Latvia tomorrow

I just booked a last minute cruise to Riga, Latvia.  It is another one of those 40 hour cruises so I won't be gone long.  It leaves tomorrow night then we tour the city of Riga on Tuesday then return to Stockholm on Wednesday morning.  I know literally nothing about Latvia other than it used to be part of Russia but I will learn something while I am there.  I also heard everything is very cheap so maybe I'll get some new clothes while I'm out of pricey Sweden.  I'm finishing up my 3rd class right now as I am completing the final paper for it.  My next class starts in May which is the dreaded Swedish Literature class.  Upper division literature is the last required class I need to graduate and I saved it for last being my least favorite subject so hopefully it won't be too bad.

Lots and lots of sun

The weather in Sweden has been awesome recently.  Everyone all winter was saying "just wait for spring" which took forever but we have made it.  It was a long and hard winter but now it is 60's and sunny every single day.  Uppsala surprisingly doesn't get much rain at all.   About 20 inches a year so about the same as Boulder or a third of what Maine gets.  The sun now rises at about 515 and goes down around 830.... and there is still 2 months until the summer solstice.    

I started a little soccer group named Uppsala FC (football club).  We play 3 to 4 times a week so that has been great.  The Facebook group has climbed to 54 members.  About 10 people are regulars and play every time but on a couple of real nice days we had about 20 show up for some pick up soccer.  Playing soccer or any sport is a great way to meet people so the group has been beneficial for everyone.    

We play on the dirt field on weekends when the turf field is taken

We have had a couple of fun BBQs right in front of our building which has 2 outdoor grills.  All of the swedes are outside like I have never seen before.  It is like they have come out from hibernation.  Even when it was 40 degrees a few of them were sunbathing on the rocks in front of the building.  Only in sweden.  

sunday picnic

I have a 15 page paper due next monday for my Holocaust class then I will be onto my last class.  Next week I want to try and go to Helsinki or Latvia on one of the super cheap cruises since it is finally warm in those places.  It is going to be harder to travel outside of Sweden now that it is so warm and sunny here but I still need to see a lot of Scandinavia since I am up here.  

Jesse and I are having an American BBQ for a bunch of our friends in a couple weeks.  Hamburgers, corn on the cob,  chocolate chip cookies and watermelon.  We are also making an Apple pie because our Dutch friends think that the apple pie is dutch.  We are going to prove them wrong.  

   *If you have any food or drink suggestions for the American BBQ let me know!

BBQ in front of my apartment

hanging out on the roof *picture from Lukas

People kayaking down the very high river *picture from Lukas

Croatia

Wednesday-  Left for the airport in the afternoon.  Our flight was at 6pm so that gave us plenty of time.  I honestly think that Jesse and I were the only people out of the 150 or so people on the flight not Croatian so that was kind of neat.  As soon as we got on the plane the chatter on the plane was like nothing i've heard before.  Everyone talked on the plane... for the entire flight which is much different than the quiet swedes.  Then there was a huge ovation when the plane landed and I lost it laughing.  We then took the bus into the city of Zadar and began the mission in finding our hostel.  The city was completely dead with just about no one on the streets so that was a little eerie but we managed to find the Old Town part of the city which is the downtown area on the water just like the Old Port.  The name of the hostel and the only hostel in the city was named the Old Town hostel so we thought it'd be easy finding it.  That was a big mistake.  No one knew where and what a hostel was.  The city was also completely deserted.  We wandered the narrow streets for about 2.5 hours zig zagging every street multiple times.  All of the internet cafe's were not open yet and even the tourist center didn't have internet yet.  We wandered for around again and were just about losing hope so we made it back to the tourist center.  They were trying to find it when a group of 3 girls from London came in saying they couldn't find the same hostel.  Thankfully the tourist center employees called some friends and they finally located the hostel.  The sign for the hostel was insanely small and we actually walked past it countless times but we finally made it.  After walking about 10 miles we just went to bed.

