Christmas Bells

Alright, so it's not close to Christmas. It's not even December yet. But at least in Bath, it feels like it's Christmas. I've started to allow myself to listen to Christmas music (although only in small batches at a time, so I don't grow too sick of it too fast). And considering the week I have ahead of me, I feel like I'm entitled to soaking up any extra joy (holiday related or not) while I can.
This past week was mostly another uneventful, homework focused week. I finished my first paper (for my Jane Austen class) and while it's never really fun to write a paper, I actually had a lot of fun researching this one. Granted, that's because my research consisted of watching scenes from the 1940, 1995, and 2005 adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, as well as listening to I Love You Because. If only all research was like this. The other academic 'highlight' of this week was that we had to be off book for our Late 20th Century British Drama class. (I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned this yet - we've spent the second half of the semester for this class putting together a night of scenes from some of the plays we read in the first half of the class. So, I'm performing and stuff.) Getting off book is a huge pain, especially when all of your rehearsal time happens during your once-a-week class so you've run everything maybe twice before you have to get off book, but at least it's good practice. Or something.
Thursday was an interesting day. While it was Thanksgiving back home in the States, here in England it was just another Thursday. The morning was a bit rough, since I had to get ready for and head to class instead of lazying around in my pajamas watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. But, it was what I had to do and I tried not to think about it too much. After my classes ended, the day got better as I headed over to the Bath Christmas lighting ceremony. (Obviously, Bath missed the memo that you're supposed to switch on the city's Christmas lights the day after Thanksgiving, on actually on Thanksgiving.) The whole celebration started arouond 4:30, but we didn't get there until 5:45 ish. And it was crowded. We had to do a lot of walking and maneuvering to get onto the street, but we made it work. Since we got there later, we were really far from the stage, but they had a screen up so those of us that were farther away could still see. We waited around in the cold while they played music, dancing and jumping on each other's backs, until Father Christmas came onstage to say hello to the people of Bath. Then Nicolas Cage came on. (Yes, that Nicolas Cage. He owns a home in Bath and apparently really loves the city.) A lot of people from other towns had driven into Bath to see him and there was obviously a lot of screaming. (Me, I'm not a fan. But it was still cool.) He switched on the Christmas lights, they played 'All I Want for Chirstmas is You', and everything was happy.
After the lights were switched on, we headed over to City of Bath College for our ASE Thanksgiving Dinner! Because ASE is so fantastic (and consists of entirely American students who all celebrate Thanksgiving), each year ASE hosts a dinner for the ASE family. It really is incredibly sweet and gives us a piece of home while we're still across the ocean. Before dinner started, Barbara (the head of ASE) pardoned a turkey, just like the President does. (Only hers was a stuffed animal. But I still wonder if he got to go to  Disneyland.) So we had turkey and pie and everything (plus free wine and tea). Lots of food babies were made that night. Some other highlights of the dinner were the slideshow of Thanksgiving images that was playing throughout the evening (my favorite was a picture picture of a turkey holding an American flag - only the flag was backwards) and having an extensive conversation with Barbara about the correct way to make English tea. After dinner, Clarendon Villas had a pajama party and watched Clueless with our food babies. Then I got to skype with Anna and Erica together in New York, so I got to have some family on Thanksgiving. It certainly wasn't a traditional Thanksgiving, but it ended up being a really good day.
Friday morning I had to wake up bright and early (which really wasn't fair after the long and food-filled night before) for my Jane Austen 'study trip'. It was a rough start, especially since after waking up way too early we had to wait in the rain for the bus to show up for over twenty minutes. But once we got started, the day got better. We first went to Chawton Village in Hampshire and went to Chawton Manor. It was owned by Austen's brother Edward Knight (he changed his name so he could inherit the estate) and she would come visit the house when he lived there. We got a tour of the house and then went into the library. A couple of years ago, the house was turned into library focusing on women's writing in English from 1600 to 1830 (because of Jane Austen and such). We got to look around and see all of these awesome and gorgeous old books. The next stop was Chawton Cottage - Austen's home (given to her, her mother, and sister by her brother on his estate) where she revised or wrote all of her major works. There was an amazing gift shop, a 'learning centre' with really awesome Austen-related games (like Snakes and Ladders!), and then the house itself. The house was filled with actual items from when Jane lived in the house (including her writing table!!), furniture that would have been in the house, pictures all over the wall, and plenty of Regency costumes (and I lovvee Regency costume). It was soo cool to wander around the house and get a feel (even with all of the extra things around the house) of what life must have been like for Jane. The last stop for our journey was Winchester, the city where Jane lived for the last two months of her life and died. (She moved there from Chawton to get better and more consistent medical attention.) We visited the house where she lived, which has a convenient little plaque, but we couldn't go in because it's privately owned. Then we visited Winchester Cathedral and saw her grave, as well as the plaque added a number of years later to commemorate her literary achievements. We had a little time to wander around before we got back on the bus, so we wandered around Winchester's Christmas Market and I got some delicious hot spiced apple juice. It had a rough start, but it ended up being a really good day. I mean, it was all about Jane Austen.
Saturday was homework day, but not without some distractions. First of all, I got a new British haircut. My boss at the theatre had given me a recommend-a-friend-half-off card and my mom kinda talked me into it, so I figured why not. Plus, I can now offically call my bangs 'fringe', which makes me really happy. (As I was talking with the stylist about what I wanted, I mentioned my bangs and she was like, you mean your fringe? Right - haha.) It was pretty crazy walking to the hair salon and then over to Nelson House (to do more work. wha-wah) because I was walking right through the Christmas market. Apparently it's a very British thing to host a Christmas market downtown with lots of cute little wooden stalls so you can buy all of your Christmas gifts together. Or whatever. And they go all out. There was even a carousel in the middle of the street. The streets were absolutely packed. And a little later in the day I headed over to Bath Abbey (which is right in the middle of all of the Christmas stalls) with some friends for a 'Shopper's Carols Mini-Service' and the church was packed. The Brits really go all out for their Christmas - even though it's not even December yet.
My favourite British Christmas sighting, though, happened inside Marks and Spencers (a department store). As I walked through the store, I saw a guy handing out gift catalogues. And he was dressed like a shiny Christmas turkey. That's right, a turkey. Silly Brits.

Pumpin' Up the Party

After being in Bath for two and a half months, I finally made it to the namesake of this blog - the Pump Room. I had always figured that I would make it to the Pump Room either one of the first weeks I was here - because it is one of the things to see in Bath - or one of the last weeks - because I would keep telling myself that there was still more time to go and would keep putting it off. But today when I went downstairs for breakfast, my housemate Courtney said we should go. And considering I'm swamped in paper work right now, I was ready for any homework break, especially one as perfect as this.
