"The British are coming!"

Two weeks ago, some of my friends from Reading came to visit me in Hamburg. These are the same friends I visited during my first trip to England back in January. Unfortunately, the weather in Hamburg was somewhat temperamental, so most of their stay was shrouded in rain. I suppose they were used to it though coming from the UK. It was such a blast showing them around Hamburg and watching them experience traditional German cuisine for the first time. We had a lot of laughs about a certain little British ditty that bathroom attendants sing to get guys to buy their cologne. It reminded me of this one particular night in Dublin when I was stupid enough to accept nasty smelling perfume from a random bathroom attendant in a bar. Unfortunately, she didn't sing me a dirty little jingle to get me to use it. That silly song was stuck in my head for days.

In front of the River Elbe

Surprisingly, the Queen Elizabeth was in port that week. I had
 absolutely no idea, so I was shocked to find myself staring
up at her during a boat tour of the harbor.

The one request my friends had during their time in Hamburg was to party on the Reeperbahn. The night did not disappoint, and I think it's safe to assume that the infamous street once again lived up to its reputation. After four days in London and four days with my UK friends, I found myself going through a massive British accent withdrawal after they left. I tried to cope by drowning myself in BBC television shows, but it only took the edge off.

This picture was taken around 4am after a night of partying
on the Reeperbahn.  The subways in Hamburg shut down on
weeknights, so we had to wait for them to reopen before we
could head home.

Another exciting thing that's happened since my last update is the start of the EUFA European Football Championship. It's no surprise to those of you who went to college with me that football (American style) is not my favorite sport. I very rarely sit down and willingly turn on an American football game. Thus, I was shocked to find that I actually enjoy watching European football (aka soccer). It's way more action packed, they don't stop the game every 10 seconds, and it's over in 2 hours. As an added bonus, you get to watch incredibly fit men run around for 90 minutes. Germany won all three games in the first round, so they'll continue on to the next round. The next game is on Friday, and I'm actually really excited to watch it. My goodness, Europe has changed me in more ways then one!

Deutschland colored Lei and...bunny ears?

Watching Deutschland vs Dänemark with a group of
meteorology friends

I thought it was cool how they put the final score up on the
subway display.

Tschüss!

An American in London

Fourth and Final Destination: London, England

On Thursday afternoon, Kaitlyn and I boarded a plane to our final destination: London, England. Kaitlyn has a cousin who lives in London, and they were nice enough to let us stay at their place. It is normally my responsibility to get us where we need to go, but this time Kaitlyn wanted to prove that she could make it from the airport to their house without my help. Not surprisingly, she ended up having to ask directions from a random man on the street. Kaitlyn is really good at reading street signs from far away, but I will always and forever be the one with the sense of direction.

We'd both been to London before, but neither of us had seen the ceremonial Changing of the Guards. So we woke up early Friday morning and made out way to Buckingham Palace. I was always slightly obsessed with the city of London and the Royal Family growing up, so finally being able to see the red coated men in their funny black hats marching around playing music felt like a dream come true.

Changing the Guards at Buckingham Palace

Afterwards we went for a stroll through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. On the way to the park we passed a very strange man who was carrying two ferrets in the hood of his sweatshirt. At one point, one of the ferrets fell out of the hood and was just dangling down his back. The whole thing was quite bizzarre. The most mesmerizing part of Hyde Park was the Rose Garden. I will always and forever be a girlie girl when it comes to roses, and being completely surrounded by their scent made my heart skip a beat. There are very few things in this world that I find more romantic then roses - I guess that explains why my favorite perfume is called "Rose the One." After spending some time smelling the flowers, we finally made our way through the rest of the park to Kensington Palace.

Nothing comes between a man and his ferrets

The Rose Garden in Hyde Park

Roses make my heart melt.

I really wanted a picture with the swans in Hyde Park, but
Kaitlyn would not take it. She was convinced that I would
scare the swan and it would come flying at her. I literally
had to follow this swan around for 30 seconds before she
would snap the photo. 

