(Thought that I had beat the jet lag until yesterday when I slept in till 3:00pm, and right now its 4:40am and I have been awake for a little over an hour)
Where to begin! So much has happened the last few days its hard to imagine writing it all down.
From the beginning though:
I left Minneapolis Tuesday morning and it was a nice 38/3 degrees out. Flew into Charlotte, NC and had a 6 hour lay over. Then the flight was delayed 2 and a half hours--we were now leaving at 9:00pm. No big deal.
We boarded at 9pm, and then sat. And sat. And sat some more. Our flight did not take off till 3:30 in the morning as we had one problem after another. First, our door would not close all the way. This problem took a good three hours, maybe a bit more. Then, a woman on the plane had a major panic/anxiety attack and had to be take off the plane (we had just started to taxi too!), so we turned around and did that, only to be told that our crew's time had expired and we needed to wait for a new one. This is around 1:30am, and we are all tired and cranky and quite hungry. The wait time for a new crew? 2 hours, if not more.
Everyone got fairly angry, but the captain said that we could leave the plane BUT we would have to reboard as a large group, and not individually get back on the plane. In addition, he made sure to add that all of the food places in the airport had closed, and that if we wanted food, we had better stay on board. I stayed, ate, and fell asleep. I woke up briefly to note the time we took off, but I was asleep again before we even got in the air. We were 9 hours late to London, and thank goodness that I had a 13 hour layover, though my plans to head into London proper were ruined.
The one main positive of that whole voyage is that I met the most wonderful woman. She made the whole experience tolerable. She was my seatmate, and we had lovely talks about just about everything. She told me all about southern cooking, laughed hard and called me a Yank when I said that I consider Indiana to be part of the South, and was just lovely company. She was on her way to visit her sick daughter in London, and was really not pleased about the delay in getting to see her.
Got to London safe and sound after that, and then just hung out at the airport for a few hours while I waited for my next flight. Flew RyanAir to Stockholm which was kind of a funny flight. Every ten minutes, flight attendants came down the aisle selling all sorts of things. They even sold smoke-less cigarettes on board! I was quite amused. Sat next to a Swedish girl who was quite funny, and we had a nice time.
Finally got to Stockholm at 11:30pm, and was met there by a friend from high school who did an exchange at South my senior year. I have been staying at her house since I arrived in Stockholm and have had a great time. Her family has been lovely, and my friend, Helle, has been doing a great job at showing me around.
The first day here (Thursday), I went to her high school. What I still find strange is that even though she is 6 months older then me, she is just graduating from high school, yet I have had 2 years of university already. They start school later here, and her year at my high school did not count for her, so she had to repeat a year.
Her high school is so different than mine was. People wandered the halls, came in late, had small class sizes, had WINDOWS!!! which was pretty awesome if you know my high school, and overall just had a much more relaxed feeling. Their cafeteria was really good too, better than that of my university even. Side note: I love bubbly water!!!!!!!
I have had a lot of fun just people watching, as people dress so different here, and hair styles are also not like those that I am used to. I have seen very few girls with hair that is shoulder length or shorter---it makes my short hair stand out quite a bit! Guys wear cardigans, big '70s style glasses, and a decent amount have long hair. Another note--Everyone is fairly thin. There are a few exceptions, but they are that, exceptions. Very strange for me.
On that first day, Helle and I also went into Stockholm, which is where the pictures from the last post are from. As you can see, it was cloudy and it was a bit chilly. Still, it was nice and we had a good time. That evening it was her school's talent show and that was quite fun to see. I had the house to myself afterward for a bit but went to bed fairly early.
Friday was another fun, busy day (though a bit stressful but I will get to that soon enough). Went to Helle's school again, but I had plans to meet up with a friend in Stockholm. We were to meet at the McDonalds inside of T-Centralen, the central station. I managed to train/subway to Stockholm with no problem, but could not find the McDonalds. After finally figuring it out that I had to follow the underground path there, and then go up a floor, I found it. However, I did not find my friend. The McDonalds was packed with a huge line coming out of it. Here is the part of the story that is my fault. I had understood that we were meeting outside of McDonalds but I found out much later that my friend was waiting inside for me. Well, I looked and looked and could not find him. Then I got the brilliant idea that he might be waiting at the entrance outside of the McDonalds. I head outside, but there is construction in the way. After this, I just get lost.
I go in search of a phone, but when I find one, I learn that I need a phone card. Lots more stumbling around random streets until I find a place that sells me a phone card. Then I cannot find another public phone (not sure how I found the first one) and I realize that I do not have his phone number on me. So then I search for an internet cafe, or somewhere with wifi so that I can get his number off facebook. About an hour later, I get to a 7-11 that doubles as an internet cafe. Get his number, but then am back at square one: Where can I call him from? By this time, its 1:30pm, an hour and a half after we were supposed to meet. I am stressing out and I feel bad that I made him wait around for me. Head to a post office and they let me use their phone. I call, but then.......he doesn't pick up.
I basically just gave up then and managed to find t-centralen again and subway-ed/train-ed my way back to Helle's school. I find out from her that he waited until 1:30 or a bit after for me---I feel so terrible!!! He and Helle were texting back and forth trying to figure out what had happened to me and what to do next. I made it there and back safe, but my plans completely failed. How did people live without cellphones??? This day made me appreciate mine so much more.
That night, it was one of Helle's friend's birthday. We had dinner at his house, and then we all headed to Stockholm and went to a bar which translated, is "The Farm". It was 80's pop and synth night so of course it was good. Had a nice time just sitting back and listening to all of the Swedish being spoken around me. It was really chill, and reminded me of a pub in Winnipeg, just much smaller.
Saturday was not much of a day. My jet lag caught up with me and I only woke up because Helle's mother came to make sure I was okay and not passed out unconscious on the floor or something. The time? 3:00pm. I slept for 13 hours, and as Helle was at work, no one woke me up to do stuff. Had a nice dinner though, and we went for a short historical drive where I saw some rune stones and an old church. Thats one thing about Minnesota and the US in general--We do not have much preserved history. The oldest building in Minnesota is Fort Snelling, which is from the mid 1800's. These rune stones that are all over are from the 1100's. I passed buildings which were originally built in the 1500's. I reflected about this when I was in Wales two summers ago, but I was reminded once more while I was here.
Last night I went with Helle to a sunset viewing slash picnic slash hangout slash I-don't-Know-what thingy. It was beautiful. We were on a big rock lookout where we could see the sun set over the water, and could see lots of Stockholm as we were pretty high up. It got cold pretty fast when the sun went down so we headed to a packed cafe for a bit. Came home, went to bed and woke up 3, maybe 4 hours later. Once again, jet lag you have gotten the better of me! Which is how this post has finally been written. Its 6 am here, but I have been awake since a bit after 3am and have been on and off writing this post. Heading to Russia this afternoon which is pretty dang exciting. Random embarrassing thing: tried to check in for my flight to Russia on Friday afternoon as you can check in up to 22 hours before. It did not work and said "Could not find passenger" which worried me. Called them, and they could not figure out the problem until the operator noted that I did not leave until Sunday, and not Saturday like I have been thinking for the last month. Oops. So had an extra day in Stockholm, even if I spent most of it sleeping.
Sorry for the ridiculously long post! The next one will probably be photos, and then the next will be coming from Russia.
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