The Final Countdown: Scandinavia or Australia?

It's been a while since an update so here it is. Now that I have the Internet at my house I can get on the ball with my pictures and the blog.

Two weeks ago I went on my Scandinavian Adventure with Kate and Rooney. We started in Oslo, Norway then went to Stockholm, Sweden and ended the trip in Copenhagen, Denmark where we kind of lost Rooney and met up with my other friend from School, Katie. Yes, the weather was cold ranging from 40 to 50 degrees, but it was a nice fall experience.

I think the first thing to lay out is that if you plan on visiting Scandinavia you should have a lot of money, and I don't so that was interesting. I survived but it was an expensive trip and I did not really go out to dinner. Oh yes and the American dollar is worth about the same as toilet paper so that did not help much either. All three countries use a difference currency (kroners) so we had to change money in every city.

Oslo, to date, is the most expensive city I have ever been to and the food is nothing to wet your pants about. Even the hostel was the most expensive I have stayed in while traveling in Europe, but it also had the best hostel bed I have ever experienced so that kind of made up for the price. Overall the city is laid back. We went out one night to watch some football and drink a 63 kroner beer which equals about $12. Awesome! We did actually go out to dinner one night and it was expensive, I had some trout and it was good, but again nothing super exciting. Paqui makes better fish in la casa. Two important things started in Oslo for me, one, Introduction to Australia and two, The Final Countdown (yes the song, and if you watch Arrested Development, Jobe's theme song). We basically spent sometime with an Aussie in Oslo and learned some of the crazy Aussie ways as far as lingo and more important drinking game rules. Everybody does booze and cards different and it is always interesting to see the tricks people have up their sleeve. The Final Countdown stems from a quaint train ride up the mountain to the Olympic Ski Jump that turned into a music fest with students from the university. Basically 25 plus kids got on the train, some dressed up in formal-wear while others went a different direction with long underwear. They had a full band with them, tuba and trumpet included, and before we knew what was going on, the band was playing The Final Countdown, which will be stuck in my mind forever. I later found out that this event is a tradition and they go to to a restaurant where the goal is to be so annoying that they kick you out. I must say I have a lot of respect for that, I really would have loved to followed them in and watch the scene go down.

A nice addition to my time is Oslo is that Kate fell in the water, for real. We were sitting on some rocks by the shore and she decided to play a solo game of double dare and walk down on slimy rocks to put her and in the water and check out the temperature. Well she really got to feel the temperature when she was thigh deep in the water. I was so shocked that I just stared in amazement at what happened and did not help her or more important take a picture. She had a nice 20 plus minute walk home in her wet pants and shoes. HaHa!

Although I like Oslo, I don't think it is someplace I would visit again because the expense is ridiculous.

The Final Countdown is reborn

Kate & I in Oslo

Brodie (from where?), Rooney, Kate, and I in Oslo

Our next stop was Stockholm, where yes it was expensive but much cheaper than Oslo. Stockholm is my favorite city in Scandinavia. We had great weather and of course Australians to hang out with. We did a lot of walking and wondering around. Stockholm is much bigger than Oslo but it is easy to see most of city in a few days. We took a two hour boat ride through the canals, and that is where we ran into an old friend, The Final Countdown. The boat provided headphones so that we knew what we were looking at and in the middle of explanations they played music and the first song they played was a slow version of The Final Countdown, which repeated 5 or 6 times throughout the ride. Score!

