Advertisement
Published: September 14th 2006
Edit Blog Post
We were in Amsterdam for 3 days and stayed very busy seeing the sights and trying to get rid of our jet lag. We next flew to Gothenberg Sweden to visit with our very first exchange student, Kristina who lives with her fiance, Urban. She won’t get married until late in July but we wanted to be able to spend time with here before she had to put her full attention on preparing for the wedding. So we planned to visit early in the month travel around Europe and then return for the wedding.
Before we had arrived Kristina has planned our entire visit for us. She had bought a city pass for us which gave us all the museum entries and transport we could cram into one day. When we arrived she gave us a pile of brochures along with our planned schedule. Bless you Kristina. It was so great not to make any decisions about where to go or what to do. Here is an email I sent back home during our trip. While we were gone I sent emails home whenever I could sneak time on a computer or find and internet café so a lot of this
Kristina & Mike
Wearing something bright for a change. journal are these emails.
Kristina has finally given us a break so I can finish this email. I am going to stop using capital letters because the shift key is hard to reach on this Swedish keyboard. Here is our day: we ran for the bus and headed downtown. Our first tour started on a ferry which took us to an island in the Gothenberg harbor where a fortress was built to protect the city. After peace was declared with Denmark they turned the fortress into a prison. It was built in the 1600s and the tour guides were actors who took on the role of past fortress occupants. There was a prisoner, the pastor's wife and the prison commandant. They were all very authentic to the times, the pastor’s wife loudly reprimanded us for not being serious enough in the church. There were even cannonballs stuck into the side of some of the buildings from one of the times the Danish fleet attacked the island.
We ferried back to dry land to the medical museum which displayed old medical practices used in Sweden. After that a very interesting and delicious lunch. We walked to a pedestrian shopping area and
went to a kind of food+ grocery court. Lots of gourmet type grocery stalls and a few eating stalls. The place we got our food had a choice of 5 plates and they have different menus everyday. The plates of food were very large and contained a salad, large helping of boiled potatoes and in my case, fish, Mike chose a kind of Swedish meat loaf. Very cheap, fast and good. We ate on china plates at the small counter sitting on stools. Not a piece of plastic in sight.
Then it was off to the Gothenburg history museum. We only had one day to use the passes so Kristina made sure we got the most out of them. After lunch we hopped a tour bus which took us around the city. I ended up falling asleep and woke up just in time to see one of the watch towers from medieval times. The modern art museum was next for Mike & Kristina and the library (next door) for me. Right now Kristina is cooking supper and I just got out of the shower. Unfortunately, both Mike and myself are coming down with a cold so we dosed ourselves with
vitamins and are hoping for the best. Kristina is taking us up to a lake tomorrow where her family has a small summer house. Lena, her mother is going to be making us some fantastic food and we can hardly wait. We haven't seen her in 10 years. oh, I forgot something from yesterday. We had reindeer for supper and tonight is special type of sausage with rice. Kristina is calling me for supper now.
The summer house was a nice break from the busy rush of sightseeing. It is a small very nice house right on the water. It is primitive in that it doesn’t have electricity or running water but that is all it lacks. We washed up and brushed our teeth at a convenient washing area outside the door and the outhouse was just up a short path from the house. It was the nicest outhouse I have ever been in, complete with comic books and higher level reading material. It was a great visit even though the weather was terrible. Very rainy, cold & windy but the company more than made up for the weather. We were able to meet Kristina’s brother Magnus and his
girlfriend. So far everyone we’ve met has been so interesting and welcoming. Magnus does extreme sports like mountain climbing and trekking (big mountains like the himalayas) and Ilena (girlfriend) is a scientist who works in breast cancer research.
Wow, have had a busy last few days. Sunday morning we all piled into the car and went to visit a 17th century castle, built in the 1600's and looks like something from a fairy tale. It’s in pretty good condition and we toured through the entire castle, saw everything including the medieval toilets! We were not there at the right time to get the English language tour so we took the regular Swedish tour and Kristina interpreted the tour for us at a whisper. After the castle we headed out again to the city of Boras where another friend lives with her husband. Lotta and Goran cooked us a fabulous venison dinner and we ended up staying about 5 hours. We met Lotta in 1996 when she visited the US with Kristina. It was after 1am when we left and we still had to drive almost a hour to get back to Gothenburg. we were so tired when we got
home but the day was just wonderful.
Today was quite a bit easier. Kristina took us downtown shopping into an old part of town. In Sweden when you say an old part of town it really means old, like the 1700s. We wandered around and stopped into a place for sushi lunch, bought some small teaspoons at a second hand store and visited a silversmith so Kristina could pick up the necklace she had ordered to wear with her wedding dress. The building the silversmith was in was from the 1700s and next door to the oldest building in the city. It was originally a military ammunition storage facility and built in the mid 1600s. It looked pretty good for being that old.
After getting home about half of us took a much needed nap. None of us are really over our colds but we are getting close. This evening Kristina and I met some friends of hers in the park and practiced some medieval dancing, well she practiced and I learned. It was quite fun and I didn't do too badly I think. On the way back we stopped at a pizza place and picked up pizza for all
Old Viking Fort
Located in Gotenborg. of us.
It was interesting taking the tram tonight. Right now the city is the home of an international soccer tournament for kids. Remember about the Mexican soccer team that traveled on the plane to Gothenburg with us? Well, there are alot more in town and tonight was the opening ceremonies. The tram was packed with preteen soccer players, we could barely squeeze on.
The new news is that instead of going to Berlin from here we are taking a detour to Belgium. Cecile was an exchange student sponsored by the Rotary Club. We met her when some of our exchange students started bringing her to our parties. She now lives south of Brussels Belgium and we asked if we could visit. As a result we are flying out of Sweden tomorrow evening and into Brussels Belgium for a couple of days. After a visit with her we’ll hop onto a high speed train and take a 7 hour ride to Berlin. This trip just keeps getting better and better all the time. Stay tuned...more to come.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.273s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 17; qc: 71; dbt: 0.0708s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb