It's the end of our vacation as we know it (and i feel fine)

So, there is not going to be much in this post... We didn't do much our last few days, and we are now crashing into bed for a quick 4 hour nap before our travels back home begin. I just wanted to give a last tally for our enthusiastic competitors. Even though Denise did wonderfully on her translating job, that last minute rush was not quite enough.
Tin ended the game at 62 points, and Denise at 53. I might throw in 5-6 dried juniper berries as a consolation prize... :-)
Room will get to enjoy some Swedish candy for his stellar run throughout the blog. All you lazy bystanders should admire him and his early morning quiz answering. Thanks for reading, and please join me next time I do something blog-worthy. :-)

Does this smell funny to you?

Don't worry. The post heading will make perfect sense when you read on...
Kathryn started the day with making a huge mistake. She let Kristine, Micah and I head down to a bakery on our own. We bought everything we saw... But it was all so good.
After we had eaten way too many sweets, we had one of my all time favorite meals from my mom, called portersteak. It is something like a pot-roast, for some quiz fun. 25 points for an accurate (and I mean really accurate... there might be a curve-ball or two in there, but that's why you get so many points :) translation of the following recipe. You might want to keep the verified recipe, since it is an amazing meal.

Porterstek:
1 kg kött
1 flaska porter (33 centiliter)
1 dl svartvinbärs-saft (koncentrerad)
2 köttbuljongs tärningar
1-2 gula lökar
1 pressad vitlök
1 tsk timjan
5-6 enbär
5-6 svartpepparskorn
1 dl soja

låt indegrienserna koka ihop och lägg sen i steken. Låt sjuda på låg värme i en stek-gryta 1 1/2 till 2 timmar. Vänd den varje halvtimme.
Sila skyn och red av den med 1 dl mjöl och låt den koka i 5 minuter
lägg till 2-3 dl grädde för att göra en sås.
Servera steken kall, skivad tillsammand med kokade potatisar och svartvinbärs-gele

Ok, that should give you something to work on... and something delicious to eat.
Talking about delicious things to eat After we ate, we headed back to Kathryn's family's place for a traditional Swedish meal, surströmming. Now, there are Swedes who will tell you up and down how much they love it, and I'm sure they're not intentionally lying... but that stuff smells like death, and looks like it too... you can tell the gaseous nature of it from the bulging cans, and the shot from inside the can can't look appetizing to anyone with any kind of sense.
Mark ate 8 of them by the way...
It was still a nice time, and I had some nice food, mostly consisting of the fixings you have on the side, because I don't put stuff that smells like that in my mouth, no matter how long the tradition. (for 5 points, how do you produce this nightmare of a delicacy?)

I've been adding some points up, and there is still a chance for some of you, but Tom is looking mighty strong in his first spot.

Steve P - 15
Tom K - 57
Phil M - 6
Denise P - 28
Lamontica C - 15
Micah G - 4

I realized I had missed some comments, so Tom gets 5 points for figuring out the crabs were dead.
On the other hand, I'll reward Denise 3 points for the better explanations

Oh, and the milage on our Minivan - 44... we couldn't believe it ourselves, but there you have it.

Seaworld

So, I know it's been a long time, but between spotty internet connection and public talk preparation, I've had very little time to blog, so here comes another big chunk of recap...
On Friday we woke up to Kathryn's uncle all ready to hit the sea. Karin's brother and his wife are always up bright and early, but then they go to bed around 8 in the evening, so they miss out on all the crazy stuff that goes on... Maybe that's their plan. :-)  

Göran has a small fishing boat that we squeezed 8 people on and headed out to enjoy the beautiful weather. Even though the sun was shining beautifully and the weather was quite warm, the sea breeze still made it a bit chilly. We boated around the archipelago near their house for a while until we found a nice and calm bay where we could attempt swimming. Kathryn and I had decided we would try swimming. After sitting on the edge for a while trying to think of a way out of it, it was decided for us... First I decided for Kathryn, and then her mom decided for me. It was borderline torture, but we actually got used to it eventually.
Kathryn stayed in the longest, and even said it got enjoyable after a while.

We had a snack on the boat, and then we headed to a nearby shore where we picked up Hannah who had been working early in the morning.

