One last exciiting post full of lots of adventures

So I’m writing this now, a few days after my day trip because this has been the only time I’ve had to recap and post (due to internet issues). The best way to sum up my day in Copenhagen is by just touching on the many things I did and letting pictures tell the rest of the story (I did a lot)! After a 10-hour overnight bus ride (which was not all that bad… I managed to wake up when we crossed the ocean/canal/whatever it is called right outside of Malmo, Sweden on a really cool bridge), I arrived in Copenhagen at 8:00 am, way before anything opened and we didn’t even arrive at Central Station… we arrived at some random street a few blocks away.

Fortunately, I was able to find my way to the station and had a slow breakfast there until things started to open. Around 9:00, I walked past City Hall (and saw the Hans Christian Anderson statue that is pretty popular there) and towards Stroget Street, the major shopping street through the city.

Since nothing was really open, I figured I would walk to the university area and check out a few sights that my guidebook said would be worthwhile. After turning down a side street, I ran into 2 guys from Australia who asked for directions (surprisingly, I knew where they were trying to go!) and we talked for a few minutes about how they were living in Britain but just kind of wandering around Europe for a bit. After that, I walked too far down the street and ended up at a park where I got to see some drunken people passed out on the grass. I turned around and went to a church that looked more like something you would see in the movie Gladiator (Roman columns, lots of details, etc.) and then made my way back to Stroget.

I passed a lot of stores and a couple of town squares. When I got to the biggest square, I decided since it was still early, I would hop on a boat tour through the canals to get an idea of where everything was in the city. I jumped on a boat at Nyhavn, a popular harbor and trendy restaurant area.

While waiting for the boat to depart, I was lucky enough to witness a drunk guy fall into the canal which was pretty funny (trust me, he wasn’t in danger and all his drunk friends were a little confused… later, when I walked by, they were still there probably sleeping off their hangovers).

We saw a ton of sites on the boat: the new opera house, The Royal Theater, some $2 million lofts on the water, old battleships, some old buildings that are known for things that I cannot remember, Amalienborg Palace, the little mermaid statue (made famous by the story from H.C. Anderson), a cool church with an external spiral staircase you can climb up, the Black Diamond (city library which was painted with little diamonds in the paint for it would reflect on the water and it would reflect back onto the building), the National Museum, the old stock exchange building, Christainsborg Palace, and the most well known home of H.C. Anderson. Once we got off (after an hour), I decided to visit most of those places on foot as well as some museums. The first thing I did was catch the changing of the guard at Amalienborg Palace. Aside from getting yelled at by a guard because I was sitting in the middle of where the changing was going to take place, it wasn’t that eventful because the queen was not in residence so it isn’t as exciting.

Then I walked up to the Danish Resistance Museum which was actually pretty good. It displayed a lot of information and items from the underground sabotage army that Denmark had during WWII.

Then I walked up a little further to the Little Mermaid and surprisingly got a picture with no one else in it (I think it is like the most over-taken photo in Denmark).

I walked back down along the harbor and went to the Danish Jewish Museum which was a huge letdown. The building is shaped like the word Mitzvah which is cool but there was very little information in the museum. I thought there would be a lot more on Denmark’s role in WWII and how the Jewish population increased then but it was mostly just a summary of what Judaism is. I was done in like 10 minutes.

After that, I walked to the National Museum and briefly looked around. I especially like the coin collection from like the past 500 years or so. After lying in the grass for awhile, I decided to head across the water to Christhavn, a trendy section of town. I went to the best bakery ever (Lagkagehuset) and got an incredible fruit tart and blueberry muffin.

Then I made my way over to a church where you can walk up the 400 stairs in the external staircase of the tower and see great views.

Unfortunately, the whole building was closed for construction and I didn’t get to climb it. I walked one block over and found the entrance to Christiania, which is a famous commune known as the free society within society.

To be honest, I was absolutely terrified walking through there and didn’t stay for long. Read more about it here: http://www.easyjetinflight.com/features/2004/aug/christiania.html It is a neat concept but I did not feel safe or like I belonged. After that, I didn’t have much else to do and it was approaching closing time for most things. Since I saw in my guidebook that the National Gallery was free (for the main exhibit), I headed that way on the metro (my feet hurt by this point and I didn’t feel like walking all the way there). I passed the Rosenborg Castle and Treasury but didn’t feel like paying the $10 entrance fee so I just took a few pictures from the road and kept on walking.

I walked into the National Gallery 20 minutes before it closed and everything was free.

I walked around pretty quickly, wasn’t that interested, and then went back out and down the street to the Botanic Gardens. After killing some time there, I headed back into the main part of town and sat in the square by City Hall for about 30 minutes to try to waste some more time. I got to witness a group of gypsies steal money from a guy (he knew it and chased them down) and try to con others (I had read about this happening and was just amazed to actually see it occur). Then I waited outside in the cold about 1.5 hours for the bus and headed back to Stockholm. I got in around 6:00 am and made it home around 7:00. I slept until 9:00 and then Brandy and I checked out, locked our bags in the lockers at Central Station and did a bit of shopping down the popular Drottinggatan street again. We ate lunch at a great place (free salad buffet and coffee included for like $15, which is good there) and then we headed to the harbor to take a tour of the archipelago. After sitting there for about 30 minutes (and after I enjoyed my marzipan and chocolate ice cream), we decided not to do the tour since we wouldn’t have long on the island and she had already done something similar the day before with everyone else while I was in Copenhagen. We did a bit more shopping and then picked our bags up, headed to the airport on the train, and got picked up by our hotel shuttle (we were staying close to the airport the last night). We had a nice dinner in the hotel and then crashed. Brandy got up early for a different flight and then I headed out around 8:00 for my 10:15 flight. Everything went well and I made my connection in Chicago (didn’t have much time though) but my bag didn’t make it. And as I write this at 5:30 am Wednesday morning (I didn’t sleep much due to the time change… I’m wide awake), I still don’t have my suitcase even though they told me it would be on the next flight out last night. So, we’ll see what happens today with it.

I hope you have enjoyed all my stories and adventures and don't forget to see the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/JELeventhal Some of the folders have been updated (like the random pictures taken by others) and I know there are still a ton from the other girls that are great that I need to get!

