The mightiest of all blog updates complete with subtitles for your convienience

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've been busy, lazy, and unmotivated. Here goes the best and most accurate summary of the past month and a half that I can give.

LAPLAND
For those of you who don't know, Lapland is the region of Sweden and Finland North of the Arctic circle where I was between February 28thish and March 5thish (something like that). Anyway, the trip began on a nightrain from Stockholm to a small town up north Just south of the arctic circle called borden. Our seats on the train folded into beds, which was amazing, and we arrived early in the morning to eat a crappy breakfast at a hostel and then get on a bus to take us to where the train could have...Kiruna. On the way we stopped at the Sami musuem (Sami are indigenous Swedes) which was all in Swedish, which made it rather dull to every single exchange student cause no one, i repeat no one, speaks Swedish. We also stopped and met a sami family and their reindeer farm. Reindeer are pretty cool, they actually do play reindeer games. I got to feed them and eat them (separately). We then saw an exhibition on the Northern Lights (the main reason I went) which unlike the lights themselves was really boring after not having a decent nights sleep in a few days, and my dear friend illiana had to wake me up in the middle of it. We arrived at night to Kiruna, home of the world largest iron mine, where we stayed two nights. I forgot to mention that we stopped at the actic circle for a photo op...twas pretty cool. Anyway, in kiruna the snow was as high as I was which was an experience unto itself. From Kiruna we went dogsledding which was not a very good experience for me. We were the third run of the day, so the dogs were tired and unbearably slow, and right before our stop my leg got caught on a branch while the dogs were moving, and if they hadn't have been going so slow, it would've broken. My feet were exactly where the driver told me to put them. I let out a yell of pain and he suggested that I walk it off. I limped the rest of the trip, and my knee is still acting up. The whole time I'm thinking, if we were in america you'd be doing everything to convince me not to sue you, but here, somehow, you can still charge me after a subaverage run because you overbooked your dogs, and almost breaking my leg. SWEDES!!!! Anyway, that night we went to a bar in kiruna which didn't seem to promising at first, but somehow or another, I ended up playing the guy the bar hired for the nights guitar everytime he took a break. I am now the only person I know or even know of who has performed for atleast 50 people north of the arctic circle. I played for the better part of an hour too. It was pretty awesome. The next day we went to the ice hotel which is, as it sounds, a hotle made entirely of ice, which is quite an amazing cite, especially the ice sculpture rooms. We then arrived in Abisko which I would describe as one of the single most beautiful places I have ever been. Nestled in the mountains of Northern Sweden, Abisko offers one of the best places in the world to see the northern lights. Of course the tour group did a horrible job planning the trip, and we were only there one night (most of us would've been happy to spend the whole time there) and it was cloudy. Nonetheless, abisko was gorgeous. We went down to a wood sauna on the ice lake where a hole had been melted so you could jump in. We sat in the sauna then rolled in the snow and jumped in the lake. It was pretty much amazing. The next day was sort of the nail in the coffin for what a failure the travel companyt was, as we spent 7hrs in a bus so we could stop at some crappy old church, which was closed, and then arrive in borden to catch a train that we couldve taken from abisko. Such is the problem with the swedish system. The customer or cinsumer has no rights. If the product sucks, too bad, its the only one they got. All in all though it was a once in a lifetime experience and I did have an amazing time. However, not seeing the northern lights on account of horrible planning from a company that I paid five hundred dollars to was to say the least, dissappointing.

A Short Digression on Swedes and Sweden
Let me first add a disclaimer to this and say that I am fully aware that all Swedes do not fall into the catergory that is about to be made. Lotta,Camilo,Beatrice, Kim, Martin, Matias, Ann, and a bunch of old guys at the club are some of the coolest people on earth. The Swedsih system also has many good things, and they have a lot to be proud of. However:
This does not excuse the rest of them being rude, self-righteous, stuck up, excuse my language, assholes.

