I want to ride my BICYCLE!

At long last I got my hands on a bike today!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know that 14 exclamation points may seem a tad gratuitous, but if you feel that way then you clearly don't grasp my excitement about this big step in my life! This bike and I are going to be able to cover so much more ground than my feet and I ever could. Not to mention I'm going to be able to explore all the places the bus can't go! Ahhh I'm so happy. He doesn't have a name yet (and I'm not even positive he's actually a he...), but he's mainly silver with a beautiful splash of blue on his chain protector, and he's very very rusty and squeaky. So my immediate instincts are to call him either Rusty, Squeaks, or Bullet, but the jury's still out. I really have to get to know him first. He's just so ugly and I love him with all my heart. :)

For you non-facebookers, I have added some pictures to my Östersund photo album in which I've attempted to capture the outstanding colors I'm surrounded by right now. As always, the pictures don't come close to what I'm seeing here. But I hope you enjoy them nonetheless. It may not be evident to you all either, but I definitely feel like I'm becoming a much better photographer. A combination of always taking pictures and picking up tidbits of advice from friends here and there has given me a new attitude on photography. It's really exciting for me to find just the right setting to give each sight the most justice; maybe a hobby is in the making? We'll see. 

Well besides the excitement of getting my new bike today I can't say there has been all that much going on here since Saturday. A group of us has been consistently getting together on Sundays for brunch, which always lasts hours, so that was a big chunk of my day yesterday. I really really enjoy those brunches; we have such a nice time just unwinding and enjoying each others' company. It's so great. And then every day here I have been doing my best to try to cook something new. It's still up in the air, but I may be so bold to say that I've gone from being a  "Not Allowed Anywhere Near the Kitchen" Cook to a "Crappy" Cook. Moving on up in the world. 

Well I hope everyone's doing well! Keep me posted!

Katie

Östersund matches the autumn :)

This town was built to be enjoyed in the Fall. It is seriously breathtaking be here as the leaves are changing. It's the strangest thing, but today on my run through the woods I felt like I was part of the colors, they were so vivid. And I know that the midwest probably gets the exact same way in the fall, but this is the first time in my life I have ever appreciated it so much. Instead of the waterfall trip, I ended up spending practically the entire day today outside on the island of Frösön right by town. Sandra, Eva, Cornelia, and I embarked on a hiking trip at 3:30ish that was only supposed to last an hour or so, but didn't get back until at least 7. We just wanted to keep going and going because the forest is so gorgeous right now. The whole day would have been perfect for you Patty-Mraz, Greg-Griffin, Tom-Hicks types. :)

So since I've been here I've become more and more aware of the words and phrases I choose to communicate with. Being here has totally opened my eyes to how much I actually use slang in my everyday conversations. And I never realized it before! Perfect examples:

Adrian from Polland wanted to know if my neighbor, Stefan, was home last night. A group of us girls were heading out on bikes into town for a night out, so as we were leaving, I yelled, "Yes he's home, peace out home skillet!" 

Adrian stops for a second, and yells, "Wait...he's OUT?" 

And I reply, "Nope he's there! PEACE out...not HE'S out!" 

"Wait is he IN or is he OUT???"

"He's THERE! I said PEACE OUT home skillet!"

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT HE'S IN OR HE'S OUT??"

Haha it was great. 

And then naturally this encounter lead into a 30-minutes discussion with Anna and Sandra about phrases to use if you're a "gangsta," and what it actually meant to "be a gangsta." Right before running in to a gas station for a quick stop I showed them how to position their hands when they said, "Peace out." When I rejoined them a few minutes later, Anna asks me, "So what about 'Cut,'" (cuts the air with finger scissors) "'it,'" (points to me) "'out'?" (points her thumb behind her). "Is that gangsta?"  I can't help but chuckle, and tell her that it's not so much gangster as it is Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson from Full House. Not skipping a beat, she replies, "Okay then I don't need to know it." Haha it was priceless.

And then today on my walk into town, I come across smiley Yazdan from Iran. 

"Hey Yazdan!! What are you up to?"

"Haha um, What does this this mean, 'What are you up to'?"

"Oh, well, what are you doing?"

"Oh! Well, I am walking--no. I am stopping," (points to his feet, still huge grin on his face), "and talking. To you."

"Haha well where are you off to?" 

"I'm sorry?"

And then it just sort of went on like that. 

And every day it's like this. The everyday phrases I'm used to applying to communication are totally new to a lot my friends here. Like today when I said, "You know the drill," and Eva clearly didn't even know what I was talking about. Or when I tried the, "MARCO!" technique to try to elicit the matching "POLO!" to meet up with the straggling hikers, only to be answered with silence and then disinterest when I explained the game. (Haha and that's another thing all to itself---when I do explain concepts to them, sometimes I realized how dumb they actually are. Haha.) Later, when Sandra and I were talking about how sweet cats are, I said, "Yeah cat ladies get a bad rap but I really don't blame them at all." Her blank stare told me that there is no concept of "Cat Ladies" in Germany, so I had to pick it apart and try to paint the picture in terms that would make sense without losing the meaning. Anyway, I could go on, but you get the idea. They way I communicate here is becoming almost more honest in a way. I mean, granted every one of my friends here is at a different level with English-speaking, but in general my peers here don't know English well enough to really be sarcastic that often, or to lie, or to sugar coat things, or anything all that funky. It's just straightforward communication; few frills. It's a pretty sweet environment. 

