Stockholm, Sweden

I was in Stockholm! Last Monday night a rather large group of us exchange students from Tampere boarded the train to Turku to begin our whirlwind trip to Sweden. We arrived at the M/S Isabella around 8.30pm just in time to board the ship. There were 4 of us to a cabin and it was essentially a cruise ship and although we had the cheapest rooms and they were as far down in the ship as you could go, it was still impressively comfortable...I actually thought the fold-down bed was more comfortable than my bed in Tampere!

Once we all dropped our things off in our cabins, we all headed straightaway to the duty-free shop for what other than tax-free booze!!! Most of us bought as much as we could carry in one trip and headed back down to our cabins only to party and enjoy the 10-hour long ferry ride as much as possible! At some point, we all went to the on-board disco and being the only ones there, decided we would make the party more interesting and started our own game of limbo which was extremely entertaining especially after so much liquid from the duty-free!

We partied pretty much all night and when the disco closed at 4am, we decided to head to bed. Little did we know that there would be a member of the ship's crew knocking on our door at 6am (!!) telling us we were in Stockholm and had to leave the ship. So, after a night of fun and 2 hours of sleep, all 25 of us dragged our sorry behinds off the boat to begin our tour of Stockholm.

We missed both buses that headed into the city, so we decided to walk. It wasn't a far walk, about half an hour to the Old Town and the cold air at 6.30am was actually refreshing for those of us who had headaches!

Once we all got over the shock of being awake so early, we began to really enjoy the city. There is an old section of the city, complete with cobble-stone narrow streets and high old builings on both sides. We also walkled past the Royal Apartments where the Swedish Royal Family lives as well as the Riksdag which is the Swedish parliament. Both were beautiful buildings. Stockholm has a harbour, but also has a number of islands throughout the city which make the view in some places absolutely beautiful.

Abour mid-morning we headed to the "Vasa Museet" which is a museum that houses an old ship (called the Vasa) that had sunk around Stockholm in the 1600s. The waters of the area have something in them that preserved the wood and in the 1950s, archeaologists raised the ship and restored it and it is now housed in this museum. The link is here: www.vasamuseet.se It really was a great thing to see.

After we decided to spend the rest of our day walking the city some more and doing some shopping. Stockholm is such a great city...probably my favourite city I have visited yet! It has such great architecture and beautiful scenery and still has the feeling of a big city (which it is). The people in Stockholm were all very well dressed and also extremely friendly. It really is a city I would like to go back to or could even live in if I had the opportunity.

In the evening, we treated ourselves to a steak dinner and then headed back to the ship where most of us slept due to the exhausting night and day we had!

Again, there are pictures on my MSN webspace link...my pics didn't turn out so great, but I am triyng to get a hold of some from other people who were on the trip with us.

Moral of the story: Stockholm is great.

Love, Jules :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Moi moi! Apologies for not posting in a while, but there hasn't been much going on in the last week. When I got home from Riga I was so tired, so I was trying to stay close to home last week to rest and catch up with studying.

Yesterday I got home from a camping/hiking trip that the student union put together. We bussed to a national park about 50km from Tampere called Helvetinjärvi National Park. We really lucked in with the weather and it was beautiful and sunny the whole time. After arriving, we set up camp and then started on a 10km hike through the park.

The Finnish forest really isn't much different from the Canadian forests, but something strange about it was that there were no animals or birds...nothing...when we stopped in the forest to listen, it was just dead silence. The park was beautiful however and as you can see from the pic above, the trees were all changing and the scenery was wonderful. We stayed the night (in heated tents, we were so spoiled!) and then bussed back to Tampere the next morning. It was such a great way to get out of the city and see some Finnish countryside. It was nice to get away from school and everything and just simply relax, even if it was only for 1 night...

So I guess today everyone is sitting down for turkey!!!! It's not a holiday here in Finland, but after class, I am going to attempt to make a turkey dinner "expat" style, complete with turkey, Stove Top stuffing my family sent from home, and last night my flatmate and I even made an apple pie!!! I've never made apple pie before, but it looks like it should, so tonight we will see if it tastes like it should!

Also, my apologies if you've written an email and I have been late with my replies...I promise to write eventually! And for more pictures, go to my MSN "Space": http://spaces.msn.com/members/julezmay/

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Love, Jules :)