Inspiration

We decided to leave Vincent's place because Guillaume was kind enough to offer up his room to us. He is staying with Julia for the weekend which is so generous of him. Vincent was just a little bizarre and Guillaume has a mattress for us. Turns out Guillaume was nicer than we could have imagined or hoped for. We arrived and he had an extra set of keys for us and he'd bought us fresh croissants for this morning and little packaged waffle things for future breakfasts! Amazing!

With our last and FINAL (!!!!) move of the trip done (except for to and from airports), we headed back to the St. Michel area where we were meeting up with Rich. He was waiting for us by the fountain and promptly announced that he was freezing, so we went to a cafe about 10 meters from where we were currently standing. Have I mentioned I love cafes in Paris? Or anywhere really, but in Paris, especially. We spent a couple hours over our petit cafes telling him some of our most ridiculous stories and hearing about his life here in Paris, including his morning at a literary festival, his adventures in shopping trolleys, et le coupe du monde. He moved here from England around 2 years ago and works at a bar and lives the 20-something Parisian life. I have a lot of admiration, I guess is the word, for him making the leap to move here. He's the first person I've met that's actually doing what I've been talking about doing for years, so it was inspiring to hear what that's like.

When Rich left to go back to work (after stubbornly insisting on paying for my too expensive cafe au lait), we wandered around the area, went past the Notre Dame again, found some great street food, high fived some Scottish men in kilts, and got little French flags handed to us. When it started raining we decided to come back to Guillaume's to get some more layers. This stop over ended up being much longer than anticipated, but we were planning out other things to do and Laura was trying to figure out how on earth to cheaply get to CDG for her 8 AM flight. I cannot believe this trip is almost over. What she decided was that she would just go Sunday night on one of the last metros and spend the night in the airport or something. Which means this is our last night together....tear :'(

The weather cleared up and around 930 we headed to the Eiffel Tour to go see it at night and catch its little light show. It's so gorgeous at night. I know I've seen it so many times and I know the rest of the world also thinks it's gorgeous, but still, I think it's just beautiful at night. We found a little shop that was still open, bought a 4.90 euro bottle of wine which was to become our project for the night. The nice men at the shop even opened it for us. We took our seats about 5 minutes before the light show, which really isn't that big of a deal but it's still cool to see. After the light show, we watched some street dancing before jumping on another metro and heading back to Montmarte.

We got to Montmarte around midnight so there was still live music being played and a few people dancing but there weren't as many people as I was hoping. We sat on the steps and could see the Centre Pompidou, the Notre Dame, and the Invalides all lit up. After about 30 seconds, people started talking to us (that's why I love The Steps). I spoke in French for the majority of the night, because the drunk Algerian boys didn't really speak that much English. We found a group of a few Americans who were all studying in Scotland and here visiting. We spent the next hour and a half or so working through our bottle, gazing up at the Sacre Coeur (also stunning at night) and talking with our new friends. Eventually it started to get cold and I started to have to go to the bathroom, and we weren't sure if the metros were still running so we headed home.

We got lucky and the metros WERE still running but when we got out of the station we had no idea what street we were on. We thought it would be a great idea to run down the up escalator and go back through the metro to another exit. When we got to the bottom of the escalator we found that the doors to the metro locked shut (because they were exit doors). Bummer. So we went back up to street level and found our way home.

My brain is tired.


Quotes:
"I've got Paris. Sure, I don't travel much, but I've got Paris! That's all that matters." - Rich

Vincent - CS #24

Oh man this morning was weird. We had to leave Noemie's flat because she's gone for the weekend. We headed to Vincent's place. When we got there, there were 3 other CouchSurfers there; two of them were heading out for the day though. With the three of us that were left, even though we were tired and hungry and it was nice out and we wanted to go play in Paris, he started showing us 10 minutes of 3 different videos and giving us little mini lectures in between. It was the strangest thing! This was after he showed us some of his aikido (sp??) skills and gave me a lecture on how much sugar is in hamburgers (he is a dentist, FYI).

So, we watched some of a shark movie, and then some of a Fast and the Furious movie, and then some of a Katherine Heigl movie, and finally it was like 11, and we were STARVING and we were like - Hey man, we want to go outside and stop watching 10 minutes of all these random movies and eat some food and figure out our plans! So he let us use his internet (which was not wifi, because he 'heard' somewhere that wifi was bad for you) and we coordinated with three different people for today and tomorrow and finally left around noon.

It was a crazy morning. Once we got out of the house though we went to the Opera area and found pastries and some cheese and bread sticks. Then we walked back down to Rue de Rivoli and around Place de la Concorde and the Jardin de Tuilieres. We sat at the garden for a while looking out over the Place de la Concorde. Finally we left and looked at trinkety souvenir shops making our way to the Comedie Francaise. You can get really cheap tickets, but we wanted to know if there were any English shows (there aren't). Then we went to Gallerie Lafayette and looked at a lot of expensive things that we can't actually afford.

After that, we went to an Aussie bar called Cafe Oz to meet up with another CouchSurfer who is living in Paris this summer with her German boyfriend. There was also a 5th surfer who met up with us. The five of us watched the US/Slovenia game which was great fun. It was a really nice spontaneous CouchSurfing group. Everybody was willing to converse and laugh and we all got along quite well. The game was really exciting too - our comeback was sweet and we 100% got robbed of our winning goal. I don't usually get upset with ref calls, but this was just....tragic. Really, an awful, awful, literally game changing call. Major bummer.

After the game ended Laura and I found another place to have a nice dinner close to the Grands Boulevards. We split a pizza and I got red wine (she got chardonnay). Then...after looking at so many menus and going "that would be good" I finally ordered a cheese plate. However, Laura didn't really want any, so Yes, I did eat the entire cheese plate. And I loved it. Don't judge me for eating like a cow. I'm in Paris. I got brie, camembert, and chevre, and they were all delicious. Also, for a plate of all three and a ton of fresh baguette bread it was only 7 euros which I'm pretty sure is way cheaper than you could get all that cheese in the states!

So after a delicious meal that I still cannot believe I ate all of (!!!!) we went to the Bastille to meet up with Estelle!!! Estelle was one of our hosts in Brussels, Belgium and she is here in Paris visiting her friend. We went out to dinner with her, Julia, and Julia's boyfriend Guillaume (I didn't / couldn't eat anything) and it was so much fun to see her again and to hang out and chat!!!

Then we went back to Vincent's place and were happy to know that we got an air mattress instead of just a floor. That was good news...

Walking

Today we did the free city walking tour of Paris, which sadly paled in comparison to Stephanie's Berlin tour and failed to live up to Keith's Prague tour. A bit of a bummer, but we got some good walking and sight seeing in. I can't put my finger exactly on what I didn't like, and when I try it just ends up being a nitpicky list of negative things, so I'll spare you. But it was just missing something.

After the tour, we sat on a bench for a while waiting for the rain to stop, then walked up the Champs Elysees, stopping at fun stores like the Citroen store and the Louis Vuitton store. People were throwing money around like crazy in the LV store. It was so busy. I definitely felt like a slob just walking in. We continued up the Champs Elysees until we got to the Arc de Triomphe. That seen, we were walking away when a funeral procession started. I don't know who passed away, but there was lots of music and flags and official looking people parading down the street.

Then we went and found a bar in the St. Germain area to watch the France/Mexico game. I got a nice dinner finally which steak with a Roquefort sauce, salad, and red wine. It was very satisfying. We spent a long time in this bar eating slowly and waiting for the game to start. France played like poop so it wasn't that exciting. They lost after an awful game and some embarrassing mistakes and we headed back to Noemie's flat.

Once back, I got into a long conversation with Noemie about the importance of accurate CS references. I think mine have been accurate, but they've also been very nice and sometimes maybe too euphemistic. I think from now on I am going to try to be a little bit more...strict? Harsh? Honest? with my references. Not sure of the best word. I am worried of sounding ungrateful or rude when things don't go fantastically, but we have also had a couple weird experiences that I have not warned, per say, other surfers of. Anyway, my mind seems open to inspiration lately and I think I'm going to start being better about those.

Noemie - CS #23

Today we walked around the 3rd and 4th arrondissement looking at cute little shops. My favorite was shop called Olivier & Co (which I later found out is not just in Paris). They sell delicious olive oils, vinegars, tapenades, seasoning salts, etc. They had yummy samples out and I almost bought the whole store. Because of this, I left without buying anything so that I could think about what I really wanted (to carry home). They started speaking English to me and I responded by saying that I understood (in French). Surprised, the sales woman was like, "Oh, you speak French?!" and I was like, "yes." And she said, "Sorry, I thought I heard some English," and I was like, "Well, yes, there is that, too..." And she spoke in French to me from then on. As I was leaving I asked for a business card so I could find the place again. She didn't have any but gave me their beautiful catalog for free instead and told me it was a little present. So cute.

We went to the Centre Pompidou because I love that building, and I tried to show Laura the awesome fountain outside of it but it was EMPTY! Very upset by this. The water was completely drained :(

We got lunch at a great little cafe on a busy street and sat outside eating freshly toasted Croque Monsieurs (now that's the only way I'll eat them).

Then we went back to meandering through shops and Laura ended up buying 2 pairs of shoes! Very proud of her. I was quite tempted but the shoes I liked all had tiny little things wrong with them which would have driven me crazy, so I resisted my consumerist urges. Instead I just bought a little tarte.

We went back to Noemie's place and got ready to go to the Moulin Rouge!!!! Finally - I've been here so many times and I always say, "Yeah, I want to do that." Well, this time it's happening! I actually felt like a girl and wore my dress and put on a little bit of make up and that was lots of fun. We went with Noemie and a couple of friends for a glass of wine first and then headed to the show.

