Stace and I flew to Europe to see some friends and explore a few places. First up on the itinerary was a stay in the third-largest city in Sweden, Malmo, with some friends from college, Rebecca and Hannes.
Picked up by Hannes with some bikes!
Wandering around Malmo.
The tallest building in Sweden: The Turning Torso
Hannes hates everything this building stands for.
The street their apartment is on.
A trusty steed.
Jazz Concerts.
Streets of Ystad, Sweden.
We stayed in their cozy apartment for 5 days while they showed us the town and the nearby sites. Malmo is a small city with a very cool downtown area. There are dedicated bike paths everywhere and it seems that most people use bikes to get around. We rode them all over the town, then took them on a train to the nearby coastal village of Ystad, where Hannes' family owns a summer cottage. Hannes and I leapt into the 11 degree Celsius water and promptly crawled out again.
From Ystad, we biked east along the southern coast of Sweden, keeping the Baltic Sea on our right to another coastal village about 35 miles away. Along the way, we stopped at some cliffs were paragliders were launching, a Viking stonehend\celestial calendar and a tiny fishing enclave for the three best fish I've ever eaten in my entire life.
Hannes on the cliffs at Hammar.
Mad swack.
Along the way, we turned inland and biked through the gorgeous rolling hills of the Swedish countryside. Blue-bird skies and rolling fields of wheat with the four of us biking through towards a medieval castle looming on the horizon made for the prettiest day you could imagine.
A gorgeous day.
Viking graveyard\calendar.
Real poppies: exactly the same as fake poppies.
Cruising to Glimmingehus.
Planning the rest of our route in the shadow of the castle.
Stace cheesin'
bbq near the baltic.
Swedish camelbak.
Stace and I snorkeling in the baltic.
Playing Liar's Dice at 11pm as the sun sets.
We were attacked by large beetles.
We toured the Glimmingehus castle and continued our bike trip.
After our stay in Malmo, we moved on to Copenhagen, a much larger city across the water from Malmo. Copenhagen was full of interesting history and interesting sites. We toured the canals and an art museum as we wandered around the city. We walked through an area called Christiania, which used to be the Danish military barracks before they were abandoned in 1971. At that time, hippies squatted in the buildings and built up their own autonomous society. Forty years later and the place is filled with squatters and freegans but still autonomous and overlooked by the Danish government. We walked through streets with marijuana plants growing out of tree stumps and old tires turned hydroponic. We cruised down Pusher Street, an open hash market, before getting some food and heading back to the train station.
I believe this is some brewery in Copenhagen.
View from the top of a steeple.
From Copenhagen, we flew to Berlin for an incredible experience reliving some of the history that has defined the 20th century.
Watching the final of the World Cup on the streets of Berlin.
Brandenberg Gate.
Reichstag.
Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
45ft above the bunker where Hitler committed suicide. Unmarked.
Communist Mural.
A powerful monument to loss in Berlin.
Pergamon Alter: Athena busting some heads.
Gates of Babylon.
We began the experience at the Brandenburg Gate and moved from there through the history of WWI, Fascism, WWII and the division of Communist East Germany and Democratic West Germany. Berlin was dividing in half by the Berlin wall, the east being communist and the west being democratic.
We both learned so much on our tours through Berlin and it was profound to be visiting the actual places where so many important events occurred. We capped our tours with a trip to the Sachsenhauen Concentration Camp for an incredible experience learning about the conditions within the camp, the SS training facilities that surrounded the camp, the SS housing facilities that surrounded the training facilities, and the oblivious townspeople who lived within 2 kilometers of a place where more than 53,000 people were killed. I thought it was incredible that the Soviets re commissioned the camp in 1945 and used it to imprison and kill more than 12,000 fascists immediately after WWII.
Death Strip.
Faulty Communist Monument to the Russian prisoners of war murdered in Sachsenhausen.
Torture devices used to dislocate shoulders.
Pathology Lab at Sachsenhausen.
Crematories at Sachsenhausen.
The camp tour was emotional and affecting but the highlight of our stay in Berlin. We then flew back to Copenhagen for one more day before our 8 hour flight into New Jersey.
It was my first time in Europe and offered but a taste of the huge number of places than can be experienced. We're already thinking of an itinerary for our next trip across the Atlantic.
Stace and I walked towards this arch for about a mile, thinking it was real.
