Sweden-Tracker 2000

So this time last week I was getting packed and ready to go to Barcelona. So let me tell you about those adventures.

We arrive at the hotel Wednesday night at 1 A.M. We are hungry. We ask the front desk where we can find the nearest food. He gave us directions to a bar, and in case that was closed, a 24 Hour McDonald’s. So we drop of the luggage at the room, and go on a late night quest for food. As we turn the corner, we see A LOT of 20-30 year old people drinking on the streets, partying like crazy outside of this bar. It was packed on the outside. Ok, let’s not go there. We were wondering why there were so many people out so late partying on a Wednesday night, but it was our first night there, so we have no idea what the people here do. Anyway we found the McDonald’s after some sightseeing of some kickass buildings. The McDonald’s has pretty hi-tech. A station where you order on a screen so you dont have to wait on line. And a screen that shows you what the lady is currently charging you for. That would save SO much trouble if those were everywhere. So we eat, we head back, and we ask the front desk about the metro system. He says “Welllll, tomorrow is sort of a strike day, so it won’t really be running tomorrow.” Oh, a strike day, interesting. Think nothing of it really. Bed.

Wake up. Head outside, start walking toward the city center. On the way we saw a lot of interesting stuff, not surprising. As we get closer and closer to the city center, we are seeing spraypaint on the windows of certain stores. It all said very similar stuff, usually “VAGA 29-M” which is Catalan for Strike, 29M being the date obviously. We were like, hmmm seems like they are pretty serious about this strike to be spraypainting everywhere. We get to what I assume to be a main street in the city, and it is swarming with people. They had signs, they were chanting, pretty much being pretty strikey. So we start walking down the sidewalk, and the first sign of any aggression we saw was two workers cleaning garbage in front of their store. It appeared as though someone had just dumped a garbage pail by their door, and spraypainted the Anarchy logo on the window. It was on the next block when we first saw the riot police.

Right before I saw them, I mentioned how cool it would be it I saw cops in riot gear. Totally got my wish. They hopped out of a van to protect a government building that was being vandalized. There were paintball splatters in it, as well as spraypaint on the windows. We broke from one group of strikers to head down another street, only to see that other street had thousands of people on it marching in one direction. Looks like we’re going that way! This group was a tad more aggressive than the past group. Any store that was still open, these guys would make sure they closed. An angry mob would form outside the store. The progression was as follows.

People outside yelling, putting stickers on your windows.

The above, plus spraypaint.

The above, plus dumping garbage by your door.

The above, plus throwing objects at your windows.

By now, the business usually decided to close its gates, resulting in a happy uproar of the people. Some of these people were against the vandalism of the businesses. One man ran up to a business to close their gate personally. Doing so resulted in him shattering a glass shelf that was in the gate’s way. An old lady started screaming at the man. I don’t speak Catalan, but I assumed it was along the lines of, “doing things like this is not helping our cause.” And the man probably said something like “Shutup, you are an old lady, why aren’t you home baking cookies for your great-great-great grandchildren.” Total guess at that conversation, but that’s what it seemed like.

Anyway, the first OH SHIT moment came when a group of people surrounded a food-chain restaurant. At this point it became natural to see people go toward windows, so I yell to Josh “here they go again.” All of a sudden I hear Josh say something like, I’m pretty sure that guy lit some garbage on fire. I’m like oh man that’s pretty cool. So I go to look at it, and there is a pile of garbage in front of the only entrance of the store, and this thing is totally engulfed in fire. Therefore the OH SHIT, those people in there are SCREWED. I assume they just waited inside until the fire burnt out, considering everything around it was glass, so it was “contained”. Sort of.

So we eat dinner. I order a paella. It was delicious. This stuff is boring. Fast forward. It’s night time, we head toward the boardwalk. We look at the city skyline, and notice a cloud that looks a little blacker than most. Yup, that’s definitely smoke with a helicopter above it. Let’s go that way. So we head that way, lose track of the smoke along the way. I’m pretty sure we found where it was coming from though. We get to a street where everyone is just standing around looking, we wonder at what. We noticed a roped off section of a street, where 2 dumpsters were on their side, with huge holes in the bottom, where the metal had melted. Two surrounding streets were blocked of by riot police. We then notice on one of these streets, a Starbucks roped off, totally destroyed. I would’ve LOVED to see that happen in person. “Hey major corporation Starbucks! Are you going to participate in the strike? No? Well then, burn to the ground.”

