Amie's Travels

Okay well, here is my month of Feburary:

Firstly, we went to Jökkmokk and it was hella awesome! We went for just one day and it was just to see the Sami Market! We got to see dog sleds and reindeer races and fur trades and all that cool stuff. I bought necklaces for four people (not sure who yet) that have reindeer antler on them! NEAT BEANS! After that, there is not much MORE, but lots of FIKA and a few parties and just day to day stuff which I am sure that none of you are interested in!

But, I did take a trip to Estonia which you might be a little more interested in! We are meeting tonight to get pictures! So I am completely enthralled for that! But, if you want to know about my Estonian trip here it is!

Well, we start off by going on a ridonculously long bus ride from Umeå to Stockholm over night and then we spent the day in Stockholm until the ferry leaves around five! We went to see the Vasamusett ship and it was amazing! I had always wanted to see it, I will add pictures later after our party tonight because I think some people got better ones than I DID! So yeah, that will be later. But we saw that, the Gamalstan or whatever its called, the old city, we hung out there, and we also took pictures of the square and the palace and the harbour! It was quite awesome, and I bought TONS of souvenirs for my family and some for my friends! I got a patch of course of stockholm as you know I collect them like a crazy person, but they are a cheap thing to collect and easy to carry around unlike shot glasses! But anyways, we just barely make it to the ferry! But, the ferry is actually a CRUISE SHIP.

So we board this cruise ship that goes overnight to helsinki and its just the coolest thing ever! I have never been on such a thing so I was quite excited! (Minus the sea sickness pills that I required later!!) It had a pub in it that was playing the olypmics so we watched skiing and louge or skeleton, I cant remember which. But, it was great! Funny thing is though, we had the cheapest cabins to sleep in, we were BELOW the car deck, under the water pretty much. We could hear the ice scraping all night. I slept like a baby though because of my sea sickness pills.

We arrived in Helsinki late (because of all the ice) and then we had about nine hours to chill before getting to our next ferry which would take us to Tallinn! I have to tell you though, they call it HEL-sinki for a reason. THOSE PEOPLE ARE HARDCORE. It felt like a -50 Saskatchewan Blizzard while we were there. INSANE. But, we made it! We went to several different Russian Orthodox churches that were just BEAUTIFUL. The Russian was so old that Martin could not read it! (He is the crazy, Russian mother, Estonian dad, but lives in Germany person so he speaks too many langauges). It was just beautiful. We also went shopping and I got a Finnish Atlas (because I collect atlases and I am weird….shut up)! So that was sweet! We did a walking tour as well of the older town and port at night as the blizzard had died down and we got some better pictures! It was great, but then we were on our ferry to Tallinn which made us arrive at around 12 am Tallinn time. We went to our hostel and slept good!

Next morning is Tallinn morning! Breakfast and then we were off! We did a very nice, long tour of the old city. Seriously, Tallinn is so under-rated as a tourist spot. This is more beautiful than anything I have ever seen, and it was during the winter! We did a walking tour mostly and stopped in a few church which were also Russian Orthodox! Obviously from the Russian influence earlier on. We also stopped at their AMAZING library! And I also found a book store and bought TWO estonian atlases! I found an old antique one and a newer one! Which I think is the coolest thing ever to have an antique atlas! It shows USSR, west and east germany, oh so much has changed! I love it! But yes, after our long tour of Estonia we had to take a ferry back home and we made our journey home and then took another LONG bus ride back up to Umeå. Except this one was during the day and it took a good 3 hours longer. Thank you lame bus system, thank you. But, we eventually made it home and I passed out for about a day and a half. Good times! But, then Daniela, Maria and Julia all made me supper and taught me the German words for tadpole and gravity! I also learned the word for ass-kisser. LOL! I taught them the phrase of swept off your feet for Julia had a date a few nights ago which I was excited to hear about! I also taught them how to say sewing properly as its the dumbest word ever. SWEET! The past day I was frantically finishing a paper and doing a presentation which went very well and we had a very nice geography class! Although, its a human geography class, so its not as awesome as PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. Physical geographers will RULE THE WORLD ONE DAY! JUST YOU WAIT! Ahem anyways, going to be an exciting weekend! Tonight we have an after Estonian party for pictures and fun times! Then friday there is so much going on! There is a half pipe competition right by my house, then a pre-party and then international pub at SKOGIS! Greatest thing ever! Then saturday is folk fest and then Scharinska for some good times! Sunday we will have fika at skogis with my buddy group and also some time for iksu in there! But, all is well and I have my bank account up and working so money is much easier to access and it works a lot easier in the stores as I dont need to have cash all the time. I just put in my card and use my pin and its good to go!

