Scandinavia, continued

Greetings from Gothenburg! Or Gøteborg, as they say in Swedish, which is infinitely cooler.

Just got here via train from Norway, after a lovely day and a half in Oslo. My couchsurfer Matthias met me at the tourist center and led me back to his dorm-style apartment, where we enjoyed a dinner of spaghetti. I haven't really noticed until now how much I have been missing pasta (not a quintessentially French food) but boy, was that spaghetti good. He also had tortilla chips and salsa, which is something else I've never seen in my local Monoprix, so I ate half the bag and it tasted like America. Mmm. Matthias provided interesting company since he is not, in fact, Norweigan-- he's a German post-high school student doing social service work as a kindergarten teacher in Oslo before college.

"Do you speak Norweigan at all?" he asked.

"No, not at all."

"German?"

"Uh, well I took it for two years when I was little, but all I can remember is how to count to eleven, the word for father, and 'I am eight years old.'"

He looked at me dubiously.

"That last part is slightly outdated now," I clarified uselessly.

After dinner, some kid named Robert poked his head through the window (literally) and joined me and Matthias for some TV viewing. Actually it was really me who was joining them, since they apparently get together every night for a religious viewing of Friends.

Yes, Friends, which they watch with German subtitles. "Do you speak German?" asked Robert.

"No," I said apologetically.

"She learned it for two years!" Matthias contributed.

"Then we can all speak German!" exclaimed Robert.

It took considerable effort to explain, again, that the two years of instruction had faded into nothingness, but the boys seemed unwilling to believe me. "Typical American!" said Matthias jocularly. "Knows another language but doesn't want to speak anything but English!"

Eventually we stopped making fun of my language failures and watched our show. Matthias and Robert are up to season 3 and never miss a night.

"Sorry," Matthias apologized to me as he loaded the DVD into his laptop. "We cannot cancel the Friends just because there is a guest."

Fair enough. Robert asked me a few polite questions about the States, but conversation more or less ceased when he admitted that he had no idea where Michigan was. "Near Canada?" I ventured. "Surrounded by lakes? Looks like a mitten?"

"I don't really know my U.S. geography," he said with a shrug. Considering I didn't know where Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia were until I traveled there last week, I guess I can't fault him for it.

So that was the first night. The next morning I set out on a condensed tour of Oslo, since my train to Gothenburg left at 6. I walked to the Munch museum, which was really cool but didn't have The Scream on display, which was pretty much the whole reason I wanted to go. Apparently it's being restored and won't be back up until the end of May. I feel like they should at least charge less of an entrance fee to art musuems when the famous ones are out of commission. But the other paintings were worth the visit, too.

Then it was time to take the little ghetto ferry (I thought we were about to sink the whole time, what with the gnashing sounds of the motor and the creaking of the wood floors) across the bay to the part of Oslo with most of the museums. Lucky for you, I took some more home movies! We will begin with the Open Air Museum:

Then it was time for Viking fun!

Nerdular sightseeing makes me a little sad to be alone on this trip, because I just end up thinking about my friends. Justin and my family would have loved the Viking ships, for instance. Diane and I would have had a good time chuckling over the wife skills exhibit at the museum of Nordic culture. Laura would have been horrified by the Museum of Things in Little Bottles (I'm not even joking, it's real-- they claim to have the biggest collection of things in bottles in the world-- but I didn't have time to go) because she's afraid of all things mini. And I bet a lot of people from the Paris program would've enjoyed the Munch museum, and we even could have laughed together at the big group of students with notebooks and pencils in hand, moving from painting to painting as an instructor lectured in Norweigan. At least I didn't follow them and stare intently at whatever painting they were currently grouped around, as tourists often do to us at the Louvre, thinking the studious attention of our group is an indicator that we have discovered something Truly Great.

This trip is a lot of fun, but I think I'll be happy to come back to Paris.

SaraTV, broadcasting not-so-live from Europe

So I shelled out fifty bucks today for some 17-in-one-function memory card reader that the nice Swedish man at the Sony store assured me was the best product for me to buy to solve my uploading dilemmas, and now I can FINALLY share some visuals with you! Unforunately it was taking like three years to get the pictures up, so I focused on getting my videos uploaded instead.

