Adios Scandinavia!

Well, the day has come for us to say goodbye to his wonderful place. On our last (and perfect weather) day, we visited the KVINFO library in Copenhagen. We learned the history of gender equality and women's rights history in Denamrk. We also had a chance to browse through the library fully dedicated to gender studies. Afterwards we embarked on a fantastic boat tour through Copenhagen's canals; the day was gorgeous and the city was breathtaking in the sunshine. Once we were done with the tour, we divided up and people went on their own little adventures. Most of us shopped and enjoyed the delicious Danish ice-cream. Later in the evening, we had the chance to chat with the president and a member of The American Women Club in Copenhagen. We had a great and insightful conversation about different gender issues that affect both Denmark and the United States. Our lasst dinner together was held at a pleasant and unique Danish restaurant. I have to say I will miss our funny and very interesting conversations we always have during our meals. Right now everyone is packing and getting ready for tomorrow's early departure. Although we are sad to leave, we have learned a lot about Scandinavian gender issues, life, culture, history and food. We have had the mot amazing time in these 3 different countries! PS. We want to thank everyone who supported us throughout this journey, it would not have been possible without you! Nos vemos pronto! Gaby Galeano

Castles, Country, City

Hello faithful readers! This is Chrissy with our second to last post.  We are almost to the end of our trip but are still having so much fun experiencing Scandinavia! Today (Wednesday) we had a wonderful and full day!  We started with a nice breakfast before heading up north to see our first castle. The country side is very beautiful and besides the really old cottages, the land looks a lot like Minnesota and Wisconsin. The castle was not entirely what I expected. It is old and beautiful but a little modest too. At one point a lot of the castle had burned down but it was recreated to the original design about 150 years ago. We left with some good photos! Next we made a quick stop at the royal family's summer palace and caught the middle of the changing of the guard. We then took another short trip to the last stop - Kronborn - a castle dedicated to the play Hamlet. After getting our fix of large castles and beautiful church-like buildings, we took the scenic route back to town and saw the coast line next to Sweden. Once again there were cute little thatched roof cottages all along the coast. It was very picturesque seeing the country side with the semi dark lighting and reflections off the ground from the drizzly weather.  We got back to our hotel and basically collapsed for a while. This everyday, nonstop sightseeing gets tiring!! After some down time and the option for smaller groups or individuals to walk around a bit, we headed to the grocery store to buy food for our own pot luck. It was probably the most food we've been able to have so far with the least amount of money. Today was also Kaitlyn's birthday :) so we decided to go exploring again tonight. We ended up in two different groups. I was with a few people in a very old fashioned, European, right-out-of-the-movies pub. It was a fun experience with great conversation from a few natives Danes. We finally headed back to the hotel and are looking forward to a little sleep now! I can't believe there's only one day left! We will see everyone at home soon!!

It's gettin' Danish all up in here!

Hello All, Here's a little update about what we've been doing. We arrived in Copenhagen bright and early Tuesday morning, fresh off the night ferry from Oslo. From there we went straight to our tour bus and started seeing the city. We saw the Little Mermaid, the Royal Palace, the King's Library, and Parliament just to name a few. We even made a stop in Christiania, because YOLO! Don't worry we didn't buy anything and even Nixon would think the hippies there were nice. Our tour guide is a hoot and he's taking us to see castles (including Hamlet's!!!!!) on Wednesday. After the tour we came back to our hotel, which SURPRISE is in Copenhagen's red light district. After getting settled (the rooms are massive by European standards) everyone headed out to wander. My group managed to find an H&M and a furrier. After working up an appetite wandering around the city the group headed out for dinner at a local place a few blocks from the hotel. The food was amazing and the place was as quaint as can be. After dinner we went to a gourmet grocer to plan our smögåsbord for tomorrow's dinner and headed back to the hotel. Well that's all for now, hope you're enjoying reading about the trip as much as we are being on it! Sincerely, Karen

Bennies on a boat

Sorry this post is late! We didn't have wifi last night. So here we are! Made it to Denmark. Before we left for our final country, we visited the fortress in Norway. After walking around and seeing some amazing views we walked over to the city hall building. Sadly they weren't giving tours because it was a holiday. So we just spent some time walking around on our own and looking at the awesome murals. The ceilings were high and painted and the murals took up entire walls. After city hall we had extra time to enjoy just walking around the city. We did a little shopping but most places were closed. Then we headed over to the harbor with our luggage to board the ferry. The boat was huge. We had a great time pretending that we were on a cruise. We sat on top of the deck as the boat took off from the dock. We enjoyed a buffet dinner and great conversation. In the evening we enjoyed some time together at the bar and night club that was on the boat. It was definitely an experience to dance while aboard a boat. Late into the night everyone finally got some sleep to prepare for THE FINAL DESTINATION: DENMARK.

The Final Destination: Denmark!

Sorry this post is late! We didn't have wifi last night. So here we are! Made it to Denmark. Before we left for our final country, we visited the fortress in Norway. After walking around and seeing some amazing views we walked over to the city hall building. Sadly they weren't giving tours because it was a holiday. So we just spent some time walking around on our own and looking at the awesome murals. The ceilings were high and painted and the murals took up entire walls. After city hall we had extra time to enjoy just walking around the city. We did a little shopping but most places were closed. Then we headed over to the harbor with our luggage to board the ferry. The boat was huge. We had a great time pretending that we were on a cruise. We sat on top of the deck as the boat took off from the dock. We enjoyed a buffet dinner and great conversation. In the evening we enjoyed some time together at the bar and night club that was on the boat. It was definitely an experience to dance while aboard a boat. Late into the night everyone finally got some sleep to prepare for THE FINAL DESTINATION: DENMARK.

The Sunday Scream...With Ice Cream

This Sunday we were blessed and burnt with the Norwegian sun. We started off the day seeing the famous painting by Edvard Munch titled The Scream. This little dude has been screaming for 120 years...he must be getting pretty tired. A lot of things were closed cause its a holiday weekend and even the garbage was on holiday but that also meant that we got to go into a bunch of museums FO FREE! If there is one thing I have learned on this trip it is to not trust the weather forecast. I was expecting cold and rainy weather but it has been beautiful outside....enough to get our fair Minnesotan skin pretty sunburnt. WE could have easily prevented this by wearing sunscreen but we are college students who like to break the rules and live on the edge...YOLO. After the museum we had to some time to poke our heads into a couple of souvenir shops. We had some time to kill before our ferry ride tour of the fjords and sense it was hot, that meant ice cream! After almost misplacing two of our group members we boarded the ferry that looked more like a pirate ship. We were able to confirm that it was a pirate ship once we saw jack sparrow (lol jk he wasn't on the boat...but it still looked like a pirate ship). For those of you who don't know, a fjord is like a little inlet, or an opposite peninsula, or a calanque if you speak French, and if you still don't know what it is after my detailed description I suggest you just google it...they are pretty neat. The boat had a really loud horn that made us scream slash jump every time it was inconveniently sounded. Fjords were created when glaciers melted a really long time ago and filled up the space with water. Some guy on the shore of one of the islands mooned us as we passed by but don't worry, I flashed him back. (Just kidding mom, I promise I am behaving on this trip). After the fjord pirate ship boat ride we walked around town before dinner. Many of us are spending our night writing a paper about the sculpture garden we visited yesterday. Doing homework becomes a lot more difficult ounces you are in a foreign country...but we are surviving! Peace out, Emily Gebhart P.s. hi mom, dad, mollie, abbey, velma, and daphne

Saturday under the Norwegian sun

Yesterday was our first day out sightseeing in Oslo. It was great! We started with a city bus tour and saw some great sights like the parliament building and the city wall that was put up in the 12th or 13th century. From the bus tour we went into the Vigeland sculpture park by Gustav Vigeland. We had a great tour guide who taught us so much about him through his art work. After that we went to a Viking ship museum. My favorite thing to learn was that Vikings actually don't have horns on there helmets. They are far too impractical. Our second museum of the day showed us about different expeditions to the north and south poles by Norwegian men. At this museum we were actually able to go on a boat that went on an expedition. I discovered that I'm pretty sure I wouldn't ever make it as a sailor in that tight of space out at sea. We finished the afternoon with a ferry ride back to the city hall area. Yolo! We had a 'real' dinner at Friday's as a group, and that was fun, maybe too fun for some members of the group! ;) from there we spent the rest of the night walking around the city trying to get a lay of the land for the days to come! Peace out! Sami

It's Friday, Friday we gotta get to Norway on Friday

Hello, Christa here! We started out today with a lovely walk to the Vaas Museum. This is a Ship the Sweds have recovered after over 300 years. It was suppose to make a great journey and fight for the Nation but ended up sinking just after leaving the port. It was really interesting to learn about the people in 1600s. We took a boat to The Royal Palace to tour. It was a gorgeous Palace. The Swedish people are proud of their democratic and like to view the Palace as everyone's Palace rather than the Kings and Queens. We looked into the guest and state apartments and order chambers. The Palace is beautiful and has such a grand history. After getting our ice cream fix, we made it back to the hotel to grab our bags. We took the train through Sweden and Norway and made it to Oslo. Looking forward to what this country brings! Missing everyone back home!

Day 3 (Thursday)

Today we went to Uppsala University to meet with some gender studies students & professors. All of us students spent a couple hours chatting with Swedish students about gender issues & Swedish culture. Sami, Kaitlyn & I were talking with a woman named Elina. She is 29 (many Swedish college students are older than the average American college student) & has 2 kids so it was really interesting to hear her perspective about various issues. She was telling us how she and her boyfriend are trying to raise their kids in a way that instills beliefs about gender equality, but doing that has been harder than she expected. She said that there is some resistance from society. For example, if her young son wears pink shoes, people talk about it & make it a big deal. What she said seemed very similar to how it is in the U.S. And I think it is so interesting to hear that many of the issues we have with gender equality in the U.S. are issues that the Swedish still have too. At the same time, there are attitudes and beliefs they have that are very different from that of most Americans. I'm not sure what to make of it all yet, but it was definitely an interesting day! -Deanna

wednesday activities!

Update from Wednesday! Hi Kaitlyn here and I just want to tell you all about our first full day in Stockholm! We had a tour of the city and Stockholm is actually 14 islands.we saw the capital took pictures by the bay and looked at all the fancy boats! We spent most of the day in the old city and adventured through the little shops. Watched the changing of the guards and visited a grocery store! There are a lot of bikers in Sweden and because the weather is nice everyone was out side. In the afternoon we met with representatives from a Stockholm based group Men for Gender equality. They have violence prevention programs for high school students. They also work with promoting fatherhood, we saw men pushing strollers around and must be due to the generous parental leave policies. We were shocked to find out that although Sweden sets the standard for gender equality, work can be done to improve in areas. Overall a very fun day and it tired us out! I think as a group we are really having a great time! Talk to you all later!

Day 1: We made it to Stockholm, Sweden!!

We finally made it, after some sleep drunk comments and a lot of traveling. We got to our hotel around 1pm Swedish time (we are eight hours ahead). Some of us went exploring while others practiced the fine art of power napping. We then gathered and had our first experience with Swedish food - chicken, tomato, and paprika baguette sandwiches. Yum! Tomorrow we begin our first planned adventures, so check back for more!

-Liz

We are off!

The IWL is off again! This time we are traveling to Scandinavia to spend time in Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen to study gender policies in those places. Follow along on our journey!