Stockholm

Hej hej,

So continuing on from the last post about Christmas break... When I got back to Sweden the semester was just ending.  After writing a paper, doing a presentation, finishing an assignment, and taking an exam the time I had left with some of the guys was almost over.  It wasn't long at all until Christoph and Andre had to head back to Germany.  It was sad to see them go, but it was nice to know what Mike and I would soon go to Germany to visit them.  And since they left, we have also learned that Christoph will be back here visiting at the end of next month, and then the next week, we'll be going to Riga, Latvia to meet up with Andre and the great friends of his who came up to visit once on their annual vacation trip to eastern Europe.

Around that time, the new kids for second semester were starting to arrive, so the students who hadn't yet taken their flights or trains home still had to give up their rooms here.  At that time, Chris came to live with me for about a week until he had to go home.  We both still had work to do, and he had a lot of good-byes to say and packing to do - my room was a train wreck for about a week with all my stuff plus everything from his place too - but it was really nice to have him there all the time so that we could make the most of the time before he had to leave.

That weekend, Mike and Lorena left for Stockholm on Saturday to meet up with one of Lorena's friends there, but I had an exam, and Chris a project, so we ended up heading up on Sunday and staying until Monday evening.  I'm sure Stockholm's not nearly as nice - as much more icy - than it during the summer, but this was going to be Chris' last chance to see it - as left that Wednesday - and it was actually really nice still.  But Jan-Olof said that it's really quite beautiful in the summer, so Mike and I are sure to head up there again when the weather's nice.  And I'm sure he's right, since Stockholm is build on a number of islands, so there's water everywhere.

Stockholm Central Station, the first thing we saw when we got there,
and where we killed the last our time there waiting for our train

The met Mike and Lorena at the Swedish Nobel Museum, but didn't stop to go in since we were on our way to lunch

After lunch we went to Fotographiska (Museum of Photography).  I think this was a unanimous choice for our favorite display.  Mike, Chris, and Lorena are the shadows in the middle, and the piece to their right is "Dancing in the Dark"

Afterwards Chris and I went out on our usual night exploring walk.  I spotted this great lookout point between two houses
on top of one of the hills.  As you can see the roads were pure ice and although we each slipped pretty badly
a number of times, it's a small miracle that neither of us fell the whole trip

The view from the lookout point, as you can see it's looking from one of Stockholm's islands to another

And as you can see, all the islands are connected by a number of bridges

Another nice night view, this time from ground level

Then we walked though the city looking at all the shops.  We really liked this shop full of little
metal sculptures for decorating up  all sorts of things, these ones here are for wine bottles

Of course there were lots of shops for traditional Swedish things like Dala Horses

I don't remember exactly what these building were, but they looked pretty cool

These stone lions were scattered all down the main street

As were these little Christmas trees in comically large pots

Then we headed back to our hostel, which you can see is not only huge, but beautifully decorated

Then we headed to our first real "attraction," the Stockholm Ice Bar.  Modeled after the Ice Bar from the Ice Hotel in Kiruna (northern Sweden), that's a hotel entirely made of ice (yes, that includes the beds).  The Ice Bar in Stockholm was inside a hotel, and we made reservations to save our spot - and a few bucks - but seeing how it was a Sunday night and this bar is simply a tourist attraction, when we got there we found that it was pretty empty.  Our first indication was that when we went to the front desk and told the guy our reservation time he said "Oh, you must be Chris." And sure enough when we got there, we had the whole place to ourselves.  Another group came in and started filling the place up about a half hour later, but we had the whole bar to ourselves for quite a while, and it was really cool.

They give you a free drink in a completely ice cup when you get there, Chris' had cinnamon in it and was just delicious

They have a bunch of ice sculptures for you to play around with

I really like this shot

Since we had the place to ourselves, we could fool around a bit

Since it has to be kept freezing cold so the place doesn't melt, they give you Ice Bar jackets to wear when you come in

We literally had the whole place to ourselves, even the bartender was just there to make us the drinks and then she left again

The walls and tables and everything were made of ice and all had cool designs lasered into them.
I still don't know how they made them, but they all looked really cool

After that we called it a night, and got up early the next morning to walk around and check out some more stuff.

