Well...seeing as how these blog entries are so few and far between, I believe I will have to skip my description of Romania for now and move on to some of my experiences in Scandinavia, sticking mainly to the highlights...

Helsinki Finland was a very interesting place...I did not realize how incredibly close it is to Russia, and how relatively new it was compared to many other parts of Europe. The architecture there was really amazing I thought. The newer stuff especially...they seem to be going all out trying to find their own niche in the world of architecture. Everything was very cleanly built and everything was held to a much higher standard (as I noticed across scandinavia)...a higher standard of living, of construction, of style and fashion, of design....it was really quite inspiring...and it made me realize how crappy some of the stuff in america is...how everything is just slapped together almost with the main concern being money...not a higher standard of living and comfort and appreciation of design. We saw a lot of Alvar Aalto work...pretty interesting I guess...I'm not a huge fan of his work, but it's cool to say that I saw it anyway...

a few highlights from Finland...eating reindeer at a very traditional mom and pop restaurant...pretty tasty actually......our introduction to "hot" McDonald's and H&M's, nasty Pita Kabab...the wonders of public transportation...

From Finland we took an overnight Cruise to Stockholm Sweden, which was incredibly fun! Didn't sleep a whole heckuva lot...but enjoyed myself immensly hanging out with everybody...strolling the decks...dancing at the onboard club..good times..

Stockholm was a gorgeous city..especially the old town, Gamla Stan, unfortunately we didn't get to stay there long...just 4 days, but I would love to go back. We didn't see a whole lot in the way of new architecture, but just wandering through the twisting streets and alley-ways of the old town was enough for me. After we left stockholm we traveled through sweden to a little town called Kosta Boda...the whole town is centered around the Glass blowing factory which was founded in 1742. We were fortunate enough to get to blow some glass, as well as etch glass and pull glass...it was pretty sweet, although I must say it was WAY harder than it looks!! It was pretty cool to get to see the production process up close and personal, and then get to try it for ourselves. And then just for the heck of it we went to the Moose park that was just down the road....yeah...that was uhhh...interesting...haha. A few caged moose that were incredibly tame...and some random goats and rabbits and chickens and stuff...and some weird dioramas with all these stuffed moose and all these different ways that they can die...haha...I couldn't ever really figure out why the heck they had those...there were more stuffed moose in that park then real ones....pretty weird..haha...

Things to remember from Sweden...that one night in Kosta Boda, and the explosions that shook the walls and rattled the windows all through the night...we thought it might be aliens...but in the morning we found out that there was an army base about 10 km away and they must have been setting off bombs or something...pretty freaky... ....the hotel in Stockholm, great location...terrible accommodations: one shower and two toilets for an entire floor! it was pretty bad...and it smelled.......and the three limpers...three of they guys had hurt their foot..the same one even...and so they were all limping the same way everywhere...pretty funny...

From Sweden we took a train to Copenhagen, Denmark....and I'll have to leave you hanging there...haha...pretty suspenseful I know...