Sverige - part 2

We awoke to a good breakfast, same as what we've had a lot of, but are used to it and like it. I am going to miss the yogurt you pour out of a milk carton! Today, we were heading in to a few local towns to see some Covenant Churches, which originated in Sweden, kind of a break off from the Lutheran Church. When our ancestors moved to Kansas, they were part of the original Covenant Church in our local area. This Covenant Church of Savonburg, Kansas is the same church I attended growing up, and the one I was married in 22 years ago. After visiting the churches, we visited Ingela's mother, Margith (Uno's wife) who is living in a nursing home due to Alzheimer's. She is a tiny lady, and so cute. When Ingela told her we were visiting her all the way from America, she thought that was so funny! Ingela couldn't think of the English word, but loosely translated, it was a 'Miracle' we were there.

After a nice visit, we said goodbye to Margit and headed back to the cottage to finish packing our things. Before we headed out, we said our goodbyes to Ida and her husband, Stefan. A couple minutes later we stopped at Uno's house to say Grattis pa fodelsedagen (Happy Birthday) and Adjö (goodbye). The goodbye part was a difficult thing to do. Today was Uno's 87th birthday. We are not sure we will ever have the opportunity to see him again. This whole relationship started with our grandpa and Uno. We are so glad we have been able to continue this relationship on with the next two generations. As much work as it took for grandpa to establish the connection, we must always strive to keep the connection alive. When our dad hugged Uno goodbye, he had tears in his eyes, which caused all of us to tear up as well. It was a sad moment for all and we quickly put our sunglasses on. Our next stop on the goodbye trip was at Clas's house. After those goodbyes, we were on the road to Örebro, the home of Ingela, Staffan and Anton. It was a two hour drive, so we stopped at a restaurant on the way. The special was a chicken pasta dish, which resembled food we were used to eating back home. Örebro is a town with approximately 130,000 inhabitants.

We toured the city, went to the castle, bought some souvenirs, then went back to their house. It was a very nice house and we immediately felt at home. For supper, we had: a piece of toast with butter, then peeled shrimp which still had the head attached, put the peeled and now headless shrimp on the toast, then squeezed mayonnaise over the top. It was quite tasty. The next day, we did some more touring of the city, then dropped Anton at his apartment (He attends the university in Örebro), then headed to the train station where we would hop the train to Stockholm. Saying goodbye to Ingela and Staffan was the hardest part.

We all shed tears and thanked them for their incredible hospitality. They made us feel so välkommen and loved! We encouraged them to come to the states so we could return the hospitality. Oy! Our bags were heavy! It was all the Swedish mjölkchoklad! We are trying to plan ahead to see what we can leave in Germany so we can get all the German chocolate home too. Of course, our seats were on the 2nd level so we had to hoist our bags up the stairs. The train ride was pleasant and kind of fun. We knew once we arrived in Stockholm, we would have to keep up with the hustle and bustle of big city life. We would arrive at Stockholm central station, and needed to catch the right subway and find the stop closest to our hotel. We were able to figure the Stockholm subway system out better than the Oslo system. Or maybe it was because we had been in the country for a few days and understood the culture. Here we were, lugging our heavy bags up from the underground and into the city. We rolled our tired luggage four blocks to our hotel. Check in was simple and we took a minute to rest before we decided to walk the streets of Stockholm. We had seen so many cafes that served Swedish ice cream so we decided that was what we were after. But, of course, we walked and walked and couldn't find any so out of desperation, we ended up at TGIFridays and ate a delicious ice cream dessert. All cafe's and restaurants have outdoor seating along the streets. So it was fun to people watch while we enjoyed our ice cream treats. Yes, I took a Lactaid! On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a grocery store to buy snacks for our next day of sight seeing. It was fun looking at all the foreign products. For example, Bacon Ost in a tube. Basically, it was a bacon flavored cheese spread, and I'm sure it is delightful, but we didn't buy any. We turned in early and got a good night of rest. Robin and Dad shared a room and Rhonda and I shared one.

10 pm and still daylight

At 7 a.m., Robin and Dad knocked on our door. I stumbled to the door with my incredibly amazing bed head and opened to see what they wanted. Robin said, "You ready?" and I noticed they were fully dressed and ready. I said... "um.... no". They said they were heading down to breakfast so we took that as our hint to get up and around. We joined them shortly and I was able to try pickled herring. It was the grossest thing I have ever tasted. And they expect people to eat that for breakfast?! And the coffee was good and strong, as usual.

Today, we headed to the Vasa Ship museum. There are several islands surrounding the main part of the city, and this museum was on one of them. The Vasa Ship was a Swedish war ship that set sail on its maiden voyage on August 10, 1628. While they were waving goodbye as they began to head towards Poland, the ship began to sink, right there in the harbor. The ships design was not good. It was so top heavy and though the designer, the admiral and the king knew this, they decided to go for it. Big mistake. There were several hundred people aboard the ship and thirty people lost their lives when the ship sank. We figured this would be a rather embarrassing moment as they didn't even make it out of the harbor. The ship was under water until 1961 and that's when they raised her and began to recover artifacts and restore her to her natural beauty. It was hard to believe I was looking at a ship that was almost 400 years old!

Next we took a moment to eat our snacks in the park. The weather has been so great this whole time! After our lunch, we jumped on the street car and headed back into the city to catch our subway to Gamla Stan (Old Town).  This was a very unique part of the city with narrow streets and many shops. The Royal Palace was located in Gamla Stan so we managed to take a look at that also. Outside the Royal Palace, we had to pay 5 Krona to use the Toillett so all three of us squeezed into the small bathroom and did our business. What a bargain!

By the time we arrived back at the hotel, we were all completely exhausted! I'm afraid we wore dad out today. After we rested for a while, we decided to go grab a bite to eat. We let dad stay at the hotel and we were going to bring him back McDonald's, which is what he wanted. It was a little embarrassing asking for directions to McDonald's. The three of us decided to eat pizza instead. Ours had shrimp and ham on it and it was a very thin crust, but tasty. Now it was time to head back to the hotel for the night. Tomorrow would come early as we needed to catch a 6:30 a.m. taxi to the airport. As we attempted to go to bed in broad daylght, we could see a couple hot air balloons outside our window. It was pretty cool.

None of us slept great and here we are, sitting in the airport waiting to board our flight to Düsseldorf. Just when we were getting used to and learning some of the Swedish language, we'll have to start all over again with German, then French.

Adjö!