A Student Life

So a few posts back I mentioned that this month I was going to live "The Student Life." What does this involve? Well, here in Uppsala it meant for me - numerous lunch and group work dates in the nations, dinner parties with friends in Flogsta, clubbing and salsa dancing nights, movie nights, cooking typical "student" meals, and of course, the gym. Being a student here can get pretty fast-paced if you want it to be. I've found that here on exchange, it really is all up to you. If you don't put yourself out there, you really won't get anywhere. If you take risks, talk to people you don't know in a friendly and open manner, and go to things even if its a little outside your comfort zone - you can find yourself doing some great stuff! It really amazes me sometimes how fortunate I've been to have such close friends who basically guarantee you a social life that it's not so difficult anymore. But a lot of the times, if you want something to happen - you really need to get up off your ass and set the wheels in motion. This photo up top is actually my media class out on a pub crawl which a guy in our class organised so we could all get to know each other.

Speaking of media class, this is me and my group members at Ostgota Nation doing some much needed Uni work. Each work date, we frequented a different nation - Ostgota is a great one in the afternoon as they have a waffle buffet for only some 30kr which is about $4.50 for unlimited waffles. So tasty but having more than 3 makes you feel really quite sick - SOOO MUCH CREAM! So yeah - we basically were together every day for over a week working on a major assignment and had class four days a week together. They are really cool people. A great group to work with!

On the day before the assignment was due, we celebrated finishing it and Allison, (one of our group member's) birthdays with a big dinner party. It was pretty cool - there were in total 14 people all in Allison's kitchen cooking Tacos together and baking a cake. I unfortunately didn't get any photos but there may be some on the way in the future - ah, the joys of Facebook! That was really quite cool!

Another memorable big dinner party was one hosted by an Italian girl in the corridor across the hall from me - whom I had met while busting into their kitchen to make some food. After learning about my love for cooking pasta, she invited me for dinner cooked by her and two Italian girls who were visiting her. Being cooked authentic Italian food by Italians - now that is pretty darn special! It was another big dinner party - in total - I'd say around 12 people were well fed by the end. It was damn tasty and so interesting to meet Italians! I love Italians - they are so friendly, enthusiastic and generous! For one of the Italian girls, I was apparently the first Australian she had ever met - and she found my accent incredibly strange. There are apparently a lot of Americans in Italy now and so she was familiar with the American accent as well as the British one. I explained to her that my Australian accent is not so strong and interestingly, she said that she found me quite difficult to understand! That was a first. I have usually been told my neutral accent is incredibly easy to understand. Incredible! Later on, a true blue Aussie guy rocked up and the Italian girl explained to me that actually, she could not understand a word he said. Hilarious!

The next night, I had dinner with my close friends Mina and Manon at Vikki's place. Vikki, is my German friend - yes I am gloating to such people such as Helen - who would love to have a German friend. The plan was to take an easy night eating dinner together and watching Finding Nemo as Manon had not yet seen it (I KNOW! OMG - as soon as I found out, I made moves to correct this awful sin). Finding Nemo  was - as always - just so good. So many good quotes.... ahh... just keep swimming!

I'm so grateful that in the time that my kitchen has been getting renovated, I have had such generous friends who've taken me in and fed me on multiple occasions! In terms of what I myself have been eating, I have recently started to eat the muesli and yoghurt combo! Yoghurt here comes in, unfortunately large bottles!

I have also been buying a lot of Pringles as they are cheaper here than in Australia and come in quite unusual flavours! Annoyingly, I have been told eating this many Pringles is not good for me. That is a little unfortunate.

So is this:

But it is quite tasty actually, although artificial as crap, but really, American dressing really is a good description for it, haha!

So what else about student life, I hang out with my friends a lot. I think I have told you before about how I have two beds. One which is normal, the same as everyone else, and the other, which is far superior. My friends love it and so any chance they get to be in my room - they like to soak up its comfy-ness!

