Ever since my trip I have been trying to find a good time to catch up on the blog posts and I have come to the conclusion that no time will be a good time. Of the 30 hours I was in Copenhagen, I left little unseen and created a great experience that I will hopefully never forget. Though Copenhagen is in Denmark, I figured that so long as I didn’t wear my “I ❤ Sweden” shirt, I would blend right in and I was correct. They suspected me to be an American tourist and not a Swedish student. My disguises never fail.

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

I don’t know how to pronounce that name, but the building was essentially a statue museum. For what the museum lacked in reading, it made up for in sheer volume and incredible works mainly from Egypt and Greece. I have never really been interested in ancient Egypt, but I did enjoy looking at the mummies they had as well as taking photos with a few of their lion statues as it is now my Facebook profile picture. What I was interested in was the Greek exhibit because I love Greek mythology. The statues that they contained were amazing and ancient and they led me to the conclusion that nobody in Greece had noses. I stayed in this museum for nearly an hour and a half admiring the ancient marble before I had to go to the next event. I was prepared to see everything (or at least as much as I could).

Nyhavn

If you end up going to Copenhagen, I recommend this as something you absolutely have to experience. Nyhavn is translated to “New harbor” and while the name certainly doesn’t hold up, the attraction very much does. The port is beautiful, and the various brightly colored buildings make you feel as if you’re in an art piece. Nyhavn offers a lovely boat tour where you can explore the canals and get very strange looks as you touch every bridge you go under…or maybe that’s just me. Anyway, the harbor has many illustrious buildings and restaurants that are very much worth exploring if not a little pricey. Much to my wallet’s dismay, I ended up eating while overlooking the harbor which is an experience that money can’t really compete with. It was the first time that I had salmon caviar and judging by the taste, it was probably the last. Regardless, I wouldn’t have traded that experience for anything and if I ever find myself in Copenhagen again, this will be the first place I come back to.

Rundetaarn and Kastellet

Continuing with the places I cannot pronounce, I then proceeded to Rundetaarn which is an old church tower that you can climb and see the city from. Two things that I noticed while climbing this tower is that the city of Denmark is very pointy; the number of towers and spirals looking over Denmark is surprisingly high. The second thing I noticed is that 400-year-old churches were not designed to be tourist attractions. I came to this conclusion after I had to climb up a narrow stairway that looks like it was meant to hold half a person, while at the same time trying to avoid those who were coming down from the tower. Overall is was a fun experience. The second attraction is called Kastellet, which is a fort centered near the harbor. The key to this attraction was that in addition to looking very impressive, it was free to the public. I did go and do not regret walking over the ramparts of the fort, but overall it was a little boring. There are a few shops and restaurants in the fort but nothing of much attraction. I feel as though maybe I just went at a bad time but overall, I was a little underwhelmed by it. Something that did cross my mind while walking along the ramparts though was the fact that I realized that this is the perfect location for a blind date. The reason being that when you look over the harbor, it makes for a sight that is quite romantic, and if the date is going poorly, you can push your date down the rampart and get a good 5 minute head-start before they make it back up again and try to smack you.

Tivoli Gardens

After getting smacked for pushing my date off the ramparts (kidding), I went to meet up with the rest of my group at Tivoli Gardens. Tivoli Gardens was the main thing on this trip that I was hesitant about because it seemed a lot like Grona Lund from Stockholm, by which I mean it was advertised as an amusement park but might be another permanent carnival. The other big concern is that Denmark is nearly 1.5x more expensive than Sweden, and while money really wasn’t an issue for me, I would prefer not to spend $21 USD on another hip dysplasia while Mickey Mouse looks disappointedly at me from afar. I did end up going though but decided not to buy any ride tickets and I am happy to say that I more than got my money’s worth. While Tivoli does have amusement park rides, they look to be more stable and enjoyable. Not riding rides though, the reason I enjoyed Tivoli extensively was because of the plethora of things available inside of it. Tivoli has an amazing rose garden in the center of the park along with a Japanese tranquility garden to the left. The park seemed a lot cleaner and generally more beautiful; it had a live jazz band playing, had a fun water fountain show that was good to look at, and before the park closed, they had one of the most amazing fireworks displays I had seen from an amusement park. The best comparison I could make of this place is if Disney Springs had a few amusement park rides and a garden intertwined. For the price of admission, it was very much worth it and seeing as I left the park at midnight and had a full day ahead of me, naturally it was time to go to a casino.