Pleasant sight after a cold winter

Thursday-  Woke up to the sun shining and it sure was warm!  We just walked around the Old Town for a couple hours.  Not too much to see as it is about the size of the Portland.  Very scenic though with the crystal clear Mediterranean and clear blue sky.  The city looked a lot like Venice also except much less busy.  It isn't much of a tourist area yet.  In the afternoon we walked down to the outdoor ocean pool and went swimming for a couple hours.  The water was so clear and there were so many fish visible I wish I had my snorkel and mask!  At night we got pizza and met up with 3 australians from the hostel named Tessa,  Alisha and Karl.  Karl is traveling the world alone for the year. Alfred Hitchcock said that the sunset in Zadar is better than any sunset he has seen anywhere in the world and it certainly didn't disappoint.  We then got gelato then went to bed.

Roman ruins in the Old Town

Thousands of boats

our swimming pool

the sea organ in Zadar...youtube it

sunset in zadar

Friday-  We headed to Plitvice National Park bright and early.  The owner of the hostels friend does the tours so he picked Jesse, Tessa and I up from the hostel and left for the mountains.  The price he charged of 30 euros each is a great deal for driving us 2 hours both ways and being our tour guide for the entire day.  As we headed into the mountains you couldn't help but noticed the destruction the war had on the area.  The war ended about 15 years ago and it sure looked like it.  Thousands of bullet holes and countless of buildings were destroyed and abandoned on the way.  170,000 land mines still exist in the country side too so it will remain undeveloped for a while.  After driving through the country side for 2 hours we were at the park which is right on the Bosnian border.  The park was basically empty so that was nice.

not quite in season but still spectacular

water looked nice but was VERY cold

The water was so green and clear it was amazing.  Unfortunately the trees and vegetation weren't green yet but the water was still as green as ever.  We saw the tallest waterfall in croatia at 85 meters which was spectacular.  We walked the park for about 6 hours and saw enough waterfalls for a lifetime.  Dennis picked us up at end of the day and we cruised back to Zadar.  That night some American girls who were studying in London came to the Hostel so we finally reunited with some Americans.  I always hear people say like "that's so American" or "you're so American right now" and I didn't really get what they meant but I think I understand what the europeans meant now.  We went to multiple nightclubs and bars and were most likely the only non-croatians at all of them so we got some extra attention but I felt completely safe.    


*Plitvice was the location where the civil war started as a park police officer was shot there yet it wasn't labeled or talked about by anyone.

One of countless fish

300 foot waterfall

Jesse in the background

Saturday-  Got some pizza around noon at one of the dozens of great pizzerias.  I need to take a good break from pizza which will be easy to do in Sweden because I ate way too much in Croatia.  We didn't have much else to do or see so went down to the swimming area and went swimming.  The american girls came also.  We went to about 5 different stores looking for sunscreen but no where had them.  Only "seasonal" so we all got burnt pretty bad but it was worth it.  Some croatians were at the swimming area too but they thought the water was too cold.  I thought America was the "wimpy" country.  We hung out there basically all day and then headed back to the hostel for our night flight.  It was tough leaving the warm but Sweden has warmed up also and is about 50 degrees every day now so it is very do able.

Jumping into the Mediterranean

the pool was a little warmer

This is when our real adventure begins unfortunately.  We landed at the airport at 1015pm and the last train leaves stockholm at 1215 so we thought we could make it.  The bus didn't end up leaving until about 1130 as the bus had to fill up to leave so we missed our train by about a half hour so we were pretty disappointed we would be sleeping in the train station until 7.. not so fast.  The train station closes at 1230 so we start wandering the city trying to figure out what to do.  It wasn't too cold so it wasn't awful being homeless.  We found a Mcdonalds down the street and it was open until 5.  We sat in the Mcdonalds for 4.5 hours but it wasn't a typical South Portland, Mcdonalds.  It was packed with absolutely smashed (drunk) people for the entire time.  Hundreds of them.  It was entertaining people watching but it got pretty old.  Multiple chicken sandwiches were thrown our way but you just have to ignore that at that point.  Got to the train station at 5am and laid down on benches.  Got woken up 5 minutes later by a security guard...Swedes.  Took the 715am and got back to Uppsala around 8am and went to bed.  Besides the travel Croatia was awesome and I expect that it will continue to get a great reputation as a vacation spot in the coming years.  It was very cheap and scenic so I would definitely suggest it to anyone.  Now a bunch of people are planning on going after they saw our pictures of the trip on facebook.  Not sure where the next trip is too but we will see!
p.s.
Lets go Red Sox!