London

This past weekend, i took a short trip over the pond to london. i went with nate travers, emily rueping, and jamie sladkey. we left friday night/evening from gothenburg city airport, which really only had one gate, so it was a very, very small airport. we arrived at london standsted airport, and took about an hour long bus ride into the city. all in we arrived in our hostile at just about 2 in the morning. it had been a long day of travel, but we were excited for the prospect of an exciting weekend. we got "an early start" on saturday, and had a light breakfast before we headed out for a long day. we decided to walk down the river thames and see were that took us. to our surprise, we ended up at victoria tower, the houses of parlament, and big ben! our walk down the river took us thorough victoria gardens, and straight at parlament and victoria tower.

Victoria Tower, Parlament and Big Ben from victoria gardens.

Big Ben lit up at night.

as we continued our walk through london, we wandered into Trafalgar Square, where the British National Gallery is. since all of the public museums in london are free, we decided that we might as well check it out, and we all agreed that it was a good decision. while the collection is free, there is no lack of big name artists. we saw works from van goh, leonardo da vinci , seurat, and michelangelo. some of the works dated back thousands of years to the early centuries. it was very cool to see works that were preserved for thousands of years. after that, the girls went, and payed to get into westminster abbey, while nate and i gave our tired legs a break. however, we still got to go inside the abbey, and at no cost to us! everyday there is a worship service which is free for the public to attend, and although we were not able to see everything that the beautiful church has to offer, we were still able to see the magnificence that is Westminster Abbey. a short ride on the tube, took us to picadilly circus, a shopping center of london. the pace was packed, but we did manage to find some fun stores, such as the M&M store, which was very brightly colored, and had lots of energy too it. we all realized after that how hungry we were getting so we decided to go to a pub, and get some food, which for me was traditional fish and chips, but anything would have tasted good at that point. it was now night, and everything was lit up. we found our way to the other side of the river thames so we could see the houses of parlament from a new perspective. it was gorgeous.

The eye of London, with the houses of
Parlament and Big Ben.

we decided to hit the hay because we knew we had another long day ahead of us. when we woke up, it became apparent to us how much walking we had done the previous day. with that thought in the back of our heads, we decided it would be worth it to take the tube as often as we could, so we bought a day pass early on. but, we started our day off with a short walk to buckingham palace.

Buckingham Palace

The oldest church in London

with the tube day pass in our hands, we hopped on, and took a cross town ride to the british national museum, which contains some of the oldest things that i have ever seen. we started our tour with the roseta stone, and worked our way through egypt, ancient greece, some north american history, some history of europe and ended with japan (where i saw a jar that was from 1300 BC!!). it would be very easy to spend days wandering around the vast exhibits, but our legs could not handle that. we walked around to find lunch, and sat for a long time while our legs recuperated. we hopped back on the tube and went to the most famous department store in the world, harrods. to me it seemed very excessive for a store to be so huge, but part of me thought that it was at least a little cool....but way out of my price range. during the later part of the afternoon, after we took an hour long break in front of st. paul's cathedral and across from millennium bridge, we were walking around, back on the banks of the thames, when we found ourselves at the door of the oldest church in london, from 606 AD. a few more steps, and we were looking at a pirate ship of old. up a flight of stairs and we were on london bridge (which is just another normal bridge) but we were looking at the magnificent tower bridge.

The tower bridge from london bridge

we waited as long as our stomaches could until we ate, because we had a long night ahead of us. our flight didn't leave until 7 in the morning, and we needed to get on a bus to the airport at 3 a.m. so it did not seem worth it spend money on half a night in a hostel. we decided to stay up and wander around the streets of london until we needed to leave, and we all enjoyed it. bue we decided to wait to eat so that we had someplace to "stay" as long as we could. we didn't leave the pub (which was located across the street from big ben, very cool) until around 11 at night. from there it was back to trafalgar square at about 12, and back to buckingham palace, where, to my surprise we were the only people, until about 130. we decided it would be fun to throw a frisbee, mainly for the novelty of it, but none the less. it was a very fun weekend, and i can think of no other way to have seen london than walking around it.

greece is in two weeks! after that is fall break, and soon after that may be the next time you hear from me. i'll try to update after greece, but i might need my one day back to recover for the euro trip. until next time!

p.s. mom, i'm sorry for all of the run-on sentences. 

Travel Time!