Denmark Casino

I don’t recall if that is the actual name of the establishment, but it doesn’t matter because I won’t be going back. I followed my friend to the Casino because while I was not planning on gambling, I had been on a Victory Casino cruise before and knew how a few of the games worked. He had never been gambling before and I wanted to make sure he wasn’t doing anything dangerous and I partially wanted to see how he would do. We walked into the Casino without issue and my friend handed one of the workers 500 crowns (roughly $75) and took his chips as we sat down on roulette. He played for an hour as I coached him, and we had a relatively good luck on that. My friend walked after winning 200 crowns and we both decided that this was a good enough experience to go to bed on. As we walked to the table to cash in the chips, we were asked to present our cards. Uh? What cards? As it would turn out, we needed to go to the front desk (of which we were not stopped on our way in) and purchase cards for the casino at 95 crowns each. They would not release my friend’s winnings until he did so (funny how they were eager to take his money before without question), so we went and got him his 95-crown extortion card. Then, because even though I was not gambling I was in the casino, they extorted another 95 crowns out of me. Being thoroughly annoyed but still not wanting to have my friend be out 700 crowns, I paid up. He took his earnings and we left for the night. While we were both upset, I reminded him that for roughly $14 we still had an hour’s worth of entertainment…and house always wins.

Day 2

My friends and I woke up fresh off of roughly 4 hours of sleep and went to get breakfast. After breakfast we decided to visit another vantage point of the city from another spiraling church tower. While I forget the church name as I am writing this, I do have it written down somewhere and the building is very unique. Keeping with the tradition that 400-year-old churches are not made for tourists, my friends and I climbed up several passageways of narrow stairs and made it to the top after roughly half an hour. As we made it back down from the church, I took off the cross that has been hanging from my necklace for the last year and placed it somewhere along the route of the church. I don’t know what I am expecting to happen to this cross, but one of my friends said she would check on it when she returns to Copenhagen next year, so I may make a decision depending on that find.

Rosenborg

After our morning spiral walk, we all went to Rosenborg which is a resident castle, or more accurately, royal estate. The Rosenborg is pretty impressive mansion spanning three floors and a basement, but it is not a proper monolith like some of the other royal facilities. The main reason I wanted to go to this museum/castle/estate was because it contained the crown jewels of Denmark, and unlike Sweden, this one I could take photos of. I toured the home, playing the classic museum game of being fascinated by the dead people while rifling through their things until I came to the treasury. The treasury contained things like the ivory works that many royals and artists hand-crafted. It contained weapons and coats and medals, and it contained what I wanted to see. The most impressive things to me are the sword and the crown of a royal, and Denmark did not disappoint. The jewels on the crown were one thing, but the sculptures crafted within the base of the crown bring an astonishing testimony to the money and quality that people had long before modern luxuries.

