PRAGUE BLOG

Ahh yes, blogchildren, I have been waiting two months to title this particular update, and finally - IT HAS ARRIVED! But before we recap Prague, much happened in the weeks between Sweden and Prague, and since this could be a long update, I will do my best to keep it brief.

Post-Sweden was another typical week of class - the paper I had due in abnormal psych being the only significant change of the week. When the weekends here get so intense, all the weeks of class and work just kind of blend together, so let's not worry about discussing them here. But in exciting news, ELIZABETH came to visit! For those of you who aren't aware, Elizabeth is one of my closest friends for the past 10 years. We started at our new school the same year (5th grade, what up pre-teen awkwardness) and stuck with each other. She goes to Georgetown, and though she's often a massive pain in the ass, I still put up with love her. She was visiting some of her friends from school in Ireland, but unluckily for me she stopped by Londontown first. We met up, dropped her stuff off, and then headed out to enjoy some particularly nice weather. Lunch was properly British - pies, terrible french fries, and Haribo starmix - and then Kaila, Elizabeth and I went off to find an East London festival that we never really managed to find. BUT! We found the Barbican Center, which is this massive and confusing complex that's part museum and art exhibition, part movie theater, part school for girls, part post-modern 80s hotel, part college campus, and part skyscraper. The art exhibition was crazy - we walked down this long dark hall that seemingly had no end, and all of a sudden found ourselves in a room filled with birds - zebra finches, to be exact - and musical instruments - bass guitars, regular guitars, and cymbals, all hooked up to amps. There was birdseed on the instruments, and the birds made music as they flew from one instrument to the next, pecking and walking. It was really cool, and totally unexpected. Kaila, Elizabeth and I decided that if you could create the StumbleUpon website in real life, that would be one of its links.

After getting lost in the maze of the Barbican (and stealing a Barbican brick), we met up with Elizabeth's friends and then went out for dinner. Friday was a fairly calm night - post-Chilango burritos, we played cider pong in the kitchen (where I had the most epic of game-saving shots - ask me later), and then turned in fairly early. Side note: spooning with Elizabeth BLOWS. Not her fault - the beds are really tiny and our room was an inferno. (Actually, still probably her fault).

Saturday we awoke, grabbed some wonderful Wagamama (aka the British Spice), and then went to Burrough Market, where we enjoyed numerous free samples of jam, salsa, wine, pesto, and cheese. SO DELICIOUS. I could live on free samples. Then we went to the Tate, where we saw the foam room, the red room, the large table and chairs, the weird sex stuff, and the evil black box of doom. We tried to see Legally Blonde but it was sold out, so instead we grabbed dinner, pregamed in the room, and then walked to Camden to hit up World's End, one of my favorite loud crazy crowded bars. Getting home was an issue - let's just say that certain taxi drivers were verbally assaulted, and a Subway sandwich was brandished as a weapon. Another awful night of sleep later, Elizabeth was out of my life for good. (Just kidding. We had a wonderful visit. I just like being a douche to her.)

She was barely gone before another visitor came, this time in the form of Joe Greco. He's studying in Dublin but came to Londontown for some English shenanigans on his spring break. As he arrived, I had a paper to write - busted that shit out in less than 10 hours, got an A-, booya! On Monday we went to Leicester Square and ended up scoring sweet tickets for Legally Blonde, which we decided to celebrate in the Japanese cave restaurant! The food was good, but the service was awful (serious language barrier) and there were some possibly lesbianic moaning noises coming from another cave. Wonderful. After a quick sprint to the theater, we saw the show, which is actually funnier than I remember. Thank you, London, for keeping shows open when New York has decided to close them. This was followed by this exchange at McDonald's.

Alex: *orders his Wispa McFlurry, pays, and receives said McFlurry*
Joe: *orders same Wispa McFlurry*
McDonald's cashier: Oh, sorry, we're out of those.
Alex: *looks down at Wispa McFlurry, back up at cashier*
Joe: You're out of those? *points to my McFlurry*
Cashier: Yes.
Joe: Then what is that right there?
Cashier: *mumbles unintelligibly*
Alex: *loses faith in what he at one point thought was a Wispa McFlurry (and then eats it anyway - let's be real)*

BRB MY LIFE HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY THIS GAME:http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html

We now resume our regularly scheduled blog update.

