Finland III
It's been a while since I've done this, cause life is busy like that. But, at least for my own absentminded benifit, here's the lowdown
After a rowdy Finnish Party at Pasi's, I finished up my rail class and hopped on a vikingline cruise to Stockholme with 3 of the gang from the trip. It was a short night, let me tell you. Short night of sleep. The three were partying like it was 1999. I still had my dance floor phobia, so I found it hard to try to pick up random Fin/Swede chicks by busting a move. However, I did find it entertaining to watch coordinated people dance in the disco room of the ship. Discos. Completely foriegn to northern Michigan. The ride to Stockholme from Turku was amazing. There is a chain of Islands that connect the two ancient Scandinavian capitols that make an obvious route for viking boats to cross the Baltic. I think it would be awesome, if I ever got into cannoeing/kyaking/sailing to boat between the two cities. That's if it's not a major shipping lane. Which it should be ok since many islands had their one private house with garden and trees and harbor. It would be awesome to own an island. Even if in the fridged Baltic.
Stockholme was cool. I saw the Vesa, a large swedish vessle used in the war of independence against the Danes in the 16th century. While it was a magnificent piece of art, carved of giant timbers with ornate carvings and gold and brass figureheads and all sorts of religious symbols of the natural order, and was armed to the teeth with canon; it was most famous for sinking. A bad design as a result of being too top heavy with all those canon and not enough room for ballast in the base. Silly Svenish. I also saw the palace, mueseums, and Nobel Facilities where the prizes are awarded. Well, 4/5 Nobel Prizes. The Peace prize is awarded in Norway, which I'll get too later. Pretty cool reading about the history of the prize, and how it is awarded, and who it's awarded to. I saw the crown jewels too. Not so impressive as Englands, but impressive nontheless.
http://nobelprize.org/
After a long day of touring, I found my train bound for Oslo and climbed aboard. I was hoping to have a cabin with 5 other young people from around the world that I could meet, but was not so lucky. Instead, I had a sleeper all to myself. Which was lucky too.
In Oslo, I spent two days touring the sights. I would say that Stockholme is the true center of Scandenavia, but Oslo has its own merits. The city is built at the tip of a fjord (glacial carved bays that lead from the arctic ocean) and is quite the wealthy town. Tons of boats and yacts sail the harbor and you can take boat ferries from one district to the next as well as a tour of the fjord. I went to the cultural museum, castle, german occupation museum, nobel peace museum, and more. I stayed in two different hotels, where I met a number of people from China, Britain, Hong Kong, Scotland, Austrailia, New Zealand, Germany, and more. Lots of folk from around the globe. We had a real entertaining night sitting in a hostel with 6 varying english dialects all in one room: Midwestern US, Aussie, Cochny(?), Scot, Hong Kong, and one of the easier London accents. Kinda cool.
After Oslo, I took a train to Bergen, which I dont regret. Some of the best scenery in the world can be seen from that train. Mountains, vallies, cliffs, bluffs, lakes, glaciers, meltwaterfalls, forests, tundra, sand, aluvian fields; It's endless. From sheep to snowballs. We occassionally stopped as our train got ahead of schedual. At one point, we were at the peak of the mountain range. After putting up with a heat wave down in the cities of 85 degrees F, I rolled in a snowbank to cool off. (unheard of weather by their standards I might mention) (excellent weather for laying on a beach all day I might also mention).
Bergen is the ancient capital of the country and was a port town where reasources were collected before shippment overseas to mainland Europe. It was quite the historic town. With sights to see such as castles, markets, mountains, the Flam, and more. (a train that runs up incredibly steep grades.)
Again, I met some locals. Older this time as Bergen is more of a cultural center and attracts those more attuned to the arts. I had to put up with a lot of America Bashing at this point. Ya, it's true America has a lot of problems and it is very shortsighted and does a lot of contridictory things to its verbal policies; but it's still a good place to live. We may have a substandard education system, live off money we don't have and be a nation in decline, but not all of Americans are worthless freeloaders yet and we're only 40% socialist as opposed to many parts of the Colonial powers so BACK OFF EUROPE!!! Give us another generation or two, then I'll probably agree the US is broken and corrupted beyond repair as has tended to be the fate of all republics within a 400 year period of their birth. At least we don't threaten to kill our soccer players. And at least most of us chose to come to America, my uppiti Aussie friends, and werent part of a social cleansing effort due to our immoral ancestry. Ya that's right. I just pulled out the Aussie Penal Colony card. And you know what makes us better than you? Ozone. Ya, that's right. Not the band, I'm talking a layer of Oxygen that lets us be outside for more than 15 minutes without developing melinoma or mutant powers. Take that, Downunder. Your soccer team lost anyways.
Ya, aussies were the most critical. Most Europeans knew they are on course to be a European Union Superpower that will not only compete with the US, but probably out-perform it within a century. It's sad, but I think the US lacks the political forsight capabilities to modify our nation's policies in education and such to prepare for this in time. Largely because most Americans have not had the opportunity and/or traveled enough to see the big picture of the modern world and can only see our country from the inside out and not outside in. We'll probably fall behind for a generation or two until we figure out that the education system is as critical an infrastructure as roads, rail, electricity or visa to our nation's long term well-being. And then we may or may not make the sacrifices necessary to play catch up to Europe, depending upon what is most politically popular and will result in the most re-elections.
The most interesting part of traveling abroad, as you have probably noticed is it's extremely easy to become critical of what is wrong with your nation. That is true. But, problems can only be corrected when identified. And they typically cannot be identified as beneath status quo without comparing that system to the neighbors.
well, this is it for now as the battery, mine as this lappy's, runs low. Goodnight Gracie!
