Europe Trip 2015: Week 3

EUROPE TRIP 2015: WEEK 3

Tuesday, September 1st

Day of Packing

Good afternoon on this cold, rainy September day in Sweden. Am I the only one who is in slight disbelief that September has already arrived? Time sure does fly! It is 12:58pm, and Matilda and I are getting ready to head to the airport to catch our flight to Italy this evening! Our flight doesn’t leave until 8:00pm, but the bus schedule is forcing us to leave earlier, which we are both ok with. It’s always better to be safe than sorry! The uncertainties of the trip to Italy are making it slightly difficult to get super excited, but I am really looking forward to the trip! I’ve always wanted to go to Italy, and it will be a fun change of pace! We have some exciting excursions planned, and we are both looking forward to soaking up some sun on an Italian beach! I’m going to continue to pack the rest of my things, and I will check back in when we are in ITALY! Yay! 

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Wednesday, September 2nd

Good Morning, Rome

Good morning from Italy! It is 8:38am, and I am currently sitting in my top bunk at our hostel in Rome called “The Yellow”, which seems to be a very “hip” hostel (very young person friendly). I read from the Bible app on my phone this morning before getting up and grabbing some trail mix and an apple for a quick breakfast. I have a bit of time before I need to get ready for the day, so I’ll fill you in on last night’s travels!

Rome in the Dark…Not Too Impressed

After a 2 hour 45 minute flight, Matilda and I arrived in Italy around 11:30pm last night. We stepped off the plane and were pleased to find that it was still warm out. We made our way into the airport and found the bus transfer booth to purchase our tickets for a ride to the City Center, which is about a 5 minute walk from our hostel. We stowed our suitcases underneath the bus and climbed aboard. From the moment we stepped off the plane, I could feel a major culture difference; the people are different, the smells are different, the buildings an amenities are different, etc. I felt these differences grown stronger and stronger as our night went on. Being on the bus, surrounded by a majority of people who speak Italian was a little bizarre. Matilda commented about how she knew how I felt back in Sweden now, not being able to understand people. The bus ride to the city center took around 30+ minutes, and it was an eye opening bus ride indeed. Even in the dark, I could tell that Rome is not how I envisioned it to be; I actually found it to be a bit unsettling. From what we could see from the bus, the city is very dirty, graffiti is everywhere, and it kind of felt like we were in the ghetto. Passing through the streets, I noticed that many gelato/ice cream shops were still open, as well as some pizza and other food places, although not many people were out and about. I recognized some shops, like GameStop and McDonalds, but the rest are quite foreign to me. 

We arrived at the City Center and looked at the directions to our hostel on Matilda’s phone. Despite neither of us having internet access to use the map feature, we were able to find our hostel with only a little bit of trouble. Once we found the correct street names it was quite easy. We checked in at the main office and then walked across the street to our room. Our room is a 6 bed female dorm, and we were the last to arrive. It was about 1:00am at this point, and although the girls were in bed, they were still awake and said we could turn on a light. We quickly stored our things for the night, got ready for bed, made our beds, and hit the hay. Again, even in the dark I could tell I wasn’t a huge fan of our room; it is very plain, old, cold (lots of AC), feels a little dirty, and doesn’t look like any of the rooms pictured online. Oh, and my bunk area smells like ketchup on a day old french fry from McDonalds, and my disappointed continued when I discovered my phone was not able to connect to the wifi here (maybe because we are across the street?). 

Overall, I’m not super thrilled with our hostel or Rome so far, but we have yet to get out to explore in the daylight, so there’s still hope! I’m doing my best to look at this as a learning experience and a chance to experience a new culture, even if it is outside my comfort zone. If anything, this experience will make me appreciate my life and everything about it more than I ever have before! There’s always a positive to every not so happy situation. :) 

Plans for Day 1 in Italy

I think Matilda and I are going to explore the city, see the Colosseum, and possibly visit a couple other major attractions today, so I’m hoping it will be a good day! We will have to hash out the details when she wakes up, so that is all for now folks! Stay tuned for a “Rome in the Daylight” update a little later on! 

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10:42pm | Wednesday, September 2nd

Rome Update

It is 10:42pm, and Matilda and I are hanging out in our room, showering and getting ready for our trip to the Amalfi Coast tomorrow morning! We need to be up at 5:00am, so I need to head to bed soon. Overall, Rome has grown on me a bit! As the day has gone on and we’ve experienced different parts of the city, I think I can say it’s a place I’m glad to have visited, but I don’t think I’ll be running back anytime soon, or ever. I’ll give you a quick rundown of the days events!