Well that's all I have for now I think. Thinking of you all! :)

kt

Random story. Today I walked out of my academic building and was greeted by hundreds of kids yelling and cheering around the soccer field on the quad. Obviously intrigued, I made my way over and got a good spot to watch. The guys playing all had crazy outfits on (ski suits, sweat bands, no shirts at all, etc.) and some of them had even painted their faces. On the sidelines each team looked like they had cheerleaders: one group dressed up in what looked like old school Britney gear, and the other group was army-style. Beer cans were sporadically littered all around the field, coming from the players, the cheerleaders, and the enthusiastic crowd. It was really a fun sight to see and I was so delighted to have caught it! But then my tired brain (which was already sort of missing Coe during its Homecoming Week right now...) turned it a little sour. This whole scene could have easily been at Coe this week. Where I would have recognized people. Where I would have been able to socialize. Where I would have been able to meet the new people without a language barrier. It didn't make me emotional or upset at all, but that realization definitely called for a deep breath in and long release out. Fortunately, on a third attempt I found a really smiley nice girl who was confident enough in her English to try to explain the whole tradition to me, and it ended up just being some crazy boys who get together twice a year and compete for status! Which made a lot of sense because the game was brutal...I saw at least three guys get punched in the face! So yes, I guess this is my way of saying I'm a little more curious about what people at Coe are up to this week than usual. :)

Thinking of everyone!

Katie

I can barely call myself a Minnesotan

Well hello! After a little rest (I exhausted my fingers AND my brain typing that whole recount of Spain...you readers sure are troopers), I'm back and ready for more updatin'. I'm sitting in my cottage (see pictures!) in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, and....long underwear! Yes that's right, I am now the proud owner of my very first pair of long johns and I'm not sure I'll ever take them off. They are spectacular. "But Katie, you're from Minnesota. You're used to the cold...." Precisely! I somehow managed to miss out on the inherent knowledge that most northern mid-westerners obtain to stay warm in the winter. On the contrary, I am always cold once the temperature drops, because I have never made it a point to apply practical knowledge to my wardrobe. Well not anymore. My long underwear and I are unstoppable. But this next step in my life did get me thinking about what a terrible Minnesotan I actually am. I've never been snow mobiling, never been ice fishing, never been to a professional hockey game, never gone cross-country skiing, and until yesterday I never owned long underwear. When I think about it though, at least I'm getting Minnesotan training in the place where most of our heritage stems from! It's like a pilgrimage. :)

Well anyway my decision to buy long underwear was motivated buy a camping trip a group of ten of us were supposed to leave for in six hours. Unfortunately weather and lack of transportation options put the kabash on that but hopefully we'll just go next week. I'm bummed...I was really excited to go. While I'm here I'm incredibly intent on diving in to the culture surrounding me. What Östersund and its surrounding areas are great for are hiking and experiencing the natural beauty around them. (Like I said I literally live at a camping site....) So needless to say, camping will be an ideal way to grasp what this place has to offer. Luckily enough, in place of the camping trip we will most likely go to some waterfalls closer by here tomorrow instead. Sweet!

Some reflections over the last few weeks.

In many first impressions, I have been taken to be the representative of the United States to Sweden. It can feel like a lot of pressure at times, but for the most part it's fun. Hilarious at times even. Like when I met two guys in Göteborg on Saturday. They were working at this coffee shop, and once they knew I spoke little to no Swedish they asked me where I was from. When I replied USA, they both sort of cringed, and still smiling, guy number one brought his voice to a whisper and said, "He's Iranian" and pointed to guy number two. As if that made all the difference in the world. The situation was light and guy number two did not seem the least bit uncomfortable with me, so I just said what they both seemed to already know, which was, "Well I didn't do it" through a smile and a chuckle. The reaction can just be so funny at times when I meet people from Iran because I know as well as they do that neither of us represent the decisions our governments make. I swear the story I just told has probably happened six or seven times already. The only thing I can do is just laugh and say what I feel and what I believe in. 

Being in an exchange program of 42 people as one of five not from Europe has already taught me so much, it's hard to relate. I'll never be able to see my life from the same perspective again after all this. There are so many little systems and rules that I've grown up applying to my daily life that are completely different in Europe. (And I know I can't really lump all of Europe together as a whole, but considering that I have German, French, Swedish, and Dutch perspectives coming at me, it's easier to just call them Europe.) For example, the concept that having money means having opportunities is a big one I've gotten into discussions about. In Sweden specifically, no one pays a lick for college. It's all covered by the government, so anyone who wants the opportunity to go to college can and will get the opportunity. Everyone is on the same level, so economic status plays no role in determining the demographics of the universities. I'll let that thought simmer for a bit, because I'm sure I'll be revisiting it often.

Another endearing attribute Sweden boasts is this common law of humility. Haha just thinking about it makes me want to give this country a great big giant hug: As a rule, it is taboo to boast about one's economic status in this country. Especially up here in the middle of the vast country, you rarely see a flashy car or a private plane or a Gucci purse or anything that screams money; it's just not socially acceptable to brag like that. Of course everyone knows that economic levels exist, but the distinctions aren't nearly as evident as they are in the U.S. because they aren't as reflected in material wealth. It's really interesting to notice.

Let's see...more random thoughts. Östersund is a small town of 60,000 people and I'm starting to recognize strangers' faces around the city center! It's sweet. Although I may be fooling myself because there are so many blonde-haired, blue-eyes people pushing babies around in strollers that I might just be getting them all mixed up! Haha who knows.

Alright what else....

Stacey and I kicked off the Paris/Amsterdam planning yesterday. Things are looking nice so far. I love my Eurail pass like my first child. Speaking of, thank you for the name suggestions I got. I've decided that Charlie was my favorite, but not for a boy. Charlie the girl Eurail pass rocks my world! 

