Another awesome trip

Let me start out by saying something: Tallinn, Estonia is fucking cool. It will one day be very popular with budget conscious college students because the nightlife is great, the food is cheap, and the architecture is beautiful. The same goes to a lesser extent for Riga, Latvia. So to all the future college students who go there on their trips through Europe (because who can honestly afford Paris anymore), I say: Haha I went there before it was cool.

I also went there 2 weeks ago. I have been waiting to get around to developing pictures, but I guess I'm just going to have to steal Valentina's instead. I had to use a disposable camera anyway, so hers are better quality. 

Disposable Camera Quality

Digital Camera Quality

Dancing before the clubs opened

Anyway, our first stop was Riga. We got in pretty late on Saturday night, so we checked out the nightlife. It was weird to have to wait until 11 for the clubs to open, because in Uppsala all the nations open at about 8, and it is only free to get in until 9, and they close at 1:30. Unlike most people, I am not complaining about that schedule because I am an old person at heart and don't mind going to bed early. However, it was a nice change of pace to act like an actual 21 year old for once. 

When we did get to the club, no one was dancing, though, which kind of sucked. But then Valentina and I saw one guy really trying to get people to start dancing, so we joined him and proceeded to be the weird people dancing while everyone else stayed seated. It's okay, I know you're all secretly jealous that you have too much pride to look that silly, because we both know I'm having more fun than you.

The three brothers (buildings) with the 5 sisters

The next morning we checked out the sights of Riga:
















But we couldn't stay long because we had a bus to catch to Tallinn!
 That night we decided to save money by cooking at home because our hostel included a kitchen. Now I realize it is probably a stereotype that Italians are good cooks, but trust me, it's true. I was on a trip with four of them, and even though we just ate pasta it was somehow better than I would be able to make with the exact same ingredients. What I am trying to say, is if you ever get an invitation to a homecooked meal by someone from Italy, rearrange your schedule.  It is going to be embarrassing when I repay them in fajitas. Also, why do I always wind up rambling about food in this thing?

Anyway, once again we visited a club, where for some reason they were playing "Cotton-eyed Joe", which is a song that should never have been made, yet is inexplicably popular. I was the only American in my group, but everyone knew the song. Luckily it gave me a chance to put my old 3rd grade square dancing skills to good use.

Castle thoughtfully named "Fat Margaret"

Symbol of Freedom from Russia

Then once again there were sights to see:

note the wine

Tallinn is great because it has this very medieval feel to it. Walking around the weather was only a few degrees above freezing, but it wasn't windy and the sun made it warmer, and I like the cold (to that extent) so it was really nice. We bought sugared almonds and hot wine, and it kind of made me think of the holidays. I would actually really like to go back there closer to Christmas, even though it will be snowing, because it was a nice feeling. But more importantly, I need that recipe for hot wine, because it was just like hot cider, but grape-y and alcoholic! 

We also ate at a really cheap Estonian place, where we were told that traditional Estonian food is pancakes filled with stuff. Mine had cheese and bacon, so I was pretty much in love with it, and it was only $3! I have no picture to show you though.

Then we hopped an overnight ferry back to Stockholm and the the weekend ended with everyone a bit poorer, but having been to totally awesome places a full 5 or 10 years before they get cool.

I didn't want to share her with Paulo

Motorboating the mannequin

The group minus Angeline. I'm the alcoholic one.

This post WILL make you jealous

Hello dear reader, I am sure that you are breathless with anticipation about my life as of late. Don't worry, I am willing to enlighten you. I have sat around a lot and refused to leave the house due to the fact that to leave requires riding a bike or taking a bus or walking. I hate bikes in a way that cannot be adequately described, and buses are expensive. As a result I have no excuse for giving you an update of events that happened two weeks ago. Maybe next week you'll get my life from last weekend.

However, I have once left the house. This was for my much anticipated and obviously awesome trip to Holland for a Guns N Roses concert.

Friday, Mel and I left for our flight to Belgium. We took a flight to Belgium because Ryanair is a failure of an airline and we couldn't get tickets to a closer place for the day we needed. We also assumed, as all Americans do, that Europe is about the size of Texas. Actually Europe is bigger than the United States. Brussels is 130 miles away from Amsterdam. However, this did not deter us largely because I just had to look it up, which means we didn't know this at any point.