Colosseum

Our first stop was the Colosseum, which was about a 30 minute walk away from our hostel. The way in which we walked to the Colosseum was extremely dirty; there was graffiti on a majority of the buildings and trash was covering the ground. We finally caught sight of the Colosseum and began to make our way out of the sketchy area. I don’t know what I really envisioned the area/location of the Colosseum to look like, but it didn’t quite match up with what it actually did look like. I pictured more of a city area, and it was kind of in an area away from the city with lots and lots of old ruins (the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill). We took some pictures from the outside and then decided to join the extremely long line to purchase our entry ticket. The ticket included one entry into the Colosseum and one entry into the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. Matilda wasn’t interested in a tour of the Colosseum, so I purchased on audio guide in addition to my ticket. The audio guide was helpful and very informative, but it was also hard to concentrate and remember all the detailed facts with so much going on around you. We spent a good amount of time walking around, taking pictures, and soaking in the beauty of the Colosseum. Once we had our fill, we decided to find a place to eat lunch. 

Lunch

We left the Colosseum and walked in a direction that looked like it held potential for restaurants. The restaurants here are lining the streets, and waiters from each restaurant our outside trying to shove their menu in your face, which you learn to ignore after a while. We walked up and down one street past a few different choices at least three times before finally sitting down to eat at _____. I’ve always wanted to say I’ve eaten spaghetti and meatballs in Italy, and now I can! It was good, but to be honest, my moms meatballs are way better! Haha. We finished our lunch and headed out to see the Roman forum and Palatine Hill, which was just a short walk away. 

Palatine Hill & the Roman Forum

We arrived at the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, scanned our tickets, and began exploring. There was also the option of an audio guide here, but there were over 50 checkpoints, and neither of us were interested enough to invest the time and money into it. We spent quite a bit of time walking around, looking at all of the ancient ruins, and trying to imagine what life was like oh so long ago. It was amazing to see buildings as old as these and learn the history behind them. At this point, I was still feeling iffy about the city and our time here, as it was all still very foreign. After we finished seeing all three tourist sites on our ticket, we headed back to the hostel to relax and escape the heat and humidity before finding a place to eat dinner. 

Back to Hostel

We arrived back at our hostel and met two girls, Sam and Michelle (who looks very similar to the main actress in the movie Taken, which I found to be quite ironic!), who were from Vancouver. We chatted with them for a while and learned the Michelle was staying in a room away from Sam, upstairs, with all guys, and no AC! I thanked God at that moment for giving us the room we had, and I apologized for complaining so much before. Looking more closely, it’s not that dirty, but the floor is cracked in a few places which makes it seem that way. We chatted a bit more about our travels and our lives, and for some reason this lifted my spirits and made me feel a lot better. I think it’s fun to talk and make new friends, even if it is only temporary. Sam and Michelle left to go eat dinner, and Matilda and I headed out shortly after that. (*While talking to Sam and Michelle, I commented on the dirtiness of the city, and Michelle mentioned something about the government in Italy being corrupt, which could explain the dirtiness.)

Dinner & Shopping

Matilda suggested we find an H&M before dinner so she could pick up an accessory she forgot at home, and based off of what we’d seen of Rome so far, I couldn’t picture a store like H&M existing here. I’m glad Matilda had more hope than me, because on our journey to find an H&M, we finally discovered a part of Rome that we actually kind of liked! As we got closer to the shopping streets, things got a little cleaner (emphasis on little) and more “normal” and safe feeling. This is when we both decided that the city was growing on us, but still agreed we’d probably only visit this one time. We passed a cute food and gelato place and made a mental note to go back there for dinner. After about a 45 minute walk, we found the H&M, only to discover that they didn’t have the device she was looking for. We walked back to a different store we saw on our walk and found it there—success! After we finished shopping, we went back to the restaurant we saw earlier called The White, and got caesar salads for dinner and some delicious gelato for dessert. The salad was big and very satisfying, and the caesar dressing was very authentic; Matilda’s cup of dressing still had a whole sardine in it! We finished our dinner, got out gelato to go (which was melting very quickly in the heat and humidity), and walked back to our hostel. When we got home around 9:00pm, I decided to take a shower before packing for our trip to the Amalfi coast the next day. 

