Tori was just here for a visit over the Pfingst holiday. (I'm pretty sure it has to do with Jesus' ascension?) School was out for two weeks, I had two weeks vacation, my host family went to the Netherlands, and Ev went to Italy with her best friend (Italy is only 7 hours driving!).
Tori got to see Prien, Rosenheim, and Munich and then we flew to Tallinn, Estonia for 2 days, Stockholm for 3 days and Copenhagen for 4. Then Tori got home and had to work full shifts the next two days, jetlag included, while I had the house here to myself until today!
Tallinn: is really picturesque. Tori kept saying that everything kind of looks like the movie Shrek, all quaint, cobblestoned, ivy covered, and red-tile- roofed. The hostel was my first REAL hostel, with a toilet from 1924 and people with dreadlocks. But the staff were friendly and I swear Napoleon Dynamite was staying in another room so it was fun.
We visited the KGB museum and learned all about how during Soviet times, tourists could only stay in the Viru Hotel, and the KGB had an office on the 23rd floor and spied on everything. This wasn't a secret though, so people had a lot of fun with it. The tour was awful, because it was expensive and our "English" tour guide could hardly speak English, but there was a russian guy on the tour too, so he translated for us instead!
Estonia apparently invented Skype, and they are the IT capital of Europe, so they are really proud of the fact that there is free Wifi all over the city (except our hostel room, of course). Estonia has also only been independent for 22 years, so they have a really interesting and bloody history. We had a fantastic walking tour guide who told us hilarious things about the city. There independence statue was Czech built. It is only about 20 years old and was apparently made to withstand a nuclear attack, but a sheet of glass fell last year and nearly hit a tourist. The Czech builders are now in court with Estonia claiming they didn't realize that the structure might expand, because they weren't aware that the temperature in Estonia fluctuated. HA! (If you're not sure what the weather is like in Estonia, it's beside Russia and on the Baltic, so it gets cold in winter, and then it was 30 degrees Celsius while we were there).
While at the statue, we had the pleasure of watching three men mow the grass on a hill, using a pulley system. They had rigged ropes on the top and bottom of the hill, and tied the lawnmower to a perpendicular rope and were passing the lawnmower back and forth to each other in order to mow the hill, which had grass 2 feet tall! The guide had just finished telling us how badly Estonia wants to avoid being classified as Eastern Europe too.
Stockholm: was sooo cold and we didn't pack accordingly. We walked a bit around the new(er) city for a while before we stopped kidding ourselves and went straight to the museum on the top of our list. And don't even pretend you wouldn't visit the ABBA museum if you were in Sweden. It was AMAZING. Honestly, one of the best museums I've ever been to. Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Frida narrate the entire thing and now I just want to be their best friend. You can sing karaoke, try on costumes, mix tracks, learn the dance moves, record your own music video, anything! And you're not even sick of them by the end of it. You want to go through it again!
We were a week too early to see the summer solstice, but we arrived at our apartment at 1 am after our flight was delayed, and it was still really light and balmy out. The city was packed with people going out too, and our host told us that most people sleep through the entire winter to make up for summer, where no one sleeps at all. And the sun rose again at about 4 am, so really, what's the point?
We also did a cool tour of Gamla Stan, the old town, saw the changing of the guard (that is a lot more boring than expected!) and learned about Vikings (Sweden didn't really have many great viking stories, it was all Norway, but they milk it for what they can). We visited the VASA museum, which is basically just all about a massive ship that sank only 20 minutes after it left port 300 hundred years ago, and because the waters around Stockholm are so brackish and they didn't find the ship until recently, it's been amazingly preserved. It's really cool to see the ship and they have great exhibits about life on board and stuff. I'm not a huge museum fan, but Stockholm really impressed us with theirs. We also did a boat tour of the archipelago, that I'd really been looking forward to, and on which we both fell asleep. With about 40 people around us and a loud commentary in our ears, that's how exhausted we were! Which is why by the time we go to...
Copenhagen: we decided to finally learn our lesson. We saw a museum our first day and almost fell asleep again. We were leaning on the displays to stay upright. But right after that, we found gorgeous garden and took a nap beside a giant green Kierkegaard! We visited again on our last day to spend it reading and relaxing - and because our feet just would not go any farther. We saw town hall, parliament, Tivoli Gardens, the Opera, the two other palaces (Parliament is also a castle) and we walked all the way to the Little Mermaid statue on the other end of town. We also visited Christiania, the free state neighborhood of Copenhagen. It's famous for being anarchic: it's anti-hard drugs, but very pro-marijuana, so it's clashed with the government for years. It's got some very cool coops, it's own kindergarten and school, cafes and restaurants, shops, etc... so we were expecting a kind of vibrant, hipster haven. I guess it's more hippy than hipster, and it looked a bit like a big dump to us, with overgrown gardens, rusted fences and playgrounds, and graffiti everywhere. It was also pretty devoid of people on a gorgeous day, and so I couldn't imagine what it would be like in winter.
