Minnesota bound.... Farewell Sweden!

Friday, April 3 – Going home today!! It has been an awesome adventure but I’m really ready to go home… I can’t believe I will see my family in a few hours. Not looking forward to the long flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis but I know it gets me closer to my destination. 8-1/2 hours on an airplane is a long time…I spent a lot of it reading the Stieg Larsson book that Jens & Jessica gave me at the Farewell Party (got through page 492 but couldn’t quite get to the end…) It was strange to say one last "goodbye" to Christina and Bo - - they've been such a part of our adventure that it was strange to think that we might not see them again! Bo may be coming to Minnesota in two weeks for our District Conference if things work out AND we know that we'll see the Sweden team a couple of times during the month of April as they visit our area.

Going through the first security check, I ended up losing my lingon berries that I had bought for Tyler – I was pretty bummed about that but everything else survived the trip.

We arrived in Minneapolis way ahead of schedule and ended up waiting just outside the gates for ours to open up. Our group was wayyyyyy in the “back of the bus” – I was in row 42 of 43 if that tells you anything. Going through customs didn’t take as long as I thought and Kara was the only one of us who ended up being pulled aside for additional screening mostly because of the bag of flour that she had been carrying since Alingsas.

We said our goodbyes to one another at the top of the stairs just outside of customs because we knew it would be crazy once we walked out the door… and it was. I was SOOOOOO happy to see Kevin and he got the chance to meet several of the group that I had been traveling with.

The ride home was pretty uneventful but rather than going right home – we stopped up to the golf club for the season opening party to see some of my friends. After a warm welcome, a few of my friends came home for a final, final beverage for the night --- Royce and I finished my trip the same way it started; with a shot of ackavit. It’s been a great adventure – but it’s also great to come home to such a warm welcome!!!

Saturday morning started relatively early - - even though I stayed up until at least midnight on Friday, I was WIDE AWAKE at 4 AM. I finally gave in about 6:30 AM and got out of bed and started to unpack… Zoe, my cat, was right beside me the entire time – she missed me too! This about wraps up the blog - - thank you to everyone who has been following me on this fantastic adventure! I’m looking forward to starting to work on my scrapbook soon… take care!

My last posting from Sweden....

Thursday, April 2 - - Well, really it's already Friday April 3rd and I'm ready for bed / about 75% packed to head home....

It's been a VERY busy last couple of days - we've had something going EVERY NIGHT but it's been fun...

Here are some pictures and a quick explanation before I call it a night - - see you all soon!

On Wednesday, April 1st - we had a tour of
Volvo Technology where Dawn Yoshimura works... I was REALLY excited about this visit because it was only the SECOND time during my stay that I've heard ANYONE mention the word "lean." Dawn and I talked quite a bit and plan to keep in touch. After our tour of two locations, we went by bus / tram to visit a local artist that she knows and then to her flat for dinner. Bo, Christina, Lars and Lena joined us.

Thursday, April 2 - today, we had a late morning and met at a school near where I'm staying. This school has children from ages 6 to 15 in the same building. I was impressed with the space they have for the classes as well as some of the programs they are working with to help the kids understand what happens in other areas of the world. After that, Anni took me shopping for a cd to bring home to Tyler - - the artist is Nils Landgren and he's a well-known Swedish Trombone player!

At 5 Pm, we all met at Bo Westling's house, he's the District Governor, for dinner. Christer, the team leader for the group heading to Minnesota on Monday stopped by and chatted with us for a few minutes before we had to leave for the Opera. Anders from Partille was able to get us some seats for the dress rehearsal of Katja Kabanova and they were REALLY good seats - - like front row, overlooking the orchestra!! It was hard to follow the singing and story line since it was sung in one language and the tel-e-prompter was in Swedish. Basically, it was a girl has tough life, mets the man of her dreams, can't leave her husband because of a domineering mother-in-law and eventually is so distraught that she's jumps off a bridge and drowns....

