I just signed up for the Berlin Marathon on September 28. I have one friend that has run a marathon on every continent (before he was 27!) and he said that running a marathon is a great way to see what a city has to offer. We'll be making it into a three-day weekend as well, just in case the marathon doesn't satisfy my tourist cravings. Hopefully my legs can handle a little sightseeing after the race.
My goal is to break three hours and I've enlisted the coaching skills of a good friend to help me reach this goal. I haven't run a marathon that fast since Chicago 2003 when I was still coasting from my days as a collegiate runner.
I'll be sure to keep everyone up to date as the race approaches, but as of now (first week of training) I'm feeling pretty good.
Miranda wanted me to make sure that there was absolutely no confusion as to who wrote this post. Scott is the crazy one.
Also to be noted, unlike Grandma's Half Marathon in 2006, Miranda will not run the race using Scott's race number should he get injured.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Sommartid! (aka Summer time!)
I just got the following email from somebody in the office and thought I'd attach it because:
a) it's awesome
b) it shows off some of the cultural differences between Sweden and America and
c) it's an easy lesson in Swedish.
A few things to note: Swedes number each week and refer to the week by number. So instead of saying "the first week in June" or "the week beginning June 2nd," the Swedes just say "week 23." Simple, but it takes some getting used to. My weekly planner from America actually has the weeks numbered and I'd guess most do, but I didn't know that until I got here and looked at mine. Anyway, here's the message with a quick translation to follow.
Hej,
Nästa vecka, vecka 23, börjar sommartiden. Full arbetstid = 32,5 timmar/vecka.
Vi är lediga den 6 juni (Nationaldagen) och den 20 juni (Midsommarafton).
Trevlig sommar!
Hi,
Next week, week 23, is the beginning of summertime. A full work week is 32.5 hours per week. We are off on June 6 for National Day and June 20 for Midsummer's Eve.
Have a nice summer!
Miranda had summer hours back home...meaning she had to work nine hour days M-Th so she could work a four hour day on Friday...but she still had a 40 hour work week. I just have to work six and a half hour days. Pretty rough, eh? There are certain things that I love about Sweden, and this is definitely one of those things.
On the flipside, my coworkers tell me that we will more than make up for the easy summers by working endless hours in the cold dark winters. For now I'm focusing on the positive. I'll complain about the bad winters later.
a) it's awesome
b) it shows off some of the cultural differences between Sweden and America and
c) it's an easy lesson in Swedish.
A few things to note: Swedes number each week and refer to the week by number. So instead of saying "the first week in June" or "the week beginning June 2nd," the Swedes just say "week 23." Simple, but it takes some getting used to. My weekly planner from America actually has the weeks numbered and I'd guess most do, but I didn't know that until I got here and looked at mine. Anyway, here's the message with a quick translation to follow.
Hej,
Nästa vecka, vecka 23, börjar sommartiden. Full arbetstid = 32,5 timmar/vecka.
Vi är lediga den 6 juni (Nationaldagen) och den 20 juni (Midsommarafton).
Trevlig sommar!
Hi,
Next week, week 23, is the beginning of summertime. A full work week is 32.5 hours per week. We are off on June 6 for National Day and June 20 for Midsummer's Eve.
Have a nice summer!
Miranda had summer hours back home...meaning she had to work nine hour days M-Th so she could work a four hour day on Friday...but she still had a 40 hour work week. I just have to work six and a half hour days. Pretty rough, eh? There are certain things that I love about Sweden, and this is definitely one of those things.
On the flipside, my coworkers tell me that we will more than make up for the easy summers by working endless hours in the cold dark winters. For now I'm focusing on the positive. I'll complain about the bad winters later.
Monday, May 26, 2008
The resident "expert"
Around six or eight weeks ago my boss came into the office that I share with a coworker and started talking to her about putting on a spring seminar. After tossing a few ideas back and forth he turned to me and asked if I'd like to give a presentation at the seminar. I've presented at client meetings before, but typically I discussed the most minor details and my superiors took over when it came to anything requiring some sort of expertise. I had also met my clients face-to-face before presenting anything, so it felt more like a discussion than a presentation.
My heart must have stopped for a moment, but I feigned excitement and did my best to give an enthusiastic response. In reality, I know that speaking in front of a group is something I need to master if I want to grow in my career, but part of me is scared to death of public speaking. I know that this is a skill I must possess and I've known it for years, but at the same time I've done as little as possible to help myself develop this skill.
So I'm in a new city, I've been given a fresh start at the office, and there is literally a world of opportunity for me to grow in my career here in Stockholm. So yeah, after my initial reaction I decided to go all in and step up to the challenge. Turns out it wasn't so bad. My boss and another coworker were presenting on two very technical topics, one covering an executive retirement issue here in Sweden and the other on changes and proposed changes to pension accounting in both the U.S. and on an international level. I got it easy..."Retirement Trends in the U.S." What do most of you know about traditional pensions? That very few exist anymore? Yep...that's the trend. There was obviously more to the presentation than that, but the answer was already there, I just had to answer the classic who, what, when, where, why and how.
I emailed my former coworkers back home and they were able to share some great presentations that they have given in the last couple of years. I researched and read up on a bunch of other topics, pulled together information that I've studied in the last year and with the help of my coworkers put together a pretty decent presentation. It was short, it wasn't technical but it fit in pretty darn well. So to those who sent me some reports or presentations, I definitely owe you!
Obviously I'm building to something...well, today was the day. We held the seminar at Stockholm's World Trade Center. Not an impressive building from the outside, but a pretty posh building on the inside. I think 14 people, mostly client contacts and one prospective client, showed up for the presentation. The first hour was pretty much unbearable. My nerves made it hard to sit still, let alone concentrate on the presentation.
Somehow my nerves started to calm down during the second presentation. The first two presentations were in Swedish, so instead of trying to get anything out of them I just started to pay attention to the presenters' speaking styles and body movements. By the time I stepped up in front of the room my heart rate had slowed to a normal speed. I dropped my notes face down on the table and launched right in to my introduction...next thing I knew I was part way through my presentation, and suddenly I was at the end...with the notes laying untouched on the table.
It wasn't a perfect presentation, but in my mind I still have a feeling that I nailed it. There were a few points I could have done a better job of highlighting, and my biggest problem is that I always speak a bit fast once I get going, but I didn't miss a word, I didn't stutter and most importantly I didn't drop any unwanted "ums."
Making it through the presentation, my first professional presentation, gave me a brief runner's high. I even felt ready to take a few questions at the end. Apparently the Swedes don't like asking questions in front of a group for fear of standing out or asking a stupid question, so I was denied that opportunity, but the solo presentation was enough for me. It was a personal challenge that I may not have seen for five or more years in Minneapolis, and it was also a challenge that I'm happy to have overcome.
My heart must have stopped for a moment, but I feigned excitement and did my best to give an enthusiastic response. In reality, I know that speaking in front of a group is something I need to master if I want to grow in my career, but part of me is scared to death of public speaking. I know that this is a skill I must possess and I've known it for years, but at the same time I've done as little as possible to help myself develop this skill.
So I'm in a new city, I've been given a fresh start at the office, and there is literally a world of opportunity for me to grow in my career here in Stockholm. So yeah, after my initial reaction I decided to go all in and step up to the challenge. Turns out it wasn't so bad. My boss and another coworker were presenting on two very technical topics, one covering an executive retirement issue here in Sweden and the other on changes and proposed changes to pension accounting in both the U.S. and on an international level. I got it easy..."Retirement Trends in the U.S." What do most of you know about traditional pensions? That very few exist anymore? Yep...that's the trend. There was obviously more to the presentation than that, but the answer was already there, I just had to answer the classic who, what, when, where, why and how.
I emailed my former coworkers back home and they were able to share some great presentations that they have given in the last couple of years. I researched and read up on a bunch of other topics, pulled together information that I've studied in the last year and with the help of my coworkers put together a pretty decent presentation. It was short, it wasn't technical but it fit in pretty darn well. So to those who sent me some reports or presentations, I definitely owe you!
Obviously I'm building to something...well, today was the day. We held the seminar at Stockholm's World Trade Center. Not an impressive building from the outside, but a pretty posh building on the inside. I think 14 people, mostly client contacts and one prospective client, showed up for the presentation. The first hour was pretty much unbearable. My nerves made it hard to sit still, let alone concentrate on the presentation.
Somehow my nerves started to calm down during the second presentation. The first two presentations were in Swedish, so instead of trying to get anything out of them I just started to pay attention to the presenters' speaking styles and body movements. By the time I stepped up in front of the room my heart rate had slowed to a normal speed. I dropped my notes face down on the table and launched right in to my introduction...next thing I knew I was part way through my presentation, and suddenly I was at the end...with the notes laying untouched on the table.
It wasn't a perfect presentation, but in my mind I still have a feeling that I nailed it. There were a few points I could have done a better job of highlighting, and my biggest problem is that I always speak a bit fast once I get going, but I didn't miss a word, I didn't stutter and most importantly I didn't drop any unwanted "ums."
Making it through the presentation, my first professional presentation, gave me a brief runner's high. I even felt ready to take a few questions at the end. Apparently the Swedes don't like asking questions in front of a group for fear of standing out or asking a stupid question, so I was denied that opportunity, but the solo presentation was enough for me. It was a personal challenge that I may not have seen for five or more years in Minneapolis, and it was also a challenge that I'm happy to have overcome.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
No car, no problem
We're enjoying new soft seating here in the apartment today. Considering the past few months of sitting on hard wooden chairs, sans padding, this is especially nice. And all it took was a 20-mile round trip on public transportation to the nearest Ikea yesterday.
Getting there was easy enough. Picking out the chairs and cushions was fairly painless as well. Finding the random kitchen gadgets you didn't even know you wanted, that was fun. But when it came to deciding on which type of plant to buy, that's where we started to hit a wall. We eventually found our little green plant after begging an Ikea employee to help us translate the care instructions. It wasn't until we finally made it to the corridors of corrugated boxes and started loading up our flatbed cart, that we realized that the return trip home might be more of a challenge than we were imagining. The goods included: two chairs, two chair cushions, one foot stool, one foot stool cushion, one potted plant, two home organizers and miscellaneous kitchen 
items. We had the good sense to pack the world's largest Ikea shopping bag (left for our use by the apartment owners) to handle the bulky cushions, a sturdy plastic shopping bag for the random goods and a small wheeled cart, folded up and transported in Scott's messenger bag, for the big boxes. Now, this is where I need to profusely thank my former co-worker (thanks, Mike!) who gave me this little cart for trade show use a few years back. Since we don't have a car here, the cart was a back- and time-saver.
While it became a very smooth operation by the end of the trip, we had to stop every so often to adjust, readjust or reallocate the weight. Another special thanks to two women who both were wearing dresses and carrying their own bags, but still stopped to help us lift the cart loaded with boxes onto the train. Don't know why, but the second train we had to take was extremely packed. Scott claims he got a few dirty looks as we tried to squeeze on board with the cart and boxes, but somehow it seemed to work out, and thankfully a lot of the crowd dispersed just as we needed to exit.
items. We had the good sense to pack the world's largest Ikea shopping bag (left for our use by the apartment owners) to handle the bulky cushions, a sturdy plastic shopping bag for the random goods and a small wheeled cart, folded up and transported in Scott's messenger bag, for the big boxes. Now, this is where I need to profusely thank my former co-worker (thanks, Mike!) who gave me this little cart for trade show use a few years back. Since we don't have a car here, the cart was a back- and time-saver.
While it became a very smooth operation by the end of the trip, we had to stop every so often to adjust, readjust or reallocate the weight. Another special thanks to two women who both were wearing dresses and carrying their own bags, but still stopped to help us lift the cart loaded with boxes onto the train. Don't know why, but the second train we had to take was extremely packed. Scott claims he got a few dirty looks as we tried to squeeze on board with the cart and boxes, but somehow it seemed to work out, and thankfully a lot of the crowd dispersed just as we needed to exit.
After a quick bus trip up the hill we loaded the tiny elevator in our building. It was a very tight squeeze, but we made it up in one trip. We felt pretty proud of ourselves back at the apartment. Pulling off such a stunt on foot felt like quite an amazing feat. Makes the chairs feel that much more comfortable, too.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Swedish 101 - Lesson 2
Jag heter Scott och jag bor i Stockholm. (I am called Scott and I live in Stockholm)
Jag kommer från Iowa i USA. (I come from Iowa in the U.S.)
Hej. (pronounced hey, means hi instead of hey.)
Hej då. (Bye)
Tack. (Thanks)
Ursäkta. (Excuse me)
Jag vet inte. (I don't know)
Jag forstår inte. (I don't undertand)
Hur mycket kostär det? (How much does it cost?)
Kan jag få...? (Can I have...?)
Swedes say thanks a lot, but never say please.
Jag kommer från Iowa i USA. (I come from Iowa in the U.S.)
Hej. (pronounced hey, means hi instead of hey.)
Hej då. (Bye)
Tack. (Thanks)
Ursäkta. (Excuse me)
Jag vet inte. (I don't know)
Jag forstår inte. (I don't undertand)
Hur mycket kostär det? (How much does it cost?)
Kan jag få...? (Can I have...?)
Swedes say thanks a lot, but never say please.
Friday, May 23, 2008
A full week behind
Today at work I decided to create a list of new blog topics and realized that I had fallen pretty far behind in my writing. I wanted to log into blogger and begin typing immediately, but I had just enough willpower to refrain from writing anything more than the list.
Now I have a notecard full of ideas to write about, so hopefully I'll be able to post regularly in the coming week. To begin, here's a not-so-brief briefing of what's been going on in the past few weeks.
First, there were signs up all over town for the Rix FM Festivalen. I didn't take much away from the posters other than the fact that it was a radio station party. Then by some act of God, I picked an unusual running route that took me through the middle of Kungsträdgården, the big public plaza in the heart of the city, and noticed that the city stage was being outfitted for a major concert with Rix FM posters hanging everywhere. I checked up Rix FM the next morning, found out the free concert started at 7:00 that night, emailed Miranda, and next thing I knew we had a party planned. We didn't know much about the lineup, other than the fact that it included some of our favorite Melodifestivalen stars (Amy Diamond, Sanna Nielsen, Linda Bengtzting, Ola and BWO), as I found out later a few Idol (Swedish version) stars, and a name I knew, Jason Mraz. Ín total there were about ten groups performing two or three songs each, totaling three and a half hours. Most of the songs were a type of music referred to in Europe as "schlager," the German word for "hit." It's a fun type of music. Upbeat...makes you want to dance, but also draws a lot of teenagers. Then Jason Mraz took the stage. He was quite refreshing...real talent that could just stand on stage and groove. He threw a few covers into the middle of his two songs and somehow managed to blow me away. After seeing a few hours of perfectly choreographed dance steps I couldn't help but smile from ear-to-ear. I had no idea how good Jason Mraz could be, but now that I've gotten a taste of his live performance, I'm craving for more. We looked for a follow-up concert but I guess he was just in England to promote a CD release, in Sweden to play two songs, then he was on his way back to America. Oh well, I'll just keep my eyes open and hope to catch a full concert at another time.
