient I was.. : )

After a few “housekeeping” items, as well as some actual housekeeping we said goodbye to all of the friends we had met during our time in Jokkmokk. This goodbye was more emotional for some, but I was pretty much ready to get to a larger city.

We boarded the bus at 5PM, which took us to Boden, where we climbed aboard our train (8:30PM), which after a slight delay departed for Gällivare. This overnight ride, which took us south, ended up being about 12-13 hours long. Luckily, and unluckily, we had sleeper cars (triple bunk beds) and of course, I had the top one, where the curve of the train made the bed even more snug than the others. What made matter even more interesting, was that I had to share the sleeping car with four random people and one other from my group. I ended up watching “Pan’s Labyrinth” on my computer until quite late. The train was pretty quiet, actually, yet due to other factors, I ended up getting very little sleep.

After another bus ride, and another train ride we finally arrived in Mora, at about 12:30PM on Saturday. We were greeted at the station by Lennart (our teacher for the next month) and Anne (the coordinator where we stay…).

We walked from the station to the Mora Folk Högskola (kind of like a community/trade college). We got our rooms, and situated into them. We eventually went for a late lunch/exploration of the city. After being in Jokkmokk for three and half weeks, Mora (~11,000 people) feels like a town of 50,000 people. There is actually a downtown area, with real shops and more than two restaurants and bars. I think I am really going to like Mora.

We had dinner with, and met a few students. They were telling us about the town and what we can do here. Apparently, there is a lot of different athletic equipment for rent, skis, snowshoes, etc. They also told us that an hour and a half away is Norway, and a great downhill skiing place, several of us agreed that a trip there is in our future.

I have spent the rest of the evening skyping with friends and family. As you all may or may not know, the internet on my computer has not been working, so I have had to borrow others’ computers for all of my internetting needs. Luckily, I will be going to a city, Falun, on Tuesday to get it fixed, FINALLY!

I’m not quite sure what we have tomorrow, but make sure to check back for updates!

Missing you all,

Andrew

P.S., Here is a little bit of my paper on the Sami:

Though the Sami have faced centuries of discrimination and oppression, they have just recently begun the reclamation their culture. In part, this is due to the removal of pressure from governments not to be Sami, but it is also due to a change in attitude of the people themselves. They seem to have a newfound sense of pride, in their heritage, in their language, and in their traditions. It is this self-respect and sense of self worth that has given rise to the Sami K-6 schools, like the one in Jokkmokk, and other places in Scandinavia, among other programs.

Valkeapää saw this hope for his culture and he describes it beautifully, “I can hear it/when I close my eyes/I can hear it//I hear somewhere/deep within me/I hear the ground thunder/from thousands of hooves…//And I can hear it/even when I open my eyes/I hear it//Somewhere deep within me/I can hear it/a voice calling…” This conjures up imagines of an old man, nursing a once bright flame, back from near extinguishment. Inside the man, he has the vision that one day the flame will once again burn brilliantly.

When Valkeapää wrote those lines, the Sami flame was quite dim, but with the tinder that he and others were adding to revive the culture, he saw a future in which there was hope for all aspects of Sami life.

His artwork on page fifteen reflects this dream of his; one where the Sami people are back living in harmony with each other and with nature. This is shown by the body language of the people. For example, several seem to be raising their arms in joy. Also visible in the background, is the hunting of the bear; which was (and still is) a very special and sacred ritual for the Sami people.

Valkeapää wrote “…what could I do/I am a simple man…” Though he was just one man, the difference that his life made for the proliferation of Sami life and culture has been immeasurable.

February 10th: Jokkmokk

2009-02-10T01:56:00.002+01:00

“… With the market coming to a close, and the rapid exodus of the masses, Jokkmokk is back to its usual small town feel. As the voyagers finish up their time in the quite town, they have yet to survive a journey across the border. Will the change of scenery be good for them, or will it throw them off of their game? …”

Hej Blog Buddies,

Wednesday, February 4th:

Today was the final day of the historic market. But before it closed, there were quite a few activities available. With a few others, I went to hear/see a group that performs folk music. (This was in the area called hembygsgården, which is essentially the area where Jokkmokk was founded. It still has several old buildings that are occasionally used for various community functions. It has also hosted many of the events for the market.)

The group that we saw was a quartet, comprised of three men and one woman. They all played various instruments (Guitar, violin/fiddle, drums, accordion, and some mystery instruments – see posed picture). They sang traditional folk songs. The venue (if you could call it that…) was jam-packed (maybe 80 people?). We ended up having to sit on the uncomfortably hard and wooden floor, but being as close as we were, made it worth the discomfort. I thought that they were pretty good. Roland said that the type of music they were performing is pretty common throughout the Möra area (our next destination), and that we should see people who are even better when we are there. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed their performance.

The historic market was opened with a torchlight march/parade to the ice church, so it was fitting that it would be closed in a similar fashion. Once again, we all received torches and followed the group (larger than on Sunday) back to the town square area. When we arrived, the stage, which was made of ice, was already surrounded by 1,000 or so people. The bailiff, (similar to the grand marshal) symbolically, closed the historic market, and declared the new market open. The mayor of Jokkmokk, as well as a few other people, welcomed everyone to the area. After the welcomes, we were entertained by a performance of “Fire and Ice…”

[These performances were very strange, but oddly intriguing and entertaining. Three women who were dressed as, what looked like, zombie brides, portrayed the “ice” portion of the show. They danced to a combination of music and live yoiking (traditional Sami singing). It was rather eerie, but was still really interesting to watch. I asked a few Sami students what, if any, symbolism was supposed to be represented by the first performance; they were just as clueless as I was. After the first performance, a fire dancer performed. He did the typical fire act (you know, swallowing and blowing fire, dancing with it, throwing it, etc.). The third part was an interaction between the fireman and the ice-women.

By the time the inauguration was over, we had been outside for at least two and half hours, and were starting to feel the cold. After some time warming up back at the dorm, I went over to the museum, where they were having an outdoor gathering. They had about ten or so fires, surrounded by benches covered with reindeer hides; at each “fire station” they had different things to see/hear/do. Some of the different things that they offered were: song singing, traditional story telling, ghost stories, hunting stories, as well as other things. They also held a fashion show (“much like you’d see in Paris,” according to the annoucers…) but the models were donning ‘High-Sami Fashion’ by ??famous?? (doubtful...) designers. The women reminded me of Japanese Geishas, in both how they moved and looked. They walked very slowly and deliberately, but were extremely graceful and delicate. They had also done their makeup so that their faces were white, almost porcelain-like. I wasn’t quite sure exactly why they had chosen that location or time, but it was very well received by the on-lookers.

What I have decided to do for the days of the Winter Market, is to write about the events that I attended, rather than give you an annotated version of my days. This will save me hours of writing. Hope you enjoy it:

Thursday, February 5th – Monday, February 9:

First and foremost, I feel a compelling need to write about the main attraction, the thing that draws tens of thousands of people to the area, the Market.

I really don’t understand what the draw to this market is. There were probably eight or nine city blocks lined with booths, that had to number well above 500 total. If I had to give the market a title, it would, without a doubt, be “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”

The Good:
Many of the booths were selling hand made crafts: knives made out of reindeer or moose bones/antlers, cups and bowls made from combinations of birch and bone, bracelets made of leather and pewter, reindeer hides, animal pelts, traditional hats and mittens, as well as hand carved sculptures, baskets, etc. These are the things I expected to find at the market.

There were also quite a few booths selling various food and meat products, reindeer jerky, sausage, and steaks, smoked salmon, hot dogs, gyros, Thai food (surprising…), Tunn bread (tasty), hot drinks, and godis (Swedish word for candy). You wouldn’t believe how many candy booths there were, nor would you believe how incredibly massive they were; some must have spanned over 50 feet.