"So come with me, where dreams are born, and
time is never planned. Just think of happy
things, and your heart will fly on wings,
forever, in Never Never Land!" - Peter Pan

In front of Kensington Palace

After a quick bite to eat at the famous Nando's peri-peri chicken restaurant, Kaitlyn and I met up with Andy for a few drinks. Before I can continue with the story, I feel as though I should take a step back and offer an explanation since 95% of the people reading this blog have no idea who "Andy" is. If you remember back to my Amsterdam blog, you might recall me mentioning someone named "The Best Man." Well, the Best Man has a name, and his name is Andy. We've stayed in touch since then, and about a month ago he asked me to come visit him in London. There was absolutely no way I was going alone though. I mean, what if he turned out to be a psychopathic liar who was actually plotting my murder (don't worry, he wasn't)! So Kaitlyn and I rearranged our Spring Break in order to spend the last weekend in London. A few beers and one very pink cider later, Kaitlyn and I went back to change and Andy left to meet up with his friend.

Friday night was, for lack of a better term, amazing. After a quick bite to eat, Kaitlyn and I met back up with Andy and his friend James, aka "Bulldog," at a bar in downtown London. The second we walked in I could feel my heart beat faster. I honestly felt like I was walking into my dream bar. There was a large, two story glass wall behind the bar with iron boxes displaying countless bottles of liquor, and a large iron and glass staircase ran up the side wall leading to the second floor. Not only did this bar look impressive, but their drinks were fantastic. When I first ordered a Cosmo, Andy and I watched in confusion as the bartender rubbed a fresh orange peel over the glass before pouring the alcohol in. We had no idea what he was doing, but when I tried it I found that I really enjoyed the subtle orange flavor. It was honestly the most unique Cosmo I've ever had. A couple of drinks, a lot of laughs, and a bucketload of memorable moments later, we hopped in a cab and went to an 80's dance club. I know a lot of people don't enjoy 80's dance clubs, but I had a blast. Everyone knows I'm a sucker for Summer Loving and Greased Lightning, so I was giddy and excited when they started to play a Grease montage. At this point in the evening, neither Kaitlyn nor I had any idea where in the city we are since we took a cab there. You can imagine my surprise when I exited the bar and found myself staring face to face with St. Paul's Cathedral. From there we once again hopped in a cab to an undetermined bar recommended to us by the cab driver. Even though we didn't spend much time in the last bar, we were there just long enough to have a drunk man awkwardly dance for us in front of the couch. Fortunately, the dancing stopped when Andy returned from the bar. It was an extremely awkward moment for both Kaitlyn and I since neither of us are accustomed to "dance serenades" from incredibly intoxicated men. 

View of St. Paul's Cathedral from the 80's bar

Random dance serenade.

Andy and me

Resting our feet at the last bar after a night out in London

Kaitlyn and I decided to sleep in on Saturday and have a relaxing morning around the house. We sat on the couch, watched tv, read magazines, and reminisced about our trip. Being back in a house with normal, everyday furniture made me realize just how much I miss curling up in a ball on the couch! After a leisurely morning, we finally headed back into the city to eat fish and chips and visit Camden Market. Camden Market is a large market filled with über short dresses, hilarious t-shirts, and pointless nicknacks that just scream London. To be perfectly honestly with you, I actually bought my first tacky-tourist souvenir since arriving in Europe. I am officially the proud owner of an "I <3 London" keychain. After walking around the market for a while, Kaitlyn and I passed a Piña Colada stand. At the time we thought it was a fantastic idea. Unfortunately, something in the drink didn't agree with us and we instantly felt sick. It seriously felt like a massive hand was trying to push out of my diaphragm and bust through my skin. Neither of us could finish our drinks, and they left us feeling pretty ill for the rest of the evening. Word to the wise: never buy Piña Coladas from a random street vendor in London.

Tacky tourist souvenirs for the win!