Mina playing with my "worry dolls!"

Nights out are always interesting. One time this week we decided to veer left and head for a Salsa club instead of our usual route of going to Varmlands on a Friday for clubbing. It was such a cool place filled with people who could really salsa dance, and no students. Mostly they were older but a lot of my friends (who are better salsa dancers than I) danced with a couple of them and got some great tips! The music was awesome. I again was given an opportunity to affirm that I could not salsa dance but my friend Alex did his best to teach me! So nice of him! Oh and it was incredibly hot in there!

Other nights, we go to the nations for clubs. Stockholm Nation is by far the better one - as it is basically a real club whereas the others seem more like old buildings with a few lights and smoke. The music is also better. Here is a quick view of Stockholm Nation which we frequent on a Thursday night.

Varmlands Nation on a Friday on the other hand is special and really quite cool because you get to party it down in the library! Here is a photo I stole off Facebook of that:

To finish up: Today is St Patrick's day! That means lots of parties. Unfortunately, I'm still sick so I opted to stay home and rest as I need to be well for London on Monday. The one good thing about being home is that it is now just past 10:00pm. At 10pm, all the residents in the 15 buildings of Flogsta start screaming. Honestly, it has not been so well done in the last few months but today, I had a feeling it would be special and it was not bad at all! I took a video for you guys out my window to give you guys an idea of the screaming. Now as Flogsta is a street which goes around two loops... you can only faintly hear the screaming from the other buildings but you will get an idea.

THE FLOGSTA SCREAM - St Patrick's Day 2012 in Bld 3:2

Blog Pending...

Sorry guys for not writing in this space for a while.

A few things have gotten in the way. I've had an incredibly outrageous load of Uni work to do the last few weeks which I believe I have mentioned. Seminars, Presentations, Oppositions, Debates and Paper all over as of today! In celebration, I am going on my first road trip in Sweden with a couple friends to a place called Sigtuna. It is apparently Sweden's first ever town - founded in the 10th Century. Lucky me! It is only an hour away too. So I will definitely be taking my camera along with me.

Other reasons why I have no been writing include the fact that I have been rather unfortunately, sick, for quite a while and it's not shaking. I blame the "incredibly outrageous load of Uni work" as aforementioned. It has been quite stressful to say the least! Add to that all the other Uni events which are going on and being a general Uppsala University student living in Flogsta who also does not have a kitchen at the moment and you start to get an idea. Or maybe not? Haha well, I intend to try and get a good blog going hopefully sometime this weekend. I have quite a bit on as I will be leaving for London, that's right, LONDON, on Monday - oh you know, just for a class excursion. No biggy.

I hope you guys are all well. Other than this stupid sore throat, blocked nose, and stuffy headache - I am well and healthy. The gym progress is laughable but I am still going and my kitchen is rumoured to be returned to me next week if all goes well! The snow seems to have officially left us as well - and we are now more than half way through the semester! There's only 79 days until Bill comes to meet me here in Europe. I can't wait! And some weeks later, a good lot of my friends will be in Europe too! We are all gonna have such a swell time! Well, that's all for now. But yes, I will try and get a good load of student life photos into the next blog mates =]

Peace out xo

A Sunny Sunday Walk

I've been (un)fortunate enough to find myself with a bit of time on my hands and what better way to spend my free time than to spend it with you guys, divulging my life's stories to you all. Albeit, this last week and a bit, life has been more calm and low key. The reason for this is because all the trips we have been taking comes with a price, that is that we are missing out on living the student life at Uppsala in Sweden. It was with this realisation that I decided to try and study it up and see if there was anything I could do to get involved in the nations or see exactly what it was I was missing on the weekends here. It also helps that this month, my new class I am taking is really interesting but comes with quite a bit of a workload and class time, preventing me from really going anywhere.

