Midsummer

This past weekend marked the celebration of one of the most cherished past times of Swedish history – Midsummer.  A time when grown men participate in the frog dance, women dance around a pole, and where alcohol and fish are consumed heartily.  Sound scandalous? Well actually, its a family event and the pole is the maypole, and the music is folk music, but I did get your attention.

A Swedish colleague asked me if I was going to partake in any Midsummer celebration overseas (back in the States), asking me if I was going to do the frog dance or eat my fair share of pickled herring.  I relayed back that I’d look into the frog dance concept and entertain the thought of eating herring again.  I was going to a barbecue so I questioned the combination of herring and a grill but decided I was going to experiment on my poor friends.

Midsummer marks when the days are the longest and I can’t imagine what it would be like where the sun rises at 3:30 am and sets at 10:10 pm.   The weekends would become one 60-hour long charade after another and I would surely not survive a few straight months of this…..

Baby spinach and seared tuna salad

For some odd reason, its really difficult to find good and reasonably priced tuna in Stockholm. Salmon, no problem. Herring, it could be given away. Tuna, like a precious metal… So now that I’m back in DC, I’ve been going to the DC Fish Market, picking up heaps and heaps of fresh, wild caught, sashimi grade tuna for dinners and snacks.

I usually just sear my tuna with some light mix of spices (salt, pepper, cayenne, etc) and alternate the accompanying side as a way to mix it up. The other day, I made this great tuna salad. I sprinkled coarse salt, pepper, and Cajun seasoning on the tuna. Heated up my cast iron skillet and cooked the tuna about 2 1/2 minutes each side. Meanwhile I rummaged through my refrigerator and picked out some items that I thought would make an interesting salad. (**Note – when I cook I usually take what ingredients I have in the kitchen and usually try and figure out what tastes would go nicely together on the fly. I usually don’t pick out full meals at the grocery store but let the creativity and the spontaneity of it all take control). So yeah, not too interesting, just that I was surprised that tuna was tough to get in Sweden.  At some point, I may start putting my recopies up here I make in a little more organized form. Of course whenever I read these, I get hungry and its the middle of the work day, and that doesn’t work out….

Back to DC

Its been just about a month since I left Stockholm and returned back to DC.  As one could imagine, there are definitely differences between the two cities, and I’ve found myself trying to readjust back into life over here.  Six months of living in Sweden, I adjusted to a lot of their culture and I’m pretty much going through the same thing back over here.  The biggest change is the pace of life.  Weekdays in Stockholm, I had a nice schedule of usually work, walk home 3km, snack, gym, sauna, dinner, relax.  It was a pretty daily routine with an occasional happy hour thrown in now and then.  Now, life back home (home now equals DC) has been a little bit of everything – less of the gym and healthy eating and more into happy hours and doing a lot more activities.  Its not like I am not enjoying the people, activities, and life back home but its a different feeling, a different shift in routine, and I think I’ll just need some time to readjust. 

But don’t get me wrong, I love DC and I just need to make sure I don’t overdose on activities (hiking, Great Falls, Wizards playoff games, Nationals games, poker, golf outings, BBQs, soccer leagues, kickball leagues, happy hours, dinner dates, etc) because I’m trying to fit everything in so quickly.   Its like I’m trying to pack everything in at 100mph but don’t need to rush all these good experiences. 

One of the little things I miss include the great lunches during the week in Sweden.  In Sweden there are 3-4 lunch specials each day at a restaurant and you get a nice warm meal (pasta, fish, chicken, etc) including drink, salad, and freshly baked bread.  These lunches are cheaper in price and a great opportunity to sit down and take 30 minutes of your day to relax and talk to coworkers.  Over here, its mainly been sandwiches at various places or horrendous fast food.  So lunch time I ate healthier. 

Also, the people I met in Sweden were great and I definitely miss the people I met over there and the time I spent with them.  I had good time going out, taking part/learning the Swedish culture,  and just general day to day life.  Of course, now I’m sure its getting nice and warm over there, with long long Spring / Summer days.  …..how much is the plane ticket back?

