Polar Bears and Roland: Exploring Germany with Marion!

Hallo! :) 

It's been quite a long time since I've posted, but you gotta give me a break, things have been crazy here! Jonathon and I have been lucky enough to do lots of traveling the last few weeks. Then we've got all of our big final projects. It has been hectic, though worth every moment of working hard and staying up late so that we can go explore new places. After visiting Norway, we ventured to Tyskland (Germany in Swedish) and had the most amazing time with our wonderful friend, Marion! 

Jonathon, me and Marion! 

Now, let me brag on Marion a bit... She's pretty much the best roommate a girl could ask for. She's sweet, caring, and maybe a little bit crazy, which is great. :) Haha. She's an amazing golfer who makes SNU proud, and she's a great friend, too. I've really been blessed to have her in my life these last couple years! Anyways... On top of all of those things, she's also a fantastic tour guide. After we arrived in Bremen, (and after the hugging and squealing after not seeing her for five months), we were off to explore Germany!

She has the sweetest grandma, and she made sure we ate good while we were there. I may not be the biggest fan of Swedish food, but German food, oh goodness. It was delicious! Although we couldn't communicate that great, (we should've brushed up on our German skills before going ;) ) we definitely felt loved and cared for. We also got to visit her sister's restaurant one day, another "oh my goodness, so good" moment in our German adventure. Her whole family and friends were so great to get to hang out with, and we enjoyed getting to know them!

Then, we got to be tourists. She brought us to Bremerhaven, which is a city along the North Sea. The first thing we got to do was visit the zoo! If you know me, you know how much I LOVE zoos. They are my favorite place to go. I love zoos. 

Can you see the polar bear? :D

After some wonderful adventuring in the cute zoo, where by the way, I pet the largest rabbit I have ever seen - in my entire life, we went to this little Italy-style mall! Of course we had to check out the ice cream shop with Marion's recommendation ;) 

Aren't they wonderful? Check out Jonathon's ice cream - it was spaghetti style!

Then, she took us to the climate house. This place was so impressive! Basically, they have a selected longitude line and they bring you to a remake of people's homes along different latitudes of this line. Some rooms you're dying to take your jacket off in the heat of the desert, while other places you can't get it back on quick enough! It was incredible how they could really recreate these cultures and climates. Along with letting their guests experience these locations, they also help them to learn how to better take care of this amazing planet that we call home. 

Inside the Bremerhaven Klimahaus

Later, we got to watch Marion do what she loves - play golf! Germany is SO green, and the course was gorgeous. Plus, she's a pretty amazing golfer ;) so that was a lot of fun. We also got to meet and watch a friend of hers, who was super friendly and great at English! :D

Look at her go :D

Our last day we truly experienced Bremen as a tourist. This city was just so beautiful! The architecture was incredible; each moment I was in awe of how beautiful the buildings were. 

This is Roland, :) he protects the city's trade and liberties

We like selfies :) 

 Rubbing the donkey's feet is good luck!

The town musicians are also a big part of Bremen, at least for us tourists ;) these animals are from a Brothers Grimm tale. 

Overall, we had such a great time in Bremen, Germany! It was wonderful to get to hang out with our good friend in her hometown and country. We got to eat yummy bakery bread, learn more about the German culture, and meet new people. It was a sad day to leave, but we'll get to see you this fall! ;) Next up on my blog: Spain!

Sincerely,

Laura. 

Nature Walks and Fireworks

Hej hej! Today marks exactly one month until we come home! We’re definitely excited to get back home, but we still have so much exploring and adventuring to do here. We’ve made some great friends and I know that it will be a bit difficult to leave. 