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Thursday, September 3rd

Early Train Ride to Sorento

We set our alarms for 5:00am this morning to make sure we had enough time to get ready and walk to the train station to catch our train to Sorento. From Sorento, we were taking a ferry down to Amalfi on the Amalfi Coast and spending the day there! I got a banana and very tiny coffee at the train station for a quick breakfast and then we went to find our train. The coffee cups in Italy are very small; they seem to be more into espresso shots than actual cups of coffee.We got on the train, found our seats, and settled in for the almost 3 hour train ride to Sorento. As we got closer to the coast, we began to see a bit more countryside and even some mountains (which made me think of Colorado)! I couldn’t help but smile and feel happier inside as we began to see some nicer parts of Italy. A few of my favorite sights we saw from the train include a building resembling a silo, a couple flocks of sheep, and a vineyard with green grapes! It was only 7:00am at that point, but I knew that this day was already going to be the best day of our entire trip—I liked this part of Italy! It still didn’t feel/look exactly like I thought it would, but it was a HUGE step up from the graffitied buildings and trashed areas in the bigger cities. We arrived in Sorento around 9:30am and headed in the direction we believed would lead us to the water so we could catch the ferry that was taking us up the coast to Amalfi. We found the dock very quickly and managed to get tickets for the ferry at 9:45am.

Ferry Ride to Amalfi on the Amalfi Coast

We boarded the ferry and grabbed seats on top of the ferry so we could take pictures of the coast along the way. The view of Sorento’s coast was very pretty; light, fluffy clouds were wrapped around the mountain tops, and the freeway and buildings going up the mountainside and traveling along the coast was quite a majestic sight. We were enjoying the view, but we were anxious for the ferry to leave, mostly because we were very eager to get to Amalfi, and also because we were sitting in direct sunlight; it was already very hot and humid despite it being only 9:45am. The ferry finally pulled away from the dock and we enjoyed a beautiful 40 minute ferry ride along the coast. 

A Day in Amalfi

We got off of the ferry, stepped onto the dock, and began our day exploring Amalfi! We noticed almost right away that Amalfi is much cleaner than Rome and the other cities inland. We walked along the quaint cobblestone streets and poked our head into a couple shops before making our way to the center of the city. The shops in Amalfi feel much more authentic than the ones back in Rome, and the town had a small town vibe to it, which I really liked. Although we were still surrounded by tourists, it felt like a little getaway from the craziness of the big city. Upon entering the center of the city (I’m going to call it the city square from here on out), the first thing I noticed was a fountain with statues with lots of water spigots on it. People would come up to it and drink from it or fill their water bottles up. The second thing I noticed was a very large church, which was called __________. We climbed the steps up to the entry area which was very beautiful, and provided a nice view looking down into the city square. We didn’t want to pay for a tour, so we walked through the rest of the city before making our way back to the city square to eat lunch. You can basically see the entire town from one tiny street, which leads you up until you hit a point where the shops end and the road just keeps going. We turned around and made our way back to the city square where we got lunch at a place called, ______. I ordered a delicious mushroom pasta dish, which was the best pasta I had eaten in Italy so far! 

We finished lunch around 2:00pm, changed into our swimsuits, and headed down to the beach to enjoy some time soaking up the sun an swimming in the sea! There were a few different beach “vendors”, so to speak, along the on stretch of beach, and we ended up going all the way to the end of the beach where it was free. We picked a spot among the mass of fellow beach goers, spread our towels out over the (very hot) rocks, and basked in the sunlight (after applying the €19.00 sunscreen we bought in town). Aside from the rocks being “burn-the-bottoms-of-your-feet-off” hot, they actually weren’t too uncomfortable to lay on; they were smooth and reminded me of rocks you’d find on some beaches along Lake Superior. Once we felt extra toasty from sunbathing, we made our way down to test the water and cool off. The water was the perfect temperature (cool, but not cold), very clear, and it had a slight aqua tint too it. It was also very salty, which I know because 1) you kind of float like a bobber in the water and 2) I tasted it—once on purpose, and multiple times against my will. We spent some time taking pictures and then returned our cameras to the beach so we could swim around and enjoy our time in the glorious sea! The beach was extremely crowded, but it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. The entire experience felt like a fairytale with the amazing views of the coastline surrounding us—it almost looked like a fake backdrop! Just the fact that we were laying on a beach of the Amalfi coast and swimming in the Mediterranean/Tyrhanian sea was enough of an escape from reality that it was easy to tune the people out. We alternated between sunbathing and swimming for almost 2 hours until it was time for us to do our last minute shopping and get our gelato fix before the ferry ride home. We got gelato at the same place we ate lunch at (which was obviously delicious) and then we both made a couple souvenir purchases before making our way back to the ferry. 

