Whirlwind Tour of Scandinavia

How do I even begin to condense our entire trip into a blog post....I think it's an impossible feat, but if you go on FB you'll see all the pictures and my captions tend to be long so it's kinda like i'm narrating what went on. But here I guess I can give the juicy highlights, if any :)

This was the plan:
1.Depart Lulea 12 Aug, arrive in Stockholm 13 Aug
2.Depart Stockholm 13 Aug, arrive in Oslo 13 Aug
3.Depart Oslo 13 Aug, arrive in Malmo 14 Aug
4.Depart Malmo 14 Aug, arrive in Copenhagen 14 Aug
5.Depart Copenhagen 14 August, arrive Goteborg 15 Aug
6.Depart Goteborg 15 Aug, arrive in Lulea 16 Aug

Crazy? Well, maybe. Fun? Oh boy yes indeed-y!
We always took the night trains out but we had to stay in Goteborg bus terminal from 10:32pm to 9am the next day cos al the rooms in the city was taken due to some festival. Our train for Lulea was only at 5pm on the 15th. So that was the scariest thing we had to do. The young people there were all drunk and loud...Mel and I were afraid someone would throw up on us or something. And some guy like 3 inches away from my face and asked me if I "wanted to buy speed". My faint Chirstian, Singaporean girl heart almost stopped beating. Hahaha looking back on it now it's all so funny. But while we were actually trying to sleep in the station, it really wasn't.Anyway on to the good stuff!
Oslo! Very expensive and very pretty. Getting around here was easy and we didn't get lost. We saw men in kilts and men dressed as vikings everywhere, so that was cool. We even met an old guy - Earl- who went on about raffles hotel who told us "you've not been to Norway unless you've been to Bern". Then He took pictures with us and stood a little too close and held on a little too tight.....Sleazy old man. Hahaha.
And since we had not showered in many many hours, we were so excited to shower in the Malmo train staion. It cos about 30SEK, SGD$7 for a nice warm shower in a very clean bathroom. It felt good and we got on to out train to Copenhagen nice and clean!
In Copenhagen, the Mermaid statue is addressed as 'She'. I think thats just so quaint, no? We really had to fight out way trough the hordes of tourits just go get a picture with her, with our backpacks and DSLRs, it was no easy feat and poor Mel in her flip flops almost fell into the water twice. After that we headed to Hamlet's castle and the Stroget which is the main shopping district. I'm sure we could have covered more, but there was an outlet sale...and things were cheap...and the queue to the dressing room was long....so we got distracted :p

But all in all, I am proud of myself becuase I only spent SGD$100 during my entire time traveling, excluding the eurail pass of course! But I only spent money on cheap snacks, bus travel, seat reservation, a small gift for an aunt and clothes. Mel and I are so economical :)

Back in Sweden at Goteborg, after our scary night out, we visited the festival grounds and really got into the swing of things. There was a museum exhibit of wedding outfits promoting love and harmony among different races, so Mel and I decided to get hitched. Don't we look like blushing brides?But We're glad to be back in Lulea, I mean its kinda boring here but amny of the exchnage students have arrived and Mel's dorm-mates and my room-mates and neighbours seem real nice. We're constantly having dinner gatherings all over the place and meeting to do stuff, so I think things in the 'fun department' will start to pick up :)

Traveling

Traveling in Lulea is best done on bicycle and all the exchange students including Mel got one, but I have not....I figure if I am not confident riding it and would rather walk 5km, then I should not get a bike just cos everyone else is....I do see that it's much faster with a bike though. oh well.

Anyway, if you have read my previous post travelling by bus in Lulea is a bit of a chore because of all the waiting, I think people here must be very patient...back in Singapore just waiting 15mins for my beloved no.359 will get me irritated. And here I have no choice but to wait 49 mins :s

Mel and I have been wanting to get out of here for a while to see Norway, Denmark and more of Sweden but no one can tell us what to do with our Eurail pass and the "best" part of it is, that Lulea train station does NOT have an information counter or any body to answer questions on trains! Unbelievable, no?

Haha, so we found a travel agency and got that sorted. We leave Lulea tomorrow on a 6pm train back to Stockholm then to Oslo, Norway. Then from Oslo we'll head to Malmo, Sweden then Copenhagen, Denmark and Gothenberg, Sweden before we head up to Lulea again. Night trains also mean that we don't need to get lodging, yay! I can't wait :)

New Friends!

I just hosted a very successful dinner party tonight and I'm so very happy about it. Its just great to have people all gather around a table of simple food and eat and talk. I just pulled together some pasta, sauce, and corn form the pantry and a new friend (Kate) brought nuggests, and we made it work to feed about 8 people. Most of us were exchange students except for Kate and her boyfriend (M) who live next door to me.