The Americans in Malmo!
 Keir Quackenbush, Dan Pihl, Myself, Ben Poor, Nate Travers

This past weekend is what i have been calling the kick off to the travel season here at SVf. and here is why. this past weekend, i went to the south of sweden to malmo and copenhagen with a group of ten or eleven other students, and those that did not come with us went elsewhere in sweden, so school must have been very boring during that time. but now after that, there is going to be a series of 5 or 6 weeks where people will be traveling all about europe, and i am included in that. i will go into more detail about malmo in a minute, but i'll give you a short itinerary about my travel plans. on the third of october we, as an entire class, will be taking a trip to glass factory in viken (i think) sweden. october 7-10 i will be in london with four other friends. a week or two after that, we are taking a week-long class trip to greece, and directly following that is our fall break where all of the americans will be taking euro trips, and seeing all that we can in a weeks time. a week after that, myself and two others, are trying to make a plan to go hiking in norway for the weekend, but that is not for sure yet. i think that is the time when days will really start to blend together and time will  fly by.

Dinner on friday night.

but like i said earlier, i went to malmo, in the south of sweden this past weekend. i was in a group with five other guys, one of whom is from malmo so we were able to stay at his house for the weekend. his parents took wonderful care of us providing us with a three course dinner on friday night, and a "traditional" swedish breakfast on saturday and sunday mornings.

 we were very grateful for their hospitality, and could not have asked for a better host in martin (who was from malmo) in showing us a good time in his home city. on friday night before dinner, we took a short drive to the beach where we played around on a pier for a little while and took in the beautiful sights that were there to admire.

The pier in Malmo.

then after dinner, we went into to malmo to hang out with some of martins friends at some of his favorite spots. it was a great way to start off the weekend. the next, we went to copenhagen, in denmark, for the day. it was surprising how different the two countries are even though they are only separated by a bridge and a few miles of ocean. copenhagen had a much older feel to it than malmo, and it seemed like there were historical buildings everywhere.

Dan Pihl, Myself, Nate Travers in Copenhagen.

we wandered around the city for a long time, and found a quiet square to sit and eat dinner outside (one of the best burgers i have ever had)!

The Jack Daniels Burger!

after copenhagen, we took the train back to malmo using oresund bridge, which is beautiful. we did the same thing as the previous night. after another amazing breakfast, we set out to explore malmo before going to a soccer game in the afternoon. malmo is very charming for its size, 300,000 people. the soccer game was definitely something that i will not forget for a long time. Malmo FF played AIK Stockholm to a 1-1 tie. but the game was very exciting, and no goals were scored until the 84th minute. we chanted, and sang songs the entire game.

Chants during the game!

to finish off the weekend, we walked to a part of malmo called west harbor. this part of the city has grown rapidly since 2001 and it was the nicest and most modern part of malmo. this part of the city is where the turning torso is located, and let me tell you, it was quite the building! it turns 90 degrees as it shoots up 54 stories.

The Turning Torso shimmering at night.

this weekend was definitely a fantastic way to kick off the travel season!

Days flying by

it feels like i last posted many months ago, and i apologize, but i also didn't realize how long it had been. it is amazing how fast the time goes sometimes, but also how slow it goes. the weeks seem to fly by, but the days seem to take forever. maybe its the different things that we do to keep it interesting, or maybe its just that we are in a different country. either way, i am throughly enjoying my time here.
since the last time i put something, i have had two memorable days. the first one was organized by the school. throughout the semester, there are different "days" such as sports day!...which is the only one we have had so far. in the morning of sports day, we competed in different events that ranged from building things with legos to running around the small campus looking for large puzzle pieces. if i recall correctly, the events went in this order: lego building, free throw competition, ski race (two 15 feet long pieces of wood with ropes that were grasped with hands, and 7 people on a set of skis, racing to the finish), speed kub (lawn bowling), fika or coffee break, relay race using tiny cups to fill a bucket with water, a low element called lilly pads (get from a start to finish line using wood planks and not touching the ground, a wood plank always needs to be touched) scavenger hunt for giant puzzle pieces/complete the puzzle, and finally swedish speed scrabble. i hope that i provided an accurate description of all the events. we competed against other students at the school, but more importantly the swedes who will be coming to america in the spring. this took up the morning, and took over classes that day. bummer.
this past weekend, we had what is called a Kräftskiva or crayfish party! it reminded me very much of a labor day weekend BBQ. we started off the evening by playing a swedish lawn game called kub, which is most comparable to boche ball. we hung out outside for a while before going inside to a feast, which had been prepared at a swedes house in jonkoping. for dinner we had swedish meatballs, cut up hotdogs, cheese pie, salad, bread, and of course the star of the evening, crayfish! there were about two crayfish per person. and when i think of crayfish, i tend to think of some puny, less than an inch long lobster. but no, these where at least 3 inches long, 4 including the pinchers, and they were delicious!  we all got little paper hats with crayfish on them to wear, and we had a song book of short swedish drinking songs. it was a very fun evening of friends and fellowship.


until next time

School?

