May 16th-20th, 2011

A cool bridge driving from Göteborg to Gullbringa

Monday:
We woke up and had a traditional Swedish breakfast of bread, butter, and ham open faced sandwiches, juice and coffee. Henning had to be to the train station at 10am so that he could get back to working at McDonald's. We dropped him off and continued our drive up the West Coast to Gullbringa where Per has a cabin on the ocean, the "other" side of the Atlantic :) Harald and I arrived to sunny weather and a nice lunch on the front porch. We continued to have a very relaxing day after our crazy weekend in Lund, that consisted of sitting in sun chairs, reading books and magazines, and soaking up the rays. Per and Harald were the grill masters for dinner, they made Pork Tenderloin, and I made a salad. The boys caught up and I was able to call my parents to catch up with them. Then we watched the movie Cyrus and went to bed.

The Grill Master!!!

Tuesday:
Today we went for a walk along the coast. We walked up and down big rock hills for about two hours, it was really wind but magnificently beautiful. When we got back to the house Harald decided it would be a good time to show me how to drive a manual car... mainly because his dad was driving a really nice Audi A4:) So we drove the car down to the beach and back to the house and back down again and it was actually a success!! It is pretty fun but there are a lot of things to remember, I don't know if I would feel comfortable on a busy road yet. Harald was a great teacher. When we were done driving, Harald and Per were the grill masters again, they made chicken and I made another salad. After dinner Per left to head back to Karlstad because he needed to get back to work. Harald and I had some nice relaxing alone time and watched a movie and went to bed.

Harald and I on top of some cliffs, the Atlantic Ocean behind us

Per, Harald, and I 

Me getting ready to drive the Audi!!! 

Wednesday:
The weather was not so nice today but we had plans to go to Göteborg (Gothenburg) to visit Markus Berget a friend of Harald's that he hadn't seen in 2 years. Since it was raining we went to the indoor mall, had some lunch and Harald and I did a little shopping while Markus went to school to take a test. Markus met back up with us and the rain had lightened up so we walked around outside, went to some other shops and a market that reminded me of Pike Place. I bought a scarf, a sweater and a zip up hooded sweatshirt, all for under $50 because it was all 50% off. So basically normal US prices... Anyways, after a little shopping we went back to Markus's apartment for a little chat and then headed back up to Gullbringa for some dinner. By the time we got there it was almost 9PM but of course the sun was still up so we didn't feel rushed. We just cooked up some pasta with avocados, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese. We watched a movie and headed to bed.

Markus and Harald in Göteborg

Thursday:
We heard the weather was going to be awesome today, and it was. It was sunny and warm so we spent the day lounging in the sun again :) It was a little windy but it was still enjoyable. Around 3PM we decided to go for a walk. There was a path called the "Love Trail" near the house so we walked along that until we didn't know where to go next. The Love Trail was really beautiful it was where all the trees had overgrown over the top of your head so it was like you were walking through a tunnel in the forest but all green. When the trail sort of ended (or we didn't know where to go next) we decided to walk down to the ocean, we were pretty high up on a rock hill so it was quite the adventure trying to get down, but we made it. We went back up to the house and decided that we should go into town to get a bottle of wine for dinner. We had to hurry because The System closes at weird hours. Harald and I picked out a white wine because we were having chicken, it was a Italian Chardonnay, called Mauro, I liked it a lot. After dinner we took some pictures of the sunset because it was really beautiful and it was probably close to 10 o'clock.