The weekend was spent checking out the universities in the area. As Miranda mentioned earlier, she was accepted into Uppsala University, a town about 40 minutes north by train (door-to-door commute would probably take closer to 60-70 minutes), and still has a shot at getting into Stockholm University, (door-to-door commute closer to 30-40 minutes). The catch is that if she's accepted into Stockholm, she must attend Stockholm (weird rules, I know), so if she definitely wants to go to Uppsala, her best bet is to withdraw her application from Stockholm. We're planning to move on September 1, so location isn't a big deal, we'll just move closer to her school and hopefully cut down on those commute times. As for now we just need to decide which school is a better fit.
Stockholm University has a nice campus. I believe the campus was built sometime in the 60s and it was planned in a park area of the city. It is mostly surrounded by wooded parks with a large lake about a half mile to the west. The buildings are separated by large lawns and few trees. Campus housing is about a mile off to the East and from what I understand, only a few percent of the student population rents student housing...most students continue to live at home or rent in Stockholm. As a downside, because the campus is so isolated, it was completely dead. Everything was shut down on the Saturday we were there. Few people were walking around, and even the student housing block seemed like a stereotypically empty street in Eastern Europe. I guess the lively college campuses of America are the exception in Europe, but from what I've heard, Stockholm University might be more extreme than most.
The next day we hopped a train up to Uppsala. The train ride was comfortable and went fairly quickly, and right off the train we were in the middle of a busy shopping area. At about two miles by two miles, the city limits would lead you to think the city is pretty small, but apparently there are about 120,000 people within the borders. The Church of Sweden is centered in Uppsala, so the skyline is dominated by two impressive church towers, and there is also an intimidating fortress/castle dominating the hill in the center of town. Uppsala University is the oldest university in the Nordics (1477) and the most respected university in Sweden. There are about 40,000 students, and from what we could tell, it's spread across the entire west side of town. Because the campus was mixed into the town it naturally had more life than Stockholm University. The town was dissected by a small river that reminded us both of San Antonio's river walk. In reality the rivers didn't compare at all except for a few large cafes right on the riverfront, but it was cute. There are other interesting things about the university and the town, but I'll write about those if Miranda ends up in Uppsala. As for now, I've already shown too much pro-Uppsala bias, so it's about time to wrap it up.
So yeah, she's got a tough choice ahead. Join Uppsala on her own terms, or take a chance on Stockholm and hope she likes what she gets. The decsion has to be made in the next couple of days, so wish her luck.
Now I have a notecard full of ideas to write about, so hopefully I'll be able to post regularly in the coming week. To begin, here's a not-so-brief briefing of what's been going on in the past few weeks.
First, there were signs up all over town for the Rix FM Festivalen. I didn't take much away from the posters other than the fact that it was a radio station party. Then by some act of God, I picked an unusual running route that took me through the middle of Kungsträdgården, the big public plaza in the heart of the city, and noticed that the city stage was being outfitted for a major concert with Rix FM posters hanging everywhere. I checked up Rix FM the next morning, found out the free concert started at 7:00 that night, emailed Miranda, and next thing I knew we had a party planned. We didn't know much about the lineup, other than the fact that it included some of our favorite Melodifestivalen stars (Amy Diamond, Sanna Nielsen, Linda Bengtzting, Ola and BWO), as I found out later a few Idol (Swedish version) stars, and a name I knew, Jason Mraz. Ín total there were about ten groups performing two or three songs each, totaling three and a half hours. Most of the songs were a type of music referred to in Europe as "schlager," the German word for "hit." It's a fun type of music. Upbeat...makes you want to dance, but also draws a lot of teenagers. Then Jason Mraz took the stage. He was quite refreshing...real talent that could just stand on stage and groove. He threw a few covers into the middle of his two songs and somehow managed to blow me away. After seeing a few hours of perfectly choreographed dance steps I couldn't help but smile from ear-to-ear. I had no idea how good Jason Mraz could be, but now that I've gotten a taste of his live performance, I'm craving for more. We looked for a follow-up concert but I guess he was just in England to promote a CD release, in Sweden to play two songs, then he was on his way back to America. Oh well, I'll just keep my eyes open and hope to catch a full concert at another time.
The weekend was spent checking out the universities in the area. As Miranda mentioned earlier, she was accepted into Uppsala University, a town about 40 minutes north by train (door-to-door commute would probably take closer to 60-70 minutes), and still has a shot at getting into Stockholm University, (door-to-door commute closer to 30-40 minutes). The catch is that if she's accepted into Stockholm, she must attend Stockholm (weird rules, I know), so if she definitely wants to go to Uppsala, her best bet is to withdraw her application from Stockholm. We're planning to move on September 1, so location isn't a big deal, we'll just move closer to her school and hopefully cut down on those commute times. As for now we just need to decide which school is a better fit.
Stockholm University has a nice campus. I believe the campus was built sometime in the 60s and it was planned in a park area of the city. It is mostly surrounded by wooded parks with a large lake about a half mile to the west. The buildings are separated by large lawns and few trees. Campus housing is about a mile off to the East and from what I understand, only a few percent of the student population rents student housing...most students continue to live at home or rent in Stockholm. As a downside, because the campus is so isolated, it was completely dead. Everything was shut down on the Saturday we were there. Few people were walking around, and even the student housing block seemed like a stereotypically empty street in Eastern Europe. I guess the lively college campuses of America are the exception in Europe, but from what I've heard, Stockholm University might be more extreme than most.
The next day we hopped a train up to Uppsala. The train ride was comfortable and went fairly quickly, and right off the train we were in the middle of a busy shopping area. At about two miles by two miles, the city limits would lead you to think the city is pretty small, but apparently there are about 120,000 people within the borders. The Church of Sweden is centered in Uppsala, so the skyline is dominated by two impressive church towers, and there is also an intimidating fortress/castle dominating the hill in the center of town. Uppsala University is the oldest university in the Nordics (1477) and the most respected university in Sweden. There are about 40,000 students, and from what we could tell, it's spread across the entire west side of town. Because the campus was mixed into the town it naturally had more life than Stockholm University. The town was dissected by a small river that reminded us both of San Antonio's river walk. In reality the rivers didn't compare at all except for a few large cafes right on the riverfront, but it was cute. There are other interesting things about the university and the town, but I'll write about those if Miranda ends up in Uppsala. As for now, I've already shown too much pro-Uppsala bias, so it's about time to wrap it up.
So yeah, she's got a tough choice ahead. Join Uppsala on her own terms, or take a chance on Stockholm and hope she likes what she gets. The decsion has to be made in the next couple of days, so wish her luck.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Grattis på födelsedagen, lillasyster
My youngest sister, Laurel, is celebrating her golden birthday today. In thinking about my little sister and her upcoming milestone, I found myself in the spirit to try my hand at baking for the first time here in Sweden.
Honestly, I'm not really sure if the birthday girl (pictured here, right) even reads this blog. So Laurel, if you are reading this, we wish you a very happy birthday, and nothing but the best in your new year ahead. We love you very much, hope you're enjoying your golden birthday back home, and certainly wish we could be sharing a piece of birthday cake with you today.
Scott agreed to help me tackle the grocery shopping, and we successfully managed to track down all of the baking ingredients (in Swedish, of course) for my mom's chocolate crazy cake recipe. This required a bit of sleuthing by Scott, and a quick call home regarding vinegar selection.
