shred in stockholm

so rumor has it that Stockholm hasn't seen this much snow in years and year and years. apparently it usually snows and melts right away, although every morning I wake up, it's snowing more and more!! (and not melting) 

so, after old man winter got the best of me yesterday when he placed a huge chunk of ice under my foot while I was running and I rolled my ankle in the most painful way possible and then limped home in the blowing snow, I decided to tell him to get bent and went skiing today!

FINALLY! SKIING!! YAY!!! This awesome Swedish girl that I met named Louise took me to Hammerby Backen, which is sort of the Rabbit Hill of Stockholm, but..... smaller? yeah way smaller. 

cute!

Old Man Winter decided to bite right back and gave us a FREEZING cold,  extremely windy,  snow blowing day.  But we made the best of it and actually really impressed ourselves with how long we survived. 

brrrr! but stoked!

hej louise!

Sitting in bed now eating soup and defrosting the body! Great to get out on the skis, I was starting to think they wouldn't get any use... but look at me go.  Meeting cool people is great!

XOXO  J

                                                  

                            

taking the skis on a city tour..

How to gain 10 pounds in Riga, Latvia...

1. To save money from buying food on the cruise ship to come.. buy a jar of nutella, some bread, licorice allsorts and cheesy nacho chips for a nutritious cruise to the Baltics.
2.  Take advantage of cheap XL Milka bars in the duty free on the cruise ship.  It is almost Valentines day afterall...
3.  Eat at LIDO, the latvian food restaurant where portions are HUGE and greasy , and beers bigger then your head are about 2 dollars.
4. Go to every restaurant and cafe you can... because it's cold outside.
5. Go to the central market in Riga, where Baba's sell huge loaves of bread, homemade pickles, and lots and lots of cheese for dirt cheap.
6. Drink, a lot. It's about the same price as a diet coke.
7. Get another Milka bar as soon as you have returned to the boat.

HI I'M BAAACK! and exhausted!
Riga was very very cool!
The ship was really fun at the beginning.. so we thought until we were all woken up at 2 am for the rest of the night from the sounds of ice bashing against the sides of our windowless ship cabin.  No sleep came after this as the only thing going through each of our minds was.. "near, far, whereevvver you are, I believe that the heart will go oonnnnn" (Titanic theme song)  After complaining to the ferry info booth the next day, we learned that it was very obvious that the ice would be loud in a c-class cabin in the back corner of the boat.  Right.

Not so nice ice, and Baltic cruise for 3. 

Riga was a very cool city.  Very VERY old and beautiful and clearly has a heavy past that is so recent that it is still in the minds of many of the people who don't always come across as welcoming to foreigners.  The Occupation Museum was really interesting and it was hard to believe the years and years of suffering that these people went through due to Soviet and German invasions. 

Some other highlights of the trip include:

the awesome lucy! (brooke is awesome too!)

brooke. big. beer. 

the classic Latvian restaurant LIDO. one time experience. 

Central Market 

A night at the Latvian National Opera - I fell asleep about 6 times but I really did enjoy it!

What a beautiful city!!

(British) Russian Dolls!!

Congratulations on your recent freedom Latvia!!

(Freedom Monument - built in 1935.. and Latvia actually wasn't free until 1991, so someone jumped the gun)

The whole trip was awesome and the cruise ship kind of redeemed itself by giving us a longer, quieter sleep on the way home.  I couldn't have asked for better travel buddies, maybe just dry shoes.  I can't believe I just went to Latvia!!! Who would have thought!

Back in Stockholm now for the week to get some school work done and catch up on my sleep.  I can't lie, I'm pretty sick of winter, but Italy is coming up very fast so that will give me a nice break and then the snow should then be realizing that it has overstayed its welcome here in Stockholm. 

I hope this gave you somewhat of an idea of what a crazy place Riga was.  Different then anywhere I have ever been and I definitely learned a lot about the world!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY EVERYBODY!!

talk to you soon!

xox J

                                

see yuh in riga!

dear clare,
I hope you enjoyed your jujubes, I didn't even want them anyways...

pass them through the world wide web YO!

went for a run this morning, shoe digging into heel causing pretty nasty bloody socks.. i don't know what's up there, but it didn't hurt bad enough to stop!

other than that, just sipping tea, reading some finance articles and relaxing on this socked in grey day in stockholm . 

(i love sentence fragments!!!)

Riga TOMORROW!! we are catching a ferry tomorrow night for some awesome latvian fun. I will take lots of pictures and fill you all in on Sunday! 

Hope you all found a Valentine! (because i didn't... minus my sisters of course)  Maybe we can all meet on a skype date over a glass of wine and talk about what love really is?

see you on sunday. 

mucho love

J

ps.  happy anniversary mom and dad?  I think I'm close anyways? you guys are totally the cutest couple out there!!!!!!!! XOXOXO

Monday!

