Crazy Happenings Newsletter Volume 1

Thursday, June 20, 2002
Hi everyone! As some of you probably already know, I got laid off from my job in early March, and I decided that instead of looking for a new job I wanted to travel around the world! It's something I always wanted to do and the time seemed as good as ever... so, I called up Carla, and we decided to go together! We left on June 7th and started our trip in Copenhagen, Denmark where we stayed with our friend, Per.

Copenhagen was wonderful! So wonderful that when you step off your flight at the airport there is a sign that says, "Welcome to Wonderful Copenhagen!". Apparently there is a really old Danish movie that was called Wonderful Copenhagen, and so the name stuck. Per showed us everything there was to see - a bicycle tour around the city, my first motorcycle ride (why did I wait so long?? it was phenomenal!), and brunch at a converted military building complete with floor hockey in the back. Of course, we met up with our running club we had a great time meeting all the Copenhashers. The run took us past many of the foreign embassies. Also, did you know that Legos are from Denmark? Who knew? The word Lego is a combination of parts of the two Danish words, Play Well. Just a fun fact...

After Copenhagen we went to Trollhatten. A cute little place in Sweden with an ancient lock system, a Lego museum (I made an ambulance), and a Saab museum. It also had this cool interactive kids learning museum which, thought we are not kids, we had a great time there anyway.

We spent a few days in Olso, Norway and my favorite thing there was a bunch of statues! There is this granite statue which is the largest carved granite statue in the world. The statue has people cared all over it - if you have ever been emailed a photo called malebrain, it looks similar to that! Surrounding the statue are other smaller statues, and each one of them is represented on the granite statue, all of them in curious poses. We took advantage of the ample photo opportunities, since I enjoy posing, and making Carla pose like every statue we see. The granite statue took 6 months to drag over from the boat that brought it to Oslo... whenever that was, I forget!

We spent another day hiking to the top of a cliff called Pulpit's Rock on the coast of Norway, outside of a city called Stavanger. It was a great hike, and the view of the fijord was absolutely phenomenal - it looked like the Northern version of the Great Barrier Reef! The waters in the fijord were stunningly aqua.

We arrived in Stockholm the night before last and to our pleasant surprise we found out we will be here for one of Sweden's biggest festivals!! Up here in Scandinavia, the sun bearly sets at all during this time of year. I haven't seen darkness since I left Boston! It's strange to wake up at 3am and it still looks like dusk. Anyway, about the festival... It takes place on the longest day of the year, June 21st, and is a national holiday! They celebrate the day with all sorts of fun things. Carla and I are going to a small island (I think it starts with the letter G) to go camping under the stars... well, I guess there won't be any stars since the sun will be up all night, but you know what I mean! Today we are hoping to go to the Abba Museum, walk around the Old Town, and go to an Ice Bar this evening. The Ice Bar is made entirely of Ice. The glasses, chairs, tables - everything is ice! You have heard of Absolut Vodka, right? Absolut in Swedish means strictly, so the vodka is actually called Strictly Vodka! Just another fun fact...

So, that's Volume 1 of the Crazy Happenings Newsletter, and many more newsletters are yet to come since I still have 8 1/2 months left on my trip! I changed the content of my website to reflect things about my trip, if you are interested. The address is http://www.crazyhappenings.com if you want to see what my itinerary is, etc. I set this newsletter up as a yahoogroup, and please note that no one else can post to the group to prevent someone from sending email to everyone in the group. So if you would like to email me I can be reached at alison@crazyhappenings.com. Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you!!

Love, Alison

PS. Photos will be posted soon!