I feel like I should give a bit of the history of the Pump Room, just so you know why it was so exciting. Back in the day (it opened in 1795, to be exact), when Bath was a super fashionable resort town, was the social heart of Bath. It was a place to 'see and be seen'. It's quite a swanky place. And to make it even more exciting, they go to the Pump Room in Persuasian and Northanger Abbey! So as we headed to the Pump Room, visions of Jane Austen and Regency costume danced in my head.
Sadly, I wasn't wearing an empire gown when I got to the Pump Room, but even so, it totally fulfilled all of my expectations. For one thing, there was the Pump Room Trio (consisting of a piano, violin, and cello) playing the entire time we were there. And then there was a giant chandelier in the middle of the room. The walls were artfully decorated with paintings and had giant beautiful windows. Really, it's just gorgeous inside.
The four of us sat down for some (slightly overpriced, but it was okay because we were at the Pump Room). After we placed our order - mine was English Breakfast tea and scones, naturally - my friend Claire and I ventured over to the fountain at the side of the room. Bath is (obviously) named for its famous healing baths and in the Pump Room, you can pay 50p for a glass of the spring mineral water. It was warm and with a slight metallic taste, but not as bad as I had expected. And who knows - maybe its magical healing powers will make me super healthy or even invincible. Or, not.
Our tea came and was delicious. There really is nothing better than going out for a cream tea. I wish we had cream teas in America, just because they are so fantastic. Plus, you feel so classy - especially when you're sitting in the Pump Room. We gossiped (because after all, that's what you do in the Pump Room), talked about 'Classical Kids', and had fun soaking up the atmosphere.
Of course, before we left, my friends made me take a turn around the room. At least, as far as I could walk without running into anything. Even without the Regency dress, this afternoon was like a look back into the world of Jane Austen.

Brand New Day

Sorry I've been slacking on the blogging front. But, I've also been slacking on the homework front, so don't take it personally.
The weekend after we got back from Stratford was full of homework. Since I had done barely any homework for pretty much a week and a half, I had a lot of work to catch up on. Fun times. But, the weekend was made more exciting by hanging out with the girls of Clarendon Villas. We've always gotten along as a house, but never really spent a lot of time together as a whole. But since coming back from fall break, we've started spending more time together. Who knows the reason why - maybe we missed each other when we were traveling our separate ways or something else, but whatever the reason, it's been pretty great. And in addition to just hanging out around the house, we decided that on Saturday night we would have a house dinner and 'sleepover'. So, Taco Night was born! Even though I'm not a huge Mexican food person, it's just in my blood, being from California and all, and I have missed it. So we made tacos, drank Coronas, and sat around and talked. Then we watched ' Shakespeare in Love' (extra fitting after going to Stratford and seeing Twelfth Night). It wasn't anything extravagant, but it was really nice. I love these girls. And, it was a great break from the homework.
Speaking of homework ( wah-wah), that's taken up the bulk of my time and attention this week. The second set of paper weeks is quickly approaching - I have my first paper due next Tuesday. (ASE for some reason decided it would be a good idea to make us have four papers - one for each class - due in the same two week period. Twice during the semester.) It's been a little rough because it seems like barely any time has passed since our first papers were due. It doesn't seem right to be working on new papers. But I'm working. And hopefully I'll make it through these two weeks, not die, and write some fairly decent papers.
The only thing I've really had going on this week has been my internship. Beasts and Beauties, the show I'm working on, is opening really soon. (Ironically, the same week I have three papers due. Like I said, I'm hoping not to die.) Wednesday's rehearsal made me smile because it reminded me of my childhood days doing shows with RCT (Riverside Children's Theatre). YPT (the group I'm interning with) is in a lot of ways quite different from RCT, but there are still a number of similarities between the two that come from working with kids and theatre. And it was just extra amusing for me to listen to the 'we open in two weeks speech', where all of the kids start freaking out, and the classic 'I'm disappointed speech' to try and make the kids behave during rehearsals. And on that note, I just want to apologize to all of my RCT directors and supervisors for being an incredibly talkive kid growing up.
This weekend has consisted of more homework time. Really exciting, trust me. But, on the bright side, I did get to talk to my newly-hired-and-newly-engaged sister, as well as watch 'Dr. Horrible' and eat Indian food with my house girls last night. And apparently, tonight I have an old movie movie night to look forward to, so life's not horrible.

Dream On

This week was one of the highlights of ASE. Why, you ask? We went to Stratford-upon-Avon! (Apparently, it's not called Stratford-upon-Avon because it is on the river Avon. The town got its name because it was built on top of the ancient city of Avon. Or, not.) Now I had already been to Stratford for the day with my Shakespeare class, but it was so exciting to be there again. And extra fun to be there with all of my friends that aren't in the class so we could be Shnerd together. (Our staff member Jonathan, who also made up that story about Stratford, decided to call us Shakespeare nerds, or Shnerds for short.)
We left Bath early in the morning (alright, 9, but that's still early) and got to Stratford-upon-Avon around 11, 11:30. While in Stratford we stayed in a couple of bed and breakfasts which were all on the same street, so when we arrived we went to our individual B&Bs and got settled in. My B&B ( Adelphi, for those of you who are planning a trip to Stratford any time soon) was adorable! The owners were so sweet, the rooms were super cute (mine was even decorated in turquoise - my favourite colour), and we got a really excellent free breakfast. I ended up rooming with two girls that I didn't know very well, but it actually was nice to have the opportunity to get to know some other people in the program better (slash be forced to?).
After we got settled in to our B&Bs, we took a tour of the town. It was more of a refresher for me, since my class did a tour when we were there, but it was still really exciting to walk around and see everything. And I also got to see all of these sights with my friends who were seeing it all for the first time, so we could Shnerd out together. For lunch, we went to 'The Food of Love' which I had been waiting to go to since I first went to Stratford. It made me smile. (Plus, the food was good and pretty cheap, which was also a bonus.) It was also really cute because they had pictures and prints from old productions of Twelfth Night on the wall since, you know, that's where the line's from. Then we headed off to Town Hall. Since this was a school trip and all, we had a lecture we had to go to every day. It actually made a lot of sense to have these lectures to give people background on the shows we were going to see and then to have an opportunity to talk about the productions afterwards. I just wish they had been shorter. But at least the Town Hall had a list on the wall of all of the old mayors of the town, so there was something to read if we got bored.
