Swedish Midsummer

 

Bussum, The Netherlands

Dear everybody who still reads my blog,

It has been a while since my last post (click here). Even though my Interrail journey is over, I have not told everything. So, I will continue now (more than one month after I came home).

After I left Norman and Dylan I took the train to Copenhagen where I met Tao, Siri and Katrine. Klara was also supposed to come, but she made a mistake and booked her train for the next day… In Copenhagen we went to this amazing café where you could borrow boardgames and get drinks for student prices! After a while we discovered that we were playing scrabble (in 5 different languages), the train game and other games for more than 4 hours already. We took the train to Katrine’s house and in the evening we had a very very long reflecting session on RCN. One of the many sessions we would have during these days, it was kind of necessary as well.

Cute café in Copenhagen

The next day Klara came as well and we played tourist in Katrine’s city and made an over the top lunch for ourselves (:

 

Tao, Siri and Klara eating ice cream

The next day I already left them because I was going to Maria and Peter! But not before we visited the Round Tower in Copenhagen. To walk up the tower there were no stairs, but a flat spiral going up!

 

Klara and I on top of the tower Photo credit: Tao

With Maria, Peter and Maria’s brother we crossed around Copenhagen area in a little, but awesome car. We went to the movies, drove around standing out of the roof top and we also went to see Maria’s aunt. She is my father’s first year from Atlantic College and my father’s cousins best friend (do you still understand?). I also walked around with Maria in the place she lives and we ate an ice cream in the shop where her brother works in.

After this short visit I returned to Copenhagen where I met Katrine, Tao, Siri and Klara again. Isak also joined us and we took the train from Copenhagen to Stockholm. That meant we crossed the bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö, that was really cool (:

 

Emma and Tao in the train! (PC: Tao’s camera)

In Stockholm we stayed at Klara’s apartment and we have seen soooooo much of the city! We walked around all day and visited a lot of second hand stores, it was a really nice city. We also saw Moa and it was so weird because she still called us first years while we were not first years anymore, we were not even second years anymore, we are alumni now?!

 

Band picture in Stockholm’s Old Town. PC: Tao

Tourists at the Royal Palace. PC: Tao

Katrine reading at Klara’s balcony

Another cool picture in Old Town

We rented a boat and went around the waters of Stockholm (:

After a couple of days we took the train to the west coast of Sweden. It was a dramatic train trip and it took us so so so long, but that is part of the adventure (: Siri had to leave us unfortunately because she had to work the next day.

 

Eventually we made it to Fjällbacka! PC: Tao

Klara’s summer house is on an island outside Fjällbacka in the archipelago of west Sweden. It is so incredibly beautiful there!! We had to take the boat the whole time to the island and her summer house was just amazing (:

 

On the boat with Klara the captain, Katrine’s happiness and Tao’s funky hair

After Solveig and Anne arrived as well we celebrated Midsummer, the reason we went to Sweden in the first place. Midsummer is a great Swedish tradition where they celebrate the fertility of the earth by dancing around a pole that is the symbol of a penis which fertilizes the earth. Yeah, well. At least that is how they explained it to us. Midsummer means a lot of food, but then I mean a lot a lot a lot of food. And there is no time, you are just eating the whole day. We also made a midsummer pole and danced around it (see the first picture as well). The day was really amazing and I hope we will make it a sort of tradition to celebrate it (:

 

Klara carrying the midsummer pole

The rest of the time there we spent walking around and exploring the area.

 

PC: Tao

The stone from the movie from Ronja the Robber’s Daughter

Then we all departed again. First Solveig to the ferry to Norway, then Anne to Götenburg to take the train early in the morning to the north of Norway, Katrine and Isak towards Copenhagen, Tao to Götenburg to fly back to the UK and I took the train to the ferry (the same one Solveig took, but a day later) to Norway. 2,5 hours later I arrived in Sandefjord and took the train to Drammen, where I saw Carsten again.

 

Saying goodbye to Tao. PC: Tao

Bye Tao ):

I spent some really nice days at Carsten’s place. One day we visited Oslo and drank a beer with Balder in a small café with only alcoholics hahah. I also went cycling with Carsten, we cycled to Sandefjord (that is a long freaking end) with a small children’s wagon behind us. It was a great trip, but quite though (Dutch people are not used to cycle uphill) and difficult to find a place to sleep.

And then I went home. It was weird and not nice to go home. This was really the end of my UWC time, now I am an alumna.

After one day being home I already went to the south of the Netherlands, so I did not have much time to settle down. Now I have been home for a while, I still have not settled down, but I got more used that I will not go back to Flekke (today is Bergen Day for the second years, so weird). I work a lot in a café/restaurant close to my house and have to get used to live this life for a while.

One nice thing though! Thea visited me and it was really nice to see her again ((:

See you when I have something interesting to tell again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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