Adventures in southern Sweden

My Sweden adventure started with a train trip from Milan to Geneva, during which I, sadly, missed out on much of the Alpine views because it was necessary to sleep for much of the trip (having been running very short on sleep in the preceding days due to packing and loading the van). I arrived in Geneva around 4pm on the 30th, and walked to kirieldp's place, hauling way too much stuff with me. Knowing I wouldn't have room in my luggage on the flight for things like my yoga mats and blocks I'd asked her if she might be interested in them, since I feared they would just wind up in the trash if I left them in Milan. She replied that they were starting a gym at work, and the donation would be gratefully appreciated.

I had a delightful day and a half in Geneva--kirieldp and I had only met briefly at events previously--she tends to be busy working in the kitchen when she's at an event, so I haven't had a lot of time to visit with her. Therefore it was really nice to get to spend some time with her and get to know her a bit. She hosted a small dinner party for New Year's Eve. I really enjoyed meeting her friends, and afterwards we wandered down to the lake to watch the midnight fireworks display. In addition to the fireworks there is also a festival of light set up by the lake. My favourite was a display that looked like many tiny fairies playing tag along the tree branches. They had a couple of large projectors that swept beams of light across the trees in such a way as to result in lots of little trails of light racing around the air, picked up by the branches, and moving in patterns reminiscent of a flock of birds.

I managed a short nap that night while the other guests chatted into the night, but woke when they left around 02:00 and re-organized my remaining luggage for the flight (I'd already set aside a number of items to be posted to Luleå in an attempt to bring my suitcase down to the permitted 20 kg) before departing for the airport. I then broke my fast with some yummy home-made vanilla ice cream that kirieldp had made for the dinner party, but it was done too late at night for me to be interested in eating any of it, so she saved some for me.

Fortunately for me the flight was empty enough that I got three seats in a row together and was able to sleep for the whole flight (only 2.5 hours, but better than nothing). Once I landed I took the train to Tierp (a bit north of Uppsala) where I went to the home of a nice couple I met in Fairbanks last year. They greeted me with a really yummy cinnamon roll that was really huge, but so good I ate it anyway. An hour or so later the fresh bread came out of the oven, so it was necessary to eat several slices of that too, with plenty of butter.

Eventually archinonlive arrived and the four of us visited for another hour or two (and enjoyed some yummy broccoli omelettes) before he and I went on to his brother's house near Uppsala. We had a nice visit there, and in the morning we drove south and caught the ferry to Gotland, where we met up with zoezebra.

We had about 24 hours in Visby, and enjoyed every minute of it. The town is so cute, with many surviving Medieval buildings within the town walls. We went out for dinner with a handful of SCA folk, and then returned to the darling little cottage zoezebra is renting until Coronation next weekend. While there archinonlive got out his violin and played Swedish folk songs while the ladies sang the ones they knew. Alas, there wasn't as much overlap in repertoire as they wished, probably because he is from the north of Sweden, and they from the south. This is a long country—I travelled a shorter distance to get to Stockholm from Italy than he did to get there from Luleå.

After our adventures in Visby we took the ferry back to the mainland on Monday and drove to Nykvarn, where his sister lives. We are here for a couple of days, enjoying relaxing in a nice house surrounded by forest. Long walks, enjoying the most welcome sight of trees everywhere I look, and snow upon them. From here we will visit another of his brothers before heading on to Coronation next weekend.