Final trip outside of Sweden :(

Two weeks after Stephanie visited Sweden, I was off to visit her in Rome.  It really has been amazing to have friends abroad with me because it gave me the chance to travel to really cool places and have free accommodations.  And to see all of my fantastic friends in their new European homes.  Khine in Nice, Cierra in London and Steph in Rome.

I arrived in Rome late Tuesday night.  For those who don't know Stephanie, she is a planner.  Before I arrived she gave me every detail of how to get to her apartment including step by step directions to give the cab driver.  However, she forgot one huge detail, the name on the call button of her apartment.  So I am standing outside her building at 11 pm unable to get in.  Just as I'm contemplating pressing every button to get in the building, this gorgeous Italian man opens the door and lets me in.  Thankfully, his stunning good looks didn't leave me speechless because I was able to ask him if he knew where the American girls lived.  He surprisingly knew and it proved to be a great start to the trip.

The next day I woke up early and went with Steph to get coffee because I had quite the adventure planned to the Vatican.  Steph had class, so I planned on going to the Vatican Museum.  I walked up to Saint Peter's square and saw hundreds of people.  I was a bit confused because I have been there before and there is never that many people there.  There were chairs set up and no line to get into the Basilica.  So I asked a French couple what was going on and they had no idea.  I decided to linger around because something important looked like it was going to happen.  There were people with tickets that were going to sit in the chairs and then there was a barricade set up behind it.  I decided to stand at the barricade with the French couple at about 9:05 am.  At around 9:20 the French couple were reading their guide book when they discovered that on Wednesdays at 10:30 am that the Pope speaks.  So unknowingly I stumbled upon a papal audience.  I decided to wait the hour and see the Pope speak.

At about 10:15 all of the ticket holders turned from facing the Basilica towards me.  The Swiss guard began barricading the ticket holders in and they created a street.  Then the Pope began driving around the crowd in his Pope-mobile.  I was literally three feet away from the Pope when he drove past me because I was at the front of the barricade.  He then drove up to the front of the Basilica and began to speak.  He gave a introduction speech, which he gave in 7 languages.  Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Polish.  In the speech he discussed a Saint that was focused on for that day.  When I went it was Saint Juliana.  After that 7 Cardinals introduced the ticketed guests from their native languages.  There were many groups from the US.  One was from Bolingbrook and another from Baltimore.  After the introduction of all the ticket holders in 7 languages.  The Pope blessed the crowd and told us that the Papal blessing was extended from all of us present to our friends, family and children.  It was a truly amazing once in a lifetime experience that I really just stumbled upon.  After the Pope finished speaking, I went into the Vatican Museum for three hours and then went back to Steph's.  We had a delicious meal at this restaurant near Steph's apartment where I had this amazing pasta with pecorino cheese and pepper.

On Thursday, we went with Steph's roomate's Italian class to go get the most famous tiramusu in Rome. It was delicious!!! I got a nutella and banana flavored one.  We ventured around the city a bit and then went back to the apartment for a much needed nap.  Later that night we made dinner at Steph's apartment with delicious fresh Italian ingredients.  Nothing can beat wine, cheese and bread.  The next day we got up super early to travel to Naples.  For those of you who have heard about Naples, it fully lives to the grungy dirty reputation.  Piles upon piles of garbage line the streets.  But we had one mission going to Naples to get Eat, Pray, Love (Julia Roberts) pizza.  In the book Eat, Pray, Love the author travels to Naples with her friend and they eat at this famous pizzeria.  The movie was also shot in location at this pizzeria.  The pizza was amazing and totally worth the trip to Naples.  Another added bonus on the trip was a shop that sold boots for 15 euros.  I got two pairs!  We wandered around Naples a bit and then came home with three pairs of boots (2 mine and 1 Stephs) and three pizzas (for Steph's roomates).  When we got home we had our last meal together in Rome and went back to our yummy restaurant we were at two nights before.

