London Bomb Scare

So you've all probably heard there was a bomb scare in London, and it wasn't a very big deal, but I got a few IM messages from my cousin last night so I thought I'd let you all know...the bombs didn't go off. I'M OKAY!

Yeah, if they did go off...I still probably would have been okay. I'm a mile away from Piccadilly, and I don't think car bombs have that big of a radius. I'm not in danger. I don't go clubbing out here because the scene sucks and I still haven't been able to quite master drinking and walking. So there would have been no reason I'd be at Haymarket at 2am. The whole situation didn't even impact me in any way because I'm so bloody lazy I wasn't even on the Tube until dinnertime and by then the Piccadilly line wasn't closed anymore. I did pass by the Haymarket yesterday, and the street was still blocked off, but other than that, business as usual.

TERRORISM IS SOOO 2001. I wish they'd find something new to do.





P.S. (Anyone who knows Julie) How fantastic is it that the bomb was found in a green Mercedes?

Stockholm

Sorry I lag with the blogging, but my travel blog entries are harder than you think! I have to upload the pics, then re-download the vertical ones I want to use because for some reason, blogspot can't seem to properly show them, and then I have to write and look up in guidebooks where I've been...it's exhausting. BUT...I love to do it, because I love ya'll.

So I arrived on Stockholm late Saturday afternoon. Everything was closed though, because it was Midsummer's Day, the Scandinavian celebration of the longest day of the year. It kind of sucked because Midsummer's Eve is celebrated in Sweden on Friday night and Midsummer's Night is celebrated in Denmark on Saturday night, so because of the way I arranged my trip, I actually missed out on both, but still, being in Scandinavia for Midsummer's weekend is pretty amazing, so I can't complain. Like the concert I went to at Tivoli was part of the Midsummer celebrations and stuff. Midsummer is great up there because it's daylight about 20 hours a day. In Cali, only the Playboy Mansion celebrates Midsummer's, and it's not really the same since even on Midsummer's we have only like 15 hours of daylight since we're closer to the equator. Still, it must really suck in Scandinavia in the winter when they only have like 4 hours of daylight.

I took a little walk around the center of town and I met a fellow London traveler named Johnny and we went over to TGI Friday's which was one of the few places open since it's an American restaurant. We met two other Americans who were in Stockholm on business. Both were actually from Cali, and one of the guys, Frank, is my age and from San Bernardino, which is near where I'm from, and I was just cracking up because he sounded SO SoCal and it was just nice to meet someone from home. It made me really homesick!


Me in Stockholm on Midsummer's. It wasn't so much raining as it was misty. It's a strange kind of rain that they have a lot in Stockholm.


Me and the guys at TGI.

The next morning, I woke up super early and went on a boat tour of Stockholm out to the Feather Islands. Stockholm is made up of all these islands and there's a bunch of islands out in the Archipelago. The tour guide told us that a huge percentage of Swedes in Stockholm have boats so they can sail out the islands in the summer. Sunday was just GORGEOUS and I got lots of pictures:












Me with the May Pole. On Midsummer's, Swedish girls dance around the May Pole.


The island we stopped on used to be used by the founder of Absolut as his restaurant.


Beautiful day.

I asked the tour guide where was the best place to get Swedish food. She said that Swedes don't really eat Swedish food on a daily basis, only on special occasions, other than the meatballs and that the best place was probably Ikea since it's where Swedes go to get cheap and yummy meatballs. So after the cruise, I met up with Johnny and we trekked to the outskirts of town to the HUGE Ikea.


Me at Ikea!


Johnny at Ikea!


I thought these carts were awesome. Maybe they have them in the States, too.


Swedish meatballs! They were yum. One thing about eating at Ikea that's not the same as the States was that you buy a cup for the drink machines and you get the choice of soda, juice, or BEER. Yes, free refills of Swedish beer.

We walked around Ikea, which was fun, and a good way to burn off the food. Didn't buy anything cuz I doubt I'd be able to take a bookcase with me back to London.

The Swedes are responsible for some really cool things. Like Ikea and H&M and Volvo.


