Some More Time in Sweden

As promised, here's something short. We've been in Sweden again for the past two-and-a-half weeks. It's been fairly uneventful. There was a visit to a bar I've never seen before, a Finnish Sitsit and some other miscelaneous activies. The pictures to prove it:

8th March. First full day back and I took a picture of my room. The weather was stunningly beautiful and that lovely Swedish sun warmed my room.

9th March. Still not much goin' on. There's a project looming on the horizon, but I'm starting work on a blog post instead.

10th March: so little happened that I didn't take a single picture. Even of anything boring...

11th March. Let's make beans. We gotta soak 'em first, though.

Later that evening (the beans were not that good) we put a lot of water on the kitchen table for an activity. Remember, there's not terribly much to do in Sweden at night...

12th March. Free taco buffet night! The weather's beautiful and we're walkin’ over there.

The aftermath.

13th March. We visit a bar where we can play darts. But you gotta learn the rules first. You remember these guys, right? Left to right: Megan, Laimis, Ariel.

Aim a bit more left... (click to enlarge?)

Good form. Maybe. I know nothing about darts...

Do NOT miss low...

Nice throw!

14th March. The only pictures today are from a visit to McDonald's right after the bar. That's Johanna and Diego. I don't think I've introduced Diego. He's from Mexico and this is his second semester in Sweden.

15th March. I went for a walk to the school to pay off a guy (I owed Aaron from the Belgium trip) and later to pick up a package from home. After a few days of beautiful weather, the actual concrete of the sidewalk in front of the school could be seen! First time all year. Woot!

Later that day was Swedish class. What an exhausting week! (Yes, it's Monday...I think I mentioned before that there's not much to do in Sweden...)

16th March. Sweden's thawing out. I snapped this walking back from the post office. I walked out there two days in a row expecting two packages since they gave me two notices for the package that I picked up the day before. But there was just one.

Tyler and I roasted some chicken and another of our Finnish friends (Heini...you haven't met her yet, but there will probably be a picture later.) made green bean casserole. Important for the next picture: we started some beans soaking before we planned dinner with Heini. We did not cook them.

17th March. Do not abandon soaking beans for chicken dinner with a Finn. They will SPROUT.

After sprouting, they will MURK up the water and make BUBBLES. Lots of small bubbles.

18th March. I think I told a story in the very beginning of plugging in a surge protector from back home and tripping the breaker in Tyler's and My room. Well, today I decided to investigate.

Turns out it's precious little MOVs (the charred green disks) are not rated for the European standard 220V. The way surge-protectors are designed, when too much voltage is present, the MOV's short to ground to prevent over-volting things plugged into the surge protector. Well, when the standard voltage is higher than the designed surge voltage things pop since there's way more than a small amount of surge current to be dealt with. Check out the charring on the plastic below (formerly above) the MOV bank.

And remember those sprouted beans? We cooked 'em up for dinner. They taste a bit sprout-y, but not bad enough to waste them.

19th March. It's Taco Night again! We were some of the first to arrive.

20th March. Time for the Sitsit! It's a Finnish tradition at universities where everyone gathers for a formal dinner. There is singing and drinking. Oh, and there's Heini: she's the girl on the far left.

Every one's getting familiar with the song sheets. You probably recognize some people. I am NOT introducing everyone though...too many people, and you may never see them again.

Course one: From-scratch mushroom soup.

Course 1.5: rye bread with cream cheese. This is the first cream cheese I've had over here. Exciting..

Course two: homemade meat balls, mashed potatoes and salad. Everyone is under the table for one of the songs. The Sitsit is considered a failure if you manage to eat your food while it is warm. It is far more important to sing and drink (and get under the table from time to time).

The third course was strawberries and cream. I have no picture.

21st March. We got potatoes. Let's take pictures!

We're still working on some chocolate that we got from Belgium. Some ass-hat thought it would be funny to season it with pepper and onion.

Later that night we played poker and were taken to the cleaners by the Lithuanian.

23rd March. I took some pictures of gum.

24th March. The spring market in Vasteras is under way. I got some samples on my way back from shopping.

I guess that wasn't so short.

Belgium

About Belgium! We had a great time, saw three cities in three days and pulled two all-nighters. A typical trip, although one of the all-nighters was due to a boo-boo made during the acquisition of plane tickets to Belgium. We decided to depart for Belgium on Thursday the 4th and there happened to be two flights out of Skavsta (the Ryanair airport for Stockholm) that day. One of them left at a very sane time in the afternoon and the other at 6am. Yep, we ended up on the 6am flight. 6am doesn't sound that bad until you consider that Skavsta is two hours by bus away from Västerås. And the kicker: there is no bus that leaves Västerås early enough for us to have made the flight by leaving on Thursday morning. Instead we left on Wednesday night and explored Stockholm. Thanks to some valuable intel, we located a kebob shop where we stayed awake all night until our bus left for Skavsta at 4am.

