My day started by taking one last bath before we leave Kyrkhult, and I even shaved my legs - so I'm officially a girl again.
I had my last two Danish pastries for breakfast (yum) and did some 'computer-errands' that had been accumulating while Leif flipped through pages and pages of family history stuff. Leif had told me a couple of days ago that the way the United States Matsons connected with the Swedish Jonssons was because Uncle Bob (my Grandpa Howard's brother) placed an add in a newspaper around the area he thought our Swedish family was from. It was an add looking for descendants of Jons Mattisson. One of Leif's aunts saw this ad and brought it to Leif's attention. They were pretty sure they were the people being sought after. Leif then wrote a letter to Uncle Bob, but he did not have Bob's exact address, just that Bob lived in Monmouth, Illinois. As Leif was going through his folder of family papers, he showed me a copy of the letter he sent to Uncle Bob! That was really cool to read! Amazingly (or maybe not amazingly, Monmouth is tiny) the letter did reach Uncle Bob and from thereon the two branches of the family had established a connection. Without email though this connection took at least a year to form though I think. That part does seem amazing to me - imagine just placing an add and wondering for months if anybody will actually see it, and then sending a letter to Monmouth wondering if it will ever reach the right person that hopefully still lives there. It's pretty incredible.
Leif also found some typed up documents explaining rough facts about Jons Mattisson and his second wife and their children. It was from an internet site so I want to go read more on the site. Some of the details seemed hard to line up with each other, and I have a lot of questions but have still been able to piece a fair amount together.
Leif also was kind enough to draw out family trees of the Mattissons in the States and the Jonssons in Sweden so that I could refer back to them as I continued learning about different people and places.
Then Leif and I headed out again (Laura chose to stay home and Eva was at work) to go see some important places. We saw the house where Jons Mattisson was born (and where Per, Leif's grandfather was also born we think), and the original house is still standing and being lived in! But, because it is currently being lived in we couldn't get too close to it or really stop to take a picture of it. Then we also went to go see where the big red house used to be (there are pictures and paintings of this house because it was exceptionally nice for its time). Per lived in the big red house but later (when they didn't live there anymore) the house burned down. This is really sad, as it would be wonderful to see how pretty it is in real life. All that's left are some of the stones from the foundation. Now, there is a summer house built close by the foundation on the same site that is hardly used and not in our family's possession anymore. There is also a barn that hasn't been touched in ages. There are no windows in it anymore and inside there are broken down tools and wheels all the same shade of dust covered brown. On the inside of the window sill there were some bones which was really weird and kind of creepy and gross! One bone looked like a leg bone and still had what appeared to be an animal's paw on one end. Another bone there was the better part of something's spine! EW! Especially after seeing Hannibal Rising the other night this was a very weird thing to see!
The site is surrounded by meadows and forests and for as far as the eye can see, Jons Mattisson used to own all of this land. It is quite sad that our family doesn't own all of it anymore because it is a lot of beautiful trees and forested area.
Some of our other stops included the cemetery where Leif's grandparents are buried as well as the town that his grandmother and step-grandfather moved to when they left the big red house. Leif referred to this town as being 'forgotten by God' and it certainly appeared that way. There was however a sign with English on it explaining that in the 1930's this town was where people mined and worked with granite. Apparently the town used to be a pretty happening place 80 years ago. It had a train station and two shops (which was a big deal back then) - but now it really does look pretty forgotten and grown over.
The other places we went I will need Leif to give me the proper spellings of but essentially we drove around the streets where all of our ancestors grew up. Everybody stayed pretty close to home, so the entire area we drove through was the stomping grounds for many people related to Jons Mattisson. It was sunny out today so it was a very big treat to drive around and see the Swedish countryside where my family came from! I am very thankful to Leif (who took the entire day off work) for showing me around and teaching me what he could!
When we arrived back home, it was time for Laura and I to pack our bags. We decided to head to Stockholm today rather than tomorrow or the next day or Christmas because it will be easiest for us to get picked up on the other end this evening. It will work out very well because Hokam, Helen's boyfriend, will pick us up at the train station, and Eva gave us a map of Stockholm, so tomorrow we will wake up already in the city with a map! It will be like magic! (We usually spend so much time looking for a map the first day in a new city.) After we had packed, we had an early dinner which Eva had prepared before going to work. Tonight our lucky meal was a delicious traditional Hungarian dish of chicken in a paprika sauce with potatoes and some Hungarian food that kind of reminded me of a mix of beans and noodles. However I have no idea what they are called because they're Hungarian and nobody knew the translation. Neither Laura nor I had ever seen anything like them before, but they were good!
After dinner, I took some time to sketch out a Matson family tree for Leif and Eva and used Facebook to show them pictures of my generation of cousins and second cousins. There are some family reunion pictures posted so that was helpful in showing what everybody looks like now. I hope that they found it at least a little interesting what everybody looks like and what we're all up to (I gave them extremely brief summaries of our lives) stateside.
Then, since the generosity never seems to end with Leif and Eva, Leif drove Laura and I to a train station an hour away because a high speed train passes through there that would get us to Stockholm in 3 hours. We told him that wasn't necessary, but he insisted on making our trip as simple and as smooth as possible. We got to the train station about half an hour before the train arrived and Leif stayed with us until it showed up. I will really miss Leif and Eva and their incredible sense of hospitality! It was a simply amazing few days of rest, delicious food, baths, massages, movies, and desserts. It was a perfect little break and now we are healthy, clean, and refreshed: ready for our last 3 and a half weeks! Especially our 'rock and roll week' ahead :)
We arrived at the station to find Helen waiting for us. We began chatting and laughing immediately and soon Helen stopped and announced that she didn't know quite where we were. This was really funny because Eva had told us stories about how Helen gets lost very easily. Helen had to call her boyfriend Hokam and soon we had cash (finally) and found our way to the car. They gave us a mini tour of Stockholm by dusk on our way back to their flat, pointing out important places here and there. It will be unusual and cool for us to wake up in Stockholm tomorrow morning already with a map and a slight glimpse of what the city is like! We're not quite starting from square one, which will be nice.
I was really excited to see their flat after watching the TV show about redesigning their place. It is a really cute apartment and I think the TV designers did a great job! Helen, who is clearly her parents' child, immediately started making us grilled sandwiches and putting out multiple varieties of juice out on the table for us (at 11 PM) all because we told her we just needed a tiny little snack! She also brought out yogurt and cereal and milk, just in case. Too cute. It is pretty funny and a little strange meeting somebody when you've just hung out with their parents for three days. I arrived knowing about her parents, her ancestors, her hometown, and even what her apartment would look like! It's also interesting to me because family is so important to me so that, in a way, I gauge how close I am to people by how much I know about their family. People's families tend to explain quite a lot about them. Anyway, it's kind of a funny feeling already knowing so much about Helen (and Daniel and Sandra) before meeting them, but in a nice way. I don't know them all personally yet, but I know that we both came from the same great great grandfather. That just blows my mind when I think about it!!!
Quotes:
"Did they, like, move the doors or something?" - Helen, trying to get us out of the train station :)
"Usually I just walk and hope for the best." - Helen, on crossing the street (super funny, since I often accidentally do the same thing...)
Hokam: "Don't you guys have a four flags?"
Helen/Laura/Hilary: "Six flags?"
Hokam: "When I was growing up there were only four, ok!?"
Accomplishments:
Saw where my great great grandfather was born!
Travel Tip:
Check if your train has a required seat reservation. We didn't do this, and our train did have a required seat reservation. Luckily for us, the ticket checker guy forgot to come back and make us pay for it!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
The Peninsula
Once again we woke up to another delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon, and hash brown type things.
Today was the day for us to go on a Swedish road trip! Our first stop was at the cemetery where both Leif's and Eva's parents are buried. Today is Swedish Mother's Day so they had prepared vases with pretty flowers. It was a very peaceful and well kept cemetery, probably the nicest one I've been in. It almost looked like a park, with lots of grass, well manicured lawns, benches, and lots and lots of flowers. Almost every headstone had fresh flowers places in front of or next to it, and even the grave stones seemed more unique than what one would typically find in a cemetery. Also, the gravestones weren't places in uniform rows, but the cemetery was slightly hilly and the headstones seemed to line the walking paths. It was a calming experience and I am glad I got to go with them to place the flowers.
Then we drove for about two hours back towards the direction of Denmark. We arrived in the town called Hoganas which is where Gunvor lives. Gunvor is my father's second cousin (Leif's first cousin) and her daughter Anna is my third cousin. Anna is older than me but I'm not sure of her age.
Hoganas is an adorable little beach town that is quite popular in the summer, and Gunvor lives right on the Nordic Sea. Her house is literally on one side of the road and the beach and water is on the other; it's amazing! When we arrived at her home, she welcomed us with a perfect summery salad with bacon bits, cucumbers, and pineapple pieces. After the delicious salad, Gunvor wanted to show us around the entire peninsula, which is supposedly one of the most beautiful areas of Sweden. We unfortunately had crummy weather, but seeing as to how Laura and I are used to Seattle and always prepared with our rain jackets, it really wasn't that big of a deal. Everybody kept apologizing to us about the weather, but some clouds and rain don't dampen all of the beauty of the areas we visited! Leif and Eva drove with Gunvor and Laura and I drove with Anna. It was a great pleasure to talk with Anna and I found it amusingly coincidental that she studied finance, like me, and French, like I wish I had. She spent about two years living and working in various parts of France, but now works as a hotel contractor for Spanish hotels.
Gunvor lives on the west side of the peninsula, so we first headed up north along the west coast. We passed through the small towns of Strandbaden and Nyhamnslage. We got out of the car at Krapperup where there is a small castle with a moat around it and gorgeous gardens. Even though it wasn't sunny, the garden grounds were really pretty and the walking paths led us around lakes, over bridges, to fountains, and around the castle. Then we got back in the car and drove farther up north to Molle, which is another small harbor town very popular among Swedish tourists in the summer. Nobody else wanted to get out of the car in the rain, so I popped out long enough to take a picture and then sat back down in the warm and dry car. Next we went to the tip of the peninsula, which Leif says is his favorite spot in the world! On a clear day you can see Denmark across the water, but today the horizon blended into the clouds. You could still see pretty far and there was more than 180 degrees of water spread out before me. The jagged rocks and lighthouses and tiny sailboats fighting the wind were all extremely picturesque. After this, we headed back down the eastern side of the peninsula passing through Arild, where I was told Norma and Howard stayed for a night in one of the hotels. Last, we passed through Skaret on our way back to Hoganas.
On Mother's Day here in Sweden, as well as on a few other holidays, Swedish people all hoist the Swedish flag. I think it's a cool idea, and today driving around nearly ever house was flying the blue and yellow flag. I just thought this was an interesting observation and tradition.
Back at Gunvor's house, Anna brought out a map of the area we had just toured and people explained to me exactly where we'd just been. Anna let me keep the map, which is both great for my collection and quite helpful in accurately spelling all the places we visited today! They were all very gorgeous so I would love to come back in the summer sometime and see all of these things again in the sun :) Hopefully I will be back someday!
While we were looking at the map and chatting, Gunvor was in the kitchen heating up homemade quiches. In case you didn't know, quiche is one of my favorite foods! One quiche had cheese and ham in it, and the second quiche was just made with a special Swedish type of aged cheese. They were both delicious, but I had to go back for seconds of the Swedish cheese quiche. It was just too good!
All of a sudden, it was 7 PM - I hardly realized how late it had gotten! I ended up falling asleep for most of the two hour car ride back to Kyrkhult, but I tried to keep my eyes open as much as I could to appreciate the beautiful Swedish country side with all the cute red houses!
We got home around 9 PM and relaxed for a bit until it was time for another movie! Leif said he had another one he thought I would like, and I told him it just better not have as much blood at gore as Hannibal Rising. So tonight we watched K2, and it was really good! Way less bloody and a great adventure movie. Though for the record I would prefer my dad to stick to Mt. Rainier and not attempt K2.
By the way, these restful days have allowed me to fully recover from my slight cold and I have almost completely stopped coughing. Yay! These slower paced days are working out quite well for me :)
Quotes:
"Summer comes on Tuesday." - Leif
Accomplishments:
Met more family!
Toured a gorgeous part of Sweden that I would never be able to have seen via the typical trains and buses routes we usually take.
Travel Tip:
Look at a map; know where you are.
Today was the day for us to go on a Swedish road trip! Our first stop was at the cemetery where both Leif's and Eva's parents are buried. Today is Swedish Mother's Day so they had prepared vases with pretty flowers. It was a very peaceful and well kept cemetery, probably the nicest one I've been in. It almost looked like a park, with lots of grass, well manicured lawns, benches, and lots and lots of flowers. Almost every headstone had fresh flowers places in front of or next to it, and even the grave stones seemed more unique than what one would typically find in a cemetery. Also, the gravestones weren't places in uniform rows, but the cemetery was slightly hilly and the headstones seemed to line the walking paths. It was a calming experience and I am glad I got to go with them to place the flowers.
Then we drove for about two hours back towards the direction of Denmark. We arrived in the town called Hoganas which is where Gunvor lives. Gunvor is my father's second cousin (Leif's first cousin) and her daughter Anna is my third cousin. Anna is older than me but I'm not sure of her age.
Hoganas is an adorable little beach town that is quite popular in the summer, and Gunvor lives right on the Nordic Sea. Her house is literally on one side of the road and the beach and water is on the other; it's amazing! When we arrived at her home, she welcomed us with a perfect summery salad with bacon bits, cucumbers, and pineapple pieces. After the delicious salad, Gunvor wanted to show us around the entire peninsula, which is supposedly one of the most beautiful areas of Sweden. We unfortunately had crummy weather, but seeing as to how Laura and I are used to Seattle and always prepared with our rain jackets, it really wasn't that big of a deal. Everybody kept apologizing to us about the weather, but some clouds and rain don't dampen all of the beauty of the areas we visited! Leif and Eva drove with Gunvor and Laura and I drove with Anna. It was a great pleasure to talk with Anna and I found it amusingly coincidental that she studied finance, like me, and French, like I wish I had. She spent about two years living and working in various parts of France, but now works as a hotel contractor for Spanish hotels.
Gunvor lives on the west side of the peninsula, so we first headed up north along the west coast. We passed through the small towns of Strandbaden and Nyhamnslage. We got out of the car at Krapperup where there is a small castle with a moat around it and gorgeous gardens. Even though it wasn't sunny, the garden grounds were really pretty and the walking paths led us around lakes, over bridges, to fountains, and around the castle. Then we got back in the car and drove farther up north to Molle, which is another small harbor town very popular among Swedish tourists in the summer. Nobody else wanted to get out of the car in the rain, so I popped out long enough to take a picture and then sat back down in the warm and dry car. Next we went to the tip of the peninsula, which Leif says is his favorite spot in the world! On a clear day you can see Denmark across the water, but today the horizon blended into the clouds. You could still see pretty far and there was more than 180 degrees of water spread out before me. The jagged rocks and lighthouses and tiny sailboats fighting the wind were all extremely picturesque. After this, we headed back down the eastern side of the peninsula passing through Arild, where I was told Norma and Howard stayed for a night in one of the hotels. Last, we passed through Skaret on our way back to Hoganas.