Oh, how sweet. It was love at first knit.

That evening, Kaitlyn's cousins took us to a local pub that was tucked away in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The pub was really small and quaint, and it was entirely filled with locals. The menu changes every evening, so even the regulars don't get sick of the food. Unfortunately, I was still feeling somewhat ill from the Piña Colada, so I wasn't able to take full advantage of the genuine pub food. But what I was able to eat lived up to my expectations. When Sunday morning finally rolled around, I awoke to the sound of rain. It was a very fitting end to our time in London since neither Kaitlyn nor I wanted to leave. Out of all the cities I've visited, Hamburg and London take the top two spots for "European cities I could see myself living in." For those of you who have never visited London, you're making a huge mistake. It honestly and truthfully lives up to all the hype.

Tschüss!

Estonia and Finland

Second Stop: Tallinn, Estonia

Estonia? I know, it sounds crazy. Who's even heard of Estonia? The only reason we actually went to Estonia was because it was super cheap to fly to from Stockholm. I knew so little about Estonia before I arrived, that I didn't even know what time zone they were in until the flight attendant told us. As luck would have it, Estonia turned out to be fantastic. We got super freaked flying into Tallinn because it looked like a tornado had gone through and destroyed the city. Everything was run down and dilapidated - Kaitlyn and I immediately had the same thought: "Oh my god. What have we gotten ourselves into." You can only imagine how surprised we were when we arrived in the Old Town and found ourselves staring face to face with this gigantic medieval town that looked like it was part of a Disney theme park. Not a lot of people have heard of Tallinn, so the town didn't reek of tourist traps or overpriced goods like most European cities. Instead, the opposite was true and Tallinn turned out to be the cheapest city we've visited in Europe. 

This picture is in honor of our last Ryan Air flight ever.
The plane was super empty, so we were able to say a proper
 goodbye. We salute you, Ryan Air!

Main entrance into Old Town.

Tallinn is located on the north coast of Estonia, or the
south coast of the Baltic Sea. 

View of Old Town from the top of St. Olav's Church. 

Alexander Nevsky's Orthodox Cathedral - the most
impressive building in Old Town.

These creepy dolls were all over the city, so
naturally I had to get a picture with one! 

This super cool street vendor taught me how to
brand a coin. It was so much fun, and now I
have a random handmade coin from Tallinn.  

A typical street in Tallinn. What a stunning city.

Not only was the city of Tallinn really spectacular, but our hostel was pretty freaking neat. According to Kaitlyn, it was known as the party hostel of Tallinn, and after staying there two nights I can see why!  The people staying at the hostel were all super cool. Most of the guests had been traveling for a really long time. They had no plan, no worry, no stress. I admire people like that because I'm not sure I could just stop work and travel around Europe without knowing what my next step in life was going to be. I wish I had to guts to do it, but I'm too much of a planner to just uproot my life and travel around Europe.

Anyways, back to the hostel. Every night at 7pm, a crazy party breaks out in the common room. Beer is sold for 1 Euro during Happy Hour, so people tend to get drunk really fast. For 4 hours, the manager sits on the couch and teaches everyone how to play drinking games. They also have a table tennis and beer pong table for "friendly" matches. It was a really awesome scene to be a part of. Around 11pm, the manger then takes everyone on a free pub crawl through Old Town. The highlights from Monday night are as follows:

• The hostel had free computers to use, so after getting back from sightseeing I wanted to check my email, look at the forecast for the next day, and peruse Facebook for a few minutes. Apparently, the hostel has a rule that if you're caught on Facebook after 7:30pm, you've committed a Facebook Violation and have to do a shot of God knows what while lying on your back on the ground. No one told me about the rule, so before I knew it I was on the ground with a random hostel worker pouring a shot down my throat. Shout out to Kaitlyn for catching this beautiful moment on camera ;) 

Facebook Violation shot. One of my roommates got caught
breaking the Facebook Rule, and I guess her shot was made
of ketchup, mustard and mayonaise. Lucky for me mine
was 100% alcohol. 