The costumes were AMAZING, the singing was pretty good, and the dancing was only mediocre. You can't take pictures in there but it was a really gorgeous setting. A very fun night :)

St. Emilion

We woke up painfully early and left Ming's flat with our now overflowing bags. We arrived at the train station at about 6:45 - so we had 20 minutes to check our bags and make it to the train. We knew that the baggage consignment place opened at 7:00, but sometimes things in France don't open on time. If it opened late, we were screwed. Actually, if anything went wrong, we were screwed. The French staff did not really seem to get our sense of urgency as I quasi-panickedly tried to get my brain into French mode. As I waited for them to officially open so that I could run our bags through the conveyor belt, Laura was checking our train's platform and timing how long it took to run from the baggage consignment place to the platform (useful to have two people). As soon as they would let us, we scanned our bags and carefully threw them into one of the large lockers. This done, they told us that locker was broken so we unloaded everything and reloaded it into another locker. The lockers would only take coins though, and it was a mad race to change a bill to coins and frantically put exact change into the little slot. It was about 7:04 and we SPRINTED out of there and booked it to our train. We made it with literally 60 seconds to spare. Phew. We haven't had to run like that in a while.

Oh yeah, so St. Emilion...let me explain. Bordeaux is known for red wines. The Bordeaux wine region expands well past the actual city of Bordeaux. In the olden days, winemakers from all over the region would ship their wine to Bordeaux, and it would be exported from Bordeaux's ports. Cleverly, Bordeaux is a combination of the words "Abord de l'eaux" or "Close to the waters". This is because there are two rivers that run through Bordeaux. The left bank produces primarily Medoc wine. The right bank is where St. Emilion wine come from. Other wines are produced between the two rivers in a region called "entre deux mers" or "between two seas". Bordeaux had a monopoly on the wine exports from its ports, always making sure to sell out of Bordeaux wines before selling anybody else's wines. St. Emilion is one of the most famous wine making regions. It was founded by a monk (named Emilion) a long, long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away). Today in St. Emilion, there are 900 chateaux (wineries). St. Emilion is only allowed to produce red wine and call it St. Emilion wine. So, they do produce some white wine, and some other alcohols (similar to cognac), but if it's not red wine it cannot use the St. Emilion "brand". These bottles will say something or other Bordeaux on them, or perhaps the name of one of the appellations bordering the St. Emilion region. But the region of St. Emilion is a defined space that was decided upon a hundred years ago, and only red wines produced in St. Emilion can have the honor of being called a St. Emilion wine. Hope that makes sense.

Now, there are 4 classes of St. Emilion wine. There is plain old St. Emilion wine which is the bottom tier. 400 of the 900 chateaux produce this wine. This wine is still about 3 levels above normal French table wine. Then the next level up is called St. Emilion Grand Cru. The next level up is called St. Emilion Grande Cru Classe. The top tier level is called St. Emilion Premier Grande Cru Classe, and this level has two classes. Class A only includes the top 2 wineries: Ausone and Cheval Blanc. Class B includes 12 wineries. Wine judges test taste the wine every 10 years (last in 2006) to confirm or alter classifications of wines.

So, when we got to St. Emilion though, it was not quite 8 AM yet, and we were walking through clouds. It was so foggy, none of it had lifted yet. There were hardly any other people there because it was so freaking early and we had no clue where to go. We followed our guts and turned right. As we walked, the fog began to lift revealing neat green lines of vineyards for as far as the eye could see, and the sun came up higher and illuminated the leaves and chateaux. It was a gorgeous, silent morning. We soon reached the small town center area of St. Emilion to find, of course, that all shops were still closed. So we gave ourselves a little walking tour on the empty cobble stones streets, enjoying the silence and space. Mid day I was sure this tourist place would be much, much busier.

After walking for about an hour and pretty much covering the town, we found the first open wine shop. The lady was really nice and offered to give us a taste, even though it was not even 9:30 AM. I hadn't had breakfast yet, but that seemed fairly irrelevant; of course we accepted her offer. Once it got to be 9:30, we went back to the tourist office and made a reservation for a tour leaving later in the afternoon at 3:30 and I talked to them in French and asked them some other questions. My French is coming along exceptionally well, I think (by the way). Extremely pleased about this :)

Then we went to a shop called Maison du Vin. There was a table there where you could smell different wine aromas and guess what it was. I wasn't very good at it. I think I liked the beer aroma test in Copenhagen better. We then watched some educational videos on the history of St. Emilion and wine, but we were so tired that sitting in a dark room was causing me to doze off. So we stood up and left to continue meandering.

We found an open shop where Laura got a crepe and I got a quiche lorraine and by this time many of the other wine shops had opened - it was now around 11:30.

From 11:30 to 3:30, pretty much what we did was walk from wine shop to wine shop tasting free sample of wine after free sample of wine. It was fantastic. We must have tried at least 10 if not more. At most shops, we would stop and talk to the people there for a while. Two shops in particular we stayed at for a good 30-45 minutes each. I spoke in French with them and can now more or less talk about wine in French (SWEEEEET!) and they told us all that I wrote up above about the region and the wines and the classifications. We learned so much from these people; it was so cool. And so free!!! Who needs a tour when you can talk to people at the wine shops and learn a ton and have great conversation? And who needs to pay 6 euros for a glass of one wine when you can have free samples of tons of wine?! Seriously! Amazing. Nothing like this anywhere else as far as I know, especially not in the states. It was really fun speaking in French for most of the afternoon and trying so many wines, swirling and smelling, sipping and refilling. My French may or may not have improved over the course of all this... :) I do know that I would always say Bonjour coming into a shop and then they would always speak to me in French, so maybe I actually sounded French?!

When it got close to 3:30, we stopped at a kind of pastry shop - not with the typical tartes, but with other treats I think that are more specific to Bordeaux and/or St. Emilion. I tried something called a cannele which I'd never seen or heard of before today, but it was all over the town. It was 2 euros for a little piece of this thing, but it was pretty dang good. It was kind of cinnamon-y but the inside was rich and creamy and almost like a dry-moist (I know that doesn't make sense) pudding. It was weird and cool and exciting. Yay for new pastries.

Then we regrouped at the tourist office and left on our tour. We walked past the Ausone vineyard (exciting, this is one of the two vineyards that is in the very very top tier of St. Emilion wine makers!) and then to another chateaux called Clos du Madeline. There, we got to walk through the vineyard and learn about how they grow the grapes and see little baby grapes that will be ripe in October. Then we toured the actual winery which was on the same small plot of land and had both oak and ceramic vats. Next was the cellar, where we saw the actual oak barrels (which cost 750 euros EACH) where the vintage 2009 wine is currently maturing. Then we got to taste two different wines produced by the winemaker who owns the chateaux. I am really glad we got to do this because there are so many chateaux here, and each chateaux literally has the grapes right next to the winery and the cellar. All the red wine, it all happens HERE! And I got to see it! Pretty freaking cool. Also, considering how much I've learned about beer over the course of my brewery tour filled life, I am really glad I got a chance to learn so much about wine in such a unique and amazing place so well renowned for it's incredible wines. I totally feel like an educated wine snob now. Awesome.

After the tour we walked back to the train station and I took a much needed power nap while we waited (and on the train back). We had an hour in the Bordeaux station in which we grabbed some quick baguette sandwiches and relaxed until it was time to retriever our bags and go to our train platform.

I asked a conductor outside the train where our car was and she pointed down in one direction. We were looking for car 6. We were by car 15, and the train left in 2 minutes, so we just got on. The train left and finally we get to car 20, which was A) not in the right numerical direction as where the conductor pointed me, and B) the end of the train car line. Problem. We set our bags down and I walked in the opposite direction to see if car 6 was where it logically should be on the other end of the train. however, around car 13 or so I run into a conductor person. I ask him where car 6 is. You want to know what he says? "There is no car 6." What do you mean, there is no car 6? This is the train leaving at 19:47 from Bay 5 headed to Paris Montparnasse, right? "Oui." Showing him my tickets VERY confused I asked again, what do you mean, there is no car 6? And he just says, "This is the wrong train." Sure enough, somehow, this train's number was 5 digits long and entirely different from the 4 digit train number printed on our tickets. I asked him if this would be ... uh... a problem, seeing as to how we were moving and stuff. He looked more amused than anything and told me to just go find a seat somewhere in 2nd class. WHY is this happening to us on our LAST train ride?!!? WHY! We're supposed to be good at this! I mean, thank goodness it's still headed to Paris and we're not getting fined or kicked off, but seriously where the heck is our real train?? So confused.

Once off the train we saw that there was another train connected to the train we were on. This was our train. I waved hello to car 6 on our way out to the metro stop.

We got to our newest host's (Noemie's) flat sometime after midnight and pretty much went straight to bed...have not been sleeping well lately; I am exhausted.

I know we were in Paris like 72 hours ago and this whirlwind trip to Bordeaux was amazing and perfect and beautiful...but I'm still so happy to be back in my city of lights.

Dune de Pyla

The weather today said it's supposed to be sunny with a chance of thunderstorms out by Arcachon, where the huge sand dune is close to. We decided to risk it and took a train about 40 minutes away to Arcachon.

Luckily, it was pure sunshine and blue skies with some light fluffy clouds!! Arcachon is an adorable French beach town. We found our way to the water (Bassin d'Arcachon) which feeds into the Atlantic Ocean. The white sandy beaches looked specacular and walking along them was so peaceful and relaxing. We found croque monsieurs for lunch which were amazing. They usually are, but sometime they're pre-cooked, and the cheese is already melted. This time though, the cheese looked freshly grated on top and he toasted them after we ordered them. Amaaaazing. We ate our delicious sandwiches sitting on a bench in the sunlight looking out at the boats and water. Yes, my life is like a postcard (sometimes). It was incredibly picturesque. I flagged down a man and asked him to take a picture of us. He ended up taking a series of 4 pictures all of which came out really cute. He was adorable and kept trying to position us and taking different shots. I love it when you ask people to take your picture and they're actually comepetent at photography and know how to frame it well so that it looks good. So we have some super cute pictures of us at the beach!

Then we mosied back to the bus stop by the train station and took a 20 minute bus ride out to the Dune du Pyla. This sand dune is GORGEOUS. Google it. It is the largest sand dune in Europe. I forget its dimensions but it's huge. I don't think I've ever been to a real sand dune before. If I have, it wasn't like this. This sand dune was sandwiched in between a huge, lush green pine forest and the vast, blue Atlantic ocean. The sand was of course bright yellow and went on for miles, so the series of colors was just spectacular. I think it's one of the prettiest natural sights I've ever seen. It's really special too because I don't think anybody back home will have heard of it, and I don't even think most people in Europe or France will have heard about it. So it feels kind of like a secret. And it's so, so, so pretty.

