And the Christmas adventure continues...

Again, these past few days have been jam packed full with lots of activities! Yesterday, which I believe was Friday, we went to an Open Air Museum which had tons of stuff to look at- my favorite was the zoo portion which housed a pack of wolves, moose, a beautiful horse (see picture), owls, and other various "Scandinavian animals". Before we took a look at the animals, we stopped inside a small cafe to warm up and have a hot drink before going out into the freezing cold again. Isn't the design on my late adorable? The Open Air Museum also had a furniture gallery which was closed, and a glass blowing section which was pretty cool. After we walked around for awhile, we took the metro bus back to the main section of town and then we mapped out how to get back to our hotel. We only had an hour or so to rest, so we hung out for awhile and met the bus back in front of the hotel to take us to the hockey game.

This was my first "real" hockey game that I have attended. I have been to one at Gonzaga, but not anything like the intense ones I have always heard about. The game ended up being a lot of fun- but what I found interesting was the fans were much more into the fighting and aggression than the actual players. At one point, a huge group of the home fans came over to the opposing team's fan side and were yelling and about to cause a scene and fight. Luckily, just in time an army of security officers patrolled the scene, but the game was momentarily paused until the fuss was over. It was pretty interesting and it was kind of funny because our group was literally in the middle of what was happening between the two sides. The home team ended up winning- which was pretty neat.

I just love the look of bare winter trees! They are pretty mysterious- like this one to your left. Anyways, after the hockey game we were all pretty hungry so we went to a sports bar called O'Leary's across the street from our hotel. Cierra and I split a Chicken Caesar Salad (haven't had one of those since I left the states!) and chicken quesadillas which came with sour cream, guacamole, and salsa. YUM! After dinner we were so pooped from our long day, that Cierra and I just came back to our room and attempted to relax. We had to deal with the situation of changing a flight ticket of mine to a different date though, because as we both clicked "pay now" on an online Lufthansa site, my price went through and her connection timed out and when she refreshed, the price of the ticket practically doubled. For the past few days we have been trying to contact Lufthansa seeing if there is anything they can do to help us out, or cut us a break- but unfortunately it is not under their control if the price changes. (its a supply and demand thing I am assuming...) Anyways, after a lot of calls with a low internet connection, we managed to move my flight to another weekend for an 84 euro additional fee and Cierra was able to book her flight at the same price that I had gotten mine originally. We didn't end up going to bed until around 2 AM last night so needless to say we have been pretty exhausted today!

This morning we got up around 8:30 and then walked downstairs and had a lovely Breakfast at the hotel. I have been impressed with these hotel Breakfasts! In Italy, normally we just get one croissant and maybe a yogurt. After Breakfast, we met the rest of the GU group on the double Decker bus and headed towards the Vaso Museum, which housed a real ship that was built in the 1600's and it sank after just 20 minutes of use. The ship was under water for about 333 years and it was just recently discovered in the Baltic Sea in 1971. They carefully lifted the ship which was preserved by the low levels of salt in the water and it practically looks brand new! Apparently, the water worms did not get to the wood because they tend to thrive in salt water. We had a nice tour guide at the museum, and then we watched a little documentary about the ship and how it was taken to the museum, etc. After the museum visit, we went to a place where we went curling! I had never really heard of curling before this trip, but I heard it was a fun thing to try. The sport takes place on the ice and the point is to shuffle a broom and stone across the ice and have it hit a target on the other side of the room. It is quite tricky- I found it difficult to measure how much force to put on the stone while maintaining balance, direction, curvature, etc. Before actually playing the game, we did some practice drills and just got acquainted with the ice and what not. Overall I thought it was a lot of fun! Even though I did slide and fall a lot... haha.

After curling we went to the old town district of Stockholm and had an hour or so to walk around and get something to eat. We were all pretty hungry, so Cierra, Georgina and Emily and I stumbled upon "Sally's" which had a variety of food- I think primarily Italian, ironically. It was pretty good though! I got a pizza which ham and cheese on it and ate the whole thing! (with some help of course hehe). It was the perfect amount of "fullness" and it instantly gave me some energy that I was lacking... the last thing on our agenda for the day was a ghost tour that met at the huge Christmas tree in the old town center.

The ghost tour was fun, but it was awfully cold out! At one point I thought my toes were going through the beginning stages of frost bite because they were super tingly at first, and then they just went numb and felt kind of puffy- haha not a good feeling for sure. But the tour guide was great- and he had a lot of great ghost stories and tales of the town. We walked around for a little over an hour and a half and at various location sites on the way our tour guide would stop and tell a story about a certain monument, building, or house. The various stories reminded me of my dad's ghost stories, which he was always creatively make up and tell on family camping trips back in the day. Anyways, our tour guide was super funny too- which made the whole tour more entertaining. At the end, we were given the responsibility to find our way back to the hotel so a bunch of us gathered together and headed towards the subway station. It wasn't too confusing but I relied on other people to get us home because for those who know me know I am horrible at directions haha. After we got back, Cierra, Georgina and I went to the local grocery store and got some snacks. I was able to use up the rest of my Kronas so I'm happy about that.

Here is a picture of all the girls on the Christmas tour! :) Tomorrow we are leaving for Finland! I think we are there just for the day and then we head towards St. Petersburg, which is our final destination.

Stay tuned for more information on my trip! Check out the new pictures I uploaded from Copenhagen! (on Facebook)