Oh, there was a post right before this one. Check that out if you missed it. These were posted in close succession since I was recently overcome by a bad case of lethargy.

Limping away from Junior for the bus station (remember that blown-out ankle? It's still all blowed out at this point..).

Unfortunately, I stopped taking pictures for some reason. Probably distracted by the pain of limping all over Stockholm after letting that dumb ankle stiff-up for a couple of days. Between here and the next pic, we met up with Fernando (remember, our couch surfer host from the first night in Sweden) for some beers. After that, we made our way to the kebob shop where we spent a couple of hours waiting for the bus station to open.

Waiting for the plane at Skavsta. Don't worry, I'll introduce the Belgium crew a bit later once we get a proper roll-call.

The sun rising over Sweden as we settle in for a short nap.

We found our way to the emergency exit row for the extra leg room. The plane ride was the first opportunity for meaningful sleep in over 24 hours. I laughed at the "IMPORTANT NOTICE" provided above the seat-back safety instructions. This was definitely my first time ever violating a legal requirement on a plane.

That sign: Welcome to Belgium. Me: Why, thank you!

Getting on a train is complicated in Belgium. I finally got fed up and bought a ticket on my own. Mistake. It turns out there was a pretty sweet discount deal that I missed out on as a result of my impatience. Lesson learned.

Look at us. On a train, just like real Belgians.

I heard some girls speaking Swedish behind us and wanted to see what they looked like. I wonder how mad the one on the right will be if she ever sees her picture all upon the internet like this...

City #1: Gent. First thing we see walking out of the train station. Literal tons of bikes became a motif for Belgium.

You know we're going in there.

Friets!!

I thought this was a cool picture. Definitely click to make it larger.

Ok, not a true roll-call, but I should just introduce people while I've got a chance...I was expecting a good roll-call sooner, but I guess I didn't take one. Starting on the left: Tyler, Ariel, Megan, Taija, Aaron and Anton. You probably remember Ariel and Megan from Paris. They're Americans. Taija (Finland) is a familiar face as well, I'm sure. Aaron is also an American, originally from Detroit. Anton is from Sliven, Bulgaria. This picture is pretty important for later: we happened down this alley where a massive crossword had been painted. We decided that our visit to Gent would not be complete until we were represented on that wall.

Little known facts about Gent: (1) It is home to the cutest Mc Donald’s. (2) It is under construction.

See what I mean? This would probably have been a very nice place to soak in the sights of old Belgium, except it was mostly fenced off and full of heavy equipment.

Scenic Gent. And a digger.

That GUY! And what's he got? A WAFFEL! You know we're eating one of those...

It looks better as it gets closer to my mouth. Some waffle-action shots are next...

It was really that good--Tyler was nearly brought to tears. The display was met with disapproval from the Finnish delegation.

I think she's beginning to understand, though.

Oh yeeah, he gets it.

Look how happy that guy is. Man, I wish I was eating that waffle right now...

There's what the place looks like from the street. If you find yourself in Gent, GO THERE. Don't even bother with anything else until you've had a waffle with chocolate and cream from that place and the man in the red hat (who, incidentally, looks a bit like Fernando). I'm serious.

Look at that castle. It had some kind of metal spider web in the front. And some more construction on the left...

We stumbled into a place where we were given free egg-nog shots and some delicous dessert foods. I can't even believe the luck we have sometimes. It always pays to wander into places where it seems like you are not allowed. People will either tell you to leave or give you stuff for free.

There's a nice roll-call. Little know fun-fact: I am in immense pain in this one. I thought I could jump, but it turns out that sprained ankles hate being involved in jumping of any sort. Even for group photos.

We returned to make an addition to the crossword.

Hard at work.

Taija's done. Her word is "nolo." It's a Finnish word for embarrassment. (You'll probably have to click to see it)

The group contribution. "Progress"--a theme borrowed from the '09 spring break trip up the west coast. Similar circumstances made it appropriate: Instead of four-thousand miles in nine days, we had three cities and three days to experience them. Tyler's word, "playa" is on the left. It's spanish for "beach," not gangsta for "player" (some people were confused...).

There's mine. It pretty well captures the feeling in my brain as I piqued it for something to write. Come to think of it, that's pretty much the feeling when I bother it for anything...

I don't have pictures of the other words.

Our couch surfing host, Dieter, fed us mussels and friets for dinner that night.