Offense number 1 SWEDISH BUS DRIVERS
Basically, we buy a bus pass and trust that the bus drivers will operate on the schedule. When a train is late, they are supposed to wait on it. Most of the time they don't, but least of all, they should never leave early. I kid you not, and this is like the fifth offense, as our train pulls up, on schedule, 5 minutes before the bus is supposed to leave, I see the jerk pulling off, AS THE TRAIN IS PULLING UP!!! WHAT IS THIS!!! THE TRAIN IS CARRYING PEOPLE WHO NEED THE BUS, AND HE DRIVES OFF...WHAT!!! Not to mention, I have ran out to the bus, who is usually arriving significantly earlier than he's supposeds too, knocked on the side of the bus as he's shutting the door, and he still drives off. I've even been on when the bus driver decides he doesn't want to turn into riksten and just go straight to lida, so he tells us to get off. DO YOUR DAMN JOB!!! we pay a butt load of money to use swedish public transit, and the drivers suck.

Offense number two Self righteous Swedes
Swedes are really proud of certain things. Some of those are justified. Their neutrality in world war II however, which they bring up all the time, is not. I'll just put it this way, the only countries who weren't initially neutral in wwII were germnany, japan, and italy. Hitler took belgium, netherlands, france, Poland, dennmark and norway in just over a week. The enemy was imperial, fascist, and genocidal. You don't get points for being neutral when the only reason you could remain neutral was becuase other countries sent their people to die so you wouldn't be just another conquest. Hitler didn't respect russia or belgiums, or hollands, or frances, or polands or anyone elses neutrality. Sweden should be ashame do of that if anyhting, but they certainly shouldn't brag about it. Swedes are also really self righteous about their fantastic social democratic welfare state for 9 million people. They often speak of it as if the rest of the world is too stupid to adopt such a system. Just to set the rcord straight, sweden has 9 million people, still a 5-6% unemployment, and still a large degree of racial tensions from the large influx of immigrants in recent years. They brag about their equality, as their policies encourage women to work instead of stay at home. Leaving out the radical notion that some women do prefer that, most women in sweden work in the public sector, atleast most women who would otherwise be at home raising children do. Plenty of ambitious women, like in the states or anywhere else hold higher level positions. But basically, equality for swedish women has meant driving a bus or a train instead of staying at home. It has nothing to do with equality, it has everyhting to do with the government needs to tax your income to support its giant welfare expenses. AND I STILL CAN"T GET ANY HEALTH SERVICES EVEN THOUGH I PAID 200 bucks in advance for insurance. Sweden is not perfect. Even with their decommodification, they still have homeless people. SO COME OFF IT!!!

Offense 3 Protesting America
Yes, protesting America, not the war, America. Wiht signs that say Americans are murderers. Get out of Iraq, get out of Afganhistan. Now, I have protested Iraq a lot myself. Its probably hard to disl;ike the bush administration as much as I do right now. But thats not America. I'm not a freaking murder. 70 percent of voting americans are against the war. A lot of us were against it from the start. And get out of afganhistan...I'm pretty sure the taliban commissioned 911. We should've focussed on Afganhistan and not Iraq, and we'd probably be done by now. They love to complain about america and how horrible we are yet every ounce of their pop culture is euther ours or a cheap knock off of it. Their food is all a cheap knock off of american or mediteranean...just without any flavor. Most of the products they use were developed in america save maybe matches and volvos...which are now MADE IN AMERICA. KNow what you are protesting. Protest the war, but I'm an american and I've never killed anyone. That same day was the day I picked emily up from the airport, and on three seperate occsions some rude swede informed us that whatever we were doing (which was what everyone else was doing) was "not how we do in Sweden). This is of course after they hear us speak english. To say the least, I was pretty angry with sweden.

Emily comes to Sweden and we travel Northern Europe
Three days before my break EMily arrived in Sweden before our vacation. Aside from Swedes treating us like crap outside of home, the ones back home in Riksten reminded me that not all swedes are bad. Emily Martin Camilo, Ricca, and I had a fry night. Originally I was just going to fry pickles, which I've gotten pretty good at, but then everyone started helping, and we fried pickles, zuchinni, potatoes, swedish meatballs, and I don't know what else. 'twas lots of fun. I've never been so overstuffed in my life. Oh yeah, and camilo blew up a can of condensed milk in his room cause he's a dufus and left the stove on really high, and it looked lik there was a poo war in his room. It was epic.