On Mother's Day here in Sweden, as well as on a few other holidays, Swedish people all hoist the Swedish flag. I think it's a cool idea, and today driving around nearly ever house was flying the blue and yellow flag. I just thought this was an interesting observation and tradition.
Back at Gunvor's house, Anna brought out a map of the area we had just toured and people explained to me exactly where we'd just been. Anna let me keep the map, which is both great for my collection and quite helpful in accurately spelling all the places we visited today! They were all very gorgeous so I would love to come back in the summer sometime and see all of these things again in the sun :) Hopefully I will be back someday!
While we were looking at the map and chatting, Gunvor was in the kitchen heating up homemade quiches. In case you didn't know, quiche is one of my favorite foods! One quiche had cheese and ham in it, and the second quiche was just made with a special Swedish type of aged cheese. They were both delicious, but I had to go back for seconds of the Swedish cheese quiche. It was just too good!
All of a sudden, it was 7 PM - I hardly realized how late it had gotten! I ended up falling asleep for most of the two hour car ride back to Kyrkhult, but I tried to keep my eyes open as much as I could to appreciate the beautiful Swedish country side with all the cute red houses!
We got home around 9 PM and relaxed for a bit until it was time for another movie! Leif said he had another one he thought I would like, and I told him it just better not have as much blood at gore as Hannibal Rising. So tonight we watched K2, and it was really good! Way less bloody and a great adventure movie. Though for the record I would prefer my dad to stick to Mt. Rainier and not attempt K2.
By the way, these restful days have allowed me to fully recover from my slight cold and I have almost completely stopped coughing. Yay! These slower paced days are working out quite well for me :)
Quotes:
"Summer comes on Tuesday." - Leif
Accomplishments:
Met more family!
Toured a gorgeous part of Sweden that I would never be able to have seen via the typical trains and buses routes we usually take.
Travel Tip:
Look at a map; know where you are.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Relaxation
When I finally awoke from my slumber, Leif was making us breakfast. All of this was almost too much kindness to take in! I said thank you a million times but those two small words never felt sufficient to express my gratitude. Leif was making eggs and bacon and brought out bread, butter, and juices to accompany it all. Needless to say, it was delicious. Again well fed, I was prepared for the day.
Laura decided to stay home while Leif took me out and about to learn about my roots. Laura has also been trying to recover from a cold so she was more than fine with having a day of nothing to do except read (I finally got her to start reading Outlander!). Leif took me to the harbor where essentially all Swedes living in southern Sweden emigrated to America from. It is one of the deepest harbors in Sweden and Leif said he thinks voyages were made across the ocean probably once a month. There is a monument there commemorating the people from Sweden that emigrated. It is a man, looking across the ocean, holding the hand of a woman, looking back at Sweden, and a suitcase. Leif said that Norma and Howard visited here too and it is so cool to me to be seeing the same thing so many years later.
After the harbor, we drove through a number of small, typically traditional Swedish towns. Most of the houses out here are painted a deep, dark red color that I love. I think the name of the paint color is Nalu Red...I need to get the exact name because I would love to paint something that color someday. We passed by the high school that Eva and later Sandra attended, and also drove past where Eva works. It was a pleasant day and we even got some patches of blue sky and sunlight in! It was quite nice to spend time with Leif asking random questions and having him tell me other stories and tidbits of information about our family and about Sweden.
When we got home I felt exhausted. Off the top of my head, I didn't really have anything to be exhausted about - I'd just slept soundly for a luxurious amount of time. But, I've also been traveling for 9 weeks and am getting over a cold and for the first time in months I don't have to cook for myself, or worry about maps, or what the exchange rate is, or any of the normal city-couch-surfing-traveling things that I'm always highly in tune with. I figured I'd just take a quick nap and wake up when I was ready. Well, I woke up two and a half hours later! I can't even remember when I took a nap that long and that restful in the middle of the day. The best part was that I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. It was a perfectly quiet day, there was nothing to disturb me, nobody waiting on me, nothing else that I felt like I should be doing.
I finally had the presence of mind to wake up and went to the couch in the living room. Eva came in and promptly served Laura and I a glass of red South African wine before inviting us to dinner. Dinner was again delicious, and the dogs again got some gourmet mashed food out of it! The dogs are so cute and funny; it is really great to be around playful little animals again.
One thing that Leif told me about during our car ride today was that Helen, who lives with her boyfriend Hokam and her brother Daniel, had written a letter to an apartment makeover TV show; the TV show thought it was really interesting that she was living with her brother and, long story short, her apartment was selected to be renovated and aired on TV! The result of this is that all three of them were kicked out of their apartment for a week after telling the TV show people what they had in mind for the living room. Then the TV show's designers and carpenters and everybody else whipped it into shape, also redoing Daniel's room as a surprise as well as the kitchen as a surprise for Helen, the only female in the apartment. This all happened last August I think, and getting on this show is equivalent to winning a lottery of sorts because everything the show does to your apartment, you get to keep. Helen, Daniel, and Hokam's flat thus got around 15 thousand euros of free stuff (paint, carpeting, kitchen table, wall paper, flat screen TV, etc)!!! The show aired in February and Leif had a DVD of it that we wanted to see. We were about a third of the way through it when the DVD stopped working for some reason.
It was at this point that Eva, who owns a business selling products that help maintain peoples' health and has had traditional and Thai massage licenses for the last ten years, offered to give Laura and I massages. YEAH! After 9 weeks of carrying our bags, nothing could have sounded better than a massage!!! I let Laura go first so I could continue to enjoy the anticipation, and in the mean time Leif, who never gives up, resorted to pulling up the aired apartment makeover TV show online. We watched the rest of the show on the computer and it was so funny to see how surprised Helen, Daniel, and Hokam were at the end of the show!! Especially Helen's reaction was just so excited and overjoyed, it was really funny to watch. It's also really exciting that we'll be there in a couple of days and will see this sweet apartment for ourselves!
Then, it was my turn for a massage...oh hallelujah. Eva has a whole separate massage room in the house, with a real massage table, candles, soft music, etc. The room even smells relaxing. She then proceeded to give me hands down the best massage of my life. It was so careful and so thorough and I felt like jelly afterward. It was funny to compare it to the massage I got at the baths in Budapest, although it was so different it was difficult to compare. Eva started with my back, working on the knots I'm sure are there from carrying my big bag. Then she did my limbs one by one and ended with a face and neck massage. It was glorious. I am one super lucky kid.
Coming out of my massage daze, I found Laura and Leif in the TV room with 4 ice cream sundaes on a platter. This all must sound like one huge dream (which it pretty much was), seriously it just kept getting better. We popped in a movie ("Bruno") which Leif seemed excited that I hadn't seen yet. The movie was thoroughly trashy and pretty fun; it was a great, brainless way to laugh. I thought it was super funny though that Leif voluntarily watched it because it totally seems like college boy humor and I love that he laughed as much as I did during it!
After that, we continued our movie night but switched it up to bloody gore. Leif put in Hannibal Rising and I'm quite proud of myself for getting through that movie! It was definitely good, but more disturbing, violet, and bloody than I usually go for. After our movie night, I finally went to bed which was a little difficult due to that wonderful nap earlier...
Quotes:
Leif: "It is about a homosexual."
Eva: "He is a gay!"
(Trying to describe to me what the movie "Bruno" is about.)
Accomplishments:
Saw where my ancestors came from.
Took a nap.
Got the most amazing massage ever.
Travel Tip:
Let your body sleep if it needs it.
Laura decided to stay home while Leif took me out and about to learn about my roots. Laura has also been trying to recover from a cold so she was more than fine with having a day of nothing to do except read (I finally got her to start reading Outlander!). Leif took me to the harbor where essentially all Swedes living in southern Sweden emigrated to America from. It is one of the deepest harbors in Sweden and Leif said he thinks voyages were made across the ocean probably once a month. There is a monument there commemorating the people from Sweden that emigrated. It is a man, looking across the ocean, holding the hand of a woman, looking back at Sweden, and a suitcase. Leif said that Norma and Howard visited here too and it is so cool to me to be seeing the same thing so many years later.
After the harbor, we drove through a number of small, typically traditional Swedish towns. Most of the houses out here are painted a deep, dark red color that I love. I think the name of the paint color is Nalu Red...I need to get the exact name because I would love to paint something that color someday. We passed by the high school that Eva and later Sandra attended, and also drove past where Eva works. It was a pleasant day and we even got some patches of blue sky and sunlight in! It was quite nice to spend time with Leif asking random questions and having him tell me other stories and tidbits of information about our family and about Sweden.
When we got home I felt exhausted. Off the top of my head, I didn't really have anything to be exhausted about - I'd just slept soundly for a luxurious amount of time. But, I've also been traveling for 9 weeks and am getting over a cold and for the first time in months I don't have to cook for myself, or worry about maps, or what the exchange rate is, or any of the normal city-couch-surfing-traveling things that I'm always highly in tune with. I figured I'd just take a quick nap and wake up when I was ready. Well, I woke up two and a half hours later! I can't even remember when I took a nap that long and that restful in the middle of the day. The best part was that I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything. It was a perfectly quiet day, there was nothing to disturb me, nobody waiting on me, nothing else that I felt like I should be doing.
I finally had the presence of mind to wake up and went to the couch in the living room. Eva came in and promptly served Laura and I a glass of red South African wine before inviting us to dinner. Dinner was again delicious, and the dogs again got some gourmet mashed food out of it! The dogs are so cute and funny; it is really great to be around playful little animals again.
One thing that Leif told me about during our car ride today was that Helen, who lives with her boyfriend Hokam and her brother Daniel, had written a letter to an apartment makeover TV show; the TV show thought it was really interesting that she was living with her brother and, long story short, her apartment was selected to be renovated and aired on TV! The result of this is that all three of them were kicked out of their apartment for a week after telling the TV show people what they had in mind for the living room. Then the TV show's designers and carpenters and everybody else whipped it into shape, also redoing Daniel's room as a surprise as well as the kitchen as a surprise for Helen, the only female in the apartment. This all happened last August I think, and getting on this show is equivalent to winning a lottery of sorts because everything the show does to your apartment, you get to keep. Helen, Daniel, and Hokam's flat thus got around 15 thousand euros of free stuff (paint, carpeting, kitchen table, wall paper, flat screen TV, etc)!!! The show aired in February and Leif had a DVD of it that we wanted to see. We were about a third of the way through it when the DVD stopped working for some reason.
It was at this point that Eva, who owns a business selling products that help maintain peoples' health and has had traditional and Thai massage licenses for the last ten years, offered to give Laura and I massages. YEAH! After 9 weeks of carrying our bags, nothing could have sounded better than a massage!!! I let Laura go first so I could continue to enjoy the anticipation, and in the mean time Leif, who never gives up, resorted to pulling up the aired apartment makeover TV show online. We watched the rest of the show on the computer and it was so funny to see how surprised Helen, Daniel, and Hokam were at the end of the show!! Especially Helen's reaction was just so excited and overjoyed, it was really funny to watch. It's also really exciting that we'll be there in a couple of days and will see this sweet apartment for ourselves!
Then, it was my turn for a massage...oh hallelujah. Eva has a whole separate massage room in the house, with a real massage table, candles, soft music, etc. The room even smells relaxing. She then proceeded to give me hands down the best massage of my life. It was so careful and so thorough and I felt like jelly afterward. It was funny to compare it to the massage I got at the baths in Budapest, although it was so different it was difficult to compare. Eva started with my back, working on the knots I'm sure are there from carrying my big bag. Then she did my limbs one by one and ended with a face and neck massage. It was glorious. I am one super lucky kid.
Coming out of my massage daze, I found Laura and Leif in the TV room with 4 ice cream sundaes on a platter. This all must sound like one huge dream (which it pretty much was), seriously it just kept getting better. We popped in a movie ("Bruno") which Leif seemed excited that I hadn't seen yet. The movie was thoroughly trashy and pretty fun; it was a great, brainless way to laugh. I thought it was super funny though that Leif voluntarily watched it because it totally seems like college boy humor and I love that he laughed as much as I did during it!
After that, we continued our movie night but switched it up to bloody gore. Leif put in Hannibal Rising and I'm quite proud of myself for getting through that movie! It was definitely good, but more disturbing, violet, and bloody than I usually go for. After our movie night, I finally went to bed which was a little difficult due to that wonderful nap earlier...
Quotes:
Leif: "It is about a homosexual."
Eva: "He is a gay!"
(Trying to describe to me what the movie "Bruno" is about.)
Accomplishments:
Saw where my ancestors came from.
Took a nap.
Got the most amazing massage ever.
Travel Tip:
Let your body sleep if it needs it.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Leif & Eva | Heaven
Before leaving Jan's flat, I cooked for myself for the first time this entire trip. It felt so nice to create something again, even though it was just a small snack. I boiled my two potatoes and sauteed my cute little diced shallot. When the potatoes were done, I set them on some aluminum foil, buttered them a little bit, put some dollops of left over sour cream with green onion dip (from vegetable pancake dinner night), poured my shallots over them, and wrapped the foil up. They smelled amazing and I couldn't wait to eat them!
Jan took us all the way to the train station and it was a little bit sad to leave him. He has definitely been one of the easiest hosts to get along with naturally, and it felt like we'd all been friends far longer than 72 hours. Jan babysat our bags while Laura and I went on a Danish pastry hunt. I spent my last kronors on 4 delicious looking pastries.
The train ride to Bromolla (where we were to be picked up by Leif) was very quick and the only eventful thing that happened was that I gave into the aromas of my potatoes and they were a deliciously satisfying snack!
I think traveling should be partially about self exploration. I believe it is probably inherently that way for many people, but it's especially good to be aware of it. I have known that I am 1/4 Swedish for as long as my parents have told me my heritage, but I've never had any contact with my extended family who still live in Sweden up until a couple of months ago. Regardless of whether or not meeting any of this family would be possible, I wanted to use this trip as an opportunity to at least go and see the country where I (partially) originally came from. I don't think many American travelers visit Scandinavia in general or Sweden in particular, and I also like to travel off the beaten path a little bit. So I have been very excited to visit Sweden for quite some time. My grandmother Norma was able to put me in touch with Leif and Eva who live in Kyrkhult, a small town about a 4 to 6 hour drive south-ish from Stockholm. Leif is my father Eric's second cousin, which means his children (Daniel, 28, Helen, 25, and Sandra, 21) are my third cousins. Aside from Leif's family, I have also been in touch with Gunvor, another second cousin to my father, who lives across the way from Denmark in a town called Hoganas. Once in touch with Leif, he generously offered for both Laura and I to come stay with his wife and him for as long as we like...even until Christmas! At first I was very surprised by this offer, I figured my new found relatives would want to maybe meet up for a day or an afternoon or a meal, but I was not expecting them to suggest hosting both Laura and I for a few days! I wanted to get to know my family though and this was a perfect opportunity, so I very happily accepted their offer. That was a few weeks ago, and I have been looking forward to meeting them since then! Finding out you have 'new' family doesn't happen every day! Family is really important to me and I like learning about my family's history and my roots, so staying with them was a very special offer.
