Portugal!

I returned from Portugal late last night and it was fun, fun, FUN! I have spent the day catching up on EVERYTHING. I am off to Helsinki tomorrow...actually later this morning...so I will have to update later. However, photos are up!

Relay at CC is this Friday and Saturday! I am so excited/sad/happy! Our Relay is doing so well! I am doing my only Relay in Jönköping next weekend, so watch for that.

Jag är en latmask...

..."I am a lazy worm."

Yesterday, we learned some common Swedish sayings in class. I cannot think of what these phrases are categorized as...similar to euphemisms, but not exactly. Do you know Grandma? Anyways, several are similar to those we say in English, such as "Happy as a lark" or "Beautiful as a butterfly." However, there are some that I found really funny. For example:
"Rädd som en hare" - afraid as a rabbit (We were supposed to make up our own, describing ourself. Another girl and I came up with the exact same: "Bouncy as a bunny." My Swedish teacher quickly corrected us because in Sweden, rabbits are associated with being "scared" not excited. Haha)
"Snabb som en vessla" - fast as a weasel
"Vig som en apa" - flexible as an ape (accompanied by a drawing of a monkey in a dress?)
"Mallgroda" - an arrogant toad (used to describe someone in a a negative way)
It was really interesting to hear what animals people associated with characteristics...it is definitely very different from country to country!

Yesterday was also Earth Day, one of my absolute FAVORITE days of the year. It is sort of tied with Saint Patrick's Day and World Vegan Day. Unfortunately, it does not really seem to be celebrated here. I mentioned it to a couple of people and received blank looks in return, which was pretty disheartening. I know that it was started in the USA (1970!), but I thought that it was a global holiday. Kudos to Tara for celebrating in Belize! I was busy with classes all day, so I did not have a chance to do anything special. However, the weather was beautiful, so I did my fair share of walking! Of course, I also ate yummy vegan food all day long too! I am really excited to see so many news articles coming out about the negative affects of a diet that includes animal products...not just health-wise, but environmentally related too. Sodexo ran a promotion at several schools on the east coast promoting eating "pb&j" for the earth, which is a great idea! There is an awesome website on the same topic at: http://www.pbjcampaign.org/. I hope that the rising food prices and shortages in less fortunate parts of the world will start to wake people up. 70% of the grain grown in the United States goes to feeding animals destined for slaughter. We could easily feed ALL of the hungry people in the world by only diverting the wheat fed to American cattle to people instead. The farm subsidies and other irrational agricultural political decisions made by the European Union and the United States, in particular, are really starting to backfire. I wonder how long it will take for the developed world to really wake up and change their ways though...

I am off to Portugal late tonight (we will not arrive until tomorrow morning)...exciting! I will be back on Tuesday next week, but am leaving for Helsinki next Thursday. I have a few weeks off between that and my trip to Ireland (which I am BEYOND excited for!). I have quite a bit of studying and some projects to do during the time in between travel, which means that life is busy, and I am very, very happy!

Deutschland

The trip for last weekend was Germany! My friend Kavishna and I found a really cheap flight about a month ago, so we decided that it would be a fun, quick trip to take. We left on Friday afternoon and arrived back in Jönköping last night, but were able to see quite a bit in the two days that we were there!

We did not get to our destination until about 10:00 pm on Friday night, even though we left Jönköping around 12:00 pm! Ryanair is great because it is cheap, but it flies out of little airports in the middle of nowhere, which can be a pain. We were flying out of Göteborg, which is closest to us. This involves getting to the Jönköping bus station (easy), taking a bus to Göteborg (a little over two hours), and then taking a bus to the airport (half hour). The airport is two buildings that look like Grandma and Grandpa P's quonset huts out in the middle of farmland! It is quite funny! The security is virtually not existent and everything is really laid back...definitely a non-stressful way to travel. The Frankfurt Ryanair airport is pretty decieving because it is actually an hour and forty minutes (by bus) away from the actual city of Frankfurt! We were pretty surprised when we discovered that upon arrival! It was okay though because the bus trip took us through some lovely German countryside.

We finally arrived in Frankfurt around 10:00 pm and set off to find our hostel. Thankfully, it was about five minutes walk from the train/bus station. However, this happened to be in the bad area of town! I will not even describe the lewd venues surrounding the place! The hostel itself was actually really nice, and very safe and secure, which goes to show that you cannot judge a book by the cover!

We got up early-ish on Saturday and set off to the train station. There is not too much to see in Frankfurt because it is mostly a business hub, so we had previously decided to see Frankfurt on Sunday and go elsewhere on Saturday. We took a train to Heidelberg, which is a city about an hour away. It is so charming! Mom and Bridge recommended it from their Germany travels a few years ago, and I am so glad that we went! The city is most famous for its huge castle, which is built into the hillside. It was lightly raining all day, so unfortunately the view was not quite as good as normal, BUT it was still incredibly beautiful! After trekking up and down the hill to visit the castle, we walked around through the 'old town' and through the shops and cobblestone streets. The city center is more modern, but it has been well-developed and complements the 'old town' area really well.

Heidelberg - view from the castle

We decided to take another train (about twenty minutes) to Mannheim after Heidelberg. The city looked pretty dull when we first exited the train station, but a little bit of walking proved otherwise. Mannheim is most famous for its water tower, and fountains on either side. The fountains were incredible! There were also some lovely flowers! It was raining in Mannheim as well, but we braved it and explored the city.

Mannheim's fountains

We found an amazing health food store, which I had to go into! It was great! I found vegan nutella and soy pudding, which are not in Sweden OR the USA, so I was really excited! I tried a little bit of the nutella on the train later and pretty much died of happiness because it has been more than four years since I have had that!

Proud owner of vegan nutella...for less than twenty-four hours

We stayed at the same hostel on Saturday night and checked out Frankfurt itself on Sunday. The 'old town' area is cute, but nothing like Heidelberg! We went down to the Main River, saw some impressive Gothic-style cathedrals, and took an hour river cruise, which was sort of disappointing because it took us through the cute, historic area of the city to the factory-laden area. It was still interesting though! We had to catch the bus back to the airport at 1:00 pm, so we quickly grabbed some lunch to eat on the bus. The bus driver was really rude and made me get off to eat (because my lunch 'smelled' - interesting because it was just a pita and veggies...personally I thought the bus driver smelled up the bus much more since he spent the twenty minutes prior to departure chain smoking), which resulted in me having to eat my lunch too quickly and getting a stomachache. Then, he decided to slam on the breaks when everyone started to stand up as we parked at the airport, and I flew into the seat in front of me. I have some really nice bruises from that. THEN, we discovered that Frankfurt airport security is much stricter than Göteborg's. They took away my nutella and pudding (we were carrying on) because they 'were liquids.' I was SO MAD! I had not even tried the pudding yet! I could kind of see the pudding being classified as a liquid, but the nutella was clearly a solid. To make matters worse, the security lady was really mean about it and threw them both in the trash in front of my face. I am still not over that one. It really disgusts me that we live in a world where people throw away sealed food because of stupid regulations that do virtually nothing to 'prevent terrorism'...I have more of an explanation than that, but it would take me pages to explain.

Frankfurt

Anyways, the last few hours of the trip were pretty much awful, but the rest of the weekend was great! I loved Germany! It is much more beautiful than I anticipated, but VERY Americanized, which was unfortunate. I definitely want to visit again someday (and buy jars of nutella to eat there)! Oh yes, and off to Portugal on Wednesday night!

One Million Vegans in the USA!

Good news! http://www.happycow.net/blog/?p=133

Now I just need to find them!

Tallinn Cruise

Last weekend's trip was a cruise to Tallinn, Estonia. The cruise was organized by an organization that plans trips for exchange students in Sweden. My school brought sixty students, but there was approximately six hundred in total! Luckily we had a big cruise ship - I think that exchange students only made up half or a third of the ship's passengers. The weekend ended up being jam-packed with wild and crazy parties, destruction of the ship, and other fun activities such as "buy as much alcohol from the on-board tax free shop and drink it until you puke." I did not partake in any of the above. I did love sailing through the archipelago though!

Fat Margaret's Tower - entrance to Tallinn's Old Town

We spent all day Sunday in Tallinn. The "Old Town" dates back to the 1200s! It was so amazing to be in a city that is so incredibly old! While many of the buildings and much of the wall that surrounds the old city is still intact, Tallinn was occupied twice by the Soviets and once by the Germans in the twentieth century. As a result, many of the landmarks have been destroyed. It rained the ENTIRE day in Tallinn! I was really upset because none of my photos turned out very well, but the city itself was very interesting to walk through. We also went to the town museum, which was very cool. Unfortunately, Tallinn has become very 'touristy,' so there were souvenir shops and stands everywhere, spoiling the atmosphere. However, it was still a really neat place to visit for a day!

Cruising through Stockholm's Archipelago

Adorable

I love packages!

Today I received an ABSOLUTELY AMAZING package from the USA, complements of Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa! The most creative part was definitely the bubble wrapped avocados...and they made it safely! They are pretty ripe, which means that I will have to consume them immediately. Gee, what a FANTASTIC problem! :) Also included was high-quality US peanut butter. In case anyone is wondering what the proper way to enjoy US-imported peanut butter is, I will show you:

Please excuse the wet hair - I just returned from the gym. Speaking of the gym, I am the ONLY GIRL in Jönköping who WEARS SHORTS to the gym. I base this conclusion on OVER THREE MONTHS of observation. I just do not understand where the hate for shorts stems from. Oh, and there is no way that I am going to start wearing pants just to fit in...more than a few days without my absolute favorite CC shorts and I am a total wreck. Seriously.

Trips Galore

First, a Relay update: $520 raised to date, $980 to go. Thank you to everyone for your generous support!

Classes are back in full swing (well, in the Swedish manner of speaking, which means maybe one class per day IF I am lucky). I am loving my Swedish class but not incredibly pleased with my Economic Development course. The material we are covering is so basic that I am practically bored to tears. For example, last week we learned that Africa is poor. Can you believe it? I had no idea! Sarcasm aside, the teacher is a graduate student who is really enthusiastic, which is nice to see. I do wonder why he is teaching the course instead of a professor...

I have been planning a LOT of trips for the next few weeks! The weather has been beautiful, so it is time to travel. Here is the upcoming itinerary:
April 12-14: Tallinn, Estonia - the trip is actually a cruise out of Stockholm, organized by the school
April 18-20: Frankfurt, Germany
April 24-29: Porto and Lisbon, Portugal
May 1-3: Cruise to Helsinki, Finland

I have another week off in May and am working on figuring out a trip for that time as well! I am sooo excited to see my dad and Kenyon in June!

In other news, I just confirmed my summer internship plans! I will be working in Gaithersburg, Maryland with Arlin Wasserman, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship for Sodexo! He is going to share me with John Harris, an economist, for the summer. I am really, really excited because my projects are going to focus formulating a policy response for Sodexo on climate change and emissions trading, as well as marketing and programming sustainability in Sodexo's college market. Specific details are still being worked out, but it looks like I am going to spend my summer working on the environmental policy for an international corporation, which sounds pretty amazing to me!