That's right my friends, I've been making some home movies. They're in chunks because I have no means of editing, and you'll have to excuse the bad lighting and my general scruffy appearance, as well. We travelers become haggard after a week and a half on the road.

This first series of videos is from Tallinn, Estonia. There's a tower in the Old Town there that's part of a church from the Middle Ages, and visitors are still allowed to climb up it the old-fashioned way. Knowing me and my love of spiral staircases, this was obviously a must. Let's take a gander!

Then I undid all that good exercise by meeting up with my couchsurfer Marion and eating giant pancakes in Old Town. Oh well.

Now we move to my adventures onboard the MS Mariella, a charming cruise liner that took me from Helsinki, Finland to Stockholm, Sweden two days ago.

One more thing...

It took like five hours to get all this online... you better have appreciated it. I have to go to bed now because in the morning I'm catching a train to Oslo, Norway, but I'll have details and pictures of Stockholm up soon. Later dudes.

A day in Santa land

No, I didn't get so far off course that I accidentally wound up at the North Pole-- according to Helsinki natives, Santa's true residence is here in Finland. I bought a Santa Christmas tree ornament this morning to commemorate the fact.

So yes, I have now officially sailed the Baltic Sea and disembarked on the northernmost land that I have ever been to. Which I guess isn't saying much, since this whole trip so far has been the farthest east I've ever been. Having said that, though, it really isn't very cold here. It was sunny today and pretty windy near the harbor, but the mittens I packed in expectation of near-arctic conditions have as yet gone unused.

So now I'll tell you about the James Bond stunt I pulled this morning in Tallinn. My ferry left at 7:30 am, meaning I had to wake up at 5:45 to get dressed, packed, and out the door with enough time for the half-hour walk to the port. With dismay I noticed that Terminal D, my destination, was the farthest of Tallinn's four outgoing ferry docks. I guess that's what you get for booking the cheapest passage available. I passed terminals A, B, and C, and saw the giant D looming ahead of me on the side of a far-off building. I shifted my 9,000,000-pound bag to the other shoulder, quickened my pace, and... walked into a fence.

Damnit! They had closed off the obvious path to my terminal. I looked around and realized that I would have to completely backtrack in order to circumnavigate the fence and access the arrival gate. By the time I lurched through the doorway it was 7:11, and the place was completely empty.

"Where are you going to, and when?" said the girl at the check-in desk. For some reason people all over the world speak to me in English before I've even opened my mouth.

"Helsinki," I said, gasping for breath. "Today at 7:30."

"Oh!" said the girl. "But you are too late! Boarding ended one minute ago."

Oh, hellll no.

"Well it's only one minute," I pleaded as an announcement boomed over the PA, saying that my ship was departing.

The girl eyed me dubiously, doubled over with the weight of my suitcase, then printed a boarding pass and handed it to me with a frown. "You will have to run."

"Where is it?" I said, already moving away from the desk.

"Second floor, follow the signs. Quickly, go!"

So I did. With my overstuffed duffel and purse banging against my legs as I ran, I flew down hallways, up elevators, and through twisting, empty passageways. Every time I thought I had gotten closer, another hallway appeared. Finally a window appeared and outside I could see the ship. I turned the final corner and practically knocked over two guys about to close the boarding doors.

"I made it!" I gasped, thrusting my boarding pass at one of them.

"Uh huh," he said, standing aside to let me pass.

Once that near heart attack had passed, the boat ride was quite plesant. The ferry was one of the big ones that you can drive your cars onto, and it was packed with restaurants, stores, and lounges. It was like being on the Titanic, minus the part where it sinks and everyone dies.

After we struck land, I found my way to the central station in Helsinki and loaded up on maps and bus tickets. I only had a few hours until my 5:30 ferry to Stockholm (it is about 4 right now... I'm leaving soon to avoid another action-adventure scene) so I had to keep my list of sightseeing to a minimum. I checked out a really cool Lutheran church that is dug out of the middle of a giant rock, and all the walls on the interior are rock outcroppings. Hard to picture, but I'll post photos. Then I went to a supposedly famous modern art gallery, but it was the pre-kindergarten kind of art that makes Dad angry whenever we visit museums, so it was a disappointment overall. I spent a little while wandering through Stockmann's, the famous Finnish department store, and then headed over to the harbor, where I found an outdoor restaurant selling fish that had been caught that morning. I ordered the Baltic herring because I remember reading somewhere that it's a famous fish variety in Finland, but I'm no fish connisseur so it pretty much tasted like high-quality fish sticks to me. It was fun to eat by the harbor, though, and when I got down to the bony parts of the fish I shared the remainder of my meal with a nearby duck. Very pleasant indeed.