There was also a large display by the largest supplier of electricity to northern Sweden, a company called Vattenfall. They were showcasing the environmentally responsible ways that they are producing electricity; the area that Jokkmokk is in, relies heavily on hydroelectricity to supply their power. In certain areas they have utilized geothermal, wind, and solar electricity. (I had seen a bunch of people wearing this really cool looking hat that had the Swedish flag on it. I asked a number of people if they knew where I could buy one, they all said they had gotten it at the Vattenfall tent, so I went to the display and had to enter a drawing, and I actually won one!)

The Bad:
While there were many quality items, it seemed like two out of every three booths were selling complete crap; case in point, neon pink Disney princess and Hanna Montana shirts (sorry Shawn, but its true…) It was like a dollar store gone horribly wrong. In fact, there were even booths that only had items priced at 10SeK (~$1.25). There were also tables, upon tables selling nothing but socks; they were also the cheapest socks I’ve ever seen (23 pairs for under $10). One booth I did find rather comical, was a man selling Country music, but in Swedish. He was dressed in stereotypical Texas cowboy attire, and line dancing (by himself, mind you) to his own music.

The Ugly:
This market has been tainted. It has gone from what could have been (and used to be) a great display of all things Sami, and been turned into the pedaling of complete junk. Globalization has spoiled the heritage of this market. For example, the dancing cowboy I don’t think has any place at the Market. I think it also removes the credibility of it being a true experience of Sami culture, and rather makes it feel like any random crappy flea market.

Another problem I saw in the market was the dilution of products, even the quality ones. I would go from booth to booth, and see cups that looked extremely similar, knives that looked very much alike, and hats that were practically identical to one another. I know that they weren’t, but it’s almost like they were mass-produced, which I think ruins any uniqueness that they usually have had.

Concert for Old Forest Growth:

On Thursday night I attended a concert put on by the choir of Jokkmokk. This choir was comprised of Sami men and women, Swedes, and Finns who all reside within the Jokkmokk area. They sang in four different languages, including the Sami jojk. This was probably one of my favorite events of the entire week. The choir was accompanied by a bassoon, accordion, and violin. It was a unique combination of instruments, which surprisingly meshed very well with the vocals of the choir. My favorite song was one called Itäjitär (if anyone is able to find it, let me know!) The songs were separated by poems, and short stories in the various languages.

Jojk Concert:

When we were in Umeå, one of our teachers was a Sami man named Krister Stoor. He along with two other men gave a joiking concert on Friday (which also happened to be national Sami day). Joiking is a traditional method of singing for the Sami. It can be to express elation, sadness, or as a form of communication. It often tells a story and includes animal noises. This concert was held at a local church, which was filled to standing room only. They gave an amazing performance. (Joiking involves a lot unusual inflections of the voice. I was able to get a video; I will try to get that posted on here, as well…)

Cultural Dinner:

On Saturday night, Alex and I attended an even toted to be “The unforgettable cultural tasting experience of a lifetime.” While it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, (obscure things like boiled skull, bone marrow, blood dumplings, etc.) it was a pretty impressive showing. It was a three-course meal, with each course being paired with a complementary drink. The first course was a lightly smoked fish (röding) fillet, served over a small salad with a white, caviar sauce on the side; this was paired with a Riesling wine. The second course was probably the most tender cut of meat that I have ever had; it was a reindeer filet served with something that looked like, but wasn’t, mashed potatoes (the waitress didn’t know what it was called in English) which was served with red wine sauce. The dessert was a vanilla-lingon ice cream with cloud berry sauce served with a surprisingly tasty sherry.

When we first arrived we were seated at a table with some very unfriendly looking people. We said hi, but they clearly had no interest in talking to us. We asked the waitress if we could move, she found another opening so we took it. We were very glad that we did. We met a nice brother and sister couple from Stockholm and Gothenburg, they both spoke fluent English, and were very encouraging of us to practice our Swedish. The addition of this couple made the dinner quite enjoyable. Good food, good company, what more could you ask for?

There were other events that I attended, but as it is getting late, I will not write about them, tonight at least.

Tomorrow we travel to Pajala, which is on the Finnish border, on Wednesday we go to Kiruna and the ice hotel. Check back for updates.

Hej hej,

Andrew

February 4th: Jokkmokk

2009-02-04T14:58:00.005+01:00

“… After a calm weekend, the festivities begin. Between the busy days and fun nights, the 14 strangers have started to open up to each other, and perhaps start to form some friendships. But with the Market comes some unique sights, sounds, and tastes; will they be able to stomach it? …”

Hej Blog Buddies,

Sorry this post has been delayed; between the market and other events I’ve been pretty busy. I did also add a video to the reindeer wrestling (two entries below?). When you watch it, you’ll undoubtedly notice that it’s obviously not me in the video, but I just wanted to give you an idea of what it was like. (The one in the video looks relatively tame compared to some of them..) Enjoy!

Sunday, February 1st:

Today was probably the most beautiful day we’ve had in Jokkmokk so far. It was a pure blue sky, not a cloud in sight. A few people got up early to go to church again, but there was no reason for me to attend a second time. Instead slightly after lunch, Megan, Chelsea, and myself went for a little hike/walk near the lake. Although, this time we didn’t follow the path that runs parallel to the shore, but rather, we followed a large, groomed ski trail that went up some good sized hills. We followed these paths for perhaps, five kilometers. It was incredible. Every turn of the track led us somewhere even more gorgeous than the last. We arrived at what we thought was the pinnacle of trail, which overlooked a huge expanse of trees and hills, so we stopped there and got some good photos. Though we were on a ski trail (frequented by Roland, who recently bought cross country skis), I felt completely isolated from everything, (besides the path) from any signs of civilization. It reminded me a lot of being in Canada, in the sense that I felt completely cut off from the material world, only existing in the natural world.

I am glad that I went with others for first time, but it would be fun to walk some of these trails alone. There is really a sense of calm and peace that I fear might be lacking over the course of the next week.

Though it was sunny, it was quite cold out; walking really helped us to stay quite warm. I wish I could say the same for the remainder of the evening. At 5:00pm, they had the Sami Market equivalent of the Olympic opening ceremony. At this ceremony, which formally began the Historic Market, a group of kids did a choreographed routine with torches.

[I thought the choice of music for the performance couldn’t have been more perfect - - they used songs from the soundtrack to the trilogy The Lord of the Rings. This combined with the outfits that some of the Sami men and women were wearing made me feel like I was back in the middle ages. Please forgive my cultural insensitivity for a moment, but the people reminded my of the Minnesota Vikings mascot, Ragnar, without the horned hat. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google “Vikings Ragnar” to get a good idea.) The pictures that I’ll post will hopefully illustrate what I mean.]

After the performance, everyone (maybe around 200 people) received a torch for the walk to the ice church.
[As we walked the two kilometers to the site, all with torches in hand, someone pointed out that what we were doing looked like a familiar scene from Beauty and the Beast, in which we were all going to “Kill the Beast!”]

When we arrived at the ice church, (not an enclosed structure, but rather, three chest-height walls with a large fourth wall bearing a Christian cross) which stands on the site of the first Christian church built in Jokkmokk in the 1600’s, a short, 25 minute service was held in a combination of Sami and 17th century Swedish. The service was made miserable by the fact that it was blistering cold by 6:00pm. Although, I will concede that it was really interesting to see and hear how a service was held over 400 years ago. Another unique aspect, was the old Swedish being spoken, it was very challenging to pick out familiar words and phrases, but still quite interesting.

After returning back to our dorm, and allowing ourselves to thaw for a while, a few of us went out to eat and a local restaurant. I think all four of us had the Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes. We had all been craving that, so we specifically chose the restaurant for that reason.

For some reason, I was just exhausted and ended up going to bed before 10pm (I don’t remember the last time I did that).

[I suppose I should explain this market a little bit more. Every year, for the past 404 years, the Sami people have held a weeklong market in Jokkmokk, Sweden. This market served as the big event from the year. Historically, they would have weddings and christenings during this time. It was a time when they could trade all of their handicrafts with each other, as well as a time when they could celebrate their culture together. The Sami people live across the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the northwest parts of Russia. This event attracts, and historically has attracted Sami people from across all borders. Unlike the Native Americans, the Sami have a peaceful history amongst the various tribes. More recently (in the last 75 years) this event has drawn non-Sami people to its festivities. When the week begins, they have several days of a Historical Market, with around 40 booths, set up the way it would have been 400 years ago; this attracts a significant amount of people to the area. During this time, they also have lectures on various topics, cultural activities, such as folk singing, folk dancing, arts and crafts, etc. Midway through the week, the modern/contemporary market begins; this is the part of the week that attracts 30,000+ people. I won’t be able to give a good description of what goes on during this part of the week, until it transpires.]

Monday, February 2nd:

Even though the Sami Market began yesterday, the city of Jokkmokk is holding the second annual conference on global climate change, called: Leadership in the Age of Uncertainty. I had an interest in attending some of the lectures, so along with a few others, we signed up to attend. Roland encouraged our attendance; the number of group members was artificially high at the first lecture, after hearing a rumor that the Prince of Sweden (Carl Philip) would be in attendance. This conference brought in experts with various backgrounds; the lecturers were from University of Stockholm, Oxford, somewhere in Greenland, Austria, as well as other places in Sweden. There were about 100 or so attendees from Canada, Iceland, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria, U.S., and Russia. Given the disproportionate impact that the U.S. has on the environment, the country took the brunt of a few (deserved) jabs. [Although, you wouldn’t believe how many non-Americans are thankful for Obama, especially the people we’ve met at this conference. One of the lecturers called Bush “The Darth Vader of the Environment.” Ever since being in Umeå, we’ve been getting “congratulations” on our new President, as well as questions about how excited we must be to have a new president - - Which of course, we all are. : ) right?]

We were all very excited for the arrival of the market. Monday was a rather low-key day for the market. We went to the Historical market to look at the various booths. All of the people were dressed in traditional animal fur clothing or other traditional Sami clothing. The booths were selling various handicrafts, such as hand carved bowls, spoons, butter knives, regular knives, traditional Sami food (dried/smoked reindeer, honey, various types of fish, preserves, etc.), balms, handmade clothing, slippers, socks, and so on. Some of the prices were pretty expensive, but good deals were there.

In the evening, a few of us went to “Sami dance games,” which was so much fun! It was circle dancing. All of the singing was in Swedish, accompanied by two people playing the violin/fiddle. Some of the games required that you be quite friendly with your neighbor. In one of the games, the person who didn’t have a partner at the end of the song was required to forfeit something to continue playing (a change purse, scarf, hat, etc.); to get the item back the person had to either dance, sing, or perform some talent for the group of about 50 people. [Luckily, I always had a partner; otherwise I don’t know what I would have done!]

After the dance games, quite a few people from the group went to Café Gasskass. The lecturer from Oxford was there, and ended up sitting at our table for about an hour. I ended up talking with this woman from the Yukon, who lives, works, and studies in Oslo. We spent quite a bit of time talking about her experience working for the Embassy in Norway.

Tuesday, February 3rd:

Once again I attended the conference on climate change. One of the lectures was pretty interesting, although done in a less than interesting way. It was a man who wrote a book called “Snö” (the Swedish word for “snow”). His talk was about the different words that the Sami have for the word “snow” (over 2,000). His talk consisted of pictures of winter landscapes, him telling us the Sami word for that “type” of snow, and then describing the snow. We heard probably, 200 different words, to describe a particular snow. My favorite one (I don’t remember the word) was described as the kind of snow that goes about half an inch below the back right knee joint of a reindeer.

After the morning lectures, I went back to the historical market, walked around and talked to some of the people at the different booths. You wouldn’t believe how many people are so surprised that we’re here all the way from Minnesota, and even more surprised that we can speak Swedish. Everyone has been very patient (with me, at least) with language. Almost all of the Sami that I’ve met speak nearly perfect English, so it would be easy to do that, but its more fun trying to use Swedish with them.

At the historical market there are a bunch of activities to do. One of them is a horse drawn sleigh ride. The horses are extremely large, and significantly hairier than any horse I’ve ever seen before. I got a picture of two of them, but there were a few others that looked bigger than a Clydesdale even.

At the local Sami museum they have different movies (pertaining to Sami/indigenous life and culture) playing. We went to one called “Spirits for Sale,” which was about a Swedish woman who received an Eagle feather from a Native American, but felt that she shouldn’t have such a sacred object. The film showed her quest to the U.S. to return the feather to someone who should have it. An underlying theme was indigenous people selling their culture or religion for money, and the debate that surrounds that.

Like the prior evening they had activities for people to attend. Tonight it was singing, rather than dancing. A few of us went to the event. Though the tunes were not difficult to keep, there was nothing to look at that had the lyrics on it. The two women leading the songs were trying to teach everyone; but it was all done in Swedish, and very difficult to understand. If we could have had the lyrics, I think I would have gotten more from this, but it was still fun nonetheless to hear the traditional songs.

I will try to get back on schedule with these blog posts, because I know how excited you are for each addition. : )

Hej hej,

Andrew

January 31st: Jokkmokk

2009-01-31T23:17:00.000+01:00

“… The sun finally showed its face, but will the voyagers have to go two more weeks without it? With the beginning of the market fast approaching, will the influx of 30,000+ people spice up the small-town feel of Jokkmokk? …”

Hej Blog Buddies!

The past two days have been pretty low-key, as everyone is preparing for the market, which beings tomorrow. I’ve heard the market is pretty crazy, so its good that we’re getting some rest now…

Friday, January 30th:

For the first time, in so far as I can remember, the past two nights I have struggled to sleep well. I woke up several times throughout the night, and the strangest part, was that I woke up at 5:57am and could not fall back asleep! I’ve never had trouble falling back asleep. I just lied in bed until about 7:15, at which point I went to breakfast by myself.

[I’ve never understood waking up early. I suppose if it were light outside it might be more agreeable, but here, even when you wake up at 8am, it’s still dark. What motivation is there to get up? (none).]

One thing that I’ve noticed since coming to Sweden, is that without my cell phone and a regimented class schedule, I have absolutely no concept of time. Normally, the amount of light outside gives some clues, but not here. Someone will say to me, “when did you come back last night?” for example, and I always say, “I have no idea.”

A few hours after breakfast we had our Swedish language instruction. This has been almost every day, for about 25-35 minutes each time. We have been focusing on words, and language related to the area that we’re in. So we’ve been learning how to ask more specific questions about an object, for example. We have also been learning content related to the area we’re in.

We went over the schedule for the market, to talk about specific events and which ones we thought each other would enjoy. (This program is very daunting. It is about 30 pages of text (small, small text) the days usually start around 7:00am and go often until as late as 1:00am.) There is everything at this market from “Balm making over an open fire” to traditional meals (boiled reindeer skull, blood dumplings, etc..) to concerts, and even dances (I will most certainly be trying the boiled skull dish…).

We also watched the movie “Pathfinder” which depicts the struggles of the Sami people against people “outsiders” trying to destroy their way of life.

After the movie, I was invited to go play basketball with a few of the students here. When I arrived, I was a bit hesitant, but after about 10 minutes of playing, it was no different than being playing a pick up game at home. The thing I like about sports, basketball in this case, is that they’re the same in every country and language. There were a few slightly nuanced differences, for example, the game was much less physical than games at home, also its much less “show” and more fundamental. The skill set was as much varied as it would be at any public gym; there were a few guys who were pretty good, a few guys who were average, and a few who were just plain bad (but clearly enjoyed playing).