• I was sitting at the table playing cards with a bunch of the other people from the hostel, and someone said their name was Ramsey. I was immediately blown away because I've never met anyone with the first name Ramsey. Ramsey then told me that there's another guy staying in the hostel who's nickname was Ramsey. It was an instant bond - Ramsey 1.0 (first name Ramsey), Ramsey 2.0 (nickname Ramsey), and Ramsey 3.0 (last name Ramsey - me) hung out all night. Kaitlyn kept getting mad at us because she couldn't partake in our Ramsey group. No name, no membership! This got way freakier though when we started playing a game. Everyone at the table was dealt 4 cards, but no one was aware of anyone else's cards. At the end of the game, you had to name your cards and flip them over. Out of two decks of cards, Ramsey 1.0 and me had the same four cards: 8, J, 5, and 6. Whoa...freaky, right? Skipping ahead a few hours, the first bar we went to had karaoke and after downing 1 Euro beers for 4 hours I was feeling pretty good. So, the Ramsey clan went up and sang Backstreet Boys. I'm pretty sure it brought tears to people's eyes...

Ramsey 2.0, Ramsey 3.0, Ramsey 1.0 seconds before karaoke 

• Cocaine Shot: Contrary to its name, a cocaine shot is a shot made from absinthe, créme de menthe, and vodka that one of the bars in Tallinn is famous for. After you hear how the shot is done, you'll understand why our eyes were spinning in crazy directions afterwards. After 6 hours of drinking and failing to eat a proper dinner, Monday night went downhill real fast after the Cocaine Shots kicked in. It's after nights like these that you tell yourself: "I'm never drinking again." 
• Light the shot on fire and hold a glass over the shot until the fire goes out.
• Place a straw on the table and put the glass over it leaving the end of the straw sticking out.
• Drink the shot, but leave a tiny trace on the bottom - Pour what's left on top of the glass.
• Suck all the air out of the glass through the straw.
• Snort the remainder of the shot off the top of the glass.

I stole this picture from Kaitlyn to show you what the
Cocaine shots look like.

Tuesday was a very, very, very low key day. A bunch of us from the hostel went and tried these funky pancakes for breakfast. They were basically massive crepes filled with random food. Mine had salami, cheese, and pickles. I definitely did not understand why they thought pickles would go well in a pancake, but I went with it and gave it a try. Other people's had minced meat or seafood inside. Afterwards, Kaitlyn, myself, and an Air Force guy we met from Nebraska walked through the Old Town a bit more.

In the afternoon, we visited an old Soviet Union prison located on the banks of the Baltic Sea. This was easily one of the freakiest tours I've ever been on. Unlike the concentration camps which have been cleaned up and rebuilt for viewing purposes, the prison looked exactly how it did when it was abandoned. Most of the plumbing and electricity didn't work, the paint was peeling off the walls, and papers were strewn about all over the place. It was so eery walking around. Plus our guide told us they didn't have the key to most of the doors, so if we got ourselves locked in a room chances are it would take awhile to get us out. The freakiest room was the room where people were shot. The room was painted bright red so it was easier to clean after blood splattered on it. Another thing that added to the eeriness of the prison was the fact that it hasn't been out of use for all that long. The collapse of the Soviet Union happened in 1991, so the prison has only been abandoned for 20 years. Our guide was actually from Estonia, and a bunch of his family had spent time in the prison. The strangest part about the whole tour though is that the prison is now being used for raves and parties. Behind the prison is a little beach with a bar. On weekends, our tour guide acts as DJ for raves. Kaitlyn was flabbergasted and asked him whether it was weird hosting raves at a prison where his family members were once tortured. He merely responded that he thought it was a good use of space. So bizzarre.

Outside the old Soviet Union prison

The inside of this place really gave me the creeps. Paint was
peeling off the walls, and I was worried that someone was
going to jump out of nowhere and murder us.