These last two weeks have been kind of a blur, because we've had so much going on! This blog post will be a short one about our week in Sweden before going to Norway, then I will post another for Norway shortly after, and yet another for Germany by next week. Ready for this? :D


On Thursday night, April 30th, we celebrated the start of spring with the Swedish holiday Walpurgis. There was a gathering in town where choir groups sang and ceremonies took place, though I’m not quite sure what they said – sorry, not fluent in Swedish yet ;) ha, not even close. We then followed a bunch of children holding a fire :O towards the lake and lit the bonfire! There were beautiful fireworks on the lake, and so many people came to view them. It kind of reminded me of a mini version of the Fourth of July at home.

Photo Credits: Jonathon Orwig

The next morning, Jonathon, Sinead, Greig and I all ran our first half-marathon! Whoa! It was about 35 degrees Fahrenheit with rain and wind the whole way, but we all finished in under two hours, woo! It was a difficult race though, and I’m not sure I want to do that for “fun” again xD

Photo Credits: Sinead Broderick

Even though our hardcore run left us sore the next few days, we went with a friend of ours and her friend family to a nature walk with some of the other families. (Insert fact about Smaland being the rocky place of Sweden) I guess Swedes love their quiz walks, because we did another one while on this nature trip. Then, of course, we had to finish with fika! Mmmm. 

Exploring the Swedish countryside

May 5th was my sweet Jonathon’s 21st birthday! Sadly, it rained all day, so we got some Chinese takeout and celebrated inside.  

Sweden has been fun, but the past and next couple weeks we have been/will be traveling around Europe; we are SO excited to see all that it has in store for us! Next up, a post on Norway!
-Laura.

Barbeques and Quiz Walks

Hej! Guess what? It's finally becoming spring here in Sweden! Yay! We've gotten to enjoy the outdoors some more, though it is still a bit chilly and rainy some days. I am REALLY looking forward to a beautiful Texas summer and days on the boat with family and friends! But until then, here are some pictures of the last couple weeks in Växjö. 

We met some friends for a picnic at the lake before some geocaching and this cute duck kept following us around! He had come quite a ways by the time I started recording - too cute!

Jonathon and I went to meet some of his friends at a grill near the lake for a barbeque. We got to visit the vegetable market in town that morning, so I made a beautiful kebab :D he, of course, had to have hot dogs. Haha. 

We've been training hard (ish) haha, for the upcoming half marathon. I had to stop and take some pictures of the forest while we were out practicing the course! Look at Jonathon and Sinead go ;) the race is this Friday, ahh! 

My beautiful self-portrait pizza ;)

Jonathon's lovely portrait!

It seems like everything we do revolves around food...so We had a Picasso pizza night: self-portrait edition! Our buddies and some friends on the floor came over and we each made our own pizzas. They weren't so cute...but they tasted yummy! :D 

Photo credit: Jonathon Orwig

Sunday we went on a quiz walk in the woods with our friend family. It was a cold, drizzly day, but we ventured into the forest and tried to decipher Swedish quiz questions. I've never seen this done at home, but basically you go on a 3k or so walk and look for questions. You're given an answer sheet and you record your answers to the trivia questions, then walk until you find the next one and so on. A friend that we made got all of the questions right, whoa! I only got 7/12 haha.

Beautiful trees on the way to town!

Everything in Växjö seems to be blooming; there are colorful flowers everywhere and blooming trees as well!

While most of our experiences here have been great, we have had a couple of not so fun ones. Last weekend my bike was stolen out of the bike cage, and then this weekend Jonathon's was! We've both gotten new ones since, as it is difficult to get to class without them.

In a couple days it'll be Jonathon's birthday! I know he's missing his friends and family, so if you see this, please send him a nice birthday message :)

In a week we will be headed to Norway on our first big travels here so far! After that we will go visit my sweet roommate at SNU in her hometown of Bremen, Germany! I'm sure I will have lots of pictures and separate blog posts for those travels. We are definitely excited for them!

We are getting ready to come home, as we miss all of our friends and family. Only one month and a little less than two weeks! I hope we'll be ready for the Texas sunshine ;D

Sincerely,

Laura.