Hi Monday and everyone reading!!
Quick post before i run out to start a bank account so I can officially get rid of this stupid cash withdrawal fees! I would have done this yesterday but my internet was on the fritz so it didn't happen..
here goes...
Our welcome dinner was Saturday night, it was suuuper fun! I sat with some awesome swedish kids and ate a shrimp appetizer thing on rye bread? I don't actually know what it was but it tasted good! And then of COURSE two huge meatballs, potatoes, and root vegetables! with gravy and ligenberry sauce obvi!
we went out after the meal and had a pretty hilarious night... here are some photos, I wish I took more but I was being a little bit lazy with the camera:

               Cass and I were about ready to get out of there at this point..

Cass and a swedish fellow..

my 2 new swedish friends!

This was from the concert on Friday!

oops i'm sideways

and lucy on my bed

that is all! must get dressed and go to Swedbank!!

Love you all!

xo J

o yes! One more thing!!! Just booked my flight to Berlin from March 4 to 8 with Taylor Woolsey!!!! Excited!!!!!!!!!!

Slut Rea Lisation

teeeheeeee, in sweden the sign "slut rea lisation" is up in a the store windows to say there are big sales. OR theyre all realizing they're sluts!!!  maturity has not improved.

last night I saw this band

http://www.imfrombarcelona.com/  

at this really cool place called Debaser which is a music venue on the south island in stoockkhoolm! the band was really really good, it was really really fun! and SO much better then going to stupid clubs.  dear clubs, I hate you! from now on i'm only going to go to shows, because they are way better and the people are nicer and the boys and cuter!

lucy and I totally indulged in a swedish plate of protein in this cute "granville island style" market that we found in ostermalm.  I sent lu to make the order and she came back with a plate full of every kind of swedish meatball creation that exists and we ate it all with lingenberry sauce and pickled cucumbers!! my body was so excited for the iron!! so then with all that energy we tried to find the best Kannelbulla (spelling? = cinnamon bun!!) in stockholm and we ended up at my favorite hot chocolate dungeon to eat cinnamon buns like vikings!!

other than this...
all of my shoes are leaking, so my feet get really wet,  this isn't good.
the chip on my visa isn't working, i spent some quality time with the RBC man over skype, as I also had questions about my visa bill, but I think on monday I will put in an attempt at opening a swedish bank account!

okay,
I need to contribute to the group paper I have to write.....considering I know nadda about the economy, I have alot of reading to do!

Love Jill

SHHHH

some swedish boy just turned and "shhh'd"  me in class!!! who does he think he is.  I'm pretty sure he was kidding because he was on facebook for most of the lecture.  or maybe he's stuck in the junior high flirting fashion of just being a huge asshole. ha, silly swede.  still kind of scary i felt my face turn bright red :)
anywho, i found a partner to write my finance paper with, some cute little swedish boy named victor, and pre-warned him that I am going to be traveling so we must work around my dates! he seemed quite alright with this.. so i'll take it.  next step... writing the actual paper.. economics anyone?

other than this... its snowing AGAIN, yucky day. Lucy's coming here again tonight for some hanging, we're going to go explore Sodermalm tomorrow which is the south island where the hippies live! and we allll know i love hippies!!!!

sound like i'm in a good mood?  here's the explanation:

and nothing else matters...

xo
J

Fashion Smashion Week

Ola Amigos  (Wrong country I'm aware!)

So it's Fashion week here in Stockholm, and of course, if your a nobody (such as myself) this means absolutely nothing to you but I decided to go check it out anyways.  Went for a nice walk with Cara this morning and we circled the Mercedes tent and admired numerous 8 foot tall skinny blonde fashionable girls  walking around, and then a lot of not so tall pretentious looking well dressed people.  Really wasn't that cool, but how many fashion weeks happen in Alberta?  I had to check it out.

                              Hi, I'm Jill Young! you don't know who i am!!? Let me in to the show!

Anyways,  the mornings here lately have been pretty nice so I try to spend them outside to soak up as much Vitamin D as I can... Proof of sun:

We had a pleasant little walk, I picked up a sketch book and new pencil (I know.. yay pencils!!) so that I can start keeping my brain a little bit busier.. which I think is important, actually I know this is important otherwise I just think myself crazy!

I also picked up the ultimate "Europe on a Shoestring" travel book so I can plan some serious adventures!! So many great looking trips, MUST DO ALL OF THEM!!

I had a class tonight and then decided to force myself to get out of the house and joined a couple people to go to the school's once a week basketball night that they hold at a high school a couple train stops away.   It felt great to go out and do something different and talk to different people, so I will probably try to keep this up!  and of course.. my pro baller skills came right back (props to clare for teaching me those)...

Trying to plan a trip of awesomeness with Taylor (the great!) Woolsey for the beginning of March now as our schedules do not seem to match very well! And I just got informed about a Russia trip that gets held for students separately from the one that my exchange committee holds. It's put on for University students in Scandinavia and sounds pretty cool, they cover a lot more ground then the original trip that I was thinking about soooo ... Mom and Dad I will send you the link for your opinion.

aannnd the American boys have just convinced me to partake in Superbowl Sunday (the school actually holds an event for it here!! ahah) which takes place at 1 am next Sunday... I'm going to feel sooo at home.  I really just want to watch The Who in the half time show.. I don't even know who's in the game.. go saints?

Ok, must get some sleep. Staying busy is good. I must stay busy.
Until next post
All my love,
J