Friday, March 20 – We “moved” to the Göteborg Rotary Club today. We really didn’t leave the area that we’ve been in but we moved to a new host family. But, the first thing on the program in Göteborg is a Rotary meeting and a very nice restaurant by the water - - once again, we met a ton of wonderful people and even saw a couple of familiar faces (Per from the Port and Peter from the bed and breakfast near Borås on our first night in Sweden).
Kara and I will be staying together for the next four nights with Lennart and Lotta Källfelt on a small island near Göteborg. One of the strangest things to me about this area is how narrow the roads are… in many cases, two cars cannot pass one another yet it really doesn’t seem to be an issue, even in a metropolitan area like this. Anyway, their house was built in 1880 and has a fantastic view from EVERY window of the water – there are only 21 houses on the island and we can’t wait to explore it a bit more!
Tonight, we were treated to a night at the Concert Hall for a little Mozart & Bruckner classical music and then a late dinner for Jennifer, Kara and I at Christina and Lar’s house. Christina is the GSE Coordinator in Sweden for District 2360 that we are visiting. She made a fantastic meal but the thing I like most was desert - - sliced up kiwi, bananas and strawberries with small pieces of white chocolate baked in the oven for a few minutes and served with ice cream!!! (That is ONE desert that I will DEFINITELY be making at home!)
Then, once we returned home, tired and ready for bed - - a minor tragedy (at least in my eyes). I was obviously so tired that, when I went to plug in my trusty little travel fan of about the last two years, I forgot to use the adapter AND the converter and FRIED IT BIG TIME!! Well, if nothing else, I have a little bit more room in my suitcase as a result!!
Saturday, March 21 – Today is District Conference Day and supposedly a REALLY big presentation day. I was really excited because we are
scheduled to meet with the Outbound Swedish Team who will be visiting Minnesota in April. After listening to a presentation from a gentleman from Uganda Rotary and hearing the India’s team presentation, it was our turn and, once again, everything went very smoothly. No one asked any questions – probably because it was right before lunch…. We got to sit with the Sweden team during lunch; followed by a short visit to the Museum of World Culture and then it was off to Christina’s house for fika (coffee break) and some more chatting. We enjoyed talking with them and helping them get a better understanding of what to expect from their upcoming trip and how they could be more prepared than we were. That’s one thing we all sort of wished we’d have had more of an opportunity to do before we left for Sweden.
Oh, my…. I almost forgot the best part of the day! Kara and I had a bit of time so we decided to go for a walk around the island. Lennart’s neighbor gave us some pointers for finding our way and off we went down the road for about a block or two before it ended (I thought it went the whole way around – boy, was I wrong!) and we followed a
small path down to the water. There we could see another harbor and some ferry boats taking passengers to destinations unknown to us. To the right, we could see rocks and boulders of all sizes – we suddenly figured out why Lennart had told Kara she couldn’t go jogging on the island. We took some AWESOME pictures, stopped occasionally just to look and found some quartz crystals as well as shells before finding our way up the boulders to the flagpole we were told to find. There we found another small path down to the road that would return us home. As we were sitting by the water, enjoying the scenery, we saw a car with a ski rack cross the narrow bridge and thought that it might be Lennart’s wife Lotta returning home after a week of skiing. So, we went up and introduced ourselves and helped her unpack the car before we had to quickly change for our evening on the town.
We rounded out the evening with the District Conference Dinner back at Kviberg’s Kantin. For those of you who are use to attending Elks Conventions with me
it was VERY similar to our banquet only smaller (60 people or so) but we didn’t have any John Miller-like comedians. They had a band that played for awhile and after they got through the first 4 or 5 slow songs, they finally picked up the pace so we could dance together and relax for awhile - - I think that might have been the release that we all needed to get through the rest of the trip….
Kara and I will be staying together for the next four nights with Lennart and Lotta Källfelt on a small island near Göteborg. One of the strangest things to me about this area is how narrow the roads are… in many cases, two cars cannot pass one another yet it really doesn’t seem to be an issue, even in a metropolitan area like this. Anyway, their house was built in 1880 and has a fantastic view from EVERY window of the water – there are only 21 houses on the island and we can’t wait to explore it a bit more!