After that, I joined Anni and Jan at a party they were attending at a museum. We left there shortly after midnight and now, I'm ready to crash.... for those of you back home in USA - I'll see you soon!! For my new friends in Sweden - - I hope to see you again sometime!

Our Farewell Party was AMAZING!!!!!

Tuesday, March 31 – What an AMAZING evening!!!! I enjoyed the afternoon sitting around with Anni, each of us “playing” on our laptops as I put the final touches on our slideshow for tonight. This is Anni and I with her husband Jan and 10 year old son John (I apologize if my spelling isn't accurate....)

We had a going away party at Kvibergs in Partille – all of our host families and others who were involved with our GSE visit were invited to attend.

It was so much fun to see many of the people who have touched our lives during our adventures here in Sweden. There have been so many people in so many communities that we have enjoyed getting to know and can’t WAIT to have them visit us in Minnesota or to return here to Sweden some day…. Bo, the District Governor, may be visiting in April for our District Conference; Erik from Alingsas is planning to visit in October of this year to learn more about farming and I’ve promised him a tour of RWSC; Vivianne from Alingsas has planned a trip in 2011 so we know that seeing us again will keep her young and energetic; and Jens & Jessica (my hosts in Uddevalla) with some friends are planning a motorcycle trip in 2014 --- so, we’ll be sure to mark our calendars!!! We appreciate all of the open invitations to return to Sweden and you never know when the opportunity may present itself!

During the past few weeks, we have taken THOUSANDS of pictures and enjoyed putting together a slideshow of photos from our stay to share with our new friends at the Farewell Party. We each also got an opportunity to say a few words about our stay and, honestly, it was really difficult to keep from becoming emotional.

I also have to mention Alison’s thoughtfulness and humor - - she bought us each a small Dala Horse to remember our trip by. Four of them were painted the same colors and mine was a bit different to commemorate my “love” of wearing our uniforms everyday!!

I also received another un-expected gift that really touched my heart - - Jens & Jessica brought me a copy of Stieg Larssons first book in English!!! I’ve been looking for it every since I heard about him early in our trip…he was a relatively young Swedish author who died in the middle of writing his fourth book. He trilogy has sold more than 5 million copies world-wide. Thanks again – that was SO THOUGHTFUL!!

Thanks again to everyone that has touched my life in some way during this trip - - I will NEVER forget you or my time here!!!!!

Last few visits in Molndal

Monday, March 30 - Today, we have two visits. One to a HUGE pharmecutical organization called AstraZeneca. Stefan (Alison's host) met with us and told us about the business - - it is a HUGE world-wide organization and their facility in Molndal is primarily an R & D site with about 2500 employees.

Our second visit was to IKEA - no, not just shopping! We met with the Social & Environmental Affairs coordinator who shared with us some of the things that IKEA has been doing from an Environmental, Social, etc. THEN, we had some time to shop!!!

Our last engagement of the day was coordinated by Anders from Partille. He managed to get us tickets to a musical event put on by the local university that pokes fun at a popular song contest program in Europe. The university version is known as SMASK and was VERY funny!!!! The winning group sung a song about "Amerika" and it was written by one of the students as well as being performed by the students (singers AND orchestra directed by a student).

So, after a somewhat late night.... I had a little packing to do before an early start on Tuesday.

Tuesday, March 31 - our last day in Molndal. I was up and ready for breakfast by 7:15 Am - - I have to ease back into my 6 AM start schedule because next week is going to be BRUTAL! It was difficult to say goodbye to Anita and Sven - - they have been TERRIFIC hosts and I've enjoyed staying out in the country for a few days.

We made a stop this morning at the Stadhuset of Molndal and met with a man about the structure of the local government / how things are funded / how the taxes are used / etc. On the first floor of the building, in addition to a little coffee shop with coffee, tea & treats, they had this really cool photographic layout of Molndal on the floor.....

See you all very soon!!! Thanks so much for all of your support during this adventure!