The next day Steph was off to the south of Italy to visit her family.  I slept in a bit and then braved the Roman rain to meet up with my Swedish friend Ingrid.  She is now living in Rome and after a bit of confusion with directions we finally met up in the Jewish ghetto.  We walked around a bit in the pouring rain making us think we were in Gothenburg.  She came back with me to the train station where I was catching a bus to the airport.

I arrived three hours later in Gothenburg to find snow, the freezing cold, and visitors from the States...

Saint Peter's (you can see all the people in chairs at the bottom)

Ticket holders behind the barricade

Pope mobile coming towards me

Super close to the Pope!

and there he is...

During the Papal speech

Me during the Papal audience

Steph and I in a piazza with a carton of Italian wine

Nutella and banana tiramusu

Eat, Pray,  Love pizza in Naples

Best pizza in the world?!?!

Dirty, dirty Naples

Every street had this much garbage

Steph the delivery girl

Synagogue in the Jewish ghetto in Rome

Baltic Cruise and Visitors

So it's been almost three weeks since my last blog post, but these have been the busiest three weeks since I have been abroad.  It all started with my trip to Tallinn, Estonia.

At the beginning of the semester, the Student Buddies at GU told us about a student cruise that the school organized to Estonia.  We would spend two nights on a ferry/cruise ship and approximately 8 hours in Tallinn.  It was a very whirlwind trip, but I must say I was extremely impressed by Tallinn.  I had extremely low expectations of this former Soviet bloc country.

When we arrived in Tallinn, the weather was the perfect backdrop for the gloomy atmosphere you would expect.  It was rainy, gloomy and all together not pleasant.  But the weather definitely enhanced the experience.  We were dropped off at the port which is very close to the Old Town.  My three friends and I were starving, so our first mission was food.  We had no idea what Estonian cuisine was, but I hoped that it would involve some kind of warm stew on such a dreary day.  The girls and I stumbled across what seemed to be an authentic Estonian restaurant.  As we walked in, we discovered that we were correct.  We spent four hours in this restaurant and it was by far one of the greatest and cheapest meals that I have ever had.  We each had three courses.  I had a giant plate of warm beans, carrot soup, and I was brave and tried wild boar stew, which was AMAZING!!!

So after we worked up the energy to leave this amazing restaurant, we wandered around Old Town Tallinn for an hour or so.  After our hour of walking we were clearly hungry again, and stopped at a chocolate cafe for a hot chocolate.  So because of amazing food including wild boar, beautiful architecture, and a chocolate cafe, Tallinn really impressed me.

After we came back from Tallinn,  I had about two days before I was expecting my first wave of visitors since my dad.  Khine and Stephanie were coming in from France and Italy to spend Halloween with me in Sweden.  In my two days before Khine arrived, I did laundry, cleaned my room, went grocery shopping, and wrote my first real paper of the semester.  It was a crazy two days!  Khine arrived on Thursday and explored Gothenburg a bit and then had an amazing dinner.  The next day we headed out to Haga and the Fish Market.  As many people know Khine and I love food!  We love a good meal and love to explore and try new foods, so that was our main mission of the two days before Stephanie arrived.  Khine and I also did a lot of shopping and Fika.  I recently learned this term "fika."  This term embodies the reason why Sweden was the perfect country for me to study in.  Fika is what the Swedes call going to cafes, lounging around and eating pastries.  Exactly my kind of people!

So a few short hours after Steph arrived, we were off to the big Halloween party at the other university in Gothenburg, Chalmers.  Khine, Steph and I were Barbies.  Khine was sporty Barbie.  Steph was regular Barbie and I was retro Barbie.  Our outfits could have also been the Spice Girls, but people most commonly thought I was Wilma from the Flinstones.

The next day was Halloween, and we found out Swedes do nothing for Halloween.  We did our own trick or treating at the giant candy store in Gothenburg.  Benefit: we got to pick the candy we wanted.  Downside: we had to pay.  That evening we watched some scary movies and got dressed up for Rocky Horror Picture Show.  The next day we went to the islands where literally everything was closed.  We got back went and saw another scary movie at a Swedish movie theater.  And after we went to a Mexican restaurant, which was not a great substitute for Guapos.