After what ended up being about two and half hours of playing (I was playing in my running shoes, mind you.. I’ve got some wicked blisters to prove it…) we took a sauna. Being the only American and non-native Swedish speaker, it ended up to be a great way to practice my Swedish, and get to know some of the Swedes better.

I went back to the dorm and met up with a few people. We ended up going to a bar called Café Gasskass for their late-night happy hour (comparatively, cheap drinks! ~$4 for a crappy beer). Between basketball and the bar, I think I met more Swedes in this one night than I have throughout the entire trip. (I’ve also discovered that speaking Swedish becomes exponentially easier after each drink…)

Saturday, January 31st:

BREAKING NEWS: We saw the sun today!! Someone came in and said that the sun was shining; everyone instantly migrated outside to bask in its greatness. We could actually see the big, bright ball of flames, not just its rays. I can see why ancient cultures worshiped the sun, and made sacrifices so that it would come back each day. (I think we were getting close to that point… I’m not sure who would have been first, but we were willing to try anything)

When the sun came out, I went out by the lake and just walked around for a little while, before I got too cold. It is a pick your poison situation: it is either really cold (minus-10º F) or overcast. But after two full weeks without the sun, I’ll choose cold and sunny.

Other than that, today was pretty uneventful. Our daily journals were due today, so I spent much of the day preparing those. We went out to dinner (saw the moon for the first time) to a local restaurant called Opera (we’ve been there several times before). When we got back, I started to write this blog so that everyone could stay up-to-date with my happenings.

The next week should be pretty exciting, so be sure to check back for updates as things happen.

[I should probably note that when I say “we” it could be anywhere from two of the fourteen on the trip, to 10+. We really don’t do much (outside of class) as a full group, so its usually about two to five people.]

Hej hej,

Andrew

January 29th: Jokkmokk

2009-01-29T21:20:00.002+01:00

“…after wrestling over a hundred reindeer and playing innebandy, the adventurers are feeling pretty tired. Will they let their fatigue bother them, or will it have them rested before the real fun begins? …”

Hej Blog Buddies!

Sorry I didn’t have this written and posted yesterday, we’ve just been extremely busy the last two days, for that reason this blog will have three days worth of material. (I’m sure you’re thrilled about the extra reading…)

Tuesday, January 27th:

This was easily the wildest day of the trip so far. We were scheduled to go meet a reindeer herder; that was all we knew… We had no idea where it was, how far away it was, how long we’d be there, or (more importantly) what we’d be doing. Looking back, had we known, we may very well have not gone. After breakfast Roland went and rented a van and a car to transport us to our destination.

After a 30-40 minute ride, we arrived at what looked like a community park area. Off to one side of the clearing, there was a large fenced in area. We went into it, only to find about 300 or so reindeer. We saw a group of people gathering near a tree in the center of this fenced-in area (which turned out to be a corral for the reindeer), so we went and joined them. It was a group of Sami people, whose ages ranged from two and a half years, to probably 75 years. The young kids were walking around playing with sticks, approaching the animals, (under the sometimes questionably watchful eye of their grandmother…)

As we stood in this pen, we still had no idea what exactly our “experience” was going to be. We found out that several different families had gathered their animals in this enclosure. A short while later, using snowmobiles, the Sami herded the mass of reindeer into a smaller area and put up a makeshift fence to confine them. We soon learned that they were separating the animals based on whom they belonged to.

The method by which they did this was the exact same one we practiced with Maya and Sophia in Umeå. As the animals would be running, they would snag their antlers with a lasso and tighten the rope. The animal would fight this (like a Northern Pike fights on the end of fishing line), other times it would fall to the ground and thrash around. Two people would then run up to the lassoed animal and grab it by the antlers and drag the uncooperative reindeer to one of the smaller pens to the side of the corral.

… So begins our “experience.”

I am at a loss for words trying to describe this event… (There are no words to describe a truly unique object or action…) I forgot to bring my camera, but I’m going to try to get a video that someone else took and upload it (here) to my blog. Although, I must say that I don’t think any video can do this event justice.

As the Sami men began to lasso the reindeer, it was our responsibility to move the lassoed animal from the middle of the corral to a smaller pen.

This action was no less terrifying the second, third, fourth, or twentieth time that I did it. Let me tell you, these animals are strong; to move them somewhere they don’t want to go,is like dragging a truck just by its hitch, uphill, on ice, into the wind, and with a someone trying to drive it in the opposite direction. Usually the animal would start running in various directions, so those of us who were holding on (for dear life), were forced to go with it (sometimes ending on up the ground), but never letting go of the antlers. Each reindeer took a different amount of time, anywhere from 2 minutes to five minutes. This was the ultimate, full body exercise. Perhaps a more appropriate name would be Varsity Reindeer wrestling.

After about my first three, I started to sweat. I did a few more in my full winter jacket before I started to overheat. To combat this, I was wrestling the reindeer wearing just my sweatshirt (and pants, of course).

Most of the Sami spoke very little English, so that complicated matters. For example, when we were trying to get one of the reindeer to the truck, (they were being transported to another location, not a slaughterhouse..) I thought one of them told me to let go (of the antlers), I even asked for clarification, thought I got an affirmative, and let go. The reindeer went sprinting down the chute and past the truck. I don’t think I was supposed to let go.

As we were leaving the corral, we watched a Sami man field dress a reindeer. Like most indigenous people they use almost the entire animal (I learned that the only part they don’t have a use for, is the lungs…), but apparently every other part is used. It was quite gruesome, but very interesting to see. As I don’t hunt, I’ll probably never have another opportunity to see an animal cleaned that way.

When we left (after almost four hours of hard labor), I spent the rest of the day moping around and napping from pure exhaustion.

Wednesday, January 28th:

On Wednesday morning we went to a local Sami Preschool and elementary school. This was a rather humbling experience. We met kids who by the age of 12 can already speak up to four languages (English, Swedish, and North and Lule Sami). This is one of only five Sami elementary schools in Sweden. One problem that all of these schools face is finding education materials printed in the various Sami languages. The teachers essentially must make and prepare all classroom materials, from scratch. This puts a tremendous strain on, not only the teachers, but the students as well. The quality of the products they need is limited by the ability of the teacher to produce it. These programs do, however, offer hope for (threatened) Sami culture and language propagation.

After meeting with the principal of this school, and lunch, we heard a lecture (in Swedish, and therefore difficult to follow) on the history of Sami religion. I was surprised to hear how much influence Christianity had the Shaman-istic/paganistic Sami religion. For example, on a lot of their jewelry they have either a “M” for the Virgin Mary, or an “A” for Anna (??Mary’s mother??).. which was supposed to watch over and protect children and the reindeer.

After this lecture, we met students from the school in their gym, and played innebandy (essentially middle school-esque floor hockey). This was a lot of fun, but even more so it felt really good to have some long lasting physical activity. (Athough, I must say, I wasn’t good at floor hockey in middle school, and not much has changed…) We also played basketball for a little while after, which went significantly better.

I spent the rest of the evening reading and journaling for class.

Thursday, January 29th:

Today we had a guided tour the Ájtte (Sami) Museum in Jokkmokk. Here we learned about the traditional ways of the Sami, including seeing examples and learning about their living arrangements, clothing, food, medicine, jewelry, religion, and song. (Its really hard to blog about a museum visit..) but one thing I will say, is that we had a pretty amazing tour guide, She spoke loudly and clearly. I appreciated that fact. She also was concise but gave us a lot of information, and even more so, she had a wealth of knowledge to answer all of our questions.

After the tour, a few of us went to lunch at a small, cheap, delicious café. We sat in a room, that was, for all practical purposes, a green house, with cacti, lime trees, and other exotic plants. Not exactly what one would expect to find above the Arctic Circle.