As soon as we got up to the dunes, we took off our socks and shoes and started the fun trek up the warm sand mountain. Every few steps the view kept getting better and better. We were so excited to be going up that we didn't look down til we were about half way up the hill. By that time, you could see a lot of the green forest and it was just so pretty. Getting to peer over the top of the hill was so incredible I had to redo it with my video camera in hand. Standing on top of the dune so high above the forest and looking out over the ocean on a clear sunny day was just stunning, absolutely breathtaking. Many pictures were taken which will probably make you jealous.

We found a little spot to sit in the sun and played in the sand and watched the people and kites and ocean. The sand is so pure here. There is virtually no litter, glass, shells, rocks - it's just sand. So you can walk or run and play in it barefoot exercising very little caution. It's very liberating.

Later we walked all the way down the dune to the ocean where once again I rolled up my pants and played in the water. A dog came to say hi to us and took a liking to me, and me to it. We goofed off and I ran up and down the beach with it, splashing in the shallow surf. It was fantastic to run in the fresh, cool air and feel the sand and water on my bare feet.

After playing on the sand dune and beach for a couple of hours, we started the trek back to the bus. It took a solid half an hour to walk all the way back to the top of the dune. Lots of people slide down the dune on sleds to get to the bottom where the walking path to the cars and shops are. I tried using my jacket but it didn't work :( We did run down though which was also fun. I saw a kid run too fast, do a face plant, and somersault down a good chunk of the hill. That was awesome.

It was a perfect afternoon spent at the beach. So relaxing, refreshing, just having time and space to think and to enjoy the moment and our lives and nature and our trip and everything. Simply wonderful.

Down at the shops, I made some mostly spontaneous purchases. It's the last country so I don't have to carry everything for very much longer. I am really not sure how it's all going to make it home but I'm sure I'll find a way. I really like what I bought and it will all remind me of a fantastic day in some remote place in France that was a side trip from our Bordeaux side trip. Crazy how much ground we've covered in these three months. It was weird too because after being gone for so long on SAS the Atlantic Ocean is what I saw at our last country (Spain). Now I've been gone another long period of time and once again I'm at the last country touching the Atlantic Ocean. But I feel so different this time.

So we took a bus back to Arcachon, the train back to Bordeaux, and two trams back to Ming's and finally walked in the door around 8. Ming asked if we had eaten, and we hadn't, so he whipped up some rice and ginger chicken for us, which was so nice of him! After dinner, I really wanted to go to this wine bar in town, but tomorrow we want to go to St. Emilion. We looked up train times and the website says the trains leave either at 7:06 or 13:33. That cannot be right, but there's no way to say, "sorry website, I think you're wrong." The whole point of coming to Bordeaux was to learn about and taste the delicious wines, so we figured we had to take the disgustingly early 7:06 train to spend a quality day there. Our train back to Paris leaves Bordeaux at 19:47 so leaving at 13:33 would hardly have been worth it. That decided, after dinner we apologized and rejected Ming's offer to show us the night view of the city (again), and I stayed up researching what to do at St. Emilion.


Quotes:
"Aw, our bellies only look kinda big." - Laura, about our beach photo shoot

Ming - CS #22

I woke up at 430 AM and was unable to fall back asleep. I listened to music and watched the sunrise and packed my bag and soon it was time to head to the train station anyway. Exhausted but wide awake, we made our train. I completely forgot that you are supposed to validate your train tickets before you get on trains in France, so we had a "oops, sorry" moment when the conductors came by.

We arrived in Bordeaux around noon and met up with our host, Ming. Ming is from China but is doing astrophysics research here. I am constantly surprised and excited by how many people from countries other than European countries we have met through CS, either as hosts or as fellow travelers. After we dropped all of our bags off at Ming's flat, he commenced to give us a lengthy tour of Bordeaux. He said he had a Google map in his head and the route was 8 km. I told him we weren't really into museums, but then on the tour he kept taking us to churches and I didn't have the heart to tell him that we weren't really into churches either...

We stopped at a little shop for lunch where I discovered Croque Chevre sandwiches - amazing. While we ate on a bench close to water and flowers and grass I asked Ming about his family. He is the first generation of China's one child policy. His mother and father both have 4 or 5 siblings each, and he said the policy was a little strange for Chinese people because they traditionally love children. But he said that people are okay with it, and that China provides good access to birth control, and that the government is so strong that everybody just follows. He says if the government decided to change the policy that within 5 or 10 years most families would begin having more children again. He said you need to get permission to have more than one child, but that you must pay a fine (which he says is not that much money and not a problem at all for rich people that want to have more than one child). Very interesting discussing this with him.

Then the rains came. And when it rains in south west France in the summer time, it RAINS! It was like flash flood quality and we were soaked within minutes. Thank goodness for quick dry pants. We waited out the downpour inside a Virgin Records store. They had quite a few books and I found some books that I've read in English. Of course they're in French here but I could read the back summaries really fluently!!! This was very exciting to me and inspires me to buy some of my favorite books in French to practice reading. This is not a new idea to me but I've just never acted on the thought before. Maybe I will now though.

Back out in the world once the downpour stopped, Ming led us all over town. We went to at least three different churches and two different bell towers. We also walked along the river, crossed some bridges, saw a bunch of cows on parade, saw the grand theater, old city gates, and the water mirror. The water mirror is this really cool fountain type thing. It's a large rectangular flat surface that kids run/jump/play on, and also bicycle, scooter, etc. on. Every so often, without warning, the ground will start misting. This mist doesn't get you too wet, it's just fun to play in. When the mist is done, the ground burbles spontaneously and kids chase around the quickly disappearing streams of water. I think acting like a little kid is good for your soul, and really, that's what quick dry pants are for - playing in fountains. I stripped off my shoes and socks and rolled up my pants and walked around the fountain thoroughly entertained by the children and scene in general. Laura and Ming watched me act like a child, they're too big for those kind of silly games.

Side note: Ming things I'm weak because I got sick during our trip. I feel fine now, but I have a slight cough that refuses to go away. Every time I cough, Ming makes a comment about how weak I am. It's gotten pretty embarrassing and a little awkward by now. He also told me about this Chinese method of cleansing your system, where you dilute peroxide and snort it through your nose and spit it out through your mouth. He said Chinese people do this and they never get sick.

Bordeaux is infinitely dirtier than I imagined. It's actually quite gross. When I think of Bordeaux, I think of red wine, which makes me think of clean, proper, sophisticated, suburban people. I figured Bordeaux would be some kind of reflection of that, but it's not. It's pretty disgusting. There is trash everywhere. Especially due to the flash rains and wind, flea markets we walked through looked like a hurricane had gone through them. They were destroyed, books soaking on the ground, broken glass everywhere, half eaten sandwiches lying around. It was just a mess!!! Yuck. Worst of all, there's a spot in the river where "clean" water is coming in. I don't think Ming was totally right about this though, because he said "clean" but I saw FILTHY black water running into a FILTHY yellow river filled with debris. The contrast in water colors was so distinct; I've never seen anything like it. Then you can see where they blend in and finally where there's no different in water color. It's a really depressing ecological site.

We were about 3/4 of the way done with our tour. It had been 6 hours and we were very tired so we asked Ming if we could go home. I think he may have been a little put off by not being able to finish his tour. I felt kind of badly but I was so tired, I was getting hungry, and we had seen quite a lot of the city.

We stopped by a store on the way home to grab some pasta and sauce (and I talked Laura into buying Lu cookies from Nantes!) and went home. Ming shared some of his nice Bordeaux wine with us and I ate while watching Australia get positively destroyed by Germany in the World Cup.

Sometime around 1030 or 11, Ming asked if we were ready to go out again so he could show us the night view of the city. The view he wanted to show us was probably a good 45 minutes away. Again, we were like, no...we're tired!!! And again, I think he may have been a little put off :/

Also sometime this evening, a Polish girl and her mother came to surf with Ming just for a few hours. Their train left at 4 AM the next day, which is crazy to me, but it was pretty cool having somebody and their mom surfing together!! The Polish girl had been studying in Bordeaux so she was friends with Ming (she surfed with him when she first came here). She and Ming both kept going on and on about the Dune dy Pyla, this huge sand dune close to Bordeaux. I spent the evening researching the dune and talking with them about how to get there, and I think we'll try to see what that's all about tomorrow.


Quotes:
"There's much less of them now, because of evolution. And also, because we ate them." - Ming, discussing pigeons in China.

Montmarte

Lucky for us, or me, at least, Michael lives within walking distance of the Montmarte neighborhood. Montmarte just might be my favorite area of Paris. It's further north than most of the big attractions. It has a alternative, colorful, artsy feel to it and I was excited to be back close to my old stomping grounds (my hostel a couple of summers ago was in this neighborhood).

Hopefully I'm not a super annoying 'guide' to Laura. I get so excited when I know where I am, and what things are, and where they are in relation to others. I love translating, and helping to order, and recommending delicious things to eat. It's all great fun.