Tonight, we were treated to a night at the Concert Hall for a little Mozart & Bruckner classical music and then a late dinner for Jennifer, Kara and I at Christina and Lar’s house. Christina is the GSE Coordinator in Sweden for District 2360 that we are visiting. She made a fantastic meal but the thing I like most was desert - - sliced up kiwi, bananas and strawberries with small pieces of white chocolate baked in the oven for a few minutes and served with ice cream!!! (That is ONE desert that I will DEFINITELY be making at home!)
Then, once we returned home, tired and ready for bed - - a minor tragedy (at least in my eyes). I was obviously so tired that, when I went to plug in my trusty little travel fan of about the last two years, I forgot to use the adapter AND the converter and FRIED IT BIG TIME!! Well, if nothing else, I have a little bit more room in my suitcase as a result!!
Saturday, March 21 – Today is District Conference Day and supposedly a REALLY big presentation day. I was really excited because we are
scheduled to meet with the Outbound Swedish Team who will be visiting Minnesota in April. After listening to a presentation from a gentleman from Uganda Rotary and hearing the India’s team presentation, it was our turn and, once again, everything went very smoothly. No one asked any questions – probably because it was right before lunch…. We got to sit with the Sweden team during lunch; followed by a short visit to the Museum of World Culture and then it was off to Christina’s house for fika (coffee break) and some more chatting. We enjoyed talking with them and helping them get a better understanding of what to expect from their upcoming trip and how they could be more prepared than we were. That’s one thing we all sort of wished we’d have had more of an opportunity to do before we left for Sweden.Oh, my…. I almost forgot the best part of the day! Kara and I had a bit of time so we decided to go for a walk around the island. Lennart’s neighbor gave us some pointers for finding our way and off we went down the road for about a block or two before it ended (I thought it went the whole way around – boy, was I wrong!) and we followed a
small path down to the water. There we could see another harbor and some ferry boats taking passengers to destinations unknown to us. To the right, we could see rocks and boulders of all sizes – we suddenly figured out why Lennart had told Kara she couldn’t go jogging on the island. We took some AWESOME pictures, stopped occasionally just to look and found some quartz crystals as well as shells before finding our way up the boulders to the flagpole we were told to find. There we found another small path down to the road that would return us home. As we were sitting by the water, enjoying the scenery, we saw a car with a ski rack cross the narrow bridge and thought that it might be Lennart’s wife Lotta returning home after a week of skiing. So, we went up and introduced ourselves and helped her unpack the car before we had to quickly change for our evening on the town.We rounded out the evening with the District Conference Dinner back at Kviberg’s Kantin. For those of you who are use to attending Elks Conventions with me
it was VERY similar to our banquet only smaller (60 people or so) but we didn’t have any John Miller-like comedians. They had a band that played for awhile and after they got through the first 4 or 5 slow songs, they finally picked up the pace so we could dance together and relax for awhile - - I think that might have been the release that we all needed to get through the rest of the trip…. Sunday, March 22 – Last day of the District Conference.
After a brief intro at a local hotel, we all walked up to an old church on a hillside by the water for a gospel choir concert. The man who directs the choir was one of the members of the band from last night. He turned out to be an incredible piano player and we’ve been told that he’s pretty famous in Sweden. The choir was terrific to listen to and the time went by very quickly.After finding a small little café for lunch, we went to
the Univer seum which is near the Museum of World Culture and is intended to show the environment from the North to the South of Sweden as well as the rest of the world. The largest portion of the museum was a rainforest. When we arrived and looked through the glass, we saw some monkeys roaming freely but, when we got there, it was one of the “rain periods” and we found out that the monkeys do not like the rain. It was fun and interesting - - I mostly enjoyed watching the kids reactions to many of the exhibits. At the very end, we were taken into a little room where they have a couple of animals for us to hold. The only thing we could hold or pet today was a little bearded dragon named Oliver. He was very calm and just looked at us like we were insane for being so interested in him.We were a little late getting out of the Universeum so we didn’t have much time before we walked back out the door for dinner at the Royal Sailing Club
near our “home” for the week. Dinner was really relaxing and the food was, once again, amazing. The meat that I had nearly melted in my mouth… we nearly blew away on the walk back but the stars were awesome to look at. Back at home, we sat and watched tv for really the first time in about three weeks. We caught a little bit of BNN before switching over to the golf channel and chatting with Lotta for nearly an hour. Well, I’m hoping to catch Kevin and Tyler on Skype before turning in for the night but it’s not looking very good. 
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