International Gasque, Choir Weekend and a trip to the Arctic!

 I am feeling all settled into life at Uppsala, classes are going well and I am even getting better at Swedish! It has been a VERY exciting last couple of weeks though! The most awesome week of my life started with the International Gasque on a Friday night, we left for Kiruna, Sweden on Saturday, came home on Wednesday and left for a weekend of singing with the choir on Saturday morning. Here are the highlights: 

 February 25th was the International Gasque in Uppsala, which is a very traditional dinner party followed by a dance. This one was especially fun because it was only for exchange students, so they taught us all of the rules of the gasques and had special performances. On the plate... reindeer. Later on the menu... moose!

This is a picture of the crowd: there were over 400 guests at this event! It was awesome!

Mike Green from Manchester, England was my date. It is really fun, because seats are randomly assigned so I sat by all people I had never met before.

We took flowers off of the tables... oops. These are some of the girls I hang out with most often here. From left to right they are Alison, Lauren, Elyse, me, and Dawn. Before this gasque we all got ready together at another friends apartment!

This is a picture from choir weekend! It was such a blast. We spent the weekend- on an island outside of Stockholm- singing, hanging out, and of course partying as the Swedes do. The theme was Olympics, I am a "fotboll" player, and my date for this dinner, Tomas, is a figure skater. Just like the gasque, there was a fancy dinner, but this one had much much more singing. In fact, our director was right there partying along with us, directing songs in 4-part harmony all night long. I have been having so much fun in the choir! It has definitely been a highlight of my experience so far!

This is our group of travelers to Kiruna! From left to right: Anna, Joanna, Maggie, me, Dawn. Together we took overnight trains there and back, went snowmobiling and dogsledding, played in the snow, hung out in the sauna, went to the Ice Hotel and saw the Northern Lights!

We spend 5 hours snowmobiling across this frozen lake and through the woods. It was awesome!

We had to stop to share the path with a group of dog sledders. We drove the snowmobiles through these trees. Straight out of a fairytale!

We had to stop to have a lunch of reindeer and potatoes. The man next to Dawn is Tomas, our host for the weekend.

Just hanging out at the Ice Hotel! From our cabin, we walked for about 20 minutes across the frozen lake to get to the Ice Hotel.

 This was my favorite room at the hotel, it was called "Frigid Air". There are 20 rooms in the Hotel that are "Art Suites". Each year hundreds of people present their ideas, and 20 are chosen to create their room entirely out of ice and snow. The only things in the entire hotel that aren't are the lights and the mattresses. There are more pictures of the other rooms on my facebook!

Getting ready to go dogsledding! There were 12 dogs pulling 6 people... needless to say, we didn't move very fast, but it was amazing none the less. At the end of the trip, our guide let me help drive the sled!

Best part of staying at the Ice Hotel? The AWESOME snowsuits we got to wear!

Here we are drinking our drinks at the Absolut Ice Bar. Even the glasses are made of ice! Mine was pear, Dawn had peach, and Anna was drinking Lingonberry. They was a dance floor and great music playing, so we ended up just hanging out for almost 2 hours.

This is Dawn in our room, getting ready to go to bed. We stayed surprisingly warm all night long!

WE DID IT! This is after our 8am wake up call with hot lingonberry juice. I only got about an hour of sleep that night because I was just too darn excited to sleep, but it was so worth it!

Now it is back to reality... my class is winding down which means I need to actually be a student and get a paper and some studying done. I am looking forward to my family being here in a few weeks! They arrive on the 26th, and we are going to be doing some traveling in Southern Sweden.

More to come!

A quick trip to Paris!

So, Anna and I decided it was time to take a trip, so we decided to go to Paris! It was such an amazing week filled with crepes, creme brulee, french onion soup, croque madam, baguettes and croissants!

Here are the highlights:

Anna and I could not have been in Paris more than 10 minutes, when we had our first American tourist moment. We climbed on the Metro, and realized we were going the wrong direction. So, we figured it would get to the end and turn around, but nope! The entire train got off and we stayed on. The train continued to go forward and then just stopped in a dark hallway. In a state of panic, we decided it was a good idea to pull the emergency alarm... Hahaha! The entire train was sounding and the driver came running out to get us! It was super embarrassing, and definitely a memory I will never forget!