Tuesday featured class (blah), sight-seeing at the London Eye with Joe and Morgan (yay! - free champagne), a Mexican restaurant, and then a generally sloppy yet awesome Tuesday at The Rocket. Kind of in love with The Rocket. Kind of want to be in a facebook relationship with it.

Wednesday, much sleeping in (after a rough night of sharing a bed again - Joe is as uncomfortable if not more than Elizabeth), then class, then a calm night out for dinner and a few pints. I needed to get some snooze time in before Prague, so Thursday was pretty slow as well - packed, saw Alice in Wonderland, and got to bed. Morgan and I were awake bright and early (5:45am - eww) to head to PRAGUE.

Ladies and gentleman, I know welcome you to....

THE PRAGUE BLOG.



PRAHA OOO LA LA - want your bad goulash

The trip to Prague started with a 4hr bus from London to Birmingham (England, not Alabama) - trust me, it was cheaper, and worth the extra effort. I slept nicely, until the bus turned into a sauna and then, 30 minutes later, the Arctic tundra, but hey it was a good start. The flight was uneventful, and by 3pm we were in Prague - in the fog. It was snowy, cold and gray - why did we book frozen wastelands in January-March, rather than nice warm places like Africa? Anyways, in Prague they use the honor system on the metro, so being uninformed tourists, we hopped on the bus with no idea how to work the ticket machine. Oops. Sorry Prague.

We headed to the metro station, then took the super clean and efficient metro to our stop and found the LONGEST ESCALATOR EVER. No joking. It had to have been 200 feet long.



WHAT IS THIS MADNESS??

Six hours later (just kidding, it only took four and a half to get up that) we were at the ... wait for it ... CZECH INN. God I love this city. Nicest hostel yet, but also the quietest - Morgan and I dropped off our stuff, met our 34 and a half year old roommate (easy, oldster), and immediately left to meet up with Hannah (who'd been there a day already), Allen and Ashley (arriving from Berlin), and assorted Prague-ians. The first stop: a pub near Old Town Square, where we quickly fell in love with the national beer, Pilsner.



The Fat Man Pub



Pilsner. In my mouth. All the time.



Tyn Church in Old Town Square

Post Pilsners, we changed quickly and were off to our first Czech meal! Fun fact about the Czechs: they all smoke. Everywhere. Restaurants, bars, post offices, probably in nursery schools. I would not be surprised to see a little Czech baby with a cigarette in one hand, Pilsner in the other. Such is Prague. Hey - the Cold War's over, gotta capitalize. The restaurant we ended up at (after the one which had five dogs running around in it) was like a smoky bar from a bad 80s movie. I half expected a bar fight to break out between Patrick Swayze and Tom Selleck for the affections of the lovely Melanie Griffith (cue guitar riff). Sadly, this never happened, but my life clock is shorter thanks to all the secondhand smoke.

The Czech delicacy is goulash (with an appetizer of onion soup), which is beef and sausage in gravy with dumplings and horseradish. It's amazing, but we're talking heavy. Like, I may not be able to walk back up those stairs because I'm so effing full of beef and gravy heavy. Good thing we had Pilsner to wash it down with! (No wonder the Prague kids have trouble ... err, staying regular)

After the goulash, Morgan Ashley and I headed to Usudu, this amazing underground bar that had seven different cavern-like bars, each with its own music and all of them filled with smoke. We enjoyed more beers down here, talked, and enjoyed some Czech fashion (sweatpants at a club? Totally acceptable!) We had bigger plans though, so we were off to Lucerna!

Lucerna was a club down the road enjoying an 80s themed night, and we met up with the rest of our group and headed inside. Best exchange of the night:

Douchebag from Chicago: "Isn't the Eiffel Tower in New York?"
*long pause*
Allen: "I'm sorry was that a joke?"

The coat czech line was RIDICULOUS. Not even a joke, we were in it for twenty minutes. The dance party started a little early since we had no choice but to grind up on each other to survive the mob. Also, a French guy borrowed my phone. This has significance. The rest of the night involved Pilsners, lots of dancing, a guy way too eager to encourage people to take their shirts off, and of course, Hannah and I dancing with each other. Turns out we were both 5 minutes late =/

We enjoyed a post-club hot dog (not like that, you perverts), an enjoyable taxi ride (I know EVERYONE wants to hear my version of "Paparazzi"), and a photo shoot on most of Prague's cars made before 1998. We slept wonderfully despite the senior citizen living in our room, and we were up early to start our busy day of sightseeing.