On the walk back to our dorm from lunch, we stopped at two small clothing shops in Jokkmokk. The first one, called “P.Å.s” was pretty cool; it is run by an elderly (80s) couple. The woman sews most of the things that they sell, and the man maintains the store. Even by American standards, things were really cheap. I didn’t buy anything, but a few others on the trip got jackets, hats, gloves etc., there.

This afternoon we had class. We discussed some short stories and poems we read by Sami authors. My favorite poem of the lot, goes like this:

Our life is like a ski track
On the white open plains
The wind erases it
Before the morning dawns

Tonight is just a quiet evening reading and writing this blog for all of you to enjoy.

I hope you continue to check back for up dates.

Hej Hej,

Andrew

January 26th: Jokkmokk

2009-01-27T00:32:00.008+01:00

“ … after two more quiet days above the Arctic Circle, our brave voyagers have been tempted and teased by the sun sneaking a few rays between the clouds, but when 4:30 looks like midnight anywhere else, they seem to hit a wall. Will they be able to keep their lights shining? …”

Hej Blog Buddies!

Sunday, January 25:

On this morning, eight of us got up and ready to go to an 11:00am church service at a local Lutheran church. Only a few people on the trip went to satisfy their personal spiritual or religious needs, the rest of us went to see the inside of the building (get a few photos), and for the cultural experience of seeing and hearing a service in Swedish.

The service itself was rather monotonous and bland. I got the feeling that the preacher was just “going through the motions.” The end result was dull and unoriginal. Although, I must say, that hearing it in Swedish was a good experience. I was surprised how much of the language I was able to understand. I found it especially interesting to hear things in Swedish (like the “Lords Prayer”) that I’ve heard a number of times in English. It was because of this familiarity, that I was able to see the similarities and the differences between the two.

The church was built in the 1880s, and has been extremely well maintained throughout the years. The attendance, however, has not survived the test of time. We showed up about 20 minutes before the service, and we were the first people to arrive (other than the pastor, the candle-lady, and an organist). By the time the service actually started, about seven other people showed up (so we made up the majority of the congregation…). Everyone, besides us, the pastor, and the candle lady were over the age of 50, easily.

One part of the service I found extremely awkward was when the candle-lady came around with the collection stick (… if you don’t pay it forward, she beats you with it until you cough up some cash…), which was actually just a basket on the end of an about eight-foot long pole. She walked to the beginning of each pew, and put the basket directly in front of everyone’s face and looked directly in their eyes for about five seconds, before moving on.

I didn’t get anything, on a deeper or spiritual level out of the service, other than an uncomfortable stare when I didn’t dig the cash out of my pockets.

Although, later on Sunday, I’d say that I easily had a more “religious” than experience than any church could ever give me, which was when I walked around the lake, and out into the nature preserve that surrounds Jokkmokk. It had snowed about an inch the night before, and the Sun was trying its damnedest to show itself. This combination made it an exceptionally beautiful day. I took quite a few good pictures.

We spent the remainder of the day doing things of minor consequence, having Swedish lesions, making dinner, watching a movie, etc..

Monday, January 25:

Today we had breakfast at the nursing home a few blocks from our dorm. Again, it was a very typical Swedish breakfast, which has really grown on me. The sandwiches are good and keep me full for a while.

After breakfast, we heard a presentation on Sami culture, history, and language, by a teacher at the school we’re staying at. It was fascinating to learn about the nine different dialects of Sami, as well as the roles the different Sami have in their four respective countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia)

In order to make our money stretch further, and for convenience sake, we have been making some of our own meals. This was the case for lunch today. I’ve been eating a lot of eggs and pasta, for convenience sake, and its nice to have a break from pizza or meat (which seem to dominate the restaurants up here).

When we had finished lunch, we were supposed to have a toured visit to a local Sami Museum, but when we arrived, we found that the museum was closed, and that we were actually scheduled for Thursday. But they did let us walk around it for a little while. It had a lot of history pertaining to the area, which I am eager to learn more about. I’ll write more about that after our real guided visit.

After our afternoon Swedish lesson, I took a sauna. It wasn’t nearly as hot as the first day, but it still felt really good. A few of the people ran outside and jumped in the snow to cool off (I didn’t partake).

As the 405th annual Sami Market approaches (it begins this Sunday) preparations are well underway. There are plows clearing huge areas for the over 500 booths that will be here, and for the 30,000-50,000 people that show up for this event. Within the last few days, we have been able to see the town come alive with action, movement, and people. What first looked like a sleepy, quiet village of 2,000 people, is now starting to look like a city of many more than that.

We have a visit to another reindeer herder tomorrow, so be sure to check back for updates!

Hejdå,

Andrew

P,S, the sun is now M.I.A. for 11 days! The forecast says that Friday should be clear, We’ve got out fingers crossed,

January 24th: Jokkmokk

2009-01-25T02:27:00.006+01:00

“... The adventurers have made it to their first actual destination, but the advent of class along with the short days and long nights might give them S.A.D., will they succumb to its hold over them, or will they be able to cheer each other up? …”

Hej Blog Buddies,

Thursday, January 22:
When I last wrote, we were on a bus from Umeå to Luleå. We had a brief layover in Luleå, and had an hour or so to explore. The bus we were on was terribly hot, to make things worse, most of us were quite hungry, so when we got off in Luleå most of us were out in just long-sleeve shirts, cooling off. We went in search of a cheap quick lunch, but ended up at a grocery store, which didn’t have much more than sweet, sweet “godis” (candy) and pre-made sandwiches, but made it back with plenty of time before the next bus left.

On the bus ride from Luleå to Jokkmokk, I saw something I have never seen in the U.S. I’ve heard that the quickest way between two points is a straight line. The same is true in Sweden, even if it means going over a lake… from the bus I was able to see a truck plowing a path across a lake called an isvägen (an ice street), which functions as any normal road would for cars. I could not, however, see any traffic signs (maybe it’s like the Autobahn, and one can drive as fast they like… on that note, I’m moving to Luleå..) The rest of the ride was pretty nondescript, as we were unable to see much further than, perhaps, 100 meters away from the bus.

When we arrived in Jokkmokk (also spelled Jåhkåmåhkke, which means “the bend of the river” in Sami), at about 5:00pm, it was dark, but not just the typical nighttime dark. It’s a blackness that seems to absorb all light, the kind that leaves nothing unaffected by its presence. The streetlights, of which there are many, don’t offer much more assistance other than being able to see where the next one is. The good thing about this, though, is that by 5pm, it is as dark as it’s going to be at 2am, so it doesn’t get worse. This is, however, with a complete and perpetual overcast; I fear that when (if ever..) the clouds go away, it could get even darker. I had no idea that such an absence of light was possible. Typically, when it is overcast, the lights of a city reflect off of the clouds to offer a little solace, but in a small town (…village?) of about 2,000 people, there aren’t nearly enough lights to make any such difference.

We got settled in our dorm room at the Samernas Utbilningscentrum (Sami trade school). The rooms are actually very nice (better than any dorm room at Gustavus) we have two large, shelved closets (it was great to finally unpack and be able to actually find things!) a large desk, and a bathroom with a sink and shower.

After we had time to organize, we went to a restaurant called “Opera” (steakhouse/pizzeria/authentic Swedish/Greek cuisine/bar… rather multi-purpose). (If you ever find yourself in Jokkmokk, go here and order the mashed potato, meatball, and lingon plate it’s delicious). It was here we met our first “Jokkmokkian,” which also happened to be the most memorable thing about this place. He was an unlikely person to meet here; he was an Iranian-immigrant. I was extremely surprised, of all places in Sweden, to find him here, in this tiny town, above the Arctic Circle.