After a rowdy Finnish Party at Pasi's, I finished up my rail class and hopped on a vikingline cruise to Stockholme with 3 of the gang from the trip. It was a short night, let me tell you. Short night of sleep. The three were partying like it was 1999. I still had my dance floor phobia, so I found it hard to try to pick up random Fin/Swede chicks by busting a move. However, I did find it entertaining to watch coordinated people dance in the disco room of the ship. Discos. Completely foriegn to northern Michigan. The ride to Stockholme from Turku was amazing. There is a chain of Islands that connect the two ancient Scandinavian capitols that make an obvious route for viking boats to cross the Baltic. I think it would be awesome, if I ever got into cannoeing/kyaking/sailing to boat between the two cities. That's if it's not a major shipping lane. Which it should be ok since many islands had their one private house with garden and trees and harbor. It would be awesome to own an island. Even if in the fridged Baltic.
Stockholme was cool. I saw the Vesa, a large swedish vessle used in the war of independence against the Danes in the 16th century. While it was a magnificent piece of art, carved of giant timbers with ornate carvings and gold and brass figureheads and all sorts of religious symbols of the natural order, and was armed to the teeth with canon; it was most famous for sinking. A bad design as a result of being too top heavy with all those canon and not enough room for ballast in the base. Silly Svenish. I also saw the palace, mueseums, and Nobel Facilities where the prizes are awarded. Well, 4/5 Nobel Prizes. The Peace prize is awarded in Norway, which I'll get too later. Pretty cool reading about the history of the prize, and how it is awarded, and who it's awarded to. I saw the crown jewels too. Not so impressive as Englands, but impressive nontheless.
http://nobelprize.org/
After a long day of touring, I found my train bound for Oslo and climbed aboard. I was hoping to have a cabin with 5 other young people from around the world that I could meet, but was not so lucky. Instead, I had a sleeper all to myself. Which was lucky too.
In Oslo, I spent two days touring the sights. I would say that Stockholme is the true center of Scandenavia, but Oslo has its own merits. The city is built at the tip of a fjord (glacial carved bays that lead from the arctic ocean) and is quite the wealthy town. Tons of boats and yacts sail the harbor and you can take boat ferries from one district to the next as well as a tour of the fjord. I went to the cultural museum, castle, german occupation museum, nobel peace museum, and more. I stayed in two different hotels, where I met a number of people from China, Britain, Hong Kong, Scotland, Austrailia, New Zealand, Germany, and more. Lots of folk from around the globe. We had a real entertaining night sitting in a hostel with 6 varying english dialects all in one room: Midwestern US, Aussie, Cochny(?), Scot, Hong Kong, and one of the easier London accents. Kinda cool.
After Oslo, I took a train to Bergen, which I dont regret. Some of the best scenery in the world can be seen from that train. Mountains, vallies, cliffs, bluffs, lakes, glaciers, meltwaterfalls, forests, tundra, sand, aluvian fields; It's endless. From sheep to snowballs. We occassionally stopped as our train got ahead of schedual. At one point, we were at the peak of the mountain range. After putting up with a heat wave down in the cities of 85 degrees F, I rolled in a snowbank to cool off. (unheard of weather by their standards I might mention) (excellent weather for laying on a beach all day I might also mention).
Bergen is the ancient capital of the country and was a port town where reasources were collected before shippment overseas to mainland Europe. It was quite the historic town. With sights to see such as castles, markets, mountains, the Flam, and more. (a train that runs up incredibly steep grades.)
Again, I met some locals. Older this time as Bergen is more of a cultural center and attracts those more attuned to the arts. I had to put up with a lot of America Bashing at this point. Ya, it's true America has a lot of problems and it is very shortsighted and does a lot of contridictory things to its verbal policies; but it's still a good place to live. We may have a substandard education system, live off money we don't have and be a nation in decline, but not all of Americans are worthless freeloaders yet and we're only 40% socialist as opposed to many parts of the Colonial powers so BACK OFF EUROPE!!! Give us another generation or two, then I'll probably agree the US is broken and corrupted beyond repair as has tended to be the fate of all republics within a 400 year period of their birth. At least we don't threaten to kill our soccer players. And at least most of us chose to come to America, my uppiti Aussie friends, and werent part of a social cleansing effort due to our immoral ancestry. Ya that's right. I just pulled out the Aussie Penal Colony card. And you know what makes us better than you? Ozone. Ya, that's right. Not the band, I'm talking a layer of Oxygen that lets us be outside for more than 15 minutes without developing melinoma or mutant powers. Take that, Downunder. Your soccer team lost anyways.
Ya, aussies were the most critical. Most Europeans knew they are on course to be a European Union Superpower that will not only compete with the US, but probably out-perform it within a century. It's sad, but I think the US lacks the political forsight capabilities to modify our nation's policies in education and such to prepare for this in time. Largely because most Americans have not had the opportunity and/or traveled enough to see the big picture of the modern world and can only see our country from the inside out and not outside in. We'll probably fall behind for a generation or two until we figure out that the education system is as critical an infrastructure as roads, rail, electricity or visa to our nation's long term well-being. And then we may or may not make the sacrifices necessary to play catch up to Europe, depending upon what is most politically popular and will result in the most re-elections.
The most interesting part of traveling abroad, as you have probably noticed is it's extremely easy to become critical of what is wrong with your nation. That is true. But, problems can only be corrected when identified. And they typically cannot be identified as beneath status quo without comparing that system to the neighbors.
well, this is it for now as the battery, mine as this lappy's, runs low. Goodnight Gracie!