Brad's England Journal- July Entries 

Saturday, July 5, 1997

It is mid-summer, and not much has been happening, so I haven't made an entry in some time.  I've been spending most of my time fooling around, configuring my computer, and doing little things for my thesis.  I've also gotten back on to a decent work out schedule at the gym, and have been going there every other day.  Other than that, a few major things have happened, and I'll try and summarize them now.

I guess the main thing that has happened is that we were forced to move to new rooms, since they wanted to refurbish the flat we were in downstairs.  They've made the remaining three of us, Kris, Ed, and myself, move into Flat 5, which is right above Flat 4.  They did this so that we could run phone cables out the window of our old rooms, straight up the side of the building and into our new rooms so we wouldn't have to pay to have our phones changed.  They provided the cables, and have been acting as if we should be really grateful to them.  I feel it was the least they could do, since one of the only reasons I stayed here for the summer was that I didn't want to deal with the hassle of moving.  Moving off campus would have saved me money, and given me potentially better accommodation.  Still, there is not much we could say about it, and we are now upstairs.

On the 22nd of June I went to Alan Pearce's 65th Birthday Party.  It was a huge affair with over a hundred people in attendance.  They catered the event and had everybody donate money for one of their charities instead of bringing gifts.  Although I enjoyed it, it was a little awkward since I didn't know many people there.  Alan introduced me to one of the girls, Rachel, that had been in his Junior Choir, and was now at University of Birmingham.  She was heading off on a one year scholarship to one of the big schools in the East, and I was able to give her some information and advice on going to school in the US.

Emi and Jennifer enjoying one of the best parts...Dessert!
The Final Group Photo
Presenting the Shirt to David Robinson
Presenting Flowers to Governor Peter Isherwood and Foundation Chairman John Locke

The District 1060 1996-1997 Scholar De-briefing

The last Friday in June was the final de-briefing for the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars for the year.  Once again we all met down in the Courthouse in Warwick, where both the Orientation and the Christmas Meal had been held.  This time we scholars got to provide the food, each of us bringing one dish from our native countries.  I had talked to Jennifer Haney, the other American Scholar, before the meal, and we both didn't really know what to bring, since it is difficult to come up with a unique American Meal.  In the end I made a Tuna Noodle Casserole, which I make for myself all the time, and which is a fairly typical middle class American dish.  Jennifer wound up making a Taco Salad, which is sort of a Mexican dish with an American spin to it.  The Japanese scholars were the ones that had the most difficult time, since there were ten of them, and they had to try not to bring the same things.  While they were all very good, Yoshihiro's red-bean pudding really stood out (see him setting it out at right), and I was told by the other Japanese scholars that it is quite difficult to prepare.  At the end of the evening the Scholars also presented gifts to the various District Level Rotarians which had been of great help to us during the year.  At the going-away picnic we had for Lorena, we had decided to get David Robinson, who has done all of the talk coordination this year, a T-Shirt with a world map and the countries of origin of all of the scholars.  Since I have easier access to computers than most, I made the design (see image at left) and went and had the T-Shirt made.  It has an image of the earth as it would look from space without any clouds, to show that it is one world, and boundaries are somewhat arbitrary, and there are lines from each represented country to the scholars from there. We also got David a CD-ROM atlas so that he will be able to look up information on countries of origin for scholars in future years.  Finally Peter Isherwood, the District Governor, and John Locke, the District Foundation Chairman, were given cards and flowers.  The evening was very enjoyable, but also a little bitter sweet, as many of us will only be able to stay in touch by mail and e-mail from now on.

Last Monday I went into campus and had lunch with a lady who will probably be the new Assistant-Anglican Chaplain at the University, replacing Hillary Benson who is going to be a Chaplain at a school down in Oxford.  There were several AngSoc Members that talked to her, but it was a little strange for me since I won't be here next year when she starts her tenure.

On Thursday I went to see Howard Stern's Private Parts with Kris.  This was interesting since I was able to fill Kris in on who Howard Stern is, since he seems to be pretty much an American Phenomena.

I've also been working on organizing a couple of weeks of travel around Europe.  It seems like to good an opportunity to miss, since I am already over on this side of the Atlantic (I won't get into the debate of whether the UK is part of Europe, since I have heard both people from the UK, and from Europe say that the UK is not really part of Europe).  My problem right now is when and where to go to, and (hopefully) finding someone to go with me, since I don't like traveling by myself.

Finally, worth a mention is that yesterday was July 4th, Independence Day, which funnily enough isn't much celebrated over here in England!  There was a contest at the local radio station to win a trip to New York for July 4th, but other than that there had been hardly a peep.  Not that I expected to hear anything.  The television here is having a special on the landing of the Mars Pathfinder Mission on Mars, but even they are not mentioning that the landing has been timed for July 4th.

On a related note, Hong Kong was returned by the UK to mainland China on July 1st.  My British roommates weren't to happy about that, saying that it was a national shame to surrender territory to a communist state.  They also were talking about how this had never happened in the history of the Empire.  "Yeah, sure," they said, "maybe we surrendered some things, but we always came back to reclaim it, and the only parts of the empire that were lost were given independence by us."  I didn't think much of it at the time, but today I brought up the fact that England was forced to surrender the US, and they never re-captured it.  They said that it doesn't really count since the colonists were all Englishmen anyway, and, besides, they had a crazy King at the time and can hardly be blamed!  Oh, well, it is all water under the bridge at this point anyway.


Thursday, July 10, 1997

Still not a lot going on that is very exciting.  My trip for the summer is pretty much planned now.  I will be taking the ferry to Gothenburg, Sweden, from Harwich, UK next Tuesday.  The trip over will take 24 hours, but I have a berth to sleep in, so it should be okay.  I'll spend some time in Gothenburg, and then go to Stockholm, where I will spend four days staying with Cecilia, a girl that was in my Masters program last Fall.  From there I will travel around Europe some (I have an Inter Rail Pass that allows unlimited rail travel), and then go to Amsterdam, where I will meet Jeff Hart (who is on assignment in London for six weeks) for the weekend of the 26th and 27th of July.  I'll figure out exactly where in Europe to go during the three days between Stockholm and Amsterdam later on.

