So, I know I keep talking about it, but busy is the understatement of the year as far as my time in Stockholm. Another understatement to go along with that is lazy. Not only have we been going about 8-8 on the regular, but we have been walking every where!! Like probably walked at least the length of a marathon which coincidentally is occurring on Saturday. I might pull a Boston and hop in the race for a photo op or something. Of course that would still require energy and the trend seems to be I'm lacking in that. Not even 3 cups of coffee a day is helping. But I know chances are I'll only be in Stockholm once in the foreseeable future so I just have to push through it.
Yesterday (Wednesday) was a rough one haha It started around 8 with breakfast on the boat. Breakfast consisting of cucumbers (?) some sorts of lunch meats (similar to turkey and ham and mystery meat but I'm following the don't ask policy), hard boiled (well basically hard boiled) eggs, yogurt (newsflash it has no added sugar so it was a little bit tart), applesauce, Quaver (don't worry, I skipped it), bread (mer), and coffee. The group then headed to the bus station (in the drizzling rain I might add), to catch the bus to the Karlinska Institute. The Institute is sort of like a University (from my understanding at least). The cool part is that the Institute is where the Nobel prize for Medicine winner is chosen. The faculty have connections to an (American) at the Institute who led us (via yet another bus) to the hospital/clinic where he works/does his research. Dr. Flanagan then gave us a (TWO) hour lecture about his research which was interesting because I could really tell how passionate he was about his work but at the same time it was a teeny bit over my head. After the talk, we ate lunch at the cafeteria in the building which consisted of the typical rice/potatoes (that I hardly ever eat at home but eat everywhere here #gluten probz). Drained was the word around the lunch table for sure. Crappy weather+ too much mental stimulation=bad news bears. After going down and back up and back down the escalators, the group finally got on the right Metro train back into the city. We walked over to some museum that ended up being closed then decided to continue with the theme of the day and tour the Nobel Museum. In all honestly, the museum was a little bit of a letdown but it was still really fascinating to learn about the different prize winners. Dinner was fantastic yet again. It was a quaint little Italian place where, you guessed it, I had the salmon. Don't worry though, I mixed up my ice cream choice and went for vanilla/chocolate chip this time! The funniest part of the entire day/night was definitely waking up in the middle of night to my roommate sleep talking straight to me. It made her wake up and we seriously were in stitches laughing (probably waking up the entire boat) for a good 10 minutes. It's that type of stuff that's making me love the group on this trip.
Now finally on to today. Remember things that happened two days is tough stuff. Another early start-this time 8:30. The group met Fran (our fearless leader) at the train station (She's been staying with a good friend since we got to Stockholm) to board the train to Uppsala. A bit of a hiccup when some of us sat in the "first class" cabin when our seats were for "second class" (whatever that means, there were no signs and the ticket lady didn't tell us to move haha). Once we got to Uppsala, a little hike/walk thing led us up to this castle/fortress looking building that had some crazy cool views. Next up was this completely majestic cathedral. St. Eric and Carolus Linnaeus even had their tombs inside. The hunger was striking but before lunch a tour of Linnaeus' house/garden was in order. By this point I was a wah wah (hot/tired/hungry=problem) so I did a "quick tour" followed by a little cat nap on the bench out front (ah that warm sun, so nice). Lunch was at this cute little restaurant (alright, who am I kidding, every restaurant is "cute" and "little") and it consisted of , take another guess, SALMON! It's just so yummy I can't help it (3 weeks of a basically all fish diet won't give me mercury poisoning...right?). Food babies in tow, the last group activity in Uppsala was touring the Medical museum. It had all sorts of cool/weird medical artifacts and even an anatomical theater (where they used to do directions...on people...with an audience...date night?). Free time consisted of just walking around into shops and stuff before meeting the group to head back to Stockholm for dinner (you should be getting the vibe that we eat a lot...because we do..). Dinner was at this adorable restaurant. The restaurant's version of a group room was this basement sort of cellar room which was perfect because we could be loud/obnoxious Americans without bothering anyone. I sat at the teacher table, so fun. That's another one of my favorite parts of this trip-the faculty and all the interaction we get to have with them. It's a really neat opportunity to be able to connect with them on a level different from the classroom setting (they're pretty cool cats, I'm not going to lie). Dinner options ranged from moose burger (I passed) to pizza to salmon. Which one do you think I got? SALMON! It was the best I've had since I've been here for sure. My flavor of the night (ice cream) was mochachino and it ranks pretty high on the greatness scale as well. I finished the night off with a short little hike up these stairs to this vantage point that had some of the best views of the skyline I've seen so far, I can't wait to post pictures!!
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