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!
No comments:
Post a Comment