Tuesday morning, Khine left and Steph and I went shopping and Fika.  Story of the Swedes life: shopping and Fika.  It is literally all they do!  After I said good bye to Steph, I started some intense work on my second paper of the semester.  I spent the next three days re-cleaning my room, grocery shopping, doing laundry, and working on my second paper before the arrival of my next guest, my cousin Michael from London.

Michael arrived on Saturday morning.  We went dropped off his stuff and grabbed lunch in Haga.  We then made the decision to go out to the islands.  After we went all Tom Sawyer exploration all over the island, we went back to the dock to take the ferry back.  We then discovered that it was a holiday, which meant that we were going to have to wait 30 minutes for a ferry that would take double as long as normal to get back to Gothenburg.  That was pretty horrible, but the ferry ride was nice.

When we arrived back in Gothenburg, we were starving!  We went the "restaurant row" of Gothenburg and we literally tried to go to a dozen restaurants.  Apparently because it was a holiday and a Saturday, there were literally no tables open at 5:50 pm.  Michael then had the ingenious idea to try a hotel.  So we walked over to a hotel by the Scandinavium and got the LAST table.  We had a great meal where we even tried reindeer.  Obviously, Michael made hundreds of jokes about us eating Rudolph and his red noses (the lingonberries served with the reindeer).  After dinner we went out with my friends to another student party hosted by the city.

The next morning, we headed out to Fika, shop and see a bit of the city center.  Another very Swedish day!  Michael left mid afternoon, and the Lardner cousins completed another whirlwind trip together.

So now it is Wednesday, and I am again completing my cycle of catching up on laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning my room, and writing another paper.  My two education classes have ended and now I am in Global Studies.  The class is three days a week for three weeks.  We already have a paper due on Monday, so I have been spending my time reading and researching for this paper.  Yesterday, we saw our first "real" snow in Gothenburg.  It was fantastic!  Wish it would have stuck, but hopefully there will be more.

Next week I am getting excited for my final scheduled trip, where I will be going to Rome to visit Steph.  I am beyond excited and we might even head to Naples to try the "Eat, Pray, Love" pizza!  I get back from Rome on Saturday; the same day my mom and Alli come to visit.  It's unbelievable that my time in Sweden is now more than half way over :(

And as for pictures.  I just tried to upload them, but for some reason the uploader isn't working.  I will try again later to upload pictures from my trip to Tallinn and my visits with Steph & Khine and Michael.

Journey to the Land of Tasmanian Devils and Leprechauns with Pirate Accents

Last Wednesday I left to go on my third trip of the semester.  I headed to the airport after my class (yes I had class, I have learned that some of you are under the impression that I never attend class).  This was my first time flying RyanAir which is a discount airline here in Europe.  I flew out of Gothenburg City Airport, which is the much, much smaller airport here in Gothenburg.  And by much smaller I mean there are two gates and only RyanAir flies out of the airport.  All of this information I did not know, so I was at the airport outrageously early.

After waiting two hours in the airport with one restaurant(I seriously think Palwaukee airport was bigger), I got on the plane.  I had a relatively pleasant flight to London, with one exception.  Because RyanAir is so cheap, and by cheap I mean I paid 10 euros to fly to London, they have to compensate in some way.  They jam pack flights and try to sell you products during the flight.  Throughout the entire two hour flight to London there were constant announcements trying to sell everything under the sun.  From RyanAir lottery tickets, to smokeless cigarettes that you can smoke on the plane, to dozens of food options, the announcements never end.  This is pretty annoying when it is 11:00 pm when all I want to do is sleep.

