Valborg i Uppsala!

Everyone has a happiest place and time in his/her life. The place you think of when life really has you down (like maybe you are taking a course called IBEA), and you just want to think of those good ol' days. For me that place is Uppsala, Sweden. Granted I may not have been sober for the majority of my stay (6 months)... but I look back to those bleary-eyed nights in the land of the midnight sun with the highest level of fondness! Understanding that my liver and waistline were suffering the consequences of my party hardy lifestyle, I realized that while Uppsala had been a beautiful dream, it needed to remain just that and I had to part ways with the city that I love. When my final decisions for grad-school came down to choosing between Gothenburg and Uppsala, I knew the choice I had to make. Now don't get me wrong, I have loved my time in Gothenburg, but a part of my heart never really left Uppsala.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to return to my personal utopia. The celebration was for Valborg, the biggest Swedish drinking holiday for students, and Uppsala is the ONLY place to partake in the festivities. My trip got off to an interesting start when I was approached by a Jehovah's witness in the train station... and heard an interesting story about plants and weeds. In the middle of looking at an icredibly interesting picture book of bible figures, my friend Anna (my go to party/fun time girl!) approached, and while we managed to wait until the old woman who was trying to save me (I'm too far gone...) walked away before dying of laughter. The tone had been set for a hilarious weekend!

The first afternoon Anna and I drank terrible champagne mixed with sprite sitting on a hill by the pink castle. We both drank a bottle of champagne each and were worried about sobering up... honestly I don't know what we were thinking. We then headed to one of the student nations where I was soooooo excited to see cheap beer.... only four dollars a bottle!!! We shortly ran into an aussie, and started inventing a beautiful story (lying)to him about being Swedish, having made up the most beautiful back story about our country homes in Varberg... we were more than shocked when Aussie's friend shows up and it is our good friend Ben! Needless to say we were completely caught in our lie, but thankfully the guys laughed it off. At midnight it was time to head home... we were supposed to start drinking again at 8 am... this didn't quite happen *Sidenote* Anna has a video of me leading a rousing rendition of Shania Twain's hit "you're still the one" with a group of Swedish girls in the bathroom, taken some point this evening... it was a good night! And not surprisingly this is probably the 10th video of me taken in that very bathroom leading Swedish girls in song... some things never change!

The next morning Anna and I were horribly hungover, but we managed to trek in to town to get ourselves bacon burgars, fries and coke for breakfast (breakfast of champions my friends!). We then took some weird british pain medicine... and we were good to go. We headed to the huge park by the school building where I used to "study" and we proceeded to drink another two bottles of champagne a piece. At about 2 pm it was time to head to the champagne fight... champagne fights are so unbelievably fun!!!! There was a live band playing, and also a dj. They played the best music and since I was drunk I didn't care that I was covered in head to toe sticky champagne. Anna and I made many many friends, including a boy wearing blue pants that in mid conversation had a complete spaz attack and broke into dance that can only be described as epileptic. After accruing far more best friends then I could ever possibly handle, it was time to rest up for round three. Anna and I got showered, then headed out for dinner (arrival of hangover #2). During our quest to find dinner we got kidnapped by three different groups of guys, managed to lose all of them until we met this group of guys with an Irish leader. He was unbelievably funny and and could charm the loin cloth off of tarzan. The other guys in the crew were shape shifters, and every time I turned around there were either more, or less, or just different boys, then had previously been following us. Thirty minutes later we had walked all the way across town to where I used to live. YAY FLOGSTA!!!! We then had to turn around and walk back to town because we were meeting our german friend to go out. Another amazingly fun night was had at the student nations. We danced with some of the craziest people ever, keep in mind everyone had been drinking for over 12 hours at this point. At around 3:15 it was time to call it a night. Another *sidenote* We also pretended to be from Zamibia the whole night... a girl even tried speaking africaner or whatever it's called to us... luckily anna knew that in Zamibia they speak German... almost caught in another lie haha.

Uppsala once again did not disappoint and if anything my image of the town has just become rosier! My liver still hates me four days later... but the memories from one of the most fun weekends ever, greatly outweighs the pain I will inevitably face when at age 30 I have to get my first liver transplant...