Copenhagen

Yesterday was a great day in Copenhagen! I want to write about it all right now but I will try to wait until tonight because I want to upload some pictures too and can't do it on the hotel computer. But be ready... I did a ton yesterday and got back early this morning (6:00 am), slept a little, and now we're getting ready to move our stuff to the hotel that is closer to the airport and then we're going to get on a boat to check out the archipelago. Stay tuned for more info. tonight because it will probably be my last post from Sweden since I leave tomorrow morning around 10:15!

Another day...

Well, today was not such a good day. Because I feel pretty crappy, you are just going to get a quick run down of why it was bad:

1) We got up early for the train
2) When we got to Stockholm, no one seemed to know what they were doing and therefore a lot of time was wasted trying to figure meaningless stuff out.
3) I wandered the streets and my legs hurt from it. In wandering, I found our hostel and had some interaction with a rude guy at the desk and just didn't like the feel of this place (it's like a hostel trying to be a hotel and I'd rather have the laid back attitude of a hostel than this place).
4) I went back to meet everyone at 4 only to find out like 45 minutes later that they pushed the meeting time back and I didn't know about that.
5) We spent too much time trying to figure out the subway system here (which is really easy) and the prof. seemed to have no idea what she was doing and yet I did, but that didn't matter.
6) Right after checking in, we turned around and went to an expensive (like everything is here) dinner but on the way, I fell on the stairs and hurt my hip pretty badly and was therefore uncomfortable and not doing well during dinner. And to make it better, the prof. turned around and looked at me after I fell and then just kept on walking.
7) Now I'm light headed and hurting and about to pass out for many hours I hope.

On a happy, positive side note, I bought my ticket for Copenhagen today. I will be getting on a bus at 10:45 pm tomorrow night and taking the night bus into Copenhagen. I get there around 8:00 am, will go to a few museums and then get back on a bus at 9:00 pm Sunday night and take the overnight bus again back into Stockholm (arriving at 6:00 am).

I would give more details but we don't have wireless here and I'm on this tv/computer in our room with a keyboard with Swedish symbols on it and it is really difficult to type on.

Back to the city

Heading back to Stockholm today at 6:10 am and getting in at 9:20 am. I will post about yesterday and today at some point tonight I hope. We are all traveling as a group now and there's a big chance that I might take an overnight bus on Saturday night into Copenhagen to spend a day there (and take the night bus back on Sunday night). Keep checking to see what I decide on!!!

Polkagrisar

I think today was the best day we have had here so far. We were a little worried starting out (since we knew we would be riding bikes and not many of us had been on them in awhile) but it got good real fast. We were up and at the bus stop at 7:45 am to take the bus to Gränna. When we got there around 9:00, we went into a Polkagrisar (Polkapigs) shop and bought a ton of Polkapigs!

We then headed to a dementia care home that was very home-like, calm and relaxing and it was a place I really enjoyed visiting. After that, we walked to the dock area and stopped into another Polkapig shop, this time to learn how to make them. Two people even got to go in and help do it! Afterwards, we had about 20 minutes to take pictures before catching the ferry to Visingsö. We took so many good pictures and hopefully I will get them off my friends’ computers soon and get them onto my picture album. We hopped onto the ferry and took about a 30 minute ride across the lake to Visingsö.

When we got there, we had a picnic lunch by the lake and then went and got bikes to begin our lovely ride. We biked about 3 km and stopped at the Kumlaby church, one of the oldest medieval churches in Sweden. We got to climb up these really steep, creaky and cave-ish stairs and went to the top for an amazing view and pictures.

After coming down and getting a few pictures of the inside of the church, we hopped back on our bikes and rode to an independent living home not too far away. It was a nice, brief visit and we were done early and had just over an hour to bike around the island. We decided to go to some castle ruins and even though we went to the wrong one (we went to the church ruins instead), we still had a good time and took so many great pictures again (once again, I’ll have to get them from others).

The old church ruins

I think we were trying to take a cute laughing picture

Sitting in the flowers/weeds

When our pyramid failed, we tried for other cheerleading stunts

We then met at a restaurant by the lake for dinner at 3:00 (yeah, a little early). We had home-cooked salmon casserole surrounded by mashed potatoes and the best chocolate cake dessert, with whipped cream and passion fruit ice cream. When we were down there, we had another 45 minutes to hang out and we just talked in the restaurant for a bit. Around 5:00 we jumped back on the ferry, then back on the bus and got home around 6:00 and now we are just relaxing and getting ready for our last full day as students in Jonkoping (since we leave early Friday morning for Stockholm).

We figure our legs will be so sore from biking tomorrow but it was well worth it! It was funny to see everyone in a row and every time a car would come by, we would all yell it out since me and a few others were like drunk-biking and going all in the middle of the road a lot!

Relaxation

We had a fairly uneventful day and by uneventful, I in no way mean boring. When something now is uneventful, it is a good thing, meaning we had a slow and relaxing day which we have all been craving. Our lecture this morning dealt with the research that is going on at the Institute of Gerontology at Jonkoping University. Then, we had the chance to have a discussion with some of the grads students about how their programs work and any other questions we had. It was nice to compare the structure of our programs and gain new perspectives on some things. We finished early (YAY!) and had an extra long lunch which was needed really badly. After eating, Katelyn and I went into two of the thrift/antique stores around the corner and then had to book it to the bus stop to go to our site visit. Our site visit was the Ekhagens Guest Home, where they provide palliative care (hospice care… for those about to pass away). It was a good visit and sad for some students who had a hard time even going into one of the rooms. We got down with that visit early also and I went shopping with Emily and Crystie. We went in a few stores and I ended up with an Italian herb mix to make into bruschetta (or dip or something), and yes, I know that wasn’t very Swedish seeing as it was Italian! I came back to the hotel and hung out in the lobby for a bit and then Shannon and I had dinner on the pier. We discussed what my assignment should be for this class, since as a grad. student, I have a bit more to do then just the every day stuff. We also talked about my role for next year at Adult Day Services (since I have a full 10 hours there a week) and it sounds like everything will be good in the fall. I like what we have mapped out for me. We got ice cream after dinner and since then, I have just been watching tv, washing clothes in the sink and talking to the other girls here. We don’t have internet now (after I called to complain, they confirmed that it is really broken unlike last night when I called and they did not think there was a problem), so I’m posting this the next day (I hope, if it’s fixed) and just changing the date on the post so it reflects the day this all happened. Tomorrow will be really busy but hopefully really fun. We will be taking an early bus to Gränna, learning about the manufacture of Polkapigs, taking the ferry to Visingsö and then have a bike tour around the area.