There's Dieter, lockin' up his pad before helping us get IN BRUGES! HOOO-WEEE! (It was a goal of ours to get in Bruges after seeing the movie, long before we could have imagined even having opportunity.)

A better view of Dieter's place. I really liked that house...so quaint in the countryside just outside Brugge.

The group gathered two new members. They took the later flight and met up with us in Belgium. In the group of people on the right, starting at the left and moving right: Adelina (from Romania), Aaron is behind her, Megan, Anton, Taija, and Laimis (Lithuania). Adelina and Laimis were the new additions. You may remember our two meter Lithuanian friend from the Paris trip.

Bruges is great. You can walk around a corner and at any time you might run into one of these...

Moments before I narrowly avoided being run over. I was trying to get a cool picture with the reflection. Ariel is actually turning around at this instant to inform me of my impending doom.

There's that famous tower...

Everybody act natural...

Maybe we should get some friets from one of those green boxes.

I really like those little forks that they give you with friets.

I'm a little upset that they came in a plastic tray-dish instead of a paper cone. I don't think it harmed the deliciousness, though.

We made a pyramid before finally saying goodbye to that famous square.

I have a feeling that guy has something I want...

Oh yeah. He definitely had something I want. And now I've got it. Did you know that is REAL melted white chocolate on that waffle?

A meter of cheap Belgian beer? I'm in.

A closer look.

An *even closer* look.

Walking to the train station, it's time to get out of Bruges. It was nice, but we've still got one more city to see.

Hello Brussels! One of the first activities was to go to a really cool bar with our couch surfing host. It was quite dark in there.

This was my view to the right sitting in that bar. We ended up spending entirely too long there. The trams stopped running.

So we had to walk back to our host's house in the middle of the night in the rain. This is what 2:30am in Brussels looks like.

The next day was sunny and beautiful. And it turns out that Brussels is under construction as well.

I wonder who is supposed to be on drugs...the performers or the audience? We should have checked, but we had progress to make. After staying out so late we only had a few hours to see Brussels before Museum Night Fever (another of the goals of Belgium).

When he saw us coming, this guy sprinted out of his restaurant and grabbed (actually physically restrained) Tyler to convince us to eat at his place. It worked and we were disappointed. It was a pretty good special they had running, but the food was really not very good. And everything beyond the special was way expensive. A definite tourist scam. Live and learn...

Some famous square in Brussels.

Looking a different direction in that same famous square.

Looking in yet another direction. It was a pretty nice square.

Look at that thing! It's famous too!

Zoom in a bit. Maybe you recognize it.

We made it! MUSEUM NIGHT FEVER! This was definitely the best museum on the tour. It's a museum of musical instruments and they give you a pair of wireless headphones that are RFID activated. They would play a little recording of the instruments when you walked up to them.

Here's that famous square at night.

A colorful garden near that famous square. You can see the tower from the square in the background.

After Museum Night Fever, we had another all-nighter to pull. Luckily we were able to locate a kebob shop.

Tyler and I bought a beer the night before with the intention of drinking it. But then we didn't. Since they don't let liquids on a plane any more, it had to be dealt with in the airport bathroom--there was absolutely no chance of me throwing it out.

It was like 7am and Tyler wasn't feeling well. Oddly, Aaron was the only one to step up and help me out--I guess warm beer in an airport bathroom at seven in the morning is not appealing to many people. It was about the worst experience of the trip. That is until the alcohol and sleep deprivation took full effect. Then it was pretty funny. But it's certainly something I will avoid in the future...at one point we were in the duty free shop and I decided to sample all of the perfumes all over my jacket. It still smells quite strongly of about 30 heavily perfumed women a week after the fact. I did sleep pretty well on the plane, though.

Back in Sweden! We had to take a train to Västerås from the airport since I made a mistake in scheduling the return bus tickets. It cost me a kilo-krown. I guess I didn't want Tyler to outdo me on the booking boo-boos. Kind of a dumb thing to be competitive about...I'll probably choose something else to compete about in the future.

That's all for Belgium. It was a pretty good trip. Better than Paris, but slightly worse than Italy--which is not to say anything bad about Belgium. Actually, it was an epic trip, but Italy was really something. Maybe it was as good as Italy. But that kilo-krown boo-boo at the end really made me sad. I guess I shouldn't take it out on Belgium. It really was a good trip. Plus, I learned a few valuable lessons: 2/3 of Belgish cities are under construction, kebob shops are basically a free hotel, and trips become extremely expensive when you book bus tickets with the expectation of arriving at the same time the plane is scheduled to take off.

We're in Västerås for two weeks now. We still haven't planned another trip for sure, but it has been decided that we will go on one in two weeks. Probably somewhere close. I don't know if there will be some posts for the upcoming weeks. I try to put something short up, though.