Week 1 In Sweden

DAY 3: August 16th 2017

Thursday came around and Emilia and I wanted to see the Zoo in one of the Islands around Stockholm called Djurgården. We woke up early, ate breakfast and headed to the zoo to see all the animals. Because Skansen (the zoo) is on an Island we needed to take a boat or a ferry. Naturally we had to take the train from her house so we took the train into the city to get to the boat. The boat was only around a 10-minute walk from the train station. The day was beautiful; the sun was shining and Emilia and I were happy and ready to see some animals. As we walked to the boat I noticed how many people were on bikes. I somehow always managed to be walking in the bike lane and Emilia was constantly pulling me back to the pedestrian sidewalk so I wouldn’t get run over. When we reached the boat and stood in line the boat pulled up to the dock and it looked as you would picture it. Like a ferry that you often see in New York or sometimes San Francisco. The boat ride to Djurgården was only around 5-minutes, however the water was beautiful, the wind was freeing and the view of the city from the boat was incredible. We pulled up to the island and Emilia pointed out that there was an amusement park on the same island (we would have gone to the amusement park, but amusement parks have never really been my favorite thing). To get to Skansen (the zoo) we needed to walk through the amusement park which only took about 3 minutes. The park looked like the ones in the States but apparently there were a lot of concerts held there because there were many ads for singers coming to the park to perform. While we were walking up to the booth to pay for access to the zoo, Emilia pulled out her phone trying to get a student ID so that we could get the discount. We got to the booth and I realized that while I didn’t have my North Park student ID I had my ID as an international student. The guy at the booth saw my ID and Emilias and we were let into the park. The first thing we see in the zoo was a 3D map of the zoo inside a little gazebo. Behind the gazebo there were stairs and then a garden. You could either take a left or a right to get into the zoo; making the walkway almost in a ‘U’ shape. We took a right and walked up a hill to see some of the animals. We walked around and saw reindeer, pigs, horses, different kinds of seals, otters, goats, a lot of birds and monkeys, and also part of the old town of Sweden. The old town looked similar to one I had seen while visiting my grandparents on the east coast. The old town didn’t actually exist there in its day, but it was moved to Skansen for tourist. I found that a lot of Sweden had old towns that were moved so they could be easily seen by tourist. We ate dinner at the park and talked about Swedish government (because I really had no idea how it worked). We walked and talked around the park till we reached the end part where we sat and looked at the amazing view. We were sitting near a concert hall on a ledge over the entire island. We could see the amusement park and the city which was breathtaking. We sat for a while before deciding to go home and have fika. When we reached home we got ice cream, tea (of course), cinnamon buns, and cookies. We sat and talked for a bit before Emilias dad came home. This was the first time I was meeting him face to face as he was at work in Oslo Norway. We talked with her dad for a while (his English was really good) and afterwards went to bed to get ready for the crayfish (crawdad) party the next night!