 

Auschwitz

Its so hard to even begin to explain Auschwitz and attempt to convey the amount of excruciating history this place begins to ooze from its grounds.  While in Krakow (Auschwitz is 2 hours by bus from Krakow) I decided I would venture out to Oświęcim (the Polish city which contains the Auschwitz camp) and made the decision to not do a guided tour but rather understand the past without the lecturing of a tour guide and without the oblivious tourists who are just there to notch that checkbox.  Yet I ended up going with one of my hostel roommates and I’m glad I had the company throughout the trip. 

When you get to Auschwitz, you walk through the visitor center and then through the double rows of barbwire and into the encampment.  The area contains about 25-30 red brick houses uniformly placed in a rectangular grid circumnavigated by the the barbwire walls and guard towers.  Each brick house called “Block 3″ or “Block 10″ is dedicated to a specific aspect of the history – prisoner life, evidence of the horrific crimes, etc. 

Everyone is affected differently by Auschwitz, everyone goes for one reason or another, and everyone has their pieces of its history that leap out and knock them off their wits.  I won’t comb through the gritty details of each cell block or recite each invidiual piece of absolute cruelty but there were three items that put me off keel.

(1) The “Evidence of the horrific crimes” block contains the reminants of the prisnors and the materials that the Nazis took possession of.  Each room contains a glassed off enclosure with either hundreds or thousands of items that were once charished 60 years ago – piles of broken eye glasses, heaps of suitcases….however the 10′ wide x 40′ long x 10′ high glass enclosure filled with woman’s hair was astounding.  The hair was grey, still in its natural grouping as a pony tail or braid, laying there with hundreds of others from women of every age.

(2) While waiting outside to enter another building, I watched as 30 or so young Jewish girls (on a school or religous trip) filed solomenly out of the building.  One in three had a white scarf or shawl with the blue Star of David and most of their eyes were still wet from reliving the history.  Seeing their emotion and sadness at that exact moment connected the past to the present and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how they must have felt during that day.

(3) The last stop on our self made walking tour was one of the four gas chamber and crematory units.  You walk up to this area where a small stone building is set about halfway into the ground.  A grass mound artifically shoots out of the ground.  There are two doors at both ends to the mound, two brick smoke stacks protruding from the top, and a few windows.  If you didn’t know what you were walking into, its hard to visualize the area 60 years ago.  The rooms are pure cement and the two furnaces have indented rail tracks in the ground where a cart could be pushed up to each furnace.  Outside, after walking through the area, I noticed 5 or 6 black crows on top of the mound.  That was especially eerie, the crows, used to the filthy area of the past, still hanging around for last reminents of an awful past.

Hiking Bergen

The next day in Bergen I set out with thoughts of hiking grandeur, wandering around the peaks of the mountains for a few hours, taking what pictures I could from the top of the peaks. My plan was to hike up the switchbacks to the top of Mt. Fløyen instead of riding up the funicular. The tourist information girl said the short walk should take around 30 minutes to the top. Well, she was wrong. It was about an hour of 25 degree inclined switch backs, fire roads (gravel roads) and paved paths. I definitely began to get winded but I had to continue (I was intent on getting good pictures, seeing the top of the peaks, and if I stopped I had no idea what else to do in the small expensive town of Bergen). I also had to continue because there was a mother in front of me (that I eventually passed) that was pushing a double baby carriage… Anyways I made it up, she made it up and the view was great.

Following a brief homemade packed lunch at the top of Mt Fløyen, I decided to follow the signs to Mt Ulrikken (the highest of the Bergen seven peaks) and hike the so-called 5 hr traverse called “Over Vidden.” The tourist info girl explained that the funicular on that mountain was broken and I would have to walk another 30 minutes down the mountain (but I should probably add 60 given her previous advice)

I set off through the pine trees, happily snapping photos and up to the second base station 1.8 km away. I then saw this giant peak from this base station and told myself I wanted to be up there (at least another 1000 ft up). I continued my methodical meandering up the 25 degree pitches. At the top of the mountain, the views were incredible. It was a clear sky and I could see miles and miles of ocean real estate and small islands dotting the coast. At this level, the trees had given way to snow, ice, and grey rock. Because of time constraints, (I started at 11am), I decided to hold off on finishing the walk to Mt Ulrikken (partly because I turned left at the top of the peak instead of right but also because I knew I’d have to figure out how to get down off a snow capped mountain peak late in the day). So instead, I retraced my steps and ended up back down to the funicular entrance at about 5pm.