When the lecture finished around 4, I raced over to the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archives. Why, you might ask. Well, the short story is I'm a giant nerd. The longer version is that two summers ago, my friend got me obessed with Carrie, the musical. Yes, that Stephen King Carrie. For whatever reason, someone thought it would be a good idea to turn Carrie into a musical. It wasn't. It turned out to be one of the most infamous Broadway flops ever. And I find it utterly hysterical and really fascinating. I could go on and on about all of the horrific details, but the show's basically one bad decision after another that you simply can't help but laugh. And the Stratford connection is that the show premiered in Stratford for its out-of-town tryout. The RSC keeps really great archives of all of its shows, so I was able to look at the program, the reviews (which are incredibly amusing in their bashing of the show), and best of all, a recording of the show itself, in all of its ridiculous glory. I was in Carrie heaven.
Of course, I had some problems getting into the archives. I got there a little after 4, but faced a challenge. The Library and Archives share a door with Shakespeare's Birthplace, which closes its doors at 4. I figured the library had to be open until at least 5, so I kept frantically trying door after door, in hopes that one of them would work. Thankfully, the doors were made of glass, so the security guard opened one of the doors to see what I want. I was able to convince him that I wasn't a crazy person and that I was there for the archives. He took me upstairs to talk with the very nice librarians. I had a little less than an hour before the library closed, but I was able to come back Wednesday as well. And even that brief amount of time was really exciting because I was watching Carrie.
After I left the library, I met back up with my friends, went to dinner, and then went to the RSC Courtyard Theatre. I was super excited because we were seeing Twelfth Night, which is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays! And I loved this production. First of all, it was absolutely gorgeous. It was set in 19th century Illyria - the real Illyria (which is modern day Albania, so Mediterranean). The set had this stunning bright blue sky and a wave made out of wooden planks. My favourite set piece was a literal box-tree that flew down for the 'box-tree scene', naturally. And the costumes were amazing. There was a great mix of brightly coloured Mediterranean clothing and English, Edwardian clothing. The actors were also amazing. My favourite was Viola. There was just something about her - this sense of playfulness throughout her performance that I really loved. My least favourite part of the show was the Malvolio, who was some famous British TV actor. He was alright, but I didn't really feel for him and the Malvolio plotline has the potential to be really unnerving, but it didn't feel like that big of a deal, mostly because of his performance. But that's alright, but Viola's really my favourite anyways.
We hung out in front of the theatre for a bit after the show, being Shnerds and discussing the production. As we were outside, we saw the actors who played Orsino, Feste, and Viola (all of which were amazing) and we spent a long time trying to decide if we should go up and talk to them. We probably should have, but we didn't want to be 'those awkward kids'. Plus, we were freaking out a little too much just standing there looking at them, so it might have been for the best. Maybe. Then we headed over to the Dirty Duck, the after show hang out spot for the RSC. We didn't get to meet any actors here either, though, because the pub is divided into two rooms so that the actors can have a place to hang out without getting bothered all of the time, which makes sense. At least we were able to see into the other room across the bar. The rest of the pub was mostly filled with ASE people, so we hung out with other kids and the staff members who were on the trip (who are all quite funny and fun people).
Wednesday we had our delicious free B&B breakfasts and headed off to Town Hall to talk about the show. Then, we had some free play time. We decided we would go first to Anne Hathaway's Cottage, the old family home of Shakespeare's wife and one of the offical 'Shakespeare properties'. Claire, one of our staff members, said she would walk us there since it was kind of a long and slightly confusing walk. It was such a gorgeous walk and we had a lot of fun just joking around. We even found mistletoe and a bunch of ducks (many of them were quite dirty). And Anne Hathaway's cottage is just adorable. It just looks so picturesque. And it's so Tudor. The house was filled with lots of cool things from its history and the people working there were quite talkative and full of little stories about the house and the family. The grounds of the house were also incredible. I wish we had more time to explore and see more of the garden, but because of our short time in Stratford, we had to cram a lot into our free time. But, we did get to see the Willow Cabin! The 'willow cabin' speech is one of my all time favourites (from Twelfth Night, naturally) and the garden has a its own Willow Cabin where actors will perform Shakespeare passages. But in the summer, not autumn. Still, it made me smile lots.
We left the Cottage and make the trek back to the center of town. Our next stop was Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare used to go to church as a boy and where he's buried. I was really Shnerdily excited about this because last year I did a paper about whether William Shakespeare of Stratford actually wrote all of the plays and poems. One of the big pieces of evidence that those who believe Shakespeare didn't write the plays use is his grave, because it has a really crude and sloppy poem on the gravestone. So it was really neat to get to see this poem and grave that I had heard so much about. Plus, you know, it was Shakespeare's grave.
I branched off again to head to the Library and finish up my Carrie time. When I was finished, I picked up a quick sandwich at the 'As You Like It Cafe' (another place I had been waiting to go to) and headed off to meet the rest of ASE to get on our bus to Birmingham. Usually during the Stratford trip, ASE sees two or three RSC shows. But since two of the three theatres are currently under construction, it worked out that only Twelfth Night was playing in Stratford while we were there. So, they decided we should go see Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray ballet in Birmingham. It kinda sucked to go to another city and have less time to spend in Stratford, but I was grateful to see another free show. It was also kinda awkward once we got to Birmingham because we had two hours to spend in a brand new city before the show started. We ended up getting dinner and then reading aloud Shakespeare's sonnets (two of my friends had just bought pocket copies of the sonnets), because really, why not. So we got to keep being Shnerds even though we had left Stratford for the night.
Now, you may be really confused by the idea of Dorian Gray - the ballet. And it was incredibly interesting, to say the least. Probably the best way to describe it is to call it a Matthew Bourne production (he choreographed the famous all male Swan Lake Swan Lake.) It was a modern take on the story, so Dorian was a model and the 'picture' was a billboard, so it had a lot to say about fame and celebrity. There was also lots of half-naked-ness and sex scenes (especially with the boys - I think Oscar Wilde would have approved), so there were a couple of people in our group that were offended or bothered. It was a modern ballet, more a ballet in terms of dance telling a story instead of classical ballet steps, but the technique and dancing was incredible. There were some changes they made to the story that I felt weakened it a little, but overall I really loved it and it certainly was interesting.
Thursday was the last day of our trip. After one more delicious free breakfast, we packed up and went to one more lecture/discussion. We only had a little free time after the lecture so we headed over to a park on th Avon, right next to the main RSC buildings (which are under construction). It was nice to just wander and relax, plus play with Shakespeare statues and torment all of the ducks, geese, and swans. Then, no visit is ever complete without that last trip to the gift shop. It felt like a very appropriate way to end our Stratford trip.
On our way back to Bath, we made a short trip to Warwick Castle. In a way, the trip was really cool because it was the first castle I've seen since I've been here. But, it was also kinda lame because it was a very commericalized castle. They had a scary dungeon tour that you had to pay to go on, there were gift shops everywhere, and one of the towers had been converted into the 'Princess Tower'. (I might have been more okay with that part except they wouldn't let any of us into the 'Princess Tower', just the gift shop. Plus, the tower they used is the one that's supposed to be haunted. And I wanted to see the haunted tower.) It was neat to walk along the walls and such, but it would have been nicer if we had been there for a shorter amount of time. And if it hadn't started getting rainy. Thankfully, we got into the bus just a few minutes before it really started coming down, but we still had a decent amount of misty water to walk through.
Still, our Stratford trip was amazing. In the words of Reefer Madness, 'Shakespeare!'

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?

So I spent all of my 'blog time' last week writing about my fall break adventures that I didn't get the chance to talk about what was actually going on. And since I spent all of my coherent-blog-writing-efforts of the last post, I apologize for the general scatterbrain-ness and lack of structure that accompanies this blog.
This whole last week has been very Bath-tastic. Which was sooo nice. After either being holed up in my house/the library trying to write papers or going off and exploring other cities and countries, it was great to have the opportunity to enjoy Bath and relax.
On Halloween night, after getting back from Scandinavian travels, I went to a showing of Rocky Horror with my roommate and one of our housemates at Komedia, a club in Bath. It was wayyy more low-key than American showings of Rocky Horror (I'm not sure if that is just an English thing or only relates to the showing we went to), but that was actually kinda nice since we were all recuperating from our European travels and didn't have much time or resources to pull together some awesome costumes.
Monday was my housemate Claire's 21st birthday! When we were all done with classes, all of the girls in my house went to Mai Thai, this Thai restaurant right by our study center that a couple of us have been waiting to go to since we first got to Bath. It wasn't anything big or fancy, but it was fun to have all eight of us girls together after we spent over a week apart and traveling. There was lot of joking and insulting (of the loving variety) and giggling. And since Claire was turning 21, we made a not-so-quick stop at the grocery store for her to buy her first bottle of wine as a 21 year old. It took way longer than we expected, but she did make an exellent choice of wine. So then we moved our party to the house dining room and had cake and wine. It really was the theme of this week that things weren't super fancy, but they were actually really nice because they were so simple.
The weekend was, again, more of the simple same. This weekend was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and I had really really wanted to go to Germany this weekend, but for a number of reasons the plans fell through. I was disappointed, but as cool as it would have been to be in Berlin that weekend, I was so glad to be in Bath. It was so nice to just sit and breathe and spend time with my friends here. Thursday night my British Drama class went to see a production of Harold Pinter's The Caretaker with fancy man Jonathan Pryce at the Theatre Royal Bath which was quite excellent. (The one downside to this is that Thursday was Guy Fawkes Day - the 5th of November. I'm not a fireworks fan, so I was fine missing out on that, but it was just unfortunate timing that we missed out on experiencing this uniquely British holiday.) Then Saturday I went out to tea! I can't believe I've only been out for a fancy 'cream tea' twice since I've been in England, since it's pretty much the best thing in the world. This time, I went with a group of friends up to the tea room at the Jane Austen Centre. (How have I been in Bath this long and not have made it to the Jane Austen Centre?! That's just ridiculous.) It was lot of fun and we got to be girly and have lots of delicious tea. What else is there in the world?
Saturday's adventures continued with an ASE trip up to the Bath University campus. This weekend was their Family Weekend, where they have a carnival and fireworks. Again, I didn't care about the fireworks, but I thought it would be fun and stuff. And it was a lot of fun. Until it started to rain. And I wasn't wearing my wellies. The other girls from my house that had come didn't feel a real need to stay for the fireworks (especially since they might not happen if it kept raining) and our house is, in theory, at the bottom of the hill that the University campus is perched on. So we decided to walk home. Which took us over an hour. Mostly because we got lost (a couple of times), ended up walking down a street a couple blocks away from our own, and stopped at a convenience store because why not. But it was certainly an adventure. And an uniquely Bath adventure at that. When we got home, there were lots of sweatpants and cups of tea to warm us back up.
To cap off this weekend, I went with a couple of girls to see 'An Education' (which was really so fantastic - I highly recommend it). I was really exciting because we were seeing it at the Little Theatre Cinema - the indie movie house in Bath which I hadn't been to yet. It was so adorable and little and made me think of the Majestic at Gettysburg. One of the best parts of the afternoon, though, was buying our tickets and saying 'One student for "An Education"'. Ha! Plus, it was so great to see this movie right now because it takes place in England and there were all of these gorgeous sequences in places we had just visited, like Paris and Oxford. (As you can tell, homework wasn't too prevalent this weekend. In my defense, we don't have classes this week. So I figured I should go out and enjoy myself this weekend, instead of sitting in my room feeling bad as I'm procrastinating on my computer instead of doing my homework.)
So that was my week. Not too exciting, but really quite perfect for this point in the semester. But perhaps my favorite part of the week is that my housemates have officially realized something about me - it is absolutely impossible for to me be quiet. I can't talk quietly (or whisper, for that matter), I can't enter a room quietly (even when I'm trying so hard to be quiet and not wake up my roommate), the list goes on and on. The biggie this house, though, is that I sing loudly. Since the beginning of the semester, I've been trying to find a practice room somewhere in Bath where I can practice singing and at least try to keep my voice in shape. And I've had no luck so far. Which means the shower has turned into my practice room. And my big problem is that, even though I know the walls aren't sound proof and that the shower is only a couple feet away from the dining room, as soon as I get in the shower I feel like I'm in my own private world and no one can hear me sing. There have been a couple of occasions when I've finished my shower to applause outside the door. I do try to be quiet, or a least quiet-ish, and I don't belt, but no matter how hard I try my house will always get a free concert. And it really makes me quiet happy that my housemates are more than willing to tease me about all of this. I love when you reach that point in your relationship when you feel completely free to make fun of each other - that's my favourite.

