Nature Day In Smaland

Smaland is very rocky and totally forested. It’s no wonder the emigrants had to leave for other places.  It great here for everything but farming. This day we dedicated to nature.  After a stop at a glass foundry we went to a nature preserve for a hike.  The ground was soft and good to walk on.  The trail was quite narrow and soft

The lingonberries are just starting to ripen

I ate about a pies worth of blueberries on the hike

Eric tested out the softness of the moss

This reminds me of a photo I took 20 years ago of Eric and Liza walking in a forest in Alabama

The map of where we hiked

This pile of harvested timber was alongside the road

Beautiful rock fences were everywhere.  No shortage of rocks!  I’m sure there is a new crop every year

When you drive on the local highways there is usually a crimp in the road as you enter a town. This slows the traffic.

In the late afternoon, we rented a canoe and took a ride on a small lake.  Fiona was a part time canoer and part time swimmer

At the bottom of our canoe ride there was a raft.

Here Fiona is moving along pushing herself along using the rocks on the bottom of the river

Time for our stay in the countryside

We took an Uber to the car rental and picked up our Skoda. Is is a really cool car and has features I want in my next car. One of them is that the wipers come on automatically and adjust to the right speed depending on the rate of rainfall.  The bad feature of this car is that the air conditioning did not work and it was hot.  Eric found a Skida dealer along our way, but they were closed. It was late Saturday morning. Also the car rental did not answer their phone.  So we had a breezy drive down to Alstermo, a very small town in Smaland.  Our new hosts are very present and friendly as apposition to our hosts in Stockholm’s who we never did meet.  We are now with Lena and Derik. They have many stories about their life and this place.  

A few photos of the new digs. First, the stairway leading to our apartment.  Not as bad as it looks

My bedroom 

Eric and Fiona’s room

Kitchen table 

The stove.  There was a choice here.  To cook you could light the wood in the stove or use the need cooktops sitting on the stove.  Had it been winter we may have chosen them wood fired stove

For dinner we went to a neighboring town to a restaurant off on a gravel road on what seemed to be a farm    Highly recommended, well known and traveled chef. This is the owner. We were the last customers of the day so after everyone else had left, he visited with us and gave us shots of schnapps flavored with cumin.  Delicious.  His stories would be a separate chapter in our upcoming book about Smaland.

This is my dinner. Wild boar steak over handmade pasta in a cognac cream sauce. Delicious!

Eric had moose steak with a red wine sauce

Fiona had a burger made with the meat of some kind of ram with big curled horns 

Eric’s beer was twice world champion dark lager and was great.  

Our appetizer was this plate of three dried meats.  The chef told us it takes 8 months to make it.  Top is venison, middle is wild boar and bottom is moose. All the meats are local.

Chandelier near our table. Driftwood and mossy stuff

Entrance to restaurant

From Museum to a lock out

We took a ferry over to another island to see sailing ships and happened upon the ABBA Museum.  We didn’t go in, but had some fun on the outside

This ship is a lighthouse ship that was in use in the past.  The lighthouse tender sat out in the sea and kept the light on.  Bad duty

For lunch today I had reindeer stew and God Lager.  Means good beer.  It was too.  Feel bad about eating one of Rudolph’s kin, but I gave up on Santa long ago

For supper tonight we got take out at a Thai restaurant and took it back to the garden of our building.  We sat out in the coolness and enjoyed our dinner.  When we were done eating and wanted to go back inside, we found that we were locked out.  Eric texted the owner while I watched through the door out to the street for someone to come in the other end of the building. Finally someone came and we got back into the building before anyone wet their pants.  It was about 9:30 pm. Before we realized we were locked out, we got some good pictures of Fiona

“People really live here”

Fiona was enthralled with Old Stockholm. She said people really live here.  It’s so beautiful.  A bit more character than Woodbury.  Eric went for run around our island this morning and when he returned I went for a walk.  Fiona had not slept at all on the way over so we let her catch up. After 13 hours of sleep eric woke her up

On my walk I came across this outside gym for adults. All the equipment was made with poles and logs.  The coolest part was that there were at least a dozen people working out independently.  In China people gathered for group exercise in the park.  Here they go to the park alone and work out.

Check out the weights these two are lifting. The poles are hinged at the other end and you can lift them up.  Want more weight, go to a bigger log.

We wandered quite a while in the old part of Stockholm.  It is a beautiful place.  Cobblestones and bricks in Beautiful shape.  All the buildings are colored in earth tones and make for a very colorful setting.

OK, Betsy,  this is for you.  We found the runestone you told us about.  It was a piece from an old ruin that had been used in a building in Stockholm.  A few of these have been uncovered.

Right in the midst of the old part of the city was the Nobel Museum.  In the year 2001 it was created I. This building which had been the Stockholm stock exchange. The Nobel prize was first awarded in 1901 so the museum followed it by 100 years.  Started with a 40 minute tour by an english speaking medical student.  Then we spent another 3hours looking around in the museum.

This quote below explains why it is not unusual for people of science to also be people of art.  It explains the difference between knowing science and doing science.

Above Eric’s head are plates on a revolving chain.  Each one tells of a Nobel laureate.  In another room the plates are separated as they pass overhead so you can see them individually. It takes 6 hours for them to do one rotation

We spent quite a bit of time in a reading room.  There were copies of dozens of books that had won the prize for literature.  You could read in the books, learn about the authors lives and make comments on papers they have left in each book for that purpose. I loved reading the comments others had left and vowed to read more of these books

At three in the afternoon we stopped for lunch.  Eric has been pretty happy with all the Eric references we have seen here.  Both Erik and Eric.  St. Erik’s beer is an IPA.

Day 1 in Stockholm

Eric, Fiona and I started this adventure at the MSP airport

We arrived in Stockholm via Amsterdam and were a bit weary.  We rode a bus into town and the. Got subway passes.  We rode the subway to our apartment.  Getting in was an adventure to figure out.  We had a mall card that opened the outside door.  Then the elevator confused us because the door doesn’t open, instead you grab a handle and pull it open.  When we found our apartment, there were two different keys necessary to open the locks.  After a brief respite we walked to the old part of town.

This guy was working in a jeans repair shop mit was quite a trendy spot.  They also have shops in LA and NYC. 

This meatball place was closed because the owner went fishing

Strolled through an old cemetery.  

But it was pretty warn so we neeeded a pick me up

Chimneys abound

Dinner was delicious. Meatballls, gravy, mashed potatoes, lingonberries and garlic bread with tapenade