We decided to stay the night in Brussels, which was beautiful (wow I'm sick of describing all European cities as beautiful. From now on just assume they are unless I deliberately say "this city looked like the shit that other shit shits out after eating bad tacos). We had a traditional (lies) Belgian breakfast of Häagen-Dazs waffles, which Wikipedia informs me was actually established by Polish immigrants in New York City, but whatever, it was open and we were in an area largely populated by expensive clothing stores and we needed to make our train by 11, so we only had a brief time for breakfast and sight-seeing. I wish I had more of a chance to look at Brussels because it looked like an interesting city, but sadly I probably won't be back until my next adventure in Europe a few decades from now because Western Europe is prohibitively expensive.

We then took a 4 hour train the 130 miles to Amsterdam, in a great mood because, well, we were going to Amsterdam. You try being upset when you're going to the Holy Grail of the American college student.

 

Upon arrival we discussed the most important step: getting to our hostel. We then went into a nearby coffeeshop instead. For those of you unfamiliar with Amsterdam coffeeshops, they are the major attraction of this city. They are different from cafes. 

Then we get on the bus. After about ten minutes it occurs to us that we don't know what stop we're getting off at. The guy behind us offers to show us, but Mel gets freaked out by him, so we have to get off and walk. I was currently in my completely unfazed state and just enjoyed the scenery, which was largely houses and apartment complexes. It occurs to me that people actually live in Amsterdam, which is a concept that is completely foreign to me. I always thought of it as just a place to visit. I wonder if people feel this way when they get to my neighborhood in San Francisco (which has absolutely nothing of interest to do unless you like Asian produce markets).

That night we have no discernible plan, so we head to another coffeeshop to chill out and see what happens. We start talking to a British guy who is hanging out with his friend and we decide to go to coffeeshops and bars and just wander around for the night. We see a lot of tourists and sex shops and prostitutes, but it is all with the air of an amusement park for adults, and it never fully feels like a real place. Mel coined the term "amsterdisneyland" to describe it, and I am really jealous that I did not think of it first. She is lucky I even give her credit.

I maintain my delusion

Eventually we get bored with our companions. One of them is too drunk to be interesting and I am having a hard time looking at the other one because in my current state and due to some unfortunate lighting I have decided he looks like an alien, and I am deathly terrified of aliens. I feel bad for this, but there is nothing I can do to help it and I'm getting closer and closer to blurting this out.

I truly am.

We wind up at the epitome of American class due to a craving for fries.












The next day, we need to make a trip to Arnhem, Holland (65 miles away. We had no concept of distance for this trip). We go to the train station armed with suitable libations and begin our two hour rest. I am lulled into complacency by the beautiful scenery and decide that the Flaming Lips are a religious experience. They will never sound so amazing again.

That night we go to the concert where the band actually shows up (a minor victory out of Axel Rose) and he rocks pretty fuckin hard for an old guy. I wish I had something more awesome to say about it, but it's Guns N Roses. Either you get the epicness of this paragraph or you don't see what the big deal is and there is nothing I can say to change your mind.

Overall, trip of a lifetime, worked out really well considering that we didn't even book trains/hostels until the day before, and I wish I had more tales of Amsterdam debauchery, but I could not afford a prostitute.

Fika: a closer look

So you've decided to try out your first fika. I am proud of you. It is a big step forward in understanding the Swedes.

First you might want to know what "fika" is. According to wikipedia "fika is both a Swedish verb and noun that roughly means "to drink coffee," usually accompanied by something sweet"

Now that sounds nonthreatening, but I assure you that as an American (or anyone from a more stressful society) this is a concept that will be riddled with obstacles. Black is instructions. Blue is what you will think at each step.

Step 1: you buy coffee. What is kladdkaka? What is kannelbullar? 


Step 2: you sit down. Yep, the vanilla sauce on the kladdkaka was definitely the right choice.

Step 3: you realize that you're going to be sitting here drinking coffee with someone with only your own conversation to entertain you both. ...?!?...

Step 4: you scramble to think of topics. What should we do about the middle east? Oh, no, is Kazakhstan in the middle east? Okay how about the most recent election? Wait, Sweden just had an election? 

Step 5: you try for simpler topics. It's raining. Yes. I like the rain. I'm eating coffee. No, wait, I'm DRINKING coffee. How are you? Oh I already asked you that. How are you now?

It's a zombie pan

everyone can agree on waffles

Step 6: you finally land on topics you can both agree on. Here are some examples of topics that I've used in the past:    

My obsession with UN bears

 

If you have nothing to say about this, you're dead inside

 

 

Step 7: Completion. You have survived your first fika experience and eaten delicious kladdkaka along the way. Please do not get locked in the bathroom before you leave. I am awesome. I have actual thoughts. I am one step closer to self actualization.

