Idag är det Fettisdagen i Sverige! Today is Fat Tuesday in Sweden. The day when we eat semla in Sweden. Matilda, my roommate here in my new apartment in Järfälla, got me this big pastry, semla, which is famous to eat today. It is made with a very expensive spice called Cardamom, which used to be only affordable to the rich in the old days. But now everyone eats it. :)
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Hej hej! Nu jag talar lite svenska. This means, "Now I speak a little Swedish" in Swedish! My classes are finally starting to rub off on me.
First week of classes are done. I can finally speak a little bit of Swedish and getting a hang of the transportation system in Skäne. Visited Kopenhavn (Copenhagen)
First week of classes are done. I can finally speak a little bit of Swedish and getting a hang of the transportation system in Skäne. Visited Kopenhavn (Copenhagen)
Lapland Adventures: Surviving Storm Sven (a.k.a Better late than never!)
I really wanted to write a blog post about my experience in Lapland, but never got around to doing it with the holidays creeping up on me, finals around the corner, mom visiting me, and moving out of Lund, etc. So, here I am, writing it now--well past New Year's! Better late then never, as they say.
I wanted to start off by saying that the Lapland trip sounded so fun and exciting from the beginning--I could fulfill some of my childhood dreams and check off a few things from my bucket list, like seeing the Northern Lights, going to a real Santa Claus village, and touring the Arctic Ocean in Norway. I was really hoping I could catch the Northern Lights and even more eager to ride on a reindeer sleigh and visit the Arctic Circle.
The start of the trip was very rocky--Skåne was hit by class 3 storm warnings and then pelted by high, turbulent winds and stormy weather. The trains actually stopped running from Lund to Copenhagen and I managed to get a train before they cut off the transportation completely. By the time I arrived in Copenhagen, I could tell the weather was just bad. The winds were literally shaking the walls and the windows of the various terminals and some flights had already been cancelled. The temperatures were freezing and it looked like a huge struggle for passengers arriving from recent flights to make it through the strong winds and inside the airport. l knew there was a chance my flight could be cancelled, too. It was weird though, because I was really confident it wouldn't. Somehow my plane would brave through the storm despite it all. I've also never experienced a cancelled flight before, so I guess I assumed that the weather had to be absolutely catastrophic, like colossal floods from the ice caps all melting or something, in order for my flight to be cancelled.
I ended up waiting hours, then went to go check in for my flight. The other passengers and I kept waiting and waiting, but we didn't hear anything from the airline staff or airport employees. I was getting worried because I noticed that only my flight and a few others were the only ones not cancelled at this point. Still hoping the weather would clear up a bit before our plane had to depart.
Finally, over a full hour after our plane was supposed to board, an announcement on the airport intercom stated that the airport was closed and that all flights were cancelled. I was shocked! What would happen to my Lapland trip plans? Where would I stay with the trains all cancelled? Where do I go?
Turns out that virtually everyone still at the airport was stuck there overnight, unless you were one of the lucky ones to snag a hotel room that night and a cab. Those sold out quickly and there weren't enough rooms to go around for everyone. Keep in mind I am talking over a thousand people (at least)---stuck at Copenhagen Airport overnight. It was like a scene out of a natural disaster movie: elderly people and babies were cuddled up on the floor in the halls of terminals and store fronts trying to sleep and keep warm. People were fighting over getting pillows and there were mad dashes for blankets that were being distributed by some of the airlines. Families hoarded the information desks, speaking various languages, demanding pillows and food vouchers. Really long lines of hundreds of people waiting, crowded the airline information areas to rebook flights and get food vouchers for the night. I ended up finding many other students from the ESN Lapland trip and we all just hung out on the benches nearby the airline information counters, waiting for our que number to be called. (For those of you who don't know, Scandinavia really likes waiting in lines, typically using numbered tickets to "que" in.) We were all in the same boat---flights cancelled, stranded at the airport, no food or blankets, and no hotel. At this point, I was actually more worried about my luggage than anything else. Where was it? Since my flight wasn't going anywhere, did luggage handlers remove it from the plane? If so, where was it? I needed my cell phone charger to make phone calls (to book another flight), my camera, and possibly food that I packed in my checked in bag. So, what to do?