Last night we celebrated Kristin's (one of the German girls') birthday and I heard FOUR different versions of Happy Birthday! It was so awesome. We all know the Swedish and American ones, then more than half the room was German so they sang theirs, and then the four Dutch people sang the one from the Netherlands too! How cool is that?

I can't remember if I mentioned this already, but going away to Spain really made it sink in to me that Sweden is my home for the next few months now. It's not a vacation, it's the real stuff. Departing Barcelona did not mean heading back to Apple Valley or Cedar Rapids where I knew everyone. When that reality first hit me on the train I was sort of taken aback. What if I missed crucial friendship-making time and came back to everyone content without me there? What if I had grown to hate Östersund in my time away and would only continue to get more miserable as the semester went on? More thoughts like this just kept running through my head until at one point, about four hours still from Östersund, I looked out the window of the train and the view I saw could have easily been in Minnesota. I started thinking about the wonderful people I had already met in Östersund and my awesome cottage and the coffee waiting for me there and my school and town and everything and couldn't help but get excited to return! Walking back through the camping on my way finally back to home sweet home, I ran into all the students partying for yet another birthday. All the warm faces melted away any last reservations I had about coming back. It was good to be home!! :)

And with that I close yet another blog post that got way too long. Cripes you are a soldier if you made it this far without stopping! 

Katie

The last chapter of Spain

Alright, home stretch! On to day five.

DAY FIVE:

Krista and I, the soldiers, fight through a drowsy morning starting at 8am to catch a train to Figueres, and hour and 40 minutes out of town. Figueres is home to the Salvador Dali museum, a real gem that a person really should check out when they're in Barcelona. The entire building is a work of art; it is like being inside the brain of the crazy surrealist himself. There are archways covered in art to mimic the patrons entering girls' mouths, there are traditional sculptures of gods atop stacks of tires, there are shoes thrown in to sculptures, holograms, everything. It's like the second you think you've found something that's boring, you take a closer look and see that it's actually moving or has a hidden image or a double meaning. He's just fantastic. So after a few hours of making our way through his twisted world, we headed back to Barcelona. I spent the rest of the evening doing a little shopping until we met up again with the whole group of nine from the night before. We had a little take-away Chinese food on the beach, said our good byes, and then Daniel, Stacey, and I were off for the next leg of our trip, Sevilla! 

DAY SIX:

Once awake and preparing to get off the sleeper train in Sevilla, I cursed the train company for their false advertisement; it should have said no-sleeper train, because I definitely got better sleep in my seat on the last train than in that bed in the loud cabin from the night before. But anyway, we were in Sevilla so there was nothing to complain about. We found our way to our hostel (which was also beautiful and accommodating!), settled in, and then took off to scout out the town. At the hostel we had discovered that we had the great fortune of being in Sevilla at the same time as this huge one-month Flamenco festival they put on each year, so we were on the look-out for a place to check out show times. Before we could put together any of that, we decided to stop in at La Catedral, one of the most famous churches in Spain. As seems to be the common theme everywhere in Europe, it was undergoing construction. Nonetheless, it was a massive church and was beautiful to wander around in. Apparently there's controversy over this, but it's contended that Christopher Columbus' tomb is actually there as well! So after we saw the inside of the church and after we climbed up its sky-scraping tower (La Giralda) for the awesome view of the city, we set off for the Palace of Alcazar. What we expected to just be a neat palace ended up being an elaborate building covered in mosaic and reliefs and surrounded by never-ending gardens. We spent hours there but could have easily stayed longer. There were ducks and orange trees and PEACOCKS! and hedge mazes and so many vivid colors everywhere. It was beautiful.

After a quick coffee/ice cream break, we found our way to the theater at which the only Flamenco show we'd be available to attend was playing later that night. The people we had spoken to about the festival before made it sound like there'd be no way for us to get tickets this late, but we totally lucked out and got two of the very last tickets! (Daniel didn't here want to go. Silly.) Excited for the show, the three of us went back to the hostel, freshened up, had some dinner, and then Stacey and on were off to the flamenco. I didn't know much of what to expect, but it completely blew any expectations out of the water. I can honestly recall only a handful of times that music gripped me so much like it did in that show, and here I couldn't even understand what they were singing about! I could literally feel the emotions pouring out from the singers and right into my heart. That's what flamenco is about: They choose an idea or a phrase and then just sing it over and over again; whatever moves them, however it moves them. A few of the performers even cried while they were singing. It was hypnotizing. And the audience was so energetic that it made the whole experience so much more of a cultural exposure!: they would shout out encouragement at random moments throughout the songs, and they all seemed to inherently know when exactly to shout "¡Ole!" during the dancing parts. And I lucked out because the girl I sat next to actually interpreted the whole show for me so I was able to leave with a better understanding of what I had just seen. The whole show lasted two hours and I swear it was the shortest two hours I'd had in a long time!

So after the show we met up again with Daniel (and probably rubbed in his face what he missed.. :)) for tapas. On our way back to the hostel we got lost, walked for twenty minutes in what we thought was a better direction, only to emerge from an alley looking right back at the place we had just finished eating! Haha it was great. Sevilla is fun to get lost in.