A two-day sum up

Before I go into how tedious today was, I will quickly sum up yesterday. Yesterday morning (when we were still in Goteburg), we got up around 10:00 to clean our rooms (required and weird) and then checked out around 11:00. We took the tram to the train station, locked our bags in the big lockers, and went walking to find the Paddan city boat tours. After getting slightly turned around (and going the wrong way… surprise, surprise), we found the little kiosk and just barely got on the 1:40 boat tour.

Aside from the fact that it was like 30 degrees outside and we went out on the harbor which made it even colder, it was a really fun tour. We went down the canals throughout the city, around the harbor, and saw lots of the famous sites (i.e., museums, ships, churches, markets) around Goteburg.

I took a lot of pictures and the captions contain the descriptions (if I actually remembered what the guide said the places were). When we were done with that, we went shopping at Nordstan, the big shopping mall.

It was huge and we all split up at times to go into different stores. I did not end up buying anything (which was disappointing since there was an Esprit there and I’m in love with that store) but no worries. It is nice to know that I am being frugal and will not have a massive credit card bill when I get back into town! We got done shopping around 5:00 and had until 6:30 to relax and wait for our bus. We got some ice cream and other stuff to snack on and then made our way on the bus and headed back to Jonkoping. We got home around 8:30, worked on our journals from our Friday visits and then went to bed.

Now for today… If there is one thing I really dislike (maybe even hate), it is when someone changes the schedule and we do not find out until plans have already been made and then things have to be changed. We found out this morning that we had to be back from lunch at 12:40 (rather than 1:00) to go to our site visit. I was planning on getting my sandwich back at the hotel and resting a bit during our break. Instead, I rushed back with Chelsea (who needed to get her bus pass), had 5 minutes to eat, and then had to rush back to campus (we were late too). To make it even better, we walked from the campus to the bus station and the bus station is like 100 yards from our hotel! We could have just met the group there! Some other people had been at the grocery store right over here too and walked back to campus with groceries only to have to walk back to where the store was again. We were SO angry. Then, we got on a crowded bus and heading a little ways down a road, got off, and then walked like half a mile to Ramseygården, an assisted living place that felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. To make it even better again, we then waited outside for 20 minutes until someone realized we could 1) just walk in the front door (we thought it was locked or something) and 2) go around the back to the entrance we were really supposed to be at. Since we were not happy about what had already gone on so far, there were a few of us that just did not really enjoy the visit. Also, this place was just like the Solstickan Care Home that we visited a few days ago, so it seemed like there was nothing new to learn. We thought we would be done early but then we sat down for an hour to have coffee and talk some more. I am pretty sure I passed out on the table during the talk. I caught parts of it but again, it was nothing new. We came back around 4:00 (after walking back to the bus stop and waiting 15 minutes for the random bus to come) and I watched a little bit of the Simpsons and then came downstairs to the lobby to work on some journals for the class (which is what I am almost done with now… I needed a break though so I’m blogging instead). I do not think anything else is up for the night, other than just watching tv and taking it easy.

Clubbing!

Today was a long day. I am pretty sure that everyone slept in late because some of them went out late last night and everyone in general, was tired from getting up early every day during the past week. Around noon, the girls left to go around the city and I stayed in bed for another hour. Then I got up, showered and decided to go find Slottsskogen, a big park nearby with a zoo, garden, etc. in it. I went about 3 blocks up the street and there it was and the Göteborgsvarvet (a massive half-marathon with over 30,000) was going through there. I decided to walk around the animal areas and enjoyed seeing all the animals around there and then I saw the runners going by a different side of the hills. I walked down and decided to follow the runners, thinking that it would loop back around somewhere (and I didn’t know it was a half-marathon… I thought it was short). I went about 2-3 km with the runners and then we got to a big bridge. I knew this was one of the bridges that connected the south side of Goteburg (where we were) to the north side but it wasn’t on my map so I turned around to head back to the hostel. I got somewhat confused as to where I was and when I thought I had figured it out, I ended up walking 15 minutes in the wrong direction before actually checking my map. I got going the right way again and made it home awhile later. I took a nap for a few hours and then everyone agreed that we would go dancing tonight. Around 10:30 we headed to downtown Goteburg to try to find this club called Trädgår'n. After getting lost around Central Station a few times and then asking for directions (and having a woman tell us we were too young to get in… the age limit is 25 for clubs here even though the drinking age is 18), we made our way down the busy street that it is off of. We saw the place and it was dark and shady and we didn’t feel good about it. Therefore, we decided to keep walking and find another place. We ended up at the Hard Rock Café but the age limit there was 25 also. After asking the security guard where younger people go, we showed him our id’s and he just let us in. Suffice it to say, we had a great night. We danced, the girls drank (I was the responsibly mother ducky tonight), and had fun. We did have a few “creepers” (older or just weird guys who would come up and dance with us) come around but we stuck together as a group and had each other’s backs. I could go into detail on the hilarious drunk moments some people had but I’ll spare everyone. We left around 3:15 am and got off the tram around 3:45. As we were walking up the hill to our place, the sun was already beginning to come on and now at 4:30 as I write this, it’s already light outside. We don’t have much a day planned tomorrow. We have to be out of here by 11:00 and then we are going shopping at Nordstan (the big mall) and possibly taking a boat tour of the city. Off to get what little sleep I can right now.