Taking the Wheel

Let me warn you now - this is going to be a crazy entry. My roommate April and I left for our Scandinavian tour during fall break on the night of Thursday the 22nd and got back home to Bath on Saturday the 31st. So I have a lot of ground to cover, to say the least. My goal is to keep this from not becoming a giant rambling monster with things more or less in chronological order, but that probably won't happen. So don't say you haven't been warned.
Getting ready for break was a little crazy. All of a sudden, it just snuck up on me. Granted, I'd been a little preoccupied with papers, traveling to Paris, seeing Sondre, internship stuff, and everything in between. I ended up having only about 2 1/2 days to really get ready for the trip. I hurried to exchange some money for each country (because each of the three countries have their own, and very similar, currencies - the Norwegian kroner, the Danish kroner, and the Swedish kronor). I also had to buy a new memory card (my old card had about 350 ish pictures, and considering that I had to keep going back and deleting photos so I could keep taking pictures during my weekend in Paris, I knew there was no way I was going to be able to make this memory card last my whole trip). I ended up buying a 4 gig card, which is an obsene amount of memory, because it was actually the cheapest card.
After class on Thursday, April and I rushed back to our house, crammed everything we could into our own backpacks and one suitcase (because it was a lot cheaper to travel with one instead of two) and hopped on our train. Our flight wasn't until Friday morning, but since we were flying on Ryanair (aka the really cheap European airline), we were flying out of the really inconvient airport that takes about 3 hours to get to from Bath. So we headed over Thursday night, spent the night in a guesthouse, and woke up early to get to the airport. And with that, we were on our way.

Oslo, Norway (or, Track You Down)
Thankfully, I was able to sleep for most of the flight to Oslo. Also thankfully, I woke up as the plane started descending, so I got a grand, dramatic first view of Norway/Scandinavia . Now there were definitely some downsides to going to Scandinavia in the fall (it's the off season for tourists so some things were closed or closed earlier, it was waaayyy cold), but the landscape was so incredibly gorgeous that it almost made up for it. The trees were such brilliant colors that it was just stunning. Granted, I know I'm a little obsessed with fall simply because 'seasons' in general is a foreign concept to Southern California . But I promise that this foliage really was impressive, especially looking down from the sky. In addition to the beauty, I was struck with the memory of my Grandpa. My family went to Oslo about 10 years ago (or something like that, I can never remember) because Grandpa wanted us to connect to our heritage. I was so excited for this trip because, being Norwegian and Danish, I had a second opportunity to visit 'the homeland'. In the planning of this trip, I had lots of memories of my first visit to Oslo and Norway, but it wasn't until I looked out that airplane window that I thought of Grandpa. And even though it's been three years since he's passed away, there are moments when it's still hard. So needless to say that snuck up on me and turned me into a hot mess. But it also strengthened my resolve to make the absolute most out of this trip.
We made it out of the airport and took the bus to the center of Oslo (we were even able to get a student price, although the bus company didn't start giving a student discount until about a week later. Good work, traveling American girls). And again, since we flew Ryanair, we were at a fairly inconvenient airport that was about an hour away from Oslo, but it worked out because we got to see some more gorgeous scenery. We made it to the bus terminal just fine and made our way over to the subway station (or T-bane) so we could get to our hostel. We figured there would be somebody at the ticket station that we could talk to so we made sure we got the right tickets. Only...there wasn't. And the self-service ticket machines were old and only in Norwegian. Um, alright. We kept walking back and forth across the station hoping we would find somebody to help or that some answer would magically appear. It didn't. So after wandering for a decent amount of time, I finally sucked it up and walked up to a woman with a stroller who was purchasing a ticket from one of the old kiosks. (This was a big deal, because I'm not one to ask questions, let alone go up to a stranger and ask questions. But this was only a warm-up for later...but I'll get to that later.) I felt slighly awkward, but we got our T-bane tickets for the day, and that's really what mattered.
Our hostel in Oslo was kinda out of the way. It was kinda a pain to have to wait for the train each day when we wanted to do something and it would have been impractical to return to the hostel to rest in the middle of the day. It was only about a 5 minute walk from a T-bane station, which was convienent, but it was also at the top of a big hill. On the plus side, it was a really fantastic hostel in itself. And the free breakfast was fantastic! In addition to cereals and various drink options, they also had a huge spread for you to make your own smørbrød, or open faced sandwich. So delicious. I guess that's part of the whole hostel experience - some good, some bad, and you simply have to make the best of what you have.
April and I decided that our Friday should be fairly low key after weeks of stress and papers and a day of traveling. So we went to the Munch Museum (for free, thank you) and looked at some famous paintings. We then took the T-bane to one of the downtown stations and just wandered around, looking at things and being cold. (The coldness certainly wasn't helped by the fact that the sun set so early - that whole being far north thing - and daylight savings only made it worse.) We saw some cool buildings and statues and a lot of H&Ms. (We really should have kept a tally of the number of H&Ms we saw over this trip. There were soooo many! Sometimes there would be like 3 within one block. H&M is originally from Sweden, but still. It was crazy.) When we sat down to eat around 5:00, we realized we were going to need to find something to do for the night. Thankfully, we had walked by a movie theatre in our wanderings, so we went to see Zombieland and then went back to the hostel for a great night's sleep. It may seem odd to go to an American movie our first night in Norway, but we were much too tired to enjoy anythig else. Plus, we saw a lot of crazy Norwegian commericals before the movie and the movie had Norwegian subtitles. See? A Norwegian experience.
Saturday morning was a little bit easier after some decent sleep. This day consisted of a good hour long hunt to get an Oslo Pass (a ticket that gets you free admission into a huge number of museums as well as free public transport). We were initally looking for a 24-hour pass, but the hostel only had a 48-hour one. So we headed down to the Central Station and finally found our way to the Tourist Information center. And ended up buying a 48-hour Oslo Pass. Oops. But at least we quickly made use of the Oslo Pass. We hopped on a bus (I am so much more comfortable navigating subway systems vs bus systems, but the bus was actually easier for a number of destinations) and headed off to Bygdøy, a less urban peninsula off of Oslo that has a lot of museums. We went to the Vikingskiphuset (Viking Ship Museum - which is really cool and has three old viking ships plus artifacts that were found in the ships), the Kon-Tiki Museum and the Fram Museum (two watery exploration museums).  We also spent some time outside the museums - the views from the shore of the peninsula were absolutely gorgeous. After we finished with these museums, though, we were cold. We thought we had put on enough layers to help us survive the day, but clearly we hadn't. (One of the first lessons I learned from this trip - it's silly to think you're going to wear anything other than Ugg boots when you're visiting Scandinavia in the fall.) So we spent the evening exploring Oslo City, a shopping center that had lots of publicity everywhere, looking at DVDs and books and CDs in Norwegian (they had Sondre CDs under the 'Norsk' music section!) and giggling at Norwegian fashion (they really love their sequins in Scandinavia).
Sunday was our last day in Norway. (It also was Daylight Savings, so we got an extra hour of sleep. Yesss.) According to the weather websites, Saturday was supposed to be kinda drippy day and Sunday was supposed to be nice and sunny. So we bundled up all the way and were ready to do lots of outdoors-y things. And it was raining. We decided we would just have to go out in the rain and make the most of our last day in Oslo - make it an adventure. And it turned out to be a really good day. We got on a bus and went back to Bygdøy to visit the Norsk Folkemuseum (or Norwegian Museum of Cultural History). There were a couple of indoor exhibits we saw about urban Norwegian households in the 19th century and traditional Norwegian costumes and folk art ( rosemaling!) but most of the museum is outside. The open-air museum has lots of old traditional Norwegian buildings from around the country that have been relocated to the museum. There's a stave church and lots of houses with grass on the roof. It's really cool to see all of the old houses and to walk through the woodsy area of the museum. Not so cool was when my umbrella decided to fall apart of me. Literally, just fall apart. I freaked out just a little, because there was still so much to see today that was outside, but April and I went back to the gift shop and I found a cheap black umbrella. (It's not at all cute, but it also was cheaper because it was plain, so I guess that's alright.) Probably my favorite part of the Folkemuseum, though, was the food. At the museum's cafeteria, I got a salmon smørbrød and lefsa! Norwegian food! Granted, this lefsa wasn't 'real lefsa' like the kind we have at home - it was more of a potato cake - but it was still delicious. And then they had freshly made lefsa out in one of the old houses (again, not 'real lefsa', but a thicker lefsa, more like a pita). But any lefsa is fantastic lefsa.
Our next stop was the Ibsen museum in the city (I love Ibsen!) which was really neat and had lots of crazy representations of Ibsen (my favorite was a neon sign Ibsen). Then we walked to the Royal Palace (I love the idea of just being up to walk up to the royal palace and walk your dog or stroller, no big deal) and then across the street to the National Theatre. Then we hopped on the T-bane for our last stop of the day - Vigeland Sculpture Park. I remember going to Vigeland with my family years ago and I had thought it was kinda weird. But I absolutely loved it. It is this series of sculptures that truly capture the human experience, from life to death to new life, with relationships between lovers, parents and children, and siblings. The power and beauty of the sculptures was enchanced by the light rain and the sky. We got there around twilight (like 4:30) and the beauty of the sky really added something to the sculptures. Unfortunately, none of my pictures really capture the power and beauty of my experience at Vigeland, so you'll just have to trust me. It was just so moving (especially since in my mind the park is connected to my family) and it was the perfect way to end our visit to Oslo.

Copenhagen, Denmark (or, Part of That World)
We woke up early, and I mean 3:50 early, Monday morning to get on our plane to Copenhagen. We could have taken the airport bus to get to our flight, but the first bus left about 45 minutes after we wanted to leave (that's how early our flight was), so to be safe we took a 890 kroner taxi ride. It was so ridiculously expensive and it sucked because we flew through security, but it was one of those thing where you never know. Thankfully, our plane and train rides went smoothly and we made it to Copenhagen (city of Danes). April's good friend Sabrina is studying in Copenhagen for the semester so she met up with us at the train station. She even arranged for us to not stay in a hostel while we were in Copenhagen - April stayed at Sabrina's host family's house and I stayed with Sabrina's friend Kasia's house. So we got the couch-surfing traveling Europe experience as well as the hostel experience this trip.
We spent a lot of this day wandering, which I always love. April and I spent a good chunk of time meandering down the Strøget and checking out some of the old important politically buildings by the water. (My favorite is the Old Stock Exchange, which has a really cool spire made out of dragon's tails. Awesome.) As we were taking in the sights of the city, we looked up and found this tower that looked straight out of Atlantica!! (For those of you that aren't obsessed like I am, that's the memaid city from The Little Mermaid.) Trust me - it looked like Atlantica. Which is actually really cool since Hans Christian Anderson lived in Copenhagen, so the Disney artists drew inspiration from the source. We also went to the King's Gardens and Rosenberg Castle, an old spare castle (no big deal) that houses the crown jewels. And for dinner, I had another smørrebrød (only this time spelled the Danish way). It was cool to be with Sabrina because she's taking a class about the history of Copenhagen so she was able to tell us all these neat facts about the things we saw. It was also nice go to her program's building and have a place to crash in the middle of the day. Plus, we got to have a feel for what student life in Copenhagen is like.
My real Copenhagen adventure, though, didn't start until Monday night. I had met Kasia earlier in the day, but because we were visiting during midterms week, Kasia went back home earlier to get work done. She had given me plenty of instructions on how to take the train to her house and told me to call her when I got to the station and she would meet me and take me home. The first problem occured when we got to the train station. It turns out, that one of the train stations along the way to Kasia's house was on fire. (How does that happen? Well, I know how it happens. But it's not something you expect to happen.) Sabrina frantically asked one of the security people how I could get to Kasia's house. All I needed to do was take a train to another station, hop on the subway, and then transfer one more time when the subway ended. I promised Sabrina I would be alright (thankfully, I've gotten pretty adept with train travel between visits to New York and this semester) and told her I would make sure to call her when I met up with Kasia. Sabrina and April headed off to Sabrina's house and I got on the train and made it to Kasia's station without any more problems.