We started off getting some bagels at this amazing bagel place near Old Town Square, Bohemian Bagels. Then it was off to find the Jewish Quarter and see some old synagogues and cemeteries. Great plan, except... it was Saturday. Shabbat. The entire area was closed, and we felt a bit silly for not realizing this earlier. So we took our first of many breaks at the Kafka Cafe, enjoying some coffee and strudels. We walked along the river towards the Charles Bridge, which is an incredible bridge that goes over the Vltava River and has lots of statues and historic architecture.



Tyn Church in Old Town Square during the daytime




Honestly ... no idea what's going on in this sign. No playing in the streets? No cars parked by houses? No idyllic scenes of suburban splendor? Ugh, Europeans and your wacky signs...



We were not happy Jews like this sign would suggest



The poster for Teacher 2.0 ... coming to theaters May 2011



Charles Bridge across the Vtlava River

Once across the river, we went looking for the Lennon Wall (NOT the Lenin Wall. Different man, different wall) This took a little winding and weaving through the streets of Prague, but the 5 of us enjoyed walking around and seeing a bit of the city. We finally found it (near the mini MARKET) and took a lot of pics. It's a really cool wall that's similar to Strawberry Fields in Central Park, lots of Lennon memorabilia, graffiti, and art. We also wrote our names in the "All You Need is Love" heart. Near the wall was a bridge that was covered with hundreds of locks. We wanted to also leave a memento here, but sadly, they sold no locks (though I hear you can find them at Tesco...)



The Lennon Wall



Who's that sexy guy in front of the Lennon Wall? (Hint: it's me)



The locks - too bad we didn't bring one =(

We quickly went to the Church of the Infant Jesus (in which Jesus is depicted as a mischievous little lad with a number of fun costume changes), but honestly, it was Pilsner time. We found a great place near the Lennon Wall with cheap (and I'm talking CHEAP - a 31-krona Pilsner is exactly $1.65, which is CHEAP, by American and European standards. And it's sooooo good. Two Pilsners and several orders of fried cheese later (another Czech favorite), we were back on the streets - and hopelessly lost! Do we take this tram? No maybe we should find the metro. No let's walk here. Now we're going the wrong way. This was us for about an hour, a lot of one step forward and two steps back. We also used the bathroom in like five different restaurants - sorry guys. We finally figured out where we wanted to head, and went to the Dancing Building, a building designed by Frank Gehry that was inspired by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing. We hurried up to the roof before it closed, caught some great views of the city, then headed down for a cocktail in the lounge.



The Dancing House

Following the Dancing House, we were trying to meet Hannah's friends at a microbrewery in an old monastery for dinner - that microbrewery, however, was impossibly far away. Our Czech bartender (the only nice Czech person we met so far) helped us find the right bus, and soon we were back across the river and winding our way up the mountain to an old stadium. The stadium was terrifying - pitch-black, all concrete, decrepit, and abandoned. It's the type of place where people do drug deals (or just straight up drugs) in the movies. We were quite out of our element, and basically ran down the other side of the mountain (through some equally shady areas) until we found ... the monastery! Huzzah! More Pilsner, onion soup, and goulash later, we were ready for a night out.

We pregamed in the NYU in Prague dorms (after a quick nap on Allen's behalf), and had to suffer through the worst game of beer pong I've ever seen. One guy had this special technique that required him to look like a douche and STILL miss most of his shots. Dude, my missed shots take a lot less effort. Then he said the magic words: "Yo, I'm reppin' NYU Stern!" Allen, Hannah, Morgan, and I all went "Ohhhhh...." Everything suddenly made sense. We ditched that disaster and went to Lucerna, a 5-story club near the Charles Bridge that was our home for the next 5 or so hours. Lots of dancing, lots of good music - great night overall. I'm not usually big into clubs, but so far Europe has done a nice job of keeping the club-hopping fun.