The barrocks. Our tour guide taught us a lot about the
hierarchy among inmates and the physical/sexual
abuse that took place in these rooms.

The "Outdoor Space" which was actually
just a small room without a ceiling.

There are two more things I want to say about Tallinn, then I promise I'll shut up and move on to Helsinki. The first is about a medieval tavern called Ill Draakon. The restaurant only serves two dishes: Minced Meat Pie and Elk Soup. Upon entering the tavern, you find yourself in a dark, cave like room with two woman standing in front of a large wood burning stove and a massive vat of soup. Small wooden tables and chairs are scattered throughout the room, and there's a bed that you can rent for sleeping in the corner. Did I mention that everything in this restaurant is 1 Euro?! That's right. 1 Minced Meat Pie = 1 Euro. 1 bowl of Elk Soup = 1 Euro. So you can literally stuff your face for 5 Euros. I told you Estonia was cheap!

1 Euro Minced Meat Pie and Elk Soup. I'd recommend the
Minced Meat Pie over  the soup, but that's just my opinion.

Finally, although Monday night was a crazy shit show for me, Tuesday night was significantly more tame. Thank god. 

• The thought of beer was still somewhat unsettling to me come Tuesday at 7pm, so I definitely took it easy on the second night. One of the guys staying at our hostel was from Canada, and he taught us how to play a game called Peanuts. What you do is you form 2 relay teams. Everyone has a glass of beer and a peanut. The first person drops their peanut into the beer, and as soon as it floats back up to the top they chug the beer, slam the cup, and the next person goes. First team to finish their beer wins. 
• A Scottish guy from our hostel made a bet with me about who the lead actor was in the original (key word) version of "Oklahoma." I tried to explain to him that I lived in Oklahoma, had seen the movie a thousand, and was positive that Huge Jackman was not the lead actor. But he was insistent on making the bet anyways. Needless to say, he lost.
• At one of the bars we went to I met a girl who grew up in Wisconsin but now lived in Boston. We hit it off right away and had a blast together! By the end of the night, I think we had done 6 Cocaine Shots together. Even with these shots, Tuesday night went much better then Monday. Curse the 1 Euro beer!

--------------------------------------------------------

Third Destination: Helsinki, Finland

On Wednesday, we took a short two hour cruise across the Baltic Sea to the Finnish city of Helsinki. I don't want to spend too much time talking about Helsinki though. I found the city to be obnoxiously modern and somewhat boring. Our hostel in Helsinki was really creepy. It was located in the backside of the 1952 Olympic Stadium, and it reminded me far too much of an insane asylum. The corridor was lined with heavy steel doors and the place just reeked of cleaning products. I'm not sure why it smelled of cleaning products, because it was definitely not the cleanest hostel I've ever stayed at. Thankfully we only had to stay there one night. As we were leaving the hostel, Kaitlyn stopped by the vending machine to buy a Snicker's bar. I wasn't watching too closely, but all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I saw her entire arm disappear into the retrieval tray. Suddenly she stands up and goes "I can't find it. I swear it dropped. This is tripping me out big time!" So I walk over there, stick my hand in, and immediately grab the Snicker's bar. After two nights of partying and getting very little sleep, this "incident" sent us into a fit of giggles. I haven't laughed that hard in a really long time, and I'm sure the worker behind the desk thought we were mental!

Our cruise ship!

1952 Helsinki Olympic Stadium - aka home sweet home
for 24 hours

Story: We were walking along the banks of
the lake when we happened across these ducks.
At first everything seemed normal, but then
two of the male ducks started chasing the
female duck. Duck rape anyone? At one point,
the female duck literally started flying at our
heads so Kaitlyn and I screeched and took cover.

Parliament Building...I think...

A typical street in Helsinki. Street cars and industrial
looking buildings were everywhere.

The Cathedral - from the outside it looks really nice, but the
inside is definitely disappointing. It's just this big open church
painted light blue and white. There was very little ornamentation
and the only impressive object was a chandelier hanging in the
center of the aisle. 

