Hotel Aveny Gävle

... to be over? Yes. I'm ready to move on with the next phase of my life. Again, do I want the tour to be over?

No! Please no! I want to keep going! Please? Can I stay? Please!

Uffda.

So. First, I loved my Varberg, Sweden host family :) Ola and Carin were amazing "parents". Mia and Sally were awesome sisters :) When Wei and I left, they gave us a box of Geisha chocolate (THE BEST SWEDISH CHOCOLATE EVER!) and Sally made ...

I concluded my 2 month adventure with a 2 day visit to Anna's aunt Birgitta in Leksand, which is in the traditional Dalicarlian region of Sweden. I should note we had a small delay on the train ride up to Leksand since the train hit a moose, which apparently isn't that uncommon here. Birgitta has been the best host up here taking me around and cooking us the best meals (in fact I have to get ...

... was considering hosting me my first time round in Sweden. I met Tamara and her friends Isabelle and Angela. They were all really nice, and they all spoke English very well. First we did some pre-drinking in the park, while meeting a ton of people whose names I cannot remember. From here we went to a local pub, all saints, and did a little drinking before I caught the bus home. It was a really fun night, I ...

... the rain to the grocery store for some ice cream cake. It was a little cold, and I returned quite wet.

That evening Carina and I went to a friends to try a Finnish style sauna. This involved sitting in a very hot sauna, untill you got too hot and then jumping into the body of water that the sauna is near by to cool down. The sauna was very hot, hot to the point that breathing was kind of hard. But jumping into the cold water after sitting in the extremely ...

... things every once in a while, got some acutal acting to do. Even take the guy who plays Draco got way more to do than he usualy did. He didn't just walk around saying nasty things to Harry the entire time, he got to show some range and actually got to do some things that really gave you insight into his character. I really loved the guy they cast as Slughorn, he was not as I imagined the character being, but I really liked the differences. Lavender Brown was hilarious, the only new ...

Today involved a pretty relaxing morning, sleeping in and just getting ready for our trip to Finland. We were going to be leaving Stockhom tonight, at about five, and would arrive in Helsinki at about ten the next morning.

I didn't really know what to expect from the boat, living in the praries, we don't really have that many cruise ships passing though. I am sorry to say that I was one of the people gawking at the boat as we approached. I had never seen a ...

... the mall, but I just could not contain my excitement. Such good sale prices, and amazing clothing. I must have spent so much money that first day in the mall, I think that I may have lost my mind for the few hours that I was in the mall, I took a large chunk out of my spending money budget that day.

I also found that any jet lag that I thought I would have didn't exist, a bonus when trying to get the most out of every day in a trip that much to short.

... trip, as that almost became the only shower we could have during the trip, unless we faced the below 15 degrees lakes! Which we did occasionally! Once the packing was done we left Henrik's home around about 5 in the afternoon. We first stopped at Hasses's house (the nice man with the nice sailing boat, which I was allowed to steer when I arrived in Norrköping, on our sailing trip). We were hoping to take our bikes on this trip, so we needed to find a way of ...

... to bad American hip-hop, but then suddenly this magic door opened up, upstairs and Schlager music (cheery ABBA-esque sort of music) blasted out! It was like a magnetic force that pulled these Swedes upwards and the dead party came to life with people dancing like there was no tomorrow, until the place had to close at 2am (yes, they have lame closing hours here too.) Too bad I can't post audio clips on this site :-(

... didn't have the tradition of getting drunk and clinging to a midsommer pole. Nevertheless we still had plenty to drink (though I discovered the next day that when Swedes (unlike Poles) take a shot of snapps (the word for anything resembling vodka) they are allowed to drink only 1/2) hence I ended up having twice as much liquer as the rest which proved quite entertaining later, though my ...