Another great thing about being in Uppsala lately is the weather! It has been really sunny! It is such a weird feeling to see ice and snow... while there is a blue sky and the sun shining! It is also amazing how great the sun feels on your skin after so long. The last few days it had been so sunny but this morning I woke to find it had gone back down to minus Celsius temperatures and there was icicles on the trees. This was my view outside my window.

Nevertheless, Kelsey, Manon and I decided to walk to the city instead of taking the bus. It was my first time walking and although it was quite dreary and cold, as we walked the sun began to emerge out of the clouds and it really was a pleasant walk! It was so nice to see Uppsala like this, it is really quite pretty. Luckily, I had taken my camera with me so I snapped a few shots.

Walking towards the city...not sure if we are going the right way, but we made it!

The icicles on all the trees

In the city, I liked the colours and the bike

The famous Uppsala cathedral and people photographing it

I love the streetlamps

It took just over half an hour to walk to the city which I was quite surprised about! It really isn't such a bad walk... once the snow and ice are completely gone - I will definitely be whipping my bike out and hitting that. In the city, we went to Varmlands Nation for the famous SUNDAY FIKA/BRUNCH. Pretty much all of the nations have some kind of fika or brunch on a Sunday and this was our first time going to one because usually we were away. It was quite nice to just sit with friends and chat eating food, sweet cakes and of course the unlimited supply of tea/coffee.

After Fika, I was pretty desperate to get back outside because DAYAM - it was Sunny! So I decided to go for a walk around and shop cause that is something I hadn't done much of. Manon was nice enough to come with me and we decided to get some stuff for going to the gym later that afternoon. I am not decked out with some nice 3/4 length track pants which makes me look so pro! It was also hilarious to see everyone outside enjoying the sun. It is true, the city comes alive when the sun is out. People seem to be drawn to it. It was really lovely to walk around and see everyone looking so much happier. I particularly like this photo I took of people basking in the sun on a bench. It made me laugh!

The town looked so nice today!

After our shopping trip, I went home and changed as quick as I could to make our gym session which was at 4:30pm. The gym I have chosen to trial is so great because it is only a 5 minute walk from Flogsta. It has a hilarious name too: FRISKIS AND SVETTIS (We just call it Friskies). The class we were going to today was a Spin Class. OH BOY. Mind, I had never done this before so wasn't so sure what to expect but it was definitely a workout! Boy.... I am certainly not a fan of standing up on the bike and cycling with the tension on hard. It's also very interesting going to classes here in Sweden because they are obviously run in Swedish. Sometimes it is almost comical to just be following the actions with no idea what the trainer is saying. The other class I've done was one where we were in a big hall and the trainer was in the middle, with everyone else standing around her following what she did. We did funny movements and got to run around and just do stuff to the music. I was laughing all throughout it because it was also so silly because we didn't know what she was saying. So far, the gym has definitely been an interesting experience :D

All in all, it was a productive day. For dinner, I went up to Kelsey's (who lives in the same building but a few floors up) to make dinner. She has also lost her kitchen, as they are renovating all of the ones on one side, so we had to go to her neighbours kitchen and cook there. You can probably guess what we made.... MEATBALLS! WOOT! With some potatoes and vegies on the side. It was delicious.

To end: Here is a picture I took at the Bus Stop to go home to Flogsta. It's pretty cool because there is a sign which tells you how many minutes until the next bus - very handy. Stadhuset is the name of the stop.

Kitchen Reno's!

So, I woke up this morning for my 10am class and on checking a newly updated schedule (at least that is what it was labelled as) found out that my class was actually starting at 9. So I rushed out the door, hair still wet from the shower and hungry as crap but with no time for breakfast only to find that actually, nobody was there. Checking my Facebook page (we have a Facebook group for our class which is handy), I found that there was a debate on whether or not the class started at 9, 10 or 12. Well, it definitely was not 9 because there was noone here. I wasn't particularly thrilled and so I went to the cafe which is in my building for some breakfast. I meant to take a photo of it but gee, I was so famished that I had already eaten a good portion of it before thinking that it could be cool to take a photo and pop it on my blog. What I had bought for breakfast was a "frukost kit" which means Breakfast Kit. The little tray contained a cup of orange juice, a cup for coffee, a little cheese and salad sandwich and a cup of yoghurt with berries and muesli. It was actually quite tasty. I'm beginning to try and eat yoghurt again here, as it is all the rage. It will be a slow process however as I am quite, quite scarred from seeing enough off yoghurt to last me a lifetime.