DAY SEVEN:

Stacey and I walked about 30 minutes to an archeological museum (Amy and Jaimie, I walked through your school!!! :)), rocked that for about an hour, strolled around through some more beautiful gardens, made our way over to the famous Plaza de Espana to relax for a bit, then met up with Daniel for a late lunch. Walking was the name of the game that day, because after making our way through the city to the bullfighting arena, we discovered that it was kind of pricey to tour it so we ended up just walking around the place for a while. The arena was right near the river, so walking along the riverside elicited some great pictures with palm trees in them. :) Basically, we were saddling up for two full days of hell in the traveling that would get us from Sevilla to Östersund, so we spent our last full day in Sevilla taking it as easy as possible and soaking up every bit of our surroundings as we could. 

DAYS EIGHT AND NINE OF HELL:

9pm: Catch sleeper train in Sevilla to get back to Barcelona. Arrive in Barcelona at 8am.
9:30am: Take 1hour 15min bus from Barcelona Central Station to Girona, a tiny town outside of Barcelona, where we're to catch our flight to Stockholm.
10:45am: Run into the airport in Girona because we know it'd be be tight to catch out 11:05am plane and are comforted to see that they're still boarding. We run to the check-in counter, and they tell us we're too late. I remind them with my sad eyes face that the plane in still on the runway and is still boarding, and they repeat their first statement. I tell them we got stuck in Barcelona and there was nothing we could do and we had to get back, and they yet again repeated their first statement. 
11:00am: Sitting on the floor of the airport, defeated and un-showered, we hear the sixth and final boarding call for our flight to Stockholm. 
11:15: We figure out a new way back to Östersund, pay 75 Euro to change it, and then sit in the airport for six hours until it leaves because Girona is in the middle of nowhere and there's nothing to do there.
5:00pm: Fly from Girona to Göteburg, Sweden. 
8:30pm: Get in to Götenburg airport, take a little minibus to the city's bus/train station, where we scout out a place to sleep for the night. The plan is to camp in the station for the night, as we're broke and exhausted.
3:00am: After four straight hours of freezing cold sleep attempts (turns out the buses come all night and the doors get propped open for ten minutes at a time constantly...), I can no longer feel my toes or fingers, have put on every single t-shirt I brought under my two light sweaters, and am curled up under my new bull fighting beach towel. And then it hits me that there's a fine fine line between being adventurous and just being unresourcefully idiotic. We had wanted to save money, but not at the expense of our health, which was already quite vulnerable considering our extreme partying followed by even more extreme sight-seeing the last six days. So I just say SCREW THIS, gather up my stuff, and march out the door to chose from any of the six hotels across the street. Daniel and Stacey don't question the move in the slightest.
8:30am: Wake up on a fluffy marshmallow cloudlike bed of glory, SHOWER!!!, and eat a COMPLIMENTARY BREAKFAST!!!.
10:40am: Hop on the train from Göteburg to Stockholm.
4:00pm Hop on train from Stockholm to Östersund
9:pm: AT LONG LAST ARRIVE IN ÖSTERSUND!!!!!!

So yes those last two days most likely don't count for my trip, but they were still quite eventful I'd say! I have plenty of reflections from the trip, but there you have the epic novel of Katie's Trip to Spain! 

Thinking of you all!

Katie

Parte dos

Alright I'm back! So recap: Day 2, flying into Spain!!

We get in to Girona at around 9am, greeted by SUN and almost instantaneous sweat! WOO! A welcome contrast to the frost we heard Östersund would be getting later in the week.. hehe :) An hour bus ride from Girona took us right into the center of the beautiful and diverse Barcelona, one of the most accommodating cities I've ever been to. Any of the weariness we should have been feeling from our travels dissipated right as we stepped off the bus. Our hostel was located smack DAB on the shore, so driven by adrenaline, we take to the pavement with our oversized backpacks and immediately start exploring the city en route to the coast. That initial soak-up of the city was so refreshing. So. We finally get to the hostel and it ends up being spectacular. Ideal location on the beach, huge free breakfast, coffee shop in the lobby, Internet (which I avoided for the most part), the works. After getting situated, around late afternoon we go catch up with the hop-on-hop-off bus tour that we bought tickets for in advanced. The hop-on-hop-off concept is bittersweet, I've decided. It can be so tedious to wait around every five minutes for people to make up their minds, but yet it's so accommodating and educational. So what it lacks in efficiency it makes up for in flexibility and in giving purpose to what we're seeing. Overall, a great concept. So yep right away that first day we get there we use the bus tour as a sampler of what we would decide to actually visit during our time in Barcelona. Once we'd seen enough, at around 7pm we headed back to the hostel. For those of you who have not had the good fortune of being able to feel the water in the Mediterranean Sea, you have to know that I mean it when I say it's practically like bath water. The Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer is not NEARLY as warm as the Mediterranean Sea was that night at 7:30! It was amazing!! But, much more salty than the ocean I must say. Kevin had never been in an ocean or any big body of water before, so it was really fun teaching him how to ride the waves and whatnot. SO. We swim, we freshen up, then we set off for our first tapas and sangria experience of the trip, which would become the common practice for every night. :) Over dinner we also decide that there is just too much for us to do in Barcelona for three days, so adding a day to Barcelona and taking one from Sevilla becomes the new plan. (Ended up being the perfect alteration!!) After attempting and failing to teach the bar tender at the deserted bar how to make a Long Island Iced Tea, we decide to call it a night. Barcelona was calling our name for some great adventures the next day!