This delicious cake has helped celebrate many a birthday over the years. The recipe itself isn't too complicated, but hand-mixing cake batter and frosting for the first time made this particular cake extra special. Looking back, it seems now that we were a bit spoiled growing up; there were always two electric mixers in the house. This was the result of a duplicate wedding gift and sturdy construction...my mom always thought the first one would eventually break some day, so we'd have a backup on-hand. Well, the first one is still kicking, so the second mixer finally moved out of the house with me a few years ago. Like many other things, the electric mixer didn't make the trip to Sweden. Yet despite lumpy batter and the forearm challenge of hand-mixing, both the cake and the white buttercream frosting still turned out really well. Or as they say here in Sweden, "Mums!" If there is a lesson to be learned from this birthday cake, it is to be thankful for the little things that are easy to take for granted, but can make a big difference at the right time. Just like that electric mixer back in Minnesota.
Honestly, I'm not really sure if the birthday girl (pictured here, right) even reads this blog. So Laurel, if you are reading this, we wish you a very happy birthday, and nothing but the best in your new year ahead. We love you very much, hope you're enjoying your golden birthday back home, and certainly wish we could be sharing a piece of birthday cake with you today. Saturday, May 17, 2008
Running in the city
I wrote in an earlier post that running in Stockholm is great, and for running in a city, it is great. But I've realized lately that city running will never be as good as running through the countryside.
I miss the trails and country roads around Decorah, and even though they weren't as scenic, I still miss the rolling hills outside of Williamsburg. One mile through town, then calm country roads as far as you could see. Want a four mile route? There are at least five options, a loop to the north, south, east or west, and one around town. Same goes for any distance. You just can't beat that sort of variety. Yeah, I could create that many routes in a city, but only a few of the best routes would get away from the city roads and street crossings any allow me to run at a steady pace and forget about my surroundings. You just have to concentrate so hard on the people, the cars, even the cracks in the sidewalk when you're running in a city. It's hard to get into a groove.
The paved country roads were often busy by rural standards, but it would be a bad day if I saw five or more cars during an hour of running on gravel roads. It was peaceful that way. Nothing out there but empty fields, my thoughts, and the occasional red-winged blackbird to dodge or the mean farm dog to out-sprint.
These longings for country running routes aren't new, I've been complaining about Minneapolis running for years. The complaints died down when I got to a fresh city, but now that I've been here a few months they've finally re-surged.
So yeah, life in Stockholm is still great. Life in Minneapolis was great. But for everything these great cities have to offer, I'm still looking for more. Or less, depending on how you look at it.
I miss the trails and country roads around Decorah, and even though they weren't as scenic, I still miss the rolling hills outside of Williamsburg. One mile through town, then calm country roads as far as you could see. Want a four mile route? There are at least five options, a loop to the north, south, east or west, and one around town. Same goes for any distance. You just can't beat that sort of variety. Yeah, I could create that many routes in a city, but only a few of the best routes would get away from the city roads and street crossings any allow me to run at a steady pace and forget about my surroundings. You just have to concentrate so hard on the people, the cars, even the cracks in the sidewalk when you're running in a city. It's hard to get into a groove.
The paved country roads were often busy by rural standards, but it would be a bad day if I saw five or more cars during an hour of running on gravel roads. It was peaceful that way. Nothing out there but empty fields, my thoughts, and the occasional red-winged blackbird to dodge or the mean farm dog to out-sprint.
These longings for country running routes aren't new, I've been complaining about Minneapolis running for years. The complaints died down when I got to a fresh city, but now that I've been here a few months they've finally re-surged.
So yeah, life in Stockholm is still great. Life in Minneapolis was great. But for everything these great cities have to offer, I'm still looking for more. Or less, depending on how you look at it.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Happy Mother's Day!
Our cards won't reach the mail until tomorrow, so we decided we'd dedicate a post to our moms today, then make them wait for their personal cards.
The late cards aren't completely our fault. First of all, Hallmark doesn't have much influence over here yet, so it's pretty easy to miss the card stand in the grocery store. Next, the Swedes celebrate Mother's Day on the last Sunday in May, so the few cards that are sold have just started to show up in stores. At least we found cards for our moms though...the Swedish Father's Day is celebrated in November, meaning our dads will be getting home-made cards next month.
The late cards aren't completely our fault. First of all, Hallmark doesn't have much influence over here yet, so it's pretty easy to miss the card stand in the grocery store. Next, the Swedes celebrate Mother's Day on the last Sunday in May, so the few cards that are sold have just started to show up in stores. At least we found cards for our moms though...the Swedish Father's Day is celebrated in November, meaning our dads will be getting home-made cards next month.
This post is a little tough to write as it's dedicated to two mothers, not just my mother. We've been fortunate to talk to both Mom and Kendell today, but it doesn't really seem like Mother's Day when our moms are so far away. We really do owe them the world...they've done so much for us and continue to do everything they possibly can do to take care of us. We appreciate it, we really do. It's tough to show that when we're a few thousand miles apart, so hopefully they'll take our word for it.
The one thing Mother's Day in Sweden has really done for me is help me realize just how close Minneapolis was to Iowa City. When I lived in Minneapolis I didn't always make the weekend trip home for Mother's Day...now that I can't make the trip I realize how big of a mistake it was not to make the drive home. Sorry Mom!
We'll wrap it up by saying we love you both, and hope you are enjoying a spectacular Mother's Day. And for those of you near your mothers, give them an extra hug for those of us who can't!
It's happening
Miranda and I went out for a low-key but late night with my coworker and some of his friends last night. As we walked home we noticed an odd but natural brightness in the sky. At 2:40 in the morning it looked like the sun was about to rise in the North. It didn't look like city lights and it didn't look like the Northern Lights (I've confirmed that they didn't flare up last night as well), it just looked like the sun was about to rise, and I need to stress, in the North. The photo is grainy, but it offers a glimpse of how close we are to the land of the midnight sun. Can't wait to see what it's going to be like in June.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Swedish 101 - Lesson 1
Klockan är 1:00 på kvällen, och vi går ut. Här är en lite lektion på svenska.
Translation: "It is one o'clock in the afternoon, and we are going out. Here is a little lesson in Swedish"
Jag = I
Du = you
Han = he
Hon = she
Vi = we
Ni = y'all
De (pronounced dom) = they
a is similar to ah, like the a in father
ä is similar to eh, like the ea in bear
å is similar to oh, somewhat like the oa in boat
e is similar to eeh. I can't think of a good word and our phrasebooks and dictionaries aren't much help.
i is pronounced ee, like the ee in tee
Seems difficult, but once you get them down it's really not that bad. Spelling things is a different story. Also, Miranda and I aren't completely in agreement with these vowel explanations. We may be posting some corrections when we explain o, u, y and ö.
Translation: "It is one o'clock in the afternoon, and we are going out. Here is a little lesson in Swedish"
Jag = I
Du = you
Han = he
Hon = she
Vi = we
Ni = y'all
De (pronounced dom) = they
a is similar to ah, like the a in father
ä is similar to eh, like the ea in bear
å is similar to oh, somewhat like the oa in boat
e is similar to eeh. I can't think of a good word and our phrasebooks and dictionaries aren't much help.
i is pronounced ee, like the ee in tee
Seems difficult, but once you get them down it's really not that bad. Spelling things is a different story. Also, Miranda and I aren't completely in agreement with these vowel explanations. We may be posting some corrections when we explain o, u, y and ö.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Happy Birthday David!