Fortunately, I was able to to make the trip to Lapland, get a new flight booked (for free), and received some blankets and food vouchers for that night and the next day. I also managed to get my luggage after landing in Helsinki, Finland. I ended up bonding with a small group from the ESN Lapland trip during this whole ordeal, mainly students from Germany and Singapore. It was quite an experience, to say the least. We ended up taking over an empty terminal that had various seats in it and slept across rows of these seats. It was very uncomfortable, cold, and we found out later why the terminal was abandoned (most terminals were packed full of people)--there was a large draft coming from a cracked door at the end of the terminal. Freezing cold air was blowing through the opening into the terminal, making the temperature drop and the environment almost unbearable. After an arduous night, we abandoned our pillows and blankets, got a breakfast meal with what was left of our food vouchers, and departed on our new flights to Helsinki to begin our Lapland adventure!
I wanted to start off by saying that the Lapland trip sounded so fun and exciting from the beginning--I could fulfill some of my childhood dreams and check off a few things from my bucket list, like seeing the Northern Lights, going to a real Santa Claus village, and touring the Arctic Ocean in Norway. I was really hoping I could catch the Northern Lights and even more eager to ride on a reindeer sleigh and visit the Arctic Circle.
The start of the trip was very rocky--Skåne was hit by class 3 storm warnings and then pelted by high, turbulent winds and stormy weather. The trains actually stopped running from Lund to Copenhagen and I managed to get a train before they cut off the transportation completely. By the time I arrived in Copenhagen, I could tell the weather was just bad. The winds were literally shaking the walls and the windows of the various terminals and some flights had already been cancelled. The temperatures were freezing and it looked like a huge struggle for passengers arriving from recent flights to make it through the strong winds and inside the airport. l knew there was a chance my flight could be cancelled, too. It was weird though, because I was really confident it wouldn't. Somehow my plane would brave through the storm despite it all. I've also never experienced a cancelled flight before, so I guess I assumed that the weather had to be absolutely catastrophic, like colossal floods from the ice caps all melting or something, in order for my flight to be cancelled.
I ended up waiting hours, then went to go check in for my flight. The other passengers and I kept waiting and waiting, but we didn't hear anything from the airline staff or airport employees. I was getting worried because I noticed that only my flight and a few others were the only ones not cancelled at this point. Still hoping the weather would clear up a bit before our plane had to depart.
Finally, over a full hour after our plane was supposed to board, an announcement on the airport intercom stated that the airport was closed and that all flights were cancelled. I was shocked! What would happen to my Lapland trip plans? Where would I stay with the trains all cancelled? Where do I go?
Turns out that virtually everyone still at the airport was stuck there overnight, unless you were one of the lucky ones to snag a hotel room that night and a cab. Those sold out quickly and there weren't enough rooms to go around for everyone. Keep in mind I am talking over a thousand people (at least)---stuck at Copenhagen Airport overnight. It was like a scene out of a natural disaster movie: elderly people and babies were cuddled up on the floor in the halls of terminals and store fronts trying to sleep and keep warm. People were fighting over getting pillows and there were mad dashes for blankets that were being distributed by some of the airlines. Families hoarded the information desks, speaking various languages, demanding pillows and food vouchers. Really long lines of hundreds of people waiting, crowded the airline information areas to rebook flights and get food vouchers for the night. I ended up finding many other students from the ESN Lapland trip and we all just hung out on the benches nearby the airline information counters, waiting for our que number to be called. (For those of you who don't know, Scandinavia really likes waiting in lines, typically using numbered tickets to "que" in.) We were all in the same boat---flights cancelled, stranded at the airport, no food or blankets, and no hotel. At this point, I was actually more worried about my luggage than anything else. Where was it? Since my flight wasn't going anywhere, did luggage handlers remove it from the plane? If so, where was it? I needed my cell phone charger to make phone calls (to book another flight), my camera, and possibly food that I packed in my checked in bag. So, what to do?
Fortunately, I was able to to make the trip to Lapland, get a new flight booked (for free), and received some blankets and food vouchers for that night and the next day. I also managed to get my luggage after landing in Helsinki, Finland. I ended up bonding with a small group from the ESN Lapland trip during this whole ordeal, mainly students from Germany and Singapore. It was quite an experience, to say the least. We ended up taking over an empty terminal that had various seats in it and slept across rows of these seats. It was very uncomfortable, cold, and we found out later why the terminal was abandoned (most terminals were packed full of people)--there was a large draft coming from a cracked door at the end of the terminal. Freezing cold air was blowing through the opening into the terminal, making the temperature drop and the environment almost unbearable. After an arduous night, we abandoned our pillows and blankets, got a breakfast meal with what was left of our food vouchers, and departed on our new flights to Helsinki to begin our Lapland adventure!
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