So we go to sleep. Next day we planned on going on the tour busses with the open top thing, you know, the really toursity thing to do. So we go to the city center, and I must say, the city cleaned up nicely. All the stores were open, everyone seemed lively, totally different atmosphere. So we get on the bus. We saw awesome architecture, the Olympic Stadium, the Barcelona Football team stadium, an enormous castle used in wars, really cool stuff that typing about is boring. The trip basically consisted of 90% walking, unlike lappland, where there were activities planned. Not saying that as a bad thing. We pretty much did all we could. Without that strike though, it wouldn’t have been as awesome.

To wrap things up, some pointer fact thingys.

- At no point did I feel like I was in danger. The stores were targeted, and the police were not stopping generic protestors. They were aware that it was only one day of striking, so they protected the buildings they needed to and let the people carry on.

- The people partying at 3 AM on a Wednesday night made much more sense after we saw the activity of the following day.

- McDonald’s being a smart company, was closed at every location without being asked to be.

- I ate ice cream about 3 times while I was there. It was one of the only stores open on that day, because who the hell would vandalize an ice cream shop. 

- I purchased tacos from a mexican restaurant just to say that I got tacos in Spain. Also when people in the future say “They dont have tacos in Spain, its a mexican thing,” I can be like OH YEA?!?!

- The small amount of Spanish that I knew came in handy a few times, mostly when ordering food. Unfortunately I was unaware that everyone there speaks Catalan, so I could’ve studied Spanish all I wanted, it wouldn’t have helped that much.

- I lost my boarding pass 2 minutes before boarding to Barcelona, in the world’s smallest airport. IT WAS RIGHT HERE IN MY POCKET, I SWEAR. Thankfully security was able to print me up another one. It took time though, I was the last person to board the plane. I considered it “the one bad thing that has to happen on all trips” so the rest of our trip would be smooth sailing. I found my boarding pass 2 days later in the pocket of my laptop case. Ohh yeaaaaa I totally did put it there.

Overall Barcelona gets an 8/10.

Barcelona WITH RIOTS however, a 9.5/10. So awesome.

Oh hey blog, I didn’t see you there. It’s been a while. The last time we spoke I just came back from Lappland. So why haven’t we talked? Maybe it’s because I am just used to it all now. Maybe it’s because nothing exciting has happened. Or maybe it’s just because I am lazy.

It’s about 99% the laziness.

So what’s new? I think the better question is what isn’t new? What do I do on a daily basis over here?  Sure let’s run through that.

I wake up between 12pm-1pm almost every day. The exception being class, which is twice a week. This streak of waking up late will end next week, when the Language Friend classes resume from their midterms and vacation. Then it is back to waking up at 7am, which is clearly not as great as 12pm mornings.

So now it’s 2pm, and I am showered, I ate a sandwich, I am a ready to go…nowhere. Being in a different country doesn’t necessarily mean there is always something to do. I am being unproductive for most of the day actually. Normally I wouldn’t complain, since doing nothing is awesome, but without my good pal Xbox, doing nothing really feels like a waste. At least I could be winning an NBA Championship, racing Ferrari’s, or blowing stuff up with a rocket launcher. I think the worst part of no Xbox is no Xbox Live. When I was away at Albany it was the one way I was able to be with friends without actually being with friends. Behind all of those sports/shooter/racing games was the classic “What’s goin on?” over the microphone. Oh well. Thus ends the Xbox rant.

Enough of that melodramatic shit. Anything exciting? Yea sure. Just not a whole bunch of stuff that would sound great in writing. I also don’t really feel like sitting here saying I did this on this night, then that on that night, when This and That aren’t totally out of the ordinary. 

I would like to totally switch gears for a second, not that I need your permission. I own you. But I think with the so far negative vibe of this post so far I would run with that. As a foreword, I would like to say that this is not a sign that things are getting worse, because they aren’t. It is still friggin sweet here, and I have yet to spend a day upset about my decision. But I would like to address a legitimate question. What don’t you like there?

We’ve already gone over the fact that no Xbox sucks ass. I guess my biggest complaint is really just an enormous opinion I have on the night life. Now, I am a pretty understanding guy when it comes to other’s opinions (go ahead, chuckle.) When I walk into a club, I pretty much get two options. I either dance, or I don’t dance. Most nights becomes a combination of both. I understand that dancing is fun. I understand that people really get into the music. And, I understand that the more people drink, the easier it is for them to just go with the flow. Unfortunately for me, these things aren’t really true. I also understand that this can and will label me as a “party-pooper” or “that anti-social guy”. But wait! Let me explain!

