Holy Roly, Me Oh My

Alright, guys. I'm heading home two weeks from tomorrow and I feel disappointingly apathetic. I love Sweden, so shouldn't I be a little more upset about leaving? Right now...I feel good. Fulfilled, is probably a good word. There are a few things I will have absolutely no problem integrating back into my life. Here is a list.
1) Sarcasm. Or maybe it's just my really bizarre sense of humor. Ok, there are hilarious Europeans, don't get me wrong. But it's impossible to count how many times I've tried to joke with someone (usually complete strangers), found that I was failing horribly, and then tried to backtrack by saying things like "Not that I'm a lesbian or anything" or "I promise I'm not really addicted to hard drugs". Again, I'm not saying Swedes aren't funny. I'm just saying I don't understand their humor...at all.
2) Frosting. Get this--Sweden doesn't have premade frosting. I first noticed this within days of arriving and have been mourning the loss since. I've had a pretty emotional month, and where was my jar of congealed sugary goo? Riddle me this, Sweden. How am I supposed to crush my emotions with calories if you refuse to sell my beloved diabetes-in-a-tub? They have this weird "make if yourself" shit. Do I look like I have the attention span to make my own frosting? Do you KNOW what happened the last time I tried to cook?
3) My dogs. Let's get real for a second...they're the greatest dogs in the world and I just want to lay on their stomachs and share intimate details of my life with them. If that's wrong, then I don't want to be right.
4) The spectrum of Oreo flavors. Double Stuf. The weird mint flavor. Different colors for Easter. Uh-Oh Oreos (which I'm not even sure they still make, but bear with me). Remember the Oreo DQ Blizzard Creme Oreo? The result of Dairy Queen making Oreos Blizzards, and then Oreo making an Oreo Blizzard Oreo. It's like inception, but with cookies.
5) My mom. I'm sure we all have "really cool moms", but you better check yourself before you wreck yourself if you think yours is "the best".
6) T-Shirts. I mean, I still wear them because I'm a slob, but I'm pretty excited to be around you t-shirt wearing bastards again. And flip flops. God bless flip flops. Swedes are way too well-dressed. I can't imagine waking up in the morning and not putting comfort as my number one clothing priority.
7) Everyone knowing the words to "Natalie's Rap". I'm convinced the entire United States knows and appreciates this musical masterpiece. Don't correct this misconception.

There's more. But it's really sunny and I can't concentrate and I have that new One Direction song stuck in my head, so my intellect is not really in peak performance mode. Stay classy, South Bend. See you in 15 days.

Also, here's a photo of my beautiful abroad friends. Representing Australia, Czech Republic, Belgium, France, Turkey, USA, Finland, Germany, Austria, Brazil, and Canada. I really do love these guys. Taken by Janna Lipiäinen!

In Finnish, "Anna" Means "To Give"

This past week, I went to Latvia and Finland. The former was on a student cruise, which means the entire boat was filled with college students from all of Sweden. Everyone drank a lot, danced a lot, and...oh, right. We also saw Riga, Latvia for a few hours. Such a beautiful little city. The sun wasn't out and it was bone-chillingly cold, but the amount of attention and care that went into the details of the city were visible on every building. Pieces of the architecture reflected the changing culture of Latvia as it shifted from the Middle Ages, through various regimes, into Soviet power, and then liberated itself during the fall of the USSR. The architecture was, in all honesty, the most beautiful I've ever seen. Every building had a story behind it, every tucked away side-street had some fairytale legend to explain its importance. For example, there was a thick wall in the heart of the city that was called the "Swedish wall". It was said that, when the city was divided, two lovers that lived on opposite sides of the wall would meet at this spot and whisper through the wall. Sadly, the story ends with the maiden being built INTO the wall while she's still alive as punishment for falling in love with the boy on the other side of the wall. Disney won't be picking up on this plot anytime soon

It was cold, and almost everyone was hungover, but I really enjoyed it. We ended up eating in a New Zealand themed restaurant as well, so I felt very well-traveled after those few days.