Sitting in the sun reading

Me on the love trail <3

I'm not sure if this was part of the love trail but we turned it into an adventure of rock climbing down to the ocean

We made it down. B-E-A-U-Tiful

I thought this was funny, a tiny volvo going to tow that large boat!!! Bigger is not better in Sweden 

The sunset :) 

@ 21:23 = 9:23 PM 

Somewhere around 10... still light out

Friday:
Today we had to leave the beautiful West Coast. We cleaned up, packed our things, and drove back to Karlsstad. Tonight we had plans to go out with a bunch of Harald's friends. We got home and got ready for the evening. Harald's friends came over around 8:30PM, some that I had met before and some new. We had good conversations and a lot of beer because drinking at home is a lot cheaper than drinking at the bar! One of Harald's friends was being a "schtek" and bought us all a taxi (even though the walk would have been 5 minutes). We went to a club called Coriander, like the spice, and luckily one of the guys in our group knew the bouncer so we got in for free. Otherwise we would have had to pay 100Kr, which is around $16... I was happy about this! Henning met us there and bought us a round of beers and we went to an outdoor area where they had couches and we sat and chatted. We hit the dancefloor where a lot of techno was played and the fog machine was overused. We had a great time and headed home when the bar closed down and walked home. I was very excited because the next day we would be picking up my best friend Rebecca Baken at the train station :) :) :)

Harald and I at Coriander... so foggy! 

May 15th, 2011

Sadly, today we had to leave Tove and friends in Lund, but they showed us an amazing party time in Sweden. I don't know if our bodies could have handled anymore partying and lack of sleep though. We gave our hugs and said our goodbyes and headed toward the West Coast of Sweden.

Anna, Martin, and Tove saying bye to Harald, Henning, and I

Our first stop was in Halmstad, where we had lunch with Kristina's brother Per, his wife, Elsa, their two kids, Olle and Siri and Kristina's mother, Gunnel. We had Salmon and potatoes and coffee and chocolate for dessert. We left around three because we needed to continue on to Göteborg or as we Americans say it Gothenburg (I think it is so funny that they change the way they say things so that Americans can understand it).

A field of Rapeseed flowers that produce a cooking oil that many Swedes use in their kitchens

Here we had dinner with Kristina's  brother Hendrik, his wife Liselot, and their 3 kids. They live in a really cool house, it used to be an apartment building with 7 apartments in it and now it is their 4 story house. We had crawfish and shrimp for an appetizer, I had never had crawfish before so that was an experience. They give them to you whole on your plate and you have to crack the shells and pick out the meat (like our crab except they don't gut these). Then we had our main course of, guess what! SALMON!!! We had a lot of salmon in the passed two days, but fortunately it has all been delicious. We had great conversations with the whole family. The boys Jacob and David were both really smart and were very good at English, I think they were around 12 and 14. They both really liked rubics cubes and could solve them super fast. Jacob was going to be in a competition in June. He can solve a  3x3 cube in about 30 seconds. It was really impressive. I didn't really get to connect with the 6 year old daughter because she hadn't learned english yet. Tonight was the World Championship Hockey game between Sweden and Finland so we watched that. It was a really good game up until the end when Finland had shot after shot after shot go in. The final score was I think 1 to 6... Pretty big upset for the Swedes. For desert we had coffee and tea and white chocolate panna cotta with berries which was DELICIOUS!!! Then after a long day of traveling we decided to go to bed because in the morning we had some more traveling:)

May 14th, 2011

Today was the Nations Party... Nations are what they call the "dorms". It was a day to honor all the people that have worked for free for the Nation. All the people we have been hanging out with, with Tove have been working for the nation. Tove invited us to join so we did. The theme, ironically, was "The American Dream" so we were supposed to wear a costume, we were going to play games all day, have a three course meal, listen to live music, and go to another Nations club. Being an American I struggled to think of a costume idea, not having access to my costume closet or a thrift store like the Montana Rescue Mission, I didn't really want to spend a lot of money. When I think of the "American Dream" I think a family with a nice house, with a white picket fence, the husband, a working man, a stay at home mom, with perfect little children (not my dream, but my thought of "the American Dream"). Harald was my business man and wore a suit, I was the stay at home mom, so I wore a white dress and an apron, Henning was our child so he just looked pretty normal, and then Martin was our butler/driver so he wore a suit and driving gloves and a hat (unfortunately I did not get a picture of us :(). Tove and Anna's idea of the "American Dream" was to dress up like donuts (which I'll have to say was pretty creative) They painted their skin brown wore brown shirts, pink tights, and wore pink and blue striped inter-tubes around their waist. They actually won the prize for best costume.