Other than that, the only interesting thing to report is that I went to London this past Tuesday.  Jeff Hart, as I mentioned above, is on assignment in London, and he found out about a Cornell Alumni event in London last Tuesday night, so I went down there.  It was in "Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese", an old Pub on Fleet Street in London.  Unfortunately the event turned out to be everybody turning up after work for a drink at the Pub, and we weren't able to figure out who was an Alumni, and who was just relaxing for a drink.  It also turned out that it wasn't a Cornell Alumni event, but open to all Young Alumni from East Coast/Ivy League schools.  I spent the night with Jeff, and then headed back to Birmingham on Wednesday.  One good thing that I did get done was to have my ticket for my trip back to the US in September finally confirmed at a travel agent in London.


Wednesday, July 16, 1997

So, my Europe trip has finally began-- I am now in Gothenburg, or Göteborg if you are Swedish.  I left on Tuesday, taking the train to Harwich, and then leaving on the 8pm ferry from Harwich, arriving twenty-four hours later in Göteborg.  I had never taken a long trip by sea, and thought it might be fun to take one.  My Inter-Rail pass gave me 50% off on the ticket, which also made it seem like a good idea.  My final itinerary then, is ferry to Göteborg, stay here until Friday, then go and visit Cecilia in Stockholm until next Tuesday, train around Germany/Switzerland until next Saturday, then spend the weekend in Amsterdam with Jeff, then go home through Calais and over the channel to Dover.

The Scandinavian Princess, the Ferry I took to Sweden

I guess that I ought to describe the ferry trip a little, since it was my first time doing something like that.  First of all, it is not the type of ferry that I am used to at all.  The only kinds that I have any experience with at all are the ones that run back and forth across the San Francisco Bay.  These are all pretty small affairs, and strictly limited to passengers.  By contrast, this ferry was more like a cruise liner, and had parts of two decks dedicated to hauling cars and trailers.  It had three restaurants, three bars, a disco, a store, an arcade, a casino, a swimming pool and two cinemas (albeit small ones).  In short, it was a large vessel!  My cabin was on the deck two, which must have been down near the water line, although it was hard to tell since there were no windows down there.  I shared the cabin with three other guys, but we each had a small bunk, which they called a 'couchette'.  The cabin was the furthest toward the bow, and right in the center of the ship.  As I drifted off to sleep last night I could hear the water rushing past the hull as the boat steamed on through the night.  It was interesting being on a large boat like that.  Some vivid memories I have are of the light of the setting sun making our wake appear golden, standing on the fore deck and feeling the wind rush by (23 knots of forward steam means 23 knots of wind!), and the general feel of the water rushing by us hour after hour.  Of course with 23 hours on board (1 hour of time change), I didn't just watch the water rush by.  I ate a couple of meals in the 'Seven Seas' restaurant, and watched some movies in the cinema's.  I also caught up on some of the journal entries that were lost when the computer was stolen.  It was a pleasant journey, and a nice way to travel if you can afford the extra time that it takes.
Departing Harwich
 
 
The Sun Sets Over the Sea and the Receding English Coast
Me with Skagen (the Northern Tip of Denmark) in the Background
Entering Gothenburg Harbor
A Fort at the Gothenburg Harbor Entrance
 
Docking in Gothenburg

Scenes from the Ferry Crossing

When I arrived here in Gothenburg, I took a bus into the Central Station, then wandered out to my hostel, which is situated in the Maritime Center. The hostel is actually a ship, the M/S Seaside, which is now permanently docked in Gothenburg Hostel (see left).  By the time I had checked into the Hostel, it was almost 9:30pm, which wasn't to late considering Sweden is one hour ahead of the UK.  I was feeling tired, though, and didn't want to spend a lot of time finding a place to eat dinner, so I went to a seafood restaurant called 'Kajskul 8' which was literally 50 yards from the gangplank of the hostel.  I wasn't really in the mood for seafood, and it was a bit on the expensive side, so I opted for a caesar salad again (which turned out to be a chefs salad with caesar dressing, but that is about the best I've been able to do in Europe).  An older Swedish couple joined me at the same table, and we talked a bit, although their English wasn't too good, and my Swedish even worse (non-existent).  I did manage to tell them where I was from, and they told me about the big football/soccer competition in Gothenburg this week.  The man also tried to ask me if I was here to visit my Swedish woman, to which I responded no.  He then told me that I needed to get a Swedish woman, and I told him I would be visiting a Swedish woman when I went to Stockholm.  This still wasn't good enough for him, though, as he said I needed a Swedish woman in Gothenburg!  I told him that I would try, and his wife told him that he was impossible, and we moved on to other topics.

A couple other things happened since my last entry.  This past Sunday I went up to the Pearce's and had a nice meal with them, and helped Anne to figure out a few things with their computer.  They are playing host to two teenagers, a Dane and a Turk, who are attending a Rotary Camp in the UK, and Alan, Anne, myself and the two of them took a drive up through the Peak district, seeing among other things Arbor Low, an ancient stone circle similar to Stonehenge.  On Monday, Kris and Brett also returned to the flat.  Kris had been gone for a week getting his wisdom teeth removed, and Brett is up visiting while he finishes his dissertation.  Brett also brought up his ruck sack, which is the same one I borrowed when I traveled with Rebecca at Christmas time, so once again I will have a pack to carry my stuff around in while I travel.  In return Brett is staying in my room until I get back from this trip.

As for now, I will go to sleep, since it is 11:30, and I'd like to have as much time as possible to see Göteborg tomorrow.


Friday, July 18, 1997

I once again resume my habit of writing journal entries on trains, as I am typing this as I travel to Stockholm from Gothenburg on the X2000 high-speed train.  Remarkably, I am traveling first class, something which I have never had the privilege to do before, on either trains or planes.  I told my friend Cecilia that I would be arriving on the 1717 train from Gothenburg, but when I went to make my ticket reservation, the standard seats were full.  After a moments discussion with a colleague, however, the ticket agent told me that I could make a reservation in First Class instead for SEK 70, or about $10 (the Inter-Rail ticket I have already covered the main ticket price).  To avoid the hassle of coming on a different train, and since the price didn't seem to bad, I decided I may as well go First Class, so here I am.  The main difference seems to be bigger seats.  There is also a radio in the seat, but that may be just the way it is on this type of train.

It was a full couple of days in Gothenburg.  I woke up yesterday and went first of all to visit the boats in the Maritime Center (see right), which is where my hostel was.  It is billed as the largest boat museum in the world and has eight permanently docked vessels, including a submarine and a destroyer.  It was interesting to look around the vessels, and the destroyer, although "obsolete" still seemed pretty formidable to me.  I sat down for a minute with my Gothenburg Guide book, which I had picked up at the hostel, to plan out the day, and saw that for SEK 125 (about $17) you could get a 'Gothenburg Card', which provided free admission to many places and tours in the city.  It seemed like a good idea and I decided to get it.  I also noticed then that admission to the Maritime Center was free, and that I could have saved SEK 50 by waiting until I got the card.  Oh, well, you can't win them all.

After grabbing lunch, and putting my pack in a locker, I purchased the card, and went down to Kungsportsplatsen, which is kind of the center of the city, and means something like "King's Gate Place".  From there I took a Paddan Boat tour (see left) which went around the canals in the city, and then out and past some of the sights in the harbor.  I learned that the city was founded by King Gustav Adolfus I (??) to protect the south of Sweden from Danish incursions.  The best location for the city was on marsh land, so he hired Dutch engineers, who were used to draining land, to build the city.  They designed it with a series of canals similar to Amsterdam.  It was these canals that we traveled on during the tour.

Roses in Trädgardsföreningen Park
The Central Square in Gothenburg

Scenes from Gothenburg

Having returned from the tour I went to a nearby park called "Trädgardsföreningen Park".  It was quite a nice park, with one outstanding feature being a beautiful rose garden (see picture above).  It is also situated on one of the canals (actually the city moat), so I stopped and sat in the shade along the canal and rested for a while.
 
Next I caught a tram down to Liseberg, a big amusement park (the biggest in Scandinavia, apparently) just outside the center of town.  Admission was free with the Gothenburg Card, but you still had to pay between SEK 20 and 80 per ride, so I didn't bother to go on any of them.  Rides are not much fun to go on by yourself anyway.  I did find a free Internet center, and managed to send a couple of emails after decrypting all of the menus which were in Swedish.

By this time it was getting fairly late, so I had dinner and went back to the Hostel.  It was a gorgeous day, so I sat up on the top deck of the boat and worked on reconstructing journal entries as the sun went down.  It was absolutely magnificent-- the temperature was just perfect, and only a hint of a breeze.  I was able to watch the boat traffic going back and forth in the harbor, and the city behind me painted golden with the waning light of the sun.  I can't think of a more pleasant place to spend an evening typing.

This morning I packed up and moved out of the hostel, throwing my pack in a locker at the train station before heading down to the city center again.  I had made a reservation on a bus & boat tour of the city for the morning which was included in the Gothenburg Card.  Normally the tour was SEK 120, and considering that the card was only SEK 125, this trip alone almost made it worth while.  It was a nice tour, but it did cover some of the same things as the boat tour I took yesterday.  The bus took us west out toward the entrance of the harbor, and then we took the boat back into the main part of Gothenburg (see right).  We also get to go to the North side of the harbor, which I had not yet seen.  That area was the location of the Volvo plant where they build almost 100,000 cars per year, and employ 80,000 workers.  We also went up on top of a mountain overlooking Gothenburg where we were able to take some pictures (see left and below).
 

View from the Gothenberg Overlook

The tour ended at 1pm, and my train left at 2pm, so after the tour I pretty much went to the station and got on board (with a quick stop for lunch!).  Now it is off to Stockholm, which I am hoping will be at least as exciting.


Sunday, July 20, 1997

It's been a fun two and 1/2 days in Stockholm.  Cecilia met me at the Central Station where the X2000 let me off, and we went back to her apartment where I dropped off my bags.  A friend of hers named Bengt came over.  Bengt has recently returned from a stay in Minnesota in the US, and right now is between things, so he agreed to tag along with me and Cecilia for the next couple of days (actually, Monday and Tuesday Cecilia will be working, so it will just be the two of us).  The three of us had dinner before heading in to central Stockholm, where we walked around the city.  The city is quite beautiful.  It is built on something like 12 islands, and ferries and bridges are everywher to take people over the channels between the islands.  We mainly walked around the main shopping parts of the city, and past an amusement park before taking a ferry and the subway back home.

Yesterday was quite a busy day.  We woke up at 8am, and had breakfast.  I had my first taste of traditional Swedish food by having filmjölk on my cereal.  It is a special soured milk that is as thick as yogurt.  It is not the type of thing that I will have on my cereal everyday, but I did manage to finish the bowl.

After breakfast, Bengt came back over, and we headed out for a day on the Archipelago, the system of 24,000 islands surrounding Stockholm.  We started by taking a ferry (see left) from the center of Stockholm out to Vaxholm, a town out on one of the islands in the Archipelago.  On the way out we passed first through the more built-up part of Stockholm and saw a pair of construction cranes painted as giraffes.  They pointed them out to me, and said that they were migratory giraffes which flew up from Africa in the summer, stopping briefly in Germany on the way.  They told me that I was lucky to see them, as they would be flying back to Africa for the winter in a month or so.  The ferry made its way out from the built-up parts, and soon we were traveling between the small islands of the archipelago, each with a scattering of quaint cottages and boat docks.
 

Cecilia, Bengt and I Enjoy Summer in Sweden (notice also Sea Troll in Cecilia's Hand)
Moored on one of the Small Islands in the Archipelago

Boat Trip on the Swedish Archipelago

Eventually we made it to Vaxholm, where we met Cecilia's parents, who were out on their motor yacht spending a weekend in the Archipelago.  After brief introductions we headed off in their boat to a small island a short ride away, where we tied up to shore for the rest of the afternoon.  Mainly we lounged around in the sun, all getting lovely sun-burns, but we also went swimming several times, enjoying the refreshing (about 70F) brackish water of the Archipelago.  We ate lunch on the boat, eating 'sill', or herring, some of it raw.  I actually found it quite tasty, but I am not sure I was supposed to, as most foreigners usually don't like it.  Yesterday night we were going to a flat warming party for one of Cecilia's friends, and she decided that a house warming present would be appropriate.  After some discussion, mostly between her and Bengt, she decided to make a Sea Troll out of some rocks and some of the algae growing off the rocks where we were moored.  I have to say the resulting creation was pretty disgusting, but I trusted Cecilia's opinion that it would be appreciated.