So we arrive in London totally fine and I start to walk to the exit.  Usually I am an exceptionally smart and prepared traveller, but for some reason I totally forgot that the UK was not a part of the Schengen Visa program.  This means I had to go through immigration and fill out a customs card.  Of course I had to go through the non-EU line which was incredibly, incredibly long.  So I grab a customs card and see one really alarming thing: exact address of where you are staying.  During this trip I was planning on staying with my friend Cierra for two nights and with my cousin Michael for the other night.  I frantically grabbed my phone and tried to call both Cierra and Michael to get their addresses.  However, in good 30 euro phone form, my phone didn't work.  I later figured out my phone would take calls, and send and receive texts.  At this point I'm panicking outside customs.  I was two seconds away from writing the London Hilton as my address, when I saw these two 20 something American girls.  I ran up to them and I was like do you have a phone that worked?  Now what they did next is completely against everything they tell 20 something American girls traveling in Europe (reference to the movie Taken), they let me borrow their phone.  So I called Michael and got his address and everything was good.  But I have no clue what I wouldn't have done without those two American girls, so thank you wherever you are :)

So I made the trek from the airport and met up with Cierra.  Cierra lives in a house in London with about a dozen other students from AU.  I got to her house around 2 am.  We talked a little.  I met some of her housemates and then went to sleep.  The next morning we woke up and I went with Cierra to the Museum of Brands for an assignment for her school.  The museum was actually pretty cool.  It had products and packaging from the 1800's to present day.  The funniest thing that I saw was some old Barbie dolls Alli and I used to have.  They were either my Aunt Karen or Aunt Chris' dolls, but these dolls in the museum had the exact same clothing and everything.  It was pretty cool.

After the museum we went shopping on Portobello Road, which had really cool old vintage and antique shops.  It was more of a market with dozens of cheap shoe and clothing stores.  Cierra went on a crazy shopping spree in true Tasmanian Devil form.  I would have joined in if not for the strict 10kg limit on luggage for RyanAir.  The purchase that I did make was an adorable bag that I got for 5 pounds.  Later Cierra and I had dinner and then went out to a pub in Piccadilly Circus.  Cierra had a major interview the next morning, so we only stayed out for a little.

The next day I slept in and when Cierra came back for her interview we hit up the gym.  After the gym, we got ready and went on our pub crawl of London.  We went to a bunch of different pubs before we met up with my cousin Michael and his girlfriend Jennie.  I said goodbye to Cierra and then went to dinner with Michael and Jennie.  By the time we all got to bed, we were going to have to be up in 3 hours to go to the airport for our flight to Dublin.

We got up super early and headed to King's Cross to catch our train to the airport.  This was the beginning of one of the funniest days ever.  On any other day the event probably wouldn't have been as funny, but we were all running on less than three hours of sleep.  We barely made our flight to Dublin because security at 5 am was ridiculous.  While we were on the plane Michael almost accidentally killed a flight attendant with a water bottle and we had to listen to the annoying RyanAir announcements.  We were so delirious Michael and I were contemplating buying a lottery ticket.

Soo delicious and it fills you up all day.  After breakfast we went on a walk through the park in Dublin.  We decided to go visit the old Kilmainham jail in Dublin.  The jail was pretty cool, but the best part was our crazily enthusiastic tour guide Rosemary and Michael plotting how to make a haunted house in the jail.

After the jail tour we headed to the Jameson factory.  Michael and Uncle Bill did a special whiskey tasting and sat at their own part of the bar.  Jennie and I got Jameson hot chocolates and Aunt Debbie got an Irish coffee.  The drinks were delicious and got us well prepared for our much needed nap.

We all went back to our hotel, took a nap and were ready to go for dinner. We met up with Brendan O'Reilly for dinner and we all went to this cute Irish pub.  I had a delicious Irish stew, which was the greatest thing ever because I had been freezing since I woke up and it warmed me down to my bones.  After dinner, we made our own little pub crawl through Dublin.  Brendan stayed with us at the first pub where one of the strangest experiences of my life occurred. After a series of pubs we went home for the night and I prepared for my early flight home.

I got up said goodbye to Michael and Jennie and then started my journey home.  I flew RyanAir again this time to Stockholm.  I then took a 7 hour bus from Stockholm to Gothenburg, which was surprisingly not bad because I just got some much needed sleep after my crazy weekend.

