But for the rest of us, the sovereign freedom of traveling comes from the fact that it whirls you around and turns you upside down, and stands everything you took for granted on its head.
So Easter Break was an absolutely amazing week! My friend Neha who is student teaching in Spain and I went to Dublin and Stockholm for the week. Originally we were also supposed to go to Helsinki for a day, but long story short, some plans fell through and we ended up spending 4 days in Stockholm instead. We did so much in one week and it would be way too much to write about it all so I’ll just give a brief description of my week. (warning: not brief at all, longest post ever, feel free to not read)
Sunday, April 17
On Sunday I got up early (after staying up super late with Kristina and Jenni) and packed my stuff up and got ready to go. Jenni and Kristina made me a delicious breakfast before I left which was so nice! Then they walked me to the bus stop around 10 and I set off for my vacation (after we nearly teared up just having to leave each other for a week…not sure how we’re going to survive after we go home!) Then I spent the entire day on planes, in airports, and on buses until I finally met up with Neha in Dublin at 8:00 p.m. We spent about an hour trying to find our hostel (only to find out we had passed it 4 times already) and then spent some time walking around Dublin. We were both exhausted so we didn’t do much that night. We did get Subway though, which I was thrilled about J I have really been missing my American fast food!!
Monday, April 18
On Monday, we decided we would set out to concquer as much of Dublin as possible on foot. First stop: Guinness Brewery. We spent about 3 hours in the factory (although the guide said it would only take about an hour to an hour and a half…) and got to see stuff about how they brew Guinness. While we were there, we learned how to pour the perfect pint and got to practice…we even passed and got a certificate! Then we went up to the sky bar and happened to meet up with some Norwegians that had been sitting behind us on the bus the night before. They also happened to be teachers and were eavesdropping on our whole conversation the night before without telling us that they were also from Norway…real sweet. Anyways, we talked to them for awhile and then headed out. We also may or may not have eaten Subway in the bathroom of the brewery because we were too cheap to buy food…oh well. Next we stopped at the Brazen Head which is the oldest pub in Ireland. We even left a dollar bill there with our names on it that said we love Iowa, so if you ever get the chance to go there, make sure to look for it. Then we went shopping for awhile, got some super cheap stuff, went to the castle and a couple churches, and walked around a lot more of Dublin. At night we headed out to a couple Irish pubs and even met some Irish girls that we hung out with for most of the night. It was a good time! We may or may not have had McDonalds twice in 24 hours also….whoops. I never eat McDonalds at home but for some reason I crave it here!
Tuesday, April 19
Tuesday was a beautiful day and we decided to start it off with fish and chips for lunch. We ate them in the park at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and it was delicious! We spent a little time just relaxing in the sun and then we headed out for some more sightseeing. We went and walked through Trinity College and walked around more of Dublin. (we did A LOT of walking this week) Then we happened to stumble into a little Irish pub with a guy playing the guitar and singing and he just happened to sing Galway Girl while we were there…and I may have about died. (if anyone doesn’t know, this is the song Gerard Butler sings to Hilary Swank in P.S. I love you) Then we took a bus and went outside of Dublin a little bit to see Killiney and Don Laoghaire (another place from P.S. I love you) and I may have just found out that the pub we went to in Dublin was the one that they filmed the pub scenes of P.S. I love you in…and I didn’t know that til about 20 seconds ago!! So moral of the story, I love that movie, and I was in heaven. I forgot to mention I also listened to the soundtrack the entire day Sunday to get prepared for my trip. Then that evening we headed to the airport around 11 because we had a 1 a.m. flight to Stockholm.
Wednesday, April 20
We arrived in Latvia around 6 a.m. and went outside to get a picture with the sign (just to prove we had been there) Then we eventually arrived in Stockholm around 11 a.m. We were exhausted so we checked into our hostel and took a little nap. Then we walked around our area for a little while and got some pizza…which the guy put a heart on and eyed Neha the entire time we were eating. (super awkward for her, hilarious for me) We met a lot of people from all over in our hostel and had some interesting conversations with them.