Locks of Love. I'm beginning to think every European city
has one of these bridges. I need to go look for Hamburg's.

Uspensky Cathedral at Katajanokka

One really neat thing about staying in Helsinki was having to opportunity to experience nearly 24 hours of daylight. The sun "sets" at 10:30pm (but it doesn't really get dark until sometime after midnight) and by 2am a faint glow is already visible in the sky. It was a really weird feeling waking up at 4am to a sun bathed room. I'm convinced that it messed with my sleep schedule that night.

We had a few hours to kill on Thursday before our flight to London, so Kaitlyn and I visited the Helsinki zoo. The zoo was actually really neat because it was located on an island. As soon as you walked across the bridge, you were completely surrounded by fields of animals. Although I really like visiting zoos, they kind of make me sad. The birds are trapped in these tiny cages, and the animals only have a small area to walk around. If I was trapped in a cage I'd go crazy!

A cheetah chowing down on a hunk of raw meat.

The camels were kind of gross. They had this double skin
thing going on and they smelled pretty bad.

A male peacock  

I have no idea what this little guy was, but isn't he adorable?

The dilapidated bus we took back to the city. It puffed out a cloud
of black smoke when it started up, a bunch of the windows were
painted out, and a big chunk was missing out of the back.

So as it stands now we are 7 days into the trip, have visited 3 countries, and have been on 2 plane rides, 2 boat rides, and 6 bus rides, and yet find ourselves surprisingly chipper, alert, and ready to take on London.

Resting our feet on the way to the airport.

My time as a Viking

Pentacost: some random religious holiday that resulted in an entire week off from school. Let's see...I'm living in Europe and have 10 consecutive days off from University. Hmm. What to do? What to do?

First stop: Stockholm, Sweden

Getting to Stockholm was a complete disaster. It normally takes 1 hour by bus to get to Lübeck airoprt, but a crummy lane merge caused us to sit in traffic for 3 hours. Thankfully, we were taking a Ryan Air operated bus to the airport, so they had to hold the flight until we arrived. Most of the airport workers were trying to rush us through security as quickly as possible, but this one security guard was being really weird. He pulled my bag aside, instructed me take out my camera, turn it on, and take a picture for him. He then promptly informed me that taking photos was not allowed in the security checkpoint and made me delete it. Thanks buddy...I sure feel safer now that you've checked my camera. Once we got to Stockholm, we ended up sitting in more traffic. Once again, a supposed 1 hour bus ride from the airport to downtown turned into a 2.5 hour ordeal. This time it was caused by a random stop light at the end of a major highway - brilliant design plan. We were tired, frustrated, and hungry when we finally arrived in Stockholm. Not a good way to start a 10 day trip.

Ten days worth of clothes, toiletries, adaptors, chargers,
and paperwork stuffed into one backpack. That takes skill.

Sad and unhappy after being stuck in traffic for 3 hours.

My day continued to go downhill after we checked into the hostel. Stockholm uses the Swedish Korona, so we had to find an ATM shortly after arriving. On the way to the bank, this random guy on the street started following us and talking to us. I refused to answer him, but Kaitlyn felt bad and just couldn't ignore him. As soon as she opened her mouth, he started gushing over the fact that we were American. He asked us where we were from, but before Kaitlyn could answer the Masshole in me promptly told him that it was none of his business. He turned, faced me, and told me in a snooty voice: "I wasn't talking to you!" He then turned back to Kaitlyn and continued to talk to her. Insult #1 of the night. As we walked back towards central station to get food, a super sketchy man turned, looked us up and down, then pointed at Kaitlyn and said something along the lines of: "I like that one." Even though I don't appreciate creepy men on the street saying nice things to me, I still felt offended! Insult #2 of the night. Needless to say, Kaitlyn was a big hit with the Swedish freaks that night!