Tove and Anna as Donuts :)

After getting our costumes on we gathered in the basement of the Nation. There were many other people there that I had not met so I was a little intimidated because not many people spoke English. We got separated into groups to play the games and unfortunately the Carlsson's and I had gotten split up. Harald and I were in a group, Tove was in another, and Henning was in another. Harald and I did not know anyone in our group and when we asked if they could speak English for me they said that they couldn't do that so I felt pretty uncomfortable. I didn't think the games were very fun if I didn't even know how to play the game. We played one game and Harald and I decided to leave because they were not being very welcoming. This was a little hard for me because I already felt out of place and after this even more so. When we told Tove this afterwards she was very upset with her people that they would not make me feel welcome and speak English. I know if we were in a group with her it would have been better because she was very good about telling people that they should speak English around me and make me feel welcome but since we didn't know anyone in the group it was hard to convince them.

Harald and his newspaper cover

Harald and I decided to take some alone time and walked back into Lund. We got some really good Italian ice cream, went into a drug store, but all the other shops were closed because everything there closes early on Saturdays and most stores are closed on Sundays. The sky didn't look so good so we thought that we should head back but we were too slow. It started POURING down rain. We thought that maybe we could wait it out by going into a cafe and having a cup of coffee and then maybe it would be gone but it was still raining by the time we needed to get back for dinner. So we enjoyed our warm cup of coffee, grabbed 2 newspapers and headed out into the rainstorm. It was not a short walk back, but we made it with a smile on our face and a good memory in our brain. We only had 10 minutes before the dinner started so I blow dried my dress, blow dried my hair and freshened up my makeup and we were on our way.

Harald and I trying to hide from the rain

Apparently Swedish people think we eat a lot of chicken because the appetizer was chicken wings, the main course was chicken legs, and the dessert was chicken pie.... Just Kidding! but we did have chicken for the appetizer and the main course and then we had a barbecued banana which was actually pretty good. They peeled off only on side of the banana and put chocolate and marshmallow sauce in there and heated it on the barbecue wrapped in foil. We also got a lot of alcohol with our meal. Harald and I shared a bottle of wine, we each had a beer, and a shot of Skane Akvavit, which is very traditional in Swedish... but I must say it is DISGUSTING. During dinner there were many Swedish songs sung, drinking songs chanted. Here are the lyrics and translation that I kind of know because Harald taught us our freshmen year at Rocky:

"LAMBO"

Set nu glaset til den moon
shoo fadderittan lambo
oh drich ur, deen figh-le hoond
shoo fadderittan lambo!

Se hur dropparna ee glasset
rinner ner ee figh-le aset
lambo hey, lambo hey
shoo fadderittan lambo!

(Translation)
Take the glass to your lips,
{chorus} We all drink like herrings!
and empty it, you drunken dog
{chorus} We all drink like herrings!

See how the drops in the glass
trickle down into the drunken vixen
{chorus} Like herrings! Like herrings!
We all drink like herrings!

:P :P :P

After dinner there was a live band that sang American songs so that was fun but they only played for about an hour and then we left to go to another Nation's club to party there. That club was really cool with many different rooms and a lounge area and more choices at the bar. We stayed there until 1:30 and then walked back. Same story different day, right around 2:15, after the club closed, everyone came back and started partying in the kitchen. This is when I first really noticed how early the sun rises in Sweden, it rises at about 4AM... so I guess that is when they realize that maybe they should get some sleep since the sun is starting to come up. It was a good last night in Lund. 

May 13th, 2011

Erik, Martin, Anna, Me, Harald, Henning, Tove, Leana, & Annie at the Botanical Gardens

The Beautiful Tulips at the Botanical Garden  

We woke up and guess what we had for breakfast... SWEDISH PANCAKES!!! They take quite a long time to make so it was more like brunch by the time we ate. We got ready to go and with The Carlssons, Martin, Anna, Erik, Annie, Leana, & I took on the city of Lund. Lund is a university city so not many people live their unless they work for or study at the University.

