Home Again!

I am here back in Arkansas now after a very eventful month and a half. I must say that up until the flight home things could not have gone better. Sure there were minor mishaps but it all led to new and more interesting discoveries. The flight home though is no time for mishaps and new discoveries though and therefore when sitting in the gate for my flight i see flashon the screen "Chaos at Heathrow" I kind of freaked. Turned out it was only British Airways food service and baggae service people going on strike. No biggie right, I was flying American Airlines and was in a totally different terminal. WRONG! So I get to Chicago after a very very cold flight in which there were literally ice crystals falling on me from the ceiling only to find that I have made it to the USA, but my luggage has not. I wait patiently wondering how in the world, having checked in four hours early for my flight, they could possibly have not gotten it on the plane. Then to my great dismay my already late flight at 9:24 would be postponed, and then postponed again. I finally left the run way around 11 Thursday night and back to Little Rock around 12:15. There,I also found no sign of my luggage as well and lost all hope that it would return home with me that night. So I filed a missing bag report and went home to sleep. It is now Saturday night and still no sign of my luggage. I have become great at the automated baggage phone service,talked to many representatives, and still am no closer to knowing where in the world my bag may be. They cannot tell me if it has even left London. I must say that in the current day and age I find this to be shocking. I mean I have been given every possible excuseon the planet for why my bag might be delayed, all before informing me that to my great dismay the chaos at Heathrow was a problem for me as British Airways personnel handle all luggage for the planes. So now I ponder whether my poor little bag is sitting alone in a corner of Heathrow forgotten in the masses, stuck in customs at O Hare or even worse sitting in some punks apartment who picked it up by mistake or even worse on purpose. I must say that the joys of travel do diminish slightly when such incompetency among the people you are trusting with 75% of your total belongings begins to show. So for now all I can do is keep my fingers crossed, say a few prayers, and try not to think of the troubles that will follow if my luggage never agains surfaces.

P.S. - After tonight I am now on a first name basis with one of the luggage people :)

Waiting...

So here I am in Burger King (no not to eat though fries become more and mroe tempting as time passes by). I am back in London in the last leg of my Eurotrip. Lindsey and I are supposed to meet back up here in this spot for our flights out tomorrow! I must say that it is good to be in London. I was honestly dreading it because two out three times here I was not impressed, but today is a pleasant day. Sunny and decently warm. The subways are packed so apparently things are most definately moving on from the last time I was here. I must say toteing luggage around London is no fun. So many people, most of whom seem to be oblivious to my suitcase and then wonder why their foot gets run over. On the upside though, everything is in English which is a nice change from the last two weeks. I spent most of the day yesterday in Nyoping, Sweden alone. Now it was a pleasant experience for the most part, but it is a small town so nothing was in English and there really were not a lot of tourists. So I came up with the brilliant idea of spending my night at the movies (it is becoming a trend on my last night in a country I must admit). I chose the 9:00 showinf of War of the Worlds and went for Kebab Pizza. It was not until I was well into the movie that I began to think of what a STUPID idea it really was. #1 I was supposed to get up at 4:30 teh next morning and probably should have been spending that time sleeping. #2 The movie let out at 11 and I was all alone in a place that was a good 10 minute walk from the hostel down dark roads by the river! Not the safest move ever I must say. So I consider that the stupidest thing I have done on this trip and assuming its really the only majorly stupid thing I consider this a good trip! So i fly out at 4:30 tomorrow and am back on US soil at 11:30 at night. Then I return to Joplin on Monday probably around 4. See you guys soon!

The Moose Park

Ever since I arrived in Sweden I have secretly and sometimes not so secretly been searching for moose. Up until today I had been sorely dissappointed. Even out in the middle of nowhere where a moose could enjoy his days with virtually no interuptions I found no moose. So today as Anna and I left the glass world outside of Vaxjo (famous for its glass works) I was more than eager to jump at the idea when Anna discovered a sign for a moose park. We decided to give it a shot, especially since Robert (Anna's boyfriend back in Joplin who had just been in Sweden over Spring Break) had told me that there was no way I would see a moose because they hide from foreigners. So we went in to the moose shop (Ålg-shop) and found every assortment of moose paraphenalia you could dream of. After being assured that we would definately see a moose in the park we decided to pay the $5 to get into the park (hey I am almost broke 5 dollars is like the lottery right now). We were soon greeted by pigs, goats, and some very strange birds, but no moose. Then over the horizon what to my wandering eyes should appear, but a moose and not only a moose but FOUR moose!!! My trip in Sweden is now complete. We walked all over the park and saw six moose (or five and half if you want to be technical). We had a blast and probably took more pictures of the adorable baby goats then of the moose in the end but it was definately worth it. Some of you may be getting some very interesting souvenirs from the moose shop just so you know...

Crayfishing Timeline...

OK GuysFor the last four days Anna Nilsson and I have been preparing for the crayfish season here in sweden. So after two days of fishing for Mert (the bait fish) we were ready for the hunt. Now you cut up fish parts to attach to the hooks inside the trap. Then once all the traps are closed and the flotation devices secured, they are taken out in the boat to be dropped in along the lake. We put ours along the plant line. Then we waited. Anna Gradeen came up from her hometown in Varnamo and Anna Nilsson's best friend Lisa came up and the four of us barbequed and chatted the night away. At about 11:30 we went out in the pitch black to the boat to row out. We slowly made our way from one trap to another collecting our crayfish. Now Anna was expecting maybe 5 total because in present years the crayfish population has dwindled alot, but we got 22 in the night!!! We then threw the traps back out to collect more in the morning. We took our catch back in, excited because the neighbors with whom we had a competition goign had only collected 18 (the prize: 3 beers). After some hilarious pictures and posing with our crayfish we went to bed around 2:30. At 5:30 Anna came in to awake us and so began our second outting for crayfish. This time we only got four though :( When all was said and done though we had 26 crayfish and 18 were of the size large enoguh for us to keep! Not bad at all.

Fisk, Fisk, Fisk

I have been fishing now for two days straight here in Sweden in the heat, in the cold, and in the rain (sometimes a mixture of two elements). I have caught 5 fish (fisk). Now that may not sound too bad, but these are small bait fish for the upcoming crayfish hunting tomorrow night and we needed about 10 more than we got. Now I have been fishing before, but to be quite honest despite growing up in Arkansas in the country for 10 years with a father who constantly had me around animals, I had succesfully managed not to have to hold a fish for the past 20 years of my life. I was quite fine with this fact and not eager to change it for the one animal I cannot stand the idea of holding is a fish! Today my world was shattered. After successfully convincing Anna to take off the last four fish I had caught, we had two quite defining events. First, Anna caught a fish that had swallowed the hook pretty far down and she was going to have to pull it out which she did not want to have to do but did because I was far too chicken! Second, I caught a fish 5 minutes later that had managed to not only swallow the worm far enough down that I could not get the hook out, but the hook was also wrapped around the gill. Having just pulled out her own hook which brought up half the fish's stomach in the process, Anna was not eager to pull mine out for me. So here I was, stuck in a serious dilemna. SO I grabbed the fish and began to pull. Soon we decided this would not work without pulling the whole fish's head off since the hook was securely fastened in his gill. So I did the only thing left to do. I stuck my finger down the fish's mouth to maneuver the hook around until it would come out. Ten to fifteen minutes and a lot of blood later, the hook was out with the worm still on it. Though it was in the end a very empowering experience, you know overcoming my fears and all, I must say it is quite possibly the most disgusting thing I have ever had to do and I was very relieved we caught no more fish this evening.

Is the World really so small...

So for a very quick post before heading out to the next site in Germany, I just had to tell a short story. While in Rome with Lindsey Holt we toured teh Vatican Museum and as we were admiring the beautiful works of the Sistine Chapel we look up and see a sight we could not believe. There in front of us was our fellow Oxfordite Lauren Oxendine!!! We could not believe that one week here we were all three in the same country again! How weird is that??