Michael recommended a cafe for us to grab some breakfast at. We successfully found tartes aux fraises (one of my all time favorite things to eat) and I ordered a little miniature Parisian cafe au lait to accompany it. Something about being in Europe (or France) makes me drink coffee... Something I found interesting were that to-go prices were ridiculously cheaper than prices paid for sitting at their cafe. Naturally, we got our goodies to go and sat on a park bench just a few meters away. Laura fell in love with my tartes and I was proud :)

One of the things I remember most about two summers ago was walking to the Sacre Coeur. A bunch of us from the hostel would go up to the steps there and drink wine every night. We took a different path every time, but all that was important was that we were going up. At the top of the hill, that's where the Sacre Coeur is. So we started taking random paths here and there, climbing stairs and walking up hills. Finally we got to a super touristy area that's kind of at the base of the Sacre Coeur. There are of course many souvenir shops but also many art shops with Parisian posters and metal placards, as well as French cookie shops and other yummy things. My memory proved correct and we turned a corner to gaze up at the Sacre Coeur. I think it is such a fantastically pretty building. The hill it's on is the highest lookout point in Paris so you also have an incredible view of the huge city. I could sit on those steps for hours. It's one of my happy places in the world where I just feel very much at peace, very content with where I am, very settled to live in that one moment. There are so many interesting people out, the view is so great, and there is almost always live music going on. Today was no different. The steps were swarmed and we took a seat front and center. It's kind of like watching a show up there. Soon, we started to see real shows. There was this guy juggling a soccer ball who was REALLY good and did so many crazy tricks I didn't know were possible it kind of blew my mind. His grand finale was climbing a street light pole while balancing the ball on his head or something, getting to the top, then hanging from his arms and continuing to juggle. It was INSANE. He did this show, with slight variations, every 20 or 30 minutes or so. The crowd loved him. There was also this guy playing guitar who was trying really hard to compete with Awesome Juggler. The crowd wasn't feeling him so much but he invited other people to come up and sing with him. Some of the other people were great and very entertaining and it was kind of sad/funny how much more the crowd reacted to the guest singers.

Eventually we peeled ourselves off those cozy steps and walked down the hill that sprawls in front of the Sacre Coeur. I knew we were close to the Moulin Rouge, so I led us through the red light district next. We stopped for crepes, naturally, and soon I was staring up at that beautiful old red windmill again. I feel so incredibly jaded that I'm seeing all these things for the 3rd or 4th time. But, still, every time, the sights still take my breath away. That probably has something to do with why I'm so madly in love with this city.

After spending a lazy day meandering some of my favorite streets, we headed back to Michael's where he told us to meet him around 6 or 7. He was going to give us the key so we could go out for the evening and come back when we liked. We arrived just after 6 to find that Michael was not home and thus, we were locked out. Micheal didn't show up for another 45 minutes, and found us waiting on his doorstep like lost puppies. Once inside though, we took care of some little details and then headed out soon after.

And we were headed to....watch the US/England World Cup game!!! I wish the States was as into soccer/football at Europe is. Watching football games in Europe in bars and/or pubs is such a fun experience, but the vibe just isn't the same in the States. So I am REALLY excited that we're here during the World Cup games, especially the opening games! We went back to Rich's pub, the Frog, to find it more or less packed. The game didn't start for another half an hour so we were hoping we'd find a place to sit by then. I asked Rich how we were supposed to find a table and he told us to go wait at the bar and he'd find us one. Ten minutes before the game started, we were seated close to a TV with delicious microbrews in hand. We were sharing a table with a group of other people also watching the game - it was kind of a beer hall feeling. Then exciting things happened: 1) A CouchSurfer that offered to host us that I'd invited to the game showed up with his friend, and 2) Karly came!!!!! My cousin Karly is studying abroad in Paris so we were of course planning on meeting up. I don't have a phone though, so I'd told her that I'd be at this bar around 8 or 830 for the World Cup game and that she was more than welcome to come. But, I didn't know if she was actually going to show up or not. So sitting in this bar in Paris and having your cousin walk in is pretty freaking exciting!! Karly's boyfriend ended up meeting up with us as well, so we had a great little group going. Once Karly was there, a pitcher of beer was definitely in order.

Side story: The Frog has vodka+caramel and vodka+strawberry shots. I hate vodka. I don't like taking shots. Laura loves caramel. Laura likes taking shots. Laura wanted to take shots. I said, I'll make you deal - I'll take a shot if the US scores a goal. I was sincerely planning (but not hoping) that we would get annihilated by England. Long story short, the US scored (which is when we found out how many US fans were in this English pub) and we had to order shots too. Rough life.

All in all, it was a really fun night and I still kind of can't believe that this stop over in Paris happened so spontaneously. I mean, we were really planning on being in Bordeaux right now. But yesterday and today have just been fantastic. Our train to Bordeaux leaves tomorrow before 8 AM, so a little bit after the game ended, we headed home. On the way out, Rich said he'd show us "Paris proper" later this week, so hopefully that will happen! First though, we've got beaucoup du vin rouge pour boire!

Michael - CS #21

I don't know if I really slept at all on that overnight train. They're such a great idea, in theory. But with 6 people including 1 sick, coughing child, and 1 crying baby and the window that never seemed to shut letting the loud whooshes of the night come in - it was near impossible.

After the night train to Frankfurt we had to take another 3.5 hour train to Paris. On that train, we met a girl named Cathy from Oregon who was living in France and I had her give me some quick French lessons on things that I knew were drifting away from my foundation. That was good. I flipped through Laura's phrase book to make sure I knew how to say all the basic things (I was pretty sure I did...I just get nervous) and soon I was feeling ready for a trial run.

We arrived at Gare de l'Est and I was so freaking excited to be in Paris again. It was really warm and sunny and everywhere you look there are boulangeries and patisseries and crepes and other delicious things. It's hard to explain how or why I love this city so much. We had really good intentions of going all the way to Bordeaux today but we knew that trains to Bordeaux might already be fully booked. We'd coordinated with a CouchSurfing host in Bordeaux in case we DID make it, and also with a host in Paris in case we got stuck. After talking with a ticket person (IN FRENCH!) and learning that there were no trains to Bordeaux until Sunday our decision was made for us.

Side note: the French have an awful reputation of not speaking English to you. But they also have a reputation of starting to speak English as soon as they here you aren't perfectly fluent. So I was not sure how my rusty french would go over.

I don't know if the woman I spoke to did not know English, did not want to speak English, or did want to speak English but knew I was trying to practice my French (or some other possibility), but she spoke in French with me the whole time and I got the information I needed.

I got to use my French a number of other times for little things here and there - figuring out how to use a payphone (always a challenge for me in foreign countries), ordering crepes (obviously the first thing I ate), buying metro tickets (oh, good story), etc.

Metro ticket story: Paris has expensive tourist passes for like 9 euros for a day. It covers zones 1-3. I asked the tourist office if there was any cheaper way of getting around (individual tickets are 1.6 euros). They said no. I felt like they were lying. I went to the Paris ticket seller booth and saw a sign that said 1 day pass, zones 1-2, 5.6 euros. Half the price! And we had no reason to go to zone 3, because seriously, what's in zone 3? Practically everything is in zone 1. So I was able to buy us the way cheaper all day unlimited passes which we then commenced to use profusely.

We had to check our bags because our host was not home and not picking up his phone. It cost 5 euros a bag (!!!) so we only checked our big bags and I was stuck carrying my green bag and my Baby (my bag of breakables with dying handles) all day.

On our way to go see the city...finally. After 2.5 months of traveling, after 24 hours of commuting, after practically no sleep and little food - but still, I was excited beyond belief so running on adrenaline was no problem.

Then I realized it was Friday, and I just happen to know that the Louvre is free on Fridays for people under 26 after a certain time. So that's where we went first. It was about 3 when we got there and free entrance didn't start until 6. So going off of pure memory, I led us to a neighborhood close by that I remembered having cheap, yummy crepes. I was pretty sure I had gotten to the neighborhood and we stopped at the first crepe place. After I'd finished eating, I pulled out my trusty travel journal (that I got right before I was in France almost 2 years ago). I flipped through what I wrote during August 2008...and found a line scrawled that some street had great crepes. I looked at where I knew we were on my map...and saw that the street I had written down 2 years ago intersected with the street we were on, just half a block up. I had made it on memory!!!

At this point, I've got to be honest. I was feeling pretty damn clever. Back in my Paris, speaking French, jumping off a train on no sleep and knowing what museums are free and where the food is. It's a GREAT feeling. I need to live here.

After that, we were within walking distance of the Notre Dame. It was here that we realized that both of our cameras were dead. Hilarious considering the weather was beautiful and we had all day metro passes so we'd be going to see as much as we could. After that we headed to the Eiffel Tower which was majestic and gorgeous as always. There we saw some really good street performers dancing. Usually I feel like only guys do street dancing, but this group had a girl who was also really good! I wish I could dance...at all.

After the street performers, I really wanted to go to the fountain close by and sit with my feet in the water. I love doing that. But...right now there is no fountain because Paris has set up a huge outdoor screen for the world cup games and the whole area is fenced off and labeled "FIFA FAN FEST." Pretty cool! Except that there's no fountain :( Tons of people were sitting outside though watching the opening day of the world cup. I wish the States like soccer as much as Europe.

So, by now it was time to head back to the Louvre to get in for free. Laura and I are not huge museum people, especially by this point on our trip, and I'm just jaded having been to the the Louvre 2 or 3 times already. This resulted in the fastest whirl wind and totally under appreciative tour of the Louvre ever. We saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and that was pretty much it. A little lame but whatevs. If we really want to go back, we'll be here next Friday too :)

After the Louvre we went back to Gare de l'Est, called our host from Bordeaux to say we weren't coming and tried again to call our host here in Paris. When he didn't respond, again, we walked until we found a McDonald's. We sat outside stealing their internet and trying to Skype our host and check for possible back up hosts on CS. Finally we got through to him and found out he was home, so we went back to the station to retrieve our huge bags and took the metro to his stop. But the story doesn't end there. He said he lived really close to the metro, but Google maps told us to go the completely wrong direction. So we walked around lost with all of our freaking stuff for at least half an hour. Then I finally started using my French once again to figure out how to get us to his place. A nice shop man helped me and let me use his phone. After 15 minutes of having the shop man help me and letting me get through to our host (who said he was too tired to come and pick us up...a 10 minute walk away) I didn't want to leave without buying anything. The closest and cheapest thing in sight was a beer and I was hot, tired, thirsty, and frustrated, so that sounded great. No idea if it's legal to drink on the streets here but I picked up all my bags and drank my beer on the way to host's flat. His name is Michael by the way.

Michael turned out to be a really nice guy from Mauritius working as a train engineer here. He made us a great little pasta dinner with chopped green onions and really tender beef. We picked up a bottle of red Bordeaux wine to go with it. Happily fed and not carrying all our bags around the evening was going much better. By now I think it was around 11 or so, but we had all day metro passes so I wanted to keep doing stuff!