Cecilia's parents brought us back into Vaxholm, and then we caught another ferry back into central Stockholm.  After stopping back at Cecilia's for a shower and change of clothes, the three of us went out to eat at Pizza Hut, since it is one of the more reasonable restaurants, and we didn't have time to cook (we were already late for the party).  Unfortunately, Pizza Hut had meal deals for two people, but not for three, and we spent almost 20 minutes debating which combination of dishes would be the cheapest, and get us the right amount of food.  Eventually we figured it out, and had a satisfying dinner.

After this, we headed off to the party, and after a few errors in navigation, finally made it there.  Bengt and I were a little embarrassed about giving the Sea Troll to the hosts of the party, but didn't have anything to worry about, as the hosts thought it was pretty funny (I am still not sure how funny they will find it in a couple days when the seaweed starts to decay!).  The party was an interesting experience, as not only did I not know anyone there (except Bengt and Cecilia), but most of the conversation was in Swedish (just about everybody spoke English, though).  Everybody was pretty friendly, however, and several people made a point of coming up and talking to me in English for a while.  I met one guy who's last name was Johnsson, but at first I thought he had said Johansson.  He told me that his great-grandparents had immigrated to Wisconsin, which is also where my great-grandparents are from, so we decided that we could be relatives.  Then, later, we figured out the names were actually different, but by that time enough beer had been drunk that it didn't seem to matter, and the running joke was that we were long-lost cousins.  Another big topic of conversation was American movies and music, which is fairly popular in Sweden.  Most seemed to agree that American humor was a little too broad for them, however.  There also seemed to be a consensus among most that Americans tend to be very ignorant about the rest of the world, citing especially that some Americans don't know the difference between Sweden and Switzerland.  This wasn't something I could easily refute, but I did comment that the US is such a big country, only borders with two others, that the concept of other nations is not as immediate a concern as it is of necessity in European countries.  Everybody was good natured about the subject, however, and the entire evening went well.

Aerial View of Stockholm
 
 
Cecila and Bengt in Front of the Swedish "Whitehouse"

Stockholm Pictures

Bengt, Cecilia, and I spent today touring around in Stockholm.  We started by watching the changing of the guards at the Royal Palace.  The ceremony took place in a courtyard next to the Royal Palace in the Old Town of Stockholm.  We were actually in the courtyard while it was taking place, so we were able to have a good view.  The new guard came in on horse back, followed by a horse mounted band which played lots of music the entire time (see photo at right).  I enjoyed this ceremony much more than the one at Buckingham Palace in London, for several reasons.  One thing that was nice was that you were actually allowed into the courtyard where the changing of the guard took place, while in London you had to look through the bars.  They also played a lot more music, so it was a more interesting ceremony.  Finally, it was cool to see the band performing on horseback, especially the drummers who rode hands free.  The soldiers in the ceremony were all in their teens, and serving on their compulsory 10 to 15 month military service, so they weren't really as professional as those at Buckingham Palace, but this, perhaps, made it seem even more impressive.

After the ceremony we went out to the Kaknästornet, or "Cookie Tower", as Bengt dubbed it (Kaka means cookie and tornet is tower in Swedish).  When Cecilia first heard him call it this, she nearly died laughing, since apparently that is a rather liberal translation of the meaning, and not exactly what the name conjures up in Swedish.  In any case, we went to the tower which is a little over 500 feet tall (see photo at left of us at the top, and photo at right of the tower itself), and stands at the outskirts of Stockholm, with a commanding view of the city.  This view gave me a good idea of where everything was located, and I could see many of the places I had been, including Vaxholm out in the Archipelago.
 

Cecilia and I at the Narrowest Street in Stockholm
Cecilia and I with the George and the Dragon Statue
 
Cecilia and Bengt in the Narrowest Street

Pictures from Gamla Stan

After the tower, we ate lunch and went shopping for dinner, dropping off the shopping at Cecilia's before coming back to walk through "Gamla Stan", the old city of Stockholm.  As the name implies, this is the oldest section of Stockholm, and it is full of narrow cobbled streets.  We wandered through it, seeing famous statues, such as St. George and the Dragon, and marveling at some of the extremely narrow alleyways.  Eventually we wandered through to the other side by Slussen, which is a lock used by boats to get between the higher water in Stockholm, and the rest of the Archipelago.  There, we finally rode the Katarina Elevator.
Cecilia and Bengt battle each other...
...then burst into laughter!

At the Top of the Katarina Elevator

This deserves a bit of explanation.  Friday when I first arrived, and Cecilia and Bengt were showing me around, they pointed out a church called the Katarina Church, which is quite famous.  Cecilia also commented that there was also the Katarina Elevator which you could ride up and see some good views of the city, at the same time talking about the Kaknästornet which was easily visible from most places in the city.  Later, as we were walking, she told me that you could see the Katarina Elevator.  I was looking for some huge tower, and it took some 10 minutes before they were able to give me enough visual cues to find what they were talking about.  I had been expecting some huge tower, but it turned out to be a small protrusion from one building, that wasn't even as tall as many of the surrounding buildings.  After that it became something of a joke to try and point out the Katarina Elevator in a faltering way anytime we could see it.  So, after all of our talk about the Katarina Elevator, we decided that we had to go up to the top, which we did.  I really wasn't that exciting, although the view wasn't to bad.  Nowhere near as nice as the Kaknästornet, however.

Finally we returned home for good, and Cecilia and Bengt cooked dinner for the three of us.  We had a fairly traditional Swedish meal (according to them), of Swedish Meatballs and brown sauce, new potatoes, salad and lingon berry sauce.  I'd had all of the items separately before, so there were no great surprises, but it was still an enjoyable dinner.  Now Bengt has gone home, Cecilia is asleep as she has to work tomorrow, and I am about to do the same.


