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October 03, 2004
Weekend at Ystad
I'm back from a great weekend in southern Sweden. Kristoffer generously offered us the use of his family's "Drum Hus" (dream house) for the weekend. So ten of us packed up our bags and headed out of town for the weekend. We rented two station wagons (I highly recommend the Ford Focus station wagon for all your road trip needs) and left Friday morning.
While the drive only takes about two and a half hours, we spent the majority of the day meandering around Sweden. First we stopped at a National Park, where we hiked around a bit, looked at the remains of a 500 A.D. fortress (really just a pile of stones), and wandered through the adjacent museum. Then we stopped in Simrisham, a little town right on the water ("ham" means harbor) for lunch and a grocery run. Here is a picture of me at the liquor store, admiring the "wine in a milk carton" approach:
Next, we drove further down the coast, and stopped to see the sunset over the Baltic Sea. It was beautiful, and it was amazing to see the ocean directly next to thick forests. Again, here's a picture (although you can't see the water very well):
And then it was off to the Drum Hus. We made a dinner of pasta and stayed up talking well into the night. The next morning, everyone took off for a trip to the "Swedish Stonehenge" and the fish market--but Jo and I stayed at the house and relaxed. Everyone came back to the house for lunch, then everyone left for a trip into the town of Ystad. All except me. I took the afternoon to walk around the surrounding areas, where I took the next couple pictures:
That evening, we had a fabulous dinner of smoked fish, potatoes, salad, and apple tart. We continued chatting about the big issues of life--sustainability, how to choose where you can best make a difference, trying to get a job, etc. We also played Cranium--the UK edition, which was significantly harder than I anticipated. We ended up tossing a lot of the cards, but the ones that we played with were really funny. One of the assignments was to make a "joystick" out of clay--but it mainly looked like some phallus with erectile disfunction. Other amusing tasks included a "Cameo" of Long John Silver. In this case, Amity was under the mistaken impression that Long John Silver was a cowboy, so she was incredibly frustrated when her team didn't respond "correctly" when she started singing "ta-da-da, ta-da-da, ta-da-da-da-da" and yelling, "hi, ho, Silver, away!". We on the other team, of course, thought it was hilarious.
This morning, we spent a leisurely morning reading and finishing up with a "Swedish omelet", which basically means you throw all the leftovers in the pot with some eggs. I was reluctant, but it was surprisingly good. Then we did a little cleaning, took a group picture (with someone else's camera, so I don't have a copy) and drove back home.
On the way, we stopped in at an antique and "kuriosa" shop:
I got a really cool candle, but refrained from making any larger purchases--reminding myself that I will be moving all of my belongings into a new place in the next couple weeks.
We made it home around 5 p.m. tonight, where I proceded to unpack, cook dinner (and make soup for tomorrow), watch a streaming broadcast of the presidential debate, catch up on email, and upload my pictures. Now it's almost midnight and I need to get myself into bed. Otherwise I'll be VERY sorry when class rolls around in the morning.
If you'd like to see the full complement of pictures, check out this site: http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=oogj5s7.aqaagx67&x=0&y=-huzr1z
