Valborg/ Recent life

As I heard complaints all winter about how cold it was and how much snow there was, I always heard the swedes say just wait till Valborg it will be worth it.  Valborg is from what I understand is a huge party or festival that starts off the spring.  Uppsala is the epicenter for Valborg in Sweden as over 100,000 people from all over the country come to the city of about 100,000 people.


Friday- It was another beautiful day in Sweden.  It has been by far the best spring in terms of weather that I have ever experienced.  It has been more sunny than Boulder which gets 300 days of sunshine a year.  That afternoon I played soccer with the Uppsala FC soccer team that I and a few other international students created.  We have regularly played 3 to 4 times a week which has been awesome.  I have easily met most of my friends through soccer.  After we played soccer we went down to the river and hung out until it was time to go to one of the Nations.  We went to Snerikes nation and had a good time all night.  They had beer pong set up as they had an "Spring Break".  A swedish cover band played really late into the night and our soccer team was about half of the people there and we went a little obnoxious to say the least...

In Snerikes

Saturday-  Woke up early to head down to the river to see the annual boat race.  100 teams create boats during the week from styrofoam and some wood.  A lot of the designs are pretty funny as the race isn't taken seriously at all.  The boats float slowly down the river until they reach the small waterfall and about  half of them get destroyed by the rapids.  Safety divers are there to keep them safe fortunately.  A couple of my friends made boats so I was there to cheer and see them get destroyed by the waves which was enjoyable.

Meandering down the river

About to get intense for the boats

splash

At 1:10 you can see a boat capsize

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfKEjFvUFw8

We then went to Ekonomikum Park which is just across the street from my apartment.  The park was totally packed with people.  I'd predict maybe like 5 or so thousand people there.  Everyone was just sitting and it was a giant picnic with a lot of alcohol.  There was tons of food for sale and DJ's playing music all around.  Jesse and I sat with our corridor mate lovisa and her friends.  She had about 5 friends visiting from Stockholm for the weekend so we had a packed corridor.  

Ekonomikum park.  My apartment is in the building with the red roof

At 2pm Jesse, Lovisa and Lovisa's friend Amanda went to a champagne gallop.  We went to the Varmlands nation and each bought a bottle of champagne...except you don't drink the champagne you spray it.  It was kind of cool about 60 degrees and we got soaked from the hundreds of bottles being sprayed around but it was a lot of fun.  After the champagne shower we headed back to the corridor.  Lovisa had a bunch of friends over so it was fun until some random girl who was a friend of a friend decided to throw up in our shower....they cleaned it up.

bunch of onlookerrs

Me with Lovisa on left and Amanda on right

Jesse took a nap so that left me and about 10 swedes.  They were all super nice and so intrigued that I was American.  I basically had a 2 hour Q and A session with her friends.  I got asked things like whether I have sued anyone to whether I have seen anyone get shot.  They were all so interested in the US as they always see it on tv but never actually meet Americans.  We just hung out in our corridor for the rest of the night as it started to get kind of nasty outside.

Sunday-  Woke up to the sound of cars running over glass.  I have never seen so much trash in a city before.  Everywhere was an absolute dump.  And of course in Swedish fashion the swedes didnt pick any of it up.  The trash sat there a few days and then eventually cleaning crews came to pick up the trash.  I'm thinking that wouldn't happen in Boulder...
Time lapse of Ekonomikum park-

Here are some other random things that have happened in the past few weeks.

I have been running quite a bit.  I was on a run in the country side and a HUGE rabbit jumped out in front of me.  It could of been a Kangaroo, it was that big.

All of the Swedes thought it was pretty weird that a nation could be so happy for killing Osama.

My english as well as all my other American friends have gotten worse.  Just typing this was much harder than when I first got here.  We speak in so easy terms now as all of our friends are non-native speakers.  I thought it was just me that was struggling with remembering how to spell but I've heard from others they are struggling too.

We were at a fancier kind of bar the other night and a guy wasn't let in because his shoes and shirt weren't nice enough.  I have never seen that happen before.

I bought a cheap bike for the last month that I am here.  The front wheel is a little warped so I will just have to go slow.

My Swedish literature class is absolutely brutal.  I never thought a class could be so boring.

My family comes this Monday!

Riga, Latvia

Sunday-  Headed down to Stockholm for the cruise.  I've learned quickly that the Swedish buildings aren't  prepared well for warm weather as it was about 70 degrees and the train station was brutally hot.  When we boarded the cruise we were on board with almost all Latvians or Russians.  The boat was probably about 1/20th full as it was just about empty.  It was almost humorous how empty it was on board.  The coast of Sweden looks identical to the Maine coast.  It took about 2 hours just to get out of the islands off the coast of Sweden.  Jesse and I watched the cheesy spanish cover band play and were one of few that were watching.  We had a competition who could clap the loudest.  I think I won as it echoed through the theater.

Swedens coast

One of hundreds of islands

 Monday- Got to Riga at 11am.  Just from first impression Riga was much more modern looking than Estonia.  The streets on the outside of the old part of the town were pretty empty and didn't really feel like a city but as we got closer to the main downtown area it was packed with people.  Not many tourists at all but still very crowded.  We ate at  burger place near the downtown area.  We went there because it was so cheap and is apparently a historical building.  We wandered around the town some more and checked out a little fair they had in the city.  All the standard festival rides minus the safety regulations that you have in the US.  Not much else too exciting about Riga but it was a fun 2 day little cruise.  I want to do a the Finland cruise soon so I would of done all 3 of the cruises!

One of many churches

I wonder where this ride came from?

Old Russian statue

center of Riga

center of Riga