Copenhagen was probably the most exciting trip, what with losing my phone in the airport and finding it at the Duty Free counter 5 minutes before boarding, then having nothing to prove it was my phone (I finally found an email with my name on it from my German insurance provider - most Swedes are fluently multi-lingual but that one stumped them), and then discovering that McFly had been in Stockholm and we'd missed them at the airport, and then finding out One Direction was in Copenhagen at a hotel near us, meaning that McFly were also somewhere in Copenhagen and there was still a chance! We found about One Direction (we're not that crazy) because during a walking tour we passed the famous hotel where they stayed, and we had to pass the giant group of girls standing outside. But we really got to know about the concert, when our half empty hostel room became one person too full at 2 am one night. We were awoken to some very thick, drunk Irish accents. One sounded particularly old. They had arrived kinda late. They also woke up super early and decided to talk really loudly to the jetlagged Australian in our room. They are from Dublin. Two of them are married, one is the father in law, and the other man we never quite figured out. It was Grandad's 72nd birthday that day and he is very happy to sleep on the top bunk anyway, thank you. They follow One Direction around and sell fake merchandise outside of concerts. And then they go for beers. They were pretty gross as they had decided to pack extra laminated heads of One Direction rather than changes of clothing and they would return to the hostel at 2 am burping and shouting, "Shhhh....don't wake up the others", but other than that they were actually really friendly and funny! They told us a lot about Dublin, and they were not boring.
So while Britains two biggest bands were performing together, John Mayer was also in town performing at Tivoli Gardens the night we decided to visit. We had a nice peek at the grounds through the gates, looked at the prices, and decided we wanted to have dessert instead. Because the craziest thing about Scandinavia was the food prices. People had warned us that it was expensive, and I'd read it a thousand times, but the first time I did the conversion to Canadian dollars I almost lost my appetite. Almost. Breakfast one morning (1 egg, yoghurt, 1 juice, a slice of bread, and a croissant - so not exactly a feast) cost us 20 dollars Canadian! I'm not even going to tell you how much Tori spent on my belated birthday dinner (which was great authentic Mexican. I miss guacamole!). I apparently owe her steak and dessert at The Keg when I get home though.
Our last night at the hostel in Copenhagen though, the speaker system throughout the entire hostel (this was a massive boutique hostel with probably about 400 beds) had a problem and squealed for 2 straight hours, until 1:30 am. We all thought we were going to go insane but managed to fall asleep, and then they offered the breakfast buffet for free the next day, saving us another 30 bucks! Wahoo! Pictures to follow!
Tori got to see Prien, Rosenheim, and Munich and then we flew to Tallinn, Estonia for 2 days, Stockholm for 3 days and Copenhagen for 4. Then Tori got home and had to work full shifts the next two days, jetlag included, while I had the house here to myself until today!
Tallinn: is really picturesque. Tori kept saying that everything kind of looks like the movie Shrek, all quaint, cobblestoned, ivy covered, and red-tile- roofed. The hostel was my first REAL hostel, with a toilet from 1924 and people with dreadlocks. But the staff were friendly and I swear Napoleon Dynamite was staying in another room so it was fun.
We visited the KGB museum and learned all about how during Soviet times, tourists could only stay in the Viru Hotel, and the KGB had an office on the 23rd floor and spied on everything. This wasn't a secret though, so people had a lot of fun with it. The tour was awful, because it was expensive and our "English" tour guide could hardly speak English, but there was a russian guy on the tour too, so he translated for us instead!
Estonia apparently invented Skype, and they are the IT capital of Europe, so they are really proud of the fact that there is free Wifi all over the city (except our hostel room, of course). Estonia has also only been independent for 22 years, so they have a really interesting and bloody history. We had a fantastic walking tour guide who told us hilarious things about the city. There independence statue was Czech built. It is only about 20 years old and was apparently made to withstand a nuclear attack, but a sheet of glass fell last year and nearly hit a tourist. The Czech builders are now in court with Estonia claiming they didn't realize that the structure might expand, because they weren't aware that the temperature in Estonia fluctuated. HA! (If you're not sure what the weather is like in Estonia, it's beside Russia and on the Baltic, so it gets cold in winter, and then it was 30 degrees Celsius while we were there).
While at the statue, we had the pleasure of watching three men mow the grass on a hill, using a pulley system. They had rigged ropes on the top and bottom of the hill, and tied the lawnmower to a perpendicular rope and were passing the lawnmower back and forth to each other in order to mow the hill, which had grass 2 feet tall! The guide had just finished telling us how badly Estonia wants to avoid being classified as Eastern Europe too.