The harbor where we met up with her had been in use for a long time, it has an old loading area and a railroad station. For 3 points, what is this little building?
They had a poster there describing allemansrätten. For another 3 points, why is that a cool law? (Personal interpretation that is funny might get you extra points... :-)
We waited for a train, but no train showed up... Sorry Jon P. :-) 

After we got back on the boat we started looking for a spot where we could start a fire and grill our Swedish hotdogs.

The wind had picked up a bit by now, so we had a hard time finding a place to moor our boat without it crashing against the rocky shores.

Finally we found a spot where there was soft stuff underneath us, so Göran ran the boat into the ground so that it would stay.
We dug up some old branches that burned quite well, especially since Göran brought some lighter fluid.
We headed back home, quite drained from a great trip, but very satisfied. Hannah and Salome got to be tugged by a rope for some of the way... there is a hilarious video of it that I can show those who so desire.

In the evening Salome treated us to a ton of homemade sushi. I even tried some of it... but not too much of the semi-raw fish. I don't have time to be sick... :)
Saturday I got to head to Ren & Stimpy's congregation to give my talk in English. Technically, only Renee is in the English group they have there, but Stina and her husband are thinking about joining it too.

We went down there a few hours before the meeting, enjoyed a delicious grilled meal and a dessert that Kathryn referred to as the best dessert she had on this vacation.
It was a cake made from merengue, ice cream, heavy cream and fresh strawberries. Quite delicious.

The talk went ok, and I survived. We spent the evening relaxing at Kathryn's Cousin's place, playing a board game. 

On Sunday came my Swedish talk, and it was a lot more worrying than the English one... it's kind of funny how you can slip away from your mother tongue...

When I was rehearsing the talk at home I was a little short, and I think that helped me to be calmer when I delivered it, at least it felt that way. After the talk we spent the evening with some friends from the congregation that live outside of Härnösand and then we went to the store where they had a sale on chocolate and bought a ton of chocolate. We don't know yet if it is enough, but we're going to raise our dental insurance just in case.

Like a good neighbor, Norway is there!

 Since Kathryn never saw Norway we had planned to get over there this time around. Unfortunately we ran into some planning snags, and the trip was on again off again, so it all ended up being planned last minute. Of course that led to us not getting the most well-planned of trips. Fortunately everything came together and we managed to get on the way. This is the first time we got back together with the entire US team (Miles and Gerbers) since we got to Sweden, and Kathryn was happy to get to see her family again. We took a really leisurely trip since my dad wasn't coming along. For transportation we rented a mini-van that seated 9 people. We expected it to be a gas-guzzler, but we were really shocked when we had to fill it up. For a 5 point quiz question - How many miles to a gallon will you get with a Opel Minivan with 8 people and luggage traveling through the mountainous region of Norway?  We stopped on the way since we saw a cute little shop with a sign advertising waffles. We got one each with cloudberry jam and whipped cream, and it was amazing.
Our next stop was for lunch in Östersund. Hannah took a ride on a local celebrity (5 points - why can you find all these different statues of the creature Hannah is riding around the town of Östersund?)
We managed to find a candy store with a decent selection, and we all ate candy like crazy in the car for the rest of the trip.
Once into Norway we really got to enjoy the beautiful scenery. We only traveled for a short distance, but we still got to travel through 6 miles of tunnels. (one of them was 2.5 miles.)

 We stayed at a camping site in a couple of tiny cottages. Kathryn took the opportunity to sample the local seafood from the beach. (This makes it 2 pictures of her eating snails... it's a good vacation)
On day 2 we headed back toward Sweden, but we took a different route so we'd get to see some different scenery. We started of with our 3d ferry trip of this vacation, only this time we brought along our vehicle. The views we saw were amazing, but I do believe that Micah got some really nice pictures of them (I was in a terrible spot in the van, so I couldn't get any nice shots) he has a photo stream that you can check out. I'll try to find him to get the link to post later.
We also stopped at a really old church once we got back into Sweden, since we suspected we could get a photo of God's name in there, and we were right. The church was from the 1700s I believe, and it looks like people were a lot smaller back then. We didn't fit anywhere. I took a shot of some writing on the wall, and I'll give 3 points to anyone that can translate it. After dropping the van off, we caught sight of a moose baby in the dusk. He seemed very intrigued by us, and hung around the car as long as we were standing there, just staring at us. Once we started driving, he ran after us for a bit. Kathryn was quite excited to get her first good look at a moose, and Kristine was quite ticked that she missed out on it since she had already been dropped off at home... over all a pretty good reaction on both fronts I think.

Yesterday's competition has a slight controversy in it, so if Denise could post a link that backs her claim of 20 up, I'll give her the points, otherwise Tom gets them.

Back to the future.... or at least the present.

Let's see if we can get things caught up. I'm doubling up by posting twice in the same evening, and tripling up since we had 3 days with a limited amount of blog-worthy stuff. Not to say that most of the stuff being blogged about is profound, but I feel like I'd be losing some of you guys if i did a play by play of our day-long car trip back up to Härnösand.

So, starting Sunday morning, we tried to get a group picture together... it took us a good chunk of time, and we had some serious laughs while doing it. Let's just say that not everyone is that comfortable around technology, and having 7 people trying to tell you what to do at once doesn't help in that case.

We headed out for our second ferry trip this vacation, and this one brought us to Gullholmen.

Once again, I stole an arial photo online, since I don't have the money to rent a helicopter to take my own. Let's hope I don't get sued for copyright infringement.

This island was very special since the ferry only had room for passengers on foot, which meant there were no cars over there. All the roads around the community were built for bikes or people on foot, so it was very different. Kathryn and I both decided we should go there for a vacation. There seems to be quite a few places for rent on the island. For a 5 point quiz question - how many people actually live on the island? You don't have to have a completely current number, since I had a hard time finding that myself, but I expect you to at least come up with a semi-current population... :)

Hannah got to enjoy some more water time, this time she got company though. Sam and Bitja lugged scuba gear all the way across the island to the beach (no sand, just rocks with ladders... ) Sam managed to find a wood-clamp that was only partly rusty... it's amazing, the things you can find if you get diving gear. It reminds me of some people with a metal-detector in Utah. (If I'm talking about you, you know what I'm talking about... :)

As for me, I only got a partial water immersion. I swim to be comfortable, not to show off that I can survive arctic water temperatures.

The next day we drove all the way up north. We made a brief stop at Bitja's house to alleviate her separation anxiety and that broke up the grueling 10 hour travel time a bit, but I'm sure you're not keen on the details. Needless to say, it was just as packed as the way down, maybe even a bit more, now that the Swedish food and candy are starting to take their toll.

We got home really late and i was all for ordering food, but everyone else was like... "we can save money and eat healthier if we make it ourselves" of course I lost, but we had some really nice open face sandwiches.

Tuesday was laundry day, but we got a little time off to go laptop-shopping with Hannah. She is loaded now that she is a full-fledged painter.... well not really, but she really needed something that she can video-chat with me on, now that she has her own apartment.\

In the evening we went to the meeting, and got to get together with a lot of people that we haven't seen in a long time. I made Kathryn read a scripture, even though she was very nervous, but she did very well.

Then back to the house to pack for Norway, since our car pickup was scheduled for 7 in the morning and 30 minutes away.

As for yesterdays blog quiz... You all missed the fact that those crabs were just hollow shells. Since I wasn't in the water, I spent my time picking up parts that the seagulls had dropped and built those 2 crabs from scratch. I must have done a really good job since they fooled you all. :)

Cooking

So, what's cooking you might ask? We were... And it is something we will be regretting for a long time. We know now why shellfish has the color it does.
The weather was beautiful again and this was the first day when we went down to the beach where the rain didn't start right away.

Of course the water was ridiculously cold, do Hannah was the only one who actually got in the water. The rest of us spent the day on the cliffs with the resulting shades of red... except for my dad... he likes his summers shady, so this is where he likes to hang out. But in his defense, he was the only one with no burns what so ever...

Today's quiz is connected to this picture of the two crabs. What is strange about these crabs? 5 points for the observant one.

The ice cream place was actually open this time around, so we got to enjoy some cool treats. I got my favorite of course, magnum strawberry covered with white chocolate.

We had a BBQ in the evening with a bunch of different meats. I grilled them on a charcoal grill, which I wasn't used to, but I did like the way they came out.

The old man and the sea (and his wife, son, daughter, daughter-in-law, son-in-law and daughter's mother-in-law)

Sorry about the late update, but i just want to keep Denise on her toes... 