I just thought this was funny, and quite ironic

We found a huge park with lots of walking paths that I bet would have been beautiful in summer

Most of the building seemed to have the same earthy colors and texture, it gave a nice touch to the city

I don't know what all the birds were doing there, but part of the Royal Palace is in the background

Our next attraction was the Royal Palace, which was made up of a number of buildings, including "The Royal Gift Shop"

I thought the guns the guards has were unnecessarily large, but whatever gets the job done

After that we went back to wandering the side streets

The side streets were the cozy European narrow streets surrounded by tall buildings.
And yes, I purposely chose the picture with Ben and Jerry's in it.

If I though those streets were narrow, the alleys off the side streets were like nothing

We didn't actually go into the National Museum, but we saw it from across the water

Our next scheduled stop was at a little ice rink in the middle of one of the parks.  We rented skates and spent a while on the ice

For not having skated in about 13 years, Chris was - besides giving Canada a bad name - a great skater,
 and despite some close calls, our not falling weekend even kept up though ice skating

Even after exploring the city for two straight days, we didn't even see this
entire shopping center until a few hours before we were leaving

I don't know why I like this picture so much, but the color of the sign just compliments
 the buildings so well - and it looks like it's trying to point out Chris

I don't know what this tower in the middle of the city was for, but it was pretty cool looking at night

That evening we took the train back to Vaxjo, and it was back to classes the next morning.  The day after that I had to duck out of class early and run back home to get to Chris and bring him to the bus stop before he left.  It was rough to watch him leave, and almost as hard to walk back home from the bus stop with Mike, but it didn't really hit me until a couple days later.  He's too far away to visit here, and he's still far from Vermont, but at least in the big picture he's pretty close, and a whole lot closer than the Germans will be after I leave Sweden.

New kids have shown up, not nearly as many as there were last semester, but some, and some of the old kids from other buildings have moved in to take some of the places left behind by people who've left, so there are some new faces.  We haven't had quite the same type of group as we did last semester, but I didn't expect anything like that to happen, and quite frankly I'm surprised I got as close to those guys last semester as I did.  I feel like the new kids have probably formed groups within themselves like we did last semester, but some of the older freemovers who've been here a few years say that as the weather gets nicer out, and people start spending more time outside it gets a lot easier to meet more people.  A couple guys, Germans naturally, Jan and Timo are really cool, but of course they aren't nearly as close as Mike and I.  I talk to Mike probably every day, and we hang out most days.  It's like I take all the time I spent with each one of the guys before and now spend that much time with just Mike.

A couple of weeks ago I was walking home from the gym and felt something go wrong in my knee.  I talked to my trainer back home and decided that I have ITBS - Iliotibial Band Syndrome - or part of an overuse condition associated with running, cycling, hiking, and weight lifting.  It's just a superficial thickening of the tissue running down the outside of the leg from the pelvis to the knee, so it's not serious but enough to keep me out of commission for a bit.  So lately I've been rehabbing it, and that's cutting my exercise by more than half by not allowing me to do virtually any lower body work and I've been having a little more free time on my hands.  I've been reading a lot more, I started in on the work for my online class, and even started learning some new stuff about evolutionary robotics in preparation for my thesis work next semester.  I've also been going for a lot more long walks now that I can't run for a little while.  I sometimes like to bring along my music and camera, and here are some shots from a walk Mike and I took the day after Chris left, and from another I took one morning when it was really nice out:

The path through the nature reserve behind the school, I think there are shots from this place in previous posts

I like how narrow the depth of field is on some settings even on the point and shoot, as demonstrated nicely on the rope here

I studied the mathematics of the formation of tree branches in one of my classes once, and have been fascinated with their patterns ever since.  I also like the interplay of the overlapping branches here

Mike waiting on the bridge for me to catch up as I stop every so often to try and take artsy shots like this

I really like the proportions of this shot, and the texture of the clouds allows for a lot
 of space to be dedicated to the sky without it looking empty or deferring the eye

The sharpness of this camera still amazes me, it allows even simple shots like this to be interesting

The fuzzy texture of the sky in these shots does a great job of contrasting the sharp edges of the lights

And it wouldn't be an album of mine if it didn't include a ground shot with short focus and the sun in the background

That's it for now, but I promise there's more to come later on, and the pace will definitely pick up later when it's nicer out, classes have started to wind down, and travel is starting to take over the time left by classes.

Hej da