DAY THREE:

Up at 8:00 to get breakfast and get to the bus tour stop by 9:00. We didn't want to have to wait in line too long at the talk of the town sight, La Sagrada Familia. This church-in-progress, designed by Gaudi, has been under construction since 1882 and still probably has another 50 years or so until it'll be completed. People call it the Dr. Seuss church because it's just the funkiest looking church you'll ever see. I'll try to put up pictures. Gaudi never set a completion date because, he claimed, his contractor, aka God, has all the time in the world. True, but I think he just wanted to make sure generations of Catalonian construction workers would never be out of the job. :) Whatever the motive behind the massive and elaborate plan, seeing it all being played out and being able to catch part of the action was unbelievable. We had the priceless opportunity to venture up into one of the giant 100-meter towers to get a look at the city, and it was breathtaking. To me. Much different for Daniel and a little bit Stacey, though. Is there a word for being the exact opposite of scared of heights? Because whereas Daniel and Stacey definitely struggle with them, I would venture to say I embrace them. I loved it. Either way, sweet tower. 

Next, a sweet little perfect lunch on a sweet little perfect Barcelona street corner, then it was off to Gaudi's own personal park, Park Guell. It rocked and I could have spent way more time there than we did. There were mosaics, intermixed with arches, which framed neat plants and paths all over the place. And it was all on the side of the mountain so the top of the park gave another great view of the city. It was great, too, to see that way more than just simply tourists seem to love the park. It's free to get in, so it didn't surprise me to find couples just lounging around in the park, students reading, kids playing, what have you. If Iowa had a place like that I'd be there every day!

Following the park there were a couple other places we visited: the Palace (not sure the real name at the moment...?), which has exactly 249 stairs leading up to its victorious front doors; and Mont Juic, which we had to get to by a cable-gondola and gave us the highest view of the city yet. I need more words than breathtaking. :)

By that point I was suffering from Katie Time withdrawal so we parted ways and I walked around by the old Olympic Stadium and then to this little museum village called Poble Espana. Everything in Spain was so so much cheaper than Sweden, where a typical beer costs the equivalent of $6. So needless to say I picked up quite a few Christmas presents in my time in Spain, just saying. :) 

So let's see...when I met up again with the group back at the hostel, they had made friends with Krista from California. Krista had already been here for four days, so knew of some great places to go for tapas and other cultural activities...hehe. So the five of us set out for the Gothic Quarter in the city center for a night out! A few baby octopi, calimari (sp?), some clams, three pitchers of sangria, a bartender who could make Long Island Iced Teas, a dance club with all 90s music, a making of six new friends in a random park, and one awkward encounter with an old man in the street which ended in the three of us girls literally sprinting away laughing our butts off later, we hit the hay at around 6am, very content with our cultural experience. 

DAY FOUR

Sleep like a rock, undisturbed, until 10:47am, and then snap awake and am laying out on the beach by 11:00. (Our beach day was carefully placed in the agenda...:)) LUKE VIERTEL!!! greets me, since he and his crew are rock stars and made their way to the beach by our hostel by 10:00 or so. It was so random how all of our plans worked out because we hadn't even kept each other in mind when we were putting together our own individual mini vacations, so it made the coincidence so very sweet! He came equipped with an Emily, a Mark, and a Russ, who all turned out to be quite the bunch. The nine of us literally spent all day on the beach. Krista and I got ambitious at one point, so with determination we swam about two football fields' lengths (sorry I can't measure better than that Anna!! You must be so ashamed... :)) out to the Jagged Rocks of Doom

that had been placed out in the water to break the waves. We tentatively approached the rocks, saw the crystal clear sign depicting a person in a red circle with a line through it, and promptly climbed on up. We felt brave and accomplished. :)

So after that excitement wore off, the girls broke off so we could savor the real Barcelona beach culture, then met up with everyone again about an hour later to make plans for the night and go our separate ways to freshen up. A dinner for nine, six pitchers of Sangria, and another visit to Long Island Iced Tea bar later, Krista finally unveiled to us the glory that is Espito Chupitos. Picture a wall about the size of a chalkboard covered in hundreds of random shot names varying from The Tetris to The Harry Potter to The Bin Laden (spicy, firey, by far the most disgusting shot they have!). Throw in a little fire to about 90% of all the shots, some blacklights, and a marshmallow roasting or two, and you've got yourself one heck of a unique place!! It was a sweet atmosphere. We ended the night with a few of us just sitting on the beach and drinking in the beautiful Barcelona air, because the next night we were off to Sevilla!

Okay! So. The third and final chapter of Katie's Trip to Spain will be given soon. Stay tuned!

kt 

Not a drop of rain in Spain...and we went by train AND plane!

Wow. That's all I can say as I'm sitting in my cabin here trying to come up with a good way to reflect on this past week. The trip was OUTSTANDING!! I most certainly had high expectations coming into it...Amy and Jaimie absolutely fell in love with Spain when they were there and all the European students here were jealous of us going...but I really didn't think it possible to even blow those high expectations out of the park! But it did. I really love Spain and I am now determined to become fluent in Spanish so I can go back and feel confident.

I'm exhausted and sort of out of it, so I'll start the blogging now and then most likely deliver it in two parts to keep people guessing at home. I think I'll start all this off as a day-by-day reflection of what all we did, but bear with me if I switched gears because that's too boring or whatnot :)

DAY ONE: 

After a crazy night at the International Dinner (HUGE dinner/dance put on for everyone at the University), 7:30am came very early for Stacey and I. We meet up with Daniel, walk down a few blocks to the train station, get on, and promptly fall asleep again until arriving in Stockholm four hours later. I have always liked trains, but this whole trip has really amplified my appreciation for them...they're so much easier to sleep on than airplanes!! Alright. So we get to Stockholm city center. To the folks tuned in at home who have used RyanAir before, this will be redundant, but you sure get what you pay for with them. Seriously they are by far the cheapest airline in Europe and you save so much money using them, but I tell you it's a pain in the butt to orchestrate how to get to the tiny little airports they fly out of! When they say "Stockholm" they really mean Skavsta, an hour and 40 minutes out of Stockholm. "Barcelona" is really Girona, an hour away. BUT, we still save a bunch by flying with them so we just grin and bear it and it all works out in the end. So anywho. We get to Stockholm, hop on an hour and 40 minutes train to Nykoping, where we hang out for a while before grabbing a ten-minute bus to Skavsta, where we would be flying out of the next day. There we met up with Kevin. The four of us had made these adventurous plans to sneak in and sleep in the airport for the night, but decided against it when we found out the cheap hotel across the street gave us free breakfast and Internet. We have the attention span of goldfish I swear. :) The hotel ended up being amazingly accommodating, and the little we slept in anticipation for sun and heat was more comfortable than I had had since I'd been here! 