[Now here, parental and adult figures, is something you might not want to read. Feel free to skip this paragraph. I just wanted to warn you.] I was so happy to be at the train station and be close to a good night's sleep. But when I tried calling Kasia, my phone wouldn't work. I tried calling Sabrina and April and texting Kasia and Sabrina. Nothing worked. My phone had been acting a little odd earlier, so I had prepared myself to hunt for a pay phone to call Kasia. But as I searched around the train station, there was not a pay phone to be found. And it was late-ish at night (around 9:30/10 I think), so the station window was closed so I couldn't ask for help. So I took a deep breath and decided I would need to hunt for a pay phone. I figured I could go a block or two in either direction of the train station (so I wouldn't get lost or too far away) so I girded my loins and, suitcase and backpack in tow, I went off in search of a pay phone. In just a minute, it looked like I had come across a row of pay phone boxes, but when I got closer, I saw that they were empty. I had kept it all together before this, but to have my hope immediately crushed like that, well, that's when the tears came out. Luckily, at that exact moment a couple walking their dog came towards me. I pulled myself together best I could and asked if they had a cell phone on them or if they knew where the nearest pay phone was. Neither of them had their cell phones and they didn't think there was any pay phone nearby. Another woman came up on her way to the train station and we asked her the same question, only for her to say 'no' as well. At this point, the couple offered to take me to their house about five minutes away and let me borrow their phone. Considering I didn't really have any other options, I said ok. (Plus, they had a dog, so I figured I must be able to trust them. Right?) Thankfully, they did actually only live five minutes away (right by the train station) and the husband ran upstairs to their apartment and brought his phone down for me to borrow so I wouldn't have to go inside. They were very sweet and asked me where I was from, what I was doing in Copenhagen - I'm really so grateful to this couple. So I called Kasia and she and her host mom came and picked me up and drove me to their house and I went to sleep. Monday night was definitely an experience. Things could have gone so horribly wrong, but I was so lucky and blessed that things turned out the way they did.
Tuesday morning was nice because I got to hang out with Kasia and, you know, get to know the girl whose house I'm staying at. We had breakfast together and took the train into the city together. Kasia then had to go to class (go figure) and I met back up with April to do a harbour tour of the city. The boat we took was a little funny looking because it was really wide and really short. There are so many low bridges in the city that we needed to get under. (I should have counted the number of times the tour guide told us to sit back down because we were coming up to a low bridge.) We got to see so many gorgeous parts of the city from the water, so the trip was certainly worth it, but our tour guide was pretty lame. He would make one or two comments about a certain building or area, and then head back to the front of the boat to hang out with the driver. Way to earn your salary, kid. After the tour finished, we headed back to Nyhavn (or 'new port') and explored it on foot after seeing it from the water. It has so many great old and colorful buildings along with water. Hans Christian Andersen even used to live here - too bad his old house was the ugliest and plainest on the row and there wasn't anything more than a tiny plaque to say that he lived there. We also made the trip up to Amalienborg Palace, the royal residence. I still love the idea of just being able to head up to the royal palace and walk around, no big deal.
That night we met up with Sabrina's friend Zach and his friend John (an Irish boy studying in Copenhagen) and went to Studenterhuset (the student bar). It was fairly low key and a lot of fun - another insight into what student life in Copenhagen is like. The bar ended up playing good deal of late '90s-early '00s American pop, so we maybe had a little too much fun singing along. After calling it an early-ish night, I headed back to Kasia's place (again, she had understandably headed home early to prepare for midterms). I was feeling confident because I knew what trains to take and how to walk to her house from the train station. My problem this night, though, occured when I got into her complex and realized that I didn't quite know which house was hers. I had been so grateful to make it to her house the night before that I hadn't paid too much attention to which house was hers and then that morning Kasia and I had been in a rush to leave the house so she would make it to class on time. Again, my phone didn't work, so I figured I would search her rather large complex and, with the few details about her house that I did remember, I should be able to figure it out. Well, I didn't. So after about a half hour of wandering, I saw a family drive up to their house. Again, I took a breath and toughened up and went up and asked if I could borrow their phone to find my friend. Ironically, I was so close to Kasia's house. And while it sucked and was awkward, I was proud of myself for taking the risk of asking for help. So, more life experience . Right? (That's what I told myself to make me feel better.)
Wednesday was our last day in Copenhagen. Sabrina didn't have any classes that day, so she got to be our tour guide all day. First, we went to the Round Tower, which is a big round tower (obviously) that you can climb up (by ramp!) and see the whole city. It's really not a very big tower, but all of these Scandinavian cities have a shorter, and quite adorable, skyline. After looking at the view, we found a Danish Christmas shop, which made me really happy and a little homesick, because my house is filled with traditional Scandinavian decorations during the holidays. Our next stop was Christianhavn, another area of the city, and specifically Christiania, a hippie village. The village is entirely its own entity, free of Danish rule and of the EU. It was cool to wander around and see lots of Danish hippies (even though they didn't sing 'Hair'. Which they should have).
The highlight of this day, though, was the most famous attraction in all of Copenhagen. (No, not Tivoli Gardens. Unfortunately, it was closed for the season while we were there. I guess it's just something for the next time I'm there.) We walked along the waterfront and as it started to rain, we took a quick break in the lobby of the New Playhouse. Because we could. The light rain continued, so we decided we would just have to go back outside. And then finally we reached her - the Little Mermaid. Now I'm a giant Ariel nerd, so I am a little biased, but the statue was absolutely stunning. (April and Sabrina, who aren't huge nerds like me, agreed so I'm not alone in this.) I was really excited to see her, but I didn't anticipate how much she would move me. One of the great parts of the Little Mermaid is that she's off to the side, out in the water, and you can climb up right next to her. But in addition to being able to play with her, the statue itself draws in you. I always thought of her as a pensive mermaid, but when you get up close you see this burning sadness in her eyes. I really can't do her justice. But I definitely understand why she's the most famous attraction in Copenhagen.
All of us were so struck by her that we spent a long time just standing looking at the statue and talking about her. Whenever we would ponder or ask each other a fairly rhetorical question about the statue, there was an old Danish gentleman nearby who would chime in with all of these facts about the mermaid. Eventually we got to talking with him - his name is Jan and he's a retired Dane who will sometimes give personal guided tours of the city simply because he wants to. He knows pretty much everything about Copenhagen. We chatted with him for a while, and Sabrina got to practice her Danish, until finally he said that there are three other mermaids in Copenhagen and he offered to take us to see them. Now, the way he said it was very polite and friendly and he had just told us about how he does do tours of the city and there were three of us (as opposed to two or even one), so we said sure. A little hesitantly, but we still agreed. And fortunately, he was only a nice old man who wanted to show us mermaids. It turns out, there is a genetically modified mermaid, a huge mermaid outside of someone's restaurant, and a small scared mermaid outside of the royal library. And along the way, Jan was chatting with us and telling us all of these things about Copenhagen. April and I decided that he is the Danish Andrew Butterworth (the fantastic internship coordinator at ASE). And now we have a new Danish friend.
I went home with April and Sabrina that night because Sabrina lives closer to the airport than Kasia, so the journey home was much more uneventful. We stayed up a little talking with Sabrina's host family (they're pretty awesome) and figuring out how to get to the airport in the morning. Finally, Sabrina's host dad graciously offered to drive us to the airport, so instead of taking a little over an hour, our journey to the airport would only take about 15 mintues. And would be free. The Danes are just so friendly!