After only about 24 hours back in Sweden, me and a few friends (Mimmi and Lindsey) boarded a boat to Turku, Finland, where Mimmi's university if located. We spent the first night in Finland playing beer pong and taking shots of true Finnish drinks: Mintu (mint flavored) and Salmiakki (salty licorice flavored). When we first arrived, people seemed a little weary of the very obvious American girls in the corner of the room. But as the night wore on, the Finns we met proved to be welcoming, open, and very friendly. It was April 20th, so Lindsey and I encouraged everyone to smoke a cigarette at 1:20am (4:20pm Colorado time). We tried to explain why to a few people, but I really don't think we were making a lot of sense.

Mimmi is from the most southern town in Finland, Hanko/Hangö. It's a little city of about 10,000 that probably has as many beaches as people. Even in chilly April, it was gorgeous. The sun setting over the Baltic Sea, driving past lines of multi-colored cottages and thick forests, going to the only local bar opened during the winter/spring, showed me a side of Finland I probably would never have seen, had I not known Mimmi. But I was pretty damn glad to have Lindsey there...I probably met about a hundred people that weekend and I would have been intimidated out of my mind if I didn't have my trusty co-foreigner at my side.

It was SO AWESOME to get spend some time in a real house. The first night, Mimmi's parents cooked us elk meatballs and mashed potatoes, along with some chocolate mousse that we glad spent the following couple days eating. And there were animals galore. And her cat had just had KITTENS. Cutest things alive, a vast majority of the photos I took that weekend are of cats.

I think the thing I found the weirdest was how everyone I met spoke Swedish, not Finnish, as their first language. This particular region of the country is filled with a small part of the population that speaks Swedish as their native language. This American was, frankly, pretty impressed by the fact that everyone in this region is trilingual; Swedish, Finnish, and English were standard languages. Someone explained that there's tension between the Swedish Finns and the rest of the Finns and that some Finns are annoyed that they must cater to the Swedish speaking population of Finland. I guess some people believe that they aren't truly Finnish unless that speak Finnish as their first language. Maybe a little like Mexican immigrants that live in the United States? Except instead of this being an immigration issue, the Swedish speaking Finns have had their roots planted in Southern Finland for a while now.
Anyways, I think I heard more Swedish during that week than I have the entire time I've been in Sweden. I only heard a little Finnish, though. Swedish and Finnish are as different as two languages can possibly be, so I truly wouldn't have understood a single word of Finnish even if I had heard more of it.

I have an exam on Saturday that I'd give a body part to be able to skip. And next week is Valborg, which is like the biggest party week in all of Sweden. Champagne for breakfast, boat races, sunshine, and WARM WEATHER!!

Amsterdam!

Ok, so...Dutch people eat a lot of carbs. Don't get me wrong, it's incredible. Every time I moved, I saw signs for waffles. Sandwiches (lots of bread with the occasional piece of lettuce somewhere in there). French fries with mayonnaise. Pancakes. Cheese (oh my god, so much cheese). Cakes. Donuts. Fried cheese filled pastries (called kaasoufflés). And it's ALL delicious. I was there for 4 days and easily walked about 10km per day and still probably gained weight. And they have incredibly cheap peanut butter. Finding that stuff for about 2 euro a jar was like seeing the heavens open up and a higher being smiling down on me via a ray of sunshine. Unfortunately, I've recently learned that you can make a bomb from the oils found in peanut butter, making it unacceptable in my carry-on (and I never check bags. Because I always am that kid that gets the bags left in the previous city. It doesn't matter the departure or arrival cities. It's always me.)
But seriously...find me someone that can make an explosive from peanuts and oil. That's a skill I wouldn't mind learning.

Something else I found a little strange was that water in restaurants costs the same as a soda. My American mentality was like, why would I spend that money on water when I can spend it on soda? Needless to say, I didn't make brilliant health decisions over that weekend.

Amsterdam is a lot like New York. Which, fun fact, was originally called New Amsterdam. It's wild, it's busy...and it's kind of tiny. It only takes about 45 minutes to walk across the entire metro area (or, at least, from the top of our city map to the bottom. I'm assuming anything off the map is just windmills and tulips.) Another fun fact, I finally realized why Holland, MI is called Holland. It's the tulips, right? They both have a lot of tulips? At one point I actually said "I don't need to see the tulips, I've been to Michigan in the springtime". And then there was that moment when I hated myself a little bit for saying it.

OK I CAN'T CONTAIN IT ANYMORE.
I'M IN LOVE WITH THE HAGUE.
Undoubtably the most incredible little city on the planet. It's about an hour train ride from Amsterdam and is the capital of the Netherlands, so it is the center of a lot of political activity. Half of the city is consumed by skyscrapers. A metal and glass jungle. But the other half is a tiny Dutch town. It's a beautiful area of shops, squares with statues in the middle, winding little streets. The sun was shining bright and the canals were lined with daffodils and daisies. It has museums, palaces, a little castle/fortress thing, and cobblestone streets galore. I could spend the days changing the world in the skyscraper part and then come home to the cobblestone part and buy a baguette and head home to my successful, attractive, adoring husband and prodigy children (that would have incredible lives because they would grow up in the cutest town ever, but be really politically aware and little badasses because they'd sneak off to Amsterdam once and a while to go clubbing or smoke weed or something.)
I'm so aware of how creepy it is that I was thinking about that. The Hague changes people.

The first night I was there, I was waiting for a bus to come. It's like 11pm in the middle of this really sketchy station and this hooded girl walks over to look at the bus schedule. Here's what really got me--as she was looking over the maps and times, she pulled out a joint and lit it. Right there. In the middle of the train station. As you probably know, weed is legal in Amsterdam. But nothing really could prepare me for the shock of someone just smoking IN PUBLIC. I don't know. It was completely normal, and I just stared at the smoke billowing from the hallowed substance between her thumb and index finger. She took a drag, nodded, then walked away. I stared at her in awe. How rebellious. How progressive. It hit me like a wave. This is normal. I have no idea why this was such a culture shock for me...it was kind of like the first time you have a drink when you turn 21.

The sun is coming out in Sweden a little more and I'm trying to take full advantage of it.

Going Dutch

Can we talk for a second about how Boulder's Marine Apartments threw down so hard that 2000 CU students partied in their courtyard last night? This was also the night we got knocked out of March Madness. Sweet Sixteen spots are fleeting; Boulder pride is forever.

Since I've arrived in Sweden, I've realized my endurance for late-night partying has pretty much disappeared. Parties start as early as 17:00 around here, so I feel like you're asking a lot when you expect to still be having a good time until 2 or 3 in the morning. About half my nights end before midnight...and I love it.
I've never been a great night person in the first place (but I'm a BOMB morning person. I'm almost always naturally wide awake by 8am) and I turn into a real bitch when tired. Sweden's early start/early end thing is my kind of night...but the return to American parties might actually kill me.

There's this thing here called "Eurovision". It's this singing contest between 42 European nations (and a couple random Middle Eastern ones too). Each country sends a national sensation to Azerbaijan (last year's winner) and the contest airs internationally in the end of May (think of a mix of American Idol and the Miss America Pageant). This tradition is on its 57th year. It seems as though every European kid knows exactly what this gigantic pop celebration is, including past winners and current entries, but it would probably be a struggle to hunt down Americans that have even heard of it. So weird. Anyways, all the songs are pretty catchy.
Here's Sweden's 2012 entry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4PMQB5zmAU

Obsessed.

I'm heading to Amsterdam at the end of the week! I'm just mildly terrified, as I'm going with another CU student and neither of us have ever been to the Netherlands. It's going to be a sinfully high adventure, full of red light scandal and Anne Frank museums. It feels so sacrilegious to keep mentioning Anne Frank in the same sentence as a world famous sex district and "coffee" shops. This will also be my first experience in a European hostel, so I'm all around thrilled. It might be a disaster. We shall see.

The whole city is warming up and people are planning big for the spring and summer. A plan to tour around Spain in mid-May is in the works. We're thinking about catching super cheap flights, then renting some beat up old car and just roadtripping around the country. Sleeping in the car, living on Barcelona street food and Sevilla sunshine, and embracing the sweet feeling of the Spanish wind in your hair.
Anyways, it's amazing to see Uppsala bloom. A lot of us joked about how the only way you can see the sun in Uppsala is if you check out Google Maps, but the vision of a glorious little warm weather haven is starting to materialize. I've always liked Uppsala, but I'm starting to like it a lot more now that it's not covered in ice.

