Trip to Stockholm

Last weekend, Anant, Michela, and I went to Stockholm, Sweden.  We began by taking the Metro to the airport and exchanged some of our Danish Kroner for Swedish ones.  The Swedish Krone has recently depreciated so we were able to get more Krones than we expected to.  We were then under the impression that our trip to Sweden would be cheaper because of the exchange rate.  We were wrong.  I thought Copenhagen was the most expensive city in Scandinavia, but I learned that both Oslo, Norway and Stockholm, Sweden were more expensive.  Being college students, we attempted to budget our money and live cheap.

The plane ride was only about an hour and getting to Stockholm went very smoothly.  When we arrived, it felt like my first day in Copenhagen.  Everything was new.  We, looking like complete tourists, took out our map and tried to navigate our way to the Hostel.  The city itself is very beautiful.  There is water everywhere and building as far as you can see.  I had a very good first impression of the city.  One thing I wasn't as impressed with was the weather.  It was cold.  Being an amateur traveler, I of course didn't pack correctly.  Lesson learned.

We finally made it to our Hostel after about 20-30 minutes of wandering around.  The Hostel was located on one of the many islands of Stockholm, situated right next to the water.  It was a very cool view from inside the building looking out at all of the ships and buildings.  As I stated earlier, I have little experience traveling making this the first Hostel I had ever stayed at.  Being from the US, I haven't had any experiences that I would deem similar to staying in a Hostel.  We checked in and paid.  It was only about $25 per night, which was very affordable.  They screwed up my reservation for some reason so they provided me with free linens and a towel.  We all were in different rooms.  Anant and Michela had smaller rooms with only around 6-8 beds.  My room, on the other hand, had about 15 beds inside it.  This was good because I paid less that the other two, but I came to understand why you pay less later in the trip.  Friday and Saturday night were filled with people stumbling in one after another at all hours of the night.  Needless to say, I didn't sleep well those nights.

We got to the city in the late afternoon so we just got situated in our rooms and went out to explore the city a bit.  One of the really nice aspects of this Hostel was the free pasta, "breakfast", and coffee/tea.  There was a massive container of noodles in the kitchen, meaning we knew we would eat pasta at least once a day.  So far in my study abroad experience, I have come to realize pasta is my main food group.  I literally eat past 4-5 times per week, so eating it there would not be anything different.  We found a grocery store and bought some pasta sauce and headed back cook dinner.  With free noodles on hand we of course made way too much pasta.  Another lesson learned.  The first night at the Hostel was great.  I slept like a baby and woke up feeling refreshed and ready to explore more of Stockholm.  One of the odd things about a Hostel, besides the fact that you share a room with 10+ other people, is that you leave all of your things just sitting on the floor next to you bed.  They essentially use the honors system.  You could bring your valuables to the front desk, but most people just leave everything in the room.  I thought this was very interesting.

Free breakfast was served from 7:30-9:30.  This, however, was no continental breakfast with a waffle maker and a myriad of different cereal options.  You could have toast with some jam and a frosted flake-ish cereal, with coffee and milk provided as well.  Even though it wasn't extravagant, the free past and breakfast allowed us to really conserve money on meals.

Our first full day in Stockholm was great.  We were welcomed by the sun shining and very mild temperatures.  There are many sightseeing businesses in Stockholm and we decided on doing a hop-on hop-off boat tour.  You pay 100SEK upfront and you can, as the name depicts, hop-on and hop-off as many times as you'd like during the day.  The boat tour was really cool in and of itself.  We got to see the city from a boat which was great.  The first stop we took was at the Vassar museum.  The Vassar was a 17th century war-ship that sank on its maiden voyage.  It was right in the middle of the bay for over 300 years before someone discovered its location and suggested it be retrieved.  It was amazing to see how well preserved the ship was for being underwater for so long.  Next we went to an aquarium.  Definitely not the coolest aquarium I have been to, but it was a good way to pass the time until Tivoli, the theme park, opened up.  At 3pm we made our way to Tivoli.  It was located right next to the water and on some of the rides you could even go over the water.  We went on 2 rides because we didn't want to buy wristbands.  One was a free fall ride.  You go up in the air, from what my research on Google told me, 250 feet and them plummet downwards after sitting up in the air for a few seconds in anticipation.  We got a picture of the three of us on the ride and it looks amazing from the camera angel.  The view from the top was amazing, you could see the entire city from a birds-eye-view.  I was hesitant to go on the ride because I absolutely hate rides that drop you, but luckily Anant and Michela forced me to join them.  I'm glad they did.  After we finished up there, we went to Old Town, the island were our Hostel is located, and walked around a bit more.  This part of town is filled with cobblestone streets and very old buildings.  We bought some more pasta sauce and headed back home to eat.  I had a blast this day of the trip.