Stockholm, Sweden (or, Take a Chance on Me)
After getting a little more sleep than we had expected on Wednesday night, we made our way to Stockholm. Now Stockholm was the city I was least excited about visiting during this adventure. I have personal/family connections to Norway and Denmark, but I'm not Swedish. And I grew up with my dad and grandpa jokingly making fun of Sweden but, being a kid, I took these jabs quite seriously. So with this silly little prejudice against Sweden and without the emotional connection, Stockholm was always an after-thought for me in the planning process. But as I was sitting in the plane, I started thinking about how, even though I'm not Swedish, Sweden and the Swedish culture is still closely tied to my past and who I am (both in terms of Sweden's control over Norway and in terms of awesome Viking stuff). Plus, my Kirsten is Swedish, and she was an important part of my childhood. So with this in mind, I was ready for Sweden.
We were able to take a train straight from the airport to the center of the city and our hostel was only a 10 minute walk from the main station. This was a nice change after having a big commute in both of the previous cities. So naturally, the hostel itself wasn't as nice as the Oslo one. We shared a room with 6 other girls instead of just 2 and the showers were far away and super awkward. Plus, there wasn't an amazing free breakfast. But again, it's that whole hostel experience where you simply need to make the best of what you have.
We decided that Thursday should be a pretty low-key day. We decided to head out and wander and came across a big shopping district in Stockholm. (We seem to be really good at finding these.) They had a cute little outdoor market. And then we found an awesome candy shop where they had actual Swedish Fish! (I don't eat Swedish Fish. But still...they were truly Swedish.) We then decided we should get a real boat ride since Stockholm is part of a 30,000 island archipelago, so we made our way to the tourist information center to figure out how to go about this. It turned out that there was a boat leaving for one of the islands in about an hour, so we headed over to the harbour and got on the boat.
Now, the boat left at 3:00. And during the boat ride, we got to see the sunset. (Silly Daylight Savings and being super far north.) But the views on this hour long boat ride were absolutely stunning, perhaps even more so because of the sunset. Unfortunately, my words and even my pictures can't do it justice. With the water and the sun and all of the little wooden islands and their tiny houses, it was just amazing. We made it to the island of Vaxholm and were only there for a little more than an hour before we headed back to Stockholm. There really wasn't much to do on the island as it was just this small town, and it was getting dark and was really cold, so it was good that we weren't there for long (although we did find an awesome toy store). But the big reason we went to Vaxholm was the boat ride itself, and that was definitely worth it.
The next morning (after showering in the awkward hostel showers), we headed out on our last day in Scandinavia. Our first stop was Gamla Stan, the old town section of Stockholm. I'm not sure how old this area of town is, but it's very old. First of all, it's this cute little island. And then there are cobblestone streets and colorful buildings and teeny alleyways. It was just really adorable and fun to simply walk through. But our real destination this day was Djurgården, the old royal hunting grounds that now has a bunch of museums and some great walking paths. We hopped on the ferry from Gamla Stan to Djurgården and went from one tiny island to another.
April and I hadn't really thought about what we were going to do at/on Djurgården, so we found the main path around the park/island and just started wandering. This was pretty much the best idea ever. I'm in love with the Scandinavian foliage, but before we've only really seen it from the air, or on the train or bus. But in Djurgården, we got to wander around these gorgeous trees and soak up the beauty and general autumn-ness. Eventually along the path we came to this big rock. So we decided to climb up the rock and look at the trees from up above-ish. It felt so fantastic to be out in nature and be a part of it all. We meandered over towards Rosendal Palace, but it ended up being a much farther walk than we had intended, so we turned back around.
We went back to Skansen, the Swedish open-air cultural museum (like the one we went to in Oslo), which we had originally passed on our adventures around Djurgården. Our first stop in Skansen was the cafeteria for food (naturally). And here, I finally got the food I'd been craving - meatballs! Our family Christmas dinner tradition is Norwegian meatballs and they're fantastic. These were (obviously) Swedish meatballs, so they were a little different - the sauce was a little creamier while ours is more of a gravy, and it came with lingonberries on the side - but it was still utterly delicious. Add to that some delicious Swedish pancakes with strawberries for dessert and I was all set. We didn't feel a huge need to look at the buildings, since they were for the most part pretty similar to the ones we had seen in Oslo. But, Skansen has a zoo of nordic animals (moose, reindeer, brown bears)!! So we spent a lot of time watching the animals, especially this family of brown bears which consisted of a mamma bear and three babies born earlier this year. They were so incredibly adorable. And soo much fun to watch.
As it was strating to get dark in the middle of the afternoon, we headed back to the center of the city. And as we were walking back towards the area of our hostel trying to figure out what we would for the rest of the night, we came across this Halloween/costume shop in the shopping district. Even though I knew we were flying back to England on Saturday October 31, between traveling and stressing out about papers, I kinda kept forgetting that Halloween was coming up. So it was a pleasant surprise the day before Halloween to stumble across this shop. Also, because it was the day before Halloween, there was huge line outside to get into the shop. But April and I figured why not so we got in line to have our turn in the shop. The store was three levels of crazy decoration and costume stuff. So we kinda got to experience a Scandinavian Halloween.
Our final adventure of the day was April's quest for a spoon. Her grandma used to collect spoons and now she's carried on the tradition. She didn't have too much trouble finding spoons in the last two countries, but she hadn't really found any in Sweden. We figured we should be able to find some good souvenir places at the main train and bus stations (since tourists come there right?) and the two were both so close to where we were. Turns out, there are no souvenir stores at the Stockholm train station. But, there is one at the bus terminal. And April got her spoon. Right outside of the souvenir store, there was an old-man-band playing swing/jazz music. They weren't fantastic, but they were really cute and old and clearly enjoying what they were doing, so we sat and enjoyed listening to them for awhile.
Then, we got food at Sweden-China (best restaurant name ever?) and headed back to the hostel to pack up and sleep. And for one final time, we woke up at the crack up dawn (slash, before), headed over to the bus terminal, sat and waited for a bus that came an hour after they told us the bus would come, went to a teeny-tiny airport that only housed Ryanair, fought to get seats on the plane (since on Ryanair you don't book a seat assignment), flew on a plane with lots of unhappy babies, and made the 3+ hour ride from Stansted Airport to Bath. But we made it back home, safe and sound. It was great to be in Scandinavia, but it was really nice to be back home in Bath.
And that, my friends, is the story of my Scandinavian Tour. Finally.