I know I said I'd dedicate this blog to my experience in Sweden, but sometimes something happens back home that is too important to ignore. Today that something just happens to be my brother's birthday. Coincidentally it's also Europe Day, but that's just a boring non-holiday, so we'll ignore that and make David the focus of today's blog.
David deserves credit for a lot, but I'll just mention the Sweden specific things today.
First, he moved to San Francisco in 2005. He has since moved with his girlfriend Brooke to Chicago and then to Portland, where the photo at left was taken. How is that related? Well, I had wanted to move to Europe since high school, but at some point decided it wasn't going to happen. Seeing David sell everything, pack up and go (and then seeing my sister follow a little later) reminded me that if you want something badly enough it's really not that hard to make it happen. Even though I chose my own direction, I still think it's safe to say that I followed his lead.
Second, he's the only reason we have wireless internet here in Sweden. I bought the wireless router, hooked up the wireless router, then failed to get the wireless part of the router to work. He didn't guide me through the setup. He remotely seized control of my computer and did the setup himself. Simple for him, but I still think that's pretty cool.
Third, he totally got me hooked up with Skype. Our phone number was a birthday present from him. It's great. I love being able to communicate easily with people back home, and I know there are others who love calling us for free.
Fourth, he gave me a PSP and sent me a map program that totally rocks. It takes five minutes for me to download the a map of the area before I leave the apartment, then once the map is downloaded it's nearly impossible to get lost. Without the mapping tool I never would have found the bike shop where I got Miranda's bike...it was seriously in the middle of nowhere. I also managed to pull off a twelve mile bike ride the other day, eleven miles of which were in an area I didn't know existed...the map totally saved my otherwise would be lost self. The gift is awesome. Thanks Dave.
Fifth, he designed this cool blog template. Need I say more?
So yeah, it's Dave's birthday. I owe him a gift, but being the horrible brother that I am I just wrote a post about him and posted a picture. Whoo-hoo! Hopefully that will suffice until I can find a cool gift for him to enjoy. Happy birthday David!
David deserves credit for a lot, but I'll just mention the Sweden specific things today.
First, he moved to San Francisco in 2005. He has since moved with his girlfriend Brooke to Chicago and then to Portland, where the photo at left was taken. How is that related? Well, I had wanted to move to Europe since high school, but at some point decided it wasn't going to happen. Seeing David sell everything, pack up and go (and then seeing my sister follow a little later) reminded me that if you want something badly enough it's really not that hard to make it happen. Even though I chose my own direction, I still think it's safe to say that I followed his lead.Second, he's the only reason we have wireless internet here in Sweden. I bought the wireless router, hooked up the wireless router, then failed to get the wireless part of the router to work. He didn't guide me through the setup. He remotely seized control of my computer and did the setup himself. Simple for him, but I still think that's pretty cool.
Third, he totally got me hooked up with Skype. Our phone number was a birthday present from him. It's great. I love being able to communicate easily with people back home, and I know there are others who love calling us for free.
Fourth, he gave me a PSP and sent me a map program that totally rocks. It takes five minutes for me to download the a map of the area before I leave the apartment, then once the map is downloaded it's nearly impossible to get lost. Without the mapping tool I never would have found the bike shop where I got Miranda's bike...it was seriously in the middle of nowhere. I also managed to pull off a twelve mile bike ride the other day, eleven miles of which were in an area I didn't know existed...the map totally saved my otherwise would be lost self. The gift is awesome. Thanks Dave.
Fifth, he designed this cool blog template. Need I say more?
So yeah, it's Dave's birthday. I owe him a gift, but being the horrible brother that I am I just wrote a post about him and posted a picture. Whoo-hoo! Hopefully that will suffice until I can find a cool gift for him to enjoy. Happy birthday David!
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
A beautiful day
Cheerful rays of sunshine peeked through the curtains very bright and early this morning. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling quite as cheerful at the time...the sun is rising around 4:30 a.m. now, and the east-facing window in the main room happens to be the only one in the apartment not equipped with window blinds. I'll be needing an eye mask soon so I can appreciate the sunshine when I'm good and ready, or when the alarm goes off. Whichever comes first. Sunglasses really aren't designed to wear while lying down.
There was a nice surprise in store for me this afternoon; I received an acceptance letter for graduate school! At last. It's a big relief and I'm really excited, although we still have a lot of questions regarding the remainder of this process. I'll post more information as soon as I can confirm the details. Ah, the virtue of patience.
The sun set finally around 9 p.m. tonight, leaving us with a vibrant horizon beneath the cloud cover. We struggled with camera settings, but finally managed to capture a photo of the sunset from the balcony.
There was a nice surprise in store for me this afternoon; I received an acceptance letter for graduate school! At last. It's a big relief and I'm really excited, although we still have a lot of questions regarding the remainder of this process. I'll post more information as soon as I can confirm the details. Ah, the virtue of patience.
The sun set finally around 9 p.m. tonight, leaving us with a vibrant horizon beneath the cloud cover. We struggled with camera settings, but finally managed to capture a photo of the sunset from the balcony.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
48 Hours in Copenhagen
As we've said a number of times, we took a two-day trip to Copenhagen, and now it's time to share the full report.
To start, I must admit that I'm a bit of a geography nerd and I've spent a fair amount of time studying maps of Europe. I should probably thank my sixth grade teacher for that...it seemed like a wasted effort to memorize the world map at the time, but it sparked an interest and now I find that it's a wonderful base for travel. Thanks Mrs. Mayer! It also helps put things in perspective when visiting museums and reading about these countries' histories. So for those of you that aren't nerdy like me, I recommend checking out Copenhagen on a map. As you'll see, Copenhagen is on the East side of Denmark, near Sweden and roughly at the point where the North Sea and the Baltic Sea meet. This made the city an ideal location for traders to gather and the port still appears to be quite active today.
I never studied European history in school, but have learned in these last two months that both Sweden and Denmark were once European powerhouses. Turns out the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden and Denmark) have more to their history than vikings that rampaged, pillaged, burnt and explored. They also have a very rich history of powerful kings that appeared to do nothing but attempt to prove their dominance by building the most incredible buildings and by doing everything possible to increase the size of their territories.
Now these same countries are pacifists, aware of the fact that their populations are so small that any influence they wish to have on the world must come from the economic sector and the ability to form allies.
Before you read further, I want to let you know that Miranda has done an incredible job of adding captions to the photos in the Picassa album, so if you'd rather see the story with matching photos, I'd recommend that you check that out.
So I've provided you with the background, now on to the real story. We left our apartment at 5:00 a.m. on Friday and took a cab to the airport north of town. Check-in and security were a breeze
(we didn't even have to take off our shoes or take our liquids out of our bags), then we enjoyed an easy one-hour flight down to Copenhagen. Apparently they recommend arriving two hours early for all international flights, but we could have arrived ten minutes early and had nothing to complain about.
The airport in Copenhagen was pretty cool. They had a fairly nice shopping mall inside with a lot more stores than you'd see in a typical American airport. Of course there were duty free shops everywhere, but we couldn't handle the currency conversion from Swedish Kronor (which we're just starting to think in terms of) to Danish Kronor, so everything seemed expensive and consequently nothing was purchased. Turns out everything actually was expensive, so we lucked out by following our gut instincts.
The first thing we bought were Copenhagen Cards, cards that gave us free access to all public transit as well as free admission to about 75 different museums and discounts at additional museums and restaurants. We were told that you had to attend about three museums a day for three days in order for the cards to pay for themselves, and since we were only there for two days, we decided to pack in as many museums as possible.
