Europe - Round 2: Berlin, Prague, Athens

First of all, I realize I still haven't written down anything about my first trip through Europe, and I know the longer I wait the more I'm gonna forget. Problem is, there's just too much to write so I figure if I wait long enough, I'll remember just enough to be considered manageable. Ehh, either way I'll get to it sooner or later.

Anyway, about two weeks ago Trevor, Lauren, and I booked a few flights and buses for a trip through Berlin, Germany; Prague, Czech Republic; and Athens, Greece. This originally started out as an open question of who wanted to go to Prague and when could they go. It ended up with the three of us looking for cheap airfare from random cities we could stay in a couple days apiece rather than spend 6 straight days in Prague.

Well, we found the cheap airfare (I love Europe's discount airlines) and cheaper bus options to get us from Umeå to Stockholm (YBuss), Stockholm to Berlin (AirBerlin), Berlin to Prague (Eurolines), Prague to Athens (Sky Europe), Athens to Stockholm (Sterling), and Stockholm to Umeå (SAS). For those of you counting that's two different bus companies and four different airlines. Total trip time was 8 days.

The 9 hour overnight bus was pretty uneventful. It was basically empty and even though you had an entire row to yourself, it was still hard to sleep...not to mention we got into Stockholm Arlanda at about 5am. Then it was wait around in the airport for maybe 6 hours where Lauren got really excited about the presence of 7 Eleven and their slushie machines (though sadly no Coke slushies).
Berlin was a surprisingly cool city to visit. I really just wanted to see the Berlin Wall and the Brandenburg Gate, but it turns out there's actually a fair amount to see. Our hostel was surprisingly nice (bar/lounge, outdoor patio, rooftop deck, free luggage storage, etc.) though we did share a room with 36 other people (apparently they turn their winter nightclub into one huge dorm in the summer). It's hard to describe a city but definitely take a look at the pictures and their captions, should be worth it (haha, this is of course assuming I know what I took a picture of). I will say that Berlin had a free tour service that went on 3.5 hour walking tours of the Eastern part of the city. Our guide was pretty much one of the best guides I've ever had (probably because she was Swedish). Other than that, nothing too eventful - though I did see a Panda.

We spent two days in Berlin and then caught a bus to Prague. Truth be told, I wasn't exactly sure where to find the bus station and we actually almost ended up on the wrong side of the city (I ended up reading through my travel book rather than looking online and took a guess to go with what the book said - it was right this time, not so much with the restaurants though). We got into Prague around midnight with no sure idea of how to get to our hostel. It went about like this: *Ryan pulls out compass and looks at crappy map* "I think it's this way", *Ryan leads down random streets, goes to far* "Ok, I think it was actually back that way a bit", we eventually find the hostel. Sadly, this occurred more than once (I blame it on the map...and my lack of careful consideration).

Prague was a pretty awesome city, though I think it's definitely more of a place to chill out and relax. There wasn't too much history, but some pretty awesome architecture everywhere you went. The castle was of course amazing, but there was also a pretty neat fortress up on a cliff south of the city. The castle and medieval feel to the old sections have got me pretty excited to go find some castles in the Scottish highlands, but again, check out the pictures. There was one monumental event that happened in Prague and this event was mine and Lauren's discovery of the fried cheese burger. Not fried cheeseburger, cheese burger. A piece of deep fried battered cheese thrown on a bun with ketchup and mayo. It. Was. Amazing.
Of course it being Prague, we also had to try the beer...and it was good...and cheap. You could go out for a night and spend $4 (this $4 got us a shot of Absinthe and 1.5L of beer...yes, even the cheap beer was good). It was definitely a nice change from the rest of Europe where prices make you want to cry a little on the inside (returning to Sweden, the land of expensive everything, didn't help much).

On to Athens where we found the worlds longest hallway in the Athens airport (I'm pretty sure you could actually see the curvature of the Earth). The weather was a bit rainy the first few days of the trip (scattered showers mostly) but by the last day in Prague, the rest of the trip was warm and nothing but sun. However, Athens being a decent ways south, it also meant hot...really hot. The temperature was about 30ºC (86ºF) which doesn't sound so bad, except when you've been used to -30 the last few months.
Anyway, we saw what we had to the first day and hit the beach the second. Well worth it, though I'm sure we stuck out as tourists having been living in Sweden with no sun among a beach full of tan Greeks. The crazy thing about Athens was randomly running into someone I knew from home. We had been talking about the odds of seeing someone you knew half way around the world and a day or so later I ran into Jason Gerstenkorn, a guy I went to high school with. Then we ran into him randomly the next day. Craziness.