Anyway, I was going to write a blog this morning while waiting for my class to officially start but I ended up finding someone else from my class who had mistakenly (or rather, did the right thing) checked the class timetable and rocked up early also so I felt it rude to sit at my computer and type and instead talked to her. But since I had already started writing like two sentences, I figured I might as well finish the blog off. So lucky you guys, you get another blog to read! This one is written on a Friday night where I would usually be out doing something but am instead home moping around my room as I have finally gotten sick! (first time since arriving in Sweden...nearly endured the whole winter without getting sick!)

What I wanted to talk about tonight was my kitchen. I realise that I have still not yet posted photos of the more common areas of my new home. Lucky for you guys, I took some photos back in January which I have  managed to dig up. The reason I cannot take fresh, swanky, new, hip photos is because my kitchen is being renovated. Yeah, that's pretty cool, right? I get a new kitchen! Not. Actually, it is very annoying because now me and the other 11 people who live in my dorm will be without our personal kitchen for the next 3-4 weeks! It begs the question, why does our landlord not renovate in the summer when all the students move out? Alas, it has already begun and we have been told if we want to cook, to use the kitchen of the corridor across the hallway. Sure, 24 people sharing one kitchen sounds like a GREAT IDEA! Nevertheless, I've cooked there once and met some really nice people so it should definitely be an interesting 3 weeks meeting the other corridor mates and then after that, it will be that corridor's turn to have its kitchen renovated and we will have our 12 new friends using our new kitchen. The crazy life we students lead right? The other funny thing is that in renovating, the workers have taken everything out of the kitchen and strewn it all over our living room and hallway and so the place looks like a royal mess! Oh well... it IS campus. I guess that is to be expected.

Still here are some photos of where I live - My corridor pre renovation.

Coming out of my room, I look to the left (towards the kitchen, exit and living room) and this is what I see

This is my kitchen. It is one of the best stocked kitchens in Flogsta. Most kitchens are completely bare of anything including cutlery and cooking utensils. This is where I got lucky. My friends are quite jealous

This is the living room...which does not really ever get used. It is pretty dark and quite small. You can see on the right of the photo, all our letterboxes and next to that is the door to leave

Looking into the kitchen from the living room...you can see my fridge. We have in total 3 fridges for the 12 of us to share. The freezer room is located through a door in the living room which serves as a secret passageway to the corridor across from us

Looking outside the window in the kitchen.

Our billboard is decorated with lots of random things....the history of my corridor perhaps? We are also one of the only corridors to have a sound system in the kitchen. I can tell this place used to be a big party place!

Going back down the hallway back to my room. On the left, those white carton things are for the recycling. Here, they make you sort everything when you dispose of it. e.g. plastic, metal, paper, burnable etc.

A few weeks back, on a Sunday morning, we decided to get together for some brunch. It was the first time my friends cooked in my kitchen! Kelsey, the Canadian, loves her pancakes and so she decided to whip up some from scratch ( I was pretty impressed....no shake shake shake for us) and she even spoilt us with blueberries and chocolate in them (separately of course). We also made Swedish hash which is like diced potatoes and bacon with onion all together and is generally served with a fried egg on top. We also had bacon! It was really cool... I found these photos too so here you go!

Manon says that in Netherlands you cook the bacon and egg and mushroom all together like this.... I was like...so like an unmixed omelette? weird.... but still - it works

Breakfast YUMMY!

That juice carton there is cactus juice but it turned out to be all grape and only like 1% cactus

What a Rip!

