For almost two weeks now, I have spent my time in Stockholm, Sweden, where my two uncles, three cousins, and my grandmother from my mom’s side all live. I have spent maybe half of my life’s summers here in the city and in the Swedish countryside. Now, after 4 consecutive summers in the states, it feels really good to be back. My cousins have grown up a lot (they are now 17, 14, and 12!), and my grandmother has progressed a bit with her dementia, but otherwise, it feels much the same.
My beautiful cousins in beautiful Sweden!As some of you may know, I have an affinity for sticky notes and lists in general, so in my reflection of the past two weeks, I have created a list of highlights. Feel free to skip around (there are 6 total, roughly in chronological order), or just look through the pictures. I will do my best to make the titles witty and descriptive to lure you in. Haha, I am not trying to sell you anything, but I just want to make my blog appeal to a wider audience – to those who want to know every detail, but also to those who know I’m gone and just want to skim.
I also have a new obsession with haikus, which I find are excellent ways to express yourself when you aren’t feeling the complete sentence thing, or when you want to summarize an experience in just a few words… erm, 17 syllables (5+7+5). You can look for these, too :)
My family, changed
“Swenglish” spoken all day long
I am happy here
“Swenglish” spoken all day long
I am happy here
1) Måns Zelmerlöw pa Grönalund AKA the day I found another Scandinavian pop star to love
Måns Zelmerlöw, Swedish pop sensation, performed on August 14th at Grönalund, Sweden’s most famous theme park. When two of my cousins asked if I wanted to check it out, I had pretty low expectations and answered “yes” more for the theme park aspect. From what I know about European pop music and about the taste in music that teenage girls like my cousins have, I was expecting a lot of CHEESE. The ktru dj in me closes my ears at any hint of cheese, but the Swedish side of me likes some pop, hence my weakness for the occasional pop sensation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfYPfIlqLiQ
Anyhow, as you may be able to guess, the concert was very good. I was really impressed with his grasp of the English language, which was made clear by his thoughtful lyrics. Unlike many artists who have learned English as a second language, Zelmerlow managed to sing about things other than bleeding hearts, oceans, and rainbows. He didn’t sing any songs in Swedish, which was a little bit surprising, considering the audience. Even ABBA, who performed all over the world, had Swedish versions to their songs. Anyway.
If you’re wondering if there is more than one Scandinavian pop star I adore in the 14-year-old way, the answer is yes. Alexander Rybak, from Norway, won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest with a record-breaking number of votes, and for good reason. My mom and I followed the contest in May, and not only was his song pretty decent, “Fairytale”, but he is really charming and cute, and he can also play the violin very well. If you want to fall in love with him too, and see what I’m talking about, here is a link to his winning single - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiH4BFTELME
Of course, Grönalund itself was fantastic. It blows me away every time I go there how clean they maintain the grounds. I think of Six Flags and the State Fair as pretty dirty, with trash everywhere, but Grönalund is never that way. Johanna and I went on the “Freefall”, which is 80 m high, the highest in Europe. It was SCARY and completely heart dropping, but very fun. The other rollercoaster’s were a blast, too, and even Edward tried a few.
2) Middag med Malin, Lisa, och sina kompisar AKA the journey to Kungsträdgården to see the concert we never saw
This night is probably best summarized through pictures, but I will give an overview of the night’s events and some background information anyway. First, Malin and her friend Frida made a nice dinner of chicken breasts and potato wedges, which the three of us sat down and ate together, wearing pretty dresses. Lisa, my other cousin, and a couple of more friends proceeded to join us in karaoke and other festivities.
OK, so maybe this sounds really normal and maybe you had to be there, but I can at least share some cute pictures with you to show that it was indeed a good time.
Kungsträdgården (literally – King’s Garden) is a square in downtown Stockholm where many concerts take place, and, according to my oldest cousin, where all of the “fjortis” hang out. “Fjortis,” if I understand correctly, is a Swedish word that refers to teenagers who think they’re really cool and dress provocatively with a lot of makeup. The night we went there was the last night of Kulterensfestivalen (The Culture Festival), where a big concert with famous Swedish artists took place. However, we were rather… preoccupied at home and by the time we reached our destination by bus and subway, the concert was over. Haha!
Summary: it was really fun to hang out with Malin, Lisa, and their friends, and to see what it is they like to do in their free time.
3) Dagen med Ulla pa Waldemarsudde AKA eating waffles and seeing royal art with my mom’s best friend
One day, my mom’s best friend from high school came into town, and we spent the afternoon together. The city of Stockholm is an archipelago, and Waldemarsudde is located on the same island as Gronalund, called Djurgården. Waldemarsudde is where the Swedish Prince Eugene lived, who was trained as a painter in Paris.
We started out eating a light lunch outside on a literally perfect summer day. And AHHH, I love waffles! In Sweden they are often served with jam or ice cream, and at this café, I had a waffle with cloudberry jam and whipped cream (not the kind from the can, but the kind that starts out as whipping cream).
Then we visited the museum, which I had never been to before. There were many showings of Prince Eugene’s artwork – some photography, but mostly paintings. The current Swedish prince, Carl Philip (who is 30 years old) had his own exhibit showcasing his photography. I appreciated the size of the museum, and it was a good mix of Prince Eugene’s art and how he lived.
4) The day I bought tickets to see Alexander Rybak in Malmo, Sweden!
Enough said. Saturday, October 24th will probably be one of the most exciting days of my life. Look for an update around then.
Let’s take the tunnel
Celebrate one cute, cute man
Please sing for me now
Celebrate one cute, cute man
Please sing for me now
Note: the tunnel that I am referring to is the one that connects Copenhagen, Denmark to Malmo, Sweden that I will very literally take on that day.
5) Lunch, glass, och badar med Malin och Emelie AKA an afternoon with the girls
First we ate Thai food
Talked to a sketchy street man
Ice cream and swimming
Talked to a sketchy street man
Ice cream and swimming
Emelie and her little sister where we went "swimming"...More pictures coming soon I hope!
6) Välkomstga
This might be my favorite story! Rice peeps, this may be of interest! Ok, so to give you a little background, Victoria is a year older than me, and her father is a family friend of ours, who grew up with my mother. I met Victoria and her boyfriend David for the first time the other night when our family had dinner with theirs. They have both grown up in Sweden, and they attend the Royal Technical School here in Stockholm, studying some sort of physics or engineering.
Anyhow, they invited me to a party for the new students, during what is the equivalent of O-Week at Rice, (except theirs is two weeks, crazy!) Apparently, I came at a really good time, because this is one of their best parties. David told me that they have a really unique culture there, and that the students have a lot of school pride. Of course, I was thinking, “Uhh, I know what that’s like!” It turned out to be pretty different, though. I didn’t completely understand everything that was said, because there were skits, poem readings, and jokes, all in Swedish, and I’m not fluent or in on a lot of the slang. I did a lot of observing though, and it was a really good time. Even if I couldn’t laugh at the joke, everyone else was laughing, and that made it funny :)
The party started at 7 and automatically, I noticed that there were rules and traditions that I had no clue about. Good thing it was a party for the freshmen, because I wasn’t the only one who had no clue what was going on. For example, at any time, someone could start a cheer whenever “you think something is about to happen.” It went a little bit like this – ohhhhhhhhhhhhh (build) hhhhhhhhhh, TEM-PO! There was seriously a lot of energy. We sat at these long tables in an over-crowded room (people were literally crawling on chairs to get to their seats), and the food and drinks were passed down. The whole event can best be summed up as a hybrid between College Night at Rice and what we think of as Oktoberfest.
Every five minutes (at least) there was a “Skal!” AKA Cheers! With the ticket to the party, if you were over 18, you got two bottles of Carlsberg beer or pear cider (hm, which did I choose?) and two shots of Swedish liquor – something that was called “punsch” and was fairly sweet, and something else that I can’t remember the name of now. They both seriously burned your throat, but in a good way.
In what ways was it similar to the American experience? Well, there was some chugging (I know now the Swedish word), and the whole teasing the freshmen and inducting them into the culture, whether it is one of the colleges at Rice, or a sorority at some school, was the same. Nerd pride!
Differences? Well there are no dorms (which is commonplace in Europe) so parties do not happen there, but in other places on campus, like at the student center. At this particular university, each school (Physics, Civil Engineering, etc.) has 4 bars inside of it. And I thought having two on Rice campus was unusual! Haha. The drinking age is lower, but law enforcement for underage drinking is much more strict.
Also, every student who goes to Tekniska Hogskolan receives a songbook, which reminded me a bit of a church hymnbook. The whole night, there was singing from that book, directed by the upperclassmen toastmasters. The songs were about how much lab sucked, drinking, and physics. Haha! Just imagine a whole room full of students singing “99 bottles of beer on the wall” and holding up their drinks to toast the whole time. Seriously, it reminded me so much of Rice (slash Germany), and gave me a little taste of student life in another country.
OK, if you have made it all the way through… congratulations. Don’t count on my entries being this long in the future – I probably won’t have as much time, but I will be sure to keep you updated. On Sunday, I arrive in Copenhagen and a whole new chapter of my journey starts. I will meet my host family, start classes, and everything! AHHHHH! I am enjoying myself but of course I miss you guys!
Love, Kristina
