Finland Finland Finland, that's the country for me... and a bit of Sweden.

One of the main elements at my academic program in Copenhagen is the  "Study Tours" where they take us to places applicable to our core programs. For me, this meant a Grand Architectural Tour of Sweden and Finland, with main stops in Stockholm, Sweden, and Helsinki and Turku in Finland, looking at many buildings that I would not otherwise get to see, such as a ton of Alvar Aalto's work.

This is a map of our route (roughly). 

We went by bus to Stockholm, spent a day or two there, took an overnight ferry to Turku, spent time in the Finnish Woods near Jyvaskyla*, traveled to Helsinki for a day, and then booked it back to the ferry and to Copenhagen. 

First of all, proof that I was actually there an am not just making stuff up: 

It's a bunny statue in Stockholm! Of course I had to have my picture taken with it. 

Stockholm is a beautiful city. It is much hillier than Copenhagen (what city isn't?), and uses much more plaster in its construction. We walked around the old city of Gamla Stan, which is your stereotypical windy twisty old city. There are tons of small hidden streets and courtyards! 

I just thought this archway was too cool to not show anyone. 

Stockholm also has this building: 

That has this book inside: 

So it's not that famous, but it is in Swedish. They also had Good Omens. 

Turku and Helsinki are also wonderful cities. We had some free time in each city and I got to explore to my liking. In Turku we only had about two hours, and it spent it all inside the fantastic City Library. In Helsinki I wandered up to the park around Toolo Bay**, and got a fantastic view of the city when I met up with my classmates at a cafe at the top of a hotel at the end of the day.

Both Stockholm and Helsinki were wonderful to explore. Stockholm has a great metro system where each stop is decorated differently. My favorite was the one that had a little waterfall on the platform with an iron gate. No photos, alas - the lighting was too difficult to get one. It is also incredibly difficult to get a good photo on any sort of public transport, as you are just getting in the way of people who need to get somewhere! 

About half of the trip was spent in the city and the other half was spent in the country. I'm not much of a rural person, but the Swedish and Finnish countryside is beautiful, rivaling the cities. The only downside to living up here is that sunlight is incredibly limited in the winter - we were very lucky in that we got cold and clear weather on our trip! 

*There are umlauts over the a's in this name, but I can't figure them out on my keyboard. 

**More umlauts over the o's.