The Copenhagen airport is very close to the city center and it's fairly easy to travel between the two using public transit, but unfortunately the trains are very poorly marked within the airport. We ended up hopping on a train that took us directly to the city center and not to our hotel like we planned. It wasn't a huge deal as we were able to switch to the subway at a later point and move off in the right direction, probably only costing us five minutes extra.
Once off the subway we came up to the ground level, took some photos, looked at a map, and promptly walked in the exact opposite direction of our hotel. I didn't mind, my camping backpack is awesome. Miranda on the other hand had two small carry-ons that were fairly dense and didn't appear to be much fun to carry. A wheeled carry-on might have been better, but there were enough cobblestones that I'm sure those would have been carried after just a few minutes.
We kept hiking, trying to pinpoint our location on our maps, but the maps didn't have the details we needed, and it turns out that the canals and bridges we were crossing formed a nice triangle instead of a square, and no matter which way we turned seemed to take us back to the exact same intersection. We finally located a street that appeared on our maps and set off in the direction of the hotel. Our hotel was actually the tallest building in Copenhagen, so it seems like the task of finding it should have been fairly easy, but the four-story buildings formed perfect walls, and it wasn't until we came to a park on the way to the hotel that we finally saw the building towering before us.
The hotel was quite nice. A Radisson with a small pool, an actual athletic club inside, and a pretty fancy casino downstairs, Casino Copenhagen. We dropped off our bags, searched through our books for interesting museums, circled everything on our maps, then set out on foot to explore.
On day one we decided to explore the city center, and chose to save the statue of the Little Mermaid (not the Disney version, but the Hans Christian Andersen version) and the Carlsberg brewery for day two.
We saw a lot of stuff on day one. Correction, we saw a lot of amazing stuff on day one. The museums were incredible, yet the city failed to impress me. Everything was compared to Stockholm. Don't know if that's fair or not, but Stockholm is just a prettier and cleaner city. We also haven't seen Stockholm's museums, so I didn't even count the museums in my cost/benefit analysis.
Here's a quick rundown of what I can remember from day one: Some museum called a Glyptotek full of cool statues and mummies, the Hans Christian Andersen world (should have known not to go when I saw it was connected to Ripley's Believe It or Not!, because the displays made the animals at Chuck E. Cheese look real), the National Museum, the Round Tower (an observatory with an incredible view of the city), and a trip to Fredricksberg Park and the outside of the Carlsberg Brewery (not the entrance though). We spent a lot of hours just walking the streets too, but these are just the things I can label.
I did my best to compare the cities from the perspective of a guy walking the streets. Copenhagen was full of extremely old buildings mixed with buildings erected in the last half a century. I'm sure modern architects of the world love the blend, but in my mind it really takes away from the city's charm. The streets weren't that clean, and we saw one block where the sidewalk was lined with dog feces spaced about three feet apart, continuing for about one hundred meters. The people seemed to dress a bit trashier and, as the Swedes warned us, the Danes drink a lot of beer. In Stockholm you see coffee shops. In Copenhagen you see beer gardens and pubs. The beer gardens looked like a lot of fun, and it looked pretty relaxing to take a six-pack to the nearest canal or park and share a drink with your friends while soaking up the sun, but there were just enough out-of-control drunks to make me realize that this atmosphere of casual drinking wasn't all that glamorous.
There were 7-elevens about every four blocks, and these served as the neighborhood liquor stores. We saw one drunk guy pick a fight with the 7-eleven cashier who thought he saw the guy stealing beer. Another drunk guy was creating trouble in a coffee shop at the central train station, then later appeared on the same bus we were riding, holding a big bottle of Smirnoff Ice in each hand. He started walking around and talking to people, which resulted in malt beverage being poured all over some unfortunate lady. Then there were the rowdy groups of frat-aged boys running through the pedestrian malls. To be clear, these events were not taking place during normal bar hours but were instead happening in the middle of the day. In the end I realized how much I appreciate Sweden's tight grip on alcohol sales. The public intoxication probably has more to do with cultural differences and the fact that we were in the main bar area than government regulation, but I can see why the Swedes are afraid to deregulate with neighbors like that.
One impressive thing was the number of bikes. Bikes everywhere. It seemed like there were as many bikers as there were cars. Perhaps more. I thought a lot of people biked in Stockholm, but Copenhagen totally wins the gold in that event. And...95% of bikers followed the traffic laws! It was so unreal. Then again, somebody needs to teach the Danes about the benefits of wearing a helmet. I don't like wearing a helmet either, but come on. I assumed everybody would know better by now.
Day one ended with sore feet and a 10:05 p.m. return to the hotel. We had hoped to hop in the pool, only to learn that it had closed five minutes earlier. We should have learned our lesson from this mishap, but as you'll see, it was the first of three such incidences. Having woken at 4:00 a.m. that morning it didn't take long for us to fall asleep for the night.
The next day I got up for a run. I peeked out the windows at a nice sunny day, not one cloud...too bright to actually open my sleepy eyes more than a crack. I closed the curtains and was a bit groggy, so it took about 10 minutes to change into my running clothes and get my shoes laced. I went back to the curtains to find a sheet of fog so thick that I couldn't see much more than three or four feet. I ended up on the treadmill.
After my run I woke up Miranda and we were on our way into the city to find breakfast. Doesn't it suck that nice hotels don't offer continental breakfast, yet cheap hotels do? Seriously...
So we ran into a language barrier. The Swedish and German word for breakfast is "frukost." So naturally, we kept going to Danish restaurants that were advertising "frukost," all of which were closed. Turns out that "frukost" is Danish for "lunch". We didn't realize that we were looking in the wrong places until 11 o'clock in the morning, at which time we gave up on our search for breakfast and settled for lunch at Burger King. Sad, I know. As an aside, "middag" literally "mid day" means lunch in German, but means "dinner" in Swedish. In addition, the Swedish word for afternoon is "eftermiddag" or "after middag," which comes before "middag" the meal. I wish these languages could just get together and sort this stuff out. I'd happily join them as an independent consultant, assuming they need a logical person to help.
After lunch we took off on a more organized adventure. Miranda had found a tourist map that showed a recommended walking tour taking us through some of the best parts of the old city, seeing parks, castles, cathedrals and the like. The path also took us past the statue of the Little Mermaid, which I previously said was a must. The hike was supposed to take around three hours, even though it could be walked in about an hour and a half. Thanks to our Copenhagen Cards we finished the trip in closer to four and a half hours, making sure we hit all of the good museums along the route.
The tourist hike really improved my stance on Copenhagen. Call me a dork, but while we explored certain ideas popped into my head for blog comments. If we had left after day one this would have been a pretty nasty blog. During day two we saw the more quaint side of the old city. And even a few rays of sun. Still not as pretty as Stockholm, but much more scenic than the first day in Copenhagen. The parks were incredible, as were the cathedrals and palaces. The Little Mermaid had a huge gathering, and as the tourist TV station in the hotel said, she's pretty much the national monument of Denmark...so very Danish.
About the time we finished our town walk the rain really started coming down. My tiny umbrella wasn't sufficient for two, so we were fairly wet by the time we caught a bus to the Carlsberg Brewery. The goal was to get to the brewery by three o'clock, but due to our museum stop to see the excavated ruins of the palaces in Copenhagen, which ended up being both bigger and more interesting than expected, we didn't get to the brewery until 3:59 p.m. We didn't think it was a big deal considering everything is open until at least five o'clock, right? Wrong. The brewery closes at 4:00 p.m. If you want to get inside, arrive at 3:00 p.m. So there were were, soaking wet on the far edge of town, feet even more sore than the day before, getting a big gate shut in our face. The old man that greeted us at the gate was incredibly kind and apologetic, but it was still a bummer. I almost cried.