When I was here two summers ago I stayed at a hostel where I met Rich who was in the process of moving from England to Paris at that time. He works at an English pub here so I thought we could go see his bar and see if he was working. It was a Friday night so I figured he would be. His bar turned out to be really cool and really huge. It's also a microbrewery and they brew six different beers on site. Rich was working, but he didn't recognize me at first which was prettttty awkward. But it has been almost two years and my hair was up instead of down. I tried a dark beer (cleverly called "Dark de Triomphe") and Michael, who agreed to come out with us, got a ginger beer. Both were pretty delicious. It was really fun seeing Rich and I chatted with him on our way out and he asked if I was watching the world cup games. I said I really wanted to see the US/England game and asked if the Frog (his pub) was showing it. He said of course it was, so I think we'll be back tomorrow.

Then we began the slow trek back to Michael's flat...couldn't have asked for a better first day in Paris. It was a fantastically full day for not even knowing for sure 24 hours ago that we were going to be here. Love this city. Love it.


Accomplishments:
Speaking French again and still knowing my way around :)

Recipes

Today is the REAL last day. After a week and a half (which is 3-4 days longer than originally expected), gathered all of our stuff and finally began to clear the way for Daniel/Helen/Hakan to have their living room back. I have had such an amazing time here. I've accomplished all my goals for coming to Sweden and there are so many reasons that I want to come back. I really hope I can stay in touch with all of the family here and that it begins a trend that better connects the stateside Matsons with the trans Atlantic Jonssons. That would be really fantastic. I am really sad to go though, I will seriously miss these peopel a lot. With any luck, I can drag them to Seattle! The slower pace and having 2 full weeks here has made a huge difference. I had time to get sick and recover! We had time to not worry about doing anything except for bar hopping some days and picnicing other days. It was very leisurely and I felt like we really got to experience doing the everyday things that they do here in Stockholm. So it was really an amazing experience for me.

We packed pretty easily and spent the morning with Helen, Daniel, and Lynn. Sadly, Hakan was at work so we didn't really get to say bye to him :( The other night, at girls' night, Helen had said she would gather the recipes of all the Swedish food we'd eaten and give them to us because I told her I love to cook. She said it would be a good project for her but I had no idea if she was serious and if so how long it would take her to do this. But, this morning, she handed both Laura and I notebooks with pages and pages of recipes for everything Swedish we ate while we were here! Every pastry, every Swedish food court item, and her mom's Swedish meatball recipe!!!!! This was more than I ever could have asked for, it was a perfect gift and token of my time here. I am in love with this little journal and cannot wait to go home and try cooking/baking everything!!! I was a little overwhelmed that she had taken the time to hand write everything out for us, even using measurements in tablespoons, cups, etc. So so so nice!! I am positively ecstatic about this.

I took a little family picture with Daniel and Helen and then it was time for final hugs and goodbyes, which was pretty sad for me. Helen and Idun walked us halfway to the train station. After we parted ways, we grabbed some typical Hilary-Laura-Train-Food (baguette, meat, cheese, juice, bananas). Getting into town, we met a guy named Henri who decided he was bored and wanted to interview us. So that was fun; we've heard Swedish people are pretty reserved (they're described pretty similarly to Seattlites) but a couple of people have struck up conversations with us, which is great.

We made our first train with no problems, and I felt a strange sense of familiarity at the Copenhagen central station. Obviously I've been here a couple times before, but it's still pretty amazing to me that I can pull in to CPH central station and feel like I'm coming back to somewhere I know.

We then made it onto our night line train, where we'll spend 12 probably miserable hours before arriving in Frankfurt, Germany. This journey is probably really going to suck, but it's the last big push before we drag all our stuff to CDG airport...

Skansen

Today is our "bonus" day in Stockholm! This is because instead of beginning our disgustingly long train journey to France we had some extra time to spend here due to the train fiasco situation.

As a form of payment, I spent the morning cleaning as much of the apartment as I could. I tried to consolidate my things, thoroughly vacuumed the living room, entry way, kitchen, and kitchen rug, dusted some of the tables and the area above the TV, put the clean dishes away and rinsed and put all the other dishes in the dishwasher or washed them. Daniel was amused by this and every time I finished a task he would come up to me grinning and say, "Aw, you didn't have to do that!" (Once it was already done!) I didn't mind at all though, it's really the least I could do after taking up space there for the last week and a half!

I wanted to use today to go to the Djurgarden which is a huge island with lots of famous things on it. It has the Nordic History Museum, the Tivoli theme park, the Astrid Lindgren Pippi Longstocking park, the Skansen outdoor museum, and the Vasa museum. I had heard good things about the Vasa museum and about Skansen, but Daniel said we should go to Skansen. He then asked if it would be OK for he and Lynn to come, which of course it was! I wasn't sure if they were maybe getting sick of us and needing their space, so I was more than happy that he was interested in coming along with us and hanging out for the day. It's also a bonus for us because not only do we get to spend time with him and Lynn, but Daniel knows so much history so I figured it would be especially great to have him tour us around this outdoor museum.

The museum is supposed to show how Sweden was a century or two or three ago. There are lots of old traditional buildings/houses/barns/store houses/shops/workshops/etc. It definitely reminded me of the outdoor museum in Switzerland but I liked this one a lot better. It seemed more compact and interesting somehow. We got to watch glass blowing in one of the work shops! And the bakery shop had yummy pastry looking things. I tried vanilla bulle which was amazing. It was dough with powdered sugar with a huge dollop of vanilla in the middle. Powdered sugar got everywhere; it always does. I also found a workshop where they were making traditional northern Sweden flat bread, which was also really good. The buildings and gardens and herb gardens were all really cool to see, and there were also old phone booths and rune stones around! Then there is a part of the outdoor museum that is pretty much a zoo but only for "Nordic" animals found in Sweden and Scandinavia. That was probably my favorite part because the animals were so cool. Since spring just happened, everything had babies. We got to see baby pigs, baby rabbits, baby geese, baby moose, and baby bears! So many babies! The baby pigs were soo cute. The rabbits were obviously cute, just so fluffy looking. They had some rabbits that are the largest breed or rabbit in the world. It's called the Flemish Giant Rabbit or something like that. They're monstrously huge!! Seeing a moose was really cool because I remember Leif telling us about moose and how dangerous it is to hit a moose with your car because they're so big they can hurt/kill you. So I really had wanted to see a moose and here I finally got to. Another one of the coolest animals were these huge gray seals. They were enormous and were sprawled out sleeping in the sun. Then we went past Nordic wild boars and bison and found our way to the bear pits. The bear cubs must have been a few months old because they weren't that tiny anymore. But the bears here were way more active than the bears we saw in Switzerland, so that was really fun and cute. The cubs were adorable and kept waking the mommy bear up. The three of them followed her around and eventually pretty much tackled her and pinned her on her back so the three of them could suckle. It was really funny. Then we went to try to find the wolves! Daniel spotted them - they were just laying down, but still, it was really cool to see a wolf!!

After Skansen, we went to Lynn's father's house, where we had been invited for dinner (we're so lucky). Apparently Daniel had told Lynn's brother and father about us and Lynn said we had a really good reputation to live up to! Flattering :) We got beer on the way but as soon as we stepped inside Lynn's father offered us a cold beer. Can't say no to that, especially since I'm pretty much healthy now. Honestly, I'd be surprised if my health improved much more over the next couple of weeks. Lynn's dad, Morton, got a new grill last summer and was really excited to start using it again. He grilled pork and beef and served it to us with homemade barbecue sauce and tzatziki sauce. As if that, served with great red wine, wasn't enough, there were also good vegetables, and asparagus and carrots that I want to try to recreate when I get home. The asparagus was simply sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and cooked, but the carrots were cooked in salt water and then put in an olive oil and vinegar mix and were really good!! I'm always excited to learn new ways to cook vegetables, so I probably seemed a little nerdy because I kept asking Morton how he did this and that. He very nicely explained to me what he did though, so I am really excited to try making them when I get home.

Dinner, aside from food, was great fun. Conversation flowed easily and Daniel was pretty entertaining. I am really glad that we were invited because it was just a really easy going, pleasant, enjoyable night. After dinner, we moved inside where the chatting continued. Daniel got a call about Sandra crashing Hakan's car (very not good) and spent a while talking about that. I finally decided to break that conversation up by asking Daniel to teach me how to open a beer bottle with a lighter. That's a trick I really want to know how to do. I tried learning in Poland but I couldn't get it. Daniel tried showing me and I was so close to getting it - but it didn't quite work still! But after that intermission, Daniel and Morton switched to Swedish and started talking about politics, I think, and Lynn and Laura and I moved outside again and kept up the girl talk in English. Girl talk, that's another thing that's universal I think.

Eventually I went inside to get my last bottle of beer and tried opening it with the lighter again. But this time, I got it!!Super exciting!

Finally we started making our way home around midnight and took public transportation until it stopped running at which point we settled for a taxi. Daniel likes to announce how happy he is a lot which I adore. We finally made it home and everybody was quite happy and in good spirits. With no more Mad Men to watch, we actually went straight to bed, so that tomorrow we'll actually be able to get up early and pack for real and begin the trek down south.


Quotes:
"Hilary, man, I'm gonna shoot a hug at you!" - Daniel, before giving me the most genuine hug I think I've gotten this whole trip :) And yes, he calls Laura and I "man" and "dude" frequently. We are dudes here.

Accomplishments:
Opened a bottle with a lighter.

Pastries & Lisbet

I'm a little sad. We've been here about twice as long as we've been in any other country but today is our last day and it's kind of just somber. It's been so much fun, and I have no idea when I'll see these people or this country again. I will find a way back though, for sure.

We spent the early afternoon walking about Sundbyberg (Helen/Daniel's neighborhood) with Helen. She showed us the pastries that Sam had recommended to me. One was called kanelbulle and is a cinnamon roll, and then we also tried one Helen recommended that was a vanilla heart. Like the dough was heart shaped with powdered sugar and the middle of the heart was filled with vanilla creamy goodness. Helen was so surprised that we didn't have any of these amazing pastries back home. Probably a good thing for my health that we don't though. After we bought the pastries we walked to Sandra's apartment which is pretty close by. Turns out she is giving her little puppy Harley back in a couple of days, and this was our last real chance to see her. So we sat in the sun and ate our pastries and chatted with Sandra and watched Harley run around for a little bit. Then, Sandra, uber-busy as usual had to go nanny.