Molndal - getting to know the "Valley of the Mills"

Friday, March 27 – We wrapped up our visit to the Tanum area by doing a presentation for their Rotary club and enjoying some typically Swedish food called kåldolmar (which, if I understood correctly, is basically some minced meat wrapped in cabbage) – it was really good!!

After the meeting, we had a few minutes to do some shopping at a local store owned by one of our host families (Britt who hosted Alison) and we each found a few treasures to take home to our family and friends. I found a fun little serving tray that had a painting of the area that Britt herself had painted.

Our train ride back down to Göteborg started out uneventful but about 45 minutes into it, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, one woman figured out we were American and told us what the captain had announced. Apparently, the train’s compressor had overheated and needed to cool down before we could proceed. We actually arrived in Göteborg pretty much on time and (as has become the norm) meeting our new host families, saying goodbye to each other and getting our luggage loaded happened so quickly before we were on our way to the next adventure.

My hosts in Mölndal are Sven and Anita Hilmersson along with their cat (Mulan or something close to that – not real sure of the spelling). They live in the countryside and we enjoyed our evening getting to know one another by sharing stories and pictures.

Saturday, March 28 – this was a somewhat lazy morning as we really didn’t need to be anywhere until noon today. After being called to his son’s house last night to help with a plumbing problem and being up until 2:30 Am, I was surprised to see Sven surface relatively early to take me on a little shopping excursion to a local village called Kungsbaka. We walked around and stopped into a few stores - - I got a chance to buy Tyler some lingon berries to bring home to make pancakes with! We also had time to stop at another shopping mall and only bought some tulips for the dinner table before going to have a little fika treat and then meeting everyone else for the start of our day together.

Our only event as a group today was lunch and a tour based out of the Mölndal Museum. We had a guided tour of the area and I later found out that Mölndal means the “Valley of the Mills.” During our tour, we enjoyed seeing the water falls or rapids that ran from the mill area and wound its way through many of the buildings that used hydro-power at one time for their production. (A funny story - - this morning, I was thinking about the things I had wanted to see in Sweden that I hadn’t had a chance to and a waterfall was one of the things - - the rapids weren’t exactly what I had in mind, but they were a great supplement!)

Back home, we enjoyed a quiet evening and I got a chance to Skype with Kevin and talk to him again for about a half an hour – Tyler was gone at band practice but I found out that he had quite an interesting week. There has been some serious flooding in the Fargo North Dakota / Moorhead Minnesota area this week. His band director pulled together a bus trip for the band kids to go to that area and help with the sandbagging - - I think this was AWESOME and I’m very proud of them all!! The floods in Fargo even made the news in Sweden - - I actually watched more TV tonight than I have in the past four weeks!

Sunday, March 29 – Well, right away this morning, as soon as my alarm went off, I realized that I had forgotten to “spring ahead” last night and was late to breakfast! At least I wasn’t the only one, Sven had done the same….

We met everyone at a place called Gunnebo Slott – it is a manor that dates back to 1796 when it was completed. We were given a dramatic tour of the manor where characters from it original owners told us the story of the manor. It once belonged to the richest man in Sweden – it was said that he even borrowed money to the King! After the tour, we enjoyed lunch on the grounds - - I can only imagine how beautiful the gardens are later in the summer!

This evening, we were invited to Tottie’s house – she has been the GSE coordinator for our stay in Mölndal and was a team leader to India about a year ago. She lives on the sea and has a FANTASTIC view of the water!!! We also took a little walk and ended up climbing up some rocks to see even further out to sea!!! Of course, Alison and I typically have our heads down on, looking at the paths for cool rocks to bring home – if our luggage is overweight at the airport, we’ll have to blame the rocks!

Our "Northern"-most visit to Tanum & Stromstad

Tuesday, March 24 – Kara and I started out the day shopping with Lotta in Goteborg. We stopped by a little handicraft shop just of The Avenue near the Art Museum – we each found a couple of items to bring home AND Lotta was kind enough to buy us each a Dala horse towel for our kitchens.

After lunch, it was time to head to the train station to find the others and take a train ride two hours north of Goteborg to the Tanum / Strömstad kommuns. We found some seats and I enjoyed watching the countryside go by while listing to my mp3 player with music from home. Our tickets were purchased for the ride all the way up to Strömstad but I kept hearing everyone talk about Tanum too. So, there was a little confusion about where we were getting off…. The train stopped in Tanum and a few minutes later a group of people came walking into the car we were in with the woman from the train. Luckily, when they didn’t see any of us get off, they asked if there were any groups of Americans on the train and she remembered us. Alison, Jennifer and I got off while Kara and Rachel were going to Strömstad to meet their family.

Jennifer and I are staying in a little fishing village called Grebbestad with Krister and Nina Jansson and their white cat named Champis (Sham-piece) right on the water. It didn’t take us long to figure out that Krister and Nina like to enjoy a few “adult beverages” – they had just gotten back from Germany with cases of beer, wine and other alcohols. We started dinner the first night with a few glasses of champagne and then some wine followed by a desert wine of some sort…

Wednesday, March 25 – Two stops today on our program. The first was the Eko Park in Strömstad which was located in a relatively new facility built in 2000. Here they have developed programs to provide environmental training and conferences for everyone from 4 years old and up. The building was funded jointly through the EU, Sweden, the District and the Kommun but is now run with funding only from the Strömstad Kommun. The building was erected to be almost self-sufficient based on the technology available at the time. The displays along with Margareta’s stories are very entertaining and would certainly appeal to the younger audiences to help them learn about recycling and taking care of the environment.

The Loven Center for Marine Sciences was our second stop of the day and was located on the coast in Tjärnö. It is part of the University of Göteborg and typically has an average of about 75 scientists and support staff on the premises with as many as 125 people on-site for educational classes or seminars. In addition to being an educational center, they conduct quite a bit of research here and also have an aquarium to show their visitors. The various tanks in the aquarium allow the visitors to see the various fish and other animals that live at the different depths off the coast of Sweden. In the middle of the room, they have a shallow pool with animals that can be touched or even picked up by the visitors. I almost forgot - - for fika today, we got to help celebrate Waffle Day in Sweden with some waffles, fruit and cream. Apparently, this day started as a religious celebration…

After Karl-Axel dropped us at home, I had some time to walk along the shore to enjoy the view and look for rocks to bring home (there is a lot of granite in this area and I found more quartz as well). I had my eyes to the ground picking up rocks when I heard this little honk-like noise RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME… I looked up and there was this HUGE swan about 5 feet away! Not sure if they are territorial animals or not… I slowly backed away.

Our evening plans included a boat ride out on the sea around Grebbestad with Krister & Nina’s friend Per. Their other friend, also Per, joined us and we left the harbor just after 6 PM so there wasn’t a lot of daylight left but just enough to sit on the front of the boat and soak it in for a few minutes before the sun set. As it was getting darker, we stopped by some rocks and caught a brief glimpse of two seals that were in the area. During the warmer months, there are quite a few of them hanging around. We enjoyed some snacks and slowly drove back to the dock. There, we enjoyed a bit more champagne and company before heading home for a BBQ. One of Krister’s patients had brought him some fresh crayfish this morning so they had those and made some burgers as well (for those of us, mainly ME who wouldn’t touch the crayfish!) It was a delightful evening spent with some of our new Swedish friends!

Thursday, March 26 - We’ve been looking forward to today! Almost an entire day spent outside – the weather was once again sunny but a little chilly. First, we were shown some rock carvings at a location known as Litsleby. In our minds, we all thought rock carvings would be on a wall but these were actually on the ground! They’ve been painted with red paint to make them more visible for the more than 160,000 tourists EACH YEAR that visit the area! Some date back to 1600 BC. We enjoyed lunch and more information about the rock carvings at a local museum that specializes in documenting and research on rock carvings.