So we left for Berlin on the 18th of march. The flight was twelve bucks and took 75 min. The bus to the airport was fifteen bucks and took 80. Just a funny little anecdote I love to share. Anyway, Berlin is one of the most amazing cities I've ever been too. Since so many horrible things have happened there in the past, they're determined not to let them happen again, so basically if you don't bother anyone, you can do whatever you like. The street art is absolutely amazing. We took a tour which included climbing on top of an abandoned prison, and a visit to a bombe dout nazi train station which has been turned into an art gallery. It kinda of exeplifies the city in that it takes something horrible, and instead of tearing it down and pretending it never happened, they turn it into something positive. We also went to a socialist wine bar where you pay 1 euro for your glass, drink all the wine you want, and tip at the end for how much you think its worth. Beer is cheaper than water in germany because it is considered to be an essential like bread. AND ITS GOOOOD. The next morning we went to the german history museum where we spent the better part of 5 hours (lots of history). You would be amazed at how open they are about the blunder that was wwII. They don't try to cover it up. They talk about it openly, and with an heir of shame, even though they had nothing to do with it. Probably yet another reason why they will never let something like that happen again. Oh yeah, and we climbed the wall.
From Berlin we got on a nightrain to Brussels where we awoke at 600. Quite an amusing anecdote, Hostels world screwed up and never sent emily confirmation of the hostel... so we couldn't find it. We walked into the first hostel we found, asked if they had any vacancies, they said not withou a reservation, and we said well, we might have one, and they did...so yay. Brussels is a city for eating. The waffles are all you ever dreamed they can be and more. The beer just feels good. The french resteraun owners are still assholes, but the italian place you go instead will surely be really nice and delicious. The next day we went to Brugge which kinda seemed like the gatlinburg of europe to me, but was actually pretty cool. Its an old medeival town with a really pretty castle and The Salvador Dali Museum. AMAZING FOOD!!! The real adventure in Bruge though came from the trip to our hotel. Our hotel was actually in aalter, one town away. i.e. we carried our stuff around all day, and walked all day in the cold and some snow. Sow e get on the train and 15 minutes later arrive at a stop called maria aalter. THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS AALTER, as we would later find out. We get off at the stop and there is a street light and that is it. To our right is a field followed by a forest. To our left is a field followed by a forest. In fron of us are train tracks and hopefully the city of aalter, but visibly, only a field and traintracks as far as we can see. Its 9 o clock in the belgiun winter. ITS DARK!!! So we walk for about 2 hours, probably a good 5 miles, when we arrive at an appeared to be aBANdoned town complete with pony chewing ominously. So we walk somemore. Finally we find the station, which is closed, and then a resteraunt where some nice people directd us towards our hotel which was a km down the road and CLOSED with a sign that said sign in a the best western by big parking" WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN? OH, THE BIG PARKING LOT OF BRUGGE, I'VE READ ALL ABOUT THAT ONE GAAAAAAAAHHH!!! Any way, long story short, we finally get in our room and colapse. We wake up the next morning bound for Amsterdam. On the train this crazy women tries to sit in this seat with this guys stuff in it who had gotten up to go to the bathroom. We told her he was sitting there and she left. I then picked his stuff up and set it in his seat so no on eelse would make the same mistake. The women across the isle who probably kn ew 4 words of english starts calling us liars and says that no one is sitting there. I assure her that someone is and that it is not my stuff when the crazy women come back, moves the stuff and sits in the seat, then procedes to yell at us. A guy who was sitting near us comes to our rescue and tells her that we are not lying. She just goes on in french. THEN THE GUY COMES BACK. She stats yelling at him for I guess having the nerve to go to the bathroom. It was utterly ridiculous. Then the rest of the trip the two women would bitch in french acroos the isle. I love europe, but boy does it have its share of absolutely shameless assholes. So amsterdam was great, we stayed in a botel. Thats a boat hotel, whcih was...no complaints i guess. We went to the Anne Frank house, the Van goh museum, and did a canal cruise. We don't have a lot of pictures because most of the attractions were no cameras allowed. The entire city smells like weed. I always expect to turn a corner and see like Ben Harper on stage or something...but no luck. All the resteraunts cater to the munchies, and I've never seen so many stoner americans an an obvious get stoned in europe field trip. Oh and Heineken is really good in Amsterdam. Its crap from a can or bottle, but good fresh. Then we went to Hamburg...a city for germans as we have dubbed it, as the tourist attractions are not as plentiful as berlin. We were tired anyway, adn were happy to just go see a movie and sit. No country for old men is really good by the way. We did happen by st. pauli which is what hamburg is known for, which is like 40 strip clubs on one street. We didn't go. Such was an amazing trip not just for what I saw, but for the fact that I spent two solid weeks with the same person and didn't want to strangle them once.