The Danish War Museum

I had managed to do a lot on this trip and while not all of it has been mentioned here, the final thing that I could not forget was the Danish War Museum. Having previously worked in the defense industry and being very fond of explosions, I had to see this. I went with one of my friends and we both immediately were speechless upon entering the attraction. The building itself is two floors, but the floors are longer than a football field and the entire first floor, end to end, was adorned with cannons. It was amazing walking through history and realizing that the time we spent switching from cannons to mortars was only roughly 50 years, and as we walked further, we could see the cannons become thinner, and more armor-plated, and riveted, but not necessarily smaller. The second floor was just as impressive as it contained information on the Danish navy and “gems of the museum” which is clothing, weapons, and other artifacts that aren’t Danish, but related to war. This included things such as knightly armor, samurai swords, civil war uniforms, Nazi uniforms, war medals, and a javelin missile launcher. The historical significance of that last piece is that it is something I used to actually work on. Back when I was at Lockheed Martin, I had worked in part to support the Javelin missile system and even though the missile had been in production long before I had even started working there, it was an absolute treasure to see. To end the trip on such an amazing note was a great honor for me.

I think Copenhagen had been my favorite part of this study abroad even though it was not part of the actual program. I have come to realize that I am fascinated by the new sites and the sense of adventure that I couldn’t even get through this trip before trying to plan another trip. I will have very fond memories from this city for many years to come and if anyone wants to try to beat my record, I touched the underside of roughly 13 bridges while I was there. Good luck.

Last Friday was the Swedish Midsummer Festival and it was literally the longest day of the year. The Swedish Midsummer Festival was created when everyone in Sweden realized that since they weren’t going to get any sleep anyway, why not throw a party? How that turned into dancing around a maypole and eating herring is beyond me. Also, this post may be a little bit special because I am typing on a Swedish keyboard, which has the å, ö, and ä characters so I will be actually spelling things correctly this time.

The Morning Of

For this particular holiday, most of the study abroad group decided to travel to cities within Sweden to celebrate the festivities, but I decided to stay in Jönköping for a few reasons. Mainly because every city everyone was going to was one I had already visited/will visit, but also because after hanging out with the same people for one month non-stop, I figured it might be a good idea to switch it up and mingle with other groups before I had to say goodbye to them. Our cultural event for the festival did not start until the middle of the day so for the morning I decided to go to a place I had passed several times before called Skogskyrkogården. My Swedish is not great (what else is new?) but I figured that anything with the word “Garden” in it couldn’t be that bad right? Well as it turns out I was partially correct, because the garden was actually a cemetery, but a beautiful one at that. It may seem a bit morbid, but I enjoyed the peace and quiet as I went through the forests and gardens while looking on at headstones. Out of respect for the dead, I did not take photos with headstones in them. There was one thing that I very much wanted to capture on camera though, because I felt like nobody would believe me otherwise. This thing in particular was located in the garden that was dedicated to those without identification or a family to claim them. In this part of the cemetery, there were several candles, flowers and one large rock to commemorate the area. On that rock, written in pinecones, was the word “mamma”. I’m not one to really believe in the paranormal and there was a good chance that someone wrote that just to mess with me, but then again I didn’t feel like finding out what the culprit was while alone in a cemetery so I ended up leaving and heading in the direction of the cultural festival.

Pre-Festivities

Something that I miss about big towns is the fact that things are actually open. In general, I don’t think anyone wakes up earlier than 10AM on Saturdays in this city and combined with holidays it doesn’t seem financially possible for any of these businesses to still be able to pay their rent come July. This wouldn’t really bother me except for the fact that I like to wake up early and I have a borderline dependency on coffee. Every morning, I have to go on a scavenger hunt to start my day because God forbid any coffee shop be open at a reasonable time. After completing my daily hunt, I then proceeded to the cultural festival meeting point. Remember when I said that nearly everyone in the program decided to go to a different city for this holiday? Well neither I nor the coordinators actually knew that until we got there a realized. In fact, of the 70-80 students in the program, roughly 10 of us showed up. Something everyone might be interested in is the ability for people to separate themselves into similar cultural backgrounds. What I mean by that is that those from Mexico and Ecuador decided to stick with each other and head to Stockholm. Those from the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe decided to travel to Gothenburg, and those from Thailand, Hong Kong, and Vietnam…and me, decided to stay for the cultural activity in Jönköping.