Update on life in Gothenburg: first snow fall today in Gothenburg.  It didn't stick, but still a bit crazy!  This weekend I am going on a student cruise from Stockholm to Tallinn, Estonia.  The weekend after my best friends Khine (studying in Nice, France) and Stephanie (studying in Rome) are coming to visit me in Gothenburg.  The following weekend my cousin Michael is coming to visit me.  Busy weekends coming up, but I am excited to show everyone the now freezing land of Sweden.

Here are some pictures of the weekend:

Store in Portobello Road with hundreds of antique sewing machines

Portobello Road/Notting Hill

Barbies at the Museum of Brands

More Barbies

Cierra!

Saint Stephen's Park in Dublin

Gorgeous fountain in St. Stephen's Park

Trinity College

Where's Waldo? 

Kilmainham Jail

Jennie, Michael and Aunt Debbie at the jail

Me in a jail cell

Jameson Factory

The bar at Jameson

The ladies at Jameson

The whole gang after our amazing dinner

Bonjour, Bonjour, Oh My God!

Two days after I arrived home from Copenhagen, I was off to one of my most anticipated trips of the semester.  My best friend Khine from AU is studying in the French Riviera and myself and my other best friend Stephanie (who is studying in Rome) decided to come visit her.

So in the wee hours of Tuesday morning (all the cheapest flights are at like 6 am) I departed from my apartment, which was still a mess with clothes from the Copenhagen trip, and went to the airport to fly to Paris.  When I was booking my trip to Nice, I decided that I wanted to add a day onto the trip and go to Paris.  I truly loved Paris when I was there with my family four years ago, and wanted to go back.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so.  So I arrived in Paris at about 9am on Tuesday morning.  I spent the day doing A LOT of walking around Paris.  I saw the gardens of the Louvre, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Opera House,  the Bastille, the Sacre Coeur, the Moulin Rouge, the real Moulins, and this amazing small church in Montmartre.  I also ate a lot of delicious french food! Anyone who knows me knows about my love of bread and cheese.  Moral of the story: France is the perfect country for someone who loves bread and cheese!  I decided to take advantage of this and go to a boulangerie and buy a baguette and then go to a fromagerie and buy some cheese.  I then took both these things and sat by the Seine and watched the stupid pigeons (the birds in Europe are always entertaining and always very dumb) and the tourist boats (usually watching them is very similar to the European birds).

That night I had dinner in Montmartre with my friend Caity who is studying in Paris.  I met Caity in high school when I went on the leadership conference to Eastern Europe.  It was great to catch up and reflect on our old travels and talk about our new ones too.  Food note: another widely known fact, I go crazy for profiteroles.  I am like obsessed!  This meal was the first of my French profiterole consumptions.

The next day I awoke in the wee hours of the morning again and left my hostel (which by the way was called the Plug-Inn and was in Montmartre.  It was great and I will highly recommend it to anyone needing a hostel in Paris).  I then took the train to Nice.  The train ride was six hours and was absolutely gorgeous!  After the train arrived in Nice, I took another train to the town that Khine lives in, Juan-les-Pins.

In Juan les Pins, Khine's friend Dakshina got me from the train station because Khine was in class.  Dakshina and I walked around Antibes and Juans-les-Pins shopping and drinking small French coffees.  That evening we had dinner with all of Khine's friends and had a delicious meal of Nigerian chicken prepared.  A few of us then went and got 1 euro ice cream and sat on the beach!  One euro ice cream would be another common food of this trip.

The next day Khine had class in the morning, so I got up and went to a bakery that was a block from her house.  This place would become the highlight of mine and Steph's trip.  The bakery called Juan les Pains (silly pun because in French pain means bread).  They had the most delicious pain au chocolat and chocolate beignets (yes, I originally ordered them because Princess Tiana makes them, but man, are they delicious!).  When Khine got back from class, we went to Antibes and oogled at the yachts and coastline.  We then made our way to Nice where we walked around, had a fantastic dinner where I had my second and final profiteroles in France, and then collected Stephanie from the airport.  We had plans to go out that night, but it took us over three hours to get back from the airport.  The transportation system in the south of France is not the most reliable.