Leif picked us up in a car (another car!) from the train station and drove for about 20 minutes until we arrived at his adorable home, where Eva was inside cooking us something that smelled AMAZING and two little fluffy dogs were eagerly jumping on the newcomers! They had a whole bedroom prepared for us - imagine that, our own personal space and a separate mattress for each of us! There was even a TV in the room and a huge bowl of chocolates and candies. There were two bathrooms in the house, one upstairs and one downstairs. Laura and I were staying downstairs and Leif and Eva sleep upstairs, so it even felt like we had our own bathroom. As if all of this wasn't overwhelming enough, the downstairs bathroom had a BATH TUB in it, and Eva had left little bath packages (with bath fizzies and bath gel) on big, clean, terry cloth towels on each of our mattresses. We were in heaven. A Swedish countryside heaven. With new family. And dogs. And a bathtub.
After putting my bags down I sat down and began playing with the elder dog, Wayne. Soon Wayne was curled up in my lap, soaking up the attention, and Leif came in to tell me that he wanted to give us a quick tour of the house and that if I didn't just stand up I'd be sitting there for two days with Wayne in my lap! After becoming familiar with the house, Eva asked if we had any laundry we wanted to wash. LAUNDRY? Yes, please! We happily unloaded all of our stinky, over used clothes that we've been wearing for days and had enough to do I think three loads. By the time Eva announced that dinner was ready she had already put some of the filthiest things in to wash. Before dinner we had an aloe vera juice shot - you read it right. I didn't know aloe vera could be produced in a drinkable form, but you really do take a shot of the juice and it is supposed to work wonders for balancing your stomach and helping digestion. So that was fun! And then...
Dinner...in case you can't imagine our completely overwhelmed and excited evening thus far, Eva had prepared a home cooked meal of traditional Swedish meatballs - and not the kind you can just go buy at IKEA. These meatballs were to die for, and they were accompanied by the literally the best gravy I have ever had. And I've had a lot of gravy in my life, because I love gravy. There was also a salad and boiled potatoes to balance the meal out, and for the first time in months Laura and I both had the pleasure of drinking milk. Ahhhh I forgot how much I love milk!!! This incredible feast was followed up by fresh, homemade rhubarb pie with vanilla whipped cream (and more milk). Seriously, we were in heaven.
The dogs here, Wayne and his daughter Gucci, are also spoiled - so it's not just Laura and me. The best depiction of this was after dinner when there were a few Swedish meatballs left. Leif and Eva split them evenly on their plates, added some potatoes, lovingly mashed them all up together, and even poured gravy on it. And then gave it to the dogs! Those dogs live well, let me tell you! That is some high quality dog food right there!
After dinner, Leif brought out some old family pictures for me to look at. I think these are photos that Norma has sent him over the years. The most entertaining pictures for me were one of my parents with Erica in 1986, and another one of Great Grandmother Mor Mor with Grandpa Howard, Uncle Al, and a tiny little baby cousin Andrew! I told Leif Andrew wasn't quite that small anymore...
We migrated to the living room and lounged on the couches while the rain and wind picked up and we were officially greeted to Sweden with a thunder and lightning storm. These are always very exciting to me because in Seattle we very, very rarely get storms like these. In fact, the only place I really see these storms is when I'm visiting Grandma at the lake house, so it was quite fitting that I got to watch another storm with Leif and Eva.
Once the storm calmed down, I treated myself to a long bath complete with one of the bath fizzes Eva had left for me. I was so incredibly happy to be in a house, in a bathtub, full of delicious, traditional home cooked food, surrounded by incredibly sweet, caring, and funny relatives. It was a huge treat that I am so incredibly thankful for. Getting out of the bath, I did feel a bit like I had been a dirty, malnourished, exhausted, sickly child now that I was clean, well fed, and prepared for a solid night's sleep with no schedule for the next day save for fully recovering from this cold in the countryside and learning more about my family. It was perfect.
Quotes:
"You must have an easy weekend and rest, because Daniel says you will be having a hard rock and roll week next week." - Leif
Accomplishments:
Met family!
Travel Tip:
If it is at all possible to get out of the big cities, to spend time in the country side, or to meet family living abroad, you should do it.
Jan took us all the way to the train station and it was a little bit sad to leave him. He has definitely been one of the easiest hosts to get along with naturally, and it felt like we'd all been friends far longer than 72 hours. Jan babysat our bags while Laura and I went on a Danish pastry hunt. I spent my last kronors on 4 delicious looking pastries.
The train ride to Bromolla (where we were to be picked up by Leif) was very quick and the only eventful thing that happened was that I gave into the aromas of my potatoes and they were a deliciously satisfying snack!
I think traveling should be partially about self exploration. I believe it is probably inherently that way for many people, but it's especially good to be aware of it. I have known that I am 1/4 Swedish for as long as my parents have told me my heritage, but I've never had any contact with my extended family who still live in Sweden up until a couple of months ago. Regardless of whether or not meeting any of this family would be possible, I wanted to use this trip as an opportunity to at least go and see the country where I (partially) originally came from. I don't think many American travelers visit Scandinavia in general or Sweden in particular, and I also like to travel off the beaten path a little bit. So I have been very excited to visit Sweden for quite some time. My grandmother Norma was able to put me in touch with Leif and Eva who live in Kyrkhult, a small town about a 4 to 6 hour drive south-ish from Stockholm. Leif is my father Eric's second cousin, which means his children (Daniel, 28, Helen, 25, and Sandra, 21) are my third cousins. Aside from Leif's family, I have also been in touch with Gunvor, another second cousin to my father, who lives across the way from Denmark in a town called Hoganas. Once in touch with Leif, he generously offered for both Laura and I to come stay with his wife and him for as long as we like...even until Christmas! At first I was very surprised by this offer, I figured my new found relatives would want to maybe meet up for a day or an afternoon or a meal, but I was not expecting them to suggest hosting both Laura and I for a few days! I wanted to get to know my family though and this was a perfect opportunity, so I very happily accepted their offer. That was a few weeks ago, and I have been looking forward to meeting them since then! Finding out you have 'new' family doesn't happen every day! Family is really important to me and I like learning about my family's history and my roots, so staying with them was a very special offer.
Leif picked us up in a car (another car!) from the train station and drove for about 20 minutes until we arrived at his adorable home, where Eva was inside cooking us something that smelled AMAZING and two little fluffy dogs were eagerly jumping on the newcomers! They had a whole bedroom prepared for us - imagine that, our own personal space and a separate mattress for each of us! There was even a TV in the room and a huge bowl of chocolates and candies. There were two bathrooms in the house, one upstairs and one downstairs. Laura and I were staying downstairs and Leif and Eva sleep upstairs, so it even felt like we had our own bathroom. As if all of this wasn't overwhelming enough, the downstairs bathroom had a BATH TUB in it, and Eva had left little bath packages (with bath fizzies and bath gel) on big, clean, terry cloth towels on each of our mattresses. We were in heaven. A Swedish countryside heaven. With new family. And dogs. And a bathtub.
After putting my bags down I sat down and began playing with the elder dog, Wayne. Soon Wayne was curled up in my lap, soaking up the attention, and Leif came in to tell me that he wanted to give us a quick tour of the house and that if I didn't just stand up I'd be sitting there for two days with Wayne in my lap! After becoming familiar with the house, Eva asked if we had any laundry we wanted to wash. LAUNDRY? Yes, please! We happily unloaded all of our stinky, over used clothes that we've been wearing for days and had enough to do I think three loads. By the time Eva announced that dinner was ready she had already put some of the filthiest things in to wash. Before dinner we had an aloe vera juice shot - you read it right. I didn't know aloe vera could be produced in a drinkable form, but you really do take a shot of the juice and it is supposed to work wonders for balancing your stomach and helping digestion. So that was fun! And then...
Dinner...in case you can't imagine our completely overwhelmed and excited evening thus far, Eva had prepared a home cooked meal of traditional Swedish meatballs - and not the kind you can just go buy at IKEA. These meatballs were to die for, and they were accompanied by the literally the best gravy I have ever had. And I've had a lot of gravy in my life, because I love gravy. There was also a salad and boiled potatoes to balance the meal out, and for the first time in months Laura and I both had the pleasure of drinking milk. Ahhhh I forgot how much I love milk!!! This incredible feast was followed up by fresh, homemade rhubarb pie with vanilla whipped cream (and more milk). Seriously, we were in heaven.
The dogs here, Wayne and his daughter Gucci, are also spoiled - so it's not just Laura and me. The best depiction of this was after dinner when there were a few Swedish meatballs left. Leif and Eva split them evenly on their plates, added some potatoes, lovingly mashed them all up together, and even poured gravy on it. And then gave it to the dogs! Those dogs live well, let me tell you! That is some high quality dog food right there!
After dinner, Leif brought out some old family pictures for me to look at. I think these are photos that Norma has sent him over the years. The most entertaining pictures for me were one of my parents with Erica in 1986, and another one of Great Grandmother Mor Mor with Grandpa Howard, Uncle Al, and a tiny little baby cousin Andrew! I told Leif Andrew wasn't quite that small anymore...
We migrated to the living room and lounged on the couches while the rain and wind picked up and we were officially greeted to Sweden with a thunder and lightning storm. These are always very exciting to me because in Seattle we very, very rarely get storms like these. In fact, the only place I really see these storms is when I'm visiting Grandma at the lake house, so it was quite fitting that I got to watch another storm with Leif and Eva.
Once the storm calmed down, I treated myself to a long bath complete with one of the bath fizzes Eva had left for me. I was so incredibly happy to be in a house, in a bathtub, full of delicious, traditional home cooked food, surrounded by incredibly sweet, caring, and funny relatives. It was a huge treat that I am so incredibly thankful for. Getting out of the bath, I did feel a bit like I had been a dirty, malnourished, exhausted, sickly child now that I was clean, well fed, and prepared for a solid night's sleep with no schedule for the next day save for fully recovering from this cold in the countryside and learning more about my family. It was perfect.
Quotes:
"You must have an easy weekend and rest, because Daniel says you will be having a hard rock and roll week next week." - Leif
Accomplishments:
Met family!
Travel Tip:
If it is at all possible to get out of the big cities, to spend time in the country side, or to meet family living abroad, you should do it.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Sunrise
Today was busy and amazing and so incredibly long!!!!
We first went to Christiania, which my guide book described as a "hippie trippy mini Seattle." Uh. Not quite that. I don't know if the people in that guide book have ever been to Seattle. Strike 3, guide book, strike 3. Quickly approaching the status of "The Book" from Egypt that was wrong about EVERYTHING. Christiania was set up in the 60's and is seriously just a bunch of self governing hippies living there. It reminded me of an overgrown campground, but with concrete buildings in it. There was graffiti everywhere, lots of bizarre art work, and lots of hippies. It had a playground, cafes, houses, special Christiania bikes, people with dreds and piercings, and lots of weed paraphernalia. It was really quite and very peaceful. There did seem to be a lot of tourists there though and lots of signs saying no pictures allowed. It must be weird living in a place that's described as a "social experiment" that is now kind of a tourist attraction. You could really easily tell who lived there and who didn't. Anyway, after getting a feel for the vibe of the place, there's not that much to do so we went on with our day. Oh - and as you leave Christiania under one of the gate ways, the gate says "Now Entering the EU" which I found really funny.
We walked to Nyhavn, that super cute, picture perfect harbor area and got lunch at one of the outside cafes. I tried smorrebrod, which was one of my goals for Copenhagen. Smorrebrod just means an open faced sandwich, and it's pretty much the only food that is really considered "Danish". Most smorrebrods have at least something on them that I don't like - seafood, pate, mushrooms, horseradish, egg, etc. But, I found one that had a chicken salad with a creamy dressing on it and a piece of bacon. You're supposed to eat smorrebrod with a Danish beer, so I got myself a Carlsberg beer to go with it. I absolutely love sitting in cafes outside in Europe in the sun and people watching and having interesting culinary experiences.
Then we had to get our souvenir shopping out of the way which was a really frustrating thing this time around. There is a shop that sells gorgeous porcelain and ceramics, but a single plate costs upwards of 80 euros. The tourist plate shops all were terrible and obsessed with the Little Mermaid. I got a recommendation to look for plates at a cheap store, but the plates there were awful and didn't remind me of Copenhagen at all. I ended up dragging Laura in circles and finally getting a tourist shop plate that I liked better than anything else I saw. Still - not quite the traditional ceramics I was looking for. Ugh. Sometimes this collection drives me crazy. Oh well, at least I only have one plate left to get!
Then we walked to the Carlsberg Brewery. We could have taken a bus but I wanted to save our precious expensive bus tickets. We ended getting stuck under an overpass we needed to be on and we showed up late to find Jan patiently waiting for us there. My guidebook said you could do a free, self guided tour of the brewery. WRONG AGAIN! 4 times!! This stupid book! I am going to write them a letter when I get home...unless I find out that it was like a 2007 version and I was just using it because the library didn't have anything more current...Anyway, Jan had never been to the brewery before and for the $10 entrance fee you got 2 free beer tickets, and we walked over an hour there so we had to do it. The brewery turned out to be pretty cool, very informative with lots of history about the Carlsberg beer dynasty in Denmark. This visitor's center has the Guinness Book of World Records' largest collection of unopened beer bottles with over 19,000 beers from the past 100 years or so! It is CRAZY! The end of tour was my favorite part. They had an exhibit on how to enjoy beer with all of your senses and tons of great quotes about beer on the wall. They had 20 different aromas that can be found in beers and a pamphlet with all these aromas listed out. You went around smelling each one and checking off whether you liked it, didn't like it, or were indifferent. Then, all the Carlsberg (and some Tuborg and Jacobsen) beers were listed on the next page with which aromas could be found in each beer. You could kind of rate each beer according to how much you thought you would like it based on the aromas just smelled. Then you use your two free beer coupons to try the beers that match what you like the best. It was such a fun game!!! I really liked both beers that I got and it was fun tasting the beers Laura and Jan got too and trying to decipher the different aromas claimed to be in each. It was really cool, but it just made me even more of a beer snob. That's ok, I like being a beer snob.
After the brewery, we walked an hour back into the center of town and, having decided earlier to splurge this evening, went to Tivoli Gardens. This is a huge theme park in the middle of the city that is supposed to be the #1 attraction here. It was a little bit expensive but we ended up getting tourist passes that allowed us to do as many rides as we wanted to. To give you an idea, ride tickets cost 25 crowns (about $4). The good rides cost 3 tickets ($12!!!) So after you do 3 good rides, you've paid more than you would for a tourist pass. So we got that tourist pass and hallelujah for there being essentially no lines, because we did so many rides in the next 2 hours it was crazy! All good ones too, of course. Laura even got me to do one like the Tower of Terror where you just drop straight down. I was kind of terrified but figured I would survive. Another great moment was the 2nd time around on the roller coaster Laura and I did monkey faces the whole time so that when the take pictures of all the roller coaster riders our picture would be hilarious. But we didn't know when the camera would go off so we had to do monkey faces for like the whole ride. It was so hard to not laugh or scream or do anything! It was the most challenging monkey face. The picture though, wow, it was hilarious!! Jan didn't get the memo the first time around so we went again (as I said, no line, awesome) and made Jan do a monkey face with us. All three of us monkey facing the camera on a roller coaster is such an incredibly funny sight!!! I did not want to pay $8 for the picture though so that memory is just in my head...Another cool thing was doing the rides as it got darker and darker and seeing the city light up. The views from the tops of the rides were just so good and beautiful!!! After rides we watched a short illumination show with lights, fountains, and music over one of the lakes in the theme park. In all, it was a really fun evening running around like little kids playing in a theme park. And the best part was that I was tall enough for all the rides!! hahah.
