Herbstferien- Scandinavia

Hej! Coming to you from Sweden and Denmark!

Be prepared for a long post...

From the looks, it probably looks like all I'm doing on my gap year is traveling, but I swear I'm also doing work! As soon as I return from my fall break travel, I dive into reality and become a "working women." I'll be interning 40 hours a week with a non-profit doing program development, handling their social media, and marketing. For now though, I'll talk about what's exciting...travel...


Panorama of Stockholm



Cole, Annika, Kurt and I

My fall break plans were really spontaneous. My friend, Annika and I planned to go to Sweden to trace our strong Swedish roots. Sweden was a given, but we wanted to go somewhere else. We wanted to hike the fjords of Norway, but closed three days before our break began. However, Annika's mom's dissertation advisor offered us a place to stay at his apartment during break in the heart of Stockholm and we figured we could go to Copenhage, Denmark for a few days. So, we rolled with it and invited Cole and Kurt- two other guys from our program to join us. Even though we planned the majority of this trip the week before we left, everything came together to make one memorable fall break.

At the harbor

Fall foliage

The place we stayed had character- an old, antiquated house in the center of the city with a sweet, very Swedish 86 year old (Annika's mom's dissertation advisor back in the day.) He quickly became our "Swedish grandpa" and loved showing us around Stockholm, telling us the history of the city from his perspective and recollection of major events in the past century.

the group on the boat ride

Fall foliage seen from the water

The CBYX 2015/16 squad plans to buy this island

We covered the vast majority of Stockholm by foot or by boat. We had five beautiful blue sky days filled with sunshine and we took advantage of those walking on average 35,000 steps/day! For those of you who don't know, Stockholm is situated on the coast and has an archipelago of 1000s of tiny islands along the Baltic. We explored the archipelago on a boat ride (Kurt really had a thing for wanting to go on boats) and saw the region at its prime time with fall foliage. The intense fall colors of yellow, orange and red contrasted the intense blue of the water, and quite honestly, I couldn't get over how beautiful it was. I'm proud to come from such a beautiful country!

Old clock tower at Skanson

More fall foliage by a churrch!

To please the parents, we went to a couple museums on the trip, including Skanson-an open air museum. It told the history and culture of Sweden through live displays with people dressed up in the traditional attire, old houses relocated there, and different interactive activities. It was my type of museum. I also saw a relocated house from the town my family comes from in western Sweden. I also met someone from there (which shocked me because it's a city of 50,000!) Although I didn't get to go there on this trip, I know for certain I'll be back and visit it. One thing that I did notice during our time in Stockholm was how Swedish my family is. Annika (who's also Swedish) and I would walk down the streets pointing out objects and foods that we recognized. We laughed about how we hate pickled herring, love lingonberries, had the tradition of being the first born daughter and baking bread for Santa Lucia day, and how Swedish we look. Annika and I blended in quite well in the sea of blonde haired, blue eyed Swedes and loved playing the "game" of pretending to be Swedes (though we only know like 10 words in Swedish.

 For all you who haven't been to Scandinavia, it's insanely expensive. Everything costs 3x more than it does anywhere else in Europe. For example, a McDonald's burger costs around $13 and a hot dog was $3.50. That's every college (or gap year) student's worst nightmare. So we got incredibly creative with doing Sweden on a shoestring. One of our ways of doing Sweden cheap(er) was paying a visit to the original IKEA (yes, it comes from Sweden!) I think we had WAY too much fun going to a Swedish IKEA. We ran around the store for a few hours and dreamed up our dream IKEA rooms. Plus, they had authentic quality Swedish food. It was delish.

A traditional Swedish meal: meatballs, potatoes, and of course, lingonberries!
                                                                          The group eating at IKEA!

Thanks boys for taking plenty
of pictures for Annika and I!

All in all, our trip to Sweden was very laid back, and we covered the city well. The city's downtown, Gamla Stan is gorgeous and I loved being constantly by the water and walking over bridges. Stockholm is the type of city I'd love to live in! The trip also brought Cole, Kurt, Annika and I closer together. Traveling really brings the best and worst out of people, but we all survived our time together and managed to keep our cool with each other thanks to our random coffee shop stops where we had Wifi time. Now, all of us have all sorts off crazy stories about wondering the streets-day and night-in Stockholm and continue to laugh about them. It's crazy to think that (with the exception of Kurt who's my neighbor in Ft. Collins) we've only known each other for a few months. In such a short period of time, these people have gone from being strangers to family. That's what's up!




                                         Now, onto COPENHAGEN, DENMARK!!!!!!!!

The obligatory Copenhagen pic

The wall of fame at the hostel
got a Lovelady sticker
(shout out to Gingerlee and
Lovelady Impressions)

Danish sweets!

The boys went back to Germany, but  Annika and I continued our fall break adventure in Copenhagen. Since we decided at the last minute to go to there, we really didn't know what to expect. But that's what  made it all the more fun. In Copenhagen, we shad our first real hostel experience. We stayed in this really cool, urban hostel and discovered how much fun it is! Hostel's are popping with all sorts of interesting people from around the world.

Once more, there was water
and fall foliage which
made me content!

The environment's relax filled with friendliness and people looking to meet and travel with new people. Initially the friendliness caught us off guard, but from our experiences, they were all authentic. At the hostel, Annika and I were somehow drawn towards the Canadians. We hungout with two groups of Canadians while we were there. One group was a bunch of new teachers teaching in the UK and Canada on fall break who cracked us up. We met them in an elevator and bonded over profiling the people getting off the elevator before us. That little encounter led to us spending the next day sightseeing and exploring the city with them and the day after, clubbing with them. Who would've guessed that a joke on an elevator ride would lead to that?? That further inspires me to backpack and hostel around Europe! The sponanity of it all makes the experience and that's why I really enjoyed being here. Copenhagen itself wasn't too interesting, but the connections and memories made made this trip                                                         remarkable!

One of the ellaborate stages at Tivoli

In Denmark, we covered a lot- more than we do when we plan. We went on a tour, climbed a tower, went to another museum, went to Christiana-an independent commune with a mega hippie commune and a "green light distric," an amusement park and actually learned a lot about the country. We were always busy doing something. That's Annika's and I way of traveling! And-on a side note-thanks to our hostel friends-Annika and I survived the trip once more without killing each other. Christiana is like Boulder, except 100x more liberal (and that's quite the statement.) It was an interesting place to explore. Only downside was that a) it was kinda sketch at night and b) you weren't allowed to take pictures. Another cool place we went to where we could actually take pictures was Tivoli-the seccond oldest amusement  park in the world. It reopened for Halloween and was decked out in fall decorations. This amusement park wasn't like Elitches, it felt like we were stepping back into time and at an old-fashioned amusement parks with old crickety rollercoasters, games, shows and activites. It was spectacular.

Probably my favorite church in Europe

Fun fact: This street only
 has these famous houses
painted on one-side of
the street.It was "made"
to be a tourist trap! :p

All in all, I can confidently say that was the best fall break I've ever had and that it was a successful trip. I'll be back to this region...In the meantime though, it's back to reality!

Hope everyone back home's doing well!

Bis gleich!