Volvo dealership. I saw a Volvo limo driving around here. No joke.

Then I took a boat to another island of Stockholm, Djurgarden, to sightsee.


The Vasamuseet, which is a museum about this warship from the 1600's that sank off the coast of Stockholm, never actually even making it off to sea. But because the water is brick a brack, half salt and half fresh, the boat was able to be discovered and restored in the 1960's and now it sits in this museum. It's really amazing and the museum is just so well put together.


Me in front of the boat.


I took a lot of pictures of the boat, but because of the dim lighting inside the place, it's really hard to capture. I'll just put a couple up, but really, you have to go see this for yourself. It's really amazing how intricate the design is. War was actually really beautiful back then.



I bought this stupid pass called the Stockholm Pass that gets you into all the different sights and free transport and what not, so I just started going into everything so I'd get my money's worth, but at the end, I realized it was a rip-off because no one can do that much in a day. Also, I ended up losing the pass on my second day, so it was really a waste.


So I went on this boat museum thing because it was included and in front of the Vasa Museum.




Me on the boat.


Then I went to this place called Skansen, which is an "open-air museum" of a "miniature historical Sweden." In the guidebooks, I saw pictures of people dressed up in old-fashioned clothes and stuff, so I thought it'd be fun like Colonial Williamsburg.


BUT...there was nothing miniature about this place at all, except this miniature map. It was enormous! About twice the size of Tivoli and lots of hills. Great thing about Copenhagen was that it's so flat.


Also, by the time I got there, most of the exhibits were closed. This farmhouse was one of the few open.


And there was this lady sitting inside. And she wasn't in character. She was actually pretty dull. And she said none of the people here are in character since they aren't actors and it's not part of their job. :( I went to a couple other exhibits and same story...so I was really disappointed. I didn't come here for Swedish history lessons! I thought people would be really funny and in character. Com'on DANCE MONKEY DANCE!

So I head back and after resting, because my feet fell like there were about to fall off, I met up with Johnny and his friend to go to a bar called East for drinks.


Me and Johnny.


Me and Bronco, who I renamed Tree because he's a foot taller than me so whenever we're walking around together, I felt like a tree was following me.

The next day, I went to Gamla Stan, which is the Old Town of Stockholm.


I went to the Changing of the Guard, which was hilarious because the guards look like space robots with metal penises on their heads.


They had a marching band escort them.


Hehehe...


Alien attack on the royal palace!


Me at Kunliga Slottet (Royal Palace). I realized I'm sick of royal palaces after this. I mean, every freakin' European city you go, there's another royal palace. And really, other than Versailles, they aren't that great. I'm done with royal palaces! No more!!!


The only slightly interesting thing at this royal palace was an exhibit on the Crown Princess Victoria. She's 30 years old and is the next heir to the throne because they passed this law in 1980 saying she'd inherit instead of her little brother. Kind of sad for the little brother, but she seems like a really nice princess. She's not the typical Swedish blonde, but she's pretty in that "I play volleyball" kind of way. Better than the American "princess" Paris Hilton...


Me in Stockholm.

After the palace, I went shopping! Sweden's great for shopping because the people here are into cheap, understated clothes. Although Swedish women would probably look good in a garbage bag. There's an H&M every 5 steps, but I discovered H&M sucks regardless where you are. But there's a lot of other great shops. My favorites in Scandinavia are those useless knickknack shops they have. In Copenhagen, there was a store called Tiger where everything was about £1. I bought a T-shirt there, but Magda took it and has been wearing it all the time now. But there was a place in Stockholm called Lagerhaus that was useless crap heaven. Love it!

