Sweden for Christmas!

As an assistant, we are given a 2 week vacation for Christmas and New Year's. During this holiday, my best friends from my university in the US came over to Europe! We have 2 friends currently studying in Uppsala, so we all stayed with them during the holidays. From Sweden we traveled to Estonia, Belgium, and finally Latvia. We celebrated New Year's in Riga, Latvia.

This was a very rude awakening to what the weather would be like the next two weeks. This train was completely frozen!

Sweden really does look like a winter wonderland! Snow coated streets and trees. I've always wondered what a winter would be like in a Scandinavian country.

This is downtown Uppsala on Christmas. There were lots of people out and about celebrating. That's a major difference between Europe and the US. The young people spend Christmas Eve with their family and do all of the celebrating, dinners, and gift opening on this day rather than Christmas. On Christmas, the young people go out to the bars and clubs with friends. I don't think I could ever do that, I'd just feel... wrong! I found this to be the same way in Portugal as well when I was there last year for Christmas. My French students told me that's normally what they do too, so I'm guessing it's just what they do in Europe on Christmas.

This is the Uppsala Cathedral. It's one of the main "attractions" in Uppsala. It's so pretty on the outside and on the inside. The picture right above is a Viking rune stone. There were some of these scattered around the cathedral. So interesting!

This is the castle in Uppsala. It was quite nice, and big. Too bad on our tour at around 11 on Christmas we couldn't enter the castle! The picture right above is very interesting. Our friend who studies at the university in Uppsala told us all about the history of the sites we were seeing. This one in particular was intriguing to me. These are cannons aiming at the church. This is located just outside the castle. hmmm... wonder what the royal family thought of the church at that time....?

At the Uppsala University, they have these organizations a bit like sororities and fraternities. They are called Nations. Our friends said they were similar to houses at Hogwarts in Harry Potter. My two friends belonged to this Nation pictured above. I think this system of "Nations" is unique to Uppsala University. To get in as an outsider, you have to have a student identification card. When we were there during Christmas, the Nations were closed. It's a shame we weren't able to experience what it was like.

The most popular clothing store H & M. I love this store! It originated in Sweden along with IKEA.

These are views around Stockholm. I liked the city, I wish I could have seen more during the day! I must come back again during the summer. All of these photos were taken during our trek to the "Gamla Stan", the island in the middle of Stockholm. This is where most of the important touristy sites are located. We didn't have much time, so we only got to know what was in and around the Gamla Stan.

I really loved the colorful buildings here in Stockholm! I just wanted to take so many pictures of them. It really reminded me of a perfect Christmas village, except the snow was real!

This is the castle in Stockholm. It was pretty, and reminded me a bit of Buckingham Palace in London without the fence around it. However, if you look closely you can see the guards standing out in the cold. Ah, that must be terrible! The 2nd photo is the church and obelisk just outside the castle.

While we were in Sweden we visited Uppsala and Stockholm. I liked Sweden a lot, however I know I would much rather see it in the summer! During the winter, not only is it SOOOO cold and snow is everywhere, but there is NO sunlight! It took awhile to get used to. While we were there, we saw the sun for maybe 3 hours? Ah! However, after returning from Latvia we could see a difference in the length of the days just from 2 weeks ago! The sun was out a bit longer, but any bit helps. Here are sites for tourism is Stockholm and Uppsala: http://beta.stockholmtown.com/en/ and http://www.uppsalatourism.se/en/. I really will never forget my first night in Uppsala, walking from the train station to the apartment. That was the coldest I had ever been in my entire life! I couldn't feel my face or anything. After that first night, it seemed to get better or maybe I just got used to it.

Popular style in France

Notice- All black! Where did I get the idea the French wore colorful clothing?! Seriously, they really do wear all black. The big trends are boots, tall- boots, scarves, skinny jeans, and lots and lots of black.

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December 2010

This December was quite cold compared with December 2009 in my town. Teachers and students tell me that this kind of weather was really rare for the region. One night, it even snowed! My roommate had never seen snow, so that was exciting for him. This weather did not last for long. It was like spring when I returned from my holidays in super cold Sweden! I'll post photos of the snow below, as well as photos from other events that occurred in December. I'm still playing catch up, but I'm close to being finished!

I held a debate with my students dealing with current events issues in France and the United States. As you see above, they took it very seriously. Topic number one dealt with lowering the drinking age in the United States to age 18, as it is in France. One group basically said that by lowering the drinking age, not as many people would be listening to Justin Bieber and get drunk off of one drink. They also stated that 18 year olds wouldn't have to drink apple juice all the time, and get fat. hmmm.... Maybe they're onto something? Doubtful. Topic number 2 dealt with the smoking ban in France. As of now, people can not smoke inside public places in France. I love this law, and wish it would be put in place in the United States. Most of my students, who are in fact smokers, said that this was a good law. They felt that it was healthier.