Really pretty "Parrot Flower" (is what the Swede's called it)

The cute houses on the old cobblestone streets

We walked the streets of very beautiful neighborhoods with cobblestone streets and took our first adventure at a Botanical Garden. They had a variety of colored Tulips in bloom outside and many different greenhouses that we walked through. The plants weren't all native to Sweden they were from all over the world. We saw palms, Orchids, Cactuses(?) and many other beautiful things. In some of the green houses you had to be careful of birds on the ground, they weren't able to fly but they were put in there to eat any harmful insects to the plants. They had just had babies so they were very cute little fluff balls :) After they garden we went more into the center of the city to see a fountain, some old viking ruins, a few of the University Buildings and this really big, old, church. We went in to check it out and I lit a candle for my dear friend Molly Abbott.

The old church and Lilacs :) 

The candle I lit for Molly <3

We all were a little hungry so we found a little restaurant where we could sit outside to eat and half of us had Skagenrora toast and half of us had nachos, naturally I had the Skagenrora. Harald and I went back to Tove's dorm while her and Anna looked for costumes for the upcoming party. I was a little tired so I laid down but found that my good friend Rebecca Baken was on ooVoo so I got to video chat with her. She will be visiting Harald and I soon so it was fun to talk to her about our future plans. It was also nice to see a familiar face as I was a little overwhelmed in Lund from meeting so many new people. We had Salmon and pasta for dinner and then had a few beers in the kitchen (right across the hall from Tove's room) before heading out to the "club".

      

        Tove and I partying in the kitchen (table) before going out to the club 

It is hard to explain but their, what we call, dorms, are more like a large apartment building only for students with no RA's and most of them have their own clubs. Like I mentioned before when we were visiting Arvid, these clubs are student run, they are only open on certain days, and they have limited amounts of alcohol. But they are pretty sweet because it is a place for the students to party without having to go out to the bars and worrying about where to stay or how to get home safely. So tonight they had a DJ and we stayed and danced for a while but got tired after a while so Harald and I left around 1AM, got to Tove's room and started to fall asleep. Just as we were thinking our last thought before entering dreamland around 2AM when the club closed we start to hear the party moving back to the kitchen (right across the hall from Tove's room). Techno music blaring, people yelling until about 4 or 5AM... Needless to say we didn't get the best nights sleep... But at least we experienced true Swedish partying (I think the Swedes that go to Rocky have been hiding something!)

May 12th, 2011

Tove & Henning with funny Swedish rolling basket

Our foil BBQ cover to protect the food from the rain

Tove, Harald, & Henning

Me, Harald, Martin (Harald's friend from High School) & Henning

Arvid had to go to school early so we left around 10am. We continued on our road trip to Lund where we would meet Harald's sister, Tove. I was a little intimidated by her just because I am intimidated by any girl siblings, especially if they are older. I realized I was very silly for doing that because she is very sweet. We met her, put our stuff in her room and left to go to the store and The System Bolaget (the liquor store, that has a monopoly on alcohol sales so this is the only store you can get alcohol above 3.5%). It was fun because they have beer from all over the world. You can buy one or many, they sell all the beer individually. Instead of having to buy a 6, 18, 24, or 30 rack of one type of beer, you can buy one from Sweden, one from Germany, etc. The System also sells wine and hard alcohol and box wine can be nice, not just cheap like in the states. We went to another grocery store and got food to BBQ. I made avocado burgers for the Swedes, it was a big hit. Our BBQ got interrupted by rain but it didn't stop us. There was a guy that joined us who actually grew up in Bozeman, small world. We had a few beers and then all four of us cuddled up in Tove's dorm room (tight squeeze!) and went to bed.

