A short recap of Stockholm and what's to come...

Hello all. Again, sorry about the really late posting, it's been a busy couple of weeks.

So that last I checked in I had just gotten back from a great weekend in Italy/Switzerland. That following week was business as usual here in Glasgow, had some homework, went on a couple runs, nothing out of the ordinary. The following weekend was also pretty mundane, I had my second politics paper due Monday the 9th about American foreign policy which took up most of my time, but I got it in and am confident I did well. That week was the kick off of March birthdays in Glasgow, with birthdays on the 9th and 11th, and then my big 21st on the the 15th. We had a fun week celebrating, and on Thursday afternoon it was off to Stockholm to celebrate mine!

We arrived late Thursday night to Stockholm and didn't really see much in the dark. We quickly found our hostel and went to bed so we could be up early Friday morning to explore the city. Our hostel was fairly large, located right in the center of the city, surrounded by restaurants, stores and bars, ideal for travelers like us.

We spent most of Friday wandering around "Galma Stan" (the Old Town) which is a perfectly preserved Viking neighborhood. What's cool about Stockholm is that it's situated in the middle of an archipelago, with the city center spread out between about 5 or 6 islands. On Friday we got a chance to see much of the old town, the Royal Palace, the Parliament, the National Museum and the Nobel Museum (every year Stockholm is the host of the Nobel Prize presentations). Later in the afternoon our group split up, with some of us wondering to another island which housed the Museum of Architecture and Modern Art. Here are some pictures I took on Friday:







On Saturday we got another early start to the day and headed across the archipelago to "Sodermalm" which I think means "South of Town", although I'm not sure since I don't speak Swedish. Sodermalm is a really cool section of town with cobblestone streets weaving up and down steep hills, and great views of the city from high up on cliffs at the water's edge. We spent a majority of the day exploring this section of the city, and headed back later in the evening to get ready for a nice Swedish birthday-dinner for yours truly. Here are some pictures I took during our day in Sodermalm:





Since my birthday was on a Sunday, and we would be flying back to Glasgow that night, we decided to celebrate on Saturday going into Sunday. We had a nice dinner (I had a huge plate of salmon and mashed potatoes) followed by some Swedish dessert. Afterwards, we didn't really have a plan for where to go or what to do to ring in my 21st year. We had seen some flyers for the "Absolut Icebar Stockholm" which happened to be right around the corner from our hostel, so we decided to check that out. It was by far the coolest bar I have been to so far in Europe (no pun intended). First you're outfitted in massive blue ponchos with fur inside them to keep you warm, and gloves on either side to hold your drinks. Then you enter a chamber where the door closes, and cold air is blasted in, followed by the other set of doors opening so you can enter the Icebar. Literaly every single thing in the Icebar was made of ice (the bar, tables, stools, chandalier, glasses). We ordered drinks at the bar, and without me knowing my friend told the bartender that it was my 21st and we were from America, so at midnight he paused the music and the entire place sang happy birthday... As embarassing as it was I have to admit I enjoyed being sung to by a bunch of well to do Swedes. The singing was followed up with a "Happy Birthday To You" by Stevie Wonder, and then what proved to be too many drinks on the house. Here are some pictures I got of us at the Icebar:





Sunday we had to check out by 10, so we were up early and out to take in our last day in Sweden. Our main priority was to get to the "Djurgarden" to see the famous "Vasamuseet", of Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a warship built in the 1600's which sunk Stockholm's harbor upon completion. After 333 years sitting at the bottom of the bay, the ship was surfaced and restored. It was probably my favorite thing in Stockholm. After the museum we headed to the train station and were on our way back to Glasgow.....





Since returning from Stockholm two Monday's ago, I've had a lot of work which is something I haven't had to deal with yet abroad. My classes wrapped up for the semester last Thursday (SO EARLY!) and this week I had two final papers to hand in. One was addressing the main cultural effects of the Scottish Enlightenment for my class on Exploring Scottish Culture, which was challenging but actually quite interesting. The other was a critique essay on the process in the UK of drafting an Environmental Impact Assessment for developments. This was more up my alley, and I had a much easier time completing that. I was able to wrap both of those up by this afternoon, a day ahead of schedule, and since have been relaxing and preparing myself for the three weeks of travel ahead of me....