[Sweden is more multicultural than one might think. They have, in recent years, become a safe haven for political and war refugees. Many Iraqi people have come here to avoid the ongoing war there, as well as a significant number of people from Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and other developing nations. Other Nordic countries, Denmark and Norway specifically, have been turning these people away, and have very tight immigration laws, whereas Sweden has been very accepting of these new people.]

Friday, January 23:

We began our day with breakfast (very similar foods that we had in Umeå) at a nursing home a few blocks from the school that we’re at. We didn’t meet any of the residents there, but that possibility does exist. After that we went to back to the school and heard a lecture by a Sami man, about the current situation of the Sami people, as well as the overall goal of the school and the type of courses that they offer. The school only has about 35 students, so it is quite small, but the campus is deceptively large. They have different areas that students can study, such as traditional Sami clothing, Reindeer herding, food, as well as craft making (things such as knives, cups, bowls, and decorative things) out of birch, reindeer/moose antlers, and animal bones.

We were able to tour where the students were working. It was very cool to see how ornately all of these things are made. (I didn’t get a photo, but I’ll post one when I get it). [I might be phrasing this wrong, but..] In the Sami culture, a person has no value or worth to the community until they have learned a trade or skill. That’s why it is so important that these students are here for two years to perfect their skills. Everything they make, they sell at the upcoming Sami Market. I’ve heard the prices are quite steep (bowls costing over $10,000, knives in the $4,000-5,000 range etc..)

After the lecture and tour we were done for the day; so at lunchtime, most people walked around the town to see it (while they could). There isn’t much to it: two old churches built in the 1700s and 1800s, a few restaurants and bars, two grocery stores, a few shops, and liquor store, among other things…

The school I am at has a sauna, so I took my very first Swedish sauna. There were about 10 or so people in there. The geographical areas represented ranged from southern Sweden to the very north of Sweden, even into Finland. It was quite the experience. I was surprised to see everyone drinking, (beer) in the sauna. This, combined with the fact that my Swedish listening skills need improving, made it significantly more difficult than normal to communicate and interact with them.

I spent the remainder of the day working on things for my classes: reading poems and articles, writing a journal, and meeting the Swedes and Sami.

The restaurant we ate at the first night (Opera) is transformed into a “nightclub” (of sorts…) on Friday nights, which is (supposedly) the hot spot. About ten members of the group, along with our new Swedish friends went to it. There was a live band (the age of the group members were, roughly, 40, 50, 57, and 60) playing Swedish folk music, Swedish music from the 1950s, as well as a few old American songs. (… It was a pretty happening place…) Couples aged 60+ years, doing some form of the foxtrot, dominated the dance floor... The 18-30 year olds were likely out numbered by those 55+.

This was a great place to have informal (and therefore better) interactions with the typically timid Swedes. I got to know some of them fairly well. I also got to use my language skills, which was pretty exciting.

Saturday, January 24th:

Today was the first day that I was able to sleep in, (well, 10:00am isn’t exactly “sleeping in”), but we had our first formal Swedish language lesson at 10:30am. I am very excited by how much I’ve improved in the short time that I’ve been here, and I really hope that I can continue at this pace.

After Swedish class, I finished writing my journals, which were due today. Then two others and myself went for a walk around the lake. They have some great hiking trails with extremely beautiful scenery (it reminds me of Canada). I don’t know the first thing about cross-country skiing, but from what I could tell, they have miles of well-groomed trails through the forest and nature preserve.

We had a pretty low-key night, watched some Swedish movie, but ended up chatting more than watching.

______________________________________________________________________________________
I am really frustrated with my computer right now. The school has a very fast wireless network, but my computer is unable to connect to it. It is very frustrating, but luckily some friends are allowing me to borrow their computers so I can keep in contact with all of you from home. I hope you’re enjoying the weather at home (I saw that it was in the minus-teens there) whereas it’s pretty stable here in the 10-20ºF range. I do, however hope it gets colder here, because along with the cold comes clear skies, and the possibility of actually seeing the sun, or even more desirable, seeing the northern lights.

The Sun has now been M.I.A. for nine days. Hope you all are enjoying it! Send someof it this way…

Har det så bra,
Andrew

January 22nd: Umeå

2009-01-22T23:44:00.005+01:00

“ … The last day in Umeå brought a lot of excitement to the 14 voyagers. But as they sit on a bus that could double as a sauna, tensions flare as the heat is turned on. Will the adventurers survive their time in the heat, or will they be fried? …”

Hej Blog Bluddies,

As I write this blog, we are on a bus that travels along the coast from Umeå to the city of Luleå, and from there we head inland to Jokkmokk and above the Arctic Circle.

Tuesday, January 22nd:

This morning was a struggle; trying to fit all of the things I brought, back into the suitcases required a lot cramming, squeezing and sloppy folding - - Mom, I don’t know how you fit everything in there… – Also, our bus left at 8:00am from the station, which meant in order to eat breakfast and get there on time, we got up at 6:30.

The bus station was about 8 blocks away from our hostel in Umeå. It was from this experience that I came to realize what everyone said about hauling luggage from place to place is true (the less you have, the better off you’ll be). Compared to other people on the trip, I think have the close to the least amount of luggage with me (probably because my Mom could easily be a professional suitcase-packer). I have only one medium sized checked bag, one duffel bag, and my backpack, yet moving all of this to the bus station was a significant undertaking. However, this was mostly because the snow on the ground was really slushy, which therefore made wheeling it down the sidewalk impossible. I ended up having to carry both bags (I quickly broke a sweat).

Then when we finally arrived at the bus station, trying to fit everyone’s bags on to a three-fourths full bus was like a life-sized game of Tetris. But thanks to some mastery of the game, we managed.

When we left at 8am this morning, it was still dark (the sun has been M.I.A. for the past five days). We are set to arrive in Jokkmokk at about 5pm, by which time it will have been dark for a few hours, definitely a unique experience, but still : (

I have just remembered something that I’ve wanted to write about for a few days now… The doors here are the most counter-intuitive things that I’ve ever come across. They always open the opposite way that one would think they would and opposite of how they look like should open. No matter how many times I go through them, I always get it wrong. I push when I should pull and vice versa. Last night, when we ate at a Chinese pizzeria and steakhouse (isn’t that an anomaly?) I observed that two sets of native Swedes had difficulties opening the door also. I guess it’s some sort of consolation to know that I’m not the only one who has such problems with such a seemingly simple task.

[That’s all I really have to say about today so far]

Monday, January 21st:

Yesterday, for class, we visited two Sami women (who live about 30 minutes west of Umeå) who live and work as reindeer herders. The women (Sophia and Maya) are southern Sami, but they do not speak the language. Sophia and Maya inherited their respective herds when their fathers died. They said they were about two of ten woman herd owners in all of Sweden. Normally, a male inherits the herd, but in Sophia and Maya’s cases, there either was no male, or no interested male. Before the 1970’s in such cases, the herd would be given to their lager community. But now, it is passed to any willing family member.

(It was really interesting to see/hear about such a dramatic role reversal in a typically and traditional patriarchal Sami society. Whoever owns the family’s herd is the head of the household and gets/has to make all of the decisions for the family. That person is also the representative of the family to the larger community. That person being a woman, however rare, is now acceptable.)

When we were there, we learned how to lasso the animals (practicing on stationary antlers). When the Sami gather, they have lassoing competitions. They throw (towards real reindeer though) from up to 18 meters. But it also has the practical implications of catching one specific animal.

After an hour or so of lassoing, we went into a fenced in, wooded area where the animals are kept. They only had five reindeer at this location for tourist purposes (the rest were several hundred kilometers south of Umeå). One thing that almost everyone was wondering, was how many Reindeer they have; Roland asked but such a question is similar to asking someone how much money they make; you just don’t do it. (I would guess that they own several thousand..) The Reindeer have been domesticated and are now quite tame. We were even able to approach the animals and feed them (moss/lichens), take pictures of/with them. They do have quite large antlers, but any contact with them is purely incidental.