Tuesday, July 22, 1997

The visit to Stockholm is winding down now, and I type this while sitting in the Central Station, waiting for my night train to Oslo, Norway.  Before describing the last two days in Stockholm, I'll briefly lay out the plan for the rest of the trip, now that it is finally settled.  The next few days will be pretty hectic, as I try my hand at the city per day plan.  I will go to Oslo on the overnight train tonight, spend one day there, then take the overnight train to Copenhagen, spend one day there, take the overnight to Munich, spend one day there, then take the overnight to Amsterdam, where I will spend the weekend with Jeff Hart.  On Monday I will make my way back to Britain, possibly meeting my flatmates in Calais.  As I said, hectic, but it seems to be the best way to cover the most ground in the shortest time, and the bunk reservation for the train is actually cheaper than the rates at most Hostels.
Me in front of City Hall
Bengt in front of City Hall, making a call on his cell phone (a mandatory device for Swedes)

The City Hall in Stockholm-- Site of the Nobel Prize Ceremony

The last two days here in Stockholm have been busy, but not quite as busy as the previous couple.  Monday I slept in a little, then went into the city where I met Bengt at 11am (Cecilia had gone off to work much earlier).  The two of us went to the City Hall, which is probably most well known for being the site of the Nobel Prize Award ceremony.  We went on a guided tour of the hall, and heard about its construction and uses, including how eccentric the architect, Esbjerg was.  Apparently he deliberately left things asymmetric, and also changed his mind half way through the building of sections of the Hall.  It was quite informative, and even Bengt, a native of Stockholm, commented that he hadn't known much of what we learned on the tour.

After lunch and some shopping, we went to the Medieval Museum.  When building a parking lot back in the early eighties, construction workers uncovered a cache of artifacts from Medieval times in Stockholm.  The plans for a parking lot were scrapped, and instead the site was excavated, then turned into a museum about Medieval times in Stockholm.  It was very interesting to see some of the things on display, and they had reconstructed buildings of the time, and had many things describing what it was like to live in the Middle Ages in Stockholm (in short: not very nice!).  They also found many skeletons in the excavation.  There was one display there which described how they were able to examine the skeletons and determine their sexes, ages, diseases and mishaps the people had suffered, and often the cause of death.

When the Medieval Museum closed, we tried to make it to the Royal Armoury, which we unfortunately found closed for the day.  Instead we went past Slussen and up the hill to the Katarina Church (see right), and important landmark that looks over Stockholm.  Unfortunately, in 1990 a fire destroyed almost the entire church, so all that we were able to see was what had been rebuilt.  They had some diagrams and photos of the interior of the building, and it looked like it must have been magnificent.  It was a bit disappointing that I was not able to see it as it was before the fire.

From the church we hurried down to the water, and took a ferry across the water to meet Cecilia, and her boyfriend Jonas, who had just gotten off work.  The four of us then went to see the Vasa Museum, which displays a 17th Century battleship, The Vasa.  The ship was supposed to have been one of the biggest in the fleet, but the design was top heavy, and the ship sank 45 minutes into its maiden voyage.  The ship could not be recovered at the time, and over three hundred years later in 1956, the location in Stockholm harbor was discovered, and salvage operations began.  Since the Baltic is a brackish sea, the ship worms that normally destroy wooden ships did not damage it, and they were able to raise the ship almost whole from the bottom of the sea.  Over the next 30 years, the ship was preserved in polyethylene glycol, and gradually rebuilt, until now she is on display in the museum.  It was quite impressive to see the result of so much effort.  I imagine more time and money was spent on rebuilding The Vasa than ever went into her original construction.

Finally, after a long day, we all went back to Cecilia's for dinner, and this time I got to cook.  I made chicken parmesan, which is a dish I often make for myself, and thus was able to prepare without a recipe.

This morning's task was to get my laundry done, as I have reached the halfway point of the trip and run out of clean clothes.  The launderette in Cecilia's building requires reservations, and was completely booked, so I could not do my clothes there.  Also, since everyone here apparently has a launderette available to them, there are no laundromats in the city where you can go and do laundry, and it was to late to drop everything at a dry cleaner.  In the end I found a Hostel with facilities, and I was able to convince them to let me use it even though I wasn't staying with them.  By the time I finished laundry and met Bengt, however, it was 2pm.  Still, we made the best of the afternoon, and managed to see a few museums.

First we went to the Royal Armoury (actually we met there), which had been closed the day before.  The Armoury is located in the basement of the Royal Palace.  As the name implies, here they had armor and weapons from the various monarchs of Sweden through the ages.  In addition they also had royal carriages, clothing, books, and items of silver that had been exchanged with other kingdoms as gifts during various diplomatic negotiations.  I found it interesting that they had the clothing that some of the kings died in.  Most were from Kings who had died on the field of battle, but one had been assassinated during a royal ball.  They also had one of the King's horses stuffed and on display!

The second museum we went to was the Historik Museet, which translates into "The National Museum of Antiquities," even though one might thing otherwise (including Bengt who obviously speaks Swedish!).  In any case, the museum houses objects related to the history of Sweden through the ages.  The most impressive exhibition was called the Gold Room, and contains over 50 kg of gold artifacts, and more than 100 kg of silver artifacts.  It was all well documented in Swedish and English, and explained how the use of gold had changed over the ages, starting several hundred years Before Christ.  It was also remarkable to see how intricate some of the gold work was, especially on some of the collars on display (see picture at left).  We also managed to see some Viking artifacts before the museum closed.

After this Bengt headed home, as he is taking care of some cats, and he needed to go and give them some TLC, as they had been neglected a bit while I had been here.  I went to Central Station where I met Jonas and Cecilia, and we went to dinner in Gamla Stan at an Italian restaurant, and then got an ice cream.  We wandered around the city some, and one funny incident happened when I went into McDonald's to get a drink.  I noticed that one of the drinks was called "mellanstor", and I thought that I would try a local Swedish drink for a change.  I told the clerk that I wanted to order a large "mellanstor", and she seemed a bit confused, and asked what flavor I wanted.  I said "mellanstor," but she still seemed confused.  Finally the guy behind me in line said, "Mellanstor is not a drink, it is a size."  Apparently, "mellanstor" means medium in in Swedish, so I had been asking for a large medium-- No wonder the clerk was confused.  I changed to Sprite instead and all was well.

