Not Exactly The Bahamas

For the first half of my week off, six of us girls went on a Scandinavian adventure: we flew to Bergen, Norway, then from there to Stockholm, Sweden, and finally to Helsinki, Finland. I arrived home last night after midnight, and then proceeded to empty my backpack, do laundry, and refill it for my Krakow, Poland trip.

I'm starting to get sick of airports!

I am currently sitting here in the hotel in Poland, stressed because I but have all kinds of new experiences here but haven't yet blogged about the other countries I've been too. (This is probably not something I should be complaining about!)
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Six boarding passes like this one all in the span of one week!

Needless to say, I have had a very eventful "Reading Week" (with very little "reading" involved...) and learned some things about travelling. I will organize these lessons into five core ones:

1.) Call the bank ahead of time. Then call them again.

It wasn't until I was in Sweden that my debit card worked.

I had a very stressful time at the airport because my debit card refused to work...and I needed to take out krone (Norwegian currency) as well as krona (Swedish currency) and euros (for Finland). We had alerted the bank in advance but apparently they needed reminding :) and since the airport had very spotty wifi, I had trouble contacting my dad. He later told me, "If you weren't such a world traveler, this wouldn't be a problem!" Whoops?

Thankfully I have good friends who covered most of the expenses for me in Bergen, and then I spent money for them in Stockholm :) (Above: Emelie and I decided we deserved a real meal and treated ourselves to burgers and milkshakes at the airport in London. I only had euros, but thankfully they accepted them!)

Pretty decorations at the restaurant reminded me the money thing would work itself out. It did :)

2.) Try to understand the currency exchange rate as well as you can.

It was really difficult to figure out how much we all owed each other when we had to account for the different currencies and some people had to use their cards to reserve hostels, pay for taxis etc. I've learned that money is just money. Eventually it evens out. When I paid for our taxi in Stockholm, this strange thing happened:

Our taxi bill was around 500 krona (approx. 48 pounds). I handed him the bills fresh from the ATM, but since  The taxi driver didn't have change for my large bills (from the airport ATM). We struggled to understand each other due to the language barrier and my inability to do simple math in my head. Eventually I figured out that he didn't have 10 krona to give me. At first we thought he was trying to rip us off, so we hesitated. Then I turned around to the girls and said, "You know what, it's only 10 Krona. That's like one dollar." All of a sudden the man lit up and grabbed his wallet. He just happened to have a U.S. dollar! Us girls (and him) burst out laughing at how absurd it was. I haven't seen a U.S. dollar since August! :) 

3.) Do not procrastinate on homework:

We arrived in Bergen on Thursday night (technically Friday morning: 2 am) and I had an essay for London Stage due that night. So while the rest of the group left to explore the city, I stayed behind to write.  Our accommodations were absolutely beautiful (look at the view!)

 I didn't have money in the right currency anyway, so I was content with staying at home while they went out. It was nice to have some time to myself-it's hard to find that in London!

After awhile out on the deck, I decided I was cold and went back into the family room. Not two minutes later, a hail storm came out of nowhere. Hail and wind hit the windows, the room seemed really bright, and I couldn't see out the window at all. It was then I realized just how "alone" I was! :) But it only lasted about five minutes and then the house stopped shaking.

"If I die here, Marisa can have my Barcelona tapestry."

My second problem was food. Or rather, lack thereof. I used to tell my mother we had "nothing in the fridge to eat". Here, there was actually nothing to eat! I had eaten at the airport the night before, and had some leftover noodles for breakfast with strawberry jam from the cupboard, but other than that, I was stuck. I didn't know where the grocery store was (and didn't want to risk getting lost alone). Our house rental was in the middle of nowhere, so even though pizza delivery service was an option, I knew it would be difficult to give directions/an address. (Our taxi driver had difficulty finding it!). And I wasn't sure if my credit card was going to work. Plus I had an essay to finish. 

So I waited for these goons to come back :) It was late when they came home, and later still that we were able to order from UberEats. Apparantly the delivery guy came to the address and couldn't find it, so he drove it back to the restaurant. Marisa and I stood outside to wave him down as he made his way back a second time:

 I was excited to be in the fresh air (left), but we were all a bit hungry and cranky. As each car passed without the pizza, we got more frustrated. A taxi passed us while I was jumping up and down on the side of the street. The driver turned around and came back, and I mistook him for the pizza guy. He stuck his head out the window. He said, "Taxi?" and I responded, "Pizza?" Marisa burst out laughing. 

But FINALLY it arrived. 

It wasn't exactly Ellington Pizza, but I was so hungry I would've eaten anything :)

Bergen ended up being my favorite of the three places we went, so looking back, I wish I was able to spend Friday in the city instead of on my essay. But I suppose I am here to "study" abroad...so there's that!

Selfies = effective procrastination. (Deciding I'm cold and I need a hat and scarf and thus another selfie is probably another form of procrastination as well! In case you are wondering, I managed to submit my essay three minutes early at 11:56 :)

4.) Prepare yourself for the weather. 