As a fore--note for this entry (mainly for my dad), my main purpose for coming to Sweden is to study, and learn a lot of things. However, not everything is learned in the classroom. For example, in Swedish today, we were in the classroom for about 15 minutes, and then we took a walk to a nearby park where we learned about how farmers lived in Sweden 300 years ago. It was very interesting, to learn that Swedish farmers and their families slept sitting up to keep the water and blood in their bodies from mixing. Also, there were 17 people, including children and servants did this every night (with chickens running around the floor in the winter) in a room the size of about 12x20. it was tight with the 16 students, one teacher, and one museum guide in that space. After that adventure was lunch, which if I have not mentioned already, the food is always good, and very fresh. After lunch, was nothing. Class was over. At 12:30 in the afternoon. Anyway, a Swed from SVF who lives in the area borrowed his dads car and took some of us to his house, and where he is from to show us some of the amazing views that are surrounding Jonkoping (unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera...i just thought we were going into town). However, with the magic of Facebook, I have some of those pictures. 

 From left to right: Nate Elia Travers; Ben Poor; Me; Carl Rudenstam (the Swede who showed us all of the views and drove us around)

 From left to right: Ben; Dan Pihl, Nate. I'm on top. This is at the place were Carl worked. It is an apple orchard and we are in and on a box. 

The picture below is the opposite of the box (see it in the lower left hand?) on top of the apple orchard overlooking Lake Vetten and Jonkoping in the Distance. Amazing. 

From left to right: Nate; Dan; Me; Ben. This is on top of a large hill in Husqvarna (yes, the very same as the power tools. They are made here!) It took a master like Carl to get us to this place, but what a view! Lake Vetten, Jonkoping in the distance, Husqvarna at the bottom of the hill, and four handsome men in the foreground.

Until next time...

getting into a rythm

Its the third day here in beautiful Sweden, and things are starting to become more and more familiar. We started classes today with History of the Mediterranean, which for the first third of the semester is going to cover the thinkers of the Greek world...pretty interesting stuff.

Yesterday we took a more formal walking tour of the city of Jonkoping.

This is one of the many churches that are located within the city.

Having been downtown every night for the first three nights has given me quite a familiarity with the city. It is nothing that big, but seeing how everything is written in a language that I don't completely understand, it can be a little confusing at times. The whole city is comparable to that of downtown Milwaukee for those of you that have been there. One of the main differences (which you can see in a picture below) is that there are no sky-scrappers or tall buildings. the steeple of this church is the tallest building (at least I think it is). The view of the surrounding country side from a pier on the lake is unbelievable, and breathtaking at sunset. One of the things about where the school is located, is that it is on top of a very large hill, and since we are poor college students studying abroad, we usually walk...down the hill into town, and up the hill to get back to our dorm rooms. I guess that the only advantage to this is that whenever we go to town, we automatically get a work out.

I have discovered the address of where I am staying if you want or need to send me some snail mail:

Södra Vätterbygdens Folkhögskola

Box 3155
S-550 03 JonkopingSweden

Adjö!

Here we go...

The city in the picture is Jonkoping where SVF is located. What a view!


 I'm here! After a long day of traveling, we arrived at SVF at right around 17:00 (thats how they keep time here!). The campus is extremely small. So small that you could fit it inside a normal city block, but it is cool. I live in Hemgarden which is right across from the dinning hall and where classes are held. I have a room to myself but I am rarely alone. Right outside of Hemgarden is a wonderful view of the city Jonkoping (where SVF is) and the lake. Today and tomorrow are all orientation of the school and the city. Its wonderful to finally be here in such a beautiful country! 

Last Night in America

its my last night in the united states! just finishing up some loose ends around packing and other things, then hitting the hay. my flight leaves tomorrow at 4, and i couldn't be more excited. to all my friends in chicago, and wauwatosa, or wherever you are, i'm going to miss you all! stay in touch! i'll post an address at some point so you can send me snail mail if you choose. i'm going to try to keep this up to date, once a week maybe...we'll see what happens. bear with me!