Oh additionally...speaking of letterboxes. Thanks everyone for the crazy and only piece of mail I have gotten since arriving here in Sweden. I can really feel the love there. So thank you! I was definitely one confused chappy when this was plonked in my mail box. Haha and it was also dusty... you sent me DUST from my apartment in Australia! GEE. You guys are the best :P

English is my Lingo! Watch the Ice!

Before coming to Sweden, I can admit that I really did not know all that much about the place. I guess it flies a little under the radar in Australia compared to other more"touristic" places such as France or Germany. Add to that, my rather limited knowledge of anything to do with the world and its geography and you get a rather un-cultured Aussie living in Sweden! I'm getting used to this. I'm also learning a whole lot about Europe and the world that I didn't know - especially in terms of languages.

Did you guys know (and I'm sure you guys do) that there is a part of Canada which speaks French as their main language? Did you guys know that Dutch can be spoken as the official language in more countries than just the Netherlands - even going across continents! It's been so interesting seeing how people interact with each other here as the international program basically brings together a mishmash of people from all over the world speaking different languages and all trying to speak English now to each other.

For me, I have come to realise I should count myself lucky to have English as my first language whereas for others here, they are not afforded this luxury. I can tell you that without a doubt, one of the greatest things about being here, is hanging out with such a range of International people. The one's who don't speak English as their first language add a whole new depth to the conversation as they express themselves in ways which aren't really as conventional. It can make for a great laugh!

"can you please make a picture for me?" (to take a photo)
"I'm going to bake the potatoes" (apparently means pan-frying)
"I am a unique child" (I am an only child)
"I would like to present to you...." (when introducing someone to the group)
"I would like to proposition you..." (I have an idea/proposal)

Such a shame I can't remember them all - there's so many better ones that have slipped my mind! I'll start writing them down. They say that they want us to correct them whenever they make mistakes, but sometimes it is just so funny to hear things expressed in a certain way. Despite how much I enjoy talking to my international friends, my friends, Mina and Manon both complain that they feel that here, they must sound like "babies" when they talk because they cannot express themselves more than in basic english. They are always telling me that they speak so much more eloquently in their own language and I guess that is to be expected. It must suck to have to spend all your time speaking a language that is not the one you are most comfortable in. It makes communication such a chore, when it is something I really just take for granted.

Here, all classes we take are in English which is of course, fine for me. I give presentations with easy (except for a bit of nervous shakes) and I write my essays as I do back in Australia. For other people I've talked to, they take weeks to write their essays as they have to constantly refer to the dictionary and spend hours making sure the grammar is right. That's pretty hard yakka! I definitely respect the people who have come here who are in this situation. Last night, Kelsey and I helped my friend Manon edit her essay (as Dutch is her mother language) and it amazed me how well she could express herself. Yet, there was always in some instances better ways to express herself and it was usually hard to explain why - although we tried. English can be such a funny language sometimes. Saying "it just sounds better..." really doesn't help someone learning english because for them, the way they said it before sounded perfectly fine!

Another thing I've found interesting is how many words we don't realise are actually Australia - or at least I didn't. A "singlet" brought up confusion for my Canadian friend who called it something really quite strange. A  "beanie" for a Canadian is apparently a "tuc" (funny word, right?). Here in Europe, I've had a few instances where people didn't understand what a beanie was! Another one recently was "fortnight" - which when you think about it, is actually quite a strange way to explain 2 weeks and apparently is another thing that is not known around here and in Canada. Another cool thing is that people seem to be able to recognise my accent very easily here as Australia. In Australia, I get told I don't have an accent and here they say I do. Hilarious!

The other thing that has been a pretty big deal this week has been the weather! (fascinating topic I know) It has begun to get really quite sunny and warm! By warm, I mean that it is about 6 degrees max, but that is enough for me to go parading around and walking to University wearing just some jeans, a tshirt and a light cardigan over the top (holding my down jacket in case). It's amazing but it really does feel hot. People are opening their windows to their rooms and sitting outside absorbing as much sun as they can. The sky right now is completely blue and the sun is out. I have seen grass! There is grass outside my window, when a week ago there was all snow and a snowman! It snowed again yesterday but not enough and now it is all melted away. Yet, we have been told that this won't last and that the winter is far from over. We shall see...things are looking pretty great out here!

The unfortunate part of this "fake transition to Spring" is the ice. As the snow melts, it seems to be turning into ice making it really quite a chore to leave the house to go anywhere. Before, we walked around with the expectation that we might slip and fall, and now it is just accepted that we will definitely. It is so incredibly dangerous and scary to walk around even my campus and I have heard so many stories of people slipping and some even ending up in hospital from breaking bones or getting concussions. To get to my supermarket which is just next to Flogsta, we have to go down a rather steep slope (which I believe I've shown you photos of) and that is now a sort of walking slippery dip. It is such a funny site to see people walking up and down it with grocery bags taking the most careful of steps trying to find the least slippery part to walk on and nobody talking or looking at each other. The other day, I was walking up (carefully) and a guy walking down I knew said Hi to me - that brief moment of looking up caused him to slip and stack. After that, we decided to go on our way and talk later.

These are some photos I took on my walk to the gym on Sunday. That's right - I went to the gym! First time here and we plan to go again soon. But check out the ice.  Pretty crazy if you ask me. Anyway, that is all for now. In terms of what has been happening: I have not been taking many photos unfortunately lately but I will try to keep that up again. Things I have been doing have included the gym, going go the International Gasque (which is like a fancy ball and dinner), getting the most epic of bruises you can imagine, and some very interesting classes at Uni. On the books for the coming month, I will be going to London in about 2 weeks, followed by Copenhagen and then Riga which is in Latvia on another crazy cruise. Oh and in April.... RUSSIA!!!! Lots happening! And I also want to write a lot more on just normal life here in Sweden. Boy, it's going to be a busy month! 

Maiden Voyage of the Baltic Queen

PART 1: I'm On Another Boat

Last weekend, onboard the Baltic Queen, we took a voyage to the far and distant land of Tallin, Estonia. Random I know, but it is usually these more unknown places that give you a real unique experience, I believe. I had no real idea of where Estonia was, having hardly ever heard of the country before but I was eager to go and check it out. It would be my first ever cruise as well, and as we found out on the day, this boat's first cruise too.

Exciting? Or scary? I chose to say, both - thrilling, to say the least. As we walked along the runway to board the ship, people around me were telling me awful stories of ships which had problems out on the sea and sunk and about how you cannot survive even if you manage to get on a lifeboat because you will surely freeze to death. The sea is a scary place when you think about it. Especially when you are sailing during the icy winter. I won't lie, I was really quite terrified. When booking the cruise in the first place, it somehow never really occurred to me that we would actually be ON A BOAT in the ICE WATER suscept to the forces of nature with no control sailing across the Baltic Sea to another country for like, 18 hours. I could die.

Still, there was nothing else I could do. I was here, I had to get on the boat. Stepping into the ship, we were greeted with a most amazing site. What was this place we had walked into? It was damn fancy and shiny and definitely not what I expected for having paid about 20bucks in total for the cruise. Exploring the ship, we came to the conclusion that yep, if we had to die. This wouldn't be such a bad place to do so. There were 10 levels to the ship, and multiple places to go. There was a supermarket, multiple restaurants, bars, karaoke, a disco/dance floor, a cigar room, a piano room, an arcade,a children's playground, and a giant showroom with a stage to watch live entertainment. Yeah! It was one of them fancy boats. We felt like we were on the Titanic and desperately hoped that this would be the Titanic gone right. I snapped a few shots of the places around the cruise while exploring and they all are empty because everyone was sorta still getting on the boat and checking into their rooms.

The disco was a pretty crazy place - right at the top of the boat too!