May 11th, 2011

Me, Harald, Henning,  Arvid, and Maria in the city park

Today Harald, Henning, and I started our road trip. We packed up the car and went south to Jönköping to visit Harald's childhood friend, Arvid, who is studying down there at Jönköping Universitet (University). We arrived around 5PM, walked to the University where they have a student PUB with a small dinner menu of either Kabob or Cheeseburger and a small drink menu of Wine, Cider, or Heineken. There was Karaoke and the Georgia (the country) Idol winner was there. She was an amazing singer. No one wanted to follow her act. The PUB was cool because it is run by the students, but they don't get paid. They are only open on Wednesday and Thursday from 4-8PM and they are in conjunction with a public club to help each other get business. Later we took an evening walk to the city park over looking the town. On our walk we passed a fenced house with a ROBOTIC LAWNMOWER!!! (see video) It was hilarious. They set up borders like an invisible fence for dogs, they set a pattern on the robot, you turn it on and it goes! We walked back to Arvid's, watched a movie and went to bed.

Better late than never

Sorry I'm a little behind on the dates but we've been on a massive road trip that I will tell you about next :) until then I must party!!!!

May 10th, 2011

Harald's old school 6th-9th Grade

Harald's old house in Sommarro

<3

Sunset.... Probably around 9:30PM. Crazy

We were able to sleep in a bit more today. Harald woke up at 7:45am and I woke up at 8:45. While I was still asleep he made pancakes (surprise, surpriseJ). By the time I woke up they were ready and I joined him to eat. Right as we sat down to eat we were surprised to hear Henning stumble out of the spare bedroom. Henning had come over at 7:00am because people were putting in new windows in his apartment and we didn’t know he had come over to continue sleeping. We finished breakfast, watched an episode of Glee, and got ready for another beautiful day in Sweden. Harald had planned to show me his childhood neighborhood, Sommarro (meaning Summer-Calm). We walked and he showed me his, what we call, preschool and middle school, the soccer fields he played on and the forest he used to run through for training. Lastly, he showed me his old house and we actually got to go in. I thought it was really weird that he felt ok going to the front door to ask if he could look around but we did it and the lady was really nice about it and allowed us to come inside. Going in the house brought back a lot of good memories for Harald but he said the house looked much smaller than he remembered. Funny how that happens. We had planned to take the bus back into town because it was kind of a far walk but we kept missing the busses to before we walked back we went down by the river and sat on his old dock and put our feet in the FREEZING cold water. We walked 4 or 5 miles and unfortunately I was wearing flip-flops. We had to get back to town at 2 because Harald had a chiropractor appointment and I had a massage appointment J. I had a 50 minute massage and it was very nice!! Then we had a late lunch at a place where Harald said you can get “great drunk food”. It is this baguette place that stays open until 2am on the weekends and they have pretty cheap sandwiches. I had a Skogenrora baguette and Harald had a Chicken Club. Then we barrowed Kristina’s car and went to Ikea and ICA the grocery store. It was quite the experience because you go in pay 10kr to get a cart (you get it back when you return it), buy the bags you are going to use to put your groceries in, pick up a hand held scanner, and walk around the store scanning things as you put them in your cart. When you are done getting your groceries you go to the front counter they take your scanner, print out your receipt and you pay. It basically saves time so you don’t have to wait in line to pay for your groceries. Another this I have noticed here is you have to bag your own groceries (in other stores where you do have someone ring you up). Then we went home and had dinner with Krisitna and Mike. Swedish Meatballs and Potatoes. VERY GOOD. We ate out on the deck because it was very sunny and they sun stays out until around 9:00pm. Harald had plans to meet up with some of his friends out on the town so we got ready and walked downtown where we had a few beers at an outdoor bar (a place with a roof and half-windows with infrared heating) with Per, Jakob, Robyn and later Anton, Henning, and Atina. We walked home at 2am when the bar kicked us out (it was closing) and went to bed. 