It was then back to Umeå where we got off the plane (me still in shorts - I refused to accept the reality of the arctic) and got hit with 7ºC (45ºF) winds. Welcome back to Umeå. On the bright side, we're now the tannest people in northern Sweden.

Umeå Normality

I've been back for almost two weeks now and everything seems to be back to normal. This means class once or twice a week for 2-5 hours at a time, IKSU everyday, going out or finding something to do most nights, and lots of movies and tv shows to fill in the gaps.

After coming back to cold and rain, I'll be honest, I kind of missed the shorts, sandals, and t-shirt weather. But I'll be back to it soon enough, no worries. The weird thing was my sleep schedule. For whatever reason, I couldn't sleep after I got back. The first night back was an all-nighter. You never realize what kind of an effect the sun has on you until you go somewhere that's just not normal. It never really gets dark here anymore and I blame my lack of sleep on that. I haven't slept past 8:00am until just yesterday (due to a really late night). To give you an idea of this sunlight nonsense, at about 1:00am there was more light with no moon than the brightest full moon nights back home. Current sunrise: 4:02am, sunset: 9:11pm with 19h 34m of visible light.
I took a 5:00am run to the lake last week and I've decided it may just be my new favorite place in Umeå, probably because it reminds me so much of picnic point but without the awesome nighttime view. I liked it so much though that I dragged Lauren out there at 5:00am the next morning. Of course getting up that early needs a bit more incentive than just a good view so I threw in breakfast - bacon and eggs cooked over a wood fire (though sadly not my best work).
I always wondered what they did with the crap load of gravel they threw on the roads and sidewalks over winter. Turns out they mount massive street sweeper things to a front loader and literally sweep up everything. It then goes to a massive pile where more front loaders fill up dump trucks and ship it off. They even sweep the grass, weird.

We had a bbq one day, the day it decided to turn cold actually. When I say cold I mean colder, 50 degrees to 35 degrees. On the bright side, the hot dogs were pretty good and I've learned french hot dog buns are the worst idea ever. Their only redeeming quality was that they don't make a mess when you hold them - though that thought was quickly thrown out the window when I was attacked by the hot dog and subsequently covered in ketchup. There are a lot of bbq pits around, and by a lot I mean 3 or 4 to every courtyard - I'll wait until it gets warm to enjoy them I think.

On the topic of food, I've decided that Tetrapaks are starting to grow on me (yes, those stupid milk cartons I've been complaining about since getting to Sweden). Turns out they're the best thing to use if you drink out of the carton, nice little pour spout and you never have to open them (on account of they don't actually close). They are also really easy to break down flat so you can put them in the usually overflowing cardboard bin under the counter (we have 4 different recycling bins and a can collection area in the kitchen, Swedes and their recycling).

Brittany and I got a little crazy one night when everyone else went to a fashion show/concert/dance hall thing at Universum, the student union (we didn't want to pay the 125sek to get in). We ended the night with a total of 1 couch on a car, 1 bike in a tree, 1 street sign (and I still don't actually know what it says), 1 toy tractor on a roof, and 1 bead necklace.

There was a big Valborg celebration around the campus pond on the last day in April. It was basically Jokkmokk but without the culture and snow. Vendors had set up shops and a big bonfire was built (some would say massive, but given that I grew up with bonfires the size of small houses I still say big) to celebrate the start of Spring (still not exactly sure how that works either). There was also live bands playing most of the night which was pretty cool, but the best part was all of the small fires set up around the entire pond. They made for good gathering spots.
As I said before, everything is getting back to normal, that means time for another trip. Trevor, Lauren, and I all wanted to go to Prague. What originally started out as a trip to Prague then became Berlin, Prague, and Athens and now stretches just over a week. We'll be back just in time for the brännbol tournament (baseball but with less rules I'm told) and the massive Ålidhem party that accompanies it. It will sadly also be time for plenty of good bye parties as people are already starting to leave.

Anyway, I suppose I've been procrastinating on my readings long enough. Time to write a paper. Vi ses senare!