LAST WEEKEND! Last weekend was amazing. I really had a blast in Visby. It was the perfect trip to end the Era of the Eurail Pass with. And along with not paying for my transportation getting there and back (which included train-train-ferry; ferry-train-train), I also lucked out and had a place to stay for free while I was in the town. My friend here, Niklas, called up his sister who lives there and ended up getting me a MATTRESS and my OWN ROOM to crash in for the two nights. So I was already set for good things before I even left my cabin.
I stepped off the ferry at 11:30pm on Friday night without a map and just an address. I soon learned that it's next to impossible to be really lost in Visby, and found Malin's apartment along the winding cobblestone streets in no time. Malin was awesome; she offered me a beer right away and invited me to join her and her friends in their "Sewing Party". The girls and Malin's boyfriend Bjorn are part of the SCA, the Society of Creative Anachronism (established in the States...), which basically is made up of a whole mess of history buffs all over the world; so they were sewing their dresses for Medieval Week that happens in Visby each year! (It sounds a lot like the Renaissance Festival, but I would be beheaded if they heard me say that out loud. :)) Anywho, they shared with me a lot of the history of Visby, and since they all lived there we planned my itinerary for the next day. Bjorn works at the museum, so I lucked out with his inside knowledge of the town...he shared with me a secret that few tourists actually know: you can actually rent the key that gets you in the ruins that are scattered throughout the town! So I had my plan for the next day and fell asleep excited to explore the city in the daylight.
The whole town is encircled by a stone wall that was built hundreds of years ago to keep out the peasants and the force merchants to pay a fine to enter the town. So right away in the morning I headed off in whatever direction I wanted, with the intention of hitting the wall at some point. The town is just so perfect to wander in. There must be city ordinances about advertising and signage, because the entire town matches itself; every single street I looked down was "the most perfect street to take a picture of"...needless to say I ended up taking over 200 pictures there. So I finally meandered to the wall and was walking along, picturing all the soldiers who positioned themselves for battle there, all the guards who thought they were tough keeping out the sickly and poor, when I came across a section that had fallen apart ever-so-perfectly into the form of stairs that were begging me to climb up them. I obliged, and ended up spending about half an hour running around all along the wall and capturing as many angles of the outstanding view I had of the town as I could. The little girl in me who fell in love with Kevin Kostner when he played Robin Hood was in her element. :)
Alright this description of just two days is starting to get long, so let me skip to the part where I have the super-awesome Key Of Power from the museum. This super-awesome Key Of Power was a power trip let me tell you. With it, I could unlock the heavy-duty padlocks that keep all the common tourists out of the 13th-century ruins and spend as much time as my elite heart desired exploring every corner of the old churches and towers. To walk along hidden corridors and climb back stairways that thousands of people had done 800 years before me was eerie to say the least. In one tower specifically, one that was particularly dark, might I add, I actually psyched myself out too much to spend more than ten minutes inside of it...I was just so shaken by everything that had most likely transpired there, not to mention the lack of sunlight was making it more and more chilling to be alone. Okay so I'm a baby, big deal. :) Anyway, long story short I was really moved by what I saw. In what ended up being my favorite "church" of them all (there were five in total), I camped out where the altar used to be for who knows how long. I couldn't scrutinize the details fast enough. The fact that this church still had parts of its ceiling intact, the fact that anyone could still grasp what its function was from the time it thrived, the fact that the chiseled artwork on the pillars was still distinguishable, all 800 years after it was built, just had me frozen in place. People built this stuff without the help of machines...stone by stone they piled on top of each other until the building finally took shape into a functional, symmetrical, impressionable place of worship. Sitting there in the apse got me thinking about the concept of work, and how it has or hasn't changed in the way we perceive it over the last 8 centuries. It made me feel more motivated than I have in a long time, to say the least.
So anyway, that was Visby. I feel like I might be forgetting parts but that's what really sticks out in my mind at the moment. I finally figured out how to load pictures up here with little to no hassle, so I'll most likely be putting up a lot of what I captured there for your viewing pleasure. I made a friend in the form of a VERY soft and snuggly cat who stars in a couple of them. :)
After my ferry from Visby on Sunday, I met Stacey in Stockholm, where we had a reservation for the famous Absolut Ice Bar...and it was just that! A bar sponsored by Absolut Vodka (exported from Sweden!) that's made purely of ice! Literally everything...chairs, tables, glasses, everything. We had to wear these ridiculous jackets that made everyone in the bar look like penguins, or boxers, however you want to look at it. It was awesome. And then after that excitement we caught our night train and headed home.
So all in all, it was a fabulous weekend. I had a lot of time to myself to reflect on life in some of the most tried-and-true places in Europe, and it made me feel strong. :) I have thoughts about the rest of my time here, but I think I'll wrap this up for now. Hope to talk to you all soon!
kt