Thursday, April 21
Today we had to move to our new hostel which just happened to be in a very inconvenient location from everything else in Stockholm but it was located right next to a metro station so that was good. Our day started off a little rough because Neha lost her 24 hr train pass about an hour after buying it (Neha, if you’re reading this, sorry for mentioning it…I know you’re still bitter about it, but don’t forget you’re not allowed to mention it anymore) Let’s just say, this was just the beginning of a few of our struggles we had with Stockholm that week. We spent most of Thursday doing some shopping (and trying on ridiculous outfits) which was a pretty good time! We also went to Gamla Stan which is the “Old Town” part of Stockholm and walked around for awhile. The buildings were beautiful and it was a really neat area to see. The Royal Palace is also located there. When we got back to our hostels, we realized we didn’t have towels and the owner was gone for the night. Therefore, we got the pleasure of using a T-Shirt as a towel…this just added to the fact of how dirty we were feeling by this time of the week from wearing the same clothes all the time. Ohhh the joys of travelling. Anyways, we went out at night and hung out with some people from New York, Germany, and Sweden.
Friday, April 22
This morning we got to experience another struggle with Stockholm. First of all, we saw this pamphlet about the hop on hop off boat and thought it would be fun because it would take us to all of the major sites and we would get to go on a boat. Well, we failed to read the date correctly and later found out that it didn’t open for the season til the next Friday. We found out there was a hop on hop off bus we could take instead but then we thought “meh, who needs that” so we decided we would try to walk Stockholm by ourselves instead…and I’ll say we did pretty well! We literally spent the next 8 hours walking anywhere we could in Stockholm and seeing as much as possible. We did take some time to relax near the water for awhile, though! One thing we did on Friday was go to the Vasa Museum, which everyone said was a must. The museum is for the Vasa which was a ship that ank in the Stockholm harbor in 1628 and they reconstructed the ship and it’s in the museum. The museum was all about the ship and what happened and it was really interesting! We spent awhile there reading everything and took about a million pictures (most of them funny). Also, while we were waiting in line for the museum, I just happened to run into my roommate from Norway who was there with her family! Completely random considering Stockholm is huge!! That night we went to the Ice Bar in Stockholm which is the oldest one and that was a pretty good time! Then we headed out for the night and ended up meeting a really cool girl from England who was living in Sweden for the year.
Saturday, April 23
On Saturday, we woke up at 9:30 a.m. but were completely convinced it was 10:30. (our roommates failed to tell us what time it was after hearing us freak out about waking up an hour later than planned) The time zones are really screwing with our heads! Anyways, we had our next struggle with Stockholm today…and this one is the worst. It’s still a bitter topic. Long story short, we booked a tour to see the Archipelago Islands around Stockholm on a boat (stupid boats) and we missed our tour. We were given incorrect directions and got lost and realized we had missed it when we saw the boat come sailing by…pretttyyy frustrating. Well it took us awhile to recover emotionally, but we decided to make the most of our day anyway, which included taking a lot of dorky pictures while perfecting the self timer, eating ice cream, going to the dalahorse museum, and walking around a lot more. It ended up being a really good day, but started out rough. That night we didn’t want to do much because Neha had an early flight the next morning, so we just walked around our hostel area and took about 100 pics. Then we had one last struggle with Stockholm…by locking our padlock keys in our locker. We both had a set in our purses but we stupidly put our purses in the locker and locked it. Therefore, our hostel owner got the pleasure of cutting our padlock for us…whoops. Stockholm was absolutely beautiful, but it wasn’t so good to us!
Sunday, April 24
We had to get up early and head to the airport because Neha had a flight at 7:30 a.m. Mine wasn’t til 11:30, but I’m not very good with directions so I didn’t want to risk having to get to the airport by myself so I went with her at 5:15 a.m. I spent all day travelling again and got back to Rosendal at 7 p.m. to be greeted by my lovely roommates! They had dinner and hugs prepared for me when I came in the door. Easter dinner consisted of Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, and corn…it was delicious!
All in all, it was a great week. I’m very happy to be home with clean clothes and a towel again. We had a lot of laughs and struggles along the way, but it was awesome. I got my fill of fast food, and will be good for my last week in Norway. I was only gone for a week and I missed Rosendal and my roommates so much, so I don’t know how I’m going to manage at home! I’m really missing everyone at home a lot too, though, and can’t believe we have graduation already. I apologize for writing the longest blog either, and I’m really impressed if you read the whole thing. I honestly wrote it more for my own good so I can remember in the future! I’m going to try to add a post of a bunch of my pics from the week but my blog has been difficult recently and hasn’t been letting me add any.
We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again -- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more. – Pico Iyer