This Saturday at 6:45am I will be heading off to Budapest and Vienna until next Thursday, visiting my friends Casey and Brett in Budapest, and my friend Emily in Vienna. It will be really nice to finally see some faces from home, and I'm really looking forward to it! From Vienna I fly to Rome where I will be meeting my friend Kerrianne from BC. We are there from April 2-6, and on the 6th will be taking a train to Florence and visiting my friend Hope until the 9th. I would have to say that coming abroad, these two cities are on my top 5 list of places to go, so I can't wait to get there! As if I haven't been traveling enough up to this point, on the 9th I'm meeting some friends from Glasgow in the port town of Ancona where we will be catching a ferry to Croatia. We will be there for Easter weekend to hopefully a relaxing time (and no worries I already have figured out where a church is and when they will be holding Easter mass). On the 14th it's back to Italy by ferry, and then a train to Milan airport to catch a flight to my final destination... Barcelona! I am meeting my friends Ben and Sal in Barcelona, and we will be there until the 18th of April....

All in all I have a crazy 3 weeks ahead of me, but I can't wait to get them started and I will definitely be updating you all once I get back at the end of April!

As always, I hope everyone is doing well and that I hear from you all soon. Crazy to think but as of today I've been in Scotland for 80 days, and will be leaving in 60... time really does fly by.

Italy and Switzerland

This is coming to you all a little late, but the past week has been pretty busy....

On February 28th, my friend Ben and I embarked on what would be my first time EVER on European soil (the continent that is). I have two friends who are studying in Milan, Italy from Boston College, Dan and Pier, so we would be going down and staying with them from Friday to the following Wednesday. This happened to be the same week that BC is on spring break, so my roommate Matt who is still at BC for the semester made the trip across to the pond as well. Also in attendance was another roommate from home, Sean, who is studying in Paris for the weekend. All in all, it was one giant reunion.

Ben and I arrived Friday afternoon to Milan to weather that was far better than anything we have yet experienced in Glasgow. It was sunny and warm making the hour ride from the airport to the city center relatively scenic (although the outskirts of Milan are no better than the worst parts of an industrial US city). Dan met us at Centrale, the main train station, and we were off to his apartment. We took the underground, which was remarkably similar to the tube system in London, to his apartment which was only a 20 minute ride. Upon climbing the steps above ground, this was my first official view of the city of Milan....



This is the Duomo, or Milan Cathedral, which is the second largest Cathedral in the world. It is also virtually in the backyard of Dan and Pier's apartment... awesome.

For the afternoon we did a little sight seeing, however we were still waiting for Sean and Matt to arrive to do the major stuff so we got a good chance to rest up for the weekend ahead of us. Sean arrived around 8 that night, and before we made it back to the apartment we stopped for dinner at a place called Iguana's. In Italy they have a tradition called "apertivos" where you buy one HUGE drink and with it comes a massive buffet of Italian food. Generally Itlians will buy their drink and grab a plate with some finger food, but being the Americans we are we bought our drinks, stuffed as much food as possible onto three plates and fully enjoyed ourselves.

Saturday morning Matt arrived from Boston and once he had settled in and unpacked his things we were off for a full day in Milan. We started at the Piazza Duomo which on Saturday was PACKED with thousands of people celebrating "carnivale". While it was a fun atmosphere to be a part of, I didn't appreciate getting nailed in the head with shaving cream which is apparently something that the Italian youth love to do during carnivale, even to the unsuspecting foreigner. We got a chance to climb to the top of the Duomo which offered a great, albeit hazy, view of the city. From here you could see the castle, the spires of countless other cathedrals, and the red clay roofs stretching out the horizon. Apparently on a clear day its possible to see the Alps from the Duomo, but we were not so lucky.





From the Duomo we walked a bit through the city to the Castello Sforzesco which is a massive structure which dominates the surrounding neighborhood. Unfortunately we arrived right at 6 when it was closing to the public, but it was still great to see from the outside.



Being that we were in Milan, the fashion capital of the world, we thought it was important to drop by our friends at Gucci, Versace and Armani.... I swear I could buy a small country with the money we saw people spending at these stores. What was also ironic about our walk through the "golden rectangle" was that in front of Versace's flagship store was parked a 2009 Lamborghini, directly behind a Bentley. As I knelt down to take a picture of this uncontested show of wealth, a 2009 Ferrari slowly drove by in the background. In that moment, I saw my college tuition, a beachfront house on Drakes, and a life supply of Maine Diner pancakes roll by me in the form of three cars. Ridiculous.