The friendliest (and therefore best fed) was an old (17 years?) one named Sixten. (He is the one in the pictures) He wasn’t as spry as the others, but he was still quite entertaining.

We were outside for about three and a half hours, the temp was pretty mild (28ºF) but felt much colder with a blustery wind; the snowdrifts were about five feet high.

We went into Maya’s house afterward, where she showed us her traditional Sami attire, as well as pictures from when she herds. To herd, the Sami now use an interesting mix of modern technology and traditional methods. For example, they use helicopters, snowmobiles, motorcycles, and ATVs, but they also use dogs to help guide the animals.

[I think that it’s very interesting that the Sami have embraced the technologies of the modern world to make their work much easier; it seems like so often, indigenous peoples will only use rudimentary techniques, in order to preserve their culture, but I just find it refreshing to see a native people who have accepted/embraced technological advancements and have kept the overall mission/spirit of their culture alive, and in most cases, thriving.]

[Another thing I found very interesting, is that the Sami can identify to whom any given reindeer belongs to, just by looking at its ear. Each Sambiby (different "tribes" of Sami) cuts a specific design into the reindeer's ear. This mark has to be registered with a directory.]

We spent our last night in Umeå talking one last stroll around Centrum (downtown). Checking out shops and stores we hadn’t been to yet.

I really enjoyed my time in Umeå. It would be a great place to stay for a longer duration if we would have had more interaction with more Swedes our age. I am hoping that at Jokkmokk we will have that opportunity, as we will be living in a dorm with Swedes and Sami.

Vi ses,

Andrew

January 20th: Umeå

2009-01-20T23:15:00.012+01:00

“... 14 Semi-strangers thrust together in Sweden. As they adjust to the time change and to each other, the dynamics of the group begin to take shape. They have nearly survived their time in Umeå, but how will they handle reindeer herding, or the eight-hour ride to Jokkmokk? …”

Hej Blog Buddies,

When I last wrote, it was late Sunday night and I had just changed my socks and received my luggage, after that I was pretty happy; my mood has remained pretty consistent from that point on.

Monday, January 19th:

On Monday morning when we got up we had a typical Swedish breakfast, consisting of Filmjölk (soured milk – thin, sour, unsweetened yogurt.. it tastes just like it sounds like it would taste… …The jury is still out on that one… ), various jams (raspberry, blueberry, lingon, etc.) hard and soft breads (for smorgås – open faced sandwich), cucumber slices, tomato, yellow pepper, deli meat, herring, caviar, and juice or milk to drink; slightly different from your usual American breakfast: no eggs, bacon, or cereal. I was a little turned off by the idea of caviar for breakfast; but in order to experience an authentic Swedish Breakfast, I’ve tried everything at least once. (After two days of it, I think its great! I have been eating a large morning meal two or three smorgåsar and juice, and it keeps me full enough to only want a small lunch, perhaps a yogurt, or this great yogurt-based drink, Yoggi.)

So after breakfast on Monday morning, our group walked to Umeå University.
It is about a 20-25 minute walk through downtown to the school. The first thing that we did was to meet with the director of the International Education Office, Per (Peter) Nilsson. He gave us an overview of the school and of Umeå’s study abroad programs. We found out that Umeå is a town of ~110,000 that was rated the “Best Student Town” in Sweden, and is in the running to be the Cultural Capital of the European Union by 2014; the University (opened in 1965) has ~29,000 students. The city gets most of its powers from hydroelectricity; there is a (so-I’m-told) extremely large dam about 30km up the river that supplies much of the city’s power. The city is nestled between a river and the (west) coast of Sweden. An interesting fact: the town lies on the Umé River – in Swedish “å” translates to “River” so the name of the city is literally the Umé River.

[Quick side note: on Monday when we were walking around the university, Kristen and I saw this cool looking sticker on a lamppost with the letters “U” and “Å” overlaid on each other, presumably meaning the Umé River. We asked several people where we could possibly purchase a few of them and each person gave us several different shops that they thought might carry them. We went to each shop, probably 10-15 total looking for them, but they are like ghosts that have left no trail. We have probably spent 5-6 total hours searching for these elusive stickers. You might be asking yourself, “Why would they spend so much time looking for stickers?” We spent the entire time wondering the exact same thing, but through searching we have gotten to see more of Centrum (downtown) than we otherwise ever would have, not to mention getting a great sense of direction within the city. I’ll update you with more news on the pressing issue soon…]

One thing that came up during the meeting with the International Education Office was the tuition cost of any Swedish University; all accepted students (including international/foreign students) pay no tuition. They only pay room and board, which can be subsidized by the government, if need be. Per said that in Sweden, Universities are never about money, but rather about performance. This concept seems like the best investment of capital a government could make; I am sure that it must pay huge dividends to have a large population of highly educated citizens.

[It makes me really wonder what results we would see in U.S., where the divide between rich and poor is quite significant, if everyone had the opportunity to attend any school he or she would like. It would surely be an extremely expensive investment at first, but the benefits of it would likely outweigh the costs. The (higher and otherwise) educational system in the U.S. seems like it only perpetuates this divide, by only offering elite education at astronomically high prices (Carleton, for example, costs $40,000+/year), to attend there must be an unthinkable decision for some. Whereas, if attendance were only based on the admission of the best students, competition for the spots would be quite high.]

After the meeting with the Int. Ed. Office we had about two hours to wander around the campus. We went to the campus bookstore looking for the stickers.., saw their cafeteria, and the ~15 cafés in the different buildings, and visited their quite new athletic facility called IKSU.

IKSU was immaculate. It was an unbelievable mesh between contemporary, minimalist Swedish design and American extravagance and size. Some of the more notable/superfluous parts of it were the four indoor beach volleyball courts, three dedicated arm-wrestling tables, indoor innebandy (floorball) court, a huge yoga/Pilates room, ten golf simulators, and cycling room (about 70 stationary bikes), among other things.

After our free time, we had our first actual class-type session, which consisted of meeting Christer Stoór, a professor of Sami-Studies at UU. His presentation, which gave us a brief overview of Sami History, was followed by one of his colleagues, who lectured about the linguistics of the four Sami languages found in Sweden. (The four languages are North Sami, which has about 20,000 speakers, Lule and South Sami, each has about 500 speakers, and Umé, which only has five-eight speakers left.)

In Umeå, we receive a meal allowance and have to eat out, because it is really our only option for now (this will change when we go to Jokkmokk and beyond) but last night a few of us went to a rather inexpensive local pizza/calzone/pasta/kebab shop called “Tre Kronor” (Three Crowns). After there we went to a Scottish Pub, which has the cheapest beer we’ve seen, at 33 SeK ($4). I had the beer of the day, ett svensk öl (a Swedish beer) called Falcon Export, not so good.

Tuesday, January 20:

The past two days have been quite mild, about 28-30º F (-3 C), but consistent flurries.

This morning we went to the University again. Today, we met with a Norwegian woman, named Asebjørg (spelling?), who is a professor of Scandinavian Studies and Norwegian. She told us about herself, that she was born in Norway and moved to Sweden when she was 20 year old. She has four sons, who are all 100% Norwegian as well. I asked her how she saw herself, how other Swedes/Norwegians see her, and how her kids see themselves.

She said that she really doesn’t have a personal national affiliation, that when she goes to Norway people think she is “stupid” for leaving the country, but when she is in Sweden (where she has been for over 25 years) she is still a Norwegian living Sweden. Her kids, however, are viewed and see themselves as complete Swedes, who want nothing to do with Norway, other than seeing family there. I thought it was interesting how in the U.S. we identify with their blood/heritage, but when we are abroad, we say that we’re American.