I see my train is at the platform now, even though it doesn't leave for some time yet, so I will see if I can get on board.  It is only a 7 1/2 hour trip to Oslo, so if I can get on board early maybe I can get a little bit more sleep.


Wednesday, July 23, 1997

Wow, what a busy day!  I can't believe how much I have done in a single day here in Oslo.  The night train arrived here at 7:40am this morning, and my first priority was to get a shower, and then figure out what to do for the day.  There was supposed to be an InterRail center with showers at the station here in Oslo, but apparently it was shut down due to lack of funding.  Fortunately, tourist information was able to tell me the name of a hotel that let me use one of their showers for free!

Feeling refreshed, I was ready to tackle what to do for the day.  I bought an Oslo Card from somebody just leaving for 100 Norwegian Crown (about $15) which allowed unlimited travel on public transport, and free admission to just about every museum in Oslo.  It also included a sightseeing boat trip, and the first thing I tried to do was go on that.  There was twenty minutes until the next trip, and I didn't want to wait, so instead I hopped on the subway to head up to the TV tower, which I assumed I would be able to go out and see before the next boat an hour and twenty minutes later.
 

View toward Oslo

View of countryside

The Oslo TV Tower

I didn't quite have the time right on getting to the tower, as it was a thirty minute ride on the train up to the top of a mountain overlooking Oslo.  From the station it was another 3 km walk up to the tower.  The view was spectacular though, so I think it was worth it.  On the way down I also found a path away from the road, so I even got a hike in the Norwegian wilderness as part of the deal!

Having arrived back with 20 minutes before the next tour, I ducked into the National Gallery to look at The Scream by Munch, which is quite a famous painting by the Norwegian painter, and one I had particularly liked in my Art History class from High School.  I also glanced at a few other works, before running out the door and down to the boat docks, arriving just before they pulled away for the tour.

The tour lasted one hour (see photo at right), running around the Oslofjord area, although there are not the high cliff walls normally associated with fjords.  The tour wasn't the greatest, but it did point out the main features of the city, and allowed me to orient myself a little bit better.

I ducked into a McDonald's for lunch ($7 for a Big Mac and fries, and still one of the cheapest places in town-- it is expensive here!), and then headed over to Akershus, a fortress/castle which is one of the big features of Oslo.  There was a guided tour of the castle at 3 pm, and I had about 13 minutes to spare, so I went through the Norwegian Resistance Museum which is on the castle grounds.  The museum documents the invasion and occupation of Norway by the Nazis in World War II, and the efforts of the resistance movement in Norway.  I missed a lot of the detail, though, since I had to run through half of the exhibits to make it to the Castle tour in time.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Guards on Patrol
 
One of the Archways
A Tower

Scenes of Akershus Fortress

The Castle, I found out on the tour, was originally built in the 13th century by King Haakon the 5th (I think, can't remember the exact details of everything though).  Since then it has been changed to a fortress, a palace, and then left to decay into ruins.  In the last century it has been rebuilt, so most of the Castle is now new, but built in original styles.  The most interesting part of the tour was to learn about the elaborate tunnel entrance which had something like 9 gates which had to be breached, including some in corners, before invaders could enter the castle.  It was not too surprising to hear, then, that in seven centuries of existence and after nine sieges, the castle has never been captured.  The tour of the castle finished just in time for me to get to the tour of the rest of the fortress area.  This tour concentrated more on the defense of the castle and its military history, and filled in many of the gaps in the other tour.  While at Akershus I also wanted to see the city model and show describing the history of Oslo, but there was not one at a convenient time, so I poked my head in and saw the model, and than back to the boat docks to catch a ferry to Bygdoy, where there were a bunch of other museums.  Interestingly, I ran into two sets of people on the ferry over that asked me about Cornell.  The first were a couple from Texas on a cruise through Scandinavia, and their son had gone to Columbia, and had friends at Cornell.  The other was a lady whose daughter had graduated in Electrical Engineering from Cornell, like me, but had done so in 1988.  Sometimes it is a small world.
 
The Kon-Tiki Raft
Me in front of the Kon-Tiki
The Ra II Raft

Kon-Tiki Museum

On arrival there, I first ran through the Kon-Tiki museum, which is dedicated to the expeditions of the famous Norwegian explorer/anthropologist/archaelogist Thor Heyerdahl.  They had on display both the Kon-Tiki, and the Ra II.  The former was used in Thor Heyerdahl's 1949 expedition thousands of miles across the Pacific to Polynesia from Peru using just the Kon-Tiki, a balsa wood raft.  This was to demonstrate the possibility that Polynesia was settled from the America's, rather than Asia.  The Ra II was a papyrus raft which was built and sailed across the Atlantic to demonstrate the sea worthiness of Ancient Egyptian sailing vessels.  It was a marvel to see how small the craft were, considering how far they were both sailed, and how difficult it must have been to live with 4 or 5 people in such a small area.

After seeing the Kon-Tiki museum, I hiked across Bygdoy to the Viking Ship Museum.  There they had three authentic Viking ships on display, ranging in size from 20 to 22 m (see one at left).  Each of the ships had been buried with a prestigious Viking leader, along with other possessions to take with them into the afterlife.  The skill and precision of the wood work in the hulls was amazing considering that the crafts were constructed in 800-900 AD.

After this I tried to get to the Viking Folk Museum, which has reconstructions of many different Norwegian buildings from different eras and locations in Norway.  I got there just as it closed, and there wasn't much to see without going in, so I headed over to see the Polar Ship Fram, used by Amundsen to be the first to the South Pole.  I just missed this too, and it was closed when I arrived.  Instead I was able to look around the Norwegian Ship Museum, which demonstrated various styles of boat construction in Norway through the ages.

Finally, I took the ferry back to central Oslo, and walked up for a brief look at the Royal Palace, then went and ate dinner.  Now I am back at the station, and they should be calling my train to Copenhagen at any minute.


Thursday, July 24, 1997

I didn't do quite as well in Copenhagen as I did in Oslo.  I think that I wore myself out seeing too much in Oslo, but I still got to see a fair amount here today.  Unlike in Oslo, the InterRail Center in Copenhagen was still open, so I was able to get a shower and try and organize myself a little bit there.  I felt to tired to try and get a "Copenhagen Card" and run through every museum today, and also didn't want to spend the money on the card.  Instead I went around on my own, seeing the things that seemed interesting.
Miscellaneous Scenes
A Spiral Church seen from a Netto Boat
 

Scenes of Copenhagen

First off I took a boat and canal tour on the Netto boats (do you see a theme of boats, harbors and canals in the capitals of Scandinavia?).  This showed me the sites of city, including "The Little Mermaid" (see right), and the Royal Palace, as well as the old palace.  They also pointed out the Crown of Scandinavia, the ferry which travels back and forth to Oslo.  This was interesting for me, since the guide in Oslo yesterday pointed out the very same boat!

After the tour I learned an important lesson on the way to lunch about crossing the street in Denmark-- just because you see a green walk symbol doesn't mean that you should go all the way across the road.  It turns out that there are independent cross walk signs for the two halves of the road, and I almost was run over since I saw the sign for the other half of the road was lit, but there was on  coming traffic on the side nearest to me.  I won't make that mistake again!

In the InterRail center I had seen a sign for an "all you can eat" buffet offered by one of the restaurants in the city for just 29 Danish Crowns (about $4).  This was an amazing price, especially after the prices of the past couple of days, so I went and ate there.  They had salad, vegetables, pasta, pizza and garlic bread, none of an incredible quality, but then again the price was right.

After wandering around for a while, I headed over to Christiania Free State.  In 1970, a bunch of what would be called hippies in the US decided to claim a section of Denmark for their own.  They wanted to live there with no laws at all, and so Christiania was born.  It seems the Danish government tried some sanctions against them, but in the end gave up, so this small area of Copenhagen is beholden to no one, and the occupants live in a more primitive fashion there, not using cars and using old fashioned techniques for farming and building.  It all sounds pretty nice, but I suspect a big part of it is that most who live there want to be able to smoke and grow pot.  As I walked through the place there were vendors everywhere selling marijuana in all of its incarnations.  Other than that all I noticed were some fairly decrepit buildings, fences, and roads in a state of general decay.  Not the way I'd want to live, but I guess it must be nice not paying taxes!

Finally I took a long walk from Christiania all the way up to Kastellet, a military base where the Gefion Fountain, and the Little Mermaid statue are both located.  Mainly I did this to look at the Little Mermaid from the land side (see photo at left), since when I'd seen her on the boat trip earlier, her back had been to me.  Along the way I saw a ferry that was almost the same as the one I had taken from Harwich to Gothenburg that was departing Copenhagen (see right).

And that was it for today.  My train left at 7:05 pm, so I had to get back to the station, bought a "danish" for breakfast (I couldn't say I went to Denmark and never got a "danish" now, could I?), and a sandwich for breakfast, and made it to my train with five minutes to spare.  Now I share the evening with my compartment mates-- an Italian family and a Norwegian girl who is heading down to Venice on an InterRail pass to visit some friends.  I arrive at 9:40am tomorrow in Munich, so after two nights of only seven or so hours of sleep, hopefully I will get a good nights sleep tonight.


Tuesday, July 29, 1997

My battery ran out on the train going to Munich, and I lost the plug adapter for Europe and haven't been able to charge or use the computer since, so I write this entry safely back in my room in Birmingham.

The train trip to Germany actually was kind of interesting, so I will talk a bit more about it.  It turns out that to get over to Germany from Denmark, they actually put the train onto a ferry!  I had heard of this, of course, but it was interesting to actually see what they do (apparently while I was asleep on Wednesday night, they did the same with the train from Oslo to Copenhagen).  They broke the train into five car segments, and put each onto the ferry, which has tracks on the deck, side by side.  They also had cars and buses parked among the train cars, which was a strange sight to see.  For the one hour crossing to Germany we were able to get off the train and go onto the ferry which had restaurants and shops.  I spent most of the time chatting with the girl from Norway, who, it turns out was a Girl Scout, and shares many of my interests in outdoor activities.  After the crossing everyone went to sleep, and I woke in Munich.
 

Scenes of Munich

The first big glitches with the trip occurred in Munich.  First, the showers at the station were broken, so I had to start the day still dirty from the day before.  Second, I was used to the Scandinavian countries with an exchange rate of about 10 Crowns to a dollar, so when I used the cash machine I withdrew 300 DM, which would have been around $30 in Crowns, but was $150 in Marks!  There wasn't much I could do however, so I spent the last couple days of the trip converting currency.

I stared out the touring by taking a trip out to Dachau, site of a former Nazi concentration camp (although it was never used as an extermination camp).  During the tour I took, the conditions at the camp were described by the guide.  Surprisingly, though appalling, the conditions and treatment of people there seemed downright civilized compared to the descriptions I have heard of how prisoners in medieval castles were treated.  In the case of medieval castles, though, only a few people were subjected to the appalling treatment, while at Dachau I saw evidence of a systematic design, which was successfully used, to subject thousands, and even millions, of people to inhuman treatment.  During the tour it also poured down rain, the first time during this trip, so I got to take the shower I had missed at the station, at the expense of being damp for a few hours afterward.

On returning from Dachau, I jumped onto a train to Fuessen with less than a minute to spare.  Fuessen is a small city at the foot of the German Alps, from which one can visit Neuschwanstein, one of the castles built by Ludwig II of Bavaria, or "Mad King Ludwig" (see photo at right).  The rain from earlier tailed off during the two hour train ride up to Fuessen, and there was just some wisps of missed blowing away from the castle when I finally arrived.  I got there at 5:30pm, which was the castle closing time, so I didn't get to go inside.  I was able to hike up to the castle and look around the outside, though.  I am not sure which was more impressive, the quaint medieval architecture (even though it was built in the late 1800s), or the dramatic soaring mountains that surrounded the hill the castle was on (see photo at left).  Either way, it was worth the 4 hours round trip to Fuessen and back (the view from the train on the ride there and back was also quite nice).

Finally, I had about an hour and a half once I got back from Fuessen, so I took a walk around the city of Munich.  It was dark, but most of the landmarks were lit up.  While walking around a lady came up to me and started to talk to me in German-- she thought I was from Munich (so far, I have been mistaken for a native in each place I've visited, so I must not look like a tourist)!  She was looking for the Hoffbrauhaus, a famous beer hall, so I was able to show her on my tourist map.  I later wandered past it, but didn't go inside.