After Tivoli we grabbed a quick dinner and then headed to a bar. We were almost to the bar when Jan realized he left his bike at the dinner place! Pretty funny. After that first bar, we got Jan's bike and went to a club with one of Jan's other friends. This club we were warned was "controversial". The bottom level had fake blood dripping from all walls with quasi-creepy statements written in huge silver block letters. It was really bizarre. I don't know how we even got in because everybody there was dressed up and in heels and we looked like.....backpackers who had been wearing the same clothes for a week. I hate clubs and after spending a mandatory $3 on a freaking BAG check I didn't want to drink anything because I didn't want to get even more sick. But we stood around chatting and listening to the music for about an hour (slowest hour everrrr when you're tired and sick and don't like clubs). The weirdest thing happened though. From my seated perch, I saw some old drunk guy kneeling on the ground feeling around (there were a lot of old drunk guys there...it was weird. People that old don't go out and party with the high-heeled young 20 somethings in the States). Anyway he seemed a little frantic, he had obviously lost something more important than a 10 crown coin, and I figured it was a ring. I asked him what he was looking for and I turned out to be right. I saw what I thought was a rink amidst a pile of broken glass behind a stage people were dancing on a little ways away. I pointed it out to him and somehow in that dark club I had found his ring, saw him trying to find it, and helped him find it. I felt like my Eagle Eyes had done an AMAZING job; pretty proud of that feat!!!! He then came up to me and said, "Thanks, losing this would have been a great shame," and slipped it on his ring finger. Uh, yeah, losing your wedding ring on a Thursday night in a creepy club WOULD be a "great shame". Thank goodness for me, you old weirdo!
We finally got out of that club and went to another bar but only for a few minutes, because then the sky was starting to lighten (it was around 2:45 AM). The whole goal of staying up all night tonight was to see an amazing sunrise. When we realized that the metro and busses wouldn't get us to our destination for sunrise watching soon enough, we spontaneously took a cab to this beautiful beach. We had the beach completely to ourselves, it was freezing cold out, but pretty clear and not raining. We sat on a concrete wall looking over the perfectly still water and 20 windmills in the distance. To the right we could see the bridge leading to Sweden and Swedish lights across the water. It was so serene, peaceful, beautiful - it was completely incredible. The stunning rainbow colors lit up the horizon, and it was an amazing sight to see. However, what we didn't take into account was when the actual sun would rise. It takes hours for it to get dark - but we hadn't realized the same would be true about getting light. So after about an hour of sitting there, the sun FINALLY game up in all its glowing orange yellow glory, and a new day had begun. It's hard to imagine fighting and disease and hatred when you're witnessing something so natural and so gorgeous. With ice cold butts we peeled ourselves off the concrete and made the very tired trek back to Jan's flat. In total, we had been outside for about an hour and a half. That's dedication! But, mission accomplished. It was SO worth it!!
Accomplishments:
Found some dude's wedding ring on the ground.
Watched an incredible sunrise.
We first went to Christiania, which my guide book described as a "hippie trippy mini Seattle." Uh. Not quite that. I don't know if the people in that guide book have ever been to Seattle. Strike 3, guide book, strike 3. Quickly approaching the status of "The Book" from Egypt that was wrong about EVERYTHING. Christiania was set up in the 60's and is seriously just a bunch of self governing hippies living there. It reminded me of an overgrown campground, but with concrete buildings in it. There was graffiti everywhere, lots of bizarre art work, and lots of hippies. It had a playground, cafes, houses, special Christiania bikes, people with dreds and piercings, and lots of weed paraphernalia. It was really quite and very peaceful. There did seem to be a lot of tourists there though and lots of signs saying no pictures allowed. It must be weird living in a place that's described as a "social experiment" that is now kind of a tourist attraction. You could really easily tell who lived there and who didn't. Anyway, after getting a feel for the vibe of the place, there's not that much to do so we went on with our day. Oh - and as you leave Christiania under one of the gate ways, the gate says "Now Entering the EU" which I found really funny.
We walked to Nyhavn, that super cute, picture perfect harbor area and got lunch at one of the outside cafes. I tried smorrebrod, which was one of my goals for Copenhagen. Smorrebrod just means an open faced sandwich, and it's pretty much the only food that is really considered "Danish". Most smorrebrods have at least something on them that I don't like - seafood, pate, mushrooms, horseradish, egg, etc. But, I found one that had a chicken salad with a creamy dressing on it and a piece of bacon. You're supposed to eat smorrebrod with a Danish beer, so I got myself a Carlsberg beer to go with it. I absolutely love sitting in cafes outside in Europe in the sun and people watching and having interesting culinary experiences.
Then we had to get our souvenir shopping out of the way which was a really frustrating thing this time around. There is a shop that sells gorgeous porcelain and ceramics, but a single plate costs upwards of 80 euros. The tourist plate shops all were terrible and obsessed with the Little Mermaid. I got a recommendation to look for plates at a cheap store, but the plates there were awful and didn't remind me of Copenhagen at all. I ended up dragging Laura in circles and finally getting a tourist shop plate that I liked better than anything else I saw. Still - not quite the traditional ceramics I was looking for. Ugh. Sometimes this collection drives me crazy. Oh well, at least I only have one plate left to get!
Then we walked to the Carlsberg Brewery. We could have taken a bus but I wanted to save our precious expensive bus tickets. We ended getting stuck under an overpass we needed to be on and we showed up late to find Jan patiently waiting for us there. My guidebook said you could do a free, self guided tour of the brewery. WRONG AGAIN! 4 times!! This stupid book! I am going to write them a letter when I get home...unless I find out that it was like a 2007 version and I was just using it because the library didn't have anything more current...Anyway, Jan had never been to the brewery before and for the $10 entrance fee you got 2 free beer tickets, and we walked over an hour there so we had to do it. The brewery turned out to be pretty cool, very informative with lots of history about the Carlsberg beer dynasty in Denmark. This visitor's center has the Guinness Book of World Records' largest collection of unopened beer bottles with over 19,000 beers from the past 100 years or so! It is CRAZY! The end of tour was my favorite part. They had an exhibit on how to enjoy beer with all of your senses and tons of great quotes about beer on the wall. They had 20 different aromas that can be found in beers and a pamphlet with all these aromas listed out. You went around smelling each one and checking off whether you liked it, didn't like it, or were indifferent. Then, all the Carlsberg (and some Tuborg and Jacobsen) beers were listed on the next page with which aromas could be found in each beer. You could kind of rate each beer according to how much you thought you would like it based on the aromas just smelled. Then you use your two free beer coupons to try the beers that match what you like the best. It was such a fun game!!! I really liked both beers that I got and it was fun tasting the beers Laura and Jan got too and trying to decipher the different aromas claimed to be in each. It was really cool, but it just made me even more of a beer snob. That's ok, I like being a beer snob.
After the brewery, we walked an hour back into the center of town and, having decided earlier to splurge this evening, went to Tivoli Gardens. This is a huge theme park in the middle of the city that is supposed to be the #1 attraction here. It was a little bit expensive but we ended up getting tourist passes that allowed us to do as many rides as we wanted to. To give you an idea, ride tickets cost 25 crowns (about $4). The good rides cost 3 tickets ($12!!!) So after you do 3 good rides, you've paid more than you would for a tourist pass. So we got that tourist pass and hallelujah for there being essentially no lines, because we did so many rides in the next 2 hours it was crazy! All good ones too, of course. Laura even got me to do one like the Tower of Terror where you just drop straight down. I was kind of terrified but figured I would survive. Another great moment was the 2nd time around on the roller coaster Laura and I did monkey faces the whole time so that when the take pictures of all the roller coaster riders our picture would be hilarious. But we didn't know when the camera would go off so we had to do monkey faces for like the whole ride. It was so hard to not laugh or scream or do anything! It was the most challenging monkey face. The picture though, wow, it was hilarious!! Jan didn't get the memo the first time around so we went again (as I said, no line, awesome) and made Jan do a monkey face with us. All three of us monkey facing the camera on a roller coaster is such an incredibly funny sight!!! I did not want to pay $8 for the picture though so that memory is just in my head...Another cool thing was doing the rides as it got darker and darker and seeing the city light up. The views from the tops of the rides were just so good and beautiful!!! After rides we watched a short illumination show with lights, fountains, and music over one of the lakes in the theme park. In all, it was a really fun evening running around like little kids playing in a theme park. And the best part was that I was tall enough for all the rides!! hahah.
After Tivoli we grabbed a quick dinner and then headed to a bar. We were almost to the bar when Jan realized he left his bike at the dinner place! Pretty funny. After that first bar, we got Jan's bike and went to a club with one of Jan's other friends. This club we were warned was "controversial". The bottom level had fake blood dripping from all walls with quasi-creepy statements written in huge silver block letters. It was really bizarre. I don't know how we even got in because everybody there was dressed up and in heels and we looked like.....backpackers who had been wearing the same clothes for a week. I hate clubs and after spending a mandatory $3 on a freaking BAG check I didn't want to drink anything because I didn't want to get even more sick. But we stood around chatting and listening to the music for about an hour (slowest hour everrrr when you're tired and sick and don't like clubs). The weirdest thing happened though. From my seated perch, I saw some old drunk guy kneeling on the ground feeling around (there were a lot of old drunk guys there...it was weird. People that old don't go out and party with the high-heeled young 20 somethings in the States). Anyway he seemed a little frantic, he had obviously lost something more important than a 10 crown coin, and I figured it was a ring. I asked him what he was looking for and I turned out to be right. I saw what I thought was a rink amidst a pile of broken glass behind a stage people were dancing on a little ways away. I pointed it out to him and somehow in that dark club I had found his ring, saw him trying to find it, and helped him find it. I felt like my Eagle Eyes had done an AMAZING job; pretty proud of that feat!!!! He then came up to me and said, "Thanks, losing this would have been a great shame," and slipped it on his ring finger. Uh, yeah, losing your wedding ring on a Thursday night in a creepy club WOULD be a "great shame". Thank goodness for me, you old weirdo!
We finally got out of that club and went to another bar but only for a few minutes, because then the sky was starting to lighten (it was around 2:45 AM). The whole goal of staying up all night tonight was to see an amazing sunrise. When we realized that the metro and busses wouldn't get us to our destination for sunrise watching soon enough, we spontaneously took a cab to this beautiful beach. We had the beach completely to ourselves, it was freezing cold out, but pretty clear and not raining. We sat on a concrete wall looking over the perfectly still water and 20 windmills in the distance. To the right we could see the bridge leading to Sweden and Swedish lights across the water. It was so serene, peaceful, beautiful - it was completely incredible. The stunning rainbow colors lit up the horizon, and it was an amazing sight to see. However, what we didn't take into account was when the actual sun would rise. It takes hours for it to get dark - but we hadn't realized the same would be true about getting light. So after about an hour of sitting there, the sun FINALLY game up in all its glowing orange yellow glory, and a new day had begun. It's hard to imagine fighting and disease and hatred when you're witnessing something so natural and so gorgeous. With ice cold butts we peeled ourselves off the concrete and made the very tired trek back to Jan's flat. In total, we had been outside for about an hour and a half. That's dedication! But, mission accomplished. It was SO worth it!!
Accomplishments:
Found some dude's wedding ring on the ground.
Watched an incredible sunrise.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Postcard Perfect
I accidentally slept in until 11 AM and woke up still not feeling great. Boo :( At least it was sunny out! This is the first time that it hasn't started raining the second we walked outside in what feels like forever!
We took Jan up on his suggestion to do a harbor tour of Copenhagen to soak up the good weather. The harbor tours are boat cruises through Copenhagen that leave from Nyhavn - an adorable man made canal lined with brightly colored houses. It is exactly what you would picture Scandinavian houses on a city waterfront to look like, it's just like a postcard! Jan gave us a little insider tip - there is a very visible company at end of the canal closest to the city center. These are expensive. But, if walk up the canal like 30 meters there is another less visible company that gives you basically that same hour long tour for $5!!! Sweeeeet. Their $5 price is cheaper than the expensive company's children's price. So we figured that was a fantastic way to spend $5 and a sunny afternoon and hopped on just a few minutes before it left. I got a nice seat on the 'window' side (but the windows can be pushed up and towards the center of the boat so they're not clouding the view) and got my camera ready.
The harbor tour was really cool. I don't think I necessarily learned that much, it was just SO nice to be out on the water in the sunshine, slowly going past beautiful buildings. I am just so excited to be in Scandinavia! It was a really pleasant experience though - definitely a quality use of $5. Some things that were on our tour:
The Free Town of Christiania - 30+ years ago some hippies knocked down a fence to an unused barracks or something and declared themselves a separate Free Town from Copenhagen. They have their own post system, their own laws, and are seriously just a bunch of hippies hanging out in this area they claimed. The government was going to allow it only temporarily but has since decided to allow it to continue as a 'social experiment'.
The Navy ships,
The Royal Yacht,
The Opera House, given to Copenhagen by the shipping giant Mersk. This is why the front of the building looks like the back of one of their huge shipping ships.
Where the Little Mermaid used to be (Copenhagen is famous for this tiny little statue but it's on loan to Shanghai for 2010 for an Art Exposition so there's just a boring white sign in it's place above the rock where the statue sat).
The Castle, which originally was built by 4 rich noblemen and later it became the royal residence of the Danish royal family - this is why it has 4 practically identical buildings that don't look that much like an actual palace.
We saw some other stuff too but I don't remember it. It was all just pretty.
After the harbor tour, we walked past a tourist information center where I picked up a plethora of handouts and brochures and free tourist guides and magazines. I had read about a specific publication called Copenhagen This Week in a guide book before I left. It's supposed to be this free guide of things to do in the city. But, the people at the tourist center said that it didn't exist any more. One strike against that guide book. There were enough other materials to take though, and I left the building feeling like a walking tourist information center.
Then we were on our way to Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museet, or the New Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum. The guide book I read back home said it was free on Wednesdays and that it had a number of Rodin sculptures. Well, it's Wednesday, and I love free stuff and Rodin, so it seemed perfect. However when we got there, there were signs that said only Sundays had free entrance! And real entrance was like $10! Strike two against the guide book! But, me being me, I went up and asked somebody at the ticket desk and just said that I'd read in a guide book that the museum was free on Wednesdays, was that not true anymore? She said, no, that's not true anymore, it's only free on Sundays....BUT - BUT!!! Today is the Crown Prince's birthday, so the museum is free today! What the heck?! How random is that / HOW GREAT is our timing?! / How awesome is it that I go up and ask what most people probably would think are dumb or inane questions?! Woohoo! Rodin only really got one room in the museum but it was all great stuff. Most of his works are about expressing emotions through sculptures, so I find them very interesting. And of course, The Kiss and the Thinker were there. By the way, I'm really confused about how many "original Rodin" copies of the Kiss exist, since I've now seen three of them (Paris, London, Copenhagen). Wow that sounds pretentious. Oh yeah, something cool about this museum is that a lot of the artwork, especially Rodin, was bought from Rodin himself by Carl Jacobsen and later donated to this museum. Crazy! The museum also had a lot of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian art which was interesting. I really liked the Egyptian art because they had actual tablets with hieroglyphics on it that were sweet!
After the museum, we began aimless walking with the pretense of looking for food. Food is usually our pretense. However, we are so frugal and so picky that we usually end up walking for hours and then either just going to a grocery store or getting something cheap because we're starving. We accidentally found the city center area which was filled with restaurants, expensive stores, and tourist souvenir shops, so it was actually really cool to walk through all the pedestrian streets and squares bustling with people. After a few hours of this, we headed back to Jan's flat where we told him we'd meet him at 7 PM. On the way, we stopped at a mini market where I picked up what looked like chicken flavored Ramen noodles, 2 potatoes, and 1 shallot. This cost me an amazing $1.5! Pretty awesome for being in Denmark.
When we arrived, we found that Jan also had not eaten yet, and so we ditched our lame idea of Ramen and went to a real super market (the kind that we were hopelessly looking for the whole evening). Jan tried to describe his idea of dinner to us and while we didn't totally understand it sounded good so we followed him around picking up ingredients. Back home, I tried to help and he wasn't having any of it. He just worked away by himself, and soon called us to dinner. Dinner was AMAZING! He made a version of Rosti, I think. In Switzerland, Rosti was just potatoes (I think). Here, it was potatoes, onions, carrots, and peppers which all got shredded and mashed up together. In a separate bowl flour and eggs were mixed. Then it all goes together and you make little vegetable pancakes that get fried in a skillet with oil. On top goes a sour cream esque sauce that also had green onions in it. It was seriously amazing! And Jan didn't let us do a thing except for eat. When I asked him what I could do to help clean up he told me I could "go to my room." Thanks, Jan. Laura and I insisted though and the three of us whisked the kitchen clean; after which I remarked to Jan to look at how fun that was!
Oh I forgot to mention earlier - Jan has never hosted anybody from CouchSurfing before! He's surfed through Eastern Europe, but never hosted. You would never be able to guess this though! Picking us up with beers and making us dinner were so great. And when he picked us up he was prepared to pay for our train tickets to get to his flat but we didn't need them since we have our Eurail passes. Then when we got home, he had a map ready for each of us! It was crazy awesome. It's really exciting to be the first surfers, because I am pretty sure we will leave a great impression :) Especially since Americans tend to have such an awful reputation, it's nice to just break that mold right away.
After dinner, we decided not to go out for any reason since I'm still sick and we have a lot we want to do tomorrow. I'm feeling a bit better but I want this cough to go away!
Quotes:
Hilary: "What can I do to help?"
Jan: "Go to your room."
Accomplishments:
More great timing with free museums (p.s., good job, Crown Prince, way to have a birthday today!)
Travel Tip:
Never hurts to ask questions...
We took Jan up on his suggestion to do a harbor tour of Copenhagen to soak up the good weather. The harbor tours are boat cruises through Copenhagen that leave from Nyhavn - an adorable man made canal lined with brightly colored houses. It is exactly what you would picture Scandinavian houses on a city waterfront to look like, it's just like a postcard! Jan gave us a little insider tip - there is a very visible company at end of the canal closest to the city center. These are expensive. But, if walk up the canal like 30 meters there is another less visible company that gives you basically that same hour long tour for $5!!! Sweeeeet. Their $5 price is cheaper than the expensive company's children's price. So we figured that was a fantastic way to spend $5 and a sunny afternoon and hopped on just a few minutes before it left. I got a nice seat on the 'window' side (but the windows can be pushed up and towards the center of the boat so they're not clouding the view) and got my camera ready.
The harbor tour was really cool. I don't think I necessarily learned that much, it was just SO nice to be out on the water in the sunshine, slowly going past beautiful buildings. I am just so excited to be in Scandinavia! It was a really pleasant experience though - definitely a quality use of $5. Some things that were on our tour:
The Free Town of Christiania - 30+ years ago some hippies knocked down a fence to an unused barracks or something and declared themselves a separate Free Town from Copenhagen. They have their own post system, their own laws, and are seriously just a bunch of hippies hanging out in this area they claimed. The government was going to allow it only temporarily but has since decided to allow it to continue as a 'social experiment'.
The Navy ships,
The Royal Yacht,
The Opera House, given to Copenhagen by the shipping giant Mersk. This is why the front of the building looks like the back of one of their huge shipping ships.
Where the Little Mermaid used to be (Copenhagen is famous for this tiny little statue but it's on loan to Shanghai for 2010 for an Art Exposition so there's just a boring white sign in it's place above the rock where the statue sat).
The Castle, which originally was built by 4 rich noblemen and later it became the royal residence of the Danish royal family - this is why it has 4 practically identical buildings that don't look that much like an actual palace.
We saw some other stuff too but I don't remember it. It was all just pretty.
After the harbor tour, we walked past a tourist information center where I picked up a plethora of handouts and brochures and free tourist guides and magazines. I had read about a specific publication called Copenhagen This Week in a guide book before I left. It's supposed to be this free guide of things to do in the city. But, the people at the tourist center said that it didn't exist any more. One strike against that guide book. There were enough other materials to take though, and I left the building feeling like a walking tourist information center.
Then we were on our way to Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museet, or the New Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum. The guide book I read back home said it was free on Wednesdays and that it had a number of Rodin sculptures. Well, it's Wednesday, and I love free stuff and Rodin, so it seemed perfect. However when we got there, there were signs that said only Sundays had free entrance! And real entrance was like $10! Strike two against the guide book! But, me being me, I went up and asked somebody at the ticket desk and just said that I'd read in a guide book that the museum was free on Wednesdays, was that not true anymore? She said, no, that's not true anymore, it's only free on Sundays....BUT - BUT!!! Today is the Crown Prince's birthday, so the museum is free today! What the heck?! How random is that / HOW GREAT is our timing?! / How awesome is it that I go up and ask what most people probably would think are dumb or inane questions?! Woohoo! Rodin only really got one room in the museum but it was all great stuff. Most of his works are about expressing emotions through sculptures, so I find them very interesting. And of course, The Kiss and the Thinker were there. By the way, I'm really confused about how many "original Rodin" copies of the Kiss exist, since I've now seen three of them (Paris, London, Copenhagen). Wow that sounds pretentious. Oh yeah, something cool about this museum is that a lot of the artwork, especially Rodin, was bought from Rodin himself by Carl Jacobsen and later donated to this museum. Crazy! The museum also had a lot of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian art which was interesting. I really liked the Egyptian art because they had actual tablets with hieroglyphics on it that were sweet!
After the museum, we began aimless walking with the pretense of looking for food. Food is usually our pretense. However, we are so frugal and so picky that we usually end up walking for hours and then either just going to a grocery store or getting something cheap because we're starving. We accidentally found the city center area which was filled with restaurants, expensive stores, and tourist souvenir shops, so it was actually really cool to walk through all the pedestrian streets and squares bustling with people. After a few hours of this, we headed back to Jan's flat where we told him we'd meet him at 7 PM. On the way, we stopped at a mini market where I picked up what looked like chicken flavored Ramen noodles, 2 potatoes, and 1 shallot. This cost me an amazing $1.5! Pretty awesome for being in Denmark.
When we arrived, we found that Jan also had not eaten yet, and so we ditched our lame idea of Ramen and went to a real super market (the kind that we were hopelessly looking for the whole evening). Jan tried to describe his idea of dinner to us and while we didn't totally understand it sounded good so we followed him around picking up ingredients. Back home, I tried to help and he wasn't having any of it. He just worked away by himself, and soon called us to dinner. Dinner was AMAZING! He made a version of Rosti, I think. In Switzerland, Rosti was just potatoes (I think). Here, it was potatoes, onions, carrots, and peppers which all got shredded and mashed up together. In a separate bowl flour and eggs were mixed. Then it all goes together and you make little vegetable pancakes that get fried in a skillet with oil. On top goes a sour cream esque sauce that also had green onions in it. It was seriously amazing! And Jan didn't let us do a thing except for eat. When I asked him what I could do to help clean up he told me I could "go to my room." Thanks, Jan. Laura and I insisted though and the three of us whisked the kitchen clean; after which I remarked to Jan to look at how fun that was!
Oh I forgot to mention earlier - Jan has never hosted anybody from CouchSurfing before! He's surfed through Eastern Europe, but never hosted. You would never be able to guess this though! Picking us up with beers and making us dinner were so great. And when he picked us up he was prepared to pay for our train tickets to get to his flat but we didn't need them since we have our Eurail passes. Then when we got home, he had a map ready for each of us! It was crazy awesome. It's really exciting to be the first surfers, because I am pretty sure we will leave a great impression :) Especially since Americans tend to have such an awful reputation, it's nice to just break that mold right away.
After dinner, we decided not to go out for any reason since I'm still sick and we have a lot we want to do tomorrow. I'm feeling a bit better but I want this cough to go away!
Quotes:
Hilary: "What can I do to help?"
Jan: "Go to your room."
Accomplishments:
More great timing with free museums (p.s., good job, Crown Prince, way to have a birthday today!)
Travel Tip:
Never hurts to ask questions...
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Jan - CS #20
Today we began our adventure to Scandinavia!
We spent the morning in Hamburg wandering around on foot (!) by ourselves, as we didn't exactly invite Alex and Martin had to work and the Peruvian girls were headed back to Barcelona. We had a few hours to kill before our train in which we did some enthused window shopping before finally finding a cafeteria/food court/grocery store type of thing. We figured we could be warm and dry inside, so after buying some vitamin C cough drops, more Maoam's, and that amazing coconut candy that Steph left on our pillows, we found a table that we could loiter at. We got some Chinese food for an early lunch, and grabbed some German pastries on the way back to the train station.
It was a really quiet, kind of boring morning but that's alright sometimes. We luckily got a comfortable spot on the train and I continued the process of playing catch up with blogging. The train ride was going normally, until they made an announcement that the train was getting on a ferry, and all passengers had to get off for the crossing of the water. What?! Hahaha. So, the entire train (which I think was only 4 cars long or so) parked itself on a ferry, and we all got out with only our valuables and headed up to the ferry decks. I didn't even know trains did this!!! Going through the English Channel tunnel we all stayed on the bus, which drove onto a train that went through the tunnel. But a train rolling on to a ferry? So bizarre and funny.
It is FINALLY sunny out and the water looked gorgeous. It made me a bit nostalgic for SAS seeing the great expanse of water in all directions and not being entirely sure exactly where I was. The ferry crossing was only about 45 minutes long and then we all piled back onto the train, which was now magically in Denmark. The scenery is beautiful so far and I am so very excited to finally be this far north and to see Scandinavia! The only bittersweet thing is that being here means that we have only a short month left before this amazing trip comes to an end...
Our newest host, Jan ("Yahn" - he's a guy) greeted us on the platform and as soon as we came into view he revealed the three Carlsberg beers he was holding! BY FAR the coolest way we've ever been greeted by a CouchSurfing host! We set out bags down at the station and got right to the point enjoying Danish culture...and by culture I mean beer. We clicked instantly with Jan and spent the next half an hour just laughing outside of the station. It's always so wonderful when you get along with a host so well and you can just tell that your stay in that city is going to be a lot of fun.
Jan is 26 and is working on his master's thesis which involves researching and studying things relating to tourism and transportation. He is originally from Germany and has a tendency to break into spontaneous songs and dances. The first such song was a terrible little diddy that now has a terrible tendency to get stuck in my head. There is a music video in case you're interested, but the part Jan always sings literally goes, "McDonalds! McDonalds! Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut! McDonalds! McDonalds! Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut!" And YES there are definitely hand motions / a dance that go with it. Yeah...
Unrelated to anything, while we were lounging in his flat chatting and trying to figure out the internet password (which was Johnny Cash, but not spelled correctly - spent hours trying to figure this out), I heard Treble Charger come on. I was like, "WHAT?! You know them!?" They're a band from Canada that I loved in high school, and Jan likes them. Crazy. More point for him!
We arrived at Jan's flat in Norrebro (which he lovingly calls "NorreBronx" - complete with gangsta hand motions) and he announced he was making us tacos. No complaints there! I always offer to help prepare food and Jan let me work on the guacamole. However, I had already halved the avocado before realizing it was wayyy not ripe enough to make real guacamole! The solution to this, since it was far too hard to mash with a spoon, was to put little chunks of hard avocado through a garlic press. Extremely creative, if you ask me (Jan gets the credit for this genius idea). Soon we sat down to a hard shell and soft tortilla feast with chicken and all the toppings. So that was delicious.
After dinner, we decided to go out for a beer at a small bar close to Jan's flat. We had heard that Scandinavia was expensive and wow - people weren't lying. A beer here (not in the center of town!) was 40 Danish Crowns which are about 6 crowns to the dollar. So almost $7 for a normal half liter of beer! Yikes! It was good beer though, and over said beer we tried learning some Danish. Turns out Danish is extremely difficult. It's funny how you can hear something repeated so many times and still not be able to make the right sounds with your mouth.
I have not been feeling 100% healthy lately (I have a slight cough) so after this beer we called it a night and walked back home. It is so weird, this far north there are not that many hours of darkness! It doesn't get pitch black til about 11 or 1130 PM and it's already getting light again by 3 AM. This dusk light makes it feel like it's 8 PM for hours, but then all of a sudden it's late. So days are long here, but we only have two of them so we need to make the best of them!
Quotes:
"Seriously? Whoa. Wow where's the knife ya'll?" - Jan, in response (I think) to Laura saying she was from the 'hood
"Sometimes I'm in a hip hop phase and I come home and am like, yea yea yea yeah what up YO!" - Jan, about what kind of music he likes
"Just smack the door on your way out." - Jan, funny English moment
"Really, Danish is much easier to learn after a couple of beers." - Jan, about some of the more difficult Danish sounds
"Car-yeah...." - Laura (we have a tendency to say the exact same thing at the exact same time; it's embarrassing. I had just said "Cards would be fun" and Laura was literally about to say the same thing but only got to "Car" when I beat her to it...it was really funny when it happened).
Accomplishments:
Took a train on to a ferry.
Made it to Scandinavia!
Travel Tip:
Cards seriously would be fun, I maybe should have brought/bought some!
We spent the morning in Hamburg wandering around on foot (!) by ourselves, as we didn't exactly invite Alex and Martin had to work and the Peruvian girls were headed back to Barcelona. We had a few hours to kill before our train in which we did some enthused window shopping before finally finding a cafeteria/food court/grocery store type of thing. We figured we could be warm and dry inside, so after buying some vitamin C cough drops, more Maoam's, and that amazing coconut candy that Steph left on our pillows, we found a table that we could loiter at. We got some Chinese food for an early lunch, and grabbed some German pastries on the way back to the train station.
It was a really quiet, kind of boring morning but that's alright sometimes. We luckily got a comfortable spot on the train and I continued the process of playing catch up with blogging. The train ride was going normally, until they made an announcement that the train was getting on a ferry, and all passengers had to get off for the crossing of the water. What?! Hahaha. So, the entire train (which I think was only 4 cars long or so) parked itself on a ferry, and we all got out with only our valuables and headed up to the ferry decks. I didn't even know trains did this!!! Going through the English Channel tunnel we all stayed on the bus, which drove onto a train that went through the tunnel. But a train rolling on to a ferry? So bizarre and funny.
It is FINALLY sunny out and the water looked gorgeous. It made me a bit nostalgic for SAS seeing the great expanse of water in all directions and not being entirely sure exactly where I was. The ferry crossing was only about 45 minutes long and then we all piled back onto the train, which was now magically in Denmark. The scenery is beautiful so far and I am so very excited to finally be this far north and to see Scandinavia! The only bittersweet thing is that being here means that we have only a short month left before this amazing trip comes to an end...
Our newest host, Jan ("Yahn" - he's a guy) greeted us on the platform and as soon as we came into view he revealed the three Carlsberg beers he was holding! BY FAR the coolest way we've ever been greeted by a CouchSurfing host! We set out bags down at the station and got right to the point enjoying Danish culture...and by culture I mean beer. We clicked instantly with Jan and spent the next half an hour just laughing outside of the station. It's always so wonderful when you get along with a host so well and you can just tell that your stay in that city is going to be a lot of fun.
Jan is 26 and is working on his master's thesis which involves researching and studying things relating to tourism and transportation. He is originally from Germany and has a tendency to break into spontaneous songs and dances. The first such song was a terrible little diddy that now has a terrible tendency to get stuck in my head. There is a music video in case you're interested, but the part Jan always sings literally goes, "McDonalds! McDonalds! Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut! McDonalds! McDonalds! Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut!" And YES there are definitely hand motions / a dance that go with it. Yeah...
Unrelated to anything, while we were lounging in his flat chatting and trying to figure out the internet password (which was Johnny Cash, but not spelled correctly - spent hours trying to figure this out), I heard Treble Charger come on. I was like, "WHAT?! You know them!?" They're a band from Canada that I loved in high school, and Jan likes them. Crazy. More point for him!
We arrived at Jan's flat in Norrebro (which he lovingly calls "NorreBronx" - complete with gangsta hand motions) and he announced he was making us tacos. No complaints there! I always offer to help prepare food and Jan let me work on the guacamole. However, I had already halved the avocado before realizing it was wayyy not ripe enough to make real guacamole! The solution to this, since it was far too hard to mash with a spoon, was to put little chunks of hard avocado through a garlic press. Extremely creative, if you ask me (Jan gets the credit for this genius idea). Soon we sat down to a hard shell and soft tortilla feast with chicken and all the toppings. So that was delicious.
After dinner, we decided to go out for a beer at a small bar close to Jan's flat. We had heard that Scandinavia was expensive and wow - people weren't lying. A beer here (not in the center of town!) was 40 Danish Crowns which are about 6 crowns to the dollar. So almost $7 for a normal half liter of beer! Yikes! It was good beer though, and over said beer we tried learning some Danish. Turns out Danish is extremely difficult. It's funny how you can hear something repeated so many times and still not be able to make the right sounds with your mouth.
I have not been feeling 100% healthy lately (I have a slight cough) so after this beer we called it a night and walked back home. It is so weird, this far north there are not that many hours of darkness! It doesn't get pitch black til about 11 or 1130 PM and it's already getting light again by 3 AM. This dusk light makes it feel like it's 8 PM for hours, but then all of a sudden it's late. So days are long here, but we only have two of them so we need to make the best of them!
Quotes:
"Seriously? Whoa. Wow where's the knife ya'll?" - Jan, in response (I think) to Laura saying she was from the 'hood
"Sometimes I'm in a hip hop phase and I come home and am like, yea yea yea yeah what up YO!" - Jan, about what kind of music he likes
"Just smack the door on your way out." - Jan, funny English moment
"Really, Danish is much easier to learn after a couple of beers." - Jan, about some of the more difficult Danish sounds
"Car-yeah...." - Laura (we have a tendency to say the exact same thing at the exact same time; it's embarrassing. I had just said "Cards would be fun" and Laura was literally about to say the same thing but only got to "Car" when I beat her to it...it was really funny when it happened).
Accomplishments:
Took a train on to a ferry.
Made it to Scandinavia!
Travel Tip:
Cards seriously would be fun, I maybe should have brought/bought some!
Monday, May 24, 2010
Tomatoes
Today we got up early (ish) to meet up with a guy named Alex for breakfast. Martin came with us because today is a holiday in Germany. He says he doesn't know the importance of the holiday, but what's important is that he doesn't have to work! Haha. Alex is an ambassador for CS, which means he is SUPER involved in CS and is an 'official' CS representative for the city of Hamburg (I think. I don't know the exact definiton of a CS ambassador). Laura had commented to me that he would be "a character." Thank goodness for that warning.
When we arrived to breakfast, Alex immediately put on his center of attention tour guide persona and didn't really let up for the next 6 hours. Needless to say, it was intense! At first it was really funny and amusing, but as time went on it began to grate on me. He hardly let anybody talk, ever. If he didn't agree with you he gave no appearance of respecting your difference of opinion, just changed subjects. He would make fun of one of us with quippy one liners that came off as much more rude to me that playful. And he tried to fit in about a week of Hamburg into just a few hours. I was excited for this at first, but then it became more him just listing off the name and use of every single building. He was going to fast that I didn't feel like I had time to absorb or retain anything! Also, he happened to have a car and it happened to be awful weather, so instead of our usual getting lost on foot adventures through a new city, he just zipped us around. I had no clue where we were on the map most of the time and even if you saw something it was gone two seconds later. Definitely not what I have been used to - which is seeing things at eye level at a pleasant pace with time to stop and take a picture if wanted. Sadly, this luke warm paragraph pretty much sums up the afternoon with Alex.
Being just slightly sick and not having the throat or the energy to keep up with what I personally thought was his rather rude and self centered way of conversing, I let Laura handle him (i.e. entertain/talk with him/listen to his monologues) while I spent most of the time being quiet or having mutually participative converstaions with Martin, who also seemed a bit overwhelmed by Alex.
The good thing about having Alex as our guide was that we definitely saw a lot more of Hamburg that we would have been able to on foot. We also knew what we were looking at a lot of the time (whether we wanted to or not). Also, we stayed relatively warm and dry which was a feat in the gloomy weather that has continued to follow us from city to city. Alex is also a food lover, so breakfast was delicious (a meat and cheest spread with breads and butters and marmalades), and that was followed by three other eating venues. The second one I wasn't hungry for, but Martin got "quark" which is a yogurt type thing with fruit in it that tasted amazing. Also, in the bathroom of this restaurant is a bizarre merman statue with the face of George Clooney. Super weird. Definitely took pictures. The third venue was also a no-go for me, which seemed to greatly offend Alex, but it was pickled herring with onions and pickles on bread. No thanks. Not mature enough for that one yet. The last place Alex took us to purely for its tiramisu, which Laura and I split (though Alex got some bites in too). He also wanted to take us to a baklava place and a gyro place (and of course scoffed when we told him we'd already found the best gyros in Berlin that were probably half the price of whatever gyro shop he knows). By this time, it had at least stopped raining and I was tired of sitting around in the cramped back seat of a car all day, trying to look at buildings through fogged windows. I kept saying I wanted to walk around, and so Alex found a place to park and we got some precious moments walking around Hamburg on foot.
After Alex's exhausting tour had come to a close, Martin, Laura and I went back to Martin's place to regroup a little bit. Soon after, Martin led us on a much quieter and what I thought was way more pleasant stroll around his peaceful, adorable neighborhood. He lives 20 or so minutes outside of Hamburg's city center so the atmosphere feels like a beach town complete with cute shops and parks and little boats in the water. He took us through the botanical gardens close to his house and past a deer park and soon we got a great view of the water. Across the way there was an Airbus factory but closer to shore were many little fishing boats docked. The whole walk took around an hour and it was great to be in the fresh air stretching our legs and seeing a more suburban area. It's always so nice to get out of the bigger cities.
Back at Martin's place, he somehow whipped up the quickest, most delicious multi-course dinner we've had on our trip yet! We had steaks left over from Berlin and Martin had some other meat that he didn't know how to translate but that we ate anyway. He also baked fresh bread which we ate with his delicious olive oil and his homemade prosceto (sp?). Prosceto (sp?) is a mixture of small tomato chunks with garlic, oregano, onion, and a handful of other herbs. It smelled so good that I actually tried some on the fresh bread....and it's wasn't that bad! This means that for the first time, I willingly ate tomato chunks and didn't absolutely hate it. WOOHOO! I told Martin he had no idea what he had just accomplished, getting me to eat those...He didn't seem to understand the historic, monumentally signficiant moment in my life that had just occurred. But that's okay. He also served us wine and made us fresh haloumi (fried cheese). SOoooooo GOOD. After all of this he served us bowls of freshly cut up strawberries which we tried with olive oil and also with vanilla sugar (which I'd never heard of before, but it was delicious). Then he made us fresh, homemade raspberry ice cream right in front of us. He took frozen raspberries, vanilla sugar, and milk and blended it while pressing it down. It was very much like a sorbet. It was fantastic! Throughout the whole meal, we listened to Martin's favorite German artist and some popular German songs - seriously, where else would we be able to do that?!
After this incredible meal, Martin left for the train station to go pick up two more CouchSurfers. These girls are both from Peru but are studying abroad in Barcelona. While he was gone, Laura and I did the dishes and I felt like a very good guest :) The girls from Peru were so sweet but I didn't get to talk to them that much because I wasn't feeling well and wanted to use the downtime to try to catch up on blogging - which is an ongoing losing battle! The time I did spend with the two girls though was really great, and maybe when they finish all their studies and if they go back to Peru I'll be able to visit them there someday :) Given that I know no Spanish, connections in South America would be faaaaaantastic :)
Oh yeah, and the contrast of pace between the day with Alex and the evening with Martin was so acute. It was the perfect way to recover from that hyperactive tour, having a long, European, home-cooked meal, sipping wine, listening to German music and talking with CouchSurfers from Peru.
I realize that so far, we have spent more time in Poland and Germany than any other country. I know we are trying to do a lot on this trip, but it is really nice to be aware of the countries that we are spending more time than usual in. I feel like seeing the different cities and meeting different hosts and accumulating all these varied experiences really helps us to get a feel for the country in a much more unique way. I was unsure about even going to Germany - it wasn't so much a country I really wanted to see, it was just in the middle of everything I did want to see - but now, I am so happy that we had the opportunity to spend so long here. I have learned so much, seen so much, and eaten so much. It has been a very significant experience for me.
Accomplishment:
ATE TOMATOES! Just a few small chunks. And I didn't completely dislike them, they were actually kind of good. THIS IS BIG, PEOPLE!!!
When we arrived to breakfast, Alex immediately put on his center of attention tour guide persona and didn't really let up for the next 6 hours. Needless to say, it was intense! At first it was really funny and amusing, but as time went on it began to grate on me. He hardly let anybody talk, ever. If he didn't agree with you he gave no appearance of respecting your difference of opinion, just changed subjects. He would make fun of one of us with quippy one liners that came off as much more rude to me that playful. And he tried to fit in about a week of Hamburg into just a few hours. I was excited for this at first, but then it became more him just listing off the name and use of every single building. He was going to fast that I didn't feel like I had time to absorb or retain anything! Also, he happened to have a car and it happened to be awful weather, so instead of our usual getting lost on foot adventures through a new city, he just zipped us around. I had no clue where we were on the map most of the time and even if you saw something it was gone two seconds later. Definitely not what I have been used to - which is seeing things at eye level at a pleasant pace with time to stop and take a picture if wanted. Sadly, this luke warm paragraph pretty much sums up the afternoon with Alex.
Being just slightly sick and not having the throat or the energy to keep up with what I personally thought was his rather rude and self centered way of conversing, I let Laura handle him (i.e. entertain/talk with him/listen to his monologues) while I spent most of the time being quiet or having mutually participative converstaions with Martin, who also seemed a bit overwhelmed by Alex.
The good thing about having Alex as our guide was that we definitely saw a lot more of Hamburg that we would have been able to on foot. We also knew what we were looking at a lot of the time (whether we wanted to or not). Also, we stayed relatively warm and dry which was a feat in the gloomy weather that has continued to follow us from city to city. Alex is also a food lover, so breakfast was delicious (a meat and cheest spread with breads and butters and marmalades), and that was followed by three other eating venues. The second one I wasn't hungry for, but Martin got "quark" which is a yogurt type thing with fruit in it that tasted amazing. Also, in the bathroom of this restaurant is a bizarre merman statue with the face of George Clooney. Super weird. Definitely took pictures. The third venue was also a no-go for me, which seemed to greatly offend Alex, but it was pickled herring with onions and pickles on bread. No thanks. Not mature enough for that one yet. The last place Alex took us to purely for its tiramisu, which Laura and I split (though Alex got some bites in too). He also wanted to take us to a baklava place and a gyro place (and of course scoffed when we told him we'd already found the best gyros in Berlin that were probably half the price of whatever gyro shop he knows). By this time, it had at least stopped raining and I was tired of sitting around in the cramped back seat of a car all day, trying to look at buildings through fogged windows. I kept saying I wanted to walk around, and so Alex found a place to park and we got some precious moments walking around Hamburg on foot.
After Alex's exhausting tour had come to a close, Martin, Laura and I went back to Martin's place to regroup a little bit. Soon after, Martin led us on a much quieter and what I thought was way more pleasant stroll around his peaceful, adorable neighborhood. He lives 20 or so minutes outside of Hamburg's city center so the atmosphere feels like a beach town complete with cute shops and parks and little boats in the water. He took us through the botanical gardens close to his house and past a deer park and soon we got a great view of the water. Across the way there was an Airbus factory but closer to shore were many little fishing boats docked. The whole walk took around an hour and it was great to be in the fresh air stretching our legs and seeing a more suburban area. It's always so nice to get out of the bigger cities.
Back at Martin's place, he somehow whipped up the quickest, most delicious multi-course dinner we've had on our trip yet! We had steaks left over from Berlin and Martin had some other meat that he didn't know how to translate but that we ate anyway. He also baked fresh bread which we ate with his delicious olive oil and his homemade prosceto (sp?). Prosceto (sp?) is a mixture of small tomato chunks with garlic, oregano, onion, and a handful of other herbs. It smelled so good that I actually tried some on the fresh bread....and it's wasn't that bad! This means that for the first time, I willingly ate tomato chunks and didn't absolutely hate it. WOOHOO! I told Martin he had no idea what he had just accomplished, getting me to eat those...He didn't seem to understand the historic, monumentally signficiant moment in my life that had just occurred. But that's okay. He also served us wine and made us fresh haloumi (fried cheese). SOoooooo GOOD. After all of this he served us bowls of freshly cut up strawberries which we tried with olive oil and also with vanilla sugar (which I'd never heard of before, but it was delicious). Then he made us fresh, homemade raspberry ice cream right in front of us. He took frozen raspberries, vanilla sugar, and milk and blended it while pressing it down. It was very much like a sorbet. It was fantastic! Throughout the whole meal, we listened to Martin's favorite German artist and some popular German songs - seriously, where else would we be able to do that?!
After this incredible meal, Martin left for the train station to go pick up two more CouchSurfers. These girls are both from Peru but are studying abroad in Barcelona. While he was gone, Laura and I did the dishes and I felt like a very good guest :) The girls from Peru were so sweet but I didn't get to talk to them that much because I wasn't feeling well and wanted to use the downtime to try to catch up on blogging - which is an ongoing losing battle! The time I did spend with the two girls though was really great, and maybe when they finish all their studies and if they go back to Peru I'll be able to visit them there someday :) Given that I know no Spanish, connections in South America would be faaaaaantastic :)
Oh yeah, and the contrast of pace between the day with Alex and the evening with Martin was so acute. It was the perfect way to recover from that hyperactive tour, having a long, European, home-cooked meal, sipping wine, listening to German music and talking with CouchSurfers from Peru.
I realize that so far, we have spent more time in Poland and Germany than any other country. I know we are trying to do a lot on this trip, but it is really nice to be aware of the countries that we are spending more time than usual in. I feel like seeing the different cities and meeting different hosts and accumulating all these varied experiences really helps us to get a feel for the country in a much more unique way. I was unsure about even going to Germany - it wasn't so much a country I really wanted to see, it was just in the middle of everything I did want to see - but now, I am so happy that we had the opportunity to spend so long here. I have learned so much, seen so much, and eaten so much. It has been a very significant experience for me.
Accomplishment:
ATE TOMATOES! Just a few small chunks. And I didn't completely dislike them, they were actually kind of good. THIS IS BIG, PEOPLE!!!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Martin - CS #19
Travel days for us are usually not about waking up at the crack of dawn to get somewhere as soon as possible. They are more about not stressing out, making sure that we're ready to leave a place, and accepting the fact that we'll get to our next destination eventually. I really love the pace of our trip.
The point of tell you that was that there were a few things we still wanted to do in Berlin, so we weren't in a particular hurry to leave. Also, yesterday we quasi-randomly decided to go to Hamburg for a couple of days! Hamburg is less than 2 hours away from Berlin, which added to us not being rushed.
When we finally got up, we went to Mauer Park. Our tour guide Stephanie had told us this was a great park to go to on Sundays because it turns into a huge flea market and has karaoke starting at 2! How random is that? Nicole had also recommended it to us so we met here there. Turns out most flea markets really are kind of the same. I'm always surprised by how much old, random, mostly useless stuff there is at these markets! After walking through the flea market booths we arrived at where the karaoke usually happens. But it wasn't happening today! Major bummer! We weren't sure why, but my guess is it's either due to the culture carnival going on or the fact that this weekend and Monday are some random religious holiday here in Germany.
Anyway, since there was nothing else happening at the park, we went to the culture carnival for the third time! Nicole said she knew where they sold what is supposedly the best curryworst in Berlin. I'd been avoiding this, but I figured since it was my last day I should try it, especially if she knew the best place. Curryworst is an incredibly popular street food item in northern Germany. It is a type of sausage that looks a little bit deep fried, though I don't think it is, and it gets smothered with curry ketchup, which is exactly what it sounds like. It also typically gets served with frites (fries) covered in paprika powder and/or mayonnaise. We opted for no mayonnaise. I tried the curryworst, and it wasn't bad, but I don't think I would ever order it again. Let's just leave it at that.
To take advantage of the fantastic freedom to drink in public and on public transportation, we each got a beer and then tried to peer over peoples' heads to watch the nearby parade. The parade supposedly takes 9 hours because there are so many floats and dancers, so it's an all day event. There were thousands of people in the streets though - which was cool, except I really couldn't see anything. Finally we decided to call it a day and with our beers got on the metro to go back to Steph's flat to pick up our bags and head out. I'm so excited to be able to say that I drank a beer on the metro!
After we got our bags and said our goodbyes to Steph, we got one last gyro and took a picture with our kebap man! We were such good business for him :)
The train to Hamburg was surprisingly fast considering it usually takes us way longr that 2 hours to get to where we're going. There we met our next host, Martin. Martin is 29 and works for an IT consulting company. He's originally from Liepzieg which is in East Germany. Our our way back to Martin's flat, we talked to him about the difference in life before and after the wall game down. He was only 9 when the wall came down but it was so interesting and amazing to be able to speak to somebody about their experiences. Annnnnd....THIS is why I love CouchSurfing.
I should mention that in Martin's hallway on the bookcase I saw a vaguely familiar red box that said "Die Seidlers Der Catan" on it and I freaked out with joy and excitement. Martin won MAJOR points for that!! Now I really want to play Settler though...
At Martin's place, he kept trying to feed us! We weren't that hungry but couldn't say no to fresh slices of sweet orange and yellow bell peppers and some bread. He also kept insisting that we taste his prized Spanish sherry along with samples of his dry and sweet white wines. Martin has a thing for quality olive oil. I absolutely love it when people have a special affection for quality ingredients, especially if I happen to also love those ingredients. We got to try three different types of olive oil that he orders especially from certain people that make it - he refuses to buy the cheaper, lesser quality batches of olive oil that most people buy in super markets. He had a 'normal' olive oil, a spicy olive oil, and an olive oil infused with orange. Needless to say, they were all really good over peppers or with bread and wine, and it was an extremely pleasant welcome to the cute city of Hamburg.
After our light dinner, Martin took us into Hamburg to see the city by night. We walked under this crazy long tunnel that runs 21 meters under water! On the other side of the tunnel you can see some good views of Hamburg and the port. Then we went through Hamburg's red light district trying to find a bar. All of Hamburg's working girls were wearing completely normal, conservative clothes and some were talking in little groups of two or three. The only way you could recognize them was by their signature black fanny packs. Every single one of them was wearing a fanny pack! I thought this was so funny because basically nobody wears fanny packs anymore and they're not seen as attractive or seductive in the least. Really bizarre. Also I find it highly amusing that I'm able to compare and contrast red light districts from all over Europe. What a well traveled young adult I am...
Finally we found a small ish bar that didn't have unbearably loud music (and rather good music, at that). There is no way to escape the smoke, and my throat already didn't feel fantastic but there was nothing I could have done. Martin got us a small Hamburg micro-brewed beer that was much better than most of the beer we've tried lately (which has been extremely disappointing). This bar also had a foosball table and Martin and I played against a couple of other guys for a little while. I scored the last goal from one of my defender-foosball-men which was really fun! I also had a revelation - "fuB" (pronounced "foos" in German) means "foot" in German. So foosball is kind of a variation of football, in loose German. I think that's pretty clever.
Martin was ready to take us to another bar but we opted to go home since I wasn't feeling fantastic and since we wanted to have energy for our one and only full day in the city tomorrow. We got back to Martin's place and realized that he was letting us sleep on his giant, real bed and he was taking the couch/futon! Another real bed!!! How lucky are we?! Serioulsy, beds are so exciting to me at this point :)
The point of tell you that was that there were a few things we still wanted to do in Berlin, so we weren't in a particular hurry to leave. Also, yesterday we quasi-randomly decided to go to Hamburg for a couple of days! Hamburg is less than 2 hours away from Berlin, which added to us not being rushed.
When we finally got up, we went to Mauer Park. Our tour guide Stephanie had told us this was a great park to go to on Sundays because it turns into a huge flea market and has karaoke starting at 2! How random is that? Nicole had also recommended it to us so we met here there. Turns out most flea markets really are kind of the same. I'm always surprised by how much old, random, mostly useless stuff there is at these markets! After walking through the flea market booths we arrived at where the karaoke usually happens. But it wasn't happening today! Major bummer! We weren't sure why, but my guess is it's either due to the culture carnival going on or the fact that this weekend and Monday are some random religious holiday here in Germany.
Anyway, since there was nothing else happening at the park, we went to the culture carnival for the third time! Nicole said she knew where they sold what is supposedly the best curryworst in Berlin. I'd been avoiding this, but I figured since it was my last day I should try it, especially if she knew the best place. Curryworst is an incredibly popular street food item in northern Germany. It is a type of sausage that looks a little bit deep fried, though I don't think it is, and it gets smothered with curry ketchup, which is exactly what it sounds like. It also typically gets served with frites (fries) covered in paprika powder and/or mayonnaise. We opted for no mayonnaise. I tried the curryworst, and it wasn't bad, but I don't think I would ever order it again. Let's just leave it at that.
To take advantage of the fantastic freedom to drink in public and on public transportation, we each got a beer and then tried to peer over peoples' heads to watch the nearby parade. The parade supposedly takes 9 hours because there are so many floats and dancers, so it's an all day event. There were thousands of people in the streets though - which was cool, except I really couldn't see anything. Finally we decided to call it a day and with our beers got on the metro to go back to Steph's flat to pick up our bags and head out. I'm so excited to be able to say that I drank a beer on the metro!
After we got our bags and said our goodbyes to Steph, we got one last gyro and took a picture with our kebap man! We were such good business for him :)
The train to Hamburg was surprisingly fast considering it usually takes us way longr that 2 hours to get to where we're going. There we met our next host, Martin. Martin is 29 and works for an IT consulting company. He's originally from Liepzieg which is in East Germany. Our our way back to Martin's flat, we talked to him about the difference in life before and after the wall game down. He was only 9 when the wall came down but it was so interesting and amazing to be able to speak to somebody about their experiences. Annnnnd....THIS is why I love CouchSurfing.
I should mention that in Martin's hallway on the bookcase I saw a vaguely familiar red box that said "Die Seidlers Der Catan" on it and I freaked out with joy and excitement. Martin won MAJOR points for that!! Now I really want to play Settler though...
At Martin's place, he kept trying to feed us! We weren't that hungry but couldn't say no to fresh slices of sweet orange and yellow bell peppers and some bread. He also kept insisting that we taste his prized Spanish sherry along with samples of his dry and sweet white wines. Martin has a thing for quality olive oil. I absolutely love it when people have a special affection for quality ingredients, especially if I happen to also love those ingredients. We got to try three different types of olive oil that he orders especially from certain people that make it - he refuses to buy the cheaper, lesser quality batches of olive oil that most people buy in super markets. He had a 'normal' olive oil, a spicy olive oil, and an olive oil infused with orange. Needless to say, they were all really good over peppers or with bread and wine, and it was an extremely pleasant welcome to the cute city of Hamburg.
After our light dinner, Martin took us into Hamburg to see the city by night. We walked under this crazy long tunnel that runs 21 meters under water! On the other side of the tunnel you can see some good views of Hamburg and the port. Then we went through Hamburg's red light district trying to find a bar. All of Hamburg's working girls were wearing completely normal, conservative clothes and some were talking in little groups of two or three. The only way you could recognize them was by their signature black fanny packs. Every single one of them was wearing a fanny pack! I thought this was so funny because basically nobody wears fanny packs anymore and they're not seen as attractive or seductive in the least. Really bizarre. Also I find it highly amusing that I'm able to compare and contrast red light districts from all over Europe. What a well traveled young adult I am...
Finally we found a small ish bar that didn't have unbearably loud music (and rather good music, at that). There is no way to escape the smoke, and my throat already didn't feel fantastic but there was nothing I could have done. Martin got us a small Hamburg micro-brewed beer that was much better than most of the beer we've tried lately (which has been extremely disappointing). This bar also had a foosball table and Martin and I played against a couple of other guys for a little while. I scored the last goal from one of my defender-foosball-men which was really fun! I also had a revelation - "fuB" (pronounced "foos" in German) means "foot" in German. So foosball is kind of a variation of football, in loose German. I think that's pretty clever.
Martin was ready to take us to another bar but we opted to go home since I wasn't feeling fantastic and since we wanted to have energy for our one and only full day in the city tomorrow. We got back to Martin's place and realized that he was letting us sleep on his giant, real bed and he was taking the couch/futon! Another real bed!!! How lucky are we?! Serioulsy, beds are so exciting to me at this point :)
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Ampelmann
Finally done with all the big, must-see things in the city, today was a day of downtime that we were more than happy to spend leisurely. Our goal for the day was to get Laura's souvenir shopping done. She had some specific things in mind, and while I have had an incredible time in this city and wanted to get something, I had no idea what to get and I wasn't planning about stressing about it.
We started at Alexanderplatz and actually found what Laura was looking for (a really cool bag with the "divided city" screen printed on it) but decided to shop around for sizes/prices, and also I thought I saw a similar bag with patches on it instead of a screen print. So we left that shop and I found an ice cream place in Alexanderplatz with a large line coming out of it so I decided I'd jump on that bandwagon. I ate my ice cream outside watching the people and the fountain in the middle of the square. I love people watching. And ice cream. And eating/sitting outside in Europe.
Before continuing souvenir shopping, we went to the culture carnvial again so I could get some kind of exotic street food. I found an Ethiopian booth and for 3 euros I got a pita type thing filled with haloumi (fried cheese!!!), lettuce, and a sesame seed sauce. It was delicious!
Then we chased all around the city looking for more souvenirs, and finally Laura got her back and I found a little memento I liked too. See, when we first got here, we were crossing the street and I commented, "These are the cutest little street crossing people in the whole world! And since I actually have been around the world, Yes, I do feel justified in saying that." Well, on our guided tour somebody commented on the cute street crossing people to Stephanie, our awesome guide. See, in the States, we just have boring "WALK" and "DON'T WALK" signs in green and red, respectively. But here, in East Berlin, they have something called the Ampelmann. Stephanie told us that if a German comes up to us and and explains that the Ampelmann is named after German men being "Ample" not to believe them haha. Apparently, the red and green Ampelmann's that ditcate when you can cross are an extremely beloved cultural artifact of East Germany. Everybody LOVES this little cartoon looking guy, he's just so cute. In Dresden, there is a girl version who has pig tails, but here there's just the Ampelmann. Stephanie told us that we would see entire stores dedicated to selling Ampelmann stuff, they put this little dude on everything and then sell it. So, since I adored the Ampelmann, I got a little Ampelmann bottle opener. He's in the shape he makes during a green walk light, and front foot and hand are magically positioned perfectly to open bottles. A useful, small, light weight souvenir. Love it.
When souvenirs were accounted for, we went back to Steph's place and soon some other CouchSurfers came over with their host. They were two boys named Wolfgand and Kip. Kip is short for Christopher. Wolfgang started out as a joke freshman year of college (the kid's real name is Jakob), and it stuck "a little bit too well," and now that's what everybody calls him. Their CS host was named Sarah, and we of course welcomed having more people around! We all went grocery shopping together since a BBQ with tons of boys from Steph's flat was in the works in the courtyard below. Laura and I got some pork steaks and some German beer, Steph made this amazing salad, and dinner went quite well.
The coolest part of the night though was getting to watch the Champion's League final in Berlin. Not in some sports bar, like thousands of other people all across Europe, but in Steph's back courtyard. The boys had brought out couches and there were tons of lawn chairs out. They had a projector which projected the game onto a blank wall in the courtyard big enough for everybody to see well. It was a such a local thing to do - you definitely couldn't "try" to find an experience like this or read about it in a guide book. And....THIS is why I love CouchSurfing :) Haha. Still coming up with new reasons all the time. For those of you that don't know, the Champions League is what tons of European teams play in that you've probably heard of (Manchester United, Real Madrid, etc etc). Tonight's game was the final and the competing teams were from Germany (Munich) and Italy. I know I don't watch that much soccer on TV in the States, but for some reason watching it in Europe is so exciting. Maybe it's just because everybody is obsessed with soccer over here and have such passionate loyalites and the teams are so good that 90 minutes goes by pretty quickly. At any rate, it was awesome to watch that game in Europe!
Afterward, the courtyard was a royal mess but everybody just piled inside anyway, leaving uneaten sausages and empty bottles behind. We talked with Sarah and the boys for a bit, but they decided to try to go out clubbing and since it was already pretty late and since we were up til 5 AM last night I was not in any kind of mood to pay money to go to a club. So we called it an early night and stayed in with Steph, hoping to get a good night's sleep before our last day in this unique city.