Being tired was an understatement. Having already done 2.5 weeks of tourist wandering and obviously out of shape for anything with an incline, I must’ve looked like a walking zombie. Slow. Steps. One. Then another. Down the street to the hostel. Exhausted I passed out and ended up staying in that night (ironically watching the movie “Into the Void”).

Krakow, London, Bergen…phew!

Its been a littler longer than I wanted to write but I’ve been traveling around non-stop, leaving Krakow Poland last Friday, leaving London yesterday and am now in Bergen, Norway.  I need some time once I’ve settle down to appropriately write about my experiences at Auschwitz, the whirlwind tours throughout London, London nightlife, and now Bergen, but all in all its been quite an adventure and I’m very impressed at how friendly or helpful residents of each country are. 

I’ll get back to the rest of Krakow and London, but now that I’m in Bergen, I’ll talk about Bergen.  The city landscape is something I’ve never seen before.  You take the colorful houses from Copenhagen and small cottages from a northern Swedish village and you plant them in this valley surround by seven large mountains.  The mountains are lined with pine trees and a few of them are capped with snow.  Dotted all the way up the mountains are colorful houses zig-zagging along the roads.  The landscape improves even more because this small town is on the coast line and has a very expansive harbor where the water is crystal clear and you can see the starfish resting on the bottom. 

Today I wandered around the city and got acquainted with my surroundings and also went to the aquarium and met the penguins, seals, fish and reptiles of Bergen.  Tomorrow I plan to hike up one of the seven mountains and perhaps do a 5 hr traverse to the highest snow capped mountain.  I figured I should get a good rest for this and better equip myself.  If the weather isn’t good or if I find out that traverse has snow drifts higher than a few inches (cause I don’t have snowshoes) I’ll take some of the many trails at the top of the first mountain (Mount Fløyen) and hopefully get some good photos.

Cellar pubs

Walking down the streets of the old town center of Krakow, the street-facing building facades hide the gems of bars, pubs, and shops which are hidden 20 meters down their alleyways.   A hostel roommate and I discovered two great bars that were in back alleyways, one flight underground street level.  The pubs are very intimate and consist of a network of five or six small rooms connected by low hanging stone archways and give the feeling of an old gothic wine cellar of some sorts.    We went to these cellar pubs two nights and enjoyed the atmosphere, the people we met, and the drinks.

The first night we ordered vodka sodas with a lime (“a lemon thats green” according to the bartender) and were greeted with strange looks from the bartenders as they concocted this drink.  I thought vodka soda was a standard drink especially for a country that drinks vodka so much but I was wrong.  The second time ordering I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice and asked the bartender what she recommended to go with vodka…. her response was Żubrówka (bison grass vodka) and apple juice.  Skeptical with the apple juice selection, I didn’t comment because I was in Poland and Poles drink a helluva a lot of vodka.  Well it turns out the recommendation was great and the drink tasted like apple pie…

We met some interesting folk in the bars. The first night we met this mid-forties Scotish artist who just sold a £5,000 painting and has been spending his past year in southern Spain painting and enjoying the beach.  Whether his claim was true or not, he was still an interesting character, outspoken, opinionated, and seemingly always drunk.  The second night, the painter was still there, but we met a group of 2 North Irish, 2 English, and 2 Scotish people.  An older crowd (early to late 30s) they were drunk off their butts and it was hilarious to be in their company. 

Krakow, Poland… hello Eastern Europe

I arrived in Krakow, Poland on Tuesday evening and instantly could feel and see the contrast from lively Munich.  After the leaving the small airport (just slightly bigger than Kiruna aiport up north in Sweden, but not by much) I made my way 300 meters past small houses with hens and roosters and to the small little platform to wait for my train.  The feel of Eastern Europe was so strong.  Old dark stone cottages, animals wondering around the yards…the just the look and feel of Krakow airport felt Easter Europe.  I made my way from the train station to the hostel (Tutti Frutti). 

I was/am very impressed with the strong medieval and gothic style of buildings throughout the city.    The main part of central Krakow, called the old town, is surrounded by a giant stone promendade walkway lined with trees, benches, and hundreds of pigeons.  The north point of the old town welcomes you with an old medieval gate and castle walls with high towers – really cool architecture.  Inside the walls the old town is littered with catholic churches.  I spend yesterday and a little today wandering around the old town district and walked by or stopped in at least 5-7 churches.  Today my Australian roommate and I walked to the castle and also to the Jewish quarter.