A day of travel

Everyone from the Tech group left around 7:00 am today to head to Goteburg while I hung around until later. I was going in the afternoon so that I could visit a preschool with the Penn State group in Jonkoping. I left all my stuff in the hotel because I thought I would have enough time (45 minutes) to stop back by and pick it up since I had been told that the preschool was close by. Well, when we got to the school, I found out that the preschool was not so close, so I had to walk back to the hotel, get my bags, and walk back to the university. Before the site visit, we had to listen to a guy talk about a program that was basically a life skills class for older adults. It was incredibly boring. I nearly bumped my head on the table after dozing off. After painfully sitting through that, we were finally ready to leave for the preschool. We got into taxis and made our way across town to an incredible preschool. The building was amazing and the director gave me a lot of good information. Our entire group kept asking me questions about how it is in the states since apparently no one had ever really worked with kids. The rooms there were just amazing and how everything works is fairly similar to the states. I had to leave right at noon and when I asked about how to get back to the station, the woman told me to just get on the bus at the bus stop across the road, even though we didn’t know which bus or where it was going. I got on the first bus that came and if I had come like 2 minutes later, I would’ve had to wait an hour for the next one. I got a little concerned during the bus ride but it ended up taking me to the bus station in the end. I got on the bus to Goteburg and then some guy and his wife told me that I was in their seats (I think… it was in Swedish). I got up, looked confused and finally 5 minutes got the last seat on the bus (it was horrible). Two hours later, I was in Goteburg and everyone met me there at the station. We got a ride back to our apartments we were renting from a hostel and planned to meet at Liseberg at 5:00. Liseberg is the biggest amusement park in the country and on our way, we stopped to get sandwiches nearby. Chelsea and I got kicked out of one place because we got our sandwiches from next door and then came over to eat with the rest of the girls… so we ended up eating outside. We met Shannon and Brandy at Leisberg at 5:00 and had a great time there. We rode on a lot of the rides and played some lotto type games where you pick a number and win a prize if the wheel lands on it. We ended up with some Rolos-like candy (lots of it). All the wheel games were for different types of chocolate. We really wanted to play the Toblerone game but our tickets wouldn’t work for that one and we didn’t want to pay (it was pricey). We left around 9:00 pm and got a little lost on the way home. However, I had another great moment of rightness and we managed to get off at the right tram stop. We walked a few blocks up the hill to our little studio apartments (which were just like rooms) and everyone crashed.

ZzZzZzZzZz......

It is easy to tell what kind of day I had based on how much I remember at the end of the day. I do not remember much about today so it was just ok. We had another slow morning with about half the students dozing off at some point or another. It is really difficult to be in class from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm and then usually have stuff going on at night. We are all tired, but then have work to do and don’t usually get to bed until late. Therefore, we are all pretty wiped out the next day. We started the day with a good discussion of the hospital visit from yesterday and then went into possibly the most boring lecture every on training and education at the university. Two women, with incredibly broken and difficult to listen to English, talked about every class that was offered for the bachelor of social work degree here at Jonkoping University. In order to prevent myself from flat out laying my head down and sleeping, I drew some pictures (including bouquets of roses and a pretty cool apple blossom tree). The trash was full of coffee cups, I’m assuming because everyone had to get coffee throughout the morning to keep conscious. After their lecture, we had Tove Persson (a graduate student) talk to us about the complaints and staff attitudes in elder care. She was actually very pleasant, easy to understand, and had some really good information. We got out at noon and ate lunch (Panini sandwiches) at the library café on campus. We were going to go to the university bookstore to buy university shirts but it was closed during lunch, so instead we took silly pictures with the revolving door for awhile. After lunch, we walked to the Solstickan Care Home, which is basically what we would consider an assisted living center. They have all types of residents (those who need no assistance to those who need a great deal of assistance) and the residence is set up like little studio apartments with kitchen and dining areas in the middle of the halls.

We talked with a nurse there who was pretty fun. We toured the center after a brief intro. and then we went back to a bigger room to eat what they consider cheesecake (mostly a moist pound cake with cottage cheese). We got done early and headed back to the university bookstore to get shirts. The selection was very small so we all pretty much got the same shirts! We had about 30 minutes before our next activity which was around 4:30 and we went back to the hotel to drop our stuff off. At 4:15, we went back to the university to meet with some of the undergraduate students in the gerontology/nursing/etc. department. We didn’t think it would be that fun but we ended up having a good time. After asking where the bars/clubs were around town, we shared information on what schools are like in Sweden and the U.S. (how we pay for school, what age we go, etc.) and other issues like family pressures (such as getting married and having kids at a certain age). We all came back to the hotel around 6:00 and I tried to find places to go next weekend so I don’t have to stay in Stockholm again. Everything is either booked or too expensive and I have been quite upset about that. In fact, I’m still too angry about it to even go into any details on it. At 7:00, Brandy and I went to an Italian and Greek restaurant with Shannon to discuss a lot of things that we didn’t end up actually talking about. We mostly talked about research interests, politics (beliefs about care in the states), and other random stuff. We were done around 9:00 and I’ve been back at the hotel since then slacking off and avoiding writing my journal entry and reading some articles. Tomorrow we head to Goteburg, which should be a nice weekend trip. I go later than the others at 12:45 and will get in at 2:50. I think we have been planning some shopping, a trip to the amusement park and possibly going to a club or two. Between the 8 of us, we have 3 two-bed apartments so it should be interesting to see how this works! I’m not sure if we will have internet while there so the next post you get may not be until Sunday night.

On a side note, here is one of the pictures from our park excursion that someone took that is awesome. Enjoy!

Just another day

Well, compared with yesterday, today was boring. We started with some student lead discussion questions and then our favorite professor, Gerdt Sundström, talked about loneliness in old age. He again showed us numerous great pictures, including one of what often assume elder care to look like… an adult sitting in a big, empty room all alone. Fortunately, that view is changing. When Gerdt finished, a woman came in to talk about a painter who basically painted herself as she aged. She talked about the interpretations of the pictures, such as when the woman got older, she would leave out features in her face to indicate her experiences in getting older. When she was done, we moved onto family and respite care which I don’t think I paid much attention to. To sum up what I did hear (and didn’t doze of for), respite care is offered for family members here which basically means that a trained professional comes in briefly to care for an adult in order to give family members a break. Even though the sessions were slow and somewhat boring, I did figure out part of my syllabus for the Parent Education class that I am teaching in the fall (I needed to stay awake somehow…). I even got feedback on some of my assignments from a student who had taken my class last semester and from two students who are going to be in my class in the fall.

After just a 45 minute lunch (they cut it short which was terrible because we had to rush and Brandy and I had to pick up dinner too for our night patrol), we went back to the university to walk to the bus to go to the Ryhov Hospital.

The bus was packed but long and we noticed something interesting. Normally, when seats fold up and there are buckles, they are wheelchair specific seats in the U.S. Having those here though doesn’t make sense. If you are in a wheelchair, as part of the services of the municipalities, you can either arrange transportation through them or pay a very cheap fare for a taxi (you always have someone to help you or some way to be helped). Therefore, most handicap people do not ride the bus. After talking about it for a few minutes, I saw the little picture that was partially scratched off on the side and realized that it was for strollers. And sure enough, not more than a minute later, a woman with a stroller got on and we all moved so she could have some space. On the way to the hospital, we passed the A6 shopping center/mall and most of the group went there today after the visit (Brandy and I might go tomorrow since we immediately left to go to evening patrol). We also passed IKEA, which was just hilarious.