The ferry ride back to Solerno was quite a bit faster, and it didn’t follow the coast as closely, but we still had the amazing view! Upon returning to Solerno, we both noticed that it didn’t feel as nice as it did when we first arrived, most likely due to the fact that Amalfi set the bar high. We reigned in our expectations to match reality and made our way to the train station. The train ride home felt like a long 3 hours, but after having such an amazing day it was totally worth it. The fact that I smelt like a combination of sweat, salt water, sunscreen, and my hair was slightly crusty from the salt didn’t bother me too much, because I knew that that was part of the experience of the day. A majority of our entertainment on the train ride home came from the group sitting across the aisle from us. There were two girls and one guy (both Matilda and I both commented the guy’s attractiveness), and they were having some sort of debate almost the entire train ride home. We couldn’t understand a single word they were saying, but it was fun to listen to the tone of their voices and watch their facial expressions. We finally got to the train station in Rome around 11:00pm and made our way back to our hostel where I took a quick shower and headed to bed. 

Overall, our day on the coast was amazing, and it made our entire trip to Italy very worthwhile! For me, this day kind of felt like a vacation (Amalfi) within a vacation (Rome) within a vacation (Sweden)! Haha. The unique charm and beauty of the coast is nearly impossible to put into words; it almost feels like you’re in a little magical land. Matilda and I were so glad that we decided to take a day to relax, pamper ourselves, and escape the big dirty city of Rome. Neither of us wanted to leave when it came time to board the ferry, but being in Amalfi for only one day made it extra special. It was a great day, and many wonderful memories were made. :)

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Friday, September 4th

Last Full Day in Italy

We woke up and took our time getting ready before heading out to make the most of our last full day in Italy. We grabbed the map of Rome and left our hostel around 11:30am. 

Trevi Fountain, Lunch, RAIN, the Pantheon, the Vatican, & the Spanish Steps

Our first stop was the Trevi Fountain. I knew that the fountain was under construction, but I wanted to visit the area anyways, as it was a highlight in The Lizzie McGuire Movie. It was neat to see the area in person, and I am excited to go home so I can watch the movie again! We snapped some pictures and then decided to grab lunch at a restaurant nearby. 

We decided that we wanted pizza, since that was the only food left on our “foods to try in Italy” list, but we were underwhelmed. The restaurant we chose was (I felt) very overpriced for the quality of the food, and the service was horrible. It took us nearly 40 minutes just to get our food, and when they came with the bill we noticed they added it up wrong and overcharged us by 1 euro. I’m sure it was an honest mistake, but after the poor service for overpriced, average tasting pizza, we weren’t too happy. We paid our bill and headed out to see the Pantheon.

On our way to the Pantheon it started to rain. And then it started to rain harder, and harder, and harder. We stepped into a tacky souvenir shop and purchased umbrellas, which was definitely worth the 4 euros we paid. The quality of the umbrellas was poor, but they at least kept our heads dry, although I can’t say the same for my body below my knees. We arrived at the Pantheon, snapped a couple pictures, and then it started raining even harder, turning into a downpour complete with thunder and lightning. We had no choice but to join the massive crowd of other tourists huddled under the roof of the Pantheon. We decided that since we were trapped there anyways that we should go in and take a look around. The inside of the Pantheon was gorgeous, but my favorite part was watching the rain fall down through the whole in the ceiling. You could watch the rain fall down, down, down, until it splattered on the floor of the Pantheon (this area was blocked off with a queu line). The rain started to let up, so we decided to continue on towards our next top, the Vatican. 

We arrived at the Vatican around 3:30pm and were immediately greeted by a tour guide peddler. He informed us that we needed to have our shoulders and knees covered, which I totally spaced about before dressing for the day. I remember making a mental note of this rule back in Sweden, but I failed to remember it on this day. We had the option to purchase scarves to wear for 2 euros each (I needed 2 and Matilda needed 1), but Matilda wasn’t interested in doing that. I really wanted to see St. Peter’s Basillica, but after weighing the pros and cons of the entire situation, we decided to stay in the outside areas and take pictures. The pros: it would be cool to see the inside of the Vatican. The cons: the line to enter the Vatican was extremely long, you were forced to go through the entire thing (the museum, one other part, and then lastly St. Peter’s), the garden was off limits unless you purchased tickets beforehand online, the tour guide said they closed the doors at 4:00pm (not sure if this is true or not) but we could walk around inside until 6:30pm, we would of had to rush through everything, and lastly, it cost money. I was still a little disappointed, but I turned around and made the most of what we could with the situation we were in. Looking at the bigger picture, we had already seen a lot of the sites that Rome has to offer in just three days. Once we snapped our fill of pictures, we said goodbye to the Vatican and made our way to the Spanish Steps. 