Well, I had computer troubles and was just busy and lazy so I haven’t updated my blog in a while. However, I know it is extremely annoying to read long blog entries so I will keep it as short as possible (but that is impossible so PREPARE YOURSELF). I also can’t remember WHAT happened which days, so its been over a week since I updated this crazy thing, but I’m looking through my pictures to try and remember exactly what I did on each day. I think the last time I updated it was on a Wednesday. So this makes me begin with last Thursday.

Well on Thursday, I have the following pictures to show the after-math of the blizzard:

This is usually where I walk. It is now three feet high with snow.

Friday Morning when I woke up

But, anyways, there wasn’t anything exciting to report from Thursday. Well, I DO actually. I couldn’t find one of the articles online, so Courtney and I went to explore the basement of the library which houses all of the articles and journals. The article wasn’t there, and continues to not be there to this day so I have no idea who took out that issue and never returned it to the shelf. JERKS. Anyways, after we frolicked about, I was shown the most substantial thing I have ever seen. MOVING BOOKSHELVES. No, I kid you no. Moving book shelves. They ran out of room apparently so they put in these moving bookshelves to save room and house more books. There are even signs that say, if you are caught in between bookcases when they are moving, RUN! No, they don’t say that, they say just push on them and they stop. It is a slightly odd phenomenon. I took a video of this as I was so dumbfounded (unusual for me right ) and Courtney, was of course, my price is right girl.

moving book shelves

After this momentous occasion, I do believe we went for Fika, I’m sure we did, but I can’t very much recall. But, it must have been some good fika, oh I have too much good fika! Anyways, continuation of life…

But, THEN FRIDAY BEGINS. We had our first ever pre-seminar and we all weren’t sure what to expect I’m sure. But, our classroom was locked so everyone just sat out in these comfy chairs that were in the hallway next to the classroom. It was pretty sweetness. Our seminar was about Feuding and Society in the Icelandic Sagas from the Medieval time telling about the Viking Age.  The pre-seminar is just students, so it could have been unproductive or productive. Thankfully, ours was the second one, it even went over, and I was getting edgy as I was suppose to meet Maria, Daniela and Julia in town, they started shopping at 12 and the seminar started around 1 if I remember. But, it was a good seminar, we all discussed the articles very seriously. Katie was very much a lead discuss-er in this one! Due to the antropological dis in the first article we read, and that is what her main area of study is. Also, the Austrian guy that looks metal studies the Icelandic Sagas and Scandinavian culture at his home university so he was into the discussion as well. Him and Felix (German student) were pretty heated about the credibility of the Sagas as historical representation and historical re-construction. I said a little bit about a few things, but I didn’t really have too much to say about them. Just, that the articles were mostly horribly written and that if any English professor saw the horrible organization of these articles they might die of an anerism. But, anyways, Felix then announced he was having a party in Alidhem (where all the parties are) and which everyone already knew about of course as it gets around between all the exchange students. However, we were personally invited then! But, then, I told Courtney I had to go into town and she came with me and went to buy a pair of goggles for boarding/skiing. They were super cheap so it was a good deal . Then I met up with Maria, Daniela, and Julia and we shopped around for a bit! I bought a black shirt as I forgot my “oh-so vital” one at home that allows me several more outfit options. Very, very important! After this, we returned home to get ready for partying, but there was of course pre-partying involved.

