So I've been spending the past six days in Germany with my host family. It's been quite an adventure, but we're headed home today! We're taking a train to Amsterdam this afternoon, and then flying from Amsterdam to Portland tomorrow morning. I can't wait to get home! For a while, I was worried that I wouldn't make it back in time for the wedding, because some experts said it could take months for the ash to clear. But hopefully I'll be home Friday afternoon, just in time for my first bridal shower. Hallelujah!

Awww shucks, Iceland has done it again. Actually, I think this is the first time I've ever had a conscious thought of Iceland affecting my life. As I'm sure you've read, a volcano in Iceland is erupting and all the ash in the air has caused 16000 flights to be canceled today, including ours. We were supposed to fly back to Germany, spend one last night with my host family, and then fly back to the states early Saturday morning. No such luck. We were lucky though, in being able to get a spot (probably one of the last) on a train tomorrow going from Goteborg to Copenhagen, then to Hamburg and finally to Duisburg, which is near the town where my host family lives. I have no idea how the train goes across the water, but I'm excited to find out. We'll be traveling for about 18 hours -- should be an adventure! Wish us luck! I sure hope I make it back before May 15th....

Today I wandered around Goteborg, enjoying the beautiful sunshine. I bought a delicious ice cream cone -- chocolate and hazelnut -- and sat on the steps of a statue of some guy (pretty sure his name is Gustav. It seems like everyone important in Swedish history was named Gustav). I brought a book along to read, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and people-watched in between chapters. I even had a slightly uncomfortable philosophical discussion with a random guy who came up to me and asked me what I study. I am definitely enjoying the free time and will be sad when it's over.

The second awesome we visited on Djurgarden was Skansen, an open air museum depicting Swedish life in the country. The museum founder, Artur Hazelius, actually bought old buildings and had them transported to his museum.
It was awesome to see how Swedish people used to live, and to see the different architectural styles.
A large portion of the park was dedicated to a Nordic animals exhibit.
They had bears, moose, lynx, wolves, seals, and owls. I thought the owls were so cool. Andrew would have been terrified :)

The park was huge, but it the sun was shining and we had a great last couple of hours in Stockholm wandering through the different exhibits.

This was Artur's house. He actually lived in it, and even died in it.
We stopped at a cute cafe in the park and had some yummy pastries and chocolate.
Since the whole museum was up on large hill, the view of the city was beautiful.

Stockholm was amazing, and I can't wait to go back!

Our second day in Stockholm, we ventured to Djurgarden, another one of Stockholm's beautiful islands. It used to be the king's hunting grounds, and now has a large nature preserve and some awesome museums.

In the morning, we went to the Vasa museum, which came highly recommended. We weren't disappointed.
In 1628, the Vasa ship ordered by king Gustav was completed. It was to be a warship to fight against Poland as the Swedes worked to overtake the country.

It was the largest ship of its time, and had incredible craftsmanship.

Unfortunately, the king cared more about the ship looking fierce and impressive than being properly engineered. The ship was built too top-heavy, and after only twenty minutes into its maiden voyage, the wind blew it over and it sank. So sad. In the late 1950s, the work to recover the ship began and by 1964, they'd restored the whole thing. It was so cool to see the old ship. Here's a miniature of what they imagine it looked like in its 20 minutes of glory.

This past weekend, my mom and I took a 3 hour train ride to spend the weekend in Stockholm. Oh my goodness, it was incredible!!! I love Sweden, and I think I love Stockholm even more. Now I just have to convince Andrew to move there with me. The city is made up of 14 different islands, so there are beautiful water views from almost everywhere. The architecture of the city is so pretty -- it reminds me of Venice. We took a tour of the city hall our first full day there. It was incredible! It seemed more like a palace to me. Here's part of a mural that the prince of Sweden painted inside one of the halls. It took him five years to complete, because he wanted it to be perfect and to be taken seriously as an artist.
Everything was ornate -- there was an entire hall with gold mosaics depicting Sweden's past and future.
The tiles were all so tiny. The artists only had two years to complete the whole thing.
It's inside the "Blue Hall" (even though it's not blue) that the Nobel Prizes are awarded. It was pretty cool to be standing there. My mom and I imagined walking down the staircase in beautiful ball gowns to accept our Nobel prizes.
After the tour of City hall, we walked across the bridge to Gamla Stan an island that has most of Stockholm's medieval city.

The buildings were so beautiful -- my mom and I were lamenting that they just don't make them so beautiful anymore. I suppose Howard Roarke would be satisfied.
The little winding alleyways were so charming. We even found an awesome antique store where we bought some tea cups and tea pots for the centerpieces of the tables for my wedding.