I am going to try something here, that may result in me deleting this entire paragraph if it doesn’t make sense. A TRIP THROUGH ANDREW’S MIND AS HE SPENDS A NIGHT IN A CLUB.

I walk in. Loud music. A little warm. Hang up my jacket. Find the bar. Order a beer. Take the beer to my friends, usually on the dance floor. Start dancing a little bit. I hate this music. This song sucks. Whatever man, I’m in Sweden. Time for a good night. Start dancing a little more, having as much fun as a person in my midset could possibly have. Time for another beer. Back to the floor. This music still sucks, I’ve heard this song so many times, I’m surprised it hasn’t found a way to trigger my gag reflex. Getting warmer. Doing the same little sway dance move for the past hour. Really bored. SNAP OUT OF IT. ENJOY YOURSELF. IN SWEDEN. Another beer. Someone tells me I should drink more to make the music better. OH HOW WRONG YOU ARE. Drinking will make the music better if I like the music in the first place. This music however, sounds like Shaquille O’Neal has been pounding on my door for the last two hours. No amount of alcohol will make that noise more appealing. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. The more I drink, the more I am ready to get the hell out of there. COME ON MAN. IN SWEDEN. KEEP DANCING. Why couldn’t we go somewhere relaxing tonight? Damn you dancing for being so damn appealing to everyone. I’ll just sit the next few songs out. Nice. Now I’m a creepy dude up against a wall at a club. Well, I don’t really give a damn because leaning against a wall happens to be my favorite dance move. OH LOOK. Its THIS song again. It’s like there is some sort of DJ meeting at the beginning of every month. OK GUYS, has LMFAO come out with a new song yet? No? Well shit, I guess we’ll just keep playing this one. Don’t these famous people come out with ALBUMS, with MORE THAN TWO SONGS? Yeah, but they aren’t popular. Why not? NOBODY PLAYS THEM. HEY THERE’S AN IDEA! Andrew, what’s the matter, you look angry. NOPE. Not angry. Upset. But screw it, I’m in Sweden, let’s keep dancing.

RINSE AND REPEAT.

Well now that that’s out of my system, I think I’ll stop this post here.

So here is a nutshelled version of my experience in Lappland this past week. It will be mostly an emotionless listing of activities, but please refer to the asterisk for my feelings at that time.

DAY ONE: 

Take 2 flights and arrive in Kiruna, Sweden at about 1pm.

Sightsee throughout the city, as well as shop for food and such.

6pm pickup in the city to begin the Dogsledding tour.

Get suited up in provided warm clothes, sit on the sled, and away we went.*

The dogs take us in the middle of a forrest, where there is a teepee set up, where the tour guide made us salmon soup over a fire.

After the sledding we were driven back to the house we were staying for the next three nights.

After we were settled in, we went out to the lake to see if the northern lights were out and about. They were, however slightly fainter than I would have hoped. Awesome nonetheless.

DAY TWO:

We are taken to the tour’s central camp, in which they provide free cross-country skis and a sauna.

So I cross country ski-ed with friends into a forrest until we were tired.*

Then when we came back the sauna had already been heated up, so I spent the next hour and a half in there.

Afterwards we ate reindeer kebabs. Damn good.

That night there was very little northern light activity.

DAY THREE:

Wake up early, get to the tour camp site, and prepare the snowmobiles.

Snowmobiled across two enormous lakes with 16 people on 8 snowmobiles going 80km/h.*

Snowmobiled to the Ice Hotel, in which we, well…saw the Ice Hotel.*

Snowmobiled back about 3 hours later. Took a nap. 

That night I am standing around doing a lot of nothing, when I figure maybe I will go outside and check on the lights.

LIGHT EXPLOSION in the sky.*

DAY FOUR:

We sat on a train.

DAY FIVE:

Stockholm with my good friend Josh from UAlbany.*

Back in Gothenburg around 10pm.

__________________________________________________

* = It was fucking awesome.

Reading this sounds bland. The truth is that the trip was pretty damn perfect. Nothing went wrong, everyone had a blast, and no one was disappointed. The main reason I didn’t put too much info on here was because it is a much better story if I tell it in person. So next time you see me, just ask.

I will be in Lapland. Let’s do this.