Most of the evenings of this trip included playing cards, reading, and simply relaxing,  This trip was so relaxing, it really felt like a vacation.  Also, I'm starting to get used to not having TV over here.

The next day we went to meet Michela's friends who were studying abroad in Stockholm.  We headed out to walk around and eat before we met them.  We got falafels, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite foods here.  When we were in the restaurant, in normal Scandinavian weather fashion, it started to downpour.  The weather in both Sweden and Denmark is so unpredictable that you would have thought we'd have umbrellas and rain jackets with us.  Nope, they were conveniently located back in the Hostel, which helped us out a great deal ha.  We got drenched in the rain while feebly attempting to find Michela's friends.  After looking for about 15 minutes we finally found them.  The problem with traveling here, is our cell phones don't work, making meeting up with people that much more difficult.  Once we joined up with them, we went to a coffee shop to warm up and ended up just hanging out there for a few hours.  We went back to the hostel after.

Because our flight didn't leave until 8:25pm on Sunday, we had the entire day to walk around the city.  We went to the train station and purchased our bus tickets then headed out to walk down Stockholm's shopping street.  We went in a few different places and I bought some new sunglasses.  The street was full of people and it reminded me of the long shopping street in Copenhagen.  Overall, the trip was a great success and a very memorable experience.

If I ever end up in Sweden again, I'll know to always pack for cold weather and have an umbrella within an arms length at all times.

Also, I'll never schedule a return flight, or any flight, during a Packers game.  This was literally torture not knowing what was happening.  Luckily, they won and the Vikings lost, putting the cherry on top of a great trip to Stockholm!

Start of Classes/Planning Travels

It's now my third week in Denmark and classes started last week, getting me more of a routine. 

I have four classes this semester: Issues in International Finance (the class I think will be most challenging), Green Innovation, Innovation in Emerging Markets, and Sports Economics.  The nice thing about Sport Economics is it doesn't start for 6 weeks, meaning I only have three classes presently.  I have had two lectures thus far and they share similarities and differences between the classes back at Carlson.  The major difference is the length.  All of the classes are 2 hours and 30 min minimum and some can reach close to 3 hours.  The Professors offset the extreme length with timely breaks and videos to make class appear shorter.  Even with the attempts to make the classes feel shorter, I still find it difficult to sit through a lecture for such a long time.  In the US I am used to having class for around an hour and the maximum two hours.  This will be something that I have to get used to while abroad to ensure success in my classes.  Another difference here is the grading scale and what is actually graded.  Each class has only one graded assignment, that being a final exam.  This can come in a variety of different forms.  One of my classes has a four hour final (open book, open note) exam, while another has a 20 minute oral exam.  There can also be papers due at the end of the semester, but none of my classes require this.  One of the benefit of CBS, however, of having classes this long is that I they meet only once a week compared to two or three times back home.  I enjoy having more free-time here to explore the city and travel.

The days here fly by.  I'm in disbelief every time I look at the calender.  The first 3 plus weeks here have seemed like 5 days.  I have been having so much fun, but I know the rest of the trip will continue to zoom by.  Knowing this, I want to experience as much as possible.  We attempted to sit down and plan trips, but with an abundance of exchange students it's difficult to travel in such large groups.  The solution has to be splitting up and finding a handful of other students to venture out with.  With such a long wish list of places I would love to see, getting started sooner rather than later will not only be beneficial to planning the trips, but also the overall cost of plane tickets.  Learning to use travel websites here is taking some getting used to.  I'm confident, however, that I will be able to travel to the vast majority of places on my wish list.