scandinavia!

this weekend i set out on a little adventure to scandinavia - a part of europe i was always curious in seeing. i'm not sure why i wanted to go but i am glad one of the spice students also wanted to check it out with me. i made this wonderful journey with the one and only: sarah skidmore.

it was a lot of fun and my first time staying overnight in a hostel so that always makes for a good story.

a hostel (from wikipedia) provides budget oriented, sociable accommodation where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed, in a dorm and share a bathroom, lounge and kitchen.

so anyways the weekend went as follows:

on friday i took a train by myself to berlin, germany to meet up with sarah and the rest of the business crew that had been there since wednesday. traveling alone isn't something i would want to do again simply because i do not trust myself.

but it was entertaining to people watch. especially middle age men taking shots on the german train. these people like to party.

i made the train at 10am (barely) and arrived in berlin around 4pm. i wasted some time "shopping" in the train station and having a delicious snack i took from my host family - i had packed a lot of food for the weekend but i always end up running out or just craving a hamburger. anyways...

i walked towards the parliament where i was going to meet the SPICE group and i had some more time to kill so i sat and journaled my thoughts :)

i was proud that i found the building even though it was within five min. walking from the train station. it felt good to know i was where i was supposed to be.

i found the group around 6pm and we got to go inside and tour parliament. it was neat opportunity. i really wish i was politically minded so i could explain what we learned better but to avoid humiliation i think its better if you would look up information on the internet about it. the neatest part was about the berlin wall dividing east and west germany. we got to see where that stood. then we walked over to a famous arch in berlin and called it a night after a delicious cheap pizza and german beer.

sarah and i had to catch a flight to sweden at five in the am the next day (saturday) so we tried to settle into the hotel quite quickly. the night went so fast and before i knew it i was getting ready to head out the door and on the metro to the airport. our flight was on time and we arrived in beautiful sweden around 10 am. we took a bus into stockholm and i remember looking out the window thinking it looked like america. everyone in sweden speaks good english so it was refreshing to be around. we found our hostel quickly and it was a great place to stay. saturday evening we watched swedish tv on couches, ate free swedish candy, and had free coffee from the hostel. we made friends with one of the employees and he taught us a little about swedish culture. i really enjoyed staying at this hostel.

in stockholm we saw: city hall and gamla stan - those were the main two attractions. on gamla stan we saw the palace and a bunch of other cute shops and restaurants.

i'm sure stockholm would be an amazing place if it was a little warmer. we saw a lot of outdoor activities taking place so i would definitely come back to do some nature-related things but because the ice was half melted it was difficult to either ice skate or take a boat tour. it was simply the wrong time of year to go... maybe that is why our flight was so cheap. either way i really enjoyed my time there :)

stay tuned for a blog about denmark tomorrow! time to go to sleep! our spice group is taking a field trip to rotterdam!