Helen showed us to a cafe where they serve princess cake, another pastry Sam recommended (she is good at these recommendations). Princess cake is a huge layered chunk of deliciousness topped with green marzipan. I took pictures, obviously, so sorry for the lame description. We then parted ways with Helen and headed into town, full of sugar and nothing else.

We decided to go to the Central Station to reserve our train seats from Stockholm to Copenhagen. But we told the lady that our end destination was Bordeaux, France. She looked at the route we had decided on and informed us that the trains we wanted to take were fully booked and there was no way to get on them. GREAT. We literally spent at least an hour talking to this poor woman, who was so patient, kind, and helpful. You know how you pull numbers and wait for the desk to light up with your number above it? She just turned hers off and spent what felt like forever helping us find a way to Paris. The problem was that high school just finished this week for the year, so there's tons of kids in Europe traveling for the summer, not to mention...it is June now. Which means Laura and I are now in the masses of travelers instead of in the off season, like how it started off. Which was now 2.5 months ago. Crazy.

It was a big complicated mess, but essentially, to get to Bordeaux the easiest route would be to go Stockholm - Copenhagen - Koln - Paris - Bordeaux. 4 transfers. We could book seats to Copenhagen, but Copenhagen to Koln was fully booked. And France has like cut off it's train system information from the rest of the world, so you can't reserve domestic French train seats until you're IN France. So there was a possibility we would get to Paris and NOT be able to make it to Bordeaux the same day. And we didn't have a CouchSurfer set up for Paris, only Bordeaux. And it's like a solid 24 hours on a train to get to Paris, so there wasn't really time to find one in case we got stuck in Paris. So what we ended up doing was booking seats to Paris leaving Thursday from Stockholm (arriving Friday in Paris). We hoped Helen/Daniel/Hakan would be OK with us staying an extra night...we needed time to find an "on-call" CouchSurfing host in Paris and to update our host in Bordeaux. So nothing was working out how we planned, but I think it will all work out. We will have to go from Stockholm - Copenhagen - Frankfurt - Paris, which is slightly less direct but hopefully it'll all work out. Bleh.

By the time we finished at the train station, it was time to go to Lisbet's where we'd been invited for dinner. Lisbet is my great grandmother Mor Mor's cousin's wife. A little bit hard to grasp at first, but she is somebody that my grandparents and parents had met so I was excited to meet her too! And Laura and I will never say no to a home cooked meal :)

Finding Lisbet's place was very easy and she was such a sweet and lovely host. She started us off with a glass of chilled white wine and we quickly began talking about traveling, which was pretty much the dominant subject the whole evening. Lisbet has done a lot of traveling and is still taking at least 3 big trips per year. That is how I want to be when I grow up! Always traveling. It was very easy to talk to her about our adventures and hear about her plans. The actual dinner was also a really interesting experience for me. For the first time in my life, I tried caviar!!!! I am SO proud of myself!!! I don't even think my family will believe me on this one. It was actually pretty good, much saltier and less fishy than I was expecting. Lisbet served it on kind of a graham cracker toast kind of bread with yogurt sauce and chopped red onions. So that was a very brave and exciting gastronomic experience for me! The main course was raw salmon with a salsa verde sauce and a white sauce (which was all very good). There were also some delicious vegetables to go along with everything. Seriously, home cooked meals when traveling is like the best thing that could ever happen. Overall, I am so glad that I got a chance to meet with Lisbet to chat about travels! I think I've now met everybody my grandma recommended I should meet that still live in Sweden, so it's been an ideally successful visit here!

We stayed at Lisbet's for a solid three hours, and finally we left to go home and break the news to Helen/Daniel that we needed to stay another night...haha. They of course were fine with it, but we've just been here longer than planned so I was starting to feel kind of badly like...maybe they want to be able to walk through their living room again?

Daniel, Lynn, and Hakan were about to watch the movie "Leon" which is actually the real name of the movie called "The Assassin" in the States. I don't know when or where but I definitely saw that movie (rare for me) but it's a really good movie. While we all watched that, Laura and I worked on figuring out the CouchSurfing situation for Bordeaux/Paris. By the end of the movie, we'd done as much as we could do. When the boys and Lynn went to bed we of course stayed up and watched more Mad Men. Sadly, we finished the second season so...pretty impressive how we powered through that haha.


Quotes:
"I'll get another bottle; these bottles are so small!" - Lisbet, regarding our wine consumption

Girls' Night

When we finally got up we just went straight back to watching Mad Men. Maybe a little bit pathetic, seeing as to how we're in Stockholm and everything but...first of all, I'm still getting better. Second of all, nobody was home and we didn't know what we were going to do today. I figured we would just rest (i.e. watch Mad Men) until somebody came home and/or called and then we would figure out some sort of plan.

Daniel came home sometime in the early afternoon. He told us that Hakan had called a hot air balloon company this morning but hadn't been able to reach them. Hakan had been helping us last night try to see if we could work an hot air balloon ride into our trip here, because that would be super cool! He said he'd call this morning, but when we woke up he was gone. So I thought it was so nice of him that he remembered to call anyway. All three of them are so sweet! Helen called and We decided we'd meet up with her around 530.

We met up with her in the center square and Sandra was with her, so that was fun because we haven't gotten to see Sandra very much. She is super busy and has a lot going on in her life right now so we only see her for bits and pieces here and there. When we parted ways with Sandra, Helen had taken it upon herself to help me find a traditional Swedish plate! We went to a couple of department stores and in the first one, the plates were great but they were also ridiculously expensive. Like 250 crowns (~8 SEK to $1 USD) for a single plate. But then we went to another store and I found a pretty cheap plate than Helen says is very traditional. I'll take her word for it. Also, in this store, I found something very exciting for Hilary the Cook. It's an olive oil and vinegar flask that just screams Sweden to me, because it's so cute and well designed. It's hard to describe but I am in love with it. I get my plates because I "have to" for my collection (I do like it, I just also like to complain about it), but I also try to find other small/light things from countries. This is definitely my Swedish thing.

With that accomplished, we wandered around a part of town called Ostermalm which we hadn't really explored yet. We ended up practically walking into a giant market food hall that coincidentally Laura and I were planning on going to Saturday before Laura made me come home and stop dying. Helen promised us this was REAL Swedish food, like the kind of thing she would eat, and I got a little taster-sized portion of something that ended up being DELICIOUS. It was a cabbage leaf wrapped around minced meat and was served with mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam. They serve a lot of things here with mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam. Lingonberry jam is delicious and reminds me a lot of cranberry sauce.

If you look up "things to do in Stockholm" you will see suggestions for "just go to design shops in Sweden. Just do it." As we passed random design shops on our evening stroll, we stopped in to admire and look at and play with all the funny things. Everything here seems adorable and very well designed. It's all just cute. Too cute. I've never been into a store like that with so many practical everyday things that are so pleasing to look at. Then these stores also have things that you wouldn't necessarily think of but once you see them you're like, "that is genius!" It's lots of fun to window shop in these stores.

At this point, we decided that we would have a girls' night. This was pretty much our last night in Sweden since tomorrow we have dinner plans with Lisbet and we're leaving on Wednesday. We went to another one of Helen's favorite bars which is famous for it's cheap (read: reasonably, by USD standards) priced drinks. I still think my system would have collapsed under more beer and wine was twice as expensive so I ended up drinking cider for the night. It was almost as cheap as the beer and it was clear pear cider. Not only was it delicious, but since it was clear liquid I told myself it was probably good for me. Also, people drink cider all the time here! In the US it's not very common, I don't even think you could find it at most bars, but here it's like a normal drink option.

We proceeded to have an incredibly fun(ny) night filled with girl talk and laughter and Helen-Language. She explained that sometimes when we say things, she hears them in her head totally differently. So as we were talking she kept being like, "what? did you just say ...." And she without fail always heard something outrageously funny! We were trying to tell Helen the story of the Slovakian boy (long story, also, not my story) and Helen heard "slow walker" and then made up a hilarious urban-dictionary-esque definition of what a slow walker was. That might have been the funniest thing of the night. It was such an amazing night, I love hanging out with her! It's just fun non-stop. Sam had recommended Swedish chocolate and pastries to me so before we got to the bar we got some chocolate. Helen said she loves to get chocolate with her friends and then go to a bar and just eat the chocolate they brought with their beer. You can totally get away with that in Europe because once they seat you and you order, the wait staff leaves you alone because they don't really work for tips. It's actually so nice, just to be left in peace and never felt rushed or like they're trying to get you out of your seat as soon as possible. I'm going to miss that dining style a lot back home. We tried to find Laura a Swedish boy in between laughing about other random things but that didn't work out very well.

Finally, we decided to call it a night and head home. A stop at 7-11 was necessary though to get more chocolate. It was here that a boy named Bjorn started talking to Laura and Helen and I got our hopes up for a second, but alas, Laura was not so much into Bjorn from 7-11. By the way I have a huge thing against going into American shops, but I justify my trip to 7-11 because all I got was Swedish chocolate.

When we got home, Helen went to bed (like a smart person) and Laura and I...guess what we did. No really, guess.

Aww.... you got it. We watched Mad Men again until I think 3 AM when Laura decided we should go to bed.


Quotes:
"My internal GPS is off." - Helen, a classic comment when trying to find her way somewhere.

"You can't turn your back on girls' night!" - Helen, when I tried to only have one or two ciders.

Archipelago & Motorcycles

Good news: I feel much better today! Still not amazing, but definitely on the upswing now.

We made it out of the house and to the harbor by around 11 AM and found the boat company that we wanted to use. There are so many boats lining the multiple harbors that I was nervous it would take a while, but with good directions from Helen and Hakan it was quite easy. After buying our tickets, we found a dock to sit on in the sun for about 20 minutes before lining up to get on the boat.

