The Promised Epic Post

Hello again!  I'm sorry it's taken me such a long time to write this post.  I got back to Oregon on Wednesday night after a 24-hour trip; needless to say, I was really jet-lagged and exhausted for a few days after that.  I did, however, manage to post some pictures on FB, which you can see here in case you missed the earlier link/aren't on FB: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31077321&l=a3d38b4b4b&id=1451700239


So, Sweden.  Was beautiful, though a little boring.  Jasper compared it to a painting–lovely to look at, but quiet.  Very, very quiet.  I don't think crickets or flies or frogs exist in Sweden, and if they do, they're much like the Swedes themselves: extremely well-behaved and with an aversion to making loud noises.  I think they must have gotten all their violent and disruptive impulses out in the times of the Vikings.  I'm not sure I have any particularly interesting stories to tell; the country is best summed up in my photo album.  It's funny how I've posted more than 160 photos of Sweden, where I was for a week and a half, and only half that of Berlin, where I lived for 2 months!  Of course, the interesting things in Germany were for the most part experiences, not visuals, which may help explain why I have so many more blog posts about it than Sweden.  And don't get me wrong–Sweden was lovely!  It was a wonderful relaxing vacation, and I had a marvelous time with Jasper and his family.  As someone a little lacking in energy (just tried to capitalize that, thanks a lot, German), I appreciated the chance to lay back and enjoy the views.  My last night there we had a delicious dinner of steak and chocolate mousse cake (in addition to other things, and not at the same time!), which helped fortify me for the 3 hours of sleep I got that night thanks to a 7 am flight to London.  Side note: London LHR airport is the devil's creation.  The terminals are 10 minutes apart by crowded bus and the gates are spread out ridiculously, and require a significant walk to get to, with moving walkways that don't always work, and no food in sight!  All the food and shops are clustered together, to which you might think, hey, that's pretty smart!  No need to wander for variety!  But that means that those of us who arrived at our gate early (due to confusion about our flight time–no judging, I'd gotten 3 hours of sleep, remember?) had to settle for an overpriced tiny sandwich from the one deli that wasn't 20 minutes away!  As someone who likes her food but lacks in excess energy, I did not appreciate it.  The flight from London to Dallas was fine, especially since I got to switch with a girl who was sitting at a window seat, because she wanted to sit next to her brother/boyfriend (I don't know which), so I had a wall to sleep against.  Customs in Dallas was an experience; the conversation with the first customs official went something like this:
Him: Hi, how are you.
Me: Really tired.
Him: Oh, that's good.
Me: ...
Him: So where were you?
Me: Well, I was in Berlin for 2 months and Sweden for a week.
Him: And how long were you there?
Me: ...Um...2 months?
Him: Here, have a nice day.
Then, on my customs form, I declared $50 worth of souvenirs, a $30 sweater, and $3 hair mousse.  The second customs guy was like, "...Did you actually declare hair mousse?"  I said yes, I wasn't sure how specific I should be, and then smiled and said, "you're welcome!"  I'm hoping it made his day a little more surreal.


We spent the night in a hotel near the airport, because Mom had gotten a free night there the last time we stayed thanks to shoddy service.  I took a glorious shower and promptly passed out, though I apparently spent the night twitching wildly.  The next day we drove back to Eugene and I went to sleep at 5:30, though I did wake up from 3 to 5 in the morning, and slept until 10 the next morning.  I managed to go a whole 12 hours without sleeping that day, though I did get 13 hours of sleep that night, after which I began to feel a bit more among the living.  One major disadvantage of studying in Germany, or anywhere in Europe, is the time (not to mention money) required to get home, and the days of hazy recuperation after.


So now I am home and taking the GRE this Thursday.  I think I'll go up to Portland next weekend for a night to stay with Aunt Karen and Uncle Tracy and McKenna and Laura, and then from Sunday to Tuesday Mom and Kev and I are going to the coast.  We might stay at the Coos Bay Casino for a night because it's cheap and has a pool, and then I can play 21!  Since I'm 21!  Oh, the power and privilege that comes with that birthday... I'm headed back to school on the 27th and classes begin on the 30th.  I can't believe I'm going to be a senior, much like I can't believe I actually spent two and a half months in Europe.  I feel so blessed to have been able to go and study there, and to get to come back and finish my career at Swarthmore!  Thank you all for reading this blog, and I hope it brought you some measure of entertainment.  This is probably my last post, at least for the foreseeable future (though I may post about the GRE if it was particularly traumatic).  I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your summers, and happy lives to come.


Tschüss!

Back Home

I got back to Oregon yesterday, and back home this afternoon.  I am extremely jet-lagged, but I will post epically in the next few days.  Now I need to take a nap!

Birthday, Departure, Sweden!