Now I have to go reclaim my suitcase from the bag storage, and find a tram to take me to the port where my ferry to Stockholm leaves from in a little over an hour. Will update again from there, but not for awhile because the ferry goes overnight. My first night on a boat... this should be interesting.

Estonia: Prettier than Latvia, but only by a little bit

There was a shimmering moment of hope just now that I might be able to use my Estonian couchsurfer's memory adapter stick to upload the photos I've taken so far, but the USB gods were against me. Alas, you will have to suffer through another of my wordy descriptions.

This update comes to you from Tallinn, the seaside capital of Estonia. I arrived here late last night at an apparently remote coach station, since my couchsurfer Marion had no idea where it was when I texted to ask where I should go. After about forty minutes of confusion and constant nervous glances at the shady characters prowling the empty parking lot, I bit the bullet and hailed a cab. As we wound our way through the darkened city streets, I smiled a little and appreciated the situation I found myself in. A few months ago when I went to Chicago for my French visa I had never independently used a form of public transportation besides the U of M buses, and I remember being afraid to summon a driver in the comfort of my own country, language, and currency. Now here I was, all alone in the back seat of an Estonian taxi, trying to divide 50 krones by 15-point-something euro to decide if I was being totally gouged for the base rate, and I knew something about me had changed. I am halfway across the world with no sense of direction and approximately three vocabulary words at my disposal, and I am proud to say that I have lost touch with the fear that that should engender. Maybe I'll eat my words when the Scandinavian part of the voyage begins and I find myself stranded in Norway somewhere, but right now I feel like I can handle anything this trip throws at me.

So anyway. I don't think I told you much about Riga, so we'll start there. I was met at the bus station by George, who led me back to his and Lina's apartment and gave me a map of Riga ("You should keep this with you," he advised in slightly Russian accent not unlike that of the animated bat in the movie Anastasia. "Otherwise you might go to Old Town and get lost... forever.") I didn't end up getting lost in Old Town, though, because most of the time I spent there was with them. George wandered around with me for the first night while we waited for Lina to be done with class at the University, and on the second day both of them showed me around and told me the amusing stories of the buildings and monuments. After the Old Town tour we walked around an adjoining area of Riga that boasts some really incredible Art Nouveau style buildings. I took a bunch of pictures, so until I get them up you'll just have to believe me when I say that they weren't quite like any building facade I've seen before, and by this point I think I can safely say that I've seen a lot.

At the end of the second day I packed up my stuff and went off in search of the bus to Tallin, Estonia, accompanied by George, who wanted to make sure I correctly navigated the three straight blocks from the apartment to the station. Like all of the other Eastern European men I've encountered so far on this trip, he insisted on carrying my bag. Little did he know that I've been accumulating trinkets from every sidewalk market in the Baltic States, so he may've regretted that show of chivalry. "Don't talk to anyone in the bus station," he warned as we passed a woman screaming unintelligibly in Latvian. "They are crazy and they want to steal your money."

He bade me farewell and I found the Estonia-bound bus without difficulty. It was a four-hour ride to Tallinn, most of which I spent watching the progressively funnier music videos that were playing on the ceiling-mounted TVs. It started with current music, detoured briefly to 80s selections including Can't Touch This, Jessie's Girl, and Sexual Healing, then seamlessly transitioned to Sexy Back. I shook my head grimly as I realized that even in Estonia I could not escape Justin Timberlake.