This was our first really sunny day since we came down to the area. It was long overdue! With the beautiful weather we decided to go down to the ocean at a place called Marstrand. It was really crowded, but not so bad that it was oppressive. :-) (for 5 points, what is the reason it was extra crowded on July 5th?)
The town of Marstrand is located on two islands, one of which you can get to by car and the other you need to take a ferry to get to.
We wanted the full experience, so of course we took the ferry.
Marstrand was by far the most beautiful stop on our vacation. The whole island is very picturesque and well kept up. Many buildings look like they're preserved since the early nineteenth century, but very well maintained. In the center of town we found a tree called silverpoppeln. (5 points for the age of the tree)

On the high point of the island stands an old fortress (4 points for the name of the king who ordered it built and another 4 for the year it was decommissioned for military use) named Carlsten.

They had some old big cannons around the fortress, so I thought I'd try out being a human cannonball...
Kathryn and I wanted to pay to go inside and tour but we were the only ones, and my dad is always in a rush to go somewhere, even on vacation, so that didn't happen... Instead we headed down the opposite side of the island since Hannah wanted to go for a swim.
Once we got down to the shore it turns out it is a nude beach. Since we had no desire to see that, we headed down in the opposite direction on the shore. The wind was crazy crashing waves into the rocky shore, and Hannah was still thinking about swimming, so we had to keep an eye on her.
After enjoying some delicious ice-cream we took the ferry back home. Everyone was slightly exhausted, so we fell asleep one after the other, but some of us managed to stay up through a late movie before we passed out.

Citylife

This was the day we got to enjoy the good things the city has to offer. I haven't been in Gothenburgh too many times, and definitely not in the past 20 years, so it was all new to me.
Our first stop for the day was at the fish church. No, it's not a place where they worship fish (if it was, I'm sure the fish-gods would be mightily upset at how many dead fishes you can find in there) but it is a huge fish-market in a building that is slightly church-shaped.
We got to see all kinds of seafood, and we bought our lunch there. I settled for really fresh fish and chips, since I'm allergic to shellfish, while Kathryn got a shellfish salad that she was very happy with.
After enjoying our food, we headed out to paint the town grey. Why grey you might ask... well so far this week, that's been the weather. Not really the sunny vacation we've been hoping for, but on the bright side, it hasn't been pouring either, so it's still enjoyable, even though it's not as warm as we would like.
Some of the sights were a really neat indoors market where they had all kinds of cheese, meat, vegetables and other snacks for sale, a statue with a familiar name engraved (Quiz: What is the quote? (3 points) Where is it from? (3 points) and What king had this quote as his motto? (You guessed it, another 3 points)) and also a very neat botanical garden.
They had all kinds of plants in the garden. We walked inside of the palm house where they had a lot of different plants that aren't native to Sweden's climate such as Palms (duh), cacti, big leaves floating on water (yes, I was just too lazy to look it up on the internet... 2 points to whomever gets the information out there...) and a duck with ducklings. Actually, that was just a duck walking through the exotic park... but it doesn't matter it is local, cute knows no boundaries.
Talking about cute, I made a photo composition I call "Roses among Roses" This one could win some kind of prize.
The had a piece of art there called the cactus factory... I looked pretty cool, and now we need to recreate that in our backyard.
Before we left, Hannah took an opportunity to do something that is probably forbidden, and I have a photo to prove it. We didn't see any signs saying not to pose with the statue, so we let her get away with it, but if it ever comes out on the news, I have proof.
My parents treated everyone to a really nice Italian restaurant in the evening. Kathryn had what she refers to as "The best salmon I have ever eaten", and I had some really nice rump-steak. No I did not just pick it because it had a funny name...
For dessert Kathryn had some tiramisu and I had a drink that Kathryn thought looked funny. I don't know why...
We ended the evening on a high note by finding a candy store that advertised the biggest candy selection in Gothenburgh... I was overwhealmed, but managed to limit myself to 2.2 pounds of candy. You should be proud of me!

As for yesterdays scoring, Tom managed to rake in 6 points, and no one got the amazing 10 point bonus. My favorite is the white chocolate strawberry magnum. I will give LaM half since she did guess there was strawberry in it... :)