Hello!
How's it going? :) It's been a cold and dreary week in Sweden, but we didn't let that stop us from having a good time. We went adventuring and learnt new things.
We ended last week with a geocaching excursion. It was much colder than the beautiful 50 degrees that we had the last time, but it was still fun!
Antonia's first find! Woo! We spent so much time on this one.
My super cute fiancé with his find.
Greig's first! Adventured to "Bee Paradise" for this one.
Yay, I found one too :)
Växjö is nice, but Jonathon and I decided that we needed to go explore a new city. We took the train to Kalmar, a town on the east coast by the Baltic Sea. The train rides here are an adventure in themselves, as everything is in Swedish. "Jag talar inte svenska!" (I do not speak Swedish. :) )
Yeah, that's a real castle! The first foundations of the fortress were built in the 12th century when they constructed a round tower as a lookout. The rest of the castle was produced in the 1500s by King Gustav Vasa. (Wikipedia) It wasn't open, bummer, but we still got to view it from the yards. It is located on its own little island, with a moat and land moat as a defense system. There are four round towers covering the corners of the island.
Kalmar Domkyrka - the cathedral.
This island, which still has remnants of an ancient wall, was a vital part in defending the castle.
We also spent time at the Kalmar Läns Museum. There was a whole floor dedicated to the warship the "Kronan", which capsized and exploded right outside of Kalmar during the Battle of Öland. Over 800 men died due to this tragedy. The ship's ruins were rediscovered in the 1980s, and volunteer divers have been bringing up artifacts ever since. The water is very cold and the ascent back to the surface takes a whole thirty minutes.
We also visited the Ben and Jerry's (; we had to, right?! So yummy ice cream was also part of our Swedish adventure for the day.
Today after church, our new friend and translator Jörg and his wife Annette had some of us international students over for lunch. We were blown away by how amazing the lunch was! He worked all morning to create this wonderful three course meal. Everything was complicated and served beautifully, from the starter Thai soup to the homemade coconut and lime ice cream. He also had a couple massage chairs... let's just say I spent some time on those. We had a wonderful time getting to talk with everybody and learning about everybody's cultures. It was also so nice to be in a home!
The lovely main dishes! Photo credits: Jonathon Orwig
From lunch, I met Antonia for a crafting experience in a restaurant's basement. Haha. It was interesting! We made our own tea bags. Mine were quite ugly, but hers turned out nice! Then we went for yummy fika :) always one of my favorite parts of the day haha. I tried a kardemumma muffin, which is super yummy! It was great to get to talk with her and have a nice, relaxed time. :)
I'm hoping this next week will have plenty of wondrous moments in store, as this one was great! I hope that everybody at home is doing well :) I miss and love you all. I'm definitely jealous of your weather, too.
Sincerely,
Laura.
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