Life back in Stockholm
So after the unhappy task of taking emily back to the bus station I commenced my usual saturday routine of playing at stampen where this time I met a bunch of old guys that I will probably be playing with for the duration of my time here. They're awesome and they're get this, a southern rock blues band. The singer is actually from NC, but he's lived in Sweden for 28 years. I'm excited about playing with them. We started having a potluck every sunday with our building in hopes to get to know the swedes. Its to no avail, but it has brough ricca, camilo, martin beatrice, matt and i closer together. We are starting to eat together every night and just kinda hang around each other. Most of the other students live in the other two buldings, so while I'm friends with a lot of them, I'm not really in their little clicks, so I've found my own amongst the people who live here. YAY!!! They're like my A-team away from home.

London and Scotland
Let me just start by saying the trip was already began with a bit of sourness, as someone who will go nameless purchased two tickets to sicily with only one day of prep, which I hastily got moved to london for a minimal 7 pounds. This added a lot of inconvienience and money. We flew into London, then from london to Glasgow (scotland) where we stayed. People in Glasgow are nice. Its a nice place. The next morning we went to edinburgh and the castle and met william wallace and to stirling to see his monumnet. The castle is absolutely amazing and gorgeous. You wouldn't believe the view of just right outside the city. Breathtaking. I eve ate hagas which contrary to popular belief is not so bad.

LONDON
I HATE LONDON. From the time we got ther we started getting ripped off until the time we left. Cool things in London: Tower of London very cool 14 pounds...not that cool, but ultimately woth it. Horror museum, Olympic processional, chinatown, buckingham palace, westminister abbey, big ben, parliament, picadilly circus. All cool. Rip off number 1 and the only one I will share since, well the only one i feel like sharing. We go to the trainstation at the airport of the first country I've been to since arriving in europe where the official language is english i.e. ther was no confusion as to what we were saying. We asked for a bus ticket to london, a three day transportation pass, and a return ticket back to the airport. All together 30 pounds. Thats a lot of money for 3 days, but suck it up. So the second day we are there, our cards won't let us on the tube to which we are told we are out of money on our cards. Apparently the guy didn't sell us the tourist passes which exist, and which we paid for, but gave us an oyster card with ten pounds on it. The went 25 pounds on remaining transportation and the other 6 pound which were unaccounted for in the initial transaction. Later it occurs to me that we weren't issued a ticket for our return journey, just sold one. So there goes 16 pounds for the new ticket and 6 we spent on the initial. All and all the bastard at the train station cost me over 100 unaccounted for dollars. Legitimate businesses cheated me. I went to london, didn't spend money on souveniers or nice food, or a nice place to stay, did it as cheaply as possible and got taken for every dime i had. It was like a tax for being alive. I HATE LONDON and will never return unless I'm being paid. On a lighter not, we went to a buffet in china town that threatend to charge if we wasted food. Now I'm back in Stockholm and couldn't be happier.