Stockholm

The trip started Friday night, when we boarded an overnight train to Stockholm. It had been snowing all day Friday, so Lund looked cool. When we got onto the train, the conductor put the four of us in our group in our own cabin, so that was nice. The train arrived in Stockholm at 5am, but the let us sleep til 6:20, wanting us off by 7. We got off the train and walked out into Stockholm. It was a surreal feeling walking to the hostel. The city was still asleep, probably sleeping in, and the snow was coming down quite a bit. Once we got to the hostel, they didn't let us in for a little while, so we loitered in the next door 7-11. When they did let us in the hostel, we found some maps and planned our day.

We made our way to Old Town (Gamla Stan). On the way we walked along one of the many rivers in the city, and came across the city hall. It was a very interesting building, and its where they hold the Nobel Medal Awards dinner. To enter Old Town, you walk between the parliament buildings of Sweden, and right next to the Royal Palace. At the Royal Palace, we watched the changing of the guard. The guards being relieved of their post looked thankful, because it was very cold all weekend.

After we left the Royal Palace, we found a nice little Christmas market in front of the Nobel Museum. After wandering around the streets of Old Town for a while, looking at all the small shops and narrow streets, we went to the Nobel Museum. It turned out that for Saturday only the museum was free, which was nice. It was an interesting museum, but it was too small to be worth the 50 kr entrance fee normally charged.

Once we were finished with Old Town, we made our way back towards more central Stockholm. We found a Thai buffet for lunch, ate a lot, then made our way towards the Kulturhuset. Around the Kulturhuset, we found a ton of shopping centers, and proceeded to wander around there. Once Maciej and I got bored with shopping, we let Sophie and Aga shop somemore while we checked out the Swedish Medival Museum. It turned out to be more of an exibit, but thats ok, because it was free. After we met back up with the girls, we went to check into our hostel. At this point, it was dark, but it was only about 3:30pm. Once we checked into the hostel, we took a nap, because we were exhausted.

When we woke up, we made our way over to the Absolut Ice Bar. Everything inside the bar is made of ice, the bar, chairs, walls, celling, chandalers, and even the cups. Since it was very cold inside, they gave us funny coats to wear. They kick you out after 45 minutes, since its a very popular attraction. We went to Burgur King for a gourmet dinner, then started looking for a club to go to. We wandered around half of Stockholm looking for a good club, and eventually found one 100 ft away from the BK where we ate dinner. The club was a famous jazz club called Fasching, though the night we were there, they had a DJ playing soul music.

The next morning (sunday) we checked out of the hostel and went to Subway for lunch (not my idea). Today we planned on going to Skansen, an outdoor museum of old buildings, kind of like The Henry Ford. To get there, we took a ferry from Old Town to the island that Skansen was on. In Skansen, we watched glassblowing, saw and toured old swedish buildings, saw elk, wolves, wolverines, seals, and reindeer. Once we felt like we had seen enough of Skansen, and were sufficently freezing, we went to the Vasa Museum. In the museum is a huge sailing ship that they pryed off the Stockholm harbor floor in one peice and put in the museum. 95% of the boat is original parts and wood. Its a really cool museum, and I kept humming the Pirates of the Carribean theme song in my head while I was there.

After our sightseeing, we took the metro to Aga's friend Hannah's apartment. She was nice enough to let us crash there Sunday night, so we wouldn't have to pay for another night at a hostel. We met Hannah's friends and went out to a bar with them for a little while, then headed back to the apartment to sleep.

Monday was pretty layed back. We left the apartment in the afternoon and wandered around southern Stockholm. When it was time, we took the metro to central station and caught our high speed train to Lund. Overall, we had a great time in Stockholm, and I would recommend it as a must see city in Scandinavia.

PS: The first couple pictures are in Lund, as it was snowing.

There's Snow on the Ground!

Snow wouldn't be that exciting if I was back home, but snow is much better than getting rained on, so the snow we got last night and today was enjoyable. We got inch or so of snow, which is an inch or so more than I ever expected getting in Lund, after being told that it never snows in Lund. Leaving for Stockholm soon. We're going to take the night train, so we'll wake up in Stockholm. Its supposed to snow there as well. To warm up, we've bought tickets to the Ice Bar, which is a giant freezer which has a bar in it. Supposed to have an Ice Hotel feel to it. Should be a great time. I'll post pics and comments on the trip when I get back.

Sensation White

Hello Everyone. Yesterday I went to an awesome show in Copenhagen, Denmark called Sensation White. It was a giant dance party on a soccer field in an indoor stadium. Everyone was required to wear white to the event, so it made for a really cool effect. My friends and I estimate there were about 30,000 people at the event. The event started at 7:30 pm, didn't end til 3:00 am, and I didn't get home until 7:00 am. So it was quite an epic night. (Also, I woke up at 3:00 pm today to find that I have no power, except in one electrical outlet. Fun.) I posted some pictures and videos for you guys.









Next video takes a bit to get exciting, just watch it.

Where Have I Been?

Sorry I haven't updated this blog in a while. Haven't really done anything exciting in a while, so nothing blog worthy. I've been working through my two new classes, Global Competition in High Tech Sectors, and Multi-Variable Calculus, which is in Swedish. So the math course i difficult, but I'm really enjoying the other course.

This weekend I will be traveling back to Copenhagen for Sensation, a massive white party (you have to wear white) in an indoor football (soccer) stadium. It'll be a big techno party basically. I'll be doing my best to take some pictures of the event and maybe a little video? I also maybe going to Stockholm the following weekend, but we'll see if that happens.

Happy Halloween!

Have a fun Halloween everybody!

See more of the internets best videos at CollegeHumors Web Celeb Hall of Fame.

A Fall Day

Haven't been up to too much lately. One of my classes just ended, so I've been working on a paper that's due Thursday night. Had to go into town today to take care of some errands and to get some research done in the library. Took the little camera today so I could take some pictures of the trees changing, and took some pictures of the cooler looking University buildings. Enjoy.

Dublin, Ireland

Hello again. Haven't been up to too much since I last wrote on here, just day to day stuff. This weekend however, some friends and I took a trip to Dublin. We flew there early on Friday out of Copenhagen, taking a bus and a train to get to the airport. We took Aer Lingus, which is a discount airline out of Ireland. We met a cool guy on the plane that was working in Sweden, but was from Ireland. He gave us a couple tips and such on how to get into the city from the airport and good places to visit.

Once we landed we took a double decker bus into the city. The ride took a while because of construction and because the bus had to make a bunch of local stops. Once we got into the city we walked to our hotel, which was your standard Holiday Inn. Once checked in we found some very authentic fish and chips, which were coated in salt and vinegar. Very bad for you but very tasty. Then of course we needed to stop by an Irish pub to get a drink. Once we finished our Irish beer, we went and visited the Trinity College campus. Didn't get any pictures of that, because there were lots of students around, and we just pretended that we were also students.

After our wanderings we all felt like taking a nap, so we went back to the hotel and slept for a while. Later, we figured out a great place to get authentic Irish food, and the place had two old guys playing some really cool Irish music. After a while of relaxing there, we decided to go to the Temple Bar area to find some nightlife to partake in. We found a cool place that had good live music and several floors of entertainment.

The next day, we ended up getting up an hour earlier than planned, because the previous tenants had messed with the time, but we were all up by the point that we figured this out. Anyways, this allowed us to catch breakfast at the hotel, then make our way around town.

First we walked all the way across town to the Guinness Storehouse, which is their museum and tourism place. Very cool place, had a bar at the top that had a 360 view of the city of Dublin. You picked up your complementary Guinness up there. After that we made our way past a cool church and stopped by Dublin Castle.

About this time we stopped by a tattoo place because my friend Peter wanted to get a Celtic tattoo in Ireland. So he did. Its the tree of life. The middle is actually green, but it looks red because of his blood. After that we hit up Quiznos for dinner then made our way to O'Connell st, which is the main street for shops and touristy things to do. On the boulevard of this street, is a giant spire that is really tall. Looks like a giant toothpick. After we got bored of that area we went back to the hotel to pick up our bags which they had been holding for us. Then we made our way to a pub and chilled there until we decided to go to the airport and sleep.

We had decided that since our flight was at 6:40, we didn't want to pay for the hotel the second night, and that we would just sleep in the airport. Worked fine, except that we couldn't check in for a little while when we got there at 1:30 (we expected it to take much longer to get there, but we had a crazy taxi driver). Anyways, we ate some Micky D's and slept against a wall until we could check in, then we found some nice benches to sleep on until our flight.

It was a great trip and I had a lot of fun hanging out with my friends and seeing Dublin. Had a bunch of cool experiences, and everyone spoke english!

PS, I also went to the National Gallery, so I did have some culture, and if you want to see the pictures bigger, click on the slideshow to see the gallery.

Kronborg - Hamlets Castle

So we went into Denmark for the second weekend in a row.  This time we took a train in Sweden up to a ferry which took us directly to the town with holds Kronborg, which is the castle that inspired Shakespeare to write Hamlet.  We walked around the town of Helsingor, which the castle was in, taking in the sights and the views of the castle.  We also toured around the castle and took a bunch of pictures.  We also got attacked by geese, saw some jellyfish in the harbor, and drank from a pathetic, small fountain in the middle of the castle (the swedes stole the big nice fountain a long time ago).  

After touring the castle, we took a train back down to Copenhagen, where we eventually found the European Beer Festival, which was a giant tasting event.  Kinda expensive, but really cool to try genuine beers from all around Europe.  Didn't get any pictures of the event though, sorry.  It was held at the Carlsburg Brewery in Copenhagen, in one of their warehouses.  I got a kick out of their slogan, "Probably the best beer in the world."

Copenhagen

My friend Maciej convinced my to come along with him and some other people to visit the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen! We didn't really have any destination, but we did stop by the center of government, and the "free city" of Christiania, where hippies basically do whatever they want, including selling drugs on a street known as "Pusherstreet". Don't worry, none of us felt that we needed to buy any drugs, but we did take advantage of Denmark's lack of alcohol tax and bought some wine. Unfortunately, the hippies had signs everywhere not to even take your camera out in their town, so no pictures of that. Got a couple pictures, but not too many, because I didn't want to look too touristy.

The Town of Lund, Part 1

I didn't have class Monday, so I decided to wander around town and take some pictures. This is by no means the entire town, or all the interesting places, its just the area I happened to be in. Some of the pictures are university buildings, one is a cathedral, and some others are just cool looking buildings. Enjoy.
(PS, you can pause the slide show, then click through at your own pace)

Richard the Firebreather!

So we had a bonfire the other night, and then we learn that Richard, a crazy dutch guy, can breath fire! So of course we all bugged him until he showed us. Here's some pictures.

Some Internet Video Links, and I have Internet!

So, I finally got my internet online, after sitting on hold with the cable company for a while. So that's an improvement. Of course with no help from the university, but whatever. Anyways, I'll up date you when its not a Friday night, so for right now, here's a video I got off his website:

http://www.myspace.com/etiennedecrecy

And here's a video trailer of the show I'm going to see in November. When the page loads, click on the big picture in the middle to see the video.

http://www.sensation.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=155&Itemid=55

Malmo Fest

So it's been a couple days since I went to Malmo fest. The festival had been going on for several weeks, and my friends and I where able to catch the last night. For those who don't know, Malmo is the large city slightly south of Lund. Malmo is the city that the bridge from Denmark comes into. The festival had hundreds of food booths and several stages and fair rides. I even had a dish that had elk/moose in it, depending on the translation (I've gotten conflicting translations). It was very cool to be walking around with a lot of different cultures and languages. It also gave me a chance to figure out the trains there and back. Not too hard, but as we waited for the train in Lund, we saw a train on its way to Stockholm catch fire in the station. Kind of exciting. I saw a very cool dance artist perform as the last show. He was a french artist, and he played inside of a giant cube that lit up. I will post a video from a friend as soon as I get it from him. It was a very strange feeling to be seeing something so high tech and cutting edge, in such an old town. The buildings surrounding the square had to at least be 200 years old. So I will get that video posted as soon as I can.

Still working on getting my internet fixed, so I'll do my best to update while I don't have it.

My Apartment

So I'm assuming that many of you are interested to see what my apartment looks like, so I took a couple pictures for you to look at.

I'm still alive.

I'm still alive, but I unfortunately I still don't have internet in my room. My room is very nice though. Still working on filling it with everything I need to live and eat in it. There are a couple small grocery stores around, so its not too difficult to get food and other things. It is challenging to figure out what is in the packages of food though. Its hard to tell the difference between turkey and ham, and finding other things is also a challenge, but I'm figuring it out.

Its kinda lonely having my own apartment, so I've been outside it making tons of friends from all around the world. I've met up with everyone from U of I. We all live in Ostra Torn. Its about a hour walk from the AF-Borgen building, which is the academic union. I bought a bike, so the trip is only 20 minutes now. The people I've met are from Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Lithuania, Canada, Norway, Spain, and the United States.

The town of Lund is very beautiful, very medival, very friendly. Been too busy the past couple days to get some pictures taken of the area, but I'lll have time this weekend. Let me know if you have any questions. Having a ton of fun.

The Idea

I'm going to try to use this site to keep everyone updated on my status while I'm studying at Lund. I will try to update as often as I can and hopefully post some pictures. Let me know if you have any ideas about this blog.