Homeland of ABBA & IKEA

This past weekend was my trip to Stockholm! It was another trip about sustainability, but because of some misunderstanding it was really 3 solid days of sightseeing! One of the neat things from the start was the fact that we lived in a hostel that was a boat! We each had a cabin type room with two people each. It didn't move with the waves, but it did tip to the left a little!

Day 1 we made it around to see the "old town" part of Stockholm with all the cute side streets, cafes, and shopping!Day 2 we started off by hitting up the National Museum where I managed to find some beautiful works of Monet! Then at noon we headed to the Royal Palace for the changing of the guards and then a tour of the palace! Next we hit up the music museum which had a lot of old instruments that we could play and listen to, which kept us quite entertained! We even found ABBA amongst the greatest groups of Sweden! After a long subway ride we came upon the motherland and found IKEA!! We just had to go and visit where this great store originated!! Later that night we found our way out to the Hard Rock Cafe and had a great night!
Day 3 began with a visit to the Skansen open air museum where we visited a bunch of old Swedish buildings and even found a zoo with lots of random animals! Inside the aquarium part we found the monkeys!! This little guy was my favorite!And yes you could literally walk and climb in and around with the monkeys! A little scary when they jumped and ran for food, but I just loved it!! Next we headed to the Vasa Ship Museum which is a recovered ship from Swedish waters after 333 years that has been restored and now displayed since 1990! I was just in awe! It really reminded me of the flying dutchman from Pirates of the Caribbean!! So cool!!
Day 4 started with a quick stop to Hammerby Sjostad, a part of Sweden that has implemented the most environment projects. We didn't get a lot of information, but a quick rundown of what they have done and a few brochures. A bunch of us spent the remaining part of the day going to the top of the TV/Radio tower to see the whole city! We then headed back to Lillehammer! Definitely another great exploration!!
*A fun thing a bunch of us saw everywhere were perhaps some relatives of Pheegans? Maybe he has a little swedish in him? Who knew?

All over Denmark!

*Day 1 we began our trip on Friday the 13th and made it safely to Copenhagen for a day full of sightseeing after getting settled! Copenhagen is such a fantastic city, 5 story buildings, lots of people on bikes, and a bustling town of history and architecture! We walked around the central town area seeing Trivoli, the Town Hall + Pheegan, and the Natural History Museum. On the way back to the hotel we found the Hard Rock Cafe and even took a shot!
*Day 2 started out early with a 4 hour bus trip to a town on the main part of Denmark called Hjortshoj where Inforse is located, a fully sustainable community of 250 residents. We toured all their buildings and even saw a compost toilet! Certainly a fascinating way to live! At the end of the day we got to tour around Aarhus where we stayed for the night.
*Day 3 was the full day on the island of Samso! We started by taking a ferry and met up with our guide for the day Frank. He works at the Energy Academy and to me seemed a little insane, but none the less an interesting guy! He took us all over the island - literally! We saw the Baltic Sea, visited a wind turbine field and climbed to the top of one!, visited a medieval church from the 1600's, a wood chip heating plant and solar field, and a cute village which has been there since the start! It was a busy day of sustainability!
*Day 4 was another free day where a group of us literally walked the whole town! Our stops along the way included the Christianborg Palace, Nyhavn Walking strip + Pheegan, Amalieborg Palace, The Little Mermaid Statue, and the Rosenborg Castle. We had a quick session as a group near lunchtime and then we were off again to walk the "walking street" that was filled with lots of great shops! At a little chocolate shop a bunch of us got hot chocolate and ice cream and a free marshmellow ball ~so delicious!
*Day 5 was our final day and a bunch of us remembered our green attire to celebrate St. Patrick's Day! We only had meeting in the morning at the Environmental Agency and then had lunch with a lady who helped set up our trip! The rest of the day was our plane, train, and bus trip back to Lillehammer! It was all very tiring, but a really great trip filled with some memorable moments!!

Update

Here is a little update of the previous week after getting back from Tromso. We had another full week of school, through Thursday that is! We finished up our Historie class and have an exam Monday, we have one more week of Norwegian, and on Wednesday we had student presentations in Norwegian Culture & Society class. Some intense planning for spring break and other trips have taken place as well as a bunch of postcards were written and mailed out recently! Today, Sunday is Bri's birthday so with a bunch of our recycled bottles we collected money and are having a taco fiesta tonight to celebrate! We have also had the weirdest luck with buses this weekend trying to simply get in and out of town! And even today Andie and I almost got stuck way out at the ski jump trying to see the World Cup Skiing, but it was cancelled because of visibilty issues! We are all getting really excited for more travel and getting a new schedule after about five weeks here! Cheers to new adventures!

Tromso!

This past Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I spent some time with Andie, Mal, Brienne, and Emily up in the beautiful arctic circle in Tromso! We started off pretty early on Friday and made it safely to finally see some spectacular mountains! This is a view from the plane window! Mal has never seen mountains, so she was freaking out on the plane! Here is Pheegan and I and a view of the city!
Our first stop was the Polaria Museum where they have bearded seals and they do gymnastics! Found a great cafe for supper, then headed back to the hotel. Here is where we met a couple German guys who asked if we would like to join them for some Northern Lights exploring and we definitely couldn't pass that up! A group of us all hiked it up a mountain in a suburb off the island where we could find some darkness! And sure enough in the freezing cold and with a little patient we saw a breathtaking sight of greens, whites, and reds that expanded across the sky and danced along the horizon! Sooo amazing!! This is a picture I took of the island all lit up at night! Unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of the northern lights!
The next day we started by visiting a glass blowing place where we met a very friendly lady who gave us a demonstration! Next we were set up for a tour at Mack's Brewery, but they only give tours M-Th in the winter - well it didn't say that on it's website, but we went across the street to the ajoining pub and bought some souvenirs anyway! We then had arrangements to meet up with Mandy, a concordia student who is studying there for six months, so we were definitely excited to see one another and swap stories! That night we headed out to do some dogsledding!! Yes dogsledding! We got an hour ride on a sled and afterward met a bunch of the dogs in the yard as well as hold some of the puppies!! So cute!! The whole ride was alot of fun and the view of the city and the mountains at night was so great! As for Sunday we only had the Tromso Musuem to see and to check out their selections of Viking and Sami jewelry! Afterwards we had dinner than headed for a restless night at the airport! An amazing experience so far of Norway!