Tina Salva (one of our Tech professors) joked that this was like someone coming to America and being excited to see and take pictures of Walmart! The lecture at the hospital was ok (the little cakes we had were amazing) and then we toured the geriatric clinic, which consisted of the orthopedic ward, the stroke wards and the dementia ward.

After the hospital tour was complete, Brandy, Frank (a Penn State student) and I were off for evening patrol. Frank left early and one of the university staff members picked up Brandy and me to take us to our sites. While we were hoping we would be together, we weren’t. Brandy was dropped off first somewhere in Jonkoping and then I was dropped off in Huskvarna (a neighboring city).

We drove by some cool places on the way there (i.e., Sweden’s gold medal hokey team arena, mini-golf, an indoor pool, and the Rosarium [a big rose garden]). I’ll give you a basic summary of evening patrol before I talk about what I did. As part of the services provided to older residents here, there are day, evening, and night patrols available. If the adults decide to pay a fee (the amount depends on your income), an alarm is installed in their home and they carry a little button with them. Whenever they need assistance for issues ranging from needing a glass of water to having a stroke, they ring the button and are routed to their area’s patrol service. When the patrol center gets the call, they have 30 minutes to go and provide assistance. Sometimes, the patrol units set up scheduled visits, like to help put an adult to bed. Evening patrol is from 3:00-10:00 and I was there today from around 4:00 to 8:15. We did not receive a single call (we got one from the building but it was basically nothing)! I was already kind of dreading this experience because I have a hard enough time communicating with the adults at home, so I thought talking to the adults here where accents are strong would be even harder. I was kind of glad that no one called though. I had the chance to talk to the two women on patrol that were fabulous, fun, and gave me a lot of insight and information into what they do. They even drove me around the town, took me to an incredible overlook and took me on a scenic country drive.

We could do this and still be on-call because one person is required to keep the cell phone with him/her at all times when on-call. Around 8:00, we figured it would be a good idea to just take me back to the hotel and on the way back, we drove by the group of professors and I walked the rest of the way back with them. I told them what happened tonight and Steve told me I could reschedule for another night… I was not happy with this idea because it takes up a lot of time and even though I think it’s a great program, I just don’t want to do it again. So, we’ll see what happens with that. To round up the rest of the night, I hung out on the roof for a bit to talk with the girls, went down to the lobby to snack on yogurt smoothies and do work and then came back upstairs to work on my journal reflection on today’s hospital visit. Tomorrow is another full day and on Friday, we head of to Goteburg for the weekend. Our group is going early to do some visits there, while I am staying with the Penn State group during the morning so that I can visit the preschool they are going to. I’ll catch the bus around 1:00 and meet up with my group like 2 hours later in Goteburg. More on that later though since I still need to finish my journal and then go to bed!

On a quick side note related to an earlier comment, older adults still have to pay a fee for the alarm service and I’ve found that they have to pay fees for many other services as well (i.e., therapy, hospital charges). Ultimately, is it better to pay health insurance in the states and rarely use it (and not have to always pay fees like this) or to pay 30% of your income to taxes and then continue to pay fees on top of that for healthcare? The benefit here is that the taxes go to other services and really do help out in old age, yet I still can’t help but wonder what the numbers would look like.

Picturepalooza

Tonight was a fun night! At 6:00, our whole Tech group and a few of the Penn State people walked to the city park together. W had a blast mostly because we were taking pictures every three seconds! We took pictures of views, the playground, us on the playground equipment, more views, etc. Check out http://picasaweb.google.com/JELeventhal for descriptions of everything (a little later when I get it uploaded). We got some pretty awesome pictures! Afterwards, we headed over to Twin Cities, a fairly American restaurant. Everyone got hamburgers (which they’re known for), pizza, or pasta. I got the pesto pasta and it was pretty good. We left there around 9:30 and of course, the sun was just setting. We decided to meet in the lobby for a picture party, so we could share all our pictures from the park. Some of us are here now still but the internet is so slow that we haven’t been able to upload them. So, I will have all these great pictures up but it might take a day or so. I’m about to start working on a one page reflection paper covering our site visit today and then I’ll be in bed.

P.S. We all took pictures from the park but we haven't shared them yet. Please check the picture site again in like 2 days to see the awesome pictures that everyone else took (i'll post a reminder when I get them... some of those pictures are the best from the day!).

Social Services Department

Class this morning was ok… if you could even call it a class. Mostly it was just people talking for a bit with very little discussion. This morning, Steven Zarit (the head professor from Penn State) gave us a brief overview of what our site visits would be like each afternoon. It was interesting because he brought up a few terms that I didn’t know, such as “excess disabilities.” Excess disabilities occur when we assign adults with more problems then they actually have. For instance, if an older adult has difficulty cooking, we often then assume he/she can’t do anything for him/herself and therefore we put him/her in assisted living. Basically, we end up treating the whole person rather than the specific issue, whereas here, they are very good about treating only the specific problems. When he finished speaking, Stig Berg gave us some basic information on Sweden (demographics). Again, he was very difficult to stay awake through so I’m beginning to think that his low, calm voice just makes people doze off (I wasn’t the only one). We had a break after he spoke and we into a lounge to have some coffee. Just a side note about coffee… Everyone drinks it here. In fact, we are supposed to accept it and drink a little at our site visits because it is impolite to say no. I’ve had my fair share of small cups of coffee so far. Today’s choice of many of the students was Choccaffe, which was kind of a mix between hot chocolate and coffee. I had 2 cups, determined to stay awake through the next speaker. Later in the day (which I’ll get to in a minute), people were pushing coffee carts all around the building we were on and of course, our site leader said, “Let’s finish by enjoying some coffee in the cafeteria Ares.” The student from Turkey also brought a box of Turkish Delights and since I have never had them, I ate quite a few of those during the break as well. When we were done, we went back into our room to listen to Gerdt Sundström, who I believe is a professor here at the university. He was actually very good and had these amazing blue eyes. Brandy and I assumed that in his youth, he was the typical sturdy, blonde hair blue eyes Swedish stereotype! He talked about how old age care has evolved since the early 1900s, starting with the poorhouses which seemed to evolve into more of the home based care you see here. He showed us many pictures from the 1940s of what the poorhouses and institutions looked like (he commented that showing all the pictures of the homes was like social pornography) and these places actually did not look that bad. Compared to images in my mind about nursing homes in the states, I would much rather be at a poorhouse where there was encouragement to participate in activities as opposed to nursing homes where you are often just another person in the whole rather than an individual. When Gerdt was done, we had an hour for lunch and Brandy and I walked back to the hotel since we weren’t hungry.