And March 24th marks the halfway point between when I left America and when I'm coming home. It's going to be bittersweet.

Hej, Vänner!

It probably comes at no surprise to most of you that I am currently recovering from, undoubtably, the worst flu of my life. My habit of collecting diseases, head injuries, and broken bones while traveling is as reliable as the sunrise. In fact, I realized yesterday that the chance of me living somewhere for five months and NOT breaking a bone is slim to none. And I'm thinking about monetizing this opportunity and taking bets. My money's on an arm.

My head is still filled with that dreamy lightheadedness that makes everything involving brain power take twice as long, but I'm doing a lot better. Yesterday, I woke up with a headache that legitimately made me wonder if I was dying. I finally lifted my head long enough to take a sip of water and, no exaggeration, I've never been in so much pain.

I've also been dealing with a lot of friend problems this week as well. Which is pretty annoying in any situation, but the fact that I was sleeping for 20 hours a day made it a million times harder to deal with the real world.

And I missed a handful of really big parties here in Uppsala. And there are pictures all over Facebook and I'm crazy jealous of all my healthy, gorgeous friends and their huge, happy smiles together. The fear-of-missing-out is a constant demon.

But there WAS this boy that skyped me like twice a day while I was gasping out my last will and testament. At one point, he talked me to sleep while I was in a feverish delirium and coughing up some kind of vital bodily organ. I'm not about to get all gooey about it, but give the kid some props. When the entire world was falling apart, inside and out, it was massively nice to have someone that wasn't horrified by my devolving existence.

In other news, I'm going to Helsinki in two weeks! The first time fell through (going to Finland over one of the coldest weekends in a decade didn't seem like the smartest use of time), but Viking Line (the cruise company of Scandinavia) is having a deal of free (literally, seriously, truly) Stockholm-->Helsinki-->Stockholm trips. I'm catching one of those freebies in March, and another in April for a huge rager at my friend's college, Åbo Akademi University (that may or may not involve beer pong and a lot of dancing).

I just thoroughly abused my right to parentheses.

There are a lot of other parties coming up, such as the Kroppkakegasque. Everyone gets really dressed up and eats a lot of these knish/dumpling things (Kroppkakor) and gets drunk and dances. And tomorrow I'm supposed to be going to a mixtape circle, where everyone just sits around and shares music. Isn't that such a cool idea? It's an entire club here. They have meetings like one a month. My nation also hosts a whiskey tasting club. Very sophisticated, much different from my habit of throwing it to the back of my throat as fast as possible and swallowing with a gulp of soda.

My new class, Political Theory, is REALLY cool. In Sweden, you take classes in blocks and I only have to take one at a time to keep up with my Boulder credits. Anyways, theory has always been really interesting to me and I get to make a presentation on Tuesday about Marxism and Utilitarianism. It's only supposed to be about 3 minutes long, but I started typing and now I'm about three times the limit on the paper version...so that's an issue. I fucking love Marx, though. You have nothing to lose but your chains! Workers of the world, unite! Stand together and demand your piece of the pie, you know? Mmm, Karl. Preach it, boy.

Hope everyone had a healthy week!

Here Comes The Sun

Well, I guess I'm going to Latvia. For $65 roundtrip with a buffet dinner included, I'd probably go just about anywhere. Just one of the many reasons my thought process resembles that of cattle.
The sun has graced this beautiful little town today. And the temperature peaked above freezing. I swear, stepping outside and not being consumed by bone-chilling wind made me giddy with excitement. The wide smile on my face from being able to feel my fingertips as I walked to class is probably one of those things you can't truly understand unless you've lived in Sweden...
I just got back from Paris. It's incredible how one city has the ability to take your breath away with its beauty and history, and then disappoint you with its rude shopkeepers and filthy Metro stations. I know about four words of French (seeing as I took Spanish in high school and currently live in Sweden, I'm not feeling too guilty about this ignorance), but I was terrified to ask someone to speak English (make no mistake: everyone knows the language, they simply don't like speaking it). This incredibly offensive question was met with disgusted looks and passive aggressive comments under their breath. I know, Americans suck, we're egocentric capitalists with gun holsters and rolls of fat adorning our hips. But if you could politely speak to me in English while I purchase something from your establishment, I'd be a lot more inclined to throw down some cash to help support the economy of your far superior nation.
Coming from Sweden, the nation of sharing and gentle, warm people, any city would feel cold. And, granted, French is one of the most beautiful languages I've ever heard. I'd probably like it a lot more if half of every word wasn't silent, simply because looking like a damn fool every time I attempted to speak French got old really fast. I mean, "Les Halles" is pronounced "lay all". Riddle me this, France.
Ok, so, back on track: Paris is gorgeous. I would wake up and wander around past Notre Dame, down along the Seine to the Louvre. I'd just glance to my left and see the Eiffel Tower. On my right were rows of shops selling barking pets, savory crepes, bouquets of flowers, and colorful pastries. My friend's apartment was in the heart of the city (Rue de Rivoli), so it was always alive with people, sounds, and smells. I ate baguettes. I wore femme fatale lipstick on a daily basis. And for a week, I had my finger on the pulse of international fashion, history, and culture. Honestly, I don't think I could have handled much more than a week. Love it or hate it, there is no city on the planet like Paris.