May 9th, 2011

Kristina's Deck/Dock :) :) :)

The River in front of Harald's house

Dinner with Per and Henning

Hoping to be able to sleep in, we were only able to sleep until 7:30am. We woke up and made Swedish Pancakes. Henning came over for breakfast and we had a sampling session on Swedish breakfast foods. I tried fil, which is basically plain yogurt with a variety of cereals. After breakfast we got ready and hit the town. We walked to town because in this town you walk everywhere, there are many people walking and even more people biking. It is about a 5 minute walk from the apartment to the heart of Karlstad. We looked around and then met Kristina at her office before we went for lunch. We ate at Wayne’s Coffee in Mitticity (meaning middle of the city) basically, a shopping mall. We had sandwiches with tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and pesto. Kristina went back to work and Harald and I walked around a bit more. We got pretty tired and the weather was really nice, about 75*F, so we went back to the apartment where they have a deck right on the river. We got in our swimsuits, laid in the sun, and read. It was so relaxing that Harald actually fell asleep, but he can fall asleep anywhere really. We had plans to have dinner with Harald’s dad, Per, and Henning so we got ready and headed to Per’s apartment. Per doesn’t speak very good English so it has been a little hard to connect with him. I’ve met him and Kristina once before. They came to the states last Spring to visit Harald for a few weeks. I’ve noticed that even though Swedes know English (they are taught at the age of 8 in school) they are very unconfident when using it so it is hard for them to open up to you. I was really happy this time because Per talked a lot more to me this time. There were times when Harald had to translate for both of us but over all it was a nice dinner with good conversations. We had a delicious dinner of pork and potatoes with a muschroom cream sauce which is actually something very similar that my dad makes, and a salad. Again we were pretty tired so we left around 10:00pm and went back to Kristina’s apartment. She was still awake so we played a card game called Sjuan (meaning The Seven) basically you start by laying down all the seven’s and you can only play the card above or below the one on top of the pile. We played two rounds and then went to bed.

May 8th, 2011

This was flying over Greenland which was B-E-A-U-TIFUL with all the mountains and ICE :)  but we were on the wrong side of the plane so I had to zoom in across the isle 

             

Harald, Henning & I at Granny Gunnel's house for lunch in Stockholm

Welcome to Karlstad!!!

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!! We landed in Reykjavik, Iceland at 6:40am (12:40am Pacific Standard Time), we had an hour layover and left at 7:50am, we landed in Stockholm, Sweden at 12:45pm (3:45am Pacific Standard Time). Harald’s brother Henning picked us up at the airport and drove us into Stockholm to have lunch with their Mormor (Mother’s Mother) Gunnel. We had Skogenrora which is a shrimp salad mix on top of toast. It is delicious and it is probably my favorite Swedish food so far. Then we had Salmon and Potatoes. Then we had coffee and dessert outside in the sunshine. After a few hours of catching up with her we continued onto Karlstad. I was told to try to not nap to help get rid of my jetlag but I could not help but fall asleep in the car. We got to Karlstad to Harald and Henning’s mother’s apartment where we stay for the next couple days. We unpacked the car and ate dinner. We had chicken wrapped in proscuitto and baked in a balsamic vinegar sauce, and potatoes. After a really LONG 24-hour + day we went to bed. 

May 7th, 2011

We followed the sun for a long time before it set... and when it did set it rose right away... Pretty cool to see

The screen that showed our route 

SCHOONER!!!! 

The day we left for Sweden. I woke up and had a nice breakfast with my mom to celebrate an early Mother’s Day before she had to go to work. I spent the rest of the day packing my things. I was in a weird mood because although I was very excited to see a new country, I was a little nervous to go over seas. My dad dropped Harald and I off at Sea-Tac International Airport around 1:00pm. We checked in with no line, got through security with no problems and took the train to our terminal. We had heard that IcelandAir didn’t give free food on the plane so we found a restaurant to get one last meal before our 12-hour flight. We both had pasta that was mediocre. We got on the plan around 4:30pm and took off by 5:00 pm. I had my first culture shock right as I sat down and looked at the menu that the flight attendant handed me, it was in a foreign language and a foreign currency, I got a little freaked out.  We were on a Boeing 757 and we each had our own TV screen where we could watch movies or TV shows, listen to music, or track the flight. I watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother, Glee, Family Guy, Ice Age 3, and What Happens in Vegas. Harald and I both bought really comfortable neck pillows, recommended by Bjorn Tuaz, so we were able to sleep easily on the plane.