So much has happened the past week+ that I can't even hope to include it all.  Add in that I'm super sleepy, and you get a meandering, incomplete blog post!  At least, that's what I expect it will be.  We'll see how it turns out at the end!
Birthday: mostly awesome.  Got to eat a surprise cake for breakfast, courtesy of my roommate Veronika (which was incredibly nice of her, since we weren't really good friends and she'd only known me about a week!), though no one was awake to enjoy it with me.  Went to class and got a lovely bouquet of flowers from Miriam's (my teacher's) garden, and she gave me a chocolate egg to boot!  Ate a delicious mixed berry pie/torte in class, topped with awesome curlicue candles (which I blew out in one breath!).  Received a super cool Berlin t-shirt (see album for details).  Had a low-key afternoon, except when Veronika (different Veronika; this one lived on the 4th floor and was in Ric's class, from Russia) brought over a beautiful bouquet of flowers, which was awesomesauce.  Pre-gamed in the apartment with Ric, Peter, Elodie, and Russian Veronika (other Veronika was out), then took the U-bahn out to Warschauer Straße to visit Monica's bar.  We were, of course, very late; I didn't realize we had an actual reservation so made no effort to get the guys to move a little faster.  Elodie ended up getting sick on the street, I think because she wasn't used to Ric's style of bartending (the more alcohol the merrier), so we ended up waiting for her to feel good enough to head back home at 3 or so.  Unfortunately, Ric had made plans and reservations at a couple of clubs, which we did not get to go to (major sadface).  On the upside, we got broccoli pizza (delicious when tipsy) and a taxi ride with the best taxi driver ever.  Not a perfect birthday, but very fun nonetheless!  That weekend I had to pack things up and say my good-byes to Berlin, which was super-sad and a pain in the butt.  Did some crazy last-minute souvenir shopping, though, and got some little things for people!  Keep in mind, everyone, that I was on a budget, so don't have high expectations...

Sunday I had my last döner of 2010, but got an awesome picture, and I had to eat it in subway stations along the way to the airport.  It was a pain to lug my two suitcases and computer bag, but it was so worth it when I got to the airport and the woman behind the checkout counter didn't charge me for my bags :-)  Then I got to sniff perfume in the duty free store before settling down to wait for my plane and discovering Tegel has free internet!  I slept most of the way to Sweden, and was oh so happy to see Jasper and his family on arrival.  The house is a little ways outside of Stockholm, overlooking the water; it's open and beautiful and the views are superb.  The next day we went on an adventure to a hotel in rural Sweden, on a lake.  The setting was truly gorgeous (see pics!), though the rooms themselves weren't anything too exciting (hence our staying only the one night, not the two that had been reserved). It was a 4 hour drive there, but I slept for a lot of it.  That night we went to an extremely delicious and classy restaurant with a beautiful view of the countryside; though it was only a few miles from the hotel, it took us more than half an hour to get there, due to the annual American classic car rally/parade taking place the next town up.  It was rather entertaining to see a bunch of blonde Swedes driving in perfectly-restored American cars, and even more entertaining to see the crowds gathered to watch the circling cars.  Wednesday Jasper and I did basically nothing, which was a nice relaxing time.  Yesterday we took the ferry to Vaxholm, an island on the archipelago, and wandered around for a couple of hours.  It was so picturesque!  I'm constantly astounded by how perfectly presented everything is here.  It's kind of ridiculous.  I apologize for all the adjectives synonymous to "beautiful", but there's really no other way to put it.  This morning the whole family went to the Vasa Museet, a museum centered around a sunken warship (the Vasa).  It was the pride of the Swedish navy in the 1600s, but sadly it sank after a mere 20 minute voyage, due to being too top-heavy (64 guns!).  It was near-perfectly preserved, thanks to the low salt content and cooler temperature of the Baltic sea.  The excavation took several decades (well, only 3 years to dig the boat up, but 30 years after that to restore and preserve it), and the result is an enormous 400-year-old ship with 95% original pieces.  After we ate lunch at the nearby organic garden, Jasper and I peeled off to go subway station hopping.  The subway stations in Stockholm are freaking awesome; they are still shaped like caves, and the interiors are painted and decorated, earning it the honor of being a 110-km long art gallery.  We weren't able to get to them all, but we went to a few stops, including the one I really wanted to visit (water lilies on the ceiling!).  It was a very enjoyable day, though the train back to the house was really really hot.  Pictures from all the adventuring will soon be uploaded to FB (I'll post the link once that's done!).

I'm not sure what we're doing tomorrow, but I shall take pictures and report back!

Good-bye Berlin, hello Stockholm!

Okay, so, I know it's been ages since I posted, and I will again soon, but for now, you will have to get by with some Facebook photo albums.  Here's the one from Berlin: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051338&id=1451700239&l=55101b9484
And here's the one from Sweden, so far: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051348&id=1451700239&l=15e64ca5eb
Enjoy!