The next day we got up early, headed to Juan les Pains, got some breakfast and american sized coffee, and headed out to Cannes.  This day could really not get any better for me: delicious French pastries, a big cup of coffee, two of my best friends, and the place of the biggest FILM festival in the world.  We got to Cannes and Khine showed us the star's handprints in the ground and the building where the film festival was held.  We then saw a sign for a Cinema tour and it was only 10 euros.  So we got on our petit train and sat in the English speaking car where we were joined by several American and British retirees.

The Cinema tour was great and took us all over Cannes and gave us some great history both cinema and not.  Fantastic 10 euros spent!  We then had a sit down lunch at a adorable beach side restaurant themed around the festival.  After spending most of the day in Cannes we headed back to Juan-les-Pins and went to the beach.  All the French people who saw us on the beach thought we were insane because they think it is too cold.  However, they don't realize that the 75 degree weather with intense sunlight was very different for the girl who dropped about 20 shades of paleness in a month in Sweden.  I was loving the sun and being in shorts and a tank top.  That night we had a delicious dinner at a creperie.  We then went out to a club that was being hosted by Khine's university.  Only four words can describe the evening: Jersey Shore in France.  Very interesting people and very entertaining people watching night occurred.  Even though the night was pretty much a bust, the three of us made our own fun and had an entertaining night!

The last day I was there we decided to go to Monaco.  Monaco known for it's casino, royalty/Grace Kelly, expensive cars, Formula One track and lavish lifestyle is only surprisingly 40 minutes from where Khine lives.  So we got in our best dresses, went to Juan les Pains, and took the train to Monaco.  We spent the day walking around Monaco visiting the casino in Monte Carlo, the harbor, the Formula One race track, the Prince's Palace, and really just soaked up the extravagance that is Monaco.  We had a fantastic time in Monaco and all vowed one day to move there.  This will probably be a little difficult for me with my education and IR degrees, but I will just have to find my movie star husband!

We were exhausted after Monaco, so we went back took a nap.  We then went to Khine's favorite sandwich place for dinner had a giant baguette with meat, cheese, and french fries?.  May sound strange, but it was delicious!  We then went to the grocery store bough some wine, which was only 3 euros and went to the beach.  We sat and talked and had some wine under the stars on the beach until the wee hours of the morning when I again had an extremely early flight back to Gothenburg.  While we were sitting on the beach we got in contact with one of my fellow St. Viator swimming and water polo alums, Carolyn Ward, who goes to the same school as Khine.  Carolyn and her friend came down to the beach and we got to catch up.

I arrived home to Gothenburg at around noon on Sunday and immediately went to the traditional Spanish lunch that we have almost every Sunday.  I had a blast on my trip! The French Riviera is beyond beautiful and it was the perfect backdrop for my rendez-vous with two of my best friends!  But now I am back to my life here in Sweden, glad to be home and see my friends, not so glad to have to do laundry from two trips, go grocery shopping, and get back in the swing of things.  Also, this week there will be MANY trips to the gym after I pretty much single handedly completed the carb tour and ate my way through France.  I don't think that I would have had the will power to live and study in France.  The food is just far too delicious!

If you made it all the way through, thanks for reading this super long post! Now you will be rewarded with gorgeous pictures of Paris, the French Riviera, and me and my friends!

The Louvre

Notre Dame

Strangest stained glass in a Catholic church!
White horse of the apocalypse.

More interesting stained glass. Looks like the Beast!

Saint Jean de Montmarte. One of my favorite churches
ever and had the most interesting stained glass.

Sacre Coeur

View from the Sacre Coeur

View from Antibes

Beach in Juan-les-Pins

Yachts in Antibes

Khine and I in Antibes (our future yachts
are behind us)

Cannes where the film festival takes place

View from Cannes

View from train of Old Nice

Steph, Khine and I in front of the Monte Carlo Casino

Harbor in Monte Carlo

Formula One race track

View of Monaco from the Prince's Palace

Me, hamming it up, with a gorgeous view of Monaco

The girls with the harbor in Monaco

Old Nice from the train

Greatest bakery in the world!