Back in our cabin, I opened the letter Dylan wrote me for "anytime I happen to be on a boat" and was greeted with the words to I'm on a Boat and a boat hat! Perfect Fit.

The stores were not open until the cruise had left the harbour and there was a pretty long line outside the supermarket...time for some Duty Free Shopping! Yew. It was a pretty crazy shambles in there. Very good deals on booze also.

This is a 1.8L bottle of Jagermeister wow. Also I would like to draw attention to the Frisky Zebras

In our cabin : D

We had a Class B cabin, which didn't have a window, but heck, they gave us a "pretend" window which was actually a mirror and you could even draw the curtains...hilarious! I loved it

This is the old people's area haha....where you listen to the pianist, and right next to it is the cigar room where you can freely smoke on the boat indoors away from the cold.

 Also this is seriously what it looked like outside the window! Titanic much?

We also watched a few shows, and listened to some live music - even getting up for a dance!

After a crazy and certainly fun but late night running aray on the boat, I awoke from my rather restless (panic-y oh my gosh we will drown while I'm sleeping) sleep to find that we had arrived in Tallin alive and well! The day was spent exploring the "Old Town" of Tallin. A truly amazing, beautiful, medieval, and charming little town. I fell in love with the old buildings, the textures of the walls, the typography, the people, the colours, but was not so much a fan of the slushy, slippery cobblestone "paths" as the snow was melting and freezing and causing all kinds of hazards!

PART 2: MEDIEVAL TALLIN

The entrance to the old town

On arriving in the Old Town, a romantic Estonian man gave my friend a rose! Random but sweet!

There were lots of these wheelbarrow stalls mainly selling some special roasted nuts

You can buy some great outfits here!

Hungry and a little cold, we found ourselves in one of the most amazing places I have ever been for a feed. Still quite tired from the boat ride, we were pretty much awe-struck and confused....constantly asking, wait, where are we? What IS this place? Why? ... It felt like we had somehow got on a boat and come out like centuries back to the Medieval Period.

We were in this dark kitchen, where there was no electricity... only candles. There was a lady dressed in olden day wear, making pies in a big coal oven, and serving drink from large barrels. It was truly extraordinary.

The entrance to the most amazing place ever

This medieval lady was cooking pies

So cheap! I cannot believe it!

Other tourists being as confused as we are

My Elk Soup - That's right, I drank Elk Soup!

So I had Elk Soup, as well as a cabbage pie. It was so tasty and so cheap I went back for more - this time, a forest meat pie and a farm meat pie! Yummy! We also drank some old style tea declining her offer for beer or wine and then stabbed us some pickles which were pickling in a barrel.

You stab the water over and over until you get a pickle

After that, there was just more exploring of the city. I took so many photos! Shame I can't put them all up, when I get back - who wants to go through all the photos with me? hahahaha

Horse!

They let us pat the horsey

Wow colours and just wow

Love the signs and the lights

Crazy man busking....he was singing really hilariously a song: "Unchain My Heart" Odd guy

Photo at the top of Tallin

Group Shot

An alleyway in Tallin....so colourful!

These dolls were standing at the front of lots of the stores

Owls! I love Owls!

Cute little door

Some graffiti I thought was fair wicked

Panoramic Shot

Well pretty much that's it. The boat ride home was really quite awful. There was a storm and heavy rain and the boat rocked constantly causing a lot of the people to get very seasick, including me. I didn't puke or anything but was not feeling too crash hot. We also bought an incredible amount from the duty free store which I had to lug home in a suitcase...but that is a whole different story!

I loved Tallin very much! I think we plan to go back again once it is warmer. Also - it is getting warmer! Here in Uppsala, the paths have become so slippery it is a miracle if you don't fall! No joke... it is like iceskating everyday. Everyone is walking with the utmost concentration and it is a normal thing to see people stacking all over the place. This is because the snow is melting and then freezing. Outside my window right now, I can see the grass again! The snow is starting to melt and the sun is out!