On Wednesday, April 26th I headed off to Europe. I flew into Amsterdam and arrived the next afternoon. I stayed at a popular party hostel downtown and had a pretty good time for a few days, but soon was ready to start traveling towards Sweden. So I caught the train to Copenhagen, Denmark and stayed there for a day. I visited the hippy neighborhood of Christiana and was there just in time to take part in a Peace Parade for May Day.
On Tuesday, May 2nd I took the train to Stockholm, Sweden. I visited my friend Anders (who I traveled with in Australia) for a few hours then took the night train north to visit Peteä, Sweden. Petiä is the town where my great-grandparents lived 100 years ago. So after a train ride and a bus trip I was there. It looked kind of like Oregon, lots of nice trees and hills and nice scenery.
There are some Swedish relatives who visited Portland when I was 12 years old who live in Petiä. So I gave them a call and they gave me the grand tour and fed me lots of Swedish food until I was full. I got to eat pault, reindeer and moose. They showed me all of the old buildings of Petiä and a house that my great grandmother Ida grew up.
I was there for a day and then took the night train back to Stockholm. I arrived on Friday afternoon and spent the day sightseeing from the water, on a boat tour. Then I met up with Anders again and we have been partying it up this weekend and having lots of fun.
Tonight I am leaving for about 20 hours of train riding to take me back to Amsterdam so that I can pick up Amanda when she arrives on Thursday.