Estonia & Amsterdam other happenings

I sorta haven't updated in a while...

Well, the 1st through 3rd of February I went to Estonia, by ferry. To sum up: it was stressful. The ferry ride was SIXTEEN hours long! left in the evening, like 6pm, and arrived at 10 am. It was very wavy, and thank goodness no one told me about the ferry that sank in the 90's doing a similar trip, because my friends and I would have been hysterical during the really rocky hours. The city was beautiful, well, the old city was.. and thats really all we had time to explore. Pics posted. We had 6 hours in the city then we boarded the boat again for another 16 hours of madness. It was fun, they had karaoke and singers/dancers to distract us for a few hours, food was SO expensive, we brought food on the boat from land for the way home.

The 29th of February-3rd of March I went to Amsterdam, and that was AMAZING.  The city is so beautiful, there are about 4 canals that wrap around the city, and there are a ton of parks and just lovely streets everywhere, so much fun.  I traveled there alone, which was a first, so that was cool experience.  I met my friend from ISU - Liz - there, which turned out to be quite difficult since we had no way of getting in touch! But once we found each other it was like being home, but so much better. haha.

This Friday I am leaving on a road trip to Goteborg and Malmo, two Swedish, south and west of Uppsala.  It is me and 4 girls, we have rented a Jetta, and we are SO excited.  I'm sure I'll have lots to say about it in my next post!

I hate doing laundry here.  I have to wake up at dawn (so like 10 am, haha, just kidding), just to get a couple open washers, and, even early in the morning, i have trouble getting a dryer when all my clothes are soaking wet.  its frustrating.  its impossible to do it during the day, unless you get lucky, which i have, but normally it just sucks.  i had to deal with that this morning. 

St. Patties day was this past weekend, and Swedes don't really celebrate it.  apparently there is a st patties day parade in stockholm that is gaining popularity, but but majority of folks do not do anything.  since there is such a large international student population, some irish girls rented out of of the student nations with a dj and whatnot to celebrate.  it was pretty much all international students. haha. 

I am in a new class, Tragedy of the Commons.  It's all about climate change, and the politics surrounding it.  it is a C-level here, so it would be a 300-level course at ISU, which is exciting because i think i've only taken 100 levels in college so far.  its a pretty cool class, we get to have class in a bunch of different places, like Angstrom Lab, and we took a tour of a waste-burning plant, that burns waste from Uppsala and surrounding towns to supply the entire area with heat. We also got to see tidal generators, that the scientists are building in Angstrom Lab (part of Uppsala) that generate electricity using energy from waves.   cool stuff.  other than that it is a lot of articles and a lot of participation in seminars.  i will admit some of it goes over my head, but can say ive learned a lot. 

by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY KALEIGH!
I don't think she reads this, but oh well.


look at my pictures!