The Spanish Steps looked more like a zoo. The area was extremely crowded, which could be due to the fact that it’s right near prime shopping areas, and (unfortunately) under construction. We took some pictures and walked the steps before heading out to do one last round of shopping. 

Matilda wanted to go to Gap to look for some clothes for her nephew and niece, so we went there first. She ended up finding a cute sweater for her nephew which she purchased, and I tried on a shirt but didn’t end up buying it. Our next stop was H&M. I had seen a watch there the first time we visited and I decided I wanted to go back and buy it. After we finished our shopping, we decided to hit up “White” for some gelato on the way back to our hostel. While we were ordering our gelato, Matilda got a message saying that the sweater she bought her nephew was the wrong size, so we headed back to Gap (almost a 30 minute walk) to exchange it for another size. While we were back at Gap, I decided to try on the shirt I had tried on earlier to get Matilda’s opinion. She liked it, I liked it, and I had the euros to spend anyways, so I thought “heck, why not!” and treated myself to the comfy long sleeve hooded t-shirt. Once Matilda exchanged the sweater for a different size and I purchased my shirt, we were finally on our way to our hostel, or so we thought. We were deterred by the Disney store on our way and spent a good amount of time there. Matilda bought a sweatshirt for her niece, and then we finally made the long walk back to our hostel. 

We arrived at our hostel and sat down to rest after a long day on our feet. We decided to go get some dinner before we got too comfortable, so we walked to a place right across the street to eat. When we returned to our hostel a short while later, we met a couple new roommates, one of which was very annoying chatty. Matilda and I changed into our comfy clothes, grabbed our treats, and sat on the top of my bunk to watch an episode of OTH before heading to bed around 11:30pm.

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Saturday, September 5th

Hostel Checkout & Breakfast at Cottini

It seemed like I had just fallen asleep when I was awoken at 4:00am by another roommate moving in. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she didn’t turn on a lot of lights and make little to no effort to be quiet. I threw my covers over my head and finally fell back to sleep about a half an hour later. I slept until around 8:00am and then got up to finish packing before we checked out at 9:30am. We left our suitcases at the hostel, grabbed our umbrellas, and headed out into the rain to find a café called Cottini. I saw some delicious looking cake at this café on our first day here and really wanted to go back and try it before we left. Matilda ordered a chocolate filled croissant, and I ordered a piece of the cake I had seen. I don’t even know what the cake is called, but it was made up of three different layers. The bottom layer was like a sponge cake with chocolate chips in it, the middle (and largest) layer was a vanilla mousse, and the thin layer on top was a berry jelly. It didn’t taste like I expected it to, but it was still delicious nonetheless! We finished our dessert for breakfast and then headed back out into the rain. 

3 Hours to Kill

We had about 3 hours to kill before we had to be at the bus station, and neither of us really knew what to do. We knew we didn’t want to do any more shopping, and we had already seen all the tourist attractions on our list, so we were at a stand still. I remembered that I wanted to take a picture of the one cent euro my cousin Katrina had given me before I left on my trip, so we decided to walk to the Colosseum to use it as the background of the picture. 

We arrived at the Colosseum, took the pictures of the coin, and spent some time saying our goodbyes to one of our favorite parts of Rome. As we were finishing up and getting ready to walk back, the rain started to get heavier and heavier until it was a complete downpour. We could barely move an inch without getting soaked, even with our umbrellas! Matilda and I were shocked by how heavy the rain can be here, so we decided to start calling it “Rome Rain”. When the rain finally started to let up, we decided to take advantage of the break and made our way back to the hostel. Before going back to the hostel, we decided to make a stop at the stores in the train station so I could find a pair of dry pants. I found a pair of cute floral leggings for 16.50 euro from United Colors of Benetton, and then we headed back to our hostel to change and collect our bags. I changed into a dry shirt and my new leggings, and I switched to flip flops because my shoes and socks were completely soaked; every step I took was accompanied by a squishy sound like you hear in movies/cartoons. After I finished changing, we made our way to the bus station to take the bus to the airport. 

Airport “Fun”

We arrived at the airport around ?:?? and ate a quick lunch. Once we finished eating, we made our way through security and found our gate. The airport was crazy busy, and there was really no where to sit; it felt like the airport needed to be at least twice its size to accommodate the amount of people inside. We finally managed to snag some seats (not close to our gate) and spent the rest of our time camped out there. We bought some snacks for the plane and then made our way to our gate when it was time to start boarding. We arrived at our gate and waited, and waited, and waited to board, but we never did. The planes must have been back up, because we didn’t started boarding until our plane was scheduled to depart. We finally made it onto the plane and were pleasantly surprised when we realized that no one was sitting in our row with us, so we had all 3 seats to ourselves! Score! We spent the 3 hour flight watching OTH and eating our snacks. We arrived at the airpot in Sweden around 8:00pm, and our bus taking us back to Linköping didn’t leave until 10:00pm, so we found a table to camp out at, ate dinner, and watched some more OTH to pass the time. The bus ride home was quite uneventful, and after one more bus ride home from central station, we finally arrived home around 1:00am and went straight to bed. 

Rome Overall: Hot, humid. very dirty. Rain. Lots of people. We also end up shopping! Ha! Overall a great experience. Learning that each new place has an adjustment period. Must give it time, despite your feelings. Forces you beyond your comfort zone, and you learn to trust and reason with yourself in ways you haven't before.

“Experience is not what happens to a person, it is what a person does with what happens." 

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Sunday, September 6th

Back in Sweden

We are back in Sweden again, yay! Rome was quite the adventure, but I found myself missing Sweden while I was there. It is currently 10:09am, and Matilda and I are getting ready to meet up with Malin to help her film a workout video before doing a bit of last minute Sweden shopping, getting fika, and then going back to Malin and Peter’s place for dinner! We got back from Italy around 12:15pm last night and went straight to bed; we were exhausted! Once we return home later tonight, I will tell you all about the adventures of the day! 

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The Gym, IKEA, Maxi, & Fika

I’m back! Our day was pretty low-key as far as grand adventures go, but it was an overall fun, productive day! After almost three weeks of something going on, it was nice to have a “normal” day in Sweden. It was very cold and rainy all day, and for some reason the battery of Mikael’s car is dead (no, we didn’t leave any lights on), so we changed our original plan of driving to our destinations to taking the bus to our destinations instead. 

Malin graciously picked us up and took us to shoot her SH’BAM video at their gym in town. The gym is called Frisk, and I fell in love with it after spending just a short amount of time there. It’s a small gym, but it has everything you need to get in a good workout, and it’s very clean and modern looking! I could definitely see myself working out there if I lived in Sweden. The video shoot took about an hour, and then Matilda and I caught the bus to the shopping mall in town. 

Our first stop in the mall was at a little convenience store just inside so Matilda could get some food. We discovered that we were both feeling very drained of energy and zombie-like, and we were glad that we felt the same so neither of us would bring the other one down. We took our time walking through the mall in our zombie-like state, which we thought could be caused by the business of our trip to Italy combined with a late night last evening and the cold weather today. Our second stop was IKEA, where I purchased some bag clips, because I never knew they existed until I came here and thought they were really cool. After checking out at IKEA, we left the mall and made the short walk over to Maxi, which was my main shopping destination of the day. I first grabbed a couple protein bars I had been wanting to try and a protein shake for my travel day home. The second thing on my list was a cute phone case for an iPhone 6, since I plan on purchasing that phone in the nearish future (I first saw the phone case when we went to visit Matilda’s mom, because she has the same one). I grabbed a yogurt, a couple bananas, and a bag of my favorite snack carrots before heading to the main items on my list: chocolate and candy. I bought 9 giant chocolate bars, 4 regular sized chocolate bars, 4 nougat bars, one bag of extra salted licorice (not for me), one bag of regular salted licorice (not for me), one bag of chewy candy cars, one box of chocolate chip cookies, and one bag of these little cinnamon roll things. I am most excited about the chocolate, and I plan on savoring every bite of it. Oh, and if you were wondering, yes, it is worth the extra 20 or so pounds it will add to one of my suitcases. After I stocked up on all the essentials I needed before my trip home, we grabbed some some drinks and food we needed for the Swedish taco dinner and movie night, checked out, and took the bus to Malin and Peter’s house.