Stockholm: was sooo cold and we didn't pack accordingly. We walked a bit around the new(er) city for a while before we stopped kidding ourselves and went straight to the museum on the top of our list. And don't even pretend you wouldn't visit the ABBA museum if you were in Sweden. It was AMAZING. Honestly, one of the best museums I've ever been to. Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Frida narrate the entire thing and now I just want to be their best friend. You can sing karaoke, try on costumes, mix tracks, learn the dance moves, record your own music video, anything! And you're not even sick of them by the end of it. You want to go through it again!
We were a week too early to see the summer solstice, but we arrived at our apartment at 1 am after our flight was delayed, and it was still really light and balmy out. The city was packed with people going out too, and our host told us that most people sleep through the entire winter to make up for summer, where no one sleeps at all. And the sun rose again at about 4 am, so really, what's the point?
We also did a cool tour of Gamla Stan, the old town, saw the changing of the guard (that is a lot more boring than expected!) and learned about Vikings (Sweden didn't really have many great viking stories, it was all Norway, but they milk it for what they can). We visited the VASA museum, which is basically just all about a massive ship that sank only 20 minutes after it left port 300 hundred years ago, and because the waters around Stockholm are so brackish and they didn't find the ship until recently, it's been amazingly preserved. It's really cool to see the ship and they have great exhibits about life on board and stuff. I'm not a huge museum fan, but Stockholm really impressed us with theirs. We also did a boat tour of the archipelago, that I'd really been looking forward to, and on which we both fell asleep. With about 40 people around us and a loud commentary in our ears, that's how exhausted we were! Which is why by the time we go to...
Copenhagen: we decided to finally learn our lesson. We saw a museum our first day and almost fell asleep again. We were leaning on the displays to stay upright. But right after that, we found gorgeous garden and took a nap beside a giant green Kierkegaard! We visited again on our last day to spend it reading and relaxing - and because our feet just would not go any farther. We saw town hall, parliament, Tivoli Gardens, the Opera, the two other palaces (Parliament is also a castle) and we walked all the way to the Little Mermaid statue on the other end of town. We also visited Christiania, the free state neighborhood of Copenhagen. It's famous for being anarchic: it's anti-hard drugs, but very pro-marijuana, so it's clashed with the government for years. It's got some very cool coops, it's own kindergarten and school, cafes and restaurants, shops, etc... so we were expecting a kind of vibrant, hipster haven. I guess it's more hippy than hipster, and it looked a bit like a big dump to us, with overgrown gardens, rusted fences and playgrounds, and graffiti everywhere. It was also pretty devoid of people on a gorgeous day, and so I couldn't imagine what it would be like in winter.
Copenhagen was probably the most exciting trip, what with losing my phone in the airport and finding it at the Duty Free counter 5 minutes before boarding, then having nothing to prove it was my phone (I finally found an email with my name on it from my German insurance provider - most Swedes are fluently multi-lingual but that one stumped them), and then discovering that McFly had been in Stockholm and we'd missed them at the airport, and then finding out One Direction was in Copenhagen at a hotel near us, meaning that McFly were also somewhere in Copenhagen and there was still a chance! We found about One Direction (we're not that crazy) because during a walking tour we passed the famous hotel where they stayed, and we had to pass the giant group of girls standing outside. But we really got to know about the concert, when our half empty hostel room became one person too full at 2 am one night. We were awoken to some very thick, drunk Irish accents. One sounded particularly old. They had arrived kinda late. They also woke up super early and decided to talk really loudly to the jetlagged Australian in our room. They are from Dublin. Two of them are married, one is the father in law, and the other man we never quite figured out. It was Grandad's 72nd birthday that day and he is very happy to sleep on the top bunk anyway, thank you. They follow One Direction around and sell fake merchandise outside of concerts. And then they go for beers. They were pretty gross as they had decided to pack extra laminated heads of One Direction rather than changes of clothing and they would return to the hostel at 2 am burping and shouting, "Shhhh....don't wake up the others", but other than that they were actually really friendly and funny! They told us a lot about Dublin, and they were not boring.
So while Britains two biggest bands were performing together, John Mayer was also in town performing at Tivoli Gardens the night we decided to visit. We had a nice peek at the grounds through the gates, looked at the prices, and decided we wanted to have dessert instead. Because the craziest thing about Scandinavia was the food prices. People had warned us that it was expensive, and I'd read it a thousand times, but the first time I did the conversion to Canadian dollars I almost lost my appetite. Almost. Breakfast one morning (1 egg, yoghurt, 1 juice, a slice of bread, and a croissant - so not exactly a feast) cost us 20 dollars Canadian! I'm not even going to tell you how much Tori spent on my belated birthday dinner (which was great authentic Mexican. I miss guacamole!). I apparently owe her steak and dessert at The Keg when I get home though.
Our last night at the hostel in Copenhagen though, the speaker system throughout the entire hostel (this was a massive boutique hostel with probably about 400 beds) had a problem and squealed for 2 straight hours, until 1:30 am. We all thought we were going to go insane but managed to fall asleep, and then they offered the breakfast buffet for free the next day, saving us another 30 bucks! Wahoo! Pictures to follow!