Berlin! Amsterdam! Brussels!

The Group in Berlin

Wednesday

Had to pack for the trip and print off our plane and train tickets. Then we met up with Franzi, Laurie, and Anneloes and booked our train tickets to Kiruna in the north of Sweden above the Arctic Circle. We are going the first weekend of March and it should be really fun with dog sledding, snowmobiling to the Ice Hotel and staying in a nice little hostel with a sauna.
Nick and I packed up everything into carryon sized bags for our week adventure and met Pen, Caitlin, and Lloyd at the train station around 20:30 to head to Stockholm. We checked into the same hostel I stayed at my first night in Sweden and slept from about 22:30 until only about 3:15 the next morning. Too bad we couldn’t pay by the hour for the stay!

Thursday - Berlin
Woke up ridiculously early as mentioned above to catch a 4 AM bus shuttle to the little airport about 80 minutes south of Stockholm that only Ryanair seems to use. Arrived to (snowless!) Berlin a little before 9 AM and eventually found the right train to take us to the main station closest to our hostel, Amstel House. Berlin was not what I expected, but I don’t know what I was expecting. It is a huge city over a very large area with graffiti everywhere and a mix of rebuilt nice historic buildings, modern buildings, and buildings in disrepair. We caught the metro and then walked to our hostel for 4 nights. It was in a rather quite residential area, but was very nice and really cheap! Less than $50 for 4 nights! The five of us walked around the general vicinity of the hostel and the large main city park including the Zoo. We all enjoyed the great selection of food in Berlin for very cheap prices compared to Sweden. I tried a Berlin fast food staple called currywurst. It is basically a bratwurst covered in spiced ketchup, rather tasty actually. The Zoolischer Garten Station became our home base for a lot of eating as well as the point where we could access the rest of Berlin by train or subway. The group enjoyed the hostel’s own bar with half priced beer for happy hour. Had Erdinger Weissbier Kristal, which is a clear wheat beer for only 1.45 Euro. Pen and Lloyd went to a club for a live electronic show, which went very late and Caitlin, Nick, and I returned to the hostel.

Friday

Woke up and enjoyed more of the food of Berlin by eating at a very nice corner bakery shop. Caitlin, Nick and I rallied Pen after her late night and we all head off to Brandenburg Gate to go on a free guided tour for the afternoon. The tour was great and very informative about the history of Berlin and the sights. We saw the symbol of Berlin, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Holocaust Memorial, a section of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, on of the few Nazi buildings still in use, stood above the Hitler’s Bunker, saw many nicely restored buildings and cathedrals that looked old, but were rather new due to the fact almost all of Berlin was destroyed by bombing. We ended the tour on Museum Island and then went to a bar recommended by our tour guide to have another Berlin staple Berliner Weisse flavored and brightly colored by fruit syrup. We just so happened to be in Berlin during the Berlinale International Film Festival, so we decided to go to a movie. We bought tickets for a 10 PM showing without really knowing what we would be watching. We had some dinner and amazing gelato prior to the movie at a nearby mall. The film turned out to be an Ingmar Bergman film, Sweden’s most famous director. The film was Vargtimmen or The Hour of the Wolf. It was made in the 1960s in black and white in Swedish with English subtitles. It was a very bizarre kind of psychological thriller. We headed back to the hostel after the movie rather confused by it, except for Pen who had managed to sleep through most of it, as did Lloyd for some of it.


































Saturday

We found a free tour of the nearby concentration camp Sachensenhausen in the city of Oranienburg. It was a very somber and eerie place. The 5 of us got a private tour basically because we were the only people to show up for the tour that day. Our guide told us all the details of the camp that was used mainly to house political prisoners and later Soviet prisoners and relatively fewer Jews. The prisoners were put through horrific experiences and used as slave labor by the Nazis, the camp was not an extermination camp like the famous Auschwitz, yet thousands of prisoners died or were executed there. The camp was liberated by the Soviets and then very hypocritically turned into another forced labor camp in communist East Germany. We returned to Berlin and had a very nice walk along the River Spree back to the hostel. After a very intense and sad day we decided to lighten the mood by heading out for some of Berlin’s nightlife. We went to a bar/club called Café Zapata in a trendy part of eastern Berlin. The club had a rapper from New York perform, which was very good and the following DJ was one of the best I have heard. Café Zapata is adjacent to a five-story building, where a stairwell was open to all to explore the 5 floors. On the 2nd story was another little bar that was playing a lot of American oldies, particularly Mo-Town favorites. There was also another performance happening on a stage nearby. Further up the stairwell that was covered in urban art (graffiti) There were artists hanging out in their impromptu galleries showing off their work, all of this happening and bustling at about 1 AM too. Nightlife goes late in Berlin, unlike here in Sweden and we didn’t get to bed until 5:30 AM, overall a great night though.