 

This is how you will feel

 

Helsinki!

There is a well know cruise line out of Stockholm that has daily trips to Helsinki, Riga, and Tallinn for $50 if you're willing to share a cabin the size of a closet with three other people. This is the story of the one to Helsinki.

Our luxurious 4 person cabin

It began innocently enough with my group being so late that we were literally sprinting to make it and the last ones on. We lost a member (Chris) but it turned out okay because he went to Tallinn instead and Wendy, Mel, and I had one less person in our cabin.

Then Friday night we pretty much hung out in the Playstation Lounge and the disco. I met this really interesting German guy and we talked about what it was like for him to study in America vs France and what it was like for me to study in Sweden. I really like learning about people's views on culture, which I guess is the anthro major in me coming out.

Helsinki: Fucking beautiful city!

Sweden and Germany Bears

USA not awesome bear

While we were there we pretty much just saw the sights (not that many, it's a small city) and looked around. There was a UN exhibit about unity expressed through each country painting 6ft tall bear statues. It was simultaneously the most adorable thing I saw and one of the best ways of expressing peace and unity (forget those pictures of a bunch of children holding hands. Not Awesome.

As you can see from their overrepresentation, I really loved those bears.

It's okay to be jealous

Then we went to the outdoor market and I bought socks. These socks were wonderful, warm, epic, expensive socks.  In fact I will just include them as my final picture.

Why Kate Will Never Have a BIke

First, I apologize for the near-constant updates and the fact that very few of them have much to do with Sweden lately.

Now for a wondrous story of why Kate will never have a bike. This story actually begins many years ago: the first time I got heatstroke.
I was innocently visiting a friend in Riverside, when she suggested we go visit her friend who lived approximately five miles away. Given that we were 14 at the time and her mother's response to driving us was "are you kidding?" we needed another mode of transportation. Her suggestion? "Let's ride bikes!" now naturally I had been on a bike approximately twice in the last four years and I am fundamentally opposed to getting off the couch for any reason, but I decided that riding five miles in a desert to visit someone was somehow a good plan. It wasn't. After a few miles I turned red, started shaking, and seriously considered vomiting. Yet I decided to push on. How I got to that house I will never know. I guess children (or near-children) are fairly resilient. Thankfully her parents took pity on me, or at least decided that they would feel mildly guilty if I died along the road and got eaten by buzzards and no one could identify my corpse, but they knew deep down inside. Anyway, they gave us a ride home.

My second story is shorter. I was in Sebastopol visiting Sierra, when once again someone suggested a 5 mile trek. Remembering my last experience, I was hesitant. I quickly told myself it wouldn't happen to me (ignoring the fact that it already had). The trek was slightly uphill and while beautiful, also very painful. I did not manage to get heatstroke, but it did nearly kill my appetite, which was unfortunate because we were making a trek to get breakfast at a truly awesome place whose name I can't remember so I'll never be able to go again. I decided then and there that bikes are bad things.

So I moved to Uppsala, Sweden, where everyone rides bikes. I knew this would be bad, but I didn't realize just how bad. First, I got a free bike. However, the bike was nearly completely rusted in very part that makes a bike move. The brakes squeaked and peddling made a noise that resembled horses. This didn't bother me when there were others around, but it did echo my own misery and dislike of bike riding. Plus I couldn't brake without inviting stares from everyone in a 1 mile radius. I also experienced a previously mentioned epic wipe-out.

He was not that attractive

So I decided to buy a new bike from a shady looking Turkish man my roommate suggested. When I asked if he would buy it back at the end of the year he responded with "I don't buy bikes, only sell them." This led to a mental image of him in a ninja stealing bikes under the cover of darkness with three ninja accomplices.

All was fine for the first mile or so, until I was riding to a club. I missed my exit and had to ride down a curb, figuring nothing could go wrong. Something went wrong. The chain fell off. I don't mean normal falling off that can be fixed in 30 seconds with no harm done. I mean epic fall off. When it was put back on, it fell off just to tell me it could. I wound up walking home from the club, because I realized something was majorly wrong with the bike.

Almost a week later I got around to going back to the "FUCKING TURKISH MAN" as I had taken to calling him. He fixed it, no problem.

That night, I went to another club, because if you read my blog you will be forced to conclude that this is all I do. Actually I also spend a lot of time drinking coffee and updating my blog. Anyway, after I went to the club, I tried to leave with my bike. I put my key in the lock and turn. Only then do I realize my key has broken in half and is now useless. I do not have a spare. Today I need to go and get someone to cut my bike free if I don't get too lazy and go home after class. This means that in the last 2 weeks of having this new bike (which, by the way also makes a horrible noise when I peddle to echo my own despair) I have ridden it approximately 4 times.