We also visited the Västerbotten (the county that Umeå is in) Museum. Continuing our Sami course, we saw a lot of traditional Sami clothing, learned more about their history, and saw the oldest skis in the world (5,200 years old… only 800 years after the world was created!! …). The skis were found in a bog in this county.

Finally we saw a presentation by the Västerbotten archeologists, who might have the cushiest job ever… I’m not sure whether or not they actually do anything. He said that when someone wants to build a road, for example, they have to have the area surveyed by these, or similar people. They go to the site, typically by helicopter, and walk around, looking for specific markers, if they don’t see any, they leave. If they do see some, they will excavate whatever it is (usually under less than 6 inches of top soil, must be difficult..) They can only do this, however, from late may to late October, but they get paid year round. The best part is that they have no competition. They don’t need to seek out clients or advertise, they are employed by, and therefore assigned cases by the government who mandates that citizens consult them before building anything! … I’m not quite sure whether this is a great utilization of Sweden’s monetary resources, but it must be a great job…

When we came back to the youth hostel, we watched on SvT (Swedish Television) the inauguration of Barack Obama! : )

We have an exciting day tomorrow, be sure to check back soon for an update!

Hoppas allt är gott,

Andrew

January 18th: Umeå

2009-01-19T00:09:00.002+01:00

"... 14 Semi-Strangers, thrust together in Sweden for four months. Traveling from north to south, living in close quarter. No escape from each other, some isolated by language; others liberated by it. Will they survive? Only time will tell. ..."

Hej Blog Buddies,

This here is my very first ever blog. What better time to begin than when I am in Sweden? I thought that this would be a good way to share with the world the happenings over here, while recording them for my own personal recollection.

I think a good way to begin would be to describe the process by which we got to where we are now:

Friday, January 16th/Saturday, January 17th/Sunday, January 18th (3 Travel days from hell):

We left our hotel, the Park Plaza, in Bloomington at 8am. When we arrived at the airport all was seemingly well, besides the -20-something degree weather.. We checked in for our 11am flight and checked our bags without any problems. As we waited to board our flight, a Continental airline representative came over the loud speaker and told us that our plane had a hydraulic leak, that couldn't be fixed, so they had to cancel the flight. Because our ultimate destination was international, they began immediately working to rebook us.

They ended up putting two members of our group of 14 (Aaron and Chelsea) on a Northwest flight to Newark which would allow them to catch the original flight to Stockholm, in time to catch the final flight to Umeå... To be continued...

Meanwhile, Continental put the other 12 members of the group (Myself, Kristen, Roland, Megan, Emily, Natalie, Nathan, Alex, Bryan, Sarah, Valarie, and Kyle) on a 3:30 Northwest (hooray for frequent flyer miles, right?) flight from Minneapolis-to-Amsterdam, which was set to arrive at 6:15am (local time). This flight was fine. I sat in one of the middle two seats in a row of four, with less than 22 inches of legroom. When they came around with drinks, I found out that alcohol was free on the flight, so that was an added bonus, gin and tonic to start and two small bottles of wine with "dinner." Other than when they came around with food and beverage, I slept almost the entire flight. This, along with an iPod made the flight more bareable...

Our flight landed in Amsterdam, as scheduled, but the connecting flight, to Stockholm, which was supposed to be at 6:45 (and had it been, we would have made it..) took off early! I wasn't aware that was even allowed... So they put us on a 9:30 flight to Stockholm, and gave us a food voucher for 5Euro, (which I spent on a fantastic glass of fresh golden kiwi juice..) The two-hour flight to Stockholm went well, had my own row and slept the entire way.

When we arrived in Stockholm's airport, Arlanda, we had missed our 10:00am flight to Umeå. That happened to be the only flight to Umeå on Saturday. So 12 members of the group were stranded in Stockholm, trying to figure out what to do. Our advisor, Roland, ended up booking a train/bus to get us to Umeå. So after two(more like ten) seemingly-endless hours we boarded a train that took us to Sundsväll. This trip took three hours. In Sundsväll, we got off the train, and got on a double decker bus for four hours. This took us within 4 blocks of the Youth Hostel we are currently in. So, 37 hours after we arrived at the MPLS airport, at 10pm local time, we arrived in Umeå.

Because of all this flight confusion, we had absolutely no idea what had happened to our checked luggage, or to Aaron and Chelsea. When we arrived in Umeå, someone in the group was able to connect with Aaron. It turned out he and Chelsea had missed their connecting flight to Sweden and had been stuck in Newark since Friday afternoon. Continental put them up in a hotel and they took a little excursion into Manhatten. They ended up catching the same flight to Stockholm, except one that left the next day (same with the Umeå flight). On Sunday, early afternoon, Aaron and Chelsea arrived with their luggage, tired, but with high spirits.

Our luggage didn't arrive until late Sunday evening. Let me tell you, changing socks after wearing the same pair for over 50 hours, has probably been the highlight of the trip so far.. (not really, but it felt amazing) that, and brushing my teeth, showering, and having deodorant were equally great.

So as you can probably imagine we were one grumpy, smelly, group of Americans in northern Europe.

The internet here has been less than ideal, so Kristen and I have been sharing it, and computers. But it will hopefully get better when we arrive in Jokkmokk (above the arctic circle) I should be able to chat/skype/facebook more then.

Its getting late now, so I will make this last section (probably what you're more interested in though) brief:

Sunday, January 18th:

Day 1 in Umeå: Being extremely tired, I choose to skip breakfast, got up around 10:30am, local time, and washed my face (dried it with paper towels), rinsed my mouth with water (didn't do the trick), and put on the same clothes as the two days before. Put on my jacket and went to explore downtown Umeå with Kristen and Nathan. On Sundays in Sweden, most places, including restaurants, do not open until at least noon. But when they did, us three ate at a place called "Maxis" (which looked like a hair-salon from the outside).

I've known how to order food in Swedish for over a year now, but actually doing it/speaking it with a native speaker is extremely intimidating, especially for the first time. But I did it. I also was able to ask for more water. I know it seems small, but you must crawl before you can walk, ej? I had a vegetarian pasta bake. I guess I really didn't know what I was ordering until I got it, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

While looking at a menu of a local Indian restaurant, I noticed/realized that I hardly understand the menu of an Indian place when its written in English, but with my knowledge of Swedish, it was completely alien to me. I thought that was interesting; I didn't realize how little I knew of my own language until I saw it written in another language.

We had fika at this great little bakery, I split semla (a custard filled pastry) and princesstårta (a deliciously green cake with marzipan) with Kristen.

We also had a group meal tonight at the "Bishop's Arm." As yesterday was our advisor, Roland's 63rd birthday, we bought him a dessert and sang to him, in Swedish of course.

A few members of the group, some legal others not legal to drink in the US but all allowed in Sweden, and myself went out for a drink. We quickly realized at these prices, there probably won't be much drinking at bars/pubs/restaurants while we are here. A tap beer, for example, cost around 63SeK (Swedish Crowns) (~$8US), I had a White Russian 73Sek (~$9.50US). So drinks, while out, will be few and far between.

I do have some good photos, but it is late and I'll upload them later when I have time.

__________________________________________________________________

The past month that I spent at home was a really, really, good one. I got to see a lot of friends from high school, some that I haven't seen for quite some time, and was able to spend a lot of time with family. It was really great to catch up with old friends. It helped me to realize how much I have actually missed them since going to GAC. That coupled with other things made it very hard to leave. After being here for several days, I do miss those dear to me very much. But it is very nice to have the comfort of having friends along on this trip. Skype has helped make the transition easier. If you need/want (I assume the latter) to talk to me, for whatever reason, shoot me an email (anelso10@gac.edu) or a facebook message, or whatever and I will call you when I have the chance; odds are, I'd love to talk to you, so please don't hesitate!

I hope to update this blog, at least once per week, but more likely bi/tri-weekly. So check back for updates.

Missing you all,
Andrew