There were so many interesting plazas, cafes, and people. Don't let the flowers in this picture deceive you -- it was freezing cold!!

I love Stockholm!!!! If I didn't have to come back to get married in a few weeks, I might have just stayed :)

I'm here in Goteborg, Sweden, with my Mom. It's so beautiful! The other day, I went to this incredible cafe and thought I'd share some of the pictures. I wish I could live in that cafe. Sigh.... so amazing.

On Tuesday, I had a great day shopping with my best friends from my German school, Kathi, Ela, and Isa. We went to CentrO, a big shopping mall in Oberhausen and had a great few hours. Bettina (my host mom) told me that she, Anna (her daughter), and Geli (Bettina's best friend) were going to meet me there at 7:30 so we could all have a nice dinner together. When I went outside to meet them, I could see that there were way more people than just Anna, Geli, and Bettina. Andrew's host family, the Majers were there (except their daughter Lisa who was in Florida for a vacation), Geli's daughter and her friend were there, and so were Rolf's brother Wilfred and his wife Uschi. They started playing the Heidi song (check out the link to hear it). I busted up laughing, and thought 'What a nice surprise! We're all going to have dinner together!' So I flitted over to them.
As soon as I reached them, Bettina said, "You thought you were going to get dinner tonight. You were wrong...." They said that first we had to go back inside the mall so I could put on some proper clothes. We took over the bathroom as we rummaged through bags to find the outfit.
It was a hilarious Dirndl, a traditional outfit perfect for someone named Heidi. Geli helped me adjust the apron. There were also t-shirts for everyone in our group to wear. They said "Heidi aus Amerika ist die Braut die sich traut" which means "Heidi from America is the bride who is sure." Die Braut die sich nicht traut is the German name of the movie Runaway Bride. On the back it said, "Und Andrew ist weit weg in Amerika... Last chance to kiss the bride!" It was so hilarious!!
They gave me a book that had a list of tasks I had to complete.
I had to put a huge wicker basket full of about 200 random things around my neck and sell everything in it. I had to tell people that I was getting married soon, and unfortunately didn't have enough money for bridal shoes.
If they wanted to buy something, they had to give at least a 1 Euro donation into the Shoe Money piggy bank.
My other tasks included finding 5 men who could write down a reason why I definitely should get married, and 5 who could write down why I definitely shouldn't. Same for finding women. Even though I had all my wonderful German friends with me....
I was still very nervous to become a street vendor.
But it turns out most people were really nice, and knew that it was a tradition to make the bride do embarrassing things before getting married. Some even saw us approaching and asked "Who's the bride?"
I got more and more comfortable selling people things... maybe I could even make a living out of it! One of the guys we stopped on the street wrote a reason why I shouldn't get married in my book, "Because I'm still here!" Then he signed his friend's name who was with him and gave us the friend's cell phone number.
We took a break in a nice comfortable pub, and the waiters were also dressed in traditional German clothes. We were excited to get a picture together.
As we were sitting at our table enjoying our drinks bobbing our heads to the music, I told my friends, "Remind me to show you my roommate's dance called the Hurricane sometime. It's really funny." They said, "Show us now!!!" I said, "No way. Besides, you can't do the hurricane to songs like this!" So they called the waiter over and said, "Heidi has request for a song. She would like to dance for us all." Somehow I ended up walking over with the waiter to pick out a song. Next thing I knew, I was dancing the Hurricane in front of everyone to SexyBack. Since there are only two moves to the dance, I was done after about 60 seconds.
The waiter came back over when I was sitting down and said, "I thought you wanted to dance!!" I told him I already did dance. He walks off, and comes back with a coat rack and says, "Here." I'm definitely not a pole dancer and have absolutely no sexy moves besides what Kiana taught me, so I danced like a dork around the pole.
After much pleading and cajoling, I convinced Isa and Ela to get up and dance with me. We danced for a couple of songs and had a great time.
Everyone agreed that since my dancing was so great, I didn't have to complete the rest of the tasks. Good thing -- it was already 12 and I still had about 1/4 of the stuff to sell. We ended up in another restaurant, where they gave me about 2 dozen roses, each with a funny picture of me and on the other side a German saying about love and marriage. It was so amazing!
I was so touched by all the effort my German family and friends put into making such a fun German-style bachelorette party for me.
I was so glad almost all of my favorite Germans were there to share in the wonderful experience.

Love you guys!!!!