Hotel Eskilstuna

... have heard that they are something not to be missed.

After breakfast we again made our way down to the tourist information, this time to join up with the two and a half hour walking tour of the city. We had a large group of people, mostly from other locations across Europe. There were some people who decided that they had to use the bathroom right as we were going to leave (not in the fifteen minutes they were waiting before ...

... proceeds to start advertising me as a green card opportunity! She is absolutely hilarious and everyone loves her in this town... It isn't long before she introduces me to a group of three girls who are my age and just finishing up university in West Palm Springs where they had been recruited to play soccer... they are unbelievably nice, seem to hang on Malin's every word (despite the slurred nature of them at ...

... work party was at, only this time the live band has changed and the crowd's average age has fallen from 50 to 25... A dance floor has now replaced the long 50-person tables that lined the bar earlier in the evening and the floor is absolutely packed. Everyone is way too nice to me and I wind up "relatively" intoxicated by the time I hit my bed at, let's say, 5 am, to be nice... oh and the sun is up already at this point!

Wanting to see more of Sweden, we planned a few days driving north of Stockholm, however the car decided to have a broken timebelt which we only fixed in the nick of time so we ended up with one day to drive. We decided to head for Västerås to see some viking stone ship settings. The weather wasn't great but it was very interesting and we managed to fit in a couple of caches. (www.geocaching.com)

... another little one. Much walking and talking later I found another little one but managed to break the stem. We searched for quite a while after this to no avail and ended up deciding it was time to head home with our haul of 4. As we were wandering through the forest a moose dashed away so we stalked forward hoping to catch a glimpse of it. We were lucky, as it hadn't run very far and as we crested the little hill we saw it standing a short way off looking at us. It was a small ...

... Jonas calmly took control of the situation searched the web for solutions to my "crisis." I had barley gotten half way through my fourth cycle when Jonas patiently announced that he may have found something. Curiosity peaked, I jumped off the cycle and began to read over Jonas's shoulder. For a moment I thought the Schengen shock had rendered me illiterate until Jonas started translating the Swedish. He explained that he might be able to get me a Swedish ...

... called the "Schengen" (which includes most major Eestern European countries minus the UK and Switzerland) and they have this sort of "Agreement" (The Schengen Agreement) which allows free travel between Schengen countries without the hassles of boarder checks and the like. This is great if you are a European!.....Buuuuut not so great if you are a drifting foreigner, such as myself since the maximum stay permitted within the entire Schengen Region is 90 days. In case you haven ...

... whole thing. We then went down to the lake to see what kind of fun was going on there. The lake was beautiful and so was the weather. The girls sunning themselves were even better. There is a full beach volleyball set up just on one side of the lake and is very well looked after. I wish my home town would do the same and look after it's facilites. We hung out at the beach for ...

... nice inside too. On the way in, Ainsley was waved at by one of the Princess' in residence, but of course she didn't wave back - nice one mate! Still, I was itching for moose so as dusk approached we headed into the hills around Olof's to see what we could track down. No luck at all, not even a breeze was stirring. Night searching proved ...

We have made it to Vasteras to Madelen's flat safe and sound. Tis good to sleep in a bed instead of the plane and Heathrow airport!!!! It will be a good visit. Have met the black cat who thinks he should be ruling our bedroom. I wonder who will win!