So I just spent the past like 2 hours writing this and watching a Netflix movie and ordering books online and eating. I'm going to go try to be a productive member of society now. At 23:00. On a Friday. Internet: 1, Anna's Social Life: 0. But I'm supposed to go this party in Stockholm tomorrow so can we call it a tie?

Trip Developments

I don't really know what to write about and I have a pile of homework as tall as the Eiffel Tower (what's up, flying to Paris TOMORROW MORNING)...so, logically, I'm writing a blog entry.

A handful of people here are planning a trip to Kiruna, which is a small town in Lapland that a lot of people visit in the winter to see the Northern Lights, dog sledding, a hotel made of ice (which, surprisingly, is named the "ice hotel"), and get a little taste of the Arctic Circle. As I'll be just getting back from the city of lights, I thought I'd take a couple days and recover before I jumped on a 14 hour train right to the top of the world. So I will not be a part of this trip (though it sounds phenomenal).

A trip to the Czech Republic is in the works as well. One of my American friends knows someone studying in Prague (or Praha--I'm working on calling places and people by their native language names) and figured the roundtrip would cost under $200. A European world capital for a couple hundred? Pretty tempting. The "downside" is that we'd be crashing on a floor. But, I have to admit, I'd crash on floors every night of my life if it meant I could explore the world every day of my life. But I've been reading a lot of travel books lately, just compilations of travel tips and short stories, and Prague seems to be a pretty frequent destination for adventure-seekers.

Amsterdam is, obviously, also on our short list. I have a friend from Colorado studying there at the moment, and she's generously offered another crashable floor for a couple nights. Only an idiot would turn that down. Come July, Amsterdam is changing their laws to ban foreigners from accessing their more...herbal...commodities. I think a couple of us were talking about experiencing the Netherlands before this very unique capability is stripped away. Sooo...I might get into a bit of trouble for this paragraph.

Copenhagen would be so beautiful in early spring! Denmark is another very popular vacation destination for Swedes, and everything I've seen and heard leads me to believe that it's a charming, gorgeous, friendly place to visit. I have a friend from home currently studying around there, so the Danish capital is definitely someplace I'd want to see in the future. I'm also kinda hoping to see Elsinore and nerd out a little.

In the back of my mind, I'm thinking about pushing London in sometime between Prague and Amsterdam. One of my really good friends from Colorado was thinking about coming to visit Great Britain over his break and I wouldn't miss the chance to see the Tower of London, Abbey Road, and Big Ben. And him...I guess I'd also like to see him. We had joked about "meeting in the middle", but I guess he's getting the short end of the stick with his 7 hour transatlantic flight versus my 2 hour jump over to England. London is also generally considered the cheapest and easiest city to fly to and from the United States, so if anyone out there was hoping to wander around Europe and didn't know where to start...might I suggest London?

I'm slowly realizing that this is probably going to be one of the greatest years of my entire life. Traveling on a dime, seeing unbelievable places with people that are equally excited about that street sign in Dutch or the little kid in the supermarket that's speaking rapid Swedish. I know it's one of the cheesiest, most vague things ever spoken, but I think I'm falling in love with the world.

Thank you for reading!