NEW Baby Benziger blog

Welcome back! It's been a long time since we had any fun adventures to share with you. I recently completed my first year of residency at the University of Washington in Internal Medicine and I have two more years left. We started a new adventure last week though when our baby boy, Theodore James, was born. We are posting updates and photos of Theo on a new blog dedicated solely to him. Check it out here (babybenziger.blogspot.com) and feel free to subscribe by entering your email on the right hand side to get automatic updates. We will resume this blog when we travel back to Peru in February 2013.
Thanks for reading!
Katie

Everything comes to an end

Even good things must come to an end

The old proverb is sad but true. Today is our last day in Stockholm, Sweden. It was also my last day as an official medical student. Whoohoo! I turned in my ID badge and access card at the hospital, changed out of my scrubs and headed downtown for one last hoorah before getting on a plane for Minnesota tomorrow. It has been an amazing trip - full of delicious food, excellent museums, great sightseeing, wonderful company, and pretty good weather (except there was a spring snow/rain shower today). Last weekend we hung out with Kris and Leila and little Vilheim - they have been wonderful hosts and answered all of our stupid questions, "Why is everyone wearing sailors hats?" (Seniors in high school get "capped" with a sailor's hat - much more attractive than our silly hats - a month before the actual graduation and they wear them proudly.) or "Should we go with all our dormmates to Uppsala for Valborg?" "Heck no!" they said. "It's the center of the party (i.e. a bunch of kids getting wasted and puking on the train)." No thank you!

(Sunset over Stockholm)

Graduation
This Friday, I will change my name and graduate from medical school, Dr. Catherine Pastorius Benziger. It's a busy time as we have to find an apartment in Seattle, move all our stuff, and see all our wonderful family and friends before we go but we are very excited to start a new chapter in our lives. Thanks for all your support and encouragement.

(Seth and Katie at Kris Ekelund's cabin on Furusund Island)

(Ann and Katie with the Gamla Stan "Old Town" Island in the background)

(Ann and Katie in the Saluhall in Ostermalm)

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference."
-Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

Adventures in and around Stockholm

Djurgarden vs. Malmo

My friend Kris generously bought us tickets to his favorite soccer club, Djugarden, currently in the top flight in Sweden. The season had recently started and they were hosting Malmo, the previous season’s champion. Djurgarden plays its home games at the stadium that held the 1912 Olympics, so the setting was very cool. The game was hard fought, and a crucial twist came near the end of the first half when the Djurgarden keeper was red carded after a mental blunder (a hand ball outside the box). The home team valiantly fought in the second half, and seemed destined to earn a point with a draw until this moment of brilliance by a Malmo player in the 90^th minute. By far the best part of the game was being in the crowd that was constantly chanting throughout and trading cheers back and forth with their fans on the other side of the stadium.

(Home supporters waving flags)

Vasamuseet

Hands down one of the best museums we visited on this trip, and I will say now the pictures we took will not do it any credit.

(Katie in front of the ill-fated ship)

The Vasa was built in the early 1600s to be the best ship of the Swedish fleet. However, on its maiden voyage it made it only 150 meters before it keeled over and sank. It turns out the ship was poorly designed and was too tall for the amount of ballast the ship contained.

The ship sat in Stockholm’s waters until its location was discovered in the late 1950s, and in 1961 it was raised from its watery grave. Amazingly the ship, as it sits today in the museum, is 95% complete! The mix of brackish Baltic Sea waters combined with fresh water remarkably preserved the ship. Not only did we marvel at this gigantic boat in front of us, but the museum was supremely interesting as it discussed the boat through many different lenses – it discussed its history, the engineering feat to raise it from the waters, it forensically discussed the remains they found to explain the background of the people who worked on the ship and even had facially reconstructed some of the crew members. It also looked at the scientific aspects and of the difficulties of preservation. The museum did a great job ensuring the almost everyone would be fascinated by some aspect of this ship and its remarkable story.

(Detail of craftsmanship of the stern - this and the entire boat was painted in bright dazzling colors.)

Easter Weekend

Katie had a four-day weekend so we used it to our advantage to explore the archipelago that surrounds Stockholm. Consisting of roughly 24,000 islands, it looks very similar to the Boundary Waters – calm bodies of water of varying size and rocky shorelines covered with birch trees and evergreens – and are largely accessible only by boat. On Saturday we took a day trip to Sandhamn, at the far eastern edge of the archipelago. We made sure to show up early so we could get a seat on the outside of the ferry so we could enjoy the view.

(Our ferry is on the left, prior to departure)

(View from ferry in Stockholm of Gamla Stan)

However, as the boat picked up speed the temperature dropped dramatically and by the time we arrived in Sandhamn, we were about the only ones left outside. We had toughed it out under small fleece blanket wearing hat and mittens while everyone else had sought the warmth of the interior of the boat.

Sandhamn is a cute little village on the Sandon island that consists of people’s summer homes/cabins and is a popular summertime hotspot for sailors and urbanites escaping the city.

(Typical archipelago cabin style and colors)

We had a great day: hiking around the forested island, eating a picnic lunch along the shore (and chilling our wine in the freezing cold water), and enjoying the sun while sipping on a cold beer bought from Sandhamns Vardhus - a bar and hotel that has been around since 1672.

On Sunday we were invited to Kris’s parent’s summer home on another island, Furusund, in the archipelago. This one could be accessed by a two hour bus ride but wasn’t a special long distance bus, but just your normal every day city bus. It was an odd feeling to be on a city bus in the middle of the woods but it got us there quite efficiently – the benefits of socialism! Much like our ferry ride to Sandhamn, the bus ride felt like we were in the north woods of Minnesota. (After spending time in the archipelago it is no wonder that the Swedes immigrated to Minnesota since it must have felt so much like home.) It was a vacation to be lazy, so we took their 6-month old Vilhelm for walks in his stroller, watched movies, read books, and ate delicious meals that Kris and Leila made for us.

(Where we spent most of our time relaxing and soaking in the sun)

We were truly pampered this weekend and spent as much time as possible outside as the weather was simply beautiful - so much so that Katie and I got a little sunburned! An endless fascination for Katie and I were the huge cruise ships that went by their house. The house is located on the route where the cruise ships to Scandinavia and the Baltic enter and leave Stockholm. I think we were caught up in the juxtaposition of feeling like we were back in Minnesota, only to have those illusions shattered by the huge cruise ships towering over the cottages as they passed by through the channel.

(Cruise ship returning from another Baltic Port)

It was a great way to see a different part of Sweden and spend our second to last weekend. However, our last weekend may be even more exciting as it is Walpurgis Eve & May Day!

Valkommen till Sverige! (Welcome to Sweden!)

The Sjukhuset
This is how I start my patient encounters at the Karolinska Sjukhuset (literally, sick house or hospital).

"Hej hej, jag heter Katie. Jag talar inte svenska."
(Hello, my name is Katie. I do not speak Swedish.)

I have taken exactly one 3-hour Swedish course (mind you I missed the first three classes so this was like getting thrown into the deep end blindfolded and in a straight jacket and was just as bad as passing into a more advanced level of beginners Spanish when I first arrived in Peru).

"Hur ar det?"
(How are you?)

However, since my great grandfather, Joseph Youngquist's, immigrated from Sweden and my blue eyes and blonde hair make me look the part, Swedish, I figured I might as well try to learn how to count to 10 and say a few phrases.

"Hur sager man "even though I look it, I am only 12.5% Swedish" pa svenska?"
(How do you say "even though I look it, I am only 12.5% Swedish" in Swedish?)

I am doing a 4-week general surgery rotation which involves seeing patients in the endocrine, breast and general surgery clinics and scrubbing into cases in the operating room. There are no residents on our team - just four medical students (Christos from Greece, Swapan from India, and Ann Vogt and I from Minnesota). We are all living in the dorms (the newlyweds go back to college living and Seth says he did not sign up for this - dorm photo below!), but it's nice because we are only 10 minutes by bus to the hospital.

"God morgon!" "Good morning"

We arrive around 7:45 A.M. and change into our mandatory white scrubs (every hospital worker must wear these to avoid bringing in germs from outside and at the end of the day you put them in the hospital laundry and get a new pair). Then, we head to the wards to see some patients and then have fika, or "coffee and cake" break. There are coffee machines everywhere and it seems that everyone is looking for an excuse to have fika (it's the equivalent of Australians or the British taking morning and afternoon tea). After wards, we either head to the operating room or clinic and are finished in the early afternoon. Not a bad last rotation to finish up before graduation after nine years of rigorous college/graduate education!

"Jag ska ta en kurs i svenska och kirurgi"
(I am taking a course in Swedish and surgery.)

(Ann and I in our white scrubs)

Infection control
Last week, we were unable to work for the first few days because we did not have our MRSA results yet and they have very strict infection control policies (unlike the USA where it is estimated that 1 in 3 patients who enters a hospital acquires an infection - make sure you remind your doctor to wash their hands!) We are not allowed to wear rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, nail polish, etc. The signs on the doors show photos of petri dishes with colonies of bacteria growing from these things AFTER someone had "thoroughly" washed their hands. I also learned that alcohol-based hand sanitizer is much better than traditional soap and water.

Stockholm Citybikes
Public transportation is amazing here! We can get just about everywhere by the metro, bus, local train, or good old fashioned bicycle. Seth and I bought 3-day passes for the Citybikes program this weekend and we got our money's worth as we have spent the past two days biking non-stop!

(We rode our bikes to the top of Mosebacketorg and out overlooking Slussen and Gamla Stan)

(Ann, Seth and Katie on Skeppsholmen with a view of the Gamla Stan on our bike outing)

This is a city made up of 14 islands and we biked on or around at least half of them this weekend. We biked from Sodermalm (where Mikael Blomkvist in "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo" lives) through the old town, Gamla Stan, (where we watched the changing of the guards are the Royal Palace), and then over to Ostermalm (design district) and to the smaller islands of Skeppsholmen, Kastelholmen, and Djurgarden (where we visited the amazing Vasamuseet), and today we biked from Kungsholmen up to Lidingo Island (to see Millesgarden) - I can't think of a better way to explore a city!

(The changing of the guard at the Royal Palace Kungliga Slottet - quite a spectacle with a full band and everything!)

(Seth posing at Karl Milles' sculpture garden at his residence on Lidingo Island)

(Our single dorm room with a private bathroom - thank goodness it is only for one month!! We had to buy an air mattress and some blankets and sheets at the original 1960s IKEA)

(Gamla Stan - the old town - narrow alleyways and cobblestone streets with lots of restaurants, historic buildings and shops)

(Seth along the riddafjarden (canal) soaking up some sun after walking around all day)

Weather
The weather is getting nicer - daily highs in the 50s and sunny with lows in the 30s at night. It reminds me of Minnesota spring and all the trees are budding and the flowers are starting to bloom. It is a great time to be here because Easter is a HUGE holiday - not as a religious holiday, but as a secular one full of traditions of painting eggs and getting together with family and friends. It is seen as a chance for all the urban Swedes to escape to their summer cottages for the first time after a long, dark winter. Everyone takes a 4-day weekend (at least) and goes to the beautiful Baltic coast or archipelago or into the countryside. We have been invited to Seth's Macalester friend, Kris Ekelund's cottage, and can't wait to tell you all about it!

Glad Pask! Happy Easter!

I love Paris in the springtime!

Je t'aime Paris! Le meilleur endroit pour une lune de miel

After Seth and I travel to a new place, we always make our "Best of" lists in a little black moleskin notebook. We decided to share with you our "Top 5" categories from our wonderful honeymoon in Paris (and a few photos too).

Top 5 Alimentaires (foods)
-Foie gras
-Steak Tartare x3
-Canard (duck), which was in our prix fixe menu every day!
-Suckling pig in spicy sauce at Le Pre Verre....mmm so good until I found out it was actually a 2-6 week out piglet :(
-Freshly made crepes with nutella and bananas

(Dressed up for our last prix fixe dinner)

Top 5 Memorable Moments
-Paris St. Germain (PSG) soccer game versus L'orient and despite a nil-nil draw, we had fun sitting with all the hard core fans who were yelling the whole time.

-Hanging out under Pont Neuf and along the Seine watching the sunset and then the Eiffel Tower sparkle. Then planning ahead and packing a picnic dinner (baguettes, prosciutto, goat cheese and strawberries and bottle of wine) the next night to sit on the Ile de la Cite with thousands of other young, hip Parisians after resting our aching feet by taking an hour and a half boat ride around the most popular sights, including the Eiffel Tower (we would kiss every time we saw it on the whole trip).

-Buying a Shaler etching of the Seine at night in a gallery nearby and then getting to drink champagne with an Australian couple who had purchased a smaller painting by a more famous person that was at least 10 times more expensive.
-Watching the hustle and bustle of the Quatier Latin from a sidewalk cafe on a beautiful Saturday afternoon
-Hanging out on a beautiful spring afternoon in the Luxembourg gardens. We especially enjoyed watching dozens of children eagerly wait for their sailboat to make it across the fountain so they could push it with their stick to the other side.

Top 5 Overall Places
-Getting lost/overwhelmed in the museums - The Louvre and Musee d'Orsay

-Going to the "Just Art Paris" exhibition in the Grand Palais

(Panoramic view of Paris, the Seine, the Louvre, and many of the streets that we wandered over the 8 days we were in the City of Love.)

-Walking along the canals - Seine and Canal St. Martin

-Spending hours wandering around the busy Sunday morning farmers market at the Marche del Algier and then sorting through knick-knacks, $4,000 vintage dresses, and unbelievable antiques in the endless allies of the Marche aux Puces St. Ouen.

-Petit Trianon part of the Versailles garden - a little village for the queen and her 19 children!

Top 5 Things We Learned
-Paris has the most efficient metro of any city we've ever been to!
-Two of the most important architectural buildings were initially rejected by the Parisians when they were built but are now city icons - The Eiffel Tower and Centre Pompidou

-The misperception that Parisians are rude if you can't speak French - simply not true!
-Fashion is #1 here! Converse "Chuck Taylor" All-Star shoes were SUPER fashionable among the younger generation, as well as silk scarves and other accessories! nearly every street we turned down seemed to have designer boutiques.
-The Louvre was built on the old city fortress.

(Katie in front of a Murano glass exhibit at the Centre Pompidou.)

(All the trees and flowers were blooming for spring. Seth in front of Notre Dame.)

(The statues on Notre Dame Cathedral)

Sacre Coeur

Belgium - land of chocolate, beer and the Manneken Pis!

After a disappointing realization that car rentals in Germany were out of out budget, we abandoned our plans to go to Baden-Baden in the Black Forest in Germany and decided to catch a train to Brussels, Belgium. We spent two nights in this charming city and walked the cobblestone streets on the information center's recommended Comic Book and Art-Nouveau walking tours. We walked and walked and walked some more until our feet started to ache and we need to recharge with some famous Maison Antoine "pomme frites" and a little dark chocolate. We learned about the history of comic books in 1940s - did you know the Smurfs were made by a Belgian? We were able to practice our French too before heading to Paris as it is one of the national languages along with Flemish.

Katie in the center of old Brussels.

Seth and Katie outside our hotel on the Grand Place before we got our hair (and Seth's beard) cut!

We stayed in a hotel on the Grand Place, the main square, and toured the City Hall, visited the Brussels City Museum and Magritte Museum, and then caught an afternoon train heading to Paris on Friday. It was a great new city to explore. Besides getting drenched in the rain on our first afternoon, we enjoyed walking around on the old narrow cobblestone streets and admiring the different architecture - from gothic to art nouveau.

I will never forget walking around the corner of a small street and seeing the small fountain of the famous little boy peeing, the Manneken Pis statue, which we had seen souvenirs of in EVERY store but had not seen the real thing. I was quite surprised by how small and cute it was!
On the day that we left, he was dressed up like a school boy!

Moseying along the Mosel

(The Piesporter vineyard along the Mosel - very steep and only accessible by boat)

Day 1: We planned to spend a few days with one of my college friends, Jenny, and her boyfriend Christian who live in Trier, Germany – a city we knew very little about. We did no pre-trip research as we figured the locals could show us a good time. This was one of those serendipitous occasions where we were blown away what we got to experience. Jenny picked us up in Luxembourg in the late afternoon after a day of travel from St. Petersburg. (This could be the subject of its own blog post as St. Petersburg has one of the most budget international airports we have ever been too and it felt more like a tiny regional airport in a developing country. But boy do they take their security seriously - we had to go through screenings twice before we were even able to get our boarding pass!)

Trier is only about 45 minutes away by car, and when we got there we met Christian, and we went out for dinner. We knew good times were ahead as we quickly learned at dinner that the Mosel River, which runs through Trier, is the river valley where Rieslings are made – one of our favorite white wines.

Day 2: Unfortunately Christian had to work a few hours on Saturday, so the three of us headed to Luxembourg for the day. Luxembourg is not a very touristy city and happens to be a major business and banking center due to its low tax rates. Expectations were low, but they were easily exceeded. We first wandered around the shopping district and came across two squares with weekend markets – one antiques and the other food. Par for the course, Katie quickly found something to buy which will be a great memento of our trip. After poking around for a couple hours and buying some food for dinner, we went to the Casemates. Luxembourg was built on top of a hill and heavily fortified, as was common with many European cities. The Casemates were part of the fortifications that were recently excavated. We were able to explore the ruins and were given great vantage points of the city. Tired after a long day we headed back to Trier where Christian, an amazing cook, made us a delicious dinner.

(Katie & Jenny at the Casemates)

Day 3: Jenny and Christian generously decided to show us the region and our first stop was Burg Eltz, maybe one of the most picturesque castles in all of Europe, or so we were told by Rick Steves. As the trend of “things being closed in the off season” continued, not only was the castle closed for tours, but a large portion of it was surrounded by scaffolding and plastic as repairs were being made. We did hike down to the castle and walk around it a bit, and the setting in the valley was absolutely amazing. After the castle we cut over to the Mosel to drive along its winding banks. The river is dotted with many old towns and the hills from the river are covered with grape vines. We stopped for lunch in Cochem which is a lovely town that has a castle perched above it, a perfect spot to eat. Afterwards we kept driving along the river and stopped for dinner and a wine tasting. It wasn’t like a tasting in Napa or Sonoma, but we were about to try 5-6 different types of Rieslings, and it was the perfect way to end the day.

(In the beautiful river town of Cochem)

Day 4: As it was Monday, our hosts had to work so Katie and I were able to explore Trier – which offered more than we ever have imagined. Founded in 15 BC it is the oldest city in Germany, and more importantly at one time was the “northern” capital of the Roman Empire, exceeded in importance only by Rome. Of the Roman ruins still standing the impressive was the Porta Nigra, one of the old gates to the city. It still stands after 18 centuries and was constructed like the important buildings at Machu Picchu, without mortar of any kind.

Due to Trier’s importance in the Roman Empire, it was a major religious center too and is the seat of a Catholic Bishop. The Dom, a Roman cathedral, is truly awe inspiring in its size and architecture. Legend also has it the tunic Jesus wore when he was crucified sits in a magnificent reliquary. The last site we visited of historical note was the birthplace of Karl Marx – who was born and raised here in the early 1800s.

(Katie in front of the Porta Nigra)

Day 5: Katie and I decided to rent bikes and bike along the Mosel River in the opposite direction we explored the preceding weekend. The guy at the rental shop told us we should go to Saarbourg, so off we went. There are walking and bike paths along both sides of the Mosel and we had a glorious ride on a sunny and 60 degree day. After two hours of pedaling we made it to Saarburg which was yet another picturesque river town capped with a castle and a waterfall. We ate lunch, Katie (surprise, surprise) went shopping, and I walked around the city a little bit before we needed to head back to Trier. It took us a little longer to get home as my knee was hurting a bit, but we got bike in time before the bike rental shop closed. All in all we estimated we biked 36 miles! Christian yet again made a magnificent dinner that Katie and I devoured as we had burned so many calories during the day.

(Katie in front of the falls in Saarburg)

We had a great time and that was due to our generous hosts Jenny & Christian. Not only did they put us up for several nights, but they fed us, and took a lot of time out of their busy lives to show us the sights. Fortunately they have family living in Tacoma, so hopefully we can repay the favor in a few years when we are living in Seattle!