Steve had a business meeting at Va Tech last Friday, so I invited myself along because I’ve never seen the campus. I didn’t even consider going to college there because I thought I’d get lost between the cracks. I walked around campus during Steve’s meeting, saw the Drill Field, student center, bookstore, library, and Norris Hall, which I had only seen on the news before.
Steve said he wants to frame some of the photos from Gothenburg for his office, and suggested I let you know that I did post the rest of my Swedish adventure down below. I love photographing architectural elements, in fact one of my favorite photos from our wedding reception was of the top of a stone column and not of flowers or periwinkle dresses. (Thanks, Nooty). If you’re interested in having 8x10s for yourself, a couple are available in my Etsy shop, but I have others (you can email me or “convo” through Etsy and if you are someone like my highschool English teacher I may not even charge you $7). I have been known to autograph mats before, so these may even have collectible value one day after I’m dead.
I’m back! I bet you didn’t even miss me. Steve and I have been in Sweden, so I’ll be posting my saved blog entries below. All in all it was a great trip – weather, food, company. And I didn’t get sick this time, which made the return flight much easier. I know it’s kinda boring looking at other people’s vacation pictures, so I’ll try to group them by theme.
Steve and I went to Saluhallen Market yesterday. It’s located in an old terminal, with all the craziness of Philly’s Reading Market but compounded by signage in Swedish. Everything from pastries to olives, and a million kinds of cured meats. Outside was the local produce, mainly strawberries and flowers at this time of year.
Steve has the day off so today we walked around and took pictures (new camera batteries), sat at an outdoor cafe, walked through the weekend market, and shopped a little. I brought a stack of magazines and haven’t touched them, so this afternoon I took it easy so I won’t have to lug them all home. It’s overcast and colder today (sweater and jeans), so I don’t mind being inside. For dinner tonight we walked in the rain to a place where we ate in September and fake-fought over who got to order the steak with a big slab of garlic butter on top. (I wanted to try the duck in rasperry sauce anyway). Tomorrow we fly home and I’m sad to leave. I do miss Riley, though.
I met up with one of the other company wives this morning for more of the same – shopping, sightseeing, pictures, people-watching. She was the first to note that these cars look like rollerskates.
It’s strawberry season in Sweden, so you find them everywhere. Small and sweet the way I like them, no apple-sized berries from Costco here.
The company provided dinner for us at the office – they said it would be pizza and beer, but what we came to find out was the pizza was topped with very little cheese and had interesting topping combos like banana/curry and olive/artichoke. The beer (and pear cider) was from a local microbrewery where one of Steve’s colleagues also works.
One thing I love about this company is how obvious it is that the employees enjoy each other’s company. We sat and talked (and drank) in the office atrium for several hours, then finally decided to go to an open-air restaurant for the rest of the evening. Because we are so far north, it is light out until 11 or 12, so I had no idea how late it was when we finally got back to the hotel.
My battery charger stopped working alltogether, so again I have no pictures of the team to show you. đ
Today I walked around Gothenburg, shopping and people-watching – it entertains me to no end. I even went to the bead store. Steve’s company invited the wives to join them for dinner after work (finding the restaurant named “?” is a story for another time), so I finally got to meet The Swedes. They are a jovial, funny bunch and I had a great time. Of course my camera batteries were charging during dinner, so I didn’t get pictures of them to share with you. Dinner was not the traditional Thursday night pea soup & pancakes, rather a three-course mix of nationalities and all very delicious. In general I think they eat quite well here. Â Sorry for the blue picture; my camera was on a goofy setting.
Trying to fight The Lag, we stayed up as late as we could last night but still managed to wake up completely rested at 3am. Another sleeping pill (I’m not addicted – I’m not!) let me sleep until the breakfast buffet was almost closed this morning – glorious. Just so you know what you’re missing in Sweden, at any given meal there will be some sort of pickled herring. Fortunately there are also items on the breakfast smörgĂ„sbord like soft-boiled eggs, muesli, a selection of cheeses, crispbread, and marmalades.
Steve went to the office after breakfast and I sat in the park and 
read the rest of Marian Keyes’ Watermelon. I mean Moby Dick. Gothenburg has a series of green spaces which makes it feel friendly and beautiful. It was designed by Dutch architects, so it also has a series of canals that liken it to Copenhagen and Amsterdam. While watching people walk by I noticed the wonderful absence of Crocs, or even sneakers. Women tend to wear ballerina flats and the guys wear leather shoes (often the gorgeous, handstitched variety I thought was only characteristic of Italian shoes).
