July 29 and 30- To Sweden

 July 29

Not much happened today, but I just realized that I haven’t really mentioned what I’ve been learning about in my classes lately. So I thought I’d give you an update in case you were wondering!

Architectural History: We’ve just been learning about each country or city as we go.

Literature and Film: So far the books that we’ve read are Don Quixote (for Spain), the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Scotland) and Crime Punishment (Russia). The films that we’ve watched are the Spirit of the Beehive (Spain) and the Seventh Seal (Sweden).

Foundational Religions: We have learned about Paganism, Judaism and Christianity. Tomorrow we’ll be learning about Islam (which I’m really excited for).

That’s it for today. PS- I’m still sick. Pooey.

July 30

So a few noteworthy things happened today:

1. I’ve officially declared Courtney to be nocturnal. For some reason, she just really likes being up at night and sleeping during the day (completely the opposite of me). She got into bed last night at 5:00 am. I repeat, 5:00 am. She then got up at 3:00 pm. I repeat, 3:00 pm. (She skipped her first two classes by the way). She doesn’t usually skip class, but she does usually take a lot of naps. I’ve become accustomed to finding my way around our room in the dark. I would normally find this really annoying, but I like Courtney so much that I don’t even mind. That’s saying a lot.

2. I broke down and finally bought my first food from the ship. All of our meals are free, but there’s a snack bar available all hours of the day where you can buy chips, candy, fruit, muffins, lattes, hot cocoas, etc. I always see kids walking around with yummy food, but I was determine not to give in to temptation. I don’t need to spend extra money on food that I don’t need! Today, in a moment of weakness, I bought a packet of jelly beans. And they were dang good! I haven’t had Jelly Belly’s for years! I forgot how much I like the popcorn-flavored ones. So yes, I don’t regret my purchase but I won’t do it again for the rest of the trip!

3. The craziest, most random thing happened to me today. I decided to do some reading on my laptop in between classes, but my roommate was sleeping (refer to item 1) so I took my laptop out in the hallway so I could use it without waking her up. There’s a little space underneath the stairwell that people from my hall like to go sit and do homework or just hang out. I decided to sit there to do my reading. I had been learning about Stockholm’s architecture for about 20 minutes when- BAM! A latte fell from the heavens and exploded on the floor right next me. Coffee sprayed all over me, my computer and my phone. I just sat in there in shock for like five seconds. Then quick like a bunny (as my Grandma Sylvia says), I jumped up and ran back to my cabin to clean up my laptop before it was ruined. Thankfully, I saved it in time. I cleaned off myself and my technology and then went back out in to the hallway to try to figure out what in the heck just happened. I figured out that someone from several stories about me must have set their coffee on the ledge of the handrail on the stairs. The coffee must have been knocked off the edge and just happen to fall directly through the narrow space in between the staircases until it hit the floor right next to me. It was so weird and so funny and so unexpected. Crazy!

This is my spot under the stairs

And this is the narrow slot where the coffee fell through.
This space goes 5 stories up!

4. I learned some really cool stuff about Stockholm tonight at the pre-port. We will reach Sweden tomorrow, and we learned that Stockholm in one of the leading cities in sustainability and “green living” in all of Europe. Here’s an awesome video to watch if you’re interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAkdWUjdJyA

5. Tonight before bed, Konrad knocked on my door very excitedly. As soon as I opened the door, he rushed into my room and turned on my tv. Sometimes while we’re in port, they’ll stream just one local channel on cable. Guess what happened to be on the Swedish cable channel tonight! Lord of the Rings! (The Return of the King to be exact.) It was awesome! It was even in English, but it had Swedish subtitles. It was a lovely and unexpected surprise.

Gandalf the White? Or Gandalf the Awesome?