Germany & Sweden

new photos: http://www.dulceandkai.blogspot.com/

Germany - May 2010
We decided to take a break from traveling for a bit and got an apartment in Berlin. We're living in a shared flat that has 2 other bedrooms, and a common bathroom and kitchen. It's in a great location…only a 30 min. walk to my school, and 5 min. by train into the city centre. There's also a huge park nearby were we can go running and have a picnic when the weather is nice. Kai was able to find a job, and I started taking my language classes.
This May was apparently the coldest May in history, and there were only 4 days in the whole month when the sun was shining. Despite that, we really enjoyed our time in Germany. We took a weekend trip to Dresden, a cute little town with beautiful old buildings, and another trip to Potsdam. My school turned out to be great. Every Wednesday was Kulturtag (Culture Day), and we had "field trips" in Berlin to learn more about its history. We also had get-togethers at pubs and restaurants on the weekend. It was great to make so many new friends from all over the world - Romania, South Africa, Italy, Brasil, Finland, Poland, etc. We went up to Wismar one weekend to see Kai's family, and I was able to test out my German. I think I did ok. I was actually able to carry a conversation with Kai's mom without him translating for us, so that's definitely progress.

Sweden
I went to Sweden for 5 days at the end of May to visit a friend that I met while traveling a few years ago in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand. Karin lives and goes to university in Linkoping, about 1.5 hours from Stockholm. I spent a few days going around the countryside with her to Soderkoping and Norrkoping (where her parents live). It's so beautiful! Back in Linkoping we had a great bbq with Karin's friends for her birthday.

I spent my last day in Sweden walking around Stockholm. Lots of churches and old buildings to see. Old Town was my favourite. Stockholm was smaller than I had imagined…most of the sights are within walking distance of each other. It's a really cool city though. If I had more money and things weren't so expensive there, I would have done a lot of shopping! :)

One of the things I loved about Sweden is that it stays light outside for about 21 hours out of the day, like Iceland. It starts to get dusk around 11pm, and then the sun comes back out at 2.30am!