Swedish Taco’s & Movie Night

We arrived at Malin and Peter’s house around 5:00pm, and after we put the food in the fridge and ice cream in the freezer, I got the grand tour of their home. It seems like Malin and I have very similar decorating tastes, because I absolutely loved their house and the way it was furnished/decorated! They made me feel right at home, and we were sitting down eating delicious Swedish tacos in no time at all. The main difference between Swedish tacos and tacos you find in the U.S. is that there are a lot more vegetables and different toppings, which I am all for! The taco fixings included: meat, gouda cheese, nacho cheese dip, a garlic sour cream type of dip, taco sauce (which more closely resembled salsa), tomatoes, cucumber, red onions, avacado, lettuce, bell peppers, and corn. I put everything in my taco except for the nacho cheese dip and cucumbers. The tacos were so delicious, and I think I will be sticking with the Swedish taco style from here on out! Throughout dinner we chatted about our trip to Italy, the chilly weather, the difference between Halloween in the U.S. vs. in Sweden, and more. Once we finished dinner and cleaned up, we made our way to the couch with our goodies (candy, ice cream, popcorn, and sour cream and onion Pringles) and watched the movie Southpaw. After the movie was over, Malin gave Matilda and I a ride home, I thanked her for the fun evening, and said goodbye. It was close to 11:30pm when we got home, but I found that I wasn’t really tired, which was kind of odd. I stayed up to finish my laundry and get some packing done, and I finally went to bed around 1:30am. 

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Monday, September 7th

Last Full Day in Sweden

I wasn’t too happy when I woke up at 6:00am this morning; I thought for sure that I was going to sleep in, but my brain obviously had other plans. Matilda was working until 3:00pm, so I had the entire morning and part of the afternoon to kill. I walked to the gas station down the road to get coffee (which I brought home to make proffee), ate breakfast, and then walked into town to run some errands. After a trip to the ATM, the money exchange place, random stores, and the grocery store, I made my way back to the apartment to eat lunch, pack, and do some blogging before Matilda returned home from work. We had a few hours to kill before Malin was going to pick us up and take her to her house for a goodbye dinner, so we watched one episode of OTH. We decided to make a slight change of plans and walk into town to see if the fabric store had a certain type of fabric I was looking for, which they did! We killed some time at the mall nearby (where we bought a couple donuts from Munk O Muffin to eat later) and then we walked to the gym to meet Malin.

Goodbye Dinner at Malin & Peter’s

We got to Malin and Peter’s house and began prepping the food for dinner. We decided to have a dinner of food cooked on the grill, and we ended up having a large selection of foods to choose from! We made shish kebabs with lots of veggies and three different kinds of meats, mushrooms stuffed with a garlic cheese spread, corn on the cob, goat cheese, and potatoes baked a special way in the oven. The food was all very delicious, the place settings were cute and festive, and Malin surprised me with a princess cake for dessert! The princess cake was one of the best cakes I’d ever eaten, and it totally made my night! I’m so grateful that Malin and Peter were kind enough to have us over for dinner the past couple nights. It was so great getting a chance to get to know them more while I was here in Sweden. After dinner AND dessert, I said goodbye to Peter and Malin drove us back home. I thanked Malin for everything she’s done for me throughout my visit, gave her a big hug, and said goodbye. 

Late Night

Although it was getting late (10:00pm or so), Matilda and I had quite a bit to do before I left the next day, and we couldn’t end the day without watching OTH and eating our favorite ice cream. We set up our laptops in the living room and exchanged pictures, videos, and music while watching OTH. We had a midnight snack of our favorite ice cream and the donuts we had bought earlier, which was thee best donut I have ever eaten! I don’t know how Munk O Muffin does it, but their donuts are unbelievable! Although we bought them around 5:00pm and didn’t eat them until 12:00am, they were still extremely soft and downright delicious. I may start a petition to bring Munk O Muffin to the U.S.! Anyways, once we had done everything we needed to do, had our fill of treats and OTH, we said goodnight and hit the hay. 

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Tuesday, September 8th

Travel Day

I woke up at 6:00am on this bittersweet day, aka: travel day. As I got up and did my last minute packing, I couldn’t but wonder how the last 3 weeks went by so fast. I straightened my hair, changed my clothes, checked my suitcases, and made one last coffee run to the gas station down the street. When I returned, I made my proffee and packed food for the day before saying goodbye to the apartment. Matilda and I grabbed my suitcases and made our way to the bus stop to catch a bus to central station in town where we would catch a different bus to Stockholm. We watched the OTH season 2 finale, which helped the final, bittersweet bus ride go by a little bit faster. We arrived at the train station in Stockholm with about an hour of time to spare before we were going to be forced to go our separate ways. We sat down on a bench, did some people watching, and reminisced about the past three weeks, how fun they were, and how they went by much too fast. The time finally came for me to get on the train that was taking me to the airport, so we made our way to the boarding area where we hugged and said our last goodbyes. Matilda got a little teary eyed, but I was able to hold it together…until I sat down on the train and realized that I was all alone—then the waterworks started. The tears went on and off for most of the train ride until I was finally able to pull it together almost 30 minutes later when we arrived at the airport.