After the cab adventure I made it to Marion's apartment in Tallinn, where she welcomed me graciously and made me midnight tea and omelets. This morning she walked with me to Tallinn's Old Town, which is probably one of the oldest and best preserved historical sites in Europe. Much of the city's defensive walls, towers, churches, and other buildings have been meticulously preserved, giving the area a distinctly medieval feel. Marion had to work, so she left me to wander the streets. In Riga, George and Lina had told me that one of their favorite things to do in Tallinn was to climb to the top of the highest church tower in Old Town, which was the tallest building in the world in the 16th century and is still accessible only by its original spiral staircase. I bought my dollar-fifty ticket and bounded gaily up the first few stairs. About forty seconds later I was out of breath and clinging to the rope handrail for support. I did make it to the top though, banging my head on a low beam as I exited onto the narrow viewing platform, and spent a few minutes enjoying the panoramic views of Tallinn and the sea before descending the stairs anew. Once on ground again, I headed to a former cannon artillery tower humorously nicknamed Fat Margaret, and toured the maritime history museum now housed within it. Then Marion met up with me for lunch and we ate some traditional Estonian pancakes- she got one with fish inside, while I opted for a honey and banana concoction. Deeelicious. In the afternoon I did more wandering but then I was kind of tired so I made my way back to Marion's apartment, where I am sitting now. Tomorrow I leave bright and early for Helsinki, which is apparently a short jaunt away by ferry. Probably won't update again until Stockholm, though, since I'm not staying overnight in Finland and won't probably have computer access.

Goodbye, Baltics. Next stop, Scandinavia!

Lithuania, my homeland

Lithuania isn't my homeland, but my couchsurfing host in Warsaw told me that that's how the most famous Polish poem of all time begins. Go figure.

I'm writing to you from Riga, Latvia, having just completed my trip in lovely Vilnius, Lithuania. I arrived at the bus station at the ungodly hour of 5am, and waited around there for awhile while I waited for it to become late enough to call my couchsurfer, Eva. I hopped a tram to her apartment (a charming Soviet-style project that I will show you whenever I manage to get pictures up from this trip) where she fed me eggs and made up my bed. She had to go to class until 1, so I took a much-needed nap and then met up with her in the city center for an afternoon of guided touring-- much more efficient than my usual style, which is to say bumbling around with my map upside down and wondering how to say "which way to Old Town" in various languages. We saw several churches in varying architectural styles, the 14th-century Gedimino Castle, and the quite romantically named Gates of Dawn that mark the original entrance to the medieval walled city. After the tour she took me to a traditional Lithuanian restaurant for dinner, where we ordered nothing but various types of potatoes, which I was fully in support of because potatoes are pretty much the best food ever. Then we went back to the apartment, had some tea, and collapsed.

In the morning Eva had class again, so we said our goodbyes and I set out for a morning at the Genocide Museum! It was more fun than it sounds. Lithuania was occupied by the Nazis during WWII, and afterwards was a part of the Soviet Union until it disbanded, so there is a long and tragic history of its national history being suppressed and its citizens persecuted. The building that the Genocide Museum is housed in is the site of a former KGB prison, which held prisoners all the way up until the 90s, if you can believe it. In the basement of the museum you can see cell blocks and interrogation rooms, showers, solitary confinement rooms, and even the scary padded wall room, all of which were the unfortunate temporary residence of political dissidents and the otherwise unruly. Took lots of pictures there too, none of which you can see yet because I was a dumbass and left my USB cord in Paris. It'll be like a National Geographic slideshow when I get back.

Now I'm in Riga enjoying the hospitality of a Latvian couple named Lina and George, who are taking me on a tour of the city tomorrow. They've been great so far, very friendly as hosts and just plain interesting characters-- Lina has a law degree and is a press secretary in the Latvian judiciary court, and George is a former keyboardist in a heavy-metal rock band and still does something in the music production industry. He showed me his group's CDs as we listened to the music over a midnight snack of cheese and vermouth, and I was surprised to hear that all the lyrics were in English. I asked him why they weren't in Latvian, considering that that was the nationality of all the members in the band, but he looked at me with surprise. "Heavy metal is an English style of music," he said with a shrug. "It would sound stupid in any other language." Hm. Perhaps he's right.

Off now to take a shower, which is ironically located in the kitchen next to the washing machine and across from the basin that doubles as a kitchen and bathroom sink. Now that's efficient!

Warszawa

I'm baaack.