At 1:00, we met back up at the university to head to the Social Services Department. This site visit was excellent. One of the managers in the municipality, Stefan Osterström, gave us so much information.

Stefan and the room we were in

I was one of the primary people asking questions because I am just fascinated with the services they provide here. To sum it all up (and not bore you with the misc. details of how the department is divided), care is amazing here. Of course, residents pay a high municipality tax but whenever anything related to health (physical disability, health issues, drug addiction, psychiatric issues, elder care, etc.) occurs, residents either contact the department or the hospital contacts the department staff (some of which are located in the hospital) and a needs assessment is immediately conducted (within a day). A needs assessment is basically a battery of measures assessing the physical, social, mental, etc. needs that an individual might have. Within about 2 days, the municipality already has care lined up. For example, let’s say you fall and break your hip. While in the hospital, the hospital staff will contact the municipality and they come and complete your needs assessment. They determine that when you leave the hospital (which will prob. be very soon since they kick you out relatively quickly), you will need someone to help you cook and bath. What they do first is contact family and see if there is a family member available to help. Stefan said that often times, it is a daughter that has the greatest responsibility and usually is available to help. If there is no one available, the municipality sends out a staff member (usually someone who is qualified with a 2-3 year nursing assistant degree or a social services degree) to buy groceries for you (to be ready when you come home) and to come to you and assist you with the things that you cannot do. I asked about paperwork and all the red tape you normally get in hospitals when trying to receive support and mentioned how in the states, sometimes it takes weeks before assistance comes through because of all the paperwork. Stefan said that the municipality takes care of all the scheduling, investigation (into what support is needed) and the paperwork. I am totally amazed by this system. Imagine getting the support and care you need almost immediately and not having to deal with all the confusion and barriers. Even though I don’t think I’m a fan of like half your income going to taxes to support programs like this, I’m so impressed by how the system actually works here. He also mentioned that there is very low turnover rate with the staff because they are very loyal to what they do. It was interesting because Stefan kept saying, “It is our obligation and our duty to help out.” Not only is that so positive for the residents here to know that they have this amazing support, but I would think it would be uplifting as an employee to know that everyone is truly interested in helping one another. I had so many questions for Stefan, especially ones that didn’t necessarily relate to elder care but related more to children and teenagers. After he was done and we were getting coffee, I approached him to ask about child abuse and teenage pregnancy. I was curious if child abuse was as prevalent here and if they had a foster care type system. He said that they are moving towards getting more foster homes here but that those homes are relatively new concepts, replacing the idea of institution care. For teen pregnancy, I was curious if it was a problem here and if there is support for teen mothers. He surprised me with his answer (because I hadn’t thought about it that way) by saying the rate of abortion has continued to increase as well as teens having unsafe sex. Because abortion is not as taboo here as it is in the states, they are more likely to go that route than actually have the baby. The problem that was bigger than teen pregnancy though, is how often teens are getting STDs and HIV now because they are just not that interested in safe sex anymore (I would assume because they know they can easily take care of the pregnancy problem if it happens and they also have free health care for when they get a disease). I had not looked at it from that perspective so I’m glad I asked about it. Brandy (who teaches one of the human sexuality classes at Tech) and I talked about it afterwards and we also wondered about the idea of sex education and what they teach here (abstinence vs. safe sex).

Once we finally left Social Services, I walked with Shannon and Brandy to the liquor store (they wanted to get wine… if you ever go out to a bar here at night, everyone recommends drinking before you leave since alcohol is so expensive in the bars) and then we walked back to the hotel. I think around 6:00 tonight we are all walking to the city park here and then going to dinner on the pier afterwards. We’re trying to take advantage of what is supposed to be the last sunny day here for awhile (rain is in the forecast starting tomorrow). Before that, we might go walk around and grab a snack or just sit on the 2^nd floor roof patio and talk.

A delicious way to start the day!

So I got up early this morning to have some time for myself and enjoy breakfast without being rushed. I got in the shower (which felt so good) and then had some fun trying to navigate myself around the bathroom. The shower is like half the size of the entire bathroom and when you use the toilet, you’re basically almost sitting half way under the sink. I had the door closed to keep in the steam and I had to shift around just so I could flip my hair over! I won’t complain though because it was still great! I was the first down to breakfast right at 7:00 am when it started and I wasn’t really sure what to do. There were veggie plates and cheese and meat plates, a table with coffee/tea/honey, eggs, something that looked like grits (that was really oatmeal), bread baskets, refrigerated stuff (6 versions of milk, yogurt drinks, caviar paste, liver pâté…), and cereal. I grabbed some amazing fresh bread, put some butter on it (which tasted great) and then topped it off with some eggs (even though they were very runny, they were very good), and a piece of Swiss cheese. It was great breakfast! Brandy and I talked about how it is so much healthy than American breakfasts which are typically filled with empty cards, fried foods, and sugar. We also discussed the structure of the class and how we felt like we didn’t know what was going on. We have about 8-9 articles to read over the course of the 2 weeks and yet we don’t know when to read them. We missed some emails and then asked our classmates but no one really knew what we were at least supposed to have done for today. No worries though because we talked to Shannon about it and she sent an updated reading list (where most of them will be read for this week and we won’t have anything to read for next week). We finished breakfast and I headed back upstairs to get dressed and we all met at 8:30 to head to the university for our first day of classes. I have to save our morning classes for our next post because I’m about to head out the door to meet up with everyone again (we’re on our lunch break, even though I'm not eating anything because I ate a lot of Turkish Delight during our break earlier and I'm not that hungry) to head to our first site visit, the Social Services Department, which is prob. the one visit that I’m most looking forward to (since it deals with the administrative stuff I’m interested in). I’ll talk about that and what I learned this morning later tonight!

Hälsohögskolan

I love my bed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (but I’ll get to that in a minute). We spent around an hour walking around and shopping in Jonkoping before dinner.