Flight “Fun”

I was a little nervous about finding my way through the airport alone, but I found my gate with plenty of time to spare, and even more time than I had planned for due to our plane being delayed. The plane was broken, and we were waiting on a new part to be delivered and installed before we could leave (super comforting, right?). I had some leftover Krona to get rid of, so I spent my free time buying as much Swedish candy as I could afford. Oh, and I bought a salad for lunch, too. Gotta have that balance, right? After spending the last of my Swedish money, I made my way back to the gate and waited until we started boarding the plane, which ended up being about an hour later than anticipated. 

I was thankful once we were in the air and smoothly sailing toward Iceland. At this point, I wanted nothing more than to be back home in Minnesota. We landed in Iceland and, being over an hour late, I super-woman speed walked to my next flight. It’s not easy to do when you have to stop numerous times to show your passport, go through customs, etc. After navigating my way through the maze that is the Reykjavík airport, I finally arrived at my gate, out of breath, thirsty, and needing to pee. I sat down on the plane and realized rather quickly that we weren’t taking off anytime soon, because there were still other people we were waiting for. I was grateful that they waited until every passenger was accounted for, but it was hard not to become irritated as the minutes ticked away and I kept thinking of all the things I could have done in the airport before getting on the plane, like use a normal sized bathroom and buy something to drink that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. To be honest, I wasn’t a happy camper. At all. The return travel after a fun trip is never really enjoyable (especially when you just want to get home ASAP), and it’s made even more unenjoyable when you keep encountering delays along the way. I did my best to be patient, and I diffused some of my anger by eating the peanut butter sandwich and carrots I had packed for lunch. Or was it dinner? I didn’t even know at that point. Shortly after that we were finally getting ready to take off. Once we were in the air, and the captain came over the intercom and said that the flight was going to take a little bit longer than expected (6.5 hours instead of 5 hours) because we were going against a strong wind. You can guess that I was SUPER thrilled to hear that tidbit of information…not. I sucked it up, because it was what it was, and I did my best to not constantly keep tabs on the “time remaining” countdown on the screen in front of me. I watched movies, played games on my phone, listened to music, ogled at the super cute flight attendant (basically the only thing that kept me sane throughout the entire flight), etc., and after what felt like 6 years instead of 6 hours, we were finally landing at the Minneapolis airport. 

More Airport “Fun”

My super-woman speed walk was in full force as I bee-lined my way through the airport to customs. Ugh, customs…I had forgotten about that part of foreign travel. I pulled out the questionnaire thingy they had us fill out and got in the long, slow line of fellow travelers. When it was finally my turn to go through, I answered the questions like I was a contestant playing for “fast money” on Family Feud. I aced the questions (I totally would have won that 20k) and continued to speed walk down to the baggage claim where I discovered that one of my suitcases (the giant magenta polka dotted monstrosity) got left in Iceland. Of course. I went down to the luggage office and gave them the information they needed for my lost suitcase to be delivered to my house later in the week. To be honest, I was just so happy to be on the ground in Minnesota that I didn’t even care that one of my suitcases didn’t make it. It was a little after 8:00pm when I finally left the airport and found my dad waiting for me outside. 

The Last Leg
We stopped at Perkins for a late night bite before finishing the rest of the two hour drive back home to Carlton. It was close to midnight when we arrived home, and the first thing I did was hug my mom (something I had been waiting to do for the past three weeks). My mom, dad, and I sat around the kitchen and talked about everything that had happened in all of our lives over the past three weeks, but I quickly reached a point where I could no longer keep my eyes open. I sleepily made my way upstairs, took a shower, and hopped into my cozy bed. I had just enough time to thank God for the wonderful trip I had and for getting me home safe and sound before I drifted off to sleep with a smile on my face. 
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For those of you who actually read all of this and followed along with me on my adventures through Europe - THANK YOU! I hope you all enjoyed living vicariously through my blog. I really do love my "Not So Plain Jane" Life. :) 

♥ Jane