On one of the first few cold days in December, a group of my friends here and I went to visit a friend in Pontivy. We rented bikes and rode them all around this river. It was such a beautiful ride along the river. It was really cold, but good exercise! Pontivy is such a tiny town, with not much to do. However, there is a small castle... and that's really about it!

Here is my classroom! It's always so unorganized. I think it really must be more of a storage room than a classroom. There must be over 40 chairs in this tiny room! I also have 2 TVs, 2 projectors, a computer without a mouse, and 3 trashcans. Oh well, it works! I just have trouble fitting all of my students in the room with all of this extra stuff in the way!

My friends and I took a trip to Rennes, the biggest city, and capitol of Bretagne. I really like this city! There's so much to do here, however there is no beach. We went here right before our Christmas holiday to do our Christmas shopping for our family and friends back home. The 1st photo is the stadium in Rennes. I would really like to attend a match sometime! The 2nd photo is the market in Rennes. It's a lot bigger than the one in my city! I love all of these markets! You can get fresh food for good prices. I really should take advantage of these markets while I'm here. We certainly don't have markets like these in the city where I live. The 3rd photo is just to show the architecture. This is the most popular form of architecture in this region. The 4th photo is a church and the 5th is a really pretty park we walked through. It was still so green and nice, even in December! The 6th photo is the castle in Rennes. The 7th photo is the Christmas market. Here in France, each town has a Christmas market. They really are everywhere! I tried "vin chaud" (hot wine) for the first time at this market! I fell in love with it.  Here is a link to learn more about Rennes :http://www.tourisme-rennes.com/en/home.aspx .

Here is the "snow" we got in my city. This is rare, so I was happy to be able to experience it here in Bretagne. The snow started falling at around midnight, which is when my roommate excitedly came to my door telling me to go outside and look at it. He was so excited to see snow for the first time. The next picture is the day after the snow. It didn't really stick to the ground, and by night it was gone!

                                     
Finally, we have the Christmas market, or Marche de Noel, in my city. I visited the city center the Sunday before I left for my holidays in Sweden thinking it would be dead. This was not the case! Everyone was downtown doing their last minute shopping, ice skating, writing letters to Santa, looking around the Christmas market, or watching the Christmas parade. It was so nice to have been able to see the market in my city, because last year I didn't see it at all! The photos above are of the Christmas market and the mailbox to put your letters to Santa Claus.

Reviewing November's Exciting Events

After we returned from our All Saints Day holiday, we had another long weekend to travel due to another holiday. My friends and I stayed around the area and took some small day trips around Bretagne. The first is Carnac. As you see, this is a touristy place as it has megaliths all around the town. Here are a few photos I took during my visit. I'm confident in saying that these are the oldest things I've seen in my life, as they date back to the Neolithic period. Here's a website with more information on the megaliths. http://www.pilotguides.com/destination_guide/europe/france/carnac_megaliths.php

 After Carnac, we stopped over to Quiberon. From where I live, you must cross through Carnac to get to Quiberon. Quiberon on this particular day was quite windy and rainy and the waves were quite effected by it, as you can see in my photos. I went once last year, and it was a really nice beach town with beautiful views.

 Vannes is one of the biggest cities in the Brittany region. I love all of the half timber buildings everywhere, and the old architecture seen on the church. Vannes has more to do, lots of places to shop, a beach, just more to offer than the city I live in. My friends and I come here often just to meet up and to do things we can't do in our city. Once we all went ice skating! I'm sure I'll have other photos of Vannes to post later on. The last photo is the port at Vannes. Here's more information on the city of Vannes: http://www.tourisme-vannes.com/

 Here are some shots around the area I live. This is the football stadium (soccer), and the town hall. My town isn't one of the prettiest, but I still like it a lot. I'm just thankful it's bigger, and there is good shopping and things to do here. There are really nice beaches around that I enjoy going to. Some assistants are placed in the middle of nowhere! Seriously, a tiny farming community with no local transportation or trains to even get out of the town. I'm quite lucky in that aspect.

 This is part of the high school where I work. It's quite a big school with many students. They even have a professional school.

All of the assistants in my town had a Thanksgiving for us Americans who were missing out on the holiday. An assistant and I tried to make a chocolate pie and an apple pie. The apple pie turned out really well, however the chocolate pie was more like... chocolate soup? Here's a photo to demonstrate why I will never be a chef.. or baker!

These next few photos really bring me back good memories. It NEVER snows in this region, or at least that's what all my teachers and students tell me. However, we went to this beach near my city and there was snow on the beach! I had never seen snow on a beach before. We had a picnic at the beach with other assistants, and one British assistant's mom and dad. I tried English Cream Tea, which isn't tea at all. It's basically a scone with jam and cream on top. It's a really nice dessert. We surprisingly found a warm part of the beach that was protected from the wind by rock.

Well, that's about it for November. Lots of beaches, medieval towns, megaliths, Thanksgiving... I did quite a lot that month. Whew! Tomorrow I'll compile a list of cities visited and photos for December.