More Convention

So, we went back for day 2, and it was just as good, if not better than day 1. It's a very timely convention, and I'm sure everyone is looking forward to it, so I won't give you any more spoilers.
Another nice thing was that we were able to meet even more of our friends here. It seems like every day we meet another bunch that we haven't seen in years.

We ran in to Kathryn's cousin, who has been busy carrying the family name forward. Kathryn got attached to their youngest girl who was a very good-natured little child. She didn't even cry when Kathryn picked her up.

Our congregation in Amsterdam will probably appreciate this glimpse of Ren and Stimpy. Stina has gotten married since last we saw her, and she and her husband make a cute couple.
Renee is in an English speaking group nearby, and she used her pushy ways to get us to agree for a visit... so now I have to prepare a talk for their Saturday meeting.
I don't really mind, it's been a while since last I gave a public talk in English, and they have a small group of about 11 or so publishers, so I'm sure they will appreciate the support, but it might get a little bit rough with me doing a Swedish public talk the very next day, which I'm actually more concerned about... I guess Swedish is turning into my second language.

In the evening after the convention we headed out to the beach for some beach-volleyball. About 16-20 people showed up with a combined age about the same as mine, which was very depressing, but at least they weren't that good at playing, so I didn't have to embarrass myself with my lack of skill. :)

I still haven't had the time to tally up the points, but after the convention is over, the slow part of our vacation will start :) and I will have all the time in the world... supposedly.


So for today's quiz we have another beach picture here to the left. Who is the kid in the picture, all ready for a good ol time in the dunk? (4 points)

Spoiler alert..

If you're one of those people that don't want to hear anything about the convention before it happens, don't read on. Or just jump ahead to where it says "End of spoiler alert"


Friday was awesome!

End of spoiler alert.

It was interesting to be back at a Swedish convention. Sooooo many people to speak to, and some of them I had a hard time recognizing. It gets a little depressing when you see kids that you remember as babies who are now full-grown adults with kids of their own.
Kathryn said she understood quite a lot of the program even though it was in Swedish, so maybe we should return here and join a Swedish congregation instead.

The weather was beautiful, sunny and very pleasant, not too hot but warm enough to enjoy our lunch outdoors. We sat on a stair with a very nice sister who was in the truth with an unbelieving husband. It's always nice to make acquaintance with new friends at conventions.

After we got back home in the evening we had some pizza and then Kathryn and I went for a walk in the neighborhood. It doesn't really get very dark at night, so the pictures during our walk are bright and nice.
We found some local escargot trying to make it across the path we were walking on. Kathryn decided to give it a try.

Sorry about the brief posts, but this weekend is kind of busy. Just wait until Gothenburg, things will get interesting.

For today, we'll have a simple quiz, since no one seems to be interested in the awesome candy prices, or possibly, the questions have been too difficult.

How old is Härnösand, the city we're living in? (3 points) and how far away from Sundsvall (the convention city) is it located? (3 points more)

After things are calmed down, I will do a tally of the points so far, but things are looking good for Foma, probably because of the lack of tax-papers on his desk.

Getting ourselves pulled together.

So, we're finally getting our act together. After waking up we started looking into our luggage whereabouts.
Turns out that after our bags hung out in Iceland to see the sights, they flew straight into stockholm. So things were starting to look up.
I helped my mom with some basic carpentry work in the kitchen... Not that I really know what I'm doing, but it looks half good.
Rejuvenated after a full nights rest for the first time in a while, we set out for a minor hike.
We passed by this street, 2 points for anyone that can tell me what street it starts at, and what street it ends at. (might be a trick question... )
As I think I've mentioned before, there is a large area of the mountain/big hill near my parents apartment where they have rebuilt and renovated a lot of buildings from the past few hundred years and turned it into an outdoors museum. Kathryn got to practice some semi-authentic cow-milking. Anyone that shows this to Joan Yandell will receive a whooping 7 bonus points.
The weather was very pleasant, even though the mosquitoes had a field day. And these are not some silly little upstate NY mosquitoes, but they pack some serious power. If can only get one to sit still for long enough for me to get a picture (maybe on Kathryn) I will show you.
Mom made her famous lasagna (5 points for anyone that knows what is different between her lasagna and your average "italian" lasagna) which was delicious by the way.
Now we need to sleep to get ready for tomorrows District Convetion.

An Eventful Journey

So, for all of those of you who have been sitting anxiously by your computer waiting for an update, here it is. Let me explain why it is so late:

It's all the crazy French peoples fault.

Makes sense, right?

You probably want to hear the story too, so here it goes: We got to the Albany airport without any major incidents (all thanks to Judy), got into our huge rental van (planning ahead in case we have any kids while in Sweden that we would need a roomy van to bring back) and zipped on to our plane. After we dropped off the rental, we had to take a train to get to our terminal. Together with us was a French man who was going to end up on the same plane as us. He was quiet but polite, holding the elevator door for us and all. If we had known then what we know now, we would have entered the elevator and then closed the door before he could get on.
Once in the air, something snapped, and that same man went nuts. He started screaming and punching people left and right. One of the stewardesses (don't know if that's the correct way to say it, but that's what I'm sticking with) (now Kathryn says it's flight attendants, but that's her choice, I'm under no obligation to use my backspace key) even got punched in the face (you get one point in the competition if you remembered how that sentence started without going back to look, just let me know, I'll believe you).
After he got safely zip-tied to his chair, the pilot decided we'd better get rid of him, so we ended up in Goose Bay, Canada. I'd never been there before, and it was dark out, but it sure looked like a hopping place (in the middle of nowhere).
We didn't make it to our stopover in Iceland in time for our plane to Sweden, so they sent us to Denmark and then back up to Sweden. We ended up landing in Stockholm 5 hours late or so. By now I was borderline catatonic, since I hadn't slept much over the last 48 hours. This did not make it easy to attempt to set up train travel in a language I'm apparently starting to forget. I guess I only have room for a couple of languages in my head, and Russian and English are going to be the ones.
Of course our luggage got stuck in Iceland, so now we're stuck wearing a variety of borrowed, reconstituted and hand-washed items. Our luggage should show up this evening, but we'll see how that works out.
To top things off, our camera decided it didn't like the pictures we took during the day, which is why I actually had to google a picture that I took to be able to post it for today's quiz. I knew I would find it, since it was cool, and other people in the world appreciate cool things and take cool pics of them for their cool blogs.
Copyright 2013 by some other cool dude.

What is this text? 2 points for the first one that figures out what it is, and 3 points for the first one that gives a semi-accurate translation.

On a positive note, Kathryn and I feel relaxed like never before. We needed a vacation. :)

Hopefully the camera is now working like it should. It might just have been that something got messed up with the card. We will see. I know that even though my writing is the highlight of your day, pictures add a certain flare to things. :)

Sorry about the unorganized way of this blog so far, but I will get it cleaned up eventually.

Setting things up...

So it's that time again... I'm going back to Sweden! Only this time the whole Miles crowd (including of course the always cool +Micah Gerber) is tagging along. Unfortunately (un- added out of consideration for people's feelings...) we won't be spending much time together. We will all be headed our separate ways for most of the trip. Now you might ask yourself: "Why would David do a blog for a third time, even though we all read and enjoyed the previous 2?"
Well, let me tell you, this pic should explain it all...

I will be adding more content to the page once the trip actually gets under way on the 25th, but I still have to suffer through another grueling weekend at work. There will be fierce competition as always, and lovely candy prizes. Happy reading!