DAY TWO:

An even earlier morning than the day before (in fact three hours earlier...), but a far more welcomed one!!! Spain was only five hours away and already 20 degrees warmer! So at 5:30am we left the hotel with our bags stuffed with as much abuse of the complimentary breakfast service we could fit. A reliable tennis bag proved itself to be a brave soldier on this trip and has earned the status of my backpacking backpack...quite the accomplishment :). Before we knew it, we had been in the air for three hours and were flying in to sunny Girona, Spain! 

And this is where I leave you for now. I'm practically falling asleep at my computer and I would hate to get into the meat of the trip with this boring and detached sound in my writing. Stay tuned for part two!!

kt

Talk to you next week!

HEY! I leave for Spain tomorrow and probably won't have Internet until i get back. So...I'll have a lot to post on Sunday of next week for sure!! Talk to you all then! :)

kt

I like penguins

I'm not sure why I titled this post the way I did, but it definitely has nothing to do with the way Penguin, my stuffed Penguin from Anna, is sitting on my bed looking at me right now. He's so cute. But nope, these circumstances are most entirely isolated. 

Okay so, you can safely assume that nothing too crazy has gone on here the last couple days because I'm seeking inspiration in my stuffed animals. (And yes mom, Coco inspires me too :)...sugl. Katie's.) But that's all part of getting settled! Latest updates: No choir yet, no bike yet. I'll try harder once I get back from Spain. More on that later. Here are some highlights from the last couple of days:

I have finally found the place where all my perfect jeans have been hiding all my life...Sweden's very own H&M! Seriously I had been in this store once in the States but since I've been here I've already tripled that number of visits. Two pairs of jeans, a sweet hoodie, and three sale-item shirts later I am done with shopping there for a while...but let me tell you I was satisfied. So that was Monday. But then on Tuesday, after my sociology class, I snuggled up in a new coffee shop (new to me, that is) and spent four and a half hours there! It was so great...I live for days like that. My friend Johnathan met me and we hung out and talked for a while, and then I just got to read the afternoon away. It was fabulous. THEN, as if it couldn't get better, on my way back to the bus I saw this killer winter jacket for half off in the window of this sporting goods store. The plan from the beginning was to get a winter jacket here (mine's old.), so when this caught my eye it really sparked my interest. I go in, try it on, and of course it fits perfectly. So to  recap, in two days I acquired a nice collection of really quality clothing items for sweet prices. Nice. :)

Then today my Eurail Pass came!!! I know that probably means nothing to you reading this right now but it's very very exciting stuff. I bought this pass about five days ago and it's my train ticket to 20 different European countries. It will practically pay for itself after my Spain trip coming up this Saturday, and knowing that I have an Oktoberfest/Prague/Berlin/Copenhagen trip not too far off in the distance, let's just say I may be kicking Coco to the ground tonight to make room for my Eurail Pass. (And I definitely will be naming it! :)) 

SO. Spain! Here's the itinerary to those interested:

Saturday, Sept 13: Leave by train from Östersund to Stockholm at 8:30am. Spend night in Stockholm.

Sunday, Sept 14: Depart Stockholm by plane at 6:30am for Barcelona.

Sept 14-16: Enjoy a bus tour, beaches, the Salvador Dali museum, las Ramblas, La Sagrada Familia, and other awesome sights Barcelona has to offer.

Tuesday, Sept 16: Depart Barcelona by night train at 9:30pm 

Wednesday, Sept 17: Arrive in Sevilla in the morning. 

Sept 17-19: Enjoy lots of amazing food (tappas), flamenco dancing, some beautiful historical sights, and maybe even some dancing horses in Sevilla.

Friday, Sept 19: Depart Sevilla by night train at 11:00pm

Saturday, Sept 20: Arrive in Barcelona at 8:00am, fly out to Stockholm at 11:00am, take train from Stockholm to Östersund.

It's going to be amazing, and I'm so excited it all worked out so nicely. For you folks at Coe I'll probably be meeting up with Luke Viertel in Barcelona too!! He was planning to be there at the same time as us...how great is that? A note about my trip: It will be all backpacking so I won't have any on-line capabilities unless I find an Internet cafe somewhere. I'll do my best to check-in somehow, just so you know I'm alive and vital, but please please please don't worry if you don't hear from me for a week! (If you think I may be directing this to you, I probably am :)) 

Okay well I'll post again before I leave, but know that I love you and miss you all! Think of you all the time! :)

kt

Äll wörds shoüld have a " ¨ " in thëm :)