Just made me think of something funny. Copenhagen must be a huge tourist town. Everybody in the shops and restaurants greeted us in English. In Stockholm, everybody is treated like they're Swedish. In Denmark, either we looked like tourists, or everybody is treated as a tourist. I don't think we stood out that badly, but who knows.
Before the trip to the hotel we ended up seeing the Old Main building of the University of Copenhagen, the Rosenberg Park and Palace, another pretty cool park, Kastellet (an old military fortification that's still in use today, the moat and dike are shaped like a star, cool to see on the map if you can find it), the Little Mermaid, the Royal Palace, the Marble Church, the ruins under the royal castle, the central train station and the Amber Museum.
The rest of the night was spent exploring a couple other areas of the city. We found a coffee shop, walked past the main restaurant strip, grabbed a bite to eat, hit up the amber museum, did some more wandering, then went back to the hotel. After laying down for about ten minutes we went down to the pool. It was 9:30 p.m. We were both tired, so a 30-minute swim sounded quite nice...nope...on Fridays the pool closes at 9:00 p.m. I swear we were cursed. We ended up watching a women's handball match on TV then heading down to the casino. We had about 15 Danish Kronor (roughly five dollars) and decided to waste those on slots instead of converting it back to Swedish Kronor. It was wasted in no time.
That's pretty much our trip. We had another early morning trip to the airport and were back in Stockholm by 8:00 a.m.
Copenhagen is a cool city, but I still like Stockholm better.
To start, I must admit that I'm a bit of a geography nerd and I've spent a fair amount of time studying maps of Europe. I should probably thank my sixth grade teacher for that...it seemed like a wasted effort to memorize the world map at the time, but it sparked an interest and now I find that it's a wonderful base for travel. Thanks Mrs. Mayer! It also helps put things in perspective when visiting museums and reading about these countries' histories. So for those of you that aren't nerdy like me, I recommend checking out Copenhagen on a map. As you'll see, Copenhagen is on the East side of Denmark, near Sweden and roughly at the point where the North Sea and the Baltic Sea meet. This made the city an ideal location for traders to gather and the port still appears to be quite active today.
I never studied European history in school, but have learned in these last two months that both Sweden and Denmark were once European powerhouses. Turns out the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden and Denmark) have more to their history than vikings that rampaged, pillaged, burnt and explored. They also have a very rich history of powerful kings that appeared to do nothing but attempt to prove their dominance by building the most incredible buildings and by doing everything possible to increase the size of their territories.
Now these same countries are pacifists, aware of the fact that their populations are so small that any influence they wish to have on the world must come from the economic sector and the ability to form allies.
Before you read further, I want to let you know that Miranda has done an incredible job of adding captions to the photos in the Picassa album, so if you'd rather see the story with matching photos, I'd recommend that you check that out.
So I've provided you with the background, now on to the real story. We left our apartment at 5:00 a.m. on Friday and took a cab to the airport north of town. Check-in and security were a breeze
(we didn't even have to take off our shoes or take our liquids out of our bags), then we enjoyed an easy one-hour flight down to Copenhagen. Apparently they recommend arriving two hours early for all international flights, but we could have arrived ten minutes early and had nothing to complain about.
The airport in Copenhagen was pretty cool. They had a fairly nice shopping mall inside with a lot more stores than you'd see in a typical American airport. Of course there were duty free shops everywhere, but we couldn't handle the currency conversion from Swedish Kronor (which we're just starting to think in terms of) to Danish Kronor, so everything seemed expensive and consequently nothing was purchased. Turns out everything actually was expensive, so we lucked out by following our gut instincts.
The first thing we bought were Copenhagen Cards, cards that gave us free access to all public transit as well as free admission to about 75 different museums and discounts at additional museums and restaurants. We were told that you had to attend about three museums a day for three days in order for the cards to pay for themselves, and since we were only there for two days, we decided to pack in as many museums as possible.
The Copenhagen airport is very close to the city center and it's fairly easy to travel between the two using public transit, but unfortunately the trains are very poorly marked within the airport. We ended up hopping on a train that took us directly to the city center and not to our hotel like we planned. It wasn't a huge deal as we were able to switch to the subway at a later point and move off in the right direction, probably only costing us five minutes extra.
Once off the subway we came up to the ground level, took some photos, looked at a map, and promptly walked in the exact opposite direction of our hotel. I didn't mind, my camping backpack is awesome. Miranda on the other hand had two small carry-ons that were fairly dense and didn't appear to be much fun to carry. A wheeled carry-on might have been better, but there were enough cobblestones that I'm sure those would have been carried after just a few minutes.
We kept hiking, trying to pinpoint our location on our maps, but the maps didn't have the details we needed, and it turns out that the canals and bridges we were crossing formed a nice triangle instead of a square, and no matter which way we turned seemed to take us back to the exact same intersection. We finally located a street that appeared on our maps and set off in the direction of the hotel. Our hotel was actually the tallest building in Copenhagen, so it seems like the task of finding it should have been fairly easy, but the four-story buildings formed perfect walls, and it wasn't until we came to a park on the way to the hotel that we finally saw the building towering before us.
The hotel was quite nice. A Radisson with a small pool, an actual athletic club inside, and a pretty fancy casino downstairs, Casino Copenhagen. We dropped off our bags, searched through our books for interesting museums, circled everything on our maps, then set out on foot to explore.
On day one we decided to explore the city center, and chose to save the statue of the Little Mermaid (not the Disney version, but the Hans Christian Andersen version) and the Carlsberg brewery for day two.
We saw a lot of stuff on day one. Correction, we saw a lot of amazing stuff on day one. The museums were incredible, yet the city failed to impress me. Everything was compared to Stockholm. Don't know if that's fair or not, but Stockholm is just a prettier and cleaner city. We also haven't seen Stockholm's museums, so I didn't even count the museums in my cost/benefit analysis.
Here's a quick rundown of what I can remember from day one: Some museum called a Glyptotek full of cool statues and mummies, the Hans Christian Andersen world (should have known not to go when I saw it was connected to Ripley's Believe It or Not!, because the displays made the animals at Chuck E. Cheese look real), the National Museum, the Round Tower (an observatory with an incredible view of the city), and a trip to Fredricksberg Park and the outside of the Carlsberg Brewery (not the entrance though). We spent a lot of hours just walking the streets too, but these are just the things I can label.
I did my best to compare the cities from the perspective of a guy walking the streets. Copenhagen was full of extremely old buildings mixed with buildings erected in the last half a century. I'm sure modern architects of the world love the blend, but in my mind it really takes away from the city's charm. The streets weren't that clean, and we saw one block where the sidewalk was lined with dog feces spaced about three feet apart, continuing for about one hundred meters. The people seemed to dress a bit trashier and, as the Swedes warned us, the Danes drink a lot of beer. In Stockholm you see coffee shops. In Copenhagen you see beer gardens and pubs. The beer gardens looked like a lot of fun, and it looked pretty relaxing to take a six-pack to the nearest canal or park and share a drink with your friends while soaking up the sun, but there were just enough out-of-control drunks to make me realize that this atmosphere of casual drinking wasn't all that glamorous.