The Flower Crowns

As the coordinators realized that the others were not coming, they decided to start the fun off with a traditional lunch “cake” that contained cucumbers, ham, cheese, and a plethora of things I did not want to question until after I ate it. The best way this traditional dish was described to me was as a salty cake, and while that was a fitting descriptor, I don’t think it made it any easier to swallow. After I had forced the first tradition down my throat, it was time for us all to make the festive flower crowns. I didn’t mind making one though part of my engineering decision came from the fact that I have never been artistic. I put my best foot forward and made something resembling a flower crown that I ended up wearing it until it died roughly 2 hours later. During all of this, I was mingling with my newfound friends and we were actually having a relatively good time just talking. Once all the flower crowns were masterfully constructed (or in my case, attempted) we all headed onto a bus and went to a local park for the real festivities. Up until then, I had noticed that the city had been relatively empty. As it would turn out, you can fit the entire population of Jönköping into a park area if you really try.

The Park Festivities

As a group, we all went down and found a relatively open spot that was about 100 feet from the maypole (The biggest festivity) and then played a traditional competitive Swedish game whose name I never actually got. The objective of the game was for two teams to face off against each other and take turns throwing sticks at wooden towers from a distance. Whichever team took out the opposing team’s towers ended up winning. I very much enjoyed the game and the competition gave us all on opportunity to poke fun at each other and bond a little. A little while later the main festivity started as everyone gathered around the maypole. The maypole is around 30 feet and adorned with two rings and a triangle. I do not know the significance of this pole other than the fact that everyone dances around it. Now, being the extraverted American who enjoys the opportunity to make a fool of himself, it did not take me long to lead both myself and my newfound friends into one of the dancing circles that surrounded this pole. Seeing as none of us knew the traditional dances or spoke Swedish, we all had a good time looking around at others and quickly trying to copy them, much to the locals’ amusement. For the record, these dances are not sacred but rather silly, and once you have to hop like a frog around a pole, all bets for being offensive are off. We all danced around for roughly 10 minutes before dispersing again and playing a few more rounds of Swedish stick-throwing. We all went home a few hours later having been fully satisfied with our participation in the festivities.

The After Party

Being an honorary Asian now (Part of my ancestry is from Russia after all) I was invited out to have dinner with my new friends. Something that I had noticed but never really investigated before was that, out of all the groups, most of the Asian students cooked and had dinners with each other and I was very happy to have participated in that. We all went into the kitchen, talking and cooking and having a generally good time. After dinner, we decided to partake in the last tradition which was, of course, drinking. In a small town, your options for activities are rather limited and even though alcohol is currently sold through a government-run monopoly, it is still very common to drink every night of the week. I have personally not gotten drunk since the beginning of the trip but can attest to this fact because I have ridden enough of the last busses of the night and have seen more than enough to be confident in that statement. We all ended up having a good time though; I introduced them all to a game called blockhead (which is very hard to explain to people after drinks have been involved), and after a few hours I now have connections in Thailand should I decide to travel there (which may be a future possibility). Overall, I very much enjoyed the change of pace and very much enjoyed the Midsummer Festival. When I woke up the next morning, I checked to make sure my friends were alive and after the consensus I got was “For the most part”, I packed up and headed out to Copenhagen.

I now understand why UCF’s insurance policy is $250,000 per incident considering all of the things that could happen during a study abroad. Today was a true testament to that as we had our second industry visit to Husqvarna’s manufacturing plant. Husqvarna is very well known throughout the world and they sell various products, mainly consisting of gardening/landscaping tools (and cars if you’re in Northern Europe). What possible landscaping tools could this particular facility sell you ask? Only the best ones which are: chainsaws. Lots and lots of chainsaws.