Swedish Dinner!

Here is all of the food I ate. There is this weird bacon stuff, a potato pancake thing, a swedish sausage, swedish meaballs, bread with cool seafood stuff on it and the hard crackers they love with caviar on it.

This day, I also was going to a Swedish Dinner Party with my buddy group! It was in Nydlahojd or however you spell it, so Amie and I, yes another Amie, walked together to the dinner party. The dinner party was super happening! We got to eat mostly all different kinds of meats. There was lots of caviar fish tub stuff, and Swedish sausage, oh it was so good, oh, and SWEDISH MEATBALLS. Of course, because nothing says Swedish like meatballs! We also had some good desserts, lots of gingerbread and this pancake…cake that was really good! After this, we played musical chairs! And, at this point, some of the people had ALREADY been drinking. Musical chairs in itself is just dangerous, let alone people with alcohol in their blood. I woke up the next morning with the most disgusting bruises everywhere. One was literally black, its now only slightly purple and pink, and its been more than a week later! I keep finding little bruises everywhere as the day goes on from that and they are always BLACK because I must have gotten hit pretty hard. I also hit my elbow really hard, but there was no bruise, however, I’ve been told I’ve been hilarious ever since! Oh its so humerous! If you guys want to see all of the hilarious photos from this, you’ll have to go on facebook, unfortunately, as there are too many funny videos and pictures of my buddy group to chose any of them!

Me and Maria keeping it real!

However, after this, we had a pre-party to go to, so I followed Artem, Amie, Ieno, and Yvonne, there was someone else but I can’t’ quite remember. Well, anyways, they got me to Alidhem Centrum and I met Maria to drop off some stuff at her apartment. We then ran into Katie and Annie!! So we all went to a pre-party together and it was pretty fun. We then went to Felix’s party and it was also pretty grand. There were lots of good discussion and meeting different people, we also heard about bands playing at Sharinska (night club) the following night so we made plans to go to this the following night. But, the night was very good and I had a good time with Katie, Annie, Julia and Maria! Daniela showed up later with Albert, I think that’s his name, which was super awesome! I didn’t think she’d be around as she was going on the day trip skiing the following day (I didn’t want to go as I’m going to a bigger mountain in a few weeks). But, it was nice to see her! Then I went home and passed out from the long exhausting day! Well, I tried to, but I couldn’t sleep till about 6am due to the time change still.

Saturday, I just did not do anything at all. I was so tired from not sleeping properly I did not really get out of bed. I made food and just sat and watched movies all day. I was also extremely homesick and Brendon was away at the Fort so I had not one directly to talk to from Canada. Everyone was gone or away or whatever. And I just felt so homesick so I felt no desire to get out of bed. However, at 8pm, I thankfully got out of bed and got ready to go to Sharinska, and by ready I mean shower and then put on a sweater and jeans. I’m so fancy going to this nightclub, eh? So, we payed 110 KRONA to get in there. There was apparently a basement where all the good stuff was happening to Daniela, but we never found it! I BLAME YOU DANIELA! Anyways, it was okay for the first bit, and there were a few good songs, but it was mostly just all the BOOM BOOM crap that I don’t really enjoy at home. Although, I had a good conversation with Christian, he’s quite the gentlemen. He always speaks up when its all German people and they are automatically start speaking German and then he mentions that I am there XD. I think I am more likely to end up learning German than Swedish while I am here as I am mostly around all Germans! Although, it is very cool just to be around different cultures and different people and see how they look at things. Its very interesting indeed. But, anyways, went home that night and just didn’t sleep well again. Sunday wasn’t much either, just sitting around, getting groceries and all that jazz.

Please continue to Blog Update numero deux!