Our hotel was right next to Sacre Coure, so that was the first place we went! The building was so beautiful, and it overlooks the entire city.

The Lourve! Anna and I found out that because we are students at Uppsala, we can do all of the museums for free! After the Lourve we saw Musee d'Orsay- my personal favorite because of all of Degas ballerinas- and Musee Rodin.

Notre Dame!

Arc de Triumph at night! Anna and I did saw it again while doing some serious shopping on the Champs Elysees on the last day that we were in Paris.

One of the days, we took the train out to Versaille. It was so beautiful! We are standing in the Hall of Mirrors! We could have stayed in that room for hours. It was so beautiful and looked out over all of the gardens.

THE EIFFEL TOWER! This was absolutely my favorite thing we saw. I was just in awe at how huge it was! The very first night, we went to see it in the dark. It was so awesome, we had to go back again in the daylight!

On one of the nights, we met up with our friend Emily from Gustavus and her two friends from Athens. We went to this teeny little fondue restaurant where they served endless wine in baby bottles! It was so much fun, and so great to see a fellow Gustie!

Overall, the trip was everything we could have hoped for! It made me very excited for more traveling!

Lately in Uppsala...

So sorry that I am terrible at keeping everyone informed on my life in Uppsala! Everything here has been fantastic, so I will just give some highlights:

I joined Södermanland-Nerikes (Snerikes for short) Nation. This is their house, more often known as the big pink castle. This is where they host all of their club nights, and I am also going to start working here a little later this week.

This is the Snerikes Choir! In my first week in the choir, we got to sing in the domskyrka-- the famous old church in Uppsala. It was such an amazing place to sing! We ended up singing a traditional Swedish wedding song and All You Need Is Love. It was so much fun. Most often in rehearsal we learn the traditional Swedish drinking songs! They sing at all of the Snerikes events, and some non-Snerikes events. In two weeks, there is a big choir retreat weekend! That should definitely be fun.

I have been working out! Shocking, I know, but it has actually been great so far! We'll see if it continues...

Anna and I decided to take a day trip to Stockholm a couple weeks ago. The city is so awesome! If you can't tell, there are 3 different H&Ms in this picture, and there are at least 3 more throughout the rest of the city! We just spent the day wandering around the city, shopping, and doing a little bit of sight seeing.

We had our first event as members of Snerikes! All of the new members got a "buddy" to hang out with for the afternoon, then we went to the Nation for a very traditional pea soup and pancakes. The dinner was filled with singing, drinking special schnapps, and listening to the choir and band. The books we are  holding are our songbooks. It is traditional to have friends sign the book at the end of the night and then bite it. Some of the older members of Snerikes have entire chunks bitten out of their books! It was such a fun first night in the Nation. Later that night, I won the limbo contest :)

We got a new roommate in our corridor. His name is David, and he is definitely the nicest Swede we have met so far! He, Dawn, Vasco and I often end up just chatting in the kitchen for hours, and we have been having consistent hot chocolate nights.

Fika, fika, and more fika! The little pastry we have in front of us is called semla, and it is the most delicious treat in the world! I've heard there is a semla day sometime in the next month where people eat like 10 in a day! I can't wait! Good thing I am a member of the gym.

We went to a bar in town to watch the Superbowl and celebrate Lauren's birthday! It started at 12:30 in the morning, and we didn't get back to our rooms until almost 5 a.m.

We went to the Finland v. Sweden hockey game last weekend! It was so much fun to be in the arena rooting for Sweden!

Other fun things:

Classes are going really well! My Swedish History class is super easy, but I just started the language class too. I somehow got put into the second level, so there is definitely going to be a lot of studying!

Some friends and I are currently planning trips to the Arctic Circle, England and Copenhagen, more on those later!

January 22nd, 2011

Here is a group of us having "fika" at Norrlands Nation! In the picture starting from left: Leander (Germany), Lauren (California/New York), Elyse (Canada), Kiri (Australia), Jonas (Germany), Sebastian (Australia), Alison (Canada), Me, Anna (Gustavus), Katie (Hawai'i), Dawn (Gustavus) and Jael (Germany). 