The castle isn’t a giant gothic castle but has very large walls, a beautiful courtyard and an inner area, and an equally beautiful cathedral.  We weren’t impressed at all with the Jewish quarter and the two synogogues we went to paled in comparison (though you can really understand the difference in wealth and stature in the two religons just by looking at the meeting places).  Lunch in the Jewish quarter was equally difficult to achieve and we made our way back to the town square in Old Town for a kebab.

The main center square is amazing and there are giant bell towers, cathedrals, and open space for tourists, street vendors, and pigeons.  I’ve never seen so many pigeons and don’t understand how people can like the vile things.  Tourists would come up with handfuls of feed and be soo excited when the pigeons would land on their outstretched arms to eat the food. I needed my own little kid in front of me to have him run around to scare the pigeons away while I was attempting to eat my messy kebab. 

Hofbräuhaus München

Saturday night me and two of my hostel roommates made our way down to the famous Hofbräuhaus to indulge in some (yes you guessed it) pork and beer.  The place was absolutely insane. Loud German music playing, rows and rows of wooden tables filled with tourists and locals all eating pounds and pounds of pork, pretzels, and liters of beer.  We made our way to small sliver of a table and started the night with 1L beers. The two girls (who one impressively ordered a 1L beer with me) and I studied the menu and of course ordered some sort of derivative of pork and saukraut.  We stayed for awhile simply people watching.  I have never seen so many older people drunk and stumbling around.  Men and women in their 40s and 50s dancing like drunk fools, men hunched over tables hands in their heads like freshmen college students on a Monday morning, it was crazy.  We watched as our waitress (in the traditional beer maid garb) carried over 9 1L beers in her two hands, slammed them down on the table without spilling a single drop, and divided them up among her customers.  We then watched all of the tourists, content with their 1L gigantic beers, ordering liter after liter (I stopped at 2 liters) .  Good times by all.

Few funny quirks….

- It used to be only a mens beer hall and they had angled the floor so while sitting at your picnic table, you could unbutton your liederhosen, and not have to get up to go to the bathroom. The angled floor would direct the liquid out of the hall.

- There is a stainless steel bowl/sink in the mens bathroom immediately to the right.  This is known as the vomiting bowl and should be used if necessary.  No throwing up anywhere else, truly poor form. 

Bayern Munich v. 1. FC Nürnberg

This past Saturday I took a trip up to Nürnberg to try and catch the football (soccer) match between these two German Bundasligua teams.  I hopped onto the regional train along with scores of Bavarians (young and old) toting cases of beer for the trip up.  As we neared the Nürnberg main train center (1.45 hours later), the shouting and anticipation definitely began to rise.  I stepped off the train and the “Go Bayern Munich” chants started going full blast.  There to greet us at the platform and train station where a fair amount of cops in full riot gear.  Big German cops with batons, helmets, and a scowl across the face.  We then went to another platform and boarded a local Nürnberg train to take us 3 stops to the stadium.  Luckily I didn’t wear colors from either team so I was able to make my way easily between the crowds, otherwise the train car I got on wasn’t letting anyone with 1.FC Nürnberg apparel onto our train car.  And the last thing I needed was drunk fans yelling at me in German regarding my colors/team choice.  On this train, the fans were smelling blood and started shouting more chants and hopping up and down on the train car (causing the car to definitely bounce on the tracks…how was safe that was….probably not that safe). 

Three stops later we rolled out of our sardine cars and onto the next platform.  Bayern Munich to the right, FC Nürnberg  to the left. I hopped to the left, hoping to find a ticket to scalp since it’d be probably easier to go to the home side which would have more seats available.  But….you’d be suprised at how there was absolutley no tickets available anywhere.  Nothing.  After a few failed attempts of wandering around the stadium, I made my way to the chanting and singing of a FC Nürnberg beer garden tent and drank and sang with the locals for a little bit.  After 45 min – 1 hr, I decided to head back to the central train station and head on home.  I left slightly disappointed that I didn’t see the game but still got to enjoy the atmosphere and electricity of everything.  I was also able to get home without any hitches or having to stand (since everyone from Munich was still at the game) and then proceeded to party my butt off that night.