Nu kör vi! |
Art book. Check. Now we're talking ;)
It is such a feeling, to be back and revive some of the sweetest memories of all the time.
Skinny jeans and vans. How much a person changes in one year... Here in the same bus where Nathalie and I first met :) |
Our first stop was Uppsala, and we were staying at my friend Lena's. She has the most amazing apartment in the whole Uppsala, but this time, due to technical casualites, Pia and I had to sleep on little, inflatable swimming pool air mattresses.
No electrical air pump at all... |
We coped with it and at the end, although we did not sleep much, we managed through the nights. Pia said, we can count with both hands the hours of sleep we got this weekend, and she is totally right, just 10!
The weather at Uppsala was quite warm, more than in Kalmar, so on friday we decided to take it easy and chill at the river Fyrisån. It is a lovely place, though the sun was too strong for my skin, so I got a little sun allergy.
Perfect chilling place |
The girls wanted to go swimming, and I was reluctant to follow since the astonishing amount of little fish that were chilling with us, you know, the kind that eat your dead skin at beauty saloons. At the end, Lena maliciously pushed me into the water, and I got so shocked that even got troubles getting up the ladder. Nevertheless, it was fun and it was great to catch up after one year without seeing each other. One thing I really like about the Uppsala International Summer Session we did last summer is that you actually get to forge lasting friendships. Just this year I got to see my lovely Nathalie at Vassar, Lena, and will catch up with Margarita and the others in the Gothenburg area very soon.
Well, after swimming and chilling, it was Systembolaget time! Yeah, I'm very excited because it is the first year I can actually buy liquor in Sweden (you must be 20 or up). Pia and I headed to the city and got some wine and a much needed body lotion for my sun allergy. By the way, I totally fell in love with Swedish rag rugs.
At night, and after a very nice roast beef salad it was party time! We got to know real swedes, and even Pia got her "meet an Andersson" challenge. We even got lost from the group with some Stockholm guys that had no clue where the clubs were...
The Andersson challenge! |
Next morning, and because we couldn't sleep longer than 9, we went city sightseeing. We visited the nations (we even got inside V-dala's Taket on friday, and without a guest card!), the cathedral, the castle, the university, the library and ekonomikum parken, where we had a little picnic lunch. Afterwards, we decided go shopping and prepare for Stockholm night! Pia got some very nice sandals and I got a cheap monkey dress for 100 kr.
Around 6 we headed to Stockholm, where we were going to meet our Kalmar boys, who were spending the weekend also in the area. Alisher was an amazing host, thank you! and we had a lovely, entertaining pre-party. We discovered Jeff is gifted for music, I tried teaching Peter some Swedish drinking songs and we all drank absolut vodka shots like pros. Typically Swedish. Then we went exploring the city's nightlife. In Stockholm, public transport runs the whole nigh on weekends, so it was a relief not to be checking the watch every minute. Alisher showed us Trädgården, the ultra famous under the bridge summer club, but the line was almost 2 hours waiting time. We opted for also well-known Debaser at Medborgarplatsen.
Trädgården |
Ekologisk even at Debaser Medborgerplatsen |
If you go clubbing in Södermalm Stockholm, I can just advise you to 1) be 20 or up, you won't get in anywhere otherwise 2) do preparty before, like, spanish botellon, and even waiting the line to go into Trädgården, and 3) Do dress up, but keep a low profile, kind of little black dress with converse for girls, or shirt and jeans for boys.
We ended doing afterparty at home, when the sun was going up and none of us really wanted to sleep, but at 5.30 we just thought that if we wanted to see some of the city, we needed to rest.
On sunday, we cooked breakfast with nearly everything we could find in the kitchen, and take the tube to Slussen, to visit the Fotografiska museum. A heavy thunderstorm catched us just when going out from the tube, so we waited, Jeff and Peter played Frisbee inside the tube station and at the end we runned to the museum, soaking wet. The museum was really nice, although I could have used another hour to enjoy it at fullest. The boys got themselves a children-unicorn tattoo, we took some pictures with the free automaton and we even got two free posters.
In the afternoon we wandered through the city centre and Gamla Stan. Back in Uppsala, we chilled at the curvy benches, as we did last summer with the UISS crew.
On monday it was time to catch our plane to Kalmar, so we got up at 4.30 and made it through the day without a single hour of sleep. Already in our lovely beach town, we couldn't help but to sleep until noon, but as we didn't want to miss a single thing in the city, we went exercising in the park and got muscle sore for the next 4 days (or even more?, we don't know yet).
Have a lovely weekend!
Next: Gothenburg!