The umlaut (there's no way I'm spelling that correctly) is my favorite attribute of the Swedish language, I think. Add one to any word and it makes it so much more interesting to say! For example, "öppen" means "open," but it's pronounced "urpen" because of the umlaut on the o! The fun never stops with umlauts. :) So you can imagine how fun it is to say that I walked the circumference of Frösön this afternoon! Frösön is the little island right in the middle of Storsjön lake, which is the lake that Östersund overlooks. Now THAT'S a lot of ¨'s! (Little random bit of history lesson here, the town of Östersund was settled "East" of the Storsjön Lake "Sound," hence the "Öster""sund". Neat, huh? I disgress. :)) After our Swedish language class today, Stacey and I met up with Niklas and Daniel, who I've mentioned before are two Swedish students at the University, and just walked around the whole island this afternoon. It took exactly two hours to get around, but the colors were so vivid it felt like the sun was setting the entire time. I'm getting some killer pictures here; it's tough to choose which ones to put on Facebook because they all represent something different! And keep in mind, too, that every time I point that lens in the direction of the view I want to capture, the image that appears on my camera screen doesn't even come close to representing how much my breath is being taken away by what I'm seeing. 

Anyway! Tomorrow or Wednesday I'm going to go around town choir-shopping. I'll stop at every church until I find one that will let me join their choir. I just need to start singing again...my heart is ready to burst from claustrophobia!! I'll get you posted on how it goes. :) I'm also STILL on the hunt for a darn bike, so I'll keep you all up to date on that as well.

How are all you doing?? Keep me posted!

Love and miss! 

kt

Ok I can't post the super-uber-hilarious ponies-being-awesome video here, but if you have Facebook I'll give it a try on my profile. And you can see pictures there too! 

k bye!

kt

That's why I come out here...NATURRRE! :)

Alright I like Östersund. (And I especially like that I know how to do the " ¨ " on top of my O now so I can spell it right!! :)) Really this place is cute as a button. The last few days have been pretty fun and eventful!

I'll try to post a video, but if it doesn't work please please please try to picture this: A group of ten or so of us international students walk to the race track right next to The Camping (where we live) to watch the races on Friday night. Already it's different than in the States because some of the horses are warming up with the jockeys riding on carriages attached behind them as opposed to on their actual backs. We sit around for about fifteen minutes before the races start, just watching the tough guys get all pumped up for their big races. Finally a buzzer sounds and all the horses and jockeys make their way to the other side of the track that we have no clear view of. We hear the announcer say, "Ett....Två..." and then a loud horn blasts and fifteen masses take off. We see them rounding the bend, approaching the stretch where we're standing at a much slower pace than anticipated. Someone in our group yells, "Oh my gosh they're PONIES!!!" And sure enough fifteen tiny little determined ponies race on by at the fastest speeds the dear things can muster. They looked like fat sausage links on toothpicks carrying giants in carriages behind them. It had to have been the coolest race of the night, and now I have pictures that will always be there to brighten a cruddy day!! haha it was fabulous.

So that was Friday. Saturday was awesome too. Thankfully the weather has been sunny and very mildly Autumn the last few days, so being outside has been a must. After a SWEET run (the views just aren't the same in Cedar Rapids... :)), I got a call from Daniel the Swedish student saying that a bunch of people were going to drive to Pilgrimstad (Pilgrimland?), where there were waterfalls and basically some awesome outdoor photo ops. And he wasn't kidding! Ten of us hiked around for a few hours at a place that reminded me a lot of the Boundary Waters. It was so beautiful and a great way to spend the afternoon. 

Then today we had our second Weekly Brunch that we'll definitely be turning into a tradition as the semester continues. Whoever is interested just meets at the pre-determined person's apartment at 1:00pm for Brunch. (Even though it's actually lunch time we call it brunch because a lot of people like to Go Big on Saturdays, so 1 pm is just about right for a brunch. :)) Everyone brings something to share, and we basically all just dive in and hang out for a few hours! It's so great to have this opportunity to just sit and talk and learn about each other over something as simple as a buffet-style meal. It just feels so cultured. For example this week we consisted of two Canadians, two Americans, a Swede, and two Germans. Can you imagine how much situations like this can teach you? It's really neat. :)

Let's see. Some random thoughts:

I have to stop myself sometimes and laugh at the words coming out of my mouth over here. It's hilarious some of the phrases that I hear myself saying to people who aren't from English-speaking countries. Especially because I'm actually being conscious PROPER English for once, and so to hear myself pose questions like, "Perhaps I'll meet you after university?" and "You'll join us later, maybe?" just makes me chuckle. What I've discovered is a lot of these students from Germany and elsewhere came here to better their English, and so I think this is just me feeling like I'm a constant representative of the English language and I don't want to teach them poorly. But I still sound ridiculous at moments! Haha

Sweden is expensive, and secondhand stores rock.

American beer and European beer cannot both be called beer because they are nothing alike. Heineken has become my Coors Light and I'm still getting used to it. 

Speaking of! The North Americans (Stacey, Candice, and Susan the Canadians and then Kevin and I) will be hosting a North American-Themed party when we get back from Spain!!! We'll have flippy cup and beer pong and PB&J's and pancakes with maple syrup (if we can get our hands on it) and anything else we can come up with that's purely American! Haha it's going to be awesome.

