paris, hamburg, goteborg and oslo

ok, so i made it to paris safely wed. unfortunately, my bag did not. it actually arrived thurs, then spent 3 days taking a tour of paris, just like i did. i did get it back saturday, soaking wet and smelling terrible, but at least it was in my possession!!

my first day, i was pretty jet lagged and out of it, so i made my way to zahra's house, the sister of my dad's cousin's husband. got it? anyway, they are an awesome family that i was very please to stay with for 3 nights. we went out to dinner the first night with other family that had come into town for the evening. the next day i set out for the sights: eiffel tower, champs elysee, arc de triomphe, and musee orsay. the next day i set out again and saw: the louvre, notre dame cathedral and towers, musee rodin, and a market area. and i had an incredible crepe. by far, my favorite thing was the view of the city from the notre dame towers. it brought tears to my eyes, it was so beautiful. i definitely had a full 2 days and was exhausted enough to prove it.

saturday, i set out for the airport to try to track down my bag. it had been sent out for delivery, so i had to sit around all day and wait for the delivery truck to come back. then i got an overnight train to hamburg to copenhagen, but the overnight train was an hour late and i missed my connecting train to copenhagen. so i found a place to shower (now that i have my shampoo and soap and a sopping wet towel that dried a little on the train overnight), then found a laundromat and washed and dried all the wet stuff. so even tho i didn't want to be in hamburg, it was a lovely place. it was nice and quiet on a sunday morning, cool and overcast. it started to rain as i did laundry, so i rode the tram back to the main train station to get an afternoon train to copenhagen. and i had a great big pretzel, too.

the train to copenhagen was good, if long. i sat next to a bolivian guy who spoke pretty good english and across from a ukrainian woman and her 6 yr old son who really got on my nerves by the end of the trip. he was cute tho, it just reinforced the idea that i don't want kids anytime soon. so i made it to goteborg, a suprisingly big and convenient city in southwestern sweeden. it was quite an evening... in my guidebook, all the hostels had receptions that close by 9pm, my train didn't get in until 10:20. i saw 2 girls with backpacks on heading out of the trainstation, so i asked them if they had a place to stay and could i tag along. they were german and found on the internet a "mini-hotel" that stayed open until 11. so it took asking a bunch of people and getting a free ride from a cabbie to find the place, but we did. it was a little sketchy, but worked just fine. the german girls had been camping in norway for a week, they were just glad to have a bed!!

the only problem was the tram we took cost 20kr, and i didn't have any sweedish money at all. (my original plan was to take the afternoon train from copenhagen to oslo and stay the night there, so i didn't intend to have any sweedish kronar at all!) so one of my new friends paid for me to get to the hostel, but i would still need 20kr to get back to the train station in the morning for my 6:45 train to oslo. so i asked one of the guys hanging out in the lounge, and he took me to an atm. well then, i had 100kr, but no change to pay the girl back. so i asked another guy and he went around to all his friends at the mini-hotel, and none had change for 100kr. so we went out again, in search of a store or restaurant that could give me change. he was an older somalian guy named mohammed who lived there at the mini-hotel and promised to treat me as his daughter. he was really funny and i enjoyed talking to him as we walked around town. we found a bar that gave me change, and then he was hungry, so we stopped at burger king. i was really tired and knew i had to get up early, but this guy was entertaining enough to keep me distracted from my exhaustion. so that's how i ended up eating burger king at midnight in sweeden with a somali guy.

so i caught the train this morning to oslo and i'll catch the train in an hour or so to voss, where i'll stay 2 nights. tomorrow: kayaking on the fjords!! in hindsight, i planned the kayaking way too soon after arriving, but hindsight is 20\20, right? so here i am... the plan for now is to spend the next day (wed) on the "norway in a nutshell" trip and head for bergen. thursday night i'll overnight back to oslo where i'lls tay the night friday, then train to stockholm and spend sunday and monday nights there. monday night i'll overnight it to copenhagen, and the next night overnight it to amsterdam. i sat down for 2 hrs after arriving here in oslo to decide this stuff. so we'll see how much it changes as i go!!

thanks for reading, if you got this far. i am checking email, but i am a bit overwhelmed by the 26 in my inbox, so we'll see how i do about responding. i'm also uploading pics to kodakgallery.com at the moment, so depending on how long that takes is how long i'll spend on emails. thanks, y'all!!!