Southern Sweden (Post #33)
Hi friends!
Michele here…today is Wednesday, August 3rd, 11:00am our time, 5:00am Washington DC time. We have been traveling a lot from town to town lately. Most of our travels recently have been in southern Norway and southern Sweden. Here has been our schedule:
Wednesday, July 27 – Olso, Norway
Thursday, July 28 – Oslo, Norway to Gothenburg, Sweden
Friday, july 29 – Gothenburg, Sweden to Varberg, Sweden
Saturday, July 30 – Gothenburg, Sweden
Sunday, July 31 -Gothenburg, Sweden
Aug 1 – Gothenburg, Sweden to Ystad, Sweden
Aug 2 – Ystad, took day trip to Kåseburga
Aug 3 (today) – Ystad, Sweden to Malmö, Sweden
Our last few days in Oslo, Norway we got our India visas, went to the King’s castle, and visited a reptile park. Getting the India visas was important because you MUST have the visa before you even get on the plane to India. Most of the other countries we are going to you can get the visas in the airports but no so for India. We basically visited the King’s castle because it was on the way to the reptile park. The reptile park was quite funny. It was on the 4th floor of an office building and there was nothing really park-like about it. However, it was definitely more quality than quantity, meaning that although there were not a lot of reptiles the ones there were really quite spectacular.
The first night in Gothenberg, we somehow got into a suite in a hotel.
This room was huge with a living room and two giant beds plus it was quiet. It was a nice little oasis for one night. While in Gothenburg, we took the tram downtown a couple of nights and went to the Rock Baren bar where we met some very nice people. Many people in the bar (and in Sweden in general) “chew” or dip tobacco. This one man told me this was “a very Swedish thing to do.” Another person told me he thought it was the result of the recent no smoking law. As of June there is no smoking in bars so while many people simply go outside (since the weather is nice) others have gone from smoking to dipping tobacco (always in the upper lip which is different from Idaho, where I grew up – there it was always in the lower lip). I thought this was interesting and wondered if this might happen in the US if all bars were made non-smoking. We met a beautiful and intelligent woman named Malin at the Rock Baren bar who talked with us for several hours one night. I was asking her about life in Sweden and Mike talked to her a lot about metal bands. She was even knowledgeable about US politics and told us she had the impression that the US is conservative. This reminded me of something a man said to Mike and I. He asked us if we were married then said, “That’s what you Americans do, right? Get married?” Malin told us that people really only get married in Sweden if they are going to have children and even then the woman doesn’t have to take the man’s name and often she chooses not to. The kids can have the mother’s name if it has more historical meaning or is more unusual. Anyway, it was nice of Malin to spend so much time with us and she said that it was enjoyable for her to talk with us too. Out last full day in Gothenburg we visited the Slottskogsparken, a large park that had a natural history museum within the park ground. The natural history museum was something else! I think it had every bird, fish, and mammal stuffed and on display. There were literally thousands of stuffed things on display. After this we walked though an older part of Gothenberg call Haga. Haga reminded me of Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Sweden. It has very narrow cobble stone streets with little shops and restaurants. Finally, we went to trägardsforen gardens. Another large park with different types of gardens including herb gardens, beautiful rose gardens, a palm tree house, and even a cactus garden. Here is a picture.
In between our stay in Gothenburg, we went to Varberg, Sweden. The main attraction here was the Varberg fort. The hostel we stayed in was in the old military barraks of the fort, which was pretty cool but as Mike wrote in a previous blog, it did have quite a few bugs. The town was like a little resort area for Swedish people and the market was interesting as it was actually for Swedish people, and not for tourists. One interesting thing about shopping in Sweden and Norway is that in the grocery stores, mayonaise type of food are very common. People put this stuff on bread in the morning for breakfast or for a snack. Here is a picture from the grocery store of the mayonaise stuff I am talking about.
We are now in Ystad, a very small town, that is beautiful and charming. The first night we were here we went out to dinner and returned to find a note on our door written in Swedish. Having no idea what the note said we had to ask some people watching TV in the “common” room (like a family room). They told us it meant that we had to use this hook thing to keep the window open and that the manager had come into our room to hook the window for us. We have really been spoiled because everyone in Sweden and Norway speaks Engligh. While in Ystad, we took a bus to Kåseburga (a little fishing village) to see the Ale Stones (Ales Stenar). The Ales Stenar is a mysterious pre-Viking stone formation 67 meters long and in the shape of a ship. Each stone weighs 4 to 5 tons. We got there early in the morning and, after seeing Ales Stenar, we walked along the coast line and through the little fishing village. Here is a picture of the stone formation:
Mike just uploaded more Norway and Sweden photos (Norway Part 3 and Sweden Part 2). You can see them by clicking
here .
Today we are leaving Ystad and going to Malmö for one night since our plane to Warsaw, Poland leaves out of Malmö, Sweden on Thursday, August 4th. I found a cheap flight on the internet for $144 for both Mike and I. We also have most of our accomodations booked for Eastern Europe and I am really excited to venture into a new part of the world.
We love blog comments but if for some reason you want to say something to us more directly, please email us — mikeandmichelertw at hotmail dot com (appropriate punctuation changes will be required of course).
Tags: Category #6: Sweden, Category #9: Norway
Michele Harmon
Just checked out your pictures…you saw a Swedish two-headed baby in a jar?!? Awesome. Was that a specific recommendation in your Lonely Planet, or did you turn a corner in the museum and it was like Surprise! We’ve got a two-headed baby here!
Just wanted to let you guys know that I’m keeping tabs on you, and vicariously enjoying traveling around the world. Your pictures are GREAT! Can’t wait to see what comes next after Scandanvia!!