Husqvarna

For full disclosure I should start by saying that at no point was I, nor anyone else in any danger. Husqvarna operates their facility very safely and makes sure that anyone who is on the manufacturing floor is wearing the proper personal protective equipment (PPE). For background, Husqvarna started back in the 1680’s making various tools and rifles. The town that the company is located in is also called Husqvarna which it rather interesting because I don’t know if the chicken or the egg came first. Both the town and the company have quite a history despite who was first. The main facility we visited today had buildings built between 1880-1940 but they had one exception which was a building from the 1720s. That number really didn’t have a significant impact on me until it was pointed out that the United States was still 50 years from an established country, and New Zealand was 100 years from being discovered. Despite the age of the facility, they do quite well for themselves; when they started producing chainsaws, they made around 350 per year. Today, they make 3,500 per day. Judging by the vast forests, the chainsaws to trees ratio doesn’t seem correct which makes me suspect that either most of them are exported, or there is one very dangerous man in Sweden just waiting to make his horror movie debut.

The Facility

Husqvarna wasted no time in showing us the facility. The facility is a set of large manufacturing buildings as anyone would suspect. Despite the facility’s massive size, they only employ 280 workers. Husqvarna has done an incredible job of implementing robotics into its facility to the point where some facets of the business have 2 workers per 5,000 square foot area. The processes they had implemented were great to see and they made sure everything was visual and visible. This included if they had any delays, what part they were on, suggestions for improvement, and various appropriate signage. I was also very amused to see various Kaizen boards throughout the facility because my business had spent quite a long time implementing those into our own facilities, and I found it funny that be it in Sweden or in the United States, every board still has a safety cross on it. Though this is mainly a board seen in manufacturing, if you do not know what either of those are and you would like to improve your business on a visual level, I would highly recommend looking into it. In addition to Husqvarna’s visual guidance of their facility, they also allowed us to hold a few of the defective products, allowed us to go through their manufacturing floor, and hold a few chainsaws. I really enjoyed this visit and I would like to think I was able to take a few things away from it.

Husqvarna Vs. IKEA

When it comes to tours, Husqvarna wins hands-down and not just because chainsaws are cooler than the things they cut. The reason that this was much more enjoyable was because Husqvarna did not waste a lot of time trying to tell us how great they were. There was a 5-minute informational session at the beginning and any other interesting fact about Husqvarna was given as we were walking around. IKEA’s warehouse is a logistical masterpiece and nobody can take that away from them, but I felt like I had actually seen the Husqvarna facility and I had only been rushed through IKEA’s. Despite my enjoyment with the tour, Husqvarna did not give us fika whereas IKEA did, so I do have to take off points even though in hindsight, that may just count as a bribe. Oh well.

The remainder of the day has been planning the trip to Copenhagen. From what I can tell, Copenhagen has all of its main attractions spread across 2 square miles and yet I still am not able to figure out when to plan dinner through all of them. Seeing everything the city has to offer in the course of one day is a logistical nightmare that my class has not prepared me for it. As for tonight, the United States is playing against Sweden, so a group of us are going to go out and watch the game. I, for one, cannot wait to figure out which sport we are talking about, but if we all get kicked out of Sweden tomorrow, it will be because the USA lost.

Normally I look forward to making my blogs posts but after having to write a large assignment for class these past two days, I don’t really love what I am currently doing. Unfortunately, week 3 is rather boring due to the large assignment looming overhead and the fact that this is the last week of lectures. Add to the fact that the only cultural activity in the last three days was a barbeque that got rained out and it makes for a perfect storm to post, well, nothing.