Sunday

We all slept in after our long night out. We had lunch at a nearby Persian restaurant, which was delicious with large portions for about 6 Euro. We then made our way to one of the largest flea markets in Berlin to browse. The girls bought some stuff, while Nick and I mainly browsed and tried to stay warm on the rather frigid and overcast day.

Monday

Went to the famous East Side Gallery where a large section of the wall still remains and has been painted in sections by dozens of artists. There were some very interesting pictures. We then headed back towards the Museum Island where we had a delicious Italian lunch before going to the German History Museum to conclude our Berlin experience. Nick and I said good-bye to Pen, Caitlin, and Lloyd after an awesome 5 days in the amazing German capital and caught a midnight overnight train to Amsterdam.

East Side Gallery

 Tuesday - Amsterdam

We arrived in Amsterdam after a 10-hour train ride with maybe about 6 hours of sleep. We checked into our hostel called Durty Nelly’s, which was a hostel above an Irish pub in the heart of Amsterdam on the edge of the red light district. Nick and I caught another free tour and saw many of the historic sights of the city and its many canals. We ended the tour by the Anne Frank house, but unfortunately didn’t feel we had time to make the museum of the house worthwhile. We then did some souvenir shopping in this very touristy city before having a good burger and fries back at Nelly’s. We took it easy before watching Tottneham upset AC Milan at Nelly’s and then wandered around the city and its red light district at night. Another day in Amsterdam would have been nice to see more of the sites, but it is a much smaller city than Berlin. It is a very touristy city with the attraction of sex and drugs and it didn’t have the same appeal as the cosmopolitan Berlin.

Amsterdam Coat of Arms

Red Light District

Wednesday - Brussels

Grand Place

Nick and I woke up around 6 AM to catch a subway to the bus station where we caught a 3.5-hour bus to Brussels. We both slept most of the way as little sleep was catching up to us. Arriving in Brussels wasn’t anything like the way I thought it would be as we were in the heart of the modern finance sector of the city. Brussels wasn’t nearly as tourist friendly as Amsterdam or Berlin so we started to wander in the direction we hoped our hostel was. Amazingly our innate sense of direction was spot on and we had walked the exact direction we needed to before more or less running into the street our hostel was on. The hostel was very nice with balconies and a nice private courtyard. We then set out to explore the city. We first went by the parliament building and the royal palace separated by a gorgeous park. The weather by the way was almost perfect at around 12 degrees C! (50 F) This was a great break from the cold of Sweden and even Berlin and Amsterdam. There also was greenery and even flowers blooming. The Botanical Garden and adjacent park was very nice and strangely we saw apparently wild parrots of some sort there.

On our walk we were stopped by a Belgian police officer because I had taken a picture of the American Embassy, which I guess is a no-no. She made me delete my picture but was very nice about it. Crazy Americans, I wonder how many times a day they have to do that? We wound our way to the center of Brussels, Grand Place. It is a gorgeous central square with centuries old buildings surrounding it. We returned to the hostel and enjoyed a very cheap Stella Artois, one of the best beers I’ve had. At night we returned to Grand Place and met up with a friend of Nick’s, Kylie, who is studying abroad in Brussels. She led us around and took us to a popular restaurant where we had great Belgian seafood, mussels and crayfish, as our last dinner of the trip. We then searched for the famous symbol of Brussels, manneken pis, which is a fountain of a small boy peeing. Apparently the story is there was a large fire in the city and the little boy helped start putting it out by peeing on it. Strange I know, but the figure was in every souvenir shop we went to. We then went to an Irish pub where Kylie’s friends were watching the Arsenal – Barcelona match. We saw the last 15 minutes to see Arsenal upset Barcelona, much to the delight of the many English spectators at the bar. We called it a night after that and headed back to the hostel.

Thursday

We had to wake up around 6 AM again to catch a train and then a bus to the airport. We got back to Stockholm around 13:00 and grudgingly returned to expensive food by having McDonalds at the train station for twice the price it would be in the US or Germany. We caught the train back to Uppsala and finally made it back to the apartment around 15:30. I relaxed for the rest of the day and did some much-needed laundry. 

