Michelle's Adventures in London: April 2008

The end of March brought two random trips to two random places in England. My flatmate was in a UK-wide university championship boxing thing in Sheffield and I decided to go to root him on and to visit the Peak District. It is supposed to be stunning. And it definitely was! Though the weather was a bit crummy. Amazing countryside...very rustic. And the best part is I met two women with a dog that looks exactly like my old dog, Fritz! The same coloring, abnormally large size and everything!
And then I took a trip to Brighton, a popular seaside town south of London. It was a perfectly beautiful day. I really liked Brighton because it is quaintly run down and a lot of old-school fun. Arcade games and machines where you can win pennies, roller coasters on the pier, fish and chips, rock candy, seagulls.... a great day at the beach =)

So this is Fritz.....

And this is the dog that I saw on my walk in the Peak District! Exact replica....

It may not look that impressive, but it had just rained in Sheffield for probably 4 days straight. So this was looking pretty good to me.

Chris in the boxing ring

Second place! Fantastic!

the Brighton Pier. Love how it has a slight air of neglect. Really a lot of fun!

Walking on the hard pebble beach. The water was very very cold.

OK OK so it's been awhile...again =) In March Mary and James came to visit me! Last year we went to see Amanda in Peru, this year England (and Sweden), next year.....? So of course we had a blast, and spent a couple of days in Stockholm. Here are some pictures for entertainment. Interesting fact--it was freezing cold but actually the warmest winter in 225 years. Usually the Baltic Sea freezes over and it didn't this year. Global warming?! But definitely still cold enough for me. It was great to go in the off-season because it felt like we had a lot of the city to ourselves. I also went with a classmate and we stayed in this amazing hotel (very Scandinavian). Let me tell you about the breakfast. It was a smörgåsbord made up of probably 10 kinds of bread, 5 kinds of cheese, a bunch of meat, eggs, sausage, 4 kinds of jam, yogurt, cereal, fruit salad, whole fruit, practically anything you could possibly want!! And of course we ate Swedish meatballs one night.
One tip... turns out that in Sweden (or at least Stockholm) everything, absolutely everything, closes on Mondays. We wanted to take a tour of the Archipelago on Monday because it was supposed to be the warmest. Mistake! Everything (including most museums and tours) is closed! So we had to settle for a sort of crummy boat tour. Oh well, it just means that I will have to go back!

Ice skating in the middle of the town square. We had the place to ourselves! But I felt a bit like Bambi on unstable legs.

Oh so coooooooold!!!

The Vasa is a ship that the Swedish king commissioned in 1660 something to be the fastest and best ship in the Swedish army. He was very very proud of this ship. It set sail for Denmark in 1664 (maybe) and it got about 20 feet inside the Stockholm harbor, fired a salute cannon, tipped over, and sank in the harbor with everyone watching. It's flag stuck up out of the water. People forgot about this embarassing moment and the ship was "lost". A guy found it in the 1970s. They found it almost completely intact underwater. The cold saltwater made it so that the wood didn't disintegrate. They dragged the whole thing up and preserved it. It's the world's most amazing ship because it is like 95% originally intact. It's absolutely fantastic.