Why Write This

One of the main reasons why I have forced myself to write today is because I am obligated by this assignment to have 27 total entries about my life consisting of a minimum of 300 words. The good news on that is that my average blog post so far has been roughly 1000 words and if we’re going by word count then I nailed this assignment, and if not…well it’s a pass or fail so I’m not too worried. The other reason I am writing this is to say that after three weeks in Jonkoping, it’s gotten a little stale. Jonkoping is a lovely little city but when you come from a large place such as Orlando, the charm of a small town starts to wear out. Personally, I think Jonkoping was a great first experience into the larger world because even after two weeks, going to Stockholm was a really big shock for me, and I don’t know how well I would have done if I had initially only visited there. I would like to think I have learned a good amount that will help me, and I have come to appreciate my strengths as a traveler and my stupidities, but hey, I’m not dead yet. I have still not fooled anyone into thinking that I speak Swedish with my ordering abilities and in all honesty, I’ve mostly stopped asking if people speak English and just started talking in it. Even though the week is nearly half over, there is still a lot to look forward to.

The things that are still on the horizon include graduation, the Mid-summer Festival, a trip to Copenhagen, a possible trip to Gothenburg, and several more days of city exploring but if anyone does have any specific questions before I leave Sweden, please feel free to message me through the contact page or through the Facebook/LinkedIn Messengers.

And of course, thank you for following along thus far.

Just when I thought I mastered public transportation; I get introduced to trains. My journey to Stockholm began on Saturday. I had used an app called Omio to make travel arrangements for myself and two others to go to Stockholm and I arrived early to make sure that I had plenty of time to screw up know what I was doing. I saw the train pull up. I saw that it was going to Stockholm. I could not find my wagon number but did not want to miss the train (trains can be at a station and gone in less than 3 minutes) so I hopped on 13 minutes earlier than my estimated time only to realize…this is the wrong company.

Night Life in Stockholm

After getting off of the wrong train, waiting the 13 minutes for my train (they run very precisely), and then taking the two-hour ride in my designated seat, I had finally made it to the capital of Sweden and it. Was. Amazing. I am a very big car person, especially when it comes to exotic/super cars so you could imagine my delight when almost immediately after my friends and I got out of the station, two Audi R8 spyders came flying down the street. I would also later see a Lamborghini Huracan and Ferrari 458 because Stockholm is pretty wealthy. Stockholm’s wealth and culture make it a very beautiful place where the architecture is rich and historic; filled with cobblestone streets and oases of parks every few hundred meters. The night life itself is very incredible, with clubs and shops and bars every other block, it almost reminded me of downtown Orlando in that aspect. When my friends and I arrived, we checked into our Micro-Hotel (chosen so because we only planned to sleep there) and then immediately dropped our bags and left. From there we spent 15,000 steps and 2 hours exploring the city. It was already 10PM when we arrived but we stayed out until nearly 1AM just viewing the city. I was happy that I managed to find and take a picture of Stockholm City Hall (The building in the background of my blog) and that was just in the beginning. We didn’t stay out too late however because we did have quite a day ahead of us.

Stockholm Royal Palace

Our first stop in the morning…was breakfast, but our second stop was the Stockholm Royal Palace. The Palace is as you would imagine something to house 14-17^th century royalty; A massive labyrinthine building decorated with flowers, statues, grand entries, and gift shops. My friends and I visited four different sections of the palace (because that is what a standard student ticket will get you). The Tre Kronor museum told us about the palace history and contained the most reading. I found it pleasant that the placards and descriptions were both in Swedish and in English, because it didn’t really occur to me that I might have just spent 90 kronor to have a conversation with Google Translate. From there, I visited the Museum of Antiquities which is a room filled with statues. While an amazing view, I did often find myself looking at a name, nodding to myself to convince myself that I completely knew who the dead person made of marble was, followed by me moving to the next one. I did this roughly 30 times before running out of statues and leaving that section of the palace. For the next room…well I got lost trying to find it. Palaces really aren’t built with museums in mind so some of the entrances and exits aren’t exactly intuitive. However, after my determined searching I managed to find my favorite room which was the Treasury.  The Treasury is by far the crown jewel of this exhibit because it literally contains the crown jewels, as well as several crowns spanning over 200 years. In addition, the treasury also contains royal robes, scepters, swords, and an empty storage chest for some strange reason but it was quite an amazing room and I very much wish that photography was allowed in it. The final room was the Royal Apartments and in order to get into them, you had to pass the church and the altar…or at least that is the way I took after getting lost again. It took me several minutes to realize that I was not in the royal apartments and after I did manage to get into the correct room, my overall perspective of it was “cool”. There were some very nice portraits adorning the walls, but the reading material was light, and the overall sense was that, while impressive, these rooms are just rooms with outdated furniture. Maybe it would have been better with the audio tour but then again, I personally like going at my own pace on these types of tours. Either way, for the price I paid and the things I saw, I was far from disappointed.