Its Saturday, which officially marks 10 days in Sweden! WOW! What an adventure it has been so far. I have been having so much fun exploring the city, visiting the Nations, attending orientation events, decorating my room, and hanging out with new friends. Last night was Katie’s (Hawai’i) birthday. We went shopping and to fika during the day to celebrate. A friend of our cooked dinner for her, and then we went out to Kalmar Nation for a “Balkan beats” dance night. It was so much fun! There were about 12 of us that hung out together. It was probably the first night that I felt really comfortable with the people too. I definitely feel like I am beginning to make some good friendships. To end a wonderful night, Katie and our friend Lauren (California/New York) slept over in Dawn and my room. Today I think we are going to meet up to discuss some trips we want to take—we may be going to Oslo for Dawn and my birthdays! We are also planning on going to see the Chapel, and then out to one of the last orientation events tonight! All is well here, keeping very busy, but excited for it to slow down a little too! I’m also enjoying the wonderful weather here! Today it is 34 degrees, which I think is safe to say is quite a bit warmer than the US right now…

January 20th, 2011

Sorry I have not been keeping up with my blog very well... This week has been very hectic, but I suppose that is good, right? We moved out of the hostel on Saturday and into our dorm rooms. I live right across the hallways from Dawn, and we are in individual rooms that are about the size of a double person room at Gustavus. This room is awesome! We share a bathroom and a kitchen with the rest of the people, so needless to say, it gets pretty gross. At the University, there are things called Nations, which are like of like sororities and fraternities, but they are co-ed and have anywhere from 500 to 8,000 members. They are mostly around to provided cheaper food and drinks, have club nights and pub nights, as well as plan some fun events for students and especially international students. There has been 3 or 4 events every night since we got here. It has been very fun, but very tiring as well. At the end of orientation, we will be able to decide which Nation we want to join for the semester. We are still enjoying wandering around, and getting acquainted with the city. Anna and I only have class for an hour and a half every Tuesday for the first 10 weeks that we are here, so we have a lot of free time to shop and "fika". In Sweden, people take time out of every day to sit in a cafe and drink coffee and talk with their friends. This is definitely a tradition that I will be able to get used to :) We are making tons of friends. There are a lot of students from Australia, Germany, USA and Canada here. Its taking a little longer to actually meet some Swedes, but I think that will come with time! It has been a wonderful last few days, and I cannot wait for more to come! We are planning trips to Jokkmokk for the Winter Market, the Ice Hotel, England for Easter, possibly Copenhagen/Denmark and maybe a trip to see Dawn's cousin in Switzerland. The possibilities are endless! There will definitely be better stories for all of you soon!

January 14, 2011

Today is day 2 in Sweden. Its 12:30 and we just woke up! Jet lag will do that to you I guess. At first I was kind of pissed for wasting the morning, but then I realized I have 5 months of mornings left and that sleeping in was probably a pretty good idea. Yesterday was quite the adventure. We met a friend on the first flight, Hugh, who became our travel companion for a while. It was very interesting finding our way from the Minneapolis flight to the Stockholm flight, but eventually we made it just fine. The long flight from Chicago to Stockholm went really well. It was long, but three movies: The Bucket List, Going the Distance and Big made the time fly a lot faster. I actually got to sleep quite a bit on the plane too, except a baby decided it was time to scream for an hour and a half when the lights turned off! Oh well, it didn’t bother me all that much. When we arrived in Sweden, we met a kid named Lars, who is our age from Colorado. He is actually a full time student at Uppsala University, so he was able to help us a ton finding a train and getting into the city and everything. I think he is going to take us on a tour of the city later today too. In the morning, we kept ourselves occupied by taking a bus out to Ikea and exploring the city. What a blessing it is to have Dawn with us… who happens to be fluent in Swedish. A Gustavus exchange student, Ida, who happened to be visiting her family back home in Uppsala over J-term showed us the good places for shopping, helped us get cell phones and took us out for dinner. It was the perfect way to end the night! By 8:30, we couldn’t stand it any longer and gave in to sleeping. It was a wonderful first day!  Oh! And we got to experience in full the sun rising at 9 and setting by 4. It is fun the way that they keep the streets lit at night though. It definitely doesn’t feel as dark as it is. There are large flood lamps, as well as trees and garlands of Christmas lights, and the lights coming from the stores. It was pretty magical.

Pictures to come... sorry!