I'm excited that I've met good people so quickly and many of them were just happy to eat in a 'home' especially since they just arrived today. You see, I made friends with the couple Kate and M yesterday night when I went to buy a thick blanket from M who is selling a whole bunch of tstuff. And Mel and I hit it off with Kate right away. So I invited her and M over for dinner, something I was told Swedish people never do, and Kate was so thrilled that someone she just met would actually open their home and kitchen to a stranger.

I decided that I should also invite Marco and Daniel, two really nice guys from Brazil to join us as well and they each brought another exchange student to just arrived today, Michael from Switzerland and Scott from the US. So yes, it was wonderful to have a home bustling with great conversation and warm people.

Everyone came about about 8pm and only left at about 12am! I love dinner parties =D

On another note, I really really like Kate, she's so sweet. She brought me and Mel out to the thrift store to get stuff for the house and tomorrow she's taking us to the dollar store. She even helped me with dinner (while I was skyping with Shaun) and showed me how to work the washing machines here. She's a little lonely here, because even though she's Swedish, she's new to Lulea and she's a lot more forthcoming than most Swedish people - who tend to be more reserved according to her- so she was just really glad that Mel and I were so comfortable and open with her. She's just full of positive energy and she sees the good in everyone, I can learn so much from her. Mel and I didn't get Swedish buddies from the uni even though we applied, but I think we've gained so much more than just a 'Swedish buddy' in Kate, she's a Godsend.

I'm looking forward to the spending more time with all these guys here and I'm excited about welcoming my house-mates...I hope they come sooner than later so I don't have to be alone in this big house. But at least Mel is staying over here every night so it's not so bad and we are not 5Km away from each other any more.

Wish I remembered to take pictures at the gathering...but I guess I have all 5 months to take as many pictures with all these wonderful people as I want :)

Gammelstad Church Town

It was a beautiful day out - plus it was Sunday, which meant everything including the shopping district was closed except for the supermarket - so Mel and I thought we'd go to Lulea's most famous site - Gammelstad Church Town - 10km away from town.
To get there we had to wait 49 mins for bus number 4 from the university to the centrum, then from the centrum we had to wait another hour for bus number 9 to go up t0 the church town. But it was so worth it as I can't get enough of those traditional Swedish cottages with the white trimming. Plus the church in the centre of it all was just gorgeous to say the least.

We got a guided tour for 50 Kronor (thats like SGD$10) and our guide Majlis (Mai-lis) was so nice, she even offered to help me look for a church with an English service near the university. We also made friends with a guy from Turkey who joined us fro the guided tour. It was just 3 of us and the guide so it was nice and cosy :)Gammelstad, as in the pictures will look far more spectacular in the winter when the roofs and the ground is white, but even now in the summer it is so lovely becuase of the contrast between the clear blue skies an dthe deep copper red of the cottages.We were told that this church was built in the 1600s by the then Swedish king as a fortress to ward of the Russians who wanted this part of Sweden for themselves. Then small cottages were built for people who travel here for church festivals and to spend saturday night there before going to church on Sunday. And this tradition continues as the cottages are still passed down from generation to generation within families that own one (and you must be from Lulea to own one). However, there is no running water in the cottages and no open flames are allowed, and you are only allowed to spend one night in it at a time. So everything is well preserved.

The church is also a living church as many baptisms and weddings still take place there and they have Sunday services there too. It is so popular that if you wnat to marry there, you need to book at least a year in advance, and they can have as many as 6 events going on in one day in the church! And really, a church wedding here would be so grand, considering the architecture of the church and the altar piece!
And just like it was hard to get there, coming back home, included wiating 2 hours for a bus. And it would not have been so bad if the shops there were open, but it was a Sunday there was no where we could go but the bus stop as even the cafes had closed by 4pm. Such is life in charming Lulea.
I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves :) More are up on Facebook!

Lulea Finally!

I woke up at 6:30am to the sight of beautiful country meadows, a rustic train station plucked out of some movie and a thick fog. Lulea is a beautiful sleepy town. Not quite as gorgeous as Stockholm but you can't go wrong with nature can you?

It was hard getting a taxi to the university but we found our way and we met the student coordinator who showed us our new homes (5km apart though so boo hoo about that) and we got our Swedish sim cards so if you want my number FB or email me!

