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!