The night train from Munich to Amsterdam was a bit of an adventure.  I was the only one of the six in my compartment that spoke English.  There were two women traveling together, a young German couple, and a very drunk older German who was making a joke about everything.  The rest of the train was also full of drunk German's, so I can only guess everybody was getting in the spirit for a weekend away in Holland.  Nobody seemed to want go to bed, and finally at 1 AM I used my German language skills to say "schlaffen", which got the point across that it might be good to go to sleep.  Since the train arrived at 9:40 am the next morning in Amsterdam, I figured I could still get 8 hours of sleep, but then everybody woke up at 7 am, and wanted to put the bed down so we could sit in the compartment.  So, despite an 11 hour train trip, I still was tired on arriving in Amsterdam.  We did get breakfast on the train, though, so this somewhat made up for the lack of sleep.

On arriving in Amsterdam, I hiked out to the Eben Haezer Christian Hostel and checked-in, receiving a copy of the Gospel of John as part of the check in package.  I was feeling pretty disgusting at this point, since I hadn't had a shower since Copenhagen two days earlier, but the showers in the Hostel were closed since it was during their cleaning hours.  Fortunately I convinced them (or maybe my smell did), and they let me go up and take a shower anyway.  Right before I went up, Jeff Hart walked in, having taken a walk around the local area.  He had flown in from London earlier that morning.

Jeff with Fourteen or So Bridges behind Him

Feeling much better after showering and shaving, Jeff and I headed down towards the Central Station, where we took the obligatory canal boat tour.  The tour gave a good overview of the layout of the city, and we learned a bit about the structure of the canals and when they were built.  They weren't able to present too much information, though, since they repeated everything in four different languages, which was a little disappointing.

After eating lunch we decided that, instead of staying in Amsterdam, we would head out of town to try and find something a little less urban.  We chose to take the train to Delft (see left), which seemed to fit the bill. Jeff also wanted to get some Delftware for his Mother, and this was another good reason to go there.  We also thought we might see The Hague, since the train to Delft stopped there.  Delft was a nice little town to walk around, and we got to see a famous Dutch Windmill while we were there.  We didn't go to the big Delftware factory, but we did find a small shop.  It was looking like rain on the way back, so we decided to skip The Hague, and headed straight back to Amsterdam.

When we got back, we decided to try and find the Hard Rock Cafe, Amsterdam, since it is quite famous, and we figured it would be a decent place to eat dinner.  The first tourist office we asked didn't know where it was, but the lady at the second one we went to told us how to get there.  Upon arriving we were disappointed to find that it was only a bar, and didn't serve food.  This was a bit strange, since one of Jeff's friends had recommended something on the menu to him.  Instead we went to Planet Hollywood, which was a few blocks away, and I had one of the few "real" Caesar Salads I've had since coming to Europe (most places over here seem to think that putting Caesar dressing on any salad makes it a "Caesar" salad).

On our way back to the Hostel we walked through the famous, or infamous, Red Light District, since we figured we ought to at least see what it was like.  Frankly it wasn't nearly as shocking as I had expected it to be (although maybe you have to go into some of the buildings to see the shocking stuff).  There were many sex shops and XXX theaters around, but most big cities tend to have areas like that.  Of course, it was a little different to see the products and sample photos on display where any passerby could see (even children, and there were some families wandering through), but still this wasn't so unusual.  The legalized prostitution is what gets the most press, I guess, and the red lights that they turn on above their doors when they are working is what gives the district its name.  Even this wasn't so shocking though, since all you saw were women wearing underwear standing in booths behind glass doors, not much different than you see some models wearing on TV.  The difference, I guess, was the realization of what they were doing, and it still seems a little strange to me.

We called it an early evening, and got up for a pancake breakfast, included with the Hostel fee, on Sunday morning.  The first thing we went to see was the Anne Frank House, about two blocks from our Hostel.  This was the House where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis in World War II, and where she wrote her famous Diary.  The family was later discovered, and taken away to concentration camps, where all except Anne's father, Otto Frank, died.  Although many school children read the Anne Frank Diary as part of their classes, I had never read the Diary, so knew little about the story.  Touring the house, and learning about what this 13 year old girl had to go through really made the story real.  The marks were on the wall where their father had measured their heights, and the photos that Anne had put up on the wall in her room were still there.  Its shocking to believe that a government could arise that would seek to eliminate and punish people for a label attached to them, like "Jew", yet in this house there was the evidence of a normal family, which was destroyed by just such a government.

We spent some time wandering around the city after that, and went a saw a movie, which was fortunately in English with Dutch sub-titles.  Jeff's flight left at 7 PM, so we went down to the station around five to give him time to take the train to the airport.  While there I figured out what trains to take back on Monday.  After this I went back to the Hostel where they served a free dinner to everybody (not normally included in the Hostel fee).  We also heard a testimony from a prostitute/drug addict that used to work in the Red Light District until she had become a Christian.  She has since gotten off of drugs, and now works in the Hostel as a chef.  It was a very moving story.  After this I took one more walk around to see the narrow canal houses, and tree lined canals of Amsterdam one last time.

Yesterday was a long day on the trains, and was honestly pretty boring.  At 7:30 AM I took the train from Amsterdam to Antwerp, then from Antwerp to Lille, and then from Lille to Calais, and finally a ferry (with a McDonald's on board!) across to Dover.  There I saw the only exciting thing of the day-- the cliffs of Dover are really white!  I always heard the saying "the white cliffs of Dover", but didn't really think much of it until I saw them (see arrival photo at left with cliffs barely visible in background).  It is quite striking.  From Dover I took the train to London, where I stopped for dinner.  Then finally the train back to Birmingham, arriving home at 11 PM-- quite a long day!

Today I have spent getting back on track here.  I've unpacked, done laundry, and gone and done my shopping for the next couple of weeks.  Hopefully starting tomorrow I can crack down and get to work in earnest on my Master's Thesis which is due in September.  Since I plan to dedicate myself to that, the journal entries may be few and far between, but I'll try and take some time to jot down anything interesting that happens.