I brought the warmest clothes I had with me. But we only had one backpack each, so there wasn't much I could bring...and it was cold:

When we first planned the trips, way back in September, Melanie said, "We have a week. Wanna go north or south?" We picked north:

After walking to a sauna in -4 degrees* for over an hour in the dark in Finland, Melanie said, "Maybe we shoulda chose South." It didn't help that someone booked the entire sauna for a private event, so we had to turn around and go home :(

Wishing these kids' scarf-thingies fit me...

5.) Thoroughly read the B&B reviews. Or at least be willing to make the best of where you end up. 

Let me preface this by saying I am a relatively easy-going person. I didn't mind staying in hostels with strangers, I'll eat (just about) any cuisine, and I'll go along with what a group wants (even if that means sitting in a cat cafe when I'm not a huge fan of cats). But our accommodations in Helsinki were horrible. So awful, I almost didn't take any pictures and thought about skipping a blog post. But then my mother told me to definitely include it...."it's all about the experience!" So here goes:

First of all, the owner, Chrissy, gave us really vague directions to her address. The taxi driver dropped us off and then we wandered around the apartment complexes confused (and cold). The apartment complex we recognized as hers didn't have her name listed on any of the mailboxes, and there was no ringer or doorbell. (I should add it was after midnight; we told her we were expected to arrive at 12:30...she said, "No problem, I'll be up and waiting!").We couldn't use our phones without wifi so eventually Anna and Marisa were able to find a local man (left) whose phone we could borrow.   Chrissy gave us an invalid phone number, so we had to turn on his data, go online, sign into the B&B website, and message her through the site. 

She opened the door in her pajamas, told us the elevator only fit four people, and showed the rest of us to the stairs (above). Note: There was no apology for keeping us waiting in the cold. 

I didn't realize until we walked in that we were pretty much sharing the apartment with her. We walked in the foyer (above), and she told us we could hang our coats and take off our shoes. 

I took these pictures when we were packing to go back to London. But here's the waterbed. Behind Zoe on the floor is a foam mattress Anna slept on. 

Then she showed us the room, with the waterbed she uses "to watch TV with my cats". I noticed immediately that the sheets were stained (possibly with water from the bed but still), so I volunteered to take the couch. This was fine because there was only room for four on the bed. She told us, "We fit eight of us on the bed. my friends and I. But that's when we're really drunk." (apparently this is the only pastime for Finnish people because its so dreary and bleak in the winter). Melanie said lightly, "Well then, we can probably fit four sober people." 

Chrissy was originally from Philadelphia (we knew this when we booked it so we figured we'd have something in common!) and moved to Finland nine years ago because she was interested in heavy metal bands (evidently also a popular pastime in Finland). In the picture above you can see some of the lanyards from her tours hanging from the ceiling. She talked to us for a good 45 minutes about heavy metal bands around the area and what she was studying in school. I can't imagine how lonely I would be so far away from where I grew up and in such a dreary place! So I tried to be sympathetic but honestly I just wanted her to go to her room so I could go to bed. 

And then I went into the bathroom:

I will admit, my bathroom is pretty messy. But when we have company over, we *usually* clean it up. So as a paying guest, I was a bit shocked to find that:

 1.) I was sharing a bathroom with her and 2.) I was sharing a bathroom with her cats. 

The only thing Chrissy told us about the bathroom was to leave the door open so her cat could come in if it had to go. There was cat litter all over the floor, and I almost gagged from the smell because rather than dispose of the litter completely, she transferred the waste from the litter box (right) to the trash can five feet away (middle). I don't know much about litter control, but I do know that's not the way you do it!

The shower didn't have a base, so Chrissy provided a spongee thing to push the water into the drain after taking a shower. Melanie and Zoe were the only ones brave enough to take a shower...and Melanie said when she was done, she tried to wipe the water into the drain but soggy cat litter kept sticking to the spongee. I decided I could wait for my shower at home!

We only saw Chrissy the first night, because she told us she was planning to stay over her boyfriend's house for the next day. But she told us to help ourselves to anything in the kitchen. 

Full-to-the-brim trash can

Direct quote: "I bought these pancakes you can heat up in the toaster, but they expire tomorrow so if you eat it tomorrow rather than the next day that'd be good. Otherwise they'll go to waste."

(Really? Why would you tell us this??)

Emelie excited about our Chinese take-out...we didn't trust Chrissy's food for dinner. 

At first, we all kept quiet about how gross it was, and I felt like maybe I was overreacting. But soon, I discovered everyone was equally grossed out. We made the best of it, though: went outside for most of the days we were there despite the weather, joked about living on the streets for a night (I'll take the snow over the house any day!), and remained thankful for our clean house in Highgate. 

(I won't mention that I physically threw up my fried rice.. could NOT stomach the bathroom)

The Wednesday morning weather was awful, but we were so thankful to get out! 

Zoe found Jello mix in the cabinet, so she decided to make some for all of us. I warned her to check the expiration date (mostly joking) and she said, "Leah, Jello has like a five year shelf-life!" I said, "For all we know, Chrissy might've brought it with her from Philly eight years ago!" She checked. Expiration date: December 2016. 

Well, all's well that ends well!

*celsius, not Fahrenheit. :)