Some short trips made were to Gothenburg, Malmo, Copenhagen and Oslo in 2009. A very brief summary of each of them is here..
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| The city decor |
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| The Harbour |
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| The town hall |
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| Cathedral |
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| Botanical garden |
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| The City |
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| An island in the archipelago |
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| way to archipelago |
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| the ferry to archipelago |
After the first year of studies in masters Jeff and I planned a trip to Gothenburg, Malmo and Copenhagen for summers. We boarded the train on 29 June 2009 from Uppsala to Gothenburg, we were at our destination by evening. We went to the already booked youth hostel, checked-in, got fresh and went for the city tour. Its a beautiful city has biggest harbour in Sweden. We walked around to see the harbour, opera house, city square, town hall, churches, palace, beautiful parks and some more. Soon it was getting dark and we were getting tired so we returned back to the hostel. Next day we saw the botanical garden and took the ferries to the archipelagos (the main tourist attraction). The botanical garden was amazingly full of numerous kinds of flowering plants, show plants, green house, water plants and many more kinds of beautiful plants full of flowers. The archipelagos has rocky terrain with some greenery and were full of tourists sun-bathing and swimming. After spending the day in the islands we returned back as we had a train in the evening to Malmo.
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| Tivoli |
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| The walkway |
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| Gefion Fountain |
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| Opera house |
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| The little mermaid |
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| Castle entrance |
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| interior of the castle |
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| Jagannath rath yatra |
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| Show at the city square |
We reached Malmo at night and waited for our bus for Copenhagen, we reached Copenhagen in the morning of 1 July 2009. The road way to Copenhagen was through a bridge over the sea, it was amazing. Once we reached we checked-in the hostel, got fresh and went for a walk in the city. We saw main tourist spots like church, city square, fountains, little mermaid, opera house, parks and the castle. To our surprise, we came across a "Jagannath rath yatra" a typical indian celebration at the city square in the evening. They were distributing bhogs, we queued up quickly and had it. It was just delicious, the feeling of having something of your country in a different continent is surprisingly amazing. We had a great evening that day with all the cultural programmes happening there. The castle was a huge one, we went inside for a tour to see the big paintings, decorated ceilings, huge dining rooms, courtyards and crafted furnitures. The city is beautiful and full of canals which is a great place to spend the evenings. The people are very friendly and helpful, much more talkative as compared to Swedes. Actually the shyness in people lessen when you travel from north to south in Scandinavia.
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| Frogner Park |
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| Oslo |
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| in the park |
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| in the park |
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| Frogner park |
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| Christmas decorations |
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| ice skating |
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| Shopping centre |
Soon it was December and was the time of Christmas vacation. I had a friend in Oslo who has invited me several times to visit him and I thought this would be a good trip to utilise the vacations. Boarded the train on 25 Dec 2009 in the afternoon in Stockholm to reach Oslo by evening. It was dark when I reached Oslo but Siddique came to receive me at the station. We went to his place, I got fresh and to my surprise he has already planned everything. That night we had dinner at his friend's place with other friends of his friend. We were 7-8 people. The food and the company made that Christmas memorable. We were talking till late at night and were planning for the next day city tour. Siddique and his friend were our guide next day, the snow made the day very very cold which is usual in Norway. We played Frisbee in the snow, saw some places in the city like parks and city centre. Shopping in Oslo is never a good idea as it is very expensive. In the evening we went to a bar that was hosting a live jazz band, I am not a fan of jazz music but I always enjoy with a good company. The city was decorated for christmas and looked amazing. Next day I had a train back to Stockholm, geared up for more lab-work and started planning for my next trip.