Overall it was a great trip over 8 days and 3 new countries for which I have added a national flag from each to my growing collection. I can’t wait for more travelling in Europe and our trip to Lapland in early March!

Sam Taylor

On a sad note I found that my friend from high school and teammate on knowledge bowl Sam Taylor died in a tragic accident when the boat she was on in Vietnam sank. She was a fun and bubbly person and had just recently graduated from CU. She was taken from us too soon and I know she will be reminiscing with Tyler and Andy about our knowledge bowl glory days now. Sam you will be sorely missed.

Friday

Caught up on some much needed sleep before walking around Uppsala running some errands with Nick. We wondered through parts of Uppsala we hadn't be too and found a nice park where ice sculptures were on display for the ice festival going on this week. We came back just in time for a cold snap as it is around -12 C (10 F) or worse. I think that Uppsala had been unseasonably warm my first month here so I was a little spoiled with the 0 C temperatures.  Brussels weather got my excited for spring, but we are probably at least one month away from that, maybe two months. We braved the cold and had a night out at Varmlands Nation for their club.

Tallinn Cruise Weekend and Super Bowl!

Friday

Woke up to quite the blizzard outside and therefore decided to head to Stockholm later in the day than originally planned because touring around the city in the snow did not sound appealing.

Morning Blizzard

Nick was feeling rather sick and wasn’t sure he was going to be able to come on the cruise with us. Nick and I met the Leander, Franzi, Anneloes, and Laurie at the train station and ended up catching the 2:30 train to Stockholm. Nick still wasn’t sure if he would come, but ended up catching the next train with Pen and other friends. Once in Stockholm we went to supermarket to stock up on some food for the boat and then met Nick, Pen and group back in the Central Station. We were stressing a little as we needed to catch the right subway to a stop and then find our way to the dock to get on the boat before 5ish. We ended making it there ok and checked in.

Our Cruise Boat

It was amazingly relaxed security and ticket/passport checking to get on the ship. We had the most basic rooms that had 3 pull down beds, a couch, a small TV, a very small bathroom with shower and no window. Picture below along with the starlight lounge:

We found the cheapest sandwich we could to tide us over for the night and went about exploring the 10-deck boat. There was a cover band playing at the rather gaudy starlight lounge where there was also blackjack, roulette and slots. The cruise was very international and very mixed in demographics from families with very small children, many college aged kids, older Swedes, Russians, and Estonians, and other European tourists. Meet some new friends who also were exchange students from Uppsala. We were a diverse group of 2 Americans, 2 Dutch, 2 Germans 1 Aussie, 1 Kiwi, and 2 Canadians (plus 3 other German girls and 1 Swede we met).

Anneloes, Franzi, Laurie, Leander

Watched some of the cover band and also danced at the disco on the top floor. We took it fairly easy for the night in order to be able to better enjoy Tallinn in the morning. It took sometime to fall asleep while getting used to the rocking of the ship has we sailed through the open water areas of the Baltic Sea.

Saturday

Got a 1.5-hour early wake up call over the ship intercom in the morning and prepared for the day. Went out to deck to see the city and watch the boat coming into dock pushing through some ice in the Baltic Sea. We disembarked and wandered our way towards the medieval Old Town section of Tallinn.

We passed Communist era remnants as well as newer modern buildings before coming to the more traditional and beautiful architecture of Old Town. We all had to stop at an ATM to get some Euros (Estonia had switched to the Euro on the first of the year). Went to an Italian café for lunch, Leander and I shared a large antipasto dish of very nice meats and cheeses with bread while the girls had paninis. Unfortunately Nick started feeling sick again and had to head back to the boat to rest.

We remaining 5 walked all over Old Town through its winding narrow streets and later had fika, the Swedish tradition of afternoon coffee/tea/hot chocolate (I know we weren’t in Sweden, but it is a tradition we’ve all been rather fast to adopt). The hot chocolate I had was perfect for a break from a rather dreary and cold day in Tallinn. We visited the newer town square where there were ice sculptures for Chinese New Years and also looked around in souvenir shops.

I am continuing my tradition of buying a small flag from al the countries I visit so I got my first while here in Europe of all places in Estonia! Later in the afternoon we made our way to a day spa, which we had bought 1.5-hour passes to. It was very relaxing to be in the saunas and pools. Afterwards we visited a liquor store to pick up some cheaper beverages than you can get in Sweden. We returned to the boat around 5pm very tired from the day and relaxed in our cabins for several hours watching TV and napping. Had a nice big warm meal of mashed potatoes, meatballs, coleslaw, gravy and jam with Nick and then met up with Pen and her group. Went to the disco again and had a fun night.