Another thing I have noticed is the borad use of high-contrast graphics of stylized vines (!), birds (!), and butterflies in advertising and fabrics. Here’s a sample from the Copenhagen airport. Another was the cobalt & white bird/flower print that Lagerhaus is applying to everything from bedsheets to paper napkins. I’ve seen this in the US (esp. Marshalls) and on Etsy so I imagine that a year from now I’m going to hate it.
Steve works for a Swedish company and they’re having a mid-year meeting in Gothenburg this week. As a tremendous procrastination tactic, I decided to come along. Don’t ask me how my house & jewelry projects are coming along, because I have been very busy lately getting in touch with my inner redneck and traveling the world!
with a punch of color, rooms the size & efficiency of those on cruise ships. We crashed for a couple hours as soon as we got in, then walked around downtown and ate ice cream. The 2007 graduating class was parading around (woo-HOO!) in various vehicles and it was a warm day as people were walking home from work, so people-watching was plenty of entertainment. Dinner was at the hotel and I am always impressed with the attentiveness of the waitstaff here. Waiters earn a formidable salary even before tips here, so I’m sure that contributes to their pride and work ethic. Yes, that’s Steve’s first taste of caviar with his shrimp.
A notable difference with Swedish hotels is their bedding. Each side of the bed gets a personal-sized comforter which is folded in place under the blanket when the room is made up. There is no stealing of the covers in Sweden. (Actually I asked some of Steve’s coworkers if they have the same setup at home; some do and some don’t). The Scandic hotel chain uses very little plastic; wood veneer room keys (swipe cards), wooden pen barrels, and they don’t give out little shampoo bottles, rather they have a shampoo/body wash dispenser in the shower so there is no waste. The room trash is divided into organic, paper, and other waste. You have to insert a key into a slot by the door to turn on any lights, which is a great energy saver when the guests are not in the rooms because the lights turn off when the key is removed. This weekend I was hanging out with my friend Cheryl in Delaware again. Friday night we went to the Greek Festival in Wilmington – gyros, honey balls, suvlaki, Greek dancing, etc. Saturday we had breakfast at the Newport Restaurant, my favorite hole-in-the-wall home cookin’ joint in Delaware. Then we visited my friend Bertie in Old New Castle and realized when coming into town that it was Separation Day and they were getting ready to have the parade. So we found parking and waded through the onlookers, not to be deterred from handmade bags and monogramming from Bertie’s shop.
The main reason for my trip this weekend was Saturday’s WXTU anniversary show at the Tweeter Center in Camden.
We didn’t make it for the tailgate party at 10am or the gate-opening at noon, but we did manage to spend about 8 hours listening to live country music from Sarah Buxton, Dierks Bentley, Bucky Covington, Clint Black, and Gary Allan with our friends from Just Mugs (the dive bar where we go line dancing). We had lawn seats, which was kinda like being at Virginia Beach on Memorial Day without the ocean or sand. I’ve seen enough tattoos and sunburns to last me all summer!
If you haven’t noticed, my weekends tend to be the only noteworthy times in my life. Maybe this week that will change…
On Friday Steve and I took an early weekend and went kayaking with our friends Dave (pictured) and Carl in southern Delaware. The trip was Dogfish Head Brewery’s Pints and Paddles, so we basically paddled for a while on the Broadkill River and then took a tour of the brewery in Milton and sampled some of their products. My favorite was Festina Peche, which is indeed fermented with peaches. After the tour we headed up to Wilmington for dinner at Iron Hill, which I personally like more for its food than its drinks. Our trips are often centered around our favorite restaurants, so during this trip we also hit Cheeseburger in Paradise, the Newport Restaurant, Jake’s Hamburgers, and Panera Bread (nope, Winchester doesn’t have one!).
Yesterday Steve and Cheryl and I got in touch with our inner redneck and went to our first Nascar race at Dover Speedway. Not knowing anything about Nascar, I got the Saturday tickets because they were cheaper and the race was shorter (I wasn’t sure how many Monster Miles I could take). But last week I read Nascar for Dummies and learned that the big race (the one with drivers we’d heard of) is the Nextel Cup, held on Sundays. But we still had a good time, the cars were loud, there were plenty of crashes (that’s really why people go to these things), the winner did his celebretory backflip, and the people-watching was plenty of entertainment itself. And it turns out the Sunday race was postponed because of rain.