Next, was a walking tour of a small fishing village called Fjällbacka on the west coast of Sweden. This sleepy little town has about 1,000 residents in the winter months but comes alive in the summer with the visiting boats and people. Hans, our tour guide, told us the story of this town. It became part of Sweden from Denmark without much fanfare as Denmark thought it was a dying town but shortly after becoming part of Sweden, there was a “run of herring” that lasted 27 years and brought much wealth to the community…it was a quaint little town with a lot of character and a huge rock “mountain” that we got to climb to the top of and look over the city and towards the sea. Once we caught our breath from the climb up, the view was breath-taking!!! The descent was just as much fun as we wandered down a path through a part in the rocks.
Jennifer and I ended the day by having dinner with Krister and Per at the Nautic Restaurang. We all enjoyed a glass of Sweden-produced beer called Falcon and I tried a pizza known as Tjurpannan Pizzor. It was made of köttfärs (pronounced shurts-far and is ground beef with kind of a taco seasoning), bacon (no Swedish name for this ingredient), champinjoner (mushrooms) and I added some vitlök (garlic). It was really good but it’s been haunting me all evening! After dinner, while we waited for Nina’s movie to get done, we played Virtual Bowling…. It’s the same concept as Mark Lynch’s golf simulator where you actually throw a ball down a lane that ends about 15 feet from the line and then the ball continues down a tv screen and shows it hitting the pins. Our scores were horrible but we enjoyed it!

After a Rotary meeting this afternoon, we will take the train back down to Goteborg and be met by our new host families. Sorry that it took so long to update this week, we've been extremely busy from morning til night. Take care!

Friday, March 27 - As I stumbled into the bathroom this morning half-awake, I realized something looked a little strange out the window - - it was snowing!! What a beautiful thing to see on the Swedish coast!

March 23 - Vi ses Goteborg - - We'll be back soon!

Monday, March 23 – We woke up to a BEAUTIFUL sunny day on the island and throughout Göteborg!! After getting through the first week and a half of rainy, cloudy weather with a little snow - - it has been wonderful throughout Sweden!

We started our day a little later than normal at about 11 AM with an organization called Ekocentrum. They are a non-profit foundation that specializes in helping businesses train their entire staff about environmentally friendly behaviors and practices. They were the first to promote the use of urine separating toilets which are flushed with rain water collected from the roof of the building. We received some very interesting brochures from this visit that we can’t wait to read!

After lunch in a sleepy little café with really good (but the typical American) hamburgers, we had a few minutes to spare and were driven up to a lookout point called Ramberget (I hope I spelled it correctly) and enjoyed the panoramic view of Göteborg while capturing it on our cameras.

Later, we met with two gentlemen who have been working on an exciting recycling project – one has dedicated the past 15 years to making it work. Their venture is called Enviro System and they have created equipment to recycle rubber tires which is unique and really interesting. Their special equipment converts the rubber tire pieces into gas (which is used to power the unit), carbon black (which is completely 100% returned to its original state), heavy oil, light oil and some metal scraps. Every one of these by-products can be reutilized in another process. They are in the process of building the first production plant just north of Vanersborg and it should be operational later this year.

After a few minutes to relax at Christina and Lars’ house, it was off to another Rotary meeting. Towards the end of dinner, we were able to witness one of the incredible sunsets that we had heard so much about. Tonight is our last night in Göteborg with our current host families. We will be back here in about a week but will be staying with different families - - so, once again, it is time to pack up our things and move on. Tomorrow is a train ride north to Tanum.

By the way, to my "Bat Girls" team mates - - I had to look back BUT I HAVE worn the allusive pink blouse ONLY ONCE during this entire trip!!!

Here it is... back a week or so ago in Uddevalla with precious little Tilda.... she was so blasted cute!!!

Take care all!!! I'll be back before you know it!

Love,

Steph