There were 7-elevens about every four blocks, and these served as the neighborhood liquor stores. We saw one drunk guy pick a fight with the 7-eleven cashier who thought he saw the guy stealing beer. Another drunk guy was creating trouble in a coffee shop at the central train station, then later appeared on the same bus we were riding, holding a big bottle of Smirnoff Ice in each hand. He started walking around and talking to people, which resulted in malt beverage being poured all over some unfortunate lady. Then there were the rowdy groups of frat-aged boys running through the pedestrian malls. To be clear, these events were not taking place during normal bar hours but were instead happening in the middle of the day. In the end I realized how much I appreciate Sweden's tight grip on alcohol sales. The public intoxication probably has more to do with cultural differences and the fact that we were in the main bar area than government regulation, but I can see why the Swedes are afraid to deregulate with neighbors like that.
One impressive thing was the number of bikes. Bikes everywhere. It seemed like there were as many bikers as there were cars. Perhaps more. I thought a lot of people biked in Stockholm, but Copenhagen totally wins the gold in that event. And...95% of bikers followed the traffic laws! It was so unreal. Then again, somebody needs to teach the Danes about the benefits of wearing a helmet. I don't like wearing a helmet either, but come on. I assumed everybody would know better by now.
Day one ended with sore feet and a 10:05 p.m. return to the hotel. We had hoped to hop in the pool, only to learn that it had closed five minutes earlier. We should have learned our lesson from this mishap, but as you'll see, it was the first of three such incidences. Having woken at 4:00 a.m. that morning it didn't take long for us to fall asleep for the night.
The next day I got up for a run. I peeked out the windows at a nice sunny day, not one cloud...too bright to actually open my sleepy eyes more than a crack. I closed the curtains and was a bit groggy, so it took about 10 minutes to change into my running clothes and get my shoes laced. I went back to the curtains to find a sheet of fog so thick that I couldn't see much more than three or four feet. I ended up on the treadmill.
After my run I woke up Miranda and we were on our way into the city to find breakfast. Doesn't it suck that nice hotels don't offer continental breakfast, yet cheap hotels do? Seriously...
So we ran into a language barrier. The Swedish and German word for breakfast is "frukost." So naturally, we kept going to Danish restaurants that were advertising "frukost," all of which were closed. Turns out that "frukost" is Danish for "lunch". We didn't realize that we were looking in the wrong places until 11 o'clock in the morning, at which time we gave up on our search for breakfast and settled for lunch at Burger King. Sad, I know. As an aside, "middag" literally "mid day" means lunch in German, but means "dinner" in Swedish. In addition, the Swedish word for afternoon is "eftermiddag" or "after middag," which comes before "middag" the meal. I wish these languages could just get together and sort this stuff out. I'd happily join them as an independent consultant, assuming they need a logical person to help.
After lunch we took off on a more organized adventure. Miranda had found a tourist map that showed a recommended walking tour taking us through some of the best parts of the old city, seeing parks, castles, cathedrals and the like. The path also took us past the statue of the Little Mermaid, which I previously said was a must. The hike was supposed to take around three hours, even though it could be walked in about an hour and a half. Thanks to our Copenhagen Cards we finished the trip in closer to four and a half hours, making sure we hit all of the good museums along the route.
The tourist hike really improved my stance on Copenhagen. Call me a dork, but while we explored certain ideas popped into my head for blog comments. If we had left after day one this would have been a pretty nasty blog. During day two we saw the more quaint side of the old city. And even a few rays of sun. Still not as pretty as Stockholm, but much more scenic than the first day in Copenhagen. The parks were incredible, as were the cathedrals and palaces. The Little Mermaid had a huge gathering, and as the tourist TV station in the hotel said, she's pretty much the national monument of Denmark...so very Danish.
About the time we finished our town walk the rain really started coming down. My tiny umbrella wasn't sufficient for two, so we were fairly wet by the time we caught a bus to the Carlsberg Brewery. The goal was to get to the brewery by three o'clock, but due to our museum stop to see the excavated ruins of the palaces in Copenhagen, which ended up being both bigger and more interesting than expected, we didn't get to the brewery until 3:59 p.m. We didn't think it was a big deal considering everything is open until at least five o'clock, right? Wrong. The brewery closes at 4:00 p.m. If you want to get inside, arrive at 3:00 p.m. So there were were, soaking wet on the far edge of town, feet even more sore than the day before, getting a big gate shut in our face. The old man that greeted us at the gate was incredibly kind and apologetic, but it was still a bummer. I almost cried.
Just made me think of something funny. Copenhagen must be a huge tourist town. Everybody in the shops and restaurants greeted us in English. In Stockholm, everybody is treated like they're Swedish. In Denmark, either we looked like tourists, or everybody is treated as a tourist. I don't think we stood out that badly, but who knows.
Before the trip to the hotel we ended up seeing the Old Main building of the University of Copenhagen, the Rosenberg Park and Palace, another pretty cool park, Kastellet (an old military fortification that's still in use today, the moat and dike are shaped like a star, cool to see on the map if you can find it), the Little Mermaid, the Royal Palace, the Marble Church, the ruins under the royal castle, the central train station and the Amber Museum.
The rest of the night was spent exploring a couple other areas of the city. We found a coffee shop, walked past the main restaurant strip, grabbed a bite to eat, hit up the amber museum, did some more wandering, then went back to the hotel. After laying down for about ten minutes we went down to the pool. It was 9:30 p.m. We were both tired, so a 30-minute swim sounded quite nice...nope...on Fridays the pool closes at 9:00 p.m. I swear we were cursed. We ended up watching a women's handball match on TV then heading down to the casino. We had about 15 Danish Kronor (roughly five dollars) and decided to waste those on slots instead of converting it back to Swedish Kronor. It was wasted in no time.
That's pretty much our trip. We had another early morning trip to the airport and were back in Stockholm by 8:00 a.m.
Copenhagen is a cool city, but I still like Stockholm better.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Return to Stockholm
We're back from Copenhagen! The trip was really nice, even though it rained a lot throughout the two days. We'll post more about the city tomorrow. For tonight, we've uploaded the best of our Danish photos, as well as the pictures from my SFI class field trip on Wednesday.
It was a gorgeous night tonight, so I joined Scott on his run for my first bike ride of the season. Here's a picture of my new ride that Scott snapped when we brought the bike home. He actually met me on the street and surprised me with this purchase last week, although it wasn't exactly intentional...he set out on foot for a "used" bike shop on the outskirts of town, and made the mistake of breaking out his sandals for the first time this year. After walking two and a half hours (twice as long as he thought it would take) he entered the shop with two bloody feet, only to find that they had about five used bikes, all in youth sizes, but a great selection of new bikes. I think it was a pretty easy sale, considering the alternative was to walk home. It's definitely a beautiful bike though, so nobody's complaining. Except maybe Scott, who is still dealing with the blisters and without a bike of his own to ride in Stockholm...
It was a gorgeous night tonight, so I joined Scott on his run for my first bike ride of the season. Here's a picture of my new ride that Scott snapped when we brought the bike home. He actually met me on the street and surprised me with this purchase last week, although it wasn't exactly intentional...he set out on foot for a "used" bike shop on the outskirts of town, and made the mistake of breaking out his sandals for the first time this year. After walking two and a half hours (twice as long as he thought it would take) he entered the shop with two bloody feet, only to find that they had about five used bikes, all in youth sizes, but a great selection of new bikes. I think it was a pretty easy sale, considering the alternative was to walk home. It's definitely a beautiful bike though, so nobody's complaining. Except maybe Scott, who is still dealing with the blisters and without a bike of his own to ride in Stockholm...
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