« On My Way | Main | Home Again »
November 25, 2004
Thanksgiving
We left school Tuesday afternoon (after the ubiquitous stragglers finally showed up) and headed up to Stockholm. The trip was uneventful—I was surprised to see snow only an hour outside of Karlskrona. Apparently, there had been quite bad weather the previous 24 hours, and the roads were treacherous at times. Luckily Lars, our driver, was quite the winter weather driving expert—and even when we had to slow down to 30 km/hr (because the wind was blowing drifts into the unplowed road and limiting visibility), I felt quite confident we would arrive safely. We passed an overturned car, half-buried in a snow bank, but after stopping to investigate, we realized the car was empty and proceeded on our way.
We watched Memento on the bus video system (funny with Swedish subtitles) and played "Go Fish". Our hostel was on the south side of the Stockholm city center, so we didn't get a good look at the old town section as we came in—instead we unloaded all of our stuff and checked-in to the hostel.
For my second hostel experience, I was once again very fortunate. The place we stayed, FNB Stockholm, was spacious, spotlessly clean, and toasty warm. Ayamba (from Camaroon), Birte (from Germany), Siti (from Malaysia), and I shared a room. Although we were pretty exhausted (it took us nearly 8 hours to get from Karlskrona to Stockholm—a trip that normally takes 4.5 hours by train), several of us took a little walk around town, just to stretch our legs and get a feel for the area. There were a good 4 inches of snow on the ground, and I was surprised to see that the sidewalks and roads didn't look plowed (at least not recently). Instead, the cars just drive slowly and people wear thick boots. (My new boots kept my feet delightfully warm, but I must admit that the slightly higher ankle height has given the back of my legs quite ugly welts.)
We were back in our rooms by 11:30 p.m. and after a few minutes of reading Believing Cassandra: An Optimist Looks at a Pessimistic World (I'm still at the pessimistic part), I fell fast asleep. The alarm sounded all too early, and I took a quick shower (narrowly avoiding soaking my clothes in the process) before packing up and getting breakfast.
We were back on the bus by 8 a.m. and hopped over to one of the local Scandic hotels for an all-day workshop with Alan Atkisson, author of Believing Cassandra. He was great—really taking the ideals of sustainability down to the practical level. I enjoyed the group work (imagine that!), but could have passed on the 3 songs he sang (all with a sustainability motif).
That evening, after a tedious adventure getting 40 people subway tickets, we managed to get ourselves down to University of Stockholm to meet with some other sustainability students. The campus was glorious, with huge, puffy drifts of snow glistening in the evening light. It's amazing how light the night can be with the reflection off the snow! As we walked to the far end of campus, it began to snow again—not large flakes, but tiny, stinging, driving snow that formed coats of snowy ice on our jackets, hats, and eyelashes.
We had a brief get together with the other students, but to be honest, my heart wasn't in it—I mostly wanted to get someplace quiet where I could sit down with a cup of coffee. Lisa had the same idea, and we tried to sneak out, but once again we got bogged down in the group process. By the time we left the Stockholm campus, we were up to a dozen people. We took the subway down to the old town area of Stockholm and walked back to the bus pick-up point. It was freezing and snowing and we were all coated in a layer of ice by the time we made it back to the right place. By then, the group had split off into a bunch of smaller groups, and Lisa, Siti, and I found ourselves alone at a coffee shop (Wayne's!!)—just like the original plan.
By 10:30 p.m. we were on the road again, this time to Umea. We watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding (a sure crowd pleaser), then tried to sleep for a bit before our required stop for the bus driver. Around 4 a.m. the bus driver pulled to the side of the road and woke us up to show us the Northern Lights. While they weren't spectacular, it was the first time I had ever seen them. It reminded me of a lava lamp, undulating in and out of the night sky—showing up for 30-45 seconds and then vanishing. It was quite impressive, particularly considering that it was competing with a full moon that gave off an incredible amount of light.
I managed to get a little sleep before we pulled into our breakfast stop. I had a bizarre dream where Amity, Rene, Mitch, Ronan, Kristoffer, and I went on an amazing adventure, starting from Kristoffer's family's boat and stretching into an abandoned amusement park where we were chased by security guards and had to evade them with our super jumping powers. There was also some weird love triangle, but it's too fuzzy in my head to remember enough to describe. I was disappointed to wake up and find myself balled up on the bus, facing a full day of activity.
Today we toured a heating plant in Umea, where waste is collected and incinerated. The waste heat is then distributed in the form of electricity and water to the surrounding municipality. I had a horrid time concentrating on the lecture (having really only gotten 2 hours of sleep), and dazedly wandering along with the tour of the plant. I will confess that the most interesting part of the tour was getting to look in the furnace, where all the waste was burning in huge spurts of flame. I had a confused moment where it suddenly struck me that this was very much like the Holocaust furnaces, but I snapped out of it once we emerged into the freezing air.
We had lunch in Umea and got back on the bus for a trip to Umea's "Green Zone"—a collection of businesses (McDonald's, Ford dealership, and Statoil gas station) that have designed their buildings around sustainability principles. Once again, I was too sleepy to really appreciate it (the cold didn't help—it's about -10 Celsius) but picked up a little report for future reading.
Tonight we're at a cute family-run hostel, spread out between three farm buildings. Eight of us are in the main building, but the others are spread between an old house with no running water and a converted garage. We had a fantastic dinner of salmon soup and bread, and spent some time chatting with the family. At one point, a smaller group went around the circle and said what they were thankful for (seeing as it was American Thanksgiving). I was feeling a little homesick—Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday—but everyone was really sweet and I was grateful to be around such a caring group of people.
Now it's almost 11 p.m. and I'm dying to get to bed. I'm wearing a pair of long underwear, plus pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt. On top of this, I'm going to add a pair of wool socks to keep me warm tonight. I'm thrilled to be spending two nights in this place, as it allows me to unpack and organize a little—rather than constantly swapping stuff from my suitcase to my seat on the bus to my suitcase and back and forth.
And now, I can take no more and must get some sleep. Ahh, blissful sleep. Too bad the alarm is set for 6:45 a.m. again.
