Adventures to Norway (part 1)

I had three weeks off for this past Spring Break but Mexico was just a little too far away. Fortunately I had an alternative, and headed to Norway to stay with my Norwegian boyfriend, Eivind, for two weeks. Eivind and I have been dating for a year and a half now, long distance mostly, so I was excited to be off to spend some quality time with my Norwegian.

Eivind’s family home is in a small town called Hamar, about an hour outside of Oslo. We spent the first few days of the week in relative lazy bliss. We experimented with baking bread, which I highly recommend- It is very very easy, quick, and heck it’s cool to eat your own homemade bread!

For the second half of the week we embarked on a truly Norwegian traditional trip- we met up with Eivind’s parents and family friends at their cabin in the Norwegian wilderness. It was a pretty amazing experience. We spent the first day being lazy again, lounging, drinking a delicious soda called Solo, and cuddling with the family cat, who they bring along. On the second day we strapped some skis on and hit the cross country trails. I was eager to prove myself as a “potential Norwegian” to his family. (more…)

Alcohol in Sweden

I recently bought ankle high boots from H&M, to prevent an embarrassing repeat of the Keds-in-VIP-section-in-Stockholm incident. They are söt. (cute!) and cheap, like just under 30 bucks! I feel so chic.

I have already made the vow to live on pasta, tacos and hamburgers for the next five months so I can save all my money for clothes and the extremely expensive System Bolaget aka the alcohol store of Sweden, the the booze monopoly. This is the bane of Swedish culture. Whine all you like about waiting till 21 in America, at least you can buy booze at nearly all hours of the night and it takes a while before the bar cuts you off (I assume? Only 20 years old myself hahah). The drinking age in Sweden is 20, but only between the hours of 10 and 6, 7, or 3pm, depending on the day of the week. (3pm is Saturday!) And it’s very expensive. A half liter of absolut costs almost 40 bucks. That’s a grande, in Starbucks terms. you can get little 2.25 percents at the grocery stores but really? You might as well have a soda with dinner.

Here in Lund we have these things called Nations- they are basically co-ed fraternities operating in ways our frats and sorors wish they could operate. I mean, the entire thing is volunteer student run, they all have their own real clubs, pubs, and bars (not just basements), security guards, coat checks (what with all the layers we wear- bless the coat checkers!), dorms, etc. (more…)

Åker ’till Stockholm

Hello UCSB! everyone writing blogs from abroad right now are delivering great, insightful pieces of work on culture and change and experiences, and I’ll get to that next time, I promise. I’m currently in Lund, the southern tip of Sweden. Lund is the Swedish equivalent of Isla Vista: students are the majority, there is out of control partying (we’re one of the few cities in the country that can drink in the streets!), and there are lots of bikes. Like I said, I’ll get into that in my next post, but now is story time. Okay, I’ll add some history.

Two weekends ago, my friends and I went on a student-led trip to Stockholm for the weekend. (“Aker till“ means “traveling to.”) Eight hours of bus ride to the capital and largest city of Sweden.

Our first stop upon arriving was the Vasa museum. We were a little cranky because the stop at the Moose Safari on the way up had been canceled due to bad weather (I thought the Swedes were used to snow?), but the Vasa was a nice beginning. The Vasa is a giant Swedish warship that sank in 1628 on its maiden voyage. Apparently, the ship was three feet narrower than it should have been and twenty minutes after they launched it to sea, a gust of wind caught the sails, flipping it over. Adding to the irony, it was considered bad luck to have sailors who knew how to swim. Luckily, only thirty or so people were killed. (more…)