Not much sleep and much packing later, Morgan and I did our last bit of sightseeing. We hit up St. Wenceslas Square, had one last meal of Czech food (and one last Pilsner ... miss you baby), and then were back to the airport and Londontown. It was a great weekend, as most of ours have been - lots of sightseeing, lots of food and beverage, lots of inside jokes, pics, and fun.

I really can't believe this semester is more than halfway over. In a way, I feel like I just got here, but the past two months have probably been the longest and most eventful since I got to NYU. It's been truly one-of-a-kind, and wholly unforgettable - one of those semesters that will still stand out in my future. I love it, and with Spring Break around the corner (and that means Dublin, Venice, Cinque Terre, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Athens, and Santorini), it only stands to get wilder, crazier, and more amazing. Thanks for reading kiddos, love you all and happy trails!

Stockholm: Ice Bars and Ikea, Meatballs and Moose Antlers, Boats and Babies

Greetings readers - sorry for the two week delay, it has been a busy 14 days here in Europe. The day-to-day stuff always seems a bit simple to blog about, and then all of a sudden I have two full weeks of experiences and another vacation to talk about! Plus pictures pictures pictures! Let's rewind to the last blog post.

Post-Barcelona was a slow week, I kind of had the post-vacation blues. One thing about London is that it truly is always gray and rainy. When you've just had the weekend of your life in Spain, and you come back to cruddy weather and lots of schoolwork, your mood kind of gets thrown out of whack. Nothing terrible, mind you - I just didn't feel like doing much besides class, work, going to the gym, and sleep. Studying abroad is a lot like studying in New York in that way - once you get comfortable, you kind of feel guilty not going out to see something new everyday, but it's just not feasible. After a fairly non-eventful week, I was excited to head out and enjoy my weekend a bit. Thursday night we went for margaritas and Mexican food (my two favorite things) at Desperadoes in Angel - perfection. Then we hit a bar and McDonald's (duh) for a late night McFlurry. Friday night was a bit more epic - Hannah, Margaret, Eduardo, Javier, and a few others pregamed in the Nido kitchen and headed to SoHo to a club called The Den. It was a bit crazy - we were out til almost 5, and the night may or may not have included some She Wolfing, a missing coat, the country of Estonia, British TV executives, Tubes of Shame, Princess Diana, and the number 30. That's all you get to know.

Saturday we slept in, did some work (aka napped), and then went to Wagamama for dinner with Kaila and Hannah. We met up with Allen, Justin, Keely, and a few others for beer at The York, then came home to watch Lost and order late night pizza with Margaret. She now has accounts with every single British pizza place. Classy, my lady.

Sunday involved lots of paper writing, so let's skip that and get to ... Ke$ha!!! So I got a text from myspace (because I'm apparently a 12-year-old girl) about a secret show in London on Monday night. So, I love Ke$ha, and although my lovely friend Matthew first introduced me to "Tik Tok", I was well-versed with her work on the recent classic, Flo Rida's "Right Round", and feel somewhat responsible for playing her at every single social event until people had no choice but to like her. I'm not saying I single-handedly made Ke$ha happen. I'm just saying that her specific brand of weird dance-pop is perfectly tuned to my personal music trends, and that ... I basically single-handedly made her happen. Anywho, of course I had to hit up this concert, especially after missing the Valentine's Day show in NYC that most of my friends went to (bitches). Unfortunately, we have a required class that night... so I got my priorities in order, and immediately decided to skip the class. FIDLAR. I went by myself, and stood in line in the freezing cold while playing Ke$ha on my iPod to remind me why I was there. A few hours, some frozen hands, tons of weird British teenagers in animal costumes, and one Mayo Chicken value meal from McDonald's later, I met up with some other NYU people who were randomly there. I also met some British kids who were OBSESSED with America and asked me about 1000 questions about it (yes, we have Domino's Pizza. yes, we have Subway. yes, there are beaches in California, and they say dude). They were nice though, and a good distraction from the cold until we headed into the show. The show was AMAZING - only a few of her songs, but it was a packed venue and 4 hrs(!) in the cold landed me a pretty sweet spot. A couple hundred of us danced to "Backstabber", "Dinosaur", "Party at a Rich Dude's House", "Blah Blah Blah", and of course "Tik Tok", during which she assaulted us with glitter confetti. This was pretty incredible - sorry I don't have pictures. I had to rush through quite a bit of homework to make up for all the time I'd missed that afternoon, but it was totally worth it.