We started at Alexanderplatz and actually found what Laura was looking for (a really cool bag with the "divided city" screen printed on it) but decided to shop around for sizes/prices, and also I thought I saw a similar bag with patches on it instead of a screen print. So we left that shop and I found an ice cream place in Alexanderplatz with a large line coming out of it so I decided I'd jump on that bandwagon. I ate my ice cream outside watching the people and the fountain in the middle of the square. I love people watching. And ice cream. And eating/sitting outside in Europe.
Before continuing souvenir shopping, we went to the culture carnvial again so I could get some kind of exotic street food. I found an Ethiopian booth and for 3 euros I got a pita type thing filled with haloumi (fried cheese!!!), lettuce, and a sesame seed sauce. It was delicious!
Then we chased all around the city looking for more souvenirs, and finally Laura got her back and I found a little memento I liked too. See, when we first got here, we were crossing the street and I commented, "These are the cutest little street crossing people in the whole world! And since I actually have been around the world, Yes, I do feel justified in saying that." Well, on our guided tour somebody commented on the cute street crossing people to Stephanie, our awesome guide. See, in the States, we just have boring "WALK" and "DON'T WALK" signs in green and red, respectively. But here, in East Berlin, they have something called the Ampelmann. Stephanie told us that if a German comes up to us and and explains that the Ampelmann is named after German men being "Ample" not to believe them haha. Apparently, the red and green Ampelmann's that ditcate when you can cross are an extremely beloved cultural artifact of East Germany. Everybody LOVES this little cartoon looking guy, he's just so cute. In Dresden, there is a girl version who has pig tails, but here there's just the Ampelmann. Stephanie told us that we would see entire stores dedicated to selling Ampelmann stuff, they put this little dude on everything and then sell it. So, since I adored the Ampelmann, I got a little Ampelmann bottle opener. He's in the shape he makes during a green walk light, and front foot and hand are magically positioned perfectly to open bottles. A useful, small, light weight souvenir. Love it.
When souvenirs were accounted for, we went back to Steph's place and soon some other CouchSurfers came over with their host. They were two boys named Wolfgand and Kip. Kip is short for Christopher. Wolfgang started out as a joke freshman year of college (the kid's real name is Jakob), and it stuck "a little bit too well," and now that's what everybody calls him. Their CS host was named Sarah, and we of course welcomed having more people around! We all went grocery shopping together since a BBQ with tons of boys from Steph's flat was in the works in the courtyard below. Laura and I got some pork steaks and some German beer, Steph made this amazing salad, and dinner went quite well.
The coolest part of the night though was getting to watch the Champion's League final in Berlin. Not in some sports bar, like thousands of other people all across Europe, but in Steph's back courtyard. The boys had brought out couches and there were tons of lawn chairs out. They had a projector which projected the game onto a blank wall in the courtyard big enough for everybody to see well. It was a such a local thing to do - you definitely couldn't "try" to find an experience like this or read about it in a guide book. And....THIS is why I love CouchSurfing :) Haha. Still coming up with new reasons all the time. For those of you that don't know, the Champions League is what tons of European teams play in that you've probably heard of (Manchester United, Real Madrid, etc etc). Tonight's game was the final and the competing teams were from Germany (Munich) and Italy. I know I don't watch that much soccer on TV in the States, but for some reason watching it in Europe is so exciting. Maybe it's just because everybody is obsessed with soccer over here and have such passionate loyalites and the teams are so good that 90 minutes goes by pretty quickly. At any rate, it was awesome to watch that game in Europe!
Afterward, the courtyard was a royal mess but everybody just piled inside anyway, leaving uneaten sausages and empty bottles behind. We talked with Sarah and the boys for a bit, but they decided to try to go out clubbing and since it was already pretty late and since we were up til 5 AM last night I was not in any kind of mood to pay money to go to a club. So we called it an early night and stayed in with Steph, hoping to get a good night's sleep before our last day in this unique city.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Therapy
Berlin is huge. Today it still felt like we had so much to do and see.
First we went to the Eastside Gallery. This is the longest stretch still remaining of the original Berlin Wall, and has been turned into an outdoor mural. It is the longest/biggest outdoor art exhibit in the world I think. Over a hundred artists from around the world were invited to paint on sections of the wall. So every 10 meters or so there is a new "work of art". The messages and pictures and colors used by the artists were really inspiring to me. It was amazing how uplifting art felt after all that we've seen this week. Kind of like art therapy. It was also really neat to see which countries the artists were from. You could tell by the words on their art pieces or by their signature at the bottom. It was a really great exhibit and it took us about an hour and a half to really go through and walk the whole 1.3 km of beautifully painted wall.
Then we went to a bombed out church that has been left as a reminder of the war. However, this was a huge disappointment and not what either of us were expecting at all. You couldn't really tell what had been damaged by a bomb except that the top was...not a top. It was just a jagged spike that was much, much shorter and uglier than it should have been. But the inside was totally cleaned up and turned into a mini-museum / postcard shop. So we didn't spent a lot of time here, and considered our score for the day 1 win and 1 loss.
The bombed out church is right next to the Tiergarten, which is the largest green space in Berlin. It used to be the old royal hunting grounds but now it's just a big park. The Tiergarten surrounds the Victory Tower, which is a huge pillar with a statue of Victoria, goddess of victory, on top. The Tiergarten was very green and very pretty, but...we've seen a lot of gardens, so it wasn't anything super spectacular. When we got to the Victory Tower, we found that it was completely covered up for reconstruction. The whole base, the huge pillar, and the statue - you just couldn't see any of it! Kind of a bummer. Now the score for the day was 1-2.
I had heard from multiple people to go visit the Charlottenburg castle gardens. We visisted the Schloss (Castle) Nympehburg gardens in Munich and I wasn't that impressed, but I love to take people up on their recommendations. And let's be honest, we had a day pass, so I was determined to get my freaking money's worth. So Laura agreed to come with me to the castle gardens. It turned out to be gorgeous!!! I am so glad that we went there. Unlike some of the other gardens we've seen, most of the trees were kept fairly close to the ground, so it was really easy to see all the beautiful flowers. It was sunny out, so the layout of grass and flowers with the fountain spraying was a wonderful way to counteract the disappointing church and Victory Tower. We sat by the fountain a while and later walked through the gardens and around this lake in the middle. It was a very pleasant stroll, and we were feeling much better about bumping the score for the day up to 2-2. At least we weren't losing anymore.
In a good mood from a day of art and color and fresh, clean, manicured nature, we headed back to Steph's...of course stopping for another gyro for dinner. I can't get over how good and how cheap they are! It's really difficult to tear myself away from that little shop, especially considering that in a few days I'll probably never have another gyro as good, as huge, and as cheap as these.
We ate back at Steph's place and chatted with her. We decided we were going to go out for a girls' cocktail night, but when Laura and Steph both got on their computers I assumed it would be a while til we left. So, with nothing else to do and somehow being permanently exhausted I took a fantastic after dinner nap. I got up at 10 and that's when we headed out to go see some Berlin nightlife!
I feel like a lot of travelers are super focused on nightlife, i.e. getting trashed and going clubbing - but I'm not really about either of those things, at home or traveling. So for me, fun nightlife means finding a good bar or two, having some nice drinks or beers, people watching, and being able to talk with whoever I'm with. I love to see all the lights and commotion, but I don't like dressing up skankily in freezing weather to go to a place with overpriced drinks where it's too loud to have a conversation. I just don't get the appeal of that.
Steph studies fashion, so while Laura and I looked scrubby (as always), Steph dressed up to the nines and put us both to shame. In other words, she dressed nice enough to make up for how shabby we looked :) She is so cute with her outfits!!! Her shoes matched her clutch and her belt and it's so fun to watch people get all dressed up. Also, she is the best person at walking in high heels that I think I've ever seen...she practically doesn't wear normal (flat) shoes. It's impressive.
Berlin is having a Karnival Der Kultures (Culture Carnival) this weekend (I told you, our timing is serioulsy awesome) so we first went to go see that at night time! It REALLY reminded me of being at Seattle Center for Bite of Seattle or something. There were tons of food booths from all sorts of countries set up. There were also a lot of different cocktail bars set up since it's legal to drink on the streets and/or on public transportation here. The bars all had different country themes too. Then there was music playing on a few scattered stages, as well as hundreds of vendors from all over the world selling knicknacks that I've seen somewhere between Asia, India, and Africa. It was really cool to be able to pass by vendors and be like, "oh, that looks and smells good, but I had the REAL thing in the REAL country!" I was impressed with how many things I could actually say that about. French crepes, Belgian waffles, Ukranian borscht, South African biltong (beef jerky), Indian curry...so that was really fun :)
After about an hour of wandering through the culture carnival, it started to close down and we went to another part of town and found a bar to sit at. This is where we got into our ultra girl talk conversation complete with cocktails. We were sitting outside on a cafe, able to watch the local prostitutes walk the streets and people wandering in and out of clubs and bars across the street. It was a very happening area with a good Friday night atmosphere. By the time we'd each finished sipping two cocktails (neither of which impressed me, I think I should stick to beer and wine), it somehow was like 3 or 330 in the morning! I have no clue where the time went!
By the time we made it home on the slow public transportation during the normal-people-sleeping-hours, it was around 430 or 5. Crazy. But I guess it's typical of us to have one ridiculously late night in every country :) It was also a lot of fun to hang out with our host for the whole evening since she's been at University most of this week and hasn't been able to spend too much time with us. So all in all, it was a great night!
Quotes:
"You know when the alcohol.....(makes claw motions with hands)..." - Steph, trying to explain that her cocktails had 'snuck' up on her - hahaha. That is going to be an inside joke that crosses the Pacific for sure. Too funny!
First we went to the Eastside Gallery. This is the longest stretch still remaining of the original Berlin Wall, and has been turned into an outdoor mural. It is the longest/biggest outdoor art exhibit in the world I think. Over a hundred artists from around the world were invited to paint on sections of the wall. So every 10 meters or so there is a new "work of art". The messages and pictures and colors used by the artists were really inspiring to me. It was amazing how uplifting art felt after all that we've seen this week. Kind of like art therapy. It was also really neat to see which countries the artists were from. You could tell by the words on their art pieces or by their signature at the bottom. It was a really great exhibit and it took us about an hour and a half to really go through and walk the whole 1.3 km of beautifully painted wall.
Then we went to a bombed out church that has been left as a reminder of the war. However, this was a huge disappointment and not what either of us were expecting at all. You couldn't really tell what had been damaged by a bomb except that the top was...not a top. It was just a jagged spike that was much, much shorter and uglier than it should have been. But the inside was totally cleaned up and turned into a mini-museum / postcard shop. So we didn't spent a lot of time here, and considered our score for the day 1 win and 1 loss.
The bombed out church is right next to the Tiergarten, which is the largest green space in Berlin. It used to be the old royal hunting grounds but now it's just a big park. The Tiergarten surrounds the Victory Tower, which is a huge pillar with a statue of Victoria, goddess of victory, on top. The Tiergarten was very green and very pretty, but...we've seen a lot of gardens, so it wasn't anything super spectacular. When we got to the Victory Tower, we found that it was completely covered up for reconstruction. The whole base, the huge pillar, and the statue - you just couldn't see any of it! Kind of a bummer. Now the score for the day was 1-2.
I had heard from multiple people to go visit the Charlottenburg castle gardens. We visisted the Schloss (Castle) Nympehburg gardens in Munich and I wasn't that impressed, but I love to take people up on their recommendations. And let's be honest, we had a day pass, so I was determined to get my freaking money's worth. So Laura agreed to come with me to the castle gardens. It turned out to be gorgeous!!! I am so glad that we went there. Unlike some of the other gardens we've seen, most of the trees were kept fairly close to the ground, so it was really easy to see all the beautiful flowers. It was sunny out, so the layout of grass and flowers with the fountain spraying was a wonderful way to counteract the disappointing church and Victory Tower. We sat by the fountain a while and later walked through the gardens and around this lake in the middle. It was a very pleasant stroll, and we were feeling much better about bumping the score for the day up to 2-2. At least we weren't losing anymore.
In a good mood from a day of art and color and fresh, clean, manicured nature, we headed back to Steph's...of course stopping for another gyro for dinner. I can't get over how good and how cheap they are! It's really difficult to tear myself away from that little shop, especially considering that in a few days I'll probably never have another gyro as good, as huge, and as cheap as these.
We ate back at Steph's place and chatted with her. We decided we were going to go out for a girls' cocktail night, but when Laura and Steph both got on their computers I assumed it would be a while til we left. So, with nothing else to do and somehow being permanently exhausted I took a fantastic after dinner nap. I got up at 10 and that's when we headed out to go see some Berlin nightlife!
I feel like a lot of travelers are super focused on nightlife, i.e. getting trashed and going clubbing - but I'm not really about either of those things, at home or traveling. So for me, fun nightlife means finding a good bar or two, having some nice drinks or beers, people watching, and being able to talk with whoever I'm with. I love to see all the lights and commotion, but I don't like dressing up skankily in freezing weather to go to a place with overpriced drinks where it's too loud to have a conversation. I just don't get the appeal of that.
Steph studies fashion, so while Laura and I looked scrubby (as always), Steph dressed up to the nines and put us both to shame. In other words, she dressed nice enough to make up for how shabby we looked :) She is so cute with her outfits!!! Her shoes matched her clutch and her belt and it's so fun to watch people get all dressed up. Also, she is the best person at walking in high heels that I think I've ever seen...she practically doesn't wear normal (flat) shoes. It's impressive.
Berlin is having a Karnival Der Kultures (Culture Carnival) this weekend (I told you, our timing is serioulsy awesome) so we first went to go see that at night time! It REALLY reminded me of being at Seattle Center for Bite of Seattle or something. There were tons of food booths from all sorts of countries set up. There were also a lot of different cocktail bars set up since it's legal to drink on the streets and/or on public transportation here. The bars all had different country themes too. Then there was music playing on a few scattered stages, as well as hundreds of vendors from all over the world selling knicknacks that I've seen somewhere between Asia, India, and Africa. It was really cool to be able to pass by vendors and be like, "oh, that looks and smells good, but I had the REAL thing in the REAL country!" I was impressed with how many things I could actually say that about. French crepes, Belgian waffles, Ukranian borscht, South African biltong (beef jerky), Indian curry...so that was really fun :)
After about an hour of wandering through the culture carnival, it started to close down and we went to another part of town and found a bar to sit at. This is where we got into our ultra girl talk conversation complete with cocktails. We were sitting outside on a cafe, able to watch the local prostitutes walk the streets and people wandering in and out of clubs and bars across the street. It was a very happening area with a good Friday night atmosphere. By the time we'd each finished sipping two cocktails (neither of which impressed me, I think I should stick to beer and wine), it somehow was like 3 or 330 in the morning! I have no clue where the time went!
By the time we made it home on the slow public transportation during the normal-people-sleeping-hours, it was around 430 or 5. Crazy. But I guess it's typical of us to have one ridiculously late night in every country :) It was also a lot of fun to hang out with our host for the whole evening since she's been at University most of this week and hasn't been able to spend too much time with us. So all in all, it was a great night!
Quotes:
"You know when the alcohol.....(makes claw motions with hands)..." - Steph, trying to explain that her cocktails had 'snuck' up on her - hahaha. That is going to be an inside joke that crosses the Pacific for sure. Too funny!
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