The tour we decided to go with was a 3 hour round trip island tour with an English guide. Although I really wanted to get out and walk around and spend time on the islands, I figured I was still recovering and it would be best to just admire the beauty from the water and have a nice day in the sun learning about the islands. The boat ride was not quite what I expected - the company combined two different tours into one. So inside the boat, there were rows of tables with white table cloths and buffets set up for people that had paid for the "brunch tour". Everybody else was standing outside around the boat. Then there were speakers placed around the boat. If you weren't within two feet of a speaker though you couldn't hear the guide at all. I spent a while close to various speakers but it turns out the guide was really less than memorable. Still though, the weather was beautiful and the archipelago was gorgeous!! I would love to come back to Sweden and to a much more thorough tour of the archipelago and spend more time on individual islands. Another reason to come back :)

We stopped by the food festival again since it was close by. I got some samples but didn't see anything that looked Swedish that was cheap so we didn't get any food. It had a really fun atmosphere that kind of reminded me of Seattle Center a little bit. Also, since today was their national holiday, there were TONS of Swedish flags out. People were wearing t-shirts with the flag on it, carrying them around, putting them on their boats or outside their restaurants. Everywhere was blue and yellow.

After the boat tour, we went back to the apartment to check in. Daniel and Hakan had told us that they would take us on their motorcycles!!!! Very excited about this. However, Daniel said he needed some time to rest since he just got back from work. Laura and I wanted to make dinner for them, so we said we'd just make dinner first, while he napped, and then after dinner we could go riding. Which works out here in the summer since you have full day light until 10 or 11.

I went to the grocery store alone while Laura worked on CouchSurfing stuff. It took me a while to find all the ingredients I wanted since I don't speak Swedish. Most of the time I could figure out the general sections of the store, but unless something had a very distinct picture on it I didn't always know what it was. The other more challenging thing was knowing how much of something came in a package. Anyway, I stumbled through it and came home with ingredients to make two pizzas, one Hawaiian type pizza with meat and pineapple and mozzarella on it and one Greek pizza with feta cheese, kalamata olives, and red onions. I've never made pizzas on my own before so it was a pretty fun artistic adventure. Then, since I bought a ton of garlic to help me get better I had a lot left over that I wanted to find something to do with. I got a baguette figuring that making garlic bread probably just meant mixing minced garlic with olive oil or butter or something you can spread on bread. Laura took over operation garlic bread. It was so nice to spend time in the kitchen playing with all the ingredients. I told Helen and Laura that especially pizzas feels kind of like finger painting as a kid, except here you get to eat it when you're done. Rolling the dough, spreading the sauce, placing the ingredients in whatever design you want. It's really fun. We let Hakan know dinner was ready and roused Daniel from his sleep and had a super cute little family dinner. Everybody said it was really good (Helen said it was the best homemade pizza she's ever had) which was nice but I know things could have been better. At any rate, it seemed like a great success, everybody said they were full and happy and seemed very appreciative. And it was really fun to sit with all 5 of us, because usually somebody is working or at school or busy with their lives doing something else.

Helen was kind enough to volunteer to do dishes so the rest of us could get on with our motorcycling. Helen busted out this awesome 1980's motorcycling suit that she was going to let me borrow. I put on the pant suit and jacket and helmet, but Daniel vetoed the pants saying that jeans were more comfortable to ride in, and then he also vetoed the helmet because it was ugly. He looked pained that I even thought about wearing it out of the house, he just said, "No, no, please...don't do this" as he took it off of my head.

So Helen let me borrow some jeans and shoes more appropriate for riding a motorcycle than anything I brought and Daniel gave me a covered helmet that he approved of. Then Laura rode with Daniel and I jumped on behind Hakan and we set off. Needless to say, it was so much fun!!!! I love riding motorcycles. It's always a treat since it happens so rarely. There was still really good daylight and they were of course careful with us. They took us all through the Stockholm country side which was really cool because we hadn't seen that part of Stockholm at all yet. Every once in a while Hakan would say something to me like, "are we going too fast?", "that's where the king lives," or "there's a special island just for dogs over there." Very helpful haha. We stopped eventually by some water somewhere and stretched our legs. Then we continued and went on a mission to find Daniel some coffee. We tried a couple of different places that were both closed and finally stopped at another place that was about to close. They didn't have coffee either so the boys settled for a Coke and we sat there for a few minutes.

On the way back, we stopped at one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Stockholm. It's an UNESCO World Heritage site - the whole neighborhood - because it's a really good example of Sweden's functionalism architecture. I personally thought the houses were really ugly but functionalism was an important architectural movement in the 30's and 40's I think and this neighborhood was kind of the guinea pig and the model neighborhood.

As we went home, the sun was setting and the air was clear. It was perfect; it was such a good feeling. We made it back safely and unpeeled all of our motorcycle clothes and helmets. Then we plopped ourselves down and settled in for a night of more....MAD MEN! Good times. We made it onto Season 2 so now it's new for both Laura and I which is great. We're super addicted. It could be a problem.

Sickness & Mad Men

Well, we had yet another late morning and I feel absolutely awful. Laura came up with a great plan for us to do everything we want to do over the next 3 or 4 days. It's been sunny all week, but when I looked up the weather for next week it was supposed to be cloudy and possibly rainy Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So now I am a little worried that we won't be able to do everything I want to do even though we have had so much free time and late start mornings.

We headed out to an outdoor market that's only open on Saturdays. However, I was coughing for the whole metro ride and when we got to the market stop I could not stop coughing and my eyes were watering and I felt like I was dying. Then Laura had to play Mom and told me we should just go home and that it would be OK to have a down day. I told her I'd been doing everything I could not to get sick, taking garlic, and drinking tea, drinking OJ by the liter. I asked her what else I could possibly do to get better and she said, "REST". I said, "Something fun that will help me get better." But she insisted that I needed rest so I finally gave in and we went straight back home. I securely fastened myself to the couch and we both sat in front of the TV watching most of the 1st season of Mad Men.

Mad Men...is great. Luckily for us, Hakan has the entire 1st and 2nd season, and I've only seen the first two episodes of the first season. Laura's seen the whole first season but was fine watching it again. We got through I think about 7 hours (7 episodes). It's crazy addictive and the more I watch the more I love as the story gets more complicated. I've wanted to watch the show for a long time, or at least since I saw a couple of episodes at Lindsay's in NYC last December. So, as far as being sick goes, drinking soup and orange juice and having a Mad Men marathon wasn't the worst thing in the world.

Eventually the gang came back home, and Daniel, Hakan, Laura, and I watched a Dane Cook performance. I'd already heard probably 1/3 of the jokes, but it was pretty funny. I like Dane Cook, but the best part for me was how hard Daniel and Hakan were laughing, it was really funny.

And that was the whole day. We literally did nothing except watch hours and hours of Mad Men and Dane Cook. It was great.

Fotografiska

Still not feeling fantastic today. We left the house very late again and went to the harbor to see about taking a boat tour. However, it was too late in the day, we decided to try to get up early another morning and come back for the boats. So we walked around the old town for some souvenir shopping and I couldn't find a plate I liked. Frustrating - but this is the LAST plate I need! Thank goodness.

Then we went to the Fotografiska which is a photography museum that just opened in Stockholm like 2 weeks ago, so it's very new!! I think this was one of my favorite museums I've been to on this whole trip - it was so cool. There were 4 different exhibits and I really enjoyed all of them. I feel like usually I only like one or two exhibits, but seriously everything here was so great and interesting to me. The exhibits were "A child is Born", "The Birthday Party" (Vee Speers), "Life of a Photographer" (Annie Liebovitz), and "Bodies". I don't remember who did the "A Child is Born" pictures but they are really really famous photographs. They were published in Time magazine for the first time 20 or 30 years ago. The exhibit had amazingly magnified, colorful, poignant pictures of what goes on in a female's body to have a child. I was blown away by the exact moments that were captured; for example, there was a picture of the millisecond the fertilized egg attaches itslef to the placenta. It was incredible - you should go google those pictures if you're unfamiliar with them, they're truly stunning. "The Birthday Party" was all portraits of children holding or using a single prop. It was about the imagination of children and what they want to be when they grow up or what they pretend to be or what they're scared of being. It's of course open to interpretation but the pictures were really intriguing. There was one picture of a rather plain looking girl but when you look at her hands by her side you see scissors in one hand and a braid of (her) hair in the other. The exhibit also had pictures of kids dressed up in gas masks, or holding a gun, and of a boy dressed as a ballerina, and a girl dressed like a wealthy middle aged woman. Really strange but cool. Then there was the Annie Liebovitz exhibit which was just awesome. I really like her stuff, and she was kind of the main feature of this museum. There were close to 200 of her photos there as well as a video talking about how she chose pictures for her book. What was most interesting was that her book (and this exhibit which is based on the book) combines her professional pictures with her personal pictures. So you see a famous picture you've seen many times next to a series of photos she took of her father with her niece at the beach. It was really great. The last exhibit was cool but was my least favorite. It focused on the abnormalities of the human body, and it was just kind of bizarre.

After the museum, we didn't really have anything else we really "wanted" to do so we just went grocery shopping and home. I made a really fun dinner for myself that happened because I picked out ingredients that I felt like eating and put them all together, though I'd never had this combination before. I made rice with sauteed peppers, garlic, and chunks of avocado. It was warm and delicious and hopefully will help me get better very soon.

Then Laura and Hakan and I watched the movie "Into the Wild" which was SUCH a great movie!!! If you haven't seen it, you should watch it. I don't want to ruin anything but....AH, sooo good. That's your homework: go watch that movie (after you look up pictures from "A Child is Born").

Another Day

Sick. I mean, I guess after consuming mostly beer two days ago and mostly wine yesterday and after traveling for 10 weeks that's what I should have expected. It's like my body was just searching for an excuse to break down on me. Anyway, I don't feel good and that's poopy, because I'm so excited to be here but I can feel myself getting worse.