Tuesday through Thursday were again fairly uneventful - I had a nice date with someone I met the weekend before, did lots of homework, and packed for our weekend in Stockholm. AHHH! ANOTHER TRIP!

Our trip to Stockholm once again took a bus, a flight, and another bus just to make it to the city. The flight itself was fairly uneventful, but Kelly, Morgan, and I immediately got excited on seeing the snow when we landed in Vasteras, Sweden. Very Scandinavian and very pretty. The bus through the countryside probably offered plenty of nice views, but unfortunately it was too dark to see much more besides snow and pine trees. We got to Stockholm and found it amazingly well-lit - and completely deserted. It wasn't too late - only 10pm. But there was NOBODY on the streets or metro. We got off the metro and tried to locate our hostel, but the snow-lined streets all had crazy names and the map was hard to decipher. Once we got our bearings, we walked through a small park and ended up climbing a steep, snowy hill, all of us wondering just what we'd gotten ourselves into. At the top of the hill we had an AMAZING view of the city - lots of water, lights, buildings, and ice. Unfortunately, our hostel - a boat known as Rygerfjord located on the bay - was way down below us. We were on a ridiculous cliff with no way to get down except for ... the staircase of sure death.



Welcome to Sweden!



Morgan and Kelly braving the staircase of death



A view of Stockholm from the cliffside - so pretty



Rygerfjord is down there (somewhere)!

(Btw if Sweden looks like Antarctica with nice buildings, it kind of is. No worries.)

Several near-death slips and slides down the iciest wooden staircase in Sweden, we were at our hostel - Rygerfjord! (I will spare you all "I'm On a Boat" jokes - that song stopped being funny about 5 minutes after it aired, and I blame this on the same people who ruined "Napoleon Dynamite") It was quaint, especially after the crazy shitshow that was Kabul (our hostel in Barcelona). It had a bed-and-breakfast feel, except floating. Our 12-person dormitory was in the hold of the ship, near the front, so we were legitimately in the ship's hull. The staircase to the room was incredibly steep, and the ceilings and bunks were low, which proved a bit tough for me, but somehow my 6-foot frame managed. Our French roommates were loud and obnoxious (thanks for yelling all the time at 8am, douchebags!), but I actually managed some pretty good sleep. It was about 11:30pm, and we still hadn't eaten dinner. We had a craving for some good Swedish food (meatballs, plz, in and around my mouth), but instead we got... well... McDonald's. Dammit.



I'm on an over-referenced, tired pop culture reference! (Our hostel, Rygerfjord)



Another staircase of death, this one down to our room



Damn you McDonald's. You seductress. You TEMPTRESS.



The beautiful streets of Sweden

With no guidebook (we blame the fire in Nido, not Kelly - no worries, love), we decided instead to wander the city post-dinner. We saw some cute streets, all well-lit and completely vacant, a few bars (23 years old can NOT be the drinking age), and some gorgeous architecture. We took another stroll down the perilous cliff and staircase of death, and, after talking to some nice people in the hostel common room, called it a night.

We got a long night's rest, met up with Laura (coming in from quite the journey from Florence), and headed out to see the city in the daytime. It was ... actually harder to see. A huge fog had come in overnight, and it was difficult to see very much until you were right on it. Undeterred, we left our island (Stockholm is an archipelago, and situated on a series of islands) to head to Gamla Stan, where the old city of Stockholm is.

DISCLAIMER: None of the buildings I'm going to show you will have accurate captions. Here's why:
A) I don't know any of their names
B) If I did know their names, they would likely be 20 letters long, consist mostly of vowels and the letter's G, N, T, and S, as well as some foreign punctuation, thus impossible to spell
C) If managed to both know the name of the building and how to correctly spell it, I would have no idea of its significance
D) If I managed to know the name, spell it right, and know why it's important, you would probably not be able to tell it apart from any of the thousand other Scandinavian buildings I took pictures of

With this in mind, enjoy these pictures as well as the names I have assigned them



Talltowerwithpointytoppengurken



Othertalltowerwithpointytoppenfleimen



Enclosedbridgeoverroadenhaggen



The Royal Palace (hey I remembered one! Yay learning!)