Vasa

The next thing we went to see was the warship Vasa, which got its name after someone saw it and said, “Vasa big ship sir”, and yes, I do write my own material. In all honesty, Vasa was my favorite thing that I saw that day. The ship is a war ship that sank during its maiden voyage due to a design flaw. From there, Vasa was underwater in the Stockholm harbor for 400 years before excavators located it and hoisted it out. It took nearly two years from rediscovering this ship to haul it out of the sea and bring it to the surface. In fact, the only reason it is as well-preserved as it is today is because it had sunk. The way that the Vasa exhibit is laid out; the ship is along the left side of the wall and there are 5-6 levels of observation for it. To the right; there are several exhibits and movies that depict things such as the sinking of the ship, the recovery, several facts about the people of that time, etc. I will add that one of the most interesting exhibits was the one titled “Life Onboard” because my only hope for an exhibit with that title for a ship that sank during its maiden voyage, was a room with the word “Wet” painted along the wall. You can imagine my disappointment when I walked in. Anyway, Vasa is amazing, and it can take anywhere between an hour and three hours depending on how detailed you would like your view to be. There are over 900 carvings on this ship alone and I would highly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in the city.

Grona Lund

Maybe I have been spoiled having Disney World and Universal outside of my door for my entire life, but for the remainder of my trip, my friends and I all went to Grona Lund which I can only describe as a permanent carnival. Grona Lund is the amusement park and I’m sure that if I had not ever been to Florida, I would have very much enjoyed myself but unfortunately, I had, and I now know the difference between a theme park and an amusement park. I bought entrance to Grona Lund (GL) for 120SEK and then paid an addition 345SEK for access to all their rides. Two things that I do have to give my admiration to GL for is that one, it does make sense to have the a ride access purchase because a lot of adults have no interest in riding the rides, so at least they can chaperone their children for the equivalent of $12. Two, GL has amusement park food, but the food is actually priced for human consumption. I have never before been able to spend $7 at an amusement park unless it was for water, so I do have to appreciate that. Unfortunately, that is where the nice things stop, and the comparisons start. GL has roller coasters and even though none of them (intentionally) go upside-down, they make up for it in sharp turns that could relocate a hip. I remember going on one ride and hearing a great review from a fellow person in line saying how great this ride is because of how comfy the headrest is. Why yes sir, that is important. But if that is your take-away from an amusement park ride then we really need to discuss your level of standards. Furthermore, for those wondering like I was, the difference between a theme park and an amusement park is very easy when you have examples. When you go to Disney, you have magic, animals, tours around the world, mickey, princesses, all things you associate with Disney in their own little section. When you go to Grona Lund, you have generic mice, knock-off Aladdin, a witch, a 50’s diner, a 70’s popstar roller coaster, and that purple thing, all within the same section. The last thing I wanted to touch on, which also has something to do with school, is timing and logistics of the rides: They had none. Anyway, overall if you enjoy carnivals or physical therapy then this might be the place for you, but I think my time would have been better spent at another attraction.

With that, my Journey in Stockholm mostly came to an end. We did go sight-seeing and shopping for a while before the train but there is only so much you can do in a day. I wish I could have stayed longer but I think that is the consensus of every tourist when they visit a new place for the day. Overall, Stockholm was a wonderful city to visit and a great way to start the third week of my Swedish life.