So that was Stockholm. I won't be traveling for awhile. I start my internship on Monday and so I'll be rooted in London for the next couple of months until I pick up and start on the Asian leg of my world tour. :D

København

So here's the story about me and Copenhagen. For the longest time, I thought that Denmark was not a real place. (That's American education for you!) I thought it was a place that Shakespeare made up. Because think about it...in Hamlet, Shakespeare writes about a king murdered by his own brother and then the kingdom is ruled by this corrupt king, and "something is rotten in the state of Denmark." It's not the most flattering representation of the Danish royals. Today, it'd be considered libel. SO...I thought it Shakespeare could write so liberally about a Danish royal family, then there must not be a real one to be offended by it. Second, there's the cheesy teeny-bopper film The Prince and Me (which I LOVE!) where the Danish royals speak with British accents and are played by Brits. So...I just thought...it's not a real place. BUT THEN a few years ago, Shelly and I were at the Saddle Ranch on Sunset Blvd and we met these Danish girls and I was shocked to discover, it's a real place! But I had to confirm this, so this past week, I went to Copenhagen.

So Copenhagen is the most expensive place in the world! Supposedly, it's only #6 or so, but I disagree. This place is more expensive than London! Just about everything is a total rip-off. I had to start translating the currency to pounds rather than dollars so I'd stop dropping my jaw at prices. BUT they have the most adorable kroner coins!


They have a little hole in the middle and little hearts on the coins. I brought a bunch of them back and I want to wear them as a necklace. :D

Anyhow, I arrived in the afternoon and met up with Stavros, who I met off the Internet. Every now and then when I'm traveling alone, I post on Craigslist in the cities I'm going to so I can meet fellow travellers or locals that I can hang out with. Which is how I met Stavros, a Greek guy who's working in Copenhagen for a couple of months. He showed up on a bike. EVERYONE here bikes! It's almost to the level of China. They have free bikes, so I was thinking about biking too, since the public transport here's not that great, but I was scared to since I haven't ridden a bike since I was 10 or so. Anyhow, Stavros and I went to Nyhavn which is the Copenhagen you see in the pictures with the different colored buildings along the port. We had a few beers...since that's what they do in Copenhagen...drink beer, more beer, and then more beer.


Nyhavn


Me with a beer. Carlsberg Special...YUM!


And another one! I tell you, all they do here is drink beer all day long.

The next day, I did some sightseeing on my own. I have this theory that I was the Queen of Denmark in a former life because I had a dream in which I inherited the Danish throne. So I thought I'd check out the palace and stuff and see if any of it looked familiar.


Me with the Little Mermaid statue. It's really OVERRATED...but people gather around this thing and snap pictures in mobs. Lots of Japanese people.


This place is called Nørrebro and it's just really cool looking. It's just blocks and blocks on apartment buildings that look like this.


Amalienborg which is where the royal family currently lives. It's really confusing because people drive through it because it's a road used everyday. It's not a gated off palace like Buckingham or all the other ones. Since Queen Margrethe actually still lives here, you can't go inside. There is a little museum I went through, but I didn't recognize anything.


Me at Amalienborg. Don't you think these guards must have the most boring jobs in the world?


Me in front of a fountain. One bad thing about traveling alone and having to ask strangers to take your picture is that not all of them are very good at picture taking. One thing I remember about our photography class for Accolade in high school was that you should never crop off the feet!


Here's the center of Copenhagen. This is like a thermometer or something that tells you the weather. But notice on the side of the building, KPMG! Just wanted to post this up here for all my KPMG peeps.


So then I went to Christiania, which is the coolest place on earth! It's this little gated village in Copenhagen that claims to be outside the state of Denmark. They practice communal living and is a little artistic/political/etc. haven from the outside world. They don't pay property taxes and you can't rent here. You have to be a citizen of Christiana to live here and once you are, they give you a room to live in. A Danish woman I talked to on the bus there told me it used to be a military base, but once the military left, people just started moving in and claiming it as their own and the government has been unsuccessful at pushing them out. They've been here for 30 years now although people predict it'll be gone in the next five years. So get here before it goes away!