We went into H&M and a lot of other stores that I can’t remember the names too. One of the girls bought a jacket but I don’t think anyone else got anything. Brandy, Devon and I walked back before the other girls (they had to find postcards) and we spent a few minutes getting ready and then made our way downstairs to the lobby. I was the first Tech student down and one student from Penn State and her professor leading their side of the trip were down there already. I talked to them for a minute and everyone else started coming downstairs. We all took about a ten minute walk up the hill to Hälsohögskolan, which I believe is the school of health and/or human services (to go to the gerontology department).

We met Stig Berg, the director of the gerontology institute at Jonkoping University and then met everyone involved in the course. Apparently, in addition to the 4 Penn State students and the 7 of us from Tech, there are 2 students from Vietnam, 1 from Turkey, and 1 from Spain. We’re not really sure why or what this course means to them. Stig talked a little slow and there wasn’t really much to cover other than the schedule. I found out that Brandy and I are doing our evening patrol together this Wednesday night and that we are done next Thursday (rather than Friday). After about 30 minutes of talking, we had dinner which consisted of sandwiches and a sandwich cake (bread, mayo, cucumbers, eggs, lox, shrimp, etc. all piled on top of each other in layers). I pulled off some lox, put it on a mozzarella sandwich and enjoyed! We hung out for a bit but it was obvious that we were getting a little tired and wanted to leave, especially the Tech students who had flown in this morning. We go the ok to leave around 8:00, took a picture by all the school pennants hanging in the hall (of course, Tech was represented) and then headed back home.

Yes, my head was blocking our pennant... I know...

Some of the girls stopped into a store to get ice cream, while Brandy and I walked back to the hotel. I laid down for a bit to take pseudo-nap and the bed was amazing! It’s comfortable, warm and just generally perfect! I woke up around 11:15 pm, unpacked, did some of our reading for tomorrow’s lectures and in just a few minutes I will be off to bed again.

We finally arrived in Jonkoping

The rest of the train ride was pretty uneventful. After walking back and forth through the cabins a few times, I finally found a free bathroom. That was about it though. We were a couple minutes late getting into Nassjo and then couldn’t figure out what train to connect to. There was one Jonkoping train going through some place we didn’t know but it was at 2:58 and ours was supposed to be at 2:20. We were about to head to the wrong train when I went, “Wait! It’s this one (as I pointed to the Goteburg train).” I remembered that you go through Jonkoping to get to Goteburg and sure enough, the departure time matched up to the train we were supposed to take. As we were running down the walkway, I whipped my camera out, yelled “I need a picture of my rightness (for the first time this whole trip)”, took a picture of the train sign, and then we stood there as the doors closed while not on the train.

We panicked for about 5 seconds and then realized that we had to press the green button to get the doors to open. We got all our bags on and flopped into the seats. It was only a 30 minutes train ride (past a beach or coast of the lake) and then we were at Jonkoping. Shannon met us at the station and we literally walked up a hill and we were right at our hotel.

I must say that this hotel is way nicer than the hostel we were in over the weekend. Brandy and I were supposed to get a double room together but ended up with singles, and my actually ended up being a double! So now I have twice the space for just me and I’m the only one with a lake and town view.

Finally something good! The beds look so comfortable but I’m trying to stay awake so I can actually get a good nights sleep tonight. We are all taking about 30 minutes now to re-coop and then Shannon is walking us to a shopping area so one of the girls can get some winter gear (it turned cold here today) since she mostly brought more summer stuff. At 5:30 tonight, we’re heading to Jonkoping University for dinner and to meet up with the Penn State group and other professors. Our last Tech student to arrive will hopefully get in tonight. She was supposed to be here already but her flight out of Roanoke got delayed and she missed everything. I will have new pictures up of the train ride and of Jonkoping at some point tonight.

On the road again...

This post comes from on the train headed for Jonkoping. I figured I’d recap the morning since it was already eventful even though I kind of wish it hadn’t been.

I was not able to fall asleep again after 5:00 so Brandy and I got dressed and made our way to Central Station around 7:00 so Brandy could get her train ticket. The offices didn’t open until 7:30 but Brandy was worried the trains would be booked so she wanted to get there early so that she could be one of the first to go. We walked around the station for a bit and I found out that egg mcmuffins from McDonalds are like $4 here! I couldn’t believe it. They Americanize this country in a shoddy way like with McDonalds and then jack the prices up. I was glad I don’t eat there. When they opened the doors, everyone flooded in and she was number 6. She got her ticket with a seat that we thought would be next to mine (not the case as we’ll see later). We walked back to the hostel, packed a bit and then decided to head out around 9:00 to see if any shops were open. We bummed around on the computers and in the lobby until then and started walking back down Drottningatan so Brandy could get a Sweden shirt for her sister. We stopped in a couple of other stores along the way, mostly chocolate stores or bakeries but didn’t get anything other than a bottle of water. On the way back, we walked around the Galerian in Sergels Torg, which apparently is huge and has a ton of stores.

Unfortunately, they all did not open until 10:00 and we were heading back to the hostel at that time. We got our stuff together and walked out at 10:30, thinking it would take us awhile to get all our stuff to the station. In reality, it took us like 5 minutes. We wandered around the station, figured out which platform we had to be on (#11) and after lugging my big suitcase down some stairs, I then had to lug it back up some stairs to actually get to the platform. About 5 minutes after we got there, a train came. We were in compartment 4 but there were only 3 compartments on this train and we almost got on the 3^rd one until we realized how early we were and how this was the 10:40 train to somewhere else and not our 11:20 train! We laughed thinking that it would have been hilarious and not a surprise if we had gotten on the wrong train and didn’t realize until we were half way across Sweden in the wrong direction! When sat on the platform for awhile and then all the sudden 3 of our group members came up the steps. They had gotten in this morning and were on the same train to Jonkoping with us.

We talked to them for awhile, relating our horrible sleep stories to their lack of sleep stories from the plane. The train finally got here around 11:30 and we got on and realized that my seat was in one row and Brandy’s seat was behind mine. No big deal… until my bag wouldn’t fit anywhere. I blocked traffic, had a woman get mad at me because I was blocking her path (although it was a bit funny when she kept talking to me in Swedish and I was like “um, I have no idea what you’re saying”), and finally had a guy tell me to just move it into the bistro car behind us until people were seated. I did that and then Brandy and I tried to lift it into the cubbies up ahead, with me laughing the whole time and thinking about how typical this was. When that didn’t work, I moved it to the front of the carriage and into this side cubby, only after having to move other people’s stuff around. Now I’m enjoying the ride and especially enjoying the fact that a huge canvas square is right over the whole part of my window, so I can’t really see anything that we’re passing… At this point, I don’t care. I’m going to put my laptop away and either read or sleep (preferably sleep if I don’t want to be amazingly grumpy when we get there).

Who needs sleep? Well, you're never gonna get it.

Ah, the title of this post is taken from a Barenaked Ladies song and it totally applies to Brandy and I this morning.

What exactly am I doing up right now (5:30 am) and why was I up at 4:00 am this morning? Well, the French group of girls who were here had to pack up their crap and leave at that time. So, after hearing them all pack, zip, and move their bags and then having one of them hit my feet with her bag, I was pretty much up. I gave them a loud shhhhh but it didn’t really help the fact that they kept banging the door shut and talking. I’m attributing it to the fact that they are French (yes, I know, a stereotype that is prob. disrespectful even though I now think it’s true and never want to visit France because I was offended by their blatant disrespect for others). They were gone by 4:15 am and I laid there for a minute thinking maybe I could get back to sleep but then the guy in the corner with the massive nasal problem started snoring (a.k.a. gasping for air basically) again and Brandy and I were done sleeping. So, we went out to the lobby and talked for a bit and then I went outside to see how light it already was at like 4:45 (it was pretty light). It was also pretty cold… there was like a 15 degree drop in the temperature here and now it’s more reflective of what we were expecting. I kind of what to go out and see if there’s a café open yet but I can almost guarantee there is not one. I might lay back down in a bit but I know I’ll be able to sleep on the train so I’m not that motivated.

I looked at our syllabus for the class finally (since technically it starts today) and I have to say that I’m not that thrilled with what we have to do. I think a lot of it will be repetitive and similar. We have to write reflections, lead discussions and us grad. students have to write a paper. That isn’t that hard to do but it might not be as easy just because there doesn’t seem to be a lot of variance in what we’ll be talking about (I’m under the assumption that most of the sites will function in similar ways). Of course, I have no problem saying that I didn’t really see anything different from day to day. I guess we will see. I’m also a little irritated at how unorganized everything is. Our original schedule had nothing on it from Thursday afternoon on and we almost booked our flight to Tallinn for Thursday night. Now I see that we have class until like 11:00 am on the last Friday, so at this point, we don’t really know for sure when we’ll be done. We also don’t know if anyone is picking us up from the train station today in Jonkoping. If no one is, we’re planning on wandering around and hoping we can find our hotel. If not, and we’re late to the meet-and-greet dinner, oh well! I’m trying to be laid back here and not having a definite plan or map is my way of enjoying myself on this trip! Crazy, I know, but for someone like me who always wants to know what is going on, this is a fun little taste of spontaneity! I think I'm iffy for this class mostly because I'm tired right now and it's too early in the morning to be thinking about this.

So, I guess I’m going to lay down for a bit or wander off until places open. My next post will hopefully come from Jonkoping this evening.

High society Pizza Hut

Well, I went out on my own today around 2:00. It was nice because I felt safe enough and in a big enough city to not have a problem going out alone unlike how it was in Honduras last year, when I was terrified to be by myself! I walked the opposite direction from any way we had gone before and ended up walking through more of the city. I passed a park where a lot of people were enjoying the unusually warm weather here (70s) and then passed the Stockholm library.

Once I started getting into a less populated area of town, I turned to my left (planning to make a square around the city) and walked until I saw a sign that indicated where the “city” was. I turned left again, thought I was lost for good, but then realized that I was back on Drottningatan, which is where all the shops were that we saw yesterday (much further down by the water). I continued on that and thought I was lost again but then passed the fountain and city building that we went by on our first day and I knew where I was. I made it back to the hostel and crashed for a 2 hour nap. It was pretty hot and sunny outside and I was wiped out when I got back from that walk. I got up when Brandy has just gotten back from the National Museum and the Modern Museum of Art. We decided to hang around here for a bit and then walk down to Södermalm. We left for Södermalm around 7:00 and it was just ok. There were some cafes but since it was Sunday, it wasn’t as happening as we though it might normally be. We passed these old houses that apparently people still live in, even though there is no water and maybe no electricity (they walk to a well for their water). They were right in front of this big church and were also surrounded by some pretty upscale looking residential buildings.

We basically made a big oval shape around the island and got back to the area around our hostel around 9:30. We decided to pop into Pizza Hut because it was nearby and not much else was open…. what an experience!

This wasn’t just Pizza Hut. It was a restaurant. We had these nice menus and it was pretty insane. We ended up splitting a family-sized pizza (like a medium or large) for 189 SEK/kr. That’s $31!!!! Yeah, that much for Pizza Hut! The pizza was way better though than it is in the states. After we were done, we decided to walk to Central Station to try to book our train tickets for tomorrow since we were having trouble doing it online. Because Brandy and I have had some retarded moments (including one tonight with the train ticket kiosks), we went into the information center for some help. We found out that if we booked our tickets at the kiosk, we could get last minute tickets which saved us a little more money. It was originally going to cost 563 SEK ($93) but the last minute ticket was only 279 SEK ($46.50). I ended up being able to book my ticket with no problem (other than the fact that I used the wrong card and nearly panicked until I realized I had more than I thought in my bank account). Brandy has had a hard time using her cards here and we couldn’t pay with Swedish krowns at the kiosks. She is getting up early tomorrow to go to the station and book her ticket with an agent. We’ll be on the 11:20 train to Jönköping that has a transfer in Nässjö. I think we arrive in Jönköping around 3:00 tomorrow and will have a few hours before our dinner where we will all get together (both the VT group and the Penn State group).

It’s almost midnight here now and the French girls have finally shut up! We walked in around 11:15 (lights out/quiet time starts at 11:00) and they were just chatting away as if no one (and there were a few people) was sleeping. I’m about to go jump in the shower downstairs and maybe take a few final pictures of this place and then hopefully all the girls up here will be asleep.

It is looking like we will be spending our last weekend in Tallinn, Estonia. We have found a hostel with availability (around $20 a night) and the tickets to get there are around $160. We are going to wait and decide by Tuesday because we might be done a day earlier than we think and would then be able to take a night cruise there instead, which I think is cheaper.

Don't forget to check out my pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/JELeventhal
I will be updating the pictures under "Stockholm hostel" tonight when I go take some more pictures of the bathroom area and downstairs. I'm finally figuring out how to insert my pictures (the way I want to) here so expect more of that as well.