"god touched me with his paddle"

Gah it's been two weeks! Time here is so hard to keep track of! It seems like a lifetime ago when I was saying goodbye (crying goodbye more like it) to my family at SFO, but one week here goes by in an instant. I have been here exactly four weeks total! It went by so fast, but when I think back to everything I have done, it seems like I've lived a two months in 4 weeks. Alright... let me go back and think about what I have done since last we spoke....


Right. We had an international bbq put on by the international committee of Uppsala (no they didn't bbq the international students... dad I knew you would jump on that one) which was so so fun. We all had little portable grills and bbq-ed little weenies and hamburgers and veggies and drank beers and had a chance to meet everyone else on exchange, plus the international committee members and other important people. 

right. so a few days after the last blog post, we went on our first tour with our class. This tour was around Upplands, the province of Sweden that Uppsala is in. We visited the summer house of Carl Von Linné, the very important Swede and Uppsala University alumni who invented the classification system of plants and animals. Brilliant man, but sort of an ego-maniac, as our tour guide liked to point out. Carl's wife's room had not one but six portraits of him in it, and just one of her, only because it was a set of paintings to go with another one of his. It was fascinating to see where he took his students for lectures and to see the very desk and chair he was sitting in when he invented the classification system. Also, he wallpapered his room with the pages of an extra book that was sent to him by mistake... I want to do this in my room! :P It was very hip.

After that, we went to the castle at Skokloster which was filled with lots of guns and things. The story behind this castle is that when the Son of the King asended the throne, he wanted to show up his father, so he built a gigantic castle right next to the "castle" that his father lived in. The difference is huge... I think that there is an ego issue here as well.   We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the castle tho.. :( But it was still very interesting, and the coffee in the cafe was very good. :P

After that, we went to the oldest (and maybe smallest) village in Sweden called Sigtuna. It was so cute and I wish that we could have spent more time there! Sigtuna is this little medieval town that takes about 3 minutes to walk through (remind you of anything back there in grass valley? ;) ) . We also went to some ruins of an old church, and as we were forbidden to go inside, our guide told us to climb in once he wasn't looking because it would be a lot of paper for him to deal with. So, naturally, he went for ice cream and we hopped the fence and had a look inside. So fascinating! It turns out that the kings of Sigtuna were trying so hard to keep up with the rest of Europe that they built nine christian churches in Sigtuna because they thought you had to build a new one for each coronation. It took nine kings before they got the memo that you can use the same church! I want to go back to Sigtuna again and have a better look at the sea and the other ruins.


The next day, sunday, we took a trip to Åland, a Finnish island near(ish) Sweden where you and get a bus from Uppsala to the ferry, then a ferry to åland and then a ferry/bus back all for only 90 skr (about $14... what a steal!) On the ferry ride there, we terrorized the buffet as one would expect from a group of students from Germany/Czech/Spain/England/Greece/America and... well... Korea (but she still put it away as well). Germans amaze me.. I was two plated down and pretty finished, whereas the Germans were on 4 or 5 and still going strong. They are also the best coaches for eating. "Don't fill with bread, don't let yourself stop or you'll feel full..." they're geniuses. Anway we ate the Smörgasbörd which was a little bit of everything (pickled herring!!!) and then had adventure time in Åland. We didn't really have any plans of what to do once we were there, so we just walked along the beach. We found a "nice" swimming area where some brave people took a swim, and it was there that Danny the Spaniard found a giant paddle about 3 meters long. Oh and he loved that paddle. He loved it so much that he proceeded to drag it all over Åland, take it on the ferry, the bus, and finally on his bike back to Flogsta, which isn't a quick bike ride. Currently, the paddle lives in his corridor and comes out for parties, and it has it's own facebook account. It's basically a local celebrity at this point. Anyway we explored a "town" called Storby for a bit, if you blinked you missed it, and had some coffee and took some silly pictures. As we started heading back to the harbor, we had about 40 minutes to walk, a giant downpour came and we were soaked in about 2 minutes. It was insane. We showed up to the ferry soaking and dripping and so miserable. It was awful at the time but now makes for a very good story!

After that it was business as usual. Class in the morning, studying, nations and roof parties in the evening. We had a trip to Gamla Uppsala after class one day. Gamla means old, and it is the original place where Uppsala started in the Viking days. There is an open air museum there where we had a tour of old farming houses (during the winter, everyone lived in the kitchen, maybe 15 people plus the animals! all winter! incredible! and during the summer, everyone lived in different houses all spread out... too much together time!) and then we had craft time where we learned how to make fiber out of flax stalks and we made little angles with them. And then we had fika and played old viking games and walked on stilts (i did it!) and it was a lot of fun.

hummmm more socializing, nations, dancing, fika, class... lalalala then we went to STOCKHOLM! This was another class tour and it was so much fun! we saw the Vasa Warship that sank about a minute after setting sail and has been preserved in the Stockholm harbor until it was brought to shore in the 50's. Amazing. Then we went to Gamla Stan (there is that Gamla word again, and Stan means city) where there is the Castle and lots of touristy shops. There was a shirt there that says I <3 Swedish Boys that was all too tempting to buy... and then I was seriously concerned about myself that I actually wanted to buy it....

After Stockholm, my body finally started yelling at me and telling me to slow the hell down. I spent almost all day monday and tuesday in bed (i DID make it to class thank you very much) and my bike had a flat tire both those days, so both my bike and I took a few days off.  But now I patched my bike (I can patch a bike now! I'm so hardcore!) and I feel a million times better and I'm ready to take on Uppsala again. I also went to the migration board which is the Swedish equivalent of the DMV and we had to wait there for about 2 hours to get our photos and fingerprints taken. But now I won't be deported, so It's worth it. :) I also met with my international coordinator and the head of the Informatics and Media department so i'm officially official, I'm registered, have my welcome pack, and told my coordinator that if i pass swedish one, then I want to sign up for Swedish two! Gah! It's so hard, but I want to learn it so bad!!

uh what else? I'm trying to post pictures but it's really difficult.... i'm probably doing something wrong.
So I'm just going to post this and then do a new post with pictures? I'm sure you all understand. :) Anyway I have to go.. tonight my friend Chris is making us Curry! and he's from Australia.... hrmmm....

lots of love!!
xxxxx