We spent our last 1/2 day in Arvika having a lot of fun. We have had a great time here with Camilla, Arne, Johanne, Fredrik, and Patrick. Patrick even finally let me take a picture of him right before we left!
After breakfast and packing, Camilla and I took a long walk with her dogs, Dina and Willy.
The rain stopped during our walk, and we were able to stop along abandoned railroad tracks and pick smultron,
a wild Swedish strawberry that is so special and so sweet that there really is nothing to compare it to.
This was a walk I had been looking forward to ever since we arrived in Arvika.
Carina and Robby played with Johanne and then walked with Arne to the neighbors' trampoline and hung out there for a while.
Here are some pictures I forgot to take earlier of Arne and Camilla's house in Arvika, including the little cabin we stayed in:
Camilla fixed us chicken and salmon for lunch, and we took off for the train in Arvika.
It was, however, a very melancholy send off.
The train left Arvika about 3:30, and we had five minutes to change trains in Kil for another 3 hours by train to Göteborg. Robby and I played all the card games we knew while Carina played Sims on the Mac. The train was not very full at all, so we enjoyed not having to move around. We left Arvika with some beautiful sunny weather, but as we traveled south, the rain became very heavy described quite well in Swedish as "ösregn." It seemed like everyone we met in Sweden was commenting on the awful weather and how it must be so sad for us to have to experience a Swedish summer of rain like this. Really, it hasn't been a problem. It seems to me that when we absolutely would have experienced something better when it was sunny--it suddenly became sunny. We certainly don't mind being on trains for long distances when the weather is like this.
Well, we are now on the west coast in the old city of Göteborg, also known as Gothenburg, Sweden. I have been in this city hardly at all, but it was the first city I came to the first time I arrived in Sweden at 9 years old in 1963. Grandma Elsie and I took the boat to Sweden from New York City, and relatives met us in Göteborg. Other times I have been in Sweden, we just went through Göteborg until last year when Carina and Robby and I spent half a day here at the amusement park Liseberg, which we are hoping to visit tomorrow depending on the rain.
We are staying with Åsa Lennartsson and David Gillberg. Åsa worked for a summer at Sjölunden in 2004, and we have kept in close contact the last few years. It is her parents, Rolf and Inger, who warmly took us in our first few days in Sweden this summer when we came to Kalmar and then to Oscarshamn.
We had a wonderful dinner with Åsa and David of torsk and potatis and ice cream cake for dessert. The kids watched a movie while Åsa and I caught up and talked about what we might do the next few days here as well as what other places there might be we'd like to travel in the U.S. and in the world. David is an engineering student here, while Åsa is a designer who has her own company and is planning on teaching design in nearby Trollhättan in the fall. They are living in student housing a bit away from the center of town and have a nice little apartment and have made us quite at home tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment