Sweden Day Six

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Botanical Garden

(RAIN)

Mom and Cathy left today at 7 AM! Michelle and I didn’t get out of bed until almost noon. We took the train to the University and then walked to the Botanical Garden. It was HUGE! We saw so many beautiful flowers and lakes. We also saw the world’s largest lilypad. They have a lilypad that only blooms one night a year, so these plant enthusiasts (nerds) come to the garden every night for a few nights in the summer to wait for it to bloom. We walked around the old town for a while to find a present for Ingela and her family for letting us stay in their house. We decided to get her a hydrangea plant and some dessert pastries. We ran home for dinner, but when we got there she hadn’t even made dinner. Luckily, Michelle and I weren’t that hungry. We played this game called Kubb with Inglea’s husband, Dan and her son Gustov. Michelle and I want to bring it back to the U.S. Hopefully, we can find it online somewhere. We ate the desserts and I showed Inglea some of my favorite music on my iPod. She showed me some of her favorite music, which was, um, interesting. Michelle actually fell asleep on the couch while she showed me her CD collection. After she got up, Ingela made us try all these crazy cheeses, some were sweet and some were really potent.

At 11 PM, the owner for the hotel we stayed at called Inglea. In this day and age I think it’s really strange for businesses to deal only in cash, even more strange for a business like a hotel to only deal in cash. I didn’t think that much about it but the hotel we were staying in dealt only in cash and required its patrons to leave an envelope of money in the room on the day of check out. He said that we had sorted him what would be like $60. It wasn’t possible because the night before we took the exact amount out of the ATM and sealed it in the envelope. After talking with him for a while, he told Inglea that she could just wire the money to his account. I told her that it sounded very “shady,” which was a word she’d never heard before. Michelle asked why we couldn’t have just wired the money in the first place so that we’d have a receipt of payment.

Michelle and I are going to really miss Swedish breathing. I’m not sure why, but women in Sweden do this strange inhaling thing. It sounds almost like they’re gasping from being surprised. The first time I heard it I turned around and asked Elsie what was wrong. She said, “nothing.” Then Michelle and I heard her do it again. Then Anki did it. Then Inglea. Soon we played this little game where we would just wait for the next “GASP!” and we’d look at each other and try not to laugh.

Michelle’s bonus points: 2, cheese, cheese

Today is the first day of what would be almost 2 straight weeks of rain. It will be noted on the top of every entry from now on.

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