Over breakfast, I looked up some things to do in Stockholm since we've just been taking everything as it comes the past couple of days. Turns out there is a lot going on this week, the Stockholm marathon is coming up on Saturday, and the big national holiday (their 4th of July) is coming up on Sunday. Then we went to school with Helen and sat outside in the sun while she took care of some things. After Helen was done at school, she and her friend Marie spent the afternoon with Laura and I. We went to the food festival (another instance of awesome timing, we're here during a Swedish food festival!) and tried some Swedish stuff. I got this thing that was kind of like a weird mix between a crepe, a pizza, and a burrito. It had goat cheese and pesto and pine nuts and arugula I think. Delicious. We stopped at a tourist information shop and by the harbor to ask questions about boat tours through the archipelago (FYI - Sweden's archipelago has more than 30,000 islands). Then the four of us walked all around the city and the old town.

While we were walking we were loudly introduced to Sweden's graduation tradition. When people finish high school here, the entire class piles on to the back of a huge truck. Their graduation hats look remarkably like sailor hats, and the poor truck driver drives them around town. They BLAST music, drink / spray beer on themselves, and are usually dressed with the intention of ruining their clothes. They also make special posters that decorate their truck. So there are tons and tons of dump trucks driving around town with drunk kids jumping up and down and having a dance party on the back and using super soakers on on-lookers and blowing whistles and making all kinds of other noise. It's a really funny sight! And they do this all over Sweden - it's like their version of a grad night.

On the way out of the old town we stopped at an old alcohol store. They had the worst system in the world. They had cases and cases of alcohol that you could only look at. Then you had to pull a number, and wait for your number to be called, and then tell the cashier what you want, and then pay for it and show your ID (Sweden is by far the most strict country we've been to in terms of showing your ID). So we took a number and sat there for probably half an hour - it was the most awfully slow process of buying a bottle of wine EVER. We finally had our number called, and Marie, who is 35, didn't have her ID. And even though she is 35, they refused to sell her (or Helen, who did have her ID), a single bottle of wine. It was ridiculous. During all this, I was feeling sicker and sicker and ended up taking a little cat nap waiting this process out. This dude next to me taps me, and I thought he wanted the time, but he just goes, "Are you tired?". Moron. You just woke me up. Seriously? Some people...

Sans wine, we continued on our walk. Marie knew about the oldest natural lookout point in the city. I think that was the claim to fame for this hill. I never would have been able to find it on my own, you have to access it through lots of small unmarked side street type of things. But Marie was able to find it and we got to the top of this hill and there was a gorgeous view of Stockholm! We sat up there for a while enjoying the prolonged evening sun and the water and the view of the city (including the city hall, where we were yesterday).

Once we arrived at Helen's bike (she had left it locked up somewhere two days ago), we parted ways with Marie and headed home. We stopped for groceries and Helen probably would have left her bike again had I not reminded her :) Then we made it home and had a calm night of diner and tea and chatting.

Picnics & Boxed Wine

Today the only thing on the agenda were picnics! Yes, picnics, plural.

The first picnic was with Helen, Daniel, Lynn (Daniel's girlfriend), and the dog, Idun. Helen has a real picnic basket with little plates and cutlery that it just too cute. We packed up that and brought a blanket and headed out. I can't get enough of this sun, it feels like we've been under rain clouds for a month, so I am soaking up this vitamin D! As we were leaving I saw Daniel holding something and I was like, "Is that backgammon?" and it was. Super funny because I hardly know anybody at home that plays backgammon, but I love it. Walking to the park Daniel was an amusing sight to behold. He is hardcore, very rock and roll, but also is into classic country. So he comes off as a kind of bad ass hard rock cowboy and it's hilarious. On the way to the park, you could see his tattoos and he was smoking a cigarette and had a bandanna around his long blond hair...and then he had a dog bone in his back pocket and was holding a game of backgammon. It was a very endearing combination.

At the park, Daniel and Lynn played backgammon, Laura read on her Kindle, I looked at H&M magazines that Helen had brought, and Helen tried to tan (after claiming she was the whitest person, which is false, because it's hard to beat the translucent pale of both Laura and my skin). Soon Sandra came to join us with her little puppy Harley and Harley and Idun played together endlessly. They both had so much energy, it was quite a show to watch them go at each other and wrestle, especially because Idun is about 3 times Harley's size! So cute!

It seemed like a great day for a salad, so Helen took us to a grocery store with a salad bar and we got food. We brought it all back to the apartment and I made a salad dressing that I was very happy with. Super simple, but still so nice to create.

Later it was time for picnic #2 which was at a different park with a bunch of Helen's classmates. People in this park had little miniature grills that were so cute. I've never seen grills quite like it, they were just small aluminum rectangles with a few coals and a grate on top. Very convenient, minus the whole part about them creating black rectangles where green grass used to be...oops. We had a fantastic barbecue though, we grilled sausages we got earlier, and had fresh strawberries, crackers and cheese, and wine in these adorable picnic sized wine glasses.

We stayed long enough to witness "Swedish baseball" before wandering away. Swedish baseball was super weird, we had no clue if they were keeping score, when team's switched sides, or really anything else. People tossed a ball to themselves (no pitchers) and more than one person could be on base at a time. Really bizarre!

Then we took our container of boxed wine and meandered along the water, stopping at various benches to have a glass or two. We ended up sitting in front of the city hall for a while which is a really gorgeous building. However, when I asked Helen where we were she said she didn't know, and then she asked somebody in Swedish obviously what building we were in front of. They said city hall ... and later I read that the city hall building is one of Stockholm's most prominent land marks! So I think Helen may have looked a little silly to that person she asked where we were that night! Hahaha.

With our wine finally gone, we went to one of Helen's favorite bars. It was pretty comical because we were three girls sitting by ourselves, and after about 30 seconds a pack of three guys came up and started talking to all of us. We stayed at the bar until about 1 but it took us a really long time to get home because public transportation had stopped running. When we finally made it home it was around 230 AM. One of my favorite things about Stockholm is that the sky never gets fully dark. I know this happens in the summer in the northern countries, but I've never really seen it before. But it is just so cool, even at 230 AM, the sky is not pitch black. In fact, one part of the horizon still looks like the sun is setting, it stays a light blue the entire night. Then the sky fades to a darker blue, but never completely black. One of the consequences of this is that it's really easy to lose track of time, because it looks like what I consider to be about 9 PM ALL NIGHT. Helen was shocked that it was 230 AM though which I found really funny.

By the way, I think I've seen more tattooed people here than I have on this whole trip so far; maybe even more than I see in Seattle. There's a lot of tattoos. Also, people chew tobacco a lot. I don't think I know anybody who does that, but here it's incredibly common.


Quotes:
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY THIRD COUSIN!" - Helen, to some guy that put his arm around me. Hilarious.

Third Cousins

Not much to say about today other than that it was awesome! Hanging out with my third cousins here in Stockholm is better than I could have imagined.

Today, for the first time in what feels like ages, we had SUNSHINE!!!!!

Daniel, who is really into history, took Laura and I into town and guided us around telling us bits and pieces of information about the area and buildings. I think he was holding back a little though because he didn't want to sound nerdy or bore us with his 'lecturing'. Around 1, we decided that no, it wasn't too early to have a beer. We found a cafe and tried a Swedish beer there and got into a good conversation.

Then we moved on and kept walking. Soon we found another cafe with a sunny, huge, outdoor cafe in the middle of a great people watching square, and decided to stop again for another beer. The conversations flowed so easily and we just chatted and laughed for hours. A bit later, Helen met us at this bar and after one more drink we moved on.

Sandra had called and she also works at a bar, so we headed to her bar next. Now I had officially met all three of my third cousins here! We again sat outside and had some beer and ordered some food and just kept on chatting and laughing. Soon, Linn (Daniel's girlfriend) came to meet up with us. Eventually, we decided to mosy on over closer to home to Daniel's favorite local bar.

At some point at this last bar, I looked at my watch and realized that is was 10 PM! I literally had not looked at my watch before that since that first beer around 1 PM. It stays so light outside here that I had completely lost track of time, I was shocked at how late it was! That just goes to show how much fun we were having!

People here seem very curious about Laura and I. My favorite part of the day though was when people would ask, "Oh, so how do you know Helen?" and I could respond, "Yeah, we're third cousins, no big deal..." And then they look kind of surprised! Somebody else asked what I was doing in Sweden and I told them I was trying to find/meet/get to know my family here. And then I said, "check!" as in 'I have accomplished this!' and when the guy looked a little confused Daniel chimed in, "We're 3rd cousins!" For some reason it just makes me so happy to be here with them and tell people how we are related. I can't get over how cool it is that our great great grandfather was the same person. It's such a long journey from Sweden to the States and I think it's amazing that I've kind of circled back and made it here to meet the family line that stayed in Sweden. I'm just continually amazed and elated by being around and getting to know them.

Helen and Daniel are also excellent hosts, they are so excited to show us around and do things with us and keep telling us that we need to say if we're bored or tired or want to be alone. We have to keep assuring them that this is perfect - we're not here to visit churches and museums and try to do everything there is to do in Stockholm. I'm here to hang out with them, and I'm quite sure I'll end up seeing some of the best parts of Stockholm along the way :)

Sandra and her new puppy Harley came and met us at the bar a little bit later, and we stood outside playing with Harley for a while before finally walking home.

In truth, we saw very little of the actual city today. But I think it's a huge accomplishment just drinking beer in the sun with your third cousins all day. Today was absolutely great.

Today also though is the beginning of June. This is quite sad because it means I am home in 22 days. Most US companies give you only two weeks of vacation time. I think the fact that I'm sad about coming home in three weeks might cause some problems for me later in life...It's weird too because we only have Sweden and France left, so the pace will be much slower. Also, if you were just normally working, have 3-4 weeks off to play in Sweden and France would be a great vacation, so it's amusing to me that we have this special time to spend in the last two countries at the end of a rather fast paced 9 week back packing trip. It almost feels like it's piecing two different trips together, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, I hope I will be able to come back to Sweden and I REALLY hope that our generation will stay in touch. That would just be inexplicably awesome.


Quotes:
Far too many, I wouldn't even know where to begin...everything was just funny today.

Accomplishments:
See above.

Travel Tip:
Take advantage of shaved legs and sunshine and wear skirts!!!