Pictures aren't allowed in Christiania, because they engage in illegal activity here and don't want any evidence. I managed to secretly take this picture. Beers are super cheap here (only 12 kroner) and there's just a lot of people hanging around outside causing ruckus. One guy started throwing loaves of bread at me. (It turned out he wanted to play catch.) Dogs are unleashed and not castrated and they're enormous! I ran into an Australian guy touring alone so he and I sat down at a table with some strangers and they smoked us out! (Yeah, I'm admitting to illegal activity on the Internet.) Up until awhile ago, they used to sell hash here openly on a place called Pusher's Street, but now it's technically illegal although everyone still sells it here, although more covertly. Smoking hash here is awesome because Christiania is the BEST TRIP! They have all these colorful murals everywhere and all kinds of funny people. It reminds me of Berkeley, but to a more extreme level. I absolutely love it here! I hope they never get rid of it.


A picture of a cool little house I managed to take while no one was looking.


Once you leave Christiania, there's this sign saying "You are now entering the E.U." I'm still really stoned in this picture.

The next day, I went to Tivoli, which is an amusement park here. I was actually really bored. I grew up right in between Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm...it's nothing new to me. So I just sat around, ate some food, and then left to walk around town until the concert, which is why I went there to begin with.


They have all these little Chinese buildings everywhere. There's a little area called Chinatown and there's a foodstand that sells Uncle Ben food as Chinese food. (White people!)


But it's really pretty. This area has a gorgeous rose garden.


And a big Viking ship.


There was a concert going on (not the main concert, but just a little show).


This is in front of Rådhuspladsen (Town Hall Square). These people are native Greenlandic people. Greenland is a terrority of Denmark so there's a lot of them here. They're similar to Eskimos, I think, but they look like Asians! I met a few Greenlanders in Christiania and I was shocked because I thought they looked like they were from Asia. I think the Danes thought I was Greenlandic, too, since a lot of them spoke to me in Danish, but they don't have Asian people here, so I thought it was odd they thought I was one of them.


So I returned to Tivoli for the concert, and while I was getting a beer, I met a guy named Christian who was very nice so I started hanging out with him and his friends. I noticed this tubes with some kind of alcohol in them, but I was scared to try it. Christian bought me one. Here's me and Christian's friend (who's name I cannot pronounce but I think it was pronounced "Alm-piers" or something like that) taking out shots. Turned out it tasted really gross.


The concert. I thought the music would be really unbareable because I thought Scandinavians were into heavy metal rock, but it turned out to be really poppy and cool.


These guys are Outlandish, a really popular group in Denmark. Really great music.


This woman was really boring.


THIS GUY WAS THE WORST SINGER IN HISTORY!

After watching a little bit, we went over to a restaurant and had a beer and met up with another one of their friends. Christian and his friends are from the Faroe Islands, which is another territory of Denmark, but it's actually closer to the U.K. They're in Copenhagen to work on the railroad, although they showed me pictures of "work," which was them sleeping on the railroad. :P

Really cool thing about the Danish is that everyone here speaks English perfectly. In the beginning, I would ask people "Do you speak English?" but I later found out that it's actually kind of rude to ask that because of course they do, and also, it's a bit pointless. If you just start speaking to them in English, they respond back in English. I think part of it is because Danish television is mostly in English with Danish subtitles. I loved Danish TV because they have reruns of American shows like Friends, Ally McBeal, Buffy, etc. They have it ALL! Also, all the singers sing in English (except Outlandish also incorporates Spanish and other languages). So it's so easy to get around here.

Anyhow, after Tivoli, me and the Faroese boys went to a couple bars. They are so nice and kept buying the rounds! Here's some pictures.


This is me with a guy who's name I can't remember, Christian and Erik.


And then we took another one to get the guy who's name I can't spell (Almpiers?) in the picture. (Christian and Erik are MUCH easier names.)


So zexy! They would like me to advertise that they are single.

So after partying with the Faroese boys, I went home around 3am and it was practically bright again. Since June 21st was the longest day of the year and Denmark is so far north, it gets dark around 11pm and gets bright again at about 3am. By the time I went to bed, the birds were chirping and it was full-on daylight. It's really strange.

So Denmark is a real place, boys and girls, and it's an AWESOME place, albeit really expensive. Was I once the Queen of Denmark in a former life? I don't know, but a Danish man I met at a bar said it's nice I was returning home. :)