First Brage Borlange

... of these fish recipes from her before I forget). Yesterday we drove around Siljansjö, which is a large lake and then checked out the town of Mora and went to a Dalicarlian wooden horse factory. Most of the rest of the time we've been hiking around the area and enjoying scrumptious pastries. So soon my journey will be coming to a close as I return to NY. I hope you all enjoyed my travel blog!

Hey all,<br>I went to uppsala which was a forty minute train ride because there was a few things I wanted to see there and where happened to be my hotel. Uppsala had actually burned down a while back and was rebuilt. It is smaller than I expected. I saw the castle there (not too spectacular) but the botanical gardens (part of the castle) was. It was beautiful.

... we were unable to open the door. Thankfully, because there was a power outage and if we had gotten in the elevator we would probably be there the rest of our vacation! We managed to lug all of our 4 suitcases down the stairs and out to the Europa mobile and head out to Lennart and Lilo's house looking forward to a good Scandinavian home cooked lunch. Only to arrive and find out they too had no electricity. All of us disappointed headed out to a ...

... s) apple tree we walked across the street to the Orebro Slott (castle), where King Gustuve XI came to visit. The Castle has been used as a prison, a military compound, a royal castle in the 14th and 15th centuries and the Swedish parliament was even convened a few times in days gone byand it now houses the parliment. Then on to Wadkoping where they rebuilt several homes from the 18th century. We bought a few knickknacks and walked around Wadkoping and had a ...

Today most of us disperse and there is a sadness in the air. The Swedish Summer Gathering has been a total success in getting many of the Nordic/Baltic brethren together. We had a total of 38 come. On high attendance was 34 on the Sabbath. Several had never known of each before, but they sure do now. Our mix of sermons and seminars was not only good in content, but the amount of time we had for meetings, socializing and just enjoying nature ...

... of the ladies to prepare serve. At this meal everyone could sit down and just enjoy it. We really thank all of our ladies who helped. After dinner we all went down to the meeting hall for a presentation by Stefan, a student from Gothenburg University. He had just returned from a LifeNets project in Ukraine with three other United Church of God members. They spent two weeks with our Vinogradov ...

... to the airport and the train station that is right at the airport. Tickets were a bit higher than we thought they would....about $200 each to Leksand and back to Stockholm. On the train we met Dorthea from Denmark. She also flew in this morning and our group is growing as we're getting acquainted on the train on the way to the Gathering. In three hours we arrive in Leksand with one train ...

Via hällregn (som en dusch!) som medgav en hastighet på ca 70 km/ h på en finfin 110-väg nådde vi till slut Falun. Hälsades välkomna av Alex & Lina som dukade upp en strålande middag med jordgubbsdaiquiris, ingefärsgrillade scampi och hemmagjord mockaglass. Sedan blev det dags för en spelomgång i " Ticket to ride" där det gällde att bygga järnväg kors & tvärs över Europa enligtett intrikat regelverk. Mycket roligt även om värdinnan hade den dåliga smaken att vinna :-) Nu läggdags!

Nu har förberedelserna pågått ett tag. Böcker om Kina skall läsas, ett antal googlingar på platser som kan vara av intresse. Mycket kretsar kring allt jag hoppas hinna med vid sidan av studierna. Det visar sig väl så småningom vad tid jag har för allt annat. Snart börjar studierna här hemma på högskolan, och då får jag väl den första känslan för vad det är jag gett mig in på, - att lära mig kinesiska.

I went to Sweden to visit a friend of a friend! We had a great time - I was staying with him at his University Halls and made loads of really great new friends from all over the world. It snowed, it rained, it flooded - and then it for so hot we were sunbathing! I had a fantastic time visiting the local museums, getting drunk, getting to know more about traditional Swedish culture and came home with many great memories.