My place is great, It's a 4 bedroom apartment with a living room and kitchen and 2 bathrooms. Its got so much space and the view from the porch and my room window is so nice! It's about 1.5km from the university and I have to cut through this quaint little wooded area which the other students say is "absolutely safe even when dark" so I'll take their word for it. Anyways no one but students and lecturers live around here.Mel's place is 3Km from the Uni and she has her own little flat but she shares a kitchen and living room with 5 other people on her floor. I'm just sad that we are so far apart, we cna't even walk home together. I'm hoping that things will get better once our room/floor mates move in sometime next week so we'll have company.

We had a tiring but relatively mundane day, settling admin stuff, buying basic things we need for the hostels. We also set up Swedbank accounts! And the guy who was helping us -Daniel- is such a nice guy, he not only helped us with banking, he also printed out maps for us and drew us simpler routes to get from hostel to uni. He's also a student at Lulea tech and is on a summer internship, so we're bound to see him again since the uni is quite small :)

After some shopping and a very yummy $10 pizza which mel and I shared, we parted ways to go home. It was about 7pm but still so bright out. I got a bit lost and a nice lady who works at the uni gave me a lift and showed me the path through the woods that I should take next time instead. The poeple here are really wonderful. Mel got a bit lost too, but she made it on her own safe and sound.

Well tonight is going to be spent skyping with shaun and unpacking and tomorrow Mel and I will be going shopping for 2nd hand bicycles! Wheee!

Day 1 and Day 2

In total, travel must have taken about 17 hours, and thank God it was a night flight so Mel and I were not jet lagged. The first thing I realised when I woke up on the plane at 6-ish Swedish time was how bright it was and then it hit me, that I really am a far far way from home.

Arlanda airport is like IKEA, everything it about it from the floors to the counters and toilets. It was quite funny. So with 130Kg divided in 9 bags between us, Mel and I decided to take a train to Stockholm Central and then find our way to our backpacker inn Lodge 32 by Metro or taxi. I am not kidding when I tell you, this was the worst and most tiring day of my life so far despite Stokholm being amazingly beautiful city and the weather being perfect.

We could not find a lift to get from the airport to the train station, and some guy told us the escalators were the only way. So the plan was for Mel to go down first and for me to send the bags vis escalator down one by one. Smart? Well you decide. We successfully brought down bags number 2 to 8. Bag 1 almost got me killed becuase the escalotor was very fast and I lost my footing for a while so I could have fallen resulting in a big mess. But bag 1 also almost killed Mel becuase I was unable to place it properly on the step, it started to tumble and roll down like a boulder towards Mel making a lot of noise on the way down. When we got to the bottom, we realised there were lifts after all. I bet you they are they still playing the CC-TV records at Arlanda and alughing at these two silly Asians.


After 5 long hours of moving bags to and from stations and taxis and sidewalks, we made it to out inn. Upon seeing our baggage the lady at the counter calmly asked me "Are you girls staying here your whole lives or what?". I was in no mood to joke whatsoever, so I calmly said "We're on a student exchange, going to Lulea, it's very cold there so we have a lot of thick coats & sweaters."

We spent Day 1 and 2 in Stockholm just walking around our neighbourhood and the main shopping district in the central. There's quite a lot of good shopping and many antique shops selling wonderful weird things from the past. If only I had space in my luggage to buy some stuff.

At 6:12 pm 6th August we boarded a train that would take us to Lulea - 13 hours away. Met really nice people in my compartment - which was a sleeper compartment with chairs that magically become beds! (pictures to come soon) In my cabin was a Swedish lady, a korean lady who lived in Sweden her whole life and is an alumni at the uni I'm doing my exchange at and a middle eastern lady with her two beautiful baby boys and of course Mel :) We all got along great, except for when the older boy who was about 3 would have a tantrum, but I gave him chocolate to keep him quiet and it worked.


I fell asleep at about 10pm, it was still bright out and we had to pull all the shades down.

On Leaving

So after a week of spending every spare minute with Shaun and dear friends, 4th Aug came reared it head. I spent most of the 3rd and 4th on my hands and knees vacuum sealing bags and weighing bags and packing and re-packing.

So here's the end result: 1 backpack, 1 duffel, 1 suitcase and a camera bag. A whopping total of 52.7 Kg. Mind you, that's more than I weigh! There was some drama at the check in counter but thank God the lady let me through after seeing that I was not kidding about not being able to take anything out. Apparently it was $100 per Kg!!

My send off party was massive, friends and loved ones from school, my internship and church were present and even my extended family came. It was wonderful and I don't think I've realised that so many people feel that I matter to them. I hugged each and every person who came to say bye to me, and I was fine...right up till I hugged Shaun then I lost it for a while. But I heard Arman's soothing voice telling me I'll be back here in Changi in no time, and he was right. Then I felt better leaving my baby behind to fend for himself in Sinagpore.