And I'm in Warsaw! Took the train last night from Krakow, and with the help of a friendly English-speaking woman at Warszawa Centralna, managed also to find the tram that took me to my next couchsurfer's house. This time I'm staying with a 27 yr old Canadian woman named Cora, her de facto Polish husband, and their high-strung but cute tabby cat, who has a long Polish name that they said meant "puker." Cute, I guess?

When we woke up this morning they fed me a Sunday Polish breakfast of a cucumbery/cheesy/yogurty spread on wafer bread, which was yummy and I want the recipe, but it might be hard to duplicate since the cheese is only available in Poland. Following breakfast we went to a giant flea market, where I bought several bars of Polish chocolate at about 50 cents apiece. Then it was time for them to go have brunch with their family, so they dropped me off in Old Town so I could go sightseeing. I had some brief and unsuccessful battles with the local ATMs, so I had to focus on free attractions. I wandered for a few minutes before coming upon the Royal Palace, former home of the Polish royalty, which turned out to have free Sunday admission. I wandered around in there for an hour or two, noted that many of the paintings on the wall were similar to the styles we've been studying at the Louvre, and got yelled at in Polish by an overzealous room guard when the flash accidentally went off on my camera. Que sera sera.

After the palace I wandered through Old Town for awhile, although the name is something of a misnomer since most of it was destroyed by Nazis and the current area is in large part a reconstruction based on historical photos and drawings. On the way to the flea market today in the car, Cora told me that you can tell which buildings are the authentically old ones because they're riddled with bullet holes. Ah yes, the usual old-town charm. There were lots of street vendors selling wooden handicrafts that I coveted, but alas, could not buy due to my ATM problems. I will not leave this town without a nesting doll, I tell you!

Midway through the afternoon it got cold and drizzly, continuing the pattern of European weather personally hating me wherever I go. Since I hadn't had lunch I decided the rain was a good excuse to duck into some sort of eating establishment, but with the mere 9 zlotys in my pocket, I wasn't sure where I'd be able to afford a meal. Then I turned the corner, saw a familiar sign, and broke the cardinal rule of Americans traveling abroad.

I ate at a KFC.

Yeah, I know I should've found pierogies or something since I'm in Poland, and I know my student handbook says not to draw attention to my citizenship by eating in American fast food joints, but I couldn't help it. I miss KFC. We have them in Paris, but only on the outskirts and no one else is ever interested in going with me. And I liked fried chicken, damnit! And the fries! It's been so long since I've had fries! So I ate at KFC and it was salty and greasy and it tasted like America, and I am not ashamed.

Then I wandered away from Old Town into the modern streets of Warsaw, which by the way are populated by drivers who evidently think they're participating in a group audition for The Fast and the Furious. No wonder all the crosswalks for the intersections are underground. I came across a big mall and did some shopping for clothes that are too expensive to buy in Paris, then headed back to Cora's apartment. They fed me homemade borscht for dinner, which I had never had before and was surprisingly delicious despite my doubts that beets could truly constitute a delectable soup. The last event of the day was a trip to the movie theater to see Omaret Yakobean, which I think means The Yakobean Apartments in English, but I could be wrong. It was an Egyptian film that took place in Cairo and dealt with a multitude of current social issues including the plight of the working classes, women's positions, the influence of Islam, the corruption of the government, and terrorism. Pretty fascinating all in all, although for some reason having two sets of subtitles at the bottom (English and Polish) distracted me more than usual. An interesting experience nonetheless, especially when an ad for pay-per-view porn came on a TV in the movie and the girl onscreen said "Call now for hot sex!" in Polish. The whole audience burst out laughing at their sudden comprehension-- except me, of course. I had no idea what had happened until Cora explained it to me. Not that that's anything new.

Cześć, jak się masz?

Otherwise known as "Hey, how are you?" Just one of the many new Polish phrases I have learned in the less than 24 hours I've spent in Krakow. Others include "One student ticket for the Dragon Cave, please!"

I wish I were joking.

So yes, I arrived in Krakow, Poland after a long and adventure-filled day. I almost didn't make it out of Paris yesterday due to my inability to find the shuttle bus to the Beauvais airport, and then by the time I had found it (and Erin with her boyfriend already in line, on their way to Bremen) I stood in line just long enough to miss the bus for my flight. We took the next bus and arrived at Beauvais approximately two hours later (Erin: "How can they even CALL this Paris Beauvais?") and waited in two more neverending lines at check-in and security, where I witnessed three entire strollers being dismantled and sent through the scanner. You know the bombs are hidden under that spare diaper bag.

Then the real fun began. I shoved my way out of the security crowd and located the boarding "line" (read: mob) for my flight, and noted, with unbridled glee, that it was one of those planes where you go out into the parking lot and climb up the tiny staircase to the cabin! Like a scene out of a 40s war movie! Love it.

What I did not love was Katowice International Airport. Contrary to the claims of the Wizzair website (which by the way is pronounced Weezer in Polish. "Thank you for flying Weezer!") when they said that it was "near" Krakow and "easily accessible by our associated shuttle service," both stipulations proved false. After the first shuttle pulled up, refused to let me on for lack of reservation, and left me sputtering and alone next to a French family who had confirmation emails in their hands but were apparently not on the driver's VIP list, a mild panic set in. I had visions of being trapped in Katowice forever and communicatively limited by the only Polish word I knew-- pąckzi. Which I guess would have helped me survive for awhile, since they were available for purchase in the airport cafe, alongside a tray of kielbasas. But I don't even like pąckzis! I thought with mounting horror. My conversation with Paul a few days prior came back to me suddenly. "Do you consider yourself a person with a general command of common sense?" he had asked. "Yes," I answered after a brief pause. "Then you'll be fine," he had assured. How would a person with general common sense find her way out of a Polish airport? I decided to beg for help.

"Excuse me," I said to the mother in the French family, who had been conversing in Polish with the shuttle driver. "When does the next bus arrive?"
"Une heure et demi," she sighed.

An hour and a half. I went back inside and found an ATM, took out a hundred Polish zlotys, and bought a sandwich. Then with the change I found an internet kiosk and did a Google search for transportation between Katowice and Krakow. I decided that if the next shuttle wouldn't let me on, I would take a bus to the Katowice city center and book a train to Krakow. With this new plan in mind, I went back outside to wait.

An hour and a half later, the second shuttle arrived, and the French family recommenced their arguments with the new driver. They won the battle this time, and as they were boarding the bus I seized my opportunity. "Excuse me for disturbing you, Madame," I said to the mother in surprisingly perfect French, no doubt the product of an panic-induced adrenaline rush, "but would you mind asking the driver if it would be possible for me to purchase a one-way ticket to Krakow on this bus?"

"D'accord," she agreed, and after a minute of rapid conversation with the man I recognized the international sign of approval: he nodded.

Success! I forked over fifty zlotys and hopped onto the shuttle, chuckling to myself at the thought that this had been the one time, two months to the day after I moved to Paris, that my French had proved truly indispensable. In Poland.

We pulled away from the airport and our non-English-speaking driver immediately turned on the radio and selected an American Top 40 station that constituted our background music for the two-hour ride to Krakow. Oh, the supreme irony of it all.

My couchsurfer, a university professor named Robert, met me at the station last night and took me on a whirlwind tour of Krakow nightlife. He gave me maps, a glass of "wodka" (there are no v's in Polish) and coke, and a grammar lesson (I learned "excuse me"-- it's "przepraszam." Go ahead, ask me how to say it! "Thank you" was too hard though, so my politeness has been abruptly terminating after I successfully receive whatever it is I've just asked for.) Apparently my pronunciation wasn't half bad, because Robert told me admiringly that my accent was nearly perfect when I actually got the words right. He attributed it to some sort of intuition from my Polish heritage, but I think it's just that I like to smush all the sounds in words together and you get to do a lot of that in Polish. Today I went for a walk around the Old Town and continually asked for "one ticket" "one pretzel" "one...this" and the vendors replied to me in Polish, which was either a sign that I didn't sound too foreign, or a sign that they didn't speak English. Considering the near misses with the shuttle drivers, I'm betting on the latter. But at least I made it to Krakow, and thanks to Robert's efforts on my behalf at the train station, I now have a ticket to Warsaw. More about that later, along with pictures and descriptions of my travels today. For now though, rest assured that I am alive, oczywiscie. Ja estem cudownie! Pa pa!