We did some shopping, sight-seeing, and photo-taking in Gamla Stan (as well as having our first meal of Swedish meatballs, gravy, lingonberry sauce, and mashed potatoes - SO. EFFING. GOOD.), and then headed across another bridge to the city center, which actually had an H&M on every single street corner. No joke, we counted seven within a four block radius. I may have bought lots of hot new shirts. Thanks for being the birthplace of H&M, Sweden!

We then took the Ikea shuttlebus to MY FIRST IKEA VISIT EVER at the BIGGEST IKEA IN THE WORLD!!! It was pretty monumental. Arkansas doesn't have Ikea, and I've never been to the Brooklyn one, so seeing it for the first time in its original country was downright cool. The room designs - so chic! The color schemes - so coordinated! The meatballs - so Swedish (and a bit too soon after our first round of meatballs...oh well). We played (500) Days of Summer in most of the showrooms, sat on chairs that were way too small for us, and traversed the 5(!) floors and entire warehouse of this ridiculous place. We mentally decorated all of our future apartments - now, if we could stop spending money on RyanAir flights, beer, and meatballs, we could maybe one day afford a space to furnish. This does not seem likely.



I see ya, Ikea!



The epicness of Ikea



Bags bags bags bags bags bags (EVERYBODY!)



Kelly's Ikea Cooking Hour (with Kelly, starring Kelly)



Wow, Swedish menu, let's not call names, k?

Post-Ikea, we took the bus back and walked home to get ready for the night. With no real plans in mind, we enjoyed some spiced rum and then headed out to find some dinner. We found a phenomenal place with good pasta, good beer, and Swedish Ben Affleck. Morgan enjoyed it so much he took a nap!! Emily managed to find us after traveling Friday night, and our walk home was filled with snowball domination, a brief encounter with a boulder of snow and the Swedish police, and yes, the staircase of death.



Morgan, obviously having the time of his life



Laura, but also, more importantly, Swedish Ben Affleck. You can't really see it here, but oh man, he was SOOOO Ben Affleck



This is regular.



And, because I'm an asshole, here's another one of Morgan sleeping!

Saturday, with all of 5 of us finally up and in Sweden mode, we grabbed a quick breakfast and headed towards the ferry to take us to Djurgarden, another island with a theme park, a zoo, and a Scandinavian village to explore. The ferry was awesome - it cut across the chunks of ice with ease, and the views, though freezing, were incredible. The theme park at Djurgarden looked awesome, but was unfortunately closed. Too bad, I am so in the mood for some European roller coasting. The zoo and village - a large complex known as Skansen - was open, so we paid our Swedish Kronor and headed in. This place was really awesome. The village had a glass-blowing shop, several historic sites, a park for skating, sledding, and barbecuing, and lots of friendly Swedes. Also it was a friggin baby explosion. I guess when you are as good-looking as the Swedish, all you want to do is reproduce but damn... it was like a Stroller Party in there. The staircases in Stockholm actually have special tracks for strollers. In addition to the village, we saw seals, reindeer, moose (NEACURH love), herons, bison, and wolves - all animals native to the cold Scandinavian wilderness. The bears were in hibernation, as were the lynx and the wolverines, but kudos to this zoo for being one of the few I've seen outside of Jurassic Park that leaves the carcasses of its animal's food out in the open. Oh hey there ribcage!



The ice that our ferry totes dominated



Creepy frozen abandoned amusement park! I want to go there!



Our village/zoo/baby factory/stroller party (sorry I have no pics of animals - we had a bit of a camera snafu, but come on, a moose is a moose is a moose)

Post-Skansen (and yet another round of Swedish meatballs), we took the ferry back to Gamla Stan to show Emily the older parts of the city. It was nice, but a wave of sleet soon scared us back to the hostel. Which was okay, we had some big plans ... drinking vodka while watching the Swedish Celebrity Version of The Singing Bee! (Not really, but this did transpire) No, we had to make it to the Ice Bar! After pregaming and getting ready, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and went to Ostermalm (the city center) to go to a bar made entirely of ice. So amazing - we wore these massive fur-lined coats and walked in to a factory-themed ice chamber. The bar, the walls, the cups, the chairs, the tables - all ice. It was freezing, but the drinks were delicious and the music was good. We took a bunch of photos and drank some glow-in-the-dark concoctions before having to leave shortly - they don't want you getting hypothermia, apparently, but I would have stayed all night.