We went on a slight binge in Stockholm after how expensive Oslo was. The process of buying beer from the "convenient store" or System Bolaget is interesting. All of the alcohol is behind a case and you browse around, find what you need, and give the clerk the number that corresponds to your alcohol of choice, and go from there. They also check ID's which I never had so I could never actually purchase the goods. Spain does not believe in ID checking so I never carry my state ID. Anyway we found beer with 7.5% alcohol and went to town on it. Considering they were the big cans, 4 was a great way to start the night out. Here is where we kind of lost Rooney and now I am not sure if we are friends. The story starts with our last night in Stockholm. We consumed some alcohol at the hostel and engaged in a life threatening game of chase the aces (I'm too lazy to explain but it involves a lot of shots, in this case vodka, which I scammed out of by taking Jameson out of a bottle and not really drinking a shots worth.) Anyway, Rooney landed up with a few to many double-straight-up vodka shots which resulted in a high level of intoxication before we even left to go out. We somehow stay out until 5 am including a stop for a kebab where Rooney was literally doing circles with is upper body as he attempted to speak to me. This was all a great idea since we had to get up at 6 am in order to catch our 9 am flight. Morning rolls around and I go to wake Rooney up in his 11 person dorm room. He barely responds to my punches, slaps, pulling of the covers and whisper yelling. I leave to finish getting ready and come back to find that Rooney has ignored me and gone back to sleep. I wake him up again with the same antics and this time sit him up in his bed and tell him that we are going to miss our flight. He told me I need to get out of there because he could not get ready with me in the room and he threw out some other unpleasant things so I told him was I was going upstairs and leaving in 5 minutes. So we waited and then left. OK so I know that I should have tried again, but at this point I was frustrated with his lack attention to the situation, I was slightly hungover, and I did not want to miss our flight. Kate and I got to the airport and barely made our flight. We checked in and got on the plane 10 minutes later. Rooney did arrive in Copenhagen much later, I'm not sure how, but I assume he had to pay to switch his flight. Needless to say he was very angry with us for leaving him and to be honest I don't blame him but on the same note if we had waited and continued to try to wake him up I am 100% sure we would have missed our flight and then we all would have had to pay for Rooney's hangover. I really am sorry about the situation and have learned from the experience. If I find myself in this situation again I am going to throw water on the person, I think that it is a good last resort. The end result of the situation was that we did not hangout together in Copenhagen and like I said I am not sure the status of our friendship.

On last thing I would like to note about Stockholm is the sausage I ate wrapped in a tortilla with mashed potatoes and crumbled fried onions. Interesting take on the ever so versatile sausage.

Kate & I in Stockholm

Stockholm

Rooney, Kate & I in Stockholm

Rooney put on a nice show for the shwarma crowd.

Our final stop was in Copenhagen and although it started a little rattled with a day of zombie travel it turned out to be a lot of fun. We obviously made friends with Australians and I think I am borderline fluent in their slang, haha. I now know that if one says "I'm minging" it means that "I'm drunk" but if one says "She's a minger" it signifies that "She is ugly". So I guess that means I want to be minging but not a minger. We went "clubb'n" with them one night which turned out to be quite interesting and to long of a story to tell considering this post is practically a novel.

I really like Copenhagen, it is similar to Stockholm but has it's own charm. We went and saw the statue of the Little Mermaid which is a popular monument by the shore. We also hit up the Museum Erotica. I saw many renditions of the penis and the vagina and of course learned a new thing or too. An interesting and educational visit. My favorite experience of Copenhagen was Cristiana. Cristiana is a small part of Copenhagen that does not have any laws, or something along those lines. The area is all dirt roads, there are a lot of garbage cans with fires, oh yeah and people selling pot out in the open, how could I forget. I am not sure of the legality of the situation but there were people that had little stands set up to do business, while others would hang out by the garbage cans and wait to be solicited. I'll just say we chilled out for while and enjoyed some crepes. This does not sound to exciting but we experienced a nice finale. As we were walking out this man yelled something in Danish and started running through the central part of the neighborhood, then all of these people were running all over the place and I of course stood there like an ass because I wanted to see what was going on while Kate and Katie had already made a move to completely exit the area. It was like everyone was chilled out and in one second there was pandemonium everywhere. I don't know what happened but we assumed with might have been something with the police.

We really wanted to hear The Final Countdown in Copenhagen, and it was a huge let down when it was no where to be found. But have no fear our trip did not end dry. I was lucky enough to hear it as someone's cell phone ringer on our bus ride home from Madrid to Granada. I think that counts for something.

In Copenhagen I have found the best pizza in Europe so far. Not someplace I would expect to have good pizza, but it was so good that I went there twice.

Copenhagen

Everyone rides bikes in Scandinavia and after some drinks in Copenhagen I wanted to as well.

Hmm, I wonder if those two are from Australia?

Kate, Katie, and I in Copenhagen.