The conclusion: Kate is not meant to have a bike.

Unrelated Vaguely Swedish Pictures

The dragon I drew on Sunday

Max is "too old" to party so I took him to the swings instead

Mel's face whenever she calls me

Not at all creepy sign outside the Flogsta convenience store

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(side note, I told them I was American and they asked if I was gay... is this a new stereotype I should know about?)

Vasa Warship Museum... a true Swedish success

A bus I see but am too scared to ever take

My Birthday! (but mostly about food)

Yesterday, I turned 21. I am sure everyone reading this knows this because facebook makes it massively obvious that it's someone's birthday. As a result I got about 76 messages saying "happy birthday" and if you visit my page for the next few weeks you will still know that it was my birthday. It made me happy.

Anyway, I'm not a huge birthday person. I feel that there is too much pressure on that one day, much like St. Patrick's Day or Christmas. I mean, if I spend 12 hours reading people's blogs on a normal day, it's not like I'm going to look back and go "wow, April 5th, 2009 was such an unexciting day". This does not apply to birthdays. I know I can look back at Sept 6th 2006 and go "that's the day my awesome new Texas friends made me cupcakes and called it 'Kate Day' and I realized how awesome they truly were!" Anyway, it's a lot of pressure, is what I'm saying.

However, yesterday was really nice and chill. It began with breakfast, where I argued with my Nicolas about whether cold pizza was an acceptable breakfast food. Being French, he did not believe me. I shake my head at that. Then I had my first Anthro Theory class, which I am woefully underqualified for. We were going around the room talking about our majors and academic goals and everyone was like "I got my bachelor's at this random place and I'm writing my masters thesis on the gender and social conditions of identity in an increasingly globalized world of (insert smart word here)" At this point I don't want to admit that I don't have a bachelor's degree, and even when I do it's not going to be the result of writing a disertation on working conditions in Kenya or anything. So I always say "I am on a one year exchange program from San Francisco to explore my academic horizons *inaudible muttering* ANNNND that's all there is to know about me!"

After that, I went home and Mel came over and hung out with some of the 11 people living on my floor. Then a few people left. Then a few people came back holding a cake and they sang Happy Birthday and Gina gave me a lighter with a picture of a really hot guy on it. I got all 21 candles out in one go!

Then Mel and Gina and I went out to dinner and met up with Christian and Annelies and Hannalore where I ate what passed for Mexican food in Sweden. It really wasn't bad once I stopped pretending it was enchiladas and started just enjoying cheesy-beefy goodness. I wish I didn't post that sentence, but I probably won't delete it.  THEN I GOT ANOTHER CAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, that required full capitalization. And it was my favorite cake in the world, this Swedish cake that is almost the consistency of a brownie, but still like a chocolate cake, and it has this chocolatey crust on the top and it's kind of like going to chocolate heaven and gorging yourself on chocolate-y goodness and then realizing you're still alive and eating chocolate so you pass out and go back to heaven. What I'm saying is it's a good cake. And apparently I use the term "goodness" to describe food a lot. This is not to take away from the awesomeness that was my first cake. My first cake was a chocolate thing with a texture that seemed like tiramisu. If you've never tried tiramisu, you have not lived and have no right to understand this cake. It was impressively good considering that my roommates didn't know enough swedish to know what was in the cake. It was actually very foolhardy of them to jeopardize my cake enjoyment in such a fashion, but I forgive them because it turned out alright in the end.

Thennnnn, well I get home. There are like 6 people around my kitchen table, like always, so I sat with them. They convinced me to take a birthday shot, even though drinking has lost a lot of excitement for me because I've been doing it since I got here. We all talk for awhile. This doesn't count as a birthday activity because we do this every day. So I go check the mail and I HAVE A LETTER FROM KATIE!!!! I don't know why I keep capitalizing things. I'm really hyper. This letter pretty much makes the last hour of my birthday awesome. So do the other letters from my grandma, nanny, and 5 birthday cards from my mom because she is silly, but I've been waiting on this letter for a few weeks now, while the others are a surprise, so this letter is the gratification I need, and a sign that the mailman doesn't hate me because my mailbox says R. Callard and all my letters are addressed to Kate, which is probably confusing for him.

Anyway, awesome day. Relaxing day. Now I'm off to the waffle buffet.
(I realized that rhymed and almost took it out, but I'm still hyper so I left it in)