On Saturday we walked all over downtown Stockholm. At first I was very much underwhelmed with the city. It had a very cookie cutter and industrial feel to it. I expected it to be much more in tune with its aquatic surroundings, resembling something more along the lines of the old fishing towns you find in New England. As we got closer to the water, it kind of evolved into more of what I was expecting. In the afternoon, we visited the large park Djurgärden which is located on a massive island just outside downtown. The garden was so serene, and it offered a nice break from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Stockholm is apparently a massive shopping city. H&M
was founded here, so it's on every other street corner. We must
have passed 10 different H&M stores in a 3 block radius.

Looking across the water into Galma Stan, the oldest part
of the city.

The Royal Palace 

On Saturday morning, we just happened to be walking by
the Royal Palace, when all of a sudden we heard music
playing and saw this random processional of men dressed in
blue uniforms riding by. We followed them all the way to the
Royal Palace where there were men standing with cannons
and guns. Apparently, the Changing of the Guards also takes
place in Stockholm. Who knew! 

This boy was making waffle cones from scratch!

A typical view in Stockholm - lots of water, lots of boats, and
lots of beautiful buildings.

Djurgärden - the park was huge. It had open fields, forested
walking paths, tons of flowers, and a large lake for people to
picnic around.

Eating on Saturday was...challenging...for lack of a better word. Everything you've heard about Scandinavia being expensive is true. So rather then wasting a ton of money on mediocre food, we decided to slum it for a few days. Most of our meals came from COOP, the local grocery store, and 7-Eleven. A box of pasta and tomato sauce cost $8 at 7-Eleven. So word to the wise, either prepare yourself for the outrageous food prices or be ready to fast for the duration of your trip.

On Sunday, we took a boat through the archipelago that surrounds Stockholm to the Viking island of Birka (Björkö). While in Sweden, we wanted to do something Vikings related, so we decided to take a Viking's themed tour. This ended up being a really amazing experience because we got to see the more rural side of Sweden as well as learn about the history of their people. Birka is an UNESCO World Heritage Site because it is one of the best examples of a Viking trading settlement. Apparently, Nordic people did not live in towns. They were farmers and self providers, so the fact that a town once stood on the island of Birka makes it exceptional. I learned a ton about the Vikings on that tour. First off, apparently a Viking is an occupation, not a group of people. Only 1-2% of the Scandinavian population were Vikings, or Norse warriors and explorers. Also, those funny little Vikings hats with the two horns that you see them wearing in movies is false. They never, ever, ever wore hats like those. The "horns" were actually drinking glasses. Lastly, Vikings always buried their dead in small boats. They would put the dead in a boat with some of their most prized processions and then cover it with dirt creating a large mound. Hence, burial mounds are scattered all over Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. It is against the law to dig up the mounds, search for artifacts, or disturb a historic site, but if you happen upon an artifact from the Viking age, it's worth quite a bit.

Touring the archipelago on our way to Birka.

Somewhere along the way I fell in love with
a Viking <3

A reconstructed version of what a traditional house in a
Viking trading settlement would look like.

The Vikings were known for building some
of the fastest ships in the world.

Viking burial mounds. Under each mound is the grave of
a Viking or Nordic person.

The location of the Viking trading settlement of Birka. 

Ta da! The beautiful Swedish scenery. Water, pine trees, and
rocks. It reminded me so much of Vermont and New Hampshire.

Our last night in Sweden was a tad bit uncomfortable. We were staying in a six bed hostel room, and our roommates up to that point had been relatively young - the traditional hostel crowd. On Sunday we had this really old guy with a greasy combover staying in our room. He was easily old enough to be my grandfather. It just kind of creeped me out to be sharing a hostel room with him. Kaitlyn and I had gone to bed early that evening, but at one point he left the room and I whispered to Kaitlyn: "Kaitlyn? Are you awake? I'm really freaked out." Needless to say, I tossed and turned all night long, and I constantly found myself dreaming that the old man was watching me sleep. Thankfully we left early the next morning to catch our flight to Estonia...