Our group in the Ice Bar - we look like wizards, or eskimoes, or both



Ice chair!



Ice bar!



Ice table with ice glass and icy cold vodka drink!

Post Ice Bar, we took a trip to a local pub for a beer (and a quick nap for Morgy), and then said bye to Laura (who was leaving early Sunday) and Emily (who was still tired from her Friday travels). Kelly, Morgan and I went in search of a club, which took awhile. Some clubs have strict dress codes (apparently our winter wear wasn't cutting it), other are 23 and up, and others had super exclusive guest lists (which was bull, as there wasn't anybody inside). We finally ended up in this incredible place called Hell's Kitchen - it was absolutely massive, three floors, tons of people, and the music was great. We danced, flirted with Swedes, and had a blast until around 2:30am, when the impending closing of the metro beckoned. After ANOTHER meal of McDonald's (dammit dammit dammit what is my life why is that ALL I eat) and a subtle raping of the Stockholm Metro, we were back on our boat and fast asleep.

Sunday, as is becoming the trend, was a bit slower. The 4 of us (minus Laura - miss you boo!) got brunch(no meatballs, alas), and then walked down some new streets and areas towards the Globen, a large hockey and concert arena. They had a new attraction that was a gondola that goes around the globe to give you a nice view, but unfortunately we didn't make a reservation, and they were booked solid for the day. We headed back to City Center, and, tired of being cold and not sure what do, stopped at the local movie theater to watch a special premiere of a new Jim Carrey movie, I Love You Phillip Morris. Yes, I know, a bit weird to go see a movie in a foreign country, but we were pretty much exhausted, and this was a nice warm break from the cold. The movie was hilarious but weird - it's a dark comedy in which Carrey plays a con man who falls in love with his cellmate (Ewan McGregor), and it hasn't opened anywhere else. It just previewed at Sundance, and I don't see many Red States liking the film, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially once I realized it was based on a ridiculous true story (the guy broke out of jail and faked his death from AIDS - truly insane). Go see it if you like something offbeat and a bit twisted.

We finally ended our Stockholm vacation much as we started - tired, on several modes of transportation (bus, plane, bus, taxi), but glad to have had another great weekend. Stockholm was so different from Barcelona - colder, more distinctly European, and more centralized. The people were different, the atmosphere was different, and the McDonald's was ... well, McDonald's. I think that traveling so much in such a condensed time period creates an odd picture of where we live. Imagine if in a week, you saw New York City, Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, the Midwest, and San Diego. You'd get snapshots of buildings, places, beaches, sights, but never really sure of the full picture. That's what I have right now - snapshots, brief windows into another culture, but no conclusions yet on Europe. I know what 3 days in Sweden are, but I have no idea what life there is truly like, and it's hard to get the full taste in such a short period of time. This is not a regret of mine - I know infinitely more about Sweden than I ever did before this weekend, and the same goes for Barcelona, Paris, and London. I just think it's incredible how many questions can be answered while still raising so many more. I've truly only lived two places in my life, very distinct places at that - the quiet American suburbia of Little Rock, Arkansas, and New York City, arguably the center of the world. Traveling has shown me that no two places lie on the same place on the spectrum - there are huge cities with rich cultures, small towns with humble traditions, and everything in between. It's exciting and utterly mystifying - how similar cultures can be, and simultaneously how distinct. We encountered few spoken language barriers in Sweden - they thankfully are very fluent in English - yet it was quickly apparent how distinct Swedish and American culture is, and Barcelona culture, and Parisian culture, etc. This whole semester is providing a great deal of perspective on my life and my regular environment - I'm learning so much about where I'm visiting, and also learning a lot more about where I come from. I have so much more to see and do, and I can't wait - thanks for sticking with me!

Coming soon: Elizabeth (from home and Georgetown) and Joe (from NYU) are visiting! Prauge in ten days! And why I have a love/hate relationship with gift shops!

Keep reading kids.