I came home from Prague to exam week, and had to jump right into studying. I just had one test for my Renewable Energy Technology class, but there was so much information to learn/memorize. Just to give you an idea of the ridiculousness, I printed out appoximately 300 pages (I know, how wrong of me to be killing trees in the name of studying sustainable energy, but I couldn't stare at the computer any longer), each one double-sided with 4 powerpoint slides per side...so if you do the math, we're talking about 2400 powerpoint slides worth of information! On the bright side, that class and another are finished, which leaves me with just 2 classes for the 2nd period (semester is divided into 2 periods).
In celebration of our exam being over, me and 2 of my roommates (who were also in the above class) decided to take make a spontaneous road trip to Uppsala, which is the 4th largest city in Sweden at 145K residents and it also happens to be just 70 km from Stockholm. It was a short trip (arrived around 4:30 pm and left around 11 pm), but we did some walking around and soaked in its quaintness and ended the night with dinner and drinks. Uppsala is also home to a beautiful cathedral, one of the largest in northern Europe that was built in 1425. By the way, only in an old Swedish cathedral can you donate with a credit card (the machine would have accepted up to $10,000...if only I were more charitable)!
In other news, it looks like I'll be headed to Russia for a week-long trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg...I'm quite excited! If you ever want to plan a trip to Russia, be warned that getting a tourist visa (yes, you need a tourist visa to get in) is a nightmare. Aside from the expected visa application, photo, passport, you also need a "visa support letter" and a "tourist voucher" from an authorized Russian travel agency inviting you to come (i.e. pay a travel agency to do this). But the real kicker is that you have to have fully paid for your accomodations before you can get a visa, which is really difficult because it's standard for hostels to take a 10% deposit for a reservation and you don't pay the other 90% until arrival (and of course they could still deny you a visa after paying for your entire trip). According to the internet, obtaining a Russian tourist visa in Sweden has become extremely difficult since we got a new consulate in 2006 who is "looking for spies". On my second trip to the Russian embassy last week (because my first visa support letter was "not specific enough"), their Russian security guard recognized me and actually told me it's so difficult here in Sweden that I'd be better of going to Finland (overnight ferry) to get a visa from their Russian embassy instead (generally not a good sign when their own employee is telling you to go elsewhere!). But anyways, after a few visits to the Russian embassy here they finally accepted my paperwork, and I got my visa this morning! All in all this visa bullshit set me back $200 and caused quite a bit of stress with having to make sure I got my passport back in time for my flight to Greece...who knew planning a vacation would be the most stressful part of studying abroad?
Update on running: Countdown to Athens Marathon: 4 days (HOLY SHIT!). Flying out bright and early on Thursday morning. I ran again last Sunday, after taking 11 whole days off from running in hopes of ridding me of those terrible shin splints. I've run a few times since, just 3-6 miles at a time, and am happy to report that my shin splints are mostly gone. I can still feel a little pain, but nothing like it was before. The bigger issue now is a huge loss of strength in my muscles since I've basically done very little training in the last 6 weeks (no long runs). My legs felt fatigued from just 6 miles, so I certainly don't have the muscle strength I had even 6 weeks ago when I was able to run 12 miles fairly easily. So I've accepted the fact that, unless a Greek god bestows a miracle on me during the race, I'm not in the shape I need to be in to run all 26.2 miles (unfortunately there is no half-marathon or I'd choose to drop down). But I've already paid for the race and the trip, so at this point I am planning on starting the race. I'll walk when I need to and stop if my body tells me to, and just be happy with that.
Greece marks the beginning of pretty much constant travel for me until I arrive home on Dec 20:
Greece: Nov 5-10
Russia: Nov 19-25
Krakow, Poland: Nov 27-Dec 2
Kiruna (northernmost city in Sweden): early Dec?
Amsterdam: Dec 18-20
Not quite sure how I'll manage to fit in classes, schoolwork, and studying for exams...
What else? Well I celebrated my first Halloween abroad. I never realized that Halloween wasn't such a big deal in Europe (it only became really commercialized within the last 10 years or so). One of the apartments in my building had a big party, and there were actually a lot more people in costumes that I expected. Of course all the Americans I know got pretty into it, because of course drinking in costumes is so much more fun than drinking in normal clothes. I must say that figuring out a cheap, easy, quick, DIY costume is much harder away from home without all my clothes, carft supplies, local craftstores, etc. The day before Halloween I decided on the grapes, which I must say was the cheapest and easiest costume I've ever done, and might just be my favorite....a big statement for just 20 big purple balloons, safety pins, a little green felt and cardboard, glue, and a headband. However, it wasn't a very well thought out costume, and was not compatible with a crowded dance party, walking through doorways, bring a drink up to my mouth (straw was needed), using the bathroom, etc. But all in all, a very fun Halloween.
The morning after Halloween we even had a traditional Bavarian breakfast - Weisswurst Fruhstuck - which consists of white sausage, sweet mustard, pretzel, and hefeweissen beer. The parents of one my Bavarian roommate, Daniel, brought the sausages and mustard all the way from Germany when they visited this week. This was our 2nd international corridor meal; the first was a fondue night from my Swiss (French) roommate, Diane, with cheese brought from her parents on their visit to Stockholm. Luckily my mom brought me some green chili sauce when she came, and I plan on making green chili enchiladas, tortilla soup, and chips with guacamole and pineapple salsa for a Tex-Mex night...can't wait!
Oh ya, the clocks got set back an about a week ago, so now it gets dark at 4:30 PM...so strange!
New pictures:
Prague: 1-141
Stockholm (album 2): 1-112
No comments:
Post a Comment