Saturday night Dan made reservations at his favorite restuarant, which of course I can't remember because it was in Italian, but I can definitely see why it was his favorite. Walking into the restaurant itself you think its a cheap bar, but after about a three minute walk through several corridors you're brought into what I later learned was the open-air backyard of the building, covered with tents and seasonal structures in the winter to protect from the snow and rain. We had a great time at dinner, and I'm very glad to have had the opportunity to visit with good friends who I haven't seen since December.

Sunday afternoon we met up with two of Dan's friends at Milan's central station for a two day trip to Zermatt, Switzerland for some skiing at it's best. Also with us was our friend Lauren who is studying in Parma, Italy and had come down for the big BC reunion in Milan and Zermatt. To preface our trip I have to say that I have been to Colorado once before to ski, and couldn't imagine any mountain in the world comparing to the back bowls of Vail... but then I found Switzerland. By the time we got to Zermatt it was completely dark out, leaving the mountains towering above us a mystery for the morning.

Monday morning I woke up to a great view of the village of Zermatt from our hostel's window, but I still had no idea for what was about to hit us as we ventured down to the rental shop to get our skis.



Towering above Zermatt and all the other peaks in the area is the Matterhorn, easily the most charismatic mountain I have ever seen. We collectively decided Doctor Suess must have based Mt. Crumpet off of the Matterhorn, for right at its peak it almost seems to curl over itself. Honestly speaking, I think I took upwards of 30 pictures JUST of the Matterhorn... here's a sample of some of the better ones.





After renting our skis and buying passes, we were off to do what would turn out the be the best day of skiing of my life. From the village we had to take about three seperate Gondola's to get up the mountain, but it was easily worth it. Every trail we went down had character of its own; some tucked between some of the worldest tallest peaks, others hanging over cliffs with thousand-foot drops, and still others that were simply sloped fields hundreds of feet wide covered in powder begging to be carved up. I can honestly say those 6 hours of skiing were some of the best of my life. Here are some pictures from throughout the day:



By the end of Monday we were all beat, and after a dinner at the bar on the first floor of our hostel we got to bed pretty early. The original plan for Tuesday was to get up relatively early, check out and make our way back to Milan by the early afternoon. However, the night before we had all decided we couldn't pass up another day skiing in the Alps and our plan was to do another day. Unfortunately Dan was pretty sick in the morning foiling our hopes of one more day in paradise. Instead we decided we'd do a little exploring around the village of Zermatt, and head back to Milan later in the day. Like any other ski resort town, Zermatt is very expensive, but that didn't prevent any of us from buying some Swiss chocolates, souveniers and for Matt, a pretzel from every bakery we walked by... But really, I think he ate about 6 big doughy pretzels, kid's a champ. At 1:30 we caught a train from Zermatt down to Brig, and from Brig we made a connection to Zermatt. The train ride between Zermatt and Brig fully made up for our lack of skiing on Tuesday. The ride was about an hour long, with the train snaking through a valley thousands of feet below mountains, cliffs and glaciers like I have never seen before in my life. Even if you don't ski, I would highly reccomend taking a train through Switzerland at some point in your life, you won't be disappointed.

By the time we arrived in Milan it was pretty late, and with my early flight back to Glasgow on Wednesday morning, I decided to call it a weekend and pack it in early. When all was said and done, my weekend in Milan and Zermatt couldn't have been any better. Not only did I get a chance to visit Italy and Switzerland for the first time in my life, I got to do it with great friends and had an awesome time along the way. It was by far one of the best times I've had since I've been here in Europe.

As for now, I must head off to bed. Tomorrow afternoon I'm off to Stockholm with some friends from Glasgow to celebrate my 21st, hope I make it back in one peice!

Hope you're all doing well where ever you're reading this from!

Thought of the day

For the first time in what seems to be weeks, I have stayed in Glasgow for the weekend! One thing I have noticed that I think I should point out: for the past three days in a row, I have woken up to heavy snow in the morning blanketing the ground with more of the white stuff pouring down from above. Then I either go and make breakfast and shower, or sign online to facebook or skype. By the time I leave the flat only an hour later, it is sunny and 50 out with not a single trace of snow on the ground. If you think New England weather is unpredictable, try living in Glasgow

I'm currently in the midst of writing my second paper for International Relations, but I am itching to sit down and write an entry about my trip to Milan, Italy and Zermatt, Switzerland last weekend. Great trip overall... but I think I should wait to go into detail until I am finished with my paper.