I think I'll leave it at that for now. I'm sure I'll have more to write about later but this will do! Love and miss!

kt

Time flying

Wow this week has flown by. I can´t believe it´s already Thursday! Nothing really all that exciting happened until yesterday, but I´ll fill in the gap real quick here:
Earlier this week I went to the museum here in town called Jamtli, which was mostly outdoors and displayed all the different kinds of scenes one might find as they travel back through Östersund´s brief history. (This cute little city has been around about as long as the States.) It was nice to sort of grasp more about this place I´m living at for the next few months.
I started my Introduction to Advanced Social Sciences class on Monday, which looks like it will be somewhat repetitive of what I´ve already learned, yet from the context of an entirely new culture. Should be interesting. AND, it´s a master´s level course, so now I´ll be able to boast that I´ve taken a class at the grad-school level:) Then on Tuesday I dropped a class upon discovering that my advisor was wrong and I was, as I suspected, taking one too many courses. So now I´m squared away for Swedish language, Advanced Social Sciences, and Social Work. The way they have classes here is much different than the States. We meet once a week, almost always on a different day at a different time if a different room, and usually are supposed to come having read the material and ready to discuss in class. I´m really enjoying this set up actually, especially because it lets me..............

....PLAN A TRIP TO SPAIN!!!! Yep, that´s right, I´m goin to Spain. On September 13th Stacey the Canadian, Daniel the Swedish student, and I are taking a train to Stockholm, flying out of there the next day to Barcelona and then spending the next six days traveling around Spain! We´re buying Eurail passes to take a train to San Sebastian, where we´ll bask in the sun and see a beautiful aquarium, then it´s off to Sevilla for a few days, then back to Barcelona to catch our flight on Saturday! I´ll give a detailed report of our travels when I get back, of course, but until then I´m just counting down the days to beautiful weather and breathtaking architecture! Considering that the weather here has been rainy and windy and unpredictable, I can´t tell you how much I´m going to appreciate the average 80-degree weather Spain is getting right now!!! And I´m also just really excited to start traveling. Don´t get me wrong Östersund is beautiful, and it´s going to be awesome to have this to come back to each time I venture out into Europe, but it just doesn´t have the same historical appeal to me as the rest of Europe does. And, not to mention, I have to start all this travel soon if I want to go everywhere I was hoping to! The next trip we´re going to start planning is Oktoberfest...I have a friend here whose brother lives in Munich, so we´re looking pretty good on accommodations at the moment. I´ll keep you all posted!

But yes, as you can imagine I´m settling in quite nicely here. I´m sorry I don´t have a whole lot to report, but maybe that´s just part of getting used to things? I don´t know. I´ll hopefully have my OWN internet by this weekend so I will be more reliable with your emails, skyping, blogging, etc., so until then just sit tight and bear with me! Don´t forget to write me and tell me about how you all are doing too! I wouldn´t invite you to do so if I didn´t mean it! :)

Love and miss!
Katie

Football love pangs?

Many of you will be shocked to hear this, but I think I miss football. Although the sun is still shining and you could still potentially run around in tank tops and shorts in the Midwest at the moment, that is not the case here. The rain stopped, so it has gotten much nicer, but the weather we're experiencing here in early September is comparable to Thanksgiving weather in the Midwest. Yesterday eight of us ate brunch together, and hours later decided to step outside and enjoy the chill/sun combo. We were throwing around a frisbee, wearing sweaters and scarves and watching our breath circle around our heads, and I just had this shockingly strong pang of desire to be throwing around a football at a tailgait! Who would have thought? It was a blissfully bittersweet feeling: Here I was, in the middle of the woods, playing frisbee with people from four different countries, in the cutest little town in northern Sweden, only a mile from a huge lake and a few more from breathtaking mountains, couldn't possibly be asking for more, and yet what I really wanted for a split second was to be in more familiar conditions. Isn't it funny how your mind works like that? I have half a mind to buy the next pigskin I see, because as you can assume they're sort of hard to come by out here! :) 

That was probably the strongest sense of homesickness I've felt yet. All the other awkward moments and uncomfortable situations have been the result of getting settled into a new place, and maybe sprinkled here and there with pricks of needing the familiar. So it's all very healthy and normal, I'd say.

So I spoke Spanish yesterday! It was awesome to feel and least somewhat competent in a foreign language, considering that I'm not catching on to Swedish nearly as quick as I had hoped.  (The class starts tomorrow though, so maybe it will be a different story in a few days.) I desperately wanted to know if this buried treasure of a flea market I had stumbled upon was going to be open again during the week sometime, but every person I stopped to ask if they spoke english replied with, "Nay." Finally I heard two people speaking Spanish to each other, so I approached them and managed to get my questions answered. In a fragmented, choppy conversation we learned a little about each other, and I discovered that even after a year of living in Sweden, they had not yet picked up on the language either. This confirmed my thoughts about the languages I've been exposed to: If you learn Spanish first, languages like French and Italian will come easier for you. If you learn German first, Dutch and Swedish will come easier. When it comes to foreign languages, I'm in the Spanish school of thought, so it may take a little more time to try to break that mindset to learn Swedish. That being said, if I listen to Swedish for long enough, I can hear how similar some of the words actually are to English! Reading it is another story, but to hear someone say, "Tack su meekhyet" (phonetically written), it's not that difficult to understand that they mean, "Thank you so much." So I'm pretty confident there will be a positive outcome to my studies :)

Alright this is getting pretty long so I'm going to wrap it up here in a second. I just want to share about the types of cultures represented in this program real quick. I mentioned before that people from four different countries were playing frisbee together yesterday. Two americans, a canadian, four germans, and a dutch girl all ate brunch together before that. I had wine and cheese with two French students last night. I figured out my way to town with an Iranian boy at the beginning of the week, and had a discussion about real estate in the States with a boy from Hungary. Needless to say, I am entirely submerged in a pool of varying cultures. There are some students who have asked me and the other primarily english-speaking students to correct them when their english is incorrect (in fact a few of them actually came here to improve their english!), and there are others who, I would contend, have better english than I do! Basically the learning never stops. :)

Miss you all! Write me! :)

kt