Russian Orthodox Cathedral

Sunday

Got to sleep in a bit more as the ship didn’t pull into harbor at Stockholm until 10 am. We headed straight to the metro and then to the first train to Uppsala, all of us rather tired from the weekend. Back in Uppsala Nick and I had Burger King, which was a very satisfying meal after a sometimes sparse weekend for food. Got back to the apartment and shortly after took a 4-5 hour nap in order to be able to stay up for the Super Bowl later at night. Video chatted with Andrew and Kevin and then Mom and Dad before heading out to a sports bar in downtown Uppsala that was staying open late for the Super Bowl. My friend Katie had reserved a table for 10 of us in the bar. The bar was surprisingly full and very large with tons of TV screens. The game started at about 12:30 am and didn’t finish until after 4 am, but it was a good game and we had some good American food with burgers and wings and beer (all about 2-3 times more expensive than in the states though). We were watching the Swedish broadcast of the game so we didn’t get any of the commercials unfortunately, the announcing however was still in English. Was rather indifferent about who won, but it was at least an entertaining game 31-25 Green Bay. Got to bed immediately when I got back to the apartment. This day felt more like two days as I was up so late with a long nap in between, but definitely worth it and a good end to an awesome weekend.

Monday

Slept in passed noon before going to class at 1:15. Picked up my new debit card my parents had sent me. I picked it up at a gas station, after wandering around a long time looking for what I assumed would be a shipping store. The package had been there for a week prior to my picking it up due to my laziness of not translating a slip that came in the mail that as it turned out meant I had a package waiting for pick up. Had our group interview of Brian Palmer at night for Actors & Strategies for Change. It went very well and he is a very interesting intellectual and character. Came back to the apartment did some homework and did these last two posts!

Big Adventures in Store!

Two more days of classes and then it is off to Stockholm Wednesday Night and then flying Berlin Thursday morning! 4 nights in Berlin, overnight train to Amsterdam, 1 night in Amsterdam, then 1 night in Brussels before flying back to Stockholm the following Thursday! I'll have a lot to write about and plenty of pictures

Until Next Time!

Hej då

Jesse

Old Town Wall

Week 3 prior to the cruise

Monday

Went to Blasenhus, the building where most of my classes are, at noon to meet up with my group to work on our presentation before we presented at 2:45. One member didn’t even show up and missed our entire presentation and another member took up half of our allotted time with an introduction so needless to say it wasn’t the best presentation on climate change, but at least it is over now. Had a lecture in Actors and Strategies about social movements, which was fairly interesting.

Tuesday

Our guest lecturer for Climate Change Leadership was an older Swede who is an astrophysicist and sounded a lot like the English narrator for Planet Earth. It was pretty interesting lecture on the history of climate change science. Nick and I went to Franzi’s room to meet up with her, Laurie, Anneloes, Giulia, and Julian before going to Snerikes very early to avoid the line. The club was very fun as usual and Nick and I decided to leave our debit cards at home so we were limited to a handful of beers with the cash we had.

Wednesday

Went to CCL and Sustainable Design. Sustainable Design has been rather disappointing so far as we’ve only met 4 times and it is less organized than the other two classes, only up side so far has been very little work. Our lecturer Wednesday night said he wasn’t aware he would be doing the whole presentation in English so the whole Powerpoint was in Swedish and his English wasn’t too good. It could have been an interesting talk on industrial design, but instead was quite a bore.

Thursday

Met up with a group to discuss travel plans at Norrlands Nation and had lunch at the Nation, a very filling chickpea soup with crepes and jams. We discussed plans for going on the cruise Tallinn on Friday as well as the upcoming trip to Berlin. I had a meeting with a group for Actors and Strategies as we had signed up to be the first group to lead a class next Monday by preparing an interview for our guest speaker, Mr. Brian Palmer (same name as one of my favorite high school teachers funny enough!). Mr. Palmer is a former Harvard professor who was both popular and controversial and he is now teaching social anthropology at Uppsala. The meeting went much better than my previous group work and we were able to do everything we needed